Theology That Bites Back
“The popular expressions of American exceptionalism are as old as dirt. There is nothing new about top dogs vaunting themselves over their top dogginess. This is the most unexceptional form of exceptionalism possible. This high school has been here for many decades, and nobody currently knows who the senior class president was twenty-five years ago. Nobody knows because nobody cares.”
American Milk & Honey, p. 160
Dear Gavin, In my last letter, I pointed to the fact that our variegated loyalties can be hard to define, and difficult to keep straight. As Christians we have a standing obligation to keep them ...
“The YHWH who dispenses Deuteronomic blessings on His people is thereby identifying who his people actually are. Let the true Jews, the Jews who are Jews inwardly, by the regeneration of the Holy Spirit (Rom. 2:29), be the ones who walk under the grace of all His covenant blessings.”
American Milk & Honey, p. 158
“I pray I might find the doorway of grace,
Finding at last the low door to high heaven.”
21 Prayers, p. 59
Letter to the Editor: Re: Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean In addition to imagining that Oliver Cromwell re-admitted the Jews to England (Cromwell’s plan was obstructed under the ...
“Rattle us all, Lord, and shake us all down
So that what is unshakeable may still remain.
Shake us so that what is permanent might be
Made manifest to all who stand and observe it.”
21 Prayers, p. 58
“The Lord promise that we could handle serpents and not be bitten (Mark 16:18), and mammon is certainly one of those serpents.”
American Milk & Honey, p. 153
Dear Gavin, As we discussed on the phone, I think we have covered most of the waterfront. At the same time, as a matter of summarizing and wrapping up, I think I have two more letters in me. There may be some repetition here, but I want to come at a few things from a …
“To leave true spiritual blessings out of the equation is to place human beings on the level of swine in a sty—with blessings being understood as anything edible that can fit in the mouth, like mash or acorns. But the gnostic error, the opposite error, is just as filled with unbelief—ungratefully reducing human beings to the level of wraiths, ghosts, and spiritual wisps. It is not the case that God gave material blessings to the Jews in the Old Testament, while in the New Covenant, all the blessings have been transported beyond the stars, or somehow vaporized. On this view, God has apparently appointed a team of burly archangels to throw all of our material blessings into a Cosmic Nebulizer, which will turn every last one of them into a very fine spiritual mist, in order to make Heaven idolatry-proof.”
American Milk & Honey, pp. 150-151
“I pray that Your Spirit would direct my words,
Like an arrow, to a chink in the armor of fortune
That I did not know was even there.”
21 Prayers, p. 54
