Introduction: Husbands are commanded to love, and we are taught that the kind of love they are to render is the kind that bestows loveliness. But wives are not encouraged by this to simply be passive recipients—they are given a command as well. They are to be subject to their husbands (v. 24), and they …
John Knox Meets Siddhartha
In a recent post to Vision 20/20, one of our adversaries (Nick Gier) listed fourteen ways in which we kirkers differ from other conservative evangelical Christians (what he calls CECs). Normally this kind of superficial analysis would not warrant a response on the merits, but because purveyors of this kind of superficial analysis appear to …
Oh Yeah
Some time ago, I unsubscribed from a community listserve discussion called Vision 20/20, though in calling it a “discussion” my charitable faculties are fully extended. A less strenuous description of it would have to include words and phrases like fulmination, jeremiad, screed, baying at the moon, and other forms of progressivist yodeling. Anyhow, I unsubscribed …
A Persecution Complex
The other day I was coming out of a local building supply, and was headed for my truck. I heard a voice behind me, an inquiring voice, saying, “Douglas Wilson?” That was a correct identification, so I turned around, indicating yes. A middle-aged woman I did not recognize was standing there, about to go into …
Dysfunctional Zoning Codes
The recent zoning complaint against the Moscow Food Co-op has just been rejected, and the obvious question for Nathan Wilson and Aaron Rench (the gentlemen who filed the complaint) is whether they will appeal. The following is a press release that they issued this morning. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 20, 2005 Moscow Men Have Zoning …
Pentecost in Public
Minister: Lift up your hearts! Congregation: We lift them up to the Lord! Our Father and God, we praise You now in the powerful name of Jesus Christ. You are the one who poured out the Holy Spirit on the great day of Pentecost, and there empowered Your Church to be Your people forever and …
Can’t Tell the Players Without a Scorecard
I have referred before to the very odd coalition that has formed in opposition to the various ministries of Christ Church. My calling it a coalition is not just based on the fact that people happen to be opposing the same entity (making them cobelligerents). The coalition, in a number of places, is a functioning …
Hostility and Discrimination
In the alternative universe of some, mere assertion substitutes for argument. An assertion that Christ Church, NSA, and other ministries, should start “obeying the law,” is enough to persuade a certain kind of mind that we must not have been obeying the law. But of course, in a sober kind of universe, this kind of …
Private Judgment
Dear Joel, Thank you for bearing with my delay as I have been doing two things. First, I have been assembling my thoughts on this complicated issue, and secondly, I have been looking for an opportunity to lay them out in systematic fashion. In the letters that follow, I am not assuming that every issue …
Marriage as Manifest Glory XIX
Introduction: Learning is awkward. Even assuming good motives, and a desire to learn, and no rebellion against God’s pattern, there are still difficulties. G.K. Chesterton once said that the “chief object of education is not to learn things but to unlearn things.” Couple this with the fact that what we must unlearn is frequently what …