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Thursday, October 30, 2003 posted by R.C. 4:16 PM link |
Auburn Affirmations One of my first jobs at Ligonier was answering mail. And one of the biggest stacks came from angry dispensationalists. Around that time Dr. John Gerstner had published his book “Wrongly Dividing,” a devastating critique on classical dispensationalism. My father had supplied a glowing foreword. Gerstner highlighted the doctrine of Darby, and Scofield, Moody and Pentecost, Ryrie and Hodges. Most of the mail did not seek to refute what Gerstner had said. Rather they argued, “What Gerstner describes is not what we believe.” My responses generally read something like this, “Then what are you yelling about?” I went on to explain, “If the top five most influential founders of the movement, and if two of the most influential faculty members at the most influential seminary in the movement do not represent the movement, then who does?” The good news is that progressive dispensationalists are progressing away from dispensationalism. The bad news is they are moving slowly because that albatross of a name is still around their neck. I mention all this not because I want to talk about dispensationalism, but because I want to talk about some broad principles that may or may not tie into my friends, the principals in the abiding Auburn Avenue controversy. In terms of full disclosure, I consider myself a personal friend to four RPCUS pastors, a significant percentage of that denomination. (I’d probably enjoy the rest of them as well, but haven’t met them.) I also consider myself a friend to the three of the four men who spoke at Auburn Avenue, and do not doubt that I would likewise enjoy the company of the fourth. All of these men have both strengths and weaknesses, many of which are readily apparent. I ought also to disclose what I do not know. All I know about Norm Shepherd I learned from The Changing of the Guard, a booklet from John Robbin’s Trinity Foundation. Given my experiences being tarred by Dr. Robbins, however, I do not know how much stock to put in the essay. I have never heard Shepherd speak, nor have I read him. In like manner, before Auburn Avenue, I had never even heard of N.T. Wright, far less Sanders, or Dunn. I’ve never read anything by him. As for Auburn Avenue itself, all I have read is selected quotes, and the content of Rev. Schlissel’s two talks. I ought also disclose what I think ought to be done. As I have argued before, this stuff ought not be tried over the internet. Nor should it be tried in dueling books, like the rash of dispie/theonomist books of the eighties. Rather, because the charges are serious, and the doctrines are subtle, the appropriate sessions/presbyteries ought to be looking into these matters. What I think of this doesn’t matter. Nevertheless, here are some affirmations and denials, all things I believed long before Auburn Avenue. If they don’t apply to you, don’t write me squealing about what I said.
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Monday, October 27, 2003 posted by R.C. 1:41 PM link |
Man of Steel Mark it down as evidence of the old man, but this, even though it comes within days of the death of Neil Postman, is the third time I’ve come to the defense of pop culture. Just weeks ago I confessed my love of Alison Kraus, while at the same time noting that I have noted that she doesn’t quite exhibit a Christian view of the mystery dance and other related stuff. More than half a year ago I confessed my love of Motown, especially the tightness tied together by Gordy in the Jackson Five. And here I go again. Minutes ago I finished watching with my seven year old son two nuggets put together by my friends at NFL Films. For those of you who are ignorant of such things, NFL Films, every year, makes a highlight video of every NFL team. That covers not only the losers, but the winners. Years ago I bought for my father for Christmas a compilation of four such videos, 1974, 75, 78 and 79, the four years the Steelers won the Super Bowl. In trying to explain to folks the hold the Steelers have on me I find myself giving a history lesson. The point of the lesson is to highlight the stunning array of power moves the pop culture made on me as a child. Of course coming to professional sports as some pure neophyte allows for beating back the enemy. But my circumstances, by any objective standard, will, if not providing judicial justification, at least elicit sufficient sympathy for my illicit pleasure. I was seven the first time the Steelers ever won a playoff game. It was Franco Harris’ rookie year. We were playing the Oakland Raiders, who were not yet the arch enemy. I was so indifferent that most of the Saturday afternoon I was playing school with my 11 year old sister. My only commitment to the game was exhibited in how I spent my recesses. I would go every so often into the kitchen and check the progress of the game. My dad was listening on the radio, because the game wasn’t televised locally. The first playoff game in Steeler’s history, and it didn’t sell out, and so we locals could only listen on the radio. What happened was mythic both in the city of Pittsburgh, and in my own home. The last time I checked the game there was only twenty