The Grateful Christian

Eliot's Ash-Wednesday, part III

2011-04-15T10:06:00.004-04:00

At the first turning of the second stair
I turned and saw below
The same shape twisted on the banister
Under the vapour in the fetid air
Struggling with the devil of the stairs who wears
The deceitul face of hope and of despair.

(You can see the rest of T. S. Eliot's poem here.) A moment of reflection--literally. Looking back on oneself. At least, that's what I make of "the same shape" who is hindered by the one masked in hope-and-despair. Read more...
Sometimes despair is appropriate, other times hope. (I refer to the emotional state, not the external, objective future-hoped-for that is usually what is meant in the Bible where the word "hope" is used.) But when hope and despair are in combination, to me, that is a warning flag that says: POTENTIAL IDOLATRY TRAP.

God alone should have that kind of emotional attention from us. As the Christmas carol says of Bethlehem, "The hopes and fears of all the years / Are met in thee tonight."

Despair may seem a funny emotion to connect to God. Let me put it this way: when faced with something so momentous, so important, so ultimate, and learning that it is good, it seems to be natural for humans to react with a combination of hope ("Oh, would that it could be true!") and doubt ("No way. It's just a futile dream.") Part of the conversion process, of bringing new life into the dead human soul, is to conquer the despair or doubt, the reluctance to be "drawn in." Remember Griffle, the Black Dwarf in C.S. Lewis' The Last Battle (at the end of the Narnia stories)? He was the one who refused to believe in Aslan. "No thanks. We've been fooled once, and we're not going to be fooled again." In fact, the title of the thirteenth chapter is How The Dwarfs Refused To Be Taken In.

Perhaps the "devil of the stairs" for Eliot--I think it is significant that it is all the stairs, not just the first stair--is this hurdle, this resistance that the dead human spirit puts up to the Good News of a living hope.

Despair is perhaps disarmed by the recognition that it doesn't matter what I think at all. My incredulity says nothing about the offer, just about my biography, the poverty of my experiences, the rip-offs I've suffered, the dashed hopes stirred by merely human saviors. Eliot's mood here reminds me of Judee Sill in "Crayon Angels":

Phony prophets stole the only light I knew
And the darkness softly screams
Holy visions disappear from my view
But the angels come back and laugh in my dreams
I wonder what it means?

Eliot ends this poem with a few words that I really like from the mass (which are based on Matthew 8:8--

Lord, I am not worthy
Lord, I am not worthy
but speak the word only.

My unworthiness, and the persistence of God's offer, finally put me past the torturous tenterhooks of hope-and-despair. Hope is handfast with grace. "Strength beyond hope and despair, / Climbing the third stair."

Eliot's Ash-Wednesday, part II

2011-03-22T16:36:00.009-04:00

Lady, three white leopards sat under a juniper-tree
In the cool of the day, having fed to satiety
On my legs my heart my liver and that which had been contained
In the hollow round of my skull. And God said
Shall these bones live? shall these
Bones live? And that which had been contained
In the bones (which were already dry) said chirping:
Because of the goodness of this Lady
And because of her loveliness, and because
She honors the Virgin in meditation,
We shine with brightness. And I who am here dissembled
Proffer my deeds to oblivion, and my love
To the posterity of the desert and the fruit of the gourd.
It is this which recovers
My guts the strings of my eyes and the indigestible portions
Which the leopards reject. The Lady is withdrawn
In a white gown, in contemplation, in a white gown.
Let the whiteness of bones atone to forgetfulness.

(The rest of the poem can be found here.) I’m having trouble with this second part. One of my troubles is I want to identify the symbol of the Lady in white (the Church?). Another is that I want to check and see if “I who am here dissembled” shouldn’t read “disassembled.” But the biggest trouble is that I am bothered by a bit of cognitive dissonance.
Read more...
I.e.: part II reminds me of Charles Williams’ “Palomides Before His Christening,” which appeared in Taliessin Through Logres (1938). I’ve spent far more time with Williams’ Arthuriad poetry (and C. S. Lewis’ instruction thereon) than with anything by T. S. Eliot. And Lewis himself acknowledges the similarity and remarks in chapter five of Williams And The Arthuriad:

"Here, and here alone, Williams approaches the temper of Mr. Eliot’s later poetry. The dry rock scenery, the artfully prosaic sentences, the sense of a vast pause, a vacuity, which may be the prelude either to conversion or despair, all remind us of the other poet. There is even an echo of Mr. Eliot’s manner in the lines

The Chi-Rho is only a scratching like other scratchings,
But in the turn of the sky the only scratching.

The borrowing seems to me to be ill-judged. No two great poetic styles are less likely to mix fruitfully than those of Williams and Mr. Eliot."

So there. But I'll take a stab at some thoughts anyway.

Whiteness, like an empty page. White-gowned Lady, white leopards, whiteness of bones. The blank of forgetfulness. Perhaps a naking of oneself, in order to prepare to be clothed. Perhaps it's the sitting still, forced upon one by the feeding leopards. Later Eliot has the bones say

The single Rose
Is now the Garden
Where all loves end
Terminate torment
Of love unsatisfied
The greater torment
Of love satisfied

Our lesser loves must, in a sense, die in order for God Who Is Love to take His rightful place in our lives. Perhaps, Eliot would have prayed like Lewis, said in the prayer I quote in the bannerhead above, "From all my thoughts, even from my thoughts of Thee, / O thou fair Silence, fall, and set me free."

Eliot's Ash-Wednesday, part I

2011-03-14T19:29:00.007-04:00

ASH-WEDNESDAY

I

Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope
I no longer strive to strive toward such things
(Why should the agèd eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?

T. S. Eliot's big poem is my poetry meditation this Lent. (Something about this season makes me want to access my inner poet.) I know pretty much nothing about Mr. Eliot, except that I like this poem. And it just happens that it has six parts, so for an exercise I am going to comment on one part a week.
Read more...A caveat: this isn't going to be some deep, high-powered commentary or critique. I'm just going to offer some personal reactions. Hey, I'm on dialup here.

"Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope"--this is a quote, of course, from Shakespeare's Sonnet 29, the only Shakespeare I have almost memorized. The Bard finds relief from his self-despite by thinking of some Beloved (human, not divine, it would seem): "Haply, I think on thee..." "thy sweet love remembered brings such wealth brings"--but for Eliot, it's not going to be that easy.

This first installment of his long poem seems to be about negation. The only "positive" thing is perhaps ironic: "I rejoice that things are as they are / And I renounce the blessèd face / And renounce the voice" from which he goes on to say:

Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice

And pray to God to have mercy upon us
And pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain

The construction of something upon which to rejoice--his poverty forces him to rejoice in his negations, but stops short of falling into the power of Nothing as Screwtape wrote to Wormwood in Screwtape Letter #12. He does so by prayer, or at least, by words about prayer.

The prayers described are well known to me. It's the only antidote to the condition I sometimes find myself in, "too much in my own head." God have mercy on me, help me forget: forget myself, and my obsession with my own reflections masquerading as "ideas." Later Eliot goes on to say, "Teach us to care and not to care / Teach us to sit still." That's a great prayer. It says, "God, my passions, thoughts, feelings, need to be brought under Your dominion, lest they run riot with my life. I do not know how to forget, nor how to sit still, unless You teach me."

Jane Siberry had a great line in one of her songs from long ago, "You Don't Need":

and a bird I don't recall
called, 'don't recall,'
called, 'don't recall.'

Forgiving and forgetting come from God, or else they are just tricks we play on ourselves.

On Headship and Submission, pt. 2

2010-09-02T16:08:00.004-04:00

When Paul wrote to the Christians in Ephesus, he talked about submitting to one another in the fear of Christ. That leads us to the first modern difficulty. Most of us don’t understand what it means “to submit” to someone else. Unless we’ve had a job with a clear chain-of-command, we’ve never had to be under the authority of another. We Americans are an egalitarian lot, and we bristle at any situation where we don’t get a vote in making the decisions.

The first myth is that “submit” means “obey.” That simply isn’t true, and I will demonstrate that with two examples, which I am putting at the end of this post, so they don’t bog down my basic thesis. But first let’s be clear about one thing. The Christian’s ultimate authority in all things is God, and the only expression of God’s will that you can rely on 100% is the Bible. That is the Christian position. It’s not what this post is about, so please don’t flame me or challenge me to debate this, not here anyway.

Read more...God’s inerrant Word says that the first believers in Jesus were commanded not to continue promoting this troubling message that the Jewish religious authorities had executed the Jewish Messiah, but He was resurrected. They replied, “We must obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree” (Acts 5:29-30 ESV). God’s Word commands us to subject ourselves to government officials: Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment… one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience (Romans 13:1-2,5 ESV). Read the whole section, it’s worth your while! Anyway, the thing I’d like to point out here is that the “be subject” verb is exactly the same one that is used in Ephesians 5. In today’s world of gender role confusion, drenched in feminist rhetoric, you commonly hear that it’s only women who have to be subject. That’s just not true. I have to be subject to the rule of law, and so do you; but if the governing authority commands me to do something that goes contrary to the expressly revealed will of God, I have to respectfully refuse to obey. But I can disobey while remaining in a subordinate position. (See examples at the end.)

So in my work with a couple preparing to marry, when it comes time for us to read Ephesians 5 together, I tell them what this passage is about: mutual submission to each other under the authority of Christ.

When we read the part written to wives, I tell the bride-to-be something like this:
This doesn’t mean you act like a doormat and let him walk on you!
You don’t meekly accept his judgments on everything: “Oh I don’t care, honey, whatever you decide is fine with me, I don’t have an opinion.” That isn’t submission, that’s subtraction!: withdrawal from the relationship.
This doesn’t mean you have to go against your conscience.

What it does mean is this: In a situation where you’ve talked it through and can’t come to an agreement--where a compromise is impossible--you willingly grant him the right to cast the tie-breaking vote.

Compromise is always best. But sometimes no compromise is possible. In some situations, one will win, and one will lose. How do you decide? If you mean to stay together, you can’t just each go your separate ways. Most couples have one person with a stronger personality, more forceful, more decisive. That’s nature. It’s not a good idea to let nature take its course in human relationships, since we are fallen creatures. God, in effect, says, “I don’t care who is smarter, who is stronger, or which one of you can present a case more convincingly. Girl—if you two can’t agree, let the guy win.”

That brings me to the second myth. Submission, in the Bible view, is not about power. The power view is that submission is the weak yielding to the strong, having been forced into surrendering. When a strong person, for some unfathomable (to the world) reason, submits to a weaker person, that is a weak thing to do, and makes the strong weak. When the Bible says, “Subject yourself to…” it is clear that God is commanding us to offer our subjection freely, as a voluntary accommodation to another, not because we were forced into it. Paul wrote to Philemon, asking him—well, almost commanding him—to accept Philemon’s escaped slave, Onesimus, back as a forgiven fellow-Christian. to resume his service to Philemon with a clean slate. He says in verse 13 and 14 that he would have kept Onesimus with him, to help Paul during his imprisonment, but “I preferred to do nothing without your consent in order that your goodness might not be by compulsion but of your own free will.” This is how God wants us to submit to Him, and to the authorities, and to each other: as a voluntary love offering, a grace freely offered. Those who cry out against this teaching about Biblical headship and submission are stuck in a worldly construct of winners and losers, weak and strong—and they haven’t yet learned some of the lessons that God has to teach on the subject of weakness and strength.

Next time: How the husband subjects himself to his wife.

-------------- Examples ---------------

Example #1 (military): a soldier is commanded by someone over him in the chain of command, to do something illegal or immoral. The conversation might go like this:
“These locals are out of control—look at that guy carrying that TV. We have to get their attention! Soldier, take your sidearm and shoot that looter!”
“Sir, I can’t do that, Sir!”
“Soldier, I gave you an order!”
“Yes Sir, copy that Sir, but no can do, Sir.”
“Soldier, you are being insubordinate! Don’t you know I can court-martial your ass?”
“Yes Sir, you definitely have that right, Sir; I look forward to the opportunity to defend my non-compliance in court, with all due respect, Sir!”
He is still subject to his commanding officer, even in his refusal to carry out an order, because he is still in the hierarchy, and will accept whatever consequences the hierarchy may give him as a result of his disobedience. In that regard, his commanding officer is wrong: this soldier is not guilty of insubordination. If he disobeyed and then went AWOL, that would be disobedience that is also insubordination.

Example #2 (legal): I, a pastor, get a subpoena to appear in a court of law to testify in a case where someone is accused of dealing in child pornography. The man had been seen coming to my office, and the prosecuting attorney hopes that I can add some evidence to help prosecute him. So I show up at court, because I am subject to the law. The prosecutor asks me, “Did the defendant make an appointment with you on April 10th to talk about his sexual addictions?”
“To answer that question would violate the sanctity of the confessional. I took an oath that I would never reveal what is said to me in my role as a pastor.”
“Did the defendant visit your office on April 10th?”
“Yes sir, he did.”
“So what did you talk about?”
“To answer that question would violate the sanctity of the confessional.”
The judge intervenes at this point and says, “Mr. Fremer—Reverend Fremer—I must insist that you answer the question.”
“Your Honor, with respect, I took an oath.”
“I don’t care what you did! If you do not answer the prosecutor’s question, I will find you in contempt of court!”
“Yes, sir, I guess you will. But if I answer that question, I must answer to a higher Court than yours.”
You get the picture. I will not tell what someone told me in my pastoral confessor-role. The authorities may have the right to punish me. I may wish, personally, to do whatever I can to help this creep go to jail. Because of my oath to God and my congregation, I am forbidden to do so. But while I am resisting this pressure to cave in to the intimidation, I must remain respectful. My problem isn’t with rule-of-law in general, just this particular situation.

On Headship and Submission, pt. 1

2010-08-31T12:38:00.007-04:00

Your feet are going to be on the ground;
Your head is there to move you around…
--R.E.M., “Stand”

Somebody asked me about what it means in the Bible when it says that “the husband is the head of the wife.”

Here’s the passage in bad English, the Joe Fremer translation of Ephesians 5:21-33—
Read more...
21 Submitting to one another in the fear of Christ--
22 The women: to their husbands as to the Lord, 23 because the husband is the head of the wife as also Christ is the head of the Church, Himself Savior of the body; 24 but as the Church subjects herself to Christ, so too the women to their husbands in all things.

25 The men: love your wives, exactly as Christ loved the Church and handed Himself over [to trial and execution] for her sake. 26 He did this so that He could set her apart as holy, by cleaning her in the washing of water-in-word. 27 His goal was to present her to Himself as a shiny Church, free of spot or stain or anything like that. On the contrary, she would be holy and blameless. 28 Thus also husbands have the obligation to love their own wives as they love their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no man hates his own flesh, but he nourishes it and takes care of it, and that’s just what the Christ does for the Church, 30 because we are members of His body. 31 For this reason a man will leave father and mother and join to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. 32 This mystery is big; for now, I am speaking in connection with Christ and His Church. 33 Anyway, back to you: each one [submitting to one another]: let each husband love his wife just like he loves himself; and let the wife fear her husband.

==============================================

I’m not going to debate the finer points of my translation choices; the coarser points are these:
1. Subject oneself: middle, not passive, taking my cue from the first word in the header. Yes, one could use the passive voice (I think I’ve seen render verse 24 “is subject to” or “is subjected to”). But the tenor of the whole section is we are talking about voluntary self-subjection to the will of another. This is not a static hierarchy, the stronger subjugating the weaker. Mao said power is what flows from the end of a gun; but Jesus said that power in His kingdom is a matter of service. Ambition in His Kingdom is a climb to the bottom, to be the servant of all.

