Daily tidbits 7/10/2009

'I questioned things at Guantánamo from day one'
Terry Holdbrooks arrived at Guantánamo detention camp in the summer of 2003 as a godless 19-year-old with a love of drinking, hard rock music and tattoos. By the time he left Cuba the following year, he had alienated his army colleagues, won the respect of the detainees and, most astonishingly, converted to Islam in a midnight ceremony in the presence of one of the detainees, who had become his mentor.

"Barriers to Accepting the Possibility of Creation by Means of an Evolutionary Process" [PDF]
Renowned evangelical theologian Bruce Waltke ... looks at eleven barriers keeping evangelical theologians from accepting evolutions as a valid means of creation. Waltke’s research includes survey responses from presidents and faculty from leading evangelical seminaries, as well as what their responses can tell us about the apparent gap between science and faith among evangelicals.

In the battle of science and religion, a truce reigns
South Africa shows no appetite for a culture war between Christian fundamentalists and Darwinians ... In public discourse, there is no sense of US-style culture wars between film stars and Bible belt fundamentalists. Nor does there appear to be the British appetite for a Richard Dawkins or AC Grayling to do battle with the true believers in endless books, newspaper columns and set-piece debates.

Sing to the Lord a New Song
The world is looking very worldly this evening, in Philadelphia’s Chinatown—the dazed conventioneers issuing from the nearby 1,400-room Marriott; the seamed faces of the homeless—but here outside the Trocadero Theatre, we’re running a slight spiritual temperature. Local theophile band mewithoutYou is playing a sold-out show, and the air holds the possibility that the kingdom of God, if it doesn’t descend to Earth tonight, will at least lower itself by a couple of inches.
Oh, to be a young believer in Philadelphia right now, where the spirit of Christian activism is mingling vigorously with an apparently unkillable strain of old-school countercultural Jesus-freakery.

New Bible software: Glo
NIV Bible text and study notes, more than 500 virtual tours with 360-degree views, 7,500 encyclopedia articles, 2,400 high-resolution photos, 700 pieces of artwork, 3.5 hours of HD video, nearly 150 maps, visual and intuitive searches, tools to track what you’re reading, take notes and read create Bible reading plans, social ‘sharing’ tools - to share with others what you’re discovering in the Bible (from 2010), and more!
No Mac version yet though.