seconds left. “It’s not looking good son,” my dad warned me, “we’re down and it’s fourth down, with precious little time left.” “Don’t worry Dad,” I sincerely encouraged my cynical Dad, “Franco will do something great, and the Raiders won’t have enough time left to do anything about it.” The next play was the Immaculate Reception. For those of you who don’t know what that is, Franco did something great, and the Raiders had no time left. If that’s not enough, google it, and read all about it. The 73 season the Steelers made the playoffs again. And over the course of the next six years, the Steelers won four Super Bowls. This was my hometown team. The season after the first Super Bowl victory my name was drawn from a hat at a local department store, and I was named “Mascot of the week” for a game. I went to a Saturday practice, and had snapshots taken with Franco Harris, Mean Joe Green, Terry Bradshaw, Mel Blount, Lynn Swann (who visited with me in the Steeler offices before practice began) and Art Rooney Sr., the Steeler’s owner and the most beloved man in Pittsburgh. All of them are now in the Hall of Fame. My father, over this time period, due to a friendship with the team chaplain, did Bible studies with the team from time to time, as well as with the visiting team. That is how I got to watch live and in person as we beat the Oilers in the AFC Championship game following the 1979 season. By then there was a ten year wait list for season tickets. Later my father would do marriage counseling for one of those Hall of Famers and his ice skating wife. In short, though the Steelers belonged to every boy within a hundred mile radius of Three Rivers Stadium, they belong especially to me. I don’t like being hooked into pop culture. I don’t like having my Mondays ruined by the Steeler’s failures (as they have done four times in the last six weeks.) But sometimes history and circumstance do indeed make you a victim. Years ago, upon learning that the first century Christians didn’t frequent the various coliseums, not because to do so was a sin, but because what went on there just didn’t matter, I determined to ditch my love affair with professional sports. I made a vow that I would no longer follow slavishly the fortunes of the Boston Celtics, the Penn State Nittany Lions, the Pittsburgh Pirates, or the Pittsburgh Penguins. But I did not give up on the Steelers, for one reason—it is better not to take a vow than to take one and to break it. Like my father before me, cut me and I bleed black and gold. And the same is true for my son after me. You all are just going to have to excuse us. You wouldn’t understand- it’s a ‘burgh thing. [comments] |
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Friday, October 24, 2003 posted by R.C. 10:59 AM link |
Fools and the Foolish Fools Who Follow Them The Washington Post recently ran a piece by Henry Brinton, “pastor” of a local Presbyterian “church.” The church he pastors this year is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary, and it is experiencing a Scottish revival. That is, people are leaving. Henry, in the article proudly describes the church as it was at its founding- broad, middle of the road. He explains that two things are causing their slow bleeding. First, it is their very middle-of-the-roadness. He gives examples of folks on their right and on their left leaving because of the lukewarm feel of the church. Second, he blames the loss of institutional loyalty. Which he would have recognized, if he had thought it through, as just another version of the first problem. Mainline churches are dying, praise God, not because their congregants aren’t sufficiently loyal, but because the churches aren’t sufficiently loyal. The race to the left isn’t merely bad theology, bad exegesis, or bad ecclesiology. It is bad ethics. As C.S. Lewis so brilliantly described it, postmodernism, in destroying truth, destroys everything else with it. When they jettisoned the law of God, well, they jettisoned the law of God. Lewis writes, “In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.” The law of God is not some weight that only committed Christians, those who are vaguely mean-spirited, carry around, while the nice liberals dance more sprightly without it. The resurrection of Christ is not some hard truth that the faithful, and mildly anti-intellectual hold to, while the smart liberals think on deeper truths. The resurrection is the very power of life, the source of faithful chests, that in turn obey the law of love, which is likewise the law of loyalty. Let us remember the wisdom of Peter, as we cling loyally to the true church, the evangelical church, the alone bride of Christ, because there alone we find the words of eternal life. Let us then be men with chests, faithful and fruitful, while they, damned fools that they are, die in their disloyalty, not to us, but to Christ, and while they implode in their impotence. [comments] |
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Tuesday, October 21, 2003 posted by R.C. 1:35 PM link |
