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Samuel James

Samuel James

Samuel James

Samuel James serves as Communications Specialist in the Office of the President. He received his B.A. from Boyce College in Louisville, Kentucky. He and his wife, Emily, live in Louisville and have one son.

  • Defining decency down

    If a horrific act of murder happens somewhere in the world, but you don’t blog within minutes about it, or tweet about "what it all means," do you still care? Since a man (I won’t name him. It’s a scandal that we make celebrities out of terrorists and psychopaths) brutally murdered nearly 50 people in an Orlando

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  • Biola, conscience and the culture war

    “It’s going to be an issue.” You may recall those five words that were spoken by Solicitor General Donald Verrilli in the oral arguments phase of Obergefell v Hodges. Specifically, that sentence was Verrilli’s response to a question from Justice Alito about the tax-exempt status of private religious schools that continued to define marriage traditionally over

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  • 4 questions for summer blockbusters

    Memorial Day weekend indicated one thing (among others): The summer movie season is here. Summer has meant blockbuster movies ever since Steven Spielberg sent a man-eating shark into the water and George Lucas sent the Death Star plans to a desert planet. School is out, vacations are on, and Hollywood studios that have saved their

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  • “Scare-quoting” religious liberty

    Mississippi passes controversial ‘religious freedom’ bill Mississippi Governor Signs ‘Religious Freedom’ Bill Into Law Mississippi Senate Passes Sweeping ‘Religious Liberty’ Bill All three of those headlines have two things in common. First, they all put scare quotes around the phrase ‘religious liberty,’ the ostensible purpose of which is to introduce doubt or skepticism that the

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  • NFL fumbles on religious liberty

    As a lifelong fan of the NFL in general and the St. Louis Los Angeles Rams in particular, the months of March through July are not my favorite sports cycle. There are still, however, things I look forward to from my favorite sport in its offseason–the drama of the draft, the excitement of free agency, and the

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  • Does Science Hate Philosophy?

    Bill Nye is not a professional scientist, but he does play one on TV. You could even consider Nye a method actor, given how seamlessly he can disappear into his “science guy” alter ego. He does it so well, in fact, that he has flawlessly picked up on a lesser known trait of contemporary professional scientists: A

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  • 3 principles for talking politics on social media

    The election season is in full swing, and there’s no way to avoid the Facebook post from the friend who swears they “never” talk politics, or the Twitter “rant” from the coworker that you didn’t even think watched the news. With the sheer insanity of our current election season, social media is not a good

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  • Country Club Evangelicalism

    At First Things, Matthew Schmitz warns his fellow Catholics of “country club Catholicism,” a sophisticated language game by which categories like sin and righteousness are diluted so as to no longer refer to what is good and bad, but what is dignified and what is offensive. Specifically addressing his comments to current Catholic debates about doctrine, Schmitz

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  • The case against mass baptism

    A high school football team recently made news for hosting a “mass baptism,” in which several players and at least one coach made professions of Christian faith and were baptized on school grounds. This incident has stirred some controversy since it appears to have been part of the football team’s scheduled practice day, raising questions

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  • Tinder Mercies–Or, How Porn Destroyed Sex

    You’ve probably already seen the Vanity Fair piece on how the dating/hookup app Tinder is changing “mating rituals” for young Americans. The article is harsh and at times graphic, so read with care and discretion. Under normal circumstances I probably wouldn’t link to it. But what this article describes is nothing less than a voluntary sex market; the way

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