“In American Christianity, it is commonplace to think that ‘pure’ Christianity disappeared from the globe with the death of the last apostle, not to reappear again until a revelation of some kind came to Hobart Jonhe in a cornfield in southeastern Nebraska. There are many versions of this faith, but the broad outlines are the …
The Actual Point
“If someone were to maintain that God did not know the location of a particular town in South Dakota, and we were to debate with him, the resultant debate would not be over geography” (“Sola Scriptura, Creeds, and Ecclesiastical Authority” in When Shall These Things Be? p. 256).
Glib Simplicity
“Someone, and it may have been Gibbon, made merry over the fact that the church at the time of Athanasius was all roiled up over one little iota: the difference between homoousion and homoiousion. Of course, this is like saying that the debate between atheism and theism is really a debate over the letter a. …
A Form of Shallowness
“Imagine a competent physician, a general practitioner, well trained in medicine. He does well in his practice, but occasionally he comes up against a patient who knows very little about medicine, but knows an enormous amount about the particular ailment that troubles him. In other words, before coming to see the doctor, the patient has …
Wisdom is not Mechanical
“In other words, when the elders of a church are determining whether or not a new candidate is qualified for the office, they must be the type of men who are mature in judgment. They are discerning character, not counting rocks” (Fidelity, p. 159).
The Horizon is Really Quite Interesting
“If a man can’t go to the beach without sinning, then he should quit going to the beach. But if he has the self-discipline to spend a lot of time looking at the clouds, or gazing out to sea like the ancient mariner, then he can do that” (Fidelity, p. 150).
Striving to Lose
“The harm is that men are not faithful to hookers. Why should a Christian woman want to look like one? Why on earth would she want to resemble the kind of woman who is easy to use and easier to leave?” (Fidelity, pp. 142-143).
More Than Just Male
“In order to be sexually responsive, a wife needs to respect, on a fundamental level, the comprehensive masculinity of her husband. He must be a man, and not just a male. If he is aroused in the bedroom, that arousal must not make her resentment boil over — ‘Why can he not be aroused to …
No Competition
“Clearly a man who enjoys this kind of immense pleasure with his wife will have great difficulty turning elsewhere. A man sitting down to a steak dinner is unlikely to excuse himself in order to go eat some Ding Dongs he has stashed away in the closet. But a man facing yet another dinner of …
Six or Seven Blankets
“The lovemaking of this biblical couple [in the Song of Songs] is clearly not occuring in the dark under six or seven blankets. This couple is very open with one another and take a great sexual delight in their communion. This delight concentrates on specifics and is not just a general approval of sex, whatever …