Bare Necessities
One of the controlling maxims of both life and thought in the environment of a Creator-Trinity in which I have come to believe is that all complexity resolves in simplicity and all simplicity is infinitely complex. Inability to recognize this exposes one to the multitude of errors involved in exalting natural disposition.
There are, for example, very durable “worship wars” in which the glory of God cannot be conceived by one side in the conflict apart from the grandest and most complex species of architectural, artistic, and liturgical response. In affronted reaction, another side will strip its altars bare and insist on evangelical simplicity in all things. Neither is wrong in its instincts, neither is right in its enmities, so that the Ruler of the Starry Heavens who is also a Nazarene carpenter, one would think, is very unlikely to be impressed with the offerings of either, when mixed with pride and punctilio. In a world under obedience, the believer should be able to rejoice in both as genuine expressions of the character of God.
THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:
S. M. Hutchens is a Touchstone senior editor.
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 for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
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.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more on Christianity from the online archives
22.6—July/August 2009
on the Integration of Anger into the Virtuous Life by Leon J. Podles
32.4—July/August 2019
on Probability, Death & the Existence of God by Graeme Hunter
30.3—May/June 2017
Insider Attempts to Disorient the Orthodox by Alexander F. C. Webster
more from the online archives
29.5—Sept/Oct 2016
on the Loss of True Community & Rising Political Desperation by Karl D. Stephan
18.2—March 2005
On Conservatism as Vexation, Vanity & Near Impossibility by Graeme Hunter
29.1—Jan/Feb 2016
on Marriage, Moral Corruption & the Christian Duty of Witness by Regis Nicoll
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
