Editor’s note: A church event limited the number of participants this week to three, with a fourth joining part way through. Don elected to postpone his usual opening remarks until next Sabbath. This discussion was centered around Donald’s recent intercourse with an Amish family. To what extent is the Amish way of life driven by…

How does religion, or religious culture, change? What are the forces involved? Are they seldom, occasionally, often, or always associated with violence, chaos, disruption? Or are they easily subjected to control and management? All cultures and religions have elements predisposed to change and elements predisposed and even designed to maintaining the status quo. More often…

How do culture and religion influence one another? Nothing shapes us more than where we were raised, where we were socialized. What we wear, what language we speak, what we eat, what sports we follow, what relationship we have with our family, how we picture God, which holy books we read, and how we practice…

How did Jesus relate to the culture of His time and place, and what influence might it have had on Christian doctrine? Does God Himself have a culture? The practice of religion is based on the accident of birth, on where one is born, what language one speaks, how one is educated, and which holy…

What is culture? Does God have culture? The word is from the Latin cultura meaning cultivation, the tilling of the soil. Perhaps it is the essence of what is needed for survival. The poet T.S. Eliot wrote: “Culture may even be described simply as that which makes life worth living.” (T. S. Eliot, 1948. Pp.…

Jesus described two types of doctrine: Then some Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, “Why do Your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.” And He answered and said to them, “Why do you yourselves transgress the commandment of God for the…