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Fuller Seminary Takes a Stand

Fuller Seminary decided not to offer tenure to a New Testament professor, J. R. Daniel Kirk, whose view of marriage does not comport with Jesus’s view.Although a decision such as this is never made happily or easily, I am grateful for the courage of senior faculty at Fuller Seminary in asserting . . . . Continue Reading »

On Marriage, Protect Freedom For All

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling on marriage, the question is: who deserves to be coerced by the government to embrace the Court’s new definition of marriage, or penalized for declining to do so? The answer: No one. The government is not justified in coercing or penalizing anyone or any institution that believes and acts on the belief that marriage is a union of husband and wife. Continue Reading »

Shortcircuiting Consensus

A political system, along with such supportive traditions as the rule of law and loyal opposition, is supposed to be a durable fixture on the political landscape and ought not to be changed lightly. It should be amended only when a favorable consensus can be achieved, and if that consensus is not forthcoming, then the constitution remains as it is. Continue Reading »

In Praise of Missionary Dating

You haven’t kissed her yet?” A classmate furrows his brow, as if trying to understand some antiquarian cultural rite. “And you’ve been dating how long?” As a conservative Christian within a libertine college environment, I have heard variations of this same conversation played out . . . . Continue Reading »

Creation, Covenant, and Marriage

At its General Convention this summer, The Episcopal Church (TEC) will consider a resolution to amend the church’s canons to allow same-sex couples to marry. The denomination’s official Task Force on the Study of Marriage has proposed replacing language in its canons drawn from the famed “Dearly beloved” opening exhortation of the marriage service in The Book of Common Prayer, which asserts that “the union of husband and wife” is intended, when it is God’s will, “for the procreation of children.” By excising the requirement that Christian marriage be a “a lifelong union between a man and a woman,” along with the Augustinian tradition’s second good of marriage, offspring,from the list of “purposes for which it was instituted by God,” marriage would be defined as open to same-sex couples whose sexual unions are not biologically fruitful. Continue Reading »

The Catholic Church's German Crisis

The 21st-century Church owes a lot to 20th-century German Catholicism: for its generosity to Catholics in the Third World; for the witness of martyrs like Alfred Delp, Bernhard Lichtenberg, and Edith Stein; for its contributions to Biblical studies, systematic and moral theology, liturgical renewal, and Catholic social doctrine, through which German Catholicism played a leading role in Vatican II’s efforts to renew Catholic witness for the third millennium. At the Council, more than the Rhine flowed into the Tiber; let’s not forget the Seine, the Meuse, the Potomac, and the Vistula. But the Rhine’s flow was strong. Continue Reading »

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