The Stuff That Matters

The human heart (interior view)

To believe you have been known and understood is simultaneously the most exhilarating and terrifying sensation in the universe.

The terror is the reason most of us avoid it. To be known is to expose the worst about ourselves, so we market a more palatable package of “alternative facts” to the public, withholding information or spinning it as required.

Man, it’s an awful lot of work.

Petting a Hissing Cobra

Brad Littlejohn and Doug Wilson are currently in the middle of an interesting back-and-forth on the difficulties that come with trying to deal with visible displays of feminine worldliness in the church: things such as pink hair, ear-stretching plugs, yoga pants, tattoos, body piercings and so on.

Everyone involved already seems to agree on a number of things: first, that it is unhelpful to pretend that the Law of Moses is directly relevant; second, that the New Testament does not address most of these issues in so many words — we have to get there by application from passages about “braided hair” and “costly attire” and such things; third, that despite the fact that we are dealing with principles rather than direct commands like “Don’t get a tattoo” or “Don’t dye your hair”, these principles cannot be handwaved away without us losing something very important; and fourth, not all such displays should be handled in precisely the same way — things like salvation, spiritual maturity, age, level of commitment, baptism, history and present circumstances absolutely come into it.

Everyone also agrees talking about the subject is like petting a hissing cobra.

The Commentariat Speaks (10)

Ministers ... er ... ministering.

From the department of “If I live long enough, absolutely everything will get covered here at least once”, here is commenter Nate on the subject of women in church leadership:

“actually we [Methodists] aren’t nearly as hung up on this as you guys are. The point is ... regardless of how you can twist scripture ... women factually were leaders in the apostolic church. Yes ... including pheobe [sic] and more importantly lydia.

Not to mention Timothy’s own grandmother who paul credits.”

No scripture twisting required, but perhaps a little actual scripture reading would help.

The House Jesus Built

Home ownership is a great thing.

If you don’t like the color of your walls, you can repaint any time you have the energy. If your living room is too small, you can tear down the wall that separates it from the dining room and go open concept. If you don’t like the tarmac driveway, you can redo it with cobblestone. After all, it’s yours.

Sure, city ordinances will probably prevent you from doing off-the-wall things like adding a sub-sub-basement or a swimming pool in the kitchen, but the variety of family homes in my neighbourhood is evidence that it’s the owner’s budget and imagination that are the most common limitations on their creativity.

The Heft and Substance of Cobweb

The other day I referenced an Andy Stanley quote about the historicity of Adam and Eve. Andy believes Adam and Eve were historical because Jesus believed they were historical — or so he argues.

I agree with Andy that Adam and Eve were real, flesh-and-blood human beings, not mere symbols or allegories. Making the first couple mythical upends a great big nasty can of worms all over the pages of our New Testament. Let’s not do that.

Unfortunately, the way Andy has framed his argument gives it the heft and substance of cobweb.

Too Hot to Handle: Rose-Colored Glasses

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

The inimitable Conrad Black sums up a recent conversation with atheist and former Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali and reviews her latest book Heretic here.

Hirsi Ali has taken on the unenviable — and probably impossible — task of reforming Islam from the outside.

A Silly Question

“Do all that is in your heart, for God is with you.”

Sounds great, doesn’t it? Especially coming from a prophet of God. Normally I’d take Nathan’s advice to the bank. Had I been in King David’s shoes, I’d have gotten cracking on my temple building project post-haste.

Problem is, the prophet was wrong.

What Does Your Proof Text Prove? (2)

Here’s Andy Stanley’s version of a very common argument for the historicity of Adam and Eve:

“Jesus talks about Adam and Eve. And it appears to me that he believed they were actually historical figures. And if he believed they were historical, I believe they were historical because anybody that can predict their own death and resurrection and pull it off — I just believe anything they say.”

Andy’s probably referencing either Matthew 19 or Mark 10, but either way he touches on an issue that extends well beyond the Garden of Eden.

