Over the weekend, I read Sarah Pulliam Bailey’s interview with Marilynne Robinson, author of the highly acclaimed novel Gilead. Among other things, the interview reveals that Robinson is no exemplar of Christian orthodoxy. She is pro-choice and pro-gay marriage even as she claims to be a Calvinist. It is an odd mix. On the issue of gay marriage in particular, she writes: Q: For Christians who hold the view that marriage is between a man and a woman, do you think they’ll become a smaller group over time?

A few months ago, I wrote a short piece on the ethics of temptation and sexual desire. In short, I argue that morality of sexual desire is defined by its object. If desire fixates on something evil (i.e., adultery, fornication), then the desire itself is evil. That is why Jesus says what he says about lustful leering in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:28). If desire fixates on something good (i.e., the conjugal bond of marriage), then the desire itself is wholesome and good. That is why Solomon enjoins his son to celebrate sexual desire when it is directed toward one’s spouse (Prov. 5:18-19). Thus our desires are not…

As many of you have heard by now, Glenn Beck spoke at Liberty University last week (watch above, read here and here). He spoke at the final convocation meeting of the semester and delivered a rousing address invoking God and the Bible as the foundation for personal redemption and civic freedom. It was clearly not a secular address. It was a sermon that called for Liberty students to expect “miracles” and to witness “the awesome power of Jesus Christ and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”