From Antithesis (Vol. II, No. 3) May/June 1991 To put it mildly, American Christianity is regrettably permeated with an individualism that stands in stark contrast to the biblical teaching of covenantal Christianity. But even Christians who believe in and emphasize covenantal thinking are still influenced by this individualism; they often exhibit a marked tendency to …
The Ultimate Iconoclast
“God is the ultimate iconoclast, and God told His angels to begin at His sanctuary [Ezek. 9:6-7], and He told them to get in there and defile it” (Against the Church, p. 3).
On Taunting the Cows
The task this morning is to follow up on some reasonable questions raised in the comments of the previous post, God’s Bistro. The basic outline of my response will be to grant a point at the center, but to differ as to what the appropriate responses and applications ought to be. The questions I want …
God’s Bistro
What is the balance to be kept when it comes to saying that God “doesn’t care what you eat,” which He doesn’t, and saying that we are to exercise dominion in all that we do? If there is no neutrality anywhere, and there isn’t, then how does this fit with statements like “God doesn’t care”? …
Tactile Temptations
“The fact that we have mastered the art of identifying idols that we have forged in our minds and hearts does not mean at all that we have repented of forging them out of metals we dug from the ground” (Against the Church, p. 2).
We Still Like the Graven Part
“The modern man, ever since Descartes, has liked making idols out of intellectual abstractions . . . While abstractions make fine idols, it would be a grave mistake to think that modern men are somehow immune from the age-old pitfalls presented by various concrete idolatries. We like candles and graven images almost as much as …
The Accidental Educator
Through various accidents of time and other forces bigger than me, I have been involved in five educational enterprises. The first was Logos School, which we were involved in starting so our kids could have a place to attend school. The second was New St. Andrews College. The third was serving as an editor for …
Book of the Month/February 2014
I have enjoyed Virginia Postrel’s writing for years. Her first book, The Future and Its Enemies, was a great treatment of our modern Luddites, our quasi-Luddites, our neo-Luddites, and our Luddites in denial. It was really good. In The Substance of Style, she showed an acute aesthetic sense in her survey of modern technology and …
When Neighbors Begin
Rachel Held Evans recently wrote a number of things about our public debates about contraception, and it is not my purpose to get into all that, not even to defend the admirable epithet Uncle Sugar. But she did say something near the end of her piece that I wanted to comment on because I think …
On Not Being Scabrous
Trevin Wax and Alissa Wilkinson have a good conversation going about movie standards, here, here, and here. Allow me to commend them both for many good things said, and then just add a couple more items that I would like to see considered more frequently in this kind of discussion. One of the questions concerned …