2. Verse 21 is the header for this entire section. (And the section continues into chapter 6.) Two major English versions that I have fail to reflect this in their section headings, putting a heading at verse 22. Headings are put in by human editors to be helpful, but this time, it is not helpful, because the topic “husbands and wives” is a subtopic of the main topic: Our New Walk as the Body of Christ is One of Mutual Self-Subjection Under Him.

3. PHOBOS is fear. “Reverence,” “respect,” OK, sure, but let’s not Nerf this one down. What’s missed in attempts to soften this is the fact that the same word is used in verse 21 and in verse 33. The whole undertaking is begun and ended in fear: Church fears Christ, woman fears husband: a big mystery. Later he will (still on topic!) be talking about slaves and masters, and there he will use the Pauline phrase “fear and trembling,” clearly a different grade of fear than the Church has for her Master.

4. The item in square brackets in verse 33 supplies something that is implied by the kind of conjunction that begins that verse. He started to steer off topic a little bit, but now he’s returning, not just to instruction for husbands, but the broader topic of mutual submission in the Body of Christ. I get this from the progression of the pronouns: you-plural the-(collectively), considered on a case-by-case basis, each of you do this… Combining the collective focus (the forest) and the individual focus (the trees) in this way suggests to me that he has, so to speak, returned to the broader topic, and is about to sum it up for everybody.

You could outline it like this:

Eph. 5:21-6:9 Our New Walk as the Body of Christ is One
                   of Mutual Self-Subjection Under Him
   5:22-24 Wives
   5:25-32 Husbands
   5:33 All Spouses
   6:1-3  Children
   6:4  Fathers
   6:5-8  Slaves
   6:9 Masters

Yes, mutual! This doesn’t mean we have to take turns. (“I was the slave yesterday, so today I’m the boss and you’re the slave!”). It means that our assigned roles: assigned by society, by circumstances of hap, or by circumstances of birth, have within them ways that we, under Christ, can conduct ourselves so to give preference to another, to yield the right-of-way. It’s a dance: one must lead, one must follow; but the leader must lead with an accommodation to the needs of his partner, and so submit to her in the way that he leads.

Next time: Why I Don’t Use “Obey” in Wedding Vows.

zhubert is gone

2009-11-11T15:11:00.003-05:00

For some time there was a daily dose of Greek in the left hand column of this page, thanks to Zack Hubert's zhubert.com. They've had to shut down for valid reasons. See the comments at his web page. There is a push on to make an open-source original languages edition that I may get involved with. The history of ReGreek's rise and fall looks like it would be instructive, after I've had some time to give it a good reading.

Since I had to fix that on the template for this page, I ought to sit down some lunch hour and check the other links and things, and get this current.

Back, Sort Of

2008-08-23T17:09:00.002-04:00

Hello, I'm back. Sort of. Where have I been? About a year ago, my wife and I moved. I know, it's incredibly banal. It's also been an incredible amount of work, not just moving, but learning to be a HOMEOWNER for the first time in my life. Plus getting ready for my son Noah's wedding, which took place June 1st.

This process, and the months leading up to it, almost made me abandon this blog. I have no right to call myself a Grateful Christian. I am grateful, but my gratitude is such a weak, watered down thing, and is so frequently kept shining brightly under a bushel...

The other thing that has restrained me is that I have moved away from a lot of the literary and philosophical explorations that this blog was for. Mostly because the books were all packed (most still are). We'll see what happens, I guess.

"Life, by this death abled"

2007-04-08T06:23:00.000-04:00

6. RESURRECTION

Moyst with one drop of thy blood, my dry soule,
Shall (though she now be in extreme degree
Too stony hard, and yet too fleshly,) bee
Freed by that drop, from being starv'd, hard, or foule,
And life, by this death abled, shall controule
Death, whom thy death slue; nor shall to mee
Feare of first or last death, bring miserie,
If in thy little booke my name thou enroule,
Flesh in that long sleep is not putrified,
But made that there, of which, and for which 'twas;
Nor can by other meanes be glorified.
May then sinnes sleep, and deaths soone from me passe,
That wak't from both, I againe risen may
Salute the last, and everlasting day.

John Donne, La Corona, 400 years ago

"Such liberall dole"

2007-04-08T06:17:00.000-04:00

5. CRUCIFYING

By miracles exceeding power of man,
Hee faith in some, envie in some begat,
For, what weake spirits admire, ambitious, hate;
In both affections many to him ran,
But Oh! the worst are most, they will and can,
Alas, and do, unto the immaculate,
Whose creature Fate is, now prescribe a Fate,
Measuring selfe-lifes infinity to'a span,
Nay to an inch. Loe, where condemned hee
Beares his owne crosse, with paine, yet by and by
When it beares him, he must beare more and die,
Now thou art lifted up, draw mee to thee,
And at thy death giving such liberall dole,
Moyst, with one drop of thy blood, my dry soule.

John Donne, La Corona, 400 years ago

An Ash-Wednesday Tribute

2007-02-21T22:13:00.000-05:00

In Memoriam: Arthur Sekki, who was my Biblical Hebrew professor in my last two years of college, 1976-78, Concordia College, Ann Arbor, MI. He died in July of 2003. He had been out of academia for many, many years, and had returned to his earlier vocation of commercial driver. Here is a photo I found from 2001 from the newsletter of Laketran, an outfit he worked for upward of a dozen years, I think.

Art was deeply interested in philosophy, and often liked to talk about the roots of modern liberalism in Schleiermacher. He had an idea that I am trying to pursue: why not learn Biblical Hebrew according to the frequency of the actual forms, the forms that you find in the text? Once you've learned the basic verb paradigms and constructions, for reading skill it is much more important to be able to recognize wayyomer (top item below) as "and he said" than to learn another form of the verb root amar (lower right), since "and he said" occurs hundreds of times more frequently than, e.g., "they will say" in the text.

"Whence comes it...?"

2007-02-21T22:03:00.000-05:00

This is late, since it really is an Epiphany theme. Sorry.

4. TEMPLE
Withe his kind mother who partakes thy woe,
Joseph turn backe; see where your child doth sit,
Blowing, yea blowing out those sparks of wit,
Which himselfe on those Doctors did bestow;
The Word but lately could not speake, and loe
It sodenly speakes wonders, whence comes it,
That all which was, and all which would be writ,
A shallow seeming child, should deeply know?
His Godhead was not soule to his manhood,
Nor had time mellowed him to this ripenesse,
But as for one which hath a long taske, 'tis good,
With the Sunne to beginne his businesse,
He in his ages morning thus began
By miracles exceeding power of man.

John Donne, La Corona, 400 years ago

Not Disappeared

2007-01-27T23:56:00.000-05:00

Been gone, I know. Just really, really busy. Baptisms, funerals; I feel like a conductor helping people on and off a train.

Plus, I have set aside my literary pretensions to indulge in my software pretensions. I have a number of church applications that I have developed over the years, and the onset of Epiphany seemed a good time to go bug-hunting. God has blessed; I've put down a number of the critters lately. In fact, I have cleaned up Worship Secretary to such a point that I am about to release it commercially. Watch for the launch of my software site, Winkel Software. Coming soon!

"Was not his pity towards thee wondrous high?"

2006-12-24T08:22:00.000-05:00

3. NATIVITIE
Immensitie cloysterd in thy deare wombe,
Now leaves his wellbelov'd imprisonment,
There he hath made himselfe to his intent
Weake enough, now into our world to come;
But Oh, for thee, for him, hath th'Inne no roome?
Yet lay him in this stall, and from the Orient,
Starres, and wisemen will travell to prevent
Th'effect of Herods jealous generall doome,
Seest thou, my Soule, with thy faiths eyes, how he
Which fils all place, yet none holds him, doth lye?
Was not his pity towards thee wondrous high,
That would have need to be pittied by thee?
Kisse him, and with him into Egypt goe,
With his kinde mother, who partakes thy woe.

John Donne, La Corona, 400 years ago.

"shutst in little roome"

2006-12-23T09:06:00.000-05:00

Note how the last line of each verse becomes the first line of the next. In programming, we would call this a doubly linked list. I suppose Donne would have called it a chain.

2. ANNUNCIATION
Salvation to all that will is nigh.
That All, which alwayes is All every where,
Which cannot sinne, and yet all sinnes must beare,
Which cannot die, yet cannot chuse but die,
Loe, faithfull Virgin, yeelds himselfe to lye
In prison, in thy wombe; and though he there
Can take no sinne, nor thou give, yet he'will weare
Taken from thence, flesh, which deaths force may trie.
Ere by the spheares time was created, thou
Wast in his minde, who is thy Sonne, and Brother,
Whom thou conceiv'st, conceiv'd; yea thou art now
Thy Makers maker, and thy Fathers mother,
Thou'hast light in darke; and shutst in little roome
Immensity cloysterd in thy deare wombe.

"'Tis time that heart and voice be lifted high"

2006-12-22T08:02:00.000-05:00

John Donne, La Corona, ca. 1607; offered to you in serial form for your meditation this blessed Adventtide. With two funerals to conduct this week (sandwiched in among the seven other services), I am appreciating Donne's expression of the Christian hope . From DONNE, The Laurel Poetry Series, Richard Wilbur, General Editor. New York: Dell Publishing, 1962.

I. LA CORONA
Deigne at my hands this crown of prayer and praise,
Weav'd in my low devout melancholie,
Thou which of good, hast, yea art treasury,
All changing unchang'd Antient of dayes,
But doe not, with a vile crowne of fraile bayes,
Reward my muses white sincerity,
But what thy thorny crowne gain'd, that give mee,
A crowne of Glory, which doth flower alwayes;
The ends crowne our workes, but thou crown'st our ends,
For, at our end begins our endlesse rest,
This first last end, now zealously possest,
With a strong sober thirst, my soule attends.
'Tis time that heart and voice be lifted high,
Salvation to all that will is nigh.

Atheist Delusion

2006-12-18T09:48:00.000-05:00

Hat tip to Dr. Veith for pointing us to this article by Shannon Love, who identifies self as an atheist who is disenchanted with Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion. Here's a teaser: Love laments that there is

a form of confirmation bias on the part of atheists. They look into the distant past, see some actions we disapprove of in the modern world, notice that the people who chose the actions had a religious world view, and conclude that the religious world view caused the problem. However, since everybody in the distant past had a religious world view, and no significant decision makers until the very recent past had an atheistic world view, the fact that decision makers in the past were religious tells us about as much about them as the fact that they all breathed oxygen.

Atheists like to single out both the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition as examples of inhumanity that occurred because of religion. (The very fact that we atheists feel compelled to reach back 400-800 years for our kneejerk examples of bad religious behavior should set off warning bells.) Yet both events had significant materialistic or practical drivers that would have created much the same events without any religion being involved.

Strange Bedfellows

2006-12-02T15:40:00.000-05:00

Taking a break from the heavy stuff. Here are a couple of fun photos I took while on a visit to the Twin Cities this summer. The one above is not as strange a combination, I think, as the one below. In case it's too hard to read in the photo, the business on the right in the lower photograph is the "Center For Inner Awakening." They offer (according to their window) Meditation, Chanting, Hatha Yoga, Yogic Philosophy...

Doubting Symbols: Williams on Vocation, Part III

2006-11-23T12:20:00.000-05:00

[In Progress]
Fourth in a series of articles on the Charles Williams poem "Bors To Elayne: on the King's Coins" found in Taliessin Through Logres.
Click here to open a new window with the whole poem (requires javascript to be enabled in your browser.)

Taliessin's look darkened; his hand shook
while he touched the dragons; he said 'We had a good thought.
Sir, if you made verse you would doubt symbols.
I am afraid of the little loosed dragons.
When the means are autonomous, they are deadly; when words
escape from verse they hurry to rape souls;
when sensation slips from intellect, expect the tyrant;
the brood of carriers levels the good they carry.
We have taught our images to be free; are we glad?
are we glad to have brought convenient heresy to Logres?'

This is the heart of the poem. In council at London, King Arthur's new coinage troubles Taliessin, the king's poet. His hands shake, his look darkens (his name means "bright brow"), and he utters some amazing things.
Read more... (Remember, we are hearing this speech as reported by Bors to his wife Elayne.) C.S.Lewis' comment on Taliessin's speech in Williams and the Arthuriad says it better than I could:

Coins are symbols: and being a poet he knows much more about symbols than Kay. A symbol has a life of its own. An escaped metaphor--escaped from the control of the total poem or philosophy in which it belongs--may be a poisonous thing. Has Kay considered whether these metal symbols, these metaphors in gold and silver, may not also have a life of their own? Will money be man's servant--or has it, perhaps, its own views?

Williams himself is a poet, so he knows what Taliessin knows. It would be worthwhile to examine this in his prose works too... [later--maybe]

Ryan Tinetti over at Backward Kingdom gets at this too, with his post "The Word Made Fresh"--check it out.... here's a teaser:

A poet doesn’t shoot off verbal broadsides; a poet doesn’t pen indiscriminant treatises. Realizing that language is fundamentally rooted in relationality, the poet writes in such a way which respects the mystery that is communication.

There is a lot we could do with this subject, but this essay is not really about poet-power, but about word-power, symbol-power, especially its dangers. Taliessin's vocation as the royal poet of Logres makes him skeptical, even fearful: "Sir, if you made verse you would doubt symbols." Yes, but "words escaped from verse rape souls"? Isn't that a bit extreme?

As I attempt to deal with that question, I think I will be forced to quote at length from a chapter Williams wrote in an essay "Reason And Beauty In The Poetic Mind" (1933) which you can read at the Internet Archive. This part of my answer will take a while.

And what is the "convenient heresy" that coinage brings to Logres?

Provisional answer: I don't know yet, but I suspect it will be something to do with the Incarnation. For Williams, all theology was ultimately Christology. Another poem in the cycle ("Prelude" from The Region of the Summer Stars) refers to the resistance of some to the concreteness, the physicality, of Christianity--and not just at the Areopagus in Athens:

...the ancient intellect
heard, delaying and playing with its archives, and demurred
that pain was easy, and completeness of belief costly,
and flesh too queasy to bear the main of spirit.
The converted doctors turned to the their former confessions,
the limitary heresiarchs feared the indiscretions of matter,
and the careful Nestorius, coming to befriend peace,
preached at Byzantium. Before the sermon was at end
the metaphysicians, sitting to note him, heard
from the City the roar of burning and bundled torches
rise through the fixed stars: Theotokos, Anthropotokos;
his disciples shrank from the blood-stream where the full torches
ruddily poured round the eikon of Mary-in-blessing.
Professing only a moral union, they fled
from the new-spread bounty...

Nestorianism, all forms of docetism, and pretty much everything that is other than orthodox Christology all hamstring the law of exchange. That is not why they are wrong, but that is the burden of the Prelude as it documents the growth of the Empire as the growth of the doctrine of the Twy-Natured Christ.

