Last week, Leah Libresco wrote a piece for FiftyThirtyEight about how peppy Christian pop music tends to be. She studied thematic content in the last five years of Billboard’s year-end top 50 Christian songs. She found that the lyrical content skewed disproportionately toward hopey-gracey themes and away from sinny-judgment themes. She writes:
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A Resolution against Requiring Women to Register for the Draft and to Serve in Combat Units
The Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting will be in St. Louis next week, and it is my hope that the messengers will have the opportunity to make a statement against requiring women to serve in combat units. I have proposed a resolution with wording that derives greatly from the The Danvers Statement and from a 1998 resolution on the same topic. The committee can decline from bringing this resolution to the floor for a vote. They can recommend an edited version. Or they can recommend it as is. We’ll see next week. Until then, you can read my proposal below.
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Nuts. David French says he will not run for president.
Well, nuts. David French has just announced that he is not going to run for president after all. When word leaked last week that he was Bill Kristol’s mystery candidate, there was an initial thrill at the prospect of having an honorable alternative to enter the race. But I have to say that French’s explanation for not running is wise. I can’t say that I disagree with any of it. It is too bad that we live in a country in which you have to be fabulously wealthy to consider a run at this point. But that is the reality. French explains:
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Do not destroy… Let them fall into the pit that they dug for me
At my church this morning, Pastor Jim Hamilton preached an excellent message from Psalms 56-57. If you have a chance to listen, I commend it to you. You can download it here or listen below. I also recommend a version of Psalm 57 that a band called The Critics put to music. I actually love this song. It’s called “Do Not Destroy,” which is a line from the superscription of the Psalm: “To the choirmaster: according to Do Not Destroy. A Miktam of David, when he fled from Saul, in the cave.” You can listen to the song above or download it here.
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Who is David French? And why is he running?
Yesterday, news leaked that David French is Bill Kristol’s mystery candidate. He has not yet declared himself a candidate, but he is Kristol’s man. French is a veteran of the Iraq war, a recipient of the Bronze Star, and a constitutional lawyer. He’s the author of seven books, an adoptive father, and a stalwart conservative. He is not a career politician. He also happens to be one of my favorite writers—which is why I link to his National Review articles continuously. In 2014, French delivered a commencement speech for a Christian home school group. The address says everything you need to know about why French would volunteer for the meat…
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David French and wife planned for fidelity… Sad!
Earlier this evening, news leaked that David French is Bill Kristol’s mystery candidate. David French is a veteran of the Iraq war, a recipient of the Bronze Star, and a constitutional lawyer. He’s the author of seven books, an adoptive father, and a stalwart conservative. He is not a career politician. He also happens to be one of my favorite writers—which is why I link to his National Review articles continuously. As I said several months ago, he’s always right. David French is always right. https://t.co/fCRd5tqN5K — Denny Burk (@DennyBurk) February 7, 2016 I think he’s a fantastic candidate. A long-shot? Yes. A spoiler? Hopefully. But I don’t want to…
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The zoo was right to kill the gorilla to protect the boy
There’s a scene in the movie Man of Steel when Clark Kent’s dad sacrifices his life to save a dog. It’s very dramatic, and it’s portrayed as heroic. But despite all the pathos and drama, there’s nothing heroic about treating a dog’s life as the moral equivalent of a human life. In fact, it’s an evidence of pagan decadence to think like that, which is why that scene made sense to American movie-goers in 2013 but would have made no sense to Americans of previous generations.
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Memorial Day in the twilight of a great republic
Four months after the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863, President Lincoln dedicated a national cemetery where many of the fallen Union soldiers were buried. At the dedication, Lincoln gave a speech for the ages, the one we now know as the Gettysburg Address. The speech is short, but the conclusion is one worth revisiting this Memorial Day weekend:
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“I think you are an ignorant bigot, lady.”
A friend in Washington, D.C. sent me a link to the above video just a little while ago. Don’t watch the whole thing. Fast forward to the 1:27 mark and watch for about 3 minutes. What you will see is a congresswoman of the United States berating a witness for disagreeing with the Obama administration’s transgender directive. The congresswoman says to the witness, “I think you are an ignorant bigot, lady.” And then she shouts her down until the committee chairman tells her to stop attacking the witness. What is chilling about this video is that the congresswoman has no compunction whatsoever about attacking the witness. Her animus and contempt…
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God loves you. We love you. Tell us what it’s like to be you.
Andrew Wilson recently preached a message at King’s Church Eastbourne on “Transgender and Intersex.” His text is Matthew 19:1-12, and he does a faithful job with it. He is a really fantastic communicator, and he clearly sets forth the teaching of scripture and how it applies to our thinking about transgender and intersex. This message is not mainly polemical but pastoral. I like his line about how we ought to communicate with those wrestling with gender identity issues: “God loves you. We love you. Tell us what it’s like to be you.” Of course there’s more to say than that, but we certainly shouldn’t be saying less than that, right?…