Minister: Lift up your hearts! Congregation: We lift them up to the Lord! Lord, You have favored this land, You have brought back the captivity of Jacob, Restoring the exiles. You forgave the iniquity of Your people, And You have covered up all their sin. Think for a moment. You took away all Your wrath, …
Why Didn’t Jesus Stay?
We cannot be reminded too often that the very center of our faith is a grotesque murder. Not only was Jesus murdered, but He was murdered in a miscarriage of justice—the murder was perpetrated by the very authorities assigned by God to prevent that kind of thing. We must not be permitted to gloss over …
Was John Calvin An Intolerista?
In a debate with Dan Barker a couple weeks ago, he brought up his view that anyone who thinks John Calvin was a good guy has to be morally bankrupt. And since I maintained that Calvin was a good guy, and a faithful servant of Christ, that made me morally bankrupt. But the politics of …
Trying to Twist Away
When children are spanked, even in love and affection, they often twist and turn to get away from the point of pain. In the long run, they only make their situation far more difficult. We are trying to worship the Lord in such a way as to deal with our various sins and follies. The …
Old Slewfoot’s Kitchen
In response to my postings on propositions taken as simple statements of fact, one objection was raised that wondered who on earth would think that emergent leaders would challenge “statements”? Well, if we are talking about statements that are true, I do. They do, and their books are full of such questioning. Emergent writers are …
Cherry Picking In the Orchards of Scripture
In the thread on insult and insulting, a question was raised that merits a response. Should we not spend our time and energy trying to obey the positive commands of Scripture (love your enemies, bless those who curse you, etc.) and not squander our resources on trying to figure out how to imitate the satiric …
As Logocentric As It Gets
I rise in praise of propositions, but not the propositions of bad philosophers who try to reify everything they touch. Rather, I praise the propositions of the competent and godly English teacher, and, although this is not the point of our current discussion, I also praise clauses, imperatives, nouns, verbs, alphabets, jots and tittles. A …
Digory and the Postmodern Witch
When Digory refused to listen to the witch, it was because he had promised. He had learned certain things that little boys always ought to learn, and this includes little emergent boys. Not only had he learned that you should keep your promises, he had also learned not to steal, which had come in handy …
What Standard?
By what standard? This is one of my favorite questions, and we should ask it more often than we do. This includes those times when the right course of action is disputed among Christians, or when we are honestly confused about what we ought to do. What standard are we using? On paper, the answer …
False Alternatives
Emergent thinkers like to believe that they are advocating a move from the “absolute to the authentic.” But of course, the fact that these are a couple of adjectives being used as abstractions means that we do not yet know what we are talking about. Moving from the “absolute” to the “authentic” blends right in …