I recently got a question in the comments here about my reading habits, and thought it might be fun to take a meander through my library, pointing out objects of interest as I go. File this one under autobiographical fragments. I liked books as a kid, but simply read in pursuit of my interests. Those …
As We Populists Like to Say
Over the last few weeks, a couple of epic comment threads have broken out here, and they have been revolving around the proposed view that I don’t know what I am talking about. In these cases it had to do with my idea that entropy and evolution are inconsistent, and also my lack of suitable …
A Few Milestones
A year or so ago, we urged my father to start writing his autobiography. He has been doing so, a bit at a time, and has been bringing those completed sections over to our weekly Sabbath dinner. I have been enjoying it very much as he writes — he is a wealth of stories. As …
The Accidental Educator
Through various accidents of time and other forces bigger than me, I have been involved in five educational enterprises. The first was Logos School, which we were involved in starting so our kids could have a place to attend school. The second was New St. Andrews College. The third was serving as an editor for …
Me and Van Til
So let us begin with the ungrammatical title. Why would I put it like that? It is not really proper, unless worked into a sentence like “‘Me and Van Til’ is not really a proper title for a blog post.” So maybe I am being grammatical accidentially, like the boy who was dozing in the …
Two Christmas Thoughts
The kids and all the grands came over for our annual Christmas breakfast together, and we had ourselves a time. I have to say that the sheer volume of gifts was significant. There are sixteen stockings to be stuffed, and then the regular presents for the grands, and then the adults give one another presents. …
Even Postmillennialists Get the Blues
Before I became postmillennial, I noticed something odd, and since then, some of the oddities seem even more so. Some of the most cogent cultural criticism I have ever read has come from postmillennialists, who described in excruciating and exact detail how and why our culture is falling apart. And yet, back in the day, …
Application, Not Evasion
My mother was a Canadian, of Scots Irish descent, with the maiden name of Dodds. My father grew up in Nebraska, the second of six sons. All six joined the Navy, having heard wild tales in their youth about something called “the ocean.” My father was of Scottish descent, meaning, I suppose, that I am …
The Designated Ambition Pole
In the brief moment of calm that has descended upon our discussion about race and slavery, a calm that was provided to us by the weekend, I thought I should insert a quick comment here on what it was that made me think it was a good idea (back in the mid-nineties) to go into …
Surrendering the Precious
I just finished reading (again) John Bunyan’s great book Grace Abounding, and it made me think of the Lord’s kindness to me over the years. Bunyan recounts in great detail the morbid pathologies that had him by the throat for some years when he first came under conviction of sin. The thing that struck me …