“A similar mixture of sacred and secular numbers can be found on nearly every bluegrass album by nearly every performer. Contemporary bluegrass virtuoso — and country music crossover –Alison Krauss told a reporter, ‘I’m trying to remember a [bluegrass] band that doesn’t play gospel. I just can’t think of any.'” (Gene Edward Veith, Honky-Tonk Gospel, …
Reciprocity in Love
“The desire that speaks first puts itself on display and, as a result, can become a mimetic model for the desire that has not yet spoken. The displayed desire runs the risk of being copied rather than reciprocated. In order to desire someone who desires us, we must not imitate the offered desire, we must …
Got My Pomojo Working
And another thing . . . Whenever I write on postmodernism, I usually get one of four basic responses. The first is a popular one these days with folks who have one remaining screw set firmly in the one remaining hinge. It involves setting up witty websites at my expense, with the wit employed showing …
His Flesh Is The Veil
I said last week that in the Lord’s Supper we partake of a living Christ, not a dead Christ. Scripture teaches this in the tenth chapter of Hebrews, a chapter rich in sacramental doctrine. We are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ (v. 10), which was offered once for all by …
Actually Praying for Turmoil
It is too easy to pray glibly for reformation. Who could be against that? But know that whenever God has shown His kindness in purifying His church, one of the immediate results is always turmoil. The overall result, of course, is reformation, and later historians will write about how glorious it was to be alive …
Walking Away From Greed
“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11) Growing Dominion, Part 94 “He that is greedy of gain troubleth his own house; but he that hateth gifts shall live” (Prov. 15:27). The point of greed is to benefit your own house, but it frequently does not work out that way. The …
Boiled In Low-Fat Milk
“The milk was for the kid, not the kid for the milk. Think for a moment, the Word tells us. The classroom is for the child; the child is not for the classroom. The Sabbath is a feast, not a fast (Lev. 23:2-3). The Lord’s day is a feast, not a fast (Jude 12). We …
Perichoretic Singinng
“When people got together to play musical instruments, they also stood in a circle so they could hear each other and blend in—an act of communal, participatory music-making, not a performance before a passive, non-music-making audience. This is still the practice today when people come together to play bluegrass music” (Gene Edward Veith, Honky-Tonk Gospel, …
Hightailing It From the Truth
“Students of conflict devise many theories about the nature and origin of human discord without ever taking mimetic rivalry into account. If no human being is the culprit, then it must be an idea or perhaps some chemical substance — something fundamentally alien to what the friendship and the friends intrinsically are. They look for …
Pharisees
We have not really learned all the lessons from the Pharisees that we need to learn. The first lesson is that the Pharisees were not all bad. Jesus was visited by one of their number by night, and Nicodemus was an honorable man. Some Pharisees at one point warned Jesus of a plot against His …