Dr Paul Allen

Dr. Rodney Stark has written nearly 40 books on a wide range of topics, incuding a number of recent books on the history of Christianity, monotheism, Christianity in China, and the roots of modernity. After beginning as a newspaper reporter and spending time in the Army, Stark received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, where he held appointments as a research sociologist at the Survey Research Center and at the Center for the Study of Law and Society. He later was Professor of Sociology and of Comparative Religion at the University of Washington; he has been at Baylor University since 2004. Stark is past president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and of the Association for the Sociology of Religion, and he has won a number of national and international awards for distinguished scholarship. Raised as a Lutheran, he has identified himself as an agnostic but has, more recently, called himself an “independent Christian”. His most recent book...

Robert Bowers entered that congregation at about 10:00 AM and began opening fire. The openly anti-Semitic nature of the attack was made very clear with the fact that Robert Bowers said that he wanted all Jews to die, that according to a statement that he made after he was wounded, a statement made to a Pittsburgh SWAT officer. Throughout much of the history of the Christian church, there has been a struggle with anti-Semitism, but this is where Christians must understand theologically and biblically what is at stake. Israel is central to God's saving purpose for humanity.  The promise of salvation comes, as we see in the covenant made with Abraham, that through Abraham and his seed all the nations of the earth would be blessed. And of course, ultimately, the promise of salvation comes through a Savior, who was born to a Jewish mother and whose Jewish identity is central to our understanding of who Jesus is as revealed in Scripture.  The Jewishness of Jesus is no...