He describes both science and religion as means of searching for the truth, but in fundamentally different (and both essential) ways:

“Science is looking at the world as an object — as an “it”—which you can pull apart and do with what you want…You can do the same experiment over and over again until you feel sure you understand what is going on…But there are great swaths of human encounter with reality where you meet reality not just as an object but where there is a personal dimension. Unlike with the scientific experiment, no personal experience is ever going to be exactly repeated…the encounter between persons, even more the encounter with the personal reality of God, has to be based on trusting and not on testing.”

He describes a unique and important aspect of humility that comes from belief in God:

“The fundamental mistake, I think, is to believe that we are somehow beings who can do it on our own. The fundamental mistake is for creatures to think they are the creators. Doing it my way is not, I think, the recipe for a good and fulfilling life. I think we need the grace of God to help us; we are not fated to be independent in that sense. God wishes us to act freely and to embrace divine mercy freely. But God knows that we need His grace and humility in order to do that. So humility is concerned first of all with recognizing our status.”

He also addresses the futility of applying scientific standards of “proof” to religion:

“Proof, cast-iron proof, is pretty limited and not actually a very interesting category of things…What we need, I think, is beliefs that are sufficiently well-motivated for us to feel that we can commit our lives to them…”

This is a touchy subject because Mr. Beck is very popular and represents the views of many Americans through the Tea Party movement. Certainly, Christians have legitimate disagreements about government’s role in addressing economic inequality, and whether the church should encourage political changes to those ends.

But Mr. Beck is clearly off-base in declaring that any church mentioning “social justice” is sympathetic to Nazism or Communism. (Being Nazi and Communist at the same time, in any case, is hard to pull off.) Hyperbolic sound-bites aside, this has raised a more fundamental question: should Christians help others through personal charity alone, or also by trying to change government policy?

My own take is that the Bible is clearly concerned not just with individual charity, but also with compassion at the level of society and government. That doesn’t mean all Christians have to support certain economic policies, but it certainly doesn’t mean we should renounce churches or hurl accusations of Nazism over it either. And aren’t Beck (who is Mormon) and his supporters also fierce advocates on other policy issues like gay marriage and educational standards? Perhaps this crusade against “social justice” isn’t a consistent Biblical stand, but a twisted argument for another heavily-politicized worldview.

Almost every topic in the “culture wars,” from gay marriage to evolution, hinges upon one’s convictions on this issue. A recent New York Times Magazine article explores one particularly influential battleground: the educational committee that determines the curriculum of Texas public schools. This committee’s power is quite specific: for example, they recently voted to include conservative congressman Newt Gingrich, but exclude liberal senator Ted Kennedy.

Reporter Russell Shorto upholds the mainstream view that the Constitution prohibits establishing Christianity as the de facto state religion. One of the most simple and telling facts: the document deliberately never mentions God. Shorto is also appropriately unconvinced by claims that the First Amendment does not actually require separation between church and state.

Yet Shorto does not entirely side with secularists either. He makes a key distinction: just because the Founders did not establish a “Christian nation” does not mean that Christianity was irrelvant to their lives and to American history. In trying to counterbalance the bias of Christian activists, secularists minimize the profound moral and historical influence of Christianity in our culture. We should acknowledge our Christian roots objectively, while understanding that they never justify the imposition of a religious agenda in a free society.

Well, apparently not. Their translation of the Gospel of Mark is already on-line and clearly meant to be taken seriously. To be fair, they don’t seem to have altered the text in quite as ludicrous a way as originally suggested. That makes you wonder, though, why they are bothering in the first place. Perhaps it is a publicity stunt after all.

To many, the phrase “Christian environmentalist” is oxymoronic, the idea of preserving nature for its own sake having acquired the same radical connotations as socialism or atheism. Yet the Bible—from Eden to Noah’s ark to the Exodus to Elijah—is inseparable from the natural world and the way God exerts His glory and His discipline through it. King David, who spent many years as a desert vagabond, can attest to the fact that the closest communion with God is often found in the wilderness.

It’s not that every believer must sign up for Sierra Club membership. But the more absorbed we are in the quartz-timed routines of our climate-controlled lives, the more our souls should benefit from direct exposure to virgin Creation. David perceives that the sea, the rivers, and the mountains all extol our heavenly Father. Who would ever say the same about a strip mall or office park?

