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.

Anything can be a cult

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.

I have read the Shack of Mack.
I have read this paperback.
I would not give it to my friends.
I might just spoil how it ends.

[. . .]

That Mack in Shack!
That Mack in Shack!
I do not like that Mack in Shack!

Instead of writing like his favorite authors, though, he simply asserts in his own sentences the effects that their writing has on him. The result is oppressive, as in the description of a tree that the character Mack crashes into: As he lies prone and looks up into the tree, it is said “to stand over him with a smug look mixed with disgust and not a little disappointment.” Take a moment right now, reader, to see if you can arrange your face into an expression that communicates smugness mixed with disgust and disappointment. You will find it “not a little” impossible, and you have greater expressive range than trees. This is typical of the way Young projects attitudes rather than actually describing anything.

[. . .]

Whatever religious readers may make of the theological Trinity in this book, the most heretical trinity is surely this trinity of the Foreword and the first chapter, wherein three personas speak to us in a single confused voice, crying out with a shrill faux-folksiness, “Please like me! Please like me! I’m ever so authentic!”

[. . .]

And the clichés became flesh, and they dwelt in the shack. Throughout this section, the worst narrative passages sound something like “By the time Mack woke up, Jesus already had the waffles a-cookin’, and the Holy Ghost had cracked a couple eggs.” That is not an actual quotation, but here is one: Papa, the woman who portrays God the Father, reflects on her tendency to love everybody by saying, “”Guess that’s jes’ the way I is.” And before the reader can finish rubbing his eyes in disbelief, three lines later Papa says “Sho’ nuff!” Though he comes perilously close, Young at least manages to keep his God character from saying “I don’t know nothin’ ’bout rulin’ no universe!”

Eugene Peterson
Said it was good as Bunyan.
He must have meant Paul.

[. . .]

My copy was free
But I almost lost my mind
Inside of the Shack.

There were splendid and massive frescoes, paintings, displays, statutes and bas-relief carvings. There was a massive pipe organ towards the back. There were numerous vestibules off of the main chamber to give homage to the various and sundry saints and “Our Ladies” of the Catholic history. I nearly broke out into peals of laughter (I managed to channel it into muted chortling) because of the number of different saints and titles that were displayed, reminding me of the silly role-playing games with dozens of characters and +1 abilities.

[. . .]

When we first entered, my compatriots (whom I'd instructed to alert me in case I started violating any unwritten rules of etiquette) dipped into the bowls of water near the doors and made the sign of the cross. (“Nyeehh...what's up, doc?”) Later when on the bus, one of them flashed a small travel shampoo type bottle: “Holy water, anyone?” Now what do you say to that? “Uh, no thanks, I'm good!” What the heck is holy water, anyway? Water blessed by a priest? Why not just bless the whole globe and be done with it? Or are there spatial limits on a priest's +2 blessing-casting abilities? Can he bless a whole pallet of bottled water? That would make shipping a bit easier...

Tolerance is a sham. Tolerance is much talked about, but rarely practiced. Tolerance, as defined by the politically correct, means tolerating those who fit snugly within the borders of the politically correct.

[. . .]

The myth of tolerance is fueled by two major lies. You may not recognize these lies when you first encounter them. Initially, they may even sound good and make sense. But when you subject them to the scrutiny of basic reasoning, the lies become apparent.

The first lie is that tolerant people are good people and that intolerant people are bad people. Inherent in this idea is that tolerance is always good. Therefore, the more tolerant a person is, the better a human being that person becomes.

Really? Why don’t we try it out:

Let’s say you are a male at college and your roommate wants his girlfriend to spend the night in your dorm room. You tolerate that with a wink and a nod, and hey, you’re cool. You’re tolerant. Who are you to judge?

Let’s say the next night, he wants to have two girls spend the night. You might be a little more uncomfortable with this scenario, and it’s not really your thing, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be your roommate’s thing. And besides, you’ve already proven yourself tolerant of one girl and earned the accolade of good guy. By extending the logic of tolerance, if you tolerate two girls, you become twice as tolerant and twice as good. You are doubly understanding. Doubly less judgmental and doubly compassionate.

Now, let’s say the roommate is tired of sexual escapades in the dorm room with two girls at a time and wants to try something different. Really different. Maybe bring a sheep in the room. Or a cow. Or a little boy. You now have an incredible opportunity to prove just how open-minded and truly tolerant you really are. You can see how once started down the path of tolerance, you begin veering down a slippery slope. Tolerance is not the equivalent of goodness. Blind tolerance without discretion is anything but good. It’s ignorant. G. K. Chesterton referred to tolerance as the virtue that remains after a man has lost all his principle.

[. . .]

When we fail to deal with the tolerance issue, two things happen. As conservatives, we compromise liberty. As Christians, we compromise truth. Those are the two things at risk when we silently bow to leftist tolerance.

So, how do college students deal with the problem of psuedo-tolerance? Based on my own experiences, including some mistakes, I offer the following ideas [. . .]

One of my favorites in her “tolerance” arguing tips is no. 7: Smile. “Why? Because you’re right,” she quips.

When Dent dies, Batman and Gordon try to cover up this madman by lying about who killed the five police officers whom Dent had killed. Batman and Gordon agreed to say that Batman did it.

What? Are you kidding? Save the reputation of the psychopath and destroy the reputation of the true hero? For what reason? So the Joker wouldn't “win.” Lie to honor the dead false hero, who can't help you anymore, and destroy the true hero who can help? That's absurd. It's stupid. It's wrong.