I want to spend a few minutes discussing one of the larger lessons to be taken from the Sitler child molestation case. This is not being done to drag this thing out, or tangle it up further, but rather just the reverse. The way that this thing has been cynically used by the enemies of …
This is Not What We Meant by a Postmillennial Takeover
“It has not gone unnoticed in the secular world that there is gold in these religious hills. The result is that today there are evangelical publishing houses which are the religious arms of secular corporations, and Songs 4 Worship, a successful collection of Christian music, lavishly advertised on the TV networks was launched by Time-Life. …
What I Do For A Living
I am a pastor. And I cover up sin for a living. In order to talk about such things intelligently, the gospel must always come first. God gives sinful man a most reasonable offer. Come, let us reason together, He says. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow. As far …
Sanctified Satire
With regard to our broader ministry, one of the things we are asked most frequently concerns the propriety of satire. How is satire consistent with the biblical requirements to consider others better than yourselves, to bear one another’s burdens, to love one another, and so on? The answer to these questions is to be found …
Fraudulent Meaning
“Postmoderns who have, in one way or another, pointed to the emptiness of life, the absence of meaning, of enduring, stable value structures, are astonishingly close to the truth—far closer, in fact, than many in the Enlightenment period who lived off fraudulent meaning” [David Wells, Above All Earthly Pow’rs (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005), p. …
A Twofer
Couple of shameless appeals, right in a row. The first is that today marks the fact that there is only one week remaining for those who want to get the early registration rates for Trinity Fest. The deadline is June 15. The second is that St. Anne’s Pub has updated their web site, and they …
Oblique Nihilism
“Once our world was centered; now it is not. Once there were ultimate principles of criteria; now there are not. Once there was Authority; now there are only authorities, specialists who have mastered a small corner of life’s complexity. We have been left to drift in the flow of melting reality. This is our nihilism. …
Seinfeld and De Profundis
“Postmoderns live on the surface, not in the depths, and theirs is a despair to be tossed off lightly and which might even be alleviated by nothing more serious than a sitcom” [David Wells, Above All Earthly Pow’rs (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005), p. 177].
Sick Pleasure
This is a public statement, made on behalf of the session of Christ Church: On June 5, 2006, a disgruntled former member of our church took it upon himself to post an announcement on his web site about a former NSA student, Steven Sitler, who has been convicted of child molestation. This posting was done …
Cognitive Confrontation
“When rival worldviews are in play, it is not adaptation that is called for but confrontation: confrontation not of a behavioral kind which is lacking in love but of a cognitive kind which holds forth ‘the truth in love’ (Eph. 4:15)” [David Wells, Above All Earthly Pow’rs (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005), p. 156].