By: Sam Stephens on March 26, 2014
A Brief Guide to Ideas by William Raeper and Linda Edwards provides a great overview of thoughts, philosophies and ideas of the Western world since almost the beginning. The book makes it plain and clear that philosophy cannot be brushed aside as lacking relevance in the present post modern, post Christian culture as it may…
By: Mark Steele on March 23, 2014
Raeper and Edwards in their book A Brief Guide to Ideas does a fair job summarizing philosophical and theological thought through the ages. What caught my attention was their chapter titled How Should Society be Organized (Raeper and Edwards 1997 p. 137)? I have had the opportunity to travel internationally the past few years, especially…
By: Richard Rhoads on March 23, 2014
Ever since my days in youth ministry I have always enjoyed a good slip and slide. A little soap, a good long sheet of plastic, a steep hill and a whole lot of water is all you need to have a whole lot of fun. So when I heard of the “Crazy Insane Water Slide”…
By: Michael Badriaki on March 23, 2014
Douthat’s book “, Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics”, is an intense and sobering read. The author’s work is informative indeed and even though it’s a magnifying polemic on American Christendom, one can’t help but feel all sorts of emotions along with follow up inquiry. Case in point, what have I believed…
By: John Woodward on March 22, 2014
The Church in America is in decline. The question many recent books have asked is why and if there is any hope? Diana Butler Bass’s Christianity After Religion provides a generous dose of statistics to illustrate the extent of this crisis. She points out that in 1970, “some 95 percent of Americans said they were…
By: Liz Linssen on March 21, 2014
According to Douthat, American Christianity has lost its moorings from the harbour of the orthodox faith. We are in an age where “the only Jesus who really matters is the one you invent for yourself.” [i] Where accommodationists imitate Jesus’ “scandalously comprehensive love, while ignoring his scandalously comprehensive judgments.” [ii] A period when conspiracy theorists…
By: Telile Fikru Badecha on March 21, 2014
A couple of years ago, I was invited to share about my ministry with a mission committee at one of my ministry partner churches in the area. I gave them an overview of what we do and how their generous support helps us provide our communities with basic physical needs by building elementary schools, for…
By: rhbaker275 on March 21, 2014
I was encouraged in my Focus 40 devotion for day ten leading up to Easter. It addressed, in a round-about way, the theme in much of the book Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics by Ross Douthat.[1] The devotion, written by missionary Kelly Philips, faces the problem of how Christianity, which includes each…
By: Bill Dobrenen on March 21, 2014
What do you see in the picture above? What you see may depend on what you are looking for. Also, what you see one moment may not be there the next moment, or it might be the opposite of what you saw in the first place. Or perhaps you see two different things at the…
By: Mitch Arbelaez on March 21, 2014
As I read this weeks book Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics, I was awed by the author’s writing ability, not simply by his ingenious craftiness of sentence structure but by his incredible ability of synthesis – taking many historical facts both positive and negative and reconstructing in a few pages the…
By: Carol McLaughlin on March 21, 2014
Heresy is a word that seems to be thrown about with too much ease, almost like a ball tossed in the air for a tennis serve. Struck with passion and force it is upon its opponent quickly resulting in a defensive response. A noticeable similarity between tennis and heresy is in the volley. Yet surprisingly…
By: Phil Smart on March 20, 2014
“Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?” We all remember this phrase from the fairy tale Snow White. Mirrors that could tell us what we want or what we envision, whether true or false, would probably sell out quickly at the local retailer – if they existed. But this was a…
By: Ashley Goad on March 20, 2014
I am the ultimate optimist. The glass is always half-full. See a basket of lemons? Let’s make lemonade. And there is always a silver lining, or something to learn from a difficult situation, even when there seems to be no hope at all. Some may call me naïve or an idealist, but I pray to…
By: Richard Volzke on March 20, 2014
The rise and decline of the church’s influence in the 20th century was affected by various factors and trends of that day. Political, economic, geopolitical, and inner self-awareness all effected how Christianity was viewed in society, either positively or negatively. Douthat, in his book Bad Religion, explains that every human being is religious and believes…
By: David Toth on March 20, 2014
“Sudsy” was his nick name, used only by the students and only behind his back! He was an average looking guy except he always was a bit disheveled. His nickname came from gossip, though quite broadly substantiated, that he drank a bit to much beer, or “suds” as it was called back in the day…
By: Sharenda Roam on March 20, 2014
The topics of discussion today in my Biomedical Ethics class were Natural Law Theory, the Doctrine of Double Effect, the Principle of Totality, and Animal Testing. Whew! A great debate ensued between my students about ideas, ethics and if there are “natural laws” as Aquinas might define them. In our doctoral reading this week, “A…
By: Garrick Roegner on March 20, 2014
Reading A Brief Guide to Ideas by William Raeper and Linda Edwards reminded me of the Coen Brother’s existential masterpiece The Big Lebowski. Jeff Bridges as The Dude (aka Jeffrey Lebowski) stars as the protaganist on an epic odyssey of sorts through the absurdity of modern Los Angeles. As Raeper and Edwards introduce the reader…
By: Chris Ellis on March 20, 2014
I feel like I often write about my fundamentalist past with regards to my assigned reading from George Fox, and unfortunately this week isn’t an exception. InA Brief Guide to Ideas: Turning Points in the History of Human Thought, Raepar and Smithtrace the history of epistemology throughout much of Western thought. He grapples with questions like,…
By: Deve Persad on March 20, 2014
What would your response be, if you walked into a car dealership and the salesperson, instead of telling you all the reasons why a particular make or model would benefit you, lacked knowledge, seemed indifferent or was continually tending to other tasks while under the pretense of listening to your needs? Chances are that you…
By: Sandy Bils on March 20, 2014
The way we question life and response to these though challenges consist a multitude of approaches. Every person utilizes different methods. Especially in our postmodern times we are used to connect heterogeneous systems into a patchwork of approaches to meet the challenges in our lifes. Philosophy is one of them; Theology a different one. In…
