John Stonestreet – Page 58

Imagine as an Anthem for the World?

Aug 16, 2021John StonestreetCurrent EventsAtheism, Current Events

*John Stonestreet, Radio Host and Director of the Colson Center*

“Imagine” has become a kind of secular national anthem, but it seems like a strange choice. Last year, a bunch of celebrities tried to make us feel better about a global pandemic by singing “Imagine there’s no heaven.” Really? Facing death, let’s offer a materialistic worldview, with no future after we die and no present source of meaning? And, these millionaire celebrities actually sang to us, “Imagine no possessions?”

Then, during the opening ceremony of the Olympics, this song with the line “no religion, too” was sung, when 84 percent of the world identifies with a religious group. Not to mention, how does “imagine there’s no countries” fit with the Olympics, at a ceremony featuring every nation bearing their respective flags into the stadium?

At best, this song is an ironic choice almost everywhere we hear it, especially for a global celebration of world cultures and athletes. At worst, it pushes a worldview that’s godless, hopeless, unrealistic, and ultimately meaningless.

D.C. Police Chief Calls Out Realities of Marijuana

Aug 9, 2021John StonestreetMarijuanaMarijuana

In 2015, then-Washington D.C. police chief Cathy Lanier assured reporters that legalizing marijuana would not have an effect on crime. “They just want to get a bag of chips and to relax,” she said. “Alcohol is a much bigger problem.”

Six years later and DC is dealing with more than the munchies. Current Police Chief Robert Contee recently declared, “Marijuana undoubtedly is connected to violent crimes.” This in a community with a 20 percent increase in violent crime since Covid.

Contee grew-up in D.C., He knew the smell of marijuana because his dad was an addict. His life was turned around by a mom who taught him about consequences and a community that gave him support. Now, he’s trying to convince D.C. residents and lawmakers that bad ideas, including bad laws, have consequences… and victims.

This will be a tough thing to turn around. Christians will have a role to play, along with a shift in thinking about marijuana. One that matches reality.

Abortion’s Barbarity Continues

Aug 2, 2021John StonestreetAbortion, BioethicsAbortion, Bioethics, Life, Pro-life, Sanctity of Human Life

Recently, the world learned that researchers at the University of Pittsburgh were grafting the scalps of aborted infants onto the flesh of rodents. And now, prolife group Live Action has uncovered that researchers at a California university has been trading in various body parts of aborted children, specifically genitalia, bladders, and kidneys.

Perhaps most unsettling is the indifference of the people involved to what in any other context would be considered barbaric. Emails uncovered included pleasantries about the weekend and hopes for a happy holiday, exchanged between the parties amidst logs of body parts bought and sold.

This is what Hannah Arendt called “the banality of evil.” The great crimes of history are often committed, not by monsters, but by ordinary folks in day to day life. And so building a culture of life will involve not only passing laws and attending marches, but exposing the scale of assault on human dignity that passes in the name of science.