Mark Keuther: “The real ‘religious freedom’ argument”
I am opposed to this amendment because if passed it would mix religion and politics in our constitution. This amendment would tell clergy who they can and cannot marry in their congregations. Some churches and religious organizations want to recognize the relationships of committed gay and lesbian couples. Some don’t. It should be their choice. However, this amendment does the opposite. It tells religious leaders they are not allowed to marry same-sex couples. Many faiths want to decide for themselves. This amendment represents a one-size fits all government mandate on our state’s churches. The best thing is to allow religious leaders and churches to decide for themselves.
Natalie Burris: “Mohler and the threatening papyrus fragment”
Although the evidence weighs heavily in favor of Jesus not having had a wife, Mohler’s fearful reaction is telling. The suggestion that a woman disciple may have existed is threatening to Mohler’s carefully-constructed “biblical, orthodox Christianity.” Even if the evidence is scant, it seems Mohler feels he has a duty to dismiss an alternative theory of Jesus’ life and ministry. It comes across as offensive to Mohler that a woman would be central to the leadership of the early church, perhaps even superior to men.
Gregg Davidson & Ken Wolgemuth: “Biblical and Scientific Shortcomings of Flood Geology”
Flood Geology proponents would have us believe that there is extensive evidence for a violent, earth-wide flood that is apparent if one is willing to consider the possibility. As Christian geologists, we have no philosophical objection to a cataclysmic event of divine origin, and have long been willing to consider evidence of such an event. What we have observed, however, is that evidence for Flood Geology is largely, if not entirely, non-existent. Given the placement and character of sedimentary deposits currently on earth, deposition by a single flood is not only implausible, but utterly impossible unless God temporarily suspended His natural laws in order to establish layers and fossil beds that would subsequently communicate a story vastly different than what actually happened.
John Shore: “The fundamentally toxic Christianity”
The one thing I do want to say for anyone just making their way out of the darkness of Independent Fundamentalist Baptists is this: that you once so thoroughly bought into IFB is a sign of your strength, not your weakness. Beside the fact that you were likely born into IFB and so never chose to believe anything about it one way or another, your allegiance to IFB means nothing more than that you love. You love passionately, deeply, and inexorably. And like everyone else in the world you want that love to mean something, to be incorporated into and desired by something worthy of it.
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