I’d like to invite readers of this blog to come with me as I set up shop in a new place. My new homepage will be my main blogging platform now. I also have a new post about millennials and the culture of “story.” Here’s an excerpt: For a millennial, a story isn’t just a mark of identification, it’s a holy source of authority. I say holy with all seriousness. Even millennials with deeply held religious beliefs often talk about... Read more
Some personal news: I’ve decided to migrate away from Patheos and begin blogging exclusively at my personal site, which will be launching soon. Patheos has been a tremendously rewarding experience for me. Bart Gingerich, the editor of the evangelical channel, invited me to come blog at Patheos last summer, and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. This move is bittersweet, but it will allow me some personal branding and editorial options that I’m very excited to have. I’ll be closing up... Read more
Here’s an exclusive trailer for the upcoming documentary about mass abortionist/infanticidist Kermit Gosnell. This promises to be a chilling, harrowing tale. I hope many see it. 3801 Lancaster releases November 10. Update: The initial embed code linked the wrong (older) trailer. It has been updated. Read more
There’s a scene in Back to the Future II where Marty McFly, played by Michael J. Fox, travels through time from 1989 to 2015. As he is taking in the wondrous sights of the future, he passes a cinema that is advertising a new film, Jaws 19. Before he knows it, a 3D digital shark emerges from the cinema marquee and “devours” him. Though the new technology is impressive enough to give him a cheap scare, McFly dismisses the creature—and... Read more
The strongest word yet on evangelicals and Donald Trump comes from Russell Moore this morning in The New York Times. Here’s an excerpt: We should not demand to see the long-form certificate for Mr. Trump’s second birth. We should, though, ask about his personal character and fitness for office. His personal morality is clear, not because of tabloid exposés but because of his own boasts. His attitude toward women is that of a Bronze Age warlord. He tells us in... Read more
Keith Miller writes a very helpful piece for The Federalist, demonstrating that reports of evangelical support for Donald Trump don’t quite say what you might think. Among the 40 percent of GOP primary voters who say they are evangelical or born again, Trump only polls 25 percent compared to his 38 percent support among all other GOP primary voters. Even that overstates the amount of Trump support you would find in an evangelical pew on Sunday morning. Of those evangelical GOP primary voters who go to... Read more
The other day I remarked to Emily that Facebook has become useful for essentially only two things: Seeing other people’s photos, and sharing links. It seems that every time I log into Facebook, at least for the past couple years, what I get can almost totally be classified as either a photo or a link to something off Facebook. Sometimes those links are of a personal nature, but most of the time they’re not. Pictures I would classify as probably... Read more
It sounds as if you supposed that argument was the way to keep [a human] out of the Enemy’s clutches. That might have been so if he had lived a few centuries earlier. At that time the humans still knew pretty well when a thing was proved and when it was not; and if it was proved they really believed it. They still connected thinking with doing and were prepared to alter their way of life as the result of... Read more
The tenth video by the Center for Medical Progress doesn’t contain any jarring imagery of mangled infants or bloody petri dishes. But it may be one of the most damning yet. Most of the video contains dialogue from Planned Parenthood officials, as well as other abortion professionals, discussing the various viscera of their industry. One person discusses which fetal body parts are in demand, casually (as we’ve seen often in these videos) over drinks. “They want eyes, they want cardial,... Read more
This month’s issue of The Atlantic came with a provocative cover story, entitled “The Coddling of the American Mind.” It is an incisive look at a contemporary trend, particularly within higher education, to insulate young millennials from ideas and behavior they might be personally offended by. This trend, which has been thoroughly documented and analyzed elsewhere, goes far, far beyond the boundaries of politeness and sensitivity. In many cases it has led to a quasi-religious liturgy of personal offense. An excerpt from Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt’s... Read more
Samuel D. James
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