In my last post, I mentioned that I have been without power due to Hurrican Ike. Yes, believe it or not, we got hurricane force winds way up here in Louisville, Kentucky. As a result, the entire campus of Southern Seminary is without power. Moreover, about 300,000 homes and businesses in Louisville are still withouth electricity and will be for some time. Governor Steve Beshear declared a state of emergency on Sunday in a press release. The governor has said that “This is the biggest outage on record in the Commonwealth of Kentucky,” and officials estimate that it will take 10-14 days to restore power to parts of the city…
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David Gushee Highlights ‘Inconsistency’
This is a no-frills post. I am writing this from my phone because Hurricane Ike has left me without electricity. So I apologize in advance for the raw links and the pictureless post. David Gushe writes about the so-called “Palin Inconsistency” in today’s USA TODAY: http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/09/the-palin-predi.html We have already discussed on this blog the issues that Gushee raises. Nevertheless, I will try to respond more fully when I have electricity. For now, I will just say that it would really help if Egalitarians like Gushee would take Complementarians on their own terms. For years, Complementarians have been addressing the very questions that he raises. There is a biblical and theological…
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Ray Boltz
From Christianity Today earlier today: Ray Boltz, who sold about 4.5 million records before retiring from Christian music a few years ago, came out of the closet Friday to announce that he’s gay. . . “I’d denied it ever since I was a kid. . . I became a Christian, I thought that was the way to deal with this and I prayed hard and tried for 30-some years and then at the end, I was just going, ‘I’m still gay. I know I am.’ And I just got to the place where I couldn’t take it anymore … when I was going through all this darkness, I thought, ‘Just…
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CNN Reporter Labels Voddie Baucham a “Sexist”
Now here’s something you don’t see every day—theological debate on CNN. The CNN reporter says that Voddie Baucham sounds “sexist.” I think that the charge is patently unfair. In any case, I thought you would want to see this one for yourself. (HT: Tim Challies)
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Hell and the Religious Right
Lisa Miller at Newsweek magazine has this to say about the beliefs of Sarah Palin’s pastor: “The senior pastor of that church, in sermons that circulated online before they were taken down last week, preaches hell for anyone who isn’t saved by Jesus. America does not know enough yet about what Palin personally believes, but her church background—she now worships at a nondenominational Bible church—puts her squarely in the tradition of the old-school religious right.” What is fascinating here is that Miller treats this as a newsworthy item—that Christians believe that there is such thing as hell. It says a lot about where we are as a nation that such…
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Anchors Away: Olbermann and Matthews Are Out
The New York Times is reporting that Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews have been relieved of their anchor duties: “MSNBC tried a bold experiment this year by putting two politically incendiary hosts, Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews, in the anchor chair to lead the cable news channel’s coverage of the election. “That experiment appears to be over.
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Balancing Motherhood and Governing?
Governor Sarah Palin’s candidacy has provoked much discussion about women who try to balance a career with motherhood (the topic of my previous post). In today’s New York Times, there’s a story describing a little bit about how Palin tries to do it: ‘Many high-powered parents separate work and children; Ms. Palin takes a wholly different approach. “She’s the mom and the governor, and they’re not separate,” Ms. Cole said. Around the governor’s offices, it was not uncommon to get on the elevator and discover Piper, smothering her puppy with kisses. ‘”She’ll be with Piper or Trig, then she’s got a press conference or negotiations about the natural gas pipeline…
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Complementarian Hypocrisy?
In my previous post, we were addressing the question raised by the “On Faith” forum in light of Sarah Palin’s candidacy (a joint venture of The Washington Post and Newsweek): “Women are not allowed to become clergy in many conservative religious groups. Is it hypocritical to think that a woman can lead a nation and not a congregation?” In answer to that question, I noted that the Bible specifically enjoins believers to order their homes and their churches in light of a principle of male headship. There is no complementarian consensus, however, on how these matters apply outside of the home and the church. One other item is related to…
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Southern Baptist Hypocrisy?
The “On Faith” forum (a joint venture of The Washington Post and Newsweek) is hosting a discussion that raises a question about the theological consistency of evangelicals who support Sarah Palin’s vice-presidential nomination: “Women are not allowed to become clergy in many conservative religious groups. Is it hypocritical to think that a woman can lead a nation and not a congregation?” One of the contributors is David Waters, and he singles out Southern Baptists in particular as having a double-standard.
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Sarah Palin and Complementarianism
David Kotter, Executive Director of the Council for Biblical Manhood & Womanhood, asks and answers the following question: “Does Governor Sarah Palin Present a Dilemma for Complementarians?” Among other things, he writes: