The Easter season is a natural time for Christians to reflect on miracles, as the resurrection of Jesus is the central miracle of our tradition. And as Robert Bruce Mullin reminds us in “Science, Miracles, and the Prayer-Gauge Debate,” miracles are a natural point of contact when science and Christianity meet. Thus scientists and theologians at that interface today continue to take up the question of whether one can reasonably believe that Jesus of Nazareth died and subsequently returned to life in a physical sense. BioLogos ran a whole series on the topic last month, Veritas Forum published this piece last Easter from scientist (and ESN contributor) Josh Swamidass, the Faraday Institute had N. T. (Tom) Wright speak on the topic a few years ago, to list just a few examples. Even Scientific American covered the topic last year, albeit with a different conclusion from Michael Shermer. (Let’s agree to be charitable and assume the fact it was published on April Fool’s Day last year rather than closer to Easter was a coincidence of the print publishing schedule.)
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Book Review/Discussion
Winsome Persuasion. A Teaser
This week I received a box of books from InterVarsity Press which included Winsome Persuasion: Christian Influence in a Post-Christian World by Tim Muehlhoff and Richard Langer (2017). In the midst of Holy Week, how does Winsome Persuasion, Christianity Today’s 2018 Book of the Year Award of Merit – Apologetics/Evangelism, contribute to the discussion of and engagement in public discourse? [Read more…] about Winsome Persuasion. A Teaser
Science Book Club: When Science & Christianity Meet Ch 8
Evolutionary biology is a challenging topic; the history of the Christian church’s reaction to it, doubly so. Continuing a theme running throughout When Science and Christianity Meet, David Livingston identifies the human element as a major complicating factor. After all, the church does not respond to evolutionary biology; individual Christians do. And some of those individuals are responding more to Darwin the man than his scientific contributions. And even Darwin the man had many reactions to his own work and its relationship to his own religious beliefs and perhaps subsequent lack thereof. And on and on, down the rabbit hole.
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Science Book Club: When Science & Christianity Meet Ch 7
How would I have thought about my fellow humans had I lived 50, 100, 150 years ago? That question has been nagging me for a while now. As a biologist, my current thoughts on topics like race are influenced by my understanding of the science. I am also aware that various scientists have come to a range of conclusions on those questions over the years. With hindsight, we can see how some of those conclusions were based on flawed studies, biased reasoning, or incomplete or nonexistent data. But would I have been able to identify those issues at the time?
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Review: Thinking Through Creation
With Thinking Through Creation, Chris Watkin succeeds brilliantly in providing a short, clear and accessible volume that sets the reader on a path towards his stated goal of developing a biblical “interpretive grid†to understand culture (p. 3). [Read more…] about Review: Thinking Through Creation