“By insisting that most art, high and low, exists for the sole purpose of reinforcing bourgeois-capitalist consciousness, the ‘critical theorist’ gets to be a revolutionary. But by dictating the handful of exceptions that achieve true ‘negation,’ he also gets to be a snob” (Martha Bayles, Hole in our Soul, p. 78).
Well Of Course We Can Do That
“In fact, as we have seen, every church has a liturgy. Every church has an order of service. But those which deny they have a liturgy have the side ‘benefit’ of not having to defend what they do scripturally. To take an example from each side of this thing, a minister of a church which …
Great Things for Your Kingdom
Father and God, we thank You and praise You for all Your goodness to us, and we thank You for all Your kindness to us throughout the week. We ask You to bless this arriving Lord’s Day as well, and ask that You would accomplish great things for Your kingdom on the foundation of worship …
And They Snap Easily
“Hearts that are stout and willful are dry and sapless” (Burroughs, Irenicum, p. 202).
Westminster Sacerdotalism
I said that I was going to try to get caught up with Greenbaggins’ review of RINE, and here is the next payment on that particular debt. In his review of my tenth chapter, Lane says that my criticism of Warfield is based on a confusion of sacerdotalism and sacramentalism. “Sacerdotalism,” he says, “has to …
Refined Seven Fold
In the contemporary debate on the authority of Scripture, the only real concern I have with words like inerrant or infallible is that they are not strong enough. The doctrine of sola Scriptura has two components. The first is that Scripture is the only infallible authority we have. The second is that Scripture is the …
Aping the Enemy
“There was more than just a whiff of Muhammad in the papal guarantee of plenary absolution—a direct pass to heaven to the Crusaders should they die, or great riches if they lived” (Serge Trifkovic, The Sword of the Prophet, p. 98).
Isaiah 5:20
“But it [perverse modernism] did foster a climate in which artists were seen, by themselves and others, as implacably opposed to the values of ordinary people; and in which contempt for morality was seen, by elites and common people alike, as a mark of superiority” (Martha Bayles, Hole in our Soul, p. 45).
Just Call Me Old Fashioned
“The subject matter should be decent. More than one congregation has been mortified to have to add their corporate amen to a plea for the healing of someone’s hemorrhoids. While we perhaps have not gone as far the Philistines and made gold replicas of them to set up in the foyer, we do talk about …
Balance
“A man must not be one thing one day and another on another day, not like a weather vane, carried up and down with every wind. Neither must he be willful and stout, like a rusty lock that will not be stirred by any key” (Burroughs, Irenicum, p. 201).