I love Starbucks coffee. I have to say, however, I have been to some stores recently that are a little bit less Starbucky than their 1990’s forebears. According to the report above, Starbucks has sold out to the man. It has replaced baristas with machines, has mass produced locations, and has compromised its ambiance with retail space. These changes over the last few years are the explanation for some of its less-than-stellar stores. The changes also explain why ma and pop coffee shops are making a comeback in certain areas. What do you think? Is Starbucks losing its luster?
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On Mocking Evangelicals
Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times writes what many evangelicals already suspected: “At a New York or Los Angeles cocktail party, few would dare make a pejorative comment about Barack Obama’s race or Hillary Clinton’s sex. Yet it would be easy to get away with deriding Mike Huckabee’s religious faith. “Liberals believe deeply in tolerance and over the last century have led the battles against prejudices of all kinds, but we have a blind spot about Christian evangelicals. They constitute one of the few minorities that, on the American coasts or university campuses, it remains fashionable to mock.” Kristof goes on to praise evangelicals for their work on poverty,…
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Rick Warren on the “Colbert Report”
Pastor Rick Warren appeared on Comedy Central’s “Colbert Report” last night (see video below). I have to say that the show is not the best forum for discussing things eternal. The show is too light, and the gospel is too heavy to sustain any meaningful interaction about the things of God. Nevertheless, Warren made a go at it.
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Yale Students Celebrate Abortion Rights
I just read a chilling article that was published this week in the Yale Daily News. Students there were treated to a “a week-long celebration of the 35th anniversary” of the infamous Roe v. Wade decision. The week’s events included mock abortions using papayas and a performance by a comedy troupe.
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The Legacy of Roe v. Wade 35 Years Later
Today marks the thirty-fifth anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s infamous Roe v. Wade decision. 50 million unborn babies have been killed by abortion since 1973. Last year, the Supreme Court upheld a ban on a procedure called partial-birth abortion, but abortion is still legal up until the moment of birth in all 50 states as determined by Roe vs. Wade. I believe that many people are able to dodge this issue in their own consciences because they have been conditioned to do so by a culture of death and because the unborn themselves are silent and out of sight. One way to cure this indifference is by making images…
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Letter from a Birmingham Jail
On Saturday, John Piper exhorted pastors to use the occasion of Martin Luther King Day to shine the light of the gospel on racism. He also quoted at length from Dr. Martin Luther King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” Dr. King’s description of Jim Crow South is one of the most gut-wrenching things you’ll ever read. It’s hard to believe that people once spoke so openly in racist terms, but they did. Here’s Dr. King in his own words:
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MLK Day: “I have a dream”
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Church Discipline Gets Chastised in WSJ
Today’s Wall Street Journal has a story about the practice of church discipline in American evangelical churches. On the whole, the story is negative, focusing on cases which are less than exemplary. A church here in Dallas is mentioned in the article, Watermark Community Church, as well as First Baptist Church of Muscle Shoals, Alabama and Lakeview Baptist Church in Auburn, Alabama. The article says,
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First Human Clones Created in California
The Associated Press and NBC News reports that a group of scientists in a California lab have recently created embryonic clones of two men. The embryos were created in a lab using a donated human egg and DNA material from human skin cells. What’s the value of this new technology? According to the AP report, “Scientists say stem cells from cloned embryos could provide a valuable tool for studying diseases, screening drugs and, perhaps someday, creating transplant material to treat conditions like diabetes and Parkinson’s disease.” The ethical questions raised by this development are manifold. It is a staggering devaluing of human life. These human beings are being created with…
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Caitlin Flanagan’s Remarks on Teenage Sexuality
Anti-feminist Caitlin Flanagan writes in the New York Times about what she would do if her teenage daughter became pregnant out of wedlock. The column is inspired by the movie “Juno” (which produced 3 Golden Globe nominations), and here are some of Flanagan’s observations: “The bitterly unfair truth of sexuality: female desire can bring with it a form of punishment no man can begin to imagine, and so it is one appetite women and girls must always regard with caution.”