Boundaries are an essential element in any art, but it does not follow from this that if the boundaries are honored and respected, the great art will necessarily follow. A lot of pedestrian poetry has been written within the confines of the traditional forms.

Sexual boundaries follow the same kind of pattern. The one true God sets the limits for us, creating the male and female nature and setting them both within creation, and then providing His law for us as additional guidance and protection. Those boundaries can be honored in the letter, but dishonored in the spirit. If a man and a woman have a lackluster and apathetic love life, the fact that it is not perversion does not prevent it from being dull. Plenty of sonnets have scanned, and rhymed according to rule, and yet have not been what poetry should be.

But it is a sophomoric and superficial reaction to reject standards in order to be able to say that poetry should be whatever a poet says it is. The revolt of our current generation against the triune God (who made heaven and earth) is a revolt in the direction of polytheism -- multiple gods, multiple voices, multiple laws, and a general clamor out of which it is possible to select whatever suits him at the time. The political name for this is pluralism, and the philosophical and cultural name for it is postmodernism. Radically relativistic, it cannot be prevented from eventually hitting the craggy rocks below -- nihilism and despair. But while falling, a number of people have the temporary sensation of absolute freedom, and they seek to use that freedom in the creation and pursuit of various sexualities. We are now dealing with metrosexuals, sodomites, catamites, lesbians, virtual perverts, bisexuals, and transgendered individuals. Sometime in the next ten years, look for more to push to the front of the line demanding societial respectability -- pederasty and bestiality included. But because all this is a function of sexual postmodernism, we should simply call all of it pomosexuality.

The sermon last Lord's Day was on Psalm 43 -- on the willingness of the psalmist to invite God to come down and judge his case.

Obama is going to give his acceptance speech from a stage manufactured to look like an ancient Greek temple. Tune in right before they sacrifice the heifers!

As I look at the state of public discourse today, and the Church's contribution to it, I often feel like somebody stuffed me into a Walker Percy novel, and then somebody else screwed the lid on.

It is as though everybody has agreed to do a cute little two step, closer and closer to the lip of the Abyss. The music is provided by a man turning the handle on the zeitgeist-barrel organ, and the monkey of cool cavorts invitingly on the brink.

The first step is this: the step is taken and some worried critics wonder aloud if this is going to lead to x,y, and z, all three of them appalling options -- homo pomo in slowmo. Those engaged in the first half of this cute little two step are outraged at the suggestion, and say, collectively, that this is not the dance they are dancing at all. "They would never . . ." Only a sick mind would make the suggestion.

And then the second step is taken by a few pioneering perverts out there on the makeshift dance floor, and the few remaining critics (the ones with a memory) say, "Hey, isn't this what we were worried about? Isn't this what we said would happen?" And the response to this is, "What's wrong with you? Is your heart full of hate, or what?"

I would point to an example or two of this, as I have done many times on this blog, but it frankly difficult for me to find a place anymore where this isn't happening.

Some might find this take of mine as being inconsistent with my postmillennialism. But as Jesus rules the nations, this is actually one of the things He does in order to sift those nations. In the long run, moral stupidity never works, not even if you get leading evangelicals to pray over it. Dancing off cliffs is not the future. Correction: dancing off cliffs is not the future for the blind dancers themselves. It does provide a future, and an object lession, for somebody else.

So check this out. Emergent Christians and pomothinkers like to emphasize that the faith is a story with a storyline, and want to deemphasize the rigid creedal and doctrinal aspects of the faith. Let's just leave that last bit aside for a moment, and take a closer look at these "story Christians." The most striking and obvious thing about them is their cluelessness about the nature of the story they are in.

I know that a lot of biblical Christians want to contend for the faith once delivered, and want to argue this point with the emergents. And that's fine with me because somebody has to do it. The Christian faith without dogma is not the Christian faith.

But the thing that leaves me gaping is the insistence on "story" from people who clearly have confused an exciting story with an interfaith roundtable discussion on PBS, in favor of the latter.

You want a story? Then kill the dragon. That's a story. The Saracens are at the gates, a lot of them waving their immigration visas and promising to be good this time. Man the ramparts and beat them back from the city of your people. That would be a good story too. A beautiful virgin has been captured by an evil baron and is being held in a tower. Rescue her. That would be a story that the feminists wouldn't like, but maybe it's time for us to rescue them too.

