These are my thoughts for the past week as well as for this Sunday, May 9, 2010, the 6th Sunday of Easter and Mother’s Day. The Scriptures for this Sunday are Acts 16: 9 – 15, Revelation 21: 1 – 10, 22 – 22: 5, and John 14: 23 -29.
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The title of this piece comes […]

When I began thinking about this piece several days ago, it was with a single item in mind. But then something happened at a college in South Carolina that spoke to the same topic on a little larger scale. And all of this is occurring against the backdrop of reforming education.
What is academic freedom?
I suppose […]

These are my thoughts for the 2nd Sunday after the Epiphany, 17 January 2010. The Scriptures for this Sunday are Isaiah 62: 1 – 5, 1 Corinthians 12: 1 – 11, and John 2: 1 – 11. This is also “Human Relations Sunday”.
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Cross-posted to Thoughts From The Heart On The Left – please post your […]

I am working on a number of projects right now, all of which deal with science, education and science education in some manner, shape or form. First is the “book” project. Entitled “Science and Education in the 21st Century: A Contrarian View”, it is a look at science, science education and topics that we all […]

Here are my thoughts for the 2nd Sunday in Advent, 6 December 2009. It is as much a political piece as it is an Advent piece.
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For whatever reason, the thoughts that I had about this piece never quite came together like I thought they would. But the words of John the Baptizer, written in Luke, […]

This was supposed to be a piece questioning the motives of those who marched in Washington last weekend. At best, they have a selective memory; at worst, they are representative of days past when the police set the dogs on the children in Birmingham, state troopers beat the marchers on the Edmund Pettis bridge outside […]

This Psalm has always been framed and displayed in our home to remind us of who is our shield, our refuge, and our hope.  God is our protector and provider.  He is our ever present help in time of trouble.  I think it is apropos to read Psalm 91 as we remember 9/11.  We […]

“In the beginning” is a phrase that a lot of people have problems with; perhaps not with the words themselves but with how long ago it was. The physical evidence tells me that this world began several million years ago and the universe began even further back in time. But there are those who will […]

With all of the debate swirling around recently with the Iowa Gay Marriage Ruling, with my stand on Abortion, and in my work with high-risk kids when sharing the Gospel; I’m often told… “yeah Shane, but God is love.”  “A loving God would never do that.”  “A loving God wouldn’t make me this way and […]

This is a portion of what I have posted on my own blog for this Sunday:
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Abraham Lincoln once told us that the government of this country was a “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” But it doesn’t appear to me that we have that sort of government anymore.
In the […]

Here are my thoughts for the 2nd Sunday in Easter.  The Scriptures for today are Acts 4: 32 - 35, 1 John 1: 1 - 2: 2, and John 20: 19 - 31.  This is also a political piece but the times demand it.
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For as long as I can recall, I have considered myself a […]

The post on my own blog with this title (Thoughts From The Heart on The Left) is for this coming Sunday but I think that it needs to be on this blog as well.  I have posted a link to the entire piece so that you can continue reading it there (besides, I added a […]

This was first posted back in October, 2005.  I have also addressed this issue in my post, "Intelligent Design" (and my apologies for the links in that post that don’t work; I hope to have them up and working this week).
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The following is a copy of a letter that I sent to the Kansas Board […]

Shock! Amazement! Wonderment!
Those were the words that seemed to resound through the “ether” when it was announced that the governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, had been indicted and arrested on corruption charges.
“How stupid can this guy have been?” was the question that my wife asked, in light of what Patrick Fitzgerald said at the news […]

For what do we have to be thankful this year? I am first thankful that I can post my thoughts. To post my thoughts and express my beliefs is, first and foremost, what I believe this day is about. While it may not have been the reason that the first thanksgiving was celebrated in 1621 […]

Let me start this off by first noting that I graduated from a Tennessee high school in 1968. I also never took biology in high school and only took one course which could be considered biology in college (it was a course that focused on evolution, though exactly how and in what way I do […]

I am continually struck by how strongly I can affirm, respect and agree with someone one day and then just be blown away by something the next. John Mark Reynolds is a brilliant philosopher and I often read even his political works knowing that they will contain wisdom and insight that many other “conservative” writers […]

My thoughts for this 4th of July, 2008, are posted on my own page - "Just What Exactly Is Freedom?".  I am preaching this coming Sunday and this post is my message for today.

