I grew up unchurched and was pretty much an agnostic up through my twenties. Even though I got baptized as a teenager into the Presbyterian USA denomination, I did it more for social reasons than anything else. There was no great care taken to make sure I was in the faith. Most of my experience with church up until I was 26 years old was about teachings of being a nice person … [Read more...]
Postmodernism, Relativism, and Truth
[This post is a work in progress as part of the CAA Catechism.] [Add the title only in the title field, not in the body of the post.] Summary in 400 words or less: With the collapse of the Iron Curtain, the former Soviet Republics fragmenting from the former Soviet Union, and to some degree, science not being able to answer every question in life, in the late 1980’s and early … [Read more...]
Religion As A Crutch
A criticism that is sometimes levelled against religious faith is that it is ‘a crutch’ for those who want comfort and who are unable to deal with death and other hardships in life. It argues that belief in God is simply a coping mechanism and that if people were able to deal with life without God they would not believe in him. This criticism and others like it are particularly … [Read more...]
Emergent Christianity in Memphis, Part 2
Emergents are Tolerant, Uncertain, and Relativistic, Except When They are Not In Part 1, I introduced a gathering of Emergent Christians in Memphis to honor Phyllis Tickle, Memphis' resident Emergent, and the forerunner in Emergent thinking. While the first post focused on Tickle's opening talk, and the claims she made in it, this post will focus on her controversial closing … [Read more...]
Top 5 Silly Statements I was Told in College
If you ever want a good laugh, just visit a college campus and listen in on some random conversations. The weirdest topics are discussed. Let's face it. Lots of dumb things are heard on college campuses. Most come from the mouths of arrogant undergrad students who think they know everything, but they're not the only ones...Sometimes professors take the cake! Especially when it … [Read more...]
The Problem of Evil
The problem of evil is for many people a significant intellectual and emotional obstacle to faith. The logical problem of evil attempts to show that the existence of evil in the world is incompatible with the existence of God. It then concludes God does not exist. This is one way of formulating it. The Problem of Evil: Premise 1: People suffer. Premise 2: Suffering is … [Read more...]
Book review: The Christians as the Romans Saw Them, Robert Louis Wilken
From a famous skeptic of Christianity: “But we must examine this question whether anyone who really died ever rose again with the same body. […] While he was alive he did not help himself, but after death he rose again and showed the marks of his punishment and how his hands had been pierced. But who say this? A hysterical female, as you say, and perhaps some other one of … [Read more...]
Emergent Christianity in Memphis, Part 1
2 Timothy 4.3-4 Earlier this month a meeting of Emergent Christians happened at St. Mary's Episcopal Cathedral in Memphis, Tennessee. The meeting was an event honoring Phyllis Tickle, a forerunner in Emergent thinking. Among the over 400 attendees were such emergent luminaries as Brian McLauren, Doug Pagitt, and Tony Jones. … [Read more...]
Is Immortality Boring?
The question seems intuitive. If humans were to live forever, wouldn't they eventually become bored out of their minds? Let's think about this for a second. Any activity, no matter how fun or engaging, ultimately comes to a point where it gets boring. That's part of what it is to be human. Therefore, immortality is boring and pointless as any immortal life would eventually … [Read more...]
From Religious None to Disciple: My story.
When I was 15 I thought Christians were all idiots. And I had good reason, based on what little I knew. Raised in a home where the most religious thing we ever did was say grace at dinner, I had very little exposure to church. I'm not even sure I knew it existed. Despite this, I was always instinctually curious about religion. I was raised to be a reader, and at 14 I had … [Read more...]