I had not planned on writing about the tragic case of the infant Charlie Gard. But I just completed a Twitter convo with Alistair Roberts about it that has changed my mind. If you are unfamiliar with Charlie Gard, here is the gist of his story: For ten months, Charlie has been living in the intensive-care unit at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. In March, his doctors decided that there was nothing more they could do for him, and they recommended that his parents, Connie Yates and Chris Gard, withdraw his ventilator. They refused, on the grounds that an untried experimental treatment was available in the United States. The hospital,…
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I think McEnroe is taking heat for no good reason
Earlier this evening, I saw John McEnroe’s interview with CBS News anchors who grilled him about some remarks he made about Serena Williams (see above). McEnroe said in an interview with NPR on Sunday that he believed that Serena Williams would be ranked about 700th in the world if she were playing on the men’s circuit. The anchors suggest that McEnroe is denigrating Serena Willams’s success, that he owes her an apology, and that he made the remark in order to increase his book sales. McEnroe refuses to apologize, and I think he was right to do so. If you look at the NPR interview, it is clear that McEnroe…
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The Christian baker who refused to bake the gay wedding cake is happy to serve gay customers
Colorado is attempting to force Jack Phillips, a Christian baker, to use his artistic gifts to create a cake for a gay wedding celebration. Phillips says that creating such a cake would violate his religious beliefs. And he is not singling out gay weddings. He has also declined to make Halloween cakes and cakes with risqué messages for bachelor parties. He refused them because those messages also violate his religious beliefs. The Supreme Court will decide whether the government can force him to violate his deeply held religious beliefs when it comes to gay marriage. What will they decide? That remains to be seen. Until they do, however, it is…
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Os Guinness: “President Trump is God’s wrecking ball”
Collin Hansen recently interviewed Os Guinness for the Beeson Divinity School podcast and asked Guinness about evangelicals and the 2016 presidential election. You can listen below at 2:07 or read my transcription below the audio. Collin Hansen: One of the opportunities we have essentially to take stock of ourselves as evangelicals often comes in the aftermath of presidential elections… What would you say that you learned perhaps about yourself or about evangelicals in the aftermath of the presidential election? Os Guinness: I’m not sure I learned too much about myself in the election. Evangelicals though, they were roundly attacked for say the 81% who voted in Donald Trump (I thought…
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“The Gospel according to Glennon”: What gospel?
Elle magazine has published a long-form essay on famous mommy-blogger Glennon Doyle Melton. Until Melton divorced her husband and came out as a lesbian last year, I really didn’t even know who she was. Even so, she has been a popular blogger and writer for a number of years, especially among women. Her openness about her imperfect life has endeared her to millions of readers, many of whom are Christians. Anyway, the Elle feature tells her story, which I won’t rehearse here. I encourage you to read the piece for the full account. Nevertheless, I would offer a handful of reflections on the essay: 1. I have never been a…
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Watch Senator Bernie Sanders tell a Christian that his faith disqualifies him from office
By now you have probably heard about what happened to Russell Vought, a Christian who appeared before the Senate Budget Committee (see above). When it was Senator Bernie Sanders’ turn to question Vought, he excoriated Vought for believing what Christians have always believed–that Jesus Christ is the only way to be saved from condemnation. Not only did Senator Sanders attack this basic Christian belief, he also said that Vought’s belief made him unfit for office. Here’s how the exchange ends: SANDERS: You think your statement that… they do not know God because they rejected Jesus Christ, His Son, and they stand condemned, do you think that’s respectful of other religions?…
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Farmer banned from selling produce at market because of his views on marriage
I can hardly believe the report in the video above is true, but it is. Steve Tennes is a farmer who has been selling his produce for the last seven years at the farmer’s market in East Lansing, Michigan. Recently, he was asked on Facebook about his beliefs about marriage. Steven and his family are Roman Catholic, and so he answered with the 2,000-year old teaching of his church. Somehow, the city of East Lansing got a hold of the Facebook post. As a result, the city decided not to invite him back to participate in the Farmer’s Market. So Tennes reapplied with the city to be included as a…
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Some thoughts on intersectionality and “activist science”
I’ve been doing some reading on intersectionality1 recently, and I came across an article by a feminist psychologist named Stephanie Shields. She argues that intersectionality should be an urgent concern for behavioral scientists and should determine the outcomes of their research. Shields writes: “Intersectionality is an urgent issue because it is critical to the effective, activist science that feminist psychology should be. The goal of activist science itself is not to create policy, but to inform it. Research undertaken from an intersectionality perspective does originate from a point of view which includes an agenda for positive social change, but the agenda requires data to support it. This approach reflects a…
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Can the mainline be saved? Not in the way Douthat suggests.
I’m a big fan of New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, and I am really grateful for his voice at the old “gray lady.” So it is unusual that I would take issue with one of his columns. But over the weekend I read his column “Save the Mainline,” and I thought this one might be worth a little push-back. I should stipulate, however, that I agree with much of his analysis about the decline of mainline churches and about the ideological rootlessness of modern liberalism. Without some unifying principle, liberalism really has descended into a kind of “illiberal cult of victimologies that burns heretics with vigor.” Douthat is right…
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Is the religious left really a “political force”?
Reuters has a report out today about how President Trump has activated the religious left. Here’s the gist of it: “The election of Trump has been a clarion call to progressives in the Protestant and Catholic churches in America to move out of a place of primarily professing progressive policies to really taking action,” [Reverend Serene Jones] said. Although not as powerful as the religious right, which has been credited with helping elect Republican presidents and boasts well-known leaders such as Christian Broadcasting Network founder Pat Robertson, the “religious left” is now slowly coming together as a force in U.S. politics. This disparate group, traditionally seen as lacking clout, has…