So the best thing to do is assume that if you have any sense in your head at all, you are reluctant even to turn on the news anymore. “How could they possibly have made things worse?” seems like it ought to be a rhetorical question. But every single night they are up to the …
The Ponies Are Free
Thomas Sowell has done wonderful work in describing the fundamental difference between liberals and conservatives. He describes it as the difference between an unconstrained vision of man and a constrained vision. The French revolution was a model of the unconstrained vision, and the American revolution was a model of the constrained vision. In the former, …
500 Pounds of Stratosphere
We are now at that stage of our cultural devolutionary farce when, any day now, some bright kid is going to wear a tee-shirt to his government school, and on that tee-shirt a message will be emblazoned, and the message will read “endowed by his Creator with certain unalienable rights,” and he will be sent …
Tearing Up the Pea Patch
Introduction When Ben-hadad came against Israel, this is how the Scriptures describe the set up. “And the children of Israel were numbered, and were all present, and went against them: and the children of Israel pitched before them like two little flocks of kids; but the Syrians filled the country” (1 Kings 20:27). Appearances can …
Too Many Delicatuli
The central thing that believing Christians have to learn in our current cultural challenges is how to deal with the full court press. We have to learn how to break the press. At the same time, in order to do this successfully, we have to learn how to dismiss irrelevancies. We do not need to …
7 Reasons for Cultural Optimism
Someone recently mentioned to me that my cultural commentary of late has not seemed very postmilly. Where did all my optimism go? Many years ago members of my family were assembling for breakfast, and I believe the demeanor of all of us was somewhat somber, particularly my mother. This inspired my father, seated at the …
If At First You Don’t Secede . . .
Introduction: I know that it is the fifth of July, but the principles we were talking about yesterday have not gone away. Some discussion online yesterday made me realize that a brief history lesson was in order, followed by just a few contemporary applications. For Christians particularly, how does the American War for Independence comport …
The Fourth of July in Vanity Fair
Introduction: My topic, if you could not guess from the cryptic title, is religious liberty. Vanity Fair, if you have not guessed, does not celebrate the Fourth of July. That’s a problem. Lots of Americans still celebrate it, but because we are now governed by non-elected functionaries from Vanity Fair, the celebrations are merely impressive …
A Crash Course in Crashes
As everything comes unraveled more rapidly than you thought it could, perhaps your thoughts have turned to the prospect of coming to a greater understanding of stuff. The airplane is nose down ten thousand feet above the ocean, and you have now begun to reflect on where, exactly, the flight attendant said the life preservers …
Babylonian Exceptionalism or, Insanity Explained
Over time Nebuchadnezzar drifted into a belief in Babylonian exceptionalism. “The king spake, and said, Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?” (Dan. 4:30). Because of his hubris, because of his conceit, he was …