2021 In Review

No.88: December 31, 2021

Dear Friends,

We’ve somehow made it another trip around the sun. The days are long but years are short. That’s a lyric from a song I wrote, and for me it proves truer every passing year. How did twelve months vanish so quickly?

My year began somewhat stressfully. I was called upon to pinch-hit teaching 7 credit hours on the Doctrine of Salvation and Doctrine of Christ at my alma mater, Westminster Theological Seminary, and that is not the sort of thing where there’s a “plug and play” curriculum. I was on my own. I was teaching remotely since the school went virtual for the entire academic year, and because of the time difference it meant rolling out of bed while it was dark, making a cup of coffee, fixing my hair, throwing on a presentable shirt and lecturing for a couple of hours to my computer screen. Have I mentioned that I am not a morning person?

All told, it amounted to 86 total hours of lecture over twelve weeks, and I don’t know if you’ve ever had to come up with something to say for 86 hours on what is fairly short notice, but, as I say, I found it challenging and stressful. And very rewarding, too. I found myself relearning a great deal, and it seemed that most of the students enjoyed the classes.

My one rookie mistake: I assigned a research paper to the students in both classes. A five-thousand-word research paper, or about 20 pages. When I put that in the syllabus I didn’t realize that I was going to have 105 students. Do the math, and you’ll understand what I did the entire month of May into June. I graded 525,000 words or 2,100 pages worth of theological research papers. It was a workout, but it was very rewarding. I was so proud of the students. I think I would even repeat the “mistake.”

The summer of 2021 in Montana was miserable, start to finish. Forest fires clogged our air with smoke and the heat was unbearable. It felt like living in a microwave oven. For the first time ever, I simply gave up on my lawn. We seemed to be making a pass nearer to the sun in 2021. The water on the river was low and warm, and so the fishing was definitely “fishing” and not “catching.”

Big Sky Country finally cheered up when September hit. We had a long and glorious fall. I can try to describe what it’s like, but words frankly fail. The crispness of the air, the golden hue of afternoon sunshine pouring through golden leaves, the astonishing hugeness of the firmament—that’s what people mean, by the way, by “Big Sky Country.” For some reason, in Montana the “dome” of the sky seems so much higher and wider. It has something to do with the sight lines to the horizons. You have to experience it to understand. It is a very real phenomenon.

Winter is finally here. It waited just until Tara and I got back from our recent west coast trip, and settled down in earnest. As I write this, it is currently 4 degrees outside, and it’s the heat of the day. We’re thankful for our furnace and decent insulation!

Our girls grew another year older. Number 1 is teaching piano lessons and has a nearly full time job at our local climbing gym. They love her there, it seems like there might be some upward mobility at the job (she’s doing all the retail purchasing, which is a useful skill and experience on a resume), and she enjoys finally having some measure of financial independence. Number 2 is driving now and got her braces off, so has transformed into quite the young adult. She still plays the guitar and sings, but not as much as I’d like since she entered high school. Number 3 is having a good time being seven. She excels at the piano (except during actual lessons; funny how that works). All of the girls are highly musical. If we had enough time, I always feel we could have had a real shot at the proverbial “family band.” But I think I missed our window of opportunity. Who knows?

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What else happened in 2021? What I’d like to do is take a walk through the year by highlighting my favorite newsletters from each month. If you missed one or many of them, this’ll give you an opportunity to revisit them.

January began in infamy, when the former president and his remaining band of sycophants ratcheted up their rhetoric of election conspiracy and whipped up a considerable number of an already sizable crowd into an angry frenzy. They then marched on the Capitol and tried to stop the legitimate constitutional operation of the U.S. House of Representatives in certifying the Electoral College. It was really disgraceful. I wrote about it in an essay called “The Coolant System.” You’ll notice that I repeated some details that later proved inaccurate, but I think the substance of the essay—that our constitutional architecture is designed as a coolant system to our politics—remains critically important. And those who cynically poison our trust in our institutions are playing with fire.

In February there continued to be wailing and gnashing of teeth regarding the “stolen” election, and the mood on the political right was grim. I wrote an essay on the book of Habakkuk, “Feet Like a Deer.” Here’s a sample:

So, now I’m talking to you, concerned American Evangelical Christian. You cry out to God about the religious and cultural apostasy you see around you. You lament increasing injustice and sexual immorality and human trafficking; you cry out for the unborn; you’re angered at shrinking spheres of religious liberty, of being called bigots and “phobes” and worse. “How long, O LORD!?” you cry.

