Last week, I noted a story in The Austin American-Statesman about Mark Regnerus, a University of Texas professor who has come under fire for research he has done on children of gay parents. The American-Statesman article is titled, “UT investigates professor’s study on children with gay parents,” and it reports the following: Allegations of scientific misconduct have prompted the University of Texas to investigate a professor’s study that found adults with gay parents reported significantly different life experiences than the children of married, heterosexual biological parents. The University of Texas has since disputed this account, and The Austin American-Statesman has now issued a correction to the story, calling UT’s action…
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Evangelicals and Catholics Together…in a Lawsuit
I think this is what Francis Schaeffer meant by co-belligerence, and the stakes have never been higher. In today’s Wall Street Journal the presidents of Wheaton College and the Catholic University of America penned an Op-Ed together announcing this: The trustees of Wheaton College joined The Catholic University of America in filing a lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Services. They did so because the HHS mandate requiring the college to provide and subsidize insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs violates the conscience of the school and its members, and denies their First Amendment freedom of religion…
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Doug Wilson’s Book “Fidelity”
Okay, this will probably be my final word on the Wilson-vs.-Held-Evans kerfuffle. If you want to get the full context of Wilson and Wilson’s remarks, you’ll have to read Douglas Wilson’s book, Fidelity: What It Means To Be a One-Woman Man. The book is available, of course, on Amazon.com. But the full text is also available instantly at Google Books. I am posting the full text below.
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Matthew Lee Anderson on the Dust-Up
Matt Anderson has some good thoughts on the dust-up between Rachel Held Evans and the Wilsons. He argues that the larger point Jared Wilson was making about 50 Shades of Grey has been lost in arguments about authorial intent and trigger words. He writes: What strikes me as tragic in all of this is, well, that Jared’s worthy intention to object to a cultural trend that is doubtlessly present in our churches has been entirely and completely superceded. There’s an important lesson here for communicators, as when the jot and tittle gets away from us then it’s the substance of our point that loses. For what it’s worth, I don’t…
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Slanted Reporting on the Boy Scouts in NY Times
Now here is a curious way of reporting. The headline in The New York Times reads this way, “Boy Scouts to Continue Excluding Gay People.” What’s so strange about this headline? Well, for starters, it casts the Boy Scouts in a negative light, as if they’ve taken some proactive step to stick it to gay people. But that is not at all what’s happened here. The story is simply about the fact that the Boy Scouts have not changed their policy on membership vis a vis homosexuals. The policy is now what it has always been. It hasn’t changed.
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Hosoi: From Christ Air to Christ Heir
When I was a kid, I idolized Christian Hosoi. I rode his skateboards. I followed his professional career. I thought he was the best thing going as far as skating was concerned—even better than Tony Hawk.
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Pete Enns Takes on John Piper over Scripture
Pete Enns critiques John Piper’s recent remarks about the Jewish conquest of Canaan in the Old Testament. Piper argues that God’s judgments are just and shouldn’t be questioned. Enns objects and argues that the biblical accounts are historically inaccurate and at odds with Jesus’ ethic in the New Testament. In other words, Enns response presumes that the Bible has mistakes in it. Enns questions whether or not the conquest even happened. He writes:
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An Opportunity To Support a Missionary
Philemon Yong was born and raised in the Kom tribe of Cameroon, Africa. You may remember him from the message he delivered at Desiring God’s 2003 conference for pastors. Philemon is now a missionary with the group “Training Leaders International” (TLI), an agency whose mission is to bring theological education to pastors all over the world (their advisory board includes John Piper and D. A. Carson).
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Alan Chambers, Exodus International, and Lordship Salvation
Alan Chambers has just published an opinion piece for Christianity Today that confirms what I wrote a couple of weeks ago. The recent controversy surrounding his tenure as President of Exodus International has less to do with his views on homosexuality than it does with his views on salvation. Chambers still affirms a biblical sexual ethic. He simply argues that Christians can ignore that ethic and still be considered Christians. As I noted two weeks ago, Chambers seems to be advocating the non-lordship view of salvation that was made popular by Zane Hodges back in the 1980’s. This so-called “free grace” view teaches that an ungodly lifestyle need not trouble…
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The Little Boy Who Wanted To Be a Girl
I witnessed one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen last week. It was a report on NBC’s “Dateline” about an 11-year old child named Josie Romero. Josie looks like a normal little prepubescent girl. Only it turns out, that Josie was not born as Josie but as Joey. Josie was born biologically as a boy. Yet somewhere along the way, he decided that he liked behaving and dressing like a girl.