“Houston, we’ve had a problem.” Over 200,000 miles from Earth, one of Odyssey’s oxygen tanks had exploded, making Apollo 13’s lunar landing impossible. Returning home required nudging Odyssey into the gravitational pull of the Moon – to slingshot the craft around the Moon and back home. A similar maneuver might help faith communities in one…
If God cares, why does he often delay – or not show up at all? If the gospel is good news for everyone, why don’t we hear it everywhere, everyday? And how can a reasonable person believe in the Trinity – three persons in the Godhead? Christians routinely roll out replies that prove implausible in…
Concluding her marriage took ten minutes. Coming to the end of it took ten years. During that decade, Diane Vaughan says she and her husband were “uncoupling.” Once you learn how “uncoupling” occurs, you’ll see why 44 percent of all Americans leave their faith or change religions at least once in their life. The good…
When Sarah Palin described her choice about whether to “change the circumstances” of being pregnant with a Down syndrome baby, Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus said she gave away the game in the abortion debate. She’s right. Words create and reflect realities. How we talk matters. The reason most faith communities missed it is because…
“The Cylons were created by man…” Battlestar Galactica’s prologue pointed viewers back to something that happened before the beginning of the weekly saga. It was a reminder of unresolved tensions – unresolved until the finale this past March. There’s a lesson here for faith communities focusing more on the finale than the prologue. It’s the…
A broader story required… “It’s not about porn at all,” said a University of Maryland (College Park) student. “It’s about free speech.” The campus screening of a triple-X film this past week raised tensions between some people of faith on one side and students and faculty on the other – but neither side resolved anything….
When Americans and Europeans look toward Africa, Asia, and Latin America, they see Christians doing many good things like digging wells. Closer to home, however, Western Christianity looks like a doughnut. Not healthy.
Nonsense and knowledge… “Math is the only language all human beings share,” according to IBM’s new TV ad. “Math can do anything.” Some would say this is nonsense pretending to be knowledge. Others however don’t catch it because they haven’t been immunized against idiocy. C.S. Lewis had an antidote. Here it is – see if…
Piecing together the puzzle… “First find the four corners” – good advice, especially for people piecing together the puzzle of connecting Sunday to Monday. The first corner piece might be called unprecedented. If so, horizontal, imagination, and institutions might be the other three corners and frame a more realistic picture of changing the world.
Shrinking market… Since 2001, the only religious group that grew in every US state was people saying they had “no” religion – 15 percent of the population. Moreover, the number of Americans identifying themselves as Christians is dropping, according the same survey. GM and Xerox reacted poorly when their market share began to drop. Lockheed…