Is former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney breaking with his fellow Mormons?
Is he engaging in politicalspeak?
Or does he simply not know what his own Mormon religion teaches about the Bible?
These questions came to my mind several nights ago after listening to Romney’s response to a YouTube-submitted question of Joseph from Dallas, Texas during the most recent […]

Earlier this year, in the face of the appallingly early start of the 2008 presidential race, I wrote a seven-post blog series dealing with some “lenses” through which Christians might view the election. Now that the first pre-convention contest is set at little more than a month from now, the series may be of greater […]

Here is a great article from Bishop William Willimon written in 1995. It is still relevant to our current situation today and will not please Christians on the right nor the left. Among other things he states:
I’m a mainline-liberal-Protestant-Methodist-type Christian. I know we’re soft on Scripture. Norman Vincent Peale has exercised a more powerful effect […]

A recent issue of TIME magazine excerpts a book that looks at evangelist Billy Graham’s relationships with eleven US Presidents–from Harry Truman to George W. Bush.
But it does more than recount incidents from Graham’s experience as presidential pastor.
Senator and former First Lady Hillary Clinton, one of the White House occupants Graham knows best, told the […]

When his subjects referred to Herod as “the Great,” it certainly was not a commentary on his moral character and integrity. Herod was a skilled politician and an eloquent diplomat. At the same time, he was insanely jealous of his position and power. He stopped at nothing to retain his authority; he tolerated no rivals. […]

Talk show host Dennis Prager has created quite a stir by suggesting that Keith Ellison, set to become the first Muslim member of the United States House of Representatives, should not be allowed to use a Koran during his swearing-in.
Prager argues that Ellison’s choice:
…is an act of hubris that perfectly exemplifies multiculturalist activism — my […]

See here.

In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis shares thoughts that those who consider their political beliefs ordained by Christ might ponder:
I do not mean for a moment that we ought not to think, and think hard, about improvements in our social and economic system. What I do mean is that all that thinking will be mere moonshine […]

 As I have been carefully reading Jim Wallis’ book God’s Politics over the last several weeks, I am struggling with how he seems to “use” Bible passages to support his positions.  One such interpretation is that of Mark 14:7 in chapter 13. 
“The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you […]

In early July, at the urging of Hugh Hewitt, I presented a series of posts on Abraham Lincoln’s second Inaugural Address. My goal is to one day write a book on the faith of about five to ten US Presidents, what impact their particular faith understandings was on their policies, and how it played out […]

Several conservatives on the state board of education have been defeated.  This means that there will be a re-think (and re-vote) on the issue of intelligent design being taught in the classroom. There is a phrase I found interesting …favored a return to traditional science standards. Interesting how traditional science standards excludes any concept of […]

Steve Kangas publishes a website called Liberalism Resurgent, among which one can find the expostulation that the New Testament is liberal and the Old Testament is conservative:
The New Testament is a liberal’s paradise; almost every principle espoused in it is one that liberals — not conservatives — espouse today. (The only exceptions are its pronouncements […]

A Theistic Evolutionist Turns Off the Light
Dr. Russell D. Moore at Carl F. H. Henry Institute for Evangelical Engagement has a fascinating, but sad, post up in today’s “Moore to the Point.”
Howard J. Van Till of Calvin College is the most lauded and prolific defender of theistic evolution among American evangelicals. […]

Van Till has long […]

ACLU wants information on Odessa, Texas, Bible classes
Lawyers aren’t allowed to go on fishing expeditions any more … at least almost any more. One area they seem to still be allowed is when it involves the ACLU.
If it is generally agreed “fishing” is out of line, why then do the ACLU-ites appear to get […]

Byron Klaus, President of the Assembly of God Theological Seminary, writes a monthly commentary called the Prez Release. His July 2006 commentary is titled Religion in the Public Square. In it he writes,
One of the greatest challenges to followers of Jesus these days is the slow, but inevitable, removal of faith from dialogue and action […]