Bryan College Conflict over Creationism
I attended a creation-evolution conference at Bryan a few years back. Now the college itself, at least according to the New York Times, is facing internal conflict over the issue. Note that the Times doesn't give any figure much more than a sound bite, so it's hard to get a feel for the debate that isn't handed to you pre-packaged by the reporter.
Everybody Discriminates
Doug Wilson is as sharp and prophetic as any Christian could be on the same-sex marriage debate: Never forget that discrimination is inescapable. Why are people going along with this ludicrous claim that same sex mirage is marriage? Well, it is because Americans have been taught to hate “discrimination,” as though discrimination is a thing out there all by itself. Discrimination is not a stand alone characteristic. I would discriminate against people who take away liberty; they discriminate...
A Little Wisdom for Helping Those in Need
In my ministry I receive regular—though I wouldn't say frequent—requests for money from needy non-Christians. The few times I have given out money I have tended to regret it, largely because it made the recipient feel awkward in the future, like he or she owed me something. I prefer to help in other ways. But occasionally I'm asked by someone who clearly isn't trying to buy drugs, who has dependents, who has come regularly to our outreach ministry, who quite obviously isn't lying about his or...
Information Filters
Today, says sociologist Christian Smith, Anyone can post for global consumption almost whatever content on the Internet, unregulated by traditional standards gatekeepers, without having to account for its relation to everything else on the Internet. Stated differently, the new technologies open up greater opportunities for unfettered authorship, for more reciprocal flows of information, and for multiple horizontal connections through hyperlink structures instead of the more linear and...
Race Is in the Eye of the Beholder
A few quotes and notes from The Forging of Races: Race and Scripture in the Protestant Atlantic World, 1600-2000 (Cambridge University Press, 2006): "Race ... is a construct, an interpretation of nature rather than an unambiguous marker of basic natural differences within humankind." (3) "Race is in the eye of the beholder; it does not enjoy a genuine claim to be regarded as a fact of nature." (3) "To divide humanity into clearly demarcated races upon that basis [visible physical differences]...