Chuck Colson, Greg Boyd, and Shane Claiborne recently sat down with Krista Tippett for an interview about the political views of Evangelical Christians. You can watch the video here, or listen to the audio below.
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Brian McLaren at Willow Creek
Last week, the Baptist Press ran a story about the address that Brian McLaren gave at a conference for youth ministers at Willow Creek Community Church. As you might expect, he said some things that grate against traditional evangelical priorities. Here’s an example: “Some of us came from a religious tradition or a religious background where our main role was to recruit kids to go to heaven. And that’s a good thing. Mortality rates are still pretty high, and we all have to face that decision. But I’m here to challenge you to think bigger and deeper and in more layers and dimensions about your role.”
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Christians and Alcohol
Baptists in North America have a strong tradition of teetotaling piety. For Southern Baptists, however, the issue is a live one again as dissenters are making the case for Christian freedom to partake in moderation. In 2006, the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution promoting total abstinence, but the measure only passed after a debate with a vocal minority. The fact that there was even a debate is significant for a denomination that has been fairly consistent on this issue. The SBC has passed over forty such resolutions since 1886.
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Abortion as Art
Yesterday the Yale Daily News reported that an undergraduate named Aliza Shvarts is using abortion as art: “Beginning next Tuesday, Shvarts will be displaying her senior art project, a documentation of a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminated herself “as often as possible” while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages. Her exhibition will feature video recordings of these forced miscarriages as well as preserved collections of the blood from the process. The goal in creating the art exhibition, Shvarts said, was to spark conversation and debate on the relationship between art and the human body.”
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Young, Restless, Reformed by Collin Hansen
Collin Hansen, Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist’s Journey with the New Calvinists (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008). 160pp. $14.99. In 2006, Christianity Today editor-at-large Collin Hansen wrote an article about the rise of Calvinism among younger evangelicals. The piece had the title “Young, Restless, Reformed,” and it was a CT cover-story that raised eyebrows across evangelicalism. That is one of the reasons that news of Hansen’s book (published under the same title) caught my attention when I heard it was in the works last year. When Justin Taylor noted that the book was finally released on March 30, I ordered it almost immediately.
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Obama and Clinton on When Life Begins
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were asked a number of tough questions at a recent event called the “Compassion Forum,” hosted by CNN’s Campbell Brown and Newsweek’s Jon Meacham. Meacham asked the candidates if life begins at conception. Here are their responses:
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DTS Debate about Genesis and Myth
UPDATE, 1/16/12: I recently had a very helpful conversation with Dr. Gordon Johnston, and he was very gracious to answer the questions that I had after attending the presentation (see the questions below). In no uncertain terms, Dr. Johnston affirmed the inerrancy of scripture (as he did in his initial presentation), he affirmed the historicity of Adam and Eve, and he affirmed that Genesis 2 is a faithful narrative of what happened in history. He also reiterated that his view is not a ‘mythical’ reading of Genesis 2. Despite my earlier questions, Dr. Johnston assured me that these affirmations have been his position all along. Last Tuesday, I learned of…
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Peter Enns and Evangelical Debates over Genesis
The internet has been ablaze in recent weeks with talk about the suspension of Peter Enns from the faculty of Westminster Theological Seminary (see my previous post). So my ears perked up on Tuesday when the President of my college announced in chapel that there would be a debate at Dallas Theological Seminary between two faculty members over the subject matter of Enns’ book Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament. So I bought the book and made plans to attend the debate.
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Have you made the switch to Vista?
MSNBC.com is reporting that Windows XP users are revolting against Windows Vista. According to the report, PC users simply do not want to learn the new interface, and they are not at all confident that Vista will be compatible with common hardware devices. I am among those who have not made the switch to Vista. When our college got new computers last year, we all had the opportunity to upgrade to Vista, and I declined.
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Baptist Press on the Criswell Decision
Gary Ledbetter of the Southern Baptist Texan has more on the news that I wrote about yesterday. He writes: “A rumor that Criswell College, started in 1975 by First Baptist Church of Dallas, would become part of nearby Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary was laid to rest by the college’s trustees during their regularly scheduled board meeting April 10. “As the college and the church continue to discuss their future relationship, some had suggested that Criswell College might become part of the seminary’s undergraduate program. That was apparently the motivation for the Criswell College trustees’ vote, which was without dissent, that the college would not become part of the seminary in…