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We had a great turnout last night.  If you missed the first class, feel free to drop in another time.  We’ll be meeting Wednesday nights at 6:30pm at Lakeside Christian Church. There are a couple of nights that I will be out of town, so we won’t be having class on March 24, April 28, or May 5. Missing class for two weeks in a row is not ideal, I know, but a last minute change of schedule came up just as we were starting class. On May 5, I’ll be in Chicago auditioning for Jeopardy!

Each week, I’ll post some additional resources online, as well as the notes and slides from the class. For Christianity, here are a few good resources:

• GetReligion.org follows media coverage of all religions. It’s a great place to see critical assessments of how well the media covers various religions, as well as to learn a lot more about different religions.
• Christianity Today’s news page collects Christianity-related news from across the Internet. CT also has a Christian History page that collects articles about Christian history, as well as important events. By utter coincidence, today is the day when Alexander Campbell, one of the founders of the Restoration Movement, died in 1866.
• The official website of the Orthodox Church in America is a great place to learn more about the 2nd largest Christian communion in the world.

Are there any other resources you are looking for? Resources from last night’s class can be found by clicking “Read more.” [Read more]

Tonight will be the first meeting of the World Religions Class that I’m teaching at Lakeside Christian Church. First up: Christianity. Might as well start off on something easy, right? Yeah, right.

If you are interested, feel free to join us, and let others know, too. I’ll be posting updates and helpful links about each of the religions that we cover. You can also drop in at any time. This ain’t college, you know.

Emergent Man

Ah, yes, another article proclaiming that smart people are liberal. Elizabeth Landau of CNN reports on a soon-to-be-published article by evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa that claims higher IQ is associated liberal politics and religion, as well as “sexual exclusivity” (a.k.a. monogamy).

I haven’t seen the article (it’s not available yet), but there are a couple of problems with the simple equation “smart = liberal.” First, notice how “liberal” is defined:

The study takes the American view of liberal vs. conservative. It defines “liberal” in terms of concern for genetically nonrelated people and support for private resources that help those people. It does not look at other factors that play into American political beliefs, such as abortion, gun control and gay rights.

Strange definition. In America, conservatives favor the use of private resources to help people. As far as the “genetically nonrelated” issue, I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean. Part of the problem here – as with most discussions of liberalism and conservatism – is that the terms can mean many different things. [Read more]