I agree with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Not one more second of media attention should be granted to the Koran-burning pastor in Florida. I’m surprised that he has received as much attention as he already has. I was also surprised to receive an e-mail from a reader asking why evangelical bloggers have been so silent on the controversy. I can’t speak for other bloggers, but here’s why I haven’t said much about it until now.
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Hardball on Hagee and Beck
Chris Matthews takes umbrage with John Hagee’s appearance at the Glenn Beck rally. I don’t think the conversation here is all that helpful or illuminatng—except in one sense. This is the most theology I think I have ever heard discussed on “Hardball.” The discussion touches on theodicy, sin, judgment, and the nature of God. That’s pretty unusual for this program, but it does show where some of these characters are on the most important questions in the world. One more thing. Even though Matthews is a Roman Catholic, he regularly opposes Roman Catholic teaching on his program. It seems a bit inconsistent to defend the church against the likes of…
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Beck’s Revival
Russell Moore has Glenn Beck’s number—or at least that of Beck’s erstwhile “evangelical” following. Moore is rightly scathing in his rebuke of evangelicals who would confuse genuine revival with Mormon-American-pie-populist politics. That’s exactly what was on display this weekend at Beck’s rally at the Lincoln Memorial. It was a mash-up of civic religion and syncretism that had some evangelicals looking to Glenn Beck as some kind of a spiritual leader. It exposed the fact that far too many evangelicals still can’t tell the difference between heresy and the faith once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3). Moore writes: “It’s taken us a long time to get here, in…
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Obama’s Faith
There was quite a hubbub last week over President Obama’s faith after a Pew Forum survey showed that 1 in 5 Americans believe Obama to be a Muslim. I don’t know how so many Americans could be so misinformed as to believe such a thing, but there it is. In fact, Obama professes to be a Christian, and all the indications are that he is a progressive one at that. In other words, his Christian faith resembles more what you would find in one of the liberal mainline churches than what you would find in an evangelical church.
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Olasky vs. Wallis
Marvin Olasky reports for World Magazine that Jim Wallis’ Sojourners group has been receiving funding from George Soros—the billionaire leftist who has financed groups promoting abortion, atheism, and same-sex marriage. Anyone who has paid any attention at all to Wallis’ leftward commitments shouldn’t be surprised that Soros might be interested in beefing up Sojourner‘s bottom-line. Wallis, however, is denying the report. In fact, he got downright prickly in a recent interview when asked about Olasky’s article:
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Why I don’t care for Glenn Beck’s politics
The video above is a case in point of why I don’t care for Glenn Beck’s politics. It doesn’t matter to me that he is an economic and national defense conservative. He treats the greatest human rights crisis of our time (abortion on demand) as an afterthought, and he’s totally out to lunch on gay marriage. This is libertarianism, and I’m not a fan. Here’s a bit from the exchange on gay marriage:
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Wendy Long on Prop 8
Wendy Long provided the best legal analysis I’ve heard of yesterday’s ruling in California. She calls the decision the “prime example of judicial tyranny.” Listen below. [audio:http://fetch.noxsolutions.com/laura/mp3/080510_wendy.mp3]
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The End of Prop 8: A Moral and Legal Revolution
Yesterday, a federal judge overturned California’s ban on gay marriage—a measure that was added to the state’s constitution through a 2008 ballot effort called Proposition 8. Federal district judge Vaughn R. Walker ruled that Proposition 8 was a violation of the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment (p. 109). The judge immediately stayed his own decision pending appeals, so gay marriages will not be performed until the issue is resolved in the higher courts. Read the decision here. The next stop for this case is the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals—a court well-known for leaning left on social issues and which will almost certainly rubber-stamp…
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Federal Judge Strikes Down Prop 8
This is a terrible decision, and I will have more to say about it later. For now, here’s a snippet and a link from the story in The New York Times: “Saying that it unfairly targets gay men and women, a federal judge in San Francisco struck down California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage on Wednesday, handing supporters of such unions a temporary victory in a legal battle that seems all but certain to be settled by the Supreme Court. . . “‘Proposition 8 cannot survive any level of scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause,’ wrote Mr. Walker. ‘Excluding same-sex couples from marriage is simply not rationally related to a…
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Slightly Modified Infanticide
In 1999, Senator Barbara Boxer said in so many words that fully a delivered baby does not have an intrinsic right to life. A baby only has a right to life when its mother decides to take the baby home. Until that time, the fully delivered baby can still be killed so long as the mother decides she wants it killed. George Will recently called Boxer’s position “slightly modified infanticide.” Boxer took issue with this characterization and fired-back that she had been taken out of context. Newsweek carried the exchange, and you can read the back and forth between Boxer and Will here. I just want to say that I…