Don’t do it. Whatever they say, don’t do it.. “And Jesus answering said unto him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” Luke 4:12 Every family has their own tribal legends. Many of them fall into the Braveheart category of heroic valor. My grandfather, a big iron horse of a..
Author: James Riley - page 50
Is Anything Actually Being Replaced? It just sounds like more family at the dinner table to me… As usual, I’m catching up to the great theological debates of our times, a few decades late. Some of the dispensationalists make up their own version of the historic, reformed interpretation of “the Israel of God” and..
Stolen Lives (2009) If the people who make Hallmark television movies ever decided to spice things up with a lingering, forensic eye on dead bodies and a little Morena Baccarin porch humping, it might look something like this curiously lifeless crime drama, which really should have its own caution tape wrapped around it. It features a..
Some years ago, I was on the phone with a woman from Minnesota. It was a January day in Southern California — a very crisp, cold 58 degrees or so. I remember how cold it was because it was one of the few days I had the impulse to wear a t-shirt under my..
Keep the List Small, Please Certain conversations are not allowed, nor are certain associations. We don’t seek out the company of pathological liars. We don’t invite women who have a habit of hitting on married men to dinner parties. We don’t invite Holocaust deniers to speak on public platforms, (unless you’re Columbia University.) We..
I suppose I make an odd culture warrior. I don’t fit the James Dobson brand. I hate the war on drugs, along with its serial abuses against the Bill of Rights. I don’t think the church talks enough about sex, and it certainly doesn’t do a very good job celebrating the sort of..
Wish You Were Here (2012) I have a weakness for movies about western couples who visit some exotic third world hell hole and wonder what in the world they were thinking when they planned the trip. Moral of the story: stay away from Cambodia. This was extremely well executed, with incredible performances by Joel Edgerton..
I will confess to being both pleasantly charmed and puzzled by the Sermon on the Mount. As I wrote yesterday, the Savior’s words in Matthew 5:48, (“Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father, which is in heaven, is perfect”), should make an honest student of Christ scratch his head. Perfect? Perfect as..
Was Jesus Looking For Pansies? I had a spirited discussion with a pro-life activist yesterday over an incident that took place outside of a clinic recently. A very angry post-abortive father responded to the sidewalk counselors by breaking one of their cameras, hitting one of them in the face, and chasing the remaining counselor..
How I came to understand Christmas Even as a child, I was attracted to university catalogs and course guides. It was a nerdy obsession, to be certain, but it promised such a rosy menu of options. Colleges had a way of wrapping up an entire lifetime for you, in gift paper: Take Economics 101, then..