Christians, if they are to be an alternative to postmodern relativism, need to confess their faith, in word and deed. This means knowing what the faith is. Christians in every church body might begin by returning to their own doctrinal heritage. . . In doing so, they might regain their vitality and testify to a […]
You are browsing archives for
Author: Rick Shrader
Multi-everythingism
The last few decades have been marked by a special cultivation of the romance of the future. We seem to have made up our minds to misunderstand what has happened–which is (apparently) much easier. The modern man no longer preserves the memoirs of his great-grandfather; but he is engaged in writing a detailed and authoritative […]
Change And Progress
In regard to culture, theories that hate beauty and order have undermined meaning, value, and conscience. Whether it is popular culture or high culture, they have led to ever stranger sins and more startling obscenities. Each year requires more baroque perversions to provoke society’s jaded capacity for outrage. Cal Thomas Cal Thomas was writing about […]
The Church Will Prevail
The modern man found the church too simple exactly where modern life is too complex; he found the church too gorgeous exactly where modern life is too dingy. The man who disliked the plain fasts and feasts was mad on entrees. The man who disliked vestments wore a pair of preposterous trousers. And surely if […]
Vision and Revision
Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart Nought be all else to me, save that Thou art; Thou my best thought, by day or by night; Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light. Irish hymn, c. 8th century Vance Havner said, ‘‘A leader is a person with a magnet in his heart […]
Come, Let Us Adore Him
Some say that ever ‘gainst that season comes Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated, The bird of dawning singeth all night long; And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad; The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike, No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallow’d and so gracious is the […]
For Glory And For Beauty
I wish that the young men might have something to rid them of their love ditties and wanton songs and might instead of these learn wholesome things and thus yield willingly to the good; also, because I am not of the opinion that all the arts shall be crushed to earth and perish through the […]
A Virtual Reality World
Men seek stronger sins or more startling obscenities as stimulants to their jaded sense . . . They try to stab their nerves to life, as if it were with knives of the priest of Baal. They are walking in their sleep and try to wake themselves up with nightmares. G.K. Chesterton The February 8, […]
Worshiping Worship
We who defend Christianity find ourselves constantly opposed not by the irreligion of our hearers but by their real religion. Speak about beauty, truth and goodness, or about a God who is simply the indwelling principle of these three, speak about a great spiritual force pervading all things, a common mind of which we are […]
The Earth Is Satisfied
It is truly a most Christian exercise to extract a sentiment of piety from the works and appearances of nature. Our Saviour expatiates on a flower, and draws from it the delightful argument of confidence in God. He gives us to see that taste may be combined with piety, and that the same heart may […]