Confessions of a Recovering Pharisee

[Washington Post]   The Home Run Derby, a made-for-TV contest that precedes Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game, is usually a frivolous folly. Players blast home runs, the fans ooh and ahh, and everyone has a good time. But Monday night’s event unexpectedly turned into a showcase of religious beliefs. Christians applauded Josh Hamilton’s first-round feats, while atheists took it on the chin from an ESPN broadcaster. Hamilton, the 27-year-old Texas Rangers outfielder, has seen his life come full circle. In 1999, he was the No. ... Read More

I was asked to review the book Not the Religious Type: Confessions of a Turncoat Atheist by Dave Schmelzer.  Dave is the pastor of the Vineyard Christian Fellowship of Greater Boston. He and his wife, Grace, have five children. Before participating in the founding of the Greater Boston Vineyard, Dave worked as a playwright and saw two of his plays professionally produced on the west coast.  Dave was an Atheist through college (or at least an agnostic).  The book is written in a similar manner ... Read More

[Philly.com] With its image of blue sky and fluffy clouds, the rectangle floating lately over I-95 near Allegheny Avenue suggests something dreamy, almost heavenly. At least from a distance. Drivers headed north toward the giant billboard might first discern the words God and Believe and suppose this to be the work of a fundamentalist church. But this is the work of no church. "Don't believe in God?" it asks. "You are not alone." Think of it as a sign of the times. Mounted by a consortium of local atheists, it is an invitation ... Read More

[Telegraph] The Christian think tank Theos has attacked a report from Ulster University that claims that the "intellectual elite" of Britain is atheist. Professor Richard Lynn, Ulster University's emeritus professor of psychology, said that more members of the "intellectual elite" considered themselves to be atheists than the national average. But Paul Woolley, director of the think-tank Theos, said: "Religion is a complex phenomenon and Professor Lynn's explanation is simplistic. He has recycled the long-disproven thesis of inevitable secularisation. "Academia had a religious origin - the first ... Read More

[Blog Wired] A University of Virginia graduate student is hard at work on a game that gives players a chance to "stop the spread of Christianity and Islam by murdering Abraham and the authors of the Bible, before beheading Muhammad," reports Virginia's WSLS television news. Read more here. [From me] What is in the water at the University of Virginia?  Remember the editorial in the school paper that mocked Jesus?  Sounds like a good place to start a new church. What do you think? Read More