Words On Wednesday

In the wake of Pope Francis's passing, I decided to listen to one of his books in his memory. Like many of my reading decisions, I picked this one up because it was the only audiobook that my local library had available from Pope Francis. At just 5 hours, it seemed like a very digestible approach to the theology and thoughts of the most cultural-friendly Pope that I can remember. Ten-plus years ago, I probably wouldn't have even touched this book. I was much more hostile to Catholicism due to the influence of my church family at the time. In my old age, and having worked with several devout Catholics, I've changed my opinion substantially. You can't really have a theological discussion with someone if you don't actually know what they believe, and Catholicism is so closely related to Protestant Christianity, I was doing myself a disservice to not at least investigate at a cursory level. I won't get into the intricacies of Catholicism vs Protestantism, although t...

“The Sin of Certainty: Why God Desires Our Trust More Than Our ‘Correct’ Beliefs” is a controversial take on Christianity from controversial author Peter Enns. I didn’t realize before I picked it up just what I was getting myself into, but I am tremendously glad I experienced this book. Modern Christianity exists in a weird space where the Bible tells us some things about the world and scientific experts tell us often contradictory things. Many Bible literalists believe Earth is only about 6,000 years old, but science tells us Earth is closer to 4.5 billion years old. Evolution is a bad word among evangelicals, but Charles Darwin and most biologists since are fairly confident that species today evolved from common ancestors in the distant past. Some extremists even go so far as to say that God built the world as a firmament, so we live on a flat plane with an impassable dome above us. I can’t imagine that’s the majority of believers, but those people exist. Suffice it to say, there is ...