Still Ticking Boxes

How many times have you heard that Christians are not under law, we are under grace?

A fair number, I’m guessing. But living by the Spirit rather than by the letter of the law requires more than just ticking boxes. We cannot read instructions in the New Testament in the same way many Israelites read their law; as if, having observed all direct commands, we are now free to behave however we may please.

Life by the Spirit just doesn’t work that way.

John Was Not Surprised

Once in a while the force of an expression gets a little buried in translation. Take this verse, for example:

“Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.”

Here are two related statements tied together with the word “so”. First, we are told that Jesus loved Martha, Mary and Lazarus. Next, we are told that Jesus deliberately took his time going to see someone he loved who was seriously ill.

The word “so” might seem an odd way to connect these two ideas.

How Much Does It Have To Hurt?

So ... how much do you need to hurt before God will forgive you?

It’s a good question. I have a friend who holds himself responsible for a tragedy that occurred a few years ago. I’m not even sure he’s actually guilty of the sin he believes he committed: when others make choices so fast you don’t have time to think of how to respond until it’s too late, how much responsibility is yours and how much is theirs?

The Lord knows. I wouldn’t dare guess.

Do You Want to Go Out?

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Too Hot to Handle: Rainbow Unicorns and Cosmic Heat Death

The most recent version of this post is available here.

On Leaving One’s Glasses At Home

Gratefulness is good. It is definitely better to be thankful than not to be thankful. The apostle Paul tells the Christians in Rome that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against men and women who knew God but “did not give thanks to him”.

So sure, absolutely, by all means be grateful. Appreciate what you’ve been given.

But is thankfulness enough?

Front or Back Door?

Churches are always under attack, but some attacks are less obvious than others.

There’s little profit in speculating about the angelic constitution, but I think we can assume with some measure of scriptural warrant that our spiritual enemies don’t get tired out or demoralized the way human beings do. And where we age and die and pass the torch in hope our successors will carry on what we have begun, the “cosmic powers over this present darkness” are able to gnaw away methodically at the work of God over generations.

More erosion than explosion, if you like.

Slipping or Standing

What is it that makes us who we are?

Recently we reposted Immanuel Can’s exploration of what it means to be “authentic”. IC raised a couple of very important questions:

“What does ‘authentic’ mean when you already admit you don’t even know who you are? How on earth do you find such a thing, and what happens when you can’t?”

The search for identity is not a new one. The Woodstock generation called it “finding yourself”. But what IS “me” exactly? Clairol, for instance, tells us their hair dye “lets me be me”, when by its very design it does precisely the opposite: it lets me be the version of me that I used to be before my hair turned grey. I’m not using it to be “me”, I’m using it to pretend I’m not getting older.

That’s not authentic at all, is it?

Quote of the Day (32)

The old me needed to die, that was the bottom line.

There was no hope of improving him through education, no chance that a good example might nudge him in the right direction — in fact, everything around him seemed to be pushing him the wrong way entirely. Nobody could reasonable expect that left to his own devices he might eventually turn out to be a decent bloke after all.

But God had something in mind for that guy.

Didn’t See THAT Coming

Photo: Seth Lemmons

If you have a modern translation of the New Testament, you’ll find John 5:4 appears to have gone AWOL.

The missing text was there in my youth. I remember it vaguely from my first King James. The NASB and some older versions still retain it in square brackets for the three people in the world with worse memories than me. But having collected and compared early versions of that passage from all over the Middle East, modern scholars have concluded the verse-and-a-half was not part of divine revelation, but rather a parenthetical explanation added later on by a helpful scribe, originally tagged with asterisks (yes, they really used those back then).

If so, of course, they are correct in removing or flagging the text, but I have always found it useful in understanding the passage.

Everywhere a Sign

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Too Hot to Handle: Let’s Get Together

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Whistling Past the Graveyard

For any number of reasons I’ve been thinking a lot about death lately.

