I’m a few chapters into the recent film Arrival. (I intend to finish watching over the next two weeks so if you’ve seen it and are going to see me, please: no spoilers!) The story begins with Dr. Louise Banks, a linguistics college professor who’s in class the day that 12 giant pods from an extraterrestrial civilization […]
What earns credibility
Ethos is one of the three classical types of argumentative proofs or modes. The other two, logos and pathos, deal with logical and emotional reasoning, respectively. Ethos isn’t primarily about whether a claim makes sense within its context or conforms to a community’s beliefs about the world, although someone who can’t be relied on to […]
#2016AFConf: Wrath on the stand
Wrath theology didn’t fare so well at tonight’s first meeting of the Adventist Forum conference on nonviolence and atonement. With headliner Greg Boyd, and seven different respondants (two formal responses and five questions), the group challenged both the substance and the implications of theories about penal substitution’s wrathful deity. I tweeted quite a lot and […]
Humility required
Love never ends… When the complete comes, the partial will come to an end.” –1 Corinthians 13 We are always changing because our understanding is always incomplete.” –Dr. Olive Hemmings One of the most important functions of heterogeneous teams is to expand the individual’s incomplete perception and understanding. And one of the most important functions […]
Sabbath Wisdom: Words Matter
Almost every Sabbath morning, I share with my Twitter network a series of tweets rooted in an aspect of faith or religious ethics. These tweets, tagged #SabbathWisdom, are often inspired by study conversations or sermons at my church. A sermon about the power of the word resonated with me yesterday. I may have been primed by Friday’s […]
When Christians Use People to Prop Up Books
Content note: Frank references to rape, sexual violence, bible passages, and Christian obtuseness. “It’s evil, but it also happens to be scriptural… Tell the whole story.” —Rev. Dr. Wil Gafney
