The Portable Dante by Dante Alighieri My rating: 4 of 5 stars Of course, glorious and wise. Well worth it. But I was struck — and perhaps unfairly — with the Christlessness of his Heaven. View all my reviews
Review: Homiletics and Pastoral Theology
Homiletics and Pastoral Theology by William Greenough Thaye Shedd My rating: 4 of 5 stars The content was really good, but the 19th century stiffness could afford to unbend a little. But still, I read it all the way through. View all my reviews
Sticking to the Basics
“Sorry to get into all the deep theology here but the Christian faith means calling everyone to believe in Jesus” (Empires of Dirt, p. 32).
Side Effects May Include Throwing Rocks at the Moon
“You can still see the modernist idol at work in the television advertisements for the newest Big Pharma drugs. You know the kind—where the fine print of ad copy was written by lawyers with a gruesome turn of mind? ‘Side effects may include writing on the living room floor, chewing on the coffee table leg, …
The Democracy of the Dead
“Conservatism is dead and deadening, only upon the hypothesis, that the universal history of man is the realm of death” (Shedd, Homiletics and Pastoral Theology, p. 384).
Dogs of Refinement
The Field of Battle is Not an Army
“Traditional values can’t fight sin, for the same reason that healthy tissue can’t fight cancer, but is rather the tissue that provides cancer with its scope and future” (Empires of Dirt, p. 31).
Reciprocal Stink Eye
In the fifties, if a woman breastfed her baby, she was thought to be acting like a savage, like she wanted to get photographed for National Geographic or something. Why didn’t she do the right thing for her baby and give her this scientific formula in a can? That modernistic hubris really was something—just as …
The Hot Politics of the Moment
So now would be a good time for all of us to listen to Rand Paul on big data security concerns. And here is why. Michael Flynn has just stepped down as the president’s National Security Advisor. My concern is not whether he was wise or foolish in his interaction with the Russians, or whether …
When Envy Tells
I received a kind inquiry recently, asking me to put some flesh on the bones of what I presented here. What does it look like in the actual midst of a mimetic snarl? In short, how can you tell the difference between you being the problem (attributing motives to others in self-flattering ways) and the …