Don't be a Pagan.

 

Leadership and Emotional Sabotage by Joe Rigney

 I started Leadership and Emotional Sabotage about a year ago. I made it about half way through, and was really loving it, but got side-tracked with life. I picked it back up and finished it a couple of days ago. Like in his other book, The Sin of Empathy, Rigney is hitting on an important element of leadership in today's world, because, as he says, "Your home, your church, and this world need leaders who are mature and sober-minded, filled with gravity and gladness, and grounded in the glory of Jesus."  ... meaning that leadership is needed, not just in political positions and church pulpits, but in our homes. And since these leaders need to be "...steadfast, immovable, and always abounding in the work of the Lord..." (I Cor. 15:58), they need to not only be grounded in something that is steadfast and immovable, but they also need to be aware of those things that tend to move people off of the steadfast and immovable... and that is what this book is about. 

I found it to be very helpful personally. I am a leader in more than one sphere of life. I don't always want those roles, but so say all who experience times like these. My leadership has failed on more than one occasion... failed miserably. A few of those times of leadership failure, they might have even been due to the mentioned "Emotional Sabotage" this book is referencing. I have also seen leaders completely succumb to this same thing, and it has made shipwreck their faith. I wonder about the desire to have learned things earlier in my life, but God is sovereign over all, so I don't dwell there too long, I simply thank Him for learned truth when I do encounter it. 

I won't attempt to summarize what is going on in this book, but I will say that you don't need to be a leader to read it. In fact, I would encourage you, even if you don't see yourself as a leader in anything, to read this book. Read it to be a leader, if the opportunity were to ever arise. Read it to assist your leaders. Read it to be ready to lead in whatever area is presented to you. And read it to help yourself identify a leader to follow. 

Leadership and Emotional Sabotage

Two Errors in our View of Future History

Reading Heaven Misplaced by Douglas Wilson. I'm in Chapter 5 - Inexorable Love. This chapter opens this way: 

We tend to veer into one of two errors in our view of future history. Either we plunge into a very exciting study of the “end times” and become consumed with the book of Revelation and newspaper reports about the European Union, killer bees, trouble in the Middle East, and so forth; or we dismiss the whole thing with a wave of the hand and a joke—and it is usually the same joke. “I’m a pan-millennialist. Everything will pan out in the end.” But much more is involved in this subject than the particular “chronology” we set for the events at the end of the world. Christians must come to understand that our doctrine of the power of the cross—and the love of God exhibited there—will necessarily be at the heart of our doctrine of the future history of the human race.

I've been both. I've even used that joke. 

If you've ever been interested in why the New Testament writers always seemed so optimistic in their accomplishment of the great commission, I would encourage you to read this book. I've actually read it before, but thought I would come back to it again. Very interesting.  

Heaven Misplaced: 
Christ's Kingdom on Earth

The Problem of Pain - Human Wickedness

 I'm listening to the audiobook The Problem of Pain by C. S. Lewis. In the 4th chapter, titled, Human Wickedness, C. S. Lewis makes an observation concerning the need to preach the bad news before it can preach the good news. In other words, those who desire to preach the gospel to modern man, will often have to demonstrate that one is sinful and in need of a Savior before they can present the Gospel message of a Savior to rescue them from that sin. He then makes this statement: 

"There are two principal causes. One is the fact that for about a hundred years we have so concentrated on one of the virtues -- 'kindness' or mercy -- that most of us do not feel anything except kindness to be really good or anything but cruelty to be really bad. Such lopsided ethical developments are not uncommon, and other ages too have had their pet virtues and curious insensibilities. And if one virtue must be cultivated at the expense of all the rest, none has a higher claim than mercy -- for every Christian must reject with detestation that covert propaganda for cruelty which tries to drive mercy out of the world by calling it names such as 'Humanitarianism' and 'Sentimentality'. The real trouble is that 'kindness' is a quality fatally easy to attribute to ourselves on quite inadequate grounds. Everyone feels benevolent if nothing happens to be annoying him at the moment. Thus a man easily comes to console himself for all his other vices by a conviction that 'his heart's hurt a fly', though in fact he has never made the slightest sacrifice for a fellow creature. We think we are kind when we are only happy: it is not so easy on the same grounds, to imagine oneself temperate, chaste, or humble."

