Letters Blossom in May

Dan Phillips recently posted this quote, which I wholeheartedly agree with: “Have you really got your arms around the fact that you will never, ever have a valid complaint against God?”
What’s the difference between a sinful complaint against God and being mired in passages like Proverbs 13:12, Psalm 13, Psalm 38, etc.

G

I’m not opposed to the “serrated edge” but there seem to be times where you write with a crassness that is unbecoming a pastor, such as calling Fani Willis and the man she is sleeping with, “boinking partners.” Your ministry has blessed me immensely, but those are the types of things that bother people, myself included. What was the purpose in this case, other than going for a cheap laugh?

Dan

I have a question related to your Dear Darla series (which has been incredibly helpful by the way). First of all, is it usually the case that the Lord doesn’t take you out of a situation until you’ve mastered it? In other words, should I assume that I won’t get married until I’m completely at peace with being single?
And related to that, what advice would you give to someone who has a great desire for marriage but wants to be content and trusting the Lord in the meantime?
Thanks very much!

Darla’s younger sister

Putting aside his moral character, the most off putting trait of Mr. Trump, and one that has, and will do, great damage to this nation, is his petty, small-minded ego. To install a leader above us with just this one trait is to lose our collective moral standing. We all have seen it in action, but just to highlight one instance, and it is almost embarrassing to even mention, we might all recall when Trump excoriated his ex press secretary for citing a poll on Fox News regarding Mr. Trump’s huge margins in the polls (somewhere in the mid-twenties) during the primaries, and leaving out another poll that had him in the low thirties. As with the nature of polls, most people of any level of magnanimity would have just let it be. At most, he might have just made a gracious comment regarding the oversight without excoriating his press secretary and then calling Ron DeSantis . . . “DeSanctimonious” in the exchange. The choices we are presented with in this election cycle reminds me of Psalm 11:3 . . . If the foundations be destroyed what can the righteous do? However you slice our situation as a nation, it’s a losing proposition. And yet, somehow I don’t feel utterly cast down, which reminds me of another passage.

Rob

Re Goat Rodeo, we have come full circle.
In 1998, Republicans could not understand why Democrats would stand by Bill Clinton after it became known that he committed perjury to cover up an affair with a 20-year-old intern. Today, Democrats cannot understand how Republicans are standing by Trump with his 91 indictments. Clinton’s supporters claimed it was a witch hunt, Trump’s supporters claim it’s a witch hunt, both of them were/are full of beans, both presidents were in fact guilty of what they were accused of. Same screenplay, different presidents. And standing by Clinton did not go well for Democrats. Twenty years later it’s crystal clear that the right thing to do politically would have been to force him out of office. An incumbent President Gore probably would have defeated George Bush, and there would have been no Hillary candidacy, meaning there probably would have been no Trump presidency. Any other Democrat running in 2016 would have cleaned Trump’s clocks.
Standing by Trump is going to do just as much damage to the GOP. Of course that’s in the future so the details aren’t yet known, but enough is obvious to make a few predictions, none of them rosy for Republicans.
Stop trying to defend the indefensible. Let Trump go down. He has it coming, all your attacks on the prosecutors don’t change that, and the sooner the GOP and the conservative movement is rid of him, the better.

Kathleen

Re: The Leticia James case about Trump overvaluing a property—you forgot to mention that the basis on which they set the price of the bail was based on a valuation of his property which, wait for it . . . was in line with his supposed overvaluation that they sued him for in the first place.

JPH

Would you share your thoughts on the recently passed (by the US House) Antisemitism Awareness Act?
My senators are all in and just waiting for their opportunity to vote in favor of the bill. Unless I’m misunderstanding the legislation, this seems to be a serious violation of the First Amendment.
Antisemitism is a terrible sin and the recent protests around the world (especially at Auschwitz) are truly horrible. How do we as Christians speak to those who represent us in a way that communicates our desire to protect the Jewish population while still preserving the First Amendment?
I know the real problem here is spiritual, but how do we proceed immediately?
Sincerely,

Sarah

In your explanation re: Sabbath Dinners
Right after the toast the prayer begins with Father God. I don’t think this is an appropriate way to address God. No where in the Bible does “Father God” occur. I doubt it can be found in the church fathers, the Reformers, or the Puritans. It seems to be a recent phenomenon in Evangelicalism. It seems to make more sense when referring to pagan gods such as Zeus or the Dagda, Ireland’s father god. It seems to imply a father god along side other gods. We don’t refer to Jesus as Son God or the Holy Spirit as Spirit God. Please give this some thought. I know addressing God appropriately is important to you.

