Open Source Theology

1.  Can we understand “miracles” through the lens of standard scientific epistemology?

I think that “miracles” can be explained by science but, and here’s the rub, science can only explain “miracles” in scientific terms.  And by scientific terms I mean that “miracles” can be translated through the scientific disciplines of sociology, psychology, biological, etc.  The science method cannot account for “miracles” outside scientific terms.  

2.   How are we to understand “miracles”?

Not as scientists.  The possibility of “miracles” is not a possibility confined by (a faith in) empirical and rational limits, as is the modern scientific method.  

Rather, the possibility of “miracles” is a possibility founded on the words of the Holy Bible.  The ground on which the possibility of “miracles” stands is revelatory and therefore inexplicable in scientific terms.  

The truth of “miracles” is not a scientific truth and the two kinds of truth should not be conflated.

A few overall points are worth mentioning before you read further. The defining “miracle” in the Holy Bible was probably the first, which was in Exodus. Aspects of the first “miracle” are replicated by Jesus on multiple occasions in the New Testament. Moreover, there are some general themes that surround “miracles” in the Holy Bible. 1) “miracles” join God and Jesus with trusting believers in creating the kingdom. 2) God‘s “miracles” call hard hearted people to repentance. 3) remembering “miracles” (especially, I think, the exodus “miracle” and Jesus‘ “miracles“) is a way believers can give thanks to God. 4). “miracles” are not the sole province of God and godly things

As the possibility for a US led war in Iraq began to gain momentum, Christians began staking out positions. Some Christians defended the call for war and other Christians rejected the call for war.

Below I examine how believers of the same community of faith came to defend and reject the war in Iraq. How did they justify their positions?

Look closely, Jesus says let “the little children come to me.” He does not say compel them to come to me. He doesn’t say make your unruly teenagers sit through the church service. Yet some of us do. And what’s worse, we do it in the name of the Lord.

can someone give me the terms and definitions used in OT and NT for hell and salvation? and a few of the places those particular words are used? i have read quite a few discussions on this forum and would like to have a little better understanding of the words that are actualy used - contextually of course.

Whose words do you value more, Jesus or Paul?

Over the last several months, a lot of ink has been spilled in the ongoing debate between self-declared atheists and self-proclaimed Christians. This back and forth has taken the form of books, TV debates, correspondence debates, and who knows how many blog streams.

So, in some sense, the role for EVIDENCE AS A MISSIOLOGICAL RESOURCE in an emerging faith is to carry the good news of God’s kingdom into the postmodern condition and to reach back and help more modern-minded others to ascend “the mountain of the Lord” (Isaiah 2:3) together with us.

In this emerging postmodern condition, when growing numbers of Christians and followers of Jesus are once again recognizing themselves as exiles amid empire, when a plurality of difference rather than homogeneity is the norm of everyday life, as we enter an era of post-Christendom, the language of “my God” is called for once again. Within post-Christendom, space enough is produced for “my God” and “your god.”

Richard Littlejohn reports boldly, enthusiastically and movingly for Channel 4 on an appalling recent rise of antisemitism which has arisen within Britain during the past ten years, such that a Parliamentary committee convened to investigate the rise of antisemitic behaviour was shocked by its intensity and scope.

My question, thus, is this: what role does the emerging church see for Christians in relationship with an embattled Jewish community?