First Things | by Joseph Bottum | December 2009
It’s a nudge here and a shove there. A push from one side and a kick from another. Little things, for the most part, and surprisingly often the perpetrators retreat when directly challenged, but only to watch someone else step in to take their place. And the Christian churches have responded to all the recent thumps and torments with the bumbling confusion of a schoolboy giant. [Read more…]
American Thinker | by Deborah C. Tyler | Dec. 6, 2009
In recent weeks, we have witnessed liberals in the highest level of government sanctimoniously defend terrorists who kill us while persecuting those who defend us from murderous attacks. In an effort to understand this reversal of good and evil, it has become a cliché to call liberals crazy. But while supremely hypocritical, liberalism is not insane. It is a highly adaptive ego device that enables people to violate commitments, vilify those who are true to their faith, and avoid personal sacrifice while feeling great about themselves. The only defense against hypocrisy is self-knowledge, but the politics, spirituality, and morality of liberalism are well-constructed firmaments of self-delusion. [Read more…]
First Things | by Joseph Bottum | December 2009
It’s a nudge here and a shove there. A push from one side and a kick from another. Little things, for the most part, and surprisingly often the perpetrators retreat when directly challenged, but only to watch someone else step in to take their place. And the Christian churches have responded to all the recent thumps and torments with the bumbling confusion of a schoolboy giant. [Read more…]
OrthodoxyToday | by Chris Banescu | Nov. 12, 2009
As a fellow Orthodox Christian and an attorney I find Fr. George’s reflection quite eloquent but unfortunately lacking in the depth and moral clarity that our faith and profession both require. Fr. George’s central thesis is that “the nature of the medium, in this case the internet and blogosphere, is itself the message we get here even more than the content that people purport to communicate and consider.” I don’t believe that’s true, especially with regards to OCANews.org. The medium is only a neutral tool to be used or misused as we see fit. The truth of the message and the reliability of the information this medium conveys and the good it has done, in addition to the wisdom, character, and integrity of the messengers, are much more important and relevant. [Read more…]
Townhall.com | Ken Connor | July 19, 2009
Religious bigotry is alive and well in the scientific community, as evidenced by its response to President Obama’s decision to appoint Dr. Francis Collins as the head of the National Institutes of Health. Though renowned for leading the team of scientists that successfully mapped the human genome, Dr. Collins is making headlines for something else: his faith. In spite of his professional qualifications and accomplishments, many in the scientific community are less than enthusiastic about the President’s decision to appoint a self-described evangelical Christian to lead the world’s leading organization for scientific research. [Read more…]
BreakPoint | John Stonestreet | June 3, 2009
What Diana West is suggesting in The Death of the Grown-Up: How America’s Arrested Development Threatens Western Civilization will undoubtedly sound ridiculous to thousands of youth pastors, family therapists, and advertising gurus whose livelihoods depend on entertaining, counseling, and selling to teenagers.
Nevertheless, West argues that adolescence didn’t always exist. In fact, it is a quite recent phenomenon. The word “teenager” wasn’t really used until 1941, after all. In virtually every other culture in the history of the world prior to late 20th century Western culture, kids became adults. Not so anymore. They now become teenagers, or, to put it in more sociologically acceptable terms, they become adolescents. [Read more…]
BreakPoint | Stephen Reed | May 29, 2009
Chuck Colson is fond of saying that the church shines brightest in tough times. History appears to support BreakPoint’s founder on this, as Christians have served extraordinarily well in a variety of ways during economic difficulties and social unrest. John Wesley, William Wilberforce, Mother Teresa—none of them had ideal circumstances in which to operate. That is why their respective ministries were so needed.
So what happened to America? Here we are, known far and wide as the most religious country in the West, and yet people constantly turn to the government more than the church in times of crisis. President Obama’s approach of having the federal government bail out banks, the automotive industry, and now perhaps even credit card users makes him the man of the moment. Obviously, even if the nation’s churches banded together and gave sacrificially to bail out all these entities, we probably couldn’t pull it off. [Read more…]
TownHall | Dennis Prager | May 12, 2009
Religion in the West raised all the great questions of life: Why are we here? Is there purpose to existence? Were we deliberately made? Is there something after death? Are morals objective or only a matter of personal preference? Do rights come from the state or from the Creator?
And religion gave positive responses: We are here because a benevolent God made us. There is, therefore, ultimate purpose to life. Good and evil are real. Death is not the end. Human rights are inherent since they come from God. And so on.
Secularism drains all this out of life. No one made us. Death is the end. We are no more significant than any other creatures. We are all the results of mere coincidence. Make up your own meaning (existentialism) because life has none. Good and evil are merely euphemisms for “I like” and “I dislike.” [Read more…]
BreakPoint | Rev. Robert Lynn | Mar 27, 2009
Our life together in Christ isn’t simply about deciding what we’re against, what we won’t do and what we won’t allow. It’s also about deciding what we’re for.
Please don’t misunderstand. The Bible is against many things. Why? Because God created men and women in his image to live with Him and one another in a way that gives rise to human flourishing. God isn’t against things simply to prove He’s big enough to make rules and powerful enough to enforce them. He’s against the things that undermine or destroy the well-being of those who bear His image. As someone once said, if you live against the grain of the universe, you’re sure to get splinters. The Ten Commandments, for example, teach us how to live with the grain of the universe so that we might experience the fullness of what it means to be truly human. God is against certain things because He is for other things. [Read more…]
Washington Post | Jacqueline L. Salmon | Apr. 10, 2009
Faith organizations and individuals who view homosexuality as sinful and refuse to provide services to gay people are losing a growing number of legal battles that they say are costing them their religious freedom.
The lawsuits have resulted from states and communities that have banned discrimination based on sexual orientation. Those laws have created a clash between the right to be free from discrimination and the right to freedom of religion, religious groups said, with faith losing. They point to what they say are ominous recent examples: [Read more…]