I just read today that Steven Spielberg is filming a movie based on the life of Abraham Lincoln. The movie is set to be released after the 2012 presidential election, so there’s plenty of time for you to read the 944 pages of the book that it is based on—Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. Daniel Day Lewis has been selected to play the part of Lincoln, and Sally Field will play Mary Todd. The mash-up to the right shows the uncanny resemblance of Daniel Day Lewis to President Lincoln. Spielberg has the Midas touch when it comes to movies, and I can’t wait…
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A Helpful Definition of Pornography
Defining what constitutes pornography has always been a bit of a struggle. It was Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart who once illustrated the difficulty by giving his own subjective definition: “I know it when I see it.” I just read today that Carl Trueman has found as good a definition as I have ever seen, and he got it from The Catechism of the Catholic Church. Here it is: 2354: Pornography consists in removing real or simulated sexual acts from the intimacy of the partners, in order to display them deliberately to third parties. It offends against chastity because it perverts the conjugal act, the intimate giving of spouses to…
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Tim Tebow To Start for the Denver Broncos
After falling to 1-4 last Sunday, the Broncos decided to make a change. When they step on the field a week from Sunday against the Dolphins, Tim Tebow will be their new starting quarterback. And I’ll be pulling for him. (HT: @BarnabasPiper)
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Wayne Grudem’s Endorsement of Mitt Romney
In 2007, Wayne Grudem wrote an article for Townhall.com endorsing Mitt Romney’s bid for the 2008 Republican nomination for President. In the article, Grudem considers whether or not Evangelical Christians should vote for a Mormon, and I think his reflections are apt for the conversation we are having in 2011. He writes:
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Carson and Keller Weigh-in on Elephant Room
D. A. Carson and Tim Keller have written a statement on The Elephant Room controversy on The Gospel Coalition website. There is much good, thoughtful material here. They begin with this: Recent discussion, mostly in blogs, regarding the forthcoming Elephant Room conference, sponsored by James MacDonald and Mark Driscoll, provides an opportunity to write a few clarifying paragraphs on confessionalism, boundaries, and discipline. Whatever else The Gospel Coalition has or has not done, it has not prohibited mutual criticism among Council members… The richness and detail of our Confessional Statement and our Theological Vision of Ministry demonstrate that we wish to avoid lowest-common-denominator theology. But how do we negotiate the…
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Should You Buy an iPhone 4S?
The early reviews are in on the new iPhone, and MSNBC.com has a round-up of what the reviewers are saying. Here’s the bottom line: The basic message sent by the early reviewers is that the iPhone 4S is better and faster than the iPhone 4 — as expected. The consensus appears to be that it is a great upgrade, but not an absolutely necessary one. Read the rest here.
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Rachel Held Evans’ Year of Living Unbiblically
Rachel Held Evans is an egalitarian and has set aside the last year to obey every command in scripture pertaining to women. Her aim is to show what “biblical womanhood” really looks like when it is practiced consistently. She has been blogging about her year at her website, and Thomas Nelson has agreed to publish her narrative for a book set to be released in 2012. When I first heard about this, I was skeptical about the usefulness of such a project. Sarah Flashing is also skeptical, and she has a hard-hitting piece about it over at the First Things blog. She writes:
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Why the Media Disinterest in Romney’s Mormonism?
The media have spent a lot of time the past couple of days not on Mormonism, but on one pastor’s critique of it. David Murray is asking why the media have been so disinterested in the religion itself. He’s writing as an outsider looking in, and I think he’s on to something here. He writes: I’ve been reading Latayne Scott’s The Mormon Mirage over the past few days, as I prepare to interview her on the Connected Kingdom podcast. I must confess that, with most of my Christian life and ministry having been spent in the Scottish Highlands, I’ve not needed to know much about Mormonism and I’ve had very…
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Is Mormonism a Cult?
Last week, Pastor Robert Jeffress introduced Rick Perry to the Values Voter Summit. Right afterward, Jeffress was interviewed by a gaggle of reporters about Mormonism and his opposition to Mitt Romney’s bid for the Republican nomination for President. Jeffress shocked the secular press covering the event by labeling Mormonism a cult and by arguing that Christians ought to support Christian political candidates over non-Christian ones. There has already been a lot of debate about pastors endorsing political candidates and about whether calling Mormonism a cult in this setting might actually have hurt Perry’s campaign. Those are important conversations, but that is not what this article is about. What I want…
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A Good Critique of Political Reporters on the Religion Beat
Sarah Pulliam Bailey has an insightful critique of how political reporters drove the coverage the Values Voter Summit last week. In short, she argues that political reporters took old news and turned it into big news. She writes: If you have been paying attention to religion and politics for at least the last four years, you know that Jeffress’ belief that Mormonism is a cult isn’t terribly newsworthy to religion reporters. I tweeted about the endorsement because I thought it was something to note but not something to write a story about. Jeffress has been saying these things for quite a while now and political reporters are just now taking…