Incarnation trumps abstraction. The things we do every day, the things we do all the time, matter to us far more than those things we might think (or say) are crucial elements in our worldview. This explains, among other things, why the worship wars go the way they do in church. Someone could attend our …
Axis of Treacle
“For now it should suffice to say that modern evangelicalism (not historic evangelicalism) is represented by what one president called the axis of treacle — Christianity Today, the Christian Booksellers Association, Wheaton College and its environs, Colorado Springs and its environs, Thomas Kinkade, and Jerry B. Jenkins” (A Serrated Edge, p. 13).
Generalizing Away
“When I say this sort of thing — that the North had drifted into theologically liberal goo thought and the South was orthodox and Christian — I know I am painting with a broad brush. I know it is a generalization. Even today, if I were to refer to the ‘Bible belt,’ I would not …
Hypocrisy on Stilts
The problem of Pharisaism is not solved by dropping the phylactery that is “wider than yours” and picking up the Bible that is “more underlined than yours.” You cannot solve spiritual problems of the heart simply by rearranging the furniture. We are born casting sidelong glances, and the solution to this is repentance, not really …
Hollow As A Jug
I am over in Portland for the presbytery meeting of the CREC, at which we have been doing lots of cool presbyterial stuff. Anyhow, I posted what I did this morning on affected authenticity, and went off to presbytery. When I got back this evening there was a small mountain of comments, etc., which I …
Affected Authenticity
When we talk about the way we dress, we often forget that we are speaking about language. That is, we use the full force of language to get what we want to get, and when called on it, we “plead the dictionary,” to use my earlier example. Suppose a young rebel in your church were …
Learning to Detest Hypocrisy
During a portion of the sermon this last Sunday, I spent a little bit of time on the problem of lowlife authenticity. After the message I had a good conversation with a good friend over my professed bafflement over what causes the attraction to this lowlife ethos. He made the point that the cause of …
Apostles or Refugees?
All Christians at all times live in the culture they live in. The ancient Christian in Ephesus spoke Greek and wore the clothes available for purchase in that city. When he went for lunch, certain foods were available to him and other foods were not. At the same time, he was called to live in …
Better Off?
“Perhaps we should just limit this question to children in the wombs of black women today. If you were a black fetus in Atlanta, Georgia, what were you odds of ever seeing the light of day in 1858? What are your odds in 2005? A lot of kids died back then, but not because the …
Bag of Snakes Seminary
“Suppose a man were to refer to certain respected theologians dismissively as having graduated from Bag of Snakes Seminary. He would instantly be upbraided for his un-Christlike behavior. Unfortunately for the one delivering the rebuke, it was discovered shortly thereafter that the speaker was Christ (Mt. 23:33)” (A Serrated Edge, p. 12).