The newest reveal of the cryptocrats that rule over us is that UFO’s are real after all. The turnaround is dazzling for its rapidity. Five years ago, UFO believers were mocked by all quarters as tin-foil hatted loony-tunes. Now, it is the Pentagon solemnly “admitting” sightings, Continue reading
Category Archives: ethics
Reassessing C. S. Lewis
The ghost of C. S. Lewis has haunted me much of my life, so much so that only relatively recently — to paraphrase Sartre, but by the grace of God –, have I been able to go down into the cellar, grab the ghost by the scruff of its neck, and throw it out. Continue reading
OPC elders propose replacing Mt. 18 with public hectoring
There is a blog in which one Aimee Byrd successfully summons a posse of OPC cavalry to round up and arrest some boys that allegedly said some mean things about her on a private Facebook chat group. Apparently there was a spy that took a bunch of screenshots of the mean things and broadcast them. Now Miss Aimee is on the warpath and wants people to lose their jobs and/or be ecclesiastically disciplined. Continue reading
Brief Intermission: Tribute to Greg Bahnsen
A brief side-bar is needed in this autobiographical sketch of life-changing books. Spanning the interval 1983-1993, no single book stands out, but that was the period of my association with my dear friend and mentor Greg Bahnsen. Though I am avoiding mentioning names in this bookish auto-biography, his needs to be mentioned as the greatest single personal influence on my life in adulthood.
In view of that, it will perhaps be thought odd that I do not count any of his books as life-changing. Indeed, I found many of his books pedantic, even annoying. We had opposite tendencies at the aesthetic level. It is hard for me to imagine anyone becoming a Theonomist through reading Theonomy or its sequels. Then again, he may have felt the same way. Theonomy was actually a comparatively small part of his life, less in fact (by way of negation) than for many of his vitriolic opponents.
One of his teachings that drove deeply into my soul was the ramified implications of Matt. 18. Beyond the obvious three-fold “method” taught there for correcting offenses, Greg taught that even if you have a legitimate grievance, if the way you got to this point was via gossip, slander, tale-bearing, or prevarication, then you had to first go back and fix those errors before “continuing.” The putative grievance had to be left on the table until those errors were dealt with properly. Often, it turned out that the grievance all but vanished by the time those steps were taken — or at least, could be covered in love. What this taught me was that Matt. 18 is not some bureaucratic “manual of discipline,” but something much deeper: an insight into what it means to be human, and to be a human with integrity. The requirements of privacy and caution are not just little nuisances, but go to the heart of the matter. I have continued to develop this theme and hope to write on it anon.
Twice I turned against him. Both times, God gave me the heart to seek reconciliation, and Greg was gracious in a way that was itself life-changing. When I came to him the second time, I was moved to the core by his statement that the whole purpose of his ministry for the previous ten years may well have been, in God’s providence, just to set the stage for that moment. And afterwards, my offenses were never mentioned or remembered.
I will not try to summarize all the many ways he changed my life. That has come out before and will continue to do so. In summary, I will simply say he was a man of a great heart. Indeed, in the divine comedy, the literal heart ailment that killed him well before the age of 50 can be taken as a metaphor for his life. Like our Lord, he can be said to have died of a broken heart.
Ten or twelve life-changing books: #5, 6
5. 1979. Rushdoony, Institutes of Biblical Law
Lewis had brought me back to an Arminian, though militant Continue reading
Douglas Wilson and Orgasmism
Again, ladies, please pass this by.
A corollary of the thoughts I laid out on homo-orgasmism is that various perversions commonly thought of as “sexual” perversions are actually something else altogether Continue reading
C. S. Lewis’ Second Argument for Purgatory
The introduction to Lewis on Purgatory, and discussion Continue reading
C. S. Lewis on Purgatory
Some of his fan base may be unaware that C. S. Lewis believed in Purgatory Continue reading
Thoughts on Halloween
First, let’s lay out the landscape of the phenomenology of Halloween as it is experienced in America. Then, let’s analyze its propriety. There are two axes of analysis that I will highlight. Continue reading