Is Liberal (or Moderate) Christianity Authentic
Barry Jones of The Village Atheist has suggested a discussion with me on the issue of the whether my sort of Christianity is authentic. He doesn’t believe it is. After the exchange of a number of comments, we’re going to discuss this here on this blog. He’ll be putting his notes in the comments, but…
Pivar Suit Against PZ Myers Withdrawn
According to Ed Brayton (Dispatches from the Culture Wars), the suit has been withdrawn. Brayton also makes a number of remarks on this that are totally on point. I agree with him completely as to the nature of the suit and the characters involved. My previous comments were here. PZ’s very own commentary is here….
Notes on Mark 12:41-44
Translation and Notes These notes relate to and expand on my podcast Seeing Stewardship as God Sees It. 41And he sat down by the treasury, and he was watching how the crowd threw money into the contribution box. And many rich people threw in lots! Treasury . . . is apparently the hall named from…
Notes on Mark 12:34-40
Translation and Notes The notes below relate to and expand my podcast Jesus Strikes Back. 35In response Jesus began to teach in the temple this way: “How is it that the scribes say that the Messiah is the son of David? 36David said by the Holy Spirit, The Lord said to my lord Sit at…
Christian Carnival #187
. . . has been posted at Mandi Kaye.
Reading Part 6 (On Inerrancy)
I somehow got the idea that the inerrancy series to which I linked yesterday was in five parts. A comment from the author let me know that I was wrong on that point, and how I got the idea I do not know, consider that the statement “*Part 6 will conclude with reflections on why…
A Defense of Biblical Inerrancy
Since I have staked out a pretty firm position as an opponent of Biblical inerrancy, I was interested in the series A Defense of Biblical Inerrancy on The A-Team Blog. The series comes in five parts: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Some might expect me to go into a blow-by-blow…
Some Things that Caught my Eye Today
OK, I don’t do a links post often, but there were a few things that caught my eye that don’t require my long-winded comment. OK–shutting up now! This cartoon about torture Surrender picture and quote A student finds The USA in Daniel 4 Pastor Tom Sims DREADs his day (edited to add) What do Christian…
Education as a Priority and Teacher Quality
Way back in the pre-blog days for me (April, 2005), I wrote an essay for my Energion.com web site titled Make Education a Priority. You can type that rather uncreative title into a search engine and you’ll find that many dozens of politicians are using it as a slogan, but I don’t see that priority…
Mainliners Stand Up!
I use “mainliners” for lack of a better term. I’m a member of a United Methodist congregation, and it will probably shock many of my readers that it is, in United Methodist terms, a fairly conservative one. I’ll even be preaching one service there tomorrow. The problem I’ve found with mainliners is less that they…
Some Beautiful Fractals
. . . and from the sarcastic to the beautiful. Christine at Quiet Paths regularly posts beautiful pictures. This time she outdid herself with a fractal pattern that is truly gorgeous, titled simply Blue Fractal. I recommend you go take a look.
Teach the Controversy about Geocentrism
In my previous post The Danger of Teaching the Controversy, I suggested that one of the problems with teaching the controversy was just which controversies one should teach. There are always plenty of crackpot theories floating around not to mention sound attempts to modify existing theories. These need to be tested by scientists using scientific…
Mother Theresa and Crises of Faith
A friend e-mailed me the link to Mother Teresa’s Crisis of Faith. Although they use the singular “crisis,” that one crisis was one she lived with for a long time. I have to say that I have ample sympathy, not to mention empathy with people with doubts from time to time. I think God leaves…
Christian Carnival CLXXXVI
. . . has been posted at Chasing the Wind.
Jena, LA: A Town in Turmoil
Newsweek story here. I wish I was surprised at such racism, but I’m not. In many places it’s just below the surface. (HT: Pursuing Holiness.)
Campaign Finance, Enforceability, and Free Speech
It has become fairly well established in current law, as I understand it, that election financing can be regulated quite substantially without violating free speech. Some of the boundary areas are not so well defined, and regulation of those who are not connected organizationally to any candidate has been held unconstitutional in at least some…
How Not to Respond to Bad Reviews
As a writer and public speaker, albeit on a small scale, I found this story on the Panda’s Thumb amusing. Apparently Dr. Stuart Pivar, who appears to have no particular qualifications in the field, has written a book about giving “structuralist/developmental interpretation of evolution.” As authors will do from time to time, Pivar then sent…
A Christian Response to Wiley Drake
I’ve been trying to write a good response to Rev. Wiley Drake who is calling for imprecatory prayers against specific people at Americans United for Separation of Church and State. I haven’t really managed to express my feelings yet. This is not about disagreements about church and state, it’s about a proper Christian response to…
Ben Witherington on Hermeneutics
This seems to be my day for linking, both on my threads blog and here. Ben Witherington has written an excellent basic post on hermeneutics. I’m particularly interested because of his illustrations taken from Revelation. In my study guide to Revelation, I recommend Witherington’s commentary as “the best commentary on Revelation for the serious student…
WordPress.com Banned in Turkey
It appears that WordPress.com has been banned in Turkey because of criticisms of Muslim creationist Adnan Oktar. Oktar appears to be an unusually warped version of creationist, and may well be using creationism to foster Muslim fundamentalism. The reason I’m linking to this is that it is a free speech issue. As a number of…
More on Atheism and Autism
Bruce Alderman has written some very cogent comments on the earlier post by Joe Carter on this topic and my response. Bruce looks at this from a somewhat different angle. Carter has also written an additional post which Bruce calls a strategic retreat. Bruce’s posts are: if you were blind, you would have no sin,…
St. John Chrysostom on Hebrews 6
This past week seems to have been a good week for me reading St. John Chrysostom. It started from my reading of the book Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament X, Hebrews, and then looking up further contents for the selections. This is the second selection from the same author I’m quoting. I have…
Is Rudeness a Christian Value?
The Minutemen United web site provides the following purpose: Minutemen United is a group of men and women dedicated to creating an environment where Christian thoughts, ideals and leaders can get traction in the marketplace of ideas. We hail from New York to California and are headquartered in Ohio ” the heart of it all”….
Random Mutations and God
JuliaL, in a comment to my previous post, Don McLeroy and his Big Creationist Tent . I’m going to copy the comment here and reply, because I think it brings up an important point that deserves a post of its own. Heres the part that mystifies me: Consider natural selection of random mutations. If theyre…