The reviews of Prince’s Superbowl halftime show are already rolling in. The New York Times says: “Just when it seemed time to give up on that quaint ritual known as the halftime show, along comes Prince. His performance last night at Super Bowl XLI will surely go down as one of the most thrilling halftime shows ever; certainly the most unpredictable, and perhaps the best. ‘Dearly beloved,’ he whispered, intoning the famous first words of ‘Let’s Go Crazy.’ What followed was a dizzying demonstration. . .
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Prince’s Rave Reviews
“Arguably the best halftime show in Super Bowl history” – Chicago Sun-Times “One of the most thrilling halftime shows ever; certainly the most unpredictable, and perhaps the best.” – New York Times “While I’m no expert on Super Bowl halftime shows, that might be the best once I’ve seen since U2’s emotional 2002 show in the wake of 9-11.” – Paul Newberry, Associated Press
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Southern Baptists Taking a Hit in the Wall Street Journal?
John Wilson writes in today’s Wall Street Journal about Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton’s “New Baptist Covenant.” I am happy to read that Wilson is not too keen on this new coalition of “above the fray” Baptists (a.k.a., moderate and liberal Baptists). Even though the former Presidents are Baptists, it still takes a lot of chutzpah for two politicians to pose as the new uniters of Christendom, especially when the big meeting is set to take place in 2008 right in time for the Presidential primaries. The whole thing smells more of politics than of piety. So I share Wilson’s low estimation of the so-called “New Baptist Covenant.”
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Time Magazine on Dr. Albert Mohler’s Calvinism
David Van Biema of Time magazine interviews Dr. Albert Mohler about his Calvinism and what role it played in his recent brush with death. Van Biema’s interview is prefaced with this:
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CT on Salem Communications
Christianity Today has a must-read piece on Salem Communications and its place in Christian radio. If you listen to Christian talk radio in a major market in the U.S., then it’s likely that you have been listening to a station in Salem’s ubiquitous broadcasting network.
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Katrina Didn’t Do It
I wrote last week about the alarming murder rate in post-Katrina New Orleans—nine murders in the first eight days of 2007 (previous post). I also pointed out that the problems that New Orleans is facing are not mainly due to Katrina. Katrina merely exacerbated problems that were there before the storm.
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Addicted to Violence or to Love?
California Assemblywoman, Sally Lieber, is sponsoring a bill that would make it illegal for parents to spank children under the age of four. Ms. Lieber does not have children, but she has compared spanking to wife-beating. So far, the reaction to her proposal has been overwhelmingly negative. Surprised that so many people would oppose the measure, Lieber said this:
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Thirty-four Years of Legal Abortions
“The most consequential cultural and political event in American history in the past half century was the Roe v. Wade decision of January 22, 1973. An argument can be made that it is rivaled by September 11, but that fateful day did not result in the deep realignment of religious, cultural, and political dynamics resulting from the Supreme Court’s ukase, which established an unlimited abortion license that wiped from the books of all fifty states any legal protection of unborn children. . . This Monday marks the thirty-fourth anniversary of Roe v. Wade. On January 23, 1973, the New York Times reported that the Court had ‘settled’ the dispute over…
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A “Middle Ground” on the Life Issue?
Two recent opinion editorials talk about coming to a “middle ground” compromise on the human life issue, but they each take positions that are anything but a compromise. Ellen Goodman’s piece in the Boston Globe (“Abortion’s elusive middle ground”) is decidedly pro-choice. Yuval Levin’s essay in the New York Times (“A Middle Ground for Stem Cells”) is decidedly pro-life.
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A Holy Discrimination
Reverend Bradley Schmeling is pastor of the St. John’s Lutheran Church in Atlanta, Georgia, and he is objecting to a bishop’s attempt to have him defrocked. The reason that this bishop is seeking to remove Schmeling from ministry in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is that Schmelling is a practicing homosexual. According to the Associated Press, “Schmeling and his supporters say the policy barring sexually active gay pastors is discriminatory by forcing them to refrain from sex, while heterosexuals only have to wait for marriage.”