“United in Suffering” is a essay that can help students reflect on several views of martyrdom, past and present. From the article: “Christians look with horror at the martyrdoms of Christians in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. But we are not horrified enough. We cannot bear to ask what these martyrs might demand of […]
This brief article by David Talcott poses some questions about which students are puzzling but finding hard to articulate. Does being a man or a woman have any ethical significance for the way we live together in civil society? Is there is something irreducibly significant about being a man or being a woman. Talcott says our […]
Religion and the Social Sciences, edited by R.R. Reno and Barbara McClay (Cascade, 2015): More often than not it’s a class in the social science that challenges the faith of students, not a class in biology. Does critical understanding of our religious traditions, institutions, and convictions undercut them? Or can a modern social scientific approach deepen faith commitments, making […]
In “O Canada — Liberal evangelicalism: a case study,” church historian Mark Noll surveys several studies on the failure of the United Church of Canada to remain a vital institution. That failure could be described as essentially cultural rather than primarily theological, and that the problem had less to do with that church’s liberal evangelical character or its […]
The Christian Post recently spoke with leading Christian non-profit organizations to find out how followers of Jesus Christ are working to eradicate poverty in America. Poverty in the United States affects about 1 in 10 people despite them living in one of the richest countries in the world, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2014 […]
Lyle Denniston updates the ACA birth control mandate cases: enhancing the likelihood that the Supreme Court will soon take up the legality of the Affordable Care Act’s birth control mandate, a federal appeals court has differed with six others and temporarily barred the government from enforcing the mandate. That outcome came in two decisionsby the U.S. […]
NPR’s Astrophysicist, Adam Frank, encounters the old question about God, faith, and death (1 Cor. 15:12-19). Frank re-frames the question with a quotation from mathematician and former president of Columbia University Frederick Barnard, who says he would choose the hope of faith over any sort of science absent of meaning or purpose. Dr. Frank is […]
The Summer 2015 edition of Issues in Christian Education addresses the current LGBTQ discussions across several articles and reviews, all keeping Christ and his word at the center. The United States Supreme Court has legalized gay and lesbian marriage. The ruling, hoped for by some and feared by others, is now the law of our […]
This New York Times article is 7000 words on Kim Suozzi who died at age 23 but chose to have her brain preserved with the dream that neuroscience might one day revive her mind. This account of the technology of the trans-human suggests several theological implications not addressed by the writer. Students may find helpful the […]
The California State Legislature gave its final approval to a bill that would allow doctors to help terminally ill people end their lives. Four states — Oregon, Washington, Montana and Vermont — already allow physicians to prescribe life-ending medication to some patients. The California bill, which passed in the State Senate by a vote of […]
