Joe Rigney has a lengthy piece at the Desiring God website reflecting on God’s Sovereignty and the problem of evil. The essay is, of course, written in light of recent events in Connecticut. Here’s a bit from the introduction: Does disaster befall a city unless the Lord has done it (Amos 3:6)? What about a school? I don’t say that lightly. I realize what I’m saying. Or rather, I know what the Scriptures are saying. I’ve wept with parents as they watched their child die slowly of an incurable disease. I’ve watched dementia rob me of my father, taunting me and my family with his slow death. I realize that…
-
-
Doug Wilson on how to celebrate Christmas
The inimitable Doug Wilson argues that celebrating Christ’s advent should not be turned into an introspective dirge. There should be feasting and joy. In an essay for Christianity Today, he writes: Celebrate the stuff. Use fudge and eggnog and wine and roast beef. Use presents and wrapping paper. Embedded in many of the common complaints you hear about the holidays (consumerism, shopping, gluttony, etc.) are false assumptions about the point of the celebration. You do not prepare for a real celebration of the Incarnation through thirty days of Advent Gnosticism. At the same time, remembering your Puritan fathers, you must hate the sin while loving the stuff. Sin [is] not…
-
What about openly homosexual Boy Scout leaders?
Gallup recently conducted a poll of American attitudes about homosexual rights. In keeping with recent trends, a majority of Americans (53%) say that they favor same-sex marriage. A majority also favors inheritance rights, health benefits for partners, and adoption rights for gays and lesbians. There is one little item in this poll that caught my eye. While 63% of Americans say that discrimination against gay people is a problem in our country, a majority of Americans (52%) say that openly gay adults should not be allowed to serve as Boy Scout Leaders. This begs the obvious question. If Americans believe that discrimination against gays is a problem, why do they…
-
Robert Bork and Originalism
News is breaking this morning that jurist Robert Bork has passed away. Many people remember him for his failed nomination to the Supreme Court. Conservatives remember him as an ardent originalist. What separated him from so many other jurists was essentially a hermeneutical point. In a 2005 article for The Wall Street Journal, Bork boiled it down: Originalism simply means that the judge must discern from the relevant materials–debates at the Constitutional Convention, the Federalist Papers and Anti-Federalist Papers, newspaper accounts of the time, debates in the state ratifying conventions, and the like–the principles the ratifiers understood themselves to be enacting. The remainder of the task is to apply those…
-
Wheaton wins major victory against HHS mandate
From Christianity Today: On Tuesday, Wheaton College and Belmont Abbey College won a legal round against the HHS contraceptive mandate not only for themselves, but for all fellow plaintiffs as a D.C. appeals court prompted the Obama administration to promise not to enforce the mandate (as currently written) and—on top of that—regularly report on its progress toward new rules that better protect religious freedom. “The D.C. Circuit has now made it clear that government promises and press conferences are not enough to protect religious freedom,” said Kyle Duncan, general counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, in a press release. “The court is not going to let the government slide by on non-binding…
-
Receding Men and Rotting Hollywood
Peggy Noonan takes a hard line against the vulgar fare that seems to be so ubiquitous in the material coming out of Hollywood. She begins by noting the general malaise that has fallen over our country. She writes: We are making more sick teenagers and young men now, not fewer, and this is going to continue as our culture breaks up. I think we all know this, deep down.
-
Michael Gerson writes in favor of gun control
As the NRA’s Facebook and Twitter accounts go dark, another prominent conservative commentator has come out in favor of new restrictions on gun ownership. This time it’s Michael Gerson, columnist for The Washington Post and former speechwriter for George W. Bush. Gerson writes:
-
Pastor Explains How Girl Played Dead to Survive
From NBCNews.com: Only one child made it out alive of a first-grade classroom at Sandy Hook Elementary School last week — by fooling the gunman into thinking she was dead, the family’s pastor says. The little girl, who is 6½ years old but hasn’t otherwise been identified, “ran out of the school building covered in blood from head to toe, and the first words she said to her mom when she got outside was, ‘Mommy, I’m OK, but all of my friends are dead,'” the Rev. Jim Solomon, pastor of New Hope Community Church in Newtown, Conn., told ABC News in a report that aired Sunday. “Of those who were…
-
Should we be talking about gun control right now?
I heard Bill Bennett say yesterday that we need to “let the tears dry” before we launch in earnest into political debate about gun control. I agree. The proverb says, “Like apples of gold in settings of silver Is a word spoken in right circumstances” (Proverbs 25:11). Discerning the right time to say the right words requires wisdom. Before the victims are even buried seems a little quick to me. Doug Wilson illustrates this brilliantly:
-
Emotional Joe Scarborough revises view on gun rights
Joe Scarborough received the highest possible rating from the NRA during his four terms in congress. In his subsequent years as a pundit, he has always supported gun rights. But this morning on “Morning Joe,” he did an about face: Nothing can ever be the same again… I knew that day that the ideologies of my past career were no longer relevant to the future that I want, that I demand for my children. Scarborough gave an emotional 10-minute speech explaining his feelings. He expressed support for restrictions on assault weapons. He says that his changed views are not merely to do with guns but also with mental health services.…