The Evangelical Outpost

The Evangelical Outpost

Another Boston Globe profile on Sunday tells us about a well-known Evangelical blogger who they say specializes in bioethical matters, but whose blog covers a lot more ground than that. They interview Joe Carter, a retired Marine Corps gunnery sergeant who blogs at The Evangelical Outpost.

Right up front the article takes the tack that Evangelicals and Catholics have teamed up on a lot of culture-war issues (or should I say it says that Evangelicals and the “Vatican” have teamed up since the author repeats the old trope that rank-and-file Catholics don’t see eye to eye with the Church; the article ends with the following sentence: “The Catholic Church’s position — as opposed to that of its laypeople — aligns with conservative evangelicals on many bioethics issues.” [emphasis added] Nice.)

Carter himself has acknowledged the sympatico relationship in a post entitled “What Evangelicals Owe Catholics: An Appreciation.”

Indeed, I’m often amazed when I consider how my thinking is shaped by Catholic social thought, the Just War tradition, and Natural Law theory. Although I do not always find myself in complete agreement, the Catholic perspective often causes me to rethink my views on such matters as contraception, IVF, just wages, and the death penalty.

As attached as I am to my own theological traditions (Reformed, Baptist, evangelical) there are many issues where they have historically come up short. In fact, I would argue that there are dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of areas in which we evangelicals should acknowledge a debt owed to our Catholic brothers and sisters.

In any case, the focus by the Globe on Carter’s blog seems to stem from the fact that he was recently profiled in its big brother, The New York Times, and these days nothing happens in the Globe without first showing up on the pages of the Gray Lady. (Perhaps the Morrissey Boulevard Broadsheet should take up the motto “All the News That’s Fit to Re-print.”)

Carter’s site is a good one, though, if you want to keep up with current thinking in Evangelical circles with relation to topical issues and his personal story of how he came to have one of the most popular religious blogs is revealing too. Not surprisingly, he is yet another blogger inspired to start by Hugh Hewitt.

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