There are so many Kindle deals today! If you use a Kindle at all, you’ll probably want to take a peek.
(Yesterday on the blog: Mere Calvinism) Note: The paperback version quickly went out of stock at Amazon, but should be available again now to ship early next week.
The Annus Horribilis of the Roman Catholic Church
Leonardo De Chirico: “What is happening in this Annus Horribilis undermines the moral, spiritual, and institutional credibility of Rome. Even though Pope Francis continues to cling to the idea that, while her children make mistakes, the church is indefectible (i.e. it does not err), the reality is that it is a failure of the whole system: its doctrines, practices, policies, and so on.”
A Polity to Avoid Like the Plague
“There is a particular ecclesiological problem that is absolutely toxic. Actually, there are several. But there is one that rears its head frequently that, should you see it, I would counsel you to keep well away. That is the leader who surrounds himself with only with yes-men. It is the polity that puts one man above all others and then surrounds himself with an echo-chamber of his own thoughts.”
The Whole Counsel of God
Oli Tucker did some interesting research to discover what expository preachers are actually expositing (and what they’re not).
We’re All Fundamentalists Now
Samuel James contributed a good one to National Review. He compares today’s social justice warriors and old-school fundamentalists to show they aren’t all that different.
Why Marie Kondo and Minimalism Are So Popular
He’s on to something here! “So why are Marie Kondo and minimalism so popular? Why do so many people feel oppressed by their households and need the freedom that comes by tidying up? Because ordered lives mean ordered souls.”
Apple’s Power over Facebook Ought To Worry the Rest of Us
The slugging match between the tech heavyweights ought to concern us all. “Facebook is an enlightened dictatorship, but so is Apple. Tim Cook and his lieutenants dictate the terms of an enormous economy, and can change that economy on a whim. Today Apple may have acted out of consistency with its privacy principles, to the benefit of some consumers. (And to the detriment of anyone who was counting on that $20 gift card!) But as Apple faces more pressure to serve as, as Roose put it, de facto privacy regulator, we may find ourselves uncomfortable with its monopolistic power.”
When Complacency Is Complicity
“The Third Reich is a fascinating look into the nature of evil, because it was a modern, developed, educated, and affluent culture that allowed for barbaric atrocities. The ‘banality of evil’ is how Hannah Arendt famously described it in her essay from the Nuremberg Trials. Otherwise normal people, like you and me, indifferent or even complicit in widespread carnage. Indeed, evil could no longer be called unthinkable; it had become banal.” There are comparisons to be made to abortion in our time.
Flashback: Boys Need Their Moms
In history and church history we encounter many great men who were shaped by their mothers as much as by their fathers, many great men who ascribe who they became to the influence of their mothers.
The secret of joy is Christ in me, not me in different circumstances.
—Elisabeth Elliot
