Eric Metaxas addressed CPAC last week, and I believe he was like a voice of one crying in the wilderness. His speech was about religious liberty and its recent erosion under the HHS mandate and the push for legal gay marriage. He noted that many politicos within the GOP are rushing to “get on the right side of history” on the issue of gay marriage in particular. Then Metaxas then delivered what I think is a prophetic word that everyone needs to hear: God determines who is on the right side of history. Not the mainstream media and certainly not the government. I recommend that you watch and listen to…
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Rob Bell comes out in favor of gay marriage
On Sunday, Rob Bell spoke at San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral and announced in no uncertain terms his support for gay marriage. Anyone aware of Bell’s career of late will not be surprised by this announcement. In his own words: I am for marriage. I am for fidelity. I am for love, whether it’s a man and woman, a woman and a woman, a man and a man. I think the ship has sailed and I think the church needs — I think this is the world we are living in and we need to affirm people wherever they are. The Huffington Post has a report on his remarks here. You…
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Confronting Senator Portman’s use of scripture to affirm gay marriage
Last week Senator Rob Portman announced a dramatic reversal in his views on gay marriage. He cited a number of reasons, but the main catalyst was his son’s coming out of the closet two years ago. As a result of that revelation, Portman says he began to reconsider his own opposition to same-sex marriage. In an op-ed for The Columbus Dispatch, Portman explains: Two years ago, my son Will, then a college freshman, told my wife, Jane, and me that he is gay. He said he’d known for some time, and that his sexual orientation wasn’t something he chose; it was simply a part of who he is. Jane and…
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The gospel according to Duck Dynasty
I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the A&E program “Duck Dynasty,” but I have. The family that is featured on this reality program hails from my home state of Louisiana and from my wife’s hometown of West Monroe. So my wife in particular makes sure that we see our fair share of this program.
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Why not call God “mother”?
I just read Jonathan Merritt’s interview with Rob Bell, and this bit sort of jumped off the page: Jonathan Merritt: So it would be totally appropriate to pray to one’s “heavenly mother” as well as one’s “heavenly father?” Rob Bell: Well, you certainly have Isaiah using a mother image for God and Jesus talks about longing to gather like a mother hen gathers her chicks. But that is a great question, and one we should be asking. This kind of feminine God-language has long been the mark of feminist revisionists who have moved well beyond the pale of evangelical Christianity. While we don’t believe that God has a gender, we…
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Alistair McGrath’s New Biography of C. S. Lewis
Last month, Alister McGrath’s new biography of C. S. Lewis hit the shelves. If you missed the release, join the club. I did too. The book is titled C. S. Lewis – A Life: Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet, and it is apparently being very well-received. Yesterday, another Lewis biographer—A. N. Wilson—reviewed the new work for The Daily Beast, and it looks like McGrath’s book may become the definitive biography on Lewis. Wilson writes, There have been plenty of biographies of Lewis—I once wrote one myself—but I do not think there has been a better one than Alister McGrath’s. He is a punctilious and enthusiastic reader of all Lewis’s work—the children’s…
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A Succinct Case for Traditional Marriage
As arguments for traditional marriage fall on deaf ears in our culture, I believe that love requires us to make the case nevertheless (1 Cor. 13:6). To that end, we need to marshal all the arguments at our disposal—both biblical and natural law arguments. The natural law case has been made most effectively in the recent book What Is Marriage? This book makes the case without appealing to religious authority but with an exclusive appeal to a “publicly accessible” rationale for traditional marriage. One of the co-authors of that book, Ryan Anderson, has also just recently published an article that distills the case for traditional marriage into twelve pages. It’s…
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A youth conference your students won’t want to miss
The apostle Paul writes, If the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. -1 Cor. 15:16-17 There is no more fundamental issue regarding the truthfulness and the hope of Christianity than the reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That is why Southern Seminary and Boyce College are hosting a youth conference on just that topic later this month. The speakers include Albert Mohler, Russell Moore, Jimmy Scroggins, and Greg Gilbert. If you have a church youth group or know of a youth group, I encourage you to get them…
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Chávez’s Last Words and Yours
The head of Venezuela’s presidential guard was with Hugo Chávez during his final moments. His report on Chávez’s last words paints a picture of a man desperately clinging to life. According to this report, Chávez said: I don’t want to die. Please don’t let me die. As a rule, I’m no fan of socialist dictators—particularly those of Chávez’s ilk. But this strikes me as one of the saddest things I’ve ever read. I grieve to think about what the horror of his final moments must have been like. Death is no respecter of persons—not even of billionaire Presidents who command a cult-like following among their countrymen. Not even of you.…
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Raising children in a pervasive culture of pornography
Rod Dreher’s post on the inconsistencies of “Lifestyle Liberalism” is a must-read. It is hitting at some pretty fundamental issues, and it does so from a number of different angles. First, it’s wrestling with how to raise kids (especially sons) in an age in which pornography is so pervasive and available. Second, it exposes the moral listlessness of liberalism, which in the wake of the sexual revolution has destroyed all boundaries around sexual behavior. Third, it exposes the fact that there are so few institutions left standing today that will support parents in resisting the sexual lasciviousness of our culture.