Free Republic

THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE WITHOUT DUALISM by Elizabeth NewmanBoth modernism's disinterested spectator and postmodernism's deconstructed self lead to the gnostic belief that we are in bondage to the world. Biblically informed myth offers an escape. That theology and science have been haunted by epistemological dualisms is an unremarkable claim. Current postmodern efforts to think beyond such dualisms as objectivism versus relativism include recent attention to knowledge as socially constructed, communitarian, and nonfoundational. Such efforts share the assumption that knowing and doing are internally related. Thus theology and science, like all knowledge, emerge from the practices of concrete, historical communities rather than...

Space Shuttle CrashFollowing the space shuttle crash, the Israeli press was so chocked full of condolences from Bush to Sharon and vice-versa, one would have thought that the tragedy was almost worth it, for it brought Israel and America closer - “a covenanat of blood has been formed between the two countries” is an expression often used. With Israeli and US flags lowered to half-mast, we heard leaders from both sides saying, “times such as these strengthen the Israeli and American peoples' common fate, identity and values, and shared vision”. PM Sharon added “it is at moments such as these,...

Beware the easy answers By BILL TAMMEUS The Kansas City Star Some people have looked through the eyes of religious faith at the joyful story of the nine rescued coal miners near Somerset, Pa., and have drawn quick and easy conclusions. Some have even connected the mine recovery story with the fact that the self-sacrificing heroes on one of the airplanes hijacked on Sept. 11 crashed the plane only 10 miles from that coal mine. I don't object to seeing the world through theological lenses. Indeed, that practice usually gives me clarity. What I object to is a tendency to...