“Pastoral snarls are like the mercies of God — they are new every morning” (Evangellyfish, p. 175).
Always Ready to Forgive
“But you can have a heart full of forgiveness, full to the brim, ready to overflow the moment repentance appears. Until that happens, there is no forgiveness. We need to distinguish forgiveness in principle and forgiveness accomplished” (For a Glory and a Covering, p. 95).
The Fourth of July: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Genuine patriotism is not surprised or derailed by flaws, sins or wickedness in the object of our love. Sentimental patriotism, by contrast, treats love of country the same way a maudlin Hallmark card writer would treat, after three beers, love of mother. Mothers Day becomes a high, holy, and sacred thing — a sanctifying thing, …
Just a Hoot
Book of the Month/July
I have read and enjoyed and profited from a number of Iain Murray’s other books, and in the realm of enjoyment and edification, this book was no different. But it was very different from his other books in several other respects. The book-of-the-month this time around is The Undercover Revolution, and it is about how …
Like Watching a Hummingbird Fly
As previously mentioned, here is my second installment on chapter two of Coyne’s book. As this chapter makes apparent, long stretches of time are essential to the project of evolutionary hand-waving, a process whereby impossible things are made more plausible to us by having them happen very, very slowly. Don’t think I can walk across …
That’s A Rabbit, You Doofus
Comes now chapter two of Jerry Coyne’s book, called Written in the Rocks. It will take a post or two to deal with this chapter, so patience, all of you. My first post will address the structure of his argumentation, and later I will look at the time involved in all this — my own …
Occam’s Shaving Kit
Jerry Coyne’s first chapter of Why Evolution Is True begins with something of a patronizing quotation from Jacques Monod. “A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it” (p. 1) Well, excuse us. But after that, he starts at the right place, which is the appearance of design. Coyne …
The Right Kind of Bright in Their Eyes
Many conservative Christians know that the culture war we are fighting is a desperate battle for our children. Now fighting for your children and grandchildren is a noble enterprise. It is what we are called to do. When such fighting is necessary, as in a fallen world it constantly is, it is something we are …
On the Rounded Upper Part
Alan Jacobs asks a question here that he does not answer. That question concerns whether he is a conservative or not. “So is there any sense in which I might plausibly be called a conservative? I don’t really know; I’ll leave that to others to decide.” With such a kind invitation, how could I turn …