Marginal Christianity

December 12, 2016 by Jag Bhalla 1. It is in our nature to need stories. We arrive “biologically prepared” for them. They were evolutionarily crucial. We feel and think in story-logic (story-causality configures our reaction-biology). 2. Like our language instinct, a story drive—inborn hunger to hear and make stories—emerges untutored (=“biologically prepared”). 3. “Every culture bathes its children in stories " (to explain how the world works, to educate their emotions). . . Read more at http://bigthink.com/errors-we-live-by/how-stories-configure-human-nature

Christian theology says both “Yes” and “No” as it announces its good news to the world. Its positive word concerns what God has done, is doing, and will do for the world. Its “No” concerns views that misstate, mistake, or deny aspects of that positive announcement. Attending to the “No” is a crucial part of our struggle as God’s subversive counter-revolutionary movement for it is precisely these misstatements, mistakes, and denials we seek to subvert and present an alternative to. Creation-Evolution? From the get-go the loudest No to be said in the discussion of creation is the creation-evolution or science-faith issue. And the no has to be said to the entire discussion. I’m not going to spend a great deal of time on it here. But I want to say loud and clear that this is a pseudo-issue. Science asks and answers questions of what is there and how it got there. Though it is an ongoing discussion among scientists there is a stable consensus in the field that some form of evoluti

Posted by PeteEnns on October 26, 2015 in Christianity and evolution The Evolution of Adam 1 Comment Last Friday I gave the Religion and Civil Society lecture at the annual meeting of the Institute for the Study of Christianity and Culture at Michigan State University on “Reconciling Human Origins and Religious Faith: Thoughts from a Christian Evolutionist.” (Go Wolverines . . . uh, I mean Spartans.) Many thanks to Malcolm D. Magee (director of ISCC) for the invitation to speak and to his assistant Kristin Whitwam for making everything run smoothly despite my best efforts to be difficult. Thanks, too, for all the wonderful people who came out to dialogue about evolution and Christian faith.  You remind me why I do this and why this is anything but a dead topic! I spoke for an hour from a manuscript, which I almost never do (the manuscript part . .. going on for an hour is easy peasy for a wordy guy like me), and complete with all sorts of impressive