07/10/2015 — We’re starting to see some of the fallout from last month’s egregious Supreme Court decision changing the definition of marriage in the United States to include the union of same-sex couples. And it’s not pretty.

A family bakery in Oregon has been fined $135,000 and slapped with a gag order (what First Amendment?) because it declined to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple that the family knew, liked, and considered valuable customers. I agree with David French who noted in National Review Online that two people who claim to suffer mental anguish because they had to use their second choice of a bakery for a wedding cake need counseling rather than damages.

In our home state of Ohio, a municipal court judge is facing calls for his impeachment because he declined to officiate a same-sex wedding. Never mind that another judge officiated their wedding – the “offending” judge must pay for his slight to the couple with his job, in the minds of some.

What you’re seeing in both of the above situations and countless others is an effort by people of faith to opt out of a situation they can’t support, and the culture imposing their views of morality on them. It’s almost exactly what the secular left has long (falsely) accused values voters of doing for many years. It’s natural for fair-minded Christian believers, and values voters of all faiths, to get angry over this turn of events.

It’s tempting to fight back. I’m not suggesting we don’t respond with efforts to preserve the rights of religious freedom the Constitution grants to us. But how we fight makes a great deal of difference to the God we claim to know and serve. If we’re His, let’s act like it. Read More

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07/02/2015 — Even many people who believe same-sex marriage is a good idea – and I’m not among them – scratch their head over the U.S. Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges ruling. You don’t have to be a legal scholar to realize the majority is guilty of a classic example of judicial activism, devoid of sound reasoning. The members of the court’s majority – the liberal wing of Steven Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, joined by moderate Anthony Kennedy – didn’t have a valid constitutional argument to validate same-sex marriage, so they simply made one up. It’s a power play, pure and simple, and you have every right to be angry about that.

Every instance of judicial activism reaps adverse consequences that can’t be adequately estimated at the time it’s committed. The Roe v. Wade decision, which invented a right to abortion in 1973 and made it legal throughout of pregnancy, has resulted in an estimated 50 million lives lost in the past 42 years. So what happens when five judges, accountable to nobody, invent a right to same-sex marriage that can’t be found in the Constitution? There’s no way to know today what ill effects we’ll experience as a result of Obergefell v. Hodges. We can only surmise that in 40 years the state of the family and the nation will be vastly different than it is today, and not for the better.

So what are we, meaning the Church, to do in the face of such a grievous decision? I think the answer lies in the words grace and truth. We must balance both while overemphasizing neither in the days and weeks ahead. Our challenge is to find a way to champion orthodox Christian belief without ruining our witness. Read More

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06/25/2015 — It’s hard not to have been horrified by Dylann Roof’s terror attack last week in Charleston – an assault against both the African-American and Christian communities of that great city. It’s also hard not to be repulsed by the politicians of every ideological flavor who have rushed to take advantage of the situation.

I’m sure there will be ample opportunity to discuss the proper response to gun violence, the appropriateness of the death penalty and the presence of the Confederate flag in what used to be the Confederacy. There always is. I’m just not sure that doing so before the victims of the terror attack are buried is the smartest approach. A quote from Aesop, the philosopher of ancient Greece, comes to mind here: “When all is said and done, more is said than done.”

For me the indelible image and sounds of Charleston came as Roof was arraigned. A parade of family members spoke with him via a video hookup, urging him to seek God and forgiving him for taking their loved ones from them. Their actions were widely praised as remarkable – and that is to the Church’s shame, because that type of forgiveness should be commonplace for men and women of faith. Read More

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06/05/2015 — My public involvement in moral issues has varied considerably over the years. It has never been more important to me than proclaiming the truth of the Gospel and the power of the Holy Ghost, but there have been times when I have been relatively prominent in the public square and times when I have seen less need to be there.

You can be sure, however, that I will speak out when issues that impact the fundamental role of the Church are at stake. I cherish the First Amendment freedoms we all enjoy as Americans, and will do whatever I can to defend and uphold them.

That is, in part, because I exercise those freedoms myself. But like the Founding Fathers, I am convinced our life as a nation requires the free expression of ideas, without government interference. Read More

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05/22/2015 — This Sunday, May 24, most of the Church celebrates Pentecost, the day when a small group of believers in Jerusalem became the first to receive the Holy Spirit. The account in Acts 2 is widely considered the founding event of the early Church.

To observe such a monumental event is the right thing for us to do. Without the Holy Ghost, the life of Jesus becomes just an historical event. But the arrival of the Spirit, to fill and empower believers on that day and every day since, is a fulfillment of prophecy that gives believers confidence that Jesus will return. The Holy Ghost provides “strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,” in the words of the classic hymn.

But He also does much more than that, and that’s the reason Pentecost should be celebrated every day by all believers. Read More

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