Gene Edward Veith Jr.'s Blog, page 31
March 9, 2018
The News that Spreads Most Is False, Negative, and Surprising
A major study of how information spreads online has found that information that is false is shared more often than information that is true. It also found that the strongest emotion attached to the false news being shared was “surprise.” These findings tie in to other research that found that negative news is more likely […]
March 8, 2018
Luther’s Musical Innovations
Christianity Today’s online Christian History feature has a special section on Martin Luther this month. It includes articles on Luther’s specific contributions to music by Concordia Theological Seminary professor Paul Grime and Loyola musicologist Colin Holman. In his article Luther: The Musician, Holman gives this great quotation from Luther, one that I wasn’t familiar with: Looking […]
The Biggest Religious Liberty Issue: Eagle Feathers
Three years ago, the Supreme Court ruled in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby that the government could not force company owners with a religious objection to provide contraceptive coverage to their employees. Since then, liberals have spun the narrative that Christians are using religious liberty lawsuits to thwart “women’s health” (a.k.a., abortion and contraception) programs and anti-discrimination […]
March 7, 2018
Intersectionality as Religion
To understand today’s leftists–including why they shut down free speech on university campuses–you need to understand “intersectionality.” And to understand “intersectionality,” you need to see it as a religion. As a worldview, intersectionality understands all things in terms of identity politics. Specifically, the patterns of oppression based on race, gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity. […]
Surrogacy for Money
After getting married, the next step for most couples is having children. Now that we have same-sex marriage, there is the impulse for same-sex parenting. But natural law still holds for reproduction, so two married men who want to be parents must find a woman who will bear a child for them. Thus we are seeing […]
March 6, 2018
Extremely Early Testimonies to the Deity of Christ
The conventional wisdom among liberal theologians and higher critics of the Bible is that the deity of Christ was a concept that grew up out of a long oral tradition that gradually elevated the historical Jesus, culminating in the Council of Nicaea, which defined the doctrine in 325 A.D. But there are references to the […]
Return to a Demand-Side Economy
Ronald Reagan promoted a “supply-side economy,” focusing on increasing the supply of goods and services, thereby bringing prices down and increasing prosperity. Donald Trump is promoting what could be called a “demand-side economy,” cutting supply while increasing demand, thereby increasing wages and raising prices. Here is what conservative economics columnist Robert Samuelson says of this […]
March 5, 2018
Vocation and Self-Defense
In the current debates over gun ownership and self-defense, we would do well to consider how the doctrine of vocation applies. On the most basic level, according to Romans 13, we are not to impose justice by taking personal “revenge.” Rather, God protects us and punishes evildoers through the agency of authorities whom He has […]
All Politics Is National
“All politics is local.” According to that maxim, both parties catered to local issues and local sensibilities. But now, according to one observer, “All politics is national.” Formerly, when politics was local, Democrats in the South tended to be conservative when it came to issues like abortion and national defense. Republicans in big urban areas […]
March 2, 2018
Church Members Who Believe in Abortion, by Denomination
Lots of church members believe in abortion. That’s understandable, I suppose, since lots of churches are liberal in their theology and officially approve of the practice. But lots of members of conservative churches, whose teachings are clearly pro-life, also believe in abortion. D. C. McAllister, writing in The Federalist, assembles the statistics in her article Yes, You Can […]
