Dear visionaries, Susannah quotes me: “You all are in a hopeless bind here.” And then she says that the bind is only hopeless if their goal is to establish a single standard for everyone that satisfies me. She goes on to add that this goal isn’t on most people’s agenda. And to this I say: …
Epistemic Relief
Morning, visionaries, The remarkable thing about relativism is that, for all the advertising hype, it really isn’t that elastic. It never stretches very far, and only stretches to the left. Jim tells Timothy to keep his “simple minded insults against women” to himself. Timothy’s attitude is apparently the “real obscenity.” Really? There is such a …
The Devil’s Dictionary
When we consider the question of how we can know the truth, know what is lovely, and know what is good, we frequently neglect to address the more fundamental issue, which is the nature of the knowers. We assume certain things about the problem of knowledge, and this drives the solutions we come up with. …
Savior and Healer
“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11) Growing Dominion, Part 30 As we make applications of biblical principles, one of the primary places we should make application is in the realm of health. In Scripture, the word for savior and healer are the same word. A central part of Christ’s …
Semiotics In Narnia
I can only take small doses at a time, but I am continuing to labor manfully away at getting through The Next Reformation by Carl Raschke. What a piece of turgid work! After telling us that Nietzsche was grossly misunderstood (fair enough) and pointing out that he was not responsible for various Third Reichian applications …
Outline of a Response
I am happy to interact briefly with Andrew Sandlin’s most recent observations. I need to highlight the word briefly, because I just want to suggest the outline of a response, and not to produce a massive tome. If I were a postmodernist, it would be described as the “contours of a response,” but it amounts …
Cobelligerents
I am currently reading The Next Reformation, by Carl Raschke. The subtitle not only gives away the store, but also the point — “Why Evangelicals Must Embrace Postmodernity.” The proliferation of books like this help to highlight why I am interested in attacking postmodernism, and all its demon spawn, while howling in the grip of …
Inerrancy Is Too Weak
The problem with the doctrine of inerrancy, as many hold to it, is that it is too weak. The question, as it is usually posed, is whether or not the Bible contains errors. The liberal says that it does and the conservative says that it does not. On one level, the conservative answer is of …
Arrogance and Certainty
Andrew Sandlin asks why, if I do not believe my observations and pronouncements to be on a par with Scripture, I speak as confidently as I do. In this confidence, Andrew sees the hallmarks of religious arrogance. My answer to this (in brief) is that the Bible teaches that when the bugle blows indistinctly, no …
An Applied Bible
Andrew’s Sandlin’s recent response to me helpfully pin-pointed the one area where I think we genuinely differ, which is in the area of scriptural applications. First, he began by thanking me for not employing satire, invective, and so on, in my response to him. He noted that such tactics in Scripture are to be employed …