Wolf Blitzer conducted a contentious interview with Vice President Dick Cheney yesterday. They covered a wide range of topics, but the most contentious exchange came at the end when Wolf Blitzer asked about Mary Cheney, the Vice President’s daughter. [You can watch a video of the exchange below.]
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Review of “Jesus’ Blood and Righteousness†by Brian Vickers
Brian Vickers. Jesus’ Blood and Righteousness: Paul’s Theology of Imputation. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2006. 254pp. $14.99. Anyone who has been paying attention to Evangelical theology in North America knows that the doctrine of Justification has become quite a hot topic. Not only has the “New Perspective” on Paul offered a challenge to the traditional Protestant formulation (e.g. James Dunn, N. T. Wright), but so have some dissenting voices from within the conservative sector of the evangelical fold (e.g. Robert Gundry). In 1999, when Christianity Today published “The Gospel of Jesus Christ: An Evangelical Celebration,” Robert Gundry responded by saying, “the doctrine that Christ’s righteousness is imputed to believing sinners needs…
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Addicted to Violence or to Love?
California Assemblywoman, Sally Lieber, is sponsoring a bill that would make it illegal for parents to spank children under the age of four. Ms. Lieber does not have children, but she has compared spanking to wife-beating. So far, the reaction to her proposal has been overwhelmingly negative. Surprised that so many people would oppose the measure, Lieber said this:
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Thirty-four Years of Legal Abortions
“The most consequential cultural and political event in American history in the past half century was the Roe v. Wade decision of January 22, 1973. An argument can be made that it is rivaled by September 11, but that fateful day did not result in the deep realignment of religious, cultural, and political dynamics resulting from the Supreme Court’s ukase, which established an unlimited abortion license that wiped from the books of all fifty states any legal protection of unborn children. . . This Monday marks the thirty-fourth anniversary of Roe v. Wade. On January 23, 1973, the New York Times reported that the Court had ‘settled’ the dispute over…
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A Bible Study on Protecting the Unborn
Sanctity of Human Life Sunday is a national observation and affirmation of life. This observance coincides with the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the ruling which made abortion legal on January 22, 1973. Sanctity of Human Life Sunday is usually observed on the Sunday that is closest to the January 22 anniversary. My church observed yesterday, and what follows is the lesson that I taught there in my Bible Study class.
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SMU Professor in Favor of Bush Library
Dr. James Hollifield, a professor of political science at SMU, does not jump on the bandwagon of faculty protests against the Bush Library to be built on SMU’s campus. “It is legitimate for anyone to criticize the president and his policies, but it is presumptuous for us as scholars to say that we know in advance and with certainty what the legacy of a sitting president will be . . . faculty members are not disconnected from the politics of the moment” (‘The Biggest Man on Campus’ – NY Times). I think Dr. Hollifield has wisely reserved judgment and has taken the long view. That is precisely what I was…
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A “Middle Ground” on the Life Issue?
Two recent opinion editorials talk about coming to a “middle ground” compromise on the human life issue, but they each take positions that are anything but a compromise. Ellen Goodman’s piece in the Boston Globe (“Abortion’s elusive middle ground”) is decidedly pro-choice. Yuval Levin’s essay in the New York Times (“A Middle Ground for Stem Cells”) is decidedly pro-life.
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A Holy Discrimination
Reverend Bradley Schmeling is pastor of the St. John’s Lutheran Church in Atlanta, Georgia, and he is objecting to a bishop’s attempt to have him defrocked. The reason that this bishop is seeking to remove Schmeling from ministry in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is that Schmelling is a practicing homosexual. According to the Associated Press, “Schmeling and his supporters say the policy barring sexually active gay pastors is discriminatory by forcing them to refrain from sex, while heterosexuals only have to wait for marriage.”
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Methodist Ministers Muzzle Museum
I’ve already written about the Methodist professors who are opposing President Bush’s library that is likely to be built on SMU’s campus (see previous post, “Bush in My Backyard”), but now a group of Methodist ministers have also joined the fray. These ministers stand against the library’s being associated with SMU because they perceive President Bush to be an anti-Christian President. One of the protesting ministers is quoted in the Dallas Morning News saying, “I think that George Bush has been in his presidency so inconsistent with fundamental Christianity that he should not be associated with a Methodist university. Methodist means decency and this man has not been decent†(source).
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Jim Wallis Fumes after President’s Speech
It is well-known that Jim Wallis is a lefty evangelical and that he opposes the American war in Iraq. I think that people of good will can have different opinions about the war. But I don’t think that Wallis’ inflammatory rhetoric is at all helpful or constructive.