Welcome to the June 2026 edition of The Eclectic Web Journal!

We’re continuing our verse-by-verse commentary of Romans, and finishing our discussion of C. S. Lewis’ Trilemma. Less on the theological side, we explore more great classical pieces, we discuss the danger of cancelling comedians, and we present a book about the French Enlightenment’s effort to create an Encyclopedia.

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Thanks for reading, and stay eclectic! 



APOLOGETICS: Testing the Trilemma, Part 5: Criticisms and Conclusions


To get up to speed on this series, see the previous articles:

 

C. S. Lewis was one of the greatest Christian authors and apologists of the twentieth century. In addition to authoring important works like Mere Christianity (1952), he wrote satirical pieces such as The Screwtape Letters (1942) and The Great Divorce (1945), and he also wrote the beloved Chronicles of Narnia series (1950 - 1956). He even authored a science-fiction series called the “The Space Trilogy” consisting of Out of the Silent Planet (1938), Perelandra (1943), and That Hideous Strength (1945). Through his devotional and apologetics works, and even through his fiction books, Lewis granted us many tools for promoting the importance and reasonability of Christianity in an increasingly secular society.

Those secular lunges of early twentieth-century England didn’t disavow Jesus Christ nor deny His existence. They did something almost worse, and many in our society do it today: secularism accepts Jesus as a great teacher, a philosopher, an ethicist, an ancient guru speaking meaningfully to modern times.

Of course, that is not how the Bible presents Jesus. He both is a great teacher, but He is also Messiah, miracle-worker, Savior, the Righteous One, the Son of God, and fully divine. And honestly, if we can concede that He is fully God, then the rest of it – His role as teacher, Messiah, and Savior – are almost a given. We discussed this more in the first article in this series, Background and Biblical Claims from the October 2025 edition. But just as a quick review, Jesus claimed to be deity (John 5:17; 8:58; 10:30, 38; 17:24; Rev 1:17-18; 22:13), and other Biblical authors assert that He is fundamentally God, as well (John 1:1-3; Phil 2:6; Col 1:15-17; Titus 2:13; Hebrews 1:3, 6; 2 Peter 1:1; 1 John 5:20).

Lewis was weary of those claiming to accept the Bible, and willing to accept Jesus’ teachings, but not accepting that Jesus as God. So, he developed a Trilemma of three mutually exclusive options; given Jesus’ own assertions about His full divinity, He couldn’t be just a good teacher, but He could only be a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord. That is, He either lied about His identity, was delusional about His self-identification, or His identity as the true God and Son of the true God was accurate.

In previous articles (listed above), we examined the validity of Lewis’ Trilemma by exploring all three options, by considering if these options were truly mutually exclusive, and by investigating other possible options beside these three. In the end, we affirm the strength of this tool that Lewis has passed down to us, and we assert that it can still be useful in evangelism and discipleship today.

So, this article is a bit of clean up, kind of like sweeping up some debris off the ground after you’ve done a task. But that clean-up and conclusion is still helpful to the task, to really bring a sense of completeness to it.

There remains, for instance, the notion of who wrote about Jesus and whether their claims are valid. Was the NT really written by eyewitnesses as it claims (Luke 1:2; John 15:27; 19:35; Acts 1:8; 2 Peter 1:16; 1 John 1:1-2)? Or were these stories written generations later and based more on legend and speculation? 

We discussed this somewhat in our last article “Legends and Liars” from the March 2026 edition, but it is worth reiterating, since these questions tend to trip people up. The bottom line here is that the notion that the NT is based more on legend and speculation doesn’t help this at all, and doesn’t give Jesus or His followers any credibility. Rather, this option just shifts the lie from Jesus to His disciples; if He didn’t mislead people to believe that He was fully God, then His followers and biographers did. And we are not talking about exaggerations here like the tall tales that inhabit the pioneer literature of America. The legend aspect is really just a subset of the liar category; it involves exaggerations and mythic elements that are great enough to be considered full lies.

Much of the discussion also comes down not just to one’s perspective of Christ, but to one’s perspective of the Bible itself. Is it authoritative, infallible, trustworthy? The question is not just whether Jesus claimed to be fully divine, but whether or not the Bible accurately portrays Jesus as claiming to be fully divine.

Not to oversimplify these questions, but much of this discussion comes down to this: if you take the Bible seriously, and believe that Jesus stated and claimed everything that the NT authors wrote about Him, then Lewis’ Trilemma is legitimate. Jesus indeed claimed to be God, and received worship from others who recognized that claim.

If you don’t believe in the inerrancy and authority of the Bible, then the Trilemma breaks down in the historical and textual chaos of speculation regarding Jesus’ claims. But more than that, if someone doesn’t accept the authority of the Bible, then what does it matter anyway? If you don’t have a reliable Bible, then we don’t really know God, and Christ, and then we don’t really have a reliable salvation from our sins. In short, if you don’t believe in the authority of Scripture and what is says about Christ, Lewis’s Trilemma and Jesus’ deity are the least of your problems.

Again, we come back to whether the Bible authors were writing fact or legend. If you have to dismantle the legitimacy of the Gospels because you have an agenda against Jesus’ claim to be God, then what is the value of anything else that is left? If the Gospel authors lied about Christ, His miracles, and His or their assertions of His deity, then why should we value anything else therein? How can we claim that anything in the Gospels is of value, from the Sermon on the Mount to the Upper Room Discourse, if it came from Jesus who lied about His identity, or from later followers, who also lied about Him?

Famously, Thomas Jefferson made his own version of the New Testament, excising things that he didn’t like, but preserving the “moral” teachings of Jesus. But in doing so, he was inescapably admitting that the Bible is wrong in what it asserts, Jesus was wrong about His claims, His followers made inaccurate proclamations about Jesus, or any combination of the above. If you have to take out the miracles, and Jesus’ claims to be deity, and any form of predictive prophecy, and any statements that offend our modern sensibilities, then why bother giving any attention and credibility to the Bible at all? What facts do you intend to glean from a hoax, and what helpful aphorisms do you intend to receive from a fraudster?

