“Put another way, the Bible does not tell us whether the British or the American military salute is ‘more proper’ than the other. But it does require the fact of the salute. Expressions of honor are common to all human societies, and the Bible requires that we honor others and maintain such expressions of honor. …
Worldliness and Faux Innocence
“The stream of historic orthodoxy that once watered the evangelical soul is now dammed by a worldliness that many fail to recognize as worldliness because of the cultural innocence with which it presents itself.” [David Wells, No Place for Truth (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1993), p. 11.]
Principles and Methods
“Naomi instructed Ruth to keep this in mind when she presented herself to Boaz: ‘Therefore wash yourself and anoint yourself, put on your best garment and go down to the threshing floor . . . (Ruth 3:3). The point being made here is a very simple one. The Bible reflects what we all know to …
The Lewis and Clark of the Soul
“Lewis and Clark didn’t return from their trip and say, ‘Well, we didn’t find the Northwest Passage, but we did find ourselves.’ But that is the spirit of Bobo travel. Our travel dollars are investments in our own human capital. We don’t just want to see famous sights; we want to pierce into other cultures. …
Play Skillfully
“This may seem like a commonsense observation, but relativism in aesthetics is constantly trying to undermine the obvious. When the Bible tells us we are to ‘sing to Him a new song; play skillfully with a shout of joy’ (Ps. 33:3), this means there is such a thing as musical skill. The Lord has not …
Ah, Texture
“But to demonstrate their superiority to such people, the educated elites prefer to build environments full of natural irregularities. For the Bobos, roughness connotes authenticity and virtue. So the educated elites love texture . . . Really rich Bobos will hire squads of workmen with ball-peen hammers to pound some rustic wear into their broad …
Vouchers and Neutrality
“So we either have to grant that we may be taxed so that a Buddhist parent may be funded to instruct his kids that Buddhism is true, or we must say that Buddhist education and Christian education are the same for most of the day. Support for vouchers among Christians reveals that we have not …
Simple Rhythms of Life
“The educated class has conquered all and hegemonized its Bobo culture over affluent regions from coast to coast. Now the Babbitt lion can mingle with the beatnik lamb at a Pottery Barn, a Smith & Hawken, a Museum Shop, a Restoration Hardware, a Nature Company, a Starbucks, or any of the other zeitgeist-heavy institutions that …
Food Stamps for Conservatives
“Third, vouchers expose the essential hypocrisy of many of our attitudes on public policy. Educational vouchers are nothing but food stamps for conservatives. It is remarkable how often we do not see the principle involved. We simply react to some ‘wasteful’ program, defining wasteful as ‘someone else getting the money.’ Until we learn to fight …
Culture Pouts
“Avant-gardism, money, status, Le Chic, and even the 1960s idea of sexiness – it all buzzed around Pop Art. The place, without any question, was Leo Castelli’s gallery at 4 East Seventy-seventh Street. Castelli had Johns, Lichtenstein, Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, most of the heavies. It was there that the Culture buds now hung …