Robert P. George: A citizen hero

11 December 200811 December 2008 TBLeave a comment

Robert P. George was honored for his service to the nation serving on the President Council on Bioethics — Robert P. George was honored for his service to the nation serving on the President' Council on Bioethics

Robert P. George, who has served our nation on the President’s Council on Bioethics, was honored this week with the Presidential Citizens Medal for “exemplary deeds of service for the nation. It is one of the highest honors the President can confer upon a civilian, second only to the Presidential Medal of Freedom.”

The press release at the White House’s Web site said this about George:

With wisdom and integrity, Dr. Robby George has brought forceful analytic clarity to the study of America’s ideals and institutions. He has helped strengthen our Nation’s system of ordered liberty by exploring enduring questions of American constitutional law and Western political theory. The United States honors Robby George for his many contributions to our civic life.

Why should we care? We should because it was George who was among the scholars, reseachers, scientists and theologians who advised the president when he made his landmark decision to limit embryonic stem cell research to existing lines in 2001. George, who lectures on constitutional interpretation, civil liberties and philosophy of law at Princeton University, is a solid conservative who is pro-life and pro-family. In other words, he is the polar opposite of his Princeton colleague Peter Singer.

In a 2003 article in the Catholic Education Resource Center, it describes how George puts his own beliefs — and his mind — in gear wherever he operates.

George operates at high velocity, moving easily within the worlds of academia, politics, and religion. He serves on President George W. Bush’s Council on Bioethics, where, says council chairman Leon Kass, George brings “enormous integrity and decency. He is an absolutely lucid and careful thinker, deeply committed to the dignity of the human person from its earliest beginnings.” Like Socrates, Kass notes, George meets his interlocutors “on their own grounds but show[s] them that their arguments take them to places they don’t want to go.”

The idea that is repeatedly bandied about is that there is a disconnect between being a rational, thinking person and a person of deep faith. In answer to that, we can merely point to people like Robert George and how he lives his faith.

Related:

See President Bush’s address to the nation on Aug. 9, 2001, concerning stem cell research

The president-elect: Open for (his kind) of questions

10 December 2008 TBLeave a comment

President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team is asking you, the American public, what’s on your mind and to ask Mr. Obama about it. That’s all good, except when a good question gets marked as “inappropriate” and is withdrawn. What qualifies as inappropriate? When you ask, like Justin Taylor did,

“Would you consider rescinding your promise to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, given your desire to reduce abortions and to seek common ground, and in light of the fact that it would invalidate every measure and law intended to reduce abortions?”

Men: Beware of the doghouse

9 December 20089 December 2008 TB2 Comments

I have been there, thanks to an ill-advised gift of a toaster oven! Don’t let this happen to you, men!

HT: Tim Brister

When a believer commits suicide

9 December 20089 December 2008 TB4 Comments

It is a tragic thing when someone commits suicide. A life ended prematurely leaves questions, raises doubts, shakes our beliefs. Suicide touches the lives of many, either through a family relationship or through acquaintance. It is so shocking that one cannot ignore it, yet it is something, because it is so disturbing, that is not spoken about widely.

A valuable resource to help that discussion comes from Desiring God and John Piper, who have published services that Pastor Piper has led for those who have committed suicide. For the families who have graciously shared what must have been one of the most painful moments in their lives, we can be grateful in that these powerful messages can give insight, comfort and guidance to those who have or who are struggling with similar circumstances.

From one of those services, the funeral message for Luke Kenneth Anderson, Piper says this about suicide committed by someone who is a believer in Jesus Christ:

[L]et me put a biblical stake in the ground and then fasten to it a banner of hope.

The stake is this: True Christians can commit suicide. Or to put it another way: There is nothing unique or peculiar about the final act of life that makes it determinative in validating or nullifying our salvation. Or let me say it another way: The final season of faith with all its battles and failures is not the only season of faith that will bear witness in the Last Day that we were born again.

Piper, in this message and others, explains with expositional precision why he believes this way. These are questions we don’t ask ourselves or perhaps don’t allow ourselves to ask. But nonetheless they are important because, like my daughter experienced this past week, there will be times when you are confronted with a tragic suicide by someone you knew and questions will come.

The messages are all available online to read or even listen to the audio.

Funeral Meditation for a Christian Who Commits Suicide

Funeral Meditation for a Christian Who Commits Suicide (1988)

Also, this may also be helpful:

Can Christians be depressed?

