“Evangelical Christians are adept at adopting worldly fashions ten years after the world has adopted them, and then doing it worse. This is true of fashion, music, diets, you name it. It is also true of political fads and fashions. As chronic late adapters, we are often climbing on board just as the carnal overreaction to the carnal stupidity is setting in.”
The Ever Limber
“You want him to recycle for the planet? He’s there. You want him to dive into eugenics? He’s with it. You want him to establish a man’s character by counting the bumps on his head? Got it, check.You want him simply to accept what Approved Opinion has determined about (check all that apply) 1) the inferiority of blacks, 2) the rates of climate change, or 3) the undesirability of nuclear war. Approved Opinion never stays in one place, so you do have to be limber . . . but some people are ever-limber. They were born limbering up . . . But there is a certain kind of man who knows how not to be stampeded. He is not valued greatly in any generation, for he consistently is a pain in the neck, but after he is dead and deep, the praise starts to trickle in.”
A Change of Mind, Not a Change of Direction
“No, peer pressure just blows in different directions, and so those vulnerable to peer pressure blow over in different directions. Watching last year’s compromises go out of fashion is not repentance.”
Fog Bricks
“Racism as defined by the world . . actually, there is the problem. The world is unable to define racism. How could they? They have assiduously built a Great Tower out of the fog bricks of relativistic nonsense, but they still expect everyone to react with horror whenever they snap their fingers and declare that a moral outrage has been committed.”
Nothing On Earth
“I happen to believe that a good deal of racial repentance really is in order, but it sure won’t be ushered in by any study committees on racial reconciliation who have been reading all the wrong sort of books. It will be brought in by a fundamentalist preacher, right out of a Flannery O’Connor short story, preaching hot gospel with his shirt sleeves rolled up and looking like nothing on earth. I don’t care what color he is. What will matter is the color of his words.”
Prevailing Winds
“If you have a cottage on the beach, the breezes blow in from off the bay. If you are in the PCA, the breezes blow in from Manhattan. Perhaps the problem, ye Presbyterians, is that you try to address problems like this with study committees. What a white thing to do.”
Inexcusable and Unforgivable Are Not the Same
“Apart from the cross of Christ, nothing is forgivable because all of it is inexcusable. But in Christ, the inexcusable can be forgiven.”
And I Mean “Seriously Tries”
“Don’t use words like ‘dialogue’ or ‘conversation’ when what you have planned is a lecture . . . In a Christian conversation, everyone talks, and everyone tries to listen.”
Because Politics Doesn’t Know
“Sin has political consequences, but avoid putting politics in charge of the definition of sin.”
Microracism
“We have gotten to the ludicrous point where those who are ‘guilty’ of microracism are treated as though they owned a fleet of slave ships.”