“If we look at the villains instead of the victims — the police, politicians, social workers, businessmen — we find that the humanitarians have given them free will. They do not speak about the industrialist’s tyrannical father, the loan shark’s miserable childhood in an orphan home, the politician’s neurotic mother. Those people are responsible for …
Like Contrasting Walking with Legs
Green Baggins has put up another post, this one working through a short article I wrote on pp. 7-8 of the FV issue of Credenda. Given the subject matter, this post will be very brief. Well, maybe not very brief, but comparatively brief. Man, look at it grow . . . Just two issues. The …
Just Seething With Latent Hostilities
We really need a substantive, book-length response to N.T. Wright on these global justice issues. Given his position of influence, because of his significant theological stature, because he grounds his proposals in the glorious basics of the gospel, and because of the real passion he brings to the issue, this matter is now squarely on …
A More Excellent Way
INTRODUCTION: We are continuing to consider the problems posed by desire, envy, competition, and ambition. We have now come to competition, something dear to the heart of most Americans. But because of this we must guard our step. You have heard many times that we must repent of our virtues, and this subject is a …
Like Jesse James Robbing a Train
So this response should finish up my reactions to Lane’s first critique of the first article in the FV issue of Credenda. And in this last installment, I do have a few things to say, even though I don’t believe there is a great deal of disagreement at this point. On the question of introspection, …
First, Do No Harm
Rob Hadding poses a reasonable question here. My apologies for the techglitch (which we have not been able to solve yet) that keeps Rob from visiting us directly. The short form is that Rob is not sure Wright deserves the “bludgeoning” for those global justice pages that he sees me trying to administer. “Shouldn’t we …
Down Hill
“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11) Growing Dominion, Part 137 “The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender” (Prov. 22:7). And things fall down when you drop them. This proverb is simply an observation on the way things are. We do not here …
Sin and Sins
The Johannine use of hamartano and hamartia is straightforward. After Jesus had healed the lame man at Bethesda, He told him to go and sin no more (hamartano), lest a worse fate befall him (5:14). He does something similar, but with a very different tone, with the woman caught in the act of adultery (8:11). …
The Light Arrows of Ridicule
“And therefore if I may in any measure redress the evil I will cheerfully bear the criticism of my more sombre brethren. I am deeply in earnest, however playful my remarks may seem to be. These follies may be best shot at by the light arrows of ridicule, and therefore I employ them, not being …
And Eventually These Big Checks Will Bounce
“The culture of Western nations in which humanitarian thinking is dominant is a rentier living off the moral capital accumulated by its predecessors and giving no attention to replenishing it. When it runs out, the horrors begin in earnest . . . Humanism is a philosophy of death” (Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction, pp. 81-82).