For those who want to do it, one of the best devices for hiding from God is something called liturgy. I say this as one advocating liturgical reform in the Church, and as one who has taught repeatedly that liturgy is inescapable. But developed liturgy, researched liturgy, biblical liturgy, remains a snare. A certain kind …
These Are Your People
We are here primarily to eat and drink. This do, our Lord said. Now it is important for us to remember certain things as we do this, of course, but we are not here primarily to remember. We can do that without the bread and wine. We should of course be clean from all known …
Whoa
A little less than ten years ago, we had quite a thunderstorm head toward our house, coming from the southwest. It was a thunder-bumper of magnificent proportions. It was the kind of thing the Midwest would not need to be ashamed of. Our family started out sitting on the front porch, watching it come our …
The Argument from Gratitude
Students of apologetics are familiar with some of the traditional arguments for the existence of God – the teleological argument from design, the cosmological argument from first cause, and so on. I would like to suggest another one. I do not really know what to call it, but the argument is directed against one of …
Apropos of Nothing
In the tension-filled room full of systematic theologians and biblical theologians, it is perilously easy to juxtapose “timeless truths” to “story.” But this is not necessary, and this is another plea to all get along. It should go without saying that I affirm what the Reformed systematicians have distilled out behind their magisterial barn. And …
Oriented by the Second Coming
We rarely notice our bones, and consequently, we rarely notice what is in them. Certain assumptions have been with us in the West for so many centuries now that we readily hold that this is just “how things are.” We think it is all so obvious, forgetting that our culture at one time was taught …
Not All “One True Gods” Are the One True God
“The proponents of an ‘Ecumenical Jihad,’ from President George W. Bush and Professor Forte to a Christian conservative like Peter Kreeft, share two fallacies. Their faulty understanding of Islamic theology leads them to imagine that ‘Allah’ is more or less interchangeable with the ‘God’ of other monotheists. Their incomplete understanding of the phenomenon of secular …
Beast of Burden
“The real break came in the late 1960s, when the counterculture went sour, and popular music began attracting people who were less interested in music than in using such a powerful medium for culturally radical purposes. The harbingers of this break were the Rolling Stones, who relished the blues but did not hesitate to make …
Vain Repetitions
“I grew up in evangelical circles and knew the public prayer ropes. I could pray readily in public settings, particularly in church, and did so in accordance with the accepted canons for many years. When I finally began to write my prayers out before the service, I noticed something funny. I had stopped repeating myself. …
Impetuous Folly
“Rash men quickly take hold of the sword of justice to hack and hew. They think that what they do is according to reason, but they do not wisely weigh things in the balance of justice. Remember, justice has a balance as well as a sword” (Burroughs, Irenicum, p. 196).