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September 17, 2018

By: David French – nationalreview.com – September 15, 2018 In our present, politicized age, we’re seeing two things happen at once. First, multiple major corporations have stripped away any pretense of neutrality and are now openly on the progressive side of American political debates. Second, the vast majority of those corporations have paid no meaningful price for their progressive activism….

September 17, 2018

What’s in it for Republicans?

Kavanaugh testifies at confirmation hearings

By: Charles C. W. Cooke – nationalreview.com – September 15, 2018 Vox’s Dylan Matthews tries to catch Senator Feinstein’s Hail Mary pass, even as he acknowledges that we can at present see no ball: Dylan Matthews✔ @dylanmatt I honestly don’t know what’s in it for Republicans in continuing to back Kavanaugh. He withdraws, Trump appoints Kethledge, Hardiman, or Coney Barrett…

September 14, 2018

The Latest on the Kavanaugh Hearings

By: Andrew O’Reilly – FoxNews.com – September 13, 2018 California Democrat Senator Dianne Feinstein refers secret letter about Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh to federal authorities; chief congressional correspondent Mike Emanuel reports from Capitol Hill. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., on Thursday threw a cryptic curveball at Brett Kavanaugh, insinuating the Supreme Court nominee could be guilty of a crime even…

September 14, 2018

What is Really The DeathToll?

Trump in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria

By: Peter Baker – nytimes.com – September 13, 2018 The presidential playbook during times of disaster is pretty well established by now: Consult with emergency officials (and be seen doing so). Express concern for those affected (on camera). Assure the public that the government is ready for whatever comes (whether it is or not). But once again, President Trump has…

September 12, 2018

Christian Social Justice Warrior?

Since the Council of Nicaea, Christians have been prone to issue joint statements designed to draw the boundaries of orthodoxy — and cast their rivals beyond them. Another one, not quite in the same league, was recently issued by a group including John MacArthur, a prominent (and very conservative) evangelical pastor and Bible teacher. “The Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel” claims that social justice is not, in fact, a definitional component of the gospel, and that it is heresy to elevate “non-essentials to the status of essentials.” As you might expect, the document affirms traditional beliefs on same-sex relationships and “God-ordained” gender roles. But it seems particularly focused on rejecting collective blame in racial matters. “We deny that . . . any person is morally culpable for another person’s sin,” the statement argues. “We further deny that one’s ethnicity establishes any necessary connection to any particular sin.” In case this wasn’t clear enough, the document goes on: “We reject any teaching that encourages racial groups to view themselves as privileged oppressors or entitled victims of oppression. . . . We deny that a person’s feelings of offense or oppression necessarily prove that someone else is guilty of sinful behaviors, oppression or prejudice.” Christians, in the view of MacArthur and his fellow signatories, must condemn both “racial animosity” and “racial vainglory.” By way of background, it seems this statement was created in outraged response to another group of evangelical Christians — the Gospel Coalition — that held a conference on the 50th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. MacArthur clearly wants to paint the participants — including prominent pastors Tim Keller, Russell Moore, Thabiti Anyabwile and John Piper — as liberals at risk of heresy. Where to start a response? First, there is the matter of judgment. MacArthur surveys the evangelical movement in 2018 — increasingly discredited by rank hypocrisy and close ties to an angry, ethnonationalist political movement — and concludes that its main problem is too much . . . social justice. It is a sad case of complete spiritual blindness. Second, there is a matter of history. Elsewhere, MacArthur complains that evangelicals have a “newfound obsession” with social justice. This could be claimed only by someone who knows nothing of the evangelical story. During the 19th century, Northern evangelicalism was generally viewed as inseparable from social activism. Evangelist Charles Finney insisted that “the loss of interest in benevolent enterprises” was usually evidence of a “backslidden heart.” Among these enterprises, Finney listed good government, temperance reform, the abolition of slavery and relief for the poor. “The Gospel,” preached abolitionist Gilbert Haven in 1863, “is not confined to a repentance and faith that have no connection with social or civil duties. The Evangel of Christ is an all-embracing theme.” But most damaging is the MacArthur statement’s position on racial matters. What could a group of largely white evangelicals, many of them Southerners, possibly mean by criticizing “racial vainglory”? Is it vanity to praise the unbroken spirit of Africans in America during more than four centuries of vicious oppression, which was often blessed by elements of the Christian church? Is it vanity to recognize the redemptive role played by African American Christianity in calling our nation to the highest ideals of its founding? The purpose of “The Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel” is clear enough. It is, as one prominent evangelical leader put it to me, “to stop any kind of real repentance for past social injustice, to make space for those who are indeed ethnonationalists, and to give excuse for those who feel Christians need only ‘preach the gospel’ to save souls and not love their neighbors sacrificially whether they believe as we do or not.” The MacArthur statement is designed to support not a gospel truth but a social myth. The United States, the myth goes, used to have systematic discrimination, but that ended with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Racism is now purely an individual issue, for which the good people should not be blamed. This narrative has nothing to do with true religion. It has everything to do with ignorant self-satisfaction. It is neither realistic nor fair to ignore the continuing social effects of hundreds of years of state-sponsored oppression, cruelty and stolen wages. It is neither realistic nor fair to ignore the current damage of mass incarceration and failed educational institutions on minority groups. Prejudice and institutional evil are ongoing — deeply ingrained in social practice and ratified by indifference. Repentance is in order — along with a passion for social justice that is inseparable from the Christian gospel.