It is also worth assessing the strengths and limits of the Trilemma, and to recognize what the Trilemma does and doesn’t do. One scholar, whose great chapter on this we have been leaning on for this series, acknowledges, “Lewis does not claim to have proved the deity of Christ beyond a shadow of a doubt, but only to have clarified our choices” (Donald T. Williams, Answers from Aslan: The Enduring Apologetics of C.S. Lewis [2023], 82). In fact, the Trilemma doesn’t even necessarily prove the deity of Christ at all, so much as it points to the fallacy of believing that someone who claimed to be God could be only and no more than a great teacher or a moral leader. 

Again, this goes back to one’s view of the Bible; someone can’t legitimately assert the Bible’s authority and veracity, but deny Jesus’s deity based both on His own claims as well as those of the NT authors. And again, some people claim that someone can be mistaken about their identity, but still have a good system of ethics and values that they teach. But then, would they actually be a great moral leader and teacher, or would they just be a teacher? Williams again asserts, “So we need to be clear about what it would take to be a great moral teacher. . . . you must be sufficiently in touch with reality that your teachings have general credibility” (98). Making misleading, delusional or false claims about yourself doesn’t necessarily mean that you don’t have any grasp on ethics and morals, but it does knock you out of the running for being a great moral teacher.

While we are talking about the Trilemma and Jesus’ self-claims, we need to look at other statements that Jesus made. We need to consider that these, too, may have been born from lunacy and self-delusion, or we need to assert that they were genuine and accurate statements about God, morality, and eternal life based on Jesus’ fundamental deity.

As I have stated elsewhere, I am on a one-man, twenty-first century crusade to remind the church and the world of how important the deity of Christ is. He wasn’t just a great moral leader, but He was Savior, Messiah, and fully divine;  without this doctrine Christianity and personal salvation completely fall apart. Therefore, I find in Lewis’ Trilemma a helpful tool that we can continue to use to challenge the thinking of people about Jesus in the present.

Today we still have people who buy into the nonsense that Jesus was just a moral leader and only a great teacher. But, again, Jesus has not given us the option to believe that He was just a good human teacher, because that is not what He claimed. Based on Christ’s own words, He is either deceitful, delusional, or deity. There are really no options other than these three, no middle ground, no picking and choosing, and no fence-sitting; every individual must pick which one they believe.

And, of course, I would like to nudge you in the direction that Jesus’ claims were true and that He is indeed “Lord” and “deity.” By believing in Him, we receive eternal life. Of course, anyone who is a parent gives life to another human being. However, the life that my wife and I pass on to our kids is just mortal life, which provides animation, some limited use of will, but then inevitably ends in death. That is the best I can do; I can’t give them a quality of life or properties of existence that I don’t possess myself or that I do not inherently have. 

But Jesus claims not only to give life, and blessings in life, but to give eternal life after this mortal life; He could only truly do this if He inherently possesses not just human life but eternal, divine life, as well. Jesus claims that He will raise believers up to eternal life in the future: “I Myself will raise him [every believer] up on the last day” (John 6:40; see also v. 39, 54; 11:24-26). This goes way beyond the claims of a moral leader or a religious teacher. No Muhammad, Buddha, or Joseph Smith ever made a claim so fantastical about what they could provide to their followers and disciples.

So, each one has to make a decision about Jesus Christ. As Lewis asserted, don’t buy this “really foolish” assertion that Jesus was just a great moral teacher. “You must make your choice,” Lewis adjures us. “Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to” (Mere Christianity, p. 54).” 



ROMANS: Jekyll and Hyde, Part 2, Romans 7:20-22


You can see Part 1 of this article covering Romans 7:14-19 here in the March 2026 edition of The Eclectic Web Journal. This “Part 2” article became so long that we broke it up into “Part 2” and “Part 3,” the latter of which you can access below.


Why do we often say or do wrong things when we legitimately want to do the right thing? Why can’t we go a month, a week, or even a day without sinning? Why is there such a gap between our good intentions and our evil thoughts and actions?

It seems extremely difficult to maintain a consistent spiritual life. But the Bible acknowledges how difficult this can be for a believer.

A few months ago, we looked at the “Jekyll and Hyde” dynamic that Paul points to in the second half of Romans 7. We have a redeemed spirit and soul, and a mind that is being transformed, but these remain tethered to our fallen flesh and all its evil tendencies and desires.

So much of the spiritual battle is a battle over the will, and whether the will of the godly and redeemed mind will rule or if we will succumb to the evil desires of the flesh. In Romans 7:20, Paul recognizes that the disconnect between his good will and his bad actions are rooted in his sin. The separation of his will from his sin is not for the sake of absolving himself of blame for his actions; after all, he still refers to it as the sin that “dwells in me.” He is still responsible for both the good and the bad that he does. But the reason why we continue to sin even as Christians is because our deeds, motives, and speech are still deeply rooted in our indwelling sin.

In v. 19, he noted that he doesn’t do the good things that he wants to do, and here in v. 20, he affirms the corollary that he also accomplishes the sin that he doesn’t want to do. This brings out the tension between intention and accomplishment, or want and deed; sin creates a disconnect between the two, and without faith in Christ, people are enslaved to this disconnect. Unregenerate man is also enslaved to the consequences of doing the wrong things even though we recognize that there is good that we should pursue and evil we should avoid.

