Cooling Twilight

Blog

  • Fifty Shades of God

    God working on his next literary masterpiece

    I recently heard a Christian author promoting his book, and in doing so he claimed that the book’s message must truly be from God since it had sold far more copies than anyone had expected. In essence, unexpected book sales equaled evidence of divine inspiration. 

    Churches often use a similar metric. Attendance up? We must be following God’s plan. Conversely, churches that are struggling to fill the pews are often looked at askance: that’s what you get for failing to preach the Bible and properly minister to your flock.
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  • Review: The Revisionaries

    The Revisionaries

    The Revisionaries is a 2012 documentary film about the Texas State Board of Education and its recent battles over science and U.S. history curricula. Director Scott Thurman explores the intersection of politics, religion and science as seen through the school board debates, spending considerable time with school board member, full-time dentist and conservative Christian Don McLeroy. 

    Thurman gives fair time to all sides of the debate and presents a largely impartial account of the issues. Although I wished he would have provided a more in-depth examination of the issues themselves, that wasn’t the focus of the film. This movie isn’t about evolution, it’s about the politics of educating our children. Who decides what makes it into textbooks? And more importantly, what reasons do they have for making those decisions?
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  • Not So Super Bowl

    Not So Super Bowl

    In light of this weekend’s pending festivities, it seems relevant to mention the truly horrific nature of this “sport.”
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  • The Parable of the Good Samaritan: NRA Edition

    NRA Samaritan

    On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

    “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”

    He answered, “ ‘A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.’ ”

    “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

    But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And how many guns should I have?”
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  • Zombie Kingdom

    zombie-kingdom2

    A critical exploration of the cinematic work of Fleischer and Anderson and its function in American mythopoeics.

    I recently watched the 2009 horror-comedy Zombieland (directed by Ruben Fleischer) and the 2012 comedy-drama Moonrise Kingdom (directed by Wes Anderson). 

    Moonrise Kingdom is classic Anderson, a carefully cultivated cornucopia of kitsch that unwinds into a surreal coming-of-age fable. Zombieland is a rollicking and witty commentary on the zombie genre — though its “zombies” aren’t the classic living dead, but merely the virus-infected living.
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  • Review: Journeys of Faith edited by Robert Plummer

    Journeys of Faith

    Journeys of Faith is both an exciting and a frustrating book. Exciting, because it furthers robust ecumenical dialogue; frustrating, because it still only explored limited perspectives.

    The book is a series of personal essays that recount each author’s move from one particular stream of Christianity to another: Wilbur Ellsworth tells of his migration from Baptist preacher to Eastern Orthodox priest, Francis Beckwith describes his return to Roman Catholicism from Evangelicalism, Chris Castaldo shares his journey from Catholicism to Evangelicalism and Lyle Dorsett tells of his trip from Evangelicalism to Anglicanism. Each essay is followed by a rejoinder from another author that critiques that particular faith tradition and then the original author is given room for a brief final response.
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  • On Guns

    Do you feel lucky?

    Guns, gun control, gun rights — these are hot topics these days, and rightly so. They’re complex social and political issues and the rhetoric on both sides is often off-putting and entirely unhelpful. As with abortion, arguing about the extreme ends of the issue does little to address the enormity of the problem in the middle. It’s clear that we shouldn’t outlaw owning any and every firearm, and it’s equally clear that we shouldn’t allow unrestricted access to any and every firearm. But where to draw the line between those two extremes? That’s where things get messy. (more…)

  • Review: Evolution’s Purpose by Steve McIntosh

    Evolution's Purpose

    Evolution’s Purpose: An Integral Interpretation of the Scientific Story of Our Origins by Steve McIntosh is a heady brew of science and philosophy. This isn’t a quick-and-easy guide for practical spiritual growth. Rather, it’s a dense and thorough explication of an integrative understanding of evolution. For McIntosh, evolution is not a strictly scientific, materialistic subject; it touches on every aspect of reality: “there is no getting around the metaphysical connotations of evolution as a ubiquitous cosmic process.” And it is this new “philosophy of evolution” that will play a decisive role in both our individual spiritual development as well as the continued development of humanity.
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  • Steve Chalke is Wrong About Junia (but right about some other things)

    Steve Chalke

    Steve Chalke — the so-called “Billy Graham of England” — recently came out in support of same-sex marriage. This is huge news. It is exciting news. It is hopeful news.

    Chalke wrote an article for Christianity magazine espousing his views — you can read the short version of his article here and the longer version here.

    The articles are packed chock full o’ great food for thought. And while I applaud the general conclusion Chalke arrives at, I did find one of his statements to be factually lacking. (more…)

  • Some thoughts on Sola Scriptura

    Sola Scriptura

    In my post “The Bible Alone” I offered a definition of sola scriptura as “the belief that the Bible alone is the final and infallible authority in matters of Christian faith and that tradition, reason and emotions, though important, must ultimately be evaluated in light of Scripture.”

    I later deleted the words “and infallible” from that definition because they seemed to add unnecessary confusion. The Reformers didn’t view Biblical inspiration (a belief held by all Christians) as necessitating a belief in the absolute inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture. (more…)