A dozen points of light

Here’s an interesting back-and-forth between Jason Rosenhouse and Scot McKnight on the label “theistic evolutionist.”

I am a theist — a Christian. I also recognize and affirm the truth of evolution. But I don’t like or use the label “theistic evolutionist” for the same reasons I do not like or use the label “theistic germ theorist.”

And let’s be clear, if we were to employ the same hermeneutic employed by young-earth creationists, we could make an even stronger case claiming that the germ theory of disease is anti-God or anti-Bible than the case they make against evolution.

John Aravosis thinks it’s in poor taste for the gunmakers lobby to hold a “Shoot-Out” event at the GOP Convention just days after the shoot-out Friday at the Empire State Building. That’s not fair. If the NRA and the GOP could only celebrate guns when there hasn’t recently been a horrific incident of gun violence in America, then they’d never get to party at all.

Biola University and Grace College have joined Wheaton College in the campaign by Christian schools to ensure that DeWitt R. Thomas is only presenting the second silliest “religious liberty” argument this year.

Roger Olson shares a personal testimony, complete with a long discussion of a familiar Bible verse.

J.R. Daniel Kirk suggests a few tweaks for the historic Christian creeds — not the parts about God, the parts about us. I like this idea. I believe he’s right about “I believe.”

Jana Riess enlists Robert A. Rees to explain the deal with Mormon underwear, or, rather “temple garments (the preferred term).”

This practice is often the object of jokes by outsiders because, well, it’s underwear, and we humans find underwear inherently funny. But I think there’s a great wisdom in the Latter-day Saints’ practice of wearing their sacred clothing under their outer garments. That keeps the focus on the remembrance, not on the display — and it avoids the temptation to turn it into a tribal symbol or totem. Temple garments seem to me better for the soul than, say, a Christian T-shirt “witnessing tool.”

Teresa Nielsen Hayden is another knowledgeable explainer of the LDS church, and she’s not buying Mitt Romney’s claim that his tax returns must be kept secret for religious reasons.

Be astonished: he’s lying again. Financial data about Mormon tithing is not a secret. Like members of every other denomination that tithes, Mormons list their tithing as a religious/charitable contribution on their tax returns, school financial aid forms, mortgage applications, and other documents where you itemize your income and what you do with it.

Want to see?

She has links. She always has links.

The World Evangelical Alliance has created a new position: “Senior advisor for social justice.” This is a Good Thing — and not just because it will make Glenn Beck’s head explode.

Rob Bell’s old church has announced his replacement: Kent Dobson. He’s the son of longtime pastor and one-time Jerry Falwell disciple Ed Dobson (no relation to spanking advocate James Dobson).

Ed Dobson eventually rejected Falwell’s politicized form of partisan Christianity, but he has remained a very conservative evangelical. I admire him for being one of the first prominent evangelicals to respond with active compassion to the AIDS crisis decades ago. He was blasted for that, with another conservative evangelical sneering, “Ed Dobson loves homosexuals.” His response was lovely: “When I die, if someone stands up and says ‘Ed Dobson loved homosexuals,’ then I will have accomplished something with my life.”

Best wishes to his son at Mars Hill (no, not that one, the good one). Hopefully, like his predecessor and his father, he will earn the honor of being vilified for loving all the wrong people.

Alan McCornick at Hepzibah offers an insightful — and hopeful — recap and response after the Dan Savage/Brian Brown “Dinner Table Debate.”

“Custer died for your sins,” Vine Deloria said. And Republican National Committee leader Pat Rogers seems to believe it’s literally true.

Rep. Todd Akin’s horrifying candor prompted a bit of déjà vu for those who recalled having just cycling through the same vile, victim-blaming nonsense in response to Jared Wilson and Doug Wilson at The Gospel Coalition.

Grace at Are Women Human? has been continuing that earlier conversation with Jared Wilson.

2012 is really shaping up to be the Year of Evangelical Men Saying Appalling Things About Rape.