necessity<\/em> for polemics? The external condition of things seems to call more and more for it. Note that Jude’s preference was devotional, but necessity demanded the polemical. <\/p>\nWe shy away from the polemical, from the controversy, from the conflict. It appears much better to be full of positive exposition of the Scriptures, building up the saints in the holy faith. The rough duty of polemics seems full of bitter fruit, hot emotion, and jarring conflict. It can lead to bruised and strained relations between family and friends. <\/p>\n
But consider the external nature of things! Consider the law of duty! Consider David’s maxim, “Is there not a cause?” <\/p>\n
When Christian brothers are full of effusive praise of erring brothers, is there not a cause? When Christian brothers will recommend blasphemers, is there not a cause? When Christian brothers reject admonitions against voting for baby-killers, is there not a cause? <\/p>\n
No one need remind me that the cause must be well-fought and strategic blunders be kept at a minimum (at least). If we would win, we should argue well. <\/p>\n
But should we not argue? Is there no cause to argue for? <\/p>\n
Or should we sink down into fatalistic ‘election-anxiety’, find a hole to hide in, and just wait it out until the Lord returns? <\/p>\n
~~~ <\/p>\n
A short USA election-anxiety meditation. I hope it stirs you a bit today. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I am feeling USA election anxiety today. My loved ones are voting in a state that will likely overwhelmingly support my preferred candidate. Would that their votes could count in a battleground, but such is not the case. We’ll know tonight how it all pans out. As therapy for my election anxiety, I thought I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[92,37,71,70],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2fYWj-fC","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/968"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/968\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}