John Inazu has a fascinating piece at Christianity Today about religious liberty vs. LGBT rights. I encourage you to read this so that you can better understand how we’ve landed in the pickle we’re in right now. Inazu also offers three predictions about where things are going in the very near future:
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Is the government obligated to disfavor Christians?
In my last post, I highlighted an open letter sent to President Obama last month requesting a religious exemption in a forthcoming executive order. Yesterday, a group of legal scholars sent a letter to the President requesting the exact opposite. If you want to understand the logic of those who care little for religious freedom, you need to read this letter. I will highlight one salient section. It reads,
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Are Christian Colleges free to be Christian?
Are Christian colleges still free to be Christian in this country? You may think that an unserious question, but if you’ve been paying attention to recent events surrounding Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts, you know it’s a very pressing question indeed. Last month, Gordon College President Michael Lindsay added his signature to an open letter asking President Obama to include a religious exemption in a forthcoming executive order. The executive order will bar federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Thus any group receiving federal funds would be subject to this order. Those who signed the letter—including Rick Warren, Gabe Lyons, and several others—are…
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First trailer for the movie “Unbroken”
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Wild Goose Festival as pagan nature worship?
A couple weeks ago, I made mention of this year’s Wild Goose Festival—an annual confab of progressive “Christians” and ex-evangelicals. Brian McLaren, Jim Wallis, and Frank Schaeffer all had a part in program. The group Jars of Clay was among the musical acts that performed. This year’s Festival also featured a program called Carnival de Resistance. Alexander Griswold’s description of the “Carnival” sounds like borderline nature worship. Here’s an excerpt:
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A chilling new front in the war on religious liberty
The ACLU and other groups supporting gay rights have announced that they are withdrawing their support for the Employment Non-discrimination Act of 2013 (ENDA). ENDA is a controversial measure because the bill would make it illegal for employers to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or sexual identity. Why would the ACLU and gay rights groups remove their support for such a measure? Because the current form of the bill provides an exemption for religious employers. The ACLU et al. have decided that the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision gives too much ground to religious liberty. To curtail that trend, these groups will not support the bill as long…
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Trailer for new Moses movie starring Christian Bale
Ridley Scott has directed a new adaptation of the Moses story from the biblical book of Exodus. It stars Christian Bale and will hit theaters in December. The film is titled Exodus: Gods and Kings. The newly released trailer is above.
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Are evangelicals changing their views on gay marriage?
Jim Hinch has a rather ambitious analysis of evangelical piety at Politico titled, “Evangelicals Are Changing Their Minds on Gay Marriage: And the Bible isn’t getting in their way.” The title reveals the fundamental flaw in this article. The flaw also appears in the fact that Hinch treats members of the Presbyterian Church USA and the United Church of Christ as bellwethers of evangelical opinion. Hinch appears to be a little fuzzy as to what an evangelical is. These are very strange evangelicals indeed—those who give little heed to the authority of scripture and who are members of liberal mainline churches.
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NY Times highlights young woman who deconverts
The New York Times ran a story on Friday highlighting the deconversion of Sarah Jones, a recent graduate from a Christian college. Jones is a young woman who grew up in a fundamentalist home, attended a Christian college, and then fell away from the faith. She has now crossed all the way over to the other side and works for a liberal interest group that opposes Christianity. It is a sad story, and perhaps the best response to her situation is simply to pray for this girl and her family. The Lord’s arm is not too short to save (Isaiah 59:1). The original version of this blog post questioned whether…
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When the Transgender Comes Home
Josh Bishop has a really helpful article at The Gospel Coalition telling how he and his family responded to the revelation of his sister’s transgender identity. He writes: Jessah is 19 years old, 12 years younger than I am. I was in the hospital when she was born. I spent my middle-school years changing her diapers. She beamed with pride and excitement when my then-fiancée Becca asked her to be a bridesmaid at our wedding, and during the ceremony she looked just as beautiful and twice as proud as the older girls. Becca offered advice when she was learning to put on makeup, when puberty arrived, when she first started…