In September, the first prize at the annual Colorado State Fair art competition went to a submission entitled, “Théâtre D’opéra Spatial.” The painting was submitted by Jason Miller and depicts an ornate stage and costumed performers, washed in beautiful golden light. Miller, however, did not paint the image. Instead, he typed in a few prompts on a search bar, and an artificially intelligent art generator program, called Midjourney, did the rest.
A calling card of our cultural moment is the presumption that science is wholly on the side of the progressive sexual agenda. To question so-called “transgender medicine,” for example, especially for minors, is to be called a “science-denier.” Advocates often point to a set of Dutch studies as the scientific ground on which to build their case for childhood transgender “medicine.”
According to a CDC report released in December, the life expectancy of Americans fell by about seven months in 2021, reaching the lowest point in two decades. Although researchers expected a major drop in the wake of COVID-19, many industrialized nations are seeing signs of recovery. The U.S., however, despite spending more on healthcare than any other country, continues a trend in the wrong direction. More importantly, while COVID-19 remains a leading cause of death in the U.S., deaths from cancer, diabetes, kidney disease, and drug overdoses increased over the last year.
A Christian moral vision does not reduce humanity or humans to a math equation. As ethicist and theologian Oliver O’Donovan has put it, “to love everybody in the world equally is to love nobody very much.” Rather, as Paul instructed the church at Corinth, real good is brought to the world when we each “lead the life that the Lord has assigned…” In this view, an expensive alabaster jar of perfume poured on the head of Jesus, rather than being sold to help the poor, is not wasted. A widow’s mite can have infinite value, while a multi-million-dollar collaboration of government charities that prop up dictators, corruption, and horrific evils could bring more harm than good.
From its very beginning, secular humanism has, in various ways, promised to save the world. Not only have these promises failed, but no coherent vision has even been offered of what a “saved world” would look like. Like the progressives of today, who promise progress without any fixed definition of better or worse, all that’s left is a pursuit of pleasure, to enshrine self-expression as the highest good. In other words, it was the abject failure of secular humanism that gave birth to the cynical postmodern ethos of today.
Fifty years ago, on January 22, 1973, the United States Supreme Court fabricated a so-called “right to abortion” out of thin air. This travesty of justice, which enabled the deaths of tens of millions of innocent little souls, deserves a place among the absolute worst legal decisions in American history. In fact, additional flawed moral and legal reasoning soon followed in Casey v. Planned Parenthood and Doe v. Bolton, built on Roe v. Wade’s flawed moral and legal reasoning, rendering almost all restrictions on abortion, however mild, “unconstitutional.”
By seeking and studying what God has revealed, we can make God’s thoughts our thoughts. We have, Paul wrote, the mind of Christ. We can know His design for human beings and for marriage and family, the purpose of government, the rightful end and object of worship, the significance of art and music and the place of science, and especially what has gone wrong with our world and what He’s doing to set it right. The ultimate goal is not to know things about God or even about His mighty acts in history. It is to know Him, and as Jesus put it, to love Him, with all our heart, soul, and mind.
Princeton University is considering a petition, signed by nearly 300 members of the campus community, to remove a statue of John Witherspoon. According to the petition, “paying such honor to someone who participated actively in the enslavement of human beings, and used his scholarly gifts to defend the practice, is today a distraction from the University’s mission.” In place of the statue, the petition requests an informational plaque that would describe both the positive and negative aspects of Witherspoon’s legacy.
This week marks the death of Amy Carmichael, missionary to India and defender of children. Though she died in 1951, she is a profound example of not only being faithful to the Gospel but of what being faithful to the Gospel means. Throughout history, in fact, Christians have taken the lead in defending children.
In his memorable “Letter from the Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King, Jr., threw down the gauntlet in his great Civil Rights crusade when he refused to obey what he regarded as an immoral man-made law that did not match up with the law of God.