What a 9-year-old man can tell you: How to talk to girls

9 December 2008 TB2 Comments

HT: Joshua Harris

What the Bereans and Universalists have to do with The Shack: A Resurgence Review

7 December 20087 December 2008 TBLeave a comment

I know that while I’ve already linked to the comprehensive review by Tim Challies of Paul Young’s “The Shack,” I thought this review by Scott Lindsey at The Resurgence was well worth the look and your time.

Lindsey writes that for all that he loves about the book, “I wish The Shack had an Acts 17:11 tone: “Now the Bereans were of more noble character than
the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the
Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.”
With the book’s repeated message that the Bible has been twisted by churches and pastors and
seminaries (and yes, sometimes it has), I wonder whether readers will walk away from The
Shack with a greater love for Scripture and more of a desire to study it, and more of a desire to
get involved in their churches and submit to their leaders, as Hebrews 13 commands us to. Sadly,
I’m afraid some readers will feel justified in further distancing themselves from both the
Scriptures and the church. And some may read meanings into Scripture that the biblical text itself
contradicts.”

Lindsey says in his review that the portrayal of God and the the Trinity, while entertaining, is flawed and even dangerous.

One reviewer said “Systematic theology was never this good.” This concerns me. While to some
readers God will seem bigger, in certain respects God seemed more amusing and friendly, but
also somewhat smaller, more manageable, less threatening–someone not to be feared. If the
picture of God in The Shack is radically different from the impression people get from just
reading the Bible, this raises an obvious question.

It’s just a novel, just fiction, right? Yes, but when it comes with the hearty endorsement of someone like a Eugene Peterson and comes in a more accessible form than nonfiction books that take a more careful, scholarly approach to exploring the Trinity like Communion With The Triune God by John Owen or The Pleasures of God by John Piper, than it can be dangerous. People who are not well-grounded in the Word will accept something like this as truth.

And if that were not enough of a warning, there is a strong endorsement of universalism that comes through in the novel. This is what Lindsey says in his review:

When I read it without any preconceived notions, I noticed things in The Shack that hint at universalism. E.g., in the passage where “Papa,” God the Father, says—speaking of Buddhists and Muslims—that he doesn’t desire to make them “Christian.” What the author means by Christian is obviously critical. Some could argue that “Christian” is a cultural designation, that all Americans are Christian, Saudis are Muslim, etc., and that Christian is not a helpful term.

There is some truth to that, but Acts 11 says the disciples were first called Christians at Antioch. That wasn’t cultural; it referred to true followers of Christ. So since this is in the Word of God, I don’t think it’s wise to portray God as disregarding the term Christian to the point that he would say he doesn’t want to make people Christian.

Lindsey does a thorough job of examining the book in his review. You would do well to read it and decide for yourself.

Perspective

5 December 2008 TBLeave a comment

My younger brother, who posts at Jedi Blog when he’s not doing his job as a major in the U.S. Army, has written a moving piece about something we can all relate to in some sense. Imagine being in a place that is far from the ones you love, where a good many people hate your guts, where the conditions are hard and you work long hours. Now imagine that the conditions you’ve been adapting to just got worse. Would you complain? Would you feel sorry for yourself? It would be so easy, and my brother makes it clear in his writing that the was definitely the mood. That is, until something changed.

Read here to find out what and then ask yourself if you’ve maybe been feeling sorry for yourself lately.

Who’s in charge here? When foreknowledge is dangerous

4 December 2008 TBLeave a comment

Collin Hansen, writing in the Web edition of Christianity Today, explores recent new medical advances that allow for non-invasive testing of pregnant women to determine whether the babies they’re carrying have cystic fibrosis, b-thalassemia, or sickle cell anemia — ailments all caused by a single mutated gene. Like new, expanded testing for Down syndrome, it ominously points to not treatment or education for the parents but an earlier opportunity to abort the child.

As we press forward for further knowledge, it becomes clear that we are less capable of handling that knowledge that we are so eager to have. Hansen puts it this way:

At the root of the quest for foreknowledge is control. Testing children for genetic abnormalities gives concerned parents a measure of control over the situation. But abortion can only negate the pregnancy; it cannot make their children healthy. We have much less control than we want or think we have. And that is the good news, because the God who knows all that was, all that is, and all that will be holds out the promise that by faith we can have peace with all that he brings to pass.