The following “goes without saying” – until I change my mind, at least.

• All these things which are going on now, as well as all subsequent things, God will come with His broom and sweep them away in a manner known to Him. So, don’t worry. Let us commend ourselves and each other and all our lives unto Christ our God. (Elder Epiphanios)
• Some fundamentals that we easily overlook:
  • The love of God that has been poured out to us in Christ Jesus is so strong that no conceivable hardship can separate us from that love. (Romans 8: 35-39)
  • Everything that happens to us is organized by Divine Love for our benefit, even if we can’t understand how. (Romans 8:28; Matthew 10:29-31)
  • In response to this love, we are commanded to replace anxious thoughts with a moment-by-moment awareness of all that is lovely, noble and good. (Philippians 4:6-8; 2 Thessalonians 5:16-18; Luke 12:29)
• Repent. Acts 2:38. This is ongoing advice. You don’t repent just once.
• To be deep in history is to cease being Protestant.
• You cannot comprehend God. If your religion “makes perfect sense,” it’s almost certainly heretical.
• Lex orandi, lex credendi.
• Culture normalizes (which is a sort of variant on lex orandi …)

• “The consumer society is in fact the most efficient mechanism ever devised for the creation and distribution of unhappiness.” Lord Jonathon Sacks, chief rabbi of Great Britain.
• If it’s “too big to fail,” break it up into harmless little pieces.

Church and State

• “The designation of the religious and the political is itself a political act.” (William T. Cavanaugh)
• “Put not your trust in princes, in sons of men in whom there is no salvation.” Psalm 146:3.
• American Exceptionalism is bad politics and, worse, bad theology.
• Culture war ≠ spiritual warfare.
• “It’s a complete absurdity to believe that Christians will suffer a single thing from the expansion of gay rights, and boy, do they deserve what they’re going to get.” (The Law of Merited Impossibility, discovered by Rod Dreher)
• At some point, conservatives within the churches will realize that when liberals call for “dialogue,” what they really mean is “we talk until you give us what we want.” (Rod Dreher)

• “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd.” (Flannery O’Connor)
• Sex is Optional.
• “One law for the ox and the lion is oppression.” (William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell)
• There is no “it” that “can’t happen here.”
• Turn off the damned television set. It’s trying to make you vulgar and broke. It’s trying to steal your children’s souls. TV “news” makes you neurotic.
• Beware the ménage à trois of American utilitarianism, individual rights, and a deficient interpretation of Christian love.
• If Huxley is right, sexual freedom is the Last Freedom, the one that remains when all others are taken away.

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