Recently in Faith Category
According to a chapter in the forthcoming book, The American University in a Postsecular Age, about the secularization of universities in America, professors in American institutions aren't nearly as anti-God as they're often portrayed. Make no mistake, as a group professors are more atheistic/agnostic than the American public, but the numbers aren't terribly lopsided. According to the chapter in the book by Gross and Simmons, their survey found 23.4% of professors are atheist or agnostic, compared to roughly 7% in the general US population. The percentage of atheists is higher in elite institutions (37%), but so is the percentage of those professors claiming to believe in God (33%) or "Believe in Higher Power or God some of the time" (29%). The rate of professors who believe in God is higher at community and 4-year colleges. Interestingly, professors in my own field of Psychology have the highest percentage of atheists/agnostics along with Biology (61%). Frankly, I expected to see Philosophy up there, too, if not higher. Not surprisingly, the disciplines with the highest rates of belief in God are the non-scientific ones like accounting, finance, elementary education, criminal justice, nursing, etc.
I was able to find a draft of the chapter by Gross and Simmons (the latter is from George Mason, by the way) describing this survey and its results. There was a short summary published in Harvard Magazine this past summer (Gross is from Harvard).
I guess I'm a rare bird to be a Psychology professor who believes in God.
**I'd love to post the figure of results, but I'm pretty sure it'd be a copyright violation.**
The Evangelical Outpost has posted a list of 100 Christian Blogs that he has "found to be the most convicting, enlightening, frustrating, illuminating, maddening, stimulating, right-on and/or wrongheaded by Christians expressing a Christian worldview."
I have to ask, who has the time to be influenced by that many blogs?
Despite the fact that I'm not a big fan of the Ontological Argument, I scored as Anselm in this interesting online quiz matching responses to the views of prominant theologians through the ages. Here are the details of my results:
 | You scored as Anselm, Anselm is the outstanding theologian of the medieval period.He sees man's primary problem as having failed to render unto God what we owe him, so God becomes man in Christ and gives God what he is due. You should read 'Cur Deus Homo?'
Which theologian are you? created with QuizFarm.com |
Check it out and let me know how you score. Since most readers of this blog are of the evangelical tradition, I'm curious if the quiz will produce any variance amongst us.
I'm a scientist; I believe in God.
I encourage you to read the brief commentary by Dr. Francis Collins linked above. He's the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, author of The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, and former atheist. I nearly included his book on my list for 2007, but went with John Polkinghorne's book instead.
As a scientist, academician, and Christian, I'm always interested to read about other believing scientists and philosophers. Especially those that speak openly about their faith. It's far more common to see this boldness with senior scientists (hence the title of this entry) because faith is shunned so much in the sciences, and especially in my field of Psychology.
Let me just say how refreshing to read his statement about Evolution:
Yes, evolution by descent from a common ancestor is clearly true. If there was any lingering doubt about the evidence from the fossil record, the study of DNA provides the strongest possible proof of our relatedness to all other living things.
It's time for evangelicals to embrace evolution and common decent much like the Catholic Church (eventually) adopted Copernicus's heliocentric model of the solar system. As Collins says, "I find no conflict here." However, it is not my intent to delve deeply into the Evolution-Creation debate with this post. That'll have to wait for another day.
Quick update:
I'm still off fast food, as long as Pizza Hut doesn't count.
I've been busy at work overseeing the installation of my new driving simulator.
I'm way, way, way behind in my reading for the year.
My wife and I have been busy getting our house ready to sell. Our first open house was this past Sunday.
My friend William started a blog.
Are you a Red-Letter Christian? These Christians believe that Evangelicals should focus on the actual teachings of Jesus (hence "red-letter"), especially when it comes to social issues. The movement was started by Tony Campolo and Jim Wallis in response to the Religious Right's heavy emphasis on abortion and homosexuality--two issues that Jesus did not address directly. Campolo has a short piece on Belief.net that defines the Red-Letter Christian movement.
Campolo and Wallis fall into the category of Progressive Christians. Campolo is a professor emeritus of Sociology at Eastern University in Pennsylvania, and a popular Christian speaker. Wallis is head of the progressive Christian magazine Sojourners and author of the recent book God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It (2004). According to Campolo, the reason for creating the Red-Letter Christian movement "was not to create a religious left movement to challenge the religious right, but to jump-start a religious movement that will transcend partisan politics."
