Rod Dreher has a must-read article about gay marriage and religious liberty in The American Conservative. He shows that the battle over the definition of marriage has largely been lost, and there’s not much that can be done about it now. Religious conservatives are conceding that legal gay marriage is inevitable. As a result, conservatives are turning their attention most urgently to the threat that legal gay marriage poses to religious liberty. Dreher writes:
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Pope offers “blessing” to gay Catholic group?
The magazine America reports that Pope Francis has continued his informal outreach to gay and lesbians within the Roman Catholic Church. In June, Pope Francis wrote to one such group called Kairos of Florence. According to one member of the group, “Pope Francis…assured the group of his blessing.” Here's an excerpt from the report: In their letter, a group of gay and lesbian Catholics… asked for openness and dialogue, noting that closure to discussion “always feeds homophobia.” The members were shocked to receive a personal response to their appeal from Pope Francis. One leader of the group told La Repubblica “no one had ever even given a nod of response”…
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Rosaria Butterfield is fighting the good fight
I cannot overstate how much I appreciate and love Rosaria Butterfield’s book The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert. It’s the story of her conversion from lesbian feminist scholar to Christianity. It’s easily the best book I’ve read all year. Since her book came out, she has been asked to speak in a number of different venues. As you can imagine, her message is hated in certain contexts, not least of which is the average university campus. Recently, she spoke on the campus of the University of South Florida, and her reception was less than warm. Before she even spoke, one student editorialized in the campus newspaper what seems to…
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How long do famous pastors take to prepare a sermon?
Pastoralized.com has a fascinating article on how much time famous pastors spend each week in sermon preparation. Perhaps what’s most interesting is how much the numbers vary. Mark Driscoll is at the bottom end, saying that he spends 1-2 hours per week on his sermon. Mark Dever is at the top end, saying that he spends 30-35 hours. John Piper, Tim Keller, and a host of others fall somewhere in between. Read it here.
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Scalia believes in the Devil and is offended if you don’t
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is always quotable, but he is in rare form in a recent interview with New York Magazine. The conversation is wide-ranging, but by far the most interesting part to me involves a conversation about heaven, hell, and the existence of the Devil. In short, Scalia declares boldly his belief in the existence of a personal Devil. The interviewer is somewhat scandalized by the admission, but Scalia doubles-down. Scalia makes the observation that a majority of Americans believe in the Devil and that you have to be pretty out of touch with the American mainstream to be surprised to meet someone who really believes in the…
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Is feminism a source of good in the church?
Laura Ortberg Turner writes at Christianity Today that feminism is the Christian f-word. Turner argues that evangelicals have wrongly dismissed feminism as “anathema” to the body of Christ. She contends that feminism has not been a curse but a blessing both to the world in general and to the church in particular. She writes, The church needs feminism because at its core, feminism affirms to us what our faith teaches us about male and female in God’s Kingdom and what Jesus himself preached throughout the New Testament.
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Pope John Paul II to be recognized as a saint next year
Pope Francis announced today that John Paul II and Pope John XXIII will be recognized as saints on April 27, 2014. How does someone achieve sainthood in the Catholic Church? In short, they need to have lived a holy life and to have performed two miracles. It turns out that both of John Paul II’s miracles occurred after he died. It is reported that on two occasions people prayed to Pope John Paul II and were healed. Apparently, Pope Francis is going to recognize John XIII as a saint without evidence of a miracle to his account. Read the rest here, or watch above.
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NANC gets new website and proposes name change
The National Association of Nouthetic Counselors (NANC) has a brand new website. The new site includes a number of updates and helpful information as well as a new blog, authored by executive director Heath Lambert. The most momentous change on the site is the announcement that NANC is seeking to change its name to the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC). The board of trustees has overwhelmingly approved the measure, and now it falls to the registered members at the upcoming annual meeting to approve it.
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The heavens [and octopuses] are telling of God’s glory
When I see things like this, it provokes me to wonder: Can something like this really be explained by time and chance and a random collocation of molecules? Not in a million years…or even a few billion.
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Should Christians spank their children?
Andy Naselli has a really good article about spanking in the most recent Journal of Discipleship & Family Ministry. It’s titled “Training children for their good,” and Naselli argues that the Bible supports the use of spanking as a legitimate form of discipline. There is careful discussion of the relevant biblical texts, especially the Proverbs. If you’re looking for a solid, biblically formed position paper on spanking, you need to read this. Andy Naselli, “Traing children for their good” JDFM 3.2 (2013): 48-64.