The video above is a remarkable display of self-unaware inconsistency. These students are asked if a creative professional has the freedom to decline work that conflicts with his or her personal beliefs. All of the students said “yes” when the creative professional was the dress designer refusing to make a dress for Melania Trump or a Muslim singer refusing to sing in a Christian Church. But when they are asked if a Christian photographer should be able to decline to work at a same-sex wedding, they all said “no.” They favor limiting the freedom of conscientious Christians even though they wouldn’t limit the freedom of other conscientious citizens in analogous…
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Cheap grace is no grace at all
In his book The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer describes in vivid terms what he means by cheap grace: Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church… Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine, a principle, a system. It means forgiveness of sins proclaimed as a general truth, the love of God taught as the Christian ‘conception’ of God. An intellectual assent to that idea is held to be of itself sufficient to secure remission of sins… In such a Church the world finds a cheap covering for its sins; no contrition is required, still less any real desire to be delivered from sin. Cheap grace therefore amounts to…
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“Beauty and the Beast” to feature an “exclusively gay moment”
If you and your children enjoyed Disney’s live-action version of Cinderella, perhaps you have been looking forward to the March 17 release of the live-action version of Beauty and the Beast. Unfortunately, news has leaked that might temper that enthusiasm. The director of Beauty and the Beast, Bill Condon, has told a British publication that the new movie will contain an “exclusively gay moment.” According to Condon, Gaston’s sidekick LeFou will be involved in a subplot in which he is wrestling with his sexuality. In director Condon’s own words: “LeFou is somebody who on one day wants to be Gaston and on another day wants to kiss Gaston… He’s confused…
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Gerson Gives away the Farm. Engagement is not acquiescence.
In his most recent editorial, Michael Gerson highlights a new film that celebrates shifting “evangelical” attitudes concerning LGBT issues. Gerson contends that evangelicals should not be confused with fundamentalists and that evangelicals are in fact changing their views on sexuality to fit in with late modernity in the wake of the sexual revolution. It’s a little hard to tell what Michael Gerson intends in this editorial. Is this a thought experiment—a pensive response to a thought-provoking film? Or is this a celebration of those “evangelicals” who believe homosexuality and Christianity are compatible? I’m trying to be generous here, but it really does sound like the latter.
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Pursue God, Not Pornography
Pornography is such a pervasive evil. It is eviscerating our civilization and even our churches. I continue to be burdened that this ubiquitous evil in our culture has become such a ubiquitous evil in our pews. That was the occasion for my message yesterday in the chapel of Southern Seminary and Boyce College. View it above or listen below.
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Submit to the new sexual orthodoxy or risk losing everything
By now you may have already heard the news that the Washington State Supreme Court has rejected Barronelle Stutzman’s appeal. Here is the report from the Associated Press: The Washington Supreme Court ruled unanimously Thursday that a florist who refused to provide services for a same-sex wedding broke the state’s antidiscrimination law, even though she claimed doing so would violate her religious beliefs. Barronelle Stutzman, a florist in Richland, Washington, had been fined by a lower court for denying service to a gay couple in 2013. Stutzman said she was exercising her First Amendment rights. But the court held that her floral arrangements do not constitute protected free speech, and…
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D. A. Carson warns against affirming gay marriage as a “Christian” view
D. A. Carson has written an essay for Themelios explaining “Subtle Ways to Abandon the Authority of Scripture in Our Lives.” Among other examples, he lists Zondervan’s recent Counterpoints volume which has two essays arguing that homosexual immorality is compatible with scripture, and two essays arguing that it isn’t. I’ve commented on the Counterpoints volume twice in this space (here and here), and I share Carson’s concerns. Here is an excerpt from Carson’s essay: Recently Zondervan published Two Views on Homosexuality, the Bible, and the Church; this book bills these two views as “affirming” and “non-affirming,” and two authors support each side. Both sides, we are told, argue “from Scripture.”…
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Evangelical Trump supporters have an obligation to pressure their man to stand for religious liberty
I wrote last week about the internal struggle within the White House over religious freedom and LGBT policy. For evangelicals and other religious conservatives, this struggle is perhaps the most important and relevant debate unfolding in our politics. But for some reason, it is not really getting enough attention. On his Facebook page, Robbie George weighs-in: There are numerous media reports that Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner led the charge to persuade Donald Trump to retain Barack Obama’s “LGBT” executive order, despite the demands of religious freedom advocates to revoke it. Reportedly, the couple is also standing against the proposed religious freedom executive order that the President had…
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The Benedict Option comes to Southern Seminary
I suspect that one of the most important books of 2017 will be Rod Dreher’s forthcoming “The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation.” The book won’t be released until next month, but Dreher will be on the campus of Boyce College and Southern Seminary this week to deliver lectures on the material in the book. “The Benedict Option” has been much maligned and much misunderstood in popular conversation, and Dreher is going to be clarifying and making the case in these lectures. Here’s the schedule: Tuesday, February 7 1pm – Session 1 (Heritage Hall) 2pm – Session 2 (Heritage Hall) Wednesday, February 8 10am – Session…
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The battle lines are drawn in the White House between religious liberty and LGBT rights
There is a controversy brewing in the White House that religious voters had better start paying attention to. As I wrote yesterday, there is one faction that wants to keep President Obama’s 2014 LGBT executive order in place, and there is another faction that wants to oppose it with an executive order protecting religious liberty. Politico reports today about who is leading the factions and where this conflict is going: Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump helped lead the charge to scuttle a draft executive order that would have overturned Obama-era enforcements of LGBT rights in the workplace, multiple sources with knowledge of the situation told POLITICO. A draft executive order…