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My oldest daughter graduates HS today

I was raised Mormon and it took me a long time to understand how fundamentally different it is from historic Christianity. Even as recently as 3 years ago, I didn't get why it was a big deal that we didn't believe in the Trinity Mormon theology does not present God as an "uncaused cause", existence itself, the "Logos". In Mormonism, God *is* a "man in the sky", a created being, someone who was once human but is now exalted within our known universe. This opens up a lot of problems imo. For example: what happens when death and evil are overcome on our planet, and you reach exaltation? You are now a God of a new universe/planet to create a new race of humanity and evil arises all over again and the drama continues into eternity? There is no message of the ultimate overcoming of death/evil as in historic Christianity In all my childhood and young adult instruction in the LDS church, I never learned that Jesus was "God in the flesh" or anything like that. Jesus really was taught as a distinct BEING from God the Father (who again... Is a *created being*). It is a fundamentally different Christ that is believed and worshipped.

Yesterday was the 1st time the Supreme Court called the Constitution "colorblind." If you're keeping track, that's 130 years since Harlan's dissent in Plessy ("Our constitution is color-blind") & 160 years since abolitionist Wendell Phillips first utter the phrase. This is undoubtedly brought to us by Justice Thomas, who called the Constitution "colorblind" in separate opinions in Alexander v. S. Carolina (2024), SFFA v. Harvard (2023), & Parents Involved v. Seattle (2007). In 1978, Justice Brennan concurred in Bakke stating, "no decision of this Court has ever adopted the proposition that the Constitution must be colorblind." Not anymore. Thank you Justice Thomas. 🇺🇸

Men who cannot tell the difference between disagreements over matters essential to the Christian faith and matters of secondary and tertiary importance (or matters of conscience) are not qualified to be elders or pastors. This is not some manmade standard being added to Scripture; it is a necessary entailment of "sober-minded," "able to teach," "not quarrelsome," and "not a recent convert...puffed up with conceit."

Last week the Virginia appeals court used the the McLean Bible elder vote to make the case for presbyterianism. In God's providence, the very next week the PCA church in NM completely undoes that argument.

The alternative is maybe to change the terms of what Christianity’s relationship w politics. Right now people want politics to look “regenerate” which is wrong-headed because that’s the job of the church and not the state. Politics is messy and human. But so too are Christians.

I hope those celebrating the Virginia appeals court ruling against McLean Bible didn’t read the opinion. It establishes a lower threshold of religious freedom for congregational churches than denominational churches and allows state courts to get involved in issues of church discipline. McLean should appeal, and seek to transfer the case to federal court. The people suing McLean should drop the lawsuit and ask the appeals court to vacate their own opinion as moot. Otherwise, they open up every congregational church to judicial oversight of Church discipline and admission to membership. As far as I know, there’s never been a successful lawsuit against a church for exercising church discipline. This opinion bursts that door wide open.

This is a terrible outcome for religious freedom, and should be appealed. Not because MBC was right in their elder election (they weren't, and those elders resigned)... but because the court made a new category for "congregational churches” and then found they are subject to a lower threshold of religious freedom than denominational churches. Their opinion says that a denominational church would be protected from such a law suit, but not a congregational or baptistic church. That is HUGELY PROBLEMATIC. This is exactly why believers should not sue their church. In this case the appeals court says wading into MBC’s membership is ok, because “it doesn’t violate religious freedom to count to eight” (a reference to MBC saying every vote they DQd belonged to someone who missed 8 weeks). The implication is that MBC’s elders can’t count 8, but that a denominational church’s elders can. And that lower threshold is now enshrined in appeals court ruling.

Perpetual concerns over cultural bias are a cultural bias.

Tonight is @MastersSeminary 40th graduation. With 151 graduates, it is our largest ever graduating class.

Anyone in college or with kids in school - Canvas has been hacked and the bad actors (hackers) are using stolen data to directly message impacted students. In this instance it is important to not respond or even acknowledge the message as it leads to further harassment. Nothing will be clear in the short term. Nearly 9,000 schools and 275 million students impacted - this one’s going to leave a mark. Stay safe and only trust official school communications.

"There are no maverick molecules in the universe," says Ben Sasse. cbsn.ws/4e5LH9T

I listened to the VA Supreme Court case today on redistricting. The state of VA brought in an attorney from California to defend it, so not off to a strong start! Most surprising to me—the issue of how the ballot was worded came up exactly ZERO times. Nobody mentioned it. That is probably the most outrageous part of this whole case, its what Trump called out about it, but it didn’t make an appearance. The Dem side of debate on 2/3 of delegates voting for a special session was strong. I didn’t realize how many Republicans delegates voted for the special session, and voted expressly to allow it to take up any business they wanted. Although republicans shooting themselves in the foot in VA is nothing new. The Dem argument about the special session lasting into the next regular session was by far their weakest point. I didn’t like how the Republican completely ignored the admonition to stop saying “rammed through by a bare partisan majority.” A friendly justice said basically “that’s politics, stop saying that,” and he not only didn’t stop, but used the expression in his closing statement. The Republican got caught up in a few hypotheticals (“can one circuit judge posting the requirement at 89 days instead of 90 nullify the vote for the whole state?”), and he very early in his argument conceded that the Democrats have the power to “ram this through.” So I felt like he conceded too much too early. Also—as far as I could tell, only two justices spoke, and one (obviously leaning R) dominated the time, so very hard to tell how the other six were leaning.

Confessing the Nicene Creed together is one of the highlights every year! Never gets old

In the glorified state the faith of the redeemed human being becomes sight and the intellect perceives its source and goal in the beatific vision. @DrJordanBCooper #credoconference2026

I’m excited for the @CredoMagazine conference tomorrow. I’ll be leading a session on Gregory of Nyssa’s preaching through the Song of Solomon. Honestly, his approach has to be closer to the divine intent than the whole “guide for marriage” approach that is so common today.

I built a site with 200 works of Reformed theology, Latin works translated into English for the first time, and a personal library you can search with AI. You shouldn't need a PhD and a research library to read Zanchi. The sources belong to the church. Here's what it does 🧵