“Here, then, is finally a profoundly Christian understanding of literature which does not merely salvage it for Christian use but finds the very ground of its being in explicitly Christian doctrine: creation, the imago Dei, the “cultural mandate” to subdue the earth” (Donald T. Williams, Christian Poetics, Past and Present from The Christian Imagination, 11).

“One of the tasks of philosophy is clarifying concepts” (Louis P. Pojman, Philosophy, 3).

Excerpt below is from an article you gotta go read.

First, it’s quite common to hear from former evangelicals now within the Mainline Protestant tradition that if evangelicals, with their persistently conservative theology, would only liberalize on such issues as biblical authority and sexual ethics—they’d find a newfound opportunity for cultural influence and increased opportunity to “reach the next generation.” The problem, however, is that the statistical evidence suggests just the opposite: It’s the liberalizing trends of American life that work to calcify vibrant, growing, and orthodox belief. The report indicates that a nominal, religious middle is simply dropping out altogether. The almost-Christianity of liberal Christianity is proving, in the long run, to not be Christianity at all. Either failing to grow or literally dying out, Mainline liberalism offers little as far as attractional gravitas once it surrenders core doctrinal beliefs to progressivism. If anything is clear from the Pew report, it’s that evangelicals should, once and for all, ignore the captains at the helm of the Mainline Titanic.

 Again, this only reinforces Carl Trueman’s recent comments. “For Christians to continue to protest the world in the public square, they need first to be deeply and seriously grounded in the historic, doctrinal, and elaborate Christian faith.”

How will evangelical Christians survive? How will Liberalism be overthrown? It’s easy. Merely hold fast and earnestly contend for the faith handed down.

“That his work cannot now be read at all without trouble, nor understood and valued in detail without sustained effort, is due under God to wyrd [fate/personal destiny], the doom of men to live briefly in a world where all withers and is forgotten. The English language has changed — but not necessarily improved! — in a thousand years. Wyrd has swept away to oblivion nearly all its kin; but Beowulf survives: for a time, for as long as learning keeps any honour in its land. And how long will that be? God ana wat” [God alone knows.] (J.R.R. Tolkien, Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary, 275).

“The chief of those Geatish men had accomplished all his proud vaunt before the East Danes, and had healed, moreover, all the woe and the tormenting sorrow that they had erewhile suffered and must of necessity endure, no little bitterness. Of this a clear token it was when that warrior bold had set the hand, the arm and shoulder, beneath the widespread roof — there was Grendel’s clutching limb entire” (J.R.R. Tolkien, Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary, 36).

Vivid excerpt from John Milton’s Samson Agonistes.

My self, my Sepulcher, a moving Grave,
Buried, yet not exempt
By privilege of death and burial
From worst of other evils, pains and wrongs,
But made hereby obnoxious more
To all the miseries of life,
Life in captivity
Among inhuman foes.
But who are these? for with joint pace I hear
The tread of many feet stearing this way;
Perhaps my enemies who come to stare
At my affliction, and perhaps to insult,
Thir daily practice to afflict me more.

Carl Trueman, over at First Things, reflects on how then shall the Church protest. Trueman’s concluding thoughts.

“From Genesis to Jesus, from prophets to Paul, Bible writers sprinkle thorn imagery throughout Scripture to emphasize their message of punishment, worthlessness, and nonproductivity” (Dictionary of Biblical Imagery, 865).

Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter XV, Section V. “Men ought not to content themselves with general repentance, but it is every man’s duty to endeavor to repent his particular sins, particularly.”

Confession of sin begins with the sin that is in you. Confession of sin begins when you take a plain account of your own life. There is a saying, “You cannot manage what you cannot measure.” This is true in business, marketing, sales, but it is also true of spiritual things. How do you know what sins need to be confessed unless you are actively identifying and measuring where the sin is in your own life?

The tragedy is that oftentimes we are too lazy to take a plain account of our sin. How can you set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth (Col. 3:2) if you are too lazy to know what earthy things, i.e., sins, have your affections wrapped around their sticky fingers? Oftentimes we don’t confess sins because we’re just too plumb lazy.

The Devil, methinks, rejoices over this type of laziness. Why do I think that? Well, because oftentimes if we lazily handle our own life it is because we are too busy attempting to handle the lives of other folks, e.g. we spend our time pointing out how other folks have this or that “sin” issue that they need to attend to. Sin is the alphabet soup that fallen man swims in. What we need is some wisdom by way of a cliche saying: “To begin, mind your own sinful P’s and Q’s” (Matthew 7:1-5). Confession of sin begins with the sin that is in you.

“Marriage was designed by God to bring blessing and order to his creation. Together with the creation ordinances of work and Sabbath rest, marriage would provide a rhythm to life. Therefore, we must affirm that he ordained foundational principles not only for the natural order but also for the moral order of creation” (Timothy Z. Witmer, The Shepherd Leader At Home, 19).