Posts Tagged 'spirituality'

Well, it has been a long time since my last posting.  For a number of reasons.    However, I am pleased to say that there are nine world religion video summaries that are now available on iTunes U!   They are a part of the RELS201 Introduction to World Religions course that I teach at APUS.  I hope that you find them to be useful.

For those of you who have been following the development of the Certificate of Christian Studies at UNBC the last couple of years, you may be interested in knowing about the future.  No, not the whole “future”, just the future of Christian Studies.    The course offering will be expanding from six courses to seven, which will reflect a modification to the Church History course(s) and the Old/New Testament courses, and the addition of a new course called

Here is a test – does the subject line above strike you as intriguing or uninteresting?  Well, believe it or not, if you identify yourself as either Jewish or Christian, you should find it interesting.  Monotheism and monolatry both have to do with how the people of the Old Testament / Hebrew Bible (and also today) viewed God.  How many gods are there?  What is his (their) nature?  How should he be worshipped?  Those are pretty big questions!

I reviewed a great book a couple of months ago called Jesus and the God of Israel, in which the author (Richard Bauckham) described the similarities, differences and relationship between monotheism (the belief in the existence of one God) and monolatry (the exclusive worship of one God).  Fascinating book.  In Bauckham’s opinion (which I agree with), the Old Testament reflects both, and somehow, the two wind their way together in both Judaism and early Christianity, and they influenced how Jesus was understood and responded to in the first century.  If you like to “think deeply” about the nature of God and Jesus, you may enjoy this book!

A few of you have been inquiring about the reading requirements for the Christian Spirituality course at UNBC this September.  Well it is your lucky day – the course textbooks are listed here, and the weekly readings are listed below.

For those of you who are participating in the Creating Space for God course at Westwood Church, and who remember me mentioning the writings of Brother Lawrence, here are two links:

• The Practice of the Presence of God (text only)
• The Practice of the Presence of God (text and audio)

Enjoy!

For those of you who like to plan in advance … the University of Northern British Columbia has recently announced the next two classes in the Certificate in Christian Studies program:  Christian Spirituality, starting in September 2009, and Life and Teachings of Jesus, starting in January 2010 (I will be teaching both).

More information and details about how to register for either class can be found here, and any questions about the course content can be directed to me.  Thanks!

Have you ever wanted to tell the church what you really thought?  But who do you talk to?  Who is listening?  Well … here is your opportunity!  The church that I am a part of is working through a refocusing process (I like to think of it as keeping the edge of our knife sharp – a dull knife is pretty useless), and has come up with four simple questions to help get a sense of what people in a community really think about the churches in their community.

So … regardless of where you are in the world right now, would you like to tell the church what you think?  If so, click on this short, four-question survey, and express yourself!  Spread the word, and have others give their opinions too. 

Thanks for your help!

The third American Religious Identification Survey has just been released, and it shows some interesting trends.  In terms of percentage, overall self-identification as “Christian” has stayed about the same as it was in 2001 -  76%, but there have been a couple of areas of significant change:

• Non-denominational Christians have tripled in size (as a percentage) to just over eight million.
• Evangelical Christians have doubled in size (as a percentage) to over two million.
• Mainline Christians appear to have dropped the most, down to twenty-nine million.

US Population by Religious Tradition

Using the religious tradition categories above, how do you identify yourself?

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The Centre for Research on Canadian Evangelicalism just released a report that analyzes recent trends in Canadian giving, volunteering, and participating.  Given the media’s propensity to portray evangelical Christians as intolerant, politically threatening and divisive, the report’s conclusions are particularly timely and intriguing.  You can access the full report here.

Read the report and post some comments and observations …

According to this article in today’s edition of The Arizona Republic, Harper Collins’ recently released Green Bible (NRSV) has been causing controversy among Christians.  It appears that there are two key distinctive features: 1) the book itself is environmentally friendly – recycled paper, soy-based ink, etc, and 2) it is a green-letter edition – it highlights “the rich and varied ways the books of the Bible speak directly to how we should think and act as we confront the environmental crisis facing our planet.”

The goals of the publisher seem admirable, so why is there an apparent controversy?  Beats me, but if you are interested, I’ll give you my opinion¹.    First, printing a Bible (or any book) in an environmentally friendly manner is a pretty good idea.  No controversy there (at least that I can think of).

But what about a green-letter edition of the Bible?  There is certainly nothing wrong with helping readers of the Bible become more environmentally aware, is there?  Well, believe it or not, those are actually tough questions.  On one hand, yes, studying the Bible and discovering (and then applying) what it says about creation and humanity is a good thing.  Very good, actually.  And it is probably something we need to do more of.

But on the other hand, I think we need to