I have said many times that I am a single-issue voter. I do not believe that being right on any single issue qualifies a candidate for office. But I do believe that being wrong on certain issues can disqualify a candidate. My thinking on this was shaped nearly 20 years ago by an article I read from John Piper. I recommend that you read the whole thing, but here is the heart of it. Piper writes: No endorsement of any single issue qualifies a person to hold public office. Being pro-life does not make a person a good governor, mayor, or president. But there are numerous single issues that disqualify…
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An atheist who can’t help believing in God
Atheist Elizabeth King says that she can’t “shake” her sense that there really may be a god. If you ask her whether God exists, she will answer with a definitive “no.” She has made a decisive break from the evangelical faith of her youth. But still, she occasionally prays and offers up other expressions that reveal that she’s hardwired for faith. You should read the whole essay in The Washington Post, but here’s her conclusion: I’m not sure what to do about God. If I could figure out a way to banish this figure from my psyche, I would. But psychology is not on my side. Having been conditioned to…
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After football, now what? … Pain
The title of the post is a bit of a head-fake. What you are about to read is not about what all us fans will do now that football has wrapped-up until next Fall. No. “After football, now what?” is about the question that every pro-player has to face after retiring from the game. Yes, there is a big payday for many star players—one that leaves them financially set for life. But there can also be a tremendous physical cost. USA Today published two stories talking about what life is like after football for some of the greats. All of them seem to have life-altering physical problems caused by years…
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“Gay Christian” explains why she now accepts same-sex marriage
I just read another public account of someone who is walking away from what the Bible teaches about marriage. Former Wheaton employee and self-identified “gay Christian” Julie Rodgers explains why she has embraced gay marriage. She has written about this previously, and I have responded previously. Nevertheless, this latest account is also worth some reflection. She writes: Your beliefs don’t shift in an instant. We research and agonize, bouncing between hope and despair, until one day we hear ourselves say something a former version of ourselves never would have said. That’s how I came to support same-sex marriage in the church. When I came out as a teenager in Baptist circles…
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Pro-life Rally this Saturday Morning in Louisville
Pro-lifers are gathering at new Planned Parenthood for a rally Saturday morning at 10 am. Several local pro-life leaders have been scheduled to speak. The rally will be held to protest Planned Parenthood’s toxic presence near the West end of our fair city. This move is consistent with Planned Parenthood’s M.O. in other cities, where seventy-nine percent of other Planned Parenthood clinics serve low-income African-American communities.
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Another NFL great (and Bama star) diagnosed with C.T.E.
Here is an excerpt from the sad report in The New York Times: The day after Stabler died on July 8, a victim of colon cancer at age 69, his brain was removed during an autopsy and ferried to scientists in Massachusetts. It weighed 1,318 grams, or just under three pounds. Over several months, it was dissected for clues, as Stabler had wished, to help those left behind understand why his mind seemed to slip so precipitously in his final years. On a scale of 1 to 4, Stabler had high Stage 3 chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E., the degenerative brain disease believed to be caused by repeated blows to…
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Are you ready for your teenage daughter to be drafted into a combat role?
I said that this could happen, and now it has. The Army and Marine Corps chiefs are calling for women to register for the draft. The Washington Post reports: The top officers in the Army and Marine Corps testified on Tuesday that they believe it is time for women to register for future military drafts, following the Pentagon’s recent decision to open all jobs in combat units to female service members. Gen. Mark A. Milley, chief of staff of the Army, and Gen. Robert B. Neller, the Marine Corps commandant, both said they were in favor of the change during an occasionally contentious Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the forthcoming…
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Who is going to win the Iowa caucuses and the GOP nomination?
A lot of folks have asked me who I think will win the Iowa caucuses and the Republican nomination. My short answer about Iowa is that I don’t know. My long answer is that if the polling trends are correct, Trump will win. If there is a low overall turnout and high evangelical turnout, Cruz will squeak past Trump and win—especially if Rubio’s surge has indeed plateaued. My short answer about the GOP nomination is that it depends. I expect Santorum and Huckabee to drop out of the race after Iowa. Other candidates will drop out after New Hampshire and South Carolina. The sooner the field winnows, the sooner we’ll…
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My thoughts on the last debate before Iowa caucuses
Just a quick note on the final GOP debate before the Iowa caucuses. I think Gov. Jeb Bush had his best night, and I know I’m not the only one who is thinking about what might have been had Donald Trump not been in this race. But Trump is in the race, and he has sucked all the proverbial air out of the room. Some would see this as a show of strength. But I don’t see it that way. It’s a show of insult and bravado. Michael Gerson is right: Days away from the first votes of the presidential nomination process, the prohibitive Republican front-runner is successfully applying the…
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The infamy comes to Louisville
The Courier-Journal is reporting that Louisville’s Planned Parenthood moved to a new office in December. Planned Parenthood has been in Louisville for a long time, but its Louisville office did not offer abortions. That all changed this week. According to the report: Planned Parenthood has begun offering abortions for the first time in Kentucky at a new health center it opened last month on South Seventh Street in downtown Louisville. Operating as Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky, or PPINK, the group on Jan. 21 began offering surgical and non-surgical abortion services at the health center, which replaced its former Louisville clinic on South Second Street… The move to provide abortions is…