Albert Mohler has a short article on Rick Warren’s decision to pray at the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama. At the end, Mohler explains why he would not accept such an invitation: “Would I deliver the invocation at the inauguration of Barack Obama as President of the United States? Well, I have not been asked, but I can imagine that it would be difficult to turn down this invitation. After all, the inaugural ceremony is a national event, not a personal ceremony. Yet, in the end, the context of this inaugural ceremony would not allow me to accept. President-elect Obama has pledged to sign legislation including the Freedom of Choice…
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Boyce College on ‘Wheel of Fortune’
Well, Boyce College won’t actually be on “Wheel of Fortune,” but one of our employees will be. Allison Parker is the administrative assistant to Boyce College’s Dean of Student Life, and she is the wife of Southern Seminary M.Div. student Zack Parker. Allison will be appearing as a contestant on tonight’s edition of “Wheel of Fortune.” I asked her at a recent Christmas party how her game ended up (the show was taped in October), but she was pretty cryptic about the show’s results. So we’ll all be on the edge of our seats tonight to see how she fares. Go Allison! “SBTS employee to appear on Wheel of Fortune”…
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Carl Trueman on “The Case for Gay Marriageâ€
Carl Trueman has responded briefly to last week’s Newsweek cover story by Lisa Miller, “The Case for Gay Marriage.” Trueman makes an excellent point about Miller’s article that is worth more than a moment’s reflection: “Behold the future. The piece is prophetic because, in a week where a high-ranking member of the NAE had to resign because he was `shifting’ on gay unions, at a time when the full weight of the opinion forming social media is behind the normalisation of homosexuality as acceptable, challenges such as this are clearly going to be coming thick and fast.
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Dan Wallace on the Reliability of the NT
I had the privilege of attending Dan Wallace’s riveting lecture at the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) in November. It was an outstanding presentation, and it is now accessible to a wider audience. Dr. Wallace’s ETS lecture and another one that he has delivered at apologetics conferences are now available for purchase at a very reasonable price. Here are the two lectures and information about how to obtain the DVD recordings of them:
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Gay Activists Oppose Rick Warren at Inauguration
Barack Obama has invited Rick Warren to pray at the upcoming presidential inauguration, and the Politico is reporting on the reaction from gay rights activists: ‘Barack Obama’s choice of a prominent evangelical minister to perform the invocation at his inauguration is a conciliatory gesture toward social conservatives who opposed him in November, but it is drawing fierce challenges from a gay rights movement that – in the wake of a gay marriage ban in California – is looking for a fight.’
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Mohler Discusses Gay ‘Marriage’ on NPR
Yesterday on NPR’s “Talk of the Nation,” Albert Mohler offered a counterpoint to Lisa Miller’s “Religious Case for Gay Marriage.” It was a fascinating conversation, and I thought Dr. Mohler made a compelling and winsome case. You can listen to the program at NPR’s website, or you can push the play button below. [audio:http://podcastdownload.npr.org/anon.npr-podcasts/podcast/5/98315676/npr_98315676.mp3] Lisa Miller’s argument falls apart when a caller confronts her about polygamy. The caller points out that it is totally inconsistent for Miller to support gay “marriage” while opposing polygamy. Lisa Miller’s appeal to women’s rights as a basis for excluding polygamy fell flat. Dr. Mohler agrees with the caller and argues that if marriage is…
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‘On Faith’ on Gay ‘Marriage’
The ‘On Faith’ blog (a joint venture of The Washington Post and Newsweek) is hosting a discussion about the religious case for gay “marriage.” The topic is inspired by last week’s Newsweek cover story by Lisa Miller (which I wrote about here). Panelists include those from the religious left and right. Albert Mohler, Leith Anderson, and Charles Colson are among those representing the biblical view. Colson has a good word about Miller’s call for ‘inclusiveness’: ‘Miller admits that the argument for a biblical support of gay marriage is usually not made from any particular passage but from, as scholar Walter Brueggemann puts it, “the general conviction that the Bible is…
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James Kushiner on Single-Issue Voting
James Kushiner of Touchstone magazine has some apt reflections on the idea of single-issue voting: ‘But the labeling of some voters—all, it seems, on the “right” and usually pro-life—as “single-issue” voters, as if they are narrow-minded and unthinking participants in our national life, seems quite narrow-minded itself. . .
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“Pro-lifers†for Obama
The editorial in the latest issue of Touchstone magazine is spot on in its appraisal of “pro-lifers” who supported Obama for President: ‘The role of “pro-lifers” in the Obama campaign was not to persuade the candidate to moderate his stand on abortion (there is no evidence that they even tried to do so) but to persuade pro-lifers to forget about the issue.’ The rest of this essay is a must-read. “Morality Ploys: Big Bailouts & Culture War Maneuvers You Can Expect” – by James Hitchcock (Touchstone)
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Newsweek Comes Out for Gay ‘Marriage’
I would be remiss not to comment on Lisa Miller’s cover story in this week’s Newsweek magazine, “The Religious Case for Gay Marriage.” The title of the article says everything that you need to know about this piece. In essence, Miller argues that a right understanding of the Christian tradition would actually favor gay “marriage” rather than oppose it. She appeals to the Bible and to history to make her point. This piece is disappointing on a number of levels, and the subsequent critiques have been sharp and justified (e.g., Albert Mohler, Christianity Today, Mollie Hemingway). For the most thorough response, see Robert Gagnon’s 23-page essay (HT: Justin Taylor). I…