Before smashing the patriarchy becomes mandatory, may we take a few moments to ask what it is? The current push is to get reasonable Christians to back away from it because they reject what is done in the name of it by the outliers. But however carefully reasonable Christians distance or distinguish themselves from the …
Marjorie Becker, R.I.P.
The hymn O Worship the King uses a striking phrase to describe the condition of man in this fallen world of ours. It describes us as “frail children of dust, and feeble as frail.” That line contains two elements of biblical truth that I want to emphasize here today. The first is that we are …
Masculinity at College
The following represents the gist of the remarks I made at NSA’s weekly Disputatio last Friday, September 19, 2014. What does it mean when NSA makes a point of emphasizing guy things? What is the point of that? I am referring to the presence of rugby and dirt on the NSA web page, the martial …
Three Chains I : Fear
Introduction: Over the course of the next few weeks, we are going to be considering three chains that the enemy of our souls wants to use in order to keep us in bondage. But in Christ, we have been set free, and set free means set free from each of these chains, and from all …
With Arms Quivering
Over at First Things, Peter Leithart interacts with a 2010 article by natural law theorist Jean Porter. At issue was the question of whether or not natural law provides a basis for rejecting same-sex relationships or marriages. Porter thinks not, and Peter finds her reasoning compelling — as far as the natural law limitation goes …
A Clean Conscience and a Well-Oiled Shield
As I have been noting periodically in this series on liberty, taxation, and theft, I am not issuing a call to action, but rather a call for understanding and recognition. Clearly this is not because action is irrelevant, but rather because rash and precipitous action is usually destructive. Think, and then do. At some point, …
Why Courtship Is Fundamentally Awed
Thomas Umstattd Jr. recently made a splash with his article “Why Courtship is Fundamentally Flawed.” To be perfectly honest, I thought a number of his points were very good, like frosted flakes in the bowl glinting in the morning light of your quiet breakfast nook. But I also thought, retaining the honesty theme here, that …
Surveying the Text: Genesis
Introduction: Just as Abraham walked through the land that he was promised without settling down to inherit the land, so we walk through the Bible, the land of promise, not yet in full possession of all that has been given to us. We have it already, we don’t have it yet. As we will have …
Doug and Maggie
The greatest philosophical question that mankind has come up with on his own is this one: “Why is there something, rather than nothing at all?” And the Christian answer to this question is that the living and true God, out of His grace and good pleasure, determined to create everything that is, which includes all …
Merchants of Resentment
Is it possible to sow the wind and reap the whirlwind (Hos. 8:7)? Well, of course it is. We live in a world where disproportional effects can follow hard after trivial causes. Not only so, but the disproportional effects can be unevenly distributed. Two toddlers disobey their mothers in exactly the same way, and one …