New St. Andrews just received approval from our accreditation organization for a change in one of our grad programs, and I am as excited about the prospects for this as I have been about anything we have done here at the college thus far. Here are few paragraphs from NSA’s website explaining some of the …
Free to Do What?
“Slavery to sin is true slavery (i.e. the opposite of moral liberty). But even sin does not negate natural liberty. The slave to sin is free from righteousness, but is still not free from his own desires. Sin’s slave loves sin, and consequently obeys his impulses. As a creature, the slave to sin is naturally …
Avoiding the Sermonic Weasel
“Passive and subjunctive verbs and prepositional phrases cut the life out of oral speech. No wonder the narratives of the Old Testament preach so easily. They are alive with strong nouns and active verbs” (Lowry, The Homiletical Plot, p. 111)
If a Charlie Sheen Rant Were a War
In foreign policy, there are two kinds of competence. Both of them are good things, but you cannot rely on one of them alone. At the same time, the presence of one can ameliorate a situation, keeping it from becoming the outright disaster it would otherwise be. Let’s take the latest adventure in Libya for …
We Think We Hit a Triple
“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11) The Basket Case Chronicles #35 “For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it” (1 Cor. 4:7). The …
Free Men, Not Free Will
“In light of what we have considered, we see that it is inaccurate to talk about free will, as though there were an autonomous thing inside of us, capable of acting in any direction, regardless of the motives of our hearts. If such a thing existed — a creature who made choices apart from the …
Gospel, Not Hectoring
“The awfulness of human guilt needs redemption, not a lecture” (Lowry, The Homiletical Plot, p. 86).
Wiener Schnitzel is UnAmerican
Details are just beginning to emerge about some American atrocities in Afghanistan. Some of the individuals accused are already on trial, which is at it should be. The presenting problem for the politicos and spin doctors in this situation appears to be the fact that there are allegedly supposed to be a multitude of photographs …
Gold or Gravel
“Our words and actions, therefore, are determined not by an autonomous will, but rather by our nature — whether good or bad . . . because our choices proceed from our hearts, our responsibility before God is not limited in the slightest. Our words are determined by our hearts, and we will be judged on …
The Moment of Resolution
“The crucial moment in the sermon as homiletical bind is not in the ‘asking’ but in the revelation stage when matters are turned upside down, and thereby seen in a new way . . . Most literary plots find their climax in the moment of resolution sometime before the ending” (Lowry, The Homiletical Plot, p. …