Become Calvinistic . . . You Know You Got Nothing Better To Do! ;-)

"I became what is popularly known as a “Calvinist” sometime in 1988. It is a long and sordid tale, and to this day I am not quite sure what happened. There were various factors in play, as there always are with such things. The first was that I was preaching through Romans. I can recall telling one of our elders that I did not know what I was going to say when I got to “those chapters.” When I began preaching through the book, I was not Calvinistic, and when I finished, I was. So that was one factor. I got to chapter eight and decided, “Oh, well,” and just preached what it said. After all, I had nothing better to do" (Douglas Wilson, A Study Guide to Calvin's Institutes, 11).

What Are You

"Marriage simply amplifies what a person is" (Douglas Wilson, Reforming Marriage, 34).

The Caboose of Modernity

Next, we should reject postmodernism because it isn't really postmodern. Before awarding the grand prefix post to anything, we should ascertain that it actually is describing something in the rear view mirror. If we look at the foundation stones of modernism, we should quickly identify one of them as being the thought of Darwin — evolution. But why is it that none of these johnnies are saying that they are post-Darwinian? Evolution is a metanarrative, but the only incredulity I can find anywhere is in the discussions of tourists in the parking lot of the Creation Museum. The postmodernists pretend that they are blowing up the foundations when they are actually just painting the eaves a different color.

Excerpt above from recent musing on Postmodernism by Douglas Wilson. Three cheers for that first sentence: "Next, we should reject postmodernism because it isn't really postmodern." I took a degree in Philosophy at university and I remember when I reached the same conclusion during my studies and thought, "Wait, hold the phone. This Postmodern-thing is only the Caboose of a train called Modernity." Not really post-modern, indeed.  All things Pomo collapse under the weight of their own critiques. Postmodernism thinks it is Revolutionary, but all it is doing is "painting the eaves a different color," i.e., Pomo is the child begat by Modernity and now it spends its time, as all little children do, dressing up and playing make-believe. Postmodernism is like the Lutheran who ran away from Rome's idols but in the final analysis only exchanged ready-made idols for the organic idols of bad sacramental theology.

Graveyard Science

Doug Wilson recently posted Seven Theses on the Age of the Earth.

Theses #4 -- The fossil record is a record of death. The fossil record is a graveyard. We have exegetical reasons for believing that this paleontological graveyard was planted after the fall of man. We have a time stamp for Adam in the genealogies, and because of what the Scriptures teach about the nature of death, the recorded deaths of all sentient beings needs to be dated after that point.

A Living Faith - A Living Wisdom

Doug Wilson on wisdom that is alive. An excerpt below, but you really should go read article in full.

"Like termites need wood, so also unbelief needs the structures of faith that a living faith once built. They can’t get at the wood when it is still alive and growing, but once the living truth has gone through the sawmill of accreditation and become a standardized two by four of truth — watch out. A brief review will make the point — just imagine Fuller sitting in on a few classes at Fuller Seminary, Carl Henry dropping in at CT after reading the three most recent issues, or Thomas Cranmer trying to make it through the homily of the most theologically-minded dyke in the diocese...."

And he concludes: "Unbelief drifts. Wisdom walks, and fights as it goes."

Preferential Listening

"Who would you rather listen to: someone who has been around the world three times on a oil freighter, or someone who never came out of his basement - even if he had really sweet bandwidth down there?" (Douglas Wilson, Wordsmithy: Hot Tips for the Writing Life, 66).

Douglas Wilson: Regeneration

Pastor Douglas Wilson here: "Loving your sin while loving Jesus is an exercise that the Bible calls kidding yourself."