Posted in atheism, faith on 28 November 2006 | 7 Comments »
Here’s some follow-up reading on the resurgence of atheist literary output in recent months. The commentator is NY Times editorialist Richard Shweder and the title is ‘Atheists Agonistes‘ (’agonistes’ is a term that refers to ‘the struggler’ or ‘the combatant’), a thoughtful musing on the some potential root causes of the revival. Here [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on 22 November 2006 | 2 Comments »
Some days the rewards of parenting make it worth all the effort.
Julie: “Daddy, I want to play with a friend tonight.”Daddy: “What about me? Am I your friend?”Julie (with a quizzical look): “Yes”
(pause)
Julie: “But Daddy I want to play with a friend.”Daddy: I’m your friend Julie. Do you want to play with me?”Julie: [...]
Posted in social issues on 21 November 2006 | No Comments »
For those of you who expressed an interest in the (Red)emption effort, Mike has posted a four week update. Progress has been consistent but they are still well short of their goal of 1000 donors. So consider a $10 statement, a $10 expression of support for those suffering with AIDS. I’ve just [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on 18 November 2006 | 36 Comments »
A friend, having seen the subject of my last post, gave me a copy of the latest edition of Wired, a magazine devoted to developments in science, technology and culture. The cover boldly proclaims the advent of “The New Atheism” a feature article entitled “The Church of the Nonbelievers.”
Again Richard Dawkins, atheistic evangelist extraordinaire, [...]
Posted in atheism, faith on 15 November 2006 | 10 Comments »
Well Time Magazine has dove headfirst into a topic that always generates a lot of heat and (occasionally) a bit of light. “God vs. Science,” the latest cover story, takes the form of a debate between the atheist philosopher Richard Dawkins, author of the recent bestseller The God Delusion, and Francis Collins, director [...]
Posted in faith, pluralism on 8 November 2006 | 8 Comments »
The last of Volf’s four elements of a ‘functional faith’ is meaning and this completes his portrait of what a healthy faith looks like. This is, in my opinion, the most basic and fundamental of faith’s functions. When faith is operating according to its design it is helping us to understand and [...]
Posted in church on 6 November 2006 | 19 Comments »
“The greatest challenge facing the local church in the next 50 years is the same one that we’ve never quite met in our last 50 (or 2000) years: to enable our congregation to be half as interesting as Jesus.”
Will WillimonUnited Methodist Bishop of North Alabamavia Christianity Today
Posted in social issues on 3 November 2006 | No Comments »
I’ve been impressed with the work of MEDA (Mennonite Economic Development Associates) for a while so I was happy to hear that they’ve been shortlisted for the Alcan Prize for Sustainability for 2006 (see the shortlist here). The description on the Alcan prize website reads:
“The Alcan Prize for Sustainability is a US $1 million [...]
Posted in faith, politics on 3 November 2006 | 1 Comment »
I have previously referred to Greg Boyd’s efforts at challenging some prevailing assumptions about what evangelicalism looks like with respect to political issues so I was interested in a recent debate (or discussion) he participated in with Jim Wallis, a prominent Christian social activist. Both have serious questions about the way in which the [...]
Posted in faith, pluralism on 2 November 2006 | No Comments »
Returning to Volf’s conception of what a ‘functional faith’ looks like it is important to note that, in his opinion, much of contemporary North American Christianity never gets past the first two features: blessing and deliverance. We either view faith as some kind of performance-enhancing drug or we use it as a crutch so [...]
