“But the kind of originality that everyone shares is not the kind of originality that modern romantics require in order to feel fully individuated in mass society. What they need is original originality, or meta-originality, as it were. This sets up the equivalent of an arms race, with more and more extravagant gestures required to …
What Strange Corruptions
“Luther, in one of his epistles, said that there was no wickedness, no cruelty, that Zwingli did not charge him with. And in another epistle he complained that Carlstadtius was more malicious against him than ever any of his enemies had been. And as for Oecolampadius, Luther was so provoked against him that he called …
Critical Thinking Skills
Once there was a little boy who loved to argue with his mother. I know this is hard to fathom, but he did. Whenever she asked him to do something, his mind, within seconds, was forming objections, and all he wanted to do was talk with her about it. This of course was exasperating for …
Seeing Jesus
The greatest thing that Jesus ever did in His life was actually the sum total of His life, and the effect was to manifest the Father. He did various particular wonders, true enough, but in the cosmic scheme of things, they were little more than attention-getters. When we get distracted by them, we are missing …
Just a Few Weeks to Cupboards
Random House now has the web site for 100 Cupboards set up. If you go there, be sure to click on the cupboard doors.
Lift Up Your Heads
In the first vision, God comforted His people. Though the outer appearance might not look like much, God remains in the midst of His saints. This vision continues the theme of comfort and encouragement, but adds information on how God fulfills His purposes. “Then I raised my eyes and looked, and there were four horns. …
Earthbound Prayer
“Beware of having an eye to the auditors; beware of becoming rhetorical to please the listeners. Prayer must not be transformed into ‘an oblique sermon.’ It is little short of blasphemy to make devotion an occasion for display. Fine prayers are generally very wicked prayers. In the presence of the Lord of hosts it ill …
Concupisco Ergo Sum
“The popularity of the Cartesian method is not the consequence of a desire to remove metaphysical doubt, and find certainty, but precisely the opposite: to cast doubt on everything, and thereby increase the scope of personal license, by destroying in advance any philosophical basis for the limitation of our own appetites. The radical skeptic, nowadays …
And Burn All Their Houses
“If someone says that no ethical standards are fixed, and so we ought not to apply our standards to anybody else, we now know what to ask. What does the good gentleman mean, “we ought not”? If ethical standards are not fixed, then the conclusion could just as easily be that we ought to apply …
Prince Caspian Trailer
Looks like fun.