“Expecting our faith to affect the larger polis when it has not yet changed the average shelf at the local Christian book store is expecting something that is not going to happen” (Rules for Reformers, p. 5).
And Never for the Applause of the Adversary
“Reformation involves conflict, as we shall see in a moment, but how you fight makes all the difference. Should you fight like a cavalier, with swift sword play and witticisms, or like a thug and a wart on your nose? The besetting sin of ostensible reformers is the sin of shrillness and officious forms of …
The Light Is in the Sky
“The sun has risen. Christ has come. He is the king. the light covers the world. A return to heathen midnight is an impossibility. Those who walk in darkness now are doing so in a world suffused with light. This is hard to do — you have to remain blind, or hide in root cellars. …
Probably Not Big Enough
“Secular conservatism is like trying to use your pocket handkerchief to slow you down after the main chute has failed” (Rules for Reformers, p. 2).
Just Another Paradox
“That legacy [of C.S. Lewis] is a large contributor to my willingness to luxuriate in my quite oxymoronic goal of becoming and remaining a Chestertonian Calvinist” (From The Romantic Rationalist, p. 80).
Where the Analogy Actually Breaks Down
“So are we greater than pots? Fine. God is much greater than any potter” (From The Romantic Rationalist, p. 78).
Imitate More, Not Less
“Hack writers do not sub-create a world; they simply rearrange furniture in a glibly assumed (and largely unexamined) prefab world. If necessary, they make it an ‘other world’ fantasy by having two moons in the sky or by naming their protagonist something like Shambilar. But this is just moving things around on the surface. There …
The Divine Potboiler
“How could we not be storytellers? We worship God the writer, God the written, and God the reader. How could we not create? We are created in God’s image, and he creates. He created us so that we would do this. He came down into our world to show us how it is done; his …
And Good Theology Makes It Better
“There are many theological assumptions that have to go into a rollicking good yarn” (From The Romantic Rationalist, p. 75).
All In the Institutes . . .
“Susan was not killed in that last railway accident, and we should not speculate about her final destiny unless we want Aslan to growl at us for impudent guesswork about somebody else’s story. And besides, if anybody wants to argue that the ultimate Cair Paravel in the center of the ultimate Narnia only had three …