Emergents and pomo-types want to tell us all a story, and they have no clear notion of how to tell the difference between a protagonist and antagonist.

I put the Dalai Bama image on a few t-shirts and mugs here. I am not sure, but I think Frank Turk made his millions this way.

"At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore" (Ps. 16: 11)

Growing Dominion, Part 151

"The north wind driveth away rain: so doth an angry countenance a backbiting tongue" (Prov. 25:23).

Nothing brings out the backbiting tongue like a little bit of success. And of course, a person who goes into business ought not to be so thin-skinned that he reacts disproportionately to every last person who talks loosely or untruthfully, But when it gets to a certain level of snark, something really ought to be done. There is nothing unbiblical about confronting those who backbite. Men should be accountable for what they say.

Those who are industrious and hardworking tend to view success in their business as a report card from a fair-minded teacher. Those who like to backbite over those who outperformed them view that same success as evidence that the teacher was bribed—the whole semester was obviously rigged. A certain amount of this kind of talk is going to go on regardless. But when it gets to a certain point, an angry response will drive it away the same way the north wind drives away rain.

"Does he seriously hope to pass off this rhapsody on meat and starch as a treatise on cooking? Does he actually think that anyone who has the least notion of what is involved in a balanced diet would condescend to settle down in the waistland of gravy and spaetzle he praises so extravagantly? Well, believe it or not, I am willing to concede you your point. I have no quarrel with the general validity of nutritional considerations; any more than I would try to argue you down on the subject of the germ theory. The only caution I would insist upon is that, given modern man's tendency to idolatry -- his preference of meaning over matter, his penchant for the useful rather than the delicious -- both of them can, while remaining true as far as they go, be turned into dangerous con jobs. There are people, you know, who will not kiss you on the lips" (Robert Farrar Capon, The Supper of the Lamb, pp. 122-123).

Anopheles means unprofitable. It is used twice in the New Testament, both times in a moral sense. The first instance is this: "But avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain" (Tit. 3:9). Stupid wrangles sown produce a harvest to match. The second usage does not refer to sin, but does refer to the inability of the older covenant to put us right with God once for all. In that sense it was unprofitable (Heb. 7:18).

"A certain minister may quickly compose a sermon, but you must remember that this is the result of the labour of many years. Even he who, according to common parlance, speaks quite extemporaneously, does not really do so; he delivers what he has in previous years stored up. The mill is full of corn, and, therefore, when you put a sack in the proper place, it is filled with flour in a short time" (Charles Spurgeon, An All-Round Ministry, p. 336).

"It is in strudel dough that the glutinous properties of flour enter the new Jerusalem in a triumph of elasticity" (Robert Farrar Capon, The Supper of the Lamb, p. 118).

The word anupotaktos is used four times and is translated in various ways. One is as disobedient, referring to a kind of behavior Paul tells that with one of the uses of the law (that of civil restraint), it was not intended for righteous men (who are already self-governed). The law was intended for the lawless and disobedient (1 Tim. 1:9). This use helps us to understand Paul's thought in Titus 1, where he is discussing elder qualifications. There he says that an elder candidate's children must not be accused (rightfully) of "riot" or of being "unruly." Unruly is the rendering of this same word. It comes up again just a few verses later. "For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision" (v. 10). From this it is clear that we are not saying that an elder is disqualified because he told his three-year-old son to eat his peas, and the son decided not to. This qualification is referred to children who are simply out of control.

Interestingly, the same word is used one more time in Hebrews 2:8. God has subjected everything to Christ and has not left anything "that is not put under Him." In other words, as Christ's rule in this world is consolidated and made manifest, we will eventually see that nothing is disobedient.

"Better that Demas should forsake us, than that he should abide with us, and import the world into the church" (Charles Spurgeon, An All-Round Ministry, p. 295).

"Images have a way of evoking an emotional response. Pictures have a way of pushing rational discourse—linear logic—into the background. The chief aim of television is to sell products and entertain audiences. Television seeks emotional gratification. As a visual medium, television programming is designed to be amusing. Substance gives way to sounds and sights. Hard facts are undermined by stirring feelings. Important issues are drowned out by dramatic images. Reason is replaced by emotion" (Arthur Hunt, The Vanishing Word, p. 21).