Mixed Blessings I admit it—I see the tension, and live within it. I’m a Luddite writing on a laptop. What I have written comes to you through the magic of the web. Worse still, I write, as it seems I do far too often, from Hartsfield International Airport. (That’s Atlanta, to those who you who live on another continent.) The airport highlights the tension. Every time I sit while the plane flies, I feel the thrill of dominion. How cool is this that we have mastered the art of flight? At the same time, however, I cannot help but notice that there is something terribly artificial about the world in which I walk. I am surrounded by strangers, in a building that has its own subway inside. There’s an art to flying, and flying often. I know how to find the outlets for my laptop. I know where to find the best fast food, and the shortest lines. I know which door to use for getting off and on the subway. But that art is the art of using the artifice. The airport is this paradoxical marriage of the freedom of man, that we should loose the bonds of gravity, and the slavery of man, that we should be herded about like cattle. Except cattle doesn’t have to show its ID twenty times to get from here to there. Which is precisely our point. As we encourage living the simple life, we have not become Luddites. We do not look down our nose at technology, treating its youth as we would treat a sloppy puppy. But neither do we bow and scrape before it. Instead we want three things in our simplicity. First, we want to be aware of the dangers that come with our toys. It is good that the thrill of lift-off is mixed with the distaste of industrial seating and carpet. It helps us to stay more at home, and keeps our aesthetics from being held hostage by the power of flight. Second, we want to minimize those dangers, to see if we can plunder the dominion, without being ruled by it. And third, we want to never lose what we had without the technology. That is, just as there are dangers that come with “progress” so there are blessings that are lost in the old ways. We like central heating, but we miss gathering together by the fire. The wanton embracing of technology, and the stubborn refusal to celebrate dominion, the technophile and the technophobe share in the same disease. Neither is deliberate. I rejoice tonight that I will be home in minutes rather than hours. As I weep that I have been away for days. What we must never do is lose sight of the wonder, first, that man should fly, and second, that we should allow ourselves to be herded like cattle. Only when He returns will we huzzah our power, without groaning its cost. Then we will fly, not away from home, but to Him. Then we will not be cows but sheep. Then blessing will be pure and untarnished, our joy true and unvarnished. Until then, our blessings are mixed. [comments] |
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Friday, October 17, 2003 posted by R.C. 10:12 AM link |
Our Father, Who Art In Heaven The last time I had the opportunity to preach to the congregation at Saint Peter Presbyterian Church I chose for my text Psalm 1. It’s not a complicated Psalm, and it wasn’t a complicated sermon. I spent some time chastening we Reformed folk for being like the denizens of Mars Hill. We come to the sermon at the same time with our heresy guard up, and looking for something new. Fundamentalists, we complain, add to the law of God. Reformed folk just add to the Word. When confronting Rome we believe in the perspicuity of Scripture. But once that battle has ended, we are left thinking the Bible is rather a complicated book, needing someone smart like me to explain it. I went on to suggest that the Psalm teaches us what all the Bible teaches us, God’s one true covenant- obey Me and be blessed; disobey Me and be cursed. Everybody got that? Finally, as we turned our attention to the table I reminded the congregation of the simple answer as to why it might appear that Psalm 1 isn’t true. Why is it that though we disobey Him, we are not only not cursed, but are blessed? The simple answer is Jesus. He, as the word simply puts it, became cursed for us. And, despite the sophisticated new perspectives being bandied about, His righteousness, which God graciously rewards in accordance with His gracious promise, becomes ours. We have a second problem, however. Even when we understand the simplicity of the gospel, we simply forget to apply it, where life comes and complicates things. Circumstances, we think, trump God’s Word. I know we do this because I do this. In the face of “issues” I lose the perspicuity of all the promises of God. I go to the Word, and try to extract from it the exact right thing to do to make the issues go away. I see God’s Word as the looser of the Gordian knot, and so tie it in knots looking for the secret. And here it is. God is our Father. And He loves us as such. And now the only knot we can see is the tie that binds. Now the only issue is, is, what was it we were thinking about? See what kind of love the Father has given us, that we should be called the children of God; and so we are. [comments] |
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Tuesday, October 14, 2003 posted by R.C. 9:57 AM link |
