Introduction: “Worldview” language is very common among Christians, and particularly common among Reformed Christians. But what are we talking about? Where did this way of talking come from? And where is it going? The Text: “And one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that he had answered them well, …
Preparing for Spiritual Battle
Introduction: The elders asked me to present a message to help keep the congregation “oriented.” Over the last few years, we have instituted a number of changes in our liturgy of worship. What is the trajectory of this? What is our goal for this congregation? What is our vision for what all this will look …
When Artists Abandoned the People
“The simple fact is that, until the French Enlightenment, Romantic movement, and the American and French Revolutions of the eighteenth century, the artist saw himself as a celebrant of this society and all its values, which to him—if not to aesthetes of today—were noble and heroic.” [Richard Grenier, Capturing The Culture (Washington, DC: Ethics and …
Isaiah 5:20
“For example, we have gotten to the point where a preacher can spend the entire sermon talking about himself, and his own struggles, and everyone says that he is being open, honest, transparent, and humble. Another man, who proclaims the truth in a way that indicates something would have been true had he never been …
An Apology for Feminine Modesty
The sin of immodesty is not a light matter. Nor is it a problem that can be isolated to this or that individual. We are God’s covenant people, and we worship Him together. We live together. Modesty in Christian women is therefore a very obvious indicator of whether or not a Christian people understand who …
Every Century But This, Every Country But His Own
“Ordinary Americans, frankly, resist such notions as best they can, but they receive little support from the nation’s professional intellectual class, of which the artistic class is only the most demented and most estranged. People in most cultures throughout history, after all, have historically ‘stuck with their own,’ been ‘ethnocentric,’ thought their own culture best. …
Many Counselors
“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11) Growing Dominion, Part 93 “Without counsel purposes are disappointed: but in the multitude of counselors they are established” (Prov. 15:22). Taking this together with other proverbs about business, we know that counsel is not simply a quantitative thing. In a multitude of counselors …
Somebody’s Idea of An Argument
Just finished talking with the cops about an incident last evening. When I came home last night (June 26, 2006), I checked our mailbox by the road before heading up the driveway. The mailbox contained a used condom, or a condom doctored to look as though it had been used. Now there are two basic …
Cool Off the Rack
“Cool required no specialized knowledge. Cool could be bought (but hopefully not cheaply). Cool was hip plus demographics.” [John Seabrook, Nobrow (New York: Vintage Books, 2000), p. 188].
The Tenets of Envy
“In Christian cultures, envy is understood to be one of the seven deadly sins, what Shakespeare identified as a ‘universal wolf.’ But in democratic societies, envy is institutionalized, and the tenets of such envy are diligently taught to the democratic young when they rise up, when they lie down, or when they walk along the …