Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation, a leading charity for breast cancer, announced the termination of its partnership with Planned Parenthood in prevention screenings and education.  Their reasoning, according to a statement from Komen’s spokeswoman Leslie Aun, is that Komen refuses to partner with organizations under investigation by local, state or federal authorities.

Pro-life groups like Americans United for Life praised the decision, which will drain funding for the nation’s largest abortion provider (and draw further attention to the ongoing investigation).

Alan Jacobs, Clyde S. Kilby Professor of English at Wheaton College, writes in The Atlantic on the growing phenomenon of online education, calling it “The Great Unbundling of the University.” An excerpt:

For a long time now, universities have flourished by offering a bundled package of knowledge and credentialing. People attended university in order to learn stuff that they couldn’t learn elsewhere — because the experts weren’t elsewhere — and to be certified by those experts as having actually learned said stuff. The bundle has been a culturally powerful one.

But now: unbundling. Clearly, many universities have come, or are coming, to the conclusion that their primary product is the credentialing, and that they can give knowledge away either as a public service or as brand consolidation (choose your interpretation according to your level of cynicism).

Read the rest.

Today, Multnomah releases a revised edition of one of John Piper’s most significant books, The Pleasures of God. An excerpt:

There is only one fountain of lasting joy – the overflowing gladness of God in God. Without beginning and without ending, without source and without cause, without help or assistance, the spring is eternally self-replenishing. From this unceasing fountain of joy flow all grace and all joy in the universe – and all the rest of the book. Let everyone who is thirsty come (p. 45).

Multnomah is simultaneously releasing a DVD of Pastor Piper teaching on themes from The Pleasures of God.  The DVD is divided into ten sessions, and suitable for Sunday School or small group usage.

Praise for The Pleasures of God

“The Pleasures of God is perhaps the most important book that John Piper has written. It is certainly the freshest and most penetrating. Many preachers and writers are calling Christians today to be more Godcentered. The irony is that even the call to be God-centered focuses attention on us, on what we must do. Certainly the Bible spends no small part of its pages telling us what we must do, but it does so out of profound God-centeredness. And here is a book that does not tell us what we must do to be God-centered; it simply is God-centered. Intoxicating.”
—D. A. CARSON, research professor of New Testament, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

“There are quite a few books every Christian should read. And there are some that need to be read a second time to really digest them. But then there are a select few that should be read and reread and reread…perhaps every year. John Piper’s The Pleasures of God belongs on that ‘to be reread every year’ list.”
—RANDY NEWMAN, campus minister and author of Questioning Evangelism

“John Piper takes ten of God’s expressed ‘delights’ and searches their significance and implications with rare zeal. What a privilege to have someone think through these biblical realities so lovingly and seek out our biblical reactions so keenly. If all Christian books were offerings on an Australian barbecue, this would be one of the juiciest steaks around—hot, healthy, and wonderful.”
—SIMON MANCHESTER, senior minister, St. Thomas Church, North Sydney, Australia

“In Desiring God, John Piper introduced us to the idea that the pursuit of God’s glory and the pursuit of our joy are not at odds, for the pursuit of God’s glory is our joy. In The Pleasures of God, Piper helps us to see that God’s glory is revealed in great part in what makes Him happy. The Pleasures of God is an invitation to meditate on what makes God
happy. If what makes God happy reveals His glory, and if we become like Him as we behold His glory (2 Corinthians 3:18), then meditating on the pleasures of God will be a means for increased joy in God and gradual conformity into His likeness. If that is your desire, then take up this new edition and read it over and over again.”
—JUAN R. SANCHEZ Jr., preaching pastor, High Pointe Baptist Church, Austin, Texas

“This book is breathtaking in both its scope and its focus and constitutes a joyful yet prophetic call to adore and worship God—whose infinite worth and excellence is revealed in what he loves and delights in. It is at once beautiful and moving, serious, stretching, and profound. The Pleasures of God surely ranks with J. I. Packer’s Knowing God as one of the most profoundly moving and world-view forming Christian books of modern times.”
—REVEREND RICHARD M. CUNNINGHAM, CEO of Intervarsity UK

“Few books are genuinely life-changing. The Pleasures of God by John Piper is clearly one of them. I’ve often said to people, ‘If I were on a desert island and could have only three books, in addition to the Bible, I’d choose Desiring God and The Pleasures of God by John Piper.’”
—SAM STORMS, president, Enjoying God Ministries, Kansas City, Missouri

“Books have profound potential—particularly the one you hold in your hand. John Piper is saturated with God, and his passion fills the pages of this book.”
—C. J. MAHANEY, Sovereign Grace Ministries

“Run, don’t walk, to buy this remarkable work.”
—JONI EARECKSON TADA AND STEVEN ESTES

“I encourage you to read [The Pleasures of God] twice; once to see the portrait as a whole, a second time to savor the sheer delight of loving a God so magnificent, so excellent, so holy.”
—ERWINW. LUTZER, senior pastor, The Moody Church

“In our fallen world, staring at the sun blinds us. But, by God’s grace, contemplating God gives us spiritual sight. Of all of Pastor John’s books, this is the most radical. Get this vision of God, and begin to see.”
—MARK DEVER, pastor, Capitol Hill Baptist Church, Washington, DC