I used to see affirmative action as tokenism at best and reverse discrimination at worst - until I studied Acts 6:1-7. There I saw the New Testament church practicing what was, in many ways, a form of affirmative action. Now I see the principle behind affirmative action as a tool…  [more]

In certain circles of conservative Protestantism, history can sometimes seem to fall off a cliff after Acts 28. For some of us, National Geographic’s latest cover story on the Apostles and their relics may seem like a letter from a different world - and that’s probably too bad. Up until…  [more]

A recent A.V. Club article has suggested that acclaimed HBO shows such as Luck and The Sopranos are actually hurting television, because they're influencing us to believe that quality TV comes in installments instead of episodes. The installment model works well for those of us who like to watch entire…  [more]

I love the Berenstain Bears. I do not say loved, though I have not picked up and leafed through a book in a decade (or two), because love - as physicists say about energy - never really dies, it just transforms. Not all transformations are beautiful, but the Bears, their…  [more]

When God said, “Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground” in the first chapter of Genesis, did he have the private menagerie of exotic animals that existed outside of Zanesville, Ohio, in mind? It…  [more]