As some of you know, a week or so ago, the Intoleristas launched a new attack on us here in Moscow. But because their behavior is now getting out to the skinny branches, Jim Fisher of the Lewiston Morning Tribune wrote an editorial that attempted to talk them down out of their tree. “Come to …
Incrementalism
Anyone who really believes that yeast works through the loaf slowly is an incrementalist. Anyone who holds that the biblical pattern is reformation, and not impatient revolution, is an incrementalist. Many “clear-headed” individuals on the hard right are functional revolutionaries and not conservatives at all because of their inability to grasp this. Brian Mattson is …
Audio Reading of Post
President Bush and the High Places
Brian Mattson, of The Banty Rooster, has raised some interesting questions about my characterization of President Bush as a false teacher. In response to this, Mattson cites the biblical example of Asa. “But back to the issue about President Bush. All I want to do is quote 1 Kings 15.14: “Although he did not remove …
The Horse Laugh and the Syllogism
Where we have had recent disagreements with the folks over at christianculture.com, it is good on several levels to be able to agree with Monte Wilson’s recent post there on the need for more court jesters. As Mencken put it once, a horse laugh is worth ten thousand syllogisms. For those interested in a detailed …
Objective Exegesis
In a recent entry on his web page, Andrew Sandlin makes an important point about the incarnational nature of the Christian faith (“The Faith is What We Are”), but in my view misses the biblical balance dangerously. In rejecting an objectivity outside ourselves (that when detached from how we actually live should be rejected), I …
Evangelical Shills for Allah
I like President Bush. I like some of what he has done. I wish him well. We pray for him regularly at church, that he would come to govern in accordance with the Word of God. But because I like him, I wish that he would drop the theology of empire and listen to evangelical …
Demands for Apology As Weapon
One tactic that is used to advance the postmodern agenda is an adroit use of “demands for an apology.” I have noticed that many Christians would be suspicious if someone simply announced that the lines between right and wrong, good and evil, truth and falsehood, need to be blurred. Believing Christians hear something like this, …
The Patron Saint of Epistemology
St. John is the patron saint of epistemology. That is, he is patron saint of a biblical approach to believing and knowing. He is not the patron saint of unbelieving epistemology. How do we know? How do we know that we know? These are reasonable questions to ask at the foot of the cross — …
Relativism and the Invasion of Iraq
Dear visionaries, The role of debate in a free society is often misunderstood — it is too readily assumed that people disagree simply because they are disagreeable. We also tend to misunderstand the corrosive effects of relativism. When objections are made to topless car washes — let us say — the whole thing is dismissed …
Impudence on Stilts
Fundamental assumptions are like the backs of our heads. We all have one, and none of us can see our own. One of the most exasperating features of working through literature on postmodernism is the fact that, for all the talk, the postmodernists can’t deconstruct their way out of a paper bag. One basic assumption …