Theology That Bites Back
“Some of you may have heard from various unreliable sources that I am a racist. I have written books like Black and Tan and have described myself before as a paleo-confederate and other such monstrosities. And confronted with such undeniable facts as these, I remain singularly unapologetic. This causes some people to imitate the hot froth on top of your average Starbucks drink, and the word indignant doesn’t really begin to cover it.”
Skin and Blood, p. 7
“What we need is a return to the gold standard of Scripture. Scripture, and only Scripture, defines sin. That includes any sin having to do with ethnicity. Which means, again, that ethnic vainglory is sinful and to be despised, that ethnic animosity is sinful and to be despised, and that what the world is currently calling the ‘sin’ of racism is not a sin at all. It was a dubious currency when they first started using it, but now their racism is worthless in the description of any sinful attitude. You couldn’t buy a used popsicle stick with any amount of it . . . the real issue here is that if you don’t see the politiscam that is being run on you, you are what Bugs Bunny would call a maroon.”
“Being a racist today is like becoming a millionaire in the Weimar Republic.”
Skin and Blood, p. 6
“What with all the pronoun nonsense now showing up in the liver, lungs, and brain, this thing appears to have metastasized into our books of grammar.”
Skin and Blood, p. 5
“There are people who need to have an enemy, and racial markers provide them with a handy-dandy uniform for the other side that won’t wash off.”
Skin and Blood, p. 4
“In the first place, there is nothing wrong with observing what used to be a pagan holiday—after all, we used to be pagans. Many of our innocent customs used to have pagan associations—the use of wedding rings, meeting someone for lunch on Thor’s Day, and blowing out the candles on a birthday cake after making a wish. We ought not to be uptight about such things. Who was Paul’s brother, companion, and fellow soldier? Why it was Epaphroditus, whose name means that he was dedicated to the pagan goddess of copulation (Phil. 2:25). Why didn’t Paul make Epaphroditus change his name? The answer is that it was not that big a deal.”
The Cultural Mind, p. 307
“The man who buries his talent in the ground, after a very careful risk analysis, is the man rebuked by the ‘hard’ master. The man desperate for respect is often the one who does not receive it, while the one who strives for excellence as defined by God in heaven—he stands before kings (Prov. 22:29). In the kingdom of God, the one who would be great must become the least of all. The one who would rule must serve. The one who wants praise must not care about praise.”
The Cultural Mind, p. 303
“Modern Christians are constantly exhorted to care. This is legitimate, indeed, it is inescapable. But the problem is that we are told regularly to care about all the wrong things. ‘If we continue to maintain that God created the world in six days, we will not be granted academic respectability.’ To which we must reply, ‘Well, who cares?’ Why should we care that the guardians of the academy believe we are not academically respectable? They believe that the moose, the sperm whale, and the meadowlark are all blood relations. Why do we want their seal of approval?”
The Cultural Mind, p. 302
“When the church is unsubmissive to Christ, it becomes submissive to the world. ‘Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God’ (Jas. 4:4). Conversely to be submissive to Christ is the same thing as becoming uppity to the demands of the world.”
The Cultural Mind, pp. 299-300
“We start fussing, in a self-important kind of way, about the problems of extremes and excesses. Of course. There is a counterfeit boldness that might be called ‘worldview machismo.’ And there is a counterfeit humility that might be called ‘worldview effeminacy.’ But rebuking us all, there is a faith that wonders in a loud voice why the uncircumcised Philistines are being allowed to talk the way they do.”
The Cultural Mind, pp. 298-299
