Since the Supreme Court works on actuary time tables, membership is a lifetime behind the rest of the nation. We rejected the Protestant Establishment as a nation a generation ago, but now the Supreme Court will reflect the change. Though once legally dominant, not one member of that group will now sit on the nation’s highest court.
There is nothing to mourn, because by th...
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I am in Japan right now to preach at a church, guest lecture at a seminary, and attend a missions conference. I have a theory, which I have held to for some time now, that Japan is the Britain of Asia. Or perhaps the other way around—Britain is the Japan of Europe. Why? There are a number of striking similarities:
-They both are major island nations off the coast of th...
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Abraham Lincoln knew it and many of us have lived it. Prayer works, and a nation that punts on prayer has disarmed itself for no good reason.
The sensible religious majority of this nation should do all it can to avoid offending their secular neighbor, but good manners must give way to good policy. Prayer is good policy.
Some may object that prayer cannot possibly manipu...
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No human created in God's image should be denied basic health care. Money is not worth more than human life and many other good things will have to be sacrificed in a moral society to make sure that all God's children get the care they deserve.
This is easy for a Christian.
What is hard is the detail. Who should provide this health care? How much care is "basic" and how m...
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Once I had a membership card in the Moral Majority and my wife listens to Dr. James Dobson.
We work at Biola University, a flagship university for conservative Christians in the United States.
Recent media reports about our fear of the Tea Parties certainly describe our feelings . . . though they underplay the terror and loathing that fills our souls as we think about the...
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It is bad enough if bad information costs you the value of your 401-K, but worse if it costs your soul. Being told you are wrong is important at any time, but hearing that you might be wrong about critical areas is vital.
Who wants to be wrong about the big questions of life?
No friend would see such a major mistake being made without expressing his opinion. This is espec...
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There is an ancient Chinese proverb: "Women hold up half the sky." Tonight (March 4), a special one-night movie event took place in cinemas across the United States. It was a film based on the international best-selling book Half the Sky by New York Times Op-Ed columnist Nicholas Kristof and his wife Sheryl WuDunn, a former Times correspondent (the couple won the Pulitzer ...
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The problem with American foreign policy is that it never considers that a particular religious belief might be true or that some beliefs might be false. We don't argue with religious folk, we attempt to placate them. There is a weird American notion that people can be persuaded to abandon their religious point of view if we only send them enough CNN, MTV, and uplifting Obama s...
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Tiger Woods messed up badly. The most famous and wealthiest athlete in the history of the world had a tremendous fall from grace when he cheated on his wife. It all came out around Thanksgiving last year, and today he finally issued a public apology after having been in therapy and counseling for the past few months (and he will continue for an indefinite amount of time). Th...
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Nothing, not a plague of Biblical proportions or a President Jon Edwards, would harm the Republic more than allowing a handsome football quarterback and his mother to give a Super Bowl commercial celebrating life.
The Super Bowl and the commercials that come with it have always been an event that celebrated taste and family values. This year while enjoying flatulent horses, ...
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Mao Zedong. The name is often placed alongside other horrible dictators like Hitler, Mussolini, Pol Pot, and Stalin. Deaths of millions can be attributed to him. But I want to argue that he was one of the best things that ever happened to Christianity in China.
Right now I am in Taiwan (where my father's side of the family is from; my mother's side is from China) visiting...
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Traditional Christians oppose torture based on their understanding of Divine Revelation and centuries of experience learning the corrosive effects torture has on the society that justifies its use.
Traditional conservatives should oppose torture because giving the government power to torture is dangerous. War is a public act and can be judged by the public. There is some lev...
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