In verse 21, then, Paul reiterates the point: He wants to do good, or at least, he does not want to let his life to devolve into a harmful spiral. Yet, evil and sin are always present. The verb parakeimai means “to be present” or “to be at hand,” and literally means “to lie down alongside,” and it was used previously in v. 18; evil just lies down next to us and compels us to do things that we really don’t want to do. And the more we do this, the more we relinquish our will to our sin and flesh; then, we get caught in sinful habits, patterns, and even in self-destructive addictions.

Paul says that this persistent sin problem is a “law” or “principle.” This is not an occasional lapse, but an unavoidable reality, and nobody is immune. Evil permeates our thoughts, actions, and motives. When we want to do good, pervasive sin plunges us toward evil. When we actually do accomplish good, sin restricts us from doing the greater good, and still smears our good works with selfish motives and other errors.

Paul admits that he recognizes the right course of action to take, and when he does this, he is agreeing with the Law of God (v. 22). God has laws and expectations for humanity, and especially for His own people; and it is good, life-giving, and delightful to align with these expectations (Deut 4:1; 30:20; Psalm 1:2; 40:8; 119:14, 111; Ezek 20:11). Paul says that this resonates with the “inner man,” again pointing to the regenerated and redeemed spirit and soul. Paul uses this same phrase in 2 Cor 4:16 and Eph 3:16, and Peter uses a similar phrase, “the hidden person of the heart” in 1 Peter 3:4. The point is that the inner person who recognizes some measure of morality and goodness is at war with the flesh that is dominated with its own greed and lusts.

The Jekyll and Hyde tension in this passage is like a mirror into our own lives. Each day, Christians struggle with the desire to follow God’s commands and expectations, and we also fight against the temptation to capitulate to the power of our fallen minds and flesh. But Paul is not done, and some of the most dramatic expressions about this struggle are enumerated in the rest of this passage, which we will continue to discuss in “Part 3” below.



CULTURE/ SOCIETY: No Laughing Matter: The Cost of Canceling Comics

 

This article is originally from the March 2024 edition of The Eclectic Web Journal, and is presented here with minor modifications.


Most people probably appreciate the folly of canceling a comedian.

Yet, cancel culture has raged on so unchecked that it is worth exploring how canceling our cultural comics may presage a dangerous trajectory for our society.

The list is extensive. Gilbert Gottfried played some of our culture’s favorite birds including Iago in Disney’s 1992 film Aladdin. His other famous bird was the Aflac duck, which he voiced from 2000 until 2011, when he was fired because he made some allegedly insensitive jokes and tweets after an earthquake in Japan. In 2018 Rosanne Barr tweeted something uncomplimentary about one of President Obama’s senior advisors Valerie Jarrett. Barr lost the ABC show that carried her name, and even the reruns of the show were removed from certain digital platforms. Soon after, Norm MacDonald defended Barr and other comedians whom he believed had been treated with excessive social punishment. As a result, MacDonald was literally canceled, or dis-invited, from a previously-scheduled appearance on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. Cancel culture mercilessly and humorlessly punishes off-color comedians as well as anyone who attempts to defend them.

In 2019, Dave Chapelle spoke critically and comically about cancel culture, earning him a great deal of ire. Yet, his special won a Grammy the next year, which means that while many may have been offended, many more connected with the honesty and humor of the special. In 2022, there was backlash against Ricky Gervais for telling some trans jokes. And these are only the high-profile examples.

Interesting, too, that in most of these cases, the comedians apologized, sometimes profusely, for their alleged crimes and comedic indiscretions. But to the captains-of-cancel the penitence was insufficient and there was no opportunity for absolution. Cancel culture should be especially careful here; as the New Testament says, “For judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment” (James 2:13).

The shift in our parameters for humor isn’t just in the imagination of those who claim the country is going down the tubes. A December 2022 article on Movieweb notes that Mindy Kaling, a writer and actor on the show The Office, one of the most popular sitcoms ever, says that some of the show’s episodes would be considered “inappropriate” and “problematic” now.

Today it is the animated shows, Simpsons, Family Guy, and South Park, which are the most valuable vehicles for social commentary and cultural irony, treading on elements of our culture upon which few comedians today would dare trod. Saturday Night Live will rarely be as funny or daring as Family Guy or South Park. In these shows, comedians and writers have the added advantage in these sensitive days of hiding behind the avatars of their animated selves.

In a previous article, I mentioned a book called A History of Madness in Sixteenth-Century Germany by historian H. C. Erik Midelfort. In that book, Midelfort broadens the discussion of madness to include different forms of comedy and folly in the late-medieval and early-modern periods. He discusses the social image and construction of Narrenfreiheit, which literally means “the freedom of a fool,” that is, the unique license that some “fools” had to challenge authority and say what others wouldn’t. Many medieval European courts had a royal jester who could mock the king, the court, and the law. He had the freedom to essentially say what was obvious to all, but would be dared uttered by nobody. The jester had a comic immunity; he could identify the problems of the land and blame the observations on his mental imbalance. Early-modern European literature similarly popularized the complex and valuable role of folly, such as in Sebastian Brant’s 1494 work Ship of Fools or the humanist Desiderius Erasmus’ famous 1511 work In Praise of Folly. Under the guise of satire, these works dared say about the crown and the church what other couldn’t get away with.

As important as free speech is, it is important to preserve free speech for the jesters and comics of our culture, because they will point out the ironies and idiosyncrasies of our society like no politician or pundit ever will.

Some comedians have recognized the danger that ensues when a society tries to cancel its jesters; they are fighting back without regard for pushback and criticism.

In April 2022, soon after the infamous Will Smith slap, Bill Maher provided some commentary about humor today, and how many people seem to not understand it. He tried, perhaps in vain, to help by using a segment called, “Explaining Jokes To Idiots,” and described how the Will Smith slap demonstrated live the sinister dynamics of cancel culture. He noted how he had seen similar buffoonery in comedy clubs, and how woke hecklers, when offended, have to wait for the uproarious laughter to subside before they yell, “That’s not funny!”

