Real dragons

St George (dc303), the

I’m going to go off on the subject of dragons again today, but I want to open my argument out a bit, and consider it in the context of the Christian holiday we’re entering this weekend.

Liberals reject (I’m speaking generally, of course—there are liberals who believe in these teachings) the doctrine of Christ’s substitutionary (that means acting as a substitute) atonement, as well as of His physical resurrection. This rejection is not based (I think) merely on a materialist rejection of miracles—though of course socialism (the true religion of the left) is a materialist philosophy, assuming and promoting the world-view that man lives by bread alone.

The atonement and the resurrection are an existential threat to the central morality—that is, relativism—of the left. Continue reading Real dragons

O might those sighs and tears return again

O might those sighs and tears return again
Into my breast and eyes, which I have spent,
That I might in this holy discontent
Mourn with some fruit, as I have mourned in vain;
In mine Idolatry what showers of rain
Mine eyes did waste! what griefs my heart did rent!
That sufferance was my sin; now I repent;
‘Cause I did suffer I must suffer pain.

Th’ hydropic drunkard, and night-scouting thief,
The itchy lecher, and self-tickling proud
Have the remembrance of past joys for relief
Of comming ills. To (poor) me is allowed
No ease; for long, yet vehement grief hath been
Th’ effect and cause, the punishment and sin.

John Donne, Holy Sonnet III

Photo by Liv Bruce on Unsplash

Robin and Lance, and stuff

Take a guess. Do you think I’m, possibly, just a little excited about this upcoming movie (thanks to Steve Schaper for sharing the trailer with me)?

Sure, I have quibbles. The ship is centuries before its time. There’s a helmet that belongs in a different period, too. But all in all it looks good, and although I’d never pictured Russell Crowe as Bold Robin, he makes a rattling good warrior. All the talk of “the law” is good. I might mention that Robin is traditionally placed in Nottinghamshire, which is part of the old English Danelaw. There was a legacy of Norse republicanism in those parts.

Last weekend, when the Vikings and I lent our considerable glamor to the preview of How to Train Your Dragon, we went out to eat afterward, and the discussion turned to the old 1950s Robin Hood TV series with Richard Green, which we older Vikings remembered with great fondness. Some of the younger Vikings knew it too. Continue reading Robin and Lance, and stuff

Cut! What's Matt's Line?

Matt Scottoline gives us “Moments from famous films I would have ruined had I been the star.”

From It’s a Wonderful Life: “What do you want? The moon? Really? There is no possible way any person can do that. Ugh. Never mind.”

Cut! (Thanks to Books, Inq.)

The opiate of intellectuals

Mark Tooley at Front Page Magazine reviews Between Faith and Compromise by Momchil Metodiev, a new book about Communist infiltration in the World Council of Churches in the 1970s and ’80s.

But a new book by a Bulgarian author reveals that the KGB and its Bulgarian intelligence affiliate exploited the Bulgarian Orthodox Church for direct influence on the WCC and the Conference of European Churches. In “Between Faith and Compromise,” Bulgarian historian Momchil Metodiev chronicles how the Soviets and their Bulgarian proxies employed the Bulgarian Orthodox and WCC to promote Soviet strategic goals globally.

You kids aren’t old enough to remember this, but back in those days (and back in the ’60s, in my own experience), we brainless Fundamentalists were screaming from the rooftops that the WCC was shot through with Communists. Smarter, more sophisticated churchmen laughed at our ignorance and bigotry.

Of course, we were completely right.

And of course, we will never get credit for it.

A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years



I think I can give a rough outline of church history, and I don’t mean the founding of my own church. The BBC has a six DVD set which promises to fill in many of the details I would miss. It’s called A History of Christianity: the First Three Thousand Years. Hosted by Dairmaid MacCulloch, professor of history of the church and fellow at St. Cross College, Oxford, this historical overview looks well-worth your time, though I can’t tell if MacCulloch will lead viewers down a dark road of doubting the supernatural and God’s testimony in the world or leave the faith examined but uncondemned. After watching only the first disc, I believe he will remain respectful, if nothing else.

Here’s a list of disc titles:

Program 1: The First Christianity

Program 2: Catholicism: The Unpredictable Rise of Rome

Program 3: Orthodoxy: From Empire to Empire

Program 4: Reformation: The Individual Before God

Program 5: Protestantism: The Evangelical Explosion

Program 6: God in Dock

I received the first disc for review. Ambrose Video is distributing the DVDs and has a trailer on their product page.

“The First Christianity” was beautiful filmed, as you’d expect. Professor MacCulloch says he won’t shy away from controversy, but he doesn’t delve deeply into it either. His explanation of the major argument over the divine vs. human nature of Jesus did not attempt to settle it with Scripture. He only presented the proponents with their claims and described how the arguments fell out.

In this part of the series, MacCulloch describes what he calls the eastern road out of Jerusalem. Continue reading A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years

The headless norsemen

I’m low on ideas tonight, so I’ll just pass on the most recent big discovery in Viking studies.
Last summer, a collection of skeletons were excavated at Weymouth, in Dorsetshire in England. They had clearly died violently, and were judged to be victims of a mass execution. The bones were determined to be about a thousand years old
At the time of the news I suggested, on the Viking discussion board I frequent, that the bones were probably those of Vikings. My reason was that we know of only one attempt at genocide in England during the period in question, and that was King Æthelred the Unrede’s massacre of Danes in England, on St. Brice’s Day in 1002. (You’ll know about this if you’ve read West Oversea. You have read it, haven’t you? If not, click on the yellow cover in the carousel to the right. I’ll wait.)
I am so rarely right that I feel I need to preen a little here. According to National Geographic:

Analysis of teeth from ten of the dead—who were mostly in their late teens and early 20s—indicates the raiding party had been gathered from different parts of Scandinavia, including one person thought to have come from north of the Arctic Circle.

I think some Viking enthusiasts are a little embarrassed by this news, as it casts the Norse as victims. This in spite of the fact that many recent books have in fact openly portrayed the Norse as victims (of those nasty Christians).
I, on the other hand, have tried to dispute that victimization meme in my own writing.
But of course anyone can be a victim under certain circumstances. Hell hath no fury like a bunch of villagers who get the upper hand on a raiding party.
And the St. Brice’s Day Massacre is an undisputed historical fact.
More as the story develops.
Or not.

Marriage is War

That’s not how we typically think of it, but it’s as true as the day you were born. Paul Tripp talks about his new book, What Did You Expect?.

Paul Tripp- What makes “What Did You Expect?” different than other marriage books from Crossway on Vimeo.