“I am a high Calvinist. For almost twenty years, I have been standing here well past the tree line, up amongst the boulders. I am prepared to be rebuked for lots of things but living in a semi-Pelagian swamp is not one of them. Try something else. Try something plausible.”
Dikai-Decimals
“For some that naïveté is a function of having decided thirty years ago to translate all discussions of theology into the metric system, just to keep life simple. If ten won’t divide into it, then it can’t be part of the dikai-word group. For others the reason for the naïveté is more obvious—graduate school is still a fresh memory. They are just out of the egg with bits of shell on their heads.”
A True Alpha
Like Annie Oakley
“Shooting reformational solas into the air is not the same thing as defending the faith.”
Content Cluster Muster [11-09-23]
Nice Shot: Open Road in Black & White: Always more here . . . We Run Into a Lot of That Around Here: A Song I Really Like for Some Reason: Do Some Good in a Place Where There is Lots of Bad: Here is some good work to support in Ukraine. HT: Samuel Cherubin: …
Empathy as the Headwaters of Cruelty
Introduction: Is it really the case that our November car here has no brakes? Is it really the case that this switchback grade we are currently careening down has no guardrails? The answer ...
Works as Grace After Reverse Engineering
“The non-elect reject God’s grace. That is the distinguishing mark of the non-elect; they cannot live by grace through faith. But they are surrounded with the apparatus of grace—Word, sacraments, promises, fellowship, and so on. Grace is everywhere—except in their hearts. So what they do (and they always do it) is construct a covenant of works out of the materials around them. This is the high rebellion of reverse engineering. This is why people can come to the Lord’s Table as though they were doing a good work, or they sign a card at the revival, or the memorize the Shorter Catechism. They can take pride in a confession of unworthiness. Who among us has not known a Calvinist who was proud of his knowledge that creatures cannot take pride in anything?”
Novembletters
Letter to the Editor: Saying, "I believe in democracy" or "I believe in a multi-ethnic state", etc. is the equivalent of saying, "I believe in love." However, "love" is a noun of indistinct ...
I Usually Don’t Come Close
“The current plan is to review [By Faith Alone, Johnson/Waters] thoroughly in this space. By ‘review it’ I mean that I intend to take it apart brick by brick, and if the past is any indicator of the future, I intend to snap any flawed brick in two, and throw at least one half of that brick at the moon.”
The Joy Juice of Democracy
Introduction: When the apostle John told Christians to keep themselves from idols (1 John 5:21), he said this because there was actually a possibility that they might not do so. There have been times ...