“The temptation to ache for worldly respectability is, however, rampant throughout the evangelical world. Vast sections of our evangelical establishment have gone down before this alluring temptation, like dry meadow grass before a sharpened scythe.”
The Winsome Standard
“The desire to be found winsome by the world puts the standard completely in the grasp of Old Slew-foot. He is the one who now determines whether or not you are being winsome. No, no. Scoot farther to the left.”
A Never Ending War
“We are at war with crapola, and are willing to use words like crapola as the occasion demands.”
Not to Mention the Candied Peels
“And if f-bombs were raisins, The Gospel Coalition loves to laud and celebrate movies that would be the equivalent of a five-pound fruitcake.”
Debates Where Nobody Wins
“In this kind of debate, unless everybody watches his step closely, things can get pretty stupid—like a couple of dogs, neither of them very smart, debating quantum physics. ‘No! Arf, arf!’”
Less Honorable Parts
“It is a body life thing. That ankles do not need to perform the functions of the kidneys, but should be grateful that the kidneys apparently like doing it. And as the events of the last several years have demonstrated, what the kidneys remove from the body is kind of necessary. Evangelicalism is in the bad state it is in because the fastidious among us have insisted that kidneys learn how to do something more high-minded and edifying than produce urine.”
Like You Were a Beetle to be Stepped On
“They don’t mind that kind of language so long as it is being transgressive and is undermining Western civilization. But speak that way in defense of what is pure, noble, lovely, or virtuous, and they stare at you through their lorgnette.”
Which Is a Problem
“The besetting sin of pietism has always been that of wanting to be holier than the Bible.”
Was There a WIder Context? Why, Yes
“So let me tell you what this symbolism really means. This is what they are saying. They are shamelessly declaring to the world that they are just a couple of cunts. And in response to this horrifying declaration . . . if you are worried about about the impending degradation, you should be worried about the reality first, and the description of that reality second. That is not my position, nor my language. It is their position, their language, their degradation, their impurity, their sin, their shame, their logic, and their wormhole destination.”
Hunting the Wolves of Lust
“I grew up in conservative evangelical circles, and I know that the power of the gospel was not made relevant to me in the ways it could have been. I was not taught to mortify sin the way I would have been if John Owen had been our youth group leader, teaching us all to hunt the wolves of lust in the deep forests, with the musket of mortification and with a sharpshooter’s eye. No, what I learned was more like Elmer Fudd trying to kill the rabbit. And, at the end of the day, that was nobody’s fault but mine.”