Two Simplifications
The next age, I believe, will in at least two important ways be simpler than our own. When I look back over my own career, I am struck by how much of my thinking has been given to dissecting and explaining lies told within church precincts by clergy of the faith. This was not a task I desired or took upon myself. Rather, it simply falls to believers with the necessary gifts as a natural responsibility of where we have been placed. But such contests eventually sort themselves out into historical kairoi. The curtain will be drawn down when all that can be said has been said and things will have become as clear as they need to be for those who have ears to hear. The deceivers and their answerers will have had their day and fall silent, for the time of decision is at hand.
The second great simplification will be the far greater ease with which believers and those coming to belief can be discerned and identified by each other. At present, this desideratum is very much obscured by differences in beliefs which speak of a difference of faith. But under the hard pressures of the last times, these shall begin to fall away, until at last they themselves shall be obscured —or so we have been taught by the experience of Christians under persecution in our own day: the One Thing Necessary shall become evident to all, and in this, much of the devil’s work will be undone.
S. M. Hutchens is a Touchstone senior editor.
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
• Not a subscriber or wish to renew your subscription? Subscribe to Touchstone today for full online access. Over 30 years of publishing!
personal subscriptions
Purchase Print &
Online Subscription
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives including pdf downloads for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
gift subscriptions
GIVE Print &
Online Subscription
Give six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for the reduced rate of $29.95. That's only $2.50 per month!
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
kindle subscription
OR get a subscription to Touchstone to read on your Kindle for only $1.99 per month! (This option is KINDLE ONLY and does not include either print or online.)
Your subscription goes a long way to ensure that Touchstone is able to continue its mission of publishing quality Christian articles and commentary.
more from the online archives
33.1—January/February 2020
on a Saint's Charism That Cures Toxic Perfectionism by Colleen Carroll Campbell
30.2—March/April 2017
on Reading Don Quixote in Its Original Christian Context by Luis Cortest
30.5—Sept/Oct 2017
on Costly Grace in Breece D'J Pancake's Flyover Country by Casey Chalk