Radically Reformed Because so much of our work here is designed to expose the subtleties of the serpent, we spend rather much time talking about tensions. Law and grace he delights to muddle, as we looked at in looking at antinomianism. He does the same with Scripture and tradition. A good friend recently commented on how he had heard the local Church of Christ pastor on television describing justification by faith alone as a “dangerous error.” He said this because the Church of Christ is a heretical sect that adds baptism not as simply obedience, but as efficacious, when coupled with faith, to salvation. They are bloodless Galatians. But the weirder departure of this group is their creed—no creed but the Bible. Of course, as Roman apologists are always telling we Reformed folk, the Bible doesn’t say that. We rightly reject the Anabaptist over-reaction to Rome’s view of the authority of tradition. It is theological no-nothingism, a hyper-piety. But I’m afraid we have likewise fallen off the other side of the horse. I’m afraid we miss this irony, that we quote Luther, Calvin, Knox and the rest so much that we have a Romish epistemology. (And how’s that for irony, me of all people accusing other Reformed folk of Romish epistemology?) We are rightly zealous to benefit from the gifts God has given His church, studying not just the first generation of Reformers, but also the Puritans, the great southern theologians, the Princetonians, and their heirs at Westminster. As I’ve said in other places, one nearly must presuppose the truth of Van Til to have any chance of getting along with good Reformed people. We treat our theological heroes like personal councils. You can disrespect the law, because Luther did. You can believe in old earth because Hodge did. And now, thanks be to the pantheon, you’re allowed to believe in paedocommunion, because G.I. Williamson does. We’re worse than Rome. Our error is older. We’re so historical that too often we reason together like a bunch of Pharisees, dropping our theological playing cards in our theological scales to see who wins. Which means, in turn, that we are not historical at all. We have not learned the first lesson from our fathers. Let us ask, in their honor, as we open our Bibles, “Where is it written?” And then let us see if they can tell us. [comments] |
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Monday, October 13, 2003 posted by Rick 1:17 PM link |
Letters. Another letter on antinomianism, this one from reader D.B.:Human history is like a sine wave. The axis around which it revolves is the revealed will of God. The peaks and troughs are two different, but equally deficient, responses. The trough is antinomianism, the peak is pietism. Both of these deficient states have institutional corrolaries. Antinomianism yields institutional impotence ("Well, boys, since we have successfully deconstructed our birthright, looks like we've put ourselves out of work...hey! Where's that bowl of porridge we were promised?!"). Pietism yields institutional corruption ("Do as I say, not as I do."). |
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Friday, October 10, 2003 posted by Rick 3:57 PM link |
Letters. Some more feedback we've received this week. On health insurance, reader K.M. writes: In response to the discussion on healthcare and insurance -- this has no doubt crossed your mind -- might I suggest the deregulation of the healthcare industry? While this doesn't answer the questions of "Who should pay for it?" or "Should it be paid for?" the elimination of the myriad laws and licensing requirements, regulatory agencies and regulations, and subsidies of various forms would go a long way to making healthcare in this country more affordable. The addition of layer upon layer of bureaucracy to any given system does not and will never make it either more economical or more efficient.On antinomianism, a reader tells us: On the sign of a church in Huntsville, they have a huge message reading "God is not mad at you". I feel blasphemous everytime I even see it. Of course the name of the church is "the rock". |
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Thursday, October 09, 2003 posted by R.C. 2:53 PM link |
Falling Up Fall is that time when the sap of sentimental nostalgia begins to flow within me. In fact, in the Spring and Summer I feel nostalgic for the fall, when I can more freely feel nostalgic. I’m not sure why fall does it for me. I had summers too when I was a boy, complete with an old fashioned swimming hole I used to hang out in in my cut-off jeans. We watched fireworks at the Fireman’s fair in Stahlstown, and pitched dimes onto plates we proudly brought home to our moms. We camped in the woods several times a month, and shamefacedly returned to our moms crooked metal shish-kabob skewers they had trusted us with for toasting marshmallows. We did toast the marshmallows, but then played blacksmith with the skewers, thus making them crooked. Spring is lost in a fog of mourning over the end of winter, which is new and fresh and glorious each year. But fall evokes fall. Like the Simpson’s Halloween special, its glory each year is that it brings back every year’s fall. The leaves fall like so many memories from falls gone by, and at the end of the season, we rake them all up, and jump on them, carrying memory scraps around with us, stuck to our sweaters and our hair. (Yes, I am nostalgic for my hair.) Even as my Steelers do to fall what the Pirates usually do to summer, despite the effects of the fall, I am grateful for fall. This is the season that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. [comments] |
