Letter to the Editor: You may be our congregation’s only hope of settling a dispute which is headed toward splitting our church. You’ve heard of churches splitting over the color ...
Letters Beyond Compare, At Least Until Next Week
A Daisy Chain of Non Sequiturs
So let us talk for just a moment about Christian nationalism, Not the Bee, and me. Last week I made some headlines, just like the man with the corduroy pillow. I had written a blog post in which I explained (cogently) the sense in which we should want America to be a Christian nation. We …
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Not Self Aware
“There is only one thing worse than being wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked, and that is to be all five of those things and add to it the sixth misery of not knowing about it.”
Artistic Atheism
“In the realm of aesthetics, we are almost as relativistic as the world outside . . . In this, we sound just like the people we debate in matters of truth and ethics. The reason we sound like them is that because, on this issue, we are like them.”
The Cultural Mind, pp. 95-96
As He Did In Fact Do
Pure Bred Spaniel
“Paul tells us what kind of character a prospective minister should have. He must be a one-woman man, he must be temperate, and he must not have a quick temper. We have a better idea, which involves a good deal of graduate study. In order to get his certification, he must ignore his wife for three years, and teach her what the back of his head looks like. Now this is in no way a criticism of the classical Reformed emphasis on a learned ministry. The problem is not that we seek wisdom and learning in our pastors; the problem is that we measure it by means of stamped papers, as though his wisdom was a pure bred spaniel.”
The Cultural Mind, pp. 92-93
Diplomas on the Wall
“Our current cultural mania for certification and accreditation, embossed and signed by all the appropriate authorities, cannot be explained apart from our obvious discontent with the praise of God.”
The Cultural Mind, p. 91
The Machete of Disobfuscation
Introduction: One of the things that everybody needs to be braced for is a spate of articles, books, think pieces, documentaries, and the like on the rising threat of Christian nationalism. That being ...
Audio Reading of Post
Bad Things, That’s What
“The principle here is that you cannot export what you don’t have, and if you try, you will only wind up exporting what you ‘do’ have. Whenever Pharisees go on a mission, the result is Pharisaism overseas. When scriptural ignorance goes on a crusade, the result is crusading ignorance. The applications to our situation should be obvious. The evangelical world in North America is doctrinally confused, morally compromised, liturgically anemic, and culturally superficial. So what happens when we take the show on the road?”
The Cultural Mind, p. 88
The Only Thing We Were Missing This Morning Were the Letters
Letter to the Editor: I saw an ad in my August/September issue of First Things for Paul D. Miller’s just released book “The Religion of American Greatness: What’s Wrong with ...