So how are we to respond to this? A marriage pledge is being promoted at First Things, in which the undersigned ministers promise to cease cooperating with the civil magistrate on all things marriage. They will cease being agents for the state in weddings, and this in protest of the radical redefinition of marriage that …
Betting With Real Money
I want to answer two very basic questions. Let’s all wish me luck. First I want to define marriage — what is marriage anyhow? — and I want to explain why the answer to this first question is any business of the civil magistrate. The two matters are wound tightly together, as we shall see. …
Remanded to Sensitivity Camps
When two armies happen to meet, the battle is not necessarily over the terrain they are fighting on. Sometimes it is that, of course, but there are also occasions when the place where they are fighting and the place for which they are fighting are two entirely different places. The current battle is at the …
Repent, Repeal, Restore
Lust seeks to obtain from a finite thing what only the infinite can provide. This is why, as the inevitable law of diminishing returns sets in, it becomes necessary to wring the rag of despair — which used to be kind of wet — ever tighter, seeking to get just one more drop of that …
Widgets and Weddings
One of the reasons why libertarianism is starting to commend itself to a certain kind of Christian — in ways that it never does in all those manifold areas where libertarianism is correct, e.g. regarding the manufacture, sale, and distribution of all widgets — is that it provides a convenient way of collapsing in the …
America in C Major
I do understand there has been some debate over whether America was once a Christian nation. But whether it was or no — and I believe it was — there should be no debate among Christians over whether it was a normal one. Defenders and revolutionaries alike insist that those norms be defended, or smashed, …
Houston, We Have a Problem
So then, the city of Houston, a true renegade in Texas politics, has started acting like a city in California, the kind of city in CA that has Buddhist wind chimes hanging from the front of city hall. Of course, to say the “front” of city hall is privileging the front over the back, and …
Jitney Messiahs
As the same-sex mirage juggernaut continues to roll through our pathetic little festival, crushing both devotees and opponents alike, a number of conservative Christians have begun to prepare themselves for life in a post-Christian America. Not only so, but they have been encouraging others to do the same. But this is radically unhelpful and unbecoming …
Keeping Track of the Options
To Join the Orgy Porgy
A couple of stories came to my attention today. One was the decision of California to require a verbal yes at every stage of sexual activity on their college campuses. And if that doesn’t work, they will toughen the law, requiring a “yes, oh yes!” at every stage of the proceedings. Certain tropes are like …