From time to time, we get inquiries from people who are thinking about moving here to Moscow. One of the great concerns about doing this is that pesky detail of making a living. If anyone out there is in this position, I know of a good business opportunity here (a business for sale) that requires …
Theology With the Chambermaid
I am not sure I can do full justice to the questions about Roman Catholicism (from Tim and Kurt), but I will have a whack at it. The distinction between the magisterial doctrine of sola Sciptura and the modern, individualistic solo Scriptura is, in my thinking, straightforward. Solo Scriptura maintains that the Bible is the …
Department of Hip Resources
“The people who staff the Combine aren’t like Nurse Ratched. They aren’t Frank Burns, they aren’t the Church Lady, they aren’t Dean Wormer from Animal House, they are not those repressed old folks in the commercials who want to ban Tropicana Fruit Twisters. They’re hipper than you can ever hope to be because hip is …
Repenting of Virtues
“So one of the central points of biblical satire is that we must not only repent of our sins, but also of those ‘virtues’ for which we preen ourselves. We have trouble seeing such virtues as sinful, because we have neglected the essential practice of bringing the Word of God to bear on ourselves — …
Language Is Not Mathematics
“We must come to understand incarnational translation, which is to say, understanding translation as interpretation. There are two ways an interpreter can fail. One is through assuming that the languages he works with are like mathematics and that any deviance from that standard should be considered as a failing. This is the way of the …
Fat Souls
“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11) Growing Dominion, Part 70 “The liberal soul shall be made fat: and he that watereth shall be watered also himself.” (Prov. 11:25). This is a passage which certainly reinforces the verse just before it. The verse before says something important about the externals. …
A Decree Went Out From Caesar
As we come to a robust celebration of Christmas, we want to maintain the biblical antithesis. This cannot be done on the basis of genial Unitarian platitudes, egg nog, gentle snow fall, or anything else like these things. “And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, …
Heavenly Prayer Requests
This is the beginning of an answer to Kurt’s question about Mary. And, as is the case with many doctrinal issues, the real issue is found at the level of the presuppositions. The question really is not whether the Roman church has a nuanced position on Mary that acknowledges that Christ is a “unique” mediator. …
His Name Shall Be Called . . .
Isaiah is very concerned with the importance of names; he named his two sons with the future of Israel in mind, and they were both types of Immanuel. And Matthew tells that the Messiah was named Jesus because He was named Immanuel. And now we come to a glorious pinnacle of naming. For unto us …
Dreadlocks at Taco Bell
“But one hardly has to go to a poetry reading to see the countercultural idea acted out. Its frenzied ecstasies have long since become an official aesthetic of consumer society, a monotheme of mass as well as adversarial culture. Turn on the TV and there it is instantly: the unending drama of consumer unbound and …