"No double standard exists in God's law. If a woman were an adulteress she could be executed for it, and if a man were an adulterer he could be executed for it. So the double standard on the part of Christ's adversaries here is evident. They catch a woman committing adultery all by herself, and they bring her to be stoned!" (Her Hand In Marriage, p. 25).

Well, the Obaminator has chosen Joe Biden to be his running mate and, as I see it from here, the wheels continue to come off the Obama campaign. The once robust coalition of marshmallow clouds, puffy rainbows, and unicorns is starting wear a little thin. At least around here.

I continue to believe that the election is going to be a blowout in McCain's favor -- well over forty states. Now I am not making this prediction as someone utterly disinterested. While I have no desire to see John McCain as the next president of the United States, I do have a sincere and enthusiastic desire to see Obama lose. And so, someone might ask me, does this not mean that any amateur punditry that you are engaged in, to the effect that Obama is doing to get his clock cleaned, may be mere wish-fulfillment punditry? No, not really. If we are going to be subjected to four years of Obama, I want to face up to the bad news asap, the better to enable us to hide the family silver in time.... Continue Reading

Posted by Douglas Wilson - 8/25/2008 10:08:05 AM | Link to this post | Print this post | 15 Responses

Chapter Seven introduces Johnny Quinn, one of Camel Creek's youth ministers, and his girl friend Brandy. We are entering our seventh week of chapter installments, and I hope that all 1,902 unique visitors to the Evangellyfish web site have gotten their money's worth.

Over the years we have emphasized the importance of ritual. Rituals are significant in the Bible, and they ought to be significant to us. We have also emphasized the importance of worshipping God with our bodies and not just with our minds. We have sought to resist the temptation that many Reformed Christians deal with, which is the idea that God gave us bodies as carrying cases to get our brains to church.

And of course, it would be better to have your mind at church and your body elsewhere, than to have your body at church and your mind elsewhere. But fortunately, we don’t have to choose, and under ordinary circumstances, we must not choose. And so here is a brief reminder of the doctrinal reasons for some of the very physical things we do in our worship of God.

We sing throughout the service, which should be strenuous, we kneel in confession, we eat bread and drink wine, and we raise our hands in the Gloria Patri. We worship God physically for three reasons.

First, we believe that Scripture requires this kind of thing of us. We are not in charge of inventing a worship service that we think God might like. He wrote a book; He tells us. Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.

Second, we worship God this way in order to lean against the perennial temptation of Gnosticism—the idea that some divine spark inside is all that is necessary, and that the material body is irrelevant. We want to be reminded every week that God has a claim on your lungs, your knees, your hands, and your mouth and throat.

And last, we believe that worship is a conversation—a dialogue—between God and His people. It is therefore important that you not be passive. You have a role to play that goes far beyond that of simply listening to a lecture. We gather to hear the Word of God, but we also gather so that God can hear from us, observing us as we approach Him.

How does God feed us? In that great passage from the servant songs in Isaiah, the prophet says, "He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young" (Is. 40:11).

Notice that God does not just sling the food at us. It is not simply that we need the food, and He has to give it to us, but it is also true that we need the food brought to us in a certain way. We are His flock, and He feeds us the way a shepherd does. He not only feeds the entire flock, there are some other things He does that are described here.

He gathers the lambs with His arm. And so take note you children, you little ones. The Lord is our shepherd, and this means that He is shepherd of the lambs and not just shepherd of the full grown sheep. He gathers the lambs with His arm. Have you ever wondered if you are old enough to come to this Table? You may be too much of a lamb to come on your own, but no one is too much of a lamb to be carried by Him. How would that argument work? I am too young and too little to be carried. More than this, He will carry to close to His chest.

[Archives]

What I Learned In Narnia (Audio Set)

other books in this category

Fidelity

other books in this category

Reforming Marriage

other books in this category

The Case for Classical Christian Education

other books in this category

Black & Tan

other books in this category

Is Christianity Good for the World? (Debate with Christopher Hitchens)

other books in this category

Weekly Sermons

other books in this category

Blackthorn Winter

other books in this category

In the Time of Noah

other books in this category

The Dragon and the Garden

other books in this category

100 Cupboards

other books in this category

Leepike Ridge

other books in this category