“This war on jokes must end,” Bill Maher continued. He noted, as Jerry Seinfeld pointed several years ago, the odd problems comedians have on college campuses where students are being trained increasingly to dehumanize everyone around them by placing others in a socio-economic category. Then they are told they need to be offended by everything they hear that doesn’t honor those categories. The bastions of humorlessness today are not stuffy old church ladies, but students at “colleges . . . where comedy goes to die.” Maher notes, “Kids used to go to college and lose their virginity; now they go to lose their sense of humor.” And one more quote from Maher: “For all those who are constantly demanding an apology for jokes, maybe it’s you who should apologize to us for all the great jokes that we never got to hear, the brilliant thoughts that were never uttered. Those are the invisible scars of cancel culture.”

There may be comedians that you don’t like, that you don’t agree with, or that you find to be tasteless; yet we never thought of cancelling or censoring such people. The problem of cancel culture on comedians is that we crush the freedom of expression which is a staple of America. In fact, we may be denying ourselves some of the best humor and some of the most insightful critiques of our culture. Those critiques help us identify our flaws and idiosyncrasies as a society and then inspire us to improve ourselves. We may look back, and look down, on the barbarity of the medieval period, but at least they were enlightened enough to have jesters that would make jokes and utter truths that nobody else could, and the jester was not hanged nor decapitated for it. In our culture, we are far more barbaric: for we not only cancel conservatives, and censer anyone who is politically incorrect, but we also kill the comics, their careers, and in doing so, we may kill comedy completely and thus deny ourselves the insights it may bring.

Given how politically correct every athlete, politician, and actor is forced to be, comedy may be the last frontier for genuine cultural critique. Dave Chapelle, Rosanne Barr and Family Guy may become the only means by which the real problems and genuine idiosyncrasies of our society can be identified; and if these oddities are not even recognized and acknowledged, then they cannot be fixed.

The victim here is not the comedian who told an off-color joke, or the comic who tweeted something that a few found offensive. If comedy and satire get canceled, then how can art address grievances against society? The victim, then, is not just the canceled comedian; rather the victim is free speech, our Constitution, and everything that is great about our country.

The menace of cancel culture has subsided slightly in the last few years, but the threat still lingers. For all our talk about safe spaces today, it seems like comedy is becoming less of a safe space for humor and social critique. Fortunately, some in the younger generations aren’t buying it; they would rather have comedy. But the concern is that in this highly sensitive culture, comedy is no longer a laughing matter.

Or to put it another way: if we have to over-regulate humor, then not only is comedy dead and free speech dead, but America is dead, too.



DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT: Doing Without - Luke 9:23


Consider the following paragraph at the beginning of a novel.

If youth, throughout all history, had had a champion to stand up for it; to show a doubting world that a child can think; and, possibly, do it practically; you wouldn’t constantly run across folks today who claim that “a child don’t know anything.” A child’s brain starts functioning at birth; and has, amongst its many infant convolutions, thousands of dormant atoms, into which God has put a mystic possibility for noticing an adult’s act, and figuring out its purport.

This is the first paragraph of a 50,000-word novel called Gadsby (not to be confused with the novel The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald). Gadsby was written by Ernest Vincent Wright in 1939. It is a story about a man’s attempt to revitalize his hometown, and how he rallies the youth of the town to help him in this endeavor.

Oh, and one other thing: the novel does not include any words that contain the letter “e.” Go ahead, just look at that paragraph above. I’ll wait! You see!? No occurrences of the letter “e”!

It seems like it would be hard to write a thank you note without the letter “e,” let alone writing even a short novel without that letter. And yet, the body of this work does not contain the letter “e.” In his introduction to the novel Wright discusses how he can’t include words like “the” and “he.” He can’t write out any number between six and thirty because they all contain the letter “e.”

I came across this nugget while I was teaching through the Gospel of Luke a few years ago. Specifically, I was in Luke 9:23: And He [Jesus] was saying to them all, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.” My thought was, that if this guy can write a novel without using the letter “e,” than there is something in your life that you can do without so that you can be a better follower of Jesus Christ.

Some of our lives are so cluttered that important things get pushed aside like family, church, and God. In our culture, we have turned busyness into a new virtue. We brag about it, and tell our friends about how busy our calendars are. Busyness is, to be sure, better than laziness. But busyness may also mean that your life is too busy and too cluttered with things that you can do without, activities that you don’t really need, pursuits that just take you away from what is important.

You may be a believer in Christ, but it is hard to really follow Christ if your life is too cluttered. What can we do without so that we can be better followers of Christ? The context of Jesus’ statement in Luke 9:23 is that He will be rejected and killed (v. 22). Jesus wanted His disciples to know that this was going to happen, and yet they seem unprepared for it anyway. In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus warns them of His imminent sacrifice and death in three consecutive chapters (Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:33-34), and they are still surprised by this, and even surprised when He rises from the dead.

Jesus’ own suffering and death reminds us that there will be suffering and lack for believers, as well. To follow Christ is to live a life of unmatched joy and meaning, but it is also a life of being rejected and a life of self-denial. Here, then, in Luke 9:23, Jesus states this mentality in three ways. That is, this is not a three-step process, but three ways of reminding believers of how important a mentality of doing without really is for people of faith.

Christ says that if we would be a disciple of His we must “deny ourselves.” The Greek verb that is used here is arneomai, which is used again in 22:57 of Peter’s denial of Jesus. It occurs elsewhere in the NT for denying Christ or the faith (Acts 3:14; 1 Tim 5:8; 2 Tim 2:12; 3:5; Titus 1:16; 2 Pet 2:1; 1 John 2:22-23; Jude 1:4). For the believer it comes down to the choice that we make on a regular basis: we can deny self or we can deny Christ. One commentator defined “self-denial” as a “turning away from the idolatry of self-centeredness and every attempt to orient one’s life by the dictates of self-interest” (John D. Grassmick, “Mark,” The Bible Knowledge Commentary: New Testament, John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck, eds., p. 141).

