If you close this window in your browser, the world will soon end in a fiery cataclysm. Not "the world might end," but the world will end. And it will do so as a consequence of your closing this window in your browser. We're talking cause and effect. If … then. If X, then Y. You close the browser window and thereupon Armageddon, apocalypse, human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, The End. I am warning you. Do not close... Read more

Wednesday's post on bearing false witness wasn't prompted by a specific incident in the headlines as much as it was by a general phenomenon. Scarcely a day goes by without some public official saying something insanely untrue and ridiculously stupid — and yet says it with what seems to be utter sincerity. Scarcely an hour goes by when some pundit doesn't say something just as crazy-stupid. (This seems to be what "pundit" means.) I think many of these pundits and... Read more

"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor," the eighth commandment (in some numberings, ninth) reads. When I was growing up in Sunday school our teachers usually paraphrased the archaic King James Version English of that commandment as "don't lie." Teaching children not to lie is a good Sunday school lesson, but note that this isn't actually what the commandment says. It's much more specific, prohibiting a particular kind of lying — "false witness." A better children's paraphrase might... Read more

Television and radio host Glenn Beck has, as Steve Benen puts it "doubled down" on his opposition to Christian churches that speak of "social justice." Yesterday, Beck told his radio listeners to "look for the words 'social justice' or 'economic justice' on your church Web site. … If you find [them], run as fast as you can. … They are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!" As Joe Carter noted at First Things, taking... Read more