Culture

Two of my favorite things to study and discuss are The Bible and Star Wars! My mom first shared the gospel with me when I was three years old -- right before my fourth birthday. Right around the same time my parents took my sister and I to see Star Wars (now known as "Episode IV: A New Hope" ) in the movie theater. These two events had a significant impact on the rest of my life. In fact, my parents often used the Star Wars saga to help me understand a few things about ultim

Preface As Nicholas Rescher notes in Chapter 3 of Metaphilosophy: Philosophy in Philosophical Perspective , philosophy can be articulated in several ways, including the essay, the medieval scholastic treatise, and the dialogue format. In what follows, I provide a philosophical evaluation of postmodernism using the dialogue format. In honor of the first masters of dialogue - the expert dialecticians Socrates and Plato - I use Socrates as the main character of this dialogue, w

If you are like me, you see it all over your newsfeed: today is National Coming Out Day. It is a day when people are encouraged to “come out” as gay. I’ve read through posts by both secular LGBTQ friends, gay Christians friends, and celibate gay Christian friends. All of them proclaiming “freedom” by “coming out” and accepting their identity as gay. A False Dichotomy As I’ve read through these posts, I continually see people say things such as, “coming out has helped me no l

Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum This is Latin for, "If you want peace, prepare for war!" It is often used to convey the idea that one of the most effective means to ensure that one lives in peace is to always to be armed and ready to defend oneself. This statement might seem counter-intuitive at first sight, but the truth found in this proposition is that the conditions of peace are often preserved by a mere readiness to engage in war if necessary. Although Si Vis Pacem, Para Be

The latest buzz in Christendom is Hillsong Worship leader Marty Sampson announcing on social media that he was losing his faith . Now, I typically don’t comment on things like this. People like Michael Brown and Skillet’s John Cooper have done a great job addressing the issue. However, there was something about his post that really bothered me. It wasn’t the actual objections against Christianity. They’re nothing new. It was that after every objection he raised, he said: “N

First and foremost, I am a Christian. I am someone who believes ( based on evidence ) that God exists and that He raised Jesus from the dead. I also contend that if one claims to be a Christian, then they strive to follow the teachings, commands, and example Jesus Christ provided. Simply put: I love Jesus and try to live according to His teachings (John 8:31; 14: 21-24). I am also a proud patriot. In fact, I consider myself to be a "nationalist" (depending upon how one defin

A note from Tim:  FreeThinking Ministries opposes and condemns racism in any form or fashion! We affirm that all humans are created equal and in the " image of God ." The primary purpose of FreeThinking Ministries is to "Equip the Church to engage the culture." With that said, we recognize two (of many) problems in the culture today: 1- The evil of racism is real -- it exists. 2- Often, people who are not racists are falsely accused of racism. We believe both problems shoul

Appropriate love for country must sail between the Scylla and Charybdis of our times: cynicism and jingoism. In Greek mythology, “Scylla and Charybdis were thought to inhabit the Straits of Messina, the narrow sea between Sicily and the Italian mainland. Preying on passing mariners, Scylla was a terrible creature with six heads and twelve feet, while Charybdis, living on the opposite side of the straits, was another monster who, over time, was transformed in the imagination o

FreeThinking Ministries is an organization focused on thinking logically. From attaining a proper understanding of the meaning and purpose of life, to how we ought to live and treat one another, we are committed to understanding reality. More importantly, we are committed to communicating the truth about reality to all people. Interestingly, although the individuals who comprise FreeThinking Ministries agree on most things, there are occasions in which we disagree -- but st

An American outcry has erupted recently in response to newly legislated restrictions on abortion in certain states. Outraged, public figures have gone so far as to boycott Georgia, an entire state, in protest. Why have the American people fought so hard against abortion restrictions and pushed so vehemently for full-term, easily accessible abortions for all? They claim it is a woman’s right to choose, and granted, no one acquiesces to being stripped of their rights. Their o