Of course, this kind of self-denial would be difficult, but with as cluttered as our life is with self-interest, it would also save us a lot of time! And notice that our culture teaches us to do the opposite; it invites us not to self-denial, but to self-indulgence. Your way, right away or Obey your thirst! Our slogans and sayings exhort us to cater to self-interest, but Christ calls us to the higher plane of self-denial. Some traditions in Christianity still practice Lent, or giving up something meaningful as a way of reflecting Jesus’ fasting in the desert for forty days. But even then, Lent should not be about just denying ourselves of something once in a while, but of teaching us to live a life of ongoing self-denial and to nurture a more focused following of Christ. That may sound difficult, but remember that with the help of the Holy Spirit, we can engage in this level of self-denial for Christ. And, after all, it’s probably easier to deny ourselves than to write a novel without the letter “e”!

In Luke 9:23, Jesus goes on to say that each of us must “take up his cross daily.” This is more than bearing a sickness, a tedious church task, a flat tire, or handling the inconveniences of life, though God may allow these to come into our lives. The picture is more intense and graphic than that; it means to be willing to die for the cause and mission of Christ. The clutter in our lives will often get in our way of this. A follower of Christ should do this “daily,” and the Greek literally says “according to a day,” a phrase also used in Luke 11:3. An act of heroism once receives a great deal of acclaim, and in some instances can be relatively easy. To sustain following Jesus “daily” is much harder.

Finally, Jesus Christ calls us to “follow” Him. In a way, this may have been somewhat easier for the disciples who were literally following Jesus. But we are not tagging along behind Jesus as the disciples were; we follow Christ’s principles, Christ’s example, and this requires a great deal of wisdom and ongoing dedication. It includes a life of disciplined prayer, disciplined Bible intake, and intentional discipleship of others. It includes putting God’s priorities first, and removing clutter from our lives. It demands following what is said in Hebrews 12:1: Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.

We need to de-clutter our lives to be better followers of Christ. If that guy can write a 50,000-word novel without using the letter “e” then there is something in my life that I can do without, too. Here are some things to think about that perhaps you can do without so that you can have follow Christ with more focus:

If you are too busy to be in God’s Word and prayer on a regular basis, then you are too busy. Try to tell your wife or girlfriend that you’re too busy to talk, and then try to keep that up for a month; it will destroy the relationship. If you’re too busy for basic spiritual devotions, then you’re too busy, and something needs to be taken out of your life.

Challenge yourself about the activities that you feel like you “need.” What is “need” and do you really need these things? Maybe your family or your church or your friends need you more than you need those hobbies or activities.

Practice self-denial. Identify one or two activities, hobbies, meetings, or goals, that you can get rid of to give you more time for the Lord and for relationships.

What about your time management? Maybe you have more time than you realize, but you spend too much of it sleeping, or doom-scrolling, or watching TV. Can you arrange and prioritize your schedule better and make better time-management decisions?

What is God doing around you? How can you carry your cross in those situations.

Getting back to the TV, I would like to challenge you about your viewing habits, and suggest that there are some things, perhaps many things, that you can do without. Do you have to watch all the TV shows or other media that you’re following? Can you cut it back from ten shows to five, or from six shows to two?

And by the way, there may be good things that we are doing; but do you have to be doing all that you’re doing? It could be that the amount of church activities, fellowship with friends, and other meaningful commitments that you have are actually in total taking you farther away from Christ, rather than bringing you closer to Him.

So, what is the value of self-denial in your spiritual life? Are you willing to take that plunge to do without some things so that you can be more profitable for Christ? Also, how could achieving more focus in your life help you be a better follower of Christ? I think that if we would look at all the activities we do, the things we watch, and the hobbies we engage in, we can find some things to do without, and de-clutter our lives a bit.

And I keep thinking, that if Ernest Vincent Wright can write a novel without using the letter “e,” then there is something in my life and your life that we can do without so that we can be better followers of Jesus Christ.



MUSIC: Great Classical Pieces, Part 3

We are blessed with tremendous music, most of which is just a few clicks away. Occasionally, we highlight some great music that can help you appreciate our musical heritage.

Regular readers may remember that I don’t include any songs by Mozart in these “Great Classical Pieces” articles. That is because I have another series devoted just to Mozart songs; he is the greatest composer of them all, prodigious in quality and quantity, and worthy of an entire series in the hallowed halls of this web journal (see for instance, our treatment of his Masonic Funeral Music, K. 477 from the August 2022 edition, and Rondo in D. Major, K. 485 from the July 2023).

But after highlighting several of these, I decided that I should mention a few other compositions as well, just briefly acknowledging them as great classical pieces, and then allowing you to explore them on your own.


“Music For The Royal Fireworks,” HWV 351, Overture, George Frideric Handel

Handel is most popular for his Messiah, one of the greatest oratorios ever. But there are other works that evoke the essence of Baroque, and Handel’s “Music For The Royal Fireworks” is such a work. The Baroque period of music spans from about 1650 to 1750, and it represents a more formal approach to composition in terms of the structure of songs and the instruments that are used.

The Overture for “Music For The Royal Fireworks” is majestic and ennobling, bordering dangerously on the edge of pomposity, but remaining joyous and pleasant enough to not quite cross that line. The first part of the song marches on in a stately manner, often highlighting a trumpet fanfare echoed by a response from the French horns. About a third of the way in, the overture takes on more of a galloping pace; there is an exuberance and a near-playfulness in this section without compromising the formality of it. About two-thirds of the way through, the overture slows considerably, as though taking a breath before resuming the vivacious tone of the middle section. Throughout the song, the strings and timpani support the brass instruments, which clearly take center stage in this piece.

