Completely disagree with the first point here. A birth that happens outside the marriage of a husband and a wife is not worthy of any congratulations. We can wish for the baby to be loved and nourished but we should not celebrate an event when it happens through sin.
All I care to say on the scandal du jour:
• When a person announces the birth of their child, the correct response is "congratulations." This is true even if you do not agree with the decisions or circumstances by which such a child was conceived.
• God redeems many poor choices, and the birth of a new human is one of His kindest - and most common - acts of grace.
• Children deserve to be raised by a mother and father who are husband and wife.
• All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
• It is one of the true blessings of anonymity that the world doesn't see your sin; it is one of the true burdens of a public life that the world does see yours.
• One of the most influential men in the world having a child with a prominent conservative influencer under novel circumstances is valid fodder for discussion because the parents are both public figures influencing public policy and driving public conversation, at times around the very sorts of social and moral questions raised by their actions.
• That doesn't mean one's approach to discussing the situation cannot reveal one to be an asshole...
• Don't be an asshole.
• Somewhere on planet earth right now there is an actual human child with an actual mother and an actual father who are also actual humans. That child is precious beyond human expression, valuable beyond the wealth of even the richest man on earth, and filled with all of the promise God bestows on each new person born. May God bless that child and guide its parents, and may His grace be sufficient for us all.
(8) So many of you could have asked Ben to clarify what he meant but you weren’t interested. You just wanted to declare him as the bad guy and accuse him of outrageous nonsense. He is a faithful soldier for Christ and doesn’t deserve the hate he’s getting.
A thread in defense of @tompawnbadil:
(1) So many of you pushed back against his post about empathy. It’s important to note that he was NOT saying it’s a sin to have empathy.