Isabella Chow is a student at University of California, Berkley. She serves on the Associated Students University of California, the university’s undergraduate student government. Recently, the student government voted on resolutions which condemned Trump Administration policies regarding Title IX and recognition of transgenderism. One consideration of the Trump Administration is not recognizing a person’s preferred gender if it is contrary to the sex with which they were born. Chow is a Christian and does not support the resolution. Instead of voting against the resolution, she decided to abstain. She later elaborated on her decision.
Last week, Saturday Night Live’s Pete Davidson told a joke about congressional candidate-elect Dan Crenshaw. Crenshaw is a decorated Navy SEAL who lost his right eye fighting in Afghanistan in the War on Terror.
Naturally, many were unhappy that Davidson made a joke about the appearance of a war hero.
This weekend, Crenshaw appeared on Saturday Night Live. And after giving a couple of comedic jabs back to Davidson (Crenshaw had some pretty good timing on his jokes), he forgave Davidson. (more…)
Eugene Peterson, pastor, professor, and writer passed away today at the age of 85 after battling dementia and heart failure.
Peterson authored 35 books in his lifetime. The most popular among them was The Message, which has sold over 20 million copies. The Message is a paraphrase translation which attempts to capture the idea of a Biblical verse and not necessarily the exact wording. This translation philosophy and book are what Peterson is best known for, but it was also perhaps his greatest source of controversy.
Peterson authored 35 more books, writings cherished by many for Peterson’s pastoral heart and Biblical wisdom.
He also had broad appeal, with his writings being enjoyed both by Evangelical Christians and mainline Protestants.
I believe God takes the things in our lives – family, background, education – and uses them as part of his calling. It might not be to become a pastor. But I don’t think God wastes anything.
-Eugene Peterson
Among condolences shared online, Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission Tweeted: “Grateful to God for a long obedience in the same direction. Thank you Eugene Peterson.”
Pastor and director of LifeWay research Trevin Wax shared a quote from Peterson: “Jesus said “Follow me” and ended up with a lot of losers. And these losers ended up, through no virtue or talent of their own, becoming saints. Jesus wasn’t after the best but the worst. – Eugene Peterson.”
Peterson’s family released a statement:
During the previous days, it was apparent that he was navigating the thin and sacred space between earth and heaven. We overheard him speaking to people we can only presume were welcoming him into paradise. There may have even been a time or two when he accessed his Pentecostal roots and spoke in tongues as well.
Among his final words were, “Let’s go.” And his joy: my, oh my; the man remained joyful right up to his blessed end, smiling frequently. In such moments it’s best for all mortal flesh to keep silence. But if you have to say something say this: “Holy, Holy, Holy.”
It feels fitting that his death came on a Monday, the day of the week he always honored as a Sabbath during his years as a pastor. After a lifetime of faithful service to the church—running the race with gusto—it is reassuring to know that Eugene has now entered into the fullness of the Kingdom of God and has been embraced by eternal Sabbath.
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Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.
The Turkish government has released American pastor Andrew Brunson after more than two years in custody.
Brunson was arrested in the aftermath of a failed coup on the Turkish government and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Brunson had nothing to do with the coup. At the time, he had been in the country for over 20 years serving as a pastor and was taken as a political prisoner.
There had been several times over the past year where Brunson’s release seemed possible, but the Turkish government and courts were resistant. In July, Brunson was allowed to go on house arrest.
Today, he was convicted of terrorism charges but allowed to be released based on time served. The 50 year old pastor had faced 35 years in prison.
Brunson’s release will allow him to leave Turkey and head back to the United States.
Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear what you think, and don’t forget to subscribe!
Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.
A trio of concerned academics has published seven intentionally absurd papers in leading scholarly journals as part of an investigation to expose extreme bias in fields that study race, gender, sexuality, and other politically-charged topics.
The trio say the papers, which used fabricated authors and credentials, highlight that these fields are being misled by politically-motivated research and biased methodologies.
–Media Release – James Lindsay, Peter Boghossian, and Helen Pluckrose
This is the summary from a group of researchers who set out to expose some of the pitfalls within humanities and liberal studies academic disciplines. They submitted a series of papers to various journals. There work was published in seven of them.
The scholars really are professors who do research. Their press material also identities them as all being liberal. Despite their political leanings, the researchers see issues in the manner in which academic studies are done within certain academic fields. From their “fact sheet:”
We prefer to call it “grievance studies” because many of these fields refer to themselves as “[something] studies” and because they operate primarily by focusing upon and inflaming the grievances of certain identity groups. We think it represents a significant and influential subset of the scholarship coming out of cultural studies within the humanities, sociology, anthropology, and other social sciences and that is
gaining increasing power over our universities, institutions, media, and culture.
The researchers argue that there needs to be reform in the methodologies used to do research within these disciplines. Because much of what comes out is biased. And some of the “academic” studies that get published need to be viewed critically (you might be thinking “well articles in good journals get peer reviewed.” Do they? Because the researchers were given opportunities to peer review articles based on their own bogus scholarship).
They say:
“That problem is that a political bias which intentionally blends activism into scholarship (sometimes described as “academic leftism”) has become dominant and entrenched in varying degrees within those fields it has successfully corrupted. Moreover, it aims to spread its assumptions and methods into other fields, including the hard sciences. This, in turn, delegitimizes this scholarship and casts serious doubt upon its conclusions and results. These results and methods are therefore in need of reconsideration.
And their articles were over the top crazy.
One of the papers talked of dog mating habits in dog parks being symbolic of societal toxic masculinity. Another published paper dealt with fat bodybuilding and the need for such competitions for overweight people. Afterwards the researchers argued that the fact that this paper was published indicated: “Journals will accept arguments which are ludicrous and positively dangerous to health if they support cultural constructivist arguments around body positivity and fatphobia.”
Another article was published in a leading feminist philosophy journal arguing that “social justice activists can make fun of others, but no one is allowed to make fun of social justice.”
The issue with this that the researchers found is that this is indicative of a current problem which is that it’s difficult to critique social justice scholarship. They ironically entitled the bogus and satirical paper “When the joke Is on you.”
I do think that it exposes the subjectivity and lack of academic rigor that can happen in these disciplines. And this is harmful to any meaningful conversation. As I read their summaries and consider some of the ridiculous ideas I’ve seen written up in recent years that are based off of a study someone did, it makes me question if these disciplines are just spreading a political philosophy as if opinions are grounded in reality.
Another problem is that these classes are being taught by professors who are peddling this anti-intellectual nonsense and people are going into huge debt to subsidize them.
I’m sure that it’s only a matter of time until these writers are subject of scorn and articles in these same types of journals about their hierarchical dominance making a mockery of these legitimate academic fields. I think the people who are the targets of this brilliant critique will do more to prove their point than to work for reform within their disciplines.
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