Though born in Germany, Handel spent most of his career in London. This is why his brand of Baroque sounds distinctively British relative to, for instance, Bach or Vivaldi, who tended to employ catchier melodies. But the key for the Fireworks Music is not the memorable melodies that inhabit other great Baroque or classical pieces, but the tone of the music, its stately and constant movement forward. Perhaps what makes it so great is its non-descript and consistent Baroqueness, marching with a confident formality that is majestic, as well as pleasing.


“Siegfried’s Funeral March,” Twilight of the Gods, Richard Wagner

The funeral march of Siegfried takes place in Act 3 of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung, or Twilight of the Gods. As the fourth installment of Wagner’s Ring Cycle operas (Der Ring des Nibelungen), Twilight of the Gods brilliantly integrates musical components and leitmotifs (see below) from previous installments into this majestic finale. The last two operas trace the career of a Norse or Germanic hero named Siegfried and follows it to his rather unheroic death in the fourth opera (spoiler alert: he gets stabbed in the back by Hagen while resting during a hunting expedition). This sequence of music is epic, sober, but not depressing. It is both somber and heroic, and at times, almost encouraging; even with the demise of gods and heroes, there is still hope for humanity. The funeral march evokes a fierce power and a sense of inevitable victory.

I have two personal connections to this piece. First, my wife and I were recently gifted tickets to the Atlanta Opera’s performance of Twilight of the Gods, performed 150 years after it premiered in 1876. This was a splendid display, perhaps the best opera experience that I have yet attended. Listening to Siegfried’s Funeral March in person and watching the slow but somber drama was especially moving. Second, several songs from Wagner’s operas are used in one of my favorite movies, the 1981 film Excalibur. Siegfried’s Funeral March both opens the film and is used in some of its most dramatic moments. That musical choice makes sense given the parallels between that movie and Twilight of the Gods; Wagner’s score makes both the British and German tales truly epic.


“Slavonic Dances,” Op. 46, B. 83, No. 1 (Furiant), Antonín Dvořák

I found a tape of Dvořák’s Slavonic Dances when I was a young teen, and I fell in love with it. I already had a tape of Dvořák’s, Bagatelles, Op. 47, the first movement of which is one of the most sublime non-Mozart classical pieces that I have ever heard (we described that piece in an edition of the old web journal). The Slavonic Dances are very different, but also beautifully balanced and sublime in their own way. These pieces are not just lively, but brimming with life, vitality, and joy.

The first of these dances is especially fun. It begins with a dramatic cord, and then leaps into a simple melody that is reiterated throughout the song. This first piece in this collection is called “furiant,” which is a fast Bohemian dance characterized by shifting rhythms. Indeed, the song begins fast and lively, then becomes slower and sedate, switching unpredictably between tones and meters. However, these shifts are never unnatural, and seem to flow smoothly from one into another. The result is an exuberant piece that seems as though it is driving toward a glorious and satisfying ending. Other similar and enjoyable songs from this collection of Slavonic dances include numbers 5 and 8.


“End Credits” from the Raiders Of The Lost Ark, John Williams

I often sneak a John Williams piece into these lists. We all recognize Williams’ music from films like Jaws or Star Wars, but few really appreciate how incredibly talented he is as a composer. The popularity of these blockbusters almost detracts from the brilliance of their musical scores. The music from Raiders of the Lost Ark is an example of a brilliant score couched in an adventure film.

    Rather than focus on the three-minute “The Raiders March,” I am focusing on the five-and-a-half-minute “End Credits” on the soundtrack. One of the reasons that I am highlighting the “End Credits” is because it includes another of the many leitmotifs (pronounced, lite·mow·teef), from the film, which is a short melody or theme that a composer writes for different characters, objects, or circumstances. Of course, there is the main theme that begins the song; Harrison Ford jokes that this theme still follows him around everywhere! I would say that this theme melody is not quite as heroic and epic as, for instance, the main theme from Star Wars; we could say that the Raiders March reflects a muted heroism.

About a third of the way in, the end credits feature “Marion’s Theme,” carried at first by strings played in a lower register; this perhaps reflects a toughness about Marian, who is not one to be pushed around nor intimidated. Yet, it is a very tender melody, betraying, perhaps, a tender and feminine side of Marion that comes out occasionally in the film. 

And though not in this song, one of the other great leitmotifs from this film that drift in and out of the score is the Ark theme, featured prominently in “The Map Room” and “The Miracle of the Ark.” Whether played dramatically or subtly, this leitmotif is haunting, reflecting a middle-eastern sense, but also pointing to something even more other-worldly than that; it would be creepy if it weren’t so sublime!

The end credits, and indeed, this whole soundtrack, is a masterclass on using music to connect with themes and feelings in a movie, and it truly showcase John Williams’ brilliance as a composer.



ON MY BOOKSHELF: Enlightenment Via Encyclopedia

Human beings have always tried to gather and categorize knowledge and facts. This is simply how we try to order our thoughts, knowledge, and experiences.

There were several different forms of scholarly pursuits in Europe in the second half of the eighteenth century. While we often refer to this as “the Enlightenment,” it is better to refer to these as the Enlightenments (note the plural), as different Enlightenment efforts had different flavors in, for instance, France, relative to Germany, relative to England, relative to Scotland. Even within the French Enlightenment, for instance, there was a wide variety of thought about religion, reality, and society. But for all the differences of the European Enlightenments, one of the shared components was an ambition to champion the role of reason, and then to catalog and classify the knowledge that was obtained through the pursuit of reason.

