Though it is a cold and windy day, it also the beginning of the best week of the year. To celebrate we’ve done a goodly-ish lengthed podcast about Lil Nas X’s Satan shoes, how the Bible is not egalitarian, and how much like Jesus we are. Matt lets himself go in the matter of snark, and I try to get him to apologize, which he does, insincerely. It’s all you’ve come to expect from us, so I’m sorry. Don’t hate... Read more
I’m over at Stand Firm this morning. Rolling Stone plucked up its stunning and brave courage two days ago to publish a foolish, though illuminating, piece about the rapper, Lil Nas X, who released a music video in which he supplants Satan. Rolling Stone thought it would be clever to go ask a “real” Satanist about it. But first, here is what they say about the video: Watching the rapper twerk atop a swole zaddy Satan in the video is redolent with... Read more
One Last Selfie With A Good And Faithful Dog One I did not intend to take a whole week off of blogging, nor skip the preventing grace podcast or anything. The sudden death of our favorite dog caught us totally off guard. In more ordinary times, I think I would still have been horrified and grieved but generally able to carry on. This hasn’t been ordinary time for quite a long while, however, chiefly because I keep being surprised that... Read more
There is a lot of grief and rage on social media this morning, and I think rightly so. The bad things keep happening, as they will do until the Lord returns. Being upset about them is good and right. Nevertheless, this hot take well sums up a lot of what I saw, especially on twitter, as the day progressed: The more that comes about this case, the more it all fits together: white evangelicalism and white supremacy and male domination... Read more
I think we might be near or actually upon the one-year anniversary of “however many days to flatten the curve.” I saw a post somewhere of people naming things they plan to try to keep in their lives whenever covid is “over,” if that will ever be a thing. In the spirit of St. Patrick’s day (the spiritual part, not the debauchery part), here are three good things that have come out of covid. One- Zoom Morning Prayer Back in... Read more
I enjoy Helen Pluckrose on Twitter, and have been slowly going through Cynical Theories, but I don’t think this tweet is going to age well: https://twitter.com/HPluckrose/status/1371519590577139713?s=20 Followed by this one: https://twitter.com/HPluckrose/status/1371521182898520064?s=20 To quote myself from yesterday, “You’re borrowing from God, you should give it back.” The very idea of “moral authority” and even “love,” for that matter, did not just fall as a gentle rain from heaven into the minds of human people without being given to them by someone... Read more
It is an excessively cold and blustery day here in Bing, and we can’t believe we even have to do anything. To console ourselves we’ve done a decently lengthed podcast about James KA Smith, about how to draw proper distinctions, and about how your sense of justice derives from God, and not the other way around. If it doesn’t launch you into yet another week, I don’t know what will. Here is one of the pieces we talk about. And... Read more
I am over at Stand Firm this morning. It seems to be the “new normal” that every other week another person in the high echelons of Evangelical Intelligentsia decides to throw over orthodoxy and trip lightly into the broad, wide road that leads to destruction. As usual, I only find out about famous people when they either die or commit heresy. In this case, I did a lot of reading about James K.A. Smith who has, apparently, brought a lot... Read more
Is it really the end of the week? And yet I didn’t get anything done, so that’s a drag. Maybe there are some takes though. One Last week and a little into this one, the readings for morning prayer have been the Exodus, which meant that eventually I finally listened to this. So good: Two Also, I joined the Stand Firm podcast this week to talk sparkingly about Jesus and John Wayne. Three Apparently, there is a Twitter war going... Read more
As usual, it’s so hard to know in what direction to wander this morning. I stayed up late, as a sort of exercise in anthropology, reading that long piece about how the nation’s elite schools are all becoming woke. And this morning early, I read lots of tweets about James KA Smith becoming “affirming.” And then I also got around to reading Kevin DeYoung’s very sensible thing about racism. And then there is this curiosity. And, of course, I spent ages trying to... Read more
Preventing Grace
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