“Not only do confessional Protestants have to make their peace with revivalism, the kind of movement to which they generally object, they also have to make their peace with genuine movements of the Holy Spirit, which can be far more troublesome. In the revivalist stream, the institutional Church often suffers at the hands of nut jobs, and they come and punch holes in the wineskins with the icepick of fanaticism. This does create ironies and tensions. But the new wine of the Spirit is sometimes just as unkind to the wineskins. As we recall, there was a time when virtually every trained theologian in Jerusalem voted to kill the Messiah.”
Ortholife
“I am fond of saying that your theology comes out your fingertips, and whatever it is that is coming out of your fingertips is your theology. Therefore, orthodox Reformed theology means loving your wife as Christ loved the church. Orthodox Reformed theology means bring up your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”
That Kind of Bishop
“I affirm the imputation of the active and passive obedience of Christ to every regenerate believer, apart from which no one has any hope of salvation. No hope without it, as Machen put it. Everything that Christ is and did is credited to the elect believer at the moment of justification, and faith (itself a gift from God, lest any boast) is the sole instrument for appropriating God’s grace to us in Christ. Lesbian Eskimo bishops must be excommunicated without one moment’s delay, and God is very angry with those who tolerate such abominations in the Church. May I never be in that number, or look to any of the faithful as though I might be.”
Nehushtan Bibles
“When I tell someone to look to Scripture, I am not telling them to trust in leather bindings, ink and high-quality paper—though some people do trust in their Nehushtan Bibles this way.”
With Our Sins
“It is easy for Christians with a tender conscience to believe that our critics are being sincere when they chide us for our sins. But they are not at all sincere. They hate us for our virtues, ...
Why Didn’t This Start With the Veterinarians?
“Our secularist overlords might act a little indignant at such a saying, muttering that we Christians are the ones who are anti-science. Yeah, right. You think little boys can become little girls, and you think we’re anti-science? Why don’t you turn a bull into a cow first, and then we can talk about your science.”
Chestertonian Calvinism, p. 149
Faithfulness the Daughter of Faith
“All husbands are married, but not all husbands are faithful to their marriage vows. In the same way, all the baptized are covenantally bound to Christ, but not all such Christians are faithful to their baptismal vows. (And faithfulness to these vows consists of faith alone, incidentally, and not by works as some slanderously report me as saying.”
With Some Needing to be Committed
“The reason our culture is demented is that our gods are demented.”
Chestertonian Calvinism, p. 149
A Faint Hint, in Other Words
“Micro-aggressions are to real sin what LaCroix is to fruit juice.”
Chestertonian Calvinism, p. 156
The Spots Are Not Beauty Marks
“Secularism is not the genius of the West but is rather the disease of the West.”
Chestertonian Calvinism, p. 148