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Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me

March 16, 2012 By Gene Veith

St. Patrick’s Day is Saturday–a day to honor all missionaries, including the missionaries to the European tribes (like St. Patrick to the Irish, St. Boniface to the Germans, St. Augustine to the English, etc.). (Those of us of European descent need to remember that our ancestors too were tribal pagan peoples who were brought to faith through missionaries.) To mark the day and what St. Patrick taught, I offer you a poem/hymn/prayer attributed to him, “St. Patrick’s Breastplate.” (Some people… Read more

If you died tonight, do you know you would go to heaven? Or do you not care?

March 15, 2012 By Gene Veith

208 Comments

“If you were to die tonight, do you know for sure that you would go to Heaven?” That question, or some variation, has started thousands of evangelism conversations and is the opening line for many evangelism programs (especially “Evangelism Explosion” started by D. James Kennedy). The conversation then goes on to “how you know,” and it exposes people who trust in their good works, or perhaps are just uncertain, whereupon the evangelist can point to the finished work of Christ… Read more

Banning Dante

March 15, 2012 By Gene Veith

52 Comments

One of the greatest works of literature ever written, Dante’s Divine Comedy, is attracting the attention of censors: The classic work should be removed from school curricula, according to Gherush 92, a human rights organisation which acts as a consultant to UN bodies on racism and discrimination. Dante’s epic is “offensive and discriminatory” and has no place in a modern classroom, said Valentina Sereni, the group’s president. . . . It represents Islam as a heresy and Mohammed as a… Read more

C. S. Lewis on Vocation

March 15, 2012 By Gene Veith

2 Comments

Have you read C. S. Lewis’s “Learning in Wartime”? It’s an address to students at Oxford on the verge of World War II. They were wondering how they can pursue a liberal arts education–studying poetry, digging into history, thinking through ancient philosophy–when the world is seemingly coming apart and they themselves may soon have to go to war. Lewis’s perspective on education is priceless, but I had forgotten how he also treats with great insight the doctrine of vocation. A… Read more

Lyle Lovett confesses his faith with his church

March 14, 2012 By Gene Veith

46 Comments

Three generations–all members of Trinity Lutheran Church in Klein, Texas–confess their faith in the words of the Nicene Creed, which itself goes back through generation after generation in the church of Jesus Christ. First we hear from Erich Klenk, 97 years old. Then we hear from singer-songwriter Lyle Lovett (of whom I am a big fan). Then we hear from fourth-grader Erin Pali. The effect of hearing the creed from these very different and yet very united Christians is deeply… Read more

Obamacare will cover abortions for $1 premiums

March 14, 2012 By Gene Veith

64 Comments

The Obama administration has figured out how to let Obamacare cover abortions despite the Hyde Amendment. (P.S.: Why doesn’t the Hyde Amendment prevent government funding for abortion pills, as in the insurance mandate?) Health Insurance companies will have to offer abortions as a premium service for which the insured will have to pay extra. But the extra fee will be no more than $1 per month. From LifeSite: It’s official. The concern pro-life organizations had about the ObamaCare legislation funding… Read more

College does not cause students to lose their faith

March 14, 2012 By Gene Veith

54 Comments

Presidential candidate Rick Santorum has been saying that 62% of college students lose their faith by the time they graduate. Calvin College sociologist Jonathan P. Hill takes a look at the dubious source of that statistic and cites better studies that point to a different conclusion: We know that some measures of religious belief, and quite a few measures of religious practice, decline as young people move from adolescence to emerging adulthood. In order to decide if blame should be… Read more

Jesus + Nothing = Everything

March 13, 2012 By Gene Veith

546 Comments

I’ve blogged about Tullian Tchividjian, the grandson of Billy Graham and the successor to D. James Kennedy as pastor of the influential Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. In the course of some struggles over his ministry, he came to a deeper understanding of the Gospel with the help of some Lutheran writers (e.g., C. F. W. Walther, Bo Giertz, Gerhard Forde, Hal Senkbeil, Rod Rosenbladt). He has written a book about his experience and his new liberating… Read more

Legal issues in overturning the insurance mandate

March 13, 2012 By Gene Veith

18 Comments

The Obamacare abortion pill/contraceptive mandate is so obviously a government assault on religious liberty that the courts are sure to overrule it. Right? I’ve been hearing that. Eight lawsuits have already been filed. But the legal issues get complicated, with a precedent that might let the Obama administration have its way. There is, however, a way to trump that precedent, depending on how the issue is construed. Journalist N. C. Aizenman gives a useful overview of how the cases will… Read more

In defense of politics

March 13, 2012 By Gene Veith

16 Comments

“Politics” has become a dirty word. As in: “It’s just politics.” “They are just playing politics.” “He’s just another politician.” This is understandable, but also dangerous. So says Alec MacGillis, an editor at the New Republic, who examines a number of recent decisions derided as “political” by liberals and conservatives, showing that it was a good thing that lawmakers had to take the political process–that is to say, voters–into account. Some of his comments: It’s not surprising that “political” is an… Read more