Severe Rebuke

When I worked in sales I learned the expression "tear him a new asshole." It's not the most gentile saying. The Christian translation is, I believe, "severe rebuke." I'd hate to call it schadenfreude, but I find it encouraging to read the occasional severe rebuke in a Christian publication. Two recent examples are on my mind -- Will Willimon's review of Bart Ehrman's God's Problem in the Christian Century and in Books and Culture Stanley Payne's critique of a book on Basque history by a Cameron Watson. These let me know that some editor still cares about the truth and some writer is not wringing his hands worried about offending a colleague who might blurb his next book.