In Enlightening the World: Encyclopédie, The Book That Changed the Course of History, Philipp Blom relates a compelling story of the compilation of the great Encyclopédie (pronounced ahn-see-klo-pay-dee). The first volume of the Encyclopédie was published in 1751 in Paris, and many more volumes were released over subsequent decades. This was one of the first major attempts to categorize this much knowledge in this kind of format. Blom traces the prime editors and contributors of the Encyclopédie, its influence, and also obstacles to its publication, including those external to the participants as well as some that were self-imposed.

The Encyclopédie was a monument of Enlightenment thought, written by philosophes, as the scholarly authors called themselves, who had “dared to throw off the sacred ties of religion and . . . broken the shackles with which faith constricts reason” (Denis Diderot, quoted in Philipp Blom, Enlightening the World: Encyclopédie, The Book That Changed the Course of History [New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2004], 69). Denis Diderot’s own ambition was to topple superstition, bigotry, and the intellectual constraints of the Church, and this drew him to shape the direction and content of the Encyclopédie. But there was a price for displacing treasured theological premises; clergy and crown continually undermined and demonized the project, almost stopping it completely on several occasions. Yet the encyclopedists endured despite threats, imprisonment, the seizure of unpublished documents, and even despite interpersonal conflicts between the authors themselves.

The prime figure in Blom’s narrative is Diderot, a writer caught between opportunity, personal ambition, and political limits. In order to secure release from six months of incarceration at Vincennes, Diderot promised not to write any contentious works for the rest of his life. However, that imprisonment cemented his role as a significant figure of the French Enlightenment (Blom, 66). Though muzzled as a revolutionary author, the Encyclopédie project became his only recourse for promoting Enlightenment ideals. Despite that, Diderot joined the project with reluctance, continued it with drudgery, and left it with bitterness.

While the story centers on Diderot, other Enlightenment figures drift in and out of the narrative. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, while initially supportive of the effort, parted from his friends, alienated by his ailments and his paranoia. Jean-Baptiste le Rond d’Alembert, truly a renaissance man, was co-editor for the first phase of the Encyclopédie contributing articles about science, technology and math, though occasionally – and sometimes unwisely – venturing away from those fields. Much of the credit for the Encyclopédie, however, goes to Louis de Jaucourt, whose leadership was critical and whose contributions – about 14,000 articles in ten years – were prodigious (Blom, 239). He spent much of his fortune on the project and was recompensed very little for his efforts.

Several plot-points of the narrative were especially insightful. Blom noted that previous to the Encyclopédie, most dictionaries and encyclopedias were organized by topic rather than alphabetically. By choosing an alphabetical arrangement, the editors side-stepped the difficult task of prioritizing fields of knowledge, and especially avoided giving theology pride of place. An alphabetical arrangement encouraged the democratization of knowledge, conveying that no type or field of knowledge was inherently more important than another (Blom, 43).

Another insight of Blom’s work concerned the relationship between antisemitism and the Enlightenment. Many of the philosophes wanted to undermine the dogmatism of the Church, specifically, of French Roman Catholicism, but feared consequences from the French Crown. By challenging the religious foundations of Judaism, the encyclopedists indirectly challenged the Church, which shared much of that epistemological foundation, but they could do so without the threat of repercussion. Blom comments, “Displacement of criticism was . . . an established principle for the Encyclopédie. By ostensibly attacking the Jews and their ‘fanatical’ beliefs, Diderot was in fact writing against the priests and Catholic theology” (Blom, 253).

The authors undermined the social structures of the eighteenth century, as well. Though sometimes buried in individual articles, detractors recognized the seditious nature of the encyclopedists’ commentaries. One example is from an article about bees, which asserted that the way drone bees frolicked around echoed the lives of the inept and dispensable aristocracy (Blom, 94). Blom clarifies, however, “The Encyclopedists sought evolution, not revolution” (Blom, 143); that is, they wanted to educate society, but not necessarily start a full-fledged rebellion that would completely overturn the social order. Unfortunately for them, however, many of their political ideas were seen as revolutionary, and came to be associated with the French Revolution which began in 1789. Thus, when the monarchy was restored under the Bourbons in 1814, “the Encyclopedists were seen as sowers of unrest, rebellion, and impiety” (Blom, 312).

Blom’s Enlightening the World is written in a more popular and less technical style. Like John Merriman’s The Dynamite Club or Frederic Morton’s A Nervous Splendor, Blom’s Enlightening the World reads like a novel. This is not to suggest that the book lacked substance; like these other works, it exhibits extensive primary research, manifested in citations from the Encyclopédie as well as insights from correspondence and contemporaneous articles, yielding a textured and dramatic account. But the novel-esque presentation made the narrative more captivating without getting into details that may have detracted from that main story.

Philipp Blom’s writing credentials are diverse, having written fiction and non-fiction, novels and in periodicals, books about wine and about the inter-War period. He translated songs from the musical The Producers, and he wrote the libretto for composer Joost van Kerkhooven’s opera Soliman (see more at https://www.philipp-blom.eu/en-bio). One, therefore, can see his affection for Diderot, Rousseau and Voltaire who also straddled both academic fields, and artistic ones, as well.

The Encyclopédie was a monumental contribution to widening the chasm between medieval superstition and Enlightened reason. Of its impact Blom comments: “It was also an indication . . . that the age of capital was dawning, and that questions of true religion, or dogma, of respect for authority, even of royal power, could be subjugated to the higher interest of economic well being if this was judged necessary” (Blom, 235). Many modern societies since have, indeed, judged those higher economic interested to be necessary. 



ROMANS: Jekyll and Hyde, Part 3, Romans 7:23-25

We continue Paul’s treatment of the war between the flesh and the Spirit that Christians struggle with, a Jekyll-and-Hyde kind of conflict within each believer. (See “Part 2” of this series above).

