Christianity Today has run an article on what U.N. officials have called “one of the worst human-rights crises of the past century.” The article is titled “Deliver Us from Kony” and is about the butchery and inhumanity of a guerilla paramilitary group known as the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in northern Uganda. The leader of the LRA is Joseph Kony. The worst of the LRA’s crimes have been perpetrated against children, whom the LRA routinely kidnaps and forces to serve in their ranks. Perhaps the greatest atrocity is teaching these children that they spread this carnage by the power of the Holy Spirit to purify the “unrepentant,” twisting Christianity into…
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Alito Argued That Roe v. Wade Should Be Overturned
In a 1985 amicus brief, Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito appears to have supported the overruling of Roe v. Wade. The brief reads as follows: “We should make clear that we disagree with Roe v. Wade and would welcome the opportunity to brief the issue of-whether, and if so to what extent, that decision should be overruled†(“Memorandum,†p. 9). In spite of all the media ballyhoo, I don’t think this is as big of a story as it’s being made out to be. First of all, when this brief was written, Judge Alito was working as a lawyer for President Reagan and was advocating for a position on behalf…
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Anti-Bush Bias at the New York Times (So what else is new?)
Why did the New York Times splash a story about the National Security Agency’s (NSA) secret surveillance program? There appears to be no laws broken (it’s not clear that FISA applies here), and other presidents (like Clinton and Carter) have authorized similar programs in the past. So what was the motivation for the New York Times’s putting forth a story that it has been sitting on for over a year? Why now? Edward Morrissey of The Weekly Standard has a plausible answer to that question in a story titled “Fit to Print? Neither the Bush administration nor the NSA broke the law, so why did the New York Times break…
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Guilt by Association: Intelligent Design on Trial
U.S. District Judge John E. Jones put Intelligent Design (ID) on trial in the Pennsylvania legal battle over the teaching of evolution in public schools. Judge Jones ruled that the Dover School Board violated the constitution in requiring science teachers to read a brief statement about ID and evolution before teaching about evolution in Dover Public Schools (click here to download the proposed statement). In Judge Jones’s 139-page opinion, he charges that “ID is nothing less than the progeny of creationism†(p. 31). In other words, as far as Judge Jones is concerned, ID is simply creationism in sheep’s clothing. Judge Jones argues that ID has a religious pedigree linking…
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Defeatists Just Don’t Listen (even at the Associated Press!)
President Bush delivered a great speech tonight—one that was long overdue. He brought the nation up to date on the progress of the war in Iraq, defended his decision to go to Iraq in the first place, and warned about the deadly consequences of pulling out of Iraq before winning the war. He assured the American people, “Not only can we win the war in Iraq—we are winning the war in Iraq.†The President also directly addressed his critics and political opponents: I also want to speak to those of you who did not support my decision to send troops to Iraq: I have heard your disagreement, and I know…
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N. T. Wright and American “Imperialism”
The Wall Street Journal’s OpinionJournal.com has a great piece on N. T. Wright and his influence on American Evangelicalism. It is titled “Reform Party: A British Theologian Takes Another Stab at It.†John Wilson, the author of this piece, argues that N. T. Wright is “the most influential biblical scholar in American evangelical circles today.†According to Wilson, this fact is a great irony because Wright regularly denounces the “imperialism†of U.S. foreign policy—a criticism that most American evangelicals would not agree with.
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25 warning signs that you might be obsessing about Calvinism
Hat tip to Justin Taylor for bringing our attention to this must-read list: “25 warning signs that you might be obsessing about Calvinism.†This list is hilarious, and too painfully true. I could add some of my own foibles to this list, but there is not enough blog space for that.
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John Piper, Bethlehem Baptist Church, and Baptism
I wrote several months ago about John Piper’s support for a proposal to recognize some paedobaptisms as valid baptisms for members of his church (read here and here). Piper and the other elders of Bethlehem Baptist Church have recommended to the church that they allow the possibility that a person may become a member who has not been baptized by immersion as a believer but who regards the baptismal ritual he received in infancy not as regenerating, but nevertheless (as with most Presbyterians) in such a way that it would violate his conscience to be baptized as a believer. The elders are proposing that under certain conditions such persons be…
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Closing Church to Reach the Unchurched
Many churches across America have announced their plans to be closed on Sunday, December 25. Rachel Zoll of the Associated Press made this news a national story this week in her report, “Some Megachurches Closing for Christmas.” At the end of the day, the controversy over the propriety of such a move boils down to a dispute about whether the Bible prescribes Sunday to be observed as the Christian Sabbath. Since no church that I have seen wants to cancel services altogether (most will have Christmas eve services on Saturday), this doesn’t seem to be a question of whether to gather for worship, but when to gather for worship. So…
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Emerging Irony
The cover story of the most recent issue of Touchstone magazine is about Johnny Cash, and it’s written by Russell Moore. This is an excellent piece, and I highly recommend your reading it. Scot McKnight, however, does not share my enthusiasm about Moore’s article and has criticized it here. Moore has responded to McKnight’s response here. Now McKnight has responded to Moore’s response to McKnight’s response here. If that all sounds confusing, then let me sum it up for you. McKnight thinks that people like Moore should have been more supportive of Cash’s Christian conversion about twenty or thirty years ago. For McKnight, supporting Cash now is too little too…