Gene Edward Veith Jr.'s Blog, page 17
June 19, 2018
A Medical Specialty in Infanticide?
The American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology has applied to the American Board of Medical Specialties to authorize a medical specialty in late term abortions. It won’t be called that, of course. The certification will be in “Complex Family Planning.” From Briana Heldt: “Although contraception and abortion services for healthy women may be safely provided […]
June 18, 2018
Is the Atonement “Cosmic Child Abuse”?
I first heard the phrase from a radical feminist: If God punished His Son for our sins, that would be “cosmic child abuse.” Since then, I have been hearing it more and more, including from evangelicals! But to think of the atonement in that way demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of the triune God and the […]
Kansas City BBQ & Anthony Bourdain
I recently wrote a post called My BBQ Pilgrimage about my five days in Texas visiting acclaimed barbeque joints. A reader, Edward Kettner, urged me to do something similar about another BBQ mecca: Kansas City. Last weekend, we went there to catch a Royals/Astros game, a perfect chance to take up the challenge. We weren’t there long, […]
June 15, 2018
The Lord’s Supper as God’s Work
Most discussions of the Lord’s Supper among Christians of different theologies focus on the question of Christ’s presence or lack of presence in the bread and wine. But that is only the beginning consideration. We also need to reflect on other questions: What does the Sacrament mean? What does the Sacrament do? Some people accuse […]
“Nones” Have Religious Beliefs, but No Community
Of the 23% of Americans who are “nones,” claiming no religious affiliation, a great many of them say that they are “spiritual, but not religious.” Indeed, they have many spiritual and even religious beliefs. What they don’t have is any kind of community, religious or otherwise. So says philosophy professor Stephen Asma in an article in […]
June 14, 2018
The Christian’s Identity
In this era of “identity politics,” we would do well to read what the Bible says about our identity. Here are the passages that direct the issue most directly: For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and […]
Reading as Miracle
One of the superpowers most of us have but often take for granted is reading. How amazing that attending to tiny marks on a page or on a screen can plug someone else’s mind into our own, so that the thoughts and imagination of the writer, even one long-dead, can play in our brains. Baylor […]
June 13, 2018
Forbidding Anti-Religious Bias and Double Standards
Some observers believe the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Masterpiece Cake case will do little to protect religious liberty. If government agencies are simply more polite about the way they talk about religion, the ruling implies, they can discriminate against religion all they want. Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion does give that impression, but it also […]
Watch and Discuss the Video Trump Showed to Kim Jong-Un
At President Trump’s summit meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un, our president showed him a video. Here it is. (It’s only 4 minutes.) The genre of this particular video is the propaganda film. It is very much like the ones Kim shows to his people, except that the rhetorical voiceovers and stirring images convey the […]
June 12, 2018
The Difficulty of Defining Religion
Australia is working through how to guarantee the freedom of religion in light of their new same-sex marriage law, approaching it from a slightly different perspective than the U.S. Part of the difficulty is in defining religion. That’s not as easy as it might seem. From Scott Kirkland, Research Fellow, University of Divinity [the umbrella institution […]
