The problem of Pharisaism is not solved by dropping the phylactery that is “wider than yours” and picking up the Bible that is “more underlined than yours.” You cannot solve spiritual problems of the heart simply by rearranging the furniture. We are born casting sidelong glances, and the solution to this is repentance, not really …
Hollow As A Jug
I am over in Portland for the presbytery meeting of the CREC, at which we have been doing lots of cool presbyterial stuff. Anyhow, I posted what I did this morning on affected authenticity, and went off to presbytery. When I got back this evening there was a small mountain of comments, etc., which I …
Backing and Filling, Waffling and Noodling
Those who are interested can find a funny instance of academic hypocrisy here. Nick Gier is one of our intoleristas, and has been trying to rally forces against us by banging the plagiarism drum until the stick breaks. He is quiet for a little bit until he finds another stick, and then he starts up …
Affected Authenticity
When we talk about the way we dress, we often forget that we are speaking about language. That is, we use the full force of language to get what we want to get, and when called on it, we “plead the dictionary,” to use my earlier example. Suppose a young rebel in your church were …
Little Geneva
It turns out that the folks at Little Geneva don’t like the fact that I tell redneck jokes. And as a result of me acquiring this information, here are a couple more! What do a tornado and a redneck divorce have in common? I dunno, what? In both cases, somebody loses a mobile home! And …
Learning to Detest Hypocrisy
During a portion of the sermon this last Sunday, I spent a little bit of time on the problem of lowlife authenticity. After the message I had a good conversation with a good friend over my professed bafflement over what causes the attraction to this lowlife ethos. He made the point that the cause of …
Like You Were There
For a number of years, I have had the privilege of speaking on education reform to various groups of parents around the country. During that time, I have often wished that there was a good way for me to illustrate for these parents what school children are really capable of, and what remarkable things they …
Marriage As Manifest Glory XXXVII
Introduction What does it mean to be pro-marriage or pro-family, or pro-life? In common parlance, we know what such phrases refer to but even here we must be careful. The basic Christian duty is to be pro-God, and align everything else in accordance with this. When we absolutize things like “life,” “marriage,” or “family,” we …
Marriage As Manifest Glory XXXVI
INTRODUCTION: So we are now considering the question of respect, submission and authority. We have looked at love, sacrifice and authority with regard to husbands, and now we need to reflect on the other side of the coin. Remember that authority in the Christian framework is a Trinitarian thing. Authority gladly surrendered is the foundation …
Good Old Justus
In one sense, postmodernism is far worse than a particular heresy, because at least the old heretics made truth claims. The kind of universal corrosive that postmodernism brings with it affects everything, including the Jehovah’s Witnesses. It rots out lies as well as the truth; but since a lie is a perverse tribute to the …