In last Friday’s The New York Times, Sheryl Gay Stolberg described President Obama’s approach to the abortion issue: “In nearly four months in office, President Obama has pursued a careful two-pronged strategy on abortion, enacting policies that secure a woman’s right to the procedure while vowing to move beyond the culture wars that have divided the nation on the issue for more than three decades.” This description is astonishingly candid, and it is no compliment to the President. Notice that Obama’s strategy has two parts: enacting and vowing. Essentially, she is saying that President Obama supports policies that are substantively pro-abortion, while adopting rhetoric that makes it sound as if…
-
-
Blomberg and Wright’s Straw Man
New Testament scholar Craig Blomberg has posted a favorable review of N. T. Wright’s book Justification: God’s Plan & Paul’s Vision. In it he characterizes Christ’s active obedience as “his obedience to the law” and Christ’s passive obedience as his vicarious death on the cross. Justin Taylor has pointed out that Blomberg’s definition is in fact incorrect and that Blomberg has reiterated a common caricature of the Reformed view. Taylor writes,
-
Obama Fails To Transcend Abortion Debate
I watched President Obama’s commencement speech at Notre Dame with some interest this afternoon (see video and transcript below). I was curious (along with everyone else in the country) about how he would address the protests surrounding his appearance at a Roman Catholic (and ostensibly pro-life) university. The buzz leading-up to the speech was that the President would address the issue head-on while attempting to transcend the old “culture war” debates about abortion.
-
Americans More Pro-Life Than Ever?
For the first time since Gallup began tracking this issue in 1995, more Americans now identify themselves as pro-life (51%) than those who identify themselves as pro-choice (42%). Gallup says that the “bottom line” of their survey is this: ‘With the first pro-choice president in eight years already making changes to the nation’s policies on funding abortion overseas, expressing his support for the Freedom of Choice Act, and moving toward rescinding federal job protections for medical workers who refuse to participate in abortion procedures, Americans — and, in particular, Republicans — seem to be taking a step back from the pro-choice position. However, the retreat is evident among political moderates…
-
Notre Dame Students Respond
-
Violence at Notre Dame
James Kushiner of Touchstone magazine talks about the violence that we can expect to see during the protests of President Obama’s commencement speech at the University of Notre Dame on Sunday. He writes, ‘When it comes to whatever number of people protesting at Notre Dame, the right image is not that of Vietnam War protesters or those people that show up at the various global economy “summits”, and certainly not the PETA people. It’s not there won’t be violence–there will be violence, but it won’t be on the part of protesters, though they will be accused of angry hatred. The violence will be seen in the pictures some of them…
-
Obama’s Supreme Court Philosophy
Peter Slevin describes in the Washington Post what qualities President Obama will be looking for as he appoints a new Justice to the Supreme Court. According to Slevin, the quality that Obama is chiefly concerned about is “empathy.” In other words, Obama is not so much looking for a Justice who will interpret the Constitution according to the framers’s intent. Rather, he is looking for a Justice who can go beyond the letter of the law and stand for justice when no one else will. Slevin’s article reveals (perhaps unconsciously) why Obama’s approach to appointing Justices is not sound. Ever since Marbury v. Madison, the Court’s most significant power is…
-
Albert Mohler on Gender Confusion in the Culture
There was an editorial in the New York Times on Sunday that is a virtual case-study of the gender confusion that pervades our culture. Dr. Albert Mohler has an insightful riposte that is worth the read. He writes: “The world we know is a world increasingly in revolt against the idea that gender is assigned by our Creator and is thus a fixed category. . . “The Christian worldview is clear at this point. The Bible presents gender as part of the goodness of creation. God reveals his glory in every aspect of creation, and this is abundantly true with respect to the two sexes. God glorifies himself in creating…
-
Carl Trueman on Moronic Worship
Carl Trueman has a must-read essay at Reformation21 about unserious worship practices. This paragraph is a gem: “A church service involving clowns or fancy dress or skits or stand-up comedy does not reflect the seriousness of the gospel; and those who take the gospel seriously should know better. Frankly, it is more appropriate to liberal theology which does not take the gospel, or the God of the gospel, seriously. Serious things demand serious idioms.  I heard recently of a church service involving dressing up in costume and music taken from a Tom Cruise movie. Now, if I go for my annual prostate examination, and the doctor comes into the consulting…
-
John Piper Preaches John 3:16
Dr. John Piper just completed a two-part series of sermons on John 3:16, and I hope a lot of people will take time to listen to these. Folks often wonder how a Calvinist handles texts like John 3:16 and the other “world” passages in scripture. These sermons are exemplary (in my view) of how Calvinists ought to handle them. Among other things, Piper says this: ‘We may, therefore, say to every human being, “God loves you. And this is how he loves you: He gave his Son to die, so that if you would believe, your sins would be forgiven and you would have eternal life.”