Gary Shogren's Blog
If I remember 8th-grade math correctly, and if I am hearing some of my fellow evangelicals clearly, either they or I have transgressed a basic principle of math. I’m pretty sure they are the ones who goofed about a basic issue, our worldview. What I mean is that, as a people, we are a priori... Continue Reading →
Fire destroys. But when a building burns, the fire also reveals: old art, former paint jobs, things hidden for centuries. And the most striking thing the flames revealed was how we interpret events. It turns out that we are hardwired away from objectivity in our interpretations, that we will make snap judgments about who did... Continue Reading →
I invite you to read two news articles: ARTICLE #1 - Eco-Terrorists Attack Clean Energy The millennials have finally gotten off their couches, but unfortunately it was to get involved in illegal mischief. This Lancaster Against Pipelines group trespasses into energy projects in order to get themselves intentionally arrested. Their new Satan is the Atlantic... Continue Reading →
We see it in panicked blog posts and garish YouTube videos, and hear it in whispers from concerned friends! That Rupert Murdoch is trying to take your Bible away from you and make you use the NIV Bible instead! That he is a friend to the Vatican and a pornographer and the guy who put... Continue Reading →
This article has many images and footnotes; I encourage the reader to download it as a pdf here: Shogren_Christians and Coincidences It happened just the other day: I had been thinking about James Bond, and later when I pulled out a form of identification for the bank teller, I noticed that my ID number began with 007!... Continue Reading →
One of those, "Wish I had said this, in this way, but there's no way I could have improved on this statement by Russell Moore - I think sometimes pastors and leaders simply take whatever they find objectionable in the culture and rail against it. They sometimes use the language of decline, where we’re in the worst... Continue Reading →
Is it just me, or is anyone else running into Flat Earth proponents lately? (Check this ARTICLE) People who think NASA is doing mind control over us, that no one has ever been to space, that the Bible teaches the earth is a disc? Yeah, it's a thing. It's conspiracy thinking at heart. Basically an... Continue Reading →
One day you bring me a large, beautiful box of chocolates. There are all kinds, too, every type imaginable: some with nuts or cookies or caramel; some with raisins or cherries or other fruits; some with dark or light or white chocolate or a mixture. It’s the wide variety that makes it so impressive –... Continue Reading →
Click here to read Part I, which is necessary to understand this Part II. Some take issue with the 2011 update of the New International Version. For example, here’s the official statement from the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: As the evangelical community turns to CBMW for trusted counsel on contemporary Bible translations that... Continue Reading →
Search for comments on the new NIV by Google, and you will find bloggers talking about its “feminist agenda”, “Satan’s lies”, “end-time deception” and that “the homosexual community is excited about the new perversion of the Bible.” (They provided no statements from gay groups, expressing their glee). At its annual convention last year, the Southern Baptist... Continue Reading →
Open Our Eyes, Lord! 