The lecturer was setting forth a biblical perspective on the role of government, with special attention to the Pauline text in Romans 13. At one point he introduced a rhetorical flourish with a passing negative reference to John Locke. The Bible sees the authority to govern as coming from God—“and not,” the lecturer said, “from a human contract, as John Locke insisted.” Continue Reading »
The poor often suffer from a moral and spiritual poverty far more primitive than a lack of upward . . . . Continue Reading »
St. Joseph’s House of Hospitality on the Lower East Side of Manhattan was one of the original communities founded during the Depression by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin. When I lived there a few years ago I observed up-close the often tense, sometimes funny interactions between the Catholic . . . . Continue Reading »
Does the call for Christians to separate matrimony from government marriage mean we’re retreating from the public square? Damon Linker thinks so: “First Things, the intellectually formidable monthly magazine that played a decisively important role in formulating the interdenominational and interreligious ideology that once galvanized the religious right, has decided to pick up its marbles and go home.” He calls it an “unprecedented retreat of theologically conservative churches from engagement in American public life.” Continue Reading »
For the first time since 1978, Frank Wolf’s name will not appear on the November ballot in Virginia’s Tenth Congressional District. The Republic will be the poorer for that. Continue Reading »
Should a government in a pluralist society such as the United States be neutral with respect to religious and secular ideas about the good life? Or should it promote a certain vision? Most Americans, recognizing that a government-sponsored philosophy would conflict with many citizens’ cherished beliefs (and possibly violate the establishment clause), would say that the government should be neutral… . Continue Reading »
Thanksgiving Day, presently celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November, has been an annual tradition in the United States since 1863. It did not become a federal holiday until 1941. Thanksgiving was historically a religious observation to give thanks to God, but is now primarily identified as a . . . . Continue Reading »
So Joe posted a link to the new Manhattan Declaration which came out late last week, and in the comments it came out that I agree with the morals of the document but think this documents and others like it obscure the Gospel. Collin, my co-blogger here at Evangel, didn’t see what I meant . . . . Continue Reading »
This is Holy.Jen Zila says this over there: will love until it feels uncomfortable, and when i start to get comfortable with that, i’ll give until it gets uncomfortable again. because, a $25 check isn’t much of a stretch in our household it doesn’t really ‘cost’ us. but . . . . Continue Reading »
Got stuff to do the rest of the day and not likely to be back until bed-time. One last stir of the ol’ pot here and I’m off:In spite of my poking his eye for being jaded, I think Joe Carter is onto something.And here’s my one-liner for the discussion so far: I see politics (not . . . . Continue Reading »
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