I have never been much of a sports fan--except for a time in high school when I rooted for the Athens (Ala.) Golden Eagles, our town's home team (my private Athens Bible School did not particpate in intramural sports.) Thinking back more than half a century to those mighty Golden Eagles, an Old Testament verse comes to mind--the one that says "There were giants in the earth in those days; mighty men which were of old, men of renown." High school giants, I'm tellling you, with names like Mott Dollar, brothers Terry and Jerry Daniels, and Baxter Booth. Just saying the names conjures … [Read more...]
NOVEMBER 22, 1963
If you are an American and are 63 or older, you probably remember exactly where you were and what you were doing on November 22, 1963 when you learned that President John F. Kennedy had been fatally shot. Today's generation might think of the radical jihadist attack on New York and Washington D.C., since remembered as "9/11." November 1963 found me on leave from college and at work in my parents' family bookstore, earning money to return to school a year later. I went to lunch alone that Friday, a sheltered nineteen-year-old in an innocent world. What happened in Dallas during that lunch … [Read more...]
THEISTIC EVOLUTION – 2
A gracEmail subscriber asks: "Can someone who believes in God and accepts the Bible as his word also believe in evolution as the process by which God brought into being the diversity of animal life on earth, including human beings?" * * *This is one of those topics that tends to generate more heat than light, a subject about which we often feel more strongly and deeply than we think. That is neither particularly good nor bad. It is simply a reality of which we do well to be aware. A Bible class teacher drove the distinction home to me about 25 years ago when he showed the class a … [Read more...]
THE WORLD VILLAGE
The following details gathered from a variety of supposedly reliable sources help put our own life situations in world perspective. * * * If the world's population were shrunk to a village containing 100 people with present human ratios remaining as now, the human village would contain 57 Asians, 21 Europeans, 14 people from the Americas (North, Central and South) and 8 Africans. Of the 100 villagers, 70 would be non-white. Sixty-six would be non-Christian (22 Muslims, 15 Hindus, 14 non-religious, 6 Buddhists, 9 other) while 34 would profess Christianity (18 Roman … [Read more...]
GOD’S HANDIWORK
This past Christmas eight related households in five states each received an exquisite piece of counted cross stitch artwork. These gifts of love represented hundreds if not thousands of hours of meticulous, painstaking craftsmanship by my mother, who recently celebrated her 85th birthday, and who selected each work to complement the household colors and decor of each of her six birth children and two stepchildren scattered throughout the USA. Sara Faye and I opened ours at Mom's birthday party in January -- a portrait-quality portrayal of a cottage yard aflame with brilliant flowers, … [Read more...]
IDEOLOGY MATTERS
Newspapers across the United States featured a religion article this weekend titled "Ideology Matters: What is the most dangerous idea in religion today?" Answering that question were Harold Kushner, Deepak Chopra, Richard Land, Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im and Wayne Dyer. At first glance this roster appears to represent a wide diversity of opinion, including Jewish (Kushner), Christian (Land), Muslim (An-Na'im), Eastern mysticism (Chopra) and secular (Dyer). In actual fact, three of the five reflect no diversity at all. The most dangerous idea in religion today, say Kushner, Chopra and Dyer, is … [Read more...]
Don’t ask this columnist about critical thinking
A special gracEmail essay Don’t ask this columnist about critical thinking A widely-syndicated opinion piece by Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts, Jr. published on March 16, 2007 provides opportunity for a useful exercise in critical thinking. Under the title "Don’t ask this general about morality," Mr. Pitts takes to task Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, who four days earlier expressed publicly his personal conviction that "homosexual acts" are "immoral." The general made his comments during an interview with the Chicago Tribune in which he … [Read more...]
PHILOSOPHY AND FAITH
A gracEmail reader writes: "I have recently been involved in conversations with a philosophy student who has lost his faith. Several issues in the Bible trouble him, in the areas of original sin, predestination, and the nature of the resurrection. Can you point me to Scriptures or to other reading materials that might help?" * * * Philosophy students tend to think of Christianity in terms of an intellectual puzzle to be solved -- and to suppose that they cannot believe until they have all the answers. Unfortunately, that will never happen. Christianity is not primarily … [Read more...]
SPECIAL GRACEMAIL ESSAY
Robertson's comment on Haiti earthquake reveals bad manners, embellished history and poor theology The ground had hardly stopped shaking in Haiti when Pat Robertson, the affable but loose-lipped founder of Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) and President of Regent University, started a rumble of his own by saying that the stricken nation was "cursed" because of a 200-year-old "pact with the devil" supposedly made by rebellious slaves to obtain freedom from their occupying French masters. Robertson's off-the-cuff remarks, easily accessible in a video clip now gone viral on internet's … [Read more...]