So your son is out of control, and you feel helpless. You don’t know what to do. If you tell him to do something, and he doesn’t want to, he throws down and there you are. He is defiant, says that he hates everybody, and you know the rest of the drill. And yet Scripture …
Simple Pimple
I have finished Rodney Clapp’s book, and enjoyed it a good deal. This post will be on his penultimate chapter — on violence and peace, and my last post, following shortly thereafter, will be on the central contradiction that has plagued Clapp’s attempt to work through these issues. This post will be fairly short because …
A Barrier to Help
Over the years, I have seen many hard cases of difficult kids not effectively loved by their fathers. Because I don’t see the problem disappearing, I thought I would post a series of short pointed exhortations to a dad who has a problem child. The child actually has a problem dad, but the child doesn’t …
And That, To Use An Old-Fashioned Word, Is False
“The great fallacy of our time, Malcolm Muggeridge has written, is the one that says that we may pursue collective virtue apart from personal behavior” (Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction, p. 264).
Maybe This Applies to Us
“In a society in which idolatry runs rampant, a church that is not iconoclastic is a travesty. If it is not against the idols it is with them” (Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction, p. 254).
Religion, Civil or Biblical?
“A religious statement, on the other hand, which says, ‘do not be conformed to the values of society’ swings an axe at the trunk of civil religion. Civil religion eases tensions, where biblical religion creates them. Civil religion papers over the cracks of evil, and biblical religion strips away the covering, exposing the nasty places. …
Let Me Think About It, No
Today is the last day of primaries in the Democratic contest for the presidential nomination, and it looks like Hillary will be out of that contest this week. It is possible that she will stay in formally in order to be able to challenge the Michigan and Florida apportionment of delegates, but whether she gets …
The Key to Eternal Relevance
“Examining the economic pronouncements of the church leaders, one is reminded of Chesterton’s remark that the morality of most moralists has been ‘one solid and polished cataract of platitudes flowing forever and ever.’ Having convinced themselves, rightly, that the biblical tradition has much to say about economics, the church intellectuals make theological statements serve as …
Scram, Padre
I am genuinely enjoying Johnny Cash and the Great American Contradiction. As I have mentioned before, Rodney Clapp is an astute social critic, and many of his insights are really valuable. But there are times, and this chapter is one of them, when the underlying incoherence of his political theology catches up with him, tackles …
Internationalist Power Monkeys
The next chapter of Clapp’s book, “Tradition and Progress,” correctly identifies one of the central tensions in American life. “The United States considers itself at once the most traditional and the most modern and progressive of Western — or any other — countries” (v. 63). We are far more religious than any other industrialized society, …