Energion.com - Religion, Philosophy, and Politics

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Flouridation -- Sightings

In case you're wondering, the issue at hand really isn't fluoridation, but rather the kinds of issues that seem to get a rise out of folks.  Right now the Katherine Sebelius's ruling that health insurance carriers must provide contraception is being used to rally Catholic troops by their bishops, though to what end is not clear.  Republican pundits and politicians seem to be on the band wagon as well, declaring that somehow this ruling is anti-religion or anti-Christian.  Not sure how  [Read more at Bob Cornwall]

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Knowing And Not Doing...

Over the years I have read and studied a lot of the Bible. It is really is the best read and study for life and it is fresh and new every time I open it because my life is in a different place every time I read the Word. I have come across and studied under many knowledgeable teachers. What I'm saying here is
that there are a lot of folks out there with a boat load of biblical knowledge of how we as believers and followers of Jesus are supposed to live out our lives.

I was looking at a  [Read more at Greg's Watering Hole]

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My Expectations

Lectionary texts: 2 Kings 5:1-14, Psalm 30, 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, Mark 1:40-45

So he turned and left in a rage.

But his servants approached and said to him, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more should you do it when he tells you, ‘Wash and be clean’?” So Naaman went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, according to the command of the man of God. Then his skin was restored and became like the skin of  [Read more at Jody's Devotionals]

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Who are We In Christ? A Sermon

1 Corinthians 9:16-23


Rene Descartes declared these famous words – in Latin of course – Cogito ergo sum.   That is, “I think, therefore I am.”   According to this famous philosopher the ability to reason and to think defined human identity.  Many people, especially today, would find his definition rather limited, because it seems to exclude a lot that makes us who we are.     But who are you?  What makes you, you?   
I can’t answer this question for you, but I  [Read more at Bob Cornwall]

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Until The Leaves Quit Falling

Many years ago we went to spend Thanksgiving with some of our relatives in Kentucky. When I woke up there on Thanksgiving morning the wind was howling outside. I looked out the window to see an Uncle and his son trying to rake the leaves up in the yard. It seemed a silly waste of time to me as the leaves were obviously falling faster than they could possibly rake them up!


When they finally stopped raking and came inside, I thought to myself: What a waste of time! The ground is still covered with  [Read more at Greg's Watering Hole]

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The Chalkboard

When I was in middle school many of the students had chores of some sort to do at the school. My friend and I liked cleaning the chalkboard erasers and wiping the chalkboard down with a wet cloth.


We would take the four chalkboard erasers outside and bang them together (and on each other) until there was little or no chalk dust left on them. It was fun to see how big of a cloud we could make and watch it drift away in the breeze. Then we would go back inside and wipe down the chalkboard with wet  [Read more at Greg's Watering Hole]

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What Did Jesus Look Like?

What did Jesus look like?  Any answer to this question must, of course, be rather incomplete since we have no likenesses available to us.  And, no, the Shroud of Turin, which is surely a fake, doesn’t count!   Despite our lack of an accurate picture, most of us have some image in mind.  It may be a Sunday School picture or a painting hanging in one of the world’s great art museums.  It might inspire reverence or indifference. Even if God is invisible to our sight, Christian  [Read more at Bob Cornwall]

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They Are At Again

I am constantly amazed by the hypocrisy of politics (and, yes, I am being sarcastic). Of course, I am also amazed at the willingness of people to accept much of today’s political rhetoric as truth as well and believing that the promises of the candidates (on both sides of the aisle) will become reality upon their election.

If each one of us would stop for a moment and think (a daring thought, I know) about what is happening in this country, then the whole political landscape would change.  [Read more at Thoughts from the Heart on the Left]

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Biblical vs. Unbiblical

Morgan Guyton has a very strong (and, in my view, entirely justified) reaction to the abuse of the term “biblical.”

… In how many other “Bible” churches out there has “Biblical” become a code-word for an ideological platform that serves a purpose completely foreign to God’s mission but cherry-picks verses out of the Biblical text to justify itself?

Good question! (Of course, his question follows an example.)

Nonetheless I want to sound another warning: Let’s  [Read more at Participatory Bible Study Blog]

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Beware the Cult of the Speaker

Dave Black warns us today against the cult of the speaker. (With permission I’ve extracted the relevant portion as a post at JesusParadigm.com since Dave’s blog doesn’t allow linking to a specific post.)

Considering what we’ve heard recently about megachurches creating satellite campuses that receive the message from the senior pastor on the main campus via video. It’s not my intent here to point to any particular speaker as an example of being a celebrity preacher or of participating  [Read more at Threads from Henry's Web]

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