Tim

Within a marriage and household, who should bear the emotional weight of making decisions and ensuring that the household is running properly, the husband only or should the wife share in this emotional weight as well? To explain what I mean a little bit, there are things that need to get done in a household (e.g. someone has the earn the money, someone has to cook the food, etc.), and the husband and wife would share in these duties, but then there is also the place of bearing the emotional weight of ensuring that everything that needs to get done does get done. For example, we have probably all heard stories in which the husband abdicates his responsibility by working hard at his job all day and then coming home and not being interested in talking about the family’s finances, things that need to get done around the house, etc. In this case, the wife is bearing all of the emotional weight of making sure everything gets done. The husband may be doing some of the things that need to get done in the household, but he is not bearing any of the emotional weight of ensuring that everything gets done.
I understand that there is a major problem in the example that I just mentioned in which the wife bears all of the emotional weight, but my question is whether there is a problem if that is reversed? Suppose that the wife fulfills her responsibilities within the household that she and her husband have agreed are her responsibilities, but she leaves it entirely up to her husband to bear the emotional weight of making sure everything gets done. For example, if there is a problem in the household, she leaves it up to her husband to solve it, and if there is an important decision that her husband brings to her to discuss with her, she doesn’t want to bear the weight of the decision, so she just tells her husband to do whatever he thinks is best or says something like “ugh, do we really have to talk about that? I don’t want to think about serious things like that.”
In this type of situation, does the husband have the responsibility as the head of the household to bear the full emotional weight, or is it appropriate for him to expect his wife to share in some of that? In the scenario that I just described, what should the husband do? Should he push his wife to be more invested and involved in the decision making process or should he just learn to bear the full weight by himself?
Thanks for taking the time to read this!

Will

RE: How to Read a Book by Andrew Naselli
Pastor Wilson,
I just received my pre-ordered copy of the new Canonpress book: “How to Read a Book” by Andrew Naselli. Andrew Naselli was previous known to me as a student and “disciple” of D.A. Carson. More, this book is dedicated to “Don Carson”.
So, connecting: Doug Wilson . . . to . . . Canonplus . . . to . . . Andrew Naselli’s new book …to… D.A. Carson
Does this mean or suggest that D.A. Carson is on “our” side?
(I hope so)
Thanks!
P.S. Based on the blurbs, recommendations, TOC, etc. I’m really looking forward to reading this book and depending on how it goes am planning on buying copies for some in my family and my pastor and elder(s).

Robert

I was searching through old Content Cluster Musters, and came across the August 3, 2023 edition. Under the “Song I Really Like” section was featured a song I’d never heard of, but the album cover displayed featured a cartoon outline of the back of a naked woman, with her buttocks forming the letter “W.” Please replace the song with one that has a clean album cover! Thank you.

C

I’d like to tell you that I greatly appreciate the work that you are doing. You have been a great blessing to my family. We thank the Lord for you and all the wonderful people that are involved in your community and ministry. May God continue to bless your work.
I also have a question I’d like to ask. I have been going through your books for a while now, and have certainly noticed your post-mill eschatology. The truly striking thing about it for me has been the consistency that you live out that eschatology, in what you write and do. For my part I’ve considered myself (loosely) an amill guy for around ten years. It isn’t an area I’ve done much study in, but I knew pretty early on from reading Scripture that I was not a pre-mill, nor especially a dispensationalist pre-mill. I live in Oklahoma, and dispensationalism is rampant here. It’s always made me uncomfortable because of its inconsistent hermeneutic. Anyhow I recently went through your commentary on Revelation. That was the clincher for me, I decided I need to thoroughly investigate Post-Millennialism. So I picked up a copy of He Shall Have Dominion by Gentry as well as A PostMillennial Primer by Sandlin. I quickly finished the primer because it’s short and am working my way through Gentry’s book. I’m also going through his audio course on Canon+.
My question is simple in the asking, maybe not so simple in the answering. Do you have any further recommendations on the study of PostMillennialism? Thank you.
In Christ

