“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
When Evil Improves Something
“Think for a moment. Would it have improved The Lord of the Rings if Tolkien had left out Sauron? Or Saruman? Or the Nazgul? Or Gollum? With the disappearance of each villain or antagonist, is the story getting progressively better? Or worse?”
Chestertonian Calvinism, p. 144
Well Look at That
“‘Is Wilson suggesting that because parents are Christians, their baptized children also are Christians?’ No, not at all. Baptism is not necessary. The unbaptized children of Christians are Christians. That’s why we baptize them. But I do wonder why John Robbins thinks we should baptize them. I also wonder why he thinks I am out of conformity with the Westminster position, and he is not, for which see below: ‘Before baptism, the minister is to use some words of instruction, touching the institution, nature, use, and ends of this sacrament, shewing . . . that they [children] are Christians, and federally holy before baptism, and therefore are they baptized’ (Westminster Directory for the Publick Worship of God, emphasis mine).”
And Don’t Act Surprised
“However you examine it, the Protestant Reformation in the English-speaking world was the location, the context, and the setting, of a literary supernova.”
Chestertonian Calvinism, p. 125
Enough to Take the Breath Away
“Why . . . just the other day I was listening in my pick-up truck to a tape by a gentleman named Dr. Scott Clark, and he said that we Federal Vision types did not believe that Jesus lived a life of perfect, sinless obedience! I was so flummoxed by this that I pulled my truck over to the side of the road, and had to lay myself down on the highway with my feet on the bumper just to get the blood back into my head. Then when the state patrolman asked me what I thought I was doing, I explained it to him, and he couldn’t believe it either. Actually, I made this last little bit up—just a little fib—but that’s okay. We’re all under grace.”
A Rock Pile of Rules
“What is commonly caricatured as the ‘puritanical’ mentality is actually a mentality that can be found in the church of all ages. You can find this mindset in some of the early fathers, you can find it with Syrian ascetics, you can find it in medieval monasteries, and you can find it (after the first generation) among the Puritans. This religious type of person translates every serious call to holiness into terms it can understand, which is that of being introspective, stuffy, priggish, thin-lipped, censorious, prim, prudish, and more. Not only does it translate every serious call to holiness into this legalistic straitjacket, but it is attracted to every serious call to holiness—with the intention of burying it under a rock pile of rules.”
Chestertonian Calvinism, p. 121
Maybe I Need to Enunciate
“He rejects the idea that we ‘get in’ by grace, and ‘stay in’ by works. As do I, with enthusiasm. We get in by grace, we remain in by grace, we walk by grace, we talk by grace, we persevere by grace, we eat dinner by grace, we go to church by grace. We get in by grace. We stay in by grace. We finish by grace. Sola gratia. Tota gratia. Tota et sola gratia. Grace, grace, grace. But you know me. Mr. Ambiguous.”