Jul 1, 2020 | Notable Quotations
The current age is beginning to seem an age of social insecurity, whose leading belief is in the inability of individuals to change the drift of things. A dash of Marxism, a touch of Freudianism, a vague groaning about something called the System, and distrust of action, a denigration of success—such appear to constitute the chief strands of social thought of the day. None of this allows much leeway for the use of intelligence, courage, and resolution on the part of individuals. It is almost as if we subscribed to a form of social determinism that has no name and whose causes and effects we haven’t quite managed to formulate, but to which we feel ourselves helplessly hostage.
—Ambition: The Secret Passion
by Joseph Epstein, 1989
Jun 27, 2020 | Explanatory Power, Truth
I feel like I’ve entered an episode of The Twilight Zone, although I’m convinced Rod Serling couldn’t have imagined the absurdities of COVID-19 2020 America. Since this is a blog dedicated to the defense of the Christian faith, I try to stay away from politics, but you can’t escape politics now without it, literally, hitting you in the face. I thought in Florida we may have escaped relatively unscathed, and by that I don’t mean cases or deaths for an over-hyped virus, but without our lives being turned completely upside down. Now, unfortunately, because of an “order requiring face coverings,” aka masks, by our county board of commissioners, everywhere I go it’s masks, masks, masks! Of course I refuse to wear a mask because, well, it’s absurd for healthy people to be required to wear a mask! On Thursday I entered The Zone. I went into a local RaceTrac, and three employees pointed at me and hissed, “You have to wear a mask!” No I don’t, I said right back. For this I was summarily refused service, even as I pointed out that there is a very clear exception in the so called “order” (item 10). Kafka himself would have been proud. (more…)
Jun 23, 2020 | Notable Quotations
I call “piety” that reverence joined with love of God which the knowledge of his benefits induces. For until men recognize that they owe everything to God, that they are nourished by his fatherly care, that he is the Author of their every good, that they should seek nothing beyond him—they will never yield him willing service. Nay, unless they establish their complete happiness in him, they will never give themselves truly to him.
—John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion
Jun 20, 2020 | Theology
Our pastor last Sunday preached on one of the most profound Psalms in the Psalter, the first one, that which serves as the gateway to all the rest. Psalm 1 starts with the words, “Blessed is the man who . . . ” The writer starts with the negative, that this blessed man does not walk, stand, or sit, in the counsel, way, or seat, of the wicked, sinners, or scoffers. The point is clear, this person does not get comfortable in the company of the God-less, does not think as they think, or live as they live. Then he contrasts this way with what makes this man blessed, he delights “in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.” The question becomes, who defines our reality, God or man. There is no in between. (more…)
Jun 14, 2020 | Gratitude
Thorns and thistles . . . . Most biblically literate Christians will immediately get this reference found in the third chapter of Genesis where we find the account of the fall, and mankind’s descent into the abyss of sin and death. Yahweh told Adam in chapter two that he was free to eat of any tree in the garden, but of one tree he must not eat, “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” If he does (the text says “when”) he “will surely die.” The consequences of Adam and Eve’s decision introduced hell on earth, and as history has shown us, it’s not a pretty picture. God in judgement explains the fallout of this disastrous decision:
17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’
“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat food from it
all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return.”
(more…)
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