First Word

The rumor mill has it that some of our jewed preachers are already starting to broach that idea.

Think about it.  The Cherokee braves are holding council to elect their new chief upon the death of the previous one.  Someone suggests an Apache fellow should be elected, and a brave murmurs, “we don’t need no stinkin’ Apache as our chief.”

Comes our preacher and says, “that brave is in sin!”

There are a variety of topics in our current discourse, such as racial linguistic reference, and the question of the desirability of integration in church or state, to which our disputants often have a ready argument: “there will be no race in heaven; therefore we should operate as if that were the case now.” As will prove to be the case again and again, both the major and minor premises of modern truisms are generally dubious. Here I wish to analyze a premise that functions as the “minor” in that argument, and is taken as “obvious” even by intelligent people today. Namely, the idea that “there will be no race in heaven.” Continue reading…

This is a sort of remake of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, with the races of the young couple swapped.

However, the intervening forty years have brought massive changes to the mores of society, and this is reflected in the mores of the movie. The triumph of the sexual revolution that was just beginning there is now complete: normalized, institutionalized, expected: Continue reading…

There is a scene in Godfather where the chief counsel for the Don goes to meet the “Hollywood bigshot” Woltz, who has cheated godson Johnny. When Tom explains the (somewhat shady) things he could do in exchange for “one small favor,” Woltz hits the ceiling: “I don’t care how many dago guinea wop greaseball goombahs come outta the woodwork.” Continue reading…

In each generation, it appears that Hollywood produces one centerpiece sermon Continue reading…

The PCA has been beating its breast for several years now on the subject of racial reconciliation.

The 30th GA, which I believe was in 2002, adopted Overture #20 from Nashville, which declared in part:

“We therefore confess our involvement in these sins.  As a people, both we and our fathers, have failed to keep the commandments, the statutes, and the laws God has commanded.”

I hope to some day deconstruct the entire overture and its backwash. Right now, I’m just stuck on the phrase “both we and our fathers.”

By their “fathers” they obviously mean their great-great-grandfathers who may have owned slaves and/or defended the practice.

They are repenting, in other words, for something their “fathers” did not see the need to repent of; or at any rate, did not repent of.

When someone repents of his fathers’ sins, which his fathers did not even believe were sins, is this a sign of being humbled under conviction of sin, or is it more likely a noisy bit of self-righteous posturing?

Moreover, since the statement defines the fathers’ sins very broadly (“failed to keep the commandments, the statutes, and the laws God has commanded”) I presume that everyone could justly follow in the footsteps of the PCA and repent of the sins of his fathers (if the PCA can justly do so).

I’m just wondering why they didn’t, while they were at it, go all the way back to their “father” Adam and repent of original sin.