I don’t suspect I’m overly morbid, nor is dwelling on the reality of death something I particularly enjoy. Nonetheless, the happy decades in which I attended mostly weddings are diminishing into obscurity in the rear-view mirror and ahead of me looms a rather dismal string of unwished-for funerals — with my own being perhaps the crowning conclusion.

What are we to make of this thing called death that awaits us all? How should we think of it? There are two broad strategies most people embrace.

Things You Don’t Know You Know

The question came right out of the blue.

It was entirely ingenuous, I think. There was nothing calculating about the teenage girl who asked it. I don’t think she was looking for a pass on any particular sin; she was just curious how God works.

It was Sunday School, and I was discussing Matthew 5:28 — the part where the Lord says, “Everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” I wasn’t trying to be especially relevant or anything, but you know teenagers.

So she says, “But if you’re already guilty before God just from looking, why wouldn’t you just go ahead and act on it then?”

Good question.

Authentic Me

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Does God Need An Editor?

For a new believer taking his first pass through the Bible, nothing tests one’s faith in the words “all scripture is ... profitable” like the first nine chapters of Chronicles.

Even to scholars, these passages are formidable. If there is anywhere in scripture with more unpronounceable Hebrew names per square inch of text, I have yet to come across it. Try reading just one chapter aloud and you’ll see what I mean. And hey, let’s get real here: exactly how does it help me as a struggling Christian to know that Tarshish and Ahishahar were both sons of Bilhan?

It almost makes one wonder if God’s word might have benefited from a slightly more ruthless editor.

Almost.

The Good Wine

“Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.”

The system is a cheat. Not news, I know.

Apart from Christ, people inevitably act in what they perceive to be their own best interests, and never mind the rest of us. The master of the feast at the wedding in Cana was telling the bridegroom the oldest tale in the human storybook.

Yet Another Rigged Election

Does God really prepare some people for destruction and others for glory?

It’s a good question.

Most Christians accept that God is, by definition, able to control all that he creates down to the last detail; it is difficult to read the Bible and come away with any other picture of him. But the question of how and to what extent his sovereignty is exercised within the human heart is what generally divides believers.

What Does Your Proof Text Prove? (1)

Someone just murdered my favourite verse ...

It’s time for a new semi-regular Coming Untrue series, I think.

Writing four to five blog posts every week for more than three years involves a fair bit of research, as you might imagine. I don’t keep track, but I suspect I average as many as ten hours a week just looking things up, whether it’s Greek or Hebrew in Strong’s, cross-checking other people’s statements of fact, or looking up verses that others have quoted as evidence of this or that. Hey, I’m not complaining; I benefit greatly from the exercise.

But one thing I notice is that way too often Christian writers cite proof texts that have little or nothing to do with what they are alleged to demonstrate.

Too Hot to Handle: The Unfair Advantage of a Loving Family

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Exit, Stage Left

What makes a church a church?

The presence of Christ among his people? Yes, that’s surely critical. That we meet in his name, according to his will and doing the things that he himself would do if he were here with us? Yes, that is our assurance of his presence. That we follow the pattern of the early believers and commit ourselves to the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread and prayer? Absolutely.

Question: What happens if we stop remembering the Lord in the breaking of bread? Are we still a church any sense that matters to God?

I’ll Tell You Later

Not everything is instant ...

We live in the age of instant gratification.

If I want to watch a movie, I can skim Netflix and play one in seconds. It takes me longer to make up my mind than it takes to start playing my selection once I’ve decided. If I want to listen to the Strolling Bones’ hot new CD, I don’t have to rush to the mall (assuming I can find a record store still in business) or wait for Amazon to deliver it to my front door, I can stream it right now or download it from iTunes in seconds. If I want dinner, I can microwave something in five minutes, or, assuming I have unusual patience, have it delivered in forty-five.

