Welcome to my weekly digest for February 3, 2023. For new subscribers, this contains a roundup of my recent writings and podcasts, as well as links to the best articles from around the web this week. You can control what emails you get from me by
I did read the whole article (along with Dreher's article and all it's comments).
I can't claim to know the history of the theology of Common Grace, but there is an inseparable divide between Christians and non-Christians. We still are called to be in this world and function well in it, but that gulf is always there.
I think rejecting Common Grace is rejecting the fall and it's effects. Behind all life is the motive power of God. If he withdrew that power it would cease to exist. Everyone is spiritually dead without regeneration and are servants of sin. If God didn't restrain them, then they would destroy themselves (don't have the time right now to give some verses that state that).
I had never heard of Trueblood -- that book sounds interesting. Could he be the last devout Quaker that was nationally relevant? I don't think Nixon counts.
Maybe this is obvious to others, but I didn't really stop and think about it until I became a father that what we might call the "absentee breadwinner" model of fatherhood, while it always existed to some degree, wasn't really a Western norm until recent history (even more recent in 1953). And while, under this set of norms, mom still typically stayed at home and perhaps grew up unreservedly seeking to make wifehood and motherhood her primary vocations, dad's lack of physical presence almost surely did something to weaken the family.
Weekly Digest: Women Prefer to Marry Up
I did read the whole article (along with Dreher's article and all it's comments).
I can't claim to know the history of the theology of Common Grace, but there is an inseparable divide between Christians and non-Christians. We still are called to be in this world and function well in it, but that gulf is always there.
(not sure why this doesn't show up as a reply)
I think rejecting Common Grace is rejecting the fall and it's effects. Behind all life is the motive power of God. If he withdrew that power it would cease to exist. Everyone is spiritually dead without regeneration and are servants of sin. If God didn't restrain them, then they would destroy themselves (don't have the time right now to give some verses that state that).
I had never heard of Trueblood -- that book sounds interesting. Could he be the last devout Quaker that was nationally relevant? I don't think Nixon counts.
Maybe this is obvious to others, but I didn't really stop and think about it until I became a father that what we might call the "absentee breadwinner" model of fatherhood, while it always existed to some degree, wasn't really a Western norm until recent history (even more recent in 1953). And while, under this set of norms, mom still typically stayed at home and perhaps grew up unreservedly seeking to make wifehood and motherhood her primary vocations, dad's lack of physical presence almost surely did something to weaken the family.