Theology That Bites Back
The main category for book reviews and cultural interaction.
Gather round, my children, for I would ‘splain something to you. Over the last week or so, in the aftermath of the delivery of the Mueller report, there has been a great deal of jubilant jollity in some quarters and tearful turbulence in others. Trump supporters have been out in the streets dancing, followed immediately …
I just loved this book, The Virtue of Nationalism, and one of the reasons I loved it is that Yoram Hazony, the author, is a structural thinker. When books appeal to data or statistics, you always have to factor in the possibility that the data has been scrubbed for you, or somehow cooked, or marinated …
“Everything in Scripture is equally true, but not everything is equally important. The fact that Jesus rose from the dead is more important than the fact that He went to Capernaum—although both are equally true” (Mere Fundamentalism, p. 3).
“The Scriptures are given to us in words, and interpretations of those words arrive packaged in words. If God can’t make Himself clear to me in the book that He wrote, how can I expect that fallible (or purportedly infallible) humans can do so . . . More about this anon, as I would have …
“The only RCs and EOs worth teaming up with in any venture are the ones who don’t mind a Protestant being one” (Papa Don’t Pope, p. 179).
Wipe that smirk off your face. Reparations is a serious subject. Kamala Harris, contender for the Democratic nomination for president, has endorsed in principle the idea of reparations. So if Mitch McConnell brings reparations up for a vote in the Senate, she has promised to vote present. Wipe that smirk off your face. Speaking of …
“To take the elements of bread and wine, and separate them from the sacramental action, the sacramental participles, is a mistake of the first order. It is to remove the animated thing from the animating principle, thereby killing it, and then worshiping it as though it were alive by itself” (Papa Don’t Pope, p. 175).
Trump and Voting: The problem with voting for any presidential candidate that has a chance of winning is encapsulated in the phrase “voting for the lesser evil.” Since when should a follower of Christ be supporting anyone who is evil? The kingdoms of this world belong to Satan and by their nature states are basically …
“But Jesus did not tell us to watch and adore. He told us to take and eat, take and drink. And in our obedience, Christ is with us. Christ inhabits the obedience, and the bread and wine are not obedient. Christ is in the participles, in the eating, and in the drinking” (Papa Don’t Pope, …
