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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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More on Bible in Public Schools
Ed Brayton calls attention to a Texas Freedom Network report on the teaching of the Bible in public schools. Not surprisingly, the report is not good. Bible teaching is constitutional under certain specific circumstances, largely amounting to requiring that it be taught as an academic subject in a non-sectarian way. The recommendations by the Texas…
The Impact of Context
The other day I was reading an article on the practice of prophetic ministry–I’m not going to say where; it was in print and not on the web–in which the author claimed that a prophet does not have to get it right. In fact, he said, a person with the gift of prophecy may get…
Christian Carnival #138 Posted
Christian Carnival #138 has been posted over at Thoughts of a Gyrovague. Again, it looks like some fun stuff. Last time I only managed to link to and comment on four posts, I believe, but I read and intended to comment on lots more. Does that count? 🙂
More on Religious Battle Lines
Ed Brayton has written an excellent post on this topic over at Dispatches from the Culture Wars, titled Drawing Religious Battle Lines. I’ve already said my piece on this one, so I’m just going to send you over there to read this excellent essay. My high opinion of it has nothing to do with the…
Biblical Criticism Resources
Since I’m talking so much about critical theories in my discussion of Genesis 1-11 (now on chapter 6), I wanted to call some attention to material I have already posted concerning Biblical criticism. The best starting point for this information is the following pamphlet from the Participatory Study Series: That pamphlet provides answers to some…
As Christ Loved the Church
Lingamish has a wonderful post about Ephesians 5:22ff (if you don’t know about the part that is “ff” be sure to read his post!), and what this can mean in our relationship with our wives. (I do intentionally use purely male references, referring to the Lingamish and myself. You can adjust as necessary!) This reminds…
Pro-Evolution Event at University of North Florida
The Biology Department at UNF and the First Coast Freethought Society will sponsor a panel discussion on evolution and education titled Science Under Siege: The Attack on Evolution. The discussion will take place Monday, November 13, 2006, 7:00 – 9:30 p.m. at the UNF University Center. You can find more information and directions to the…
The Church that is Always Emerging
God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself. 2 Corinthians 5:19 Do you feel the depth of that statement? Can I recommend that you stop now and read 2 Corinthians 5, or at least verses 11-21 before you continue this? I often think that we Christians don’t nearly get the meaning of this passage,…
Genesis 6:1-4: Sons of God and Human Beings
These four verses provide a rather unusual interlude, coming between the genealogy of the patriarchal line in chapter five, and the story of the flood that truly begins in verse 5. I’m attributing them to the redactor who combined the J and P sources of the flood, though I think they work better with the…
I’m Much Worse than That
. . . from their point of view, that is. This is a kind of “take-2” on my Conscience of a Christian Publisher post. Centuri0n had a brief spurt of posting comments, but seems to have been silent since accusing me of deleting them at the very time I was restoring them from backups following…
The Two Flood Stories Updated
I’ve just reposted my essay The Two Flood Stories, correcting some links, improving the notes a bit, making some verse numbering a little bit clearer, and adding a section concluding the flood story. This editing was in preparation for continuing my Genesis series here by discussing the flood story. Thus far, I’ve discussed through Genesis…
Reasons for Belief
It seems that this week’s MBWR has produced an excellent crop. Bruce Alderman, whose blog is also in the Moderate Christian Blog Aggregator, wrote a post titled Why I Believe. His approach is strongly but not exclusively experiential, and in many ways resonates with my own. It also ties in with the current book discussion…
Don’t Judge Discipleship by Numbers
This post is to call your attention to a post by Beth Quick, Mark Driscoll, Mainline Churches, and The Numbers Game (Hat tip: MBWR #82, with strong second to the Best of the Methodist blogosphere! note). I’m also closing the comments here so that any additional discussion will be centered around her blog. I want…
New Florida Citizens for Science Web Site
The new Florida Citizens for Science web site is now up and running. Check it out at Florida Citizens for Science. Not too surprisingly, the blog can be found at http://www.flascience.org/wp. Check out the new format and the interesting information. Florida Citizens for Science will be watching closely as Florida begins to revise science standards.
Allies for Evolution, not Everything
Update: Jack Krebs has now posted a longer summary of the talk and links to audio files. I haven’t listened to the audio yet, but I don’t see anything in the summary that would alter my view on this. I’m glad Jack and Kansas Citizens for Science made sure to get good audio of this….
Witnessing and Proselytizing
Continuing my run through the Christian Blog Carnival, Laura has a good post Witnessing – Proselytizing – Defending the Faith. I think there are two important points to keep in mind: Listening to the other person(s) in order to find out what their interest is. I’ve found that many people are interested in discussing my…
Free Speech, Gay Rights, and the Bible
I want to call attention to this post and to the story behind it. An evangelical Christian was arrested in south Wales and charged with using “threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour.” Ed Brayton said: I am obviously a staunch advocate of gay rights, but some of the people who claim to be on…
Hebrews 12:1-12: The Lord’s Discipline
(Note: I’m going to introduce this passage as a whole, but when I do a verse by verse study, I’m going to divide it in two–12:1-4 and 12:5-12 simply for convenience.) If you follow the participatory study method, then you may notice that I’m presenting the last step first. You’ll find that this happens quite…
Participatory Study Series on Basic Bible Study
Since most of the existing pamphlets in the Participatory Study Series were released before I started this blog, I’d like to go back through previous releases and let you know what is available. For those who are not aware, these pamphlets are available free on the web. I provide a PDF, and HTML and either…
Nitpicking Translations
Centuri0n responded, in a way to my post Conscience of a Christian Publisher. I posted a response once, and unfortunately that response was eaten by the server. I was able to restore everything else, but this I have to rewrite. I’m not trying to repeat the other post precisely, so if you read it, don’t…
Excellent Health Article
Those of you who read this blog regularly know that I pretty regularly lash out at the news media. It’s not that I think they’re biassed to one end or the other of the political spectrum. I just think they’re biassed stupid. Well, I just want to point out an article today in Newsweek that…
Server Problem
Update: Everything seems to be working. If you made a comment and it’s missing, let me know. Also, the post that used to be at this URL, Nitpicking Translations, can be found by following the link. ***** A server glitch resulted in the temporary loss of some posts and several comments. I’m working to restore…
The Age of the Earth
Through the Christian Blog Carnival I found this post by Amanda from Imago Dei blog. She has been working through videos by Kent Hovind, and came to the conclusion that the age of the earth was not that important, and that Kent Hovind’s tactics were not going to accomplish all that much. Though all know…
Other Blogging
I divided up my blogging between three blogs, other than the group of official blogs where I am a contributor, because I thought that I would be burdening people with excessive extraneous (say that 5 times fast) material. In particular, I comment here mostly on religion and its impact on society as well as on…