In 2007, physicist Paul Davies wrote an opinion article for the New York Times with the title, “Taking Science on Faith.” He wrote: [T]o be a scientist, you had to have faith that the universe is governed by dependable, immutable, absolute, universal, mathematical laws of an unspecified origin. . . . Clearly, then, both religion and science are founded on faith — namely, on belief in the existence of something outside the universe, like an unexplained God or an unexplained set of physical laws. Christians know that the “unexplained physical laws” do have an explanation: they are part of God ..read more

Some call it Marvel’s biggest “bomb.” The writing and production value were so bad and the viewership was so low that the series was canceled after only 8 episodes.1 It wasn’t Netflix’s Iron Fist (just kidding). It was ABC’s Inhumans (which disappointed me, like it did for nearly everyone else).  The lack of imagination and poor character development for Inhumans were unfortunate. Hands down, the Inhumans are one of the most interesting collections of Marvel characters. A reclusive superhuman race of beings, the Inhumans had their beginnings when the ali ..read more

Bayesian statistics, first conceived by the Reverend Thomas Bayes in the 1740s, is at least partly responsible for several significant historical achievements. Bayesian statistics helped Alan Turing crack the Enigma cipher used by the Germans in World War II, aided researchers at Harvard in identifying the authors of the Federalist Papers, allowed the US Navy to locate Soviet submarines, and played a key role in the rise of artificial intelligence. Yet Bayes never envisioned the many applications of his idea. In fact, Bayes most likely came up with the theory named after him in order to dispro ..read more

I was puzzled by all the doublets in the chronology of the Genesis flood milestones, such as this one: “Noah was six hundred years old when the floodwaters came on the earth” (Genesis 7:6), and “In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened” (Genesis 7:11). Why are two seemingly different dates (different by apparently 46 days) given? Were two flood accounts combined into one?   The Genesis flood story recorded in Genesis 6–9 has been the subject ..read more

The primary mission of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST, seen in figure 1) is to investigate the early history of the universe. Of particular interest to researchers is the period known as the “cosmic dawn,” when starlight first illuminated the universe. This aptly named era extends from 0.2 billion to 1.2 billion years after the cosmic origin event. Figure 1: James Webb Space Telescope  The James Webb Space Telescope is 1.6 million kilometers (1 million miles) from Earth at the Lagrange 2 point along Earth’s orbit. Credit: NASA To observe the cosmic dawn, astronomers must look ..read more

Traditional Christians believe Jesus Christ is the long-awaited Jewish Messiah and the Savior of the world. This central and cardinal belief of historic Christianity ties together the identity of Jesus (divine-human Messiah) with his work of redemption on the cross (suffering and atoning Savior). Accordingly, Christians recognize him as the “suffering servant” prophesied in the book of Isaiah. But not all scholars hold this view. We’ll explore some of the details of the Isaiah passage and discuss alternative views, but first let’s consider the biblical basis for Jesus being the prophesied Jew ..read more

The day on which I’m writing this piece, April 2, 2024, has been designated by the United Nations General Assembly as World Autism Awareness Day. It’s also the start of an annual campaign, called #CelebrateDifferences, sponsored by the Autism Society of America, to highlight April as Autism Awareness Month. What better day for me to write about a subject so close to me as a person “on the Spectrum,” as the saying goes.  Last year I wrote an article on autism titled, Why Did God Create a World with Autism? In that article, I described my experience of autism, or Autism Spectrum ..read more

Global Hunger Crisis Beginning with the first chapter of the Bible (Genesis 1:28), God instructs human beings to take care of other people and be wise stewards of our world. Part of that mandate involves providing good answers to the issues and problems people face. One billion people in industrialized countries care greatly about carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and climate change. Three billion people, mostly in China and India, are focused on escaping poverty and achieving human flourishing at Western levels. Four billion people in the rest of the world are simply trying to survive. Feeding ..read more

According to recent satellite data, India, now the world’s most populous nation, ranks highest (as in worst) for particulate air pollution. Not surprisingly, Delhi, India’s capital city, with a metropolitan population of over 29,000,000, ranks as the world’s most air-polluted city.1 Such pollution is more than merely unpleasant for Delhi dwellers. It is deadly. Since 1998, an array of satellites has been tracking particulate air pollution levels all around the world. From 1998 to 2021, the average increase in such pollution over India, alone, measured 67.7%. Between 2013 and 2021, India was r ..read more

In my many years of being a Christian and working in evangelical Christian ministry I’ve encountered what I think are three common gospel distortions of how grace, faith, and works are to be understood in salvation. These are so common that I, at one time or another, have held all three of these unbiblical perspectives. And I still have to be careful and diligent so that I don’t fall back into the distortions. In this article, I’ll briefly introduce these three errors and then spend the latter part of my article discussing the meaning and importance of salvation by grace. Three Gospel Distort ..read more