“Simply presenting the truth of God in a computer printout fashion, without the passion, life, satire, love and emotion found in Scripture, is a way of being unfaithful to that content. Style is far more than the simple decoration of propositions. Style (with satire as an important part of this) should be woven throughout every …
Scissors and Paste Hermeneutics
“But this begs the question: What standard are we using to say that we should imitate this part of Christ’s demeanor and refuse to imitate that part of it? What standard do we use to assemble this hierarchy of verbal values” Why do we say, ‘Imitate Christ in His kindness to the tax gatherers, but …
A Masculine Use of Words
“Such men are masculine; they have not accepted the dictates of our effeminate times, and, despite all exhortations to the contrary, they have kept their backbone. They are dedicated to the advancement of the kingdom of God. Consequently, they are earnest about their work, and they stay at it. As servants of the Word of …
Effeminate Foppery for Jesus
“Resistance to a mindless and fastidious approach to the Christian faith is a mark of Christian masculinity. But we live in an effeminate age, one that is far worse in this regard than the times in which Spurgeon lived. This makes application of his insight simultaneously far more difficult and far more necessary. Not only …
Refried Beans
“The melodrama of modern evangelicalism has gotten really bad, and it is time to start an enthusiastic throwing of the popcorn” (A Serrated Edge, p. 82).
Sound Effects
“There is a difference between insulting the truth of God and insulting some lunacy that a televangelist is maintaining as the truth of God. There is a difference between kicking puppies and lampooning the self-righteous and pompous, although sometimes the sound effects are very similar” (A Serrated Edge, p. 82).
A Special Gift
“Whenever the Christian faith is accepted and established in a nation, and a large number of people are members of various churches, one of the first and deadliest temptations is the lust for respectability — a lust which is defined and established by complacent worldly values, and not by the Scriptures. Soon the pulpits of …
Pointy Pagan Hats
“I am reminded of the time I was reading Augustine’s wonderful work The City of God, and I came to the part where he was making fun of the pagan priests for wearing their silly mitres for hats. I thought to myself, huh, I thought, and flipped the book over for another look at the …
Satire As Prophecy
“We are Bible people, and we name our churches Bible churches, and we go to Bible studies, although Bibles are increasingly rare at them, and our holy hardware stores make megabucks selling study Bibles for ‘whatever ails ya.’ But the problem with making up titles of such Bible versions to illustrate a point here is …
Top to Bottom, Front to Back
“So before there can be any kind of restoration of national dignity in the civil realm, there must absolutely be a reformation in the Church — top to bottom, stem to stern, from the front of the face to the back of the head. Modern evangelicalism is not the solution to America’s problems, modern evangelicalism …