Written by T. M. Suffield |
Saturday, February 25, 2023
The great writer on joy and longing, C. S. Lewis, tells us in a famous passage from The Weight of Glory that we are far too easily pleased. We do not know what the Lord is offering us, what joy is available to us in God. Lewis argued, especially in his autobiography, Surprised by Joy, that we find our way to joy by longing. He liked to describe it with the German word sehnsucht, a sort of yearning for a joy we don’t yet know, a nostalgia for a place we haven’t been. 

Have you ever felt like there was more to life than this? Known some sense of longing for the future?
Perhaps you’ve enjoyed a great steak done exactly how you like it, or a really well poured beer, or the absolute delight of seeing your team triumphant in your favourite sport (Curling, in the Suffield household). The memory of that enjoyment is delightful, and yet it isn’t the same as the actual pleasure you experienced. The pleasure doesn’t last, it’s fleeting. Maybe that makes you lift your head and wonder—and long—for a day when delight lasts.
Or perhaps you’ve wondered if everything should be more intense than it is? I’m profoundly colourblind. Apparently, I only see in a spectrum of grey and brown, though my experience is wonderfully vibrant. I’m told that the world is much more intense than I know, though have no way of accessing that level of reality. Maybe something one day shook you and made you wonder if there are colours that only the angels can see. I’m pretty sure there are. Maybe that makes you lift your head and wonder—and long—for a day when the browns are bright, burned, blue.
The great writer on joy and longing, C. S. Lewis, tells us in a famous passage from The Weight of Glory that we are far too easily pleased. We do not know what the Lord is offering us, what joy is available to us in God.
Lewis argued, especially in his autobiography, Surprised by Joy, that we find our way to joy by longing.
Read More
Related Posts:

Written by Robert C. Thornett |
Thursday, January 5, 2023
In Plato’s Republic, social justice is about finding harmony among all the diverse elements of society to achieve The Good. By contrast, woke social justice brands certain segments of society “oppressors” and seeks to purge them, even as it mouths platitudes about seeking diversity. Woke social justice is also antithetical to justice in the classical sense of giving “to each his due,” as Cicero put it. It recognizes only group moralities and ignores individual morality, ensuring that no individual receives their due. 

The woke version of social justice is based on the fallacy that engineering an equality of power among identity groups somehow creates justice. But as Plato and Greeks before him knew, forcing any result, let alone one based on incidental markers like race and gender, often leads to bizarre outcomes and usually works against true justice for all involved.
In Book 8 of The Republic, Plato illustrates how all flawed governments (e.g., timarchy, oligarchy, democracy, tyranny) fail by misprioritizing some relative good over the absolute good. Specifically, democracies overvalue the relative goods of freedom and equality and do not know where to draw the proper limits in pursuing them. This leads to the acceptance and proliferation of all sorts of dysfunctional and unjust forms of freedom, which conflict with the true freedoms and equalities that provide the foundation for a just society. As the spirit of equality-at-all-costs takes over, democracies treat children as the equals of their parents, foreigners as equals of citizens, and students as equals of teachers; even the animals think they are equal to people and free to do whatever they want.
Wokeism is a manifestation of precisely what Plato describes: democracies’ inability to comprehend the proper limits of equality and freedom, or the fact that there need to be limits at all. Wokeism is built on the democratic error of treating equality as The Good and pursuing it ad absurdum. But like honor, wealth, and power, equality is only a relative good, which means it can be used for good, evil, and everything in between. Relative goods only become truly good when they are used for good purposes, when they are employed in the service of The Good. Unlike Plato’s world, there is no true absolute Good in wokeism, no higher principle than equality of result for its own sake.
Thus wokeism has no compass pointing to true north, no way of recognizing when equality is on course to achieve good and when it is not. It simply dons a blindfold and embarks on an endless wild goose chase in pursuit of identitarian equity. People are put in identity boxes marked “oppressor” and “oppressed” based on whatever power advantages and disadvantages their incidentals afford them, as if to be powerful were necessarily to be oppressive and to lack power were necessarily to be victimized. Every inequality of power is conflated with a form of discrimination and “oppression.” The woke quest is to manufacture an equality of power among identity boxes, calling this goal “progress.”
Take for example the case of transgender athletes competing in college women’s swimming. While the purpose of Title IX is to achieve equality by eliminating unfair discrimination based on sex, woke gender equity works against this. It advocates that someone with an unfair advantage, a male body, should have an equal chance to compete against those with female bodies. In the name of an equality of power among genders, woke identitarianism creates an inequality of power wherein female swimmers are forced into a competition that is self-evidently unfair.
Forcing Equity Brings Destruction
Long before Plato, Greeks illustrated the folly of equating equity with justice through the myth of Procrustes, a robber who invited passing travelers to spend the night. Procrustes said his iron bed would fit everyone equally perfectly. And it did, but only after Procrustes had stretched the legs of the shorter until they ripped or hammered off the legs of the taller, killing every traveler in the process. Eventually the hero Theseus came along and killed Procrustes by fitting him to his own bed.
Read More
Related Posts:

Written by Grant R. Castleberry |
Monday, June 12, 2023
Scripture is given so that the “man of God may be complete” (2 Tim. 3:17). The word that is translated “complete” (Greek artios) means “fit, complete, capable, adequate, sufficient.” Paul says that God’s Word is complete and sufficient so that we can be men and women of God, “equipped for every good work” (v. 17). The word that is translated “equipped” (Greek exartizo) was used to describe a wagon that was completely outfitted for a long journey or a rescue boat that was sufficiently prepared for its mission. It is a wonderful picture of both the Christian’s and the church’s relationship to Holy Scripture.

The church is at a watershed moment. Much like the church of a hundred years ago, in which parties divided over the doctrine of biblical inspiration and inerrancy, we are at a crossroads. This time, rather than biblical inerrancy, the division is over the Bible’s authority and sufficiency. The predominant worldviews in our culture firmly oppose the Christian worldview. We live in a post-Christian society. So the pressure exerted on both the individual Christian and the church to abandon biblical doctrine, especially along the lines of biblical sexuality, is immense. Therefore, the issue of biblical authority and sufficiency is the continental divide of our generation. I believe that we will see a great rebellion and apostasy in our lifetime because of a fundamental rejection of this doctrine (Matt. 24:11–14; 2 Thess. 2:3; 2 Tim. 3:1–8). Many who claim the name of Christ have already begun following after the world rather than holding fast to the “faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3).
The locus classicus text that speaks to the Bible’s inspiration and authority is 2 Timothy 3:16–17: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” Paul makes a most definitive statement: every word of Scripture is breathed out by God. In other words, as B.B. Warfield used to say, “When Scripture speaks, God speaks.” For that reason, Scripture is authoritative on every subject that it addresses. We should add that this means that Scripture is the final authority, and no other authorities in this world even come close to it. For what can stand against God’s Word (Isa. 40:8)? In addition to seeing Scripture’s inspiration and authority in this text, Paul presses us to understand Scripture’s sufficiency. Scripture is given so that the “man of God may be complete” (2 Tim. 3:17). The word that is translated “complete” (Greek artios) means “fit, complete, capable, adequate, sufficient.” Paul says that God’s Word is complete and sufficient so that we can be men and women of God, “equipped for every good work” (v. 17). The word that is translated “equipped” (Greek exartizo) was used to describe a wagon that was completely outfitted for a long journey or a rescue boat that was sufficiently prepared for its mission. It is a wonderful picture of both the Christian’s and the church’s relationship to Holy Scripture.
Scripture is all that we need to be “outfitted” for the Christian life. Scripture is all we need for “righteousness.” Scripture is all that the church needs to faithfully serve and honor Christ and advance the kingdom.
Read More
Related Posts: