All posts relating to religion, including those on the relationship of religion to other fields, such as science and politics
There’s been a great deal of talk about schism in the United Methodist Church (#UMC) over the last couple of days. It hasn’t disturbed me in the way it has disturbed many of my friends, but it has made me ask this question: Why? No, not why might we have schism. Why don’t I care…
From time to time I hear the question regarding some act of terrorism, or by some act of a Muslim government: Where is the Muslim outrage? I first want to note that I find measuring online outrage to be a somewhat hopeless task. I am outraged at many things that I never manage to mention…
This is my mother, who will be 96 at the end of May. She’s looking over a book titled Seeing the Psalter. She spent a good hour with it, commenting on methodology and various translations. How can she do this? Well, after years as a missionary nurse, she decided to take Hebrew and completed two…
I enjoyed sharing my testimony and Psalm 78:1-7, which is the theme text for my monistry, at Bethel Hill Baptist Church today. I want to thank Brother Jason Evans for allowing me some time in the service there. I was reminded of the importance of the body of Christ and the fellowship that we experience…
Some time ago I was invited to answer questions from a group of wonderful young people. They were invited to ask me any question they wanted. On about the third question, as they were discussing the background between them, I had my finger in a place in my Bible where I was going to start…
No, not the authors of the biblical text, though that’s an interesting topic. I’m talking about disagreeing with a study guide author, in this case a study guide author I chose both to publish and then to use in my Sunday School class. One class member was surprised—not shocked, annoyed, or disturbed, but just surprised—that…
Here’s an interesting post on the longer ending of Mark and snake handling. (HT: Dave Black Online, Why Four Gospels?) There’s obviously a serious question about hermeneutics lurking in the discussion, but what I would like to see discussed is just what text of Mark is authoritative. We tend to assume that what we want…
Reading Chris Seitz on the Biblical Crisis in the Homosexuality Debates (by Alastair Roberts) reminded me of three things I already believed: It is very dangerous to try to develop hermeneutics while wrapped up in a debate on a particular topic. The best test of one’s hermeneutics is to change the subject. Does it still…
This is very much worth reading.
… according to me, of course! I’m sitting here doing page layout on My Life Story by Becky Lynn Black. As I was doing that, I read small portions. I don’t read much while I’m doing page layout. What the text says is less important than how it will look, so my brain is in…
