Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) is rightly famous for diagnosing God as deceased, for taking the project of human self-overcoming onto his own shoulders, for praying for the advent of the Antichrist/Antinihilist, and conjuring a new post-Judaeo-Christian religion made out of eternal recurrence, the will to power, and Zarathustra yea-saying to Life, Life, Life.
Whooo! ...
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It's hard for me to avoid the theological elements of the book, but I will exercise restraint and limit myself here to nine things that bugged me about how Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code handled the art and the career of Leonardo DaVinci. These are minor irritants compared to his handling of things like the history of Christ and his early followers, but since I spotted them,...
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Occasionally, very occasionally, I meet Christians who wish the United States would revive public laws against blasphemy. They dislike the coarse culture that does not allow them to move in the public square without having their most cherished values assailed in the most casual manner.
The difficulty is that laws are not an effective way to end crude talk and their social c...
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Dear Mr. President,
If you read what I write, you will know I have supported you and the War on Terror.
Some of my best students have been in harm's way, even sustaining injury, to heroically serve our nation in this War. They did not fight so that their faith, a faith you share, would lead to death in the nations they liberated.
This is a non-negotiable for many of us...
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I once thought George Allen could be the man. . . and I still might be convinced of this. However, of late I have worried that he is not, well, quick on his intellectual feet.
I am open to Sam Brownback or Mike Huckabee, though the first has a name like a gay cowboy film and the second like a bad comedy (I heart the Huckabee!). It is hard to think of any of them overcoming ...
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Sometimes it is hard not to see pacifism as a view that is at best pleasantly parasitic on culture and at worst suicidal to society, like advocating universal celibacy. Shakers may be pleasant people, but if they don't recruit your kids, then they die out, because there will be no children of their own. In the same way pacifists seem to depend on non-pacifists for their very ex...
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John Mark Reynolds asked (here) for examples of bad arguments mined from the plentiful quarry of the DaVinci Code. I don't think what I'm responding to here counts as an argument, but it's an interesting bit of incomprehension in the book.
The relationship between John and Jesus is incomprehensible to Dan Brown. The gospel of John presents this relationship as especiall...
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Lincoln was in despair before his second election to the presidency. Most people felt the mood in the North had turned against the war. The Democrats, many of whom opposed the liberation of the oppressed in the South, had finally gotten sober and were running a general, supposedly more popular with the troops than Lincoln, for president. The Republican party? It had no choice b...
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Recent news that a fairly insane rant by a geography teacher about politics was caught on tape by one of his students supports my contention that parents and local schools can be trusted to deal with this sort of thing. The school is dealing with the issue carefully and one cannot doubt that the end result will be less ranting and more geography in the class. On the other hand,...
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"It is not enough to teach the truth; it should be taught in Scripture proportions."
I spend a lot of time reading evangelicals from about 100 years ago. These people are the generation that is just getting over the death of D. L. Moody, and picking a strategy for the global, interdenominational movement of conservative theology and practice which would come to be calle...
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Freddy continues his tireless pursuit of his current favorite subject. Here is another knight, this one reaching up to lower his visor.
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