“The meanings of symbols are not merely the capricious choices of a limited culture. We cannot arbitrarily rearrange them like so much furniture in the living room of the psyche. To tamper with these fundamental types is spiritually and psychologically dangerous because they are keystones in the very structure of the mind” (Michael D. O’Brian, …
Your Word and Her Heart
A man ought never to be in a position to break a woman’s heart unless he is also simultaneously breaking his word. His word ought to always be a protective barrier between him and her heart. He ought never to be in a position to destroy her without destroying his own integrity first.
Still Shunning the Centurions
In his second chapter, Boyd discusses the Kingdom of the Cross, setting it in stark contrast to the Kingdom of the Sword, which he addressed in the first chapter. If I were to critique his argument in a phrase, it would be with the phrase false alternatives. Quoting Rosser and Yoder, Boyd says that the …
Leaving Out Normandy
Boyd’s first chapter, “The Kingdom of the Sword,” actually had quite a few good observations in it. He was very good in describing the way vengeance escalates, and how a particular civil order can confuse itself with the kingdom of God, and how Jesus told His followers that they were not supposed to function the …
Decorating Camels
I have begun to work my way through Gregory Boyd’s book, The Myth of a Christian Nation. This is not something I would ordinarily do unless I had some higher, selfless, and altruistic reason for it, that reason being an opportunity to fisk it here. So, here we go. The Introduction tells how the book …
Voting As Civil Sacrament and the Case Against McCain
Consider this a short statement from a Christian and a conservative on why he is not going to vote for John McCain. If it comes out clearly, then there you go. If it doesn’t, which it easily might not, then I will no doubt have to follow up with further explanations — all offered while …
The Beautiful Character
“We have lost our sense of the holiness of beauty . . . when exterior beauty is in harmony with a character’s interior beauty, then the sign value of the tale of the character is greatly enhanced” (Michael D. O’Brian, A Landscape With Dragons, p. 35).
Pretty Funny
Heh.
Appalled or Disgusted
I haven’t commented on the presidential campaign in a bit, and now that Obama is over in the Holy Land — I can’t quite make out what he is doing there, but piecing together reports from the media accompanying him, I think he has been walking on the Sea of Galilee — let me offer …
Keeping Dragons Dragony
“The imagination fed on truth knows that the serpent is a symbol of hatred and deceit, of evil knowledge and power without conscience . . . I want [my children] to read plenty of stories in which there are dragons that act like dragons and meet a dragon’s end” (Michael D. O’Brian, A Landscape With …