Dr Paul Allen

Rev. Jonathan Edwards, a leader of the Great Awakening, is still remembered for his sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Has anyone ever said something unkind to you or about you? I think we all have had that experience. Becoming victims of slander or malicious gossip can be difficult to bear. However, God calls us to exhibit a very specific kind of response in such circumstances. Years ago, I received a letter from a friend who is a pastor at a church in California . In it, the pastor included a copy of an article that had appeared in the Los Angeles Times . Although the article included a photo of him standing in his church and holding his Bible, it was basically a vicious personal attack against him. When I saw that picture and read that article, I felt a great deal of empathy for my friend because I had recently had a similar experience. A person I believed was my friend made some very unkind statements about me publicly, and word...

Anniversary of Roe v. Wade (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) It is hard to fully comprehend how deluded our political and legal culture is over the issue of abortion. The United States in many ways has become a culture of death—a culture that embraces a mother’s murder of a child as a right, and then defends that right at all costs and against all logic. Here are three examples of that. Colorado —where murdering a baby is not crime: Last month a pregnant woman was attacked by a stranger, and her baby was cut out of her womb. The details to the crime are horrific ( here is the CNN story , which is graphic and will not easily get out of your mind). The mom was in her eighth month of pregnancy, her baby was named Aurora, and Aurora did not survive. Prosecutors in Colorado were considering charging the attacker with murder for Aurora’s death, but they came under intense political pressure from “women’s rights” groups not to, just as the media came under pressure to not use Auror...

That question is not just a matter of moral theory — it also informs our most urgent political and cultural debates. Back in May, columnist Eric Zorn of The Chicago Tribune asserted: “To me, immoral conduct is that which harms others, period.” That seems to be a straightforward statement, especially in light of its context. Zorn was writing a column in which he dismissed common arguments against same-sex marriage. In his concluding section he argued, “I will not debate the morality of various forms of private sexual conduct between consenting adults and neither should our lawmakers.” Since no one is harmed, Zorn argues, there is no real moral issue with respect to the sexual activities of consenting adults. In truth, a good many people agree with him. His logic is encapsulated in the 2003 U. S. Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas that invalidated all laws against homosexuality. I am fairly confident that the vast majority would be tempted to accept Zorn’s argument. My gues...

Image via Wikipedia Here's what you can do in a New York City public school after hours: You may gather people together once a week (or more often). You can start off with praise choruses and Bible reading. Someone can stand up and teach that Jesus is Lord , that he rose from the dead to save us from sin, and that he is coming again. Then you can break bread and pray together. Here's what you can't do in a New York City public school after hours: Hold a "religious worship service ." Got it? To the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals , the distinction is clear. "A worship service is an act of organized religion that consecrates the place in which it is performed, making it a church," the court ruled last June. And if New York City's Department of Education wants to bar "religious worship services," it can do so without violating the Constitution, the court said. But as Park Slope Presbyterian Church senior pastor Matt Brown told The...