5 Questions for Church Leaders to Ask About Generative AI
With the rise of generative AI, are we closer to Clippy, your old animated friend from Microsoft Office 97—or to the Terminator? Are we closer to Buzz Lightyear or to the AI-run jet from the movie Stealth? Here are some snapshots of where we are: An AI-generated work took first place in a Colorado state […]
Jesus and the Buddha: What Was Their Diagnosis of Humanity’s Problem?
According to Jesus and the Buddha, what is fundamentally wrong with humanity? As we will see, Siddhartha Gautama’s diagnosis of humanity undercuts the human problem by changing our perspective about what a human is. He does this by having the adherent realize that she isn’t an enduring self. Once an adherent is cured of her […]
Managing Your Life: What Happens When You Do and Don’t
How exciting could it be to “manage my life”? Does it sound a little, well, boring? Yet what’s truly boring is living life in a way that doesn’t work. It gets monotonous trying to use the sharp end of a hammer as a screwdriver or trying to use a calculator to tell you the time of […]
Why Was Jesus Born? A Christmas Poem
One of my favorite phrases in the Bible was spoken by an angel to a group of shepherds on the first Christmas. The angel came to announce “great joy for all the people” (Luke 2:10b, NIV). But what about those for whom Christmas doesn’t feel like great joy? Those for whom Christmas is feels more […]
The Christmas Shepherds: Why God Picked Them and What They Teach Us
You ever feel like you’ve missed Christmas? Where it came, went, you did a bunch of activities—but you kind of missed it? Most people did. Most everybody in Israel and even Bethlehem missed the first Christmas. There were only a very few people who actually got it. Even the Wise Men missed it, as they […]
Jesus and the Buddha: How Did They Interact with Society?
It’s impossible to overstate the influence of Siddhartha Gautama over the Eastern world and Jesus Christ over the Western world. But how did they minister in society? In this article, let’s look at the styles of ministry between Gautama and Jesus. How involved were each in the lives of people? Both had ministries of teaching, […]
Jesus and the Buddha: How Did They React to Suffering?
If we were to name the most important religious figures of the Western and Eastern world, they would be Jesus Christ for the West and Siddhartha Gautama, also known as the Buddha, for the East. In this article, we’re going to contrast how Gautama and Jesus reacted when facing the troubles of the world. We […]
The Surprising Power of Praying “Thank You”
The 2011 movie The Adventures of Tintin, directed by Steven Spielberg, was based on the popular European cartoon by Georges Remi (Hergé). Early in the movie, we are introduced to Captain Haddock, voiced by Andy Serkis, the pitiable captain whose crew has turned against him. His crew has locked him in a room aboard his […]
