It will be months before we'll know how the Supreme Court will rule on the Proposition 8 case. But we can glean from today's Hollingsworth v. Perry oral arguments. Here, in alphabetical order of the Justices, are select quotes.
Given the long history of heterosexual marriage, Justice Alito expresses caution about resolving gay marriage issues with the courts rather than the democratic process:
In Bandstra v. Edouard, defense attorneys have filed motions to dismiss on behalf of the URCNA, Covenant Reformed Church, the Consistory, and four individual elders. The elders, who are being individually sued for making statements that express or imply moral guilt on behalf of the two female plaintiffs, filed separately. Two arguments in their memorandum are their First Amendment defense and the “qualified privilege” defense; churches should pay close attention to the second.
Most people don’t think of the philosopher David Hume as having much influence over Reformed Christianity, but in an indirect way his influence has been quite profound. Most known for his skeptical epistemology, he argued with such force that he compelled reactions from two other philosophers: Immanuel Kant and Thomas Reid. Kant’s “Copernican Revolution” - in which the mind imposes order on objects rather than conforms to them - changed the course of philosophy, and was subsequently borrowed in various ways by Kuyper, Dooyeweerd, and Van Til, insofar as they promote the idea that basic ideas or presuppositions are filters through which we see all things.
For Rev. James and Andrea Sinke, health care was an important aspect of the decision-making process before considering his call to Bethel URC in Woodstock, ON. That’s because the Sinkes’ youngest daughter, Sarah, has required special care for continuing health concerns since she was born four years ago.
“Sarah’s health care wasn’t our primary consideration,” says Rev. Sinke, “but we had to be assured of it before we could consider coming.” He explains they first had to find a doctor willing to take on Sarah’s care.
Anyone considering the Bandstra v. Edouard petition might be concerned about how much a court can tell a church what it must do. For example, can a court second-guess a church’s hiring and supervision of its pastor? Can a court declare an elder’s moral assessment to be defamation? We know there is a “separation of church and state,” be we also grant that pastors can be required to obey the speed limit and churches are justly liable for on-premises injuries due to an obviously dangerous condition.
Being a Federation and not a Denomination the URCNA has no church buildings, large headquarters building, or even a Calvin College to attach a judgment to so good luck with that. I don’t think they have the right to demand money from the churches to pay a judgment (as it is they have to “ask”, not “demand” money from churches). This is not Rome we are talking about.
The structure of the URCNA does not seem to lend itself to the suit being upheld against them. Authority rests in the Consistory (group of local church elders), not in the Federation. The Federation had nothing to do with ordaining Edouard or overseeing him. He was presumably ordained by the Central Classis (group of churches) at the request of his Consistory, but the ongoing Classis oversight over him after that would have been minimal (all of these churches are in different cities and the ministers/elders only get together twice a year formally). There may have been (should have been) church visitors (pastors/elders) from other churches visiting Covenant Reformed at various intervals and some questions should have been asked, but if local elders didn’t figure out what was going on, it is highly unlikely these visitors would have figured it out.
One thing about Edouard and the URCNA that is a shame is that Eduoard chaired the Synodical Study Committee of the Federal Vision and Justification that eventually issued the following report. I imagine that Dr. Venema and Dr. Horton had a much bigger role in writing the report than Edouard did, but it is unfortunate that his name will remain on the document for posterity (i.e. we’re criticizing other people’s theology based on the findings of a committee chaired by a deposed minister who is now a convicted sex-offender). There was an old joke about Edouard (who was not a very faithful attendee at Central Classis meetings) getting appointed to boards and tasks that nobody else was crazy about taking on because he was absent. Perhaps we need to keep this outcome in mind and take a minister or elder’s consistent absence at these gatherings as a warning sign instead of as a joke.
The fact that elders are getting sued personally is a scary proposition. Elders, are you monitoring your ministers and asking nosy questions? Is your pastor meeting with women alone? Wake up if he is. A rogue minister is hard to detect and control (much like a company insider in a position of high authority), but elders need to do their best to not just assume everything is being done decently and in good order. Elders and pastors need to be able to ask hard questions of each other and to be mutually accountable.
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 12,000 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 20 years to get that many views.
LAS VEGAS—After spending more than $100 million mostly on losing Republican election campaigns this year, casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson said he planned to stay in the game and double down on his political donations.
Mr. Adelson, who was one of the Republican Party’s biggest donors in 2012, will again give heavily to GOP candidates and conservative causes, he said in an interview, especially to state-level, antiunion initiatives.
Isaac Brekken for The Wall Street JournalSheldon Adelson, chairman and CEO of Las Vegas Sands, spent more than $100 million on Republican campaigns this year.
“I happen to be in a unique business where winning and losing is the basis of the entire business,” said Mr. Adelson, who directly backed one winning and eight losing candidates in the November election, including Mitt Romney. “So I don’t cry when I lose. There’s always a new hand coming up.”
