Dear visionaries, I wanted to commend Tony for writing a fair article for this last weekend’s newspaper on the growing rift in Moscow between liberals and conservatives. However, something which I mentioned to him during the interview (and which he did include) needs to be emphasized yet again. A generation or two ago, the jibe …
Half Time
Dear visionaries, The reason we are all getting tired of the discussion surrounding Timothy’s use of the epithet slut is not because the discussion is over. Not at all. We are simply approaching half time when we all have to switch directions. Not many of you knew this, but Timothy is actually a performance artist …
There’s a Single Standard Somewhere
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 …
Knowledge and Blood
I mentioned a few days ago that we have to avoid all forms of unbelief, whether in modernist or postmodernist guise. This requires a distinctive Trinitarian epistemology. Consider this some preliminary doodling. One of the problems with this kind of discussion is that it tends to be limited to academics, and epistemic certainty becomes something …
Me and Andrew
As much as we agree, I periodically find myself in these debates with Andrew Sandlin. The occasion for this one is that he has taken issue with a recent post of mine on seeping postmodernism. Just a few comments now, which I may follow up on later. The first thing is that Andrew simply assumes …
Social Good
Morning, visionaries Jon also inquires: “Perhaps we could agree that equal opportunity to access social goods is a fundamental principle of this society . . .” This sounds grand as a slogan. But is a private club, members only, a social good? Is a restaurant owner’s desire to manage a place that maintains a certain …
Free Enterprise
Visionaries, Jon argues for the propriety of restraining the biases of business owners by referring to: “A fundamental principle of the social contract to which we are all parties . . .” In this, he has begun to address the question we have been asking since the beginning of this meandering debate, back when we …
Seeping Postmodernism
For many reasons, none of them intellectually compelling, postmodern thinking proper, along with postmodern assumptions unacknowledged, are making great headway in the “post-conservative” evangelical world. One lesson that we can take from the postmodernist playbook in this reqard is that is that fooling around with language is actually a disguised power grab. While denying their …
Legal or Moral?
Dear visionaries, In response to Randall, I fully understand that the current legal situation makes a distinction between speech and restaurant management. I want to know why. How come? By what standard? What is so magical about speech? Why is the First Amendment first misunderstood and then absolutized? Why is the Tenth Amendment ignored? Give …