Sycamore

So I don’t really know who Carl Trueman is.  But I looked him up, and the dude is a scholar.  And scholars abound, but scholars who can write well are hard to find.  That’s why I’ve particularly enjoyed Carl Trueman’s articles over at Reformation21 lately, and I thought I’d share some of his insight (instead of caving in to the temptation to pass them off as my own).

Trueman on maturity:

Numerous incidents over recent years have brought the sad effect of all this home to me.  As a professor at university and seminary, I have had too many run-ins with students who act like five year olds and, when held to account, express all the pouting resentment that one comes to expect from a generation that demands respect but refuses to put in the time and effort to earn it.  You see them on the blogs, screaming their abuse and demanding to be heard, carrying on their tirades long after the threshold of Godwin’s Law and any semblance of decency or credibility has been passed for the umpteenth time.  They have achieved nothing - but they demand that you respect them!

…You are, of course, what you worship, as Psalm 115 reminds us, and thus, as long as we idolize our children and the culture of youth, we can expect to - well, be just like them: pouting, irresponsible, hormonal, unpleasant and, frankly, as creepy as those sixteenth century portraits of little children with adult faces.  Trapped in Neverland with no hope of escape.

Trueman on Christian personality worship:

What is worse than this, of course, is that such people negate the power of the cross of Christ.  Paul makes the point with ruthless effect in 1 Corinthians 1.  To indulge in a cult of personality is not simply to miss the point of the cross; it is also to empty the cross of its power.  That is why it is not simply incumbent upon students to guard against being sucked in to such idolatry.  How much more is it incumbent upon the professors to avoid becoming the objects of such a cult?  It is often said that you cannot enter into a pulpit and make yourself look like a great preacher and Christ look like a great saviour at one and the same time.  So it is in the classroom, on campus, at conferences: the professor, the theologian, cannot point to the power of the cross and simultaneously encourage a cult of personality.  These things simply cannot stand together.  Indeed, it is surely vital that the professor not only avoid creating such cults but also actively opposes them as they start to arise around him.  To do less than this is, I fear, to empty the cross of its power and to lead others into idol worship.

Trueman on Culture (in an article about Marxism, no less):

Second, am I alone in being sick to death of all the trendy talk about `culture’?   A biblical approach to reality seems to involve, first and foremost, a commitment to the notion of essences.  Culture is very real but, as a social construct it is not the ultimate reality; nor is it, therefore, the ultimate reality.   This seems to me the problem with much postmodernism: it’s obsession with culture at the expense of essence has created moral chaos.  For example, how can one have inalienable human rights when there is no inalienable human nature?  Hence the silliness on the left these days where — surely to Marx’s horror! — moral equivalence arguments are made between feudal genocide, as in Saddam’s Iraq, and poverty in post-feudal democracies.  Any Marxist knows that capitalist democracy, for all its faults, is superior to feudalism in every way.  Christians should take a leaf from the books of the palaeo-Marxists and return to talking about nature and essence, not culture.

A lot of the stuff over at Reformation21 is a good read - clear thinking is hard to come by, and these guys tend to do it well.