Denny Burk wrote a second post about the recent decision by a US Federal Judge to strike down a ban on gay marriage in California. In it he makes the following comment:

Another disappointing aspect of this decision is that the judge sided with plaintiffs who brought in witnesses to show how evangelical Christianity in particular leads to abuse of gay people (read about it here). Throughout the trial, the plaintiff’s subtext has been that Christianity promotes bigotry. This idea is gaining traction not just in this court, but in the culture at large. Christians who prize the Bible’s teaching on marriage will likely find themselves in very uncomfortable territory in the not too distant future.

I’d say the majority of Christians would agree with Denny here, but I’m not sure they’d fully appreciate how evangelical Christianity has got itself in this corner. Most, I think, would just say put it down to “persecution we all knew was coming”, but I’m not convinced that Christian voices at all levels don’t actually share some responsibility for their present position by the very way they speak out against homosexuality.

How so?

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Last year I submitted a question to John Piper’s “Ask Pastor John” (basically a question and answer system where people submit questions and John Piper answers them. Really very good). The question was this:

How does “I follow Paul, I follow Apollos” [in 1 Cor 3] differ from “I’m a Baptist, I’m a Presbyterian,” when Paul seems to say that Christians—and, by extension, churches—should identify only with Christ?

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Vinoth Ramachandra has a post called, “Who says “No” to “Mission Trips“? Vinoth lives in Sri Lanka and gives his perspective on those who take a couple of weeks to visit another country as part of a “mission” purpose.

Interesting read. Go on. Read it. I dare you.

The evil of abortion has been so close for so long that it is easy to downplay our responsibilities regarding it. That seems to be what some (not all) Christians concerned for other social justice issues are willing to do. But a clear-sighted view of our responsibility as Christians in light of the abortion industry reveals that when the Church puts emphasis on abortion as a major responsibility - even before others - she is completely right. Continue Reading »

It’s been a fairly common complaint that Christians are so against abortion that they are blind to other ethical issues.The most recent person I have noticed saying this is Paul Windsor:

Since when was abortion a bigger ethical issue than the deaths of children caused by global poverty due to an improper distribution of the world’s wealth? There are babies on both sides of the birth event - in the USA and abroad - that need to be protected with equal zeal.

While I don’t want to provide an excuse for ignoring social evils other than abortion, I’ve never been able to shake the idea that abortion is a greater evil than other issues and always has been.

Here are three reasons I come to that conclusion: Continue Reading »

Can anyone give biblical reasons why the following steps should not be taken by non-indigenous Australians? Because the whole article these steps are taken from has excellent reasons why they should. Continue Reading »

I’ve been spending a bit of my spare time reading and interacting over at Bobby Grow’s blog, Evangelical Calvinism, and enjoying trying to get my head around what he’s on about. Basically, Bobby is concerned to explain that there are other “Calvinisms” besides the “Classic Calvinism” of the TULIP acronym.

However, the strongest impression I came away with was that “Evangelical Calvinism” provides a largely complemetary vision to the TULIP dependant “Classic Calvinism”, rather than a competing one.

Which got me to thinking… Continue Reading »

Some time ago I worked through to some conclusions about when it is right to leave a church. It seems I’m not the only one. Continue Reading »

A handful of powerful corporations such as Cargill, Ciba Geigy, Dow, Monsanto and Zeneca dominate agricultural research today, and they also control the global seed and agricultural chemical markets…Many of the seeds developed or modified by American corporations were collected in the southern hemisphere, but no royalties are ever paid to local farmers in that hemisphere nor claimed by their governments. But when those farmers use germplasm over which American seed companies have patents, or even seek to reuse the seeds in new plantings, they are immediately accused by the U.S. government of piracy and of violating intellectual property rights.

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Jeremy over at From Eden to Zion has a very worthwhile post for parents called, Controlling Chaos vs. Obedience Training for Young Children.

Do I need to say any more? The title gives you the gist of it.

Give it a read.

Ben Myers has a brilliant post on the recent outcry against a very black skit on the show “Chasers War on Everything”.

In a typically insightful peice on hero worship and holy emulation, John Piper encourages people to reject hero worship but to instead emulate godly examples for the sake of Christ. (HT: JT) He takes that straight from the Bible: Continue Reading »

Russell Moore has written a series of short posts looking at a hypothetical situation where a transgendered person accepts the gospel and how the gospel then ministers to their sexuality.

I confess, I have wondered about this question on and off for a good number of years now, and I think Russell Moore’s response is a good one. Of course, there are people for whom this is not hypothetical which makes it all the more important.

Have a read: Continue Reading »

I’ve really grown in appreciation for Doug Wilson over the last few months. It all began Continue Reading »

It’s been said that the next big issue in the evangelical Church will be whether practicing homosexuality is a sin.  I think that it’s here and getting bigger.

[Cartoon from the very astute (though I believe wrong on this one) ASBO Jesus.]

I may have linked to something like this before, but I can’t read this post by Jeremy Pryor without a hearty, “Amen” welling up in me.

That’s Job, the book found in the Old Testament part of the Bible.

Andrew Barry has an interesting take on why Job was accepted by God and his friends were not.

Over at Christians in Context, Dan Myers wrote a guest post called “The Polygamist Next Door” which attracted some very passionate comments from Hugh, who wrote in the 18th comment:

All the arguments for “monogamy only” are false. They’re just respectable because the lie has been believed by most of orthodoxy for such a long time. It’s still bunk. I’ll take them on for you ANYWHERE, ANYTIME against ANY OPPONENT. Not a problem.

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