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Tuesday, October 07, 2003 posted by Rick 10:39 AM link |
Health insurance. A letter about the article describing the woman who works to keep her health insurance:You're right that it's a shame that this older woman is working into what should be her retirement years. It's also a shame that she had heart problems to begin with. But what would you propose as a solution?The webmaster responds: First, I assume that I don't need to have a solution in hand before raising the subject—which is a good thing, because I don't have a solution in hand. Second, I would disagree that "somebody has to pay for all that." Just because I'd like a nice new car that I can't afford myself doesn't mean that we need to either socialize car sales or create a new employee benefit package where I can get that nice new car with a small co-payment; we can also leave things as they are, where those that can afford such gets such, and the rest don't. |
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posted by Rick 10:26 AM link |
Antinomianism Here are two letters responding to R.C.'s squib "Monsters of the Id". The first is from Valerie B.This line -- "It is the theological equivalent of the church’s blessing on child abuse and wife beating" -- reminded me of this verse -- "Discipline your son, for in that there is hope; do not be a willing party to his death" (Prov. 19:18, NIV). Works for churches, too, I guess. Which is one reason why the proper exercise of discipline is a mark of a church where Christ is truly the Shepherd -- true churches don't slaughter sheep via criminal neglect. That's instead a mark of a true hireling (John 10:12-13).And the second is from Neil S.: Antinomians end up as legalists anyway ... only their laws are man-made: you must come to Wednesday night prayer meeting, you must participate in weekday evening ministry events, if you sing well you must join the choir, you must not "grumble and complain" (i.e., question whether what the leadership is doing is Biblical), you |
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Monday, October 06, 2003 posted by R.C. 6:28 PM link |
Monsters of the Id The devil is not content merely to appear other than he is. Mild lies have their place in his plans, but his delight is to pull the full reversal. He doesn’t want to be appear as a decent fellow, but as an angel of light, or worse, as the False Christ. This same is true of his nefarious ideologies. It is not enough for heresy to pass as barely within the pale. Instead it must appear as the true Christian doctrine. It is not content to escape unnoticed, but must be praised from the rooftops. Consider, for a moment, antinomianism. Such a long word, we figure, must point toward an obscure doctrine that troubles only seminary professors that tend toward either cathodoxy or its plainer sister neo-evangelicalism. Instead, antinomianism is as common as adultery. It is simply the belief that we are not obligated to obey all that the Lord has commanded. Such a doctrine earns its stripes as the glorious gospel in a simple enough manner—it is the enemy of legalism. Add to that how soft and sweet it looks. Legalists, after all, are those grim looking people that are always telling you not to drink or smoke (or, grimmer still, telling you babies are a blessing, and spending the school day with them is a blessing too.) The antinomians, on the other hand, are warm hearted caring folk. I mean, if you’re going to err, isn’t it better to err on the side of grace? Horse hockey. Antinomianism is as ugly as it gets. It is not about grace. It is mean, nasty, brutish. Law is what restrains us, and our baser desires. To lose the law is to loose the desires. Antinomianism is what leaves a wife and her children alone and bewildered after her husband plays the harlot. Antinomianism is evil, because it leaves us, and more important, the weak, without the protection of God’s law. It is the theological equivalent of the church’s blessing on child abuse and wife beating. As such, it is in fact the very opposite of true religion, which is to care for widows and orphans. Flee from the smiling antinomians, wherever you find them, for they will devour you, and worse, your children. [comments] |
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Thursday, October 02, 2003 posted by Rick 1:30 PM link |
Letter. Another nice letter, this one from James Mitchell.Dear Dr. Sproul, |
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posted by R.C. 11:32 AM link |
