“John Mitchell began to feel like something hot and wet was crawling up his spine . . . This was beginning to feel like a setup. John began to look suspiciously around the kitchen. ‘What do you want?’ Cindi asked him. ‘I’ll get it for you.’ ‘I want,’ John said darkly, ‘answers.’ ‘You’re the pastor,’ Sandy said brightly. ‘I bet those are back in your study.’”
The Grace of White Privilege
Introduction: I went back and forth in my mind about the title of this little thing. It came down to intersectional privilege or white privilege, even though I was going to make the same basic points ...
Audio Reading of Post
Not Even a Hint of a Prohibition
“He jumped down the hall and slid into the kitchen the way he always did when nobody was home. He wasn’t sure that the apostle Paul would do something like that, but there was no clear prohibition of it anywhere. And besides, his socks were slippy.”
Gallio Cared for None of These Things
Introduction: In an earlier NQN post, I said that to be a gay Christian was to be a hypocrite, by definition. What could be the basis for saying things like that? The guy who says that he is a gay ...
Audio Reading of Post
Important to Stay Current
A Different Sort of Dead Orthodoxy
“He rocked back in his chair and stared thoughtfully at the picture of his family on the opposite wall, just above the sofa covered with multiple stacks of books, all of them written by men with fifty-pound heads. Most of them were now deceased, and John used to declare from the pulpit that being dead had done nothing but add to their orthodoxy. For her part, Cindi had often told him that he was the theological equivalent of a mad scientist and had added the corollary that sofas were for sitting on.”
So He Looked Old School
“Pastor Mitchell had been in 2 Corinthians for two years now and was only in chapter 7. This, compared with his predecessors, made him a speed demon . . . He was a regular Tishbite—gray beard, bushy eyebrows, and slender build. And though he didn’t eat locusts or wild honey all that much, he still managed to look like a cross between Moses, Elijah, John the Baptist, and Gandalf. But for all that he was only forty-two and very spry . . . He looked severe enough that no one really noticed that he was not severe at all, and this meant that no one had a conscience attack or felt like they were going soft in their Calvinism because he always looked like he was being strict with them. So things were swell at Grace Reformed.”
So Many Bowls of Tapioca at Room Temperature
Introduction: I believe that perhaps I should start with the least controversial part of my thesis here today, which is that a good deal of what we see around us in today’s culture is the result ...
Audio Reading of Post
Baptist Bishops
“Grace Reformed was a small Reformed Baptist church, and Pastor Mitchell had been there for twelve years, which was something of a record for Reformed Baptist churches in that region. The previous three pastors had been there for about a year and a half each, and the last of the three had been the kind of fellow who typed long doctrinal screeds to errant fellow ministers, single-spaced, and with typing up the sides of the margins. Some thought that he had mastered the art of typing with his fists, and sometimes with his knees. Anyhow, his pulpit ministrations had left the congregation in an exhausted frame of mind, and parishioners would go home after the message, recline on the sofa, and pant. The sermons were of the ‘all grace, no slack’ variety, and more than a few worshippers were concerned about just how much more grace their families could take. But after the last of these three gentlemen imploded one Sunday in the pulpit, trying to fit infinite predestination into his thimblebrain and from thence into the sermon, the search committee decided to try something a little different, and went on the recommendation of a parishioner’s cousin instead of the recommendation of the bishop. Now, Baptists don’t have bishops—at least not that anybody admits to—but at any rate, the bishop was very angry and Grace Reformed was drummed out of the elite corps of regional churches.”
Where’d the Letters Go?
Andrew Marvell once eloquently spoke of “time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near,” and sometimes in the hurly burly of life hurtling by, time’s wingèd chariot overtakes one, and runs one clean over. I mention this merely as a way of explaining why there will be no letters section this morning.