John Piper is spending the year in Knoxville, Tennessee writing and serving Desiring God. Trillia Newbell conducted an interview with him on his front porch where he waxes philosophical about fatherhood. The interview appears on the website of the Knoxville News Sentinel. Watch it above. (HT: The Gospel Coalition)
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The Case for Plural Marriage: The slippery slope gets slicker and steeper
The redefinition of legal marriage in our culture will not end with same sex “marriage.” The polygamists are waiting in the wings for the opportunity to make their case—a case that will be all the more compelling as arguments for gay “marriage” take hold across the country. If marriage becomes defined as legal recognition of whoever it is that you love, on what basis will the polygamists be excluded? But redefinition won’t end with polygamous marriage either. The polyamorists are beginning to make their case as well. In an article for Slate magazine, Jillian Keenan argues that polyamorous unions should be on an equal footing with all other marriages. The…
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Another cake shop in legal trouble for refusing to make cake for gay wedding
A cake shop owner in Colorado finds himself in legal trouble after refusing to make a cake for a gay wedding. Although participating in a gay wedding goes against his Christian beliefs, he says that he has no problem serving gay people otherwise. The Colorado attorney general filed the complaint against him on behalf of the gay couple that ordered the cake. According to an Associated Press report: The complaint seeks to force Masterpiece Cakeshop to “cease and desist” the practice of refusing wedding cakes for gay couples, and to tell the public that their business is open to everyone. If Phillips loses the case and refuses to comply with…
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Albert Mohler comments on Calvinism committee report
As the Southern Baptist Convention meets in Houston, Texas, Albert Mohler has published a statement about the SBC’s Calvinism Advisory Committee. The committee was formed to address controversies about Calvinism within the denomination. Mohler’s statement is conciliatory and statesmanlike. Here’s an excerpt:
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Former SBC President explains why his church is severing ties with the Boy Scouts
Bryant Wright is the pastor of Johnson Ferry Baptist Church and a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention. In the video above, he explains why he is leading his church to sever ties with the Boy Scouts. I expect we’ll be seeing a lot of this kind of thing in the coming months.
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How will gay “marriage” impact your marriage?
If you’ve ever been in a debate with someone about gay marriage, one of the conversation stoppers that proponents often throw out is this: “How does gay marriage hurt traditional marriage?” Or more personally, “How does my gay marriage corrupt your straight marriage?” The thinking goes like this. What two people do in the privacy of their own home ought not concern you, even if they choose to reinvent society’s most basic institution. After all, who are you to judge someone else’s pairing? If some people want to call gay unions a “marriage,” what’s that to you? The assumption in this line of argument is that marriage is a private…
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More on the Poison Pill: Responding to Stanley, McKnight, and Bird
Last week, I wrote a blog post critiquing Andy Stanley’s brief remarks about the historicity of Adam and Eve. In short, I concluded that his remarks were a “poison pill” for the doctrine of scripture. Even after Stanley responded in the comments underneath that post (here, here, here), I believe that my concerns still stand. Since then, both Scot McKnight and Michael Bird have suggested that I have erred in my critique of Stanley. Bird says he was “deeply frustrated” by what I wrote while McKnight said my reflections were a “failure to think theologically.” This has been an interesting exchange, to say the very least. And I hope that…
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What to do when same-sex couples “divorce”
John Piper anticipates what will happen when God begins to save people who have entered into legal gay “marriages.” He offers thirteen helpful guideposts for ministering the gospel to such people in days to come. I recommend that you read all of them, but I would highlight number ten: Assist them in the legal processes and expenses of undoing what the state called “marriage.” That the state will call this process “divorce” is not decisive in what it really is: the removal of a sinful fiction. That’s right. We cannot ever treat gay “marriage” as anything else but “a sinful fiction,” even if it becomes legal in all fifty states.…
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OSU president to retire after controversial remarks
I am surprised by this. From ESPN.com:
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Southern Baptists and Calvinism
Last year the Frank Page, president of the SBC Executive Committee, convened a diverse group of Southern Baptist leaders to forge a consensus statement on the issue of Calvinism in the Southern Baptist Convention. The Calvinism Advisory Committee has now released their statement titled, “TRUTH, TRUST, and TESTIMONY in a TIME of TENSION.” The statement is 3,243 words in length, and I believe it addresses concerns that Baptists on both sides of this issue have had. This is a good statement, one that I hope that Southern Baptists will unify around.