“What does the word puritanical bring to mind? We think immediately of a stuffed-shirt wowser, with a buckle on his black hat, trying hard to affix a scarlet letter to the blouse of yet another wayward woman.”
Chestertonian Calvinism, p. 24
All the Blankets
“Over time, due to the effects of slander and the inexorable effects of wineskins getting old, the Puritans gained a reputation for being, well, puritanical. But by this I mean what that word has come to mean, which would make them the guardians of all forms of pious buzzkill. The problem is that this sad reality did not really start to unfold until a century or more into the project—it took quite some time before all the blankets got wet.”
Chestertonian Calvinism, p. 13
Maybe Four Hundred Pounds
Yeah, More Like That
“The argument of the book does not unfold like a Monarch butterfly unfolding from a chrysalis but is rather more like a moth taking fifteen runs or so at the same light bulb.”
Chestertonian Calvinism, p. 5
Believers and Buzzkill
“Chestertonian Calvinism has not been tried and found wanting, it has been found to have been way too much fun and not tried.”
Chestertonian Calvinism, p. 3
We Aren’t Helping
“Our labors at racial harmony are often like that woman in the gospels—the more the physicians treated her, the worse it got.”
Ultimate Destinations
“Do not ask how fast it is going. Ask rather what direction it is going. There are only two directions—the New Jerusalem or the Abyss.”
Remember, Reactionaries are Reacting
“So let me say it again. The alt-right is the bastard child of obsequious political correctness on race. That is where this is coming from. That is the root. That is where the energy is coming from . . . if you don’t want weeds in your garden, then stop fertilizing and watering them.”
Chronic Late Adapters
“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.”