Mr. Adelson was approached by five GOP governors, including potential 2016 presidential contenders Bob McDonnell of Virginia and Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal during the Republican Governors Association conference last month in Las Vegas. So far, he said, he is noncommittal. The governors’ offices declined to comment.
Mr. Adelson, chairman and chief executive of Las Vegas Sands Corp.,LVS -0.33% and his wife, Miriam, joined the top ranks of the 2012 campaign donors, alongside the industrialist Koch brothers on the Republican side and Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg for the Democrats.
Mr. Adelson’s 2012 donations were double what he spent in 2008, and looking ahead, he said, he was ready to again “double” his donations.
“I’ll spend that much and more,” he said in his first extensive postelection interview. “Let’s cut any ambiguity.”
Forbes magazine estimates Mr. Adelson’s net worth at $21.5 billion. Last week, Sands approved a special dividend that will pay him about $1.2 billion. The casino company is one of the companies that approved such payments this year, ahead of potential tax increases that might come out of congressional budget negotiations.
Federal campaign finance records show the couple gave about $55 million in publicly reported donations. The money included $20 million to Mr. Romney’s independent super PAC, Restore Our Future, and $15 million to the super PAC that almost single-handedly floated Newt Gingrich’s Republican primary campaign.
In addition, Mr. Adelson gave about $50 million to nonprofit conservative advocacy groups that don’t have to disclose their donors, including the Kochs’ Americans for Prosperity and Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS, according to GOP fundraisers and people close to Mr. Adelson. His undisclosed donations are credited by Republicans for helping the party keep its House majority.
“When you have Sheldon say, ‘I believe in a cause,’ others will follow,” said Mr. Rove, who advised Mr. Adelson this year.
Mr. Adelson wouldn’t reveal the total amount of his donations. He said he gave several million dollars to a conservative energy group, as well as “substantial” contributions to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, about $6 million to the Republican Jewish Coalition and funds to a rabbi who lost a congressional race in New Jersey.
Mr. Adelson backed one big winner, Sen. Dean Heller, a Republican from Nevada.
“Adelson-backed candidates found themselves unable to buy the support of the American people,” said Michael Podhorzer, political director of the AFL-CIO union coalition.
Mr. Adelson, 79 years old, said he has many friends in Washington, “but the reasons aren’t my good looks and charm. It’s my “pocket personality,” referring to his donations.
His Las Vegas Sands Corp. is under investigation by the Dept. of Justice to determine whether it violated money-laundering laws by failing to report potentially suspicious financial transactions, according to people with knowledge of the probe. Sands has denied any wrongdoing.
Mr. Adelson said Mr. Rove “shouldn’t take all the blame” for this year’s Republican losses. However, Mr. Adelson said as a “marketing guy” he has suggestions to help the GOP attract more “customers.” First, he said, avoid such social issues as abortion or stem-cell research.
“We’re pro-abortion rights, pro stem-cell research,” said Mr. Adelson. He also favors the Dream Act, a law that would allow some illegal immigrants to attain legal status. As for health care, he said, “I’m in favor of a socialized-like health care,” similar to the system in Israel.
The Adelsons also set up a medical-research foundation and two drug-addiction clinics. Mr. Adelson gives more money to charity than to politics, he said, and noted that some of his beliefs are at odds with GOP policy.
What divides Mr. Adelson from the Democratic Party is his stand on unions, which have been unable to organize his workers. His flagship, the Venetian, is the only nonunion casino on the Las Vegas Strip.
Mr. Adelson said he was likely to continue funding state-by-state efforts to curtail organized labor’s power, in particular by trying to overturn their use of collective bargaining agreements. That was a feature of high-stakes political fights this year in states including Ohio and Wisconsin.
He described President Barack Obama’s winning margin in key swing states as “a rounding error.” Sitting at the end of a giant conference table in the Venetian casino, he grabbed his calculator and began clicking away. “What’s that come up to?” he said. “Look: .002%. Nothing!”
Mr. Obama won the popular vote by 3.6 percentage points, or five million votes. The margin was 388,000 votes in Virginia, Florida and Ohio. The president would have won re-election even if he had lost those three swing states.
Calling Mr. Romney a “good candidate,” Mr. Adelson said he wasn’t looking back at his losses.
“I know in the long run we’re going to win,” he said.
Write to Alicia Mundy at alicia.mundy@wsj.com
After a vacancy of 20 months, Covenant Reformed Church in Pella, IA, welcomed its new pastor when Rev. Doug Barnes was installed on August 19, 2012.
Dr. Cornel Venema, under whom Rev. Barnes studied at Mid-America Reformed Seminary, and Rev. Spencer Aalsburg, a close colleague of Rev. Barnes, led most of the morning worship, while the newly installed Rev. Barnes concluded the service.
