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April 30, 2024

atomic cloud rises July, 1946, Bikini Island

A new book lays out the frighteningly fast path to nuclear Armageddon. Source: 72 Minutes Until the End of the World? – POLITICO

April 30, 2024

Can We Fix a Culture Hostile to Raising Children

‘Family Unfriendly’ documents all the ways our laws and culture are discouraging family formation — but the problem may be much deeper.

April 30, 2024

Birth Rates Fall – End of Civilization

Elon Musk shared these comments from Kevin Dolan from the 2023 Natal Conference about the predicted global population bottleneck if birth rates continue dropping.

April 29, 2024

More God, More Peace

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.

These are crazy times. How does one retain sanity in these tumultuous days? Read the world’s best seller—and read it often—and it will give a great deal of comfort.

April 29, 2024

Plan to Ration Electricity

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan

By: The Editorial Board – wsj.com – April 26, 2024 New rules are designed to eliminate fossil-fuel power plants. Energy scarcity is sure to result. The Biden Administration’s regulations are coming so fast and furious that it’s hard even to keep track, but we’re trying. On Thursday the Environmental Protection Agency proposed its latest doozy—rules that will effectively force coal…

April 29, 2024

Bill Maher and Pro-Hamas Protesters

Bill Maher again took a blowtorch to the modern social justice warrior, adding that most of the time, it’s a gross exercise in narcissism.

April 29, 2024

The Return of “Mostly Peaceful”

Police arrest more than 100 pro-Palestinian students at NYU

By: Becket Adams – nationalreview.com – April 28, 2024 The American news media are here once again to tell you that you aren’t hearing what you’re hearing and seeing what you’re seeing. Sure, you may see a bunch of pro-Hamas activists on American campuses, wearing keffiyehs and frothing at the mouth for a “worldwide intifada.” And, sure, the demonstrations enjoy endorsements from Hamas and…

April 26, 2024

US Fertility Rate Hits Record Low

The total fertility rate dropped to 1.62 births per woman last year, well below replacement level.

April 26, 2024

Bizarre Presidential Election Scenarios

This could be the most unusual presidential election ever, and in some ways it already is. But there is a distinct possibility that this election could lead the country down paths never before taken—with potentially disastrous consequences. Here’s five possibilities.

April 26, 2024

AI Hate Crime Hoax

A black ex-employee allegedly used artificial intelligence to frame the white principal of a Baltimore-area high school as a racist and an antisemite, resulting in relentless threats, harassment, and the principal temporarily being removed from the school.

April 26, 2024

Adding to Title IX Law

What the Biden administration is doing to the Title IX civil rights law, the purpose of which is, among other things, to ensure equality between men’s and women’s sports, reminds me of a childhood game.