Welcome to The GeoChristian. Out of over 600 posts on my blog, this one on the Periodic Table of Comic Books is in the top five in terms of how many people view it. The purpose of The GeoChristian is twofold: 1. To enhance science literacy within the Evangelical Christian community. 2. To present a …
The Future of Mt. St. Helens
I'm going to speculate a little bit about the future of Mt. St. Helens. My basic assumption is that the volcano has a future eruptive history; it is unlikely that it will become an extinct volcano anytime in the near future. I'll give two scenarios for the next few hundred years of the mountain. Scenario …
The Fin at Mt. St. Helens
USGS/Cascades Volcano Observatory Mt. St. Helens, in Washington State, has been undergoing a slow eruption since October 2004. So far, this has been a relatively quiet eruption, compared to the explosive eruption of May 18, 1980. In the past year and a half, there have been a few minor eruptions that have ejected ash into …
Missions Update 5 May 2006
My wife and I are missionaries in Romania with the Evangelical Free Church of America International Mission. We send out an e-mail update to our friends and supporters every couple of weeks. Here is part of our update for this week: Dear Family and Friends in Christ, The Mission of Bucharest Christian Academy “BCA exists …
The Silence of Adam
I usually avoid men's conferences and books written for men. So, when the men's group I was in a few years ago selected The Silence of Adam by Larry Crabb as the book we would be in for a few months, I was skeptical. I was hoping for something with meat in it, not fluff. …
Fashionable Space Suit From Mars
With NASA grant money, students at several North Dakota colleges designed this highly fashionable space suit. The colors are designed to make the astronaut more visible against the rusty red surface of Mars. The news article does not say what kind of protection the suit offers against radiation. However, it does state that the astronaut …
Recovering Ozone Layer
News story: Ozone Layer Shows Signs of Recovery As the level of CFCs in the atmosphere decreases, the concentration of ozone in the stratospheric ozone layer appears to be recovering, and this is good news. Remember that the ozone layer protects us from much of the skin cancer-causing ultraviolet radiation that comes from the sun. …
Graywacke
Our cat, Graywacke, died of kidney stones in Bucharest a couple weeks ago. To have a pet is to have a piece of nature in the home. It will be difficult to move back to Bucharest and not have him there. © Kevin Nelstead (click on image to enlarge) Where did I come up with …
All we are is dust in the wind
According to the English-language newspaper Nine O'Clock, our adopted home city of Bucharest, Romania is one of the dustiest cities in Europe. This not only makes our apartment dusty, it is a health hazard as well. Soils in and around the city have high levels of heavy metals such as lead and mercury. Restoration of …
Lightning
Many weekends, we travel to churches that support us in our work as missionaries with the Evangelical Free Church International Mission. This past weekend, we were at Elim EFC in the Chicago suburbs. Shirley spoke at a women's luncheon on Saturday, and I preached on Sunday. Driving through central Illinois on the way back to …
The Evangelical Ecologist
For my web site of the week: The Evangelical Ecologist, subtitled "A Christian Ecoblog- 'Cause the world isn't ours to mess up. Psalm 24:1." This week there have been excellent posts about the high price of gasoline, and the economics of sustainable development. Grace and Peace
A Warning on Education
Education doesn't always have a positive effect: What do you get when you educate sinners? The answer is simple enough—clever sinners. Knowledge, by itself, does not make people better; it may make them worse. —Douglas Wilson, Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning Education can be social engineering of the worst sort—think of education under the …
Black Hole Power
The Astronomy Picture of the Day for April 27th is about the tremendous energy that is released when matter falls into a black hole. This situation is incredibly efficient at producing energy; even more so than nuclear reactions. How about a black hole power plant in the future? If I remember right, the science fiction …
ID and Creationism
The second article posted today by Christianity Today on origins is The Other ID Opponents. The first ID (Intelligent Design) opponents are, obviously, the evolutionists. The other ID opponents are the young-earth creationists, and the article is about the relationship between ID and these groups, such as Ken Ham's Answers in Genesis. Some good points …
Why is this “science”?
Christianity Today has a couple of articles on ID and creationism that they posted on the web today. The first of these is called Science in Wonderland. It is a wide-ranging article, with sections on the teaching of evolution in public schools, elephant pheromones, and the extinctions that occurred at the end of the Permian …
I see you!
There are a number of good mapping and imagery sites on the internet. One of my favorites is Terraserver-USA, which has aerial photography of virtually the entire 48 contiguous states. Over large urban areas, the site has high-detail color imagery (good enough to see cars and in some cases the shadows of individuals on the …
Earth Day 2006 #2
A good internet article summarizing a Christian perspective on the environment is Christian Environmentalism by Dr. Ray Bohlin of Probe Ministries. Here are some quotes from the article: What we fail to realize is that Christians have a sacred responsibility to the earth and the creatures within it. The earth is being affected by humans …
Earth Day 2006
Christians often don't know what to make of Earth Day, which is celebrated on April 22nd, or at least on a weekend close to that date. Increasingly, believers in Christ are aware of environmental issues, but something like "Earth Day" is viewed as being for new agers, tree huggers, pro-abortion people, and theological liberals. I've …
Why Do I Teach High School Students?
A quote from a letter by Benjamin Vaughan to Benjamin Franklin, 1783: Influence upon the private character, late in life, is not only an influence late in life, but a weak influence. It is in youth that we plant our chief habits and prejudices; it is in youth that we take our party as to …
Earthquakes and the End Times
Since today is the 100th anniversary of the great San Francisco earthquake... "There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains." Matthew 24:7,8 ESV A common "fact" proclaimed in Bible end-times prophecy books (Hal Lindsey and others), radio broadcasts, and on numerous web sites is …
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