“Then I fell at [Aslan’s] feet and thought, Surely this is the hour of death, for the Lion (who is worthy of all honour) will know that I have served Tash all my days and not him. Nevertheless, it is better to see the Lion and die than to be Tisroc of the world and live and not to have seen him. But the Glorious One bent down his golden head and touched my forehead with his tongue and said, ‘Son, thou art welcome.’ But I said, ‘Alas, Lord, I am no son of thine but the servant of Tash.’ He answered, ‘Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me. Then by reasons of my great desire for wisdom and understanding, I overcame my fear and questioned the Glorious One and said, Lord, is it then true, as the Ape said, that thou and Tash are one? The Lion growled so that the earth shook (but his wrath was not against me) and said, It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the services which thou hast done to him. For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore, if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath’s sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted. Dost thou understand, Child?’ I said, ‘Lord, thou knowest how much I understand.’ But I said also (for the truth constrained me), ‘Yet I have been seeking Tash all my days.’ ‘Beloved,’ said the Glorious One, ‘unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek.’

“Then he breathed upon me and took away the trembling from my limbs and caused me to stand upon my feet. And after that, he said not much, but that we should meet again, and I must go further up and further in. Then he turned him about in a storm and flurry of gold and was gone suddenly.”

Apparently the shortest route to relevance in church ministry right now is for the pastor to talk about sex in garishly explicit terms during the Sunday morning service. If he can shock parishioners with crude words and sophomoric humor, so much the better.

[. . .]

Sermons about sex have suddenly become a bigger fad in the evangelical world than the prayer of Jabez ever was.

[. . .]

I would be the last to suggest that preachers should totally avoid the topic of sex. Scripture has quite a lot to say about the subject [. . .]

But the language Scripture employs when dealing with the physical relationship between husband and wife is always careful—often plain, sometimes poetic, usually delicate, frequently muted by euphemisms, and never fully explicit.

[. . .]

That includes the Song of Solomon.

In fact, Solomon’s love-poem epitomizes the exact opposite approach. It is, of course, a lengthy poem about courtship and marital love. It is filled with euphemisms and word pictures. Its whole point is gently, subtly, and elegantly to express the emotional and physical intimacy of marital love—in language suitable for any audience.

But it has become popular in certain circles to employ extremely graphic descriptions of physical intimacy as a way of expounding on the euphemisms in Solomon’s poem. As this trend develops, each new speaker seems to find something more shocking in the metaphors than any of his predecessors ever imagined.

[. . .]

Such pronouncements are usually made amid raucous laughter, but evidently we are expected to take them seriously.

[. . .]

That approach is not exegesis; it is exploitation. It is contrary to the literary style of the book itself. It is spiritually tantamount to an act of rape. It tears the beautiful poetic dress off Song of Solomon, strips that portion of Scripture of its dignity, and holds it up to be laughed at and leered at in a carnal way.

I was watching a movie the other night, with my dad, and the main character was sitting in a lovely grove of tree, and it looked so beautiful, and I looked to my dad and asked him, “Dad, do you think they’ll be places like that in heaven?”

He replied, “Hmm, I think so.”

It worries me that he didn’t say with certainty, “YES!”

I remember picking peaches one time, and it was so beautiful in that grove of trees, eating fruit from the trees. I was enjoying myself so much, that I thought, “I hope heaven is like this.”

When I mentioned it to my grandma, she replied. “Like what?”

“Just like this, with the sun and the trees, and the birds singing.”

“Don’t be silly,” was her response.

I see what you and a few others have been saying wisewoman. But there is a great danger to that, even if you aren’t seeing it that way or intending it. Yes, the Great War has been won. But even you must know that it is not over yet. You have given me the impression (and I hope I am wrong on this) that we only need to worry about spiritual warfare when battle come.

• Studying the Scriptures,
  
  
• Opposing the false teachings of demons (1 Timothy 4:1),
  
  
• Seeking to become more like Christ,
  
  
• And sometimes, opposing demons directly and/or casting them out,
  
  
• All for the sake of working out our faith and seeking to let God work through us as part of His plan to save the lost.

How could a Demon just work its’ [sic] way into you, without your permission, if God, a much more powerful Being, can’t?

What do you mean “can’t”?

3. The New Calvinism

Anything can be a cult

Rush and Hannity are so great for Republicans! Just look at how well the 2008 elections went!

Maybe we can spend all our time over the next two years talking about unrepentant terrorists! That will be GREAT for the 2010 elections!

Why bother with actual policy questions when it's so much more fun to just ridicule people!

— BDB

BDB (#2), yeah, look how great the GOP did by NOT listening to Rush and Hannity, and instead impersonating the big-spending Dems. Being elected largely on “fiscal responsibily” then spending big is hardly inspiring—it's not quite such a big vote-winner to campaign, “yes, we love spending, but we're a lesser evil than the Dems”, even though it's right.

Sarcastro, superhero-in-training who combats evil with “the razor-sharp sting of sarcasm”(from The Tick)

How can following Christ's own challenge-riposte be “un-Christlike”? Have these critics actually even read what Christ said? There is nothing in the Bible demanding that we should be like [C]hrist only when He was gentle, but not when He used riposte.