Afghanistan

From battlefield photographer David Guttenfelder. Many more here.

Ted Kluck on the Laura Linney Film

From Why We Love the Church: In Praise of Institutions and Organized Religion:

I just watched a film called The Savages (with Laura Linney and Phil Seymour Hoffman), which is a depressing emotional beating in the vein of Running with Scissors, The Squid and the Whale, and to a lesser extent, Little Miss Sunshine. It's the Laura Linney Film, which is now, I've discovered, its own genre. That's not to say it's bad; it's just its own depressing, unresolved thing that's more like watching a random neighbor's slightly more stylized life than watching a movie. It's a "thing" just like a Quentin Tarantino film is a thing. Hoffman and Linney, though, were amazing.

The reason I mention this film, now, in this book, is that the Laura Linney Film is often a very accurate and sad representation of what life looks like for American intellectuals without Christ and without the church. The films all follow a similar story arc, which is that hard things happen to intellectuals (a divorce in Squid, or a parent dying in Savages), those intellectuals have their lives turned upside down by that event, and in the end they get on with their lives, but we don't know for sure if they've learned anything or grown in any significant way. The films always make me sad, though it should be said that I love the performances, and they always make me thankful for pastors and my church body, imperfect though it is. In a way that might very well be cowardly, I know that my church will be there for me when I have to go through awful life events, and it's a comfort.

Kevin DeYoung & Ted Kluck, Why We Love the Church (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2009) pp. 103-104

Stoning the rebellious son

I've written previously about J.V. Fesko's very helpful treatment of the ten commmandments The Rule of Love. In a recent chapel message Fesko unpacked Deuteronomy 21:18-23 -- the passage that sanctions the stoning to death of a stubborn and rebellious son. Fesko's teaching demonstrates that a Christ-centered approach to the Mosaic law is a better alternative than dismissing this as barbarism, or claiming as some do, that the judicial laws of OT Israel are normative for civil society today.

Listen here

More on Stupak

William McGurn:

Not many folks in Washington have made Nancy Pelosi cry "uncle."

Bart Stupak is one of the few. For months, the Michigan Democrat has been threatening to bring down any health-care bill unless the House was given the opportunity to vote to extend the ban on taxpayer dollars for abortion to the new federal programs being created. On Saturday night, Mrs. Pelosi caved and Mr. Stupak prevailed.

The result is one of the few, real up-or-down votes we ever get on abortion—and the only part of the health-care mess that shows any bipartisan consensus. In the end, 63 Democrats and Mr. Stupak joined all but one Republican on an amendment that does two things: prohibits federal funds for an abortion or for abortion coverage; allows (notwithstanding pro-choice propaganda) private insurers to offer abortion coverage so long as tax dollars are not involved.

"Mr. Stupak and I have not always agreed on things," Indiana Rep. Mike Pence, chairman of the House Republican Conference, told me. "But I commend him for his effort here. His willingness to dig in the way he did was admirable."

What would Chesterton say to Deepak Chopra?

Probably something like this

"They may get the stuff, but we’ll get the souls."

That's the great answer Bishop Robert Duncan gave in response to a question from The New York Times Magazine about a lawsuit filed by the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh. Read the whole interview with the head of the Anglican Church in North America here.

A profile in political courage

William McGurn writing in The Wall Street Journal:

A nine-term congressman from northern Michigan, Mr. Stupak is the kind of Catholic who once constituted the heart of the Democratic Party. Just like Gov. Casey before him, Mr. Stupak's stand for life—in this case, his fight against tax dollars for abortion—is making him a thorn in the side of a Democratic president.

It didn't have to be this way. In his Notre Dame speech, President Barack Obama called for "open hearts" that would help us find "common ground" to "reduce the number of women seeking abortions." During his more recent address to a joint session of Congress, the president was even more specific about health-care reform, promising that "no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions."

That is just what Mr. Stupak is trying to do with an amendment to the health-care legislation that would explicitly ban federal funding for abortion. Here's the problem: His own party won't let him bring it to the floor for a vote.

If you were following the health care debate over the weekend you know that Rep. Bart Stupak and a coalition of pro-life Democrats forced Pelosi and the party leadership to allow an eleventh hour vote on the Stupak/Pitts Amendment which passed easily. Whatever you think of the health care bill this was a heartening victory for supporters of the right to life of unborn children. Now the battle moves to the Senate. Stupak's courageous stand against his own party leadership was a bright spot in an otherwise grim news week. I'm glad there are still a few Democrats like Bart Stupak!

The freedom and familiarity of prayer

John Calvin commenting on Psalm 102:2

Having elsewhere spoken more fully of these forms of expression, it may suffice, at present, briefly to observe, that when God permits us to lay open before him our infirmities without reserve, and patiently bears with our foolishness, he deals in a way of great tenderness towards us. To pour out our complaints before him after the manner of little children would certainly be to treat his Majesty with very little reverence, were it not that he has been pleased to allow us such freedom. I purposely make use of this illustration, that the weak, who are afraid to draw near to God, may understand that they are invited to him with such gentleness as that nothing may hinder them from familiarly and confidently approaching him.

Calvin, Commentary on the Book of Psalms (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1949)

Happy birthday, dear one!

Jared Wilson on Bible Belt Disneyland

@ First Things