Academia & Ecclesia

Here are links to some impressive issues of  Enrichment Journal  (a quarterly ministry journal for Pentecostal and Charismatic ministers, especially Assemblies of God ministers): On Science and Religion http://enrichmentjournal.ag.org/201204/index.cfm http://faithandscience.ag.org/ On Politics and Religion http://enrichmentjournal.ag.org/201002/index.cfm It appears to me that the Assemblies of God has been distancing itself from fundamentalist evangelicalism. I personally consider that as an admirable sensitivity to where the Spirit is leading the Church.

What is the relationship between intelligence and religiosity? Are intelligent people generally non-religious? Do religious people generally lack analytic intelligence? Some researches seem to suggest that intelligent people are generally non-religious and religious people generally lack analytic intelligence. Here’s a link to a report about this issue: http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/08/new-meta-analysis-checks-the-correlation-between-intelligence-and-faith/ Here’s a link to an abstract of a scholarly paper about this issue: http://psr.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/08/02/1088868313497266 I don’t find the suggestions of such researches surprising. They seem to support the general suspicions of many philosophers. As a matter of fact, St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 1: 18 – 31 seems to even have the same suspicions about the relationship between intelligence and religiosity. For Paul, God called the ignoramuses of this world to shame the wise. I think that these findings can ...

In order to avoid overreactions from church leaders and members about the Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage rulings, Richard Hammar gave brief points about what church leaders need to know about the rulings at www.ag.org/pdfs/DOMA_rulings.pdf . I think that pastors and teachers in churches should read his brief points first, before they carelessly say anything about the rulings in the pulpit. Some pastors have a tendency to exaggerate the implications of the events in the world of politics, in order to scare church members about the destructive impact of secularization on traditional values. Exaggerated claims due to ignorance can breed false beliefs. False beliefs can be breeding grounds for all sorts of irrationalities.            

Dr. William Lane Craig, a leading evangelical apologist, is featured in a major article in The Chronicle of Higher Education [see http://chronicle.com/article/The-New-Theist/140019/?cid=cr&utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en ]. That should be a surprise, since CHE is not known for having a taste for people like Craig. I think that Craig is overrated by evangelicals, but underrated by academics. His triumphalism, I think, weakens the merits of his arguments, since it underrates what I consider to be persuasive cases for atheism. It tends to caricature his opponents’ arguments as unworthy of serious considerations. However, his skills as a debater are unparalleled. He is definitely a force to be reckoned with. Of course, winning a debate is not a sufficient condition for establishing the truth of one’s claim. But I think that his opponents, like Alexander Rosenberg (Duke philosopher) and Lawrence Krauss (theoretical physicist), are mistaken for downplaying the role of formal debates in ...

There are atheistic clergies. That may sound like an oxymoron. But that's true. One of the recent projects of Daniel Dennett, an academic philosopher / cognitive scientist, seems to verify that [see http://www.epjournal.net/wp-content/uploads/EP08122150.pdf ]. They currently serve as ministers in churches, but they just don't believe what they used or are supposed to believe anymore. Unsurprisingly, as far as I know, many of them are mainline Protestant ministers. I'm pretty sure that there are some from other branches of Christianity (including Catholic priests and evangelical ministers). Mainline Protestant churches, at least in the U.S., are heavily shaped by theological liberalism. When I occasionally visit mainline Protestant churches in the U.S., I can still sense the vestiges of Adolf von Harnack and Walter Rauschenbusch. The belief that God is still moving in our midst in a supernatural way is somehow frowned upon, as if it's the thing of the past. Christianit...

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%253Adoi%252F10.1371%252Fjournal.pone.0017349

See Roger Olson's excellent account of the relational view of divine sovereignty:   http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2013/04/a-non-calivinist-relational-view-of-gods-sovereignty/ Olson, an Arminian theologian from Baylor University, is one of the most sensible evangelical theologians of our time. His theology, which he describes as Arminian, relational, and narratival, is the best antidote to the influential teachings of contemporary popularizers of Calvinism in the U.S. (such as John Piper and R.C. Sproul).

http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/04/12/kissinger_returns

What does it mean for x to depend on y? {x depends on y if and only if [x could not have been actual or possible without y or (y causes the actuality of x or y causes the condition that makes x possible)]} For example, a thought A depends on a thinking thing B if and only if A could not have been actual or possible without B, or B causes the actuality of A or B causes the condition that makes A possible. Intuitively, it appears that a thought depends on a thinking thing. Let’s now consider the following claim: “morality depends on God”. With the term “morality,” I simply mean a principle or a system of principles that rational and impartial people recognize as binding to a rational and impartial agent (assuming that such principle or principles are relevant to the agent’s situation S), who is trying to determine what needs to be done in S, in order to avoid causing any significant and unnecessary harm to herself or another living creature. Let’s suppose that Bill, an extremely we...

For a response to some aspects of Alvin Plantinga’s view on the relationship between science and Christian theism, see Hans Halvorson’s “Plantinga on Providence and Physics” [ http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/9491/1/plantinga.pdf ]. Halvorson, a respected philosopher of science from Princeton University, is qualified to evaluate Plantinga’s claims about such relationship. It appears to me that, like Plantinga, Halvorson is a Reformed Christian.