As All Should Know By Now, Today Is Letters Day

There is a title on your Reading List that I can’t find on Canon or Blog & Mablog: #105—Not the Same Digory at All. Is this something new? Sounds interesting and I would love to read it.
Thanks.

Allen

You say you haven’t moved, but you are now bullish [sic] on those who question the World War 2 narrative, including the Holocaust, though you once taught Civil War narratives that were against the norm. You now say that men like Joel Webbon, who pastor such young men, are “Revoice for Nazis” pastors.
You once taught that Christians can have disagreements and yet still work together. I personally learned a mature form of ecumenicism from watching you and seeing how graciously you interacted with people you disagreed with. But now, you have created an embargo on Joel Webbon and the Ogden men. I believe your words were that they are “cut off from Moscow”? You used to be the victim of unfair embargoes. But, now, you are shutting yourself off to pastors and ministries with whom you agree on 99% of doctrine. Yet, Tucker Carlson, TPUSA, NatCon, and big-time main event stages that have other speakers who are, say, Hindu or Jewish philosophers, is kosher.
Please help this lowly layman understand how these are not recent changes, Pastor Wilson? Help me to understand why we once viewed you as a father who allowed us to feel safe to work through disagreements, wrong-think, and yes, even sin, knowing that there was an older man of faith helping us along. Correcting us. Not wiping his hands clean of our filth, and saying, “If you talk about such and such, I will not walk alongside you anymore.” Why does it feel like we have lost a father?

J

Explain patently that you are not a firebrand, you are a bomb-thrower and ask them to please respect the bomb-thrower community.

Rob

Re: Skeery Scary Skeery
Chesterton has said that Christ concealed His mirth while on earth, but I think you have a bit of it now. I can tell you’re having fun. That accounts for at least this one in your growing readership.

John

I grinned all the way through that post, especially when you conjured up the image of the hound dog lying in the sun puddle. A thing of pure beauty.
As for “the hoi polloi,” please take comfort in the fact that it’s still better than “The Los Angeles Angels,” an actual MLB team. Nothing less inspiring than being called “The The Angels Angels.” I suppose we could start a Department of Redundancy Department to deal with all this . . .
And finally, I’ve been saying for a few years now—on and off for maybe a decade but pretty solidly since the Great Lie of 2020 and the revelation that Nixon was framed—that if a politician, media talking head, bureaucrat, or “expert” is speaking, it’s a lie. Until proven otherwise . . . which rarely happens. In fact, I can’t think of a single exception.
Thanks for the morning chuckles,

Andy

I just wanted to thank you for your posts about the dank right.
Maybe because the woke insanity is so risible and deserving of being jeered at, it can be difficult to put into words where the boundary between sane reaction and unhinged reaction is. You did the best job of that I’ve seen to date.

Greg

Can you direct me to somewhere online or in print where you give a biblical argument for using the words “gosh”, “golly” and “gee”? I am mum to three tiny kids so have not given much time to a thorough search but so far have not found a good argument for Christians to use those words given their definitions. If you haven’t written on that topic specifically, can you recommend another author who comments on it? Thank you for your time.

Lindsey

I hope you’re having a great evening! I’m curious, I was looking through our bookshelves, and we still have some books from Ravi Zacharias. While there are some truths contained within those books, I’m still a bit befuddled as to what to think about him. From what occurred in 2020, it seems like he was caught in a lot of sin toward the end of his life. I was curious as to your thoughts on the matter, if you had any. This isn’t a “gotcha,” this is a pure curiosity question.

Curious One

I’m a student from Germany and have benefited a lot from Canon+ in the past few years.
Quite recently I got convicted that using grape juice in the Lord’s Supper is a distortion of the sacrament. Maybe I got this wrong but I think that Nadab and Abihu are a valid illustration of how introducing changes to a sacrament could go wrong.
Now here in Germany the churches still using wine are usually liberal in their theology, and all of the non-liberals in my region use grape juice. I only know of one church nearby that offers both.
The point is, a year ago I was struck with the same dilemma and stopped taking the Supper for several months. Prior to that I contacted my pastor and the team distributing the Supper (I’m also part of that team) and explained my reasons in this small circle. The usual answers were that the externals aren’t that important or that there are some people from a difficult background in our church and that’s why we don’t use wine.
I’ve seen your videos on this topic and how your church switched to wine. My question is, how are the weights and measures in this situation? If there aren’t many options should I keep on distributing and taking it and just pray for forgiveness before? Or is the church with a mixed offer better?
I would be very grateful for some advice, even if it’s just a referral to a book or a video.
God Bless,

Ben

I just listened to your book “Fidelity: How to Be a One-Woman Man” and found it very helpful. I have a question about something you wrote in the chapter on polygamy. If I understood you correctly, you said that if a polygamist were to come to Christ, that he should not take any more wives, but is not obligated to divorce any of his existing ones (unless, of course, there was some sort of sexual immorality involved, as Jesus discusses in Matthew 19). My question is this: is not polygamy an inherently sexually immoral arrangement, thus giving any of his wives the right to divorce him?

Nathanael

What are your views on general revelation and how it applies to the world’s discoveries of humans and other things? I find a resistance in the conservative church to the idea of using secular therapies in a Biblical Counseling sections. Things like EMDR therapy which are supposed to help with PTSD. I’ve always thought that the Lord has plundered the riches of the world to make his kingdom, I mean, that’s what he did with the Tabernacle.
It was almost entirely made out of plundered Egyptian material, even down to the Ark of the Covenant and other precious metal objects in the Holy of Holies. So if God is willing to let worldly resources be sanctified and put into his dwelling place, his throne on earth effectively, then should we not allow sanctified and consecrated worldly plunders near us and to affect us as well?

Kenneth

You might’ve already answered questions on this topic because it appears to be more trendy than I initially realized, but do you have an opinion on Eastern Orthodoxy?
I haven’t researched it much, and I don’t like a lot of aspects of Catholicism . . . but there are a few parts of Catholicism that I appreciate (some of the traditions, the beauty of the architecture which seem to honor God, etc.?). Is EO potentially a denomination that honors God through certain good traditions, beautiful visuals, and hymns while avoiding things like praying to saints, worshiping Mary and the pope, etc? Or would you put EO and Catholicism in the same basket?
Thanks,

Justin

Ok. Hear me out. This would be great. Ride Sally Ride vol II. A pastor who gets converted and gradually becomes Reformed by the AI software he’s using to write his sermons . . .

Devin

Good evening! I hope you’re doing well. I was curious, do you think John the baptizer baptized infants? If not, do you think the people whom he baptized baptized their infants later?

ON

In response to your answer to my letter regarding your blog on Vaccines from 2015, I would just like to say you have my respect. Well, you already had it. But even more so now.

Kyle

I know this is Piper’s phrase, but I’m curious what you think…
If God is “most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him,” then is the following statement also true, “God is least glorified in us when we are least satisfied in him?”
If that’s true, can you talk about how that can be squared with 1.) the notion that God does everything for his glory and 2.) God unconditionally elects some to salvation for his glory?

Caleb

I would like to thank the Lord for you and for your ministry! You have been a huge blessing to my wife and myself. Over that last couple years my wife and I have been making sure the convictions we have are based on Scripture and not just tradition. This has led to a massive paradigm shift that we praise the Lord for. For example we have come to embrace, and love a postmil view of Scripture and also have become Presbyterian. We both grew up Baptist and dispensational premil so very different change. This has led to some issues with my wife’s family. My mother-in-law has been very spiteful and divisive about all of this. Do you have any advice for how I should deal with this lovingly And help my family understand we can still have fellowship with disagreements. Thank you!

Hunter

In the letters last week, a question was asked about personal evangelism. Your answer, if I understood you correctly, was that not all individuals within the Church are obligated to evangelize unbelievers. Do you mind elaborating further? Have you written about this before?

Shelton

I have followed your ministry for more than 30 years and have been greatly blessed by your teaching and leadership. I also have had many a laugh over the years (and perhaps this means I need further sanctification) as you have displayed “the Moscow Mood” over the years. I’m going to be leading a study on worship on Wednesday evenings at our church and dug out my old copy of A PRIMER ON WORSHIP AND REFORMATION that you wrote as one of the sources for shaping the study. I was freshly struck by Chapter 1 where you wrote about the Christian Schlock and the triviality of much so called Christian merchandise. I have noticed that some of that seems to be creeping into more serious Christian groups and even a bit in your own store with mugs and T shirts, etc. I’ve attended two of the Fight, Laugh, Feast conferences (and have enjoyed and been blessed to be among like-minded people!) and while I realize that is not directly your organization there was more than a little schlock available there as well. I am all for the promotion of books and videos that help us grow in grace but when I received emails after the last conference promoting Christian cigars it seemed a little much. (And I don’t have a problem with cigars!) I would hate to see good Reformed folks follow the Zondervan road and try and monetize everything under the sun as we move forward. Again, and I mean this with the utmost sincerity, thank you for your ministry and I pray that God grants you many more years to serve us and Him. I’m the same age as you and so I understand the pace that you have kept over the years may need to be reduced a bit but I hope that God has much more to say through you.
Providential Blessings,

Mike

My wife and I are in our early 70s, we were converted from the old order Amish church 40 years ago. We now live in Western Washington, and have been without a home church ever since COVID. The church we were a part of we quit, because of their response to the COVID issue. We have been attending a Baptist Church for a while now, and are considering membership. But we discovered that they will not accept our baptism by pouring, that happened after we became Christians in 1984. They require us to be baptized by immersion. I have confidence that our baptism in the Flathead River, by pouring, was a valid baptism. Do you have any advice for us? Thank you very much!

Allen

I understand that I am a little late to the party, but I encountered some work of yours from years ago called Undragoned: C.S. Lewis on the Gift of Salvation, where you argue that C.S. Lewis was sympathetic to Calvinism, with the chief evidence being from English Literature in the 16th Century. Now I regard Lewis with the same regard Lewis viewed MacDonald, and without the influence of his work I highly doubt I would be a Christian. So I thought the claim was worth investigating.
I had read most of his work but I had not read English Literature. Because you called it his magnum opus, so I picked up. As I am reading it through I am confused and would like to ask you a little more about why you think he had Calvinist sympathies. It seems like he regarded John Calvin as a Marx/Lenin type of figure and that the theology presented in the Institutes is outright demonic.
“Many surrendered to, all were influenced by, the dazzling figure of Calvin. It ought to be easier for us than for the nineteenth century to understand his attraction. He was a man born to be the idol of revolutionary intellectuals; an unhesitating doctrinaire, ruthless and efficient in putting his doctrine into practice. Though bred as a lawyer, he found time before he was thirty to produce the first text of the Institutio (1536) and never made any serious modification of its theory.
By 1537 he was already at Geneva and the citizens were being paraded before him in bodies of ten to swear to a system of doctrine. Sumptuary legislation and the banishment of the dissenters Caroli made it plain that here was the man of the new order who really meant business. He was driven out of Geneva but returned to new triumphs in 1540, successfully maintaining his theocracy both against civil magistrates who wished to govern a little more, and private citizens who wished to be governed a good deal less, than Calvin would permit. The banishment of Bolsec (1551) and the burning of Servetus (1553) were among its achievements. The moral severity of his rule laid the foundations of the meaning which the word ‘puritan’ has since acquired.”
And later
“To guard against worse misconceptions, it may be useful to compare the influence of Calvin on that age with the influence of Marx on our own; or even of Marx and Lenin in one, for Calvin had both expounded the new system in theory and set it going in practice.”
One more for good measure,
“In it [Institutes] Calvin goes on from the original Protestant experience to build a system, to extrapolate, to raise all the dark questions and give without flinching the dark answers. It is, however, a masterpiece of literary form; and we may suspect that those who read it with most approval were troubled by the fate of predestined vessels of wrath just about as much as young Marxists in our own age are troubled by the approaching liquidation of the bourgeoisie. Had the word ‘sentimentality’ been known to them, Elizabethan Calvinists would certainly have used it of any who attacked the Institutio as morally repulsive.”
And last of all,
“… is another way of saying that good would still be good if stripped of all power. It is the extreme opposite of the Calvinist view which comes near to saying that omnipotence must be worshipped even if it is evil, that power is venerable when stripped of all good; and it is no doubt incomparably less dangerous to theism. But Calvin was more in tune with the spirit of his age: everyone can see that the difference between Hooker’s God and Calvin’s is very like that between Bracton’s king and Aeneas Sylvius’ emperor.
Pardon me, but the assertion that Lewis is sympathetic in any way to Calvinism in light of his “magnum opus” seems outright absurd to me when he condemned it in such strong terms. He is explicitly comparing Calvin and Calvinists to some of the worst monsters of the 20th century and is stopping only (possibly) short of condemning Calvinism as devil worship. A sympathy with Hooker, Luther, Wycliffe or Tyndale is not, in Lewis’ mind, the same thing as a sympathy with Calvin.
If English Literature is Lewis at his most mature thought he is most certainly Protestant and holds to predestination. But it seems like he outright detests all that is specifically Calvinist and the entire systemic doctrine of Calvin. Am I misreading anything in Lewis?
Best,

Jeff