What is the point of church?

Good Monday morning all! Here is a question emailed to me recently about the relevance of going to church. I know a lot of folks who share the sentiment in this question and I would love to get a good dialogue going this week about the pros and cons of going to church....

It appears to me that the majority of Christian church congregations go to church on Sunday and call themselves Christians. I guess I am confused by this. What is the point of going to church? If it is to learn then I am curious as to what we are supposed to be doing with the material we are learning? Would we go to college for the rest of our lives and never put the gained knowledge to use?

How important is it that the events described in the OT happened historically?

This question has birthed out of the previous post and we are using the story of Jonah as an example. Again, if there is an Old Testament expert out there who would like to drop some knowledge bombs that would be great!

What are the differences between brainwashing and engaging the truth?

Well, I just dropped off my oldest kid, Will, at school for his first day of kindergarten and then came home to find this question waiting for me in my inbox. Interesting question that has lots of implications about reality, raising kids and how we come to know the truth. Some feel deceived that what was presented to them as truth when they were young (by parents, authorities figures, etc..) turned out to be flimsy or, in some cases, flat out untrue. While I don't believe the example in the question below fits that category, his point is worth discussing nevertheless...

Being a single man without children, I find such topics as child rearing very hard to access. However, considering my own experience as a child being reared, I do have opinions. Here's my question

What's the difference between brainwashing and presenting very young kids with a debatable story as though it were an unquestionable fact? For instance, we could use the scenario of teaching little kids in Sunday school the story that a man named Jonah lived in the belly of a whale for 3 days and 3 nights only to be vomited up alive and well.

Is God a "He"? Interview with Dr. Craig Blomberg about gender language in the NIV

Blomberg video: part three from Dave Morlan on Vimeo.

Is Yoga Ok for Christians?

Happy Monday morning everyone. Here is an interesting question emailed to me recently to get our brains going this week.

I believe that it is very important to take care of our bodies and treat them with respect. I also believe that one cannot deny the mental, physical, and overall health benefits of the practice of yoga. You get to quiet the mind and let all the wordly distractions go, it has helped me with balance, immunity, digestion, circulation, physical benefits, much slower to anger, stress, and worrying. However; from the little research I have done on yoga it seems that it started just as something they would do to loosen up their bodies to prepare for meditation. The more recent research I have found is that yoga is almost like treating yourself as a God or deity. This scares me....there are poses in yoga where they say you are bowing to yourself. I don't know what the "third eye" is about and do not participate in that. I also do not participate in the bowing at the end and saying "Namaste". They say that Namaste means "the light in me honors and respects the light in you". It seems like a very nice phrase or a good "mantra", but I don't know enough about the underlying meaning and treating ourselves as deities. I guess my question is whether yoga is ok to do if you believe that God is the one and only God. Is it a tricky tactic of the devil to lure people away from God, unknowingly?

What do you guys think?

How can Christianity be right and other religions be "wrong"?

I had these questions emailed to me from a couple of different people:

How can Christianity be right and other religions be "wrong?"

and, a bit more detailed...

Religion, for the most part, seems to be geographical. For instance, I sometime wonder if I had been born/grown up in a different country if I would have completely different beliefs. How do we know Christianity is the "right" religion? If God created every single person different, is it realistic to believe that everyone would follow the same religion? It seems that many religions have many of the same core values and I will go as far as to say that I think some other religions do some things more similar to the way that Christ lived than Christians do. How am I to say that my religion is correct over theirs? And along the same lines, is seems like disputes about religion have caused much fighting and grief. Should we be focusing more on a personal relationship with God than choosing the right religion?

Anyone out there what to take a stab at these?

Question about "Biblical" Scholarship vs. Secular Scholarship

Had this question emailed to me yesterday based on the Blomberg video in our previous post. Would love to get any thoughts any of you might have on this:

In a recent discussion with professors who tout their own literacy in the writings of antiquity, I was surprised to learn that they believed the KJV remains the only translation. Period. They also referenced Milton as creating part of the creation myths. Not sources on equal historical footing, by any means. Forgive the piling up of my adjectives, but I was disappointed by the poor, imbalanced nature of this type of fallacious scholarship. Why do you believe "the guard" of secular academia are so unwilling to award credit to life's work done by linguists in Biblical studies? Even for secular purposes, it seems like an academic feast. Even if you believe the Bible is literature, and not inspired, one must admit the linguistic work accomplished here, even when improving upon a translation we already possess, benefits the entire world. Boo to censorship.

How did we get the bible? Interview with Professor Craig Blomberg about different bible translations

Untitled from Dave Morlan on Vimeo.