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60 Minutes – The Coptic Church in Egypt
Fascinating look into the Coptic Church in Egypt and its present precarious plight.
Surprised that there were charismatic Coptic church services there.
N.T. Wright’s Response to Young Earth Creationism
Interesting viewpoint by New Testament scholar N.T. Wright about the creationist viewpoint.
Though I see a connection between gnosticism and present-day fundamentalism, after listening to Wright, I now see more clearly its connection with deism, in terms of God intervening and then pulling back whenever He felt like it, and the shortcomings of adhering to that philosophy.
In Wright’s presentation, God is much more imminent and involved when you remove special/particular divine intervention from the creation process.
Christmas in the Middle Ages
Merry Christmas everyone!
Here’s an interesting article about the origins of Christmas and how it was celebrated during the Middle Ages.
(excerpt from the article):
Meanwhile, the new religion of Christianity was also developing a series of their own special days, and around the year 300, it was decided that a feast day would be held in honour of Christ’s birth. Unfortunately, the actual date of Jesus’ birth was not recorded in the gospels or any other early Christian writings. Since it was a common practice at the time for emperors to celebrate their birthdays on dates abitrarily chosen, it was decided to pick a date for Jesus’ birthday, and December 25th was selected. The theological basis for this date was that it fell exactly nine months from March 25th, which was believed to be the day on which the world was created, and would also be the date of Christ’s conception.
Read the article here.
Why study Thomas Aquinas?
In Chapter 12 of Prof. MacCulloch’s book, he went over one of the great “doctors” of the Catholic Church, St. Thomas Aquinas.
In this clip, Dr.Simon Oliver from the University of Nottingham discusses why he devotes so much attention to the medieval Dominican theologian, Thomas Aquinas (1225-74); he argues that when someone today comes to grips with his thought, that learning experience trains one to think theologically.
Also added a link to the “Resources” Page for the University of Nottingham’s youtube channel. Great talks with professors about Christian theology, philosophy, church history, and religion.
Update: New Menu and sub-menu topic added – Cognitive Neuroscience and Theology
Just created several new pages pertaining to current studies within Cognitive Neuroscience and Theology under the new menu category Science and Theology on top.
Some topics of interest include:
- free will; how human emotions affect our decisions
- biblical understanding of the afterlife
- is there an intermediate state after death?
- do our identities survive after death? If so, then how?
- what the Apostle Paul believed about the afterlife
- eschatological ontology
- role of genetics and environmental influences upon the brain in relation with human free will
- consciousness and the soul; do we even have a soul?
- the selective and fluid nature of memory; false memories
- Why are there so many factual discrepancies in the gospel narratives and accounts in the New Testament?
Check out the new page here.
New Update: Chapter 12: A Church for All People? (1100 – 1300)
New updates here for Chapter 12. Please read our submissions.
We will be on break until January.
“Gay Reformers? Why the Medieval Church Banned Priests from Marrying”
In Chapter 11 of MacCulloch’s book he wrote about how clerical celibacy became mandatory (mostly due to fears of land ownership by the Church).
Here’s some additional material about other possible reasons for clerical celibacy and homosexuality in this article:
Chapter 12: A Church for All People? (1100 – 1300)
Hey everyone,
Next Wed. we will meet for the final PA meeting for 2013 when we will go over Chapter 12: A Church for All People? (1100 – 1300).
As we discussed last week in our meeting, please select and choose one topic to write on and let everyone know before the end of the week what topic you will be writing on.
This way, we can avoid having multiple writings on the same topic.
Bellini, Giovanni – “St. Francis in the Desert” c. 1480, The Frick Museum, NYC
“Do Infants Go to Hell if They Die Before Baptism?: The Doctrine of Original Sin Re-examined” – an Orthodox Perspective
We will be covering the Orthodox Church very soon in MacCulloch’s book, so it’s good to get a glimpse of a bit of its theology and how it differs from the West, especially when it comes to the definition of “sin”.
“It is not clear by what justice humanity can share in Adam’s guilt when it existed only in potentiality in his loins at the time of the Fall. It is also difficult to see why the children of the baptized should inherit a guilt from which their parents have been cleansed.” – Prof. Gerald Bonner, Roman Catholic theologian
It’s good to bear in mind that Augustine never intended his theology of “Original Sin” to be a world-wide, eternal church doctrine – it was the Church many years later that adopted this idea and made it into a doctrine. Later on, Protestantism adopted this as doctrine as well and has shaped Western theology ever since.
It’s amazing how a mis-reading of the Bible that led to a mis-interpretation that led to this doctrine. This is why it’s always critical to have good exegesis precede hermeneutics.
The Crusades: Crescent and the Cross
Great video documentary about the Crusades (most of which MacCulloch doesn’t go into in his book). I like that it gives both sides of the conflict with interviews of Islamic historians.
Though it’s 3 hours in length, it’s quite fascinating from beginning to end.
Project Augustine 