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What Is Biblical Literacy?
We complain about it, write about it, claim it’s important or even critical, design programs to create it, but what is it? I don’t mean that none of us know what we mean when we say “biblically literate” or “biblically illiterate,” but do we all mean the same thing? I don’t think we do, and…
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Fences: Mending or Rending
The following is a sermon I presented at the Unitarian-Universalist Church of Pensacola on September 11,2005 and originally posted here on September 13, 2005. I’m reposting it because when I went to look for it, I found that the original post had somehow been truncated, and also because there is a one word at a…
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Experiencing the (Baptism of the) Holy Spirit
This is a topic where I tend to make just about everyone uncomfortable. Long time readers may recall a previous discussion of speaking in tongues, and my own experience of it. Those who expect me to be intellectually oriented and rational are uncomfortable with mystical experiences, and many who are comfortable with the mystical experiences…
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Great Evolution Sunday Video
Take a look at this:
John Webb Winter Golf Tournament 2007 – Final!
It’s over, it went well. What more is there to say? Well, I said a good deal on the Pacesetters Bible School News blog, so go there for more. You can start here.
New Series on Word Studies
When I divided my blogging between three blogs, I didn’t realize how hard it would be to do. It seemed logical to me to keep all my religion and society stuff here–theology, politics, economics, science, education–do Bible studies at Participatory Bible Study Blog and indulge my love of fiction at Jevlir Caravansary. Well, it wasn’t…
Word Study Dangers: Overview
[This is the first in a short series on word studies, especially the type of study done using an English concordance keyed to the Biblical languages, such as Strong’s Concordance.] A few years back in the pre-blog days when most online discussions took place on various forums, someone proposed to me a new translation and…
Bible Quiz Score
Hmmm. Having read about this at Abnormal Interests (Is a Better Score Better or Worse?) I decided to take it. I got 100%, though actually I’d give the test only about 80%. Does this qualify me to be an unbeliever? 🙂 You know the Bible 100%! Wow! You are awesome! You are a true…
Religious Rights Bill in Colorado
It is very important not to assume what a bill will actually accomplished based on its title. Titles are generally designed to put a positive spin on the contents of the bill in the hopes that people will not read further or seriously consider the consequences of what is actually proposed. A new bill in…
Biblical Studies Carnival XIV
. . . has been posted. There’s a link to one of mine and there are also links to many very substantive posts which is what I go to this particular carnival to find. As I have time after this weekend of the John Webb Winter Golf Tournament, I will try to link to some…
Off to the Hospital
No, I’m not sick. I’ll be accompanying my stepson, John Webb, to Sacred Heart Hospital where he will take a number of his baseball colleagues to visit the children’s wing. They’ll sign pictures and baseballs, visit and have fun with the children, and try to brighten their day. This has been a tradition of the…
Silliest KJV Only Argument?
A friend referred me to this page in which there are numerous really bad KJV only arguments–what other type are there?–but there was one I wanted to note in particular, because it is an argument that is often used in weaker form, but is here carried to its logical (and silly) conclusion. First let me…
A Short Note on the REB of Isaiah 38:21-22
The REB is one of my favorite versions, and indeed for personal reading is my favorite. Nonetheless it has one feature that often makes me mildly uncomfortable, its tendency to move texts around with a minimum of textual evidence. Even in cases in which I find the balance of internal evidence favorable to such a…
Of Mercenary Troops and Scumbags
Fellow philophronos blogger Laura is pretty annoyed with William Arkin for what he wrote about the troops in The Troops Also Need to Support the American People. She has demonstrated that here and defended it further here. Now anyone who has read both our blogs is aware that we disagree dramatically on the Iraq war….
Family and Good Deeds News
There’s a story today in the Pensacola News Journal about my step-son John Webb and the John Webb Winter Golf Tournament. Great stuff, though I must note that John has signed with the Chicago Cubs this year, so will be wearing much more blue than red! Preparing for the tournament has kept me fairly brief…
Christian Carnival Posted
The latest Christian Carnival has been posted at Thoughts of a Gyrovague. Go read, enjoy, and learn!
Christian Reconciliation Carnival #1
The first ever Christian Reconciation Blog Carnival is up and running at Heart, Mind, Soul, and Strength. Check it out!
The Real Cost of Health Care
Hmm! I don’t really know what that is! But Robert J. Samuelson has an excellent column on Newsweek (via MSNBC) that discusses the issue. He makes a number of excellent points, including pointing out that we’ve hidden the actual cost of health care, though I suspect not nearly so successfully in this country as in…
Genesis 9: A New World
Genesis 9 looks at the beginnings of life and society after the flood. It can be of interest in a number of ways, because along with parts of chapter 8 it supports the Noahide laws, and is the foundation for blood being forbidden to eat blood (Acts 15:20, which does not quote this, but must…
Iran and the Iraq War
And now the third in a series of short posts–an unprecedented attack of brevity for me! I’ve been saying “Iran” over and over again as the war in Iraq was first contemplated and then executed. An article today in the Washington Post talks about the influence of Iran and the fears, entirely justified in my…
Codex on Mesopotamian Creation Stories
Tyler Williams is beginning a series on this topic. After reading just the first entry I strongly recommend that any of my readers interested in the creation stories take a look at this material. For those who have not been following my material you can look at the Genesis category on my Participatory Bible Study…
The Difficulty of Scientific Conspiracies
. . . is illustrated here, in a nice post by Carl Zimmer. I’m extremely interested in the debate about these fossils, so I read what I can find, but I lack the scientific expertise to have a relevant comment on the science. What I would like to point out is the way in which…
N.T. Wright on Just War
Support for the Iraq war has been largely characterized as a liberal-conservative debate, with lots of negative adjectives attached to each political stream. Supporters are supposedly patriots who support using our military to defend our innocent citizens while opponents are portrayed as weak folks whose only desire is to surrender. There are, however, quite a…
Decisive Verse, Decisive Choice
I was having a conversation with a friend who is a United Methodist pastor a few years back. He was a well educated man with a doctoral degree and Arminian to the core. We got onto the subject of predestination vs free will, and he quoted the following to me (though not in my own…
Conservative Political Deception
Ben Witherington has a good post today about political deception with a brief intro on parthenogenesis. On the latter, I would simply note that I see no particular benefit to Christianity in proving that a virgin birth is possible. The value of the doctrine stems at least in part from the fact that it is…
Value of the Historical-Critical Method
I’ve written a number of posts on the historical-critical method previously on this blog (category, listing 28 posts). It is one of the areas on which I can properly be described as unabashedly liberal. I fully embraced the critical approach to Bible study as the starting point, and as the best approach to ascertaining the…
New Carnival: Christian Reconciliation
Weekend Fisher at Heart, Mind, Soul, and Strength as announced a new blog carnival, Christian Reconciliation Carnival: Call for Submissions, to be published monthly. This month’s topic: setting the record straight for strawman arguments made against your group. Submissions by midnight on 1/30/2007.