The turkey I ate was wonderful, just like what the Pilgrims ate….. or was it? Did they even have turkey to eat in 1621?
The study of American history is a tough thing to deal with for Christians. We are annoyed and quite accustomed to revisionists who want to exorcise Christianity out of America’s past. On the other hand, a lot of ideas about history that have been passed down to us over the generations do not always line up with the facts. Is there a responsible Christian way to approach our nation’s past?
Here is the book’s trailer and then a brief interview with the author addressing a question that many evangelical Christians merely assume to be true, “Were the Pilgrims just like us?”:
From Hurricane Katrina to SuperStorm Sandy to various massive typhoons across the world, the thought of a Great Flood triggers thoughts of complete destruction. No greater event as described in the Bible confronts us with the terrifying power of nature than Noah’s Flood. Yet the central theme in the Noah story is not mindless natural forces, but rather the supreme Holy authority of a Merciful Creator God faced with human disobedience.
Even popular culture is fascinated with Noah and God’s Flood. I do not know how good a film this will really be, but a new movie staring Russell Crowe due in 2014 promises to explore the theme using the latest computer generated imagery techniques:
Film director Darren Aronofsky tells that the story of Noah had captivated him ever since he was about thirteen years old. What do we make of the narrative about Noah’s flood in Genesis 6-9 that would inspire a movie like this? Continue reading
“Test everything. Hold on to the good.” 1 Thessalonians 5:21 (NIV84)
“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
Romans 12:2 (NIV84)
Among many other distinguishing characteristics, Christianity is all about the truth. Christian believers do not have the burden of fideism, and can ask any question without fearing that their faith will be overturned by the answer. In fact, the apostle Paul exhorted us to test everything.
We concluded our three-part Facts & Faith Symposium on Sunday night by showing and discussing Hugh Ross’ testimony in theCosmic Fingerprints DVD, produced by Reasons To Believe.
We recorded the panel discussion and Q&A just as for Week Two, and here is the video:
[vimeo 80690471 w=490]
So What?
Why did we do this? Doesn’t the topic of Creationism divide the church? Was it worth it? Continue reading
Is God’s Creation like a really good wine, “aged to perfection”, as they say?
I am pretty much a teetotaler, but my doctor has told me, off the record, that perhaps a glass of red wine per day would be a good thing. I have heart disease in my family, but I am such a lightweight that when it comes to alcohol, I still tend to shy away.
So if I was at the wedding at Cana (John 2:1-11), I probably would have been just fine drinking some water. But a crisis arose at the celebration when the wine began to run short. The mother of Jesus came up to her son, wanting him to do something about it. The servants knew that there was only water in those jars, as per Jesus’ instructions. But the headwaiter soon noted to the groom that what he had tasted was the best wine of the entire evening! The servants, and soon everyone there, saw what had happened. It was indeed a miracle!
Did you know that the wedding at Cana has a lot to do with the controversy between Young and Old Earth Creationism? Read on and find out why… Continue reading
I was just a few months old when the death of President John F. Kennedy shook our nation 50 years ago. But everyone who knew of the Kennedy assassination at that time knows exactly where they were at the moment when they heard the news. Like 9/11 in our day, the story of the Kennedy tragedy shaped a generation. However, there was another cultural event on November 22, 1963 that was overshadowed by the Kennedy shooting: the death of C. S. Lewis.
Clive Staples “Jack” Lewis: famous Christian of the 20th century, influential apologist, and still today a popular author of children’s fantasy… and yet, I often wonder how much the Christian church has truly been been shaped by the life and work of this Oxford don.
What does Lewis have to say? If I had to sum it up in one word, it would be imagination. It was a vision of a Biblically-informed imagination that brought this atheist to faith, a man filled with animosity towards his father, and who had a very odd, even scandalous relationship with a much older woman. Lewis endured the mindless insanity in the French trenches of World War I, but he rarely talked about it. Lewis, like any human that I know, had moral failures and terrible skeletons haunting him in his closet. But it was the creative energy of thinking about the love story of the Bible, God’s relentless pursuit of bringing a rebellious and alienated people into relationship with Himself, that broke through Lewis’ cynicism, despair, and denial.
We need more of C. S. Lewis’ vision of a Christian imagination today in Christ’s church. Many Christians get so absorbed by the literal truth of the Scriptures that they forget about the revelatory power of the figurative, the transcendent beauty of a turn of a phrase, the deep wisdom of Biblical poetry, the whoop and wharf of story, and the subtle Truth of myth.
I think Lewis can still help us with that.
I have been listening to a wonderful and provocative audio book by Alister McGrath,C. S. Lewis – A Life: Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet. In promoting the book, McGrath gave a series of lectures, including the following sponsored by the Lanier Theological Library in Houston, Texas in the spring of 2013.
May we as followers of Jesus be shaped by the imaginative vision of C. S. Lewis. His friends knew him as “Jack”.
Veracity 