Welcome to The Square Inch, a Friday newsletter on Christianity, culture, and all of the many-varied “square inches” of God’s domain. This is normally a paid subscription feature, but today’s is free of charge. Please consider subscribing to enjoy this weekly missive along with an occasional “Off The Shelf” feature about books and Wednesday’s “The Quarter Inch,” a quick(er) commentary on current events.
Dear Friends,
Things speed up as you get older. I can hardly believe another year is in the books! I guess there is a reason philosophers are always writing books with titles like Being and Time. It can be hard to get your head around it. Where does the time go?
Before we launch into a new calendar year, freshly equipped with our futile lists of “New Year’s Resolutions,” let’s take a scroll through the old calendar!
JANUARY blessedly brought the end of a controversy I had helped instigate the previous year. Stephen Wolfe finally finished the two months of rigorous theological study he needed in order to reply to my review of his book. He published his findings in his modestly titled, “Correcting Theologians.” He didn’t correct anything, as I detailed here.
In FEBRUARY I was off to my old stomping grounds in Philadelphia, where I was greatly honored to deliver a plenary address at Westminster Theological Seminary’s conference on Cornelius Van Til. My address was well-received and is slated to be published in an edited volume forthcoming from Westminster Seminary Press. In the lead up to that event I wrote “Is Van Til Still Relevant?” I bet you can guess my answer, but click on over if you can’t.
St. Patrick’s Day rolled around in MARCH and that “icky” Roman Catholic holiday got me to reflect about my relationship to the early church. It prompted me to write “My Church.” Those ancient and medieval fathers are not the sole possession of the Roman Catholic Church at all, and it is high time we Protestants start owning it.
“Expressive individualism” is the dominant ideology of our day—the notion that we somehow create and curate our own identities and realities. People are constantly performing. So in APRIL I attempted to get to the bottom of this psychology with “LARPing v. Reality.” It goes much deeper than people walking around with selfie sticks filming themselves, but later in the year I took a swipe at that too by writing a song called “Silver Screen.” Opening lyric:
I see a sign at a party that reads / selfie station
Grab a prop, flash a smile and preen / give a self-ovation
And I—I wonder how that’s such a novelty
when everyone stars on their own TV
We’re all just extras in some scenes
on their portable silver screens
I found myself in a beautiful sanctuary in Georgia in MAY, sitting in the front row at a very “high church” service. I came to wonder how I, a child of Scottish Presbyterianism with its austere “Regulative Principle of Worship,” came to actually enjoy and appreciate all that pomp and circumstance. I wrote my appreciation in “Bishop In A Funny Hat.”
The United States Supreme Court made big news in JUNE, handing down a number of salutary rulings. Colleges and Universities are no longer allowed to engage in racial discrimination, and artists cannot be compelled to create artistic messages with which they disagree. In “A Supreme Week” I unpacked those decisions and even now I wonder why things like this never make it into the calculations of all the doomsayers running around yelling that our country is lost. You know, conservatives win some battles, too. I wrote about that dynamic later in the year in “Selling You Half A Story.”
The doomsayers never stop, however, and it is something of a full-time job trying to get everybody to calm down. So in JULY I found myself returning to the subject again, finding great encouragement and wisdom in an ancient document, “The Epistle to Diognetus.” In that letter we discover that we live in precedented times, and that our challenges are, in fact, ancient. And no, we do not need to rewrite Christian ethics because they don’t “work” anymore.
Speaking of rewriting Christian ethics, in August I alerted you to “A Growing Menace.” The “New Right”—National Conservatism, Christian Nationalism (the real kind, not the fake kind peddled by major media outlets) is increasingly infested with white supremacists, and this is the inevitable outcome of the “NETTR” principle: “No Enemies To The Right.” Never criticize anybody on “our” side. The enemy of our enemy is our friend and useful ally. Well, no. Neo-Nazis are not welcome under any umbrella I’m under. The influential folks who run American Reformer and New Founding welcome them. Yes, it did nauseate me seeing a number of respected figures on the Right promoting AmRef’s year-end fundraising campaign earlier this week. One, they don’t need your money (their leader lives in a $5 Million mansion); two: they turn a blind eye to actual Nazis. Click that link above to read all about it.
The antics of the New Right prompted another essay in SEPTEMBER: “Friends of the ABC.” It’s a little foray into what Victor Hugo can teach us about hot-headed young men enthralled with their revolutionary insight and lust for power. It all leads to empty chairs and empty tables.
OCTOBER brought horrifying news from Israel, and I had it up to my eyeballs reading the word “tragedy.” It was “Not A Tragedy.” It was an atrocity. So I let the moral equivalence crowd have it with both barrels, and shared my perspective on how Christians ought to think about the modern nation state of Israel.
When NOVEMBER rolled around I did a little Bible study on 1 Kings, which contains a little historical parable applicable to our times: “Reheboam’s Frat-House.” For artistic and literary reasons I did not say directly who I was talking about—“he who has ears to hear, let him hear.” But, of course, the Christian Nationalist crowd thought I was talking about them. Do you think that might be because they recognized themselves? And I’ve got to say: the artwork on that one, created by artificial intelligence, blew me away. They recognized themselves because AI painted them. What a weird coincidence that when I asked that machine to paint me a picture of Reheboam surrounded by laughing frat boys it instantly rendered … Doug Wilson!
Also coincidentally, for some reason Doug Wilson dominated the month of DECEMBER. Kevin DeYoung launched his now-famous salvo about the “Moscow Mood,” and I threw in my $0.02 with “Bullseye.” So much of the branding, the marketing, the antics, the eye-poking is pure performance art (see APRIL, above). And the thing about performances is that you can always just change the channel. I will endeavor to do so.
Other personal highlights of the year?
Our epic 6,000 mile road trip to the east coast and deep south was memorable.
I have now gone the longest I’ve ever gone without a single dashboard “warning” indicator lighting up on the Beemer. She’s running like a champ. She’s what you’d call a late bloomer.
By far the top highlight of the year was forming a band with my girls. We’ve nearly got all the infrastructure in place. We are loaded with great songs. And when Bailey receives her brand-new custom guitar (next week!), we are completely set with elite instruments. Next up, Lord-willing: studio time! Performing shows will be more fun when the audience can take the music home with them.
The subtitle of The Square Inch each week begins with a number. At the top of this edition is “No.191.” That marks one hundred ninety-one straight weeks of delivering this letter to your inbox. Over three and a half years. Given that this whole venture started as a way to break out of a paralyzing bout of writer’s block, I am quite proud of that number. And quite grateful for you. I am deeply cognizant of the billion other things asking you for a subscription. I thank you, and my family thanks you for your continued support.
If any of you happen to be looking for year-end charitable giving opportunities, you can directly support us by giving to the Center For Cultural Leadership. We need it (truthfully, real-world inflation is pretty crushing), and would certainly appreciate it. If you would like to donate, please drop me a line and let me know!
Have a wonderful weekend and a Happy New Year!
Haven't agreed with everything, but appreciate how your pieces helped sour me on American Reformer, which otherwise I might have continued to read uncritically. Thank you, and may you have a fruitful new year.