David Mills has a few things to say about Lady Gaga and spirituality at First Things. In particular, he deconstructs the trend toward “spirituality” as an alternative to “religion.” He writes, ‘It’s a great and self-serving mess, this claim to be “spiritual but not religious,” which we hear from almost anyone who talks about religion in public… So we find Lady Gaga, the pornographic songstress, telling a reporter for The Times that she has a new spirituality just before taking her out for a night at a Berlin sex club. Asked by the reporter, “You were raised a Catholic — so when you say ‘God,’ do you mean the Catholic…

Mary Kassian has an exhortation to young women who are being influenced by feminism and its pornification of women in our culture. She uses the recent Miss USA contest as a case in point. She writes: ‘It’s the ultimate irony that the foundational beliefs of feminism have contributed to the increased sexual objectification and pornographication of women.

Many of you will remember that in 2008 Christian pop music star Ray Boltz came out as a gay man. That was two years ago, but today’s New York Times has a profile of Boltz’s new album that was released in April. Now, after more than five years of self-imposed absence from stage and CD, Mr. Boltz has reached a musical and religious destination. As an openly gay man, living in a gay-friendly part of South Florida with his partner, Franco Sperduti, he has released his first album since coming out.

I’ve never seen Matt Lauer get choked-up on camera, but he did this morning while interviewing two Christian families for “The Today Show” (see video above). Lauer is astonished by their faith and even asks them if they ever doubted God through their ordeal. Both families confessed their faith in God’s sovereignty over painful tragedies, and it was an unusually beautiful thing to see on network television. What was the story about? In 2006, five students from Taylor University were in a deadly car accident, and only one of them survived. The lone survivor was a blond-haired co-ed who was hospitalized for weeks after the accident. For five weeks, the…

When I was a youth, the station wagon was the quintessential “uncool” car. Somewhere in the transition from ‘tween to teen, everyone my age learned that you didn’t want to be caught dead in a station wagon.

The New York Times reports on Ken Starr’s forthcoming tenure as the president of Baylor University. Starr begins on June 1. Here’s a snippet from the report: “Baylor’s growth into a large research university is now irreversible, but its Christian character remains unsettled. Dr. Sloan recruited several prominent evangelicals, and was known to reject potential hires for not being able to articulate how faith had influenced their academic lives. Even so, the faculty is perceived to be more liberal in its Christianity than many Texas Baptists, including Baylor’s alumni. “Despite his notorious prosecutorial history, Mr. Starr may be the Christian conciliator Baylor needs. In his faith life, he has tacked…

Trevin Wax has some great reflections on Jennifer Knapp’s appearance on “Larry King Live” last week. He writes: After viewing Friday night’s Larry King Live with Jennifer Knapp, pastor Bob Botsford, and Ted Haggard, I was struck with the question: Why is it that whenever a proponent of Christianity’s historical view of sexuality goes head to head with an advocate for gay rights, the traditional Christian almost always loses the argument? Read the rest here.