Introduction: As we turn to discuss the communion of saints, we first have to deal with how the term communion itself has been downgraded into something fairly mundane. We tend to think of something like community, and since there is a religious tint to it, we make that a nice community. But in our day, …
Book of the Month/November 2017
The Grace of Shame: 7 Ways the Church Has Failed to Love Homosexuals Tim Bayly, Joseph Bayly, and Jürgen von Hagen This is a book about repentance, and it is also—fittingly—a book of repentance. In it, Tim Bayly tells the story of a man under his ministry years ago, struggling with homosexual temptations. He was …
Book of the Month/October 2017
Princeton University Press has a series of “biographies” of great religious books, which is in itself a great idea. I had only read one of them before—Alan Jacobs’ bio of the Book of Common Prayer—and so I came with enthusiasm to George Marsden’s “life” of Mere Christianity. The book did not disappoint, and was really …
That’s Probably Right
Not Nearly Enough Paper Towels
In some ways the question is like asking why I breathe. It can be answered on different levels. I could attempt a scientific answer, and talk about the importance of oxygen for the body. I could provide an existential answer, and say that breathing is not something one chooses; it is something one just does. …
Book of the Month/September 2017
Reading a book with as many charts and graphs as this one had shouldn’t have been so much fun, but it really was. This month’s selection for the book-of-the-month is The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels by Alex Epstein. This book was a blast. Some of the points made here are commonplaces for conservatives—e.g. the …
Lust, Pride, Blood
As we deal with the accumulated toxic waste deriving from certain cultural issues—various racial enmities, mistreatment of the opposite sex, the calculated insolence of the rich over the poor, the ingrained envy of the rich by the poor—we have to beware of our limitations. There are three responses to this kind of thing that we …
The Apostles Creed 10: Was Crucified, Died, and Was Buried
Introduction: The word crux helps us understand when we need to express the importance of getting to the crux of a matter—and crux comes from the Latin word for cross. Nowhere is this more important that in discussing the death of Jesus, the salvation of the world. The Text: I believe in God the Father …
Occasions and Causes
The situation described in the following letters is entirely fictitious, including persons, names, crimes, sins, relationships, circumstances and all particulars. The kind of situation that is described, however, is all too common and my hope is that biblical principles applied to this fictitious scenario may be of some help to individuals tangled up in a …
Book of the Month/August 2017
For those who—unlike myself—function with tidy minds, I must begin by acknowledging that there was no Book of the Month/July 2017. This is because it was dark, they were big. It won’t happen again. Those responsible have been sacked. And for this round, I want to do something a little different. I read this book …