I bet your father(-in-law) says this stuff, too
At the height of our frustration with the Iraq War, my dad used to say, “Bomb ’em all, and let Allah sort ’em out.”
He wasn’t alone. My pastor once felt compelled to debunk the idea from the pulpit while also validating the frustration driving it.
Facebook’s failure
Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen revealed that Facebook consistently places profits above the well-being of its users.
Big surprise. The real revelations are the details of how and why Facebook refused to stop making teen girls hate themselves and to curb misinformation.
In particular, Facebook’s internal Civic Integrity Team recommended eliminating…
Jodi Magness on the archeological record and Jesus’ burial
Jodi Magness is a professor of history at the University of North Carolina and a leading archeologist who has led digs in Israel and Palestine, published award-winning books, and produced two “Great Courses” about The Holy Land and Jesus.
She brings archeological insight to the time of Jesus and Second…
Celebration, Confusion, Repentance, Skepticism
A Christian, an atheist, and a scientist walk into a bar. They proceed to argue until the bartender kicks them out. They angrily go their separate ways.
I’ve written about the “faith” of atheism and why atheists and theists can’t agree. As you might imagine, I’ve received some interesting responses.
…
Celebrities, Culture, and Society
If it can happen to Britney …
When Britney Spears sang, “Baby, Hit Me One More Time” in 1999, I doubt she meant, “with another documentary about my conservatorship.”
Netflix, CNN, and the New York Times have produced multiple documentaries about Britney Spears and the conservatorship that gave her father, Jamie Spears, control over every aspect of…
Mark Cosper suggests the problem is Mark Driscoll. Jessica Johnson points to the systems and complicity around him.
Christianity Today’s hit podcast, “The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill,” is a must-listen for American Christians. The host, Mark Cosper, weaves together interviews and investigative journalism into a coherent, compelling narrative about the abuse and toxicity of Mark Driscoll.
Jessica Johnson — a professor of Religious Studies who spent…
Implications for our discipleship and witness
Relevant Magazine, a Christian publication geared toward Millennials, recently reported on a leaked government report with a disturbing finding.
Nineteen of the top 20 Facebook pages for Christians are run by Eastern European “troll farms,” mostly in Kosovo and Macedonia.
These troll farms post content to Facebook that provokes, outrages…
The Emotional Power of Linguistic Framing
In the influential book The Metaphors We Live By, linguist George Lakoff argues that metaphors shape our language, beliefs, and behaviors.
Metaphors influence the words we use, which then influence how we feel and think. Our feelings and thoughts affect our choices, actions, and habits.
That behavior then reinforces the…
“I feel the Spirit.” “No, that’s just neurons firing.”
Recently, I published The Faith of Militant Atheism as a response to Benjamin Cain’s essay, The Feebleness of the Backyard Church’s Argument for Theism, which itself was a response to Dan Foster.
In that essay, I argued that atheists like Benjamin Cain could benefit from some humility when debating the…
Synthesizing two influential hermeneutics
What is the Bible, and what do we do with it?
Old Testament scholar Pete Enns explores that question in his many books and on his podcast, The Bible for Normal People, co-hosted with Jared Byas. He doesn’t seem any closer to definitive answers than when he started.