Alison, My Aim Is True One of the advantages of relativism is that you never have to defend yourself. And nowhere is that more important than the aesthetic realm. A few weeks ago I looked to Jonathan Daugherty to help justify my own prejudices. I asked him why I so like "Smells Like Teen Spirit," that sophomoric anthem to self-pity. I mean, I know what it is, but I still like it. Going back half a generation, I also can’t help but sing along with great fervor "Wish You Were Here," every time it comes on the radio. As I recall, Jonathan had no answer, only comfort. He, without providing an aesthetic defense, granted me his permission (which is really what I was seeking) to go ahead and like it. But one of the advantages of learning that beauty is not in the eye, or the ear of the beholder, are those moments when you get it, when you are delighted precisely where you should be. It happened again last night, and again, Jonathan played a part. It was roughly a year ago that I discovered a love for Nickel Creek, and for Alison Krauss and Union Station. I knew enough to know that these folks were not purists. And once again I went to Jonathan for permission to be sloppy and stupid. His response was particularly encouraging. He conceded that both added one more layer of pop to the already popped up blue grass, but basically said, “But Alison Krauss’s voice is so beautiful, anything she does is okay.” The answer was so powerful that I didn’t even need to go to Jonathan with my next problem. Six months in I noticed something about the two Alison Krauss records I owned. One, Forget About It, was all about the ending of relationships. The other, New Favorite, was all about very swiftly starting “relationships.” I came to think of one as the break-up record, and the other as the hook-up record. But, it was still okay, because Jonathan said she could really sing. Last night I finally heard it. I mean, in some sense I always heard it (except for her concert a few months ago, when I could hear nothing.) That is, I always liked to listen to her sing. But last night she went from singing pretty, to singing beautifully. As I listened to her last night on the television, I even got my nine-year old Darby out of bed to listen with me. I don’t think she understood my excitement. But she will, and at a far younger age than her pop-culture addled old man. Because God is beautiful, training our children aesthetically is not something we do to make them highbrow. Instead we are giving them a better picture of the glory of God. I’m not even the one singing, but like Eric Liddell before her, I believe that I can feel God’s pleasure, when that girl sings. [comments] |
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posted by Rick 9:15 AM link |
Letter. Yes, we get letters. We like this one we received a couple of days ago from Sandy Grady, and we received permission to post it here.Thank you for posting this very informative article. I check in at your web-site about once or twice a week, to learn about what's happening of importance in the world. Y'all are much better than CNN. |
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Wednesday, October 01, 2003 posted by R.C. 3:25 PM link |
What’s the Big Idea? Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the beasts of the field. His use of pride, for instance, is astounding. He delights when we pridefully think we have him whipped. And then he turns the tables on us. Consider, for instance, that moment when evangelicals got the brilliant idea of repackaging the Bible. Our friends at Big Idea weren’t the first to “improve” upon the Bible by contextualizing it. I don’t know who was first. But I remember the first time I’d ever heard anything like it. Does anyone remember Isaac Air Freight? Remember first that just as there was light pop music in the seventies, and the Christian version, so too was the LP used for comedy. People used to actually buy comedy albums. Steve Martin was famous before ever appearing in a movie, or on prime time. Well, Isaac Air Freight produced the Christian version of comedy albums. You know, just like they had these charts- “If you like Dan Fogelburg, you’ll like Keith Green” so they might have said, “If you like Monty Python albums (yes, there were albums) you’ll like Isaac Air Freight.” What I remember most was Luke and Lena Logger. This skit consisted of Luke and Lena trying to help each other out, with the bull-in-the-china-shop background noise to let us know how it was going. It was actually pretty funny. Sadly, what it didn’t do was motivate me to go read what Jesus had to say about beams and motes. In fact, in a reversal only a demon could love, when I’d read Jesus’ words, my thoughts turned not to my own sins, but to Luke and Lena. Something’s not right when you read Jesus’ warning and you laugh. …he said to a small group of people over the internet. This is the log in my eye, that I don’t often enough look for the log in my own eye. I asked my dear wife to title her column in ETC “Tending Your Garden,” for a number of reasons. The best one, however, is that such is sage advice. I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that if we spent more time talking about our own beams, that we’d not only clear up our own vision, but also get the motes out of our neighbors’ eyes. I suspect we might actually grow more fruit that way. Wouldn’t we all understand the grace of God in justification better if we spent more time thinking about how we add our works, and less time thinking about how others add their works? Wouldn’t we better combat the rhetorical fire of our brothers with the waters of grace, rather than trying to cut out their beams with our serrated edges? Of course, he said like a good two-handed fence sitter, such doesn’t mean we never speak to our brothers. But we might do so with more patience and compassion, if lodged in our memory what that log lodged in our eye. [comments] |