I guess I am starting and ending the week with Sarah Palin. She has issued yet another statement defending her recent remarks to the NRA that “waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists.” She writes,
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Glenn Beck at Liberty University
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.”
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More on the difference between Sterling and Eich
Yesterday, I wrote a short piece for The Federalist arguing that the NBA was right to ban Donald Sterling but that Mozilla was wrong for firing Brendan Eich. I also argued that this is not a self-contradictory position because the two cases are not analogous. You can read my argument here. Today William Saletan has an excellent rundown of the differences between Sterling and Eich. It is a long list that puts to rest the notion that these two cases are in any way analogous. I highly recommend this one. I would add one other item to the list of distinctions—one that you will not read in a secular publication…
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The cast of the new “Star Wars” announced
The cast of the new Star Wars film has been announced, and it includes some of the old favorites from the original trilogy. From The Daily Beast: On Tuesday afternoon, the world took one step closer to that galaxy far, far away as Disney and Lucasfilm announced the cast for filmmaker J.J. Abrams’ upcoming sequel, Star Wars: Episode VII—a film reportedly set 30 years after the events of the 1983 flick Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi. Actors John Boyega (Attack the Block), Daisy Ridley (Mr. Selfridge), Adam Driver (Girls), Oscar Isaac (Inside Llewyn Davis), Andy Serkis (The Lord of the Rings), Domhnall Gleeson (Anna Karenina), and screen legend Max von Sydow are…
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Does Protestantism have a future?
The Torrey Honors Institute at Biola University hosted a fascinating discussion last night featuring Carl Trueman, Peter Leithart, and Fred Sanders. They discussed the future of Protestantism vis-à-vis the Roman Catholic Church. Should the shape of Protestant theology be determined by the Reformation’s reaction to Roman Catholicism? The conversation is inspired in part by an article that Leithart wrote for First Things last year. Other questions addressed by the panel: Is the Reformation over? How should American Protestantism relate to Rome or Eastern Orthodoxy? Will Protestantism need to change if it is to thrive in the 21st century? Watch above.
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Why the NBA is right and Mozilla is wrong
As you no doubt have heard by now, the NBA has banned Donald Sterling for life from the league (see announcement above). They have also fined him $2.5 million and are pressuring him to relinquish his ownership of the LA Clippers. All of this happened in the wake of revelations that Sterling had made racist remarks in a private conversation. Folks are rightly wondering about the consistency of supporting the NBA’s decision to punish Sterling’s unpopular views on race while opposing Mozilla’s decision to punish Brendan Eich for his unpopular views on marriage. Isn’t this inconsistent? I don’t think it is, and I explain why in a short piece at…
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How God became a pacifist?
Bob Gundry has a thorough critique of N. T. Wright’s How God Became King in the most recent issue of Bulletin for Biblical Research. Among other things, Gundry objects to Wright’s pacifist interpretation of the Kingdom of God. Gundry thinks Wright whitewashes depictions of divine violence in both the Old and New Testaments. Thus when Wright says that “bombs and bullets” can never bring “justice and peace,” Gundry is not convinced and asks a rather practical question: Someone is bound to ask whether countering the Axis with bombs and bullets in World War II did a pretty good job of obliterating that evil, an obliteration which has brought peace and…
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Sarah Palin’s sacrilegious remarks to the NRA
Sarah Palin delivered a speech to the National Rifle Association on Saturday in which she said that America needs leaders who would put the “fear of God” into our enemies. Because America has leaders who are afraid of offending our enemies, America has become weakened. At the 7:16 mark in the video below, Palin says, Oh, but you can’t offend them, can’t make them feel uncomfortable, not even a smidgen. Well, if I were in charge, they would know that waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists. Okay, yes that’s bad. It is impolitic—but worse—it is irreligious. But maybe she just got caught up in the moment and let her rhetoric…
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Mavericks and Spurs game three finish for the ages!
The NBA playoffs are a happy time for more reasons than one. When the playoffs are on, school is almost over, and summer is almost here. And the games themselves are often quite fun, especially when they’re close. If you missed game three of the Mavericks and Spurs playoff series today, you really should see the highlights. It had quite a finish. Watch above.
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Why not three or more in a marriage?
Perhaps you have already read about the polyamorous “throuple” of lesbians who have “married” and who are expecting their first child. If you support gay marriage, on what principle could you possibly oppose the “marriage” of three or more people? Robert George’s brief analysis is spot-on: The story of a female throuple in Massachusetts (with a baby on the way) provides further confirmation, as if any were needed, of the proposition that “ideas have consequences.” Once one has abandoned belief in marriage as a conjugal bond (with its central structuring norm of sexual complementarity) in favor of a concept of “marriage” as a form of sexual-romantic companionship or domestic partnership…