Blogwatch Central

Eve responds to an email I wrote her on the use (and abuse?) of converts and conversion stories.

Clint at Lutheran Confessions weighs in on the virus that is "open communion" - the practice of explictly inviting those who have not been baptized into the Christian life into the fellowship meal of Christ with his Church.

Touchstone's Russell Moore writes on bringing up violent Christian boys. It is certainly an entertaining piece. He gets in a few good digs against Precious Moments and The Polar Express, a movie I knew I didn't want my kids to see the moment I saw the preview.


I really doubt that I would take four-year-old boys to see the latest Star Wars movie. I also do not allow gun-play in my house, even though I shot everything in sight when I was a kid.

But I fear that the latest wave of anti-war and non-violent rhetoric is not truly non-violent. It may be avoidance of responsibility for others and closing one's eyes because one does not want to see what is really there.

There is a certain way in which everyone is violent, in which one does not need to "learn" from society the methods of force. According to Moore and others, an aggressive spirit is simply part of maledom, and ordering such a spirit and directing it towards the good is the Christian task. There may or may not be a certain virtue in learning to fight and strive, controlling one's fear in order to defend the weak and helpless, and saying to those possessed of a truly violent spirit, "This far and no farther." That I believe is a Lutheran first use of the Law, and a Christian being an instrument in God's first use of the Law has been a Lutheran tenet from Dr. Martin himself.

I am reminded of a story that a friend told me. His son was being bullied at school, and had gone to teachers and so forth, but the bullying did not stop. He told his son one day, parked in front of the school, to tell the bully "no," and if he insisted, to hit him. His son responded, "You're nuts and I'm out of here," and got out of the car forthwith.

But he did it, and it worked.

Is this simply giving in to sin? Ignoring Jesus' own words on non-resistance? Or is there a sense in which one must first know one's own strength in order to give it up? And is there a responsibility, attested to in Scripture as well, that those possessed by a truly violent and chaotic spirit must be held in check by those who are able to master and command their own instincts to violence by the Word of God?

Both arguments appeal to me, and reason does not show me which is proper and correct.