The conservative editorial pages of The Wall Street Journal feature two articles arguing that the GOP needs to get over its hang-ups about abortion and marriage. These voices are shrill and uncivil, but we knew this was coming. The first one is from Sarah Westwood, a college Republican who says that the GOP is irrelevant to younger voters because of their positions on social issues. She writes:
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Was the election a disaster?
My friend Matt Anderson thinks that social conservatives have given in to “handwringing” and “freak out panic end of the world despair” after last Tuesday’s election. I think he is commenting on what he sees as a general trend among social conservatives, but he singles out me and Al Mohler in particular. Yes, Mohler and I did refer to the election as a disaster, but as far as I know there hasn’t been any handwringing on the part of either of us. Anderson has not only misread us, but I think he also risks missing the lessons of this last election.
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Mary Kassian Reviews “Year of Biblical Womanhood”
Mary Kassian has a helpful review of Rachel Held Evans’ “A Year of Biblical Womanhood.” At the heart of Kassian’s critique is Evans’ consistent caricature of complementarianism. Kassian writes: Sadly, the complementarianism portrayed in A Year of Biblical Womanhood is just another tiresome straw (wo)man argument. I think Rachel’s publicity stunt confuses rather than clarifies the issues. Most complementarians who read the book are bound to feel gravely misrepresented, misunderstood, and even hurt by it.
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Why Boys Shouldn’t Play Football with Girls
I saw this video yesterday that’s going viral on the internet right now. It’s a highlight reel of a 9-year old girl playing football with a bunch of boys. She looks pretty spectacular in the video as she blows past all the defenders and rumbles down the field for some long running plays. My little girls were nearby while I was watching the video, and I confess that I did not want them to see it. What she was doing was impressive, but it is not an aspirational model for little girls.
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Personal Testimony on Abortion and the Election
Garrett Kell reminds us that abortion is not merely a political abstraction. It deals with real live human beings making real life or death choices. Sometimes these are the wrong choices, as he confesses to know all too well. He writes:
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The Loyal Opposition
President Obama won the election yesterday, and it turns out that he did so pretty handily. In both the popular vote and in the electoral vote, he is the clear winner. He is the president—duly elected now two times—and we owe honor to whom honor is due (Romans 13:7). But that is not the end of the story. We also owe him our loyal opposition. There’s no getting around the fact that last night was a disaster for social conservative causes. The scope of this setback is due in no small part to the way in which President Obama campaigned and won reelection. In the course of the campaign, the…
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Gay Marriage Front and Center in Tuesday’s Election
As you are following the returns for the Presidential election tomorrow night, don’t forget to keep your eye out for the results of gay marriage initiatives that are on the ballot in four states: Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and Washington state. These votes are important because gay marriage has never survived a statewide vote anywhere in the country. In those states where gay marriage is legal, it happened through a state court ruling or through legislative action (as in New York). If even one of these measures succeeds on Tuesday, it will give an enormous victory to the gay marriage movement. Some speculate that the results of these state ballot initiatives…
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Can Evangelicals Vote for a Mormon?
The New York Times has an article this morning declaring Glenn Beck to be a bridge between Romney and evangelicals. The article notes “the long-frayed relationship between evangelical Christians and Mormons” and speculates on whether or not evangelicals will put aside religious differences to vote for Romney on Tuesday. The article includes quotes from me and Russell Moore criticizing Glenn Beck’s mix of politics and religion. I stand by those remarks, especially as it regards Beck’s 2010 Restoring Honor rally in Washington, D.C. It was a mash-up of civic religion and syncretism that had some evangelicals looking to Glenn Beck as some kind of a spiritual leader. It exposed the…
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The Priority of Learning Biblical Languages
The following quote from Martin Luther is well-known in evangelical circles. Nevertheless it seems that every generation of evangelicalism has to struggle with the priority of Greek and Hebrew in theological education. For this reason, I think it’s worth reminding ourselves from time to time of Luther’s sage words. It’s a reminder to educators to hold the line. It’s an encouragement to students to remember the goal of their toil—to know God through His word.
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Affirm the Sacred – Preserve Marriage
Song of Songs 8:6 – Place me as a seal upon your heart, like a seal upon your arm. For love is as strong as death, its jealousy as unyielding as the grave. It flashes like fire, the very flame of the Lord. Mark 10:6 – God made them male and female. Genesis 2:24 – For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be united to his wife. And the two will become one…