Lane gave me a helpful nudge the other day. What with end of school year frenzy, and a trip back east, I lost track of where we were. I will try to get us caught up here — but that will mean that my responses will be kind of a ragbag and briefer than they …
Spit Spot
As many of you probably know, in the most recent issue of First Things, N.T. Wright wrote a pretty styptic response to Richard John Neuhaus’ review of his book Surprised By Hope. And then Neuhaus responded to that, more or less along the same lines. There are a number of things in that exchange that …
Two Peas in an Archetypical Pod
Green Baggins is now addressing the section on the Trinity in our Joint FV statement. I agree with the caveats that Lane issues, acknowledging that the triune nature of God is something that He is, and not something that He builds out of three independent Persons. I think that Ralph Smith guards himself against that …
Invade Burma?
If the ethics taught to us in the parable of the Good Samaritan transfer from the individual level to the global level, without any significant adjustments, then certain things follow. If my obligation to give a guy a sandwich transfers without adjustment to our obligation to give food to an entire nation, then other obligations …
Internet Airedales for Truth
One of the classes we offer the covenant kids here at Christ Church is a course in memorizing the Heidelberg Catechism. I know, say what you will, but we FVers can be pretty audacious at times. We even pretend to ourselves that we believe this stuff. Anyhoo, one of my parishioners emailed me because he …
Tennis Shoe It Out of Here
When someone proposes good deeds on a grand scale, one of the assumptions that goes into it is the idea that, if implemented, nothing can go wrong. Since nothing can go wrong, then we never have to worry about who bears the costs if it goes wrong. Since we never have to worry about who …
Good Calvinism Solves Problems
Lane has taken up my question about his Calvinism. In his response, he sets out a scheme that I agree with entirely — which is only to be expected, since we are both Calvinists. He acknowledges that God is the first cause of all that comes to pass, which would have included the obedience of …
Is Green Baggins a Calvinist?
Lane thinks that our discussion of God’s covenant with mankind before the Fall has gotten interesting, and I agree. But it will take me a few installments to answer the various issues he raises here. The one I want to begin with is Lane’s (no doubt inadvertant) denial of Calvinism. I had said, “If Adam …
Obedience and Works
Lane has come back from presbytery, apparently unscathed, and wants to resume our discussion. So here we go. He says: “I was saying that you were rejecting any overlap between obedience and works, such that you could say that the CoW was based on grace, and that obedience was required, but works were not. I …
Plunderers and Plunderees
Another important aspect of Third World debt forgiveness is one I have alluded to several times, but we have not yet developed it. And that concerns this subject — who is it, exactly, that is doing the forgiving, and on whose behalf is it being done? And on what authority? The money that was loaned …