In Bors to Elayne: On The King's Coins, Kay tries to interpret the coinage in the terms of the Empire, as a means of exchange, although he makes the fatal and telling slip in his choice of articles ("the" means of exchange). Taliessin does not contradict him (you're wrong, it's not a means of exchange) but points out the dangers of such means, when they are no longer structurally tied to ends. "When the means become autonomous, they become deadly." I suspect there is some connection here to Williams' peculiar and fascinating concept of the Fall into sin which I am struggling to grok as I read He Came Down From Heaven. More later. Maybe.

Anyway. This tells me that the "convenient heresy" ought to be some theological analogue to escaped metaphors--and it's almost on the tip of my tongue--but I'm getting stuck.

What is the tyrant we are to expect when "sensation slips from intellect": the heart no longer restrained by the head, or the head no longer gentled by the heart,--or some third, less blatant danger, that goes beyond the trite categorization of head-vs.-heart?

First approximation: the divorce of the two, either way, leads to tyranny. Reference Williams' concept of mens sensitiva, the "feeling intellect."

What is the lesson for the theologian, the preacher, the writer, the teacher, the blogger? And how do Marshall McLuhan and Frank Herbert fit into all this?

Frank Herbert, in Children of Dune, has Leto Atreides II muse this (p. 241):

We can still remember the golden days before Heisenberg, who showed humans the walls enclosing our predestined arguments. The lives within me find this amusing. Knowledge, you see, has no uses without purpose; but purpose is what builds enclosing walls.

Elsewhere he described someone as a "mindslaver." p. 198

Palimbasha taught in the sietch school. Mathematics. The man was a mathematical boor. He had attempted to explain Muad'Dib through mathematics until censured by the Priesthood. He was a mind-slaver and his enslaving process could be understood with extreme simplicity: he transferred technical knowledge without a transfer of values.

and there is a snippet from one of Palimbasha's lectures at the top of the chapter that begins on p. 234.

Kay The Boor: Williams on Vocation, Part II

2006-11-19T21:18:00.000-05:00

[In Progress]
Third in a series of articles of articles on the Charles Williams poem "Bors To Elayne: on the King's Coins" found in Taliessin Through Logres.
Click here to open a new window with the whole poem (requires javascript to be enabled in your browser.)

They had the coins before the council.
Kay, the king's steward, wise in economics, said:
'Good; these cover the years and the miles
and talk one style's dialects to London and Omsk.
Traffic can hold now and treasure be held,
streams are bridged and mountains of ridged space
tunnelled; gold dances deftly across frontiers.
The poor have choice of purchase, the rich of rents,
and events move now in a smoother control
than the swords of lords or the orisons of nuns.
Money is the medium of exchange.'

Kay's comments sound plausible, but before we examine them, let's take a look at Sir Kay himself, and why Charles Williams might have selected him as the foil for Taliessin's speech. Please accept an assertion that time does not permit me to elaborate on just now: There was considerable cross-pollination of ideas between Williams and Lewis on the Arthurian myth.
Read more...

(When I say myth, I don't mean that Arthur and the Table Round didn't exist, but that their story grew to take on a life of its own as subsequent generations retold it and amplified it. For my money, King Arthur was a historical figure.) In particular, Lewis' That Hideous Strength owes much to Williams and unabashedly honors it. It is too bad the First Macmillan Paperbacks edition misspelled the title of the poem; Camilla tells Jane she is quoting from Taliessin "Throught" Logres. Williams himself is not named in the novel, so I wonder how many other readers were frustrated trying to find the poem in the real world.

In the first chapter of That Hideous Strength, Lewis makes Dr. Dimble speculate eloquently and enthusiastically on what British society might have been like in Arthur's day: an uneasy interface between elements of Roman aristocracy, and pre-Roman Briton warlords. Of Arthur himself, he says

One can imagine a man of the old British line, but also a Christian and a fully-trained general with Roman technique, trying to pull this whole society together and almost succeeding. There'd be jealousy from his own British family, and the Romanised section--the Launcelots and Lionels--would look down on the Britons. That'd be why Kay is always represented as a boor: he is part of the native strain.

That was Lewis sometime prior to 1943; Taliessin Through Logres had been published in 1937 (parts of it as early as 1930). Is the Dr. Dimble character really Charles Williams, as Ransom is J.R.R.Tolkien? Even if the answer is No, Dimble's comment certainly reflects Williams' mythology of Logres as being where Byzantium meets Broceliande. Thus I may be forgiven for suggesting that by casting Sir Kay as the first commenter in the London council meeting, Williams is choosing someone that represents "the native strain." A new regime has come in, and Kay has found a place in it, but he's a wannabe, not a real convert. He doesn't "get it" except in a very simplistic manner, filtered through his conceptual worldview, which is all about earthly power (formerly arms, lately economics). Not that there is anything wrong with earthly power. As we Lutherans say, it too is part of God's administrative rule, His "kingdom of the left hand." Sir Kay, "wise in economics," approves the coinage and even tries to validate their "spiritual" meaning using the jargon of the new regime. He means well when he proclaims, "Money is the medium of exchange."

Lewis comments on Kay's little speech in his Williams and the Arthuriad:

There is, in fact, danger in money. Kay, the boor, 'wise in economics' does not see the danger. He is unreservedly delighted with the idea of a common 'medium of exchange'. . . But the danger which is hidden from the economist Kay is very clear to the poet Taliessin, Coins are symbols: and being a poet he knows much more about symbols than Kay.

By the way, here's a very interesting article "Charles Williams (1886-1945) And Current Economic Thought" by John Hibbs--presented on a libertarian web site, no less! I haven't digested the whole thing yet, so I don't know how exactly it's going to fit into this essay. But here's a teaser:

Bors finds it difficult to reconcile his instinctive distrust of the coinage with Kay’s cogent argument for the benefits it will bring — and is not Kay “the king’s steward, wise in economics”? But Taliessin, too, is afraid, and CW makes no attempt in the poem to reconcile the ambiguities, beyond leaving two statements resonating in the mind. And in this he takes us, with great skill, to the very heart of the essential ambiguity of money, just as every economist has to.

Anyway, Kay is trying, in his ham-fisted way. Choices are good, right? Amazing how contemporary those sentiments sound seventy years later: The poor have choice of purchase, the rich of rents, and here we are in the 'My' Decade (are you listening, Tom Wolfe?), where customization is king. Choices are empowering.
Speaking of power, since money can be regulated, it is theoretically possible to achieve "smoother control" than you get by relying on the two great powers, what would come to be known centuries later as the First Estate (religious power, the orisons of nuns) and the Second Estate (the aristocracy, the swords of lords). If 'wild' exchange, the loose, slapdash compacts of barters, is good, then it can be improved through domestication by the introduction of order, of means.

I'm a techie by disposition. Having been bitten by the engineering bug, I occasionally break out in gee-whiz fever. When you can envision a process, it not only looks like it might work, but it starts to look self-evident, almost inevitable --Progress--The Wave Of The Future! (You hear a lot of gee-whiz fever in the way some people talk about stem cell research.) Maybe that's why I want to forgive Kay for asserting, just a little too optimistically, Money is the medium of exchange.

But I know this as a form of idolatry. I can envision a process, a solution. As Niklaus Wirth, the inventor of Pascal (the language I write programs in) put it in the title of his landmark work: Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs. That's just a techie description of every "creative" human endeavor, whether the project is "how do I track hymn usage on my computer?" or "how do I feed the sixteen people who are coming for Thanksgiving?". The problem with the "creative" process is that we forget that humans don't create, they just rearrange the things that the Creator has left us with. There is a godlike feeling when you envision of a solution, and the power to "realize" that vision. (This is why I get a chill down my spine when I think of how much energy is being spent on coaching pastors to be "vision casters.")

I'm having a little trouble here. Man was designed to have dominion, to shape creation, to impose order. It was part of our original wiring, before the Fall. It doesn't have to be a rape of the environment; picture an elderly Japanese gardener who spends years coaxing plants and rocks into an esthetically pleasing dance. And as I said in the introduction to this essay, order and organization do not dim the glory of Christian vocation. The people who flooded into southern Louisiana last year with RVs and chainsaws, and little else, were not doing a "greater" service of love than the people who, instead of putting shovel to rubble, labored to organize the relief efforts. I believe in intentionality, and that "work smarter" is better than "work harder." But sometimes--maybe it's just me--sometimes, in the process of engineering a solution, the process becomes more important than the problem it's supposed to solve. I find myself falling in love with the challenge, or more specifically, with the answer I am "creating." There's an old Rush song that eloquently describes the addictive nature of creative activity:

Spirits fly on dangerous missions
Imaginations on fire
Focused high on soaring ambitions
Consumed in a single desire

In the grip of
A nameless possession --
A slave to the drive of obsession --
A spirit with a vision
Is a dream with a mission...

("Mission" from Hold Your Fire)

Kay has a vision, and perhaps he is just the jackdaw parroting the King's vision, but there is a danger here. His final pronouncement falls artlessly, thud! into the midst of the council. It will be Taliessin, the king's poet, who will describe the downside.

Mint Nightmares: Williams on Vocation, Part I

2006-11-19T16:48:00.000-05:00

The next installment from "Bors to Elayne: on the King's Coins" from Charles Williams' Taliessin Through Logres.

The king has set up his mint by Thames.
He has struck coins; his dragon's loins
germinate a crowded creaturely brood
to scuttle and scurry between towns and towns,
to furnish dishes and flagons with change of food;
small crowns, small dragons, hurry to the markets
under the king's smile, or flat in houses squat.
The long file of their snout crosses the empire,
and the other themes acknowledge our king's head.
They carry on their backs little packs of value,
caravans; but I dreamed the head of a dead king
was carried on all, that they teemed on house-roofs
where men stared and studied them as I your thumbs' epigrams,
hearing the City say Feed my lambs
to you and the king; the king can tame dragons to carriers,
but I came through the night, and saw the dragonlets' eyes
leer and peer, and the house-roofs under their weight
creak and break; shadows of great forms
halloed them on, and followed over falling towns.
I saw that this was the true end of our making;
mother of children, redeem the new law.

Read more...

The meeting in London, from which Bors has just returned, was about King Arthur's new mint. "We are to suppose," writes C.S.Lewis, "that since the collapse of the Roman rule Britain has been without coinage, has lived by barter."

The new coins being minted have Arthur's head on one side, and dragons on the other. They will make the work of empire easier; "the themes" [provinces] "acknowledge our king's head." Bors is uneasy about this "crowded creaturely brood" that has sprung from the king's loins. In his nightmare, they teemed--picture yeast multiplying out of control, as you watch through a microscope. Lewis writes, "Money has bred money. He has seen house roofs creaking and breaking under the weight." Despite the obvious practical value of money, something is being lost with the passing of barter as the normal mode of doing business. Something has died, and in it there is a foreshadowing of the death of the King himself.

Recall that in the first part of the poem, Bors saw Elayne's hands as extensions of "the altars of Christ the City." An altar is a physical place that receives worship, not for itself, but for redirection to something invisible. His Beatrician vision, mediated through his wife's thumbs, redirected his devotion to Christ the City with its doctrine of exchange, and its Servant Messiah stooping to serve. Bors has, in a sense, heard the Savior call Elayne to "Feed My lambs," by seeing her answering actions.

In his dream of money multiplying on house-roofs, Bors has seen men looking at money the same way he has looked at his wife's thumbs. But these men in his dream--to whom is their worship redirected, when their altar is a pile of coins?

A note on "Christ the City"--although this topic could really use an essay by itself, the short answer is that in Charles Williams' world, this is shorthand for "Christ at work on earth through His people." It is roughly equivalent to Paul's (Holy-Spirit inspired) picture of the Church as the "Body of Christ." In Paul, the organic connection and unity is in the foreground, whereas in Williams, the main thing is results, the accomplishing of the mission, with that being the occasion for the celebrating of relationships. There is a taste of this in Paul too, in his picture of gardeners connected by a common goal : I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building (1 Corinthians 3:6-9 NIV) . It is a City because it is patterned on Byzantium. Williams knew that this was anachronistic, but he seems to have wanted Logres (Arthur's kingdom) to be taking shape on the frontier between Byzantium (representing the orderly glory of Christian faith) and Broceliande (the wild wood representing chaos and untamed spiritual landscapes). Logres grows in the interstices, and that is why Taliessin, the king's poet, is the ideal person to narrate the growth of mere Britannia into Logres, because he himself comes out of Broceliande (he was raised by druids), but a visit to Byzantium harnessed his spirituality with the yoke of Christ. The City of God, Augustine's great concept, is no doubt a strong influence here too. The drama of the whole cycle of poems contained in Taliessin Through Logres and The Region of the Summer Stars can be summed up in this: will Logres grow to become Camelot, an outpost of the City of God, or will it fail to achieve this dream?

In a sense, this is where the Lutheran concept of vocation comes through. All must work--it is so universal, it even predates the Fall--but those who have been called by the Gospel and enlightened with the Holy Spirit's gifts do their work, in the memorable words of Uwe Siemon-Netto, as "priests in aprons and overalls." Christ the City is the Risen and Ascended Jesus, working through His people on earth as they organize to proclaim His truth and live out His love. The service we render to our neighbor is offered to Christ as a living sacrifice. The Risen Jesus reinstated weak, shamefaced Peter with the words "Feed My lambs." And every Christian, in our regular need for repentance and reinstatement, hears Jesus issue the same call. Our lives are tinged by the same drama: will this forgiven sinner continue to live for self, just doing his job, or will he intentionally offer his time-talents-treasure as the living sacrifice of a grateful heart? Will his work be just a job, or will it become a living demonstration of Christian joy? The apostle Paul warns us to exercise care in the way we build a life on the foundation of the Gospel. If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames (1 Corinthians 3:12-15 NIV).

Christ the City calls also to, and through, King Arthur, and his response has been to mint coins, to "tame dragons to carriers." Ok, he can do that. It is a testament to his majesty and power. But where Elayne's heeding of the new law ("love one another," John 13:34) is a matter of direct action, or the directly supervised action of another, Arthur's way of heeding the call is leveraged to gain spread and scope, but at the cost of direct and personal contact. Money can become not only a means, but an object, of business. (How much of the current price of gasoline is related not to actual supply and demand, but to speculation in oil futures? Yet one has difficulty imagining such speculation under a barter system.) The dragons, once tamed, might carry just as well for another master; perhaps even a master with treasonous intent; how ironic if an assassin's knife was hired with Arthur's own coin. What shadowy forms might be calling to the coins, urging them on what dire business? And so Bors urges Elayne to "redeem the new law," addressing her as "mother of children," for he fears that Arthur (father of little coin dragons) has sold out the new law somehow. I wonder if this is the significance of the eye-rhymes in this section of the poem: words that look like they ought to rhyme, but don't when pronounced:
"flat in houses squat"
"creak and break"
as sort of a structural representation of the dissonance between the King's intention and the results he gets.

Why is this idolatry seen on roof-tops? My guess is that we are to think of King David, walking on the roof top of his palace, whence he spotted Bathsheba bathing. From this small trickle of lust grew an avalanche of adultery, murder, and the ensuing cover-up.

Vocation In Williams' Arthuriad: Introduction

2006-11-17T19:20:00.000-05:00

C.S. Lewis wrote an introduction to the Arthurian poetry of his Inklings friend Charles Williams, titled Williams and the Arthuriad. It appears in one volume with Williams' two poetry collections; although out of print, you can find it on Amazon.com. It was published by Wm B. Eerdmans in 1974.

