For those in the area who might be interested, I will be doing a conference next month (April 28) for Christ Covenant Church in Langley, British Columbia. The conference will be on The Church and Culture, and talks will include, “The Church as Shaper of Culture,” “Devil in a Blue Dress,” “Culture and Tradition,” and …
Ritual of Life
This ritual meal is not demeaned through being a ritual. We do not say that it is merely ritual. After all, through rituals many remarkable things happen. A bachelor becomes a husband; a daughter becomes a wife. Through ritual, a civilian becomes a soldier. Through ritual, an Englishman becomes an American, or an American becomes …
Your Temper is a Doctrine of God
As we come to worship the Lord this morning, I want to deliver a particular exhortation to a particular part of our congregation. I want to speak to fathers about the dangers of austerity. Austere fathers are often attracted to certain elements of the Reformed faith, and by emphasizing that faith partially, they often stumble …
Imitation on the Sly
“In their effort to build a way of life based purely on the Shar’i laws, Islamists strain to reject all aspects of Western influence—customs, philosophy, political institutions and values. Despite these efforts, they absorb vast amounts from the West . . . Even Ayatollah Khomeini, who was more traditional than most Islamists, failed in his …
Just Plain Bad
“Some of the most popular books are starkly bad — bad in their content, bad in their effect, and, in a related way, bad aesthetically” (Gene Edward Veith, Reading Between the Lines, p. 27).
Purity Circling the Drain
“Some perfectionists look at this dismal state of affairs and conclude that what we need is an additional splinter group — and presbyterian denomination of three people, not counting the stated clerk. The stationery proudly proclaims that they are a continuing presbyterian church, that they sing Psalms through the left nostril, unlike those hardy blasphemers …
Putting On Airs
“So there is much vanity in bringing forth old truths in novel and affected phrases, as if men desired to be thought to have found out some new thing that yet has not been or is very little known in the world, when indeed upon examination, when it is unclothed of its new expressions, it …
Westminster XXXIII: Of the Last Judgment
1. God hath appointed a day, wherein He will judge the world, in righteousness, by Jesus Christ (Acts 17:31), to whom all power and judgment is given of the Father (John 5:22, 27). In which day, not only the apostate angels shall be judged (1 Cor. 6:3; Jude 6; 2 Pet. 2:4), but likewise all …
Globaloney Warming
Here is a nicely done bit on the global warming hoohah. HT: Joe Crawford
The Crawl Space Under the Neutral Zone
The next chapter of Dawkins’ book concerns the arguments for God’s existence. He addresses, in turn, the traditional Thomist arguments, the ontological argument, the aesthetic argument, the argument from personal experience, the argument from Scripture, the argument from admired religious scientists, Pascal’s wager, and a Bayesian argument involving probability calculations. Not surprisingly, since Dawkins is …