The human future is an urban future. In one of the greatest social shifts of all human history, over half of all living humans now inhabit cities. Driven by population shifts, immigration, and human reproduction, massive new cities are springing up all over the globe. Will the church rise to this challenge?

The answer to that question will largely determine the future of Christian missions. At the same time, this is not the first time that the Christian church has found itself faced with the challenge of the city. A quick look at the New Testament will reveal that first-century Christianity was, by and large, concentrated in the cities of the Roman Empire. These earliest churches were established in cities like Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, Thessalonica, and, of course, both Jerusalem and Rome. The churches established in these strategic cities became the launching pads for missions and church planting.

Similarly, the Reformation of the church in the sixteenth century was an urban movement, emerging in the cities of Switzerland and Germany. The cities were host to the emerging universities of the Middle Ages and to the flowering culture of the Renaissance. The cities were where the Industrial Revolution happened and where churches pioneered new forms of ministry in the great nineteenth-century cities of London, Birmingham, Chicago, and New York.

But now, a new burst of metropolitan growth is transforming the global reality. The current issue of Foreign Policy, one of the most influential journals of global news and opinion, features a must-read collection of articles and research that documents this transformation. The Christian church had better pay close attention to this new and exploding global reality. Keep Reading

By any measure, Stephen Hawking is one of the most famous and influential figures in modern science. For thirty years, he served as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, and his career before and after his decades in that post is the stuff of scientific legend. He is also probably the longest-living person ever to be diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis [ALS], and the very fact that he has been productive since that diagnosis at age 21 is a testimony to his sense of personal mission and sheer determination.

Professor Hawking is out with a new book, and in The Grand Design, he, along with co-author Leonard Mlodinow, now presses his case against God — or at least against any role for God in the origin of the universe or the beginning of time.

Asking the most basic questions of the universe’s existence, Hawking and Mlodinow assert: “Some would claim the answer to these questions is that there is a God who chose to create the universe that way. It is reasonable to ask who or what created the universe, but if the answer is God, then the question has merely been deflected to that of who created God. In this view it is accepted that some entity exists that needs no creator, and that entity is called God. This is known as the first-cause argument for the existence of God. We claim, however, that it is possible to answer these questions purely within the realm of science, and without invoking any divine beings.” Keep Reading

Francis Collins stands at the very summit of the scientific community. He successfully led the massive effort to map the entire human genome, bringing the project to completion ahead of time and under budget. He now serves as director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), having been nominated by President Barack Obama last summer. He oversees one of the largest research budgets in the world and, armed with a Ph.D., a medical degree, and a long list of accomplishments, is one of the most influential scientists of the last 100 years.

Thus, you might think that the scientific world would have celebrated the elevation of Dr. Collins to the NIH. Not so. Harvard’s Steven Pinker declared that Collins is “an advocate of profoundly anti-scientific beliefs.” Other leading scientists said far worse. Why? Keep Reading

Dr. Paul DeBell believes that he was once a caveman. Not only that, he is fairly certain that his life as a caveman ended violently. “I was going along, going along, going along, and I got eaten,” said the psychiatrist.

To his life as a caveman, Dr. DeBell adds his knowledge of previous lives as a Tibetan monk and “a conscientious German who refused to betray his Jewish neighbors in the Holocaust.” Dr. DeBell’s account is found in “Remembrances of Lives Past” by Lisa Miller of Newsweek magazine, published in the August 29, 2010 edition of The New York Times. Miller writes of the growing acceptance of the idea of reincarnation among Americans.

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life reported last year that a quarter of all Americans now believe in reincarnation. As Lisa Miller notes, the report found that women are more likely to believe in reincarnation than men, and registered Democrats are more likely than Republicans. In any event, the popularity of reincarnation is rising, and Dr. DeBell is but one example. A psychiatrist trained at Cornell University, Dr. DeBell is one of the voices on behalf of reincarnation, but he is not alone. Keep Reading

The American literary critic Frederick Crews once spoke of defenders of evolutionary theory who attempt to make Darwinism appear more congenial to the Christian faith than it truly is. These defenders, Crews wrote, present a vision of Darwin and Darwinism that “is often prettified to make it safe for doctrines that he himself was sadly compelled to leave behind.” The prettifying of evolution continues, even in today’s edition of The Wall Street Journal.

Writing in the paper’s weekly  “Houses of Worship” column, John Farrell argues that the 60th anniversary of the Roman Catholic Church’s encyclical Humani Generis should be cause for celebration, since that historic document, issued by Pope Pius XII, “confirmed, in broad terms, that there is no intrinsic conflict between Christianity and the scientific theory of evolution.” Keep Reading

An open letter to Professor Karl Giberson, in answer to his posting, “How Darwin Sustains My Baptist Search for Truth.”

Dear Professor Giberson:

I read with interest your posting at The Huffington Post, brought to my attention by friends. I will respond by means of this open letter, though your tone and chosen forum are not indicative of any serious desire for an honest exchange. Your choice of a secular website, well known for its more liberal leanings, is quite a statement in itself. Did you write this in order to gain the favorable attention of the readers at The Huffington Post? If so, presumably you have your reward. But your tone — hardly the tone of a serious scholar or scientist — is even more disappointing. Keep Reading

The New York Times Magazine addresses an important question in its August 22, 2010 cover story — “What Is It About 20-Somethings?” With this cover story, the venerable newspaper gives cultural attention to a phenomenon some now call “failure to launch.” In her article, writer Robin Marantz Henig probes this issue with care and insight. In all probability, this cover story will be discussed for years to come.

The reason for this becomes clear once you read the essay. Henig lets her readers understand the scale of the issue — we are not talking about a passing phenomenon that is linked to the economic recession. We are talking about a major change in the way young people move toward adulthood . . . if they are moving toward adulthood. Keep Reading

There is nothing quite like the start of a new academic year on a college or university campus. Streams of students and faculty return to the timeless patterns of academic life, summoned by the desire for learning and a commitment to teaching. Among the thousands of college students arriving on campuses at this time of year are freshmen, representing the most eager and excited new members of the academic community. The transition from high school to college is one of the most significant seasons of a young person’s life, and the energy and youthfulness they add to the campus is immeasurable and invaluable.

The faculty also return to their calling, and most begin the new year with a sense of satisfaction and eagerness that can almost match that of the incoming freshmen. There is exhilaration in the experience of teaching. One of the greatest privileges offered to a college or university professor is the stewardship of learning and teaching, as well as having influence over the minds and worldviews of young people at one of the most formative periods of life. Most new professors find the experience to be nearly intoxicating, and even the most seasoned professors find the experience of teaching to be both deeply satisfying and personally challenging. The power of a professor in a classroom is immense, and most teachers are deeply committed to their disciplines and their calling. The classroom and the campus are where so many lives are shaped and where minds come alive. What could possibly go wrong? A great deal, as it turns out. Keep Reading

Back in 1990, theologian J. I. Packer recounted what he called a “Thirty Years’ War” over the inerrancy of the Bible. He traced his involvement in this war in its American context back to a conference held in Wenham, Massachusetts in 1966, when he confronted some professors from evangelical institutions who “now declined to affirm the full truth of Scripture.” That was nearly fifty years ago, and the war over the truthfulness of the Bible is still not over — not by a long shot. Keep Reading

Michael Dowd argues that Christians should thank God for the New Atheists. A self-styled “evangelist” for evolution, Dowd recently preached a sermon in Oklahoma City in which he called for nothing less than a rejection of biblical Christianity and the embrace of a spirituality rooted in an embrace of evolution and a rejection of the supernatural. Keep Reading