Welcome to the new home of AcidInk. I didn’t really have a great deal of intent to revisit this kind of format but due to the insistence of several people that I needed to do this I decided to go ahead and resurrect AcidInk into a needed new format.
First, allow me to explain my hesitancy in pursuing this. First and perhaps most important, I was hesitant to pick up the electronic quill again because the time it takes me to write takes me away from time I use to learn. There is so much out there to master and I have so many books lining my shelves just begging me to get to them. This brings me to my second reason for hesitancy in writing and that is that is seems improper that a person who has so much to learn should be so presumptuous as to offer his writing so others can learn. A third reason for reluctance in this matter is related as well. You see, I have spent now 30 years reading and studying in a rather determined fashion and as such I have some idea of all the great material that is out there that people could access if they would. Given the wisdom of the ages that lies at our fingertips, I struggle with the idea that anybody would use up their limited amount of time to read me when they could be reading somebody that really knew what they were talking about. One of the best pieces of advice that I received early on in my ministry is that I didn’t have time to read good books, since so many great books existed that I needed to read. When people read me they are burning time that might be spent in reading those who are great. For all these reasons I have been hesitant to resurrect AcidInk again. Yet despite my previous hesitancy, I am determined to now be committed to this format since I have had more then a few people tell me that my writing was helpful to them.
There is another reason why I am picking this up now and that is a sense of obligation to my children. In other words I am writing for posterity. I want my children and grandchildren and great grandchildren and generations beyond me to have a place to go to in order to find a clear witness to Christ that defies the current ecclesiastical and cultural smog as well as the smog that no doubt will obtain even in their lifetimes. I want all that come behind me to realize that it in confused times it is proper and even necessary, out of loyalty to Christ to say, “I dissent.” If in their times they are alone in their dissenting, they will at least be able to return to what is created here and find a sense of companionship with a lonely voice who dissented before them. Because my audience is the Lord Christ and my posterity you won’t find me playing to the crowd here, in the sense of trying to say what some group of people want to hear. I have given up the idea long ago that I am ever going to be swept away by popular acclaim. There will thus be plenty here that will tick off all kinds of large segments of people.
Here readers will find what one might expect to find in a Pastors study. They will find Christian Theology in its proper sense. Here I will speak of Theology proper (Biblical, Systematic, Exegetical and Historical), Christology, soteriology, pneumatology, eschatology, ecclesiology, anthropology, bibliology, epistemology, ontology, axiology, teleology, and any number of other ‘ologies.’ Here we will examine Hermeneutics and Literary Theory. People here may learn about the distinctions between infra and supra lapsarianism and other matters that most people find arcane.
However this site will be not be merely for armchair theologians. Here folks will also find Christian Theology in its most expansive sense. Theology as it is mirrored in Literature, Music, Movies, Economics, Politics, Education, Law, family life, and a host of other areas in which Theology ends up incarnating itself. Life is about one thing and one thing only and that is the Triune God of the Bible. Some people live their lives in flight from this God and so their lives are about the attempt to develop a life Theology that denies Him with the consequence that their God denying Theology incarnates itself in their culture and their culture ‘work.’ Hosts of other people live their lives seeking to submit to the Triune True God with the consequence that their obedient Theology incarnates itself in everything they touch. Since the God they serve is good, true and beautiful beyond speaking, all that they touch ends up sharing in that goodness, truthfulness and beauty.
For those to whom labels matter, you will find here one who writes from a position that holds that Jesus in all of His saving offices must be cherished. Pursuant to, and consistent with that I am Reformed. It is my desire that all men would be as I am in that manner. In other regards I am am the most pessimistic post-millennialist that you will ever read. I call that optimistic realism. I am also strongly covenantal, moderately Theonomic (at least when compared to the rabid crowd), unashamedly presuppositional in my epistemology, and consistently paleo-orthodox in my politics (which is one part Libertarian and one part Communitarian and completely Biblical).
Now, just a brief word on why I have gone from ‘AcidInk’ to ‘IronInk.’ First, I changed formats because the previous format was getting some pretty disgusting spam in the comments, and this format gives me control over that. Second, I changed the name because ‘AcidInk’ is to ‘in your face’ for some people. Consequently, being the sensitive guy that I am to other people’s sensibilities, I have changed the name while, I hope, still retaining the sense of intent in the name. I always liked the words of C. S. Lewis in endorsing the works of his friend J. R. R. Tolkien. Lewis wrote of Tolkien’s works, “Here are beauties which pierce like swords or burn like cold iron.” I can only hope that my words will, like the greats before, be beauties which piece like swords or burn like cold IronInk.
Welcome to IronInk.
