Gene Edward Veith Jr.'s Blog, page 33
February 23, 2018
Court Rules in Favor of Another Judge Who Won’t Do Gay Weddings
We have been following the case of Judge Ruth Neely, a Wyoming magistrate who lost her job for refusing to perform gay weddings because of her Christian convictions. (She is a member of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod.) There was a similar case in North Carolina, in which Magistrate Gayle Myrick, a Baptist, was forced […]
February 22, 2018
Graham’s Passing as the End of an Era
In addition to being the supreme evangelist, Billy Graham did much to establish evangelicalism as a potent and popular force in American culture. But his death at age 99 marks a new era, one that has already been taking shape, in which evangelistic Christianity must cope with the loss of its cultural popularity. The First Great Awakening […]
The Problem of Strippers at Funerals
In China, a large attendance at a funeral is a way to honor the dead. So to increase the number of people who come to the funeral, families are hiring singers, comedians, and even strippers. The government, concerned with the effect on public morals, is cracking down on the strippers. I bring this up for […]
February 21, 2018
By 2050 Mind Melds Will Replace Language
In Star Trek, Mr. Spock could space his fingers on someone’s head and achieve a “mind meld,” in which his mind and that of his subject would merge. Now a researcher is saying that by 2050 technology will allow us all to achieve “brain to brain communication,” making language obsolete. So says the article Humans Could […]
Might the Russians Have Flipped the Election to Trump?
The indictment filed by Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller against 13 Russians and a Kremlin-connected organization shows that the Russian interference with the U.S. presidential election was no mere prank. Its scale and tactics were such that it may well have contributed some votes to Donald Trump. But even if it did, that by no means […]
February 20, 2018
The Two Kingdoms Doctrine Does Not Mean Moral Relativism
Some evangelicals and other conservative Christians who support President Trump no matter what he says or does are defending their position by invoking what seems to be the Lutheran doctrine of the Two Kingdoms. But they don’t quite understand the concept. For example, Liberty University president Jerry Falwell, Jr., suggested that Christian values–such as the […]
Hollywood’s New Rules for Sex Scenes in Light of #MeToo
Hollywood is reeling from the sexual abuse and harassment scandal that brought down producer Harvey Weinstein as well as other players in the movie industry. So how can filmmakers stage sex scenes without actresses being touched inappropriately or otherwise sexually harassing them? Well, in an effort to avoid sexually exploiting women while still sexually exploiting […]
February 19, 2018
The Spirit of Curling
I found myself drawn into the Winter Olympics when I watched an Austrian skier named Anna Veith compete in the Super-G (a.k.a. Super Giant Slalom). And then I learned about how the sport of curling–sliding heavy stones on ice, while sweeping in front of them with a broom–has built principles of sportsmanship into its very nature. It […]
Mueller Indicts 13 Russians for Interfering with the Election
Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller has issued indictments against 13 Russians and 3 Russian organizations for interfering with the 2016 presidential election. According to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, “The defendants allegedly conducted what they called information warfare against the United States, with the stated goal of spreading distrust towards the candidates and the political system […]
February 16, 2018
Culture Against Christ
Yesterday’s post about how the culture is the biggest obstacle to religious freedom reminded me of an observation made by a friend of mine, who said that H. Richard Niebuhr, in cataloguing all of the permutations of the relationship between Christ and Culture left one out: Culture against Christ. In 1996, when I was teaching […]