Jeremy

Awhile ago, I read your “Letters on Homosexual Desire”. I had struggled for a long time with this sin and when I read your book, I had a hard time accepting the idea that the desire was malformed in me by some sort of family matter. The way you describe it is that “a lot of the set up for sexual temptation is not sexual at all,”(p. 19) and you give the example of bad relationships with mothers (or fathers or anyone ) being a common factor in homosexual development. I had serious doubts, and I also didn’t like being called soft.
But last summer, I’ve came around to actually recognizing this in my own life. When I finally did, it was like the light finally turned on. I found a book called “Shame and Attachment Loss” by Joseph J. Nicolosi, often called the father of reparative therapy. I was hugely skeptical at first, but I couldn’t deny that when Nicolosi described the general pattern of homosexuality he saw in his patients, it was like reading my journal. His main thesis is that homosexuality is almost always a desire for maleness gone wrong. In the forming child, the male identity is not secured for whatever reason, and eventually he starts seeing it in other guys and desperately wanting it for himself. The desire gets sexualized, and the strength of that desire remains so long as the “male wound” does. He gives the example, which I recognized in myself before, that homosexual men often do not know if they are attracted to a guy or if they want to be that guy. It’s not a proper love, but an anxious and self-centered counterfeit.
Reading this made me realize that I’ve never really seen myself as a man, that for all my life I have felt as though I belonged to some third group entirely, separate from men and women. All this truth focused on one moment from my childhood that I always remembered but never knew the true significance of, the moment I swore I never wanted to be like my older brother. I took pride in all the ways that I wasn’t like him, and promptly threw the baby out with the bathwater. I didn’t realize how much this would cost.
I have since come a long way from homosexual desire. Every day it feels like I can say I’ve never felt farther from it. Whereas I was once offended by being called effeminate, God has now given me freedom through the hard truth. Healing was able to come in. Now, I have been able to see myself in my manhood and enjoy good friendships with other men free from improper desire. So thank you very much for testifying to the truth. All glory be to God.
But I’m wondering what you think about Nicolosi’s thesis statement, that homosexuality is a desperate desire for maleness gone wrong. His main prescription for those struggling is to invest in good male friendships. You prescribe at the end of your book for men to “obey their double-helix” and “become what your are” as a tactic against homosexuality, and I think Nicolosi is saying a similar thing, to become a man who is secure in his maleness and proper male relationships. What do you think about it?
Hope you can write soon, and thanks again.

JF

In your About page, you say, “In theology I am an evangelical, postmill, Calvinist, Reformed, and Presbyterian, pretty much in that order.” I’m curious why you would put “postmill” so high on the list. Since the clearer parts of Scripture are to aid us in interpreting the less clear parts, would it not be better to let one’s eschatology be informed by one’s Calvinist/Reformed leanings, rather than the other way around? Or am I just misinterpreting your “in that order” statement?

Cap

Since you constantly use the phrase “Christ or Chaos” I had a bumper sticker made with that phrase on it. I will mail one to you. It is easily made by any print shop.

Howard

Thank you for your thoughts on Israel, Hamas, etc.
In South Africa, where I live, there’s a widespread narrative that Israel is an apartheid state, as well as being guilty of genocide towards towards Palestinians. Unfortunately, I can’t explain why Israel is accused of being an apartheid state, apart from the fact that they had some level of friendship with Apartheid South Africa back in the day. I’m interested to know how you might respond to allegations of Israel being an apartheid state. Thanks.

Pierre

My wife and I are in the process of moving back where we both grew up, she has lots of family there, and great opportunities for jobs for both of us. We’ve been attending a reformed Presbyterian church that holds to the Westminster Standards where we’re at now. The best option for churches where we’re moving to is a first baptist church, the preaching is sound, and the community is great, I grew up with this community. They also need someone to help with worship and lead their music each week. I have experience in this area and have expressed interest in serving. I of course differ with them in sacraments and church polity. Is this a wise decision for me to lead worship for them? I have no intention of disrupting the unity of the body or throwing my paedobaptist convictions upon anyone in worship. I’ve made it clear to the pastor my views, and would still love to serve, but is it unwise to serve in this capacity? Thanks so much for your help and I greatly appreciate your ministry. praying for God’s continued blessings upon Christ Church.

Carson

To set the context: I am a youth pastor at a church that is pretty conservative, has a thriving Christian school, and is committed to Scripture.
Now to the dilemma: During our Wednesday night youth services (60-70 teens), we have noticed very little participation in the singing portion of the service. I am planning to do some preaching/teaching on praise from the Scripture and, prayerfully, to show my little flock the importance of worship and praising God in song. However, I am observing a trend that some are proposing as a solution to our problem: many churches are hosting worship events that seem to mimic the run of the mill non-denom church down the road where we sing Elevation, Maverick City, Hillsong. When they do these events I observe rooms full of, often teenagers, with their hands lifted up, visibly emotional and some are saying, “Do that at your church!”
My inclination is that I think I could do that and after a while stir up some emotional excitement and get a room full of teenagers to raise their hands . . . but I am skeptical that it would be genuine worship and more the thrill of live music. I see kids raising their hands at this event whom I have reason to suspect do not have any genuine commitment to Christ. Then I question whether I am being judgmental and cynical. Maybe they are being genuine? Worship should involve the emotions so is this all bad? (I was surprised in a cursory reading of the Psalms (145-150) that dancing is commanded multiple times!)
The question: Am I just a stick in the mud or is there good reason for me to be skeptical of creating hype as the solution to our problem? What are the guardrails to prevent emotionalism, while encouraging godly emotion through real heartfelt worship? Is my problem simply one of preference?
Thanks for any help you can offer.
Much appreciation for all that you do,

Johnathan

What is your favorite cigar? Ring gauge, length, wrapper & country of origin?. I would guess either a Churchill or Double Corona.

Jerry