Pipe & Dram

A New Feature From The Square Inch Newsletter

Step into my study. Shall I fill you a pipe? Pour you a dram? Let us sit and talk awhile.

Dear Friends,

Welcome to Pipe & Dram, a new feature from The Square Inch Newsletter. You are receiving this because you are already a paid (or free) subscriber to the flagship publication, and if you don’t want any additional newsletters from me you can unsubscribe from Pipe & Dram anytime from your Substack account. Free subscribers, as usual, will only get a preview of this feature, so please consider upgrading!

So what is this place? Well, I love Malcolm Guite. And you should, too. He’s a poet and scholar, and has a very popular YouTube channel in which he invites you into his study, lights up his pipe (and smokes it too hot—but I digress), pours himself a tea or whisky and monologues about all sorts of delightful things—Tolkien, Lewis, poetry, theology, fountain pens, that sort of thing. He’s just lovable in every way. Unlike Malcolm, I have a face for radio and lack the charm to pull off a video podcast of that sort. And also my wife won’t let me light up my briar pipe (handcrafted by my daughter!) in the house. So, sticking to my strengths, I want to do something of a newsletter version of the same idea.

Step into my study. Let me fill you a pipe and pour you a dram. (A “dram” is the Scottish term for a pour of whisky.) And let me tell you things I’ve been thinking about or learning. Our time together may be short—a quote or two from a book I’m reading—or they may be long, if I really get going. The long and short of it is that I don’t really have a newsletter “feature” right now that fits what I want to do.

For example, I have observations and thoughts about things that will not appeal to the masses (heh) who receive The Square Inch. And Quarter Inch readers want some current events commentary, not an explanation of why Peter Leithart misunderstands Herman Bavinck’s use of the word “inadequate” in his discussion of theological anthropomorphism. See what I mean? Very few people want that, but Pipe & Dram is here to serve the underserved.

This is the place to talk about theological anthropomorphism. And how I wonder whether Karl Barth got his idea to call his magnum opus Church Dogmatics from Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics, Volume 1, page 46. I mean, on the same page from which Barth famously borrowed Bavinck’s “Deus dixit” (God has spoken!), Bavinck describes the task of dogmatics as being “for the church.” Coincidence? Or I might talk about Justin Martyr’s Apology and his amazing description of early Christian worship services. I was also recently thinking about Richard Gaffin’s essay on Postmillennialism in Theonomy: A Reformed Critique. I’m a critical admirer of that essay and someday I’d like to sit in my study, fill a pipe, pour a dram, and tell you why I appreciate it and why I am also critical of it. And just the other day a friend asked me whether Kuyper and Bavinck thought that the artifacts of human culture would enter with us into the new heavens and the new earth. That’s a perfect conversation over a pipe and dram! How do I fit that into the current Square Inch format? I can’t, so I have to create the format. And that’s why we’re here.

I am telling you all this so that you will know if you want to stay subscribed. There is no set timetable for our visits, but you can expect our first rendezvous this coming Thursday. They will occur organically as the need and desire arise. If nothing of what I have mentioned sounds remotely interesting to you, you’ve been adequately warned. But you are most welcome to come into the study and listen in, if you like. Bring your pipe! Baptists are welcome, too, but they’re advised to bring a gas mask and their own cans of Coca Cola.