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Some of our deepest challenges as believers involve dealing with the sins of others, particularly those whom we love. Whether it is a relative struggling with addiction, a best friend unfaithful to his spouse, or a loved one embracing sexual perversion we often feel caught between our genuine love for the sinner and our genuine revulsion at the sin. The bromide “Hate the sin, love the sinner,” while at least infused with a touch of wisdom, doesn’t typically answer all the hard questions. When confronted with tough moral calls it’s often wise to slow down and define our terms. First,...

The day after the same-sex marriage referendum revealed an Ireland overwhelmingly in favor of legalized sodomy, the Primate of Ireland, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin, said to the press: "I appreciate how gay and lesbian men and women feel on this day. That they feel this is something that is enriching the way they live. I think it is a social revolution." His words echoed that of Leo Varadkar, Ireland's first openly gay Health Minister, who said the referendum was "almost like a social revolution." Shortly before the referendum, Martin had said he wouldn't tell Catholics how to vote. Although...

Ireland, for so long the most overtly Catholic state in Western Europe, has voted for gay marriage by a stupendous margin – 62 per cent. Never before has a country legalised the practice by popular vote. It would be naive to ask: how could this happen? Hatred of the Church is one of the central features of modern Ireland, thanks not only to the paedophile scandals but also to the joyless quasi-Jansenist character of the Irish Church, which was handed complete control of education in the Free State after partition in 1922. (Many of its priests were outstandingly holy and...

Why do so many young adults paint absurd caricatures of Christians who request government protection of their religious freedoms, arguing their true goal is to ban gay men from sitting at the local lunch counter? Why do they spread falsehoods about legislation, insisting that bills like the one recently signed by Indiana Gov. Mike Pence will unleash a Republican-led Jim Crow revival aimed at the LGBT community? Why do so many people, Gen Xers and younger, invent a monster of anti-gay bigotry and keep screaming the monster is real despite a mountain of contrary facts standing before them? The answer...

Atheists and homosexual-rights activists in Ireland are threatening protest marches. A local government in the overwhelmingly Catholic country has fined a homosexual baker in the village of Inch (County Clare) for refusing to produce a wedding cake featuring, on its icing, the inscription, “A man shall . . . hold fast to his wife — Gen. 2:24.” The baker, Robert O’Riordan, says that he considers the inscription to be an implicit rebuke of his own domestic living arrangement and an imposition on his right as an atheist to refuse assent to “any material endorsement of religious ceremonies.” Mr. O’Riordan regularly...

When was the last time anyone heard a sermon that condemned the evils of fornication, or adultery, or cohabitation, or divorce, or bearing children outside wedlock (let alone homosexuality)? Controlling these sins is a core Christian value. At one time a preacher could be expected to devote extended attention to these sins. And he could be expected to condemn them unequivocally. Yet today, even as the social and economic fallout from precisely these practices becomes ever more glaring and serious, pastors and priests seem ever more determined to avoid discussing them.Of course, the dowdy old parson long ago became the...

From its inception Christianity was a marginalized not a culturally powerful or influential religion. With the death of the mainlines we’re witnessing the last gasp of the informal Constantinianism in America, the gathering of cultural elites in the narthex of tall-steeple PCUSA congregations. The informal coalition of cultural and political power brokers in and with the mainline is dead. The WWII generation was probably the last to care to identify with the mainline or to seek the approval of the mainline. Now that the culture has got what it wanted, capitulation, even the NYT will ignore it. There is no...

The senior pastor and elders of City Church, the largest evangelical church in San Francisco will no longer require members to abstain from homosexual practice, so long as the homosexual activity occurs in the context of marriage. According to a letter written by senior pastor Fred Harrell on behalf of the Board of Elders, “We will no longer discriminate based on sexual orientation and demand lifelong celibacy as a precondition for joining. For all members, regardless of sexual orientation, we will continue to expect chastity in singleness until marriage.” “Our pastoral practice of demanding life-long ‘celibacy,' by which we meant...

[Editor’s note: The Elder Board of City Church in San Francisco, formerly in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) and now in the Reformed Church in America (RCA), released a statement on changes of how it will minister to those who are considered a part of the LGBT community. This is a response to this statement; the full statement follows the response.] Dear friend, I’m so sorry. Thanks for forwarding this letter from City Church this morning. You’ve been a good friend and I want to speak to you plainly. This stuff breaks my heart. The letter makes it sound...