By Michael Gerson – washingtonpost.com – September 10, 2018 Since the Council of Nicaea, Christians have been prone to issue joint statements designed to draw the boundaries of orthodoxy — and cast their rivals beyond them. Another one, not quite in the same league, was recently issued by a group including John MacArthur, a prominent (and very conservative) evangelical pastor…

September 12, 2018

Pope Francis Calling for Summit

By: Doug Stanglin & Jane Onyanga-Omara – usatoday.com – September 12, 2018 Pope Francis, signaling the Catholic Church’s inability to defuse long-running clergy sex scandals, on Wednesday summoned the presidents of Catholic bishops conferences worldwide to the Vatican in February to discuss protecting children and preventing sexual abuse by priests. The meeting, on Feb. 21-24, is believed to be the…

September 12, 2018

McConnell Worries About Ted Cruz

By: Antonia Blumberg – huffingtonpost.com – September 11, 2018 Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday became the latest Republican to say Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) faces a difficult fight in the Texas Senate race against Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas). “I think Ted’s got a competitive race by all indications,” McConnell told reporters at a news conference. “We certainly…

September 12, 2018

Is it really that close in Texas?

By Manny Fernandez and Mitchell Ferman – nytimes.com – September 11, 2018 Days after a top adviser to President Trump questioned Senator Ted Cruz’s chances of winning re-election, the Texas lawmaker casually stepped into the pinnacle of his hometown’s energy industry on Tuesday — the lobby of the Petroleum Club of Houston, on the 35th floor of a downtown skyscraper….

September 11, 2018

Remembering 911

By: Tom Sileo – stream.org – September 11, 2018 This morning in Afghanistan, thousands of American warriors woke up in the country where 9/11 was planned. Some were just toddlers on September 11, 2001. Today marks the 17th anniversary of the worst terrorist attack in American history. While the horrors of that day drift in and out of our national…

September 11, 2018

New York City Firefighter

By: Tim Sullivan – foxnews.com – September 11, 2018 “Tim, get to work,” my brother solemnly said over the phone. “It’s going to get worse.” I had received the call just as the first tower was struck, and we didn’t know all that was yet to come. Like so many other Americans on September 11, 2001, I had simply been…

September 10, 2018

Trying to Find the Anonymous Op-Ed Author

By: Michael Burke – thehill.com – September 9, 2018 President Trump’s top aides on Sunday ramped up talks of a possible investigation into the identity of an anonymous “senior administration official” who authored an explosive op-ed last week describing an internal “resistance” seeking to undermine the president. The op-ed, published in The New York Times, roiled the White House as…