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Showing posts from March, 2018

If I Could Save Time in a Bottle...

If I Could Save Time in a Bottle… Devotional for the United Church of Christ Science and Technology Network March 31, 2018 Rev. Dr. Ruth E. Shaver [God] has made everything suitable for its time;   moreover, [God] has put a sense of past and future into their minds,   yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.   —Ecclesiastes 3:11, NRSV, alt. Holy Saturday is an odd day in history. Looking back from the next day, or 50 days later, or roughly 2000 years later, we can see that this was a “ Schrödinger’s tomb ”* moment: either Jesus was dead, as the events of Friday testified, or Jesus was alive, as Jesus himself had promised. The disciples, women and men alike, went with the testimony of time and experience, only to be mightily surprised—or, as the Gospel of Mark says, traumatically ecstatic—the next morning. We know because of the way history has unfolded that Easter Sunday was a pivot point in time. The world was categorica

More Light, Less Heat

As a Sinai and Synapses Fellow, one of the things I get to do is talk to and with people about how faith and science intersect in their lives. One tangible piece is the "More Light, Less Heat" video series and my contribution is up! Rev. Dr. Ruth Shaver and William D. Richards: Seeing God in the Patterns Bill is one of my best friends and was, in a very real way, the one who inspired (or challenged, might be an even better term) me to write the first draft of the curriculum that became my doctoral project. And, of course, that led to the Fellowship... Please enjoy, and check out the other videos in the series. And if you think the work Sinai and Synapses and other organizations that hope to bridge the divide between the worlds of science and religion, please consider a donation to one of your choosing (partial list): Sinai and Synapses Boston University Ph.D. Program in Religion and Science Member Denominations of the Ecumenical Roundtable Coming Together on Scien

Giving Away the Wrong Things

Apparently, I’m doing church growth all wrong. Again. In 2010, a church in my hometown, Corpus Christi, Texas, gave away all kinds of great prizes to those who attended Easter services . And like Oprah’s show at times, on that day, everyone got a prize worth at least $300. And this past weekend, Destiny Church in Columbia, Maryland, gave away four cars to randomly chosen attendees of services plus one to a deserving family in need. I doubt it will surprise anyone to know that attendance at both churches, and many others that have done something similarly gimmicky, spiked for these giveaways. I know that some people go back in weeks to follow; long-term, I don’t know about the success of these events for changing lives because I wonder what it says about these churches’ understanding of God that they collectively believe giving away material things is the best way to introduce people to God. Actually, I don’t have to wonder much; many of these churches say on their we