Augustine exhorted us somewhere to love God and do as we please. This makes us nervous, and more than a little bit jumpy. Of course the protection resides in the first clause – loving God affects what will please us. Psalm 37:4 says that if we delight in the Lord He will give us the …
Republican Ra Ra
Well, here is the last post on Crunchy Cons. I have to get this one out of the way before I start in on Americanism: The Fourth Great Western Religion. There are parts of this section, particularly when Dreher is focussing on diagnosis, that are magnificent. There are other places where his implied solution (or …
Spurgeon the Great
We live in a time when preachers are told they must not really be preachers, but rather entertainers, facilitators, masters of ceremonies, or whatever the next hot-selling guru book for preachers will say they must be instead of preachers. This is all done in the name of making the gospel relevant and palatable to the …
Another Point of View Certainly
“The Crusades were a belated military response of Christian Europe to over three centuries of Muslim aggression against Christian lands, the systemic mistreatment of the indigenous Christian population of those lands, and harassment of Christian pilgrims.” (Serge Trifkovic, The Sword of the Prophet, p. 97).
The Genesis of the Cape and Beret Problem
“For an incandescent wit like Wilde, it was possible to express that contempt with grace and skill. But the majority of decadents were not that brilliant, and the best they could do was define art in negative terms, as the absence—or better still, the inversion—of other values, especially moral ones. To establish one’s creative bona …
Adultery
We may all agree that adultery is not a good thing, but our opinions here sometimes appear to be a mud fence we have built to withstand an incoming tsunami. Something more, we feel, may be necessary. In the modern church, a pastor can commit adultery, and get caught. It is at least possible that, …
Inner Jihad
“Only after the Islamic Empire had been established the notion of an ‘inner’ jihad—that of one’s personal fight against his ego and sinful desires—also came into being, but it was predicated on the assumption that the external, real jihad was nearing its completion” (Serge Trifkovic, The Sword of the Prophet, p. 89).
Two Ways to Cook
“Like New Orleans cooking, New Orleans jazz derives its power from deftly balanced ingredients and carefully controlled heat” (Martha Bayles, Hole in our Soul, p. 29).
Who’s Theo?
I have been occupied with an unusual number of responsibilities the last several weeks, and so have not gotten to everything I need to. Responsibilities are like grapes; they come in bunches. One of the things I have needed to do is finish my review of Crunchy Cons — there are only two chapters left. …
The Argument from Gratitude
Students of apologetics are familiar with some of the traditional arguments for the existence of God – the teleological argument from design, the cosmological argument from first cause, and so on. I would like to suggest another one. I do not really know what to call it, but the argument is directed against one of …