The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page has the best analysis of yesterday’s news about Karl Rove and the Patrick Fitzgerald investigation. I recommend that you read the entire piece, but here’s the gist of it. The tragedy of this episode is that a political fight over the war in Iraq was allowed to become a criminal matter. Mr. Wilson spun his false tale in an effort to discredit the war and deny Mr. Bush a second term. The liberal media put partisanship above their own interests in demanding a special counsel probe of “leaksâ€â€“until that probe turned on their own sources. The Attorney General at the time, John Ashcroft, passed…
-
-
“Turd Blossom†Will Not Be Indicted
There are new developments in a story that I began covering on this blog last year (see two previous posts).The news that Karl Rove (a.k.a. “Turd Blossom,†a nickname given to him by President Bush) will not be indicted in connection with the CIA leak case is probably the biggest political news of 2006. It’s big news because it puts a damper on Democrat efforts to use the 2006 mid-term elections as an occasion to accuse the Republicans of being the party of corruption. That effort did not work in the recent special congressional election in California, and the success of such a strategy in November looks even more unlikely…
-
Southern Baptist What?
Say it with me, “Southern Baptist Convention” (SBC). It’s the largest Protestant denomination in America, and they are having their annual meeting this week in Greensboro, North Carolina. Two items of interest are worth noting here. First, I wrote several months ago on this blog about a debate over Calvinism that would take place between SBC seminary Presidents Albert Mohler (for) and Paige Patterson (against). I want to direct your attention to several different news and blog accounts of the standing-room only event: Michael Foust (Baptist Press) Nancy H. McLaughlin (Greensboro News-Record) Tony W. Cartledge (Biblical Recorder) Lig Duncan (Reformation21) Thoughts & Adventures Blog Second, the SBC messengers elected a…
-
Ann Coulter Needs to Repent
I haven’t read the context of Ann Coulter’s remarks; her book won’t be released until tomorrow. So all I have seen so far are the excerpts in the Associated Press.According to the AP, Coulter’s new book has some pretty nasty things to say about a certain group of liberal-leaning 9-11 widows. The AP contains the following description of Coulter’s remarks: Coulter writes in a new book, “Godless: The Church of Liberalism,†that a group of New Jersey widows whose husbands perished in the World Trade Center act “as if the terrorist attacks happened only to them.â€She also wrote, “I’ve never seen people enjoying their husbands’ deaths so much†(source). Like…
-
Why the Gender Issue Is the Issue (part 2)
I want to follow-up on my earlier post about Mark Dever and his remarks about the gender issue in evangelicalism. Dever’s remarks were made on the “Together for the Gospel†(T4G) blog and were an attempt to answer criticism against T4G and its pro-complementarian stand.Now Ligon Duncan has followed up Dever’s post and has sought to offer even more context to the complementarian endorsement in T4G. Duncan’s remarks are in line with what I said about hermeneutics and the inerrancy and authority of scripture (see my original post and the interesting conversation that followed in the comments section). Duncan writes: The denial of complementarianism undermines the church’s practical embrace of…
-
Banning Same-Sex “Marriageâ€: Politics As Usual?
You have probably already heard that the Senate is set to debate an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would define marriage as the union between one man and one woman. In his weekly radio address last Saturday, President Bush came out strongly in favor of the amendment. He said: Marriage is the most enduring and important human institution, honored and encouraged in all cultures and by every religious faith. Ages of experience have taught us that the commitment of a husband and a wife to love and to serve one another promotes the welfare of children and the stability of society. Marriage cannot be cut off from its cultural,…
-
Why Europe Hates America
Do you want to know why folks abroad don’t like America? It’s because of reports like this one in the BBC: The BBC has uncovered new video evidence that US forces may have been responsible for the deliberate killing of 11 innocent Iraqi civilians (source). That line is the lead from the story, but it’s not even the most provocative part (nor necessarily inaccurate). In one of the paragraphs that follow, the story suggests that this kind of atrocity is routine for American troops. In reporting the announcement that U.S. soldiers will be undergoing “ethical training†as a result of the killing, the BBC reports: The news of ethical training…
-
Abortion Nonsense: Ramesh Ponnuru Taken To Task
In today’s Wall Street Journal, Peter Berkowitz reviews Ramesh Ponnuru’s anti-abortion tour de force The Party of Death. In this critical review, Berkowitz puts forth the same pro-abortion arguments that have been refuted time and again by pro-lifers. He writes: Invisible to the naked eye, lacking body or brain, feeling neither pleasure nor pain, radically dependent for life support, the early embryo, though surely part of the human family, is distant and different enough from a flesh-and-blood newborn that when the early embryo’s life comes into conflict with other precious human goods or claims, the embryo’s life may need to give way (source). The problem with Berkowitz’s critique is that…
-
Why the Gender Issue Is the Issue
Mark Dever reflects upon why so many evangelicals believe the debate over gender issues to be so important. He writes: Dear reader, you may not agree with me on this. And I don’t desire to be right in my fears. But it seems to me and others (many who are younger than myself) that this issue of egalitarianism and complementarianism is increasingly acting as the watershed distinguishing those who will accomodate Scripture to culture, and those who will attempt to shape culture by Scripture. You may disagree, but this is our honest concern before God. It is no lack of charity, nor honesty. It is no desire for power or…
-
Book Notice
Thank the Lord! The book is done and has been published in Sheffield Phoenix Press’s New Testament Monographs series. The book is number 14 in the series, and the title is Articular Infinitives in the Greek of the New Testament: On the Exegetical Benefit of Grammatical Precision.As you can tell from the title, this book promises to be a real page-turner. I fully anticipate for my wife and me to be able to retire on the proceeds that I will receive from this blockbuster treatise. This book will likely be the surprise hit of the summer, and I expect it will be flying off book store shelves so fast it…