“When we are born again, a dramatic miracle happens. When we are born again, we are being turned into people” (Against the Church, p. 133).
Where He Writes What He Wills
“If God can quicken and glorify stone by writing on it with His own finger, then how much more will human hearts be glorified, quickened, made alive, and regenerated when the finger of God, the Holy Spirit Himself, writes on them? What is it to be born again? It is to become the Holy Spirit’s …
Knowing When to Say When
“He has backslidden badly, and is utterly miserable, but still in that frame of mind where he is trying to shout down his regenerate misery in a flurry of cocaine and floozies. Cocaine is in there because ‘flurry of floozies’ would be way too much, even for a writer like me” (Against the Church, p. …
Read Carefully, But Read
[Matt. 7:15-20] “This is Jesus telling us what to do. He is telling us that — without access to the decrees or the examined prophet’s heart laid out before us on a dissecting table — we have the authority to conclude that someone is inwardly a ravening wolf. This is not reading hearts, or reading …
Dealing With Brother Zed
“Corrupt fruit means corrupt tree, and good fruit means a good tree. Some false teachers have to be examined closely because they come in sheep’s clothing. But your reading of the story tells you something is ‘off’ — ‘my, what long ears you have . . .’ Now when you have obediently applied this instruction …
Despite Everything
[John 8:39,41,43-44] “They were blue star covenant members, these men, and all their sacramental papers were in order. The only problem was that despite everything, they still had the wrong father. They were therefore, by definition, unregenerate” (Against the Church, p. 122).
A New Upstream
“No, regeneration occurs when someone receives a father transplant . . . All the questions of regeneration are foundationally questions of relationship — who’s your daddy?” (Against the Church, pp. 120, 122).
The One Who Relates
“There are two errors to avoid here. One is to assume that each individual as such is self-contained and is provided with a hard shell casing . . . The other error is to think that the self is nothing more than a ganglion of relationships, with no ‘hard atoms’ of individuals between whom such …
On Not Leaving Out the Whole Point
“A denial of the need for a foundational heart change is therefore messing with the narratival arc of the whole story” (Against the Church, p. 117).
A Father Transplant
“Regeneration means becoming the seed of another — ultimately, starting with one family tree and then acquiring a different one. My father used to be Adam and now he is the second Adam. My father used to be the devil and now he is Abraham . . . Rebirth entails having been in existence already, …