“We have known too many kids, like the younger son in the parable, who have separated themselves from their parents, thrown off the traces, and heard in the lure of the far country . . . the promise of adventure and boundless pleasure. And for so many this has turned to ashes. The grand and …
Where the Problem Started
“The declension of culture in America is comparable to well-meaning but naive parents who raise a child without discipline and without instilling self-control and who are then shocked at the extent of the rebellion apparent when that child gets away from home. The extent of our current rebellion can be seen in our cultural parade …
It Horrifies My Heart
Minister: Lift up your hearts! Congregation: We lift them up to the Lord! Give Your Word back to Your slave On which You made me hope This is my comfort in my fears, Your quickening Word has made me live, Your resurrecting power is here. The proud have loved to laugh at me, And they …
Anything But Innocence
One of the oldest pagan tricks in the world is the practice of simply assigning guilt. The one to whom it is assigned is not permitted to argue about it, and it is considered very bad manners if he does. To do so is simply heaping additional guilt on top of his designated and assigned …
Enacting Our Agreement
We have said before that in this meal we are being knit together into the body of Christ, muscle and bone, sinew and tendon, joint and marrow. But too many Christians have reversed the order in this, wanting doctrinal assent or understanding to be the thing that knits us together, so that we may then …
Focus on the Family, Ralph Reed, World Magazine, Jack Abramoff, and Me
Lord Acton nailed it when he said that power corrupts. James Madison knew that if men were angels they would not need to be governed the way they actually have to be governed. C.S. Lewis made a similar point when he said that he was a democrat, not because each man is a repository of …
Dat Old Debbel Nepotism
One of the features of conservatism in Christendom (to be distinguished from right wing sentiments) is a deep suspicion of the objectivity that modernity pretends to have. Postmodern thinkers have recently emphasized “the particular,” but they have done so as rootless reactionary modernists, as opposed to the earlier critiques of modernity mounted by rooted Christians …
The Time of Reformation
The work of Christ on the cross was a work unlike any other in history. One powerful aspect of what He accomplished was the once for all nature of His atonement. He, unlike His shadows in the Old Testament, did not have to repeat His work over and over again. Even that which was a …
Pagan Tug of War
“This situation has stolen up upon us so quietly that its real nature is largely obscured. I believe that what Camille Paglia, provocatrice extraordinaire, has said with respect to our pop culture is correct. We are witnessing, she asserts, ‘an eruption of the never-defeated paganism of the West.’ Her thesis, which she developed in some …
The Pudding That Proves
“According to a popular mythology in more conservative circles, the nineteenth century was a time of strong traditional values, when it was actually a monkey house of radicalism. The traditional values, such as they were, were the harvest of what had been planted in previous centuries — vestiges of Christendom. But the crop that was …