“But even if artists did not have the high honor we tend to grant them today . . . they did make beautiful things—so beautiful, in fact, that we so many centuries later still go to look at their works and often pay much to have their works restored in order to hand them down …
True Prophetic Revelation Must Be Treated As Scripture
“Of course, the words of God can be disposed of by God. If He gave a word through one of Philip’s daughters which He did not want to be included in Scripture, then He may obviously do what He pleases with His own words. The point being made here is that we may not do …
Reformational Dance
“Reformation was less a shopping-list of demands than the choreography for a new dance” (Matheson, p. 9).
When Art Was Real
“The role of artists was not always what it is today. In most cultures, including our own before the new period that began somewhere between 1500 and 1800, artists were primarily craftsmen: art meant making things according to certain rules, the rules of the trade. Arts were accomplished workers who knew how to carve a …
Charismatics Don’t Believe that Prophecy is for Today Either
“More than a few pastors have wondered whether they are being theologically dishonest in saying that the ‘sign gifts’ are no longer operative in the church today. True, the charismatic movement gives us great reason to be suspicious, and it is a pleasure to be prejudiced and bigoted sometimes, especially when Benny Hinn is involved, …
Metaphors of Bounty
“From this perspective the Reformation can be seen as an infinitely varied, but coherent and extended, metaphor for the bountifulness of God’s grace. If, however, there is anything to be said for this argument, then we are going to have to look in quite a new way at Protestantism, which — we have generally been …
High and Lonely Destiny-ism
“It has been like this since the eighteenth century when the old concept of the artist as craftsman began to be exchanged for a concept that saw him as both a gifted genius and a social and economic outcast” (H.R. Rookmaaker, Art Needs No Justification, p. 5).
Tradition and Testimony
“A modern church cannot base everything it does on ‘Scripture solitaire’ without any reference to the testimonies of the historic Church. For one of the central testimonies which the Church has given, and which the historic Protestants continue to give, is that the sixty-six books of the Bible are the only ultimate and infallible Word …
Iconopoaic Puritanism
“We are quite rightly impressed by the iconoclastic dimensions of the Reformation, the pruning of the liturgies and the decimation of the saints’ days, the removal of statues, paintings and even stained glass from the churches. But such iconoclasm may be eclipsed by what we can call the iconopoaic energies of the Reformation, its creativity …
When Experts Aren’t
“I will not say that a good story for children could never be written by someone in the Ministry of Education, for all things are possible. But I should lay very long odds against it” (C.S. Lewis, Of Other Worlds, p. 34).