According to the Oklahoma Marriage Initiative, 32 percent of marriages in the state have ended in divorce — one of the highest divorce rates nationwide. As many Sooner couples find themselves saying “I don’t” more often than “I do,” one unlikely man has taken it upon himself to save these remaining marriages: former teen heartthrob-turned-evangelist […]
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Lobby for a loophole
Credit: Brad Gregg The Green family, founders and owners of the OKC-based company, don’t want to provide their employees insurance coverage for birth control — namely the morning-after pill — that they believe is tantamount to abortion. As a result, Hobby Lobby is facing $1.3 million in fines for each day it fails to comply […]
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God’s presence amid horror
Don’t infuse this tragedy with a religious rigor and commentaries about our lost world and its lost souls. This is a moment for grace to resonate. This is a moment to demonstrate patience with those who are confused, angry, bitter and utterly despairing. Let the world play out its emotions. And you who walk with […]
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Thou shalt not troll
Credit: Brad Gregg Members of the anti-abortion group, who describe themselves as modern-day abolitionists, took issue with the fact that a portion of the church’s donations go to Planned Parenthood (which, incidentally, does not provide abortions in Oklahoma). Mayflower lists 23 other organizations that receive church funds, including food banks and homeless shelters. Several figures, […]
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Countering contraceptives
“Hobby Lobby must violate its faith and pay for abortion pills” shouted a news release following the judge’s decision. But the truth of the matter is a bit more complex. Are emergency contraceptives tantamount to abortion? Medical experts believe they prevent ovulation or fertilization. It is not impossible that they could prevent a fertilized egg […]
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Thou shalt erect it
Credit: Brad Gregg The county in far eastern Oklahoma approved the original request, made by former Poteau mayor Don Barnes, in April 2009. The plan was scrapped a couple months later when a federal appeals court ruled that a similar monument, at Haskell County’s courthouse in nearby Stigler, amounted to a government endorsement of religion. […]
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Capitol commandments
The monument is the result of a measure introduced by state Rep. Mike Ritze, R-Broken Arrow, and passed by the Legislature in 2009 allowing for a privately paid-for monument to be placed on public property outside the Capitol. Little fanfare accompanied the installation on the north side of the building, with about a dozen non-workers […]
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The Right to Love: An American Family
Oklahoma-born, Christian director Cassie Jaye chronicles one gay couple’s struggle for such acceptance in The Right to Love: An American Family. The documentary follows two years in the life of the Leffew family: two professional parents raising two adopted children they love dearly, and who love them back. That the parents happen to be two […]
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Take my campus … please!
Credit: Brad Gregg The original plan was to convert the 43-building campus into C.S. Lewis College. Lewis, who wrote The Chronicles of Narnia as well as a number of books on Christianity, was a British Anglican, but he is beloved by millions of evangelicals who either don’t know he was anglo-Catholic or only read children’s […]
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What separation of church and state?
Credit: Brad Gregg Last week, the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma released survey results of its “2012 Oklahoma Voter’s Guide for the Well-Informed Voter of Faith.” Of course, in this instance, “Voter of Faith” means follower of the one correct and true faith of the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. (Catholics, Mormons, Unitarians or people […]