What’s Wrong with the World

The men signed of the cross of Christ go gaily in the dark.

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What’s Wrong with the World is dedicated to the defense of what remains of Christendom, the civilization made by the men of the Cross of Christ. Athwart two hostile Powers we stand: the Jihad and Liberalism...read more

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September 2020 Archives

September 15, 2020

It's been a long year already: My blogging update

Well, it's been a long nine-month year so far.

An e-mail I received yesterday tipped me off to the fact that (newflash) not everybody in the world uses Facebook, and for that reason alone it is possible that there are those who have been readers of W4 in the past who don't know where I've gone and who might be concerned. While W4 is a group blog, and while the last several posts here were actually not written by me, the fact is that I have written a lot of the content in the past. I therefore apologize for having waited so long to say anything here about why the long silence and also apologize in advance for what might seem like the rank egoism of this post on a group blog. (I did check the idea of such a post in general terms with the editor.) It's intended for those readers who might be interested in such an update.

So an update: I'm fine and healthy and among the lucky ones. I have much to give thanks for. The last six months have been psychologically difficult, though I have far less reason to be saying that than so many, many others.

It may well be that Western civilization is finally on its last legs. In fact, I fear that it is. Talk about what's wrong with the world! Here is one of the only recent posts I have written as a blog post (as opposed to posting on Facebook). In it I discuss my position on the Covid lockdowns. I also mention the horribly tragic death of pro-life warrior Mike Adams, which was a great shock and grief, though I had never been privileged to meet him, and I hint at fears that the world is more or less coming to an end.

The events of this year have to some extent had a paralyzing effect on me. I've been especially shocked and shaken by the divisions among conservatives and Christians in light of the pandemic and responses to it, just when we need to be most united. It seems imperative to me for those who serve Goodness, Truth, and Beauty, especially in their incarnate Christian form, to see the need to preserve what is good and beautiful and the extreme danger of destruction and irrecoverable harm (to individuals and groups) caused by shutting down normal life and giving up our freedoms.

I've been truly shocked by the unchecked rioting in our cities, by the wickedly supine and even pro-riot response of too many local and/or state governments, and perhaps most of all by Christians who have made excuses for the evil destruction. I knew the world was bad, but this bad? There was a feeling of impossibility about saying much of anything, especially in such a divided world, and especially on a blog called "What's Wrong With the World."

Yet if things are getting much, much darker in this world, that means it is all the more important, as the title of that post says, to "live right on." (A phrase borrowed from a novel by Wendell Berry.) It's good to be coming out of that feeling of paralysis and sensing that some good things are being accomplished. All the good will not be lost, and nothing that we do for the greatest Good, which is God, can ever finally be lost.

In the words of Our Lord: "Work, for the night cometh, when no man can work." And, "Be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world."

Despite everything, these months have been surprisingly productive for me in terms of writing and other work accomplished. The short version as to why you haven't seen me here more is that I've been working hard on various projects (such as a summer video series and my latest book manuscript) and that the majority of my posting is now being done either in the more ephemeral realm of Facebook (my profile is here) or on my erstwhile personal blog, Extra Thoughts, which has now become a repository for any "traditional" blogging that I do and also for an archive of a lot of past posts.

Continue reading "It's been a long year already: My blogging update" »

September 17, 2020

Some posts from this summer, mostly on New Testament

Here are a few more posts (with links) that originally went up on Facebook. Most recent of these are on top. I'm putting the content in here, but sometimes there are comments, and I think those are visible if you click on the link, even if you don't have a FB account.

September 10

C. S. Lewis's Liar, Lunatic, or Lord trilemma argument is relevant to the prior probability of the resurrection. This is pretty cool, because it means that it is an independent reason to expect Jesus to rise from the dead. It depends upon an evaluation of Jesus' character as shown in the Gospels, not upon an evaluation of the specific claims by alleged witnesses that he rose from the dead. Of course, like the specific evidence for the resurrection, making the trilemma argument depends upon being willing to argue for the strong reliability of the Gospels. But that's something we can and should be doing.

Continue reading "Some posts from this summer, mostly on New Testament" »

September 22, 2020

What Evidentialism is not, redux

Here's a shortish but somewhat meaty Facebook post, referring to an old post of mine, on what evidentialism in apologetics is not and on how not to fall into the fallacy of objections. I'm testing this thing where people without FB accounts just click on the link. Here's the link.

September 29, 2020

It should hurt sometimes

JTE1.jpg

Found dead of a suspected drug overdose on August 20th, the Nashville singer/song-writer Justin Townes Earle will be greatly missed, not least by me.

On stage he possessed a strange magnetism: striking in appearance but not really attractive, intense in manner but still shy, smoothly awkward might be the best (if slightly oxymoronic) rendering of how he performed.

In early life he had a rough go of it -- broken family, descent into hard drugs, trauma and pain. But by his late twenties he seemed to have at least partially surmounted those handicaps; and from there began recording a string of fantastic country-blues albums.

His was a unique Nashville sound. He didn’t get a lot of pop-country radio play, for reasons difficult to discern; but his talent was as evident as his musical heart was full. Check out this tune, with its upright bass and 1930s New Orleans swing feel: “What’s Goin’ Wrong.” The slow build to bring in the keyboard and sax just gets me. It includes this great line: “If there’s one thing you should never do, it’s put it past a man to be a fool.”

Conjecture on my part, but one wonders if JTE’s death counts as one of those euphemistically referred to as of “external cause.” Not CV-19, not heart attack, not diabetes: suicide and overdose. External.

What saved him from addiction and depression was the simple joy of playing good music for audiences. Most of us, I wager, can relate to the deep human warmth that flows from lively performances. That has been taken away from us, by a combination of biological pathogen and government tyranny.

When JTE played a show at Atlantic Station in ATL right after the Bulldogs lost to Alabama in the 2012 SEC Championship, there were plenty of folks with aching hearts. He warmed them.

And now we’re bereft. I’ll cling to his mournful lyrics from his 2009 song “Mama’s Eyes”:

Sure it hurts but it should hurt sometimes

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Photo credit: Jim Beckmann/KEXP