“Thus Britain is being forced to act on the basis that if it does not do so it will be attacked—by people who claim that terrorism runs totally counter to the values of their religion, but then demand that the grievances of members of that religion are addressed as the price of averting further attacks” …
Puritan Ceremonial
“We do not — at least that class of Englishmen who study literature do not — perform ceremonies gracefully, nor attend them with much enthusiasm, and we doubt whether any ceremony can modify the nature of the act which it accompanies. The Elizabethan sentiment was very different. About ceremonies in the Church there might be …
Well, It Seemed Like a Good Idea
“Individual imagination and fancy will more and more take possession of the technical resources of the new architecture, of its spatial harmonies, of its functional qualities, and will use them as the ground work, or rather framework, of a new beauty which will crown this expected renascence with splendour” (Walter Gropius, The New Architecture and …
Why “Nothing” Is Important
If there is any place where the bone-chilling ugliness of our modern world is both displayed and advanced, it is in the liturgical poverty of the modern evangelical world. And surprisingly, one of the reasons for this is the church’s embarrassment over the doctrine of creation ex nihilo. We have a real problem with this. …
Islamist Foxes and English Hens
“The British government is now in danger of falling into the same trap as the French. After the Muslim riots in France in autumn 2005, the French government, unable to regain control, went in desperation to those who had radicalized the community’s youths in the first place and begged them to restore order. The result …
AlGorithms
I have opened a new category entitled Global Swarming. It has become apparent that this particular form of hysteria over global warming is going to be with us for some months yet, and I would like to say something about it from time to time. The title reflects my conviction that we are ostensibly dealing …
Kind of Makes You Proud
An Oregon man covered 193 miles in a lawn chair, powered by 105 helium balloons. HT: Dale Courtney
Evangeliberals
Of course, modern evangelicalism and liberalism are not identical. They have differing histories, traditions, customs, and so forth. As movements, they have compromised with worldliness in very different ways, and oddly enough, that particular difference reveals their internal similarities. Whatever the external distinctions, compromise driven by unbelief always ends up looking and smelling the same. …
A Three Way Collision
“This has managed to obscure two absolutely fundamental problems for the Church. The first is that the dominant contemporary political force within Islam is an ideology that seeks to destroy Christianity and its values. The second is that, because the Church has failed to resolve its deeply ambiguous and conflict-laden attitude towards the Jews, it …
Sin and Grace as Culturally Potent
“The Augustinian theology and philosophy of history with their intense realization of the burden of inherited evil under which the human race laboured and their conception of divine grace as a continually renewed source of supernatural energy which transforms human nature and changes the course of history—all this had become part of the spiritual patrimony …