“There are daily interactions such as checking out at a grocery store, checking in at a doctor’s appointment — and an incorrect gender marker means the potential to be misgendered and have painful and very uncomfortable experiences at all of those stages,” J. Gibbons, a 26-year-old college counselor told Oregon Public Broadcasting.   A decision... Continue Reading

Michelangelo’s poems are more transparent than his sculptures. Most of them are prayers to God (with echoes of Augustine’s Confessions, which he probably knew well). What he mourned mostly was his struggle with sin (“Fain would I wish what my heart cannot will”) and the time wasted in futile pursuits, including his art (“What’s the... Continue Reading

But here’s the strangest thing of all; the happiest people in the world are servants – not those who warm the slippers of millionaires, but those who serve others in all their relationships and responsibilities. They may have a million in the bank or even just red ink, but whatever their social or financial standing,... Continue Reading

Instead of simply providing a place to sleep, Solutions for Change takes a holistic approach to solving homelessness. It requires residents to go through counseling, take courses in financial literacy, parenting, leadership, and anger management, and eventually, get a job.   VISTA, CALIF.—Growing up, Teena Faison never imagined she’d find herself a single mom and... Continue Reading

On August 29, 1726, he is asked to assist his grandfather, Solomon Stoddard, in the church in Northampton. He is ordained on February 15, 1727. On February 11, 1729, Stoddard dies and Edwards becomes pastor of the church. The church in 1735 had approximately 620 members. It was customary for Edwards to spend 13 hours... Continue Reading

The doctrines known as “Calvinism” insist that Christ’s atonement was completed with a limited or definite purpose in mind—the salvation of God’s elect. Thus, while the atonement was sufficient for all humanity, it was intended and applied only to those who had been specially chosen by God to be his. R.C. Sproul says, “Our view... Continue Reading

Thus the cultivation of chastity is central to a robust nation and a robust culture.  Chastity is an old term but now out of favor even among Christians, given the impact of political correctness i.e. cultural Marxism. However it is the accurate label for the virtue or strength behind the data.   Regular readers of... Continue Reading

Over the past four years, Becket Law notes, class-action lawyers have “brought nearly 100 lawsuits against various Catholic and Protestant hospitals around the country, arguing that these nonprofit hospitals had broken the law by participating in nonprofit church pension plans instead of using lower-benefit pension plans designed for large for-profit corporations like Exxon and Walmart.”... Continue Reading

“I know it’s not particularly common in The United Methodist Church, but I intend to wear a collar every single day because for a person like me to navigate society in a collar provides some profound and urgently needed pastoral opportunities, particularly for queer and trans people.”   The Northern Illinois Conference commissioned M Barclay,... Continue Reading

When it came to agreeing on the sixth sub-point, whether Christ is bodily present in the elements, the most distinguished minds of Protestantism slammed into an insurmountable obstacle.  While Zwingli and the Reformed representatives viewed the issue of Christ’s presence as a non-essential doctrine, Luther’s intransigence and his insistence that it is an essential guaranteed... Continue Reading