So yes, it is Christian to preserve wilderness so that everyone, especially future generations, may enjoy God’s unadulterated handiwork. It is Biblical to advocate for the environment, from the local wildlife to the global climate. True, our priorities are very different from those of extreme earth-firsters who see mankind as a pox on the planet, and every resource consumed as plunder. But the Psalmist also reminds us of our place: God created this earth, and He has privileged us to “dwell in it.” May we attain a proper sense of context and stewardship towards our environment, that we may also attain to dwell with its Creator, whose beauty and breadth are even greater by far.

“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike.” —John Muir

He is particularly well-known for attempting to reconcile evolution and the Bible, espousing what known as “theistic evolution”: that natural selection itself should be understood as God’s inspired mode of creation. Evolution provided the biologic substrate, he argues, but God invested this organic matter with an ineffable spirit and sense of morality. However you may feel about this concept, Collins’ ambassadorship for both science and Christianity has been edifying for many.

Despite these attempts at bridge-building, Collins has not been without detractors. A prime example is prominent atheist Sam Harris’ recent column in the New York Times, in which he argues that Collins’ faith disqualifies him from such an important scientific post. It’s an incredibly ungracious, not to mention unfair, pronouncement. Based not on any actual deficiencies in his record, just extrapolations from previous statements of faith, Harris wants to make religion a disqualifying conflict of interest in scientific inquiry.

In most cases, fundamentalist claims that Christians are being “persecuted” or significantly discriminated against (in the United States) are overblown. If views like Sam Harris’ ever become policy-shaping prescriptions, though, they just might have a point.

“If the governor looks at the Bible, he will see that the story of David is told as a cautionary tale, not something to be emulated.” –Chuck Colson

“A politician who invokes the ‘I am a sinner’ language is subtly implying…‘don’t judge me harshly, since you’re just as bad.’ The problem with this is that Jesus never suggested that being cleansed of spiritual sin meant you were exempted from temporal punishment.” -Steven Waldman

Another suggests that this episode further reveals a fundamental tension between Christian faith and political conservatism:

“Christians believe that no one is blameless and all must therefore ride the coattails of a perfect being into heaven. But conservatives espouse the gospel of personal accountability. The paradox of American evangelicals is that [they hold] utterly opposing views of redemption.” -Rabbi Shumley Boteach

Yet it may be a mistake to conclude, as do some liberals, that such moral values should therefore be completely irrelevant to political discourse:

“…Personal failings do not automatically discredit the causes for which he was fighting or serve as irrefutable proof that he never believed in those causes in the first place…Americans should not be disqualified from speaking their conscience on contentious social and moral issues for fear of being exposed someday as imperfect.” -Colleen Campbell

This isn’t to say that abortion is not (at least in a sense) murder, or that Roeder deserves an iota of sympathy. However, it forces me to reconsider, as a pro-life Christian, the wisdom of classifying all abortion as first-degree murder. As abhorrent as late-term abortion may be, what Dr. Tiller did was legal, and gratefully acknowledged by many patients, most of whose situations were not as selfish or reckless as we want to believe. (And here’s another conundrum: if all abortion is murder, why is late-term abortion any worse than early-term? Why target Tiller?)

As a medical student, I had the eye-opening experience of meeting two women who were having abortions, then witnessing their procedures. I listened to their stories. I have also personally known Christian women, as decent and upstanding as you or me, who made secret, excruciating decisions to end their pregnancies.

Should the state forbid them this choice, and should they be punished if they proceed anyway? As a Christian, I realize I should answer—uneasily, humbly, but clearly—“yes.” But I am also increasingly at odds with crusading activists who insist this is a clear-cut issue with simple solutions, either morally or politically.

The astonishing fact that this doctor—though an infamous abortion provider—was a long-time usher in a mainstream church reminds us how complex and delicate this issue can be. Let us pray for wisdom in government, church, and society as this story unfolds.

A conservative radio host gets waterboarded, thinking he’ll prove it’s not torture—and barely lasts five seconds. His instant conclusion: this is obviously torture. (Prediction: some far-right apologist is going to say this doesn’t count because the host had been scarred by a childhood near-drowning experience.)

It’s outrageous that some conservatives, and especially Christians, continue to claim that waterboarding is not torture. Then they insist that the torture of suspected terrorists is justified, even mandated, by the threat they pose. They never admit that these are mutually exclusive arguments, a sure sign they’re just making excuses for what Bush and Cheney have already done.

The fact that we, as a country, are debating torture as though it were a morally ambiguous issue just saddens me. If being a follower of Jesus—who said we are measured by how we treat our enemies, not our friends—means anything, it means that we should stand together against such despicable things.