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The Native Tourist
reformed/biblical observations on Christianity and culture

Wednesday, September 17, 2003
Shaggy Dog Story
A nice parable with cultural implications:

“There is an old comedy,” James Packer writes, “in which an escaped lion takes the place of the shaggy dog beside the armchair and the comic affectionately runs his fingers through its mane several times before realizing that, as we say, he has a problem. We act like that with regard to our sinful habits. We treat them as friends rather than killers, and never suspect how indwelling sin when indulged enervates and deadens. This, one fears, is because we are already its victims, never having known what it is to be really alive in our relationship with God, just as children born with crippled legs never know what it is to run around, as distinct from hobbling.”

(This quote is stolen from the article, "Finding the True, Noble, and Pure in Babylon" by Dennis Haack.)