I've been meaning for months to write a Lutheran/Vocation commentary on one of the poems in Taliessin Through Logres for months now, but it took this post at Backward Kingdom to get me off the dime. Iron sharpens iron, again.

What follows is the first of several installments on "Bors to Elayne: on the King's Coins," which starts on page 60 in the above mentioned volume.

Read more...

Bors To Elayne: On The King's Coins

I came in; I saw you stand,
in your hand the bread of love, in your head lightness of law.
The uprightness of the multitude stood in your figure;
my fieldsmen ate and your women served,
while you watched them from the high seat.
When you saw me a southern burst of love
tossed a new smile from your eyes to your mouth,
shaping for that wind's while the corn of your face.
It was said once that your hair was the colour of corn;
he who said so was capable only to adorn
the margin of parchments drawn in schools of Gaul;
their doctrine is your hands' main. I am come again
to live from the founts and fields of your hands;
colour is art, but my heart counts the doctrine.

Bors is a knight of the Table Round, and Elayne is no small person herself (being the daughter of King Pelles); yet this love-poem is not written as knight to lady, but simply as husband to wife. There is something on his mind, something about a meeting he attended in London, having to do with the business end of the kingdom; but as he arrives home again, he sees in the simple order of his household the true business of a truer Kingdom.

Sure, he loves her, and he's happy to be home again after a long night's ride, but where Love is concerned, nothing is ever that simple in Williams. I cannot say it better than Mary McDermott Shideler in her fine introduction to the Eerdmans one-volume edition:

The supreme examples of imagery for Williams were the human body as it images the human spirit, and human love as it images divine love. . . As patience is always patience, whatever the circumstances in which it is exercised, so--Williams declares--love is love whether it occurs between God and man, or between men and women. Human love is not "suggestively similar" to divine love; the two have real identity. That is not to say that they are identical, but to maintain that the single reality can be expressed in two--or many--styles, as an idea can be expressed in poetry or prose, spoken or written words, or gestures or demonstrations. The central question for every man is what his real identity shall be: love, or hate or fear or detachment or any of the other possibilities. His second question is what style he shall use to express his identity: marriage or celibacy, politics or poetry, romanticism, classicism, or realism, and so on.

Further, to understand Williams' thought and poetry, you need to understand one of the foundational principles in his universe: the concept of Exchange. Love is a special case, a refined form, of this most common and workaday principle. None of us exists in isolation. We give and receive. As C.J.Keyser said, To be is to be related. Williams called this "co-inherence," deliberately drawing from the Athanasian Creed, for to Williams, the earthly interrelatedness of humans in labor, in business, or in love, is a parable of relations between the Persons of the Trinity.

So when Bors sees his household functioning in this "web of exchange"--his field hands sitting down to eat the bread served by Elayne's serving-women, so that they can be strengthened for the continuation of their labors, which will produce more wheat, resulting in future bread--he sees more than a welcome homely sight: he sees the pattern of what the kingdom ought to be. And his wife, supervising from her high seat, is an archetype of ruler-conceived-as-exchange-organizer/facilitator.

The poem continues:

On the forms of ancient saints, my heroes, your thumbs,
as on a winch the power of man is wound
to the last inch; there ground is prepared
for the cared and seeded harvest of propinquant goodwill,
drained the reeded marches, cleared the branched jungles
where the unthumbed shapes of apes swung and hung.
Now when the thumbs are muscled with the power of goodwill
corn comes to the mill and the flour to the house,
bread of love for your women and my men;
at the turn of the day, and none only to earn;
in the day of the turn, and none only to pay;
for the hall is raised to the power of exchange of all
by the small spread organisms of your hands; O Fair,
there are the altars of Christ the City extended.
I have ridden all night from organization in London,
ration and rule, and the fault in ration and rule,
law and the flaw in law, to reach to you,
the sole figure of the organic salvation of our good.

In her hand--the temple, as it were, at which he has worshiped before, in an earlier poem ("Bors to Elayne: the Fish of Broceliande")--he sees a microcosm of the engine which powers exchange. Her thumbs are his heroes. They are a means of exercising dominion over creation, but that in itself is not remarkable. All of Adam's children, fallen though they be, continue that part of the image of God. But in Elayne there is more than mere technology, mere power to cultivate: there is goodwill in the musculature, kindness that drives the process of taming nature. In her hand is bread, as there is in the hand of many a human, no small humanistic triumph in itself; but in her head there is "lightness of law" (lightness = quickness to action) so that it becomes the "bread of love" by her ordering activity.

Bors does see what is on the surface, his wife's obvious beauty, which even a hack artist can see. The artist is dealing only with the superficial, the margins of parchments. (I suppose there may have even been manuscript illuminators who could draw, but not read.) Bors moves past the golden scrollwork, to the doctrine, the content communicated in the parchment, the burden of its message: "their doctrine is your hands' main" and so his "heart counts the doctrine," because it is from the truths that Elayne embodies that he draws life. This is not some kind of Gnostic or Platonic idealism at work; the essence of Elayne is not buried under her hands and thumbs, but is realized and revealed there.

Elayne is, of course, lovable and adorable (in the original sense of the term) in herself. But Bors' moment of adoration here is Elayne-in-action, as she directs the distribution of "bread of love for your women and my men." The result of her work, the dance of giving and receiving, where none only earns and none only pays, means that "the hall is raised to the power of exchange of all/ by the small spread organisms of your hands" and thus these hands become altars of "Christ the City." For Williams, the City of God is Christ in us, but never in us only as individuals--the true glory of God is seen in the fellowship of Christian love and mutual service to one another. Order and organization do not dim that glory. (Recall that the election of the deacons in Acts chapter six, was at root an administrative organizing of the Church's work of mercy.) They give it sharpness and definition, as Elayne's hands give physical expression to her loving service lightly given, despite the fact that she is a princess.

It is an especially wholesome sight for Bors, because he has just come from a meeting where, as C.S.Lewis puts it in his commentary, "a different code of Exchange has just come into existence." This meeting was an exercise in law and "ration and rule," but there is a "flaw in the law" and a "fault in the ration and rule." Organization, in itself, is not toxic to Christian love and service. But something is amiss.

to be continued

More Baconisms

2006-11-16T20:07:00.000-05:00

More wit I've found in reading Francis Bacon's Essays:
OF RICHES:

Seek not proud riches, but such as thou mayest get justly, use soberly, distribute cheerfully, and leave contentedly. Yet have no abstract or friarly contempt of them.

OF STUDIES:

To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humor of a scholar.
...
Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have of a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit: and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not.

Contrapositively Cool

2006-11-07T21:03:00.000-05:00

Grateful guy that I am--correction, that I aspire to be--I want to publicly acknowledge my gratitude to Jeff Duntemann, a well-published tech guru of wizard class. He also happens to be, as he puts it in his online diary, an "unapologetic religionist," describing himself as an adherent of "non-Papal Western Catholicism." He has been writing an online journal titled "ContraPositive Diary" for eight years, but I just found it: it's linked in the blogroll at left.

I like that he is a techie with an interest in spiritual things. I like that he, too, is another fan of Pentangle's cover of the Lyke Wake Dirge. But okay, let's get to my reason for being grateful. Jeff is a generous guy. Back around the turn of the century, Jeff Duntemann helped me find Delphi (the Pascal computer programming language implementation, not the Greek oracle).
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He is, in his own words, "writer, editor, technologist, contrarian." 'Writer' is modest. He's written several books as sole author, and co-authored another bunch. He was Senior Technical Editor at PC Tech Journal and wrote a column for years in the venerable Dr. Dobb's Journal. Like I said, a guru of wizard class.

I had been an old-school Turbo Pascal hobby programmer, in the days when the Digital Research's operating system CP/M ruled. I wanted to get back into the game in the PC world, but was having a hard time with Object Pascal. I read something he had written about the future of Pascal, and sent him an email thanking him for his good thoughts. I said something like "I'd like to get into visual programming. I wish there was something like Visual Basic, but for Pascal." He wrote back, amazingly enough, and said, "Did you miss Delphi??? That's what you want." He was a huge help. He gave me an introductory version of Delphi to get my feet wet. I did, and then went out and bought Delphi version 2--and one of Jeff's books--and I was able to re-do my old Turbo Pascal CP/M church applications in Delphi.

I am once again in his debt, for his excellent introduction to the latest incarnation of the spirit of Delphi, Turbo Delphi, titled "Jeff Duntemann's Turbo Delphi Explorer From Square One" without which, I would have found the installation process exceedingly frustrating; and I never would have found out about Nick Hodges' cool tutorial Camtasia videos.
Thank you, Jeff! Long may you run!

"Toward a Visual Rhetoric of the Gospel"

2006-11-06T15:10:00.000-05:00

This article referenced above appears in the Fall 2006 Issues In Christian Education vol. 40 #2, published by Concordia University, Seward Nebraska. The authors, Paul Berkbigler and Bruce Creed, are professors there, of art and communication, respectively. You can read the article as a PDF by clicking on the title above.

The authors ask some good questions, and offer some stimulating ideas.

I have often wrestled with the pull between wanting to add more visual vocabulary to my teaching and preaching, and wanting to preserve the art of oral/aural preaching. Sometimes I manage, in an oral sermon, to dip into the visual stream.
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For example, in talking about 1 Peter 5:6-9, I might say,
"What does it mean, in a movie, when the characters are suddenly shown inside of two circles, like this?" (put two O hands together) "It's the view through binoculars, right? What is the filmmaker saying with that visual cliche? What does it mean?" (It means someone is watching them, is the response I hope to hear.)

"What if it's one circle--and it has crosshairs? Does filming that way give a different message?" (A sniper is watching them, maybe going to shoot one of them.)

Then I go on to contrast "He [God] cares for you" and "the devil is prowling... looking for someone to devour." I say that God is watching us (binocular hands) but the Devil is hunting us (rifle posture, peering through scope).

Dopey little example. Maybe I'll do it one of these days.

Here's my favorite quote from the article (but the emphasis is mine, not the authors'):
The development and introduction of technology has not only made us aware of the different ways in which we process words, but it also has pointed out the myriad ways in which we now process images. Film and television celebrate disunion between idea and image often purely to shock us and to get our attention. This break in relation is rarely repaired for the sake of the information still to come; it is often either sidestepped or completely disregarded as the contents of the message are delivered. This technique is gradually being applied to all generations. For example, advertising that uses songs of the 1960s to sell any product regardless of its relation to songs of the Baby Boomers.

Even so, Boomers and other generations may not always be challenged by the notion that the contents of the Gospel and the contents of their lives are directly correlated. For Christ to have incorporated into His parables the simple image of drinking from a well shows us the relationship between our lives and His Gospel message. For many young people, however, even these parables sometimes do not resonate in their lives. There seems to be disunion between image and meaning because of the proliferation of uncorrelated images in advertising, film and other texts that they see daily. These young readers then interact with technology and media in which images have been used intentionally often without the expectation or realization that the images have been manipulated with purpose. Worship can bridge this gap between the careful and careless use of images by providing what we have earlier referred to as graphic resonance. The caution for users of technology in worship is to always remember that there is a need for resonance between images and words.

Christians need to be so careful about this. Resist the fad. The image appeals, but if it doesn't contribute to the message, it worsens the signal-to-noise ratio. I've blogged before about McLuhan; his ideas continue to fascinate me. I'm glad other Christian thinkers are thinking about these things too.

Francis Bacon on Self-love and Doing Good

2006-11-04T15:34:00.000-05:00

Bacon is considered one of the fathers of the scientific method. From his essay "On Goodness and Goodness of Nature" ca. 1597:

Beware how in making the portraiture thou breakest the pattern. For divinity maketh the love of ourselves the pattern; the love of our neighbors but the portraiture. Sell all thou hast, and give it to the poor, and follow me: but sell not all thou hast, except thou come and follow me; that is, except thou have a vocation wherein thou mayest do as much good with little means as with great; for otherwise in feeding the streams thou driest the fountain.

The pattern/portrait refers to what is sometimes called The Golden Rule, "Love your neighbor as yourself," Matthew 22:39. The italics is where he alludes to Jesus' saying to the "rich young man" in Mark 10:21. What follows is not contradiction, although it sounds like it.
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He seems to be making Jesus to say, "But don't try this unless you are going to follow Me." I wonder if his word "vocation" does not seem to relate so much as to "paid employment" as to the call of Christ. If you are called by Christ and follow him, you are never in danger of drying up the fountain, because He is a boundless fountain. On the other hand, by vocation he may mean one's station in life, in the spirit of 1 Corinthians 7:17-24:

Only, as the Lord has assigned to each one, as God has called each, in this manner let him walk. And so I direct in all the churches. Was any man called when he was already circumcised? He is not to become uncircumcised. Has anyone been called in uncircumcision? He is not to be circumcised. Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but what matters is the keeping of the commandments of God. Each man must remain in that condition in which he was called.
Were you called while a slave? Do not worry about it; but if you are able also to become free, rather do that. For he who was called in the Lord while a slave, is the Lord's freedman; likewise he who was called while free, is Christ's slave. You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men. Brethren, each one is to remain with God in that condition in which he was called.

"Priests In Aprons And Overalls"

2006-11-03T19:01:00.000-05:00

Click on the title to read a great essay on the need and opportunity for our Lutheran doctrine of vocation, by a man I am growing to respect more and more, journalist Uwe Siemon-Netto, of the Concordia Seminary Institute of Lay Vocation. At one of the places where he spoke on this topic, there followed a Q&A session where he said something that I have felt for many years, about this:

Let’s make one thing clear here: what I am promoting is not “Christian lawyers,” “Christian journalists,” “Christian this,” “Christian politicians.” ... This is not Lutheran. What I want is--you have to be very precise, very nitpicking--I want Christians in the legal profession, Christians in journalism, and not to push, not to evangelize in their offices, or on the workbench; but to be so Lutheran that they understand that when they work as lawyers or journalists or whatever it is--or you as a mother--you do so serving your neighbor...

Right now, the work of each and every one of us as Lutherans is not (unless you are a pastor) to, from your workbench, evangelize. You will find, though, that if you have this Lutheran ethos that I have been talking about, people will ask you what it is that drives you as a Christian in motherhood, as a Christian in running a corporation. Then of course, feel free to evangelize!

See And Say

2006-11-02T21:38:00.000-05:00

The child's wisdom is in saying
They say what they see when they see it
I am beginning to remember how
When I don't say it when I see it
I remember it differently

Hy Sobiloff, "The Child's Sight"

Have you ever noticed how something internal, like a belief system, or a fear, becomes at once more real, and less vital, when you describe it? When you express it? When you name it?

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It becomes defined--its boundaries are set--so it gains definition (as we use the word in the visual sense) and becomes realized, therefore more real.

The recognition and confirmation of the image, what General Semantics calls an "object," supplies the mind with a simulation that is only as detailed as it needs to be. Low resolution. But the processes of abstracting, this naming/categorizing with its hasty, forced decisions of where to set the boundaries, robs the object of some of its raw, elemental vitality, its power. In therapy, where fears and memories are named and thus cut down to manageable size, this is often a good thing!

We might expect that the higher up the ladder of abstraction we go--the thinner the air of description and analysis and meta-description--the more "tame" the object becomes. Perhaps this is why scholarly theologians are accused of preaching dry sermons, compared to the preacher who is less reflective and more gutsy, shoot-from-the-hip slapdash.