Spiritual insight isn’t like that. Not at all. Sometimes God says, “I’ll tell you later.”

The Race Metaphor

Yesterday I talked a little bit about images and figurative language in scripture. I think sometimes we can end up reading more into a Bible metaphor or simile than the Spirit of God ever intended. Or we get caught up in the details of the picture itself and fail to grasp the spiritual reality it is meant to depict.

The writer to the Hebrews talks about running a race:

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us …”

Here the writer and his original Hebrew audience (that’s the “we”; the rest of us are simply reading someone else’s mail) are compared to men and women running a race. We do well to ask ourselves two questions. Firstly, what is this “race” that is to be run? Secondly, what are the specific intended points of agreement between running and whatever it is this “race” is intended to typify?

Quote of the Day (31)

It helps to know what we’re looking at.

Figures of speech in the Bible have limits, as most people who are regularly obliged to listen to sermons are well aware.

A word picture is a helpful way to describe a particular aspect of a spiritual reality. Unsurprisingly, we find the word of God to be full of them: images from the parables of the Lord Jesus, the poetic metaphors of the Psalms, the similes of Isaiah or the illustrations of the apostles — lovely, practical stuff sufficiently simple and clear to express profound truths even to our children.

Taken beyond their intended range, however, these figures quickly devolve into goofiness and bad doctrine.

Just Get Up

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Dawn of the Pod People

If you’ve ever watched a science fiction flick, you’ve probably seen people in pods.

Maybe they were traveling to another galaxy in suspended animation. Maybe they were hooked up to a computer matrix, bamboozled into believing in a counterfeit reality. Maybe they jumped into a one-man escape capsule to hide from aliens with freaky extensible jaws. Whatever the story logic, the image of people in personal life support units is near-universal in the sci-fi genre.

And hey, we’re living it.

Too Hot to Handle: How Do You Read It? (3)

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Under Collective Judgment

I am not my dad. I don’t make quite the same mistakes. I make different mistakes. Likewise, I don’t do many things half as well or half as spiritually as my father does. We’re very different in many ways.

I’m definitely not my dad’s father. I never knew him. Many of his ways seem foreign to me. He lived in another era, one characterized by different assumptions and habits.

And my great-grandfather? You gotta be kidding.

A Horse Plunging Headlong

I’ve been listening to unhappy people this week: people that have sinned, have hurt others and have hurt themselves.

It’s refreshing when someone gets it; when they realize that their own choices and desires took them places they do not want to be, and that these patterns need to be changed. It’s a good thing to see correctly the relationship between cause and effect, between actions and consequences.

But it’s even better when it dawns that our most significant sins are the inevitable consequence of refusing to take the Lord at his word.

False Unities and Lines of Division

As Christians living in a day in which we have every possible advantage in understanding what God has revealed of himself to mankind down through the centuries, the importance of having our hearts and heads thoroughly marinated in the word of God cannot be overstated.

There is no area of human investigation that matters more. None.

But in a fallen world, the word of God divides. The more we read it and follow it, the more we will find ourselves separated from those who don’t.

Inbox: The ‘Stealth Pastor’

After reading our recent post on “The Role of a Senior Pastor”, David B. asks a perfectly legitimate question:

“From the ‘brethren assemblies’ perspective, what is your opinion on the ‘full time worker’?”

From any perspective, denominational or otherwise, there’s a point well worth considering here, and that is that “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”. Things are what they are at their core, not merely what you label them. A garbage dump smells like a garbage dump even if you call it a Post-Consumer Product Management Initiative.

Sometimes your nose tells you what your eyes may not.

Recommend-a-blog (22)

The Tel Gezer calendar
(Attribution)

If it seems like I haven’t done one of these in ages, it’s because I haven’t. Too much time invested in surveying the political landscape, clearly.

