The views expressed here are provided as a resource for furthering culturally-engaged leadership through theologically-informed reflection about every aspect of contemporary life. Neither Union University nor The Carl F.H. Henry Institute for Intellectual Discipleship necessarily endorse the content expressed in this blog. The content of each entry solely reflects the view of its author.
Archive | RSS Feed | FeedBurner
Subscribe by Email
JUSTIN D. BARNARD
Director of the Carl F.H. Henry Institute for Intellectual Discipleship
The Judas Iscariot Suicide Prevention Program
July 21, 2010 - The calculated murder of an innocent human being is a dehumanizing act. It not only dehumanizes the victim; it degrades the humanity of the perpetrator. This is the why the killer, insofar as he wishes to retain a psychological-semblance of his humanity, must avoid coming to terms with the truth about his action. As long as he does not have to face the fact that he is murdering another human being, he can continue to deceive himself into believing that he has done nothing inhumane.
This is why the leading serial killers of our day, also known as proponents of abortion, so vehemently oppose legislation like Oklahoma’s HR 2780, which would require a woman seeking an abortion to come face-to-face with the truth of what she is about to do by receiving a pre-abortion ultrasound. According to one opponent, the law is “abusive” to women.
The opposition makes perfect sense. A woman who is abo... read more
JUSTIN D. BARNARD
Director of the Carl F.H. Henry Institute for Intellectual Discipleship
The NIH's Tithe
June 25, 2010 - According to a recent Washington Post article, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has rejected a petition to authorize federal funding for research on 47 lines of human embryonic stem cells. Predictably, the decision to reject the request was grounded on mere technicalities, though the latter are trumpeted as “strict new ethical guidelines.”
Commenting on the decision, NIH Director Francis Collins said, “The NIH guidelines for reviewing stem cell lines for federal funding were set up to adhere rigorously to the well-established norms for informed consent. It was frankly rather painful for my expert advisory committee to recommend against approval of 47 additional lines from RGI because of a consent problem, but rigorous guidelines are only meaningful if they are rigorously applied.”
According to the Post, the advisory comm... read more
JUSTIN D. BARNARD
Director of the Carl F.H. Henry Institute for Intellectual Discipleship
No News is Good News
June 15, 2010 - In his trenchant critique of our media-saturated culture, Neil Postman observed that the phrase “Now . . . this” adds “to our grammar a new part of speech, a conjunction that does not connect anything to anything but does the opposite: separates everything from everything.” Postman continues:
“’Now . . . this’ is commonly used on radio and television newscasts to indicate that what one has just heard or seen has no relevance to what one is about to hear or see, or possibly to anything one is ever likely to hear or see. The phrase is a means of acknowledging the fact that the world as mapped by the speeded-up electronic media has no order or meaning and is not to be taken seriously. The... read more
JUSTIN D. BARNARD
Director of the Carl F.H. Henry Institute for Intellectual Discipleship
Growing Kids Skinner's Way
June 10, 2010 - The most recent issue of Pediatrics has released a longitudinal study that finds children raised by lesbian couples “demonstrate healthy psychological adjustment”. In fact, the results of the 25-year study indicate that the teenage children of those lesbian couples who participated are more socially well-adjusted than a relevant control group of peers raised by heterosexual parents.
In keeping with choreographic expectations, key conservative Christian voices have already begun to question the study’s validity. They correctly point out, among other things, that despite its appearance in the peer-reviewed journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the research was funded by Gay-Lesbian advocacy groups.
For many evangelical culture warriors, the results of this kind of study, if scientifically valid, would represent a serious blow to the avenues by which one attempts... read more
JUSTIN D. BARNARD
Director of the Carl F.H. Henry Institute for Intellectual Discipleship
The Distractional Church
March 2, 2010 - For quite some time now, many evangelical churches have been caught up in the furor of self-consciously identifying themselves as “missional” or “incarnational.” The latter is frequently cited as an aspect of the former. What is an “incarnational” church? At the risk of oversimplification, an incarnational church is a body of believers of committed to going. Like Christ himself, the incarnational church aims to go to be with and among the people, especially those who need the Gospel. The emphasis on going and being among people stands opposed to the outmoded “attractional” model of chuch which, rather than going, merely invites people to come and see.
The irony is that increasingly, people aren’t anywhere – at least not any where in particular. Thanks to the digital revolution, most of our lives do not take place in . . . well . . . a place. So if there’s nowhere to go to be with and among the people because the people aren’t actually anywhere, then ... read more
Archive | RSS Feed
The Carl F.H. Henry Institute for Intellectual Discipleship at Union University
Director: Justin Barnard
1050 Union University Drive, Box 1849, Jackson, TN 38305
phone: 731-661-5963 | e-mail: jbarnard@uu.edu