“American popular culture is as old as the colonies, but the appearance of high and popular culture as distinctive categories in American life occurred around the turn of this century [1900] . . . a cultural hierarchy emerged that divided American life into ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture as a primary means of social, intellectual and …
Balance
“There is no reason to give the brain priority over the body or vice versa. Both are to be submitted to the Scriptures. God tells the mind what to think, and He tells the body what to do. He always says what He says to the whole person. The issue is obedience to God, and …
Fear of Radical Contagion
“Men cannot confront the naked truth of their own violence without the risk of abandoning themselves to it entirely. They have never had a clear idea of this violence, and it is possible that the survival of all human societies of the past was dependent on this fundamental lack of understanding” (Girard, Violence and the …
Seamus Has Now Joined Us
We continue to thank the Lord for all His blessings to our extended family, and to Nate and Heather specifically. His mercy never fails, His kindness never stops, and His blessings flow to children’s children. This morning our eleventh grandchild was born, at 8 pounds something, and his name is Seamus James Wilson. Seamus is …
Drinking the New Testament
The covenant of the Lord is objective. It exists in the world, within the course of history. We are living in the times of Regeneration that the Lord Jesus told us about. But in saying that the covenant is objective, we do mean that it is to be understood as a mechanical thing, grinding away. …
Too Big for One Mouth
We are a large congregation, and this means that we must take great care with our tongues. Many in the modern world have drifted into the view that when an institution gets large enough, the basic patterns of godly speech no longer apply. Within a small group, slander and gossip can readily be identified as …
Puddles
“Many modern novels, poems, and pictures, which we are brow-beaten into ‘appreciating,’ are not good work because they are not work at all. They are mere puddles of spilled sensibility or reflection. When an artist is in the strict sense working, he of course takes into account the existing taste, interests, and capacity of his …
Especially in the South
“On the question of athletics, the true extremes are worship of the body and contempt for the body. These views come quickly into play when a school board is deciding whether the school should field a football team or build a gymnasium or sponsor a girl’s volleyball team. One contingent maintains that the school was …
From Cain and Abel Down
“It is not only in myths that brothers are simultaneously drawn together and driven apart by something they both ardently desire and which they will not or cannot share — a throne, a woman or, in more general terms, a paternal heritage” (Girard, Violence and the Sacred, p. 63).
But That’s What Everybody Always Calls It
My oldest daughter was recently talking with her youngest son, Judah, who is almost two. He is just moving into that time of life when he is able to identify various parts of his head. “What’s this?” she said. “Chin,” he said. “What’s this?” “Cheek.” And on it went, with him doing very well . …