One of the books I read Sunday mornings before worship is Luther’s Table Talk. I love that man. He frequently cracks me up, as he did this morning with his comments about pastoral hubris. “We want to set things straight and make everything right. To this God says, ‘Well, then, go ahead! Be clever and …
Active Obedience As Thematic Structuring Device
And with a sexy title like that, if you can avoid being dragged in then you are beyond all hope. I know that I have been referring to Peter Leithart a bit lately, but that is just the way it goes. This last Wednesday, Peter presented an unpublished paper to the NSA faculty forum. The …
Like A Weaned Child
Minister: Lift up your hearts! Congregation: We lift them up to the Lord! Oh Lord, my heart is not haughty. My eyes are not arched and lofty. Neither do I meddle with high doctrine, Truths too great to hold in my hands. Not for me . . . I have settled down, after the sobbing, …
Real Fellowship
We sometimes like our fellowship in small doses. We love being around other Christians if we can only arrange to have them available on tap. Turn it on when we want, and turn it off when we want. This is why weekend retreats are sometimes attractive. We get a good dose of other people, but …
In Person
We too often fall into the trap of thinking that a description is the same thing as an explanation. If confronted with the inadequacy of our description, we resort (oddly) to a more detailed and “scientific” description. But this makes no sense. When we let go of an object, we readily assume that our scientific …
Leithart’s Ugly Ditch
Here’s the problem. Merold Westphal wants to stand outside modernity, critiquing it. But he most certainly does not want to replace it. He talks wistfully about how nice it would be if it were to be magically replaced — in a Lennon-like Imagine sort of way, where the schools have all the money they need …
A Word to NSA Students
We are halfway through Jerusalem Term, and so it is appropriate for me to bring you a few words of exhortation — what your academic dean described to me as a few kicks and hugs. This I am happy to do, and after thinking it over, I decided to speak to you in a Mosaic …
In the Kind Name
Gracious Lord and God, Father of Life, the gift of rest is one of the great blessings You have bestowed on us, and the blessing of work goes with it. We thank You for it all, and seek to rest before You now, preparing our hearts to worship You in the morning. We ask that …
Not Eating Gravel
“I have no problem with high standards or tight rules — but the rules are for the children; the children are not there to give the rules something to work upon. There is nothing wrong with hard work in a rigorous school, but there is something wrong with work that is hard for all the …
Ideational Art
“Ideational art, speaking for its culture, represents a nonvisual world of transcendental realities lying beyond both reason and the senses. Its subjects are spiritual: Almighty God, the Divine Christ, the blessed Madonna, inspired apostles and saints, and, generally, the realm of intangible spiritual values” (B.G. Brander, Staring Into Chaos, p. 269).