As the diameter of our cultural sinkhole continues to widen, a few words are necessary for those Christians who want to check out of the SQCW — scare-quoted culture wars. Why all this emphasis on the sins of those worshiping the great god Orgasm? Why are conservative Christians so obsessed with sex? This charge stings …
If the Season is Penitential, You Are Doing It Wrong
“Traditionally, both Lent and Advent are penitential seasons — not times of overflowing celebrations. This is not something we have sought to cultivate at all, even though we do observe a basic church calendar, made up of what the Reformers called the five evangelical feast days. Our reluctance to adopt this kind of penitential approach …
One Way or the Other
“We will define our time by some system. The year is an inescapable year. Who is the Lord over it? How do we mark our days? Because we live in time, the rhythms of that time will either be Christian or not . . . Christians must define the year in an explicitly Christian way, …
The Dutch Have Taken Holland
I noticed the other day — as who could not? — that our president was gathered with a bunch of world leaders in Paris, in order to deliver a solemn warning to the world. This message, brought to us by our global elites, was that we should let our global elites intervene to save us …
Book of the Month/December 2015
If you were to try to sum up the significant contributions of Anglican theologian Richard Hooker in the words of a Broadway musical, you could do no better than to point to the lyrics of Gershwin’s It Ain’t Necessarily So — referring of course to the chorus and not the verses. Now I am not …
The Camp of the Saints
In 1973, Jean Raspail published a novel The Camp of the Saints, about Muslim immigrants overrunning Europe. Another novel had a similar theme, this one by Charles Williams, but I don’t remember which one. Since I read that book it has been lo, these many years — but enough years to make Williams seem really …
Athanasius Punks the Internet
Athanasius, father of orthodoxy, had his enemies. One time, some of them held an Internet trial and accused him of messing around with the occult, and on top of that they said he had murdered a rival bishop named Arsenius. He had chopped off his rival’s hand for use in his magic arts. Athanasius was …
Justice and the Ad Hominem
Comment Thread Update: Ryan Sather just removed a comment that my comment below was a reply to. Listen, Ryan. Allow me to just deal with your first comment, about your strong effort to avoid being sucked back into this. At the time I write this, there are 499 comments, and just over 4% of them …
The Little Roosters of Christendom
Andrew Sandlin posted this on Facebook today. “It might be known as “‘biblical’ patriarchy,” but if it demeans women, created in God’s image; if it treats strong women as threats rather than allies; if its default is to take the (male) church leadership’s side almost invariably in every dispute with women; if it believes that …
Jezehellsbells
Update: Laura Turner has quietly corrected her article in line with at least one of my criticisms of it, but without acknowledging that she was doing so. Just so you know. I do need to respond to this article, but I am also in two minds about it. In order to interact with this stuff …