If our military is to lower its rate of sex crimes, it must limit its members’ consumption of pornography and educate them about its risks.
http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2013/06/10360/?utm_source=RTA+Smyczek+and+Arts+Porn+in+Military&utm_campaign=winstorg&utm_medium=email
It is time for the churches in the West to stop fooling themselves and their congregations into believing that the horrifying reduction in numbers of Christians in the Middle East is somehow the fault of the Jewish State. The future for Christianity in the land of its birth is grim indeed as long as Western Christians avoid holding Palestinian leaders responsible for what happens to Palestinian Christians on their watch.
http://archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.com/2013/06/palestinian-islamists-are-cleansing.html
Redefining marriage will make it harder for our children to develop their self-understanding and will sanction procreative methods that treat children like commodities.
http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2013/06/10344/?utm_source=RTA+Smoot+Children+Need+Marriage+Tradition&utm_campaign=winstorg&utm_medium=email
Mark Graham and I are leading a 12-day tour of Israel and Jordan.
The dates are Dec. 30 – Jan. 10. That’s right– December 2013-Jan. 2014.
Cost: $4400 (all taxes, fees, 2 meals a day, airfare and bus from Roanoke, and tips included).
If you are interested, please contact me immediately (mcdermot@roanoke.edu)–before spots fill up.
Here is the itinerary:
During the course of recent debates in the British Parliament over the proposed legalisation of gay marriage, it has gradually become apparent that the proposal itself is impossible. For legislators have recognised that it would be intolerable to define gay marriage in terms equivalent to “consummation,” or to permit “adultery” as legitimate ground for gay divorce.
Thus, despite the telling squeamishness in much contemporary conversation on homosexuality, which invariably steers away from its physical aspects, the legislators have been forced tacitly to admit the different nature of both gay sexuality and of gay sociality. But such an admission destroys the assumption behind the legislation and the coherence of what the legislation proposes to enact.
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2013/04/23/3743531.htm
The central event in the national founding of the Israelite people is the giving of the Law at Mount Sinai. The “Ten Commandments” (Exodus 20: 1-14), pronounced there by the Lord God to the assembled and recently liberated children of Israel, constitute the most famous teaching of the book of Exodus, perhaps of the entire Hebrew Bible. Prescribing proper conduct toward God and man, the Decalogue embodies the core principles of the Israelite way of life and, later, of what would become known as the Judeo-Christian ethic. Even in our increasingly secular age, its influence on the prevailing morality of the West is enormous, albeit not always acknowledged or welcomed.
http://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/2013/06/the-ten-commandments/
After the French protests against same-sex marriage, we can no longer speak of redefined marriage as inevitable or enlightened.
http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2013/06/10293/?utm_source=RTA+Lopez+Myths+Same-Sex+Marriage&utm_campaign=winstorg&utm_medium=email
Kidd is quite right; indeed, there are deeper problems with Volf’s thesis. His argument for the identity of the Muslim and Christian Gods collapses under its own weight. Volf’s own logic underscores what the Qur’an itself suggests—that the God http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2013/06/no-the-god-of-the-qurrsquoan-is-not-the-god-of-the-bible
On Pentecost Sunday all hell broke loose in Rome. Following Mass that day, the unpredictable Pope Francis laid hands on a demon-possessed man from Mexico and prayed for him. The YouTube video of this encounter was flashed around the world, and the story caught fire: Is Pope Francis an exorcist?
http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2013/06/a-tale-of-two-demons
Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of Great Britain
The Torah is more than a constitution and code of laws, more than a set of instructions or even the metaphysical DNA of the universe. It is a marriage contract – a token and gesture of love.
http://www.jewishpress.com/judaism/jewish-columns/rabbi-lord-jonathan-sacks/torah-as-a-marriage-contract/2013/05/08/
