Infertile parents who desperately seek a child might see anonymous sperm donation as the solution to their fertility difficulties. But as the stories in the Anonymous Us collective reveal, the difficulties faced by donor-conceived children are just beginning. http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2013/12/11716/?utm_source=Public+Discourse&utm_campaign=9df6da4752-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_efeee0c775-9df6da4752-74682993 Read more

Peter Brown Sex was shocking to the early Christians. Sex in the Roman world was intimately linked to slavery. Ergo: Christians, once they came to power after the year 312, predictably hammered the sexual codes of a society glutted on the ready availability of servile bodies and even cut away (if somewhat more tentatively than we might wish) at those parts of the slave system—such as prostitution—that fostered sexual indulgence. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/dec/19/rome-sex-freedom/ Read more

But where does this story of promise and fulfillment really end? At the end of the Torah with the death of Moses? The adjuration by Joseph is only completed in Joshua, specifically in the next to last verse of that book (24:32): “The bones of Joseph, which the Israelites had brought up from Egypt, were buried at Shechem, in the piece of ground which Jacob had bought for a hundred kesitahs from the children of Hamor, Shechem’s father, and which... Read more

While it’s almost nice to hear a pro-abortion argument that isn’t some version of the “Keep Your Rosaries Off My Ovaries” shriek, Huffington Post blogger Donna Schaper’s contention – that abortion is moral – isn’t any more effective, and it’s rather more insulting. http://www.lifenews.com/2013/12/12/huffington-post-we-can-have-morally-good-abortions/ Read more

Gerald R. McDermott Roanoke College In an article in the current issue of First Things (http://www.firstthings.com/article/2013/12/evangelical-retreat), Russell Moore argues eloquently for the best sort of Evangelicalism—that which recognizes the need to think with the Great Tradition as it reads the Bible, holds on faithfully to dogmatic and moral orthodoxy, and does not shrink from going public when the culture attacks the gospel on issues such as sanctity of life, religious freedom,  and the meaning of sex and marriage.  It rolls... Read more

Why are there Zodiac mosaics in ancient synagogues? http://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/2013/12/sun-god-in-the-synagogue/?utm_source=Mosaic+Daily+Email&utm_campaign=9f319c758f-Mosaic_2013_12_5&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0b0517b2ab-9f319c758f-41159925 Read more

The home and the office pull in opposite directions, but modern mothers can assemble a team on both ends of the rope to help them manage that tension—and they can learn to thrive in the process. http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2013/12/11647/?utm_source=Public+Discourse&utm_campaign=156eedb223-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_efeee0c775-156eedb223-74682993 Read more

“Eggsploitation” reveals the predatory practices of the fertility industry, which lures young women in need of money to undergo medical procedures that carry the risk of severe long-term health problems. http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2013/12/11185/?utm_source=Public+Discourse&utm_campaign=62719df66f-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_efeee0c775-62719df66f-74682993 Read more

Strict separation of church and state would require us to throw out Thanksgiving as a religious holiday proclaimed by the president. Instead, we should embrace Thanksgiving and throw out strict separationism as a misguided interpretation of the Constitution. http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2013/11/11618/?utm_source=Public+Discourse%2C+the+online+journal+of+the+Witherspoon+Institute+List&utm_campaign=1ad746d16a-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_efeee0c775-1ad746d16a-74682993 Read more

Jonathan Rauch, in his memoir Denial, argues that only access to the institution of marriage can make gays and lesbians whole. In doing so, he purposefully suppresses the truth that there are many other options available to those who are attracted to persons of the same sex. http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2013/11/11152/ Read more