"The second cause is the effect of Psychoanalysis on the public mind, and, in particular, the doctrine of repressions and inhibitions. Whatever these doctrines really mean, the impression they have actually left on most people is that the sense of Shame is a dangerous and mischievous thing. We have laboured to overcome that sense of shrinking, that desire to conceal, which either Nature herself or the tradition of almost all mankind has attached to cowardice, unchastity, falsehood, and envy. We are told to 'get things out in the open', not for the sake of self-humiliation, but on the grounds that these 'things' are very natural and we need not be ashamed of them. But unless Christianity is wholly false, the perception of ourselves which we have in moments of shame must be the only true one; and even Pagan society has usually recognized 'shamelessness' as the nadir of the soul. In trying to extirpate shame we have broken down one of the ramparts of the human spirit, madly exulting in the work as the Trojans exulted when they broke their walls and pulled the Horse into Troy. I do not know that there is anything to be done but to set about the rebuilding as soon as we can. It is and work to remove hypocrisy by removing the temptation to hypocrisy: the 'frankness' of people sunk below shame is a very cheap frankness."

The Problem of Pain

6 more freebies (I've been waiting for a couple of these!)

 6 more free books from Canon Press. There are a couple of these I've been anxiously awaiting to be free, just so I could promote them. The first one is The Covenant Household. I read this book a while ago, and found it to be life altering in my perspective. It adjusted the focus of my ministry, and it wasn't even about that!  I highly recommend this book. (I'll probably read it again.)

The Covenant Household

This next book is Angels in the Architecture: A Protestant Vision for Middle Earth by Douglas Wilson and Douglas Jones. I've been looking forward to reading this one. I actually purchased it a bit ago (before it was free), but forgot about it until this round of freebies. It has moved to the top of my list. I hope to read it soon and give a review. Maybe someone else out there might read it as well and tell me what they think. 

Angels in the Architecture: 
A Protestant Vision for Middle Earth

I've also read this next book: On Secular Education by R.L. Dabney. I believe that Dabney was a pastor/preacher and theologian from the mid to late 1800s. This book is fairly short, I think it may have simply been an essay that he wrote. Much of what he talks about will refer to the influx of Catholic immigrants and the reasons why they started their own school system in America: it was because the system was too Protestant... the public/secular system was too Protestant for them. It wasn't because it was too secular. But at the time of this writing, Dabney saw the influx of this secular education and predicted that, "All prayers, catechisms, and Bibles will be driven out of the schools."  ... and when we read that, about half of us say, "There were catechisms in the public schools?!?" and the other half (sadly) say, "What is a catechism?"

On Secular Education

The last three books I know very little about, except that they are Free!

John Knox: Stalwart Courage

Anne Bradstreet: Passionate Femininity

The Cultural Mind: 
Collected Essays from 
Tabletalk Magazine

New free books from Canon Press

Here is the next round of free Kindle books from Canon Press. I've already read the one about The Neglected Qualification. It was really good. Most of the books from this round of freebies, because they are so small, they could almost be called pamphlets.  

Pomosexuality: Lust Clusters, 
Sexual Revolt, and the Christian Responses

The Neglected Qualification: 
Black Sheep in Pastors' Homes

Church Music and the Other Kinds: 
A Musical Manifesto of Sorts

European Brain Snakes:
Postmodernism as a Species

The Seven Deadlies: 
Poisons and Antidotes

The Other Side of the Coyne: 
A Review of Why Evolution is True

Decluttering your Marriage

The Neglected Qualification: Black Sheep in Pastor's Homes

The Neglected Qualification: 
Black Sheep in Pastors' Homes
by Douglas Wilson

The Neglected Qualification by Douglas Wilson answers a question I've had for a long time. It is an attempt to clarify what is being said in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 regarding the qualifications of an elder, specifically concerning an elder's children. Here are the two statements from those passages.

and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination. 

(Titus 1:6b ESV)

He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church? 

(1 Timothy 3:4–5 ESV)

It is a question that I have asked myself for a long time. What ought I to do if one of my children were to wander away from the Lord? What if I were under a pastor who had a child who did this? What about those pastors I've known who had all of their children wander off? How should I see a pastor who has children in his home who are unruly? Is this talking about children still in the home or children who have moved out of the home and are grown? 

In this book, Wilson answers these questions, not by creating a legalistic rule to follow, but by driving into the heart of this part of the qualification: taking a step back and allowing scripture to be its own interpreter. This approach gives a great guide to follow, allowing us to trim off the clear cases that might have been ignored, but also pointing out those cases where this may have been mishandled. Exceptions to the rule operated as clarifying instruments instead of being exceptions for the sake of exceptions. 

