Eugene Peterson has revealed that he now embraces homosexuality and gay marriage as consistent with the Christian faith. In an interview with Jonathan Merritt, he writes: I wouldn’t have said this 20 years ago, but now I know a lot of people who are gay and lesbian and they seem to have as good a spiritual life as I do. I think that kind of debate about lesbians and gays might be over. People who disapprove of it, they’ll probably just go to another church. So we’re in a transition and I think it’s a transition for the best, for the good. I don’t think it’s something that you can…
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Paul says, “I did not come to baptize.” So is baptism important or not?
In 1 Corinthians 1:17, the apostle Paul says that “Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel.” Some commentators read this statement and conclude that Paul is downplaying baptism or saying that baptism doesn’t really matter that much in the big scheme of things. For example, Richard Hays writes: In Paul’s apostolic work the ministry of the Word is all-important, whereas the ministry of “sacrament” has only secondary significance; the community should not be divided by different sacramental practices, because its fundamental ground of unity lies in the proclaimed gospel (p. 24). The implication seems to be that differences over baptismal practices are not as significant…
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I pray to be a “mystic patriot”; I hope you do too.
I’m sick this Independence Day—which means I spent a good bit of time in bed reading yesterday. Among other things, I read G. K. Chesterton’s reflections on what it means to be a Christian patriot. If you have never read it, I encourage you to read Chesterton’s “The Flag of the World” in his classic work Orthodoxy. Chesterton contends that love of one’s homeland is not like house-hunting—an experience in which you weigh the pros and cons of a place and choose accordingly. A man belongs to this world before he begins to ask if it is nice to belong to it. He has fought for the flag, and often…
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The baker who refused to make wedding cake appears on “The View”
If you are unfamiliar with this story, see my previous post on the topic. Just a few thoughts about this appearance on “The View”: 1. The ladies from “The View” were respectful in this exchange. That cannot always be said in left-leaning pop-culture venues that are typically dismissive of religious liberty claims. That they gave a platform to Jack and Kristen is a win for religious liberty. 2. The baker Jack Phillips and attorney Kristen Waggoner acquitted themselves quite well in this exchange. And this is not exceptional among Christians in the wedding industry who are behind the eight ball right now with religious liberty claims. Most of these people…
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Why should the state foreclose the possibility of a second opinion for Charlie Gard?
I had not planned on writing about the tragic case of the infant Charlie Gard. But I just completed a Twitter convo with Alistair Roberts about it that has changed my mind. If you are unfamiliar with Charlie Gard, here is the gist of his story: For ten months, Charlie has been living in the intensive-care unit at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. In March, his doctors decided that there was nothing more they could do for him, and they recommended that his parents, Connie Yates and Chris Gard, withdraw his ventilator. They refused, on the grounds that an untried experimental treatment was available in the United States. The hospital,…
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I think McEnroe is taking heat for no good reason
Earlier this evening, I saw John McEnroe’s interview with CBS News anchors who grilled him about some remarks he made about Serena Williams (see above). McEnroe said in an interview with NPR on Sunday that he believed that Serena Williams would be ranked about 700th in the world if she were playing on the men’s circuit. The anchors suggest that McEnroe is denigrating Serena Willams’s success, that he owes her an apology, and that he made the remark in order to increase his book sales. McEnroe refuses to apologize, and I think he was right to do so. If you look at the NPR interview, it is clear that McEnroe…
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The Christian baker who refused to bake the gay wedding cake is happy to serve gay customers
Colorado is attempting to force Jack Phillips, a Christian baker, to use his artistic gifts to create a cake for a gay wedding celebration. Phillips says that creating such a cake would violate his religious beliefs. And he is not singling out gay weddings. He has also declined to make Halloween cakes and cakes with risqué messages for bachelor parties. He refused them because those messages also violate his religious beliefs. The Supreme Court will decide whether the government can force him to violate his deeply held religious beliefs when it comes to gay marriage. What will they decide? That remains to be seen. Until they do, however, it is…
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Scholar says intersectional feminism is a cult
Christina Hoff Sommers studies the politics of gender and feminism as resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and she is the host of the “Factual Feminist” video series. Yesterday, Ben Domenech interviewed her for The Federalist Radio Hour (download here or listen below). Sommers defines her own feminist views over and against “intersectional feminism,”1 which she says dominates college campuses today. She says that intersectional feminism is like a “cult” which allows no dissent and silences all contrary views. It is heavily invested in identity politics, promoting a kind of “oppression olympics” in which there is a competition among students to prove who is the most aggrieved by perceived…
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Mainstreaming fornication (a.k.a. “ethical non-monogamy”)
Over the weekend, I came across one of the saddest interviews I have ever seen (see above). It’s an interview on The New York Times Magazine website that features five “non-monogamous” men and women. All five of the persons are involved in sexual relationships with others in the group and with many others outside the group. There are two married couples in the group, and one woman who has no legal tie to either of the couples. The interview describes what their non-monogamous marriages are like, and how they make their marriages work. What is really sad about this interview is that the dysfunctionality of these relationships is apparent even…
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U2: The concert was great–a little preachy, but still great
It’s hard to believe that I have been listening to U2 for over 30 years. It’s also hard to believe that I’ve never made it to one of their showstopping live performances until just last night. My wife and I bought our tickets months ago, just after they went on sale. So we have been anticipating this for quite some time. I know Bono did not want this tour to be about nostalgia, but for us it certainly was. We wanted to hear them play the old stuff, and that’s exactly what they did. It was lump-in-your-throat spectacular. In fact, I got a little verklempt when “Where the Streets Have…