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And, on further reflection—that Van shares his emotional affair with Jane *with Davy* strikes me as high-handed emotional abuse. He pins Davy to a standard of unconditionality that he himself would not have tolerated. The shared journal disturbs me. The obsessive need to know all each other's thoughts and movements... Not healthy. My husband and I agree that the sharing is admirable in some ways, not in all...

the first third was emotionally devastating & inspired a great deal of thoughtfulness about the bond of marriage & all that a marriage can be

getting around to the conversion I find myself hackles-up, highly suspicious of the nigh-self-congratulatory attitude of the intellectually-Christian crowd (partly because this describes many of my own camp, self included, and it's one of our besetting sins)

What a fun little intro to English history × Shakespearean themes × magic realism. Great for grades 3-5

As of Chapter 9: a boring, aimless novel about boring, aimless people. Reminds me of a sadder, more pathetic version of the sitcom Friends

WOW!!!

Jonathan Edwards may be the Mr. Collins of theology but he DOES make the brilliant observation that the Church is typified by the DOVE throughout Scripture, viz. Song of Solomon ("behold, my love, your eyes are like doves"), etc. & that David rescuing the lamb from the jaws of the lion = Christ rescuing His Church from the grasp of Satan 😮

"Judge the tree by the fruit"
True but the fruit is not an ecstatic feeling

Actually Doug Wilson's To a Thousand Generations ch. 6-8 and Peter Leithart's The Baptized Body, "Apostasy Happens" are illuminating in re: Religious Affections 2.2

I completely disagree with 2.2. He is basically saying that a lull in emotional fervor amounts to a lack of faith and that anyone who relies on past experience or confidence in their having been saved is a hypocrite and is deceiving himself, and he uses only 1 verse, interpreted very loosely, to prove this. The whole counsel of God does not agree on this point. Also dubious to say that God stirs up love by using fear

Religious affections mean you're a true Christian, unless they don't and you are not

Well... You do begin to see where the revivalism started out. Weird body theology. Looking forward to figuring out what he means by things as he elaborates because the early chapters seem a bit wonky

I wish Paul would make a distinction between analog machines and AI 😂 His anti-automobile screed and his AI-is-antichrist manifesto are nowhere near a 1:1 but he doesn't seem to recognize that the difference is beyond one of scale

Finally get into the real stuff in ch. 20—the spirit of destruction is simply satanic. It makes no sense. There is no logic behind it. It's Moloch. The will to destroy.