“The meanings of symbols are not merely the capricious choices of a limited culture. We cannot arbitrarily rearrange them like so much furniture in the living room of the psyche. To tamper with these fundamental types is spiritually and psychologically dangerous because they are keystones in the very structure of the mind” (Michael D. O’Brian, …
The Bronzed Nerve
Chapter Five is “Taking America Back for God,” and Boyd begins by describing a worship service that he attended around the time of the First Gulf War, one that sounds every bit as appalling as Boyd describes. “The video closed with a scene of a silhouette of three crosses on a hill with an American …
A Different Kind of Telling
In his next section of The Doors of the Sea, Hart starts with a discussion of Voltaire’s “exquisite savagery” in his famous poem that made fun of certain popular theodicies in the wake of the devastating Lisbon earthquake. “If indeed the theodicist would have us believe that the present order of the world is a …
Smiting the Saracen
My engagement with Boyd’s next chapter — “From Resident Aliens to Conquering Warlords” — rests on the criticisms offered thus far, and consists of two basic points. In this chapter, Boyd’s commitment to “Christianity” in Leithart’s sense becomes highly visible. His criticism of the compromise the Church has fallen into consists of his rejection of …
Because You’re Family
In Psalm 28, David asks the Lord to separate His people out from the wicked. He asks the Lord to deliver them from the judgment that is coming upon them. When he concludes this psalm, the way he puts it is striking. “Save thy people, and bless thine inheritance: feed them also, and lift them …
Whacking the Nations With Nerf Rods
Boyd’s third chapter is on “Keeping the Kingdom Holy.” The wrong note is struck right at the beginning with a quotation from Bonhoeffer, who says “Jesus concerns Himself hardly at all with the solution to worldly problems . . .” (p. 51). Hardly at all? How could a mission to save the world not involve …
Your Word and Her Heart
A man ought never to be in a position to break a woman’s heart unless he is also simultaneously breaking his word. His word ought to always be a protective barrier between him and her heart. He ought never to be in a position to destroy her without destroying his own integrity first.
Real Sacrifice
Let me take, as a fixed point of evangelical orthodoxy, the penal, substitutionary atonement of Christ. Let me also take, as a point of personal privilege, the knowledge that Rene Girard has offered some stunning and cogent observations about human nature, the process of scapegoating, triangular desire, and all the rest of it. How are …
Still Shunning the Centurions
In his second chapter, Boyd discusses the Kingdom of the Cross, setting it in stark contrast to the Kingdom of the Sword, which he addressed in the first chapter. If I were to critique his argument in a phrase, it would be with the phrase false alternatives. Quoting Rosser and Yoder, Boyd says that the …
Leaving Out Normandy
Boyd’s first chapter, “The Kingdom of the Sword,” actually had quite a few good observations in it. He was very good in describing the way vengeance escalates, and how a particular civil order can confuse itself with the kingdom of God, and how Jesus told His followers that they were not supposed to function the …