“So in the seventeenth century the battle for liberty was between the Crown and Parliament, and Parliament was in the right. In the eighteenth century, the battle for liberty was between Parliament and the colonies, and the colonies were in the right. No one institution or nation or entity is indefectible. Bad men show up everywhere, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if our final liberties were eventually removed by the Czar of All Fourth of July Celebrations.”
Reflected Confusions
“The church is supposed to model for a confused world what a real human society is supposed to look like. The church is not supposed to be a mirror that reflects the confusions of Manhattan right back at it.”
Virgins and Volcanoes, p. 13
Because the Pre-conditions are Absent
“If you want a nation of pot-smoking fornicators to be free, you want something that is not going to happen.”
The Ripest of Mushroom Dreams
“To return to the idea of the painting, our generation is trying to blot out the painter’s signature on His creation and then trying to repaint the whole thing. Once his name is smudged out, and marriage is no longer defined as ‘one man, one woman, one lifetime,’ the sky is the limit. We have polyamorous relationships, open marriages, sex with robots, bestiality, digital sex using a web page, sex with organs that are not sex organs, and so on. We can hump the world if we want. The painting is now ours—or so we fancy in the midst of this current cultural mushroom dream.”
Virgins and Volcanoes, p. 10
Emphasis on Rightly Understood
“The First Amendment, rightly understood, does not prohibit a civil acknowledgment of the Lordship of Jesus. It prohibits the establishment of a particular denomination of Christians at the federal level as a national church.”
A Much Greater Sin
“When a man committed adultery many generations ago, he was disobeying but not trying to redefine. It is like the difference between a thief and a socialist. A thief recognizes the boundaries of property, he just doesn’t respect them when it comes to his own personal behavior. The socialist wants to abolish all such distinctions—in effect, he wants to steal the world.”
Virgins and Volcanoes, pp. 9-10
Bright, But Plastic
“If an action or a behavior is not organically grown by the Spirit in your life, then you have set up a factory to manufacture plastic fruit, and you’re hanging that plastic fruit on your family tree with little wire hooks.”
Keep Your Kids, p. 120
The Fattest of the Sacred Geese
“It should not be surprising that after I have urged the establishment of a mere Christendom for some time, questions about the First Amendment might arise. It would appear that I am trespassing on the sacred precincts. It would seem that I am strolling across the manicured lawns of the Temple grounds, in order to have a better shot at kicking one of the sacred geese.”
An Essential Thing
“You can have true Christian churches that don’t baptize the right way. You can have real Christian churches that sing the wrong kind of songs. You can have genuine Christian churches that have adopted unedifying forms of church government. But you can’t have Christian churches that have the wrong God. And biblical marriage is one of the creational established and central confessions of faith concerning the nature of the true God.”
Virgins and Volcanoes, p. 6
And In Some Cases, a Really Bad Job
“The elders of the Church do not rule over auto mechanics, or garbage collection, or interior design. First, it is none of their business, and secondly, they would do a bad job.”