Jesus teaches us to expect slander, to expect misrepresentation. Further, He teaches us to believe that when this happens, it is a sign that we are gaining on it. In Luke 6:22-23, Jesus tells us to rejoice and leap for joy when we reviled, excluded, shunned, and held in contempt. In Lattimore’s translation of that …
Deception and the Culture War
The metaphor of war can be quite helpful in motivating people to action, but it can also cause a lot of problems. There are things that are permitted in an actual war (such as killing), which should not be tolerated in a metaphorical war, as when a school superintendent declares war on poor spelling. So …
Hen-pecked . . . But Still Free Range
One of the ways to tell if an issue has become politicized is by seeing if qualifications, when appropriately made, are actually heard. For example, if a member of faction y says that from time to time members of faction x have been convicted of corruption, the politicized two-step works like this. First, the intentions …
A Fairly Large Beanbag Chair
“And then, as if in response to someone throwing a big breaker somewhere, Robert P. Warner II slumped, shumped, and fell to the floor. He there assumed the demeanor and outlook of a bean bag chair and ceased cooperating with the world” (Evangellyfish, p. 195).
Never Just Right
“For the proud and arrogant, it is either too big to confess or it is too small to confess — nothing is ever just the right size to confess” (For a Glory and a Covering, p. 98).
A Real Stand-Out
“She was competent, hard-driving, and ambitious, which successfully grouped her in with about three million other blonde local news reporters” (Evangellyfish, p. 187).
Covering the Wrong Thing Entirely
“We tend to be very hesitant to ‘cover’ the sins of others, and very quick to ‘cover our own.’ In doing this, we are actually covering our own rear ends and not our sins” (For a Glory and a Covering, p. 96).
Lust and Limits
I have said before that lust — not the hearty, Anglo Saxon kind — is inherently idolatrous. Lust is that which seeks to get from a finite thing what only the infinite can provide. That being the case, the natural enemy of lust would be finite limits. The limits may vary, but limits are always …
Sprayed a Couple Times
“So the meeting began with a financial report, which Bill Turner had prepared for them, the bottom line of which looked like someone had been spraying it with Roundup” (Evangellyfish, p. 184).
Too Effective
“The power of forgiveness is enormous — the reason it is so infrequently employed is because it transforms everything, and not because it is ‘a dud'” (For a Glory and a Covering, p. 96).