Todd's Blog

The following is an open letter to a theologian friend who recently asked how he might sort out his own views on fossil hominins.  I thought this might be of interest to others, particularly theologians or pastors who have regular contact with those in the sciences, so here are my thoughts on the subject.  Enjoy! First of all, thanks for asking.  I find too many theologically-trained individuals either disinterested in the many questions raised by fossil hominins or intimidated into a simplistic response.  For those of us Christians working in the sciences, fossil hominins are among the most challenging issues that we might face.  It's always struck me as so very odd that the source of so much anxiety in believing scientists is shrugged off as uninteresting or unimportant by theologians who are supposed to be trained to help.  Your question is already a glimmer of hope.  Now if only more theologians would ask such questions! So you want to know about hominins?  I couldn't possi

Just before Christmas, a surprising announcement acknowledged that famous Christian preacher and apologist Ravi Zacharias was guilty of longstanding sexual harassment and misconduct .  The announcement came from the multimillion dollar ministry that he left behind when he passed away in May 2020, which is what makes it so surprising (at least to me).  Even this small honesty is sadly uncommon in recent years. When Zacharias passed, I was still on Facebook fairly regularly, and my feed was full of adoring eulogies for this man.  This morning I poked around on Facebook a little bit looking for public reactions from those same eulogizers.  I found mostly silence. Then again, what do you say?  The guy evidently duped a lot of people.  If you were a fan and believe the allegations, you have to feel at least a little gullible, and if you still don't believe the allegations, it's hard to argue with the ministry he left behind admitting that he did it.  It's hard to scream "fa

This is waaaaay outside my usual type of article, but it's a big question on the minds of Christians everywhere, and I've been asked: Is the vaccine safe?  Should I get it? Let's begin with COVID-19: Is it really a threat?  YES.  Yes, it is.  Globally, there have been nearly 85 million cases with 1.8 million dead.  The US accounts for nearly a quarter of the cases and 20% of the deaths.  Those numbers are very likely substantial under estimates, meaning that the real total is probably quite a bit higher.  I personally know one person who has died from COVID and three who have been gravely ill in the hospital for more than a week with COVID and COVID complications.  None of those people I know were in any category of high risk.  This disease is real.  The threat is real.  Those who say otherwise are mistaken, to put it as charitably as I can. The tricky thing about COVID is that only a small fraction of people have a really bad reaction to it and only a small fraction of peo