PODCAST: PreacherCast - Ep. 1 - "Transgender Deacons, Dinosaurs, and the 'Secret' History of Leviticus"

In this inaugural episode of The PreacherCast, I jump into the world of podcasting! In this first episode, I introduce myself, offer a little biography, cover some recent news items (transgender deacons in the UME, the rejection of religious freedom in the PCUSA, etc.), and offer thoughts on Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. I then spend the back half of the episode looking at the problems with the recent New York Times op-ed by Idan Dershowitz titled "The Secret History of Leviticus." You can play the podcast on the player below, subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, subscribe to the podcast on SoundCloud,  or download the MP3 here. 

You can also grab the following RSS feed here and subscribe in your favorite podcast software: http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:482899152/sounds.rss

Sermon: "Faith that Life was Created" (Genesis 1:11-12, 24-25)

Proof of Evolution That You [Can't] Find on Your Body"

Anatomist, biologist, and creation scientist Dr. David Menton responds to popular YouTube video ‘Proof of Evolution That You Can Find on Your Body’ (posted by VOX) from a biblical and scientific worldview. Are certain features like goosebumps, of the human body really just left over from our ancestors?

The session that did not shake the world

We humans must be forgiven from time to time for missing important things. I do it. You do it. We all do it.

Thus did I laugh when I recently stumbled upon a remarkable entry into the annals of history by Thomas Bell, an English dentist with an interest in reptiles, who was also president of the Linnean Society of London in the year 1858. 

Why is that significant? Of that year's scientific lectures, presentations, etc. before the society, Dr. Bell wrote this: 

"...[the year had not] been marked by any of those striking discoveries which at once revolutionise [sic], so to speak, the department of science on which they bear, it is only at remote intervals that we can reasonably expect any sudden and brilliant innovation which shall produce a marked and permanent impression on the character of any brand of knowledge, or confer a lasting and important service on mankind."

Alas, 1858, described here by Dr. Bell, was the year that both Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace jointly presented a paper about their ideas about natural selection and biological evolution to the society. As time would tell, it was perhaps the most important and now famous session of the society since its founding in 1788.

Gifford Lecture Series 2012

Part of my week will involve viewing the following Gifford lectures from Dr. Sarah Coakley:

In this series, Professor Sarah Coakley explores the implications of recent developments in the mathematical study of “evolutionary dynamics” for ethics, metaphysics, the philosophy of science and theology.  Arguing that the last decades of the twentieth century saw a notable failure of nerve in universal accounts of religious rationality, and a simultaneous obsession with the “selfishness” of evolutionary phenomena, Coakley seeks to clarify afresh the importance of the countervailing sacrificial dimensions of evolutionary processes for central issues in the philosophy of science and ethics. Thereby she moves to suggest a transformed way forward in the task of “natural theology”.

Sacrifice Regained: Evolution, Cooperation and God

1. Stories of Evolution, Stories of SacrificeTuesday 17 April 2012
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2. Cooperation, alias Altruism:  Game Theory and Evolution Reconsidered
Thursday 19 April 2012
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3. Ethics, Cooperation and Human Motivation:  Assessing the Project of Evolutionary Ethics
Tuesday 24 April 2012
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4. Ethics, Cooperation and the Gender Wars:  Prospects for a New Asceticism
Thursday 26 April 2012
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5. Teleology Reviewed: A New 'Ethico-Teleological' Argument for God's ExistenceTuesday 1 May 2012
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6. Reconceiving 'Natural Theology':  Meaning, Sacrifice and God
Thursday 3 May 2012
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