Introduction: As the average Christian parent watches the outside world devolve into an ever-increasing chaos and tumult, a very common question is "what can I do to prepare my kids for this ...
Stories Versus the Official Narratives
Mr. George Knightley, Groomer
September 25, 1817 Reverend Sir, I am mindful, as always, of the great debt that we owe to your eminence, and we are as well grateful for the spiritual oversight you so graciously provide for your people. In the two years since the marriage of Mr. Knightley to Miss Wodehouse, my husband and I have …
A Real Hazard, I Mean
“I know enough Anglo-Saxon to be a hazard, but not enough to set up shop as a translator of anything so important as Beowulf. I know the words attercop, which means spider, and rimcraft, which means arithmetic, and merscmealuwe, which means marshmallow. But unfortunately, none of those words comes up in Beowulf really, and so there I am, just sitting there.”
Beowulf, p. 1
The Salvation of Emeth
Introduction: One episode in the Narnia stories has caused no little consternation for evangelical parents as they have read to their children, and that element of the story concerns the salvation of Emeth. On another occasion, I discussed the curious fact of Susan’s absence from the heavenly regions in The Last Battle. A second curious …
The Salvation of Susan Pevensie
Introduction: There are two things that really bother evangelical friends of Narnia, and they both show up in The Last Battle. One of them is the presence of Emeth in Aslan’s country, and the other is the absence of Susan in that same country. The character of Emeth is a striking one, and the problem …
All We Got Were These Queequeg Piercings
There is an old joke that has an evangelical say something like this to a liberal—“I’ll call you a Christian if you call me a scholar.” But whenever conservative believers enter into the world of such trade-offs, the end result is always something like Simple Simon going to the fair. They come home, if they …
Ouch
His books well trimm’d and in the gayest style, Like regimental coxcombs rank and file, Adorn his intellects as well as shelves And teach him notions splendid as themselves. William Cowper
Jane Austen and Our Culture of Feeeeelings
As I noted in my brief review of Pride and Prejudice below, Jane Austen is amazing. A truly wise woman, she wrote a novel of two kinds of people — people who change and grow, and people who do not. This is simply another way of marking those who are capable of repentance and those …
The 7 Real Reasons Protestants Can’t Write
Peter Leithart recently set the cat among the pigeons by claiming here and here that Protestants can’t write. He did this as a Protestant, writing, so we really should be dubious from the outset. Among the scholarly responses to this flight of learned fancy, I commend to you Derek Rishmawy and Steven Wedgeworth. But I …
Conflict Makes the Story
Every Saturday night at our Sabbath dinner, we have a round of catechism questions for the kids. The last question, the one I ask all of them together, is “Kids, what’s the point of the whole Bible?” The answer is “Kill the dragon, get the girl!” This was the point of the biblical story before …