The Elder Board of San Francisco's largest evangelical church, City Church, has announced that the megachurch will end its practice of preventing LGBT people from becoming members if they are unwilling or unable to practice lifelong celibacy. "Our pastoral practice of demanding life-long 'celibacy,' by which we meant that for the rest of your life you would not engage your sexual orientation in any way, was causing obvious harm and has not led to human flourishing," Sr. Pastor Fred Harrell writes in a letter "on behalf of the Board and for the Gospel." The pastor cites social science research, saying...

n an interview with Panorama magazine, Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, the two men whose business partnership—and one-time romantic partnership—lies behind one of the world's great fashion powerhouses, have declared that “The only family is the traditional one.” “The family is not a fad,” Gabbana told the interviewer. “In it there is a supernatural sense of belonging.” Procreation “must be an act of love.” Children born through artificial insemination or egg donors are “children of chemistry, synthetic children. Uteruses for rent, semen chosen from a catalog,” Dolce said. “The only family is the traditional one. No chemical offsprings and rented...

Uh-oh. Watch the gaystapo come in and attempt to re-educate them. Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, founders of the eponymous fashion house, have come out strongly against gay marriage, the notion of gay families, and the use of surrogacy to procreate. The billionaire pair, who used to be romantically linked, gave an interview with the Italian magazine Panorama, in which they said, “The only family is the traditional one. No chemical offspring and rented uterus. Life has a natural flow; there are things that cannot be changed.” They also said, “Procreation must be an act of love.” “I call children...

If you haven’t been following Barronelle Stutzman’s case in Washington State, you need to be. She is the florist being sued by the state attorney general for refusing to participate in a gay wedding. The attorney general is trying to compel her to ignore her Christian faith and to participate in gay weddings. If she refuses, he is threatening the full coercive power of the state to force her to do it. She stands to lose everything—her home, her savings, her business, her livelihood—if she does not comply. I have an article today at CNN.com explaining the situation. The conclusion...

'You chose to attack my faith … to threaten my very means of eating' A Washington state florist facing “ruin” for her decision not to support same-sex “marriage” through her business has rejected out of hand an offer to settle a state claim of discrimination against her. As WND reported this week, Benton County Superior Court Judge Alex Ekstrom authorized the state and the homosexual plaintiffs to pursue the business and personal assets of Barronelle Stutzman, including her home, in payment of damages and attorneys’ fees. The Alliance Defending Freedom confirmed Ekstrom granted a summary judgment in the case against...

Rob Bell believes the Bible is irrelevant. The Bible says Rob Bell is irrelevant. Transcript: At some level, I’m happy when this happens, it’s not that unusual. We have someone who makes a splash in our little world, the evangelical world. And he typically makes that splash because he’s quite effective at gathering large numbers. But after a while we begin to doubt his loyalty to the core convictions of evangelicals. Well, it’s not unusual when this happens that about this same time, our hero with the wide reach determines to turn on we evangelicals and embrace the broader world....

DEARBORN, Mich. – A former contractor for Ford Motor Company has filed a religious discrimination complaint, alleging that he was fired for speaking against the company’s support of homosexuality. Thomas Banks has worked as a design and release engineer for Ford since 2011—that is until last August when he was fired on an accusation that he had violated the company’s “anti-harassment” policy for responding to an email employee newsletter from the company. The newsletter contained an article regarding the 20th anniversary of Ford’s Gay, Lesbian Or Bisexual Employees advocacy group (GLOBE). Banks replied with a comment to express disagreement.

In comments at his Monday in-air interview that were totally ignored by the mainstream media, Pope Francis lamented the Western practice of imposing a homosexual agenda on other nations through foreign aid, which he called a form of “ideological colonization” and compared to the Nazi propaganda machine. Asked by a reporter to explain the phrase “ideological colonization,” the pope gave an example from 1995 when, he says, a minister of education in a poor area was told she could have a loan for building schools so long as the schools used a book that taught “gender theory.” "She said yes,...

A prominent activist for homosexual rights in the military is awaiting trial for forcible sodomy and abusive sexual contact, the Washington Blade reports. Air Force Lt. Joshua Seefried was initially charged in April, a development that went largely unreported by the media. The charges came about after complaints from U.S. Marine Lt. Edgar Luna, who is also homosexual. On a weekend in May of 2012, Seefried had gathered with a group of homosexual military officers in New York City. Luna was also present, and the group was celebrating the repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, which Seefried’s...

Today’s politics has no place for legitimate authority based on higher standards, so power must base itself on Choice, otherwise known as the Triumph of the WillVery recently the view that homosexuality is entirely normal has become not only widespread but compulsory in secular public discussion. Leaders of thought tell us the change has been part of a general deepening of moral insight and improvement in the art of living. The older outlook oppressed millions out of fear, bigotry, and ignorance. We have learned better now, except for a few haters and dimbulbs who need to be re-educated or else...

After a federal judge in Idaho recently ruled that the state’s ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional, ordained ministers Donald and Evelyn Knapp who own the Hitching Post wedding chapel in the city of Coeur d‘Alene, were asked by a gay couple to perform their wedding ceremony. According to Fox News , the ministers declined to perform the wedding due to their opposition to same-sex marriage. However, because the Hitching Post wedding chapel is registered as a for-profit business rather than a church or place of worship (although the wedding chapel is registered with the state as a “religious corporation”...