Tag Archives: christian

Navy SEALs Marcus Luttrell, Bill Wagasy Talk Faith, Service

Former US Navy SEALs Marcus Luttrell — best known for the book and movie Lone Survivor — and Bill Wagasy recently spoke to a group of Texas high school students on leadership, character, and faith in God.

“Billy and I are kind of cut from the same cloth, if you will,” Luttrell said, mentioning the students should pay attention to Wagasy’s advice. “We started up together, came up together, deployed into combat together…”

Between Wagasy’s talks on honor, developing character, brotherhood, fearing God and developing intellect, the students Read more

Commentators Cite Military Chaplains after SCOTUS Prayer Case

John Ragosta, Paul Finkelman and Steven K. Green, “legal scholars and historians who participated as amicus” in the recent Greece prayer case at the Supreme Court, struggled to understand what the Supreme Court intended to mean by its ruling:

The court fails, though, to explain what this means, an issue that the dissent takes up. Should prayers occur before the public is invited into the room? Should prayers be directed only at the board? Should the members themselves take turns invoking prayers, making it clear that they are personal and not “official” prayers?

These scholars missed the obvious issue that Read more

Can You be Both Gay and Christian?

Update: Dr. Mohler’s column was actually part of a Southern Baptist Theological Seminary e-book published the same day as, and as a response to, Vines’ book.  The 100-page SBTS e-book is available for free here (PDF).

The other contributors are: James M. Hamilton Jr., professor of biblical theology; Denny Burk, professor of biblical studies; Owen Strachan, assistant professor of Christian theology and church history; and Heath Lambert, assistant professor of biblical counseling.

Mohler’s chapter provides an overview critique of Vines’ argument, while Hamilton primarily addresses Old Testament claims, Burk deals with New Testament claims, Strachan looks at the church history assertions and Lambert answers the question whether there is such a thing as a “gay Christian.”

As human sexuality has become a more commonplace topic in the recent few years, a substantial part of the conversation has covered the nexus between Christianity and homosexuality.

At its root, Can one be a homosexual and a Christian?

Jars of Clay lead singer Dan Haseltine caused a firestorm when he tweeted statements that were interpreted as either ambivalent about or supportive of homosexual marriage. The topic gained more steam with the recent publication of a book by self-described homosexual Christian Matthew Vines.

Dr. Al Mohler of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary responded, noting foremost that there are many who describe themselves as Christians who are yearning for a way to rationalize their faith and an endorsement of homosexuality:  Read more

Moore, Mohler on Prayer and the Constitution

Dr. Al Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Dr. Russell Moore, president of the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, both recently wrote fascinating pieces on the recent Supreme Court decision permitting “sectarian” prayer before legislative bodies. While he makes many good points, Mohler astutely highlights, and Moore focused entirely upon, one point that affects even the US military: calls from some that public prayers — for example, those in front of a military formation — must be “generic.”

The second very important argument made by Justice Kennedy is even more perceptive and, in the long run, more important. He asserted that the government has no competence under the Constitution to evaluate prayers in terms of content. Specifically, he said that the Establishment Clause actually would prevent the government from determining the content of any prayer — especially in terms of some supposed standard of nonsectarianism.

Put bluntly, government has no right to declare that the only God welcome in public is a “generic God.” That is a profoundly important constitutional argument…

The US government can no more create Read more

Boykin: Pray For Mikey Weinstein

In an interesting commentary during the Family Research Council’s Washington Watch, retired LtGen Jerry Boykin and Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention spoke on recent issues of religious freedom in the military. Boykin reminded Christians there’s a correct response to Michael “Mikey” Weinstein, one of the loudest (and most vitriolic) critics of Christianity: Read more

Army Chaplain: Government Trying to Silence Military Christians

Retired US Army Chaplain (Col) Ronald W. Benzing, now an endorser for the Associated Gospel Churches, addressed a local men’s group in North Carolina, describing how the US military has been trying to “silence” Christians. He cited what he described as a fairly recent incident:

“Two months ago we had an Army chaplain in Alaska who was told by an Air Force chaplain who was a senior chaplain, ‘You can’t preach that sermon Read more

DoD Rebuffs Mikey Weinstein Criticism on National Day of Prayer

As he has occasionally done before, Michael “Mikey” Weinstein has complained about the upcoming National Day of Prayer to be held at the Capitol, equating the National Day of Prayer Task Force, which is helping to organize the event, with al Qaeda.  Weinstein “respectfully demands” not only that any DoD participation be prohibited, but that the DoD

aggressively investigate and appropriately punish any of the individuals and/or organizations that would have allowed for uniformed personnel to participate in this sectarian spectacle

The Defense Department appears non-plussed:

Army officials on Friday said there were no plans to back out of the event. The Army still intends to send Read more

Air Force Reverses, Will Review Religious Freedom Policy (Video)

View the video from approximately 4:10.

How’d you like to be the cadet who posted Galatians 2:20?  You are personally responsible for influencing religious liberty policy in the US Air Force.  Nicely done.

A few weeks ago the US Air Force Academy made the news when a Bible verse was stripped from a USAFA cadet’s dry erase board. The incident led Congressmen to question the Air Force leadership about the incident when they appeared for a budget meeting. Secretary James and Air Force Chief of Staff General Mark Welsh were initially defensive, citing AFI 1-1 as the justification for the command action against the cadet, though they did agree to provide a written explanation for the action. General Welsh famously expressed his “single biggest frustration” over what he called the untrue “perception [of] religious persecution” in the Air Force.

In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee last week, Secretary James seemed to have tweaked the Air Force reaction.

In response Read more

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