November 24th, 2009
Some in my faith community can get a little testy when Charles Darwin’s name comes up. So when Carl Safina, my friend the atheist and ocean conservationist, told me that Jesus and Darwin were his two heroes, I decided it was time to read Darwin’s Origin of Species for myself. After all, I’ve often challenged those who have any prickly opinions about Christianity to temper said opinions by reading the gospels. Much can be learned by going to the source documents.
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Tags: carl safina, charles darwin, evolution, gospels, intelligent design, Jesus, Origin of Species, special creation
Posted in jesus brand spirituality | 21 Comments »
November 17th, 2009
Maybe you’ve notice that pastoring seems to be a near occaision to mainline anxiety. I’ve been battling anxiety for the past year myself, thank you, but I seem to be on the mend. Thanks in no small part to the best book on leadership I’ve read in years: A Failure of Nerve by Edwin Friedman. Stop, drop, and read this book if you are a young pastor battling anxiety.
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Tags: A Failure of Nerve, anxiety, Bill Clinton, Edwin Friedman, empathy, family systems, Generation to Generation, sympathy
Posted in advice to young pastors | 6 Comments »
November 9th, 2009
Why should human beings care about whether the population of blue fin tuna is decimated by overfishing? Its pretty unusual in the realm of living things for one species to care about the fortunes of another, even though we live in a delicate balance of competition and cooperation with all other living things. So far as I know, human beings are the only species capable of caring whether or not another species flourishes or declines. Which alone makes me think perhaps we are meant to care, or that in our caring we are expressing our uniqueness.
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Tags: blue fin tuna, environmentalists, extinction, Jesus Freaks, overfishing, species
Posted in environment | 14 Comments »