Facebook and Friendship
Facebook has helped us stay in touch, not so much for bragging but for recalling happiness in a time of our lives when burdens and responsibilities did not weigh so heavily on us.
A few years back, I had the chance to visit with an old friend in California with whom I attended high school. Our wives and we all attended college together, and we were close for about a decade while our now-adult children were young. Over the years, Facebook helped us follow the general trajectories of... Continue Reading
8th Circuit Court of Appeals Upholds Arkansas’ Right to Bar Judge from Death-Penalty Cases
A federal appeals court has dismissed a challenge by an Arkansas circuit court judge who had been banned from hearing death-penalty cases after he protested against capital punishment.
Griffen stepped into the death-penalty debate in April when he granted a pharmaceutical company’s request for a temporary restraining order preventing Arkansas from using vecuronium bromide in its executions. Just hours later, Griffen joined protesters in front of the governor’s mansion in Little Rock, strapped to a makeshift gurney and sporting an anti-death penalty button. LITTLE ROCK... Continue Reading
Sex Traffickers Routinely Exploit Prison System To Recruit Vulnerable Women Into Sex Work
Traffickers and pimps target incarcerated women by posting their bail, making the women indebted to them
“To identify victims, traffickers sometimes employ women who are also in prison, who scout potential inmates who could be groomed and recruited. Women recall receiving letters from pimps who woo them with promises of financial and emotional security upon release, and describe feeling like there was no choice but to go along with the trafficker... Continue Reading
God’s Dupes?
The one who raises the question against God in effect plays God while denying He exists.
In his article “God’s Dupes,” Harris argues, “Everything of value that people get from religion can be had more honestly, without presuming anything on insufficient evidence. The rest is self-deception, set to music” (The Los Angeles Times, March 15, 2007). Ironically, Harris’ first book is entitled The End of Faith, but it should really be called... Continue Reading
‘Pure Genocide’: Over 6,000 Nigerian Christians Slaughtered, Mostly Women and Children
Church leaders in Nigeria have said that Christians are experiencing "pure genocide" as 6,000 people, mostly women and children, have been murdered by Fulani radicals since January.
“Nigeria is drifting to [a path of] genocide through killing, maiming, burning and destruction of churches and other sacred places of worship, and forceful seizure and occupation of ancestral, worship, farming and dwelling lands of the indigenous Christians and other indigenous religionists in Northern Nigeria.” Church leaders in Nigeria have said that Christians are... Continue Reading
Christian Hospitality in an Age of ‘They’re Not Welcome Anymore, Anywhere’
Sometimes we should offer hospitality to our enemies. Other times, we must rebuke them. It takes wisdom to know which situations call for which response.
California Congresswoman Maxine Waters is urging the public, “If you see anybody from that [Trump] Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them, and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.” Many years ago, I stood... Continue Reading
Rendering to Caesar: Civil Religion in Transition
“Civil religion” is the attempt by a nation or people to understand its history, character, and leadership in terms of transcendent reality and a larger meta-narrative or story.
At these events something “religious” was going on, but it was not, strictly speaking, the religion of the church, nor of the synagogue, nor of the mosque, nor of the Buddhist temple. It was something else. Now I want to pose a question here at the outset: was this “something else” a good thing or... Continue Reading
Communists Officials in China Harassing, Arresting Christians on a Regular Basis
Many Chinese Christians choose to meet in underground “house” churches
The Christian Post is reporting that a Christian church in Guangzhou, Guangdong was the target of government harassment, recently, when thirty members of China’s Communist government broke in and levied heavy fines against the church for “illegally gathering.” The pastor of the church was also arrested in the incident. I’ve been speaking for some... Continue Reading
Paul’s Twofold Citizenship And Ours
Our older Reformed writers regularly mentioned “two kingdoms” in different ways
“As Americans approach another Independence Day celebration and this one in the midst of what seems like a super-heated cultural-political context, it seemed like a good time to reflect again on the teaching of the Apostle Paul where he reminded the Philippian congregation about where their most fundamental loyalties lie.” Our older Reformed writers... Continue Reading
Evangelical Leaders Downplay Potential Roe v. Wade Reversal
For evangelical Christian leaders like Jerry Falwell Jr., this is their political holy grail
“What people don’t understand is that if you overturn Roe v. Wade, all that does is give the states the right to decide whether abortion is legal or illegal,” Falwell told The Associated Press in an interview. “My guess is that there’d probably be less than 20 states that would make abortion illegal if given... Continue Reading
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