Do you have in your inventory of imagination… the Babylonians? Do you assume that the answer to your prayers will be a widespread revival, or a political victory, the failure of your persecutors? I watched the prayer warriors at the post-election “Jericho” marches, praying to Almighty God, quoting 2 Chronicles, blowing shofars, and pleading for (actually, no: prophesying) success—success measured, of course, by the political prospects of their favored candidate. I suspect that, like Habakkuk, they never considered that God’s answer to their prayers might be something even worse.

In March I wrote that “The End of All Things Is Near.” No, that wasn’t some kind of prophecy; it is a quote from the Apostle Peter. I examined what Peter meant by that statement, and what it might mean for our cultural anxieties if we truly understood and believed that Jesus Christ has brought “the end of time” right smack into the middle of time. That one is worth a revisit.

April brought news of another somewhat well-known Christian apostatizing—i.e., abandoning the faith, “deconstructing.” I had some sobering things to say about that in “Persevering Faith.” Genuine faith is persevering faith, and there is no “autopilot” or “easy button” to the Christian life. Anyone who calls it “Eternal Security” or “Once Saved, Always Saved” is misleading you. The 17th century Calvinists of Dort were correct: it is the “perseverance of the saints.”

In May a blockbuster essay by respected science writer Nicholas Wade made the case that the Covid-19 virus is the result of a lab leak in Wuhan, China. I took the opportunity to reflect on the phenomenon of institutional protection, with implications not just for the National Institute of Health or the CDC, but for churches and Christian ministries. The essay is called “Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder.”

In June I briefly tackled Critical Race Theory in “Skin Makes the Man.” That’s a quote by the racist character in James Fenimore Cooper’s The Deerslayer, and I noted the irony that CRT proponents actually agree with the racist and not the humane character of Natty Bumppo.

In July, Pastors Greg Thompson and Duke Kwon wrote a lengthy reply to Pastor Kevin DeYoung’s review of their book, Reparations. It, well, begged for some comment from me. Critical Theory is a revival of Gnosticism, and that means it comes with “The New ‘Practitioners.’”

In August we witnessed a world-historical event. Oh, our attention spans are so short that it doesn’t seem like it now. President Biden said, “That was like four, five days ago, man!” And the American people are now thinking, “That was like four, five months ago, man!” But the fall of Afghanistan, including the “why” and the “how,” is an event that will have ripple effects for a generation. Our allies have no faith in us, and neither do our enemies. Russia will most likely gobble up Ukraine in 2022, and we will stand by helpless. China will invade Taiwan and it is doubtful we will commit to Taiwan’s cause. We have lived through a remarkable postwar “pause” in world history: we think that World War II marked the end of major bloody land wars and invasions. But, well, open a history book sometime. We are going to have a rude awakening, and there’s little indication we, as a people, are remotely ready for it. The USA’s withdrawal from Afghanistan made a reckoning more likely than not, and I wrote that it was an event requiring “Sackcloth and Ashes.”

September marked the 20th anniversary of 9/11. The Global War on Terrorism that followed had a lot of missteps and mistakes, but the fact is that, with just a few exceptions, it kept terrorists from attacking the US homeland for twenty years. I had thought we were in for a “new normal” of regular car bombs and mass casualty events, and I’m grateful that, contrary to President Biden’s claim that “our children have never known peace,” our children have only known peace, thanks to the bravery and sacrifice of our military and law enforcement professionals. I commented on the 20th anniversary, and then weighed in on the vaccination wars, which are actually “Proxy (Culture)Wars.”

In October Twitter decided to put me out of their misery, banning me from the platform. More important than my Twitter account is the message it sends to everyone who disagrees with the new sexual orthodoxy. You can have a place in polite society, “If Only You Would But Kneel.”

In November I had fun “Giving Thanks.”

And this month? I had a great time at our annual CCL event and told you all about it in “Tend To Your Grove.”

I just linked you to twelve issues of The Square Inch over the last year. There were 37 more that you’re free to peruse, but those twelve are probably my favorites. I am grateful for each and every one of you, friends and faithful readers. I appreciate your feedback and encouragement, and I look forward to delivering you another 50 or so issues in 2022. I anticipate it will be an eventful year.

May God bless you and give you your heart’s desires in the coming year!

One More Thing…

• My wife Tara is a mosaic artist, and she just launched her first website. She has a lot of work available for purchase, and they’re pretty awesome. Check it out!