Someday I hope to write a full account of the last two years’ worth of controversy. Such an account would have to cover the waterfront — young fatheads, illegal gambling, slavery, Intoleristas, the bearded lady incident, postmodern encroachments into the conservative Reformed world, Auburn Avenue theology, N.T. Wright, and the Shroud Indignation Support Group. One of the items in the preceding list was entirely made up, and the fun thing about these controversies is that I don’t think anyone can be absolutely sure which one it is.
Someone needs to be sure to remind me to include a section on the “strange bedfellows” aspect of it. Nobody let me forget. Now this strange ecumenism might be an indicator that I am some sort of alien provocateur. When Michael Servetus was executed in Geneva, the response all over Europe was a brief, shining ecumenical moment between Lutherans, Catholics and Calvinsts. Maybe that is the effect I am having on all the reasonable people.
Or perhaps there is another explanation. Maybe the working coalition that has formed between sentimentalist evangelicals, Westminster-Confession-strict subscriptionist Buddhists, TR Clarkians, openness advocates, poetry critics, neo-Confederates, and homosexual activists can be explained another way. I think that all the temples of all these various gods are connected by a network of secret tunnels. And by the way, none of the items in that list is made up.