Below is a column I recently wrote for our local paper. In our society today, tolerance is generally considered a good word representing a good thing. We have a long history of looking sideways at closed or despotic societies, and for very good reasons. When one sectarian group lays claim to a monopoly on Absolute …
Not A New Phenomenon
In the course of the French Revolution, when the monkeys escaped from the monkey house, and captured the zoo to run it for themselves, Voltaire once said this, “Is not the fanaticism of your irreligion more absurd and dangerous than the fanaticism of superstition? Begin by tolerating the faith of your fathers. You talk of …
Missing Something
All this activity by the Panzer Diversity Corps has really got me inspired. Everywhere I look there is something else to say. Something new. Something fresh. Metaphors form in a conga line in my brain, and appear to be having a good time. Rose Huskey, in a fine fit of “backatcha-ism,” responded to my observations …
How We Handle Words
How we handle words tells a great deal about us. The questions I have raised about secret city council deliberations with Bill London, ex officio something, I haven’t figured out what yet, have raised some hackles out there. For example, Rose Huskey, one of our volunteer litigant ladies, has posted an, um, enthusiastic response to …
You Might Need to Recuse Yourself If . . .
In a post yesterday, I noted that Linda Pall needs to recuse herself from any case appealed to city council that involves folks that she has been actively trying to help run out of town. From the Public Records material I have received, it is apparent to me that she has a clear moral obligation …
Public Records
A short while ago I posted in this space that I had filed a Public Records Request with the City of Moscow, and I have now received back the results of that inquiry. My thanks to the courteous people at city hall. The item of greatest interest to me was Bill London’s email communications with …
Theonomy
In a recent response to Nick Gier, I wrote that all sins are deserving of death. And in the sight of God they are deserving of death, which is why all of us, being sinners, eventually die. But not all crimes should be treated equally by the civil magistrate. Murder and stealing someone’s lawn flamingo …
John Knox Meets Siddhartha
In a recent post to Vision 20/20, one of our adversaries (Nick Gier) listed fourteen ways in which we kirkers differ from other conservative evangelical Christians (what he calls CECs). Normally this kind of superficial analysis would not warrant a response on the merits, but because purveyors of this kind of superficial analysis appear to …
Oh Yeah
Some time ago, I unsubscribed from a community listserve discussion called Vision 20/20, though in calling it a “discussion” my charitable faculties are fully extended. A less strenuous description of it would have to include words and phrases like fulmination, jeremiad, screed, baying at the moon, and other forms of progressivist yodeling. Anyhow, I unsubscribed …
Naming the Intoleristas
My wife is a lovely Puritan, and a great advocate of lifting God’s Word back to Him as we continue to deal with the goose-stepping forces for tolerance and storm troopers of enforced diversity. She was reading in Isaiah yesterday, and noted a few phrases that delighted us. About idolaters, Isaiah said, “They are their …