Luther’s Translation of the Bible: Here is a thorough and thoughtful study on communication, language, and text, and Luther’s masterful use of these in his work with Scripture. Upper division students can benefit from this reading and gain an appreciation for both modern and historical strategies in communication and the nature of texts. Lots of […]
Faith Formation in a Secular Age: Most views on faith formation focus on keeping young people in religious institutions. This article instead contends, following Charles Taylor, that we face a secular age where the plausibility of belief itself has been undercut. Therefore, this article will explicate Taylor’s perspective next to these popular faith-formation programs, showing where they […]
Weaving Ch. 13 Back into Romans: Christians typically read Romans 13 as a stand-alone passage, and this can lead to misreadings. In Romans, Paul categorically rules out any action of collective or individual revenge as inconsistent with our being transfigured by Christ. This prohibition may seem almost trivial today. But not so long ago, punishment by […]
Pastors Frequently Preach Politics. But the IRS Rarely Goes After Them: In this 30 min. audio programs, religious liberty scholar Thomas Berg explains that churches can legally function in politics and often do. Berg also discusses how the Johnson Amendment does proscribe specific candidate endorsement from the pulpit, but why the IRS largely ignores this […]
Pew: Here’s How Badly Soviet Atheism Failed in Europe — “The comeback of religion in a region once dominated by atheist regimes is striking,” states Pew in its latest report. Today, only 14 percent of the region’s population identify as atheists, agnostics, or “nones,” reports the Pew Research Center on the surge of Christianity in Europe […]
Predictors of Tuition Worth: Psychological Sense of Community, Institutional Integrity, and Student Thriving — This study of Christian colleges indicates students’ subjective perceptions of the value of their tuition dollars depends on their sense of community on campus, dealing with financial difficulties, and perceiving that the institution is meeting the expectations created during the admissions process.
Science and Pseudo-Science: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has substantially updated its entry on science and pseudo-science (April 11, 2017). The discussion can help students realize the epistemological difficulties in sorting out data, hypothesis, information, theory, and ontology. The new treatment emphasizes “that there is much more agreement on particular cases of demarcation than […]
Dizzying New Evidence In Human Evolution Provokes Debates: Fossils found over the past several decades have increasingly complicated our understanding of human evolution. Our early ancestors did not simply become bigger brained and more upright over time. New information coming out of the Rising Star dig includes the excavation of a second chamber with more Homo […]
American Views on Morality: A 30 min. audio program on culture’s continued divergence on what is moral. Morally, people are coming from different places, and this is why we run into indignant people every day who can’t believe that we’re thinking something completely different. 8 out of 10 Americans are concerned about the moral behavior […]
Five rational arguments why God (very probably) exists: Robert H. Nelson is Professor of Public Policy, University of Maryland, and author of God? Very Probably: Five Rational Ways to Think about the Question of a God (Cascade, 2015). This article begins with mathematics and offers a brief summary of the content, and can serve as a starter piece […]
