Religious

Archive for Religious

Don’t Play Cards With Jacob

[UPDATE below.] I recently made the full circuit in my nightly Bible reading, and now I’m back in Genesis. I don’t have much profound to say in this post, except to note that yikes Jacob (son of Isaac and grandson of Abraham) was one crafty fellow. Anyone with a passing familiarity with the Bible knows […]

The Exclusivity of Salvation Through Christ

At church today my pastor was discussing the following from Luke 13: 22 And He went through the cities and villages, teaching, and journeying toward Jerusalem. 23 Then one said to Him, “Lord, are there few who are saved?” And He said to them, 24 “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I […]

What’s Worse (Better) Than Sunday Blog Posts?

A whole conference dedicated to bringing free-market ideas to evangelical Christians! (The link is to the main website of The Institute for Faith, Work, and Economics, which is hosting me and a dozen or so other theologians and/or economists at a conference outside of DC.) They showed us this snazzy video after the opening dinner: […]

He Is Risen Indeed

From Matthew 28: 28 Now after the Sabbath, as the first day of the week began to dawn, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb. 2 And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the […]

Palm Sunday: The Fickle Public

Today is “Palm Sunday.” Here is how the gospel of Matthew describes it (Chapter 21): 1 As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with […]

Uncomfortable Laws from the Old Testament

It would be easy enough for me to dwell on the goodness of Jesus and wax eloquently on how much better the world would be, if more of us followed His example. However, that would seem to skirt the tough issues, so let me deal with a particular command from the Old Testament that I […]

A Clarification of My Views on Christianity

[UPDATE below with Mencken link.] There are two very common arguments that people in the comments bring up every week. So I thought I would try to deal with them here “in the spotlight.” First:: People often ask some variant of, “Much of your evidence, Murphy, for Christianity is actually consistent with other world religions. […]

Now That He Can’t Respond, I Critique Christopher Hitchens

In the comments of last week’s post Major Freedom posted a quotation from Christopher Hitchens, criticizing the very structure of Christianity. I gave it a careful look because another commenter, AC, exclaimed that it was a great quote and should prove devastating to any Christian, but in particular a Biblical literalist. I have to say […]