Below is the gist of my opening remarks at Disputatio yesterday. I took the affirmative, while the negative was ably maintained by Dr. Jonathan McIntosh. There are a few minor edits here that help take into account some of the give and take of the subsequent debate. Resolved, Francis Bacon should be treated by us …
Trueman, Toilets, and Transformation
Carl Trueman writes with verve and sass, which is of course a good thing, so it is a pity when he whiffs one. Don’t get me wrong — the swing was picture perfect, but the ball somehow still wound up in the catcher’s mitt. The occasion was a jab that D.G. Hart was taking at …
That Doesn’t Work
“‘What bothers me is that I will have to talk to him. Sometimes I think I have forgiven him, and other times the thought of talking to him without fighting just creeps me out. I don’t know how to talk to that man without being angry. I haven’t done it for years.’ John sat there …
Imitating the Inimitable
“This kind of love is efficacious. Obviously, husbands cannot reenact the substitutionary atonement for the sins of the world . . . But they are commanded to imitate it — and to imitate it with an eye on the results. In this, as with everything else, the results are God’s” (For a Glory and a …
Tumbling Repentance
“When the idea of repenting had first begun occurring to her, she had thought it would involve a few outstanding big-ticket items . . . But when it finally happened to her, the whole thing was far more illuminating than she had thought it would be and went all the way back to her girlhood. …
The Basic Gift
“True husbandly love is rendered when a man gives himself to the uttermost, and then as a result of that self-gift, he naturally gives other things (material provision) as well. A man cannot bestow himself and then not bestow provision, protection, and so on, but a man can bestow provision and not bestow himself” (For …
Thruppa-da-da
“But occasionally a phrase from the prayer book would create a little spiritual thruppa-da-da, much like what happens when you forget to put the lawn mower in the garage for the winter, and try to get it started in the spring. Nothing much there, but occasionally there might be a noise that might indicate that …
No Room for Wish Fulfillment
“We are to live by what God actually said, and not by what we think it would have been good of Him to have said” (For a Glory and a Covering, p. 111).
The Humpfest Masquerade
Those Christian activists who are laboring — God bless them — for some kind of “equal time for Jesus” arrangement are not on a fool’s errand. It is worse than that. They are in a fool’s war. “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; That put darkness for light, and light for …
Can’t Sell It If You Don’t Know What It Is
“His agent was working on a project for him, but said that he couldn’t do much until he had a hook or something. ‘You losing your faith? Recovering it? In between? I gotta know who to call, Chad'” (Evangellyfish, p. 216).