I will say it right now. Chesterton is my favorite papist. This is something you could probably figure out from how much I quote him, but how much I have learned from him extends far beyond that. One of the things I learned from him is the fundamental stance of a reformer — in order …
You Ain’t Gonna Make It With Anyone Anyhow
In this short piece, Michael Bird comes to the defense of N.T. Wright, nationalized health care, and all that is civilized. A good response to that can be found here, but one more thing needs to be said. What the soft Christian left does not appear to understand is that whenever the offering plate is …
No Speekee
In the comments on this post over at his blog, Scott Clark threatened to cut off comments if people persisted in asking why he wouldn’t meet with me. “Why is it curious that I should refuse to meet personally with the leading proponent of the corruption of the gospel?” Well, it is curious because in …
Exhortation to Athanasius Presbytery (CREC)
One of the exhortations that ministers really need to hear from time to time is the exhortation not to lose heart. The reason they are tempted to lose heart is that the blindness and adamantine stupidity of sin simply seems invincible. What are we to do when the assigned task is to preach to hearts …
Not Really Luther
There is a famous Luther quote that he actually didn’t say, and which my son-in-law Ben Merkle recently tracked down. Here is the quote, and it is a hummer. “If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and …
A Few Heideljinks
A friend wrote, drawing my attention to this and, with regard to the one statement of mine that the OPC report took issue with, asking me if I meant it. I would prefer to divide that into two questions — first, what did I mean by it, and second, did I mean it? I can …
Wisdom Walks
Unbelief devours people, and delights in it. Unbelief can consume one person, as an edible dainty from a passing tray, or, greedy as death, it can gulp them down by the pouch full — denominations, seminaries, publishing houses, families, and cities. Grendel, it is said, could grab thirty men at a time. And just as …
The Problem With Smart People
The real problem with smart people is that they so frequently aren’t. The confusion — of which we have many examples, alas — is between having a car with a really high rpm, and having a car that is on the right road. The two need not be the same thing at all. Look at …
Shirley Hardaway, R.I.P.
We have gathered at this memorial service for many reasons—to honor the memory of Shirley Hardaway, to comfort her loved ones, to remember our own mortality, and these reasons—together with others— are good reasons. But we have also gathered for another reason, a very simple one. The reason we have been able to come here …
Voting in a Wobbly Canoe
Yesterday I exhorted the saints at Christ Church to make sure that they voted in our local election tomorrow. In the course of that exhortation I said that it was not the church’s business to descend into partisan factionalism, but that it was our responsibility to pray that we would be allowed to “lead a …