“[In] America today the average square yardage of boyswear grows and grows, while the square inches in the girls’ outfits shrinks and shrinks. The boys carry so much fabric they look like skateboarding Bedouins, and the girls look like preppy prostitutes.” [David Brooks, On Paradise Drive (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004), p. 56]
A Theological Tin Ear
“Human language is necessarily inadequate whenever men speak about God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. But there is creaturely inadequacy, a holy limitation, revealed in virtually every word of Scripture, and then there is an impudent inadequancy. The thing which differentiates the two is not the element of anthropomorphic images (which are …
Foods of the World
“The rule in these pedestrian-friendly town centers is ‘Fight a way, gain a restaurant.’ You’ll find Afghan eateries, Vietnamese restaurants, Lebanese diners, Japanese sushi bars alongside dining options from Haiti, Cambodia, India, Mongolia, and Moscow. And this is not to even mention the Cosi-style casual dining spots offering shiitake mushroom panini sandwiches or the gourmet …
Imagination Succeeds When It Staggers
“When a biblical vision of the living God is given to us, human imagination staggers, and human reason lies prostrate on the floor. Isaiah is undone, a man of unclean lips, and Moses is hidden in the cleft of the rock so that he will not be dissolved. In the revelation of Himself to us, …
Applications from Hebrews
As we conclude the book of Hebrews, the writer ends his letter with a potpourri of ethical admonitions and instruction. A common theme is “living in a certain way,” but the subject matter changes radically from passage to passage. “Let brotherly love continue . . .” (Heb. 13:1-25). We begin with friends,strangers and prisoners. These …
Sunday Morning Daylight Savings Snafu
As you perhaps know, everybody should have set their clocks ahead so that they could arrive at worship on time. This we did, and after services some of my kids (and their kids) came by our house after church for some of our usual eating and fellowship. They arrived here before we did, and were …
Staying Out of the Deep End
Once there was brother and sister, and they were on a vacation with their parents, driving across the country. One evening, after a long day’s drive, the family checked into a motel, and both the kids were very excited about the prospect of swimming in the motel pool. “You can get into your suits,” their …
The World Is Full of Losers
The world is full of losers, and there is no one who is not a loser. And yet, left to our own devices, we always construct religious systems based on work, striving, earning, winning. Perpetual losers, bred to the bone losers, we insist on devising and pursuing the calculus of success and winning. Jesus is …
Authority and Apostolic Succession
A number of years ago I had a number of friends who maintained that the way to argue with me was to answer yes to the first question, and then to stoutly say no thereafter. I mention this because I am about to attempt something that I think our Roman Catholic friends might want to …
Congregational Prayer Time, No Brakes
And I have frankly seen worse. So have you probably.