“When Dawkins lights into radical Muslims going crazy over the Danish cartoons, I am right with him. Something really needs to be done about those people. When he talks about how Pope John Paull II made way too many people saints, my Scottish covenanter blood begins to rise, and I start hunting around for the …
The Sermonic KISS Principle
“A preacher’s words need to be as simple and clear as possible . . . preachers have to strive for simplicity and clarity. This will mean using not only straightforward words, but short sentences, with few if any subordinate clauses. One is obliged to do this when being translated into another language, which is good …
CostCo Signings
If you are in the area, and want to help Nate’s books burrow into the woodwork at CostCo nationwide, then you should check out these signing opportunities. I know, I know, CostCo doesn’t really have any woodwork to speak of, but you get the picture. Nate will be at the Coeur D’Alene CostCo (355 East …
Check the Batteries
“But if this is enlightenment, we need to check the batteries” (God Is, p. 102).
They Really Matter
“I turn now from structure to words. If we preach only once a week for forty years, we shall utter about nine million of them. Words matter” (Stott, Between Two Worlds, p. 231).
Bad Stories and Good Cameras
A few weeks ago I wrote about A Jungle Full of Monkeys. In that post, I talked about the incipient reformation of aesthetics that may be taking shape among the young, restless, and Reformed. The interest in that post, and response to it, tells me that I am not just firing random neurons on this …
Oh, Well
“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11) The Basket Case Chronicles #48 “But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such …
The Sea Otters of Arbitrary Value
“When Hitchens appeals to things like innate conscience and human decency, doing so as an evolutionary atheist, he is functioning as an illusionist. What he is doing is transparently a trick. Even if a Christian reader doesn’t know how he is doing that trick, it is manifestly a trick. And it is a pretty good …
Within Reason
“The golden rule for sermon outlines is that each text must be allowed to supply its own structure” (Stott, Between Two Worlds, p. 229).
A Headache That Starts at the Ankles
I want to modify a thought experiment that David Mamet suggested in his fine book The Secret Knowledge, and do so as my own response to the risible proposal coming before the U.N. this week. Excuse me, I see that “risible proposal” doesn’t narrow things down enough. I am referring to the idea that the …