“We forget that Rachel weeping for her slaughtered children is very much a part of the Christmas story—as much a part of it as the shepherds, and the angels, and the star, and the wise men. This is a story of the infants who were butchered by a tyrannical king, and the one infant who …
Important Stuff
“This is the celebration of the Incarnation, when the eternal Logos of God took on a material body, which He still has. Do not, therefore, join in with the general lamentations about ‘materialism.’ This is a celebration of God taking on a material body. It is therefore a holiday that should focus on stuff. By …
Code of the Salty Dog
Introduction: So you may consider this a quick round-up of my thoughts thus far in the aftermath of a very weird election, and my medium-warm hot take on how the presidential transition is going. But quite apart from how it might actually be going, I do have to say that I am enjoying the transition …
Not a Good Way at All, In Fact
“Picture our various theologies of this folly on Christmas morning. If you open a gift and churlishly refuse to thank the giver of it, then—in our little illustration—you are an atheist. But how, in this regard, is it better to be the pietist and to smash the gift to pieces ‘lest it tempt you away …
And I Will Take My Ultimate on the Side
I want to write about religious liberty, and in order to do that I must first address the myth of neutrality. But I don’t really want to address the myth of neutrality, but rather the demented, off-the-chain, sociopathic, deranged, vacuous, and sure-to-let-you-down-later-today opium dream of neutrality. Neutrality is, like, not a thing. It does not …
Write What You Know
For Skies Kind of Bland
“One of the impulses that overscrupulous pietists have is that of trying to ‘thin out the world’ so that we won’t be as tempted to idolatry by it. But the problem with this procedure is that it never works. We can fall into idolatry with our airy abstractions as much as we do with a …
Book of the Month/December 2016
Most of the books I select for my “book of the month” pick are not titles from Canon Press. Now I know that I have lost my treasure in Heaven even for mentioning this, but I still thought it should be pointed out. It is also the case that I don’t generally pick books written …
Because the Sauce Goes on Everything
“The central point of the food is not what you are eating but rather who you are eating it with – but don’t mistake the point here. That does not make the taste of the food, or the care that goes into its preparation, irrelevant. Far from it. A good sauce accents the taste of …
To Join Us In Our Sorrow
“We continue to prepare ourselves for the celebration of one of the most monumental events of all world history – the time when the Second Person of the Creator God assumed a human body in the womb of a virgin, in order to join us in our sorrow, and to deliver us from it” (God …