According to Tim Bayly: “As I’ve pointed out many times and will continue to point out, those weddings you attend or officiate that do not include the wife’s vow to obey or submit to her husband are not Biblical weddings.” Father (as in patriarchy), forgive us.

Rebellion against Nature. I have read that Constantine outlawed the breaking of wind (my wife does not like me to use the proper word). If this is true, then everyone was made a lawbreaker. It also provides another example of an attempt to rebel against nature (in this case in the service of what was assumed to be the “good”). There are all too many examples: night baseball in October, artificial turf, indoor stadia, football in February, Savannah State playing Oklahoma State, American men playing soccer anytime. If this sort of war against nature had prevailed in earlier times, there would never have been an Ice Bowl with Bart Starr scoring behind Jerry Kramer. No thrill of sneaking a transistor radio into class to listen to the Series.

Crimes against Nature. Speaking of sins against nature, I still don’t get the pre- and posthumous treatment of Joe Paterno. What did he do (and, yes, I know his damning sin supposed to be what he failed to do) that warrants the destruction of his reputation and good works, the erasure of his record of wins, the removal of his statue, and the destruction of the football program he built? Paterno and his team got no competitive advantage from the sins of Jerry Sandusky. So naïve was Joe regarding sins against nature that he had to get someone to tell him what sodomy is. The NCAA could do with a little two-kingdoms or even sphere-sovereignty theology. There is the kingdom of sports law (the province of the NCAA) and the kingdom of criminal law (the province of the State). The two kingdoms or spheres should keep within proper limits.

Death Penalty. Speaking of the death penalty, to say that the state has the discretionary authority to use the death penalty to punish crime is not the same as to say it must use the death penalty to punish crime.

Escape from Reason. Joseph Bayly on Carl Trueman, Complementarianism, Secondary Issues, and Inerrancy: “Second, and more important, though Professor Trueman views inerrancy as the lynchpin of Evangelical orthodoxy, inerrancy is just another squishy academic neologism that confuses more than it helps. Inerrancy became the Evangelical rallying cry in the 1970s in response to liberalism’s inroads in Evangelical schools and churches. Rather than respond to liberalism’s challenges individually, Harold Lindsell, Roger Nicole and other Evangelical leaders forged consensus behind a doctrine they termed “inerrancy,” the proposition that the text of Scripture was entirely without error in its original autographs. Yet despite its appearance of rigor, inerrancy has proved an Evangelical Maginot Line.” According to this Bayly, inerrancy is an academic weasel word. And the doctrine lay dormant till the 70’s. Somebody wake up the dead white Princeton guys.

She Surrenders All. According to Tim Bayly: “As I’ve pointed out many times and will continue to point out, those weddings you attend or officiate that do not include the wife’s vow to obey or submit to her husband are not Biblical weddings.” Father (as in patriarchy), forgive us.

Bill Smith is a Teaching Elder in the Presbyterian Church of America. He is a writer and contributor to a number of Reformed journals and resides in Jackson, MS. This article first appeared at his blog and is used with his permission.