Dr Paul Allen

Christians, non-Christians, and people of no faith are now particularly mindful of the possibility that the forms of living we have grown accustomed to may very soon come to an end, whether by runaway climate change or another virulent plague, or extreme acts of violence.  For so many, normal life, or whatever once passed for it, now appears irretrievably lost. To be fair, extreme dislocations of this kind are nothing new to human history. But there is something new within our peculiarly combustible cocktail of catastrophes.  We see it in the increasingly violent rhetoric and action taking over once-stable democracies, the frustration and desperation that grips even the most peaceful and hopeful social movements, and the chronic despair of a young generation who has given up on the idea that society will ever work for them.  There is, in all these things, a sense of hopelessness. It pervades all levels of society, from the highest institutions to the simplest human interactions. Hopele

There is no doubt that recent times have seen a number of disasters. Just over a week ago, the world witnessed a semi-rare three hurricanes simultaneously in the Atlantic basin . Houston has experienced  three “500 year flood events”  in the past few years. Having dropped about 52 inches of rain locally and  nine trillion tons of water , Harvey is considered a  “1000 year or more” event . Irma is still deluging the States after  devastating entire islands . While Americans were thus occupied,  monsoon-related flooding in Asia   exceeded the deaths, damaged, and displaced of the States . Water wasn’t the only carnaging culprit. Wildfires in Washington, Oregon, California , Montana , Idaho, California, and Utah  brought unexpected havoc to the west . We could go on about wars, rumors of wars, and other mayhem. Your co-worker philosopher is right: things  are  happening. But the question is, what? Many have postulated. And it’s probably best to conclude that theologi

Image via Wikipedia "And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God , which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory." ( Revelation 16:9 )   There is much being discussed these days, in both the scientific literature and the popular press, on the issue of global warming . An increasing number of scientists and other intellectuals are insisting that the growing emission of greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels is producing a significant warming of the whole planet, causing melting of the polar glaciers and probably an alarming increase in catastrophic events such as hurricanes and perhaps even earthquakes and tsunamis . Image via Wikipedia   On the other hand, many more conservative scientists keep insisting that this is a cyclic phenomenon, reminding us that it was not long ago that we were being warned of an imminent ice age. Who can say for sure?   We do know, however, that a terrible time of global warmin

Image via Wikipedia The real question posed by Mooney’s USA Today column is whether Christians possess the discernment to recognize this postmodern mode of spirituality for what it is — unbelief wearing the language of a bland faith. There are many arenas of cultural and intellectual conflict in the world today, but one of the most controversial of these arenas has disappeared. There is now no conflict between spirituality and science. The war is over, the combatants have gone home, and lilies of peace now decorate the landscape where conflict once raged. Science and spirituality are now at total unperturbed peace. That paragraph is meaningless, of course, which is entirely the point. Monday’s edition of USA Today  features an opinion column by Chris Mooney , author of  Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future . Mooney sets out to argue that spirituality can serve as a bridge across the science-religion divide. Mooney is alarmed by the pervasiveness of wh