"Dear Frankie" Video Recommendation

2006-11-01T14:54:00.000-05:00

Saw this last night. I can't recommend it highly enough. A beautiful film with heart.
Be sure to watch the Special Features "The Story Of Dear Frankie" and note the rationale behind some of the casting decisions; I think you'll agree that they were brilliant.

Happy Reformation Day

2006-10-31T21:24:00.000-05:00

Yes, it's All Hallows Even, better known to us Lutherans as Reformation Day. I wrote what I consider to be a pretty decent summary of what the "Lutheran" moniker means for the "pastor's page" of the newsletter of the church I pastor, October 2006 edition, which is now history. It is posted as the end of this entry.

Before you go there, or skip this post entirely, allow me to offer a more concise, and quite elegant, quote from the eminent Dr. Gene "Ed" Veith, who wrote this on his Cranach blog a few days ago:

...being Lutheran has to do with being a Christian whose sole hope is the Gospel, who has a theology of the Cross rather than Glory (that is, grows closer to Christ in the experience of weakness, suffering, and defeat rather than strength, power, and victory), who has a sense of vocation (that God is in the ordinary tasks of life that He calls us to), who recognizes the depths of human sin and also the depths of God's grace, who rejects all gnosticism in a recognition that God comes to us in the material world of flesh, creation, incarnation, a book printed on paper, and sacraments of water, bread, and wine.

Thus far Dr. Veith. For my 520 words of wisdom, click here to
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from the October 2006 Good Shepherd's Clippings:

We weren’t supposed to be “Lutherans.”

As you may have heard, Martin Luther really didn’t like that term. He preferred the term “Evangelical” (“Gospel-oriented”). But the sixteenth century Gospel Reformation came to be known as the Lutheran Reformation, so the name stuck, much to his dismay.

A “Lutheran” Christian is not a follower of Martin Luther. (He was a fallible human being, who made mistakes like all of us.) Here’s what it means to be a Lutheran Christian:

Bible-based: We hold the Bible to be the Word of God, totally true, no mistakes or lies. We use it as the sole source and norm for Christian teaching. Other expressions of Christian teaching--the documents collected in the Book of Concord, the Creeds, the Large and Small Catechisms, a pastor’s sermon, a hymn, a Bible study, even the Pastor’s Page of a church newsletter--are under the authority of the Bible, which is the standard by which they are to be judged. To be Lutheran is to say that the Bible corrects and informs our teachings; but no one corrects the Bible. To correct the Bible, you’d have to be smarter than God Himself.

Christ-centered: To a Lutheran, the central figure in the Bible is Jesus (yes, even in the Old Testament!). Jesus Himself said that: You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me... (John 5:39 ESV) When He said this, nothing in the New Testament had been written yet! His coming is promised, His mission is described, in Isaiah, and the Psalms, and Genesis, and the other 36 books of the Old Testament, and of course He is the star of the 27 books of the New Testament. There are many ways to read and interpret the Holy Scriptures. We deliberately interpret them in terms of the coming of the Jewish Messiah, the Christ, and we see Him on every page.

Grace-obsessed: The Christ we see in both Old and New Testaments is not a new Moses, bringing an updated list of do’s and don’t’s. Gospel means “Good News,” and the Good News is that God has had grace and mercy on us undeserving, wretched sinners. We don’t do anything to deserve it. We can’t do anything to contribute to it. It’s all Him, generously offering complete pardon, at absolutely no charge to us. We harp endlessly on this point. It’s a mania with us.

In short, we believe God’s Word, even the things we don’t understand, because that’s where we get the Gospel, and it is that Gospel that made us believers.

Oh, one more thing. To be Lutheran is to be confessing. I don’t mean the negative use of that word, like confessing to a crime. The positive meaning of “confess” is to tell the truth, boldly, no matter what the consequences. We tell the truth revealed in God’s Word. We don’t hide our light under a bushel basket. We don’t “go along to get along.” We don’t bow to the spirit of the age. There’s no such thing as a wishy-washy Lutheran!

Additions To My Tiny Blogroll

2006-10-30T10:37:00.000-05:00

My blogroll at left is not some sort of exclusive club. It's just my short list of the blogs I drop in at regularly. I have added two today:
Daylight - the blog of Old Solar Online magazine. Rick Ritchie is a regular, and edifying, contributor to Cranach; but when I read his most recent post, I resolved to start hanging out at Daylight more. This guy, too, has mojo.

Here's a teaser:

Overstatement is part of the Lutheran grammar. You speak a different language and you describe a different faith. It the very fabric of Lutheranism. Trying to iron out the wrinkle is like trying to iron out a felt hat. You may succeed, but you will no longer have a hat.

The other new addition is Fire and Knowledge, the blog of Joshua Sowin. Not really a blog, actually... oh, never mind, I'll let him explain it:

This is not a “blog” in the normal sense, as it tries not to be narcissistic or contemporary, but rather encourage others to think deeply about important issues through quotes, essays, and occasional links.

I find that looking over his shoulder as he does this is very stimulating. Besides, I wanted his advice for my own wrestling with the proper use of quotes, and instead of blowing me off, he posted a very helpful comment. A good goober.

Style And Content

2006-10-19T21:14:00.000-04:00

Notes on an ongoing project. And an excuse to post a photo that begs to be shown.
In the effort to communicate, what lines get crossed when undue emphasis is placed on the target language? (Translation: when you're trying to talk in plain, simple English, when does simple become "too simple"?)

Factors to consider:
1. correspondence of ideas: what gets lost in translation?
2. associational pollution: what kinds of crosstalk do you get--what cognitive dissonance do you create--by the popular-culture associations that attend popular language? Can you really say, "It's the theology, stupid!" without making the hearer flash on Bill Clinton?
3. style as content: what (meta-)"information" is transmitted by style? Does use of a popular verbal style create a message that "college-educated readers may as well tune out now"?
4. media as content: what (meta-)"information" is transmitted by the choice of media? Does a visual presentation "say" "We are not bookish snobs! We speak TV just like you!" Does the "look and feel" of a presentation, with its power to create first impressions, prime the audience with some sort of predisposition?

Consider the photograph at the right. This is not some Photoshop creation. You can go to Manitou Springs, CO and see this sign downtown. The shape of the sign, its location, the shape and spacing of its letters, all say OFFICIAL CITY SIGN. I was ignoring it until I was startled to see the word "DUDE" appear in a place I wouldn't expect it. I did a double-take, and had to read it three times. Droll, huh?

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Yep, it's cute. We can see what the words say. But what does the existence of the sign itself "say"? Pick your favorite:

"We are a hip community, capable of mocking ourselves, but we would really prefer that you humor us: please don't skateboard here."

"Skateboarders can't read."

"Skateboarders can read but they are a bunch of scofflaws who routinely ignore posted rules. We wish to appease them with drollery. If we ask them nice, in a fun, hip way, maybe they'll give us a break and do what we ask for once."

"Nobody pays any attention to official signs anyway, so whatthehell, may as well have a little fun with taxpayer money."

I also found this sign. Is the joke getting old? Did you chuckle, groan, or bristle? Does it lower your opinion of the Manitou Springs city government? Does it make you more, or less, inclined to obey posted signs of any sort when you visit this town?

What happens to our Christian message when we abandon traditional Christian vocabulary, in a quest for relevance? What are the tipping points from "You are correct, if somewhat obscure" to "You have dumbed down" to "You are getting ridiculous"?

What happens to a content-rich message, traditionally delivered through words ("Faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ," Romans 10:17) is delivered in a PowerPoint presentation, or a video, with pictures of smiling people (a suitably diverse mix of races and generations, of course) talking on cellphones? Do the smiling faces, the emotional cachet of the "show," eclipse or modify the message? Do they move the focus from faith (hard to depict visually!) to people, or networking?

Keyhole Faith

2006-10-17T21:16:00.000-04:00

1 Peter 5:5-11 (ESV)

Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble."
Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.

The hand of God lies heavy on us sometimes.

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I know several people in two churches who are feeling it right now. Bereavement, illness, finances... Peter tells us to humble ourselves under that mighty hand. Enough already with the kicking and screaming! Be still and know that He is God. God knocked Saul of Tarsus down and encouraged him to acquiesce: "It is hard for you to kick against the goads" (Acts 26:14). So we stop fighting God, and humble ourselves. We weep and pray; we hurt and pray. We feel like we are being crushed, but if we could step outside the situation and look at it from heaven's perspective, we wouldn't see a smothering weight, but a mighty shield. If we quiet our whimpering long enough to hear His Word, we will be reminded that we "by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time" (1 Peter 1:5). We hear a promise that this setback, this crisis, will not last forever. After we have been pushed down for a little while, we will be lifted up.

"In your light we see light" (Psalm 36:9). It's heavy, it's constricting, but it's not completely dark. There's a little light coming from somewhere. That's because the huge hand that's holding us down has a hole in it: a nail hole. A hole made by a horrible Roman spike. We can look up through that hole. It's like peeking through a keyhole. We are not allowed to see the whole plan; we don't get to see all the details of how God is going to turn this into a blessing; we put our eye to the hole, and look through it and see exactly what we need to know. We see that the hand that holds us down, the hand that has promised to lift us again in due time, isn't just the huge, irresistable hand of an implacable God to whom we must submit. We see what Islam ("submission") does not know: this God who is humbling us, humbled Himself to the point of dying for us. He's not just a control freak. He loves us.

That nail hole is what we use to resist the devil. He is trying to insinuate his poisonous thoughts into our self-pity and sense of injustice. We see instead God's pity on us, through the wound in Jesus' hand, and we see the true depth of His justice, how Jesus accepted the punishment for our crimes.

This crucified man is the God that holds us down. This risen man is the God who will lift us up. This keyhole peering is the faith that helps us hold it together.

More Than A Soundtrack

2006-10-13T10:57:00.000-04:00

Somewhere I heard a phrase--in some advertisement I accidentally heard or read-- about music (or their gadget to play it) as "The Soundtrack of Your Life." It got points for cleverness, which is the only reason it stuck with me. I don't mean clever as in a catchy, pleasing, memorable turn of phrase. What's clever about it is the way it exploits one of our most common fantasies: one's life as a movie.

A while back we rented the DVDs of Lost (the hit TV show) and watched the whole thing. The broadcast schedule chopped the story up so badly that it had become hard to follow all the threads. In the special features interviews, I was struck by a comment that came up more than once about the story development: "The island itself has become one of the characters." As production design in Lost has bled over into story development, I find the same thing is true about music's role in my life.

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This morning while I got out some bacon and eggs, Richard Stoltzmann's Begin Sweet World was on the radio station in my brain, so I dug out the CD and put it on while I cooked and ate. It took me back to a month ago, the first time I listened to it. I had saved it to listen to specifically coincide with our arrival, the drive up out of Colorado Springs toward Woodland Park. This morning it took me back to that breathless excitement, eyes popping from gobbling up the sights, ears popping from the rapid altitude change, and the whelming gratitude to God for the privilege of being able to share these things with my wife by my side.

It made me realize something about the role of music in my life. It's always been something more than mere entertainment, more than just background accompaniment. If the set design of the island in Lost makes it a character in the story, in my movie, music is more than soundtrack; it is a character. For that matter, I feel the same way about landscapes. They have dialogue; they play a role. Sometimes they make a cameo appearance, other times they have a story arc of their own. Sometimes they reprise a role. Whenever I drive up into the mountains, I say, "Hello, old friends. I'm happy to be back with you." They greet me and welcome me on some undefinable scale. The next time I walk on a seaside beach and breathe salt air, I will be saying something different from what I say when I walk on the shores of Lake Michigan.

There is a strangely satisfying irony when an actor returns to a television series after a long absence in order to play a different role. Think of Richard Hatch returning to Battlestar Galactica after, what, 30 years? Star Trek: The Next Generation brought back Denise Crosby in a different role after her Tasha Yarr character was killed off. Forty years ago, Ravi Shankar's Three Ragas was a strong player in my brief fascination with all things India--I came this close to begging my parents to buy me a Nehru jacket--and naive excitement about the dawning of the Age of Aquarius; today it is back more like an actor appearing "As Himself"--a sterling example of Northern Indian Classical music, great to listen to during sermon preparation.

All this highlights the truth that I am not just a spirit, encased in a disposable and irrelevant body. "God has made me and all creatures; he has given me my eyes, ears, and all my members, my reason and all my senses, and still preserves them," Martin Luther wrote in his explanation to the First Article of the Apostles' Creed. In the production design of my life, there are no irrelevant details. They all become elements of the story.

Colors and Hope

2006-10-09T10:23:00.000-04:00

I took a little extra time this morning on my half-hour drive to my office day at the vacancy parish I am serving. The fall colors are starting to pop around here--some of the maples have that unearthly red-veiled-in-a-green-haze that you see when the tree is starting to turn. I actually like that part better than a little later, when the whole tree is a big red ball of flame. The remaining green in the leaves that are turning seems to have an inner luminosity that eludes any attempt to capture it on film. As I was on my mini color tour, I remembered a conversation we had with a young woman in Glenwood Springs, CO on our vacation. She mentioned that she would be visiting the Uppper Peninsula of Michigan for the first time this fall, to meet her fiance's mother and sisters.

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"I don't suppose you folks have fall colors there, do you?" she asked wistfully. Mrs. Fremer and I just laughed and assured her that Michigan does, indeed, have nice fall colors.

This conversation was happening as we were riding in a gondola, the Iron Mountain Tramway, wafting down the side of the mountain back to Glenwood Springs. Looking out through the plexiglass walls I saw a lot of tans and greens, punctuated by little patches of aspen that were just beginning to turn. Our trip to Glenwood Springs had taken us past Breckenridge and Vail, with plenty of altitude changes, so we had been watching for color. But aspens don't seem to be able to get away from various shades of yellow and gold.

She said she had recently moved to Colorado from Wyoming. A lot of Wyoming is pretty empty scrubland, so maybe to her, Colorado's aspens were a riot of color. Yes, Michigan has fall colors, we said. Wait till you see the maples, we said. But the conversation seemed to peter out, as we realized that you can't really describe something like that, or if you do, you might create an unrealistic expectation. After all, she was going to the Upper Peninsula, and much of the the U.P. is a solid mass of evergreens. And what if her trip was past peak? What if the colors she was able to find didn't live up to the hype? So we simply congratulated her on her upcoming nuptials, as the gondola pulled into the landing platform, and went our separate ways. In the car, we remarked on how funny it was that she was afraid her fall trip to Michigan would mean no color for her this fall. Then we talked about the news report we had heard a few nights earlier, that aspens are mysteriously dying in large numbers.

As I think back on this, here in the embarrassment of riches that is West Michigan in autumn, it feels like a parable. The joys of this world are a shadow of the joys that wait for us in the new world that God is preparing for us. Yet we are afraid that leaving will be loss. We are afraid to let go, even though we know what we hold here is dying, and on its way out. The current scheme of this world is passing away, Paul writes (1 Corinthians 7:1), so we who use the things of this world are not to let ourselves get hooked on them. Letting go of present joys is made easier by a clear vision of the hope that is laid up for us at Christ's appearing (Colossians 3:1-4), and an eager anticipation of the eternal pleasures at His right hand (Ps. 16:11).

Ryan Tinetti, at Backward Kingdom, has an excellent post titled "An Irrelevant Question Well Worth Asking" that stimulated me to blog my own thoughts. Once again, iron sharpens iron (Prov. 27:17).

