Use this page to scroll back through over 800 previous entries across several topics and disciplines. See the various subject matter pages for content selected for specific disciplines.
From the Max Planck Institute: “Random connections do not suffice to explain the observed layout of the brain. Current research concludes that initially random connections in the visual cortex are reorganized to a precisely determined layout using self-organization. Random wiring, in the end, plays a small role.” The Discovery Institute’s response, who reject the idea of […]
In this case study, a Lutheran husband and wife filed a lawsuit against the ELCA Eastern North Dakota Synod and Norman Evangelical Lutheran Church, claiming they were defamed and discriminated against and charging that their congregation treated them maliciously after they expressed their opposition to gay marriage. Students can assess the case for its 1 Cor 6 implications, […]
Belgian doctors call for end to euthanasia for mental suffering: a group of psychiatrists, psychologists, philosophers and others are asking the government to remove the option for euthanasia on the basis of psychological suffering alone. For the first time since the adoption of the law in 2002, a decision to allow euthanasia –the De Moor/Van Hoey case […]
New Churches Draw Those Who Previously Didn’t Attend: America is launching new Protestant churches faster than it loses old ones, attracting many people who previously didn’t attend anywhere. And on average 42 percent of those worshiping at churches launched since 2008 previously never attended church or hadn’t attended in many years. Students can discuss and gain […]
Stewardship, justice, and moral imperative–Lutherans, Catholics, and other Christians move the needle on environmental concerns. Wherever one’s views may be on climate change, those who believe it needs attention may need to look to those who believe in more than the environment alone. “As climate negotiators struggle in Paris, some scientists who appealed to the […]
Britain is no longer a Christian country and should stop acting as if it is, says judge: A major inquiry into the place of religion in modern society has published this position, provoking a furious backlash from ministers and the Church of England. A two-year commission involving leading religious leaders from all faiths, calls for public life in […]
When Corporations Turned on Social Conservatives–the Indiana Affair: a 30 min. video interview with Professor Patrick Deneen who discusses the March 2015 controversy over Indiana’s religious freedom legislation when corporate America weighed in on the controversy. Deneen explains what that sudden partisanship by Big Business means for the future. Students can consider Deneen’s views on conservatism, progressivism, […]
Students may use this piece to examine and compare Enlightenment liberty with Christian liberty. In “Rethinking Lockean Liberty,” reviewer Daryl Charles reviews God, Locke, and Liberty by Joseph Loconte (Lexington, 2014): The central burden of Loconte’s treatise is that despite renewed scholarly attention to Locke, the religious character of A Letter Concerning Toleration has been slighted. Due to […]
How do we understand suffering through a theology of the cross? This question allows for an open dialogue with the subject allowing for a fuller exploration of the topic at hand. The question that most people are really asking is how to understand suffering. The answer to this question can only rightly be understood through […]
This edition of Comment, edited by James K.A. Smith, explores the relationship between memory and tradition. In our devotion to progress and technology, we lopped off our memory–as if tradition was what was holding us back. But it turns out forgetting hobbles progress too. A biblical imagination remembers forward. The remembering enjoined by the Torah looks forward […]
