Always Reforming

As we approach the one-year anniversary of the Trump/Hillary fiasco...I mean...election, it is appropriate that people have begun to reflect on the job that Trump has done.  Social media is marked by a wide variety of responses to this issue: some people think Trump has done all he promised and more (except for build that wall, of course, but not even most Trump supporters really thought he'd get a wall built), others think he has done nothing, and others still believe that Hillary would have accomplished so much more than Trump has.  You're bound to have these type of responses, but what troubles me is to see the numbers of Christians who are praising the job that Trump has done as if it is confirmation that they were right to vote for him.  "At least we didn't get Hillary," they sigh.  "Trump has been great for the economy," they insist.  "America is," they allege, "better off one year later because we didn't elect Hillary." T...

In this life we are often presented with the choice to do what is right or to follow our feelings.  This is simply the reality of fallen men living in a fallen world.  Traditionally it was considered respectable to deny oneself for the sake of doing what one knows to be objectively right and good, but the superiority of following your heart has now been a popular notion for some years (the arts have glorified it for centuries, actually).  This is regrettable, but it is man's natural compulsion.  On a modern, local level, the American public has imbibed the glorification of man's heart through the influence of the likes of Hollywood, Freud, Dewey, and Disney.  As we have denied the authority of God, replacing Him with man as the ultimate authority in our universe, we have slidden further and further down the path of subjective morality.  Once again, none of this is surprising.  What is alarming, however, is how thoroughly the Church has embraced this c...

There is a saying being bandied about lately, namely,  stay woke .  I will explain the meaning of this for the benefit of those who are too square or just too old to understand such modern vernacular.  When kids these days say, "Stay woke," what they really mean is "Stay awake."  I know...it's crazy.  Now they don't mean that you should literally stay awake, of course.  What they really mean is that you should stay abreast of the social, political, and economic issues that are facing our world today.   Instead of saying "Stay woke," you could say "Be socially aware," but that would make too much sense and would never catch on.  As with many misuses of the English language, stay woke has caught on not despite that fact that it is grammatically incorrect, but because it features grammar that is not simply bad, but distinctively bad.  It's so bad that it has caught on.  If you're the adventurous type, you can go over to the Urban...

As you may have noticed, the name of my blog is "Always Reforming."  That may confuse some of you, considering that I often express opinions that good Reformed folks would never espouse, but I am Reformed and do appreciate that heritage.  I have blogged in the past about my apprehension at using that term, why I continue to use it, and what I believe truly makes someone Reformed , so I don't want to rehash those things today.  What I want to do is to take note of the significant anniversary that is coming up at the end of the month and to give a few thoughts on the enduring importance of the Reformation. This Halloween, which Reformed people know as Reformation Day, will mark the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther nailing his 95 Theses to the door of the Church at Wittenberg (I will ignore the irony of Reformed guys, who widely express a dislike for man-made religious holidays, geeking out about this milestone).  This anniversary is an important event and a good ...

Occasionally I will engage in debates with others on the Internet about things like politics and theology.  I don't do this nearly as often as I used to, but, nonetheless, I still find myself trapped in a dead-end conversation every once in a while.  These conversations are rarely informed and are even less often productive.  Numerous reasons for this could be listed, but I want to discuss only one: ideology worship--one of the most common forms of idolatry in the Information Age. What is ideology ?  The short answer is that an ideology is a system of beliefs.  The term usually implies a nearly-immutable set of beliefs that provides the structure whereby data is received and interpreted.  Anything can be an ideology.  Conservatism is an ideology, but so is liberalism.  Theism, in whatever form you find it, is an ideology, but so is atheism.  Everyone has some form of ideology.  Ideologies vary in rigidity, and some are implicit, but ev...