I am visting California for a few days, and the fiscal/business woes here caused me to reflect on the mentality of those who are industriously ruining the country. The canker is well-advanced in some states — Illinois, say, or California — but the problem is everywhere.So why are Californians leaving California? What is causing the …
Three Kinds of Accusation
The human heart is not divided up into watertight compartments, and thus it is possible to make obvious distinctions in how we respond to accusation without making absolute distinctions. That said, people are generally put on the defensive by guilt, shame, or fear. Obviously, more than one can operate at a time, but generally one …
A World of Right Reason
When the apostle describes a generic condition of unbelief, it is interesting how he does it. When we lived in unbelief, what was the atmosphere we breathed continually? “For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another” (Tit. 3:3). For …
God’s Gonna Cut You Down
Now if we come to the understanding that the devil is “the accuser,” and not God, what are we to make of the necessary holiness of God’s law? And how can we make sense of the Last Judgment? Doesn’t God run the Last Day, and not the devil? Go tell that long tongue liar,Go and …
A Blackmailed Planet
Perhaps you have noticed that our world runs on accusation. As distasteful as that reality is to everyone, we certainly act as though we know we need it. We accept it as a part of life, as a necessary evil. We use it for crowd control, we use it to direct kindergartners toward useful and …
A Lot More of the Old
As I listen to cultural analysts bemoaning the current state of American consumerism, and comparing it (to a disadvantage) to unnamed halcyon days of yore, I am struck by an inability to see the largest and most obvious feature of the whole set-up. The issue is not that Americans uniquely consume like nobody’s business, but …
Debate As a Christian Duty
For many Christians, it seems a reasonable question to ask whether it is profitable for us to engage in public debates at all. Whoever changed his mind because of some public argument? Why wrangle about words? Logomachies just make my head hurt. In contrast to this, I want to argue that such a quietist position …
Nothing Worse Than an Analytic Fairy
Yesterday I was having a good discussion on apologetics with my friend Will Little, and the discussion dislodged in me a few thoughts on the subject that I thought would be good to note here. We were talking about presuppositionalism. I think it is crucial for us to distinguish between presuppositionalism as a foundation for …
Book of the Month/Feb 2013
This fun little number is my choice for this month’s selection. I had a blast reading it, will make just a few general comments about it, and then leave you to your own devices. First, for those of you who are not dispensationalist, as I am not, will notice that certain dispensational forms of expression …
Heliocentric Worship
In an earlier post, I used the phrase “God-centered,” and there was at least one challenge that concerned what I meant by it. Let me have a quick go at explaining. First, let me note what I do not mean. I do not some form of Stoicism, where we try to pretend that how it …