Dean Brown

Worship Leader, Songwriter

[Glenn Packiam @gpackiam]

I’m all for thinking theologically about political and social issues. But we’ve got to be careful we aren’t theologizing our opinions. Better to say, “I don’t like this…” or “I prefer this…” “…and this is why” than to deploy theological arguments for why we all have to see it the way you do.

[Dean Brown @deansongs]

@ChrchCurmudgeon Nice ‘stache, Art.

[Scotty Smith @ScottyWardSmith]

You can only choose one of 4 backpacks to carry the rest of your life. #1 Contains all your regrets and shame. #2 Is full of your resentments and unforgiveness. #3 Contains the stress/pressure of controlling/fixing people. #4 Has Jesus’ easy yoke and light burden. Choose wisely

[Leonard Ravenhill @ravenhillquotes]

“Zachariah was filled with the Holy Ghost, and prophesied...” (Luke 1:67). I’m sick of people saying “Thus saith the Lord.” Listen, if you say, “Thus saith the Lord” when it’s your own silly mind, you’re taking God’s Name in vain!

[Rob Taylor @roblucastaylor]

Donald Trump picks William Carlos Williams as head of the Department of Icebox Security

[Robert P. George @McCormickProf]

Can we be friends with people with whom we have deep moral and political disagreements?

Yes.

1. We can and must love each other despite deep disagreements. And we must honor each other's right to freedom of thought and speech.

2. Please do not demand conformity to your own opinions as the price of friendship. Never submit to someone's demand for conformity to his or her opinions as friendship's price.

3. Friends who have differences can respectfully challenge each other's ideas, but each must be willing to be the one challenged and not just the one doing the challenging. They must recognize their own fallibility, and each must consider that he or she might be the one in error.

4. Friends don't indulge in manipulative rhetoric or attempt to win debates by dictating the terms of the discussion or controlling the language of the discourse. Friends don't try to police each others thoughts or language. Friends let friends make arguments in their own terms.

5. If you are an ideologue, a dogmatist, you will have trouble being friends with people with whom you disagree. If you don't have friends who disagree with you on important moral and political questions, you should ask yourself whether you've become an ideologue, a dogmatist.

6. Everyone *notionally* understands his or her own fallibility. But notionally isn't enough. The test comes when someone disagrees with you about something you regard as profoundly important--when someone dissents from your deepest, most cherished, even identity-forming beliefs.

7. When it comes to our deepest personal and political commitments--things that most matter to us--we human beings find it very hard to believe we could be wrong. It takes genuine strength of character--and courage--truly, and not merely notionally, to recognize our fallibility.

8. Fellow truth-seekers can be friends because they recognize their own fallibility and are willing to be challenged, as well as to challenge. They're eager to learn from each other. Unlike ideologues, they don't allow infatuation with their own opinions to impede pursuit of truth.

9. Friends demand only this of each other in political discussions and debates: honesty, civility, and a willingness to do business in the proper currency of truth-seeking discourse, a currency consisting of reasons, evidence, and arguments.

[Church Curmudgeon @ChrchCurmudgeon]

Just your annual reminder:

You are made in the image of God.

So is the other idiot you’re arguing with.

[Leonard Ravenhill @ravenhillquotes]

God’s House is going to change America, not the White House.

[Scotty Smith @ScottyWardSmith]

I’ve never regretted slowing down and getting a little more information. Sometimes it’s been the difference between me giving a quick, snarky, hurtful reaction and a wiser, thoughtful, helpful response.

[Robert P. George @McCormickProf]

Bravo to Marjorie Dannenfelser and the Susan B. Anthony List for standing up valiantly against efforts of Trump operatives to remove the pro-life plank in the Republican Party's platform. The plank has been an integral part of the platform since 1984, surviving effort after effort by socially liberal Republicans and so-called "moderates" or "pragmatists" to remove or weaken it. The Trump people are also trying to remove or weaken the Party's pro-marriage reality platform plank. It's important for social conservatives to understand that Donald Trump doesn’t have beliefs or convictions. He has interests. He is not pro-life, or for that matter pro-choice (or whatever people on that side are calling themselves these days). He's pro-Trump. If embracing the pro-life position serves his interests today, he'll embrace it; if abandoning that position serves his interests tomorrow, he'll abandon it. Constancy has never been a feature of his life. He's transabctional through and through.

[Makoto Fujimura @iamfujimura]

Good advice (or criticism).

[Lesslie Newbigin @LesslieNewbigin]

A church that sees the cross of Jesus as the central event of history can never identify any political order with the reign of God.

[Joel Berry @JoelWBerry]

If you want to lead people to Christ, you should start by not despising them

[Church Curmudgeon @ChrchCurmudgeon]

I won the drawing at the Seniors' lunch! I get to write this Sunday's anonymous note of criticism to the worship leader!

[Glenn Packiam @gpackiam]

I’m trying to avoid the circus,
But you keep retweeting the clowns.

[Church Curmudgeon @ChrchCurmudgeon]

The Apostle John:
"I write these things to you so that my joy may be complete."

Also the Apostle John:
"I beat Peter in a foot race and now it’s in the Bible."

[Church Curmudgeon @ChrchCurmudgeon]

The parking ministry has issued an apology for tazing Miss Edna. Please make sure your sun shade does not obscure your handicapped sticker.

[Leonard Ravenhill @ravenhillquotes]

There is a Holy Anger. What’s the difference between Carnal Anger and Holy Anger? In Carnal Anger there’s bitterness. In Holy Anger there’s sorrow. Jesus got angry, he whipped people; but he did it sorrowfully. He did it with tears.