The Crossroads of Christianity and Culture

When I was first sent as a missionary to Austria I was almost immediately invited to a theological commission meeting for churches in Central Europe.  This seems like a great idea until I realized that in the commission meetings everyone spoke German.   Suddenly my PhD didn’t really mean a whole lot.  Even when I could understand what the discussion was about, I really couldn’t say anything.  And if I did say anything I sounded like a five-year-old because that was about the level of my German at the time. Without the language all your knowledge, all of your insights, and all of your experience is locked up inside of you and it cannot be communicated.   It is no different when we come to the cultural realm of digitally mediated relationships.  It is a realm and a culture with its own language.  It is a visual language, and an aural language. It is a language with its own forms and grammar.  And if you don’t communicate in that language then you ca...

It hasn’t been a secret for nearly a decade that Christian theological education faces some very difficult challenges. Some of these are well documented. Over the last 30 years or so, the number of accredited theological schools has more than doubled. Independent evangelical churches have sought to reassess and, in some cases, expand the educational qualifications of their pastors by creating their own theological schools and remaining independent from established denominational seminaries and older non-denominational schools. Yet over the last 20 years there has been both a decline in applications for graduate level theological education and a shift away from the Master of Divinity to shorter and more focused degree and certificate programs. These changes are driven by shifts in the understanding of Christian vocation, membership declines in mainline denominations and the leveling of growth among independent evangelical churches.  Beneath these readily observable changes are tecto...

That which is reasonable isn't necessarily scientific, and is frequently untrue.  Should America be locked down?  More  and more reasonable voices say no. And they have their reasonable advocates. The problem is that  reason in this case isn't scientific, just as a reasonable hypothesis can be totally false. For example. Given all we know about the relationship between disease and death we can reasonably say that there are usually multiple causes of death, and frequently multiple diseases involved. This leads to the reasonable hypothesis that the COVID-19 disease caused by the corona virus may not be any more fatal than the seasonal flu; that it is simply one of many co-morbidities involved in the deaths of those who have it. And it reasonably follows that drastic steps taken to halt its spread are ill conceived.  To move beyond reason to science we would now need to test this hypothesis. The obvious test is to expose a large population to the corona virus and t...

A number of years ago I was asked to sit in on the United Nations conference studying near earth objects, or NEOs.  The purpose of the conference was to discuss how people should be alerted if there was the possibility of one of these objects striking the earth. Two moments in the conference really stood out for me.  The first was a short talk by a gentleman who specialized in communicating danger to the public.   He said, and I believe he is right "no one understands risk communicated in percentages. If there’s a chance of rain just tell people to take an umbrella."  The second memorable moment came at the end of the first day. I was sitting at the back of the room being quiet while all the officials and scientists talked. Then one of them noticed my presence and asked me who I was and why I was there. I answered that I was a guest of one of the organizers and was just observing. Then I said that I was a teacher in a theological school. He quickly shot back,  “...

Recently Dan Patrick, Lt. Governor of the state of Texas suggested that he, and by extension other “Sr. Citizens” should be willing to risk infection and COVID-19 rather than sacrifice the country and its economic prospects. And thus by extension the lives of children and grandchildren. He got pretty beat up for it. But for the wrong reasons. Religious people took him on for the implied suggestion of the sacrifice of the lives of the elderly to save the economy. That was my first response but it was misguided. Gov. Cuomo said there didn’t need to be a tradeoff between public safety and the economy. A good tweet but not backed up by an actual strategy. On the sentimental side folks said that children and grandchildren would rather have parents and grand parents than a quick return to economic prosperity.  I’d like to think so myself but its not an evidence based assertion .  And that’s what is really wrong with Mr. Patrick’s suggestion.  Instead of acting on evidence he is...

The fundamental value underlying all claims to individual rights and freedoms is the good of human society on its broadest scale . This insight was clear to the founders of the United States, who wrote its constitution precisely to “promote the general Welfare” and who sought to establish justice, insure domestic tranquilly, provide for the common defense and secure the blessings NOT for a few individuals but for “ourselves and our posterity.”  The collective good is the reason for the formation of a United States.  "We the people of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” The other great insight of the founders is expressed in the 1st amendment to the constitution, which mak...

On March 19th Gov. Gregg Abbott (corrected to add: suspended the Texas Open Meetings act) and declared a ban on meetings of over 50 persons state wide. He then noted in a TV interview that it didn’t include religious bodies because he wanted to protect their religious freedom.  https://www.kxan.com/news/coronavirus/gov-abbott-freedom-of-religion-means-churches-not-in-covid-19-order-but-many-making-changes/amp/ This is a completely bogus reading of the meaning of religious freedom. We do not offer religious freedom to people who practice human sacrifice. And letting religious groups hold large gatherings that create vectors for the spread of the corona virus will be followed inevitably by an increased numbers of deaths, an overstressed hospital system, and then even more deaths. It is apparently Gov. Abbott’s affirmation of human sacrifice as a legitimate religious option in the State of Texas. I note as well that this effectively allows religious groups to continue to hold open me...