“And, of course, New England also had her head cases, and some of them made their mark on posterity. One man, a pastor, was called ‘Handkerchief Moody.’ He thought he had sinned greatly and would not appear in public without a handkerchief over his face. He would preach with his his back to the congregation, …
Not Sent to Dazzle
“The cultivated rhetoric of Hellenistic society was notorious for grabbing center stage, as it were, and losing sight of the primary concern of the message. That this should not happen in Christian preaching was Paul’s main concern in the opening chapters of the first epistle to the Corinthians. In fact, the greatest of Christian preachers, …
Pretty Much Says It All
HT: Steven Wedgeworth
When God Settles Our Hash
There are many reasons for my behavior on this theme of mere Christedom, but one of them is that the concept provides the only real antidote to American exceptionalism on the one hand and radical Islam on the other. When it comes to American exceptionalism, a couple recent examples are here and here. We are …
Come Round the Age of Gold
For the interested, I participated in a short feature about Christmas carols over at CT, which you can find here.
Winsome Puritanism
“Misunderstanding the Puritans is a popular indoor sport for many amateur historians and not a few professionals . . . Anne Bradstreet was a representative figure, but she is frequently presented as a Puritan anomaly. She had such a winsome personality, and, since everyone knows that the Puritans were cranks, she is treated as something …
High Service to God
“The preaching and the hearing of the Word of God is in the last analysis worship, worship in its most profound sense . . . the proclaiming of the Word of God, simply in itself, is high service to God. The solemn reading and preaching of Scripture in the midst of the congregation is a …
Touching Sensitive Areas, or TSA For Short
Here are some points to keep in mind as the controversy about the TSA wends it way through our various news cycles and perhaps, let us hope, into a bill in the new Congress. 1. It does the old heart good to see people get riled up with government incompetence and . . . what’s …
Classical Ed Meets Classic Rock
Just a teaser right now. More information and appropriate credits will follow.
Gratitude and Its Alternative
INTRODUCTION:This Lord’s Day is the first after our Thanksgiving holiday, and is also the first Sunday in Advent. Because we want to stand against what might be called morbid penitentialism, we want this season to be suffused with a glad anticipation. The only conviction we want to awaken would be a spirit of penitence for …