Posts Tagged ‘Christianity’
Friday, February 4th, 2011 by JEL
Darwin’s work on evolution has been around for about 160 years, but religious denial of the theory is a fairly recent–and American–development. As is our slippage in science proficiency. I found this piece on the subject to be a bit scattered, but still with some interesting tidbits.
For instance, maybe the fact that more Europeans believe in evolution because they’re not as religious as Americans. Well, according to one study, no.
“Many studies have found Americans are not more religious in practice than people in other nations. We just lie to pollsters as to what we’re doing on Sundays. Philip Brenner at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research did a paper looking at ‘500 studies over four decades, involving nearly a million respondents.’
The findings were summed up by Slate’s Shankar Vedantam, “Brenner found that the United States and Canada were outliers — not in religious attendance, but in overreporting religious attendance. Americans attended services about as often as Italians and Slovenians and slightly more than Brits and Germans.”
So really we attend church as much as other countries – even European countries. Americans, and apparently Canadians, just lie about it in astonishingly un-Christ-like numbers.”
Tags: Charles Darwin, Christianity, evolution, Philip Brenner, Tina Dupuy
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 1st, 2011 by JEL
I post the following discussion topic from the Wall Street Journal’s Religion & Ethics Community Group for a number of reasons:
- I’m somewhat bewildered by the group’s very existence on a business publication’s website.
- It’s an interesting topic that has challenged thinkers for centuries.
- The actual discussion is surprisingly civil.
- There is obviously no editorial supervision in the WSJ Community.
Here’s the discussion kick-off:
How does Christianity believe in free will?
If good is all knowing.
If good is all powerful.
If good creates and has a plan for every life.
How can there be any free will at all?.
Tags: Christianity, free will, wall street journal
Posted in In The News | No Comments »
Monday, January 31st, 2011 by JEL
Nick Spencer wrote an interesting, provocative piece in The Guardian today called, “Christianity: A Faith for the Simple.” He cites some interesting statistics that show, among a pool of elite scientists, more are likely to be atheists than in the general population.
Does this mean that smart people don’t believe in God, but dumb people do? Some might make that leap, but Spencer states it might be wiser to keep your feet planted. Christianity, for one, was always intended as a faith for the simple:
“Odd as it may be to admit, there is some reason within the Christian tradition to think that Christian believers should, on average, be less intelligent, or at least less well-educated, than their opponents. Before atheists get too exited by this, it isn’t an admission that Christians are naturally stupid, though no doubt some will choose to read it that way.
Rather it is the recognition that there is a long-standing theme within Christian thought that sees the Christian message as having a particular appeal to the underclass, not only those socially and politically alienated, but also those the intellectually and educationally excluded.
Christ often remarked with particular relish, and disappointment, on the inability of the educated elite of his time to get what he was about.”
It’s a thought-provoking read; check it out.
Tags: Christianity, Guardian UK, Nick Spencer
Posted in In The News, Words of Christ | No Comments »
Monday, January 24th, 2011 by JEL
Martin Thielen wrote a book called “What’s the Least I Can Believe and Still Be a Christian?: A Guide to What Matters Most.” If you want a quick synopsis, you can check out this article. The opening is great:
“When I first met Danny, he said, ‘Preacher, you need to know that I’m an atheist. I don’t believe the Bible. I don’t like organized religion. And I can’t stand self-righteous, judgmental Christians.’
I liked him right away!”
They become friends, have lots of talks about faith, and slowly Danny moves from atheist to agnostic to reluctant Christian minimalist. When Danny asks him the question that became the title of the book, Thielen first listed things that Christians DON’T need to believe. I liked the list:
• God causes cancer, car wrecks and other catastrophes
• Good Christians don’t doubt
• True Christians can’t believe in evolution
• Woman can’t be preachers and must submit to men
• God cares about saving souls but not saving trees
• Bad people will be “left behind” and then fry in hell
• Jews won’t make it to heaven
• Everything in the Bible should be taken literally
• God loves straight people but not gay people
• It’s OK for Christians to be judgmental and obnoxious
Tags: Christianity, Martin Thielen, what's the least I can believe and still be a Christian
Posted in In The News, Words of Christ | No Comments »
Monday, December 20th, 2010 by JEL
What’s a Christmas season without a post about consumerism? As a person who went through 2009 without buying myself (virtually) anything other than food and energy, this post from Shane Claiborne was really fascinating to me.
Shane is an interesting, funny, charismatic dude. We featured a video of him speaking a few months back, and I always find his message to be relevant and lasered on point. He’s a Red-Letter Christian and works with the homeless in his neighborhood of Philadelphia. Read the whole post, but here’s a snippet to whet your appetite:
“I grew up in the Bible Belt. When I became a Christian, I learned I didn’t have to stop buying stuff — I just had to start buying Christian stuff. An entire world of retail spending possibilities lay before me: the Christian industrial complex. There were Christian t-shirts, bumper stickers, even Christian candy — “testa-mints” — peppermints wrapped in a Bible verse. We were taught “secular” was bad, and supplied with charts that countered popular mainstream bands with a Christian alternative. We burned our old tapes (which is what we listened to back in those days) and went to the Christian albums. We were often sadly disappointed. They just didn’t sound like Metallica. As a friend of mine quipped: “All these Christian artists say, ‘God gave me this song,’ and then you listen to it and know why God gave it away.” I later learned that Christian art doesn’t have to be a mediocre counterfeit of the original. And, I learned that Christianity is not about conforming to the world, but about being transformed by a God who is crazy about the poor, fond of toppling the powerful, and raising the lowly … and who I’m pretty sure would feel conflicted wearing a “God bless Rome” shirt or doting an “Army of One” sticker on the bumper of his SUV… I mean, hybrid. I mean donkey. Never mind.”
