The cartoon above by David Hayward depicts what ought to be considered blasphemy by anyone who is a monotheist. The idea that there is one supreme God, but that that God can be constrained by or domesticated into conformity with a collection of human writings, is inherently self-contradictory. No wonder so many conservative Christians worship the Bible. It allows them the illusion that an untamable ultimate supreme reality is understood and manageable. Read more
My pastor shared this on Facebook. I would add that fighting in the sense of violence simply perpetuates the destruction, and so fighting destructive forces must involve first and foremost refusing to utilize the same weapons they do. Read more
The above cartoon by David Hayward is very clever and beautiful. And it certainly is the case that there are churches from which people must absolutely emerge, perhaps through a process of struggle, in order to enter maturity. I am concerned, however, that the cartoon may be understood to depict church itself as something that ought to be left behind. But in its essence, when done right, church is merely a community of people with some shared convictions, values, and... Read more
Ham’s false dichotomy between a system where “man decides truth” and “God’s word is truth” serves well to keep his audience skeptical of both evolution and mainstream geology. Ultimately, however, we must deal with the fact that to read and understand God’s word, we utilize the same cognitive abilities that allow us to reconstruct the common ancestry of life on Earth over millions of years. The quote above comes from the blog Questioning Answers in Genesis, in a post about... Read more
As at least one person guessed, I am currently in Sibiu, Romania. The photo above is of what is thought to be the oldest house in the city, dating from the 15th century. While I like the local food here, I particularly appreciated the “fried stuff maker” with the religious name in the photo below, which has “placinte cu cartofi” of the sort that I used to eat when I lived in Oradea. The photo below is from the Church... Read more
From Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. You can insert many other remakes and make the same point. Although the fact that some of us have the luxury of asking why a benevolent God would allow bad movies, rather than why we have not had any food for a week, itself raises the problem of evil. Be sure to click through and read the red button punchline on this one. Read more
The Society of Biblical Literature has announced that its new Bible Odyssey website has now launched and is accessible to the general public. Take a look at the tutorial, or just poke around. I contributed a couple of articles, and I am sure that the names of other contributors will be even more recognizable to most of you. Read more
Michael Patton shared the diagrams below. What strikes me about them is the attempt to define “Evangelical” as the stance between liberal and fundamentalist. The word that he is looking for, where there is a balance between the essential, important, and non-essential, is “moderate.” Some Evangelicals are moderates, but most are conservative, in between the moderates and the fundamentalists, with some closer to one or the other. His attempt to pretend that “Evangelical” simply means “moderate-to-conservative” surprises me. The definition... Read more
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