Take Up and Read

In the spring Douglas Wilson went to Bloomington, IN and gave lectures on God's Design for Sexuality. You can get the lectures and the trailers here. The lectures are a fascinating glimpse into the modern world and how we can expect our proclamation of biblical sexuality to be greeted in the coming years.  I highly commend them, especially since we live in a university town.

Denny Burk also has some wonderful thoughts on Pastor Wilson's lectures. I think his comments bring to the forefront how we should respond to gay activists and what the future holds for us.

Here is an interesting op-ed from the New York Times. It gives some good insight into how the expectations of congregations have changed over the years and how that has affected the pastors who serve those congregations. I disagree, by the way, with his statement, " that the church exists, as it always has, to save souls by elevating people’s values and desires."  People are not saved by "elevated desires." Still the article is worth the read. 


The Bayly Brothers wrote an insightful post last week on what the Jerry Sandusky verdict means. Jerry Sandusky was a long time coach on the Penn State football team. Last week he was convicted on 45 counts of sexual abuse of boys. The paragraph that begins, "A nation that refuses to..." is gold. They point out clearly that Sandusky is the product of our society. Why did we convict him when we made him? He represents in flesh and blood what our society thinks of children. The post is sobering. 


George Grant mentions a project started by Margaret Sanger on June 27th, 1939, that aimed to exterminate blacks by using African Americans ministers to promote birth control.  How do these facts not make it into our history books? 


Finally, here is a longer article on why evangelicals cannot write. The author lists three things that Flannery O'Conner got from the Roman Catholic Church that helped her write fiction. He meditates on how evangelicals can learn from her about how to write good fiction.