Ronnie W. Rogers, “Taking every thought captive…”

It is undeniable that some Americans just wish Christians would disappear from the public square.  Since that is hopefully not going to happen, they spend most of their time and effort arguing that while it is ok to believe in Christ and the Bible, Evangelicals should not bring their faith into the public marketplace of ideas, e.g. politics, education, law….They do not mind our religious faith as long as it is a private faith, and only practiced alone with other like-minded people.

A study released May 7, 2007 by the Institute for Jewish & Community Research once again confirmed the bias against evangelicals that exists on university campuses.
“Among non-evangelical university faculty, 53 percent… said they held an unfavorable view of evangelical Christians while expressing positive feelings toward most other religious groups. One professor said he attributes the disdain for evangelicals to their Republican Party activism and their perceived opposition to science.

Gary Tobin, the institute’s director and chief pollster, said the results undoubtedly reveal “bias and prejudice” among the nation’s educational leaders. Tobin told The Washington Post, “If a majority of faculty said they did not feel warmly about Muslims or Jews or Latinos or African Americans, there would be an outcry.” He goes on to note, “No one would attempt to justify or explain those feelings. No one would say, ‘The reason they feel this way is because they don’t like the politics of blacks or the politics of Jews.’ That would be unthinkable.”  Tobin further found “that 71 percent of faculty members agreed with the statement: This country would be better off if Christian fundamentalists kept their religious beliefs out of politics.”¹ (more…)

1. http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=25660 [↩]

As Christians we are often confronted with questions concerning the trustworthiness of Scripture.  For example, someone may say, “It must have mistakes since it was written by men” or ask “how can the Bible be accurate when there are so many translations?”  They may point out what they see, or have been told, are unresolvable problems like “how did Noah get and keep all those animals on the ark” or the differences in the various gospels account of events in Christ’s life.  They may say, “men determined what books would make up the Bible” which implies that the Bible is merely a human book.

The following is a list of books to help you learn the answers to such questions and be able to have a more mature understanding of the trustworthiness of the Scripture.  I have also included a book to help you learn how to study the Scripture.
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As an introduction to Mark Park’s article on Rob Bell’s book “Velvet Elvis”, I mentioned my lack of success in finding adequate reason to be anything but even more disenchanted with Bell’s Velvet Elvis than Gina was with my first encounter with the Velvet Elvis portrait of years ago.

Well, this prompted someone to request what “specifically” I found objectionable about Bell’s book.  Consequently, I wrote an evaluation of the book, which highlights some of the areas, which cause me deep concern.  Part of the reason I responded with some detail is because the problems I address in his book also highlight some of the problems found in the general area of the “Emergent Church”.

For those of you who want a briefer evaluation, I recommend the one by Mark Park, just search Velvet Elvis.  

Velvet Elvis: Revisited