National Geographic has an interesting article on the doctrine of Hell. Chris Date, Preston Sprinkle, Clark Pinnock, and Edward Fudge are all quoted in the piece. The gist of it is that evangelical belief in the traditional doctrine of hell is in decline. Over the last 20 years, the number of Americans who believe in the fiery down under has dropped from 71 percent to 58 percent. Heaven, by contrast, fares much better and, among Christians, remains an almost universally accepted concept… Annihilationsists believe they have already made significant inroads within the evangelical community. “My prediction is that, even within conservative evangelical circles, the annihilation view of hell will be…
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President Obama: Accept Transgenderism or Else
By the time you read this, the news will be all over the country. The New York Times reports that President Obama has released a letter directing every public school in the country to recognize and accept transgender identities. In particular, the directive has to do with bathroom and locker room use. Here’s the relevant excerpt from the report: The Obama administration is planning to issue a sweeping directive telling every public school district in the country to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms that match their gender identity.
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How Trump divided and conquered the religious right
Sarah Posner has an interesting read in Rolling Stone titled “The Religious Right’s Come-to-Jesus About Trump.” She argues that Trump has not united evangelicals as a voting bloc but has divided them. I think she’s right that the Republican coalition is breaking-up and say so in the article. She writes, Trump has been bragging about his evangelical support since he began receiving favorable coverage, dating back to last summer, at the Christian Broadcasting Network — the media empire launched by Pat Robertson, whose Christian Coalition pioneered the evangelical get-out-the-vote strategy. But despite besting Ted Cruz among evangelical voters in several states, including in the Deep South, Trump faces a divided…
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Is there a difference between male and female?
This is not intended to be funny. It’s intended to reveal that as a culture we have become completely unmoored from reality. These college students are not outliers. Many young men and women have been weaned on the idea that there is no difference between men and women.Yes, there may be biological differences, but those biological differences have no necessary relationship to one’s identity. These students have drunk deeply from the well of propaganda flowing from the gender studies department. As a result, they don’ t know the difference between male and female, and they don’t seem too concerned about it. This is the unraveling of a civilization. The downstream…
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Russell Moore has a way with words…
If my dentist acted this crazy I'd leave "and she just has a drill, not the nuclear arsenal" — @drmoore on Trump https://t.co/4iwfk4cB7L — New Day (@NewDay) May 10, 2016 Russell Moore has been on cable news the last couple of days responding to Donald Trump’s Twitter attack against him. In these appearances, not only does he make prophetic statements concerning the presidential election, he also gets to share the gospel briefly. Well done.
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Trump-splaining Evangelicalism
Russell Moore has been very open in his opposition to Donald Trump’s candidacy for president of the United States. Over the weekend, Moore continued that opposition in an op-ed for the The New York Times and on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” Trump noticed and tweeted out the following attack on Moore.
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Complementarianism: A quick observation about where we’ve been and where we’re going
I was just reading Joe Carter’s explainer on the Justice Department’s recent warning to North Carolina concerning their “bathroom law.” (By the way, Carter’s explainers are always excellent and helpful. Don’t miss them.) He shows that the Justice Department’s redefinition of “sex” is unprecedented and actually will do harm to real women. In his conclusion, Carter makes an observation worth noting: This is why complementarianism is not merely about “submission” within the family. It’s also about protecting women from a culture that worships male power and disdains femininity, and has no qualms about using the LGBTQIA movement to codify advantages for men into the law. I think Joe is right…
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#NeverTrump has only just started
Well, the verdict is in. Donald Trump is officially the presumptive GOP nominee for president of the United States. Trump’s decisive victory in Indiana and Senator Ted Cruz’s withdrawal from the race have all but assured that Trump will acquire the 1,237 delegates he needs to secure the nomination on the first ballot at the GOP convention next summer. Unless you’re Joe Scarborough, you probably didn’t see this coming when the primaries began. But here we are. I have made no secret of the fact that I am a #NeverTrump guy. If you want to know my reasoning behind this, you can read it here. What I want to offer…
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A majority of millennials reject capitalism
The Washington Post reports on a survey indicating that a majority of millennials reject capitalism: In an apparent rejection of the basic principles of the U.S. economy, a new poll shows that most young people do not support capitalism. The Harvard University survey, which polled young adults between ages 18 and 29, found that 51 percent of respondents do not support capitalism. Just 42 percent said they support it. It isn’t clear that the young people in the poll would prefer some alternative system, though. Just 33 percent said they supported socialism. The survey had a margin of error of 2.4 percentage points. The report goes on to say that…
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Trump is an extinction-level event
It is not often that you will see me agreeing with Andrew Sullivan. So take note when I do. He has a long-form piece at New York Magazine ominously titled “Democracies end when they are too democratic. And right now, America is a breeding ground for tyranny.” The whole thing is about the threat of Trumpism and the very real prospect of Trump assuming the presidency. If you don’t have time to read the whole thing, you should at least read the conclusion (see below). Read it and shudder.