Month: May 2020

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be ‘cured’ against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals. (C.S. Lewis)

On a related note, I just read an email from a former colleague announcing that his church’s leadership “prayerfully decided” to cancel worship services until September 6^th! By my count, his church will have been closed for six whole months. No doubt the heavens rejoiced!

Continue reading “Bubble-Wrapped Culture”

On two or three occasions I have introduced a Prayer of Confession into the liturgy of churches that hadn’t previously been using one. Why they hadn’t is a whole other post.

In any event, more than once I was told that such a move was “too Catholic,” a charge leveled not infrequently by diehard New England Congregationalists, generally when dismissing any idea deemed unattractive.

At one time a hot button issue, the doctrine of “papal infallibility” used to be one of the defining issues in the sometimes contentious squabble between Catholics and Protestants. It was a popular cudgel Protestants might use to establish Catholicism as non-biblical and heretical. (In actual fact, the doctrine of papal infallibility is far more nuanced and sophisticated than generally assumed – but that is also another post.)

Continue reading “Trained Poodles”

At a clergy gathering years ago, a pastor got up and made a brilliant observation: “Whenever I read the Bible,” he began, “it always surprises me. When I hear a pronouncement coming from the United Church of Christ, I’m never surprised.”

This is a crucial point. The uniformity of thought within the mainline Protestant churches today is appalling. And stultifying. As I’ve said many times, the rhetoric is generally warmed-over elite opinion cloned from “sophisticated” secular sources.

Yuval Levin, in A Time to Build, states what ought to be obvious: “Being exposed to influences we did not choose is part of how we learn to live with others, to accept our differences while seeing crucial commonalities, to realize the world is not all about us, and to at least abide with patience what we would rather avoid or escape.”

Continue reading “Homogenized and Interchangeable, Part II”

A church member once told me about serving in the Army in the 70s right after the debacle of the Vietnam War. It was a low point for the institution. The military today, on the other hand, ranks among the most highly esteemed institutions in the United States.

In any event, he told me of his frustration with the Army and the sense that it had become a kind of “Mickey Mouse” operation. Those serving with him tended to agree.

Then one day, while looking in the mirror, he noticed the name attached to his uniform – his own. It struck him. He thought, “I am the Army. It’s not just some abstract entity. And if there’s a problem with it, it’s up to me to do my part to make it better.”

Continue reading “Homogenized and Interchangeable, Part I”