Pastor's Blog

Too often we expect positive changes to take place in one fell swoop. Whether in matters of personal sanctification, institutional reform, cultural renewal, or transformation of the political landscape, we too often look for one dramatic event that gains us a quick, easy, and permanent victory. But this doesn't seem to be how God normally works. The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come (Mk. 4:26-29). The seed doesn’t produce its fruit overnight. Maturity requires growth, and growth takes time. It is not the time to complain that no fruit is visible when the blade first appears. We should not despise the day of small things (Zech. 4:10). The Lord promised the people of Israel that he...

And the L ord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, I am the L ord your God. You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you. You shall not walk in their statutes. You shall follow my rules and keep my statutes and walk in them. I am the L ord your God. ~ Leviticus 18:1-4 ~ These verses address one of the most common temptations faced by the people of God—the temptation to conform to the standards of the surrounding unbelieving culture. The Israelites had only recently been delivered from slavery. They had never existed before as an independent nation. They, their parents, and their grandparents were born and raised in Egypt. Egyptian ideas of religion, family life, education, ethics, culture, and law were all they knew. And they were about to settle in a land and among a people whose culture was equally devoid of the knowledge of the true God...

In his national bestseller,  From Dawn to Decadence:  500 Years of Western Cultural Life , Jacques Barzun describes the impact of the reformers' efforts in translating the Bible into the common tongues:  The results for Protestants were remarkable. To start with, it gave whole populations a common background of knowledge, a common culture in the high sense of the term... The Bible was a whole literature, a library. It was an anthology of poetry and short stories. It taught history, biography, philosophy, political science, psychology, hygiene, and sociology (statistical at that), in addition to cosmogony, ethics, and theology. What gives the Bible so strong a hold on the minds that once grow familiar with  its contents is its dramatic reporting of human affairs. For all its piety, it presents a worldly panorama, and with particulars so varied that it is hard to think of a domestic or social situation without a biblical example to match and turn to moral ends...

Lawrence O'Donnell's interview of Herman Cain last week illustrates one of the major differences between liberals and conservatives (of the paleo variety). The Left sees all of life as being essentially political. There is not a problem in the world that can not and should not be addressed politically. O'Donnell found fault with Cain for abiding by the advice of his father to "keep his nose clean" by avoiding the civil rights marches and sit-ins in the 1960s. Instead, Cain diligently applied himself to his studies to earn a B. A. in mathematics in 1968 from Morehouse College and then a master's degree in computer science from Purdue in 1971 while working full time in ballistics for the U.S. Department of the Navy. And of course he went on to have a very successful career in business. In doing so, he "saved" and created far more j0bs (for people of all colors) than the current administration could ever hope to do. "Ts...

We said it was coming, but they didn't believe us. They said we were over-reacting, exaggerating, just trying to scare people. They were wrong. We were simply pointing out the logical implications of their position. The magnificent R. L. Dabney (1820-1898) understood better than any in his day the consequences of ideas. He lived in a day of rapid social change that seems almost tame by comparison with what's going on today. In his essay, Women's Rights Women , he wrote, In our day, innovations march with so rapid a stride that they quite take away one's breath. The fantastical project of yesterday, which was mentioned only to be ridiculed, is to-day the audacious reform, and will be to-morrow the accomplished fact. Speaking of the usual conservative reaction to "fantastical" social projects, he says, This is the party [conservatives] which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party,...

Ran across this quote today from Lord Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage . Pretty much sums up the course of U.S. history thus far. There is the moral of all human tales; 'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past. First freedom and then Glory - when that fails, Wealth, vice, corruption - barbarism at last.

Contrary to popular opinion, vox populi is NOT vox dei . Far too long have Christians fought the "culture war" (1)  by appealing to numbers. "Polls show that the majority of Americans want restrictions on abortion...oppose gay marriage...want prayer in public schools..." etc., etc., etc. But he who lives by the poll must be prepared to die by it too. A new Gallup poll shows that for the first time a majority of Americans favor legalizing same sex marriages. Having rested our case on the will of the majority in the past, are we ready to do the same now that its will has shifted? It should be clear that we must not idolize democracy. The voice of the people is not the voice of God. We must  never rest our case on the will of the people. It may not be an inappropriate thing to point out that a majority of Americans believe this or that. In fact it may be a very useful thing to know. But it must never be the basis for deciding m...

Art (and I use the term loosely) has long been the avenue to popularize, legitimize, and normalize every imaginable - and for most ordinary people even  un imaginable - sexual deviancy. The more a work pushes the moral boundaries, the more it's lauded by critics. Here is a case in point at the Cannes Film Festival. Ordinary people, even the French (if you can call them ordinary), got up and left the screening. It was just too much to stomach. Not surprisingly, true art afficionados (or at least those who flatter themselves with the title) gave the film a standing ovation. There are few taboos left to break. What will they do when they're all gone? When the deviant becomes normal, the normal looks deviant. It won't be long before a man and a woman who actually really and truly love each other and stay together for life will be an aberration. Cameron Diaz has recently gone on record as saying that marriage is a " dying institution ." If she ...