Introduction: The inimitable Iowahawk recently tweeted this: “Campuses today are a theatrical mashup of 1984 and Lord of the Flies, performed by people who don't understand these references.” ...
Audio Reading of Post
Preeminently Stampedable
A Detail Man, in Other Words
“He was a classic paper-clip counter, correct-department-code-numbers-for-the-copying-machine maintainer, and one who generally focused on pennies, policies, and those blank ‘spirit of the law’ spaces in between the lines of all written procedures—but only so long as the ‘spirit of the law’ was interpreted and applied by a committee of first-century Talmudic scholars, all of whom had the disposition of a caged cinnamon bear with a sore head. Somewhat surly, in other words, in a passive-aggressive, muted sort of way.”
Letters from the Four Corners
Letter to the Editor: Amen, and amen!! I used to be white, but then I did some work outdoors. Now I'm a redneck. In all seriousness--which is hard to do after that laugh-inducing piece--have ...
Filed Under A
“John Mitchell began to feel like something hot and wet was crawling up his spine . . . This was beginning to feel like a setup. John began to look suspiciously around the kitchen. ‘What do you want?’ Cindi asked him. ‘I’ll get it for you.’ ‘I want,’ John said darkly, ‘answers.’ ‘You’re the pastor,’ Sandy said brightly. ‘I bet those are back in your study.’”
The Grace of White Privilege
Introduction: I went back and forth in my mind about the title of this little thing. It came down to intersectional privilege or white privilege, even though I was going to make the same basic points ...
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Not Even a Hint of a Prohibition
“He jumped down the hall and slid into the kitchen the way he always did when nobody was home. He wasn’t sure that the apostle Paul would do something like that, but there was no clear prohibition of it anywhere. And besides, his socks were slippy.”
Gallio Cared for None of These Things
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 ...
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Important to Stay Current
A Different Sort of Dead Orthodoxy
“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.”
So He Looked Old School
“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.”