An excellent summary of a more disturbing trend over at www.christianitytoday.com

It has not been that long ago since the online editor was praising her nightly ritual of watching sitcoms and going to bed with Jay and Dave in her editorial section at the start of the weekly Christianity Today updates. I wrote a nice email asking if she was serious or just being hyperbolous for effect. I am still waiting on a reply.

Click below and see the excellent synopsis.

Sex and the CT « The Shepherd’s Scrapbook

Sex and the CT

Here’s an update on the Sex and the City and Christianity Today movie review ordeal…

Sex and the City was an HBO television series (1998-2004) that won 7 Emmy Awards.

The SATC movie (rated R) was released on May 30 with more of the same, what the Chicago Tribune labels “outré fashion, casual sex and dubious cocktails” and “plenty of eye candy for the ladies (think naked men and haute couture).” Not your typical Christian movie.

However, Christianity Today’s Camerin Courtney wrote a fairly explicit and positive review, giving SATC 3 stars (CT gave Prince Caspian 2.5 stars).

People criticized CT for positively reviewing a “pornographic movie.”

Carolyn McCulley (a CT contributor herself) writes an exceptional response to the CT review: “the pot with the proverbial frog has boiled over. The changes that have come about with the introduction of ’sex positive’ or ‘porn positive’ third-wave feminism, beginning in the early 1990s, have now so thoroughly permeated our culture that even evangelicals fail to see the trend or the danger.”

CT responded to the swarm of criticism by defending the original review.

Then yesterday Ted Slater of Boundless called CT to *repent* over the review (and the defense of the review) in an article simply titled “Christianity Today Relishes Sexual Perversion.”

Baptist Press - Prof withdraws from ethics society for its ‘honoring sin’
Prof withdraws from ethics society for its ‘honoring sin’

Posted on Jun 18, 2008 | by Lauren Crane

WAKE FOREST, N.C. (BP)–Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary ethics professor Daniel Heimbach has withdrawn his membership from the Society of Christian Ethics after the group took a stand in what he calls “honoring sin over Scripture” regarding homosexuality.

Heimbach said new guidelines soon to be adopted by the society will make it impossible for any member to remain in good standing who does not affirm homosexuality. After 24 years of membership in the Society of Christian Ethics, Heimbach said the group has now gone so far in its view and defense of homosexuality as to disqualify members who defend and apply biblical morality.

The membership of the group now totals more than 1,000 people from the United States, Canada and Europe. According to its website, the group aims to “promote scholarly work in Christian ethics and in the relation of Christian ethics to other traditions of ethics … and to provide a community of discourse and debate for those engaged professionally within these general fields.”

While Heimbach said he has remained a member of the group to be a “beacon in the darkening circumstances,” the time has come for him to withdraw his membership.

“The reason I am withdrawing now, and not before, is that only now is the SCE adopting ’standards of professional conduct’ that go so far as to disqualify membership based on defending and applying biblical morality,” Heimbach said, in reference to the amendments made to the Standards of Professional Conduct. They will be voted on in January 2009.

“It is ironic that, having assiduously avoided favoring any one moral understanding over others for nearly 50 years, the SCE should now see no problem with enforcing one view over others by conditioning membership on presuming to accept the moral legitimacy (requiring all to actually ‘respect’ and ‘honor’) of self-justified character and behavior God declares to be categorically wicked,” Heimbach said.
Technorati Tags: homosexuality sbc ethics

An Evangelical Response to “An Evangelical Manifesto”

An Evangelical Response to “An Evangelical Manifesto”

Posted: Monday, May 12, 2008 at 6:35 am ET

Who are the Evangelicals? The issue of Evangelical identity and definition has been central to the Evangelical project from its very beginning in America. Given the nature of the movement, definition is elusive and constantly contested.

The release of “An Evangelical Manifesto” on May 7 caught the attention of the national media, and thus it represents yet another opportunity for evangelical definition. The document, released May 7, also represents a challenge, for its framers hope to redefine the movement in the context of our unsettled times.

The Manifesto, released at a press conference at the National Press Club, represents an agenda. The press release offered by the organizers makes that clear:

I am at the point where I believe that Hitchens doesn’t care for religion at all. What about you?

