Minister: Lift up your hearts! Congregation: We lift them up to the Lord! God of God, Light of Light, Father of all, we worship You now in the beauty of holiness. We clothe ourselves in the perfect name of Jesus Christ our Lord, and so it is that we can approach You. In Him, we …
Worship As Service
What have we gathered here to do? We are here to await God’s pleasure. This is what the word worship means—it means to wait upon God in order to offer the service He requires of us. In both Hebrew and Greek, the word is captured by Isaiah’s great response to his vision in the heavenlies, …
The Ultimate Toast
This Table is what it is, and it does what it does. That is to say, it is the Table of the covenant, and it winnows out covenant keepers from covenant breakers. Covenant keepers extend no hand to receive the elements but the hand of faith, and open no mouth to receive the bread and …
Three Toddlers
I am continuing through the unfortunate book A New Kind of Christian, and a thought occurred to me about the very name postmodern. This came to me because the spiritual mentor in this book (a man named Neo) is primrose pathing the other guy, and one of the first things he does is draw out …
A New Imperialism
“But actually, in the postmodern milieu, awareness doesn’t grow and nothing discloses anything–except for an occasional contour. Old patterns are hard to break, and we urge our authors to redouble their efforts at their sanctification. When they tell us to lay off the violence, I detect the contours of a new imperialism. Why are they …
Entropy
“Bygone trendiness is simply not good enough for the scholarship of current trendiness. This is a constant problem; trendiness never stays put, and what’s cool usually assumes room temperature at some point” (Contours of Post Maturity, pp. 10-11).
Caesar and War
Dear visionaries, I too hope for a smooth ride in Iraq. But there is a difference between Congress declaring war and Congress abdicating its assigned responsibilities. Congress could issue a statement that the federal budget could originate this year in the Supreme Court. Doesn’t make it right. The Constitution doesn’t say that Congress declares war …
Primer on Eschatology 1
1. What is eschatology? Eschatology is the study of the last days; a person’s eschatology is his view of the last days. The word is less frequently applied to the doctrine of heaven and hell. 2. The last days of what? The answer to that question divides Christians into various schools of thought. 3. What …
What “Is” Truth?
“So let’s start our book review ruminations by pointing out that when we start putting “truth” in quotation marks, we must start with the truth that “truth” must be in quotation marks. And where does that leave us? Not only do we have ever-increasing punctuation problems and hard, pointed questions from our tech proofers, we …
Postmodernism Is, As Derrida Might Say, Le Dead
I am continuing to slog my way through McLaren and Raschke, left hand raised high so I won’t get any on my watch. And I have come to the settled conclusion that postmodernism is dead. Why do I think this? What is the evidence? The proof is conclusive — we can tell that postmodernism is …