A few weeks ago, the Kansas City Star wrote about church with an illness — a megachurch with microaccountability. Last Sunday and Monday, it covered the antidote.

Jessica and David Weatherford were told in November that Jessica was carrying a baby boy. But they were also told that he carried an extra copy of chromosome 13 in each of his cells. This little difference had caused many of baby Zeke’s organs to start forming outside of his body, and he was unlikely to survive outside the womb.

Almost certainly, the Weatherfords were asked “do you want to terminate this pregnancy?” This gets asked at the slightest hint of a problem today. It implies that ‘termination’ is a kind of ‘treatment,’  but it mostly caters to our instict to avoid awkwardness.

The Weatherfords chose to press on, and to celebrate the pre- and post-birth life of Zeke. And, perhaps even more tellingly, the picture on the front page of the Kansas City Star on Sunday was of the Weatherfords surrounded by members of Olathe Bible Church, deep in prayer. On March 6, Baby Zeke was born at 5:23 a.m.

Last month, Richard John Neuhaus noted that a leader of the Church of England recently told him that the purpose of the Church was to preserve ‘the religious option’ for those who wished to live it. RJN observed that cultural elites were hardly challenged by this view.

Here in the middle of America, the elites are not terribly threatened by a pastor with a big media ministry. For all the hopes of evangelicalism, the result has been hundreds of churches with thousands of congregants, each paying a goodly amount to hear a professional provide tips on the good life. While thousands come to hear, it’s done little to sway culture.

But the Kansas City Star does stop and note a family, and a community, celebrating the coming and passing of a little boy who died at 5:58 a.m. on March 6. Thirty-five minutes. The word ‘awesome’ is overused these days, but it’s clear that the writer took this position as a cause for awe. Medicine, for example, can no longer say much about the value of a life like Zeke’s — it can only offer ‘relief.’ Secularism cannot really explain this love of humanity, without resorting to awkward talk about personal preferences.

The New Testament, however, places an extraordinary emphasis on how men live in community.   Where secularism says “my life is as precious as others; the life of others has no claim on me,” Christianity says “each life is a gift of God, which must be respected and celebrated.” That idea is sweet, surprising, and even convicting — it’s a shame that it is absent in so many churches.

Friday’s WSJ notes a disturbing trend: confrontational, ‘evangelizing’ atheism.

THE NEW CRUSADERS: As Religious Strife Grows, Europe’s Atheists Seize Pulpit

The article highlights the weekly two hour lectures of Michel Onfray a “celebrity philosopher and France’s high priest of militant atheism.” Onfray fills a college lecture-hall each week for talks on “Hedonist Philosophy.” They sound like a bizzaro-megachurch — large room, speaker dressed in black, good sound production, lectures on ethics, all spread via state-funded media.

But the Journal sees a bigger trend: “zealous disbelief in God. …. a growing momentum for a combative brand of atheism, one that confronts rather than merely ignores religion.”

What are we to make of a Christianity so weak? This is yet another result of the ever-decreasing sphere caused by religion-as-personal-preference. At the point Christ is so circumscribed as to be merely an internal influence, a basis for self-confidence and direction, He can be easily replaced. The church has failed to push back, with secularism already demanding to occupy all of the public square — in public there can be no judging between religions and now, no one can remember why the private judgments were all that necessary, either. The article notes that Islam’s growth has pressured this secular-public-square model, contributing to the ‘missionary atheism’ backlash. Secularism, which cannot distinguish between religions, can only push back against all religions — even Christianity, the very religion which tolerated secularism’s rise.

There’s little reason for this phenomenon to stay in Europe — and not much reason to think ‘mainline’ American Christianity will respond any more forcefully.

PR dunce or genius?   A PR copy-writer attempts to enlighten Brits about the true meaning of Easter — Jesus’ birth.

 Times UK version.  Theo Hobson’s column is chuckle-worthy, too, though his conclusion that we should “be honest about the coexistence of pagan and Christian in our culture” is off base, as if the blunder would have been avoided if the story had been playing up the druids.

It seems like the better thought might be this: pride goes before a fall.   It’s  just disturbing that cultural basics are the stumbling blocks.

Looking back at my (semi) recent posts, they reflect my reading material — short news stories and blog posts. For Christmas, my wife arranged a subscription to First Things, a Journal of Religion, Culture and Public Life. Two issues came within the past couple of weeks, and I’ve enjoyed each thought-provoking article from cover to cover. It’s well worth your time (and money) if you’re interested in current events from a Christian perspective. Hopefully, it will result in some longer posts!