INTRODUCTION: Mankind has had, in various cultures, different metaphors to describe the workings of our internal psychology. For example, we easily speak of the difference between the “head” and the “heart.” The head represents propositional assent while the heart represents genuine commitment. But the biblical writers had a different set of internal organs to represent …
Imagination in the UK
I believe I have mentioned before that someone — Napoleon I think — said that imagination rules the world. Discounting what we need to discount here — Napoleon not being a font of spiritual wisdom, and adjusting for different meanings of the word imagination, this remains quite true, profoundly true. The imagination that I refer …
Free Chocolate Milk for Everybody!
I have just been listening to Hillary’s and Obama’s speeches (I know, I know), and decided that I just needed to modify an observation of H.L. Mencken’s, to wit, that it appears to many that America is a giant milch cow with 300 million teats. This is a tad more reserved than a comment from …
Regulatory Fascism
One more comment needs to be made about Jonah Goldberg’s very fine book, Liberal Fascism. In order to follow the argument here, it is necessary to make a fundamental distinction that very few in modern political discourse are able to make — because of the prevalence of fascist assumptions — and that distinction is the …
A Fluffy Will to Power
Apparently, the Illinois shooter sent a copy of The Antichrist to his girl friend before the shooting. Professors of this and that have been hastening to assure us all that this action represents a drastic misunderstanding of Nietzsche’s will to power, informing us that the will to power needs to be understood in a civilized, …
The Code-Mongers Dilemma
Okay, here is a ripe one. Those who have been following the lefti-capades here in Moscow should remember that this last November, a strident hard-left Moscow City Council was voted out and replaced by some grown-ups. In a fit of pique, before the old council left, they extended benefits to domestic partners of city workers. …
As Camp as a Row of Tents
During this visit, I was speaking with a pastor here who said, quite accurately, that quite apart from theology (on which we did not differ) women’s ordination in the CoE has been a disaster. We were not differing on the theology of the thing (God says not to do it), but rather agreeing that disobedience …
Just Enough Oxygen for One
I want to begin a short series of comments, keyed off of Jonah Goldberg’s book Liberal Fascism. As Goldberg demonstrates repeatedly, fascism was a phenomenon of the left, and the ones who were fascinated by it in this country were what we call progressives. Simplifying only just a little bit, the differences between communism and …
A Few Comments for Christians in the UK
Nancy and I have been having a delightful time here in the UK, seeing the sights of course, and visiting with some very insightful Christians here. This is our third visit to this lovely place, and it certainly won’t be the last. Here are some raggety taggety observations on the state of evangelicalism here, along …
A Name for Your Next Son
I am just now finishing up one of the most satisfying books I have read in a long time — Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism. I will be posting further comments on the book in the future, but for now it should suffice to say that anyone who is in the slightest degree interested in the …