Ryan T. Anderson has a helpful OP-ED in The Kansas City Star about gay marriage and civility. Among other things, he writes this: The principal strategy of the forces that have worked for 20 years to redefine marriage to include same-sex unions has been cultural intimidation – bullying others by threatening the stigma of being “haters” and “bigots.” Marriage re-definers don’t tend to say what many opponents have said, that this is a difficult question on which reasonable people of goodwill can disagree. No, they’ve said anyone who disagrees with them is the equivalent of a racist. They’ve sent a clear message: If you stand up for marriage, we will,…
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John Piper on gay marriage and the Supreme Court
About nine years ago, John Piper preached a message about “Discerning the Will of God Concerning Homosexuality and Marriage.” The message made an impression on me, and for many years now I’ve been reading a portion of this sermon every semester to my hermeneutics students. I share the message now because it is astonishing to me how prophetic it is in light of the decisions handed down from the Supreme Court earlier this week. You can read the manuscript excerpt below, but I recommend that you listen to the audio. There is much more in the audio version than in what appears in the manuscript. Keep in mind that this…
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Anderson Cooper Interviews Alan Chambers
On Thursday, Anderson Cooper interviewed Lisa Ling about the closure of Exodus International. On Friday, he interviewed Alan Chambers himself. The Ling interview is above, and the three segments with Chambers are below.
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Alan Chambers Apologizing on Oprah’s Network
Alan Chambers appeared on Oprah Winfrey’s OWN network to apologize for the past work of Exodus International. He also listened to stories from “ex-gay survivors”—those who say that have been hurt by Exodus International’s ministry. You can watch the first segment of the program above. The rest of the clips are available below.
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Brothers, we are not movie-hawkers…
CNN’s Belief Blog reports that the marketing campaign for the new Superman movie includes a direct appeal to Christian movie-goers. A marketing firm is highlighting the Messianic themes of the film in order to attract the Christian market to “Man of Steel.” The firm has created an entire website filled with “Man of Steel” ministry resources including sermon outlines, video downloads, and digital images from the movie. They even hired a theologian to write sermon notes for pastors who want to make “Man of Steel” the subject matter of their Sunday morning sermon. The sermon intro calls for a viewing of the movie trailer during the sermon!
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Gender-bending ad to discourage teen pregnancy
There’s an ad campaign rolling out in Chicago that is designed to discourage teen pregnancy (see above). The ads feature enhanced images of teenage boys with pregnant bellies. Somehow this is supposed to make teens think twice about…what exactly? Most teens have heard of Photoshop and have at least a rudimentary understanding of the fact that boys can’t get pregnant. So what is the logic behind this ad campaign? Does anyone believe that these ads are going to thwart the flood of teenage hormones?
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12 obsolete technologies Americans still use
NBCNews.com has a list of twelve technologies that ought to have gone the way of the Dodo by now, but which many Americans are still using. Without question, this is a fascinating list—especially when I consider that my children don’t even know what many of the items are. The full article includes information about each item, including how many of each were sold in the last year. You’ll have to read the full article for the details, but here’s the list:
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Former SBC President explains why his church is severing ties with the Boy Scouts
Bryant Wright is the pastor of Johnson Ferry Baptist Church and a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention. In the video above, he explains why he is leading his church to sever ties with the Boy Scouts. I expect we’ll be seeing a lot of this kind of thing in the coming months.
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How will gay “marriage” impact your marriage?
If you’ve ever been in a debate with someone about gay marriage, one of the conversation stoppers that proponents often throw out is this: “How does gay marriage hurt traditional marriage?” Or more personally, “How does my gay marriage corrupt your straight marriage?” The thinking goes like this. What two people do in the privacy of their own home ought not concern you, even if they choose to reinvent society’s most basic institution. After all, who are you to judge someone else’s pairing? If some people want to call gay unions a “marriage,” what’s that to you? The assumption in this line of argument is that marriage is a private…
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God help us if we don’t learn from Gosnell’s crimes
Kermit Gosnell was convicted yesterday of three charges of first degree murder. He killed countless other live-born infants, but prosecutors could only prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he murdered these three. Some were killed after being delivered alive into toilets. Others had their necks “snipped” with scissors after clinic workers had played with them. The crimes were so heinous and the conditions so gruesome that it’s staggering to imagine that people have been witnessing and participating in this horror for decades.