It has been my long-standing custom not to pay attention to NBA basketball before the playoffs start. But Jeremy Lin has changed that. I’m tuning in now along with the rest of the country. If you missed tonight’s game, it was another great performance (highlights above). What a remarkable player, what an underdog, and what an inspiration for corny puns. They say that puns are the lowest form of humor, but that hasn’t diminished the corny punning on Lin’s name. In fact, many are finding quite hard to resist. Mark it down. I’m all Lin for the rest of the season. As long as he’s bal-Lin, I won’t be stall-Lin…
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MacArthur Study Bible to Be Released with NIV
Zondervan announced today that the MacArthur Study Bible notes will be available with the new NIV translation of the scripture beginning in the Fall of 2013. In Zondervan’s press release, John MacArthur says: The New International Version is read and studied by more English-speaking believers than any other modern translation of Scripture. I’m delighted that the MacArthur Study Bible notes will now be easily accessible to NIV readers. My prayer is that these insights and explanations, together with the acclaimed readability of the translation, will help illuminate the true meaning and unleash the divine power of Scripture for NIV readers. The MacArthur Study Bible has been available with a variety…
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Scholars and Leaders Line-up to Protest Mandate
The statement below was put out by the Beckett Fund, and it says that President Obama did not “accommodate” religious liberty concerns in his recent “compromise.” The healthcare law still requires religious groups to pay for chemical abortions and contraception. I want you to notice the names on this list. It is signed by 160 scholars and leaders, and signatories include D. A. Carson, Albert Mohler, Robbie George, Russell Moore, Danny Akin, David Dockery, and many others.
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Where’s the Outrage about Nicki Minaj?
I don’t usually do this, but I watched the Grammy’s last night. I was curious to see how they would acknowledge the death of Whitney Houston, so I tuned in. The program featured the normal stream of pop culture pabulum that one has come to expect from the Grammy’s, but this year’s edition moved from lowbrow to insult when Nicky Minaj took the stage. It was so bad that I hit the fast-forward button through Minaj’s performance. Not only was it an aesthetic and artistic nightmare, it was a distasteful sacrilege. Michael Gerson is right to ask why hardly anyone was offended by Minaj’s impious spectacle. He writes,
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Colt McCoy Talks about Losing BCS Championship and Idolatry
Even for me as a fan, it really stung to watch my team lose the BCS national championship. I can only imagine what it would feel like as a player. Colt McCoy is the starting quarterback for the Cleveland Brown, but two years ago he led the Texas Longhorns to the BCS title game to play against the Alabama Crimson Tide. Both teams were undefeated, and it was a big game. It was the game that McCoy had been preparing for his whole life to play in. McCoy was driving the Longhorns down the field and looked like he was going to lead them into the endzone for the first…
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There Went Religious Liberty…
Albert Mohler takes a hard-hitting look at Nicholas Kristof’s cavalier dismissal of religious liberty in the wake of the new healthcare mandate. Mohler’s critique is important because Kristof’s column is emblematic of a sentiment that has become quite common among the American left. For them, religious liberty is no longer an inalienable right, but something that can be abridged when it comes into conflict with the secular state. Neither Kristof nor any other American liberal I know of supports throwing Christians to the lions (yet), but they are laying the intellectual and legal ground for it whether they realize it or not. That is why the President’s healthcare mandate deserves…
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The President Is Not Telling the Truth
Yesterday, President Obama issued an “accommodation” to religious employers who object to that portion of Obamacare that forces them to pay for contraceptives, sterilizations, and abortions. In his statement (view it above), the President claims, Under the rule, women will still have access to free preventive care that includes contraceptive services -– no matter where they work. So that core principle remains. But if a woman’s employer is a charity or a hospital that has a religious objection to providing contraceptive services as part of their health plan, the insurance company -– not the hospital, not the charity -– will be required to reach out and offer the woman contraceptive…
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Albert Mohler Hits Hard on the President’s “Compromise”
Albert Mohler has a must-read article on the unacceptability of President Obama’s so-called “compromise.” He concludes: Only an accounting maneuver hides the fact that we will all be paying for chemical abortions under the President’s prized Affordable Care Act. Added to this is coverage for sterilizations… Anyone who celebrates this “compromise” as a victory is hiding behind an accounting trick. That accounting trick cannot hide the great moral tragedy at the heart of the President’s policy — a policy that leaves religious liberty in peril and Planned Parenthood smiling. This is an important explanation of what happened today, and you need to read the whole thing.
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President Obama’s “Compromise” Does Not Cover Southern Baptists
O. S. Hawkins, the President of GuideStone Financial Resources, says that President Obama’s statement on the new healthcare law excludes the Southern Baptist Convention. The Southern Baptist Convention is the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, and its financial arm provides health insurance to about 60,000 people, including pastors and missionaries (source). Here’s the statement from GuideStone:
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It’s not just a Catholic thing
Even though the media are trying to sell the new healthcare law as a Catholic issue, it is not. The new law requires all employers to pay for birth control methods that include surgical sterilization and abortion inducing drugs. The only groups who get an exemption are churches. Every other employer must provide this coverage. So this is more than a Catholic issue, it is a Protestant issue, a Jewish issue, an Orthodox issue, and an issue for every other religious group you can think of. But there is one facet of this dispute that has been largely overlooked. This is not just a religious liberty issue for groups, but…