“Consult the Bible, and you will discover that the creator of the universe clearly expects us to keep slaves.”  1  This provocative statement by atheist Sam Harris is meant to cast shade on the God of the Bible. After all, if civilized humanity overwhelmingly condemns slavery, why should we worship a God who thinks it’s acceptable? The question of slavery and the Bible is a bit more complicated than Sam Harris makes it out to be. Unfortunately, Harris and others aren’t inter

The New York Times recently published an article entitled “How Abortion Rights Will Die a Death by 1,000 Cuts: Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation to the Supreme Court would mean the demise of not just abortion rights but also a century of progressive reforms.” Author Mayeri’s strongly worded article argues that the Conservative Political Party is pushing for restrictive laws, limiting the individual liberties of our country’s citizens. And as Americans, protected by the boundarie

While as an undergrad at Salt Lake Community College in 1991, I gave a presentation in front of my humanities 101 class arguing Jesus Christ is the messiah, citing evidence for his resurrection. My professor literally cut me off during my presentation and told me it was over, that I couldn’t proceed. He later informed me that I was no longer welcome in the course because of proselytizing. Here’s the backstory. My professor had been teaching on myth for about six weeks, list

So Batman is an atheist. Or at least that’s what the headlines said in August 2018. I finally read the issue in question, Batman #53, which is part of the story arc “Cold Days” ( slight spoilers ahead ). In the story, Bruce Wayne, Batman’s alter ego, is serving on a jury. He sees a fellow juror wearing a cross and recalls his Christian upbringing, how he used to believe in God. But when his parents were murdered when he was a child, his whole world came crashing down, his fa

As Tim Stratton has aptly noted in Avengers: Endgame, Middle Knowledge, & the Destruction of the Problem of Evil and in the FreeThinking Podcast episodes 63 - 65, Marvel’s Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame are rich in philosophical content. In this article, I briefly examine the normative ethics of these films. The villain of the story, Thanos , is a consequentialist. Consequentialism is the position that the only (or at least the most important) factor which

"A righteous person who yields to the wicked is like a muddied spring or a polluted well." — Proverbs 25: 26 While there are a few points I agree with in the recent article 10 Reasons Reading the Bible Makes Me More Progressive  by Benjamin L. Corey, I respectfully think that Mr. Corey has made some big mistakes in his reasoning, and he basically “strains out gnats and swallows camels” here. If our differences were petty and had little significant real-world consequences, it

As you can tell, we at FreeThinking Ministries are huge superhero fans. Aside from being fun, superhero stories offer great learning opportunities about moral and even theological issues. Case in point, Stratton’s latest article on about the problem of evil. (If you haven’t read it yet, you should go do that before reading any further. And if you haven’t watched the movie, go do that first!) In and , we see a great example of middle knowledge at work, and how it can be used

In Isaiah 2, we are told of a vision in which the Messiah returns to reign on the earth. All the nations of the world beat their swords into plowshares. All war and conflict comes to an end. We should long for the day that this vision is made reality. But until that happens, what shall we do when faced with evil? Obviously it would be ideal to live in a world in which we did not need weapons because violence is non-existent. But that is not the world we currently live in, an

Spoiler Alert! Spoiler Alert!! Spoiler Alert!!! Seriously, if you have not yet seen the movie,  Captain Marvel , stop reading this and go to the movie theatre and buy a ticket! Then come back and read this article. Consider yourself warned! Captain Marvel has a consistent theme: Things are not what they seem. Just when you think that you have something figured out, the characters will discover more information that completely turns everything you thought knew upside down. T

Note: This Facebook Comment/Blog article represents a significant shift in my journey toward being a more consistent Christian. Recently, I was asked to speak at Reconcile Church in Bloomington, Illinois on the topic, “The Image of God and the Black Experience.” In preparing for this presentation I encountered a number of quotations from great abolitionists and Civil Rights Movement leaders like Frederick Douglass, Henry Highland Garnett, JW Loquen, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr