“‘It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing.’ This is one of the most eloquent nihilistic speeches of all time. Macbeth no longer has anything to live for; time itself is empty, void of hope or regret, merely an objective succession of moments. Macbeth experiences the narrative of …
No Place But The Mall
I promise I won’t blog anything about Brian McLaren on Christmas Day. Apart from that, the only thing to say is that his next chapter is on Methodism, and coincidentally, so is mine! McLaren has a good eye (as all adversaries tend to have) for how belief in objective truth goes to seed. As Chesterton …
Providence and Evil
“No merciful and provident God speaks through the signs and symbols. In the modern world of Seven, God is effectively dead. The loss of that authoritative voice is not a liberation but an enslavement to new forms of tyranny. Without a providence to bring good out of evil, evil endless begets evil” [Thomas Hibbs, Shows …
Ideas Have Destinations
“Given the modern scientific understanding of human behavior in terms of natural laws, everything is determined by chemical reactions and evil arise solely from a miscalculation of the appropriate way of satisfying genetically determined inclinations. This the philosophy of progress; anyone who demurs is labeled irrational and sent for medical treatment. If one actually tries …
This Just In
A federal judge has ruled that intelligent design and public school curricula are not at all compatible. But some of us already knew this.
Theological Tourism
We have now come to the chapter where McLaren describes how he is “Anabaptist/Anglican.” This has been quite a slog, and the cumulative effect of reading through these chapters on how Brian McLaren is evangelical, liberal/conservative, mystical/poetic, fundamentalist/calvinist, and so on, is similar to a $400 dollar whirlwind tour of Europe. “If it’s Tuesday, this …
More Thanks to God
We are very grateful to God for yet another setback for the intolerista brigade. Last night the Moscow City Council voted (5 to 1) to amend the zoning code in such a way as to permit NSA to remain in its current location. I thank everyone who has prayed for us, and would ask them …
Evil, Be Thou My Good
“These forces are brought to fruition not so much in films of the horror genre itself as in more mainstream and critically acclaimed movies like Cape Fear and Silence of the Lambs (both 1991). These stories exalt the artistic boldness of their evil supermen, who put into question the timid mores of conventional society and …
Scribes Haven’t Changed
I shouldn’t really be surprised anymore. McLaren devotes the chapter entitled “Why I Am Fundamentalist/Calvinist” to a detailed explanation of why he is not a fundamentalist or a Calvinist. Not surprisingly, in order to make this case, an old workhorse in the debate against Reformed folk is brought out of the stables and made to …
Sneaking Standards Back In
“The need of most human beings to believe in a moral universe is proof for Nietzsche that lies and self-deception are essential conditions of human life . . . . But there is a tension in Nietzsche between an amoralism that repudiates all objective standards and a distinctively hierarchical kind of thinking that ranks souls …