Minister: Lift up your hearts! Congregation: We lift them up to the Lord! God of ultimate wisdom, God of infinite, cascading wisdom, we worship You through the incarnation of that wisdom, our Lord Jesus. We give glory to You, for the earth is full of Your glory. We render thanks to You, because the earth …
Old Wineskins
As long as we live in this fallen world, we will be buffeted with at least two conflicting standards. The first is obviously the standard by which we are named—the wisdom of Christ, the aroma of the gospel, the scandal of the cross. But in the history of the Church, the competing standard that has …
Two Kinds of Losers
One of Christ’s most famous parables is that of the prodigal son. It could also be called the parable of the self-righteous brother, or the parable of the longing father. What it teaches us about God the Father is quite remarkable, and to a certain kind of religious mind and heart, also quite scandalous. Once …
You Are Here
As part of my neo-fundamentalist masochism, I have been reading quite a bit of quasi-postmodern Christian writing lately, and the more quasi I read the more queasy I get. The latest entry that has found its way into my briefcase is Brian McLaren’s A New Kind of Christian. One of the most frustrating aspects of …
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
In Scripture, one of the consistent prayers that God’s people offer up in the midst of harassment from their adversaries is that those adversaries would fall into the pit that they are busy digging. The Bible points to the reality of this in many ways. “You reap what you sow. The judgment with which you …
Tolerance and Common Ground
Morning visionaries! Steven identified my subtle and nuanced discourse as a “nice rambling response” and pointed out that I did not answer his question directly, which is true enough. So here is my direct answer. People who would not choose one another for fishing buddies can nonetheless tolerate one another and live in blissful co-existence. …
All Epistemologists Used to be Toddlers
“When we have come of age, we should look back on the process and see that where we came from does not define who God is. God reveals Himself to the mature mind as ultimate and transcendant. Our experience does not contain Him or define Him. But His sovereign majesty does contain our experience. In …
Rejoicing in It All
Our Father and God, we rejoice in Your holy day, and we thank You for it. We rejoice in the food that is set before us, and we thank You for it. We rejoice in the fellowship that You have given to us in one another, and we thank You for it. We rejoice in …
Nice People United
Dear visionaries, Steven asks what my point was, and despite the monkeyshines, I do have one. Tolerant liberals like to play a pea and shell game with words like tolerant. Just like everyone else in the world, tall and short, Republican and Democrat, left and right, Christian and pagan, such liberals tolerate certain things and …
Toleration of Others Breathing
Dear visionaries, Yahoo! At long last, thanks to Susan, we now have a definition of tolerance. Those who are willing to tolerate the continued existence of those they find to be obnoxious are the tolerant progressive folks. Of course, by that definition I (and all my fellow rapscallion Trinitarians) are as tolerant and progressive as …