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Pip: J. Michael Jones sits down to do forensic theology — which, if you think about it, is exactly the kind of phrase that makes both detectives and seminarians uncomfortable. Mara: Today we're working through a post that digs into how Western Christianity lost its footing on reason and evidence — tracing a philosophical fault…
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A Definition of Terms We are all familiar with the term “forensic” thanks to shows like CSI. The term has been borrowed for the fields of forensic psychology (trying to find the motive of someone’s criminal behavior) and even forensic archeology, trying to find out who killed groups of ancient peoples. The word itself comes…
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I’ve had a plethora of new readers to this blog. As I’ve examined where they are focusing, many of them are reading things I’ve written about my cancer, multiple myeloma, or suffering in general. I am presently working on a book, How Cancer Taught Me to Swear, which is more than a memoir, but a…
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The Organized Church I will end this thought with this article. From my personal studies of what the Bible honestly says, and what history shows, I am convinced that the present organized church, with its centerpiece, the Sunday morning worship service, is not a mandate for Christianity. I realize that this cuts across cultural beliefs…
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I want to finish up these thoughts about the organized church, and hopefully, I can with this article, if I can keep my focus… which I rarely can. In 1990, as I’ve mentioned many times, I set out in pursuit of the honest truth, no matter where it led me. When I came back to…
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If you stay tuned to this article, I want to re-focus on the positive attributes of the organized church, including the Sunday morning worship service. But first, there is a caveat. The Cavaet In the best-selling author (including Sapiens) Yuval Noah Harari’s latest book, Nexus, he is on the same page as me, noting that…
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Future Plans I hope to finish this series of articles on the organized church with two more posts and then move on. I mentioned that my readership quintupled a couple of months ago to more than 1200 readers per week, which is still minuscule for any blog, and I wanted to understand what happened. I…
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I am going to walk into this territory gently, as I know from experience that it is dangerous. Let me be clear, as I deconstruct our most sacred institution, the organized church, with reference to what I discovered the scriptures clearly say, it is not a moral issue. When religious people write or speak about…
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Several years ago, I had the privilege of teaching a Sunday school class for teenagers. It had been my dream because I have a heart for this group, and studies show that 64% to 75% of those raised in the church leave it by age 30, and most never come back. On the first day…
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In this new segment, I want to examine what I have learned over the past 30 years on my pilgrimage to find factual truths that pertain to the church. I have to be careful to avoid misunderstandings, as the organized church is a sacred institution to most Christians. In the 1990s, as I was learning…