July 4 is a time to celebrate our country and the things that made it great. It will be a day of fireworks, parades, parties, picnics, and speeches. I believe it’s incredibly important that we learn to celebrate the values that maintain our freedom, and do so in a principled and consistent way. Too often…
I combined two errors in my moderation queue. On my Threads from Henry’s Web blog I only moderate comments that have certain indicators for spam. I have thus far only seen one valid comment sent to moderation. Unfortunately I wasn’t paying attention when setting up this blog and both turned on stronger moderation and entered…
Articles VIII-XIII of the Together for the Gospel statement all deal with salvation, in this case with a strong focus on justification. (Note that the link above is to the final revision of the statement rather than the earlier form I have referenced in previous comments.) Those who have read my previous entries on this…
Religion and Ethics has an interview with Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, recently elected presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church. I commend this article to you for an overview of how the new presiding bishop thinks about the world and Christianity.
Jesus came to bring salvation, hope, and life. He crossed the gap between the infinite and the finite and gave us to call to equality and respect for all, exemplified by his treatment of the down and out in society. Paul expressed the Christian hope in community when he said that in Christ there is…
PZ Myers has responded to an interview with Ron Numbers in a post titled I’m proud to be non-human. His main point seems to be that those of us who favor evolution need to go all the way and stick totally with the scientific evidence. He says: There is a strong cultural aspect to this…
Introduction Genesis 5 continues the priestly account of origins. Now I don’t want us to get the idea that there are two separate messages here, because the two sources (priestly [P] and Yahwist [J]) have been brought together with their own message. Nonetheless, we can get some additional breadth and depth to this message by…
One of the many e-mail newsletters I get is from the Traditional Values Coalition. Often it seems that the most traditional value from their point of view is overreaction. Recently I got an e-mail from them telling me of the perfidy of the New York Human Relations Commission, which has apparently decided to investigate a…
Ed Brayton has an excellent post over on Dispatches from the Culture Wars on a bill currently before the U. S. House of Representives, H. R. 2679. He argues, successfully I think, that this is an attempt by the religious right to tilt the playing field in their direction. Because they have failed so often…
I receive regular newsletters from the Christian Alliance for Progress, and I really appreciate that organization for its work to reclaim Christianity from the religious right. Christianity is about moral and ethical values, and about caring for our neighbor, and not about making small numbers of people rich or about right wing politics. None of…