If you've wondered about this or struggled with how to think about this issue, I encourage you to snag this Kindle book while it is free. 

6 more free books!

Great new set of freebies from Canon Press. I've read the one about Cannabis, it was very good and informative concerning, not only Cannabis, but a biblical stance on the legalization of such things. 

Why Children Matter

What I Learned in Narnia

The Light from Behind the Sun: 
A Reformed and Evangelical
Appreciation of C.S. Lewis

Mis-Inflation: 
The Truth about Inflation, Pricing, 
and the Creation of Wealth

Devoured by Cannabis: 
Weed, Liberty, and Legalization

Confessions of a Food Catholic

Great Selection of Freebies this week! (15 books!)

 

Here are the links to each of the books that are free this week!

Andrew and the Firedrake

Evangellyfish

Flags out Front: 
A Contrarian's Daydream

The Man in the Dark: 
A Romance

Ride, Sally, Ride (Or Sex Rules)

Blackthorn Winter
Maritime Series Book 1

Susan Creek
Maritime Series Book 2

Two Williams
Maritime Series Book 3

Barbary Jihad
Maritime Series Book 4

Beowulf
A New Verse Rendering

Calvinist Poetry
101 Poems from Calvinist Poets

So Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ
A Morning and Evening Devotional

God Rest Ye Merry
Why Christmas is the 
Foundation for Everything

Refuting the New Atheists

Douglas Wilson's Dangerous Alphabet

The Sin of Empathy by Joe Rigney

 I had seen the recommendations and the numerous posts about The Sin of Empathy by Joe Rigney. A few years ago (well before the book) I watched the Man Rampant episode with Joe Rigney titled The Sin of Empathy and found it to be very interesting. Well, I finally read this book. I started it two days ago and finished the last chapter this morning. 

The Sin of Empathy: 
Compassion and its Counterfeits
by Joe Rigney

Something that might be helpful for consideration of this book, might be an excerpt from an appendix at the end of the book. The author is addressing one of the criticisms regarding the title of the book. He says, 

... numbering empathy among the other passions may be clarifying. An article on "the sin of anger" or "the sin of sexual desire" or even "the sin of loyalty" is comprehensible to many, even though we all know that not all anger or sexual desire or loyalty are sinful (the same would be true for fear, anxiety, and grief).  In each case, we naturally understand the phrase "the sin of anger" to mean "sinful anger," and we would need to actually read the article to determine whether there were clear definitions and proper distinctions made. 

The issue with "the sin of empathy" is that few people in the modern world can imagine empathy being sinful or negative. It is an incorruptible virtue, and thus ... questioning its value is considered irreverent, if not sacrilegious. But it's precisely empathy's inviolable status that makes it such a powerful mask for corruption.

There are two types of books that really grab my attention. One of them is a book that is introducing ideas that are almost foreign to me: things I hadn't thought about before. The other type is the one that puts constructed sentences to realities I've experienced. That is precisely what this book did. It offered a clarity to my own lived reality... things I've done, said, and watched happen. About halfway through this book I found myself thinking, "I wish every pastor I know would read this book."

So... If you are a Pastor, I am recommending that you read this book. If I were famous, that might mean more to some, but I am hoping that if you know me at all that you might give me the benefit of the doubt and grab a copy of this and give it a wholehearted consideration as you read it. 

Galatians Sermon Number 5 - God is Mighty to Save

Galatians Sermon Number 5 - God is Mighty to Save

November 16th, 2025

Galatians 1:13-16

The Next Batch of FREE Kindle Books is now available!

Outfitters of the Reformation

This batch is an odd assortment, but I am looking forward to reading them all. If you get the Christmas one, let me know, I'll read it with you. I'm also interested if the Dangerous Alphabet book will show up on a smart board with a Kindle App or the Kindle Cloud Reader. The Household Related Kindle books were still free this morning. 

So Come and Welcome
to Jesus Christ: 
A Morning and Evening 
Devotional
by Douglas Wilson

Refuting the New Atheists: 
A Christian Response to 
Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, 
and Richard Dawkins
by Douglas Wilson

God Rest Ye Merry: 
Why Christmas is the
Foundation for Everything
By Douglas Wilson

Beowulf
A New Verse Rendering
by Douglas Wilson

Calvinist Poetry: 
101 Poems form Calvinist Poets

Dangerous Alphabet
by Douglas Wilson