“It once was considered immoral to take a person’s property for the benefit of others by threatening the use of force, but now inequality is advanced as a greater evil than theft” (Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction, p. 181).
William Wilberfarce
I turned on the news this morning only to see Jeremiah Wright giving a talk at the National Press Club, followed by a particularly fruity question and answer session. There is no question but that Wright is bright, quick on his feet, well-read, smarter than almost all his questioners, funny, capable of handling himself in …
Call It Straight
Just a quick follow up on a comment left in an earlier thread. We have names for things, and we need to make sure we use them. As the Church extends kindness to the widow and orphan — using tithes and offerings — we call this pure and undefiled religion. It is the vocation of …
A Big International Galoot
I write as a critic of American empire, not an opponent of it, if you catch my drift. America is doing what large, hegemonic powers have pretty much always done when in this position, and this behavior is not exceptionally vile, as the leftist screechers would have us believe, and it is not especially virtuous, …
Your Mother Cuts Your Meat for You
Several years ago, Pastor Leithart exhorted us, concerning the public reading of the Scriptures, to seek to listen to the Word rather than to just read along with it. This was done to encourage you to add the layer of simply hearing the Word in worship, and not to subtract the experience of reading the …
Confirm Your Stake in Christ
Our confession of faith, the Westminster Confession, says that sacraments are given by God in order to confirm our interest in Him. The word interest does not mean what we would intend if we were to say that we were interested in spiritual things, that is, we wanted to think about them. Rather our interest …
Compassion Radar in the Private Sector
One other comment is necessary on my interaction with Jim Wallis a few posts ago. He said that the abortion debate had grown “stale,” and that we ought to concentrate on reducing abortions instead of outlawing abortion. As I was thinking about it, this question occurred to me — “where has he been?” He speaks …
What’s Shakin’ Next
I just got my copy of David Wells’ new book — The Courage to be Protestant — and it promises to be a magnificent read. I am not very far into it, but it is the capstone of four great books that came before it. But even though I just started, I was arrested by …
Go Get Your Own Parable, Hayek
This is kind of an odd talk-around way way to do it, but here is a bit more on our discussion of Third World debts and N.T. Wright’s book Surprised by Hope. To sum up my take, Wright wrote a glorious book that had a small atrocious section on global economics. I interacted with that …
The Pope and Climate Change
Careful readers of this blog will recall that I had a little fun at the Vatican’s expense some time ago on the issue of global warming. In the article I linked to at that time, it mentioned that the pope was going to use his speech at the UN (just now past) to press for …