Fr. Lawrence Farley, an Orthodox priest, says that those “Christians” who revise the church’s teaching on marriage are preaching another Jesus, not the Jesus of the Bible. He writes: Groups that preach another Jesus and another Gospel are rightly regarded by us now as heretically non-Christian, and thus the Orthodox Church does not have an official ecumenical dialogue with Mormons (that I know of) or with Jehovah’s Witnesses. Our message to them is simply “Repent and believe”; we do not meet with them for wine and cheese to discuss Christology at conferences or produce scholarly papers at symposia about the thought of Joseph Smith or Charles Taze Russell. In the…
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Three Observations about Tony Campolo’s acceptance of committed gay relationships
Tony Campolo has released a statement today calling for “full acceptance of Christian gay couples into the Church.” Campolo has long been a stalwart of the theological left, so this announcement is no surprise. Still, it is significant as another prominent leader moves away from the faith once for all delivered to the saints. He is not the first to have done this, and he will not be the last. American Christianiaty will be in a period of winnowing for the foreseeable future, and there will be more to come. A few observations about Campolo’s announcement:
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The Fallen of World War II
I could hardly take my eyes off the video above when I first watched it yesterday. It is a hard look at the enormous human toll of the second world war. From Neil Halloran: An animated data-driven documentary about war and peace, The Fallen of World War II looks at the human cost of the second World War and sizes up the numbers to other wars in history, including trends in recent conflicts. (HT: C. T. Eldridge)
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Bruce or Caitlyn? He or she? Should Christians accommodate transgender naming?
How should Christians respond to transgenderism in general and Bruce Jenner’s “transition” in particular? I think Christians are at their best when they recognize a need for both compassion and truth-telling. Compassion for those who experience painful alienation from their own bodies and truth-telling in the face of fictional accounts of gender identity. As I have written before, transgenderism is a denial of God-ordained differences between male and female (Gen. 1:26-27). It is an untruthful suppression of the sexual binary that God has encoded into every cell of our bodies. When a person feels their gender identity to be out of sync with their sexual identity, the problem is not…
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How can we deny marriage to polygamists?
Ross Douthat acknowledges that legal polygamous marriage doesn’t appear to be around the corner. Nevertheless, he rightly asks how long until it too becomes as inevitable as gay marriage. He writes: Can Americans say a permanent “no” to recognizing plural marriage once we’ve rooted for the Browns to get a “My Sisterwife’s Closet” jewelry line off the ground? Can a cultural left that believes in proliferating gender identities and Bruce Jenner’s essential womanhood draw the line, long-term, when a lesbian couple wants to include their baby’s biological father in their legal family, or when the child of polygamists stands up in court to say he wants his dad recognized as…
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Coach Dabo Swinney cancels fundraiser after backlash from gay rights groups
Here’s the long and short of it. The Palmetto Family Council (PFC) planned to hold a fundraiser to honor Clemson head football coach Dabo Swinney for his charitable work. Gay rights groups and Clemson students found out about it and raised a stink because of PFC’s opposition to gay marriage. Dabo Swinney cancelled his appearance at the event in order to avoid controversy. Read the rest here.
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National Review: For gay marriage and against Christian teaching
I am not going to write an extended refutation of Jason Lee Steorts’s National Review article defending legal same-sex marriage. His arguments have been dealt with extensively elsewhere (see here or here for instance). But several quick comments are in order: 1. The National Review is a leading journal of conservative opinion. It should not be lost on us that many conservatives are eager to shed the albatross of traditional marriage. They view it as a political loser. Younger conservatives can hardly comprehend any reason to oppose gay marriage. At this point, the Republican party is divided on the issue with traditional social conservatives being the only ones holding the…
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Obligatory Letterman Post: The time I almost got on the show…
In July of 2009, my wife and I were in New York City for a trip that was both business and pleasure. I had a meeting to attend in the city, and we came a few days early before my work began so that we could see the Big Apple together for our anniversary. We got into town on a Thursday morning, and one of the first things I did was to ask the hotel concierge how to get David Letterman tickets. I’m not much of a late night TV guy anymore, but I cut my teeth as a faithful Letterman viewer back in the 80’s. Letterman was still New…
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Seeking the complete financial ruin of a Christian family
I’ve written numerous times about the Oregon bakers, Aaron and Melissa Klein, who were forced out of business after declining to make a cake for a gay wedding. As the video above shows, that is not the end of the story.
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What is Marriage to Evangelical Millennials?
A college professor name Abigail Rine has an important article over at the First Things website titled “What is Marriage to Evangelical Millennials?” She says that in the last several years, she has noticed a change in the evangelical students that she teaches. Whereas students used to be on board with a biblical view on marriage and sexuality, that is no longer the case. She tells what happened when she recently assigned for her students to read “What Is Marriage?” by Robbie George, Ryan Anderson, and Sherif Girgis: My students hated it, as I suspected they would. They also seemed unable to fully understand the argument. As I tried to…
