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…
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It appears that President Trump is willing to accept LGBT as a protected class
Liberals are abuzz this morning about a leaked draft of an executive order (EO) that would protect religious freedom if signed by the President. Sarah Posner has a copy of the draft and contends that the EO “reveals sweeping plans by the Trump administration to legalize discrimination” against LGBT people. I have read the draft, and it does no such thing. The order does not legalize discrimination against LGBT people. It simply says that the government cannot coerce citizens to violate their religious beliefs. Ryan Anderson has also read a draft, and his assessment is spot-on, “The executive order is good, lawful public policy. And it makes good on several…
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The Boy Scouts succumb to radical gender ideology
Today the Boy Scouts of America announced that they would begin allowing girls to enroll as Boy Scouts and as Cub Scouts. But this new policy doesn’t allow all girls to enroll—only those who are willing to say that they are a boy on their Scouting application. Here’s the text of the statement released earlier today: As one of America’s largest youth-serving organizations, the Boy Scouts of America continues to work to bring the benefits of our programs to as many children, families and communities as possible. While we offer a number of programs that serve all youth, Cub Scouting and Boy Scouting are specifically designed to meet the needs…
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Sorting through the aftermath of the executive order heard round the world
President Trump’s Executive Order putting a halt on immigration from certain countries has been the story of the weekend. In many ways, the reporting and talking-headery have been difficult to sort out. If you want to make a start at understanding what has and hasn’t happened, I recommend reading these four items. First, read the actual text of the executive order. Second, read Joe Carter’s helpful explainer. Third, read David French’s analysis which argues that the EO is not as bad as some of its worst critics allege. Fourth, read Benjamin Witte’s hard-hitting essay explaining why the EO is “malevolence tempered by incompetence.” From Witte’s trenchant conclusion: