Theology That Bites Back
The main category for book reviews and cultural interaction.
Introduction: In an earlier NQN post, I said that to be a gay Christian was to be a hypocrite, by definition. What could be the basis for saying things like that? The guy who says that he is a gay Christian, although committed to remaining celibate, is a hypocrite? And he is a hypocrite because he doesn’t formulate it precisely the way I said ...
“He rocked back in his chair and stared thoughtfully at the picture of his family on the opposite wall, just above the sofa covered with multiple stacks of books, all of them written by men with fifty-pound heads. Most of them were now deceased, and John used to declare from the pulpit that being dead had done nothing but add to their orthodoxy. For her part, Cindi had often told him that he was the theological equivalent of a mad scientist and had added the corollary that sofas were for sitting on.”
“Pastor Mitchell had been in 2 Corinthians for two years now and was only in chapter 7. This, compared with his predecessors, made him a speed demon . . . He was a regular Tishbite—gray beard, bushy eyebrows, and slender build. And though he didn’t eat locusts or wild honey all that much, he still managed to look like a cross between Moses, Elijah, John the Baptist, and Gandalf. But for all that he was only forty-two and very spry . . . He looked severe enough that no one really noticed that he was not severe at all, and this meant that no one had a conscience attack or felt like they were going soft in their Calvinism because he always looked like he was being strict with them. So things were swell at Grace Reformed.”
Introduction: I believe that perhaps I should start with the least controversial part of my thesis here today, which is that a good deal of what we see around us in today’s culture is the result of a vast conspiracy calculated to make it possible for beta males to get laid. Thus far we agree? Perhaps I will return to this point later. Character ...
“Grace Reformed was a small Reformed Baptist church, and Pastor Mitchell had been there for twelve years, which was something of a record for Reformed Baptist churches in that region. The previous three pastors had been there for about a year and a half each, and the last of the three had been the kind of fellow who typed long doctrinal screeds to errant fellow ministers, single-spaced, and with typing up the sides of the margins. Some thought that he had mastered the art of typing with his fists, and sometimes with his knees. Anyhow, his pulpit ministrations had left the congregation in an exhausted frame of mind, and parishioners would go home after the message, recline on the sofa, and pant. The sermons were of the ‘all grace, no slack’ variety, and more than a few worshippers were concerned about just how much more grace their families could take. But after the last of these three gentlemen imploded one Sunday in the pulpit, trying to fit infinite predestination into his thimblebrain and from thence into the sermon, the search committee decided to try something a little different, and went on the recommendation of a parishioner’s cousin instead of the recommendation of the bishop. Now, Baptists don’t have bishops—at least not that anybody admits to—but at any rate, the bishop was very angry and Grace Reformed was drummed out of the elite corps of regional churches.”
Andrew Marvell once eloquently spoke of “time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near,” and sometimes in the hurly burly of life hurtling by, time’s wingèd chariot overtakes one, and runs one clean over. I mention this merely as a way of explaining why there will be no letters section this morning.
“The moment of resumed clarity was, for the detectives, not unlike that time when Wormtongue pitched the Palantir off the tower of Orthanc.”
Introduction: So the first order of business is perhaps a bit of background. Rosaria Butterfield recently gave an interview here, and in the course of that talk she gave us all an insight, and as is the case with many such insights, there was a pointy end to it. Someone then took that insight from the interview and tweeted it out to what was ...
“The two policemen had thought Lester was smooth when they were talking with him in his office earlier that day. But now—his voice was mellifluous and constant. Whenever he paused, always at just the right moment, sincerity oozed out of the silences and puddled on the floor.”
