As former Governor Jeb Bush eyes a run for President of the United States, his record on gay marriage is coming under some scrutiny. He has always been a proponent of traditional marriage, but The Miami Herald has an article today reporting a certain ambivalence in his some of his public pronouncements: As governor, he was against same-sex marriage but wasn’t publicly enthusiastic about the successful 2008 campaign to rewrite the Florida Constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman. Bush, who left office in 2007, said the change wasn’t needed, since state law already restricted marriage to heterosexual couples. Two years ago, he suggested in a…
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A short review of Pres. Bush’s biography of his father
President George W. Bush’s biography of his father is like no other I have ever read. It is unusual for both father and son to serve terms as President of the United States, much less that one would write a book about the other. But that is precisely what we have in 41: A Portrait of My Father. Historian David McCullough once told the younger Bush how much history would have been served if Pres. John Quincy Adams would have written about his father Pres. John Adams. Pres. Bush says that he wrote the current book in part as a result of that conversation. Pres. Bush begins by explaining that…
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Louis Zamperini – After “Unbroken”
Last week, Fox News aired a documentary telling the story of Louis Zamperini. The documentary focuses on Zamperini’s post-war conversion—the part of Zamperini’s life that was not covered in the recent movie Unbroken, directed by Angelina Jolie. The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association has now released the video on its website. You can watch it above, or at BillyGraham.org.
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How to think and pray about the suicide of a transgender teen
Just before the New Year, a transgender teenager name Josh “Leelah” Alcorn took his own life (see report above). In his suicide note, he said that he was despairing over the deep conflict he felt about being transgender. He also indicated that his parents were Christians and had taken him to Christian counselors for help. Here’s an excerpt from the child’s suicide note, which was posted online:
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Another chance to catch a glimpse of what is coming true!
When I look in the rearview mirror, I see the years gathering up behind me, and I can hardly believe how quickly they’ve piled up. As life rattles forward, it seems the earth makes its annual journey a little quicker than the year before. Where has the time gone? It’s well past time to start wondering whether there may be more years behind me than there are in front of me. I don’t mean to be dour or macabre in saying such a thing. It’s just that pondering that possibility tends to focus the mind on what God wants it focused on. Numbering our days is how we present to…
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Top Ten Posts of 2014
I want to thank all of you who have read and interacted with this site over the last year. For those of you who are interested, I give you the top 10 blog posts from 2014. This blog is a combination of content creation and content curation, which means that I sometimes write original material and that at other times I pass on to you items that I find interesting from elsewhere on the interwebs. Both kinds of posts appear on this list, but the vast majority are original pieces. Drum roll, please.
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Tooth & Nail: Do you know this record label?
Back in the 1990’s, contemporary Christian music (CCM) was at its zenith in terms of sales. Some of it was good, but a good bit of it was kind of not. It just wasn’t the kind of music that connected to younger listeners, especially college students. Enter an off-the-beaten path independent record label called Tooth & Nail. With a shoe-string budget, Brandon Ebel founded the company in 1993 and began signing Christian bands with a more modern sound. It was the kind of sound that the kids were listening to in those days. It was certainly the music that I was listening to back then—bands like MXPX (formerly known as…
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Albert Mohler on Fox News discussing Newsweek’s cover story attacking Christianity
Albert Mohler was on Fox News this morning discussing Newsweek‘s recent cover story attacking Christianity. As I mentioned yesterday, this article is really bad, and Mohler does a fine job briefly explaining why. You can read Mohler’s full critique of the Newsweek article here.
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The provocative Christian movie trailer that I saw before “Unbroken”
When I went to see Unbroken last week, the theater I was in screened a trailer for a movie called Pass the Light (see above). I have no idea what this movie is going to be like, but I thought the trailer was provocative—especially for a “Christian” movie. Some first impressions from the trailer:
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Michael Kruger’s Christmas Eve take-down of Newsweek’s preposterous cover story attacking the Bible
Three cheers for Michael Kruger for exposing the outlandish Newsweek cover story attacking the integrity of the Bible. Released just two days before Christmas, the Newsweek article is riddled with basic historical errors and the author’s own prejudice against Christianity. I don’t know how this tendentious rubbish got into Newsweek, but there it is. Thanks to Kruger for taking time on Christmas Eve to expose this farce for what it is. He writes: Of course, this is not the first media article critiquing the Bible that has been short on the facts. However, what is stunning about this particular article is that Kurt Eichenwald begins by scolding evangelical Christians for…