“The cross saves some sinners and baffles others. The ‘reason’ that both sets of sinners hold in common is not competent to judge these things. All our thoughts must be submissive to Christ (2 Cor. 10:4-5); we must love God with all our minds (Mt. 22:37); and we must never presume that God needs our …
Wagner and Cultural Revolution
“Wagner was as committed as ever to the overthrow of existing conditions. However, the scope of his rebellion had changed. His desire for change now went deeper than the political process in terms of its end and beyond the political process, beyond even revolutionary politics, in terms of the means to bring that revolutionary change …
When the Gospel is Opaque
“Rationalists consistently maintain that a truth need not be accepted if it makes no sense to ‘reason.’ But does this not excuse those who are perishing? The gospel makes no sense to them. ‘For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is …
High Standards Lead to Relativism
“Even so, most people still tend [to] think of the popular arts as ‘lowbrow’ entertainment and not something to be thought about or evaluated as art. This has disastrous consequences for the cultivation of Christian discernment . . .Undermining the status of popular art has not led to education of the audience to heighten appreciation; …
When Reason is Unreasonable
“Throughout Scripture we find a clear contrast between the philosophy of the natural man and the mind of Christ. When such passages are brought to bear on the various doctrines of the rationalist, the response is usually to shrug them off. And yet this is not sufficient; indeed, it is not reasonable. The Word of …
Magazined
“We adults look around, for example, and observe that while brain surgeons and Nobel laureates probably have their good points, surely glossy-magazine editors are the most impressive people in America. Every month, in the front of their magazines, many of them have to write those six-hundred word columns with titles like ‘From the Editor’s Desk’ …
All of Them Face Down
“To what may we liken God? The answer, friends, is nothing. And we show that we may compare Him to nothing by comparing Him to everything that is worthy of Him, and, of course, nothing completely is. In Him we live, and move, and have our being. This is not zen Christianity; it is the …
The Tombs of the Prophets
“Every rock anthem, every fashion statement, every protest gesture, every novel about rebellious youth—starting with The Catcher in the Rye and On the Road—carried the same cultural message: It’s better to be a nonconformist than a conformist, a creative individualist than a member of a group, a rebel than a traditionalist, a daring adventurer than …
Poetic Failure
“Only the most profound kind of spiritual blindness can keep a man from seeing what Isaiah is doing here. ‘To whom then will ye liken God?’ Isaiah has been comparing God to all kinds of things throughout this chapter [40], and therefore the point of every comparison must be to show that all of them …
The Bedlam of the Elites
“There is no one single elite in America. Hence, there is no definable establishment to be oppressed by and to rebel against. Everybody can be an aristocrat within his own Olympus. You can be an X Games celebrity and appear on ESPN2, or an atonal jazz demigod and be celebrated in obscure music magazines. You …