Over the summer, Rosaria Butterfield and I coauthored an article about the differences between Protestants and Catholics concerning original sin. I followed up that article with some of my own reflections about temptation and sin. I stand by what we wrote. I have many Roman Catholic friends that I love and appreciate, but I still think that our differences on this point are important to come to terms with. John Calvin opines on these differences as well in a sermon on Galatians 5:19-23. Calvin’s comments reveal that our differences with Roman Catholics about original sin are as old as the Reformation. The sermon also reveals that the debate was not…
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An 88-year-old dad is reunited with his 53-year-old Down Syndrome son
“An 88-year-old dad is reunited with his 53-year-old Down Syndrome son after spending a week apart for the first time ever.” The loving bond between father and son truly knows no limits, no bounds, and no age.pic.twitter.com/5ESDZfGrHP — Jeremiah Stephan Dunleavy IV (@JerryDunleavy) September 2, 2018 This really is wonderful. As Jayber Crow would say, “Good-good-good-good-good!”
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The Ketterers
Watch all of the following videos from top to bottom in order.
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A speech delivered at the dedication of the “Silent Sam” monument
Today’s New York Times has an op-ed from Blain Roberts and Ethan Kytle titled “The ‘Silent Sam’ Confederate Monument at U.N.C. Was Toppled. What Happens Next?” I was very interested to read this in light of their article in The Atlantic three years ago concerning confederate memorials. In the earlier article, they favored leaving the memorials in place with placards explaining their origins in white supremacy. They made the case that leaving them standing with historical context would encourage Americans to come to terms with their troubled racial past.
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Why get rid of priests who experience same-sex attraction?
I read the news with horror two days ago after I saw the headline from The New York Times: “Catholic Priests Abused 1,000 Children in Pennsylvania, Report Says.” If you haven’t been following this story, you need to. It is simply horrific. And all this in the wake of the disturbing revelations about Cardinal Theodore McCarrick’s sexual abuse of young boys and seminarians. The scope of the problem in the Pennsylvania is staggering. What struck me when I read the Times article, however, was that the words “gay” and “homosexual” appear nowhere in The New York Times’ coverage. I understand why it wasn’t mentioned. This is a kind of third…
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The Trinity Debate Two Years On
It’s been about two years since the great online conflagration known as “the Trinity debate” began to wind down. I still think a lot about what happened during those months during the summer of 2016. Two years hence, I can say that my dominant feelings about it are thankfulness. And I say that in spite of the fact that it was one of the most bitter and unsparing debates I’ve ever been a party to. Why am I mainly thankful? I stand by what I wrote two years ago in the immediate aftermath. I learned from both faithful and unfaithful critics. And it was good for me. Before the debate…
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Revoice is over. Now what?
I could not have predicted the Revoice conference would become the catalyst for controversy that it has now indeed become. Debate about the celibate gay identity movement has been going on for years. Both in print and online, the controversy was joined years ago about sin, temptation, desire, concupiscence, etc. And yet, it has been a controversy largely ignored by many evangelicals. That’s why I couldn’t have predicted that a conference featuring speakers whose views have been widely known for years would somehow change evangelical indifference about problems within the celibate gay identity movement. Even last Fall when celibate gay identity proponents were some of the most strident critics of…
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“Ready Player One” and Three Is the Magic Number
I just finished the book Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, also known as The Greatest Story Ever Told. Seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever come across a more heavy-handed retelling of the gospel narrative in a novel. Nor have I had more fun with a novel than this one. To be sure, this is not a book for children. It has adult language and themes and definitely not something for your family read-aloud. Nevertheless, it’s as if Cline has aimed this book at people born in 1972 and weaned on 80’s pop-culture. The book is a nostalgia-filled Geek-fest for Gen X’ers like me. It’s also a book that offers…
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The Moral Status of Desire Is the Issue
Ron Belgau has a rejoinder posted at The Public Discourse responding the essay that Rosaria Butterfield and I wrote. I’m not going to give it a point-by-point rebuttal, but I do want to offer some pushback on one central claim of his article. Belgau claims the following: Denny Burk and Rosaria Butterfield argued that our disagreements stem from the difference between the Protestant and Catholic views of sin… They asserted that I only denied that same-sex temptation is itself sinful because I am Catholic. This is a puzzling assertion, because Butterfield herself has denied that all temptations associated with same-sex attraction are sinful. In Openness Unhindered: Further Thoughts of an…
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What does the tenth commandment teach about desire?
This is the last post I will write in response to readers who have asked questions about a piece that I co-wrote with Rosaria Butterfield for The Public Discourse titled “Learning to Hate our Sin without Hating Ourselves.” You can read my answers to the first two questions here and here. The third question is about the tenth commandment in Exodus 20:17. Here is the reader’s question in his own words: In your reference to the desire of the 10th commandment (different than the action of the 7th), isn’t the sin desiring something that another person has? I could desire a piece of cake, and that would be fine, gluttony…
