It appears that I should tell a story. Whenever I refer to the salient facts in this story, one of the things my adversaries like to do is accuse me of “whining,” so let me begin there, with a high-minded denial. I embark as narrator of this fascinating story, not as one who whines, but …
Getting Up To Speed
For anyone who needs to get up to speed on the latest scuffling, some of the backstory for the article in World can be found on this blog in the Archives, under General Ruminations, around the time of August 2004. I am not saying that you do need to get up to speed, but if …
More on World
For those who are interested, there is a discussion of the World story on the Southern Slavery booklet over here. From the heading of the initial post at World’s blog, one of the things I mentioned about their initial story is worth mentioning again. Both Steve Wilkins and I deny that we were guilty of …
What in the World?
In the latest edition of World magazine, just out, a short article has appeared on the flap surrounding the booklet Southern Slavery As It Was. In that article, I was quoted (accurately) as saying that this was an issue where we deserved the lump on our head. This being the case, I also want to …
Not Fooling Anybody
One of the demands of any polemical exchange is the demand of naming. In every dispute, both sides always want to define the nature of the dispute. This need to name properly is not optional for the party that is in the right. Everyone has to do it. But when one of the parties is …
Curricular Development
Visionaries, Secular fundamentalists like Duane really crack me up. Evil? What’s that? And when Duane accused me of anti-Semitism, I confessed to you all earlier that I was nonplussed. I was like a congressman who had found a copy of the Constitution. I honestly did not know what he was talking about. But when I …
The Central Thing
Speaking of the doctrine of Scripture, N.T. Wright says, “But such a doctrine usually has to be inferred. It may well be possible to infer it, but it is not (for instance) what Isaiah or Paul are talking about. Nor is it, for the most part, what Jesus is talking about in the gospels. He …
Kidding Yourself
“There is no way that young men can watch, and be entertained by, movies which include displays of nudity, steamy sex scenes, and so forth, without being aroused by them. A boy who tells his mother that he can ‘handle it’ is using what astute theologians in former ages used to call ‘a lie'” (Future …
All Particulars
Our Father in Heaven, we glorify Your name, and we do so through Jesus’ name. Father, Your kindness to us extends into all particulars, and we are very grateful for the opportunity to rest before You in this way. We rejoice in the fact that it is through the rest of Your saints that the …
Petty Traditions
John Robbins continues to display one of his chief polemical attributes, which is kind of a bad attribute for a rationalist to have, to wit, his inability to follow an argument. He has recently said that one of our tactics is that of quoting John Calvin, who said “some foolish things about the sacraments.” He …