One of the things we have seen starting to take root in our community here is an emphasis on sabbath celebration. This is distinct from sabbath observance, if observance is merely defined as nothing more than having scruples about what you can and cannot do on the Lord’s Day. But learning how to call the …
Accreditation Woes
A few years ago, NSA was pursuing accreditation with the American Association of Liberal Education (AALE). We pulled out of the process when contrary to its published standards AALE denied candidate status to another Christian college (because said college had the temerity to expect their faculty to have a Christian view of creation). So we …
Born to Die
Introduction: As we continue meditating on the meaning of Advent, we are not really resisting attempts to make Christmas meaningless as we are fighting with alternative meanings. There is no such thing (in the last analysis) as a vacuum holiday, a celebration without a point. Attempts to neutralize Christmas are simply an intermediate step—and the …
Heavenly Pleasures On Earth
“God has bridged the gap between heaven and earth. Joys of heaven and joys of earth come from the same Creator and are sufficiently similar that one can be used to describe the other. Indeed Steere reversed the usual metaphoric equation by asserting not that heaven would be a garden of earthly delights but that …
He Who Loses His Life Will Save It
“But in reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad eyes, but it is still I who see. Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself …
Too Many Kinds of Pleasure
“The real objection to a merely hedonistic theory of literature, or of the arts in general, is that ‘pleasure’ is a very high, and therefore very empty, abstraction. It denotes too many things and connotes too little. If you tell me that something is a pleasure, I do not know whether it is more like …
So Define “Old”
“This desire to belong to an old church is certainly a noble and scriptural one. ‘Remember thy congregation, which thou hast purchased of old; the rod of thinke inheritance, which thou hast redeemed; this mount Zion, where thou hast dwelt’ (Ps. 74:2). But at the same time, caution is in order. Someone with a pressing …
As the Crowd Turns
“The mystery of Job is presented in a context that does not explain it but at least allows us to situate it. The scapegoat is a shattered idol. The rise and fall of Job are bound up in one another. The two extremes seems to be connected . . . The one thing in common …
Braying Contests
In these days of web slander, what should a ministry’s rule of thumb be in responding to such things? There are two basic principles to remember. First, if a charge has any surface plausibility (or possible “traction”) at all, do not let it go unanswered. The Scriptures are full of vigorous replies to various saucy …
A Heart That Turns to the Right
To repeat the same things over again is a protection. Those who struggle against sin must be reminded again and again. If we start to chafe at the warnings, it simply shows how much we need them. “Therefore thou shalt love the Lord they God, and keep his charge, and his statutes, and his judgments, …