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Kids, Critical Thinking and Christianity
My five-year-old rushed into my room after finishing up a bible study with my husband to proclaim, “Mommy… you are breaking the law of God!” My first inclination was, What in the world is my husband teaching the kids? My second gave away my pride. Who does this kid think he is? It would have been so easy to reprimand my son for calling into question my righteousness before the Lord. I could have sent him away and told him that he cannot disrespect mommy like that. Earlier that morning I disciplined him for making a wrong choice. In doing so, I hurt his feelings. My husband has been going…
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How Do We Love God with Our Whole Minds?
Today, I’m happy to feature as my guest columnist Ver-lee Cheneweth, my intern for the past year. You might remember meeting her last August when she shared about her journey relating to racism. During Texas’s February 2021 snowmageddon, all schools, including the seminary I attend, closed for a week. Doing schoolwork in subzero weather was ridiculous, so I chucked it for some recreational reading. Obviously, enjoying a compelling book snuggled beneath a downy comforter was the only sane way to pass the time unvexed. After reading Jesus and John Wayne by Kristin Kobes Du Mez, however, I fumed, saying, “Dang it! What the heck is wrong with us? Why can’t evangelicals think…
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Killer Question
The best critical thinking “power tool” I’ve ever discovered is a set of four “Killer Questions.” They’ve been around since Socrates, but after my friend Dr. Jeff Myers of Summit Ministries introduced them to me a few years ago, they have totally changed the way I process everything I hear: 1. What do you mean by that? 2. Where do you get your information? 3. How do you know it’s true? 4. What if you’re wrong? I use the #1 question the most. “What do you mean by that?” is a clarifying question that invites the other person to define their terms and make sure you’re both talking about the same thing. This…
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A Christian Conservative Goes to College, part 8 (Critical Thinking and the Abortion Debate continued)
“Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20, NASB). I have mentioned how the Critical Thinking Class seemed geared towards attacking conservative positions and Christian beliefs; in particular, one of the major assignments was for the class to read two major pro-abortion arguments, A Defense of Abortion by Judith Jarvis Thomson and The Moral and Legal Status of Abortion by Mary Anne Warren.[1] My last column was a minor critique of Thomson’s argument, but should I leave Ms. Warren to her own devices? As the Apostle Paul often…
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A Christian Conservative Goes to College, part 7 (Critical Thinking and the Abortion Debate)
“These men turn night into day; in the face of darkness they say, ‘Light is near’” (Job 17:12, NIV). In my last column in this series I mentioned how our Critical Thinking (Philosophy 111) Class seemed geared towards attacking conservative positions and Christian beliefs. In particular, one of the major assignments was for the class to read two major pro-abortion arguments, A Defense of Abortion by Judith Jarvis Thomson[1] and The Moral and Legal Status of Abortion by Mary Anne Warren.[2] It was at least mentioned that there was a famous counter argument by American bioethicist Baruch Brody; though I could not find his work online.
