Yesterday on NPR’s “Talk of the Nation,” Albert Mohler offered a counterpoint to Lisa Miller’s “Religious Case for Gay Marriage.” It was a fascinating conversation, and I thought Dr. Mohler made a compelling and winsome case. You can listen to the program at NPR’s website, or you can push the play button below. [audio:http://podcastdownload.npr.org/anon.npr-podcasts/podcast/5/98315676/npr_98315676.mp3] Lisa Miller’s argument falls apart when a caller confronts her about polygamy. The caller points out that it is totally inconsistent for Miller to support gay “marriage” while opposing polygamy. Lisa Miller’s appeal to women’s rights as a basis for excluding polygamy fell flat. Dr. Mohler agrees with the caller and argues that if marriage is…
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‘On Faith’ on Gay ‘Marriage’
The ‘On Faith’ blog (a joint venture of The Washington Post and Newsweek) is hosting a discussion about the religious case for gay “marriage.” The topic is inspired by last week’s Newsweek cover story by Lisa Miller (which I wrote about here). Panelists include those from the religious left and right. Albert Mohler, Leith Anderson, and Charles Colson are among those representing the biblical view. Colson has a good word about Miller’s call for ‘inclusiveness’: ‘Miller admits that the argument for a biblical support of gay marriage is usually not made from any particular passage but from, as scholar Walter Brueggemann puts it, “the general conviction that the Bible is…
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Newsweek Comes Out for Gay ‘Marriage’
I would be remiss not to comment on Lisa Miller’s cover story in this week’s Newsweek magazine, “The Religious Case for Gay Marriage.” The title of the article says everything that you need to know about this piece. In essence, Miller argues that a right understanding of the Christian tradition would actually favor gay “marriage” rather than oppose it. She appeals to the Bible and to history to make her point. This piece is disappointing on a number of levels, and the subsequent critiques have been sharp and justified (e.g., Albert Mohler, Christianity Today, Mollie Hemingway). For the most thorough response, see Robert Gagnon’s 23-page essay (HT: Justin Taylor). I…
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How the BCS Should Shake-out
After the Sooners finish shellacking Mizzou tonight, I think it’s pretty clear which two teams should be appearing in the BCS championship game: Florida and Oklahoma. I hate it for Texas, but it is what it is. The BCS is already the biggest sham in sports. And if Florida and Oklahoma are not the final two in the BCS formula, then I think the BCS will not survive. How could it? On a related but unrelated note: During the SEC championship game, the camera showed Joey and Christy Allen cheering on the Gators. Christy is Tim Tebow’s sister, and she and Joey are now missionaries in an undisclosed overseas location.…
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D. A. Carson Conference on Gender
D. A. Carson will be speaking at a half-day conference on gender just before the Desiring God Pastor’s Conference this February. Here’s the announcement from CBMW: CBMW and the Fidelis Foundation are pleased to announce a half-day conference on gender with Dr. D.A. Carson. Different by Design 2009: A Crucial Call to Faithfulness on Gender Issues will be held at the Minneapolis Hilton in Minneapolis, Minnesota on February 2nd, 2009, just prior to the start of the Desiring God Pastor’s Conference. The schedule will begin at 1:00pm and conclude by 4:30pm.
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Hebrews, Christ, and the Law
I just received yesterday my copy of Barry Joslin’s new book Hebrews, Christ, and the Law: The Theology of the Mosaic Law in Hebrews 7:1-10:18 (Paternoster, 2008). The book comes with high recommendations. Tom Schreiner writes: “Scholars in the last few years have focused on the Pauline view of the Law, but other parts of the New Testament have not received the same attention. . . Future studies of the Law in Hebrews will have to reckon with Joslin’s careful reading of the text.”
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LA Times on Women in Ministry
The editors of the The Los Angeles Times weighed in on the topic of women in ministry on Sunday (HT: Albert Mohler). The editorial talked mainly about the state of affairs in the Roman Catholic Church, but there was some commentary about Protestant churches as well. The editors conclude that continuing limitations on women are due to tradition in the Roman Catholic Church and the Bible in Protestant churches (texts like 1 Timothy 2:12). They write, “In either case, the arguments that keep women from full participation are attributed to a higher authority. So why do they sound so much like the complaints about assertive women that long have issued…
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A Roman Catholic Sizes Up Evangelicals
David Mills is the former editor of Touchstone magazine and is one of the most compelling writers I know. He is a Roman Catholic, but I see him about once at year the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS). He attends not as a member, but as a sympathetic observer. If there’s one thing I like about David, it’s that he knows that there are differences between Evangelicals and Catholics and that he thinks we should all be honest about them. In an age in which glossing over such distinctions is the order of the day, I find that kind of clarity refreshing indeed.
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Amend ETS: What happened in Providence?
I have been away from the blog for the last week due to a busy schedule at the annual meetings of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) and of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL). Readers of this blog know that my friend Ray Van Neste and I had co-sponsored an effort to amend the doctrinal basis of the ETS and that the vote on the measure was to take place last week. Now that the meeting and the vote are over, I can tell you what happened and post a few reflections. In short, we feel that our effort was successful, even though the Society decided not to adopt our…
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Carl Trueman: An Ironic Catalyst to Roman Catholicism
I have been reading Francis Beckwith’s fascinating book about his return to the Roman Catholic Church from Protestant Evangelicalism. On page 83, there is an ironic little anecdote in which Beckwith says that Carl Trueman was a “catalyst” for his conversion to Roman Catholicism. I won’t explain the whole thing here, but in short Trueman had written an essay in which he claimed that Roman Catholicism was the “default” position for the church in the West. Trueman wrote that, “Rome has a better claim to historical continuity and institutional unity than any Protestant denomination, let alone the strange hybrid that is evangelicalism; in light of these facts, therefore, we need…
