“On one level these novels [Narnia stories] are tremendous adventures, and on another they are rich theological treatises that teach truth without failing into the tedious habit of preaching to children. The search for truth is simply part of the excitement” (Michael D. O’Brian, A Landscape With Dragons, p. 125).
The Rebirth of Christian Story
“Because the Holy Spirit is always pouring out life upon God’s people, we must never succumb to the temptation to think that the false culture has won. Despite its apparent powers, its noise, and its glamour, it is a moribund system that has not much longer to live . . . A regeneration of Christian …
No Kidding
“Films, videos, and commercial television have come close to replacing the Church, the arts, and the university as the primary shaper of the modern sense of reality” (Michael D. O’Brian, A Landscape With Dragons, p. 61).
Why the Serpent Does Not Symbolize Honesty
“The meanings of symbols are not merely the capricious choices of a limited culture. We cannot arbitrarily rearrange them like so much furniture in the living room of the psyche. To tamper with these fundamental types is spiritually and psychologically dangerous because they are keystones in the very structure of the mind” (Michael D. O’Brian, …
Not a General Requirement
“Headship in marriage does not mean that women submit to men; it means one woman submits to one man. Her submission to her husband protects her from having to submit to other men. Prior to marriage, her submission to her father protects her from having to submit to other men. There is no overall biblical …
Although That Understanding Is Coming Back
“Ritual sex and human sacrifice are stolen moments of power over, and temporary relief from submission to. They are, we know by hindsight, a mimicry of divinity, but pagan man did not know that. He experienced it as power sharing, negotiating with the gods. To placate a god by burning his children on its altars …
Slip Out the Back
“At the very least, this system [of recreational dating] is as much a preparation for divorce as it is for marriage. Whenever the other person starts to wear a little thin, you just slip out the back, Jack” (Her Hand in Marriage, p. 11).
The Touchstone of Protestant Poetics
“The reasons for singling out David the Psalmist as the primary model for Christian poets no doubt include the very great spiritual significance and artistic worth ascribed to the Psalms in contemporary commentary, as well as their use for centuries in Christian liturgy. But in addition, the Psalms were seen to raise with special force …
The Beautiful Character
“We have lost our sense of the holiness of beauty . . . when exterior beauty is in harmony with a character’s interior beauty, then the sign value of the tale of the character is greatly enhanced” (Michael D. O’Brian, A Landscape With Dragons, p. 35).
Just and General
“Generalizations are legitimate if they honestly describe an overall pattern. Generalizations are consequently not refuted through particular and individual counter examples. Honest Pharisees lived at the time of Christ, and they were not an embarrassment to Christ’s scathing denunciations of their religious sect as a whole. Indeed one indication of a Pharisee’s honesty would be …