Hatred, tribalism, and ignorance are most commonly incubated in church. - By Christopher Hitchens - Slate Magazine

Blind FaithThe statements of clergymen like Jeremiah Wright aren’t controversial and incendiary; they’re wicked and stupid.

By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, March 24, 2008, at 12:09 PM ET

It’s been more than a month since I began warning Sen. Barack Obama that he would become answerable for his revolting choice of a family priest. But never mind that; the astonishing thing is that it’s at least 11 months since he himself has known precisely the same thing. “If Barack gets past the primary,” said the Rev. Jeremiah Wright to the New York Times in April of last year, “he might have to publicly distance himself from me. I said it to Barack personally, and he said yeah, that might have to happen.” Pause just for a moment, if only to admire the sheer calculating self-confidence of this. Sen. Obama has long known perfectly well, in other words, that he’d one day have to put some daylight between himself and a bigmouth Farrakhan fan. But he felt he needed his South Side Chicago “base” in the meantime. So he coldly decided to double-cross that bridge when he came to it. And now we are all supposed to marvel at the silky success of the maneuver.

You often hear it said, of some political or other opportunist, that he would sell his own grandmother if it would suit his interests. But you seldom, if ever, see this notorious transaction actually being performed, which is why I am slightly surprised that Obama got away with it so easily. (Yet why do I say I am surprised? He still gets away with absolutely everything.)

Dangers of Cohabitation | PreachingToday.com
In a 2007 edition of the New Oxford Review, Dr. A. Patrick Schneider II, who holds boards in family and geriatric medicine and runs a private practice in Lexington, Kentucky, did a statistical analysis of cohabitation in America, based on the findings of a number of academic resources. Here are five conclusions Schneider draws from his studies:

1. Relationships are unstable in cohabitation. One-sixth of cohabiting couples stay together for only three years; one in ten survives five or more years.

2. Cohabiting women often end up with the responsibilities of marriage—particularly when it comes to caring for children—without the legal protection. Research has also found that cohabiting women contribute more than 70 percent of the relationship’s income.

3. Cohabitation brings a greater risk of sexually transmitted diseases, because cohabiting men are four times more likely to be unfaithful than husbands.

4. Poverty rates are higher among cohabitors. Those who share a home but never marry have 78 percent less wealth than the continuously married.

5. Those who suffer most from cohabitation are the children. The poverty rate among children of cohabiting couples is fivefold greater than the rate among children in married-couple households. Children ages 12–17 with cohabiting parents are six times more likely to exhibit emotional and behavioral problems and 122 percent more likely to be expelled from school.

Brian Lowery, associate editor, PreachingToday.com; source: A. Patrick Schneider II, “Cohabitation is bad for men, worse for women, and horrible for children,” www.lifesite.net (10-4-07), reprinted from an original article in the New Oxford Review

Just a devasting critique — Mentioned via www.rushlimbaugh.com

George F. Will - McCain in A Glass House - washingtonpost.com

By George F. WillThursday, February 28, 2008; Page A17

Certain kinds of conservatives, distrusting Richard Nixon’s ideological elasticity, rejected him — until 1973. Although it had become clear that his administration was a crime wave, they embraced him because the media were his tormentors. Today such conservatives, whose political compasses are controlled, albeit negatively, by the New York Times, have embraced John McCain. He, although no stickler about social niceties (see below), should thank the Times, for two reasons

Man, I hope he is not right. Talk about complete loss of ethics and the nobility of humanity.

Abortion and your right to accurate sex selection. - By William Saletan - Slate Magazine

Sexual SatisfactionAbortion and your right to accurate sex selection.

By William Saletan
Posted Monday, Feb. 25, 2008, at 8:48 AM ET

How does a taboo begin to die?

For an answer, look at Sunday’s Los Angeles Times. “Accuracy of gender test kits in question,” says the headline. The writer, Karen Kaplan, reports that many women are up in arms over home genetic tests that erred in predicting the sex of their kids. More than 100 women are suing one company. Others are calling for regulation.

Courtesy of www.daveramsey.com