Theology That Bites Back
“When the Spirit is grieved by elder boards packed with schoolmarms, liberty disappears along with any understanding of what true liberty even is. And when we have lost this understanding in the community of saints, we are dreaming to think we can find it anywhere else . . . Not to put too fine a point on it, we are becoming slaves of men in the political realm because we do not care enough about understanding liberty in the church. Freedom frightens us.”
The Cultural Mind, p. 37
“A willingness to turn sins into crimes will always end up with a willingness to turn not-sins into crimes. The spectacle of an ATF anti-alcohol SWAT team crashing the wedding at Cana ought to be sufficient to make the chilling point.”
The Cultural Mind, p. 36
“We appear constitutionally incapable of distinguishing sins and crimes . . . When the hounds of righteousness are in full-throated pursuit of any public sin or sickness, it is perilous not to join in the chase. These civic bloodhounds currently have the tobacco companies up a tall pine tree, and while some aesthetic satisfaction can be gained from the spectacle of Philip Morris staring down at us like a concerned possum, there really are some deeper issues at stake.”
The Cultural Mind, pp. 35-36
“If knowledge puffs up, what does pseudo-knowledge do?”
The Cultural Mind, p. 33
“When the prodigal son ran off and began spending his inheritance, he did not find himself broke after five minutes of wasting money. When the inheritance is considerable, as ours was, some considerable time may elapse before the checks start to bounce.”
The Cultural Mind, p. 29
“Christians aren’t perfect, just asleep on the couch.”
The Cultural Mind, p. 26
“Sinners don’t do well on Easy Street.”
The Cultural Mind, p. 25
“We rest for one day and are refreshed and enabled to work before Him for the other six. But the modern man wants to work for five in order to play for two, and if the union negotiations are successful, work for four in order to play for three.”
The Cultural Mind, p. 25
“Although the memory is dim, we still refer today to ‘the Protestant work ethic.’ This is like an impoverished man in the gutter recalling how wealthy his great-grandfather was.”
The Cultural Mind, p. 23
“To understand our culture’s inability to resist the claims of ‘gay activists,’ we must understand that they are reasoning from premises held by most of straight America, i.e. that sexual autonomy and sexual wisdom are consistent with one another.”
The Cultural Mind, p. 21
