Theology That Bites Back
“But evangelicals—babes in the woods when it comes to this kind of thing—have confused the biblical requirement to not be mean with the impossible requirement to never be accused by liars of being mean. Once you accept the latter as your standard, you can always be steered, no matter how nice you are.”
Virgins and Volcanoes, p. 37
“If we are in the fire, and some suggests getting back in the frying pan, it is hardly to the point to suggest that this might lead to us falling into the fire.”
“The modern evangelical church is effeminate. That is the problem. That is our besetting sin. When the apostle Paul rebuked the malakoi, the soft ones (1 Cor. 6:9), he was talking about the effeminate objects of sodomite lust. But that kind of softness can also trickle into bed with a girl. That kind of softness can remain heterosexual and can get institutionalized in the overarching directive to all faithful evangelicals, which is be nice and don’t be mean.”
Virgins and Volcanoes, p. 36
“Why are we so afraid of theocracy? What might happen? Might we go on a rampage and kill sixty million babies? Yeah, that would be bad. Better not risk it. Might we set up a surveillance state, with camera clusters pointed in every direction at all the intersections? Right—theocracies are terrible like that.”
“The priests of this system have two basic jobs. The first is to keep throwing virgins into the volcano. The second is to keep up an unrelenting stream of criticism of the Christians, heaping scorn upon how we treat our virgins.”
Virgins and Volcanoes, p. 29
“There are only two ‘ways,’ two fundamental religions in the world. One of them feeds people, and the other one eats people.”
Virgins and Volcanoes, p. 27
“We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, powers, and pecksniffs.”
“Attempts to undertake what is euphemistically called sex reassignment surgery is in reality a high revolt. It is an attempted coup, an attempt to assassinate the God of Heaven. We can see this in two aspects. First, it attempts to take a prerogative of Deity in hand—only God can transform XY chromosomes into XX. And second, when God did this, the result was something that bore His image, the image of God. When He did it, the result was glorious beauty. When we do it, it will come out as some kind of mingle mangle of Frankenstein, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Mr. Potato Head, and the book of Enoch. It cannot end well . . . unless you count fire from Heaven as ending well.”
Virgins and Volcanoes, p. 24
“The basic Christian answer to our leaders and scientists and politicians and writers and poets and philosophers has to be this. Who is God? Not you. Who has the prerogatives of Deity? Not you.”
Virgins and Volcanoes, p. 23
“When I tell an ordinary citizen that he must not steal, I should be in a position to answer the question if he wonders why. If I tell my government that it must be modest, what do I do in the face of the same question? For—believe me—governments want to misuse their power more than ordinary citizens want to steal. My elected representatives want to steal from me more than my next-door neighbor does. That being the case, they must be told not to—which is a strong ethical requirement. As such, like all ethical requirements, it requires transcendental grounding.”
