Kevin DeYoung’s message from the NEXT conference is outstanding. He calls us to cease our fixation with ecclesiastical revolution and instead to become “visionary plodders.” That little phrase—visionary plodders—is one that you can hang your hat on. The idea is that we should take the long view on our Christian walk. Revolutions can occur, but they are more likely to occur over a lifetime. What that means is that we are called to be faithful in the small things every day. A life that accumulates that kind of faithfulness over the long haul is a revolutionary life. Kevin DeYoung hasn’t literally given me my purpose in life, but he has…
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Wendy Long on Prop 8
Wendy Long provided the best legal analysis I’ve heard of yesterday’s ruling in California. She calls the decision the “prime example of judicial tyranny.” Listen below. [audio:http://fetch.noxsolutions.com/laura/mp3/080510_wendy.mp3]
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The End of Prop 8: A Moral and Legal Revolution
Yesterday, a federal judge overturned California’s ban on gay marriage—a measure that was added to the state’s constitution through a 2008 ballot effort called Proposition 8. Federal district judge Vaughn R. Walker ruled that Proposition 8 was a violation of the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment (p. 109). The judge immediately stayed his own decision pending appeals, so gay marriages will not be performed until the issue is resolved in the higher courts. Read the decision here. The next stop for this case is the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals—a court well-known for leaning left on social issues and which will almost certainly rubber-stamp…
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Federal Judge Strikes Down Prop 8
This is a terrible decision, and I will have more to say about it later. For now, here’s a snippet and a link from the story in The New York Times: “Saying that it unfairly targets gay men and women, a federal judge in San Francisco struck down California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage on Wednesday, handing supporters of such unions a temporary victory in a legal battle that seems all but certain to be settled by the Supreme Court. . . “‘Proposition 8 cannot survive any level of scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause,’ wrote Mr. Walker. ‘Excluding same-sex couples from marriage is simply not rationally related to a…
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Oil Spill Update
“The government is expected to announce on Wednesday that three-quarters of the oil from the Deepwater Horizon leak has already evaporated, dispersed, been captured or otherwise eliminated — and that much of the rest is so diluted that it does not seem to pose much additional risk of harm… “It remains to be seen whether subtle, long-lasting environmental damage from the spill will be found, as has been the case after other large oil spills.” –Justin Gillis, “U.S. Finds Most Oil From Spill Poses Little Additional Risk,” New York Times (August 4, 2010)
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Slightly Modified Infanticide
In 1999, Senator Barbara Boxer said in so many words that fully a delivered baby does not have an intrinsic right to life. A baby only has a right to life when its mother decides to take the baby home. Until that time, the fully delivered baby can still be killed so long as the mother decides she wants it killed. George Will recently called Boxer’s position “slightly modified infanticide.” Boxer took issue with this characterization and fired-back that she had been taken out of context. Newsweek carried the exchange, and you can read the back and forth between Boxer and Will here. I just want to say that I…
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Satirizing Moral Confusion
Sometimes satire can be a most effective polemical tool. That is why Joe Carter’s satirical conversation between two women talking about having a fetus is a must-read. Here’s a snippet: Jan: “Marsha! How are you girl? I haven’t seen you in ages.”Marsha: “Hey Jan, you’re looking great. How’ve you been?”Jan: “Just peachy. Hey, guess what? I’m going to have a fetus!”Marsha (excited): “That’s wonderful! Oh, I’m so happy for you. Isn’t it a blessing having parasites growing in us?”Jan: “Yes, but I have to confess—I’m jealous. I wanted to have twins too.”Marsha: “Oh, I only have one now. Greg didn’t get his promotion so we decided to selectively reduce one…
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Anne Rice Speaks to NPR
NPR interviewed Anne Rice on Monday on “All Things Considered.” The conversation is of course about her recent decision to leave the Roman Catholic Church. That decision is already well-known and is not news. In this interview, however, we do find out that the straw the broke the camel’s back was the issue of homosexual marriage. She says: “I didn’t anticipate at the beginning that the U.S. bishops were going to come out against same-sex marriage… That they were actually going to donate money to defeat the civil rights of homosexuals in the secular society… When that broke in the news, I felt an intense pressure. And I am a…
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Another Complementarian Caricature
Egalitarians sometimes promote their point of view by equating complementarianism with oppressive forms of patriarchy. Often this is done through caricature rather than through engaging with mainstream complementarians and their stated beliefs. Unfortunately, another instance of this has happened in a recent article by Jana Chapman Gates. In an opinion piece for Christianity Today, Gates writes about her recent move from Manhattan to an undisclosed location in the Midwest. She joined a church and enlisted in a small group Bible Study that was going through a series on marriage. She was shocked to discover that her new friends held some fairly disturbing views on gender relations. In short, she learned…
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Review of Douglas Campbell’s “Deliverance of God”
Briefly Noted: In the latest issue of the Bulletin for Biblical Research, Tom Schreiner has a brief but helpful review of Douglas Campbell’s mammoth work on justification, The Deliverance of God: An Apocalyptic Rereading of Justification in Paul (Eerdmans, 2009). Even though the book is a massive work of scholarship, Schreiner is critical. I’ve been reading the book myself, and from what I’ve seen Schreiner’s critique is right on the money. Campbell essentially adopts a novel interpretation of Romans that understands different parts of chapters 1-4 not as the voice of Paul, but as the voice of his opponents. So what you read in Romans 1-4 is not always Paul,…