"A Good Woman" video recommendation

2006-10-03T21:39:00.000-04:00

This was a delightful bit of video diversion. Helen Hunt and Scarlett Johansson star in a Lions Gate 2004 film of the Oscar Wilde play, "Lady Windermere's Fan." It's set in the 1930s, and lushly portrays a slice of life in that period.

The only thing I didn't like about it was the plethora of Wilde witticisms. Almost every character winds up sooner or later delivering one-liners of the sort that made Oscar Wilde famous.

The tag line is great, too: "Every saint has a past. Every sinner has a future." Hmmm.

If you like period pieces, you will enjoy this.

Stranger In A Low Land

2006-10-03T21:10:00.000-04:00

Everybody is from somewhere -
Even if you've never been there...
(Ian Anderson, "Another Christmas Song")

I was born in Chicago, but ten years later I spent one year in Lakewood, Colorado. The Rocky Mountains left an indelible mark on me. I have tried to deny it, ignore it, but uplift mountains are in my blood. We took a trip to the Rockies in September, and it felt like coming home. I spent weeks with my eyes boggling and my chin dropping. Oh, I also did a lot of panting, but that's because most of the time I was at 7800 feet or so of altitude, half an hour northwest of Pike's Peak. The silence, the sheer weight of the masses around me, the low humidity, the thin clean air--I don't know what it is, but it feels like home.

Strangely, now that I am back in my usual haunts in Michigan, back in the damp thick air at five hundred and some feet above sea level, I'm not depressed. I'm away from my home, but I know I'll go back someday. Somewhere in this, there is a parable of the spiritual life, but I will leave that as an exercise for the reader.

"Remembered For Evil"

2006-10-03T21:02:00.000-04:00

Lars Walker posted an ichiban comment on Cranach (Dr. Veith's blog) today under the subject "Homegrown Terrorism," about the recent spate of school shootings. His comment #4 is reproduced here in its entirety:

I keep thinking that it has to do with "values" in the precise meaning of the word. What do we value, as individuals and as a culture? More and more, we'd rather be known as sexy than as honest. We'd rather be thought clever than good. We'd rather be remembered for evil than be good but forgotten. It's a yearning for celebrity, regardless of the content of the celebrity. If you don't believe in judgment after death, then your death itself is your final opportunity to leave a mark in the only world you believe in.

Well said, Lars, and spot-on.

Jargon Revisited

2006-09-01T12:35:00.000-04:00

Here's an entry from The Pastor's Bathroom Reader, from a newsletter "pastor's page" that I wrote ten years ago.

The Rev. Michael Hackbardt has written in his introduction to the Bible paraphrase known as "God's Word To The Nations,"

In the course of the effort which produced God's Word I determined that a number of the traditional theological terms that pastors and other theologians have assumed to be basic to communicating the Good News are poorly understood or even unintelligible to most readers--both inside and outside the church... the church needs to be aware that much of its cherished vocabulary is not communicating the Good News clearly or effectively!

Does our "Christian jargon" confuse rather than enlighten? That is one question. There remains an entirely different question: How do we bridge the communication gap?
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Obviously, we must at some point replace the jargon words with words that have meaning to unbelievers. But do we replace them wholesale, at every level, in the hymns, the sermon, the liturgy, as well as in new member class? (Some would object that this is "dumbing down" the liturgy and the preaching.) Or do we educate people into these words as we bring them into the church--use the language of unbelievers in the new member classes, but use the church language in church, and give the seekers and new members a glossary of terms? (Some would object that this is putting up hurdles for new members to jump--like asking them to learn a foreign language in order to worship God.)

These questions are being debated quite vigorously in the Missouri Synod today. But I fear that the debate may lead us away from the real issue in communicating the Good News of Jesus. The real issue is not how we talk about Jesus in church, but how do we talk about Him in the community? How do the members of Good Shepherd communicate God's love to a new mother, a new neighbor, a mother in the carpool, the guy on the other side of your back fence? When we begin to deal with this issue, matters of vocabulary pale in comparison to more important factors, like how do I show love, how do I keep from being a phony, how can I be sure my actions confirm my words, how do I invite him to a Wednesday night service? These are the real concerns in the very real issue of how we bear witness with love.

After ten years, I am no smarter about this issue than I was, but it continues to be a central concern of mine.

Hey, I'm A Writer

2006-08-21T10:37:00.000-04:00

I started this blog because I heard that the best writers all say that it's important to write every day. I wanted to be a writer, so I decided to follow this advice. Besides, I had some ideas I wanted to work out, and the way I do that is by writing.

My muse has been on vacation lately, I guess, because I've had nothing to say. I haven't been in a speculative or reflective mood. Part of the reason may be that I have abandoned my dream of "becoming a writer." Turns out I already am one.
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I was asked for some samples of my writing. As I assembled a few different examples, I decided to include one or two of the church newsletter Page One devotionals that I do every month. Hmm, which ones? I started looking through the files. Huh, there's a lot here. I did the math: 12 essays a year, 24 years--well, dog my cats! There's almost three hundred of the little buggers.

So I put my secretary on the job and asked for a photocopy of all my Pastor's Pages. She came back with a stack of paper an inch thick. The title page she made up says, A Pastor's Bathroom Reader, Vol. 1: The Old Editions, 1990-2006. It features a nice line drawing of a commode. Cute. Har har. (Perfect, actually.)

As I hefted that stack of paper, it dawned on me that I really am a published author! Sure, it's a small readership, and it didn't earn me any status or recognition. It's not the sort of thing you can put on a resume. But what the heck: I sat down to write, and these things came out, and some people read them, and a few even commented favorably. I took what talent I have, and put it to work for God, and He blessed it. I never really wanted fame. I just wanted to be able to say, "I wrote a book." Well, I can say it now.

Communicable Again

2006-06-28T23:11:00.000-04:00

Vacation's over, web site has been moved to a new host, email is working again, and I just got back from the District Convention that happens every three years. It featured awesome worship services from the forthcoming Lutheran Service Book. When you have some 800 plus people singing in the Chapel of the Holy Trinity at Concordia University in Ann Arbor Michigan, it's hard not to feel awe.

This morning began, as is traditional, with a memorial service for the pastors and teachers who died in the last triennium.

So, we're singing "The Church's One Foundation," and we come to verse three:
Though with a scornful wonder
The world sees her opprest,
By schisms rent asunder,
By heresies distressed,
Yet saints their watch are keeping,
Their cry goes up, "How long?"
And soon the night of weeping
Shall be the morn of song.

The organ is doing this weird, sinister, dissonant thing with the accompaniment all the while: a musical expression of sundering schisms and heretical stress. It continues for a bit, even after we have finished the verse, then the women in the choir start repeating a high, rhythmic sound. What is that? What are they saying?--"not now, not now"? (I flash for a moment on Augustine hearing a child's voice at play, singsong Tolle, lege! Tolle, lege!) No, that's not it--it suddenly comes clear--they're chanting, "How long? How long?"

Suddenly I see with John the Revelator (Rev. 6:9ff) the souls of slain witnesses to Jesus, crying out to Him for surcease, asking this pained question. They are handed a white robe and told to wait a little longer. A few more Christians must be killed. Hang in there. The justice day is coming.

At that point I lost it. (Well, almost. I managed to keep my weeping to a pretty quiet trickle.) All the frustrations and joys that have been battling in my breast during the last few days--mostly reflecting with dissatisfaction on my faithfulness, and projecting that as cynicism about much that my church is doing--came boiling to the surface in a hot moment of unbearable pity for the Bride of Christ, and the things she must suffer for now. Mixed with that was awe and gratitude at God's grace in making me a part of her. Gratitude for the promise that soon the night of weeping/Shall be the morn of song.

Come quickly, Lord Jesus!

They Got Mojo

2006-05-31T23:44:00.000-04:00

Haven't been blogging much lately. Sorry, I got busy with RL (Real Life). Lots to do, and little time for the computer; and when I do plunk my arse down in front of it, just haven't had much energy for creative expression lately.

I'd like to thank Ryan from Backward Kingdom (formerly Wretched of the Earth) for coming out a week ago to Good Shepherd and speaking to us, and to Holy Cross in Belding, about his mission experiences in Thailand. It was an honor to have him visit us--an engaging and articulate young man. I'll tell you what I told him: the reason I am such a fan is the same reason my heart is encouraged by the Rev. Matt Harrison of LC-MS World Relief/Human Care. These are guys who love theology, but they also have heart. It just thrills me to see brains turned on by Lutheran (i.e., Bible-based) theology, and hearts on fire with Lutheran (i.e., Christ-centered, grace-based)... umm.... what? What do you call it?

Lessee--
Brain : Theology :: Heart : ?????
"Cardiology"? hmmm
"Passion for people"? Puh-LEEEze. Gag me with a Church Growth graph!
"Missiology"? Naw, too theoretical.
Aw, heck. Call it "Mojo". Yeah, that'll do.

Brain : Theology :: Heart : Mojo

Well, maybe not. Anyway, these guys have it in spades, and it just makes me beam with joy to see it. God bless it, whatever it is, and send its increase!

Diagramming Sentences

2006-05-12T12:04:00.000-04:00

HAT TIP to Carl Vehse for directing me to this site on diagramming sentences.

Although, I didn't really understand what he meant in the comment he made, which was to a cool post by the ever-insightful Rev. Paul T. McCain at Cyberbrethren.

But anyway, I too am one who laments the loss of this important grammar skill; and I remedy it in my Confirmation classes by teaching the kids the rudiments of sentence diagramming.

Christian faith, in reflection (which is commanded to us when we are told to love the Lord our God with all our mind) is language-intensive. We are born again by the Word of God. So we'd better be able to tell a verb from a noun, and be able to parse a sentence to tell who's the Actor, and what the action is.

Why Is Doctrine Important?

2006-05-08T10:37:00.000-04:00

Ryan over at Wretched of the Earth blogs about "Emergent doctrine (or lack thereof)" in which he asks the question that I used for my title.

I tried to comment, but I couldn't make it short enough to be called a comment, and I have learned what that means: there's an essay inside that wants to get out. (I am gradually learning that the comment space is best used for comments, and not as a place to blog my own editorial effort.)

So here goes. Ryan's blog entry is about some guys in the "emergent church" who are discussing the merit of having or not having a "statement of faith" (for the movement, apparently).

I don't know anything about "emergent church." I have an inkling that it is some kind of a movement; if it is, then it is destined to become passé. But anyway.

If one is not making propositions, then what is it exactly one is doing? The word "doctrine" means "teaching."

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When I lived in the Bible Belt, I was constantly amazed at the way people (heavily influenced by Southern Baptist anti-creedalism) enthusiastically embraced this-or-that person's teaching, but when I asked them "is his doctrine available in a book or a tract?" they would answer, "Oh, no, it's not doctrine, it's a teaching."

If you are not saying things (communicating content) about God, how can it be theology? And if it's not theology, why would anyone want to be in this "conversation"?

It reminds me of something David Gerrold described in The Trouble With Tribbles: The Birth, Sale, and Final Production of One Episode. (By the way, you can read it here. Hooray! I've been wanting to read this one again for years.) The footnote on p. 49 explains "nattering and grommishing":

Being theatre arts students, we were conscious of what all the extras—-or “atmosphere people”—-in any shot were doing. We had come to the conclusion that they were “nattering” and “grommishing.” That is, in order to fake a conversation in the background, you mumble softly: “natter, natter, natter…” And your partner replies: “grommish, grommish, grommish…”

If you are seriously interested in this phenomenon, google the phrase "natter grommish". It turns up some quite diverting sites!

So why is doctrine important? More specifically, why is it useful and important to have a formal summary of basic teachings?

1. It Avoids Wasted Time. I don't watch commercials if I can help it. If I am watching broadcast TV, I want to see the program, not the commercials. So I videotape everything and watch it later (skipping the commercials). I use Firefox as my browser so I can block the distracting animated ads that make it hard for my poor ADD brain to digest the material I went looking for. I don't give email spam more than a glance before I delete it. I throw out junk mail unopened. It's not that I'm prejudiced; but there just isn't time to listen to all the messages that people want to send me. I have to be selective. Life's too short, and the channels are too cluttered.

All of this presupposes that it is possible to tell, with a little effort, the difference between content sought and channel clutter. So the presence of a doctrinal statement identifies this communication as theology. It's like the thing in the corner of the newspaper that says, "Section G - Sports" that allows me to know instantly that I won't find editorials on foreign policy in this section. I appreciate it; it keeps me from wasting my time looking in the wrong place.

If there is no formal or informal statement of what KIND of content is going to be carried here, how is a person supposed to decide whether to try it? Oh, right, I forgot. It's all about personality now, and not ideas. Therefore, the consumer is thought to be here because he's a fan of this speaker/writer/performer. Therefore, delivering content to fans of Dr. Gilead Farqwinkle not only involves his life-changing teaching on Pre-Millenial Mid-Tribulationist Perseverance of the Saints, but also his views on rock music, Democrats, childhood education, and why fruit does not belong on pizza. It's all good! (cynical rant mode off)

I wish the mainstream video media were as clear about delineating their entertainment section from their "news" reporting. But wait, that comment doesn't belong here, because when I borrowed Ryan's question for the title of this thing, I led you to get the impression that I was going to talk about theology, not rant about my disenchantment with the infotainment "industry," right? There, I proved my own point! And I gave myself a neat segue into my next point...

2. It Helps The Shopper. No, I don't really support "church-shopping," but people do, sometimes for valid reasons. When you move into a new area, or when a new church is formed, you want to be able to tell something about that place from the outside.

I used to sit in class at seminary and fantasize about the church I was going to have. The sign outside would say GRACE CHURCH in great big letters, and then in much smaller print below, it would say (Lutheran). In really tiny print below that: (Missouri Synod). (Feel free to speculate on what in my background led to this. Basically, I felt that the whole Lutheran thing was some sort of arrogant triumphalism.)

But as I thought about it over a period of time, I realized that such a display would be like a can on a grocery store shelf. The label says,

BEANS

(String Beans)

(French cut)

Ugh, I hate it when they do that to string beans!

Actually, as I played with this labeling metaphor some more, I realized this is what had always bothered me when I pass a church that has this sign: CALVARY BIBLE CHURCH. Hey, a lot of us claim to be "Bible churches"! This is like a can that just says, BEANS. No fine print whatever. You have no idea if it’s kidney beans or string beans. You have to open the can to see. Its lack of resolution is unfair to the shopper. Moreover, there is an underlying arrogance in the implicit claim: 100% Bible, No Additives.

If lack of detail is confusing, there is also the problem of false advertising. A church that advertises that it is “Non-denominational” is almost certainly going to be Baptist in its theology, but without the decency to declare which operating system it’s running. It’s dishonest. Stand up for truth-in-labeling!

So I no longer cringe to describe myself, and my church, as “Lutheran,” even though in the present milieu, there are precious few who know what that label means. That’s why I even use LC-MS in the label, because there are disagreements in the marketplace of ideas of what belongs in the concept “Lutheran.” It’s all a matter of truth in labeling, which is for the good of the customer.

I have dealt with this in terms of churches, because that’s what I know, and have had occasion to think about. I suspect the whole “emergent church” thing is supposed to be different from such old-school institutions. But I fail to see why that makes any difference. Whether you’re talking about a chat room, or a church, or a book discussion club that meets at a local coffeehouse, the principles of intelligent classification and truth-in-labeling are sufficiently general to apply. If you’ve got an open-mike night going for people to share their opinions, hey, that’s great: please label it so. But if the label says “theology,” there will be propositional content, statements about God that can be compared to the common stock of knowledge revealed in His word. Or there will be discussions about whether there is another source, or a better source, for information about God. It's still theology, though no longer deserves the label "Christian," but rather "Speculative."

