Moore to the Point
By Russell D. Moore. Russell D. Moore serves as the teaching pastor at Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky. In addition, Dr. Moore is the Dean of the School of Theology and Senior Vice President for Academic Administration at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Find sermons and other resources to help Christians engage the culture from a biblical worldview at www.russellmoore.com.

Imagine There’s No Justice

— Sunday, April 30th, 2006 —

Former attorney general Ramsey Clark thinks Saddam Hussein is being treated unfairly in his trial for war crimes. It isn’t all that newsworthy that President Lyndon Johnson’s top lawyer thinks the Iraqi tribunal is an illegal entity that violates due process. What is newsworthy is what Clark thinks about any punishment of any criminal. He doesn’t think it just should happen, at all.

Associated Press reporter Deborah Hastings sums up Clark’s judicial philosophy in this way:

Is Saddam’s prosecuting body, the Iraqi Special Tribunal, a legal entity? No, in his view. Is Saddam getting a fair trial? A resounding no. Is there any evidence that Milosevic, whose funeral he attended, actually ordered mass rapes and killings in the former Yugoslavia? Absolutely not, he says. But there is no mention of the humanity lost under the rule of his clients, or of the evils of genocide and murder. Or of what should be done with people who commit them. Instead, he lives in a reality of his own making, where the rules of rhetoric and logic apply to circumstances of his choosing. There is no evil. There is no death penalty. There are no prisons.

John Kenneth Galbraith, RIP

— Sunday, April 30th, 2006 —

John Kenneth Galbraith, the father of contemporary liberal economics, died yesterday in Cambridge, Massachusetts at the age of 97.

As the New York Times obituary puts it this morning: “From the 1930’s to the 1990’s, Mr. Galbraith helped define the terms of the national political debate, influencing the direction of the Democratic Party and the thinking of its leaders.” He did so by serving as an adviser to Adlai Stevenson, John Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson and by shaping the larger economic debate through writings such as his highly influential The Affluent Society (1958).

The Church’s Gender Gap

— Thursday, April 27th, 2006 —

Biola Univerity’s Biola Connections magazine features an article on the “feminization of the church.” The article cites, among others, Touchstone senior editor Leon Podles as representing a growing concern that the contemporary church alienates men. The article examines the tendency toward worship as “love song,” the therapeutic turn in preaching, and the preponderance of “girly men pastors” (their words, not mine).

Also of interest is an address by Randy Stinson on the same subject, here on the campus of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Stinson is executive director of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) and assistant professor of gender and family studies at Southern Seminary.

The Church and the Pawnshop

— Thursday, April 27th, 2006 —

Last night while guest hosting the “Albert Mohler Program” on the radio, I had an interesting and convicting question from a woman in, I believe, New York, who wondered about the morality of Christian businessmen owning pawnshops, check-cashing and title-loan businesses and the like. Apparently, someone in her congregation owns one of these businesses, and this woman wondered whether the issue was one of church discipline or even of moral inquiry at all. Her question is complicated, precisely because I know there are pawnshop owners who run fair businesses that glorify Christ and help the communities in which they live.

My first inclination was to encourage this woman not to judge this businessman at all. After all, we all know Christians in businesses everyone assumes are shady, simply on the basis of caricature and personal anecdote. I remember how frustrated I was as a child to see the stereotypical “car salesman” on television, knowing that my father, an honest man, managed a car dealership. I’m sure there are Christian pawnshop owners in the same situation.

On the other hand, the woman seemed to be less anxious to judge a brother, than to sort out her own sense of moral ambiguity. Is her church standing by while the poor are oppressed, and allowing a brother to corrupt his own soul? Or, is this a morally neutral issue?

Putting the Hip Back in Fellowship

— Monday, April 24th, 2006 —

The Christian publishing giant makers of the Revolve teen fashion “biblezine” have a brand new imprint to reach a new “consumer group.”

J. Ligon Duncan on the Reformation 21 weblog points out a new imprint released by evangelical publisher Thomas Nelson. This “hot new imprint,” as it is adverstised, is Naked Ink, and is debuting its first book, The Hot Mom’s Handbook. The new imprint is devoted to inspiring “a generation of readers who who seek imaginative, honest, and relevant information through entertainment and pop-culture driven products.”

Baptism, the Church, and the Glory of Christ

— Sunday, April 23rd, 2006 —

It Is Better to Bury Than to Burn

— Friday, April 21st, 2006 —

I am surprised by how often Christians are stunned to hear me say that cremation is not a Christian act. Previous generations of Christians would have understood exactly, but today an anti-cremation stance seems at best Luddite and at worst carnal. People will ask, “Can’t God raise a cremated Christian just as he can raise a decomposed buried Christian?”

Are You a Friend of Katie’s?

— Monday, April 10th, 2006 —

Jared Bridges has a perceptive piece today on morning show personality Katie Couric’s televised goodbye to her Today Show audience as she moves on to anchor the CBS Evening News. Bridges writes:

“Speaking into the camera, Couric said, ‘it may sound kind of corny, but I really feel as if we’ve become friends through the years.’ Kinda corny? Kinda.”

Bridges acknowledges that perky Couric is an easy target, but he notes this to ask a deeper question: what has happened when “friends” is such a trivial word that a news personality can speak of people she’s never seen, and never will, in this way?

Martin Sheen Is Not Running for President

— Monday, April 10th, 2006 —

Martin Sheen is not running for President. Or for United States Senate. Or for governor. And it’s not because he wants to spend more time with his family.

In many ways, Sheen is a natural choice for public office. Every few months a new boomlet emerges for a pop culture celebrity to run for political office. Ben Affleck is talked about for United States Senate from Massachusetts. Comedian Al Franken is said to be exploring a Senate bid from Minnesota. Jerry Springer has been mentioned as a candidate in Ohio. Arnold Schwarzenegger…oh, wait, that one actually happened.

The reality is, we’re living in an era when the American public is obsessed with celebrity. Political parties want to win (which is nothing new) so they at times seek to recruit candidates on the basis of celebrity itself. Martin Sheen is a thoughtful man; he might be more a Ronald Reagan of the left than a Sonny Bono.

But he’s running for nothing.

Maybe Three Trimesters Is Not Enough?

— Tuesday, April 4th, 2006 —

Chicago Theological Seminary president Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, a United Church of Christ clergyperson, recently told Planned Parenthood’s Clergy Advisory Board that abortion restrictions indicate that America has “lost its soul.”

Rev. Thistlethwaite suggests the abortion issue is inherently theological, coming down to one’s view of “ensoulment,” when the soul is imparted to the human body. Pro-life Christians see this “ensoulment” at conception; she sees it at birth. Therefore, according to Thistlethwaite, the state should guarantee abortion rights so as not to interfere in such a theological matter.