One of my on-going volunteer interlocutors has pointed out that the section of the Idaho Code I cited a post or so ago (requiring Bible reading in public schools) is a four-decades old dead duck, legally speaking. She points out that it was passed in 1963 and declared unconstitutional in 1964. She did not add, …
Blowback
In the very nature of the case, over-reaching on the part of the intoleristas is a necessity. Some of them actually believe their own over-heated rhetoric, and others are foolish enough to think that if the cause is desperate, wildly inflated accusations will somehow help them. In the short run, such tactics frequently work. But …
For Love of the Code
As the ongoing harassment of Christ Church and associated ministries continues, some of the folks involved in said harassment have the cheek to maintain (in public) that their efforts are not an example of selective harassment. “You see,” they patiently explain to the rest of us, “this is about the rule of law. We may …
Vanities and Mist
Minister: Lift up your hearts! Congregation: We lift them up to the Lord! Father of all glory, we come now to exalt and praise Your name. We ask that You would strengthen and feed us, and nourish us, but not because the focus of this service of worship is on us. We ask You to …
Lies and Liars
No one needs to teach us Pharisaism. Like all sins, it comes naturally enough if we do not guard against it. But you are Christians, you are a new creation in Christ, and one of the glorious characteristics of this new creation is the desire to guard against all such sins. One of the most …
Love Them Now
God has given us bread and wine, but not so that we would be distracted by the bread and wine. Remember that we dwell in a universe created by the Word of God who both was God and was with God. The Word of God is the exact representation of the image and nature of …
Epistemological Noogies
My friend Phil Johnson recently read and liked my thread on postmodernism. And of course, I liked the fact that he liked it. But he added a little something at the end of his review that indicated ongoing misunderstandings on another subject, to wit, the whole Auburn Avenue thing. Phil mused that some of my …
Confessing the Other Guy’s Sins
Living in community as we do, and living in the kind of community we live in, it is necessary that offenses will come. We provoke them, we commit them, we endure them, and frequently we will do one of these, thinking that we are doing another. We provoke offenses while thinking that we are enduring …
A Great Deal Worse
As we look back over the passage we have been considering, a few reminders are necessary. This is the Lord’s Table, and it does not belong to you. This means you are not in charge of the invitations and place cards, and have no authority to decline an invitation that has been graciously extended to …
Letters After the Name
“Scholarship of all kinds — scientific, historical, grammatical, philosophical — partakes fully in the tendency of the human race to veer into sin and folly. Some of the dumbest ideas ever to afflict us have been embraced first in the academy and abandoned there last. Two examples should suffice — Marxism and evolution. Marxists think …