Today we have Denis Lamoureux’s 7th and next-to-last slideshow summarizing his popular book I Love Jesus & I Accept Evolution. Lamoureux continues his presentation on chapter 6 of his book, which deals with the specifics of human evolution. (For those new to this series, all previous posts are linked in last week’s installment.) The topic today includes how to talk about humans as sinful and made in the image of God in light of evolution. Lamoureux uses a helpful analogy between... Read more
I want to take a moment to introduce you to a book that just came out a couple of weeks ago, especially given our recent conversations on this blog: From Fear to Faith: Stories of Hitting Spiritual Walls, edited by Travis Milman and Joel L. Watts and published by Energion. From the introduction (written by Watts): This volume focuses on people who have lived in … conservative churches and have moved away from them. These are the stories of the why and the... Read more
Today we have an interview with Tom Krattenmaker, author of The Evangelicals You Don’t Know: Introducing the Next Generation of Christians. Though not an evangelical himself, Krattenmaker challenges stereotypes of evangelicals and introduces readers to “new evangelicals,” those not interested in perpetuating culture wars. Krattenmaker is a Portland-based writer specializing in religion and public life and an award-winning contributor to USA Today. His work can be found in numerous outlets including Salon, the Los Angeles Times, and the Philadelphia Inquirer, and... Read more
In the last 24 hours, my previous post has gotten over 100 comments and about half as many private email messages. The comments so far are honest, heartfelt, and I honor you all for taking the time to offer us all the benefit your experiences and your wisdom. Over the next few days I will try to collate the comments under some general categories (mainly because I’m German and it’s what we do). From what I’m seeing so far, at the end... Read more
“Knowing what you know, why do you keep believing?” I hear this question a lot. I get it a lot. I ask it of others. I ask it of myself. I think there are many more who would like to ask it but can’t. You may have been taught that questioning makes God angry, and so you are petrified at falling away from their faith. You may have no one to talk to. You may be afraid of where it... Read more
Today we continue Denis Lamoureux’s series of brief slideshows on his popular book I Love Jesus & I Accept Evolution. In the previous five slideshows, Lamoureux covered chapters 1 and 2, chapter 3, a supplement to chapter 4 (the sources of Genesis), chapter 4 (“Biblical Accounts of Origins”), and the first portion of chapter 6 on human evolution. In today’s installment, Lamoureux continues his summary of chapter 6, zeroing in on what is the issue for most Christians who object to evolution: what about Paul? Since Paul understood Adam to... Read more
At GospelFutures, Neil Williams has a very thoughtful piece on game theory and it’s relevance for Christian theology. Game theory is the study of strategic decision making and shows the importance of trust, forgiveness, and even repentance in the development of cooperation between people and societies. Game theory originally started in mathematics, but expanded to other disciplines including psychology, economics, politics, evolutionary biology, and warfare. Williams looks at how a focus on “story” rather than “beliefs” helps move us away from zero-sum games (where there are clear... Read more
Last month I was a guest on Unbelievable?, a British radio show hosted by Justin Brierly, to discuss evolution and Christianity, specifically the historicity of Adam. The show just aired and you can listen to the show here. On the show, too, were Denis Alexander and Fuz Rana. Denis, a molecular biologist, is the former director of The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion and the author of Creation or Evolution: Do We Have to Choose? Fuz (Fazale), a PhD in chemistry with an... Read more
I really don’t think of myself as a writer. I’ve written a bunch of books, but that doesn’t make me writer. It just means I type a lot. Writing is different. I know good writers, and they intimidate me. They think about what they are going to say, organize their thoughts, use adjectives, and spell-check, all the things I don’t want to do. Writing is not my joy and solace. It is more like my 9th grade science teacher, with his arms crossed standing behind me watching me use... Read more
Today we continue Denis Lamoureux’s series of brief slideshows on his popular book I Love Jesus & I Accept Evolution. In the previous four slideshows, Lamoureux covered chapters 1 and 2, chapter 3, a supplement to chapter 4 (the sources of Genesis) and chapter 4 (“Biblical Accounts of Origins”). Today’s post summarizes chapter 6 of his book: Genesis contains not only an “ancient cosmology” (which he covers in chapters 3 and 4) but an “ancient biology.” The takeaway line: “Adam is the retrojective conclusion of ancient taxonomy.” If you... Read more
Peter Enns
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