“We all put off the cause of our divisions from ourselves. Few would give St. James’s answer: ‘They are from hence, even from our lusts.’ There would not be such evil distillations from the head if it were not for the malignant vapors that arise from the stomach. Curing the heart will sooner cure the …
Living Like a Trinitarian
I recently told a class of tenth-graders that what our culture needed was a return to trinitarian bubble-gum commercials. They were a little nonplussed, and so I hastened to explain. Individuals with one set of ultimate commitments have the capacity to live in alien soil, that is, a culture with a different set of commitments. …
Irrelevant Details
I had seen on Richard Dawkins’ blog that he was going to be on the O’Reilly Factor, which he in fact was. He and Bill skirmished, as could have been predicted, and I only want to say one thing about it. O’Reilly brought up Stalin and Hitler, good job, and Dawkins pointed out that both …
Soft Power, Aye
“‘Soft power’ is wielded by soft cultures, usually because they lack the will to maintain hard power. Can you remain a soft power for long? Maybe a generation or two. But a soft culture will, by its very nature, be unlikely to find the strength to stand up to a sustained assault by blunter, cruder …
His Canterburyness
“The last Archbishop of Canterbury but one, Dr. Ramsey, appeared not to realize this when, to my amazement, at the end of a performance of Godspell, he rose to his feet and shouted: ‘Long live God,’ which, as I reflected at the time, was like shouting, ‘Carry on eternity’ or ‘keep going infinity.’ The incident …
Let Us Hope So
“It is with the saints here as it is with the boughs of trees in a storm. You shall see the boughs beat upon one another, as if they would beat one another pieces, as if armies were fighting; but this is but while the wind, while the tempest lasts. Stay awhile and you shall …
Here and There
Nancy has some really great suggestions on sabbath feasting. Tim Bayly continues to write helpfully on what I consider to be one of the central doctrinal issues for the church in the coming century — the gender issues, all of them. Not all of the genders, all of the issues. And check out the vintage …
Good News and Bad News
A lawless culture is at war with more than just the “rules.” Antinomianism likes to posture and say that it is simply against tiresome restrictions. But the cultural effects of lawlessness touch far more than just the idea of law. When lawlessness has run its course, it has demolished the very idea of forgiveness. Of …
Why Statism Won’t Save Us from Islam
“A citizen of an advanced democracy expects to be able to choose from dozens of breakfast cereals at the supermarket, hundreds of movies at the video store, and millions of porno sites on the Internet, but when it comes to life-or-death decisions about his own body he’s happy to have the choice taken out of …
Believing Skepticism
“Next to this genius of Pascal’s words I would draw your attention to the beautiful lucidity of his mind, the wonderful clarity of his thought. Like all true believers, he was deeply skeptical” (Malcolm Muggeridge, The End of Christendom, p. 4).