Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.

When we train there are all kinds of things we have to add to our regimen: stretching, weight-lifting, and so forth. But there are also things that we have to subtract: sweets, drinking, and other things. When you’re training, what you take away is just as important as what you add, but when you talk to Christians it’s all about what their faith adds to their lives and never about what it takes away. And the thing with college students, and the reason why they’re Moralistic Therapeutic Deists is not just because they haven’t been trained properly in certain practices, it’s because there are too many things they don’t want to give up, especially sex and drinking, but also their desire for material success. And so they think about God in a way that allows them to do things they want to do but not be held morally responsible for them, nor be required to take things out of their lives. In my Bible study I am constantly arguing with them about their claim that God wants us to be happy. “Where are you getting that from? That’s not in the Bible. God wants us to be holy, not happy.” But you can’t get anywhere with that argument.

(Student interacting with her prof after Rod Dreher’s Benedict Option lecture at Notre Dame)

* * * * *

“Liberal education is concerned with the souls of men, and therefore has little or no use for machines … [it] consists in learning to listen to still and small voices and therefore in becoming deaf to loudspeakers.” (Leo Strauss)

There is no epistemological Switzerland. (Via Mars Hill Audio Journal Volume 134)

Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.

Blue Funk

I have been in a pretty foul mood and don’t have anything edifying to say without making my head explode to find it. If you’re looking for uplift, click this link to Upworthy and then close this browser tab.

Two items about Robert Jeffress are among the sources of my funk:

Robert Jeffress has some wacky ideas, but the one about Catholicism resulting from Babylonian cults takes the cake: https://t.co/NTiNLaXmTo

— Robert P. George (@McCormickProf) October 22, 2017

Man. Pretty sure this is worse than anything I heard from James Dobson and FOTF growing up. This is happening *in church*. https://t.co/8kZPaAFxyH

— Wesley Hill (@wesleyhill) October 22, 2017

Robert Jeffress is Pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, a megachurch right downtown where it’s always been, last I knew. Once upon a time, it was a Evangelical beacon of sorts, but that’s when W.A. Criswell was the pastor — a man with notably more integrity than the current pastor, and before the Moral Majority, when Evangelicals were guiltier of insularity than of idolatry.

Here’s the YouTube of the Jeffress/Hannity abomination (the allusive “abomination” replaces a crude slang term).

I’m going to schedule this for publication Monday morning and then go to Middle Earth. Frodo has figured out that he must destroy the ring. Our situation may be more dire.

* * * * *

There is no epistemological Switzerland. (Via Mars Hill Audio Journal Volume 134)

Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.