There is a great divide between piety, which is true godliness, and pietism, which is a lie about the nature of true godliness. You have heard us disparaging pietism many times, and you can count on hearing it many more times. Pietism is the erection of a false standard of holiness, one that is generally …
The Efficacy of Ritual
This is a ritual meal, and in one sense we may say that this is all it is. The problem with the expression, though, is that such a statement would almost certainly be heard as a minimizing or reductionist statement. Those who want or need it to be more than such a “minimal meal” then …
Just So Many Millions of Ghosts
First, a recap of a basic argument against postmodernity. For all the talk about being in a postmodern era, the basic infrastructure of modernity (liberal democracy with its neutral public square) is retained. In the seminar room called modernity, some who call themselves postmodernists have come to believe that they can change the room they …
Gathering at a Table
Father and God, we thank You for bringing us back together again. We rejoice in gathering at a table, and are glad for the picture that this gathering represents. Just as You gather Your family around Your Table weekly, so we gather as a family around this table here as a small picture or representation …
High Zwinglianism
In his chapter “Against Sacraments,” Peter Leithart quotes Mike Featherstone, who pointed out that postmodernism “moved beyond individualism with a communal feeling being generated,” which is good, but did so in a way in which people “come together in temporary emotional communities” (AC, p. 74), which is entirely inadequate. To this Leithart observes, “The postmodern …
Achaia Reformed Seminary
Scott Clark recently was critical of what we are reportedly trying to do here in Moscow. “The culture reacted to the early Christians in official and unofficial ways. 1 Peter 4 reflects this. The apostolic Christians suffered social stigma not for trying to “take back” or “take over” the Roman empire (or small towns in …
Don’t You Love Science?
“The association of eugenics with race, social class and the emerging ideas about ‘highbrow’ and ‘lowbrow’ cultures was unmistakable. The terms themselves were first used around the turn of the century to describe people of intellectual or aesthetic superiority (highbrow) or inferiority (lowbrow). They were derived from phrenology, a nineteenth-century practice widely used in determining …
The Importance of Picking Up
“Confession of sin, keeping short accounts, is therefore essential to the spiritual health of a school community. After all, for an average-size school, three hundred sinners spend five days a week together there, for eight hours a day for nine months. If such a school had no janitor, just imagine what the bathrooms would look …
Wanting What He Wants
“Rivalry does not arise because the fortuitous convergence of two desires on a single object; rather, the subject desires the object because the rival desires it. In desiring an object the rival alerts the subject to the desirability of the object. The rival, then, serves as a model for the subject, not only in regard …
Hungry Faith
In the covenant the Lord draws near to us. Because He draws near to us we are commanded to draw near to Him by faith. This is the table of the covenant, a central means which God has provided for us to draw near to Him in faith. He has engaged with us to be …