Bible Chronology Studies is a refreshing change from that sort of thing, though not necessarily in an area of study all believers will embrace with enthusiasm. Some of us are deeply interested in what’s “under the hood” of our Christian faith; others are just happy to turn the key and take it up to the (legal) limit.

The website is the work of what I estimate must be thousands upon thousands of hours of independent study by a thus-far-anonymous Christian writer (not that there’s anything wrong with that) apparently obsessed with getting it right.

Living Under the Blade

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Too Hot to Handle: Not Quite What They Expected

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Of Trees and Floods

“Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, ‘The word of the Lord that you have spoken is good.’ For he thought, ‘Why not, if there will be peace and security in my days?’ ”

I have no clue what you’re thinking about right now. Not a one. That’s normal, I think.

Despite this, when we read novels and the writer tells us precisely what is on the mind of the protagonist, we barely notice how bizarre that is. After all, it is the author’s story and it is his prerogative to drive its narrative or provide insight into its characters via whatever literary technique he chooses.

Not in the real world. If a news reporter presumes to inform us what President Trump really intends when he thumbs his latest tweet into his iPhone for the nation, we rightly think she is overstepping her role just a bit. How could she possibly know for sure?

Bible history is a little different.

That’s MY Mail You’re Reading

I came across a very cool website.

RationalWiki is basically a repository of unbelief designed to show people how and where the Bible is (in their view) untrue. Somebody has gone to a lot of effort to attempt to debunk scripture and compile evidence of its alleged irrationality.

Possibly the coolest section of all is the page on ‘failed’ prophecy, which begins this way:

“Some Christians claim that fulfilled prophecies prove the Bible’s inerrancy … mainstream Christians will actually claim that, for example, the Gospels are historical evidence of Isaiah being accurate prophecy (rather than works written with a copy of Isaiah to hand to claim fulfilment of prophecy), therefore the Bible is accurate and Jesus is Lord.”

You know, I think they’re probably correct about Christians claiming such things, though they don’t provide specific examples. But they have a bigger problem: they’re reading my mail. Small wonder they’re a bit confused.

The Message You’re Sending

“There’s always someone looking at you.”

The line was penned by Sir Bob Geldof way back in 1979, long before personal computers with memories that the average person cannot easily erase, long before the Internet, before the NSA was on your hard drive and tracking your every movement through your cell phone, before your TV started watching you while you watch it, and before the unblinking eye in the sky that is Google Maps. It seems more than a little prescient, but Geldof had become (briefly) famous, and the world was paying more attention than he would have liked.

Always Ready?

The faithful are always to be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks us why we hope in God. The apostle Peter says this is especially true when we are being attacked for our beliefs.

But some questions are not really questions. They are not sincere inquiries. They are rhetoric, intended to demoralize and destroy belief.

I point this out because it’s easy not to notice. For the enthusiastic or pedantic among us, everything is a witnessing opportunity ... even when it isn’t.

But sometimes it’s better to be silent and let God speak.

More Calf Exercises

 The most recent version of this post is available here.

Faith’s Got Legs

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Too Hot to Handle: The Role of a Senior Pastor

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Acts of Faith That Aren’t

The most recent version of this post is available here.

The Statsman Cometh

I am an obsessive statistician, a very slightly annoying quality for which I would apologize if anyone who knows me at all would take such an apology seriously.

Okay, I am an unrepentantly obsessive stats nut. I love numbers, and I love what they tell us about people and about life. If we know each other well, you may think you are keeping to your diet, but I probably have a better idea than you do whether you’re kidding yourself about your eating habits. Likewise, you may think you are characteristically timely for your appointments, but I can tell you precisely how often you aren’t.

Some people are more fun to know via the Internet than to put up with in real time.

A Day Without Me

If you missed “A Day Without a Woman” last week, don’t feel bad: I didn’t notice it either until I read about it online. Women were encouraged to take the day off and not to spend money to show their economic strength and impact on American society. Most did not.

Perhaps our U.S. readers will tell us if they felt the impact of some sort of message being sent.

