Open Wide Your Hand: 4 Questions Regarding Social Welfare
Georgia’s food stamp program provides an interesting case study for thinking about the current debate surrounding social welfare. In good fiscal news Georgia has seen a sixteen percent drop in food stamp usage over the last four years, saving tens of millions of dollars each month for taxpayers. As the economy continues to strengthen and […]
Educating for Ignorance
Schools of all types desire an interdisciplinary education. Secular education strives for it, and liberal arts assumes to be the master of it (Newell, 2007; Edutopia Team, 2008). In order to be truly interdisciplinary, subjects must be united around a central theme or pedagogical goal. Most schools face a continual struggle to integrate topics across […]
The Tree of Life
Well, it’s summer. It’s time for the beach towels, sunblock, the nearest pool, and, yes, good movies. Who doesn’t love a late night movie with some great friends? Good movies, though, are harder to find than the nearest swimming hole. What do I mean by a good movie? A good movie is one whose […]
Why Justice Should Be Blind
“Believe in equal pay for equal work? Put your money where your mouth is.” So reads the website of the most comically unfair product I’ve ever seen. I first ran across the EquiTable app about six months ago. At first, I thought that their advertisement video was a Saturday Night Live skit; surely no one […]
Intersectionality Is a Big Word; Basically, It Means Weaponized Feminism
First, there was marginalization of people of color, then there was maximalization, to add people of color where they should have been in the first place. If that sounds wrong, it if sounds like three big steps in the wrong direction, I completely agree. If one race, class, or gender has been treated unequally, the solution is to treat every race, class, and gender equally. If you instead privilege one previously maltreated group, you are perpetuating the problem.
The Sweet and Shrewd Courage of a High School Graduation Speech
Graduating senior Moriah Bridges was chosen by her class president to provide the closing exercise at Beaver High School’s June 2nd graduation ceremony in Beaver, Pennsylvania. Bridges, a Christian, included a prayer in her remarks, but the Beaver School District forced her to edit her speech due to religious language such as “Heavenly Father” and […]
Religion Reassignment Surgery
The Church of England has been cowed. We’ve known this for years, but it is rapidly capitulating and scrambling to “origami” itself into something that will appease the sensibilities of the culture. Rev. Chris Newlands is proposing a motion to the General Synod next month to debate the issue of “rechristening” for transgender-benders. After he […]
What Americans Can Learn from Canada
Stephen Harper served as Prime Minister of Canada for nine years. While few would say that Trump and Harper are similar leaders, there are some things that we can learn from the genesis of the former Canadian Prime Minister that tell us about the current American situation, and why Trump’s legacy will last for so […]
Rob Bell’s “What is the Bible?” Part 3
In chapter one, “Moses and His Moisture,” Bell sets a precedent for how he argues in for the rest of the book. The two biggest problems he has are that, with a single exception in the whole book, he does not provide any citation for obscure cultural or linguistic facts he refers to, and he […]
Every State Wants to Get Stoned
Economic growth is welcome news for politicians but not enough to get them to champion a controversial bill that many moralistic constituents would oppose. There is yet another green leafy substance that makes them drool…By making pot legal, not only are state governments able to collect tax revenue but they are able to jack up tax rates astronomically.
Courage & Blood Money: A Proposal toward the Abolition of Abortion
“The sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light” (Lk. 16:8). Modern conservative Christians are cowards. We are cowards by many different measurements, but one will suffice. We have almost entirely lost a culture war in which we had the greater numbers, greater resources, […]
Bernie Sanders and the Battle of the Gods
Last week Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders transformed a rather mundane confirmation hearing for the deputy director for the Office of Management and Budget into high political theater, pronouncing the nominee unfit for office due to his religious beliefs. Sanders highlighted a couple of sentences from an article Vought published last year at The Resurgent, in […]
Education as Worship: It’s Not Classical, It’s Christian
Classical education has enjoyed a resurgence in popularity in both Christian and secular schools. The Association of Classical Christian Schools is just over 20 years old and has members around the world. Secular educators have noted the success of the classical method, and now classical charter schools are popping up all over the country. The […]
Rolling With a New America
We all know America is changing… Over Christmas break I took my W.A.S.P (white anglo-saxon protestant) blond children to the local outlet mall in the east bay area of northern California. Besides my children, I think we counted about three blond heads in a room of about 300 people. This is in an area of […]
Bill Maher and the Impotence of the Tiny Heart-Obama
I make my children practice telling jokes at dinner. If I can help it, none of my progeny will have bad comedic timing. The girl that married me, lo so many zodiacal rotations ago, hoped to be a comedian when she grew up. The same skills, it turns out, apply to motherhood. (She has a […]
Why Can’t We Figure Comey Out?
Thursday, former FBI director James Comey testified in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee regarding the details of his relationship with Trump. Though the viewership numbers haven’t been released yet, some are projecting it to be the most watched political event since the Watergate hearings of 1973. With an estimated eighteen percent of the American […]
Counterfeit Christianity in the Wake of London Terror Attacks
The problem for secularists is they cannot shake off the image of God. Because we live in God’s world as His image-bearers we will tend toward certain impulses: justice, joy, love, mercy, evangelism, and prayer. But dislodged from Christ these impulses jump the rails and crash. Jesus is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the root and the fruit, the source and the goal of all things. Once we remove Him we are left with justice that isn’t just, mercy that invites murder, and prayers to the no-gods in the great emotive sky. But in Christ justice and mercy kiss, we join the angels in heavenly song, and our prayers rise like incense to the throne of Almighty God.
Identity Politics and the Widening American Divide
Why can’t Americans reach across the aisle like they used to? This question becomes more and more relevant every day, as we see the American political and media establishments retreat to the fringes, leaving the chasm between left and right ever wider. Americans have slowly withdrawn from the candidates hoping to bring people together and […]
Rob Bell’s “What Is the Bible?”
Rob Bell’s new book “What is the Bible?” seems to be on a trajectory that will cause a stir in American evangelicalism. His book requires a response, but I think a few words need to be said first about why responding to him is necessary. Rob Bell is a controversial and influential figure and has […]
It is our business: How Life, Marriage, and Gender are Public Issues
Matt Walsh joined the CrossPolitic podcast this week to talk about his new book The Unholy Trinity, in which he takes aim at the Left’s “assault on life, marriage, and gender.” One point Walsh raised is that one of the Left’s strategies to make minority positions socially acceptable is to get the public at large […]