Chesterton’s Fence and Frost’s Wall

Last updated on: October 21, 2019 at 5:49 pm By Fred Clark

"I could say ‘Elves’ to him / But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather / He said it for himself." Read more

LBCF, No. 251: ‘Section 4’

Last updated on: October 18, 2019 at 5:27 pm By Fred Clark

Have Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins ever even visited America? Where do they get this weird, unrecognizable picture of this country and the people who live here? Read more

Rule No. 1

Last updated on: October 15, 2019 at 5:43 pm By Fred Clark

While “Family Values” politicians were recently gathering in Washington, DC, for their annual “Values Voter Summit” in celebration of “traditional morality” and “Christian values,” Washington’s professional baseball team was in St. Louis for Game 1 of the National League Championship Series. This series is a big deal for the Nationals, the team’s chance to make it to the World Series for the first time. But they had to play that first game without relief pitcher Dan Hudson, a key member... Read more

LBCF, No. 250: ‘The Scornful Colleague’

Last updated on: October 11, 2019 at 5:48 pm By Fred Clark

Based on what we know or can know or think we know about God, is the gleeful slaughter of Tim LaHaye's Tribulation folklore the way we would expect God to behave? Read more

I know I’m supposed to say ‘Jesus,’ but it sure sounds more like a squirrel to me

Last updated on: October 10, 2019 at 5:37 pm By Fred Clark

• When I was a kid back in the early 1970s, our small town’s library was a cramped set of rooms on the third floor of the township building. You had to go in past the police desk and up three flights of stairs. My mom was a library regular who was furious that many would-be patrons just couldn’t make it up those stairs. She made library runs for some of her older neighbors who couldn’t manage it, and recruited... Read more

So I bit him

Last updated on: October 9, 2019 at 4:22 pm By Fred Clark

Ralph Reed is not saying that Trump is God. Ralph Reed is saying that Trump is Caesar and that Christians have a moral duty to worship and obey Caesar. Read more

When Jesus comes back to fix God’s two huge mistakes

Last updated on: October 8, 2019 at 6:05 pm By Fred Clark

"Bible prophecy" is the business of explaining God's mistakes and God's plan to correct them at the end of the world. Read more

LBCF, No. 249: ‘The Religion Editor’

Last updated on: October 4, 2019 at 7:26 pm By Fred Clark

This sort of obvious wrongness can’t really be called misapprehension. It’s more like a kind of non-apprehension — a stubborn refusal to apprehend. Read more

See then that ye walk circumspectly

Last updated on: October 3, 2019 at 8:15 pm By Fred Clark

I have a suspicion about the origins of “woke” that I haven’t been able to confirm. My guess is that it started in the black church. The full associated phrase — “Get woke, stay woke” — just sounds preacherly. More specifically, it sounds like somebody got started on a sermon on Ephesians 5 and then got rolling. But I haven’t found any confirmation of that. Before the term got conscripted and corporatized, overused and appropriated, and just generally beaten beyond... Read more

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before

Last updated on: October 2, 2019 at 3:28 pm By Fred Clark

The story of every "ex-gay ministry" begins exactly the same way and ends exactly the same way. Read more

What Jewish festival was being celebrated when the Holy Spirit descended at Pentecost?