We saw a serene picture in Romans 7:22, but there is a darker portrait in v. 23. In this verse, Paul contrasts the law or principle of the “members of my body,” that is, the flesh, with the intentions of the “inner man” or “the law of my mind.” The idea of “mind” is varied in the NT, at least when it applies to humans. The mind, reason, and understanding of God Himself is stable and above human understanding (Rom 11:34; 1 Cor 2:16). The NT sometimes portrays the human mind as neutral, and therefore, it has to be pushed, opened or given over to one direction or another (Luke 24:25; Rom 1:28; 14:5; 1 Cor 14:14, 15, 19; Titus 1:15). Sometimes the NT notes that the mind is fragile and impressionable; it can be easily swayed, and thus, even for believers, it needs to be guarded (Phil 4:7; 2 Thess 2:2). Paul often mentions that unregenerate man has a futility or depravity of mind (Eph 4:17; Col 2:18; 1 Tim 6:5; 2 Tim 3:6), but the converted individual can be renewed in her or his mind (Rom 12:2; Eph 4:23). Romans 7:23 and 25 seem to be the best that the NT says about the mind, but here, it is only in contrast to the principle of sin.

The mind and sin both have a “law” or “principle”; they both have a relatively consistent set of beliefs and practices. In this context, the “mind” of a believer generally adopts the notion of good, while sin unambiguously pursues evil. While the principle of the good generally emanates from his reasonable and non-self-destructive mind, the principle of sin inhabits the rest of his body, indicated by the phrase, “in my members.” Sin is inextricably bound up into the fibers of human existence; it cannot be extricated from one part or abolished by removing another part. Only physical resurrection by a perfect and holy Being can eradicate sin from our body.

Paul says that he watches in himself how these two forces “fight against” each other as he considers his life, his intentions, and his actions. The word strateuomai means “to serve as a soldier,” “to wage war” and is used in the NT either literally for serving as a soldier or metaphorically for fighting against something (Luke 3:14; 1 Cor 9:7; 2 Cor 10:3; 1 Tim 1:18; 2 Tim 2:4; Jas 4:1; 1 Pet 2:11). The word here in Rom 7:23 adds the prefix anti- producing antistrateuomai, rendering a stronger verb that means “to take the field” or “to make war against,” used only here in the NT and rarely in contemporaneous secular Greek literature.

The choice of a rare word with the prefixed anti- implies that the mind and sin are diametrically opposed to each other and the life and actions of a believer is the arena of battle. As is typical of war, both sides want total victory, both want to eradicate the enemy, and neither wants only partial possession of the land or territory over which they are fighting. Both good and evil, sin and mind, want complete control over the body, and Paul feels like he is a “prisoner” to this conflict.

This leads to Paul’s exasperated expression in v. 24, a frustration which we understand theologically and can identify with experientially. In his exasperation, he notes his need for someone to deliverer him in light of this war. Sometimes an unbeliever recognizes this Jekyll-and-Hyde in his own life; but it is the believer who more acutely recognizes the dissonance between a godly will and our evil flesh. The word means “miserable” or “wretched” and is used also in Rev 3:17 and in the LXX of Psa 137:8 (136:8) and Isa 33:1. Paul notes that in this internal battle between good and evil, the negative aspects dominate most people, believers and unbelievers alike. This “miserable” and “wretched” position is overturned rhetorically in 8:1 by the assertion that despite this unwinnable war against sin and the flesh, there is actually no condemnation nor abiding misery, but rather deliverance from this difficult situation for those who trust in Christ.

It is critical, too, that Paul refers to his own body as a body of death. It is not just an arena of good that is struggling against sin. Nor is it a body of ongoing war, because the good intentions and the sin nature are at a standoff with one another. Rather, it is the body of sin and death because sin and death are clearly winning in the body without the intervention of the redemption of Jesus Christ, the forgiveness and eternal life of God the Father, and the regeneration and abiding resources of the Holy Spirit. Death is the inevitable result of a body contaminated with sin.

The chapter ends with a peal of thanks in v. 25 that the mortal misery caused by the domination of sin is solved by the provision by God’s grace through the work of Jesus Christ. Paul then summarizes the previous passage by noting that part of him, and the part that he feels genuinely represents him, “I myself,” can still serve God and acknowledge the general value of God’s law.

But the really critical part of this is the notion that the flesh serves the contradictory law of sin. Perhaps the “I myself” applies to the flesh as well. Paul recognizes that the individual both genuinely wants to do right things, but just as genuinely actually commits many wrong things. It is illogical, but true nonetheless.

The good news is, of course, the Good News: That Christ died for our sins, rose from the dead three days later, so that through faith in Him we can receive forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and the promise of being completely free from our current flesh and fallenness at some point in the future. Someday, for all of us who believe in Christ, there will be no battle between Jekyll and Hyde, but we will be glorified and transformed fully into the likeness of Christ (Rom 6:5; 8:17; 1 Cor 15:53-54; Phil 3:10-11; 1 Pet 4:13; 5:1; see also Isa 25:8; Dan 12:2-3).

In the meantime, the believer shouldn’t underestimate the power of the flesh and the severity of this battle. This is why spiritual maturity is so important, which is accelerated as we gather together weekly and as we study and obey God’s Word on our own, as well. 



The Eclectic Web Journal is written by Matt Kasper and edited by Martha Kasper. Matt is a graduate of Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, Dallas Theological Seminary, and he recently completed a PhD. in Reformation history from Georgia State University. Matt is the pastor of a small church northeast of Atlanta called Grace Atlanta Bible Church. He helps lead several other groups and activities in the Atlanta area, as well, including the Peachtree Corners & Norcross Pastors Association and Atlanta Geek Fellowship.

We had written a decade’s worth of articles in our previous web journal, called, The Eclectic Kasper, which we published from 2011 to 2021. We will work on repairing access to these articles, and let you know about our progress on that front.

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