“Disobedience to God’s law blurs the antithsis between white and off-white. We must not resist anything because of what we see following it — the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. At the same time, the Bible tells us the world is filled with consequences for evil actions and bad ideas. What is our protection? …
Voyeurism Broadcasting Network (VBN)
“We are, of course, only doing what television and the movies have made legitimate. They have tilted the scales away from privacy toward exposure, away from bodily modesty toward public nakedness, away from the thought that grief and pain should be private and toward ‘the canonization of the intruding investigative reporter.’” [David Wells, Losing Our …
A Brief Foray Into the Visual Arts
Brace yourself. A series of cartoons I did from an old church newsletter will probably appear in this space from time to time. And if no one prevails upon me to stop it, I might even draw some new ones. Now I recognize that there is not very much actual cartooning in this one, but …
The Empty Space Above It All
“However, we have imposed a severe penalty on ourselves in the process: a terrifying sense that while all we have left is the self, the self unfortunately does not amount to too much. The passion of believing and the passion of being have now been replaced by the empty stare, the ironic posture.” [David Wells, …
Folks Who Don”t Get Out Much
“The spirit of pragmatic modernity, which likes to flaunt a sophisticated and cosmopolitan air, is really carrying on like a provincialist chronological hayseed. We are entirely taken with ourselves, and outside the village we all grew up in, everything is unknown; we are entirely lost — chronological rubes trying to pretend that the end of …
I Just Can’t Outwit These Guys
I would start off by saying that it is hard to type while you are wheezing, except that I am used to it, and so I am not wheezing. The news of a private venture I am involved in has hit Vision 20/20 and the fevered speculation there is almost one hundred percent wrong, as …
Ezra Nehemiah 16
Introduction: The church of God has always had to deal with threats from two directions. The first is the obvious threat from without, from the enemies of God and the gospel. But the other threat comes from sin within the camp, from internal dissension, and from poor leadership. Nehemiah here sets us a wonderful example. …
Redemption In A Bottle
“It is hard to miss the redemptive themes in the many dreamy scenes of sensuality that we have so often seen in perfume advertisements, scenes that waft across the viewing public with the promise of bodily regeneration, even renewed sexual attraction, if one simply purchases the product.” [David Wells, Losing Our Virtue (Grand Rapids, MI: …
Rivers, Not Ponds
“In other words, the young are always educated by their elders. God has placed them in this particular cultural river; our children have no ability to flow in a different stream. This principle is recognized clearly when we are talking about parents and their children — just one generation. But it applies, just as clearly, …
Conscience, Tender or Turbulent?
In the course of controversy, due consideration must be given to those who get caught in the crossfire. The Westminster Confession says that God alone is Lord of the conscience, and this is not just talking about those consciences that are rightly informed. We tend to understand this principle on some subjects — there are …