We should help the poor and not shame them. Put succinctly: sinners should be ashamed, the poor are not sinners by being poor. Traditional Christians have a noble history helping the poor and American evangelical Christians have embraced that heritage. Whether measured by charitable giving or work in rural or inner city areas, Christians are there. If you go to a rural community, then you almost surely will find local churches with full time pastors reaching out to the struggling... Read more
Pope Francis is a Christian, but he is also a conservative. These truths are so obvious that the fact that they must be said says much about the degenerate nature of both American Christianity and American conservatism. To be a Christian means that Caesar can never be Lord. Our first loyalty is always to King Jesus not to any political power. To be a conservative Christian means that we wish no Caesar, public or private, to gain sufficient to power... Read more
What if you gave a schism and before anybody of global importance had noticed, the very heterodox you hoped to turn schismatic hated the idea? A schism was canceled due to hurt feelings and fears of using the “wrong word.” Apparently the need to affirm “other stories” and worries of sounding judgmental or harsh were more important than the evils of breaking fellowship with other believers. Having cried schism and let slip the blogs of war, Tony Jones has “recanted.”... Read more
Evidently fellow Patheos blogger, Tony Jones, has gone into schism with my church. This presents certain ecclesiastical conundrums as technically Mr. Jones may have already been in schism with my church. If a man is a double schismatic, is he actually a schismatic? (If Mr. Jones is not not Orthodox, then is he Orthodox?) But then Orthodoxy has long been charitable, reasoning that though we know where the Spirit is we cannot be sure where He is not. We might... Read more
Some Holiday parties will lack holiness. Other Holiday parties will be selfish and wasteful. In reaction, we will get the usual Christian worries about lack of holiness, selfishness, and waste, but those are the problems, not partying. We are a religion that predicts that history will end in a party and we are commanded by Scripture to practice. We must need better parties, more parties, not no parties. In fact, each Sabbath should be practice for the bigger parties of... Read more
My daily news comes from The Telegraph: if you want literate center-right English perspective, then the Telegraph will not disappoint. In one story without direct editorial comment, the journalists at the paper summed up the state of Christian Britain. A former Archbishop of Canterbury stood at an Armageddon and he battled for the Lord: In an impassioned plea for Church to adopt a new missionary stance, he told them that their constant internal debates were like no more than “rearranging furniture when the house... Read more
To avoid disappointment let me begin by saying this is not a post reviewing Fifty Shades of Grey. I have not read it and am averse to commenting on books I have not read. I have no intention of reading Fifty Shades of Grey, not having yet completed the complete works of Anthony Trollope, also a romantic writer. I simply lack the reading time. Amazon lets a reader “look inside” and the prose on display in the 2013 best seller is not promising.... Read more
Ask a teacher: a paper that settles an issue with a dictionary definition is a bad paper. Definitions in dictionaries did not, after all, fall down from God, and few are the issues that can be settled by their rough descriptions of how we now use English terms. The demand for definitions can be good, but it can go wrong in (at least!) three ways. First, it can substitute for dealing with “real world” issues and bog down action with... Read more
I could just say: “Read this magnificent post.” but being long-winded I cannot. American Protestants, especially Evangelicals, are not loved by “outsiders.” Nobody writes romance novels about them the way they do about the Amish. Nobody thinks they have cool hair, the way they admire Orthodox beards. No movie like the “Bells of Saint Mary’s” has ever featured a pop star like Bing Crosby as a noble Calvary Chapel pastor . . . no “Pit Band of The Gathering” will... Read more
Ideally? Washington politicians would read and discuss Jane Austen’s Persuasion. Practically? Practically, our leaders are too busy failing to read and learn, so they might embrace the concept of persuasion. Sadly, this is tough because persuasion attacks two prejudices of this time. Too many of us confuse strong beliefs, strongly defended, with pig-headedness and close-mindedness. Since persuasion attempts to convince the unpersuaded, the process implies my belief that my views are better than the other persons. Isn’t this arrogant? It might be, but it... Read more
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