Showing results by author "Douglas Wilson" in All Categories

Sinister forces lurk in the corners of the Iron Kingdoms - restless souls, mischievous and cunning creatures, darker beings that bargain for mortal souls. Most pass unmarked, shunned, or avoided, but there is one group willing to seek out and study what others fear. In abandoned halls and forgotten ruins, the investigators from the Strangelight Workshop illuminate the darkness, armed with wisdom, curiosity, and specialized tools.

In John Knox: Stalwart Courage, Douglas Wilson staunchly defends this staunch reformer, not only lauding his stalwart courage, but also upholding his much-neglected gentler virtues - love, mercy, tenderness, and humility. At Knox’s funeral, one of his friends said, “Here lies one who neither flattered nor feared any flesh.” John Knox sought the approval of neither commoner nor queen, but only his God. John Knox was a reformer of church and culture worthy of honor and emulation, and his story should be one we know well.

Douglas Wilson writes to a young man on how he should pursue a woman. Feminism has catechized us in many lies about what makes the sexes attracted to each other, and evangelical pastors have often only reinforced those lies with platitudes about servant-leadership. When they find out that being a doormat doesn’t attract anyone, young men often rebound to the secular manosphere. Douglas Wilson offers his own commonsense advice, sharp-edged and thoroughly biblical, not just on how to be the kind of man who attracts the right woman, but how to be the kind of man that keeps her.

In Rules for Reformers, Douglas Wilson poaches the political craft of radical progressives and applies it to Christian efforts in the current culture war. The result is a spicy blend of combat manual and cultural manifesto. Rules for Reformers is a little bit proclamation of grace, a little bit Art of War, and a little bit analysis of past embarrassments and current cowardice, all mixed together with a bunch of advanced knife-fighting techniques. As motivating as it is provocative, Rules for Reformers is just plain good to hear.

In this short audiobook on childrearing, Douglas Wilson points out that we have a Father who delights in us and makes it easy for us to love and obey him. If that is the kind of Father we have, shouldn't we earthly parents do the same? Wilson explains how parents should not just try to get their kids to obey a set of rules or to make their house so fun that following the rules is always easy. Instead, he calls for parents to instill in their kids a love for God and His standards that will serve them well all their days.

Marriage is not a vending machine, and love is not two quarters to put into it. It's a manner of life, not an exchange of commodities. So, what does it look like when a man loves a woman? Douglas Wilson answers that question in How to Exasperate Your Wife and Other Short Essays for Men, and his responses are as wide-ranging and humorous as they are incisive and down to earth. He explains why men's distorted view of wisdom handicaps their understanding of their wives, and he exposes rigid (and wrong) approaches to marriage and relationships.

Police shootings and protests have filled the news in recent years, leaving us with no illusions that America is free of racial problems. Skin and Blood invites us to look honestly at both White sins and Black sins…and to look hopefully at the red blood of Jesus, which is their only cure.

In this book, Douglas Wilson discusses how parents can help their sons cultivate true masculinity and become men who are strong and self-sacrificial, just as Christ was. This book is a part of Douglas Wilson's series of books on the family, which has helped many people trying to deal with the on the everyday messes that come with sinners trying to live under the same roof. This book on raising sons covers issues such as laziness, Christian liberty, school, sports, girls, and proper contempt for the cool.

Fatherlessness is a “rot that is eating away at the modern soul,” writes Douglas Wilson, and the problem goes far beyond physical absence. “Most of our families are starving for fathers, even if Dad is around, and there’s a huge cost to our children and our society because of it.” Father Hunger takes a thoughtful, timely, richly engaging excursion into our cultural chasm of absentee fatherhood.

Though most Christians refrain from predicting exactly when our world will end, many believe that when Earth's finale does arrive, it will be a catastrophe. Details vary, but the general assumption is the same: Things will get much, much worse before they get better. But is this really what the Bible teaches? Leaving aside the theological terms that often confuse and muddle this question, Douglas Wilson instead explains eschatology as the end of the greatest story in the world.

The modern dating system is bankrupt. It does not train young people to form a relationship but rather to form a series of relationships, hardening themselves to all but the current one. Recreational dating encourages emotional attachments without covenantal fences and makes a joke of a father's authority. The disrespect children have for their fathers in this area is an echo of the disrespect fathers have for their own office.

One rainy day, years ago, a little girl named Lucy discovered that the back of a wardrobe isn't always just the back of a wardrobe. Sometimes, it's a door into another world. In Lucy's case, that other world was called Narnia, and though she was among the first to enter it, she was by no means the last. Millions of children (young and old) have followed her there and met its strange but wonderful inhabitants - Mr. Tumnus, Reepicheep, and Puddleglum, among others.

The book of Revelation was written to do just that: reveal. In this commentary, Douglas Wilson provides a passage-by-passage walkthrough of the entire book, showing how John’s most notorious prophecies concern the Fall of Jerusalem in AD 70. Explaining symbols and characters as he goes, Wilson shows from the text that not only is this book not an elaborate code, but that Revelation is not even ultimately concerned with the end of the world as we know it. Revelation is about the triumph of the Church, which always happens when the Man comes around.

Reforming Marriage, by this same author, began the discussion of covenant headship. This collection of essays, Federal Husband, continues that discussion in greater depth, dealing with more specifics of federal husbandry.

This book by Douglas Wilson shows that many who call themselves Reformed have in fact lost the older Calvinistic teaching about the objectivity of the covenant and the promises made to Christians at baptism. Multitudes of faithless, corrupt Christians show that they do not believe what God said at their baptism.

God has designed each family to be a culture. It is the duty of the father to ensure that the shaping takes place according to biblical wisdom. Through the Messiah, God promised blessings to his people, "their children, and their children's children forever". The norm for faithful members of the covenant is that their children will follow them in their faithfulness. The oddity should be children who fall away. Unless we reestablish faithful Christian culture in countless homes, we will never reestablish it anywhere else.

In the beginning, great power is only great potential... Renowned for both martial and arcane skills, the mighty warcasters of the Iron Kingdoms possess the unique gift of bonding with and commanding mighty warjacks on the field of battle. Yet despite their inborn abilities, these powerful soldier-sorcerers began as novices, forced to harness their talents in rigorously structured military training programs or through the brutal crucible of battle.

Prostitution, incest, drunkenness at the Lord's table, sectarianism, and babble all were problems in Paul's rag-tag startup church in Corinth. Paul's letter was a course-correction for many in the church, bringing people back to the Gospel as the basis for right unity, sexual ethics, observation of the sacraments, and worship.

Even though America is fiercely divided between the left and the right and protests are becoming increasingly violent, both sides of the political aisle remain committed to secularism and increasingly to looser standards of sexual propriety. If we want to understand contemporary American culture wars, we must first come to grips with the culture wars of the 19th century. In this book, Douglas Wilson explains how our nation's failure to remove slavery in a biblical fashion has led us to many of the quagmires we find ourselves in.

The repetition of Christmas traditions can appear to dull the powerful nature of the holiday. God Rest Ye Merry is meant to rekindle the Christian's understanding of Advent on every front, from politics to shopping to uproarious celebration.