The Top Ten Posts of 2015

Here are the top ten posts of 2015 (measured by the number of page views):

The Line between Rule of Law and Civil Disobedience ��� ���Rule of law is what makes a good society possible, and the value we place on it should be great���it should never be compromised as part of a regular strategy for getting what we want���. But there is also a time and place for civil disobedience, grounded in a Law higher than man���s, against an unjust law. Determining where the line should be drawn between them is not a simple task.���


About Those Crusades��� ��� ���Since the Crusades are back in the news, these excerpts from a 2005 article by Crusade historian Thomas F. Madden will help you brush up on the basics.���


Why Christians Don���t Seek to Avenge Insults against God ��� ���[T]he most honored act of all time, for which Jesus was highly exalted by the Father, was not avenging His Name, but dying for those who disgraced it. He didn���t dismiss justice, but instead He upheld it by bearing it on His own shoulders. This central act of Christianity burrowed into our understanding of the virtuous life and slowly infiltrated all of Western culture���so much so that we in the West now take for granted the beauty of patient, gracious, self-sacrificial humility over an immediate exercise of punitive power. We forget that not every culture has seen this as desirable. It���s an echo of Christ, not something men naturally reason to on their own.���


Refusing to Serve Individuals vs. Refusing to Participate in Events ��� ���Compelling someone else's speech (through creative or expressive services) can be a soft form of slavery���. To argue in essence, ���But giving people liberties and freedoms might enable them to act unethically toward others��� is fundamentally to argue against the Constitution. Liberties and freedoms require vulnerabilities and risks that are worth having.���


Christians, You Will Suffer ��� ���If suffering disproves your Christianity, you���ve missed Christianity. The Bible is filled with the suffering of those whom God loves. The central event of the Bible is one of suffering. Love involves suffering. ���We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.��� That means suffering���. The truth is that even if you���ve been taught these things, a time will come when an experience will make this real to you, and then you will struggle to learn how to entrust yourself to God when you can���t trust He���ll protect you from pain and tragedy, can���t trust that things will get better. The only thing you can trust is Him. That He is good.���


How to Defuse the Accusation of Intolerance ��� ���I can think of a specific instance right now when I used this approach in response to a hostile questioner. It completely defused a very tense situation, enabling us to have a deep, profitable conversation about same-sex marriage that ended with him understanding my position and saying he believed I wasn���t a bigot after all.���


Why Is Evolution so Widely Believed? ��� ���Dr. Craig points outs that the mainstream acceptance of the theory of evolution is not for scientific reasons; it���s accepted for philosophical reasons. More specifically, it���s believed because of a commitment to methodological naturalism.���


Advice from Chesterton: Don���t Take Down the Fence until You Know Why It���s There ��� ���If there���s one thing I���ve learned in the past few days, it���s this: Most people���religious or otherwise���have no idea what marriage is, why it exists, and what we need it for. And what���s worse, they have no idea they have no idea.���


Justice Kennedy���s Arguments for Polygamy and Polyamory ��� ���Now tell me, on the basis of the reasons given, why not?���


What Jesus Said about Homosexuality ��� ���The Bible���s view of the Bible is that it is God-breathed. 2 Timothy 3:16 says, ���All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.��� Jesus is God, therefore all of the Bible is His Word, not just the parts in red in the four Gospels.���