God
The Kindness and Severity of God Part 2
The Kindness and Severity of God – Part 2 Standing at the foot of the cross, the beloved disciple did not know that the beatings, the crown of thorns, and the mangled flesh were all for him. Almost 60 years later, he would say: “Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 Jn 4:10). John came to understand that Calvary is…
The Kindness and Severity of God – Part 1
The Kindness and Severity of God – Part 1 I often find myself thinking about or quietly singing the comforting words of the modern hymn In Christ Alone. Still, sadly, those beautiful words sometimes bring back the unpleasant memory of a recent and very public controversy. In 2013, the Presbyterian Church (USA) voted to exclude the hymn from its new hymnal because the composers refused to allow a change to the lyrics. The issue was this: the second verse contains the…
Language of God or Happy Accident (Part 2)
Language of God or Happy Accident? (Part 2) In his Return of the God Hypothesis, Cambridge educated philosopher of science Stephen C Meyer argues that ‘certain features of living systems… are best explained by the activity of an actual designing intelligence” (See Part 1). In an earlier publication (Signature in the Cell) Meyer points out that “DNA stores the assembly instructions for building the many crucial proteins and protein machines that service and maintain even the most primitive one-celled…