Tags: Christian consumerism, Christianity, red-letter christians, Shane Claiborne
Posted in Christmas, Words of Christ | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 14th, 2010 by JEL
John Micklethwait, Editor of The Economist, says that China will soon become the largest Christian nation in the world. There are reportedly 100 million Protestants already and as many as 10,000 Chinese citizens become Christians every day. Mind boggling. He makes many interesting points in the video, such as Catholicism is popular out in the boonies, while American-style Evangelical Christianity is what’s popping in the cities.
Incidentally, China will also soon become the largest Muslim nation in the world. Things could get very interesting in the next couple decades. Watch:
Tags: China, Christianity, John Micklethwait, The Economist
Posted in In The News | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 8th, 2010 by JEL
This piece, by Rose Marie Berger, puts Christians’ stance on repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT) in an interesting light. A new Pew Research Center poll shows a majority of Americans, including Christians, now support allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly, and with equal rights, in the military.
That’s great, Ms. Berger says. But what about how Christians feel about the military, in general? When Jesus says “Blessed are the peacemakers,” He’s saying war is wrong. Killing sons and daughters and husbands and wives to settle politicians’ debates is wrong.
She points out that early generations of Christians refused to participate in war. What about current generations?
Tags: Christianity, DADT, Pew Research Center, Rose Marie Berger
Posted in In The News, Words of Christ | No Comments »
Monday, November 29th, 2010 by JEL
Do you happen to be a Christian who believes in evolution? Do you find yourself attacked from two sides for your beliefs? Then you might want to check out this free teleseminar series. I loved this bit from the description:
“Are you frustrated with how the mainstream media portray the science and religion issue? It’s as if the only two games in town were science-rejecting creationism and faith-rejecting atheism. But for the millions of us in the middle who see no conflict between faith and reason, heart and head, Jesus and Darwin, we know that’s a false choice. Religious faith and practice can be positively strengthened by what God is revealing through science!”
And then there’s this beauty:
“Studying evolution is like following cosmic breadcrumbs home to God. Only by looking through evolutionary eyes can we see our way out of the current global integrity crisis that is destroying economies and ecosystems around the world.”
One of the thirty speakers is Michael Dowd whom I saw a couple of years ago, and he is AWESOME. One of the most passionate, eloquent, engaging people I’ve ever seen. Listening to him alone would be worth the price of admission! Register today>>
Tags: Christianity, evolution, evolutionary christianity, Michael Dowd, science
Posted in In The News | No Comments »
Monday, November 8th, 2010 by JEL
Richard T. Hughes has embarked upon a 4-part series entitled “The Christian Right in Context.” The first part, “The Long View,” is an excellent summation of Christianity in this country. He begins by talking about the current American crisis:
“The Christian Right stands at the heart of our current crisis since, for 30 years and more, the Christian Right has so successfully eaten away at the core, bedrock values that shaped this nation at its founding.
To advance this argument, of course, is to advance an irony, since the Christian Right has claimed from its inception that others — especially liberals, secularists and humanists — were eroding the values of the nation that they sought to affirm and protect.
And precisely in that claim we find the seeds of the current American crisis.”
He also touches upon Christianity as viewed and handled by the founders of our country:
“In spite of the claims of the Christian Right today, the simple truth is this: The Founders had no intention of creating a ‘Christian America.’ In fact, they categorically rejected the idea of a Christian nation for one important reason: They knew the history of the ‘Christian nations’ of Europe, nations that had persecuted non-conformists and waged war against countries that embraced a form of the Christian faith different from their own. The Founders, therefore, hoped to create a nation that honored religious diversity, a nation in which everyone would be free to practice any religion or none.
In light of the current hostility toward Muslims and the many recent attempts to ban their mosques and restrict their religious freedom, the Founders’ stance on Islam is instructive. Jefferson, for example, argued that America should extend complete freedom of religion not just to Christians but to the ‘Mahamdan,’ the Jew, and the ‘pagan’ as well. And following passage in Virginia of his Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom (1786), he reaffirmed the bill’s intent: ‘To comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mahometan.'”
The next installments should be enlightening.
Tags: Christian Right, Christianity, founding fathers, Richard T. Huges
Posted in In The News | No Comments »
Friday, September 24th, 2010 by JEL
Laura Hobgood-Oster has a new book coming out on October 1 called “The Friends We Keep: Unleashing Christianity’s Compassion for Animals.” She is a professor of Religion and Environmental Studies (quite a combination!) at Southwestern University in Texas and makes a scripture-based argument that that “God created all living things to exist in relationship to humankind. We have a moral responsibility of kindness and concern to non-human beings. In turn, animals sustain our existence, both physically as food and emotionally as companions. Turn a blind eye to their plight and we underwrite our own undoing.”
As the owner of a new puppy, I am practicing (with great effort at times) the compassion needed to sustain a healthy companion relationship with a pet. But pets are (relatively) easy. What about the chickens with their beaks sawed off to avoid pecking each other in the packed confines of their cages, pigs with teeth removed to save the iron bars of their pens, calves prevented from having iron to keep their veal meat a more cosmetically pleasing white?
If I’m God and I created all these creatures, I sure wouldn’t be pleased with how we’re treating them.
Tags: animal welfare, Christianity, Laura Hobgood-Oster
Posted in In The News, The Bible | No Comments »
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