The social issues valued by Red-Letter Christians are the issues that Jesus spoke of directly, including caring for the poor, evangelism, and loving one's enemies. They believe that these issues should be the political priorities of Christians rather than other issues like homosexual rights, abortion, and war. They argue that these issues are important but over-emphasized by both liberals and conservatives. This last point is an important one as I suspect many Christian Republicans accuse the progressive movement of being soft on abortion and homosexuality. Campolo addressed this point in a recent podcast by stating that they don't want to minimize these two important issues, but that they shouldn't be the only issues as they often are for many Evangelicals, especially when it comes to voting. Jesus spoke about poverty more than any other issue. Why isn't that the main social issue for Christians? What about peace? What about the environment? Red-Letter Christians are pushing for a more holistic approach to political issues. Dobson and Colson balked at this notion, arguing instead that Evangelicals must remain focused abortion and homosexuality as their primary social issues.
As you might expect, the Red-Letter Christian movement has been accused of shaping its belief around politics rather than the other way around. I think that criticism is a straw-man argument that attacks Christians who want to let abortion continue and support homosexuality. That's not what the movement advocates. They are anti-abortion and are very concerned about homosexuality (though they are certainly softer on this latter issue than most conservative Evangelicals). Those of you who know me can immediately see that I fit very nicely with the Red-Letter Christian movement. I must say, however, that I think that name is a bit unfortunate because it could be interpreted as taking only what Jesus said with disregard for the rest of the Bible. That's not the case, of course, but it sets up an easy mischaracterization by idiots like Falwell and Robertson.
I'm two weeks into my abstention from fast food and I'm cruising without much difficulty. I don't think it's the food that I enjoyed as much as the convenience. And let me tell you, the biggest temptation I've had so far had everything to do with hunger and convenience. I teach on Monday afternoons from 4:30 to 7:10. I try and eat a late lunch those days so I'm not dying from hunger by the end of class. By 7:30pm, though, I'm typically more than ready for a meal, and the $1 Double-Cheeseburger from McDonald's begins its siren song. This past Monday was no exception--I was plenty hungry after class and I didn't feel like making something when I got home. The smell from the campus Burger King was intoxicating, but I kept my resolve and asked my wife to start some food for me while I drove home. Other than that one episode, it hasn't been bad at all.
I haven't had fast food since before Ash Wednesday, so I decided that would be my sacrifice until Easter. For some of you, skipping McDonald's, BK, Taco Bell, et al. wouldn't be a challenge, but this ban will leave plenty of gaps in my weekly diet. Dave made a great point that the true purpose of the Lent sacrifice is to refocus one's attention on God. I must confess, though, that my exercise is rooted more in self-denial rather than in spiritual conditioning. Obviously these needn't be exclusive, but they seem to be so for me now.
Now on to practical matters: I need some opinions about what constitutes fast food. There are the obvious chains (McDonald's, BK, Taco Bell, KFC, and Wendy's), but what about sandwich shops and pizza? Do Subway and Quizno's count as fast food? What about Chipotle? My wife says if it's not fried, it's not fast food. Of course, that's not a perfect criterion, but it's a pretty good heuristic.
I had it in the back of my mind to go along with Lent this year just for the exercise in self-discipline. Ironically, I was not disciplined enough to pay attention to when Lent begins--today. So, if I'm to go 40 days without something, it has to be something I haven't done today. I just polished off a sizeable bowl of ice cream, so that's out. There's no chance I'm giving up coffee, either. I didn't eat beef today, so that's a possibility, though not an inviting one. I know what you're thinking, and no, that's not on the table. Perhaps there's a good reason I wasn't diligent in planning for Lent. I don't have anything I'm willing to give up that would be a true sacrifice. I still want to try some kind of self-denial, be it fasting or something else. And, because I'm not Catholic there's no requirement to tie it to Easter. It's just a convenient reminder. I'll let you know if I come up with something.
By the way, there are actually 46 days between Ash Wednesday and Easter. Sundays don't count, evidently.
What would you be willing to give up? What wouldn't you be willing to go without?
