Pop Culture Is Not a Culture After All
This is the greatest tragedy of all in the church's careless appropriation of popular culture: that popular culture is not really a culture after all. Historically, cultures have been mechanisms of restraint. Cultural institutions, traditions, and artifacts developed as means of encouraging members of a society to respect its taboos, to obey its laws, and to become the sort of person whose character served the common good by conforming to a view of the good that the society held in common. In...
The Meaning of Italics
All the marks on a printed page—and a lot of the spaces—carry meaning. Even variations in the shape of some of the marks carry meaning. And the meaning of those marks and those variations has evolved over time, just like spoken language. Just read this little history of italics. An excerpt: Interestingly, italics weren’t originally used for emphasis. They were used separately to the roman until the mid-16th century (although the capitals were initially all roman). It’s unclear as to who...
Chantry vs. Frame
A blog reader sent me this post some months ago, a critique of John Frame by Reformed Baptist pastor Tom Chantry (son of Walter). I'm certain Tom is a brother in Christ with whom I would share a great deal of agreement, and I had no wish to write a public critique of his Frame take-down. I didn't want to raise its profile, either. Frankly, I felt it was a good example of a more-heat-than-light blog post that should never have seen the light of day. One of my esteemed professors tried,...
Ellery Lewis Ward
Ellery Lewis Ward was born at 5:37 a.m., September 2. He is 7 lbs. 8.5 oz; 21 inches long. He looks like a full-term baby, but he’s in the NICU right now for standard treatment for premies—he's four weeks early. He is getting a little help with breathing. Mommy is resting peacefully. Our doctor said, “He’s a little miracle,” because there was a (very rare) knot in the umbilical cord and a minor placental abruption that is probably what initiated the early labor. “Ellery" is just a name we...
Church Music
I sometimes wonder: if "attractional" churches which use a genre of music called "bone-shaking" had their way, would the kind of music below just disappear? That would be very, very sad. The composer of that piece, Paul Mealor, wrote one of the beautiful pieces played at the last major royal English wedding. There is something particularly God-like about pushing the bounds of a genre—even and especially the "classical" genre—to greater and greater heights of beauty and creativity. Then again,...