The outward thrust of Christian life can be seen, first of all, in an imperative that is often called the cultural mandate, but I call it the First Great Commission. In the first two chapters of Genesis, God instructed Adam and Eve to “be fruitful and multiply” (1:22), “till the soil” (2:5) and “have dominion”... Continue Reading

At UC Santa Barbara, a social justice workshop set for Tuesday will delve into how Halloween costumes abuse “indigenous wear” and teach students how to “spot appropriation with the help of bell hooks’ essay ‘Eating the Other.’”   Throughout October, universities across the nation are warning their students against Halloween costumes some consider offensive. Gone... Continue Reading

 “I believe in God, and religion is also my constant companion, and has been for the whole of my life. We as Christians should above all not be afraid of standing up for our beliefs.” Merkel, now 63, was a preacher’s kid: Her father was a Lutheran pastor. She does not attend church regularly but... Continue Reading

But the disappearance of paths leads to the disappearance of meaning. In the past, those who transgressed well-worn paths found the experience exhilarating precisely because there were paths to transgress. Today, with pathways quickly disappearing, even the most brazen acts are met with a yawn. Some LGBT writers mourn the normalcy brought by gay marriage, because... Continue Reading

Critics have found evidence that some of the cognitive biases identified by behavioral economists are not as severe asis often claimed, or may even be artifacts of flawed experiment methods.  Nonetheless, as Thaler and others have effectively shown, cognitive bias is often a genuine problem. Few if any people are as systematically rational as homo... Continue Reading

Col. Leland B.H. Bohannon, Air Force Inspection Agency commander at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, N.M., signed all the requisite documents for a senior noncommissioned service member’s May retirement ceremony except for one: a letter of “spousal appreciation” for the gay serviceman’s partner.   (WNS)–U.S. Air Force officials have suspended a decorated officer and... Continue Reading

A bevy of recent academic work casts doubt on the idea that college experience directly undermines religious identity (even if the studies do not all come to precisely the same conclusion). A pair of University of Texas sociologists argue that “the religious belief systems of most students go largely untouched for the duration of their education.” They... Continue Reading

“But a funny thing happened. After about eight years, I gradually awoke. I realized the simple biological truth: I was still a man, had always been a man, and always would be a man. In terms of The Matrix, I took the red pill.”   In the 1999 sci-fi movie The Matrix, the hero, Neo, is... Continue Reading

When Michigan lawmakers began drafting the religious protection laws in 2013, faith-based groups made up about 25 percent of the state’s child welfare agencies. The same holds true in Texas. A loss of even half of those agencies would result in an immediate reduction in available foster families and the ability to recruit more, said... Continue Reading

This incident comes as the U.S. Supreme Court gears up to take the case of Jack Philliips, the Christian baker who was ordered by the the Colorado Civil Rights Commission to serve wedding cake to LGBT couples — or none at all. The high court agreed in June to hear the case this fall.   A Christian... Continue Reading