Flotsam and jetsam (1/25)

• Richard Dawkins arues that employers should be allowed to discriminate based on “private” religious beliefs.

Religious beliefs should never be privileged over other beliefs, simply by virtue of being religious. Either a particular belief is relevant to eligibility for employment or it is not.

• Anthony Bradley wonders if the missional reformed movement is over. (HT)

So I’m beginning to wonder if it’s “a wrap” on this whole “missional” movement splash, especially in terms of church planting? I can definitely see the wind being taken out of the sails for some. I’ve been particularly curious about crickets I hear when bringing up a few issues among missional Christians:

• Peter Enns discusses whether Adam and Eve were celibate in the garden.

More importantly for us, the interpretive principle by which one ancient interpreter handled this specific issue is a very common one in contemporary Christian interpretation: using other parts of the Bible to inform our interpretation of Genesis. The question, then, is: how our application of this principle differs from this one example below, if at all?

• Michael Jensen asks, Is There Value in Suffering.

From the point of view of biblical faith, there is no inherent value in suffering. Like much that is evil in our world, human suffering is a perversion and a disruption of what should be. It has entered the world because of the dislocation of the relationship between human beings and their creator – the good God who purposed his creation for his own delight and that of his creatures. Suffering is an aberration – it has no value for its own sake. It is not good in and of itself. In the Psalms of the Old Testament, we read some impassioned pleas to God about the absurdity of suffering.

• And, here’s a quiz to see if you can name the 10 most popular websites in less than two minutes.

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Flotsam and jetsam (6/24)

• Scot McKnight offers an explanation of his position on historical biblical scholarship. He’s taken some heat for a CT article he wrote criticizing historical Jesus studies. And, he wants to make it clear that he’s not criticizing historical scholarship in general, but the historical Jesus project in particular.
• Given the recent announcements about interreligious seminaries, it seems fitting that Richard Dawkins is thinking about starting a “free-thinking” (i.e. atheist) school. It’s too bad he probably won’t call it an atheist seminary. That would have been perfect.
• TGC has posted some new book reviews, including Against All Gods: What’s Right and Wrong About the New Atheism (IVP, 2010) by Phillip E. Johnson & John Mark Reynolds and Ancient Word, Changing Worlds: The Doctrine of Scripture in a Modern Age (Crossway, 2009), by Stephen J. Nichols and Eric T. Brandt.
• HuffPo announces the launch of Religion and Science: A Contemporary Discussion. It sounds like it will be an ongoing forum for discussing the issue. The initial post, Why Religion Is Not Delusion, points out a number of problems in the comment assertion that religious beliefs are simply delusional.
• Kevin DeYoung is doing a series critiquing John Stott’s “complemegalitarianism” (i.e. his attempt to develop a mediating position between complementarianism and egalitarianism). You can read the first two posts here and here.
• And, I could tell that I’d been paying too much attention to the World Cup when I saw a headline this morning about Venezuela and I immediately thought it was referring to those obnoxious trumpets.