“The Nashville Statement” on sexuality, marriage, and gender identity, released last week by major Evangelical leaders, will hopefully foster constructive dialogue among Evangelicals. Continue Reading »
Catholics distinguish between violations of manners and of the moral law; Fr. James Martin, in ways trivial and grave, does not. Continue Reading »
Building a Bridge: How the Catholic Church and the LGBT Community Can Enter into a Relationship of Respect, Compassion, and Sensitivityby james martin, s.j.harperone, 150 pages, $19.99 Is sodomy a sin? Perplexed readers of Fr. James Martin, S.J.’s latest book will want to put the question to him, . . . . Continue Reading »
The Christian Colorado baker case may be decided by the answer to a deceptively simple question: What is society for? Continue Reading »
Evangelical clergyman Eugene Peterson’s recent embrace of same-sex marriage shows how intuitive heterodoxy can feel in a post-Christian culture. Continue Reading »
Rachel Held Evans is once again arguing against “The False Gospel of Gender Binaries.” Regrettably, she does little more than provide us with a reminder of a textbook example of eisegesis (reading “into” the biblical text one's own ideology) rather than exegesis (reading “out of” . . . . Continue Reading »
Saint Aldhelm’s Riddlestranslated by a. m. justertoronto, 173 pages, $29.95 The riddle of Samson’s strength, the riddle of the eagle’s way with the sky and the ship’s way with the sea, the riddles in royal dreams of Pharaoh or Nebuchadnezzar, the riddle of things hidden since the world . . . . Continue Reading »
Recent arguments at the Supreme Court revealed deep confusion about the nature of dignity. Arguing that “the marriage institution did not develop to deny dignity or to give second class status to anyone,” but rather “to serve purposes that, by their nature, arise from biology,” attorney James J. Bursch described the push to legalize same-sex marriage as the desire to “take an institution that was never intended to be dignity-bestowing, and make it dignity-bestowing.” Justice Kennedy responded with suitable confusion: “I don't understand this ‘not dignity-bestowing.’ I thought that was the whole purpose of marriage. It bestows dignity on both man and woman in a traditional marriage. It’s dignity-bestowing, and these parties say they want to have that, that same ennoblement.” Continue Reading »
President Lindsay of Gordon College is a great guy and Gordon is an important evangelical institution of higher learning. I'm delighted that the Administration and Board of Gordon College has not eliminated a prohibition of “homosexual practice” from its Life and Conduct Statement in the face of an unwarranted accreditation attack.Nevertheless, the present situation does not appear to me to be as rosy as David French (a lawyer who has advised President Lindsay and Gordon College) depicted it in his May 1 National Review online article, “Gordon College Keeps Its Faith and Its Accreditation.”French declares that “Gordon prevailed against a dangerous threat and secured an important victory for religious liberty and academic freedom…. In its moment of crisis, Gordon doubled down on faith. May other Christians under cultural fire do the same.” Continue Reading »
Over the past decade, especially in the struggle over same-sex marriage, some of my friends and allies among social and religious conservatives have called me a defeatist for my culture-war pessimism. I believe that pessimism today is simply realism, and that it is better for us to retreat . . . . Continue Reading »
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