Weekly Roundup: 2019.02.18
I took a break from the weekly roundup last week to feature some articles that I had written instead. But this week, we’re back!
Quote
In his Institutes of the Christian Religion [Amazon affiliate link], Calvin masterfully elucidates how man can be free in his will, and yet necessarily sin; how man can necessarily sin, and yet also always sin voluntarily; how a man can sin voluntarily, and yet be a slave to sin. At the end of this section, he concludes:
Thus the will (free will, if you choose to call it so), which is left to man, is, as he [Augustine] in another place (Epist. 46) describes it, a will which can neither be turned to God, nor continue in God, unless by grace; a will which, whatever its ability may be, derives all that ability from grace.
Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1559 Ed. Book Second, Chapter 3, pg. 189. Hendrickson Publishers, 2008.
Articles
The Extraordinary Design of the Universe | Is Genesis History
This blog post is prefaced by an interview of Danny Faulkner, in which he completely geeks out about the heavens — and what they tell us about God — for a full twenty minutes. I cannot recommend this video enough: Danny interlaces Scripture with history, astronomy with mystery, wonder with worship.
You’re So Depraved, You Probably Think This Church Is About You: How Total Depravity Upends Attractionalism | Alex Duke | 9Marks
The world is still reeling from the terrible theology of the seeker-friendly church movement, or as this author calls it, attractionalism. This article was a necessary punch in the gut and a balm to the soul.
What I fear happened on this particular Father’s Day, and what I fear happens in attractional churches across the globe every Sunday, is that people sit in these services and respond precisely the ways these churches are praying for them respond. What I fear is that people cry—or laugh, or manage their money better, or stop drinking, or stop yelling at their wives—for insufficient reasons and with insufficient motivations because they have an insufficient understanding of who Jesus is and what the Christian life is.
Generally speaking, totally depraved people want to be better parents. They want to be better people. They want to manage their money better and stop drinking and stop looking at pornography and feel less hate in their heart toward their estranged sibling and work out 3–5 times a week and rise up the food-chain at work through their industry and integrity.
And so sermons about these things, or about other generic benefits of following Christ, will “work.” They’ll make a dent. But like a thumb on a thousand-dollar mattress, you’ll see it and then it’s gone.
This article came from the 9Marks Journal for this quarter, Ecclesiology for Calvinists. There are a lot of good articles in this edition; I encourage you to check it out.
The Power of the Gospel and the Meltdown of Identity Politics | Albert Mohler
I listen to Albert Mohler’s The Briefing every day as a way to stay somewhat current on the issues and times of our day. They haven’t been encouraging. It seems that America has decided to commit suicide in every possible way: spiritual, social, moral, mental. This article speaks on that particularly devilish and pernicious movement: identity politics.
The authors make the astonishing claim that “[…]many in the Democratic Party take pride in the fact that the current field of nearly a dozen presidential candidates includes only one heterosexual white male.”
Just try to imagine any moment in American history when leaders of a major political party would brag that among their leading presidential contenders, only one is a heterosexual white male. Evidently, all three of those words require some apology among Democrats.
There are far deeper issues at stake here. This ideology reduces human beings to a certain set of distinguishable identities that are more prized and valued than other identities—it establishes basic human identity in differences rather than a commonality shared amongst all humankind. Indeed, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said, “It’s important that we don’t ignore the power of identity because it is very powerful, especially for women, especially for the rage of women right now.” Rage is the driving energy of this ideology, and rage is its ultimate conclusion as well.
For more articles saved over the years, see my Evernote collection.