Anything else is just nattering and grommishing, the background chatter of extras, emotionally expressive but devoid of content. Nobody but a drama student would enjoy a room full of that!

On The Use Of Quotes

2006-05-05T16:27:00.000-04:00

What does it mean when an essayist uses quotes?

Don't get me wrong, I know that they are fun to gather and read. But I am intimidated when an essayist, or someone who writes a book on a subject, peppers it with lots of interesting quotes from other authors.

I used to think, "Wow, this guy is SO well-read! Organized, too! He must do his reading with a box of 3x5 cards by his side! How can he get through so many books when he stops every six pages or so, copies the quote, and files it under the appropriate heading?"

Then somebody gave me a gift: Bartlett's Familiar Quotations. I thought, "Oh. THAT's how he does it." But I was disappointed. Isn't that like cheating, or something?

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And that's why I rarely use the book, because I always felt like it would be dishonest.

I ran into a discussion on a blog one time recently where they were talking about Intelligent Design, and some critics were vehemently attacking some of the ID proponents, in reference to the way they quoted scientists. "It's quote mining!" one of them fumed. Hmm. "Quote mining"--I guess that's a bad thing.

It got me thinking: Suppose I find a great quote from, say, Marshall McLuhan, in somebody else's book. I believe it to be presented in the proper context, and it serves my purpose, so I quote it. If I don't attribute the source I found it in "(Quoted in Flanigan & Holladay, Developing Style: An Extension of Personality)," do I dishonestly convey the impression that I have read the McLuhan book in which it appeared?

In short, does the presence of quotes in a book say, "I read these books by these guys, and they said these things that support my thesis"? Or does it simply say, "I found some great quotes by different guys that support my thesis"?

What do you think?

Easter Thoughts

2006-04-16T20:51:00.000-04:00

I'm tired. I'm talked out. So if you want an excellent complete Easter meditation, I recommend you visit Ryan's excellent blog post at Wretched Of The Earth. But I can't not blog today, so I will just offer a few thoughts, based on the words of the angel to the women in Mark 16:6-7. "Stop being alarmed... go tell the disciples and Peter..."

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Stop being alarmed They had suffered lots of shocks lately, and now this: an empty tomb, an angel in white, and the natural gut-reaction: "NOW what!?!?" The angel says, Get a grip, ladies. He's not here. Jesus is risen. This is your new reality. Kill the alarms. Adjust your minds and bodies accordingly. That, of course, would take time.

Go tell Here's a message for the ten disciples that are left, and for Peter the ex-disciple wallowing in his pit of remorse. How curious that the message was about a future appointment with Jesus in Galilee; they would see Him alive this very day! Right here in Jerusalem. But the message is about Galilee, the place where Jesus first called them, the place where they spent the most time with Him. Perhaps a hint here that the whole operation is being reset, to begin a new phase. There will be a new call to follow Him, under a new set of principles, with a whole new set of understandings. Anyway. There's news. Go tell.

There's a lot we post-Pentecost Christians can do with those two words, Cancel The Alarms... Go Tell. But before we think about the alarming world we live in, with new shocks being delivered daily on 24-hour cable news channels--before we remember our place in that world, with a timeless message to deliver--we need to look at what is sandwiched in between those two words. The angel didn't say, Hey, I'm an angel, how much more proof do you need? He didn't point them at a spiritual-goosebumps vision or inner witness. What did he say? See the place where they laid Him. The angel directed their gaze at an empty stone shelf. Grave clothes, but no corpse.

Even for us post-Pentecost Christians, we are still directed to the fact, and not to any feelings or experiences. He is not in the grave. He is risen! That is the connecting link between Fear Not and Go Tell. A bare stone shelf. Revealed for us in the bare, simple words of eyewitnesses, recorded for us in what we call the New Testament. We are rooted on the bare rock of the fact of the Resurrection, and that is where faith grows, that is the launch-pad for the whole Christian faith-and-life thing.

Angel And Ram

2006-04-14T16:45:00.000-04:00

Many hands were raised to wound Him,
None would interpose to save;

I've been thinking all day about this line from "Stricken, Smitten, And Afflicted," which we're singing today in our two Good Friday services. The reference to a hand "interposed to save" reminds me of the sign-language "sign name" for Abraham. To sign it, you mime a downward stabbing action, but block it with your other hand. This of course comes from the angel of God stopping Abraham in the act of killing his only son Isaac.

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God had commanded this sacrifice! He tested Abraham, to see if he loved God more than he loved his son. All the way up to the summit, Abraham must have wondered if God would relent at some point. God, after all, had promised descendants to Abraham; Abraham believed Him, and "it was reckoned to him as righteousness." Isaac was beginning of the fulfillment of that promise, miraculously given to this couple too old to have children. And now God was going to take it all away, and He was going to use Abraham to do it. There is a poignant discussion that takes place as they climb the mountain. It's especially heartbreaking in Hebrew, Isaac's question to his father: "Behold the fire, behold the wood, and where is the sacrifice lamb?" "God will provide the lamb, my son," was Abraham's faith-filled reply (Genesis 22:6-8).

At the last moment, the angel of the Lord called a halt to the test. The sacred text says nothing about a physically interposed hand to block the fatal downward stroke of the knife, but it's not easy in sign language to show that a voice stopped him, so the traditional sign-name for Abraham supplies a hand to make the thought visible.

The angel of the Lord intervened and averted the immediate crisis, but the danger was not past. I think Abraham didn't truly believe Isaac was spared until he lifted his eyes and saw the substitute: a ram caught in a thicket by its horns. How likely is that? God provided. The angel stopped the timer in this crisis, but it was the ram that defused it.

Lots of people have stories about certain disaster averted in impressive ways. Many of these are no doubt the work of angels. We are grateful for the work of God's angels, and the other agencies (doctors, brakes, guard rails, etc.) that He uses to turn aside danger. But the real salvation comes not through angels, but through His Son, the "Lamb Of God Who Takes Away The Sin Of The World," as John the Baptizer called Him.

Many hands were raised to wound Him,
None would interpose to save;
But the deepest stroke that pierced Him
Was the stroke that Justice gave.

He is the One who defuses the bomb of our sinfulness. The Holy God gave His only Son to satisfy His justice, but to spare the creatures He loves. God has provided!

Different From Every Other Night

2006-04-13T23:51:00.000-04:00

"Why is this night different from every other night?" This was the question offered by the youngest person present in the Passover ritual. It's one that we ought to be asking ourselves this Maundy Thursday. Jesus ate a Passover meal with His disciples, and said some remarkable things.

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The meal was a commemoration of the Exodus, roughly two millenia earlier, the event in which several surprising things happened. YHWH, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, sent a Prophet-Savior to lead His people out of slavery. He faced off against the main superpower in the world at that time, Egypt, and whupped their ass. Moses, the Prophet-Savior that He sent them, was a murderer on the run from Egyptian justice. Ten plagues, the fighting Shekinah, the making of a way of escape where there wasn't one (through the sea)--lots of amazing and memorable things. But the most amazing was that He did it all for a lousy bunch of slaves. People who had little to commend them, except that they were descendants of Abraham. Over and over they proved themselves unworthy of His grace in choosing them. God told them to remember this night. Slaughter and roast a lamb, paint the doorposts with its blood, make your bread without yeast, eat it all ready to travel--the call to MOVE OUT! could come at any time. Remember this night. Remember this readiness for rescue, this breathless pause before the Big Event.

As I started to say: While they were remembering together, Jesus and His disciples, Jesus said some remarkable things. He whom John the Baptizer called "The Lamb Of God Who Takes Away The Sins Of The World" lounges there, eating Passover lamb with His men, and calmly announces that the unleavened bread He has just handed them is His Body. That there is a new covenant in the offing. Covenants were made with blood--the wine is passed, and He tells them it is His Blood of the New Covenant. It sounds like there is a new Rescue Operation being planned. He tells them to eat this bread/Body and drink this wine/Blood regularly, "in remembrance of Me."

We remember in two directions. We remember backwards, the past, the sacrifice of the Lamb of God on the Cross: the body pierced and torn, the blood spilled. We remember where most of his men were on that Friday--gone to ground, hiding from Roman and Sadducee justice. We remember the night before--this night!--when His most vocal supporter vehemently denied even knowing Him. We remember them snoozing in the garden of Gethsemane while He prayed in anguish and sweated blood. False, false followers! Worse than useless! Amazing. Grace.

We remember forward too. We "remember" the future. To us, the future is mapped out around His promises. He is with us to the end of the age. He commands us to carry on His business until He comes back. His return will be sudden, unexpected, and unmistakable. We have to be ready to MOVE OUT! at a moment's notice. We eat and drink His grace, the physical media of His promises, in a high state of readiness. "Eat it in haste; it is YHWH's Passover." The readiness takes the form of renouncing every shred of pride or sense of accomplishment; we are unworthy, consistent only in our inconstancy, worse than useless. Yet He enters our mouths, enters our bloodstream, unites Himself with us! Yet He is on the way to rescue such lousy followers!

Amazing!

Grace!

Poster Boy For Relativism

2006-04-12T20:43:00.000-04:00

The cover of Sunday's Parade magazine made me laugh. Yes, that's Tom Cruise, with the telling quote: "Who's To Say What's Normal?"

In all fairness, the quote has to do with a watershed incident when he was a boy: he was labeled a dyslexic by a school psychiatrist. This "affront to my dignity" (his description) was the root for his much publicized disdain of psychotherapy.

Other great quotes in the Dotson Rader article:

"People can create their own lives...I decided that I’m going to create, for myself, who I am, not what other people say I should be. I’m entitled to that."
"I looked at the priesthood and said, 'This is what I’m going to do'... I was interested in spirituality, but after a year I decided being a priest was not for me."

Gospel Reductionism Alive And Well

2006-04-12T16:05:00.000-04:00

Someone loaned me a copy of Kelly Fryer's Reclaiming The "L" Word: Renewing The Church From Its Lutheran Core. It is written by a priestess (female pastor) in the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America). I returned it today, with this note:

Dear -------,

I finished the book today, thank you for loaning it to me. The author has many good things to say, and I am happy to see that she understands some of the unique features and benefits of the Lutheran heritage. She communicates some of the basics very well.

It is unfortunate that her Guiding Principle of "Jesus Is Lord" has not been tied to another principle: "and He speaks authoritatively in the Bible." That would have spared her from the trap she falls into with her second Guiding Principle, "Everyone Is Welcome." Because she is not ruled by the Bible, but only by the Gospel, she does not understand that His words to the woman caught in adultery "neither do I condemn you" are completed in "leave your life of sin." But then, if she were willing to be ruled by the Bible, she would have to resign from pastoral ministry!

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"Pastor" Kelly's "Everyone Is Welcome" principle led her and her church to welcome a lesbian couple (the other "L" word) into full participation and fellowship. She boasts about that. She has not adequately thought through the nature of Jesus' association with sinners, nor what His followers did about that afterward, nor the inspired record that tells us who is "in" and what it means to unite to Christ and His Body. As I was composing the thank-you note, it dawned on me that the book revealed classic "Gospel Reductionism" at work. This is the usual label for the idea that the Gospel, not the Bible, is the Word of God. The ELCA seems to have this idea as one of its foundation stones. To them, the Bible "contains" the Word of God, but expert analysis, using the historical-critical method of Bible interpretation, is needed to figure out which parts of the Bible are the Word of God, and which parts can be discarded or updated.

I've been thinking a lot lately about 1973; specifically, what some of us in the Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod (LC-MS) call "The Battle of New Orleans": the synodical convention that eventually led to a mass walkout at one of our seminaries, and a number of churches splitting off to form "The Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches." This AELC later was absorbed in the multi-merger which produced the ELCA. At the heart of the battle was a debate over the use of the historical-critical method in our seminaries.

I'll be posting more about the Battle of New Orleans in the coming months. But for now, I lament the fact that without the whole Scriptures as the inerrant, inspired norma normans ("norming norm"), the Lutheran principle of sola Scriptura--Scripture alone--becomes meaningless. As a popular exposition of Lutheran principles, "Pastor" Fryer's book does many things well; but without sola Scriptura, the "L" word she reclaims winds up being "Liberal."

Frankenstein: Preliminaries

2006-04-04T09:18:00.000-04:00

[a progress report on a project started here]

One of the things that has been interesting to me is the distance between Mary Shelley's story and the popular conceptions of it. This is at the heart of General Semantics, levels of abstraction: on one level there's the story; then there are "words about the words": critics' summaries, digests of the story, movies and plays, literary allusions, etc., etc. I'll work at this backwards, from the higher levels of abstraction, down to the story itself.

Like most folks, I grew up thinking this was a story about a creature (named Frankenstein) coming to life and terrorizing people. That's the popular conception: horror story.

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Eventually I got a little education, and learned that Frankenstein is actually the name of the scientist who created him. (Apparently the creature doesn't have a name.) Later, with a little more education, I was taught that the real monster of the story is not the creature, but the mad scientist. This is the more enlightened conception, the one (I think) most educated people have: cautionary tale about scientific ambition out of control.

Somewhere near here, it branches off; and we have Frankenstein-as-Myth. In this branching, roughly on the same level, the focus is not on scientist and his activity, but the fact that his creation gets away from him, and eventually poses a danger to him. This too is a cautionary tale, but not about the danger of ambition ("man should not dare to play God"). This caution is "man's discoveries and inventions sometimes get out of hand, and turn on him, to bite him in the butt." The warning is not about the impropriety of the effort, but on the peril that he might get more than he bargained for; "don't forget about the Law of Unintended Consequences." This is the background idea for much of Michael Crichton's fiction (scientist crosses a boundary and gets velociraptors), and it was prominent in some of Frank Herbert's fiction too (especially in The Jesus Incident). One of the things that gives Frankenstein-as-Myth so much staying power is the irony of it: the creator is destroyed by his creature.

This branch reaches up to the popular level too; "I've created a monster!" is a common way people express dismay about something that has gotten away from their control. Although they may be thinking of the cheesy films that cast it into the horror-story category, they aren't really saying "I'm in a horror story," but "I've lost control of my (project/rumor/child/mistress/business/etc)."

Down at the root level, the story itself, I find that while it was crafted to amaze and horrify, it isn't really a horror story. Nor is the second level of interpretation adequate, in either variation. Frankenstein-as-Myth is certainly not what this story is about; I doubt the author would even get that modern idea, since the Industrial Revolution hadn't happened yet, unleashing so many examples of technology-gone-wild as to make the notion commonplace. Frankenstein's obsession, the driving ambition to create life, is prominent, but I never get the sense that Shelley is saying "man must remain in his place and not play God." In fact, Frankenstein's genius, fueled by a fever of ambition, is successful. His efforts are rewarded; he does create life. That doesn't seem to be the problem.

