The first full chapter of Clapp’s book is entitled “America’s Southern Accent” and shows, quite effectively, that when we talk about American culture generally we are largely talking about Southern culture — “but now southern identity, like the Mississippi in flood, has surged well beyond the banks of the South as a region. In so …
Fourth of July Uplift
Here is a photo of Obama’s chum, William Ayers, taken from a profile on him in Chicago Magazine. There are about five reasons why I believe Obama cannot win the general election in the fall, and this is one of them. HT: The Pearcey Report But here is the problem for Christians. We are commanded …
Momma Tried
I recently started reading Rodney Clapp’s latest book, Johnny Cash and the Great American Contradiction. It promises to be, in turns, exilarating and exasperating. Clapp is pointing out the contradictions of the whole American set-up, as embodied in Johnny Cash himself, and so I think I will begin by noting the contradiction that is going …
Our Enemy the State
“Modern statism is the soured remnant of the Enlightenment idea of inevitable progress. This miserable wreckage, which once heralded joyfully the coming of the secular version of the kingdom of God, now hoarsely wheezes that if we worship it we shall receive salvation from extinction. The danger is not to be taken lightly. Woebegone as …
He Has a Hole Under His Nose. And Money Runs Into It.
We may be induced to throw our money away in any number of ways. Here we need to consider some of the ways we lose money through the sensual snares which wait for us. Typically, when such sins are mentioned, it is so that God’s people will know that they are bad. This is of …
Because the Fearful Have a Choke-Chain On
“The entire ‘exhaustion-of-resources’ syndrome is one huge apology for totalitarian control over the citizens” (Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction, p. 224).
Twenty Days to a Smoke Free Tomorrow
I have been asked what I think of An Evangelical Manifesto, and so I read through it this evening. A short twenty pages, it was mostly magnificent. I read into it for sixteen pages without reading anything I differed with, and I was reading much that was weighty, solid, good, and desperately needed. But if …
Depends on What You’re Conserving
“Conservatives of practically all types, like Wills and Will, fall all over each other exalting the prerogatives of the idol state. That is why when they take power from avowed social democratic parties—as in Sweden, Britain and the United States—there are no fundamental changes. They go with the tide; an electorate that demands the property …
The Real Problem
“In other words, bureaucrats shuffle not papers, but people” (Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction, p. 205).
The Bulldozers of God
This morning while preaching an Ascension sermon from Philippian 3:20-21, I went on a brief detour to speak about the various ways in which biblical writers relate to empire. This is relevant to us because the New Testament was given during the heyday of the Roman Empire, and we are seeking to live as Christians …