Our Father and God, You have established Your Church as a royal priesthood in this world, and so we intercede for the nations of men now, confessing on their behalf so that the grace of Your forgiveness will soon be extended to them all. Our Father and God, we pray to You now from the …
Holy Ghost Industrial Grade Sandpaper
I have been writing on distance learning, and how, while it provides some important things, like information, it is utterly incapable of providing other things, like how to deal with people. In a learning community, in a school or college, your fellow students are people, your teachers are people, the administration is made up of …
Governments for Body and Soul
Book 4/Chapter 20 Civil government (section 1) 1. What sort of two-fold government is man under? 2. What two elements are found in the government of the body? 3. What two errors are common with regard to this question? Different, not antithetical (section 2) 1. As long as we live among men, what five things …
A Tad More on Atheism
The “On Faith” page of The Washington Post has published a short commentary from me on the new atheism. Here.
Ceremonies That Declare the Promise
Book 4/Chapter 19 No word for the grease (section 31) 1. What does Augustine say happens when the word is withdrawn from the water? 2. What does this do to the Romanists’ anointing oil? 3. What kind of ingenious religion are they attempting to create? Duties of deacons (section 32) 1. What is Calvin’s central …
History of the Tonsure
Book 4/Chapter 19 History of the tonsure (section 27) 1. What was the origin of the tonsure? All of us priests (section 28) 1. Does Calvin affirm the priesthood of all believers here? 2. Why is ordination not a sacrament? Ceremony of ordination (section 29) 1. Why does Calvin not accept the appeal to the …
Getting Dressed for Christmas
INTRODUCTION: Holidays are frequently times when people get trapped by the expectations game. Because everyone around you assumes that the day is going to be “really good,” “special,” or “fantastic,” and is constantly telling you to have a “merry” one, it is easy to assume that having a merry Christmas is an actual possession of …
Doctor, You’re Cutting Too Deep. You’re Scratching the Table.
One of the temptations that comes to people who learn how to see and identify “deep structures” in a narrative — adeptly twirling chiasms they have found, or anticipataory foreshadowing motifs, or whatnot — is that they sometimes lose their ability to read what is right there on the page. They know that the Mississippi …
Holy Orders
Book 4/Chapter 19 Clerical orders (section 22) 1. What does Calvin point out about the sacrament of holy orders? 2. Do their writers agree on how many clerical offices there are? Christ and seven offices (section 23) 1. What is Calvin’s response to the claim that Christ occupied all seven offices, thus sanctifying them? Lower …
The Case Against Distance Learning
But before anyone gets riled at the title, allow me a few caveats first. The first is that a strong element of distance learning is essential to every form of real education. Every university library is full of distance learning packets called books. When I read Augustine or Calvin, this is because back in the …