Cassady Findlay, spokeswoman for the protest, says, “We provide all this value and keep the system going, and receive unequal benefits from it.”

The Commentariat Speaks (9)

Most of the time someone else chooses
what ends up on these.

We’d like to think we have a say in how we’ll be remembered, but it ain’t up to us.

Twenty years ago, Charles Murray’s The Bell Curve was a semi-controversial but methodologically orthodox exploration of the links between intelligence, class and race. In addition to providing hard data, Murray and his co-writer made public policy suggestions intended to mitigate socioeconomic differences in IQ, birth rate, crime, fertility, welfare, and poverty.

The book sold well enough, but failed to genuflect to the progressive racial narrative, and Murray was roundly taken to task for it.

Old news, right? Not so much. Last week, Murray and a professor who had invited him to speak at Middlebury College were attacked by rioting Leftists on campus.

The Wrong Way Round

In a previous post I pointed out that Christ’s disciples, unlike many modernists, were seekers after objective truth.

But the process of discovering that truth was anything but easy or natural. The disciples made some pretty entertaining mistakes.

Not that I would’ve done any better, I assure you. But they had an uncanny knack for getting things the wrong way round.

The Needs of the Many

I suppose my subject may require at least a rough definition, but sometimes there’s only one word for a particular job. So the word of the day is solipsism.

The solipsist is not a narcissist; that’s a pathology. The solipsist is not merely selfish; that’s childish and natural in a fallen world, and even unbelievers may learn unselfishness as they age and experience life. Solipsism is actually a philosophical theory that the self is all that may be known to exist, but I’m not here talking about mere philosophies or theories. Practical solipsism is a phenomenon in which adults — particularly Western adults, I think — automatically and reflexively view every issue before them first and foremost from the angle of how it affects them.

It’s kinda like empathy ... except it isn’t. Empathy feels your pain. Solipsism feels its own imaginary pain that has been triggered by yours.

And solipsism is absolutely epidemic in our culture.

Too Hot to Handle: Lies Lies Lies, Yeah

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

Once in a while everyone, no matter how trusting, comes across a news story that just doesn’t smell right.

Now, thanks to U.S. declassification protocols, we know that Fake News has been a real phenomenon since prior to 1975. President Trump is not huffing and puffing on Twitter over nothing. In fact, we now know the CIA is primarily to blame. The biggest names in media have a lengthy track record of publishing false stories actually written for them by the CIA: The New York Times, LA Times, Fortune, Newsweek and even the venerable Saturday Evening Post. Other news services would then pick up these stories from sources they believed were trustworthy, and the disinformation game was afoot.

Tom: Was it the Boomtown Rats who sang “Don’t Believe What You Read”, Immanuel Can?

Too Clever For Our Own Good

“And for this hope I am accused by Jews, O king! Why is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead?”

There is tremendous irony in Paul’s statement here that he is “accused by Jews” over his belief in resurrection.

Jews, who claimed the Law of Moses as their inheritance and the prophets as their own. Jews, who claimed there was one God and that he belonged to them exclusively. Jews, who claimed to believe in YHWH but many of whom balked at the concept of resurrection. To be accused by Greeks, Romans, Syrians or Asians, sure: their gods were not like YHWH, much less powerful and more human in their interpersonal dynamics.

But accused by Jews for hoping in resurrection? There’s cognitive dissonance for you!

A Change Is Gonna Come

The most recent version of this post is available here.

The Change Is Gonna Do Us Good

The most recent version of this post is available here.

To Jezreel By Chariot

Jehu-style leadership is not always a bad thing.

Both Jehu and David were anointed king of Israel at God’s command. David chose to serve King Saul faithfully until forced to flee for his life, then served God and country as he was able while on the run until Saul met his end in battle. It took approximately 32 years to establish David’s kingdom.

Jehu, on the other hand, sniffed the political winds, discovered his fellow commanders all had his back, then promptly drove his chariot to Jezreel at speed and killed not just the king of Israel and his entire family, his friends, his priests and his inner circle, but the visiting king of Judah to boot. His kingdom was established in a matter of hours.

The similarities end with the anointing oil.

The Word, Uncontained

“It’s got to be in here somewhere ...”

This YouTuber, blasting away in ALL CAPS, wants us to know that “THE BIBLE CANNOT BE THE WORD OF GOD.”

Oh, he calls himself a Christian, make no mistake. But he insists the Bible is “the words of men that have recorded some words of God sometimes”. So much so that the caps come out again:

“Our focus and our trust must be in Jesus, WE MUST BE LED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT OF GOD.”

Being led by the Holy Spirit with our focus on and trust in Jesus seems a pretty good deal to me. It’s his understanding of what that means that’s the problem.

Antiquated Ways of Thinking

I might fall over laughing if it weren’t so sad.

If feminists want to minimize their own joy in life, that’s one thing. God bless ’em and have at it. But it’s another thing entirely when they set out to trash the culture so comprehensively that nobody else enjoys their lives either.

If you are driving into Winston-Salem from Kernersville, about 85 miles northeast of Charlotte, N.C., expect to encounter a billboard that reads, “Real men provide. Real women appreciate it.”

Better drive fast though: last Sunday at 11:00 a.m., the owner of a Winston-Salem women’s boutique called Kleur organized a demonstration against the billboard’s message and its “antiquated way of thinking”.

If that’s their metric, I’m an antique and proud of it.

Too Hot to Handle: Just Another Bump in the Roe

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

Next! Move ’em on through!

Norma Leah McCorvey died February 18, and unless you happened across this article in The Economist or something like it in one of the few other well-known publications that referenced her passing, you might not have the slightest idea that Norma was the “Jane Roe” in Roe v. Wade, probably the most significant U.S. Supreme Court ruling of the last century.

Tom: You also might not know that by the time the Supremes actually ruled on her case, the baby Norma McCorvey went to court to get the State’s permission to murder in her own womb was 2-1/2 years old and had been adopted. That’s the legal system for you.

The Divine Veto

Lately I’ve been wondering how much latitude God gives his servants in choosing how they go about doing his work. If you read either Testament carefully, it seems like it could be an awful lot.

Now, bear in mind that from John Calvin’s perspective, it is really God doing everything that is done in the universe. I don’t think he ever used the word “pawn” (which might have been the most honest way to describe how he thought God treats his creatures), but in effect he taught that sentient beings, good or bad, cannot really act contrary to the will of God. God’s determinate counsel initiates and controls every transaction in the universe — “all events whatsoever”, as Calvin put it.

I’m not operating on that wavelength at all, so disciples of Mr. Calvin may want to take a pass on the following musings.

A Non-Binary Proposition

God took a nation for himself from all the peoples of the earth. If you’re Israel, that’s what you might call a mixed blessing.

On the one hand, there was lots of good stuff that came with being uniquely God’s. As Paul puts it to the Romans, “to [Israelites] belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises”, and he goes on to mention the patriarchs and Messiah. Being a Jew was a tremendous privilege.

On the other hand, as another Jew once put it, “With great power there must also come — great responsibility.”

Out of the Closet and Out of the Sea

Globalism is out of the closet. Finally.

For years now, politicians from countries all over the world enraptured with the Ideology That Dared Not Speak Its Name have pursued their dream of global government. Until the end of last year, they were savvy enough to do it behind the scenes, giving the occasional barely-perceptible nod to national interests in order to avoid raising the hackles of the rank and file that their policies had impoverished and unemployed by the millions. Attentive observers of Washington and the Eurozone noticed something was a bit off, but recognized that being overly vocal with their suspicions would tend to nuke their credibility with the audience that pays the bills.

Hey, even political commentators have to eat, right?