“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11) Growing Dominion, Part 122 “An inheritance may be gotten hastily at the beginning; but the end thereof shall not be blessed” (Prov. 20:21). We all like to think that if we came into windfall wealth, that we would handle it responsibly and wisely. …
Not a Relationship, but a Religion
Revivalism is actually the religion of magical technique. This religion is an ancient one, but the contemporary American form of it is revivalism. The purpose of all such religious technique is to control and manipulate the god who serves those adepts who want to worship themselves under cover of worshiping him. Through certain techniques, what …
Muslims Thinking the Way Christians Used To
“Islam is not a ‘mere’ religion; it is a complete way of life, an all-embracing social, political and legal system that breeds a worldview peculiar to itself” (Serge Trifkovic, The Sword of the Prophet, p. 55).
Near Perfect Ignorance
“Now, some people believe that this topic was dispatched by the late political philosopher Allan Bloom, whose best-selling critique of higher education, The Closing of the American Mind, contains a chapter on the pernicious effects of rock. But as I shall show later, that celebrated chapter displays a near-perfect ignorance of American popular music (whose …
False Brothers
In the Christian faith, particular events, schedules, persons and conversations matter. They matter because we are talking about God’s intervention in history. The gospel is not a detached and abstracted affair—a set of timeless truths in the heavenlies. Particularity matters a great deal. Then fourteen years after I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, …
The Loss of Poetry
The causes are not easy to identify, but poetry has fallen on hard times. Poetry today huddles in its prescribed little ghettoes – the sentimentalism of greeting cards and cupboard poetry, the small clutch of arcane poetry journals with a circulation of thirteen, self-absorbed adolescents scribbling pages of navel-gazing free verse, nationally-ignored poet laureates, and …
A Pretty Basic Problem
“On the Prophet’s own admission, Islam stands or falls with the person of Muhammad, a deeply flawed man by the standards of his own society, as well as those of the Old and New Testaments, both of which he acknowledged as divine revelation; and even by the new law of which he claimed to be …
Not Deeply Rooted in the Blues
“It is still possible to find the tough, affirmative spirit of the blues in contemporary forms. But increasingly, that spirit is rejected in favor of antimusical, antisocial antics that would be laughable if they weren’t so offensive” (Martha Bayles, Hole in our Soul, p. 3).
Avoiding the Precipice
The law of the Lord is perfect, the psalmist says, converting the soul. For the one who receives the word of God in faith, the law teaches us to stay away from the precipice of sin, apostasy, and damnation. The law of God makes the simple wise. Hear then, this warning from the law. The …
The Body of Christ
When we refer to the body of Christ, there are at least three different senses in which we use the phrase. The first, of course, refers to the body which was crucified for us, was raised in the power of the Spirit, and which ascended into heaven. That body is the body of a true …