Appeals court upholds California’s abortion education law: The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld California’s FACT Act which requires licensed pregnancy counseling clinics to disseminate a notice on the existence of publicly-funded family planning services, including contraception and abortion. The court affirmed denial of a preliminary injunction to three religiously-affiliated non-profits, rejecting free speech and […]
On Paying a Price for Your Beliefs–the Benedict Option: Dreher’s concept of the Benedict Option is a strategy of Christian community that practices moderated withdrawal from the culture but remains as a distinct influence withing the local neighborhood and city. His views have received increased attention, some agreement, and some disagreement. Dreher explains what he means […]
The Professor Wore a Hijab in Solidarity–Then Lost Her Job: This article is an in-depth profile of the Wheaton prof who put on a hijab and prompted an extended dispute at her campus and across the country on Christian-Muslim relations and theology. “When Larycia Hawkins, the first black woman to receive tenure at Wheaton College, […]
Two years later, few Hobby Lobby copycats emerge: Obamacare supporters warned that if the Supreme Court allowed Hobby Lobby to eliminate birth control coverage because of their religious beliefs, others would rush to follow — and not just to eliminate contraceptives, but also, potentially, treatments like blood transfusions and vaccines. Those fears haven’t been borne out. This […]
Death Rights: This carefully written article assesses the difference between Canada’s judicially determined right to assisted suicide with Germany’s legislative allowance for narrow instances of assisted suicide without prosecution for family members: “Laws forbidding suicide assistance are based on the moral conviction that all killing of innocent life is wrong. If liberal democracies today can no […]
The New Culture of Life: The demographic outlook for the pro-life movement looks anything but bleak. On issues from race to sexuality to drug law, Americans are used to seeing each new generation become more progressive than their parents; with abortion, it’s not happening: 51 percent of anti-abortion voters younger than 30 considered the issue “very […]
Civil Righteousness, and the Gospel in the American Church: This brief essay can assist students with distinguishing moralism from the Gospel. The writer notes the tendency of American culture to assimilate Christianity into its civil religion: “It’s one thing for the American political regime to value Christian churches because they help supply the moral requisites […]
Martin Luther as history’s first tweeter? An ongoing legacy, 500 years later: Three artifact shows demonstrate how Luther’s legacy is also as relevant and immediate as a Facebook feed. The Morgan Library exhibition in New York, “Word and Image: Martin Luther’s Reformation,” includes an extensive display of Luther-related materials. An exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Art focuses on the cultural and […]
Jesus for Atheists (and Agnostics and Nones and Everyone Else): Students can read this interview as an intro to the history of non-Christians stumbling across Jesus and their efforts to interpret and reinterpret his words and works. Such a study might begin with Marcion or perhaps Simon Magus in Acts 8.
Disclaimer Requirement Violates Pregnancy Center’s Free Speech Rights: In Greater Baltimore Center for Pregnancy Concerns, Inc. v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, (D MD, Oct. 4, 2016), a Maryland federal district court held that a Baltimore ordinance requiring limited purpose pregnancy centers to post specified disclaimers is unconstitutional as applied to the pregnancy center.