So what is the problem? This is what was bothering me during my first reading of the book. Where did Frankenstein go wrong? My second reading leads me to conclude that Frankenstein's sin was not arrogance in making the attempt, nor plain bad luck that what he attempted proved too much for him to handle. His sin is that, having created life, he immediately abandoned it. The creature he brought to life is capable not only of great strength, but of great intelligence and sensitivity as well. If Dr. Frankenstein had nurtured, guided, and loved the creature, it would have been a noble, gentle giant, despite its hideous outward appearance. The visage problem could have been solved. We would have had another story like The Frog Prince or Beauty And The Beast, a story of a true and pure love overcoming the unhappy accidents of external wretchedness. But we don't have that story. We have a story of misery, revenge, and mutual hatred and destruction. I don't think Mary Shelley simply wanted to horrify. I think this story is a charge against God: that human misery, and human cruelty, are alike due to some failure on His part. If this is how life is to be, it was unjust and irresponsible of Him to make us in the first place. He abandoned us, or cursed us, or somehow failed in the duties of a creator toward his creature.

[more to follow]

Popular Commentary Now Online

2006-03-27T11:23:00.000-05:00

This is cool. It is the online version of Paul E. Kretzmann's Popular Commentary, a time-honored classic from the early 1920s, still much in use, I think.

I started reading Kretzmann's Boyhood In A Parsonage (no date) last night, a bit of light children's reading that we found in an antique store. Stumbled across the online commentary while trying to find out a probable date.

Postscript: Turns out a Pastor McCoy has a copy of the same book, and has made it a PDF, which you can look at here, if you're curious.

Brief Observation

2006-03-24T08:55:00.000-05:00

I've long noticed this:

When I talk to people about God, I understand God better.

When I talk to God about people, I understand people better.

The Timeless Message

2006-03-23T08:27:00.000-05:00

We live in a world fascinated by newness. Fads come and go. People dash from this to that, searching for the Next Big Thing. Of course, not everyone is attracted to the new; some react against it, preferring the Old Days and the Old Ways, the values and workmanship of Back In The Day. In their reactionary way, they too play the newness game. "New is Better" is the progressive slogan; "Old is Better" is the motto of conservatives; both obsess over calendar time.
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Into this kind of world comes the message about Jesus Christ, the message of Holy Week. In the year A.D. 33 it was new news, but by now it seems like old news. In reality, though, it is quite apart from the whole new-versus-old game. It is timeless.

Yes, the story has been repeated often. It is "the old, old story/Of Jesus and His love," as the revival-era hymn puts it. Hearing this, conservative foks stand up and holler. "Three cheers for the OLD! Hip-Hip-Hurrah!" They'd better sit back down; this is not a point scored for their side. The message about Jesus isn't good because it's old; it's good because it is true. It tells the truth about sin, and what Jesus did to save us from it. This salvation is a transformation: out with the old, and in with the new. "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation: the old has gone, the new has come!" the apostle Paul proclaims to the Christians in Corinth. Though you do well to conserve the message, it calls you to stop making its antiquity into an idol. It begs you to free it from the museum-exhibit cage you've put it in. Blow off the dust and get that message out! "Behold, I am making all things new," the risen and ascended Lord Jesus says in Revelation.

At this, the progressive types stand up and high-five each other. "NEW! Yeah! Awright!" Sit down. Your side didn't win a point here, either. The new life that Jesus brought with Him out of that grave on Easter Sunday is new-kind, not new-recent. The message about Jesus isn't good because it's radical; it's good because it is true. It tells the truth about the shallowness of the hip and the trendy, and offers a real answer to modern meaninglessness. It calls you to repent of the way you dismiss out of hand anything written before your lifetime. It urges you to turn away from the arrogance and snobbery which assumes that the faith of our fathers is inadequate for us moderns because we are so "advanced." The Good News about Jesus can transform, but first the Ten Commandments must take you over God's knee and give you an old-fashioned spanking. If you want to be saved, you will have to admit that Jesus is right, that old wine is better than new (Luke 5:39). Give up the new wine of looking to self-help gurus, yoga, holistic this-n-that, Oprah's book club, the Internet, and getting in touch with your inner spoiled brat. Savor the old wine of confessing your sinfulness and trusting in the blood of Christ to forgive you.

NEWS FLASH: Jesus is alive, after taking our place in torture and death. From Good Friday to Easter. From cross to empty grave. From "crucify him!" to "my Lord and my God!" The story of Christ's passion is our only story, and this story is not going away.

Of Birds And Bushels

2006-03-21T15:27:00.000-05:00

Anne over at Open Epistle posted recently about birdwatching in Taiwan. She writes,

I've always believed that the female of most bird species gets the short end of the stick, especially when it comes to those named for their color. I spotted a vinaceous rosefinch while hiking on Jade Mountain ... [thanks to a guidebook] I discovered what a fabulous looking mate this one must have. He would have a wine-colored (that's what vinaceous means) head, back, and breast, with a striking silver-white eyebrow and brown wings and tail. But she's the one who came out for groceries in her housecoat while he stayed home, vainly arranging his feathers.

This got me thinking about the curious juxtaposition of "city" and "lamp" in Matthew 5:14f.
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I think many of us are familiar with the parabolic saying of Jesus, about not putting our light under a bushel. (Little kids learn the words to "This Little Gospel Light Of Mine" but they tend to mis-hear that part, so they learn: "Hide it under a bush, oh NO! I'm gonna let it shine!" A few minutes of every Vacation Bible School at Good Shepherd is given to helping them know what a "bushel" is and why it's a dumb place to put a light.)

Here is the parable quoted from the ESV:

"You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. [15] Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. [16] In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven."

We know about the light and the bushel, but what's with the city on the hill? Now hear and attend, O best beloved! The city is like the oil lamp because both must deal with a tension (worthy of inclusion in my dynamic duo list) between security and effectiveness. Light an oil lamp, and there are drafts that might blow it out. Under a bushel basket, it is safe from drafts, but it achieves that safety at the cost of defeating its purpose. A city is like that too. A city needs commerce. It needs to be found by caravans, and new residents. On a hill, it can be spotted from the caravan routes. Its fame can spread, and its location can be published. Its accessibility (location, location, location!) is the key to its success. BUT. Raising its profile by building it on a hill also raises its risk factor. It becomes an easy target for bandits or an invader's army. It would be much safer in a valley or a ravine. Plundering bands of bandits, even whole armies, can easily spot it there. It will need defenses: a wall, gates, a watch.

Anne's comment about the sexual coloration differences in birds remind me of this tension between safety and effectiveness. The duller female is better camouflaged, harder for predators to spot, therefore safer; the male needs to be flamboyant in order to attract a mate, and keep her when competitors come calling, but that strength also makes him a more visible target.

Jesus cautioned us to take a middle course between two ditches. The one ditch is the extreme of doing good deeds for show, to be seen, seeking the praise of men. In Matthew 6:1-4 (ESV), He says

"Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.
"Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you."

Christians don't need flash, the bright coloration, because we're not trolling for love. Love found us, claimed us, called us out, and named us Bride. 'Nuff said about that ditch, I think.

The other ditch is the extreme of "Secret-Service Christianity," of just doing good things for others without even a mention of God. This ditch is present, I believe, in the oft-quoted dilly "Preach Christ constantly; if necessary, use words." If you are resolved to not use words, it feels "safer," but it puts a basket over the light. It forces the recipient of your good deed to come up with his own explanation of why you were nice to him. If hold your tongue in a situation where he might conclude that you are just a nice guy, you have robbed him of light. Your deeds benefited him in a civil sense, but your silence withholds something he needs even more.

Abraham Maslow was a brilliant man, but do not think that God is bound to his hierarchy of human needs. As Jesus said to Satan, "Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God." It seems cruel to meet physical needs without addressing the overarching need that each of us has: a message from God. If you let him think it is your own good nature that has motivated you, you lie. If you let him think, "Cool! So there are still a few decent people left in the world!", you cruelly set him up with a false optimism in human nature. The illusion of safety-through-camouflage is based on a fear of something other than God, so it is based on idolatry. Even if stealth-Christianity is motivated by a fear of screwing up, fear of "saying the wrong thing," fear of inadvertantly dishonoring God by some misstep, the charge must be made: "your god is too small." Of course your actions are not infallibly good. Of course your motivations are not 100% pure altruism. When we are at our very best, our righteousness is still nothing more than "filthy rags!" But our God can, and does, take our sow's ear and turn it into a silk purse!

So how do you navigate between these two extremes of flamboyance and frumpery? Don't draw attention to your good deeds. On the other hand, when the comment or the question arises from your action, have an answer ready. (See 1 Peter 3:15f, although the context there is slightly different.) Ephesians 2:10 says that good works are in our path, laid there by Jesus: we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Opportunities are there as we respond to human needs; but we let His light shine when we refuse the credit for doing it, and redirect the gratitude to Him as the source of our compassion. "Don't thank me; I'm just passing it on, what God did for me. Thank Him." "I'm just the waiter; but I will pass your compliments along to the Chef."

And of course, although it shouldn't have to be said, if a "good deed" is only done in order to draw someone into a religious conversation, it's dishonest manipulation, and unworthy of someone claiming to be a Christian.

The words of Jesus show us the way:Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
Good works + a clear and humble explanation that you it comes from God's goodness to you = light.

Mallow Out!

2006-03-20T11:03:00.000-05:00

Hat tip to Kelly's Blog for finding this wonderfully side-splitting site:

LORD OF THE PEEPS

Frankenstein Project

2006-03-17T11:13:00.000-05:00

I finished Mary Wollstonecroft Shelley's FRANKENSTEIN a few days ago, and the fizz is just starting to come to the top now.

I decided that I am going to write a paper, like I was in college again. But I have a particular methodology in mind. I'm not going to read what other people have written about Shelley's work, (although I did read a comment here that says it is "considered the first science fiction novel.") (Hat tip to Dr. Veith over at Cranach for bringing adherents.com to our attention. What an interesting site!)

My goal is to reflect on the book and interact with it on the level of my impressions, rather than as a scholarly collation of what other critics and scholars have written.

Of course, I will be "reinventing the wheel." I will be saying things, like a college sophomore, that are not new thoughts or discoveries in the field of literature. But they are new to me, and I'm more interested in the process, than in the results.

Watch And Pray

2006-03-15T21:11:00.000-05:00

Homily for March 15th Lenten Midweek Service
Matthew 26:36-46 (ESV)
Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, "Sit here, while I go over there and pray." And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, "My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me." And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will." And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, "So, could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, "My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done." And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. So, leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words again. Then he came to the disciples and said to them, "Sleep and take your rest later on. See, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand."

“Watch with me.” “Couldn’t you watch with me one hour?” What was Jesus asking His disciples to do? He didn’t say, “Watch me,” but “Watch with me.” Keep me company. I have stuff to do, prayers to pray. Just stay awake with me, keep vigil, ok?

They couldn’t do it.
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They failed their Master. Matthew and Mark both say, “their eyes were heavy.” Luke adds that “they were exhausted from sorrow.” Jesus told them that they should pray too: “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.” Now they had something to watch out for, something to pray against. They had the Master’s explicit command, but their flesh betrayed them, and they failed Him again.

Perhaps, in one of two of their muzzy minds, the last thought was “I’ll comfort Jesus later; I’ll be more available to Him when I’m fresh; I just need a little nap…” Maybe one or two of them managed to feel a twinge of guilt as he slipped into unconsciousness, but it was quickly dispatched with “It’s okay, the others can look after Him for a few minutes.” Ten tired, sad men slipped away one by one, and Jesus spent His time in prayer utterly alone, bereft of human support.
Then, suddenly, it was too late. Torches lit up the night, revealing a crowd and a contingent of the Temple Guard, and Jesus was being betrayed by Judas and arrested. There was an abortive and ineffective fight to defend Him, and then they fled, every last one of them.

They failed Him, but He did not fail them. He stayed on task, refusing even a taste of wine vinegar to assuage His thirst, lest it cheat the pain even a little bit. He was faithful, and died for the faithless, for those who fell asleep on the job.

This command was not given to us; but another one was, that is very similar. In Gethsemane they were to watch with Him; on another occasion they were told to watch FOR Him. The Son of Man would come again, He said. Suddenly, visibly, dramatically, on the Last Day. He warned them, and us, in Luke 21:34 and following, "Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you unexpectedly like a trap. For it will come upon all those who live on the face of the whole earth. Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man."

Watching for Jesus, not watching with Him, but the warning is the same. The danger is the same. We’re supposed to stay alert, vigilant. But our flesh is tricky. Three dangers are listed:

dissipation – this word is defined by one dictionary as “when the head refuses to function.” Like when you get a bad case of the afternoon sleepies. Or when you have just come in the door from a four hour trip in the car. You’re stupid, stupefied, by monotony, or the hour, or your blood sugar level, or too much TV. Much of modern life ought to come with a warning label: Do Not Operate Heavy Machinery While Taking This Medication.

drunkenness – this is when we do things to make ourselves stupid. Even a teetotaler can be drunk—-drunk on success, distracted by the drive to become popular, addicted to CNN or the Internet, totally absorbed in “Lost” or “Desperate Housewives,” planning their week around NASCAR or the kids’ sports events.

anxieties of life – worry and depression, too many bills and not enough income, a weird-looking mole or a persistent cough, all can take our eyes off the skies. But then, too, even the ordinary business of day to day living can make us forget that Jesus is coming to bring it all to an end. We have to make plans, and we forget the warning in James chapter 4:
Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." The eleven disciples were sleepy from sorrow. We get sleepy from sorrow too, and boredom, and from just trying to get by.

We will die, or Jesus will return; either way, we are supposed to be ready. “Ready” means always holding before our eyes the picture of Jesus on the Cross, faithfully dying for those who fail Him. “Ready” looks to the past, and to the future. The past: He loved me so much He died to forgive my failures. The future: He loves me so much He’s coming back to rescue me. That’s why we have the Word and the Sacraments: to keep our eyes glued on the once and future Savior.

And in response to that picture, we pray. Prayer is like a walkie-talkie, right? Push to talk. But when we forget to look at Jesus, we misuse prayer. We act like kids playing with a walkie-talkie, or a Dad in the video store asking Mom if we’ve already rented The Princess Bride, and getting instructions to pick up a gallon of milk on the way home. Instead, we should think of ourselves as soldiers on patrol. We have binoculars to keep watch. We have a walkie-talkie to call for backup, to check in with Headquarters. In some wars, soldiers who fall asleep on guard duty were shot. In this war, if we fall asleep on patrol, we’ll miss the rescue mission, or get blown to bits. It’s a bad idea to be sleepwalking in a minefield.

What do we watch? We watch our step. We watch for those things that warn us we’re getting off the path. We watch out for deceivers, false prophets, the siren song of the world that promises so much pleasure, but we know it’s a trap. We watch out for the dangers of getting comfortable and complacent here in the war zone. We watch what happens in the world, but we don’t get panicked, we don’t get caught up in it, we keep one eye on the skies, because Jesus will come, or we will go to Him, any day now.

What is our prayer? God, don’t let me forget! Don’t let me forget what my Savior went through to save my sorry self. Forgive me for all the times I forgot the mission, forgot which side I’m on, forgot that I’m a soldier. O God, I am so weak. I cannot make it without You. Hurry, Lord Jesus, and keep me trusting in You until Your return! We pray because we know how weak the flesh is, so our prayers have a note of desperation; but there is also confidence, because we know what the littlest child in our midst knows: “I am weak, but He is strong!” “YES, Jesus loves me!” And that too makes us “push to talk” often, because we are loved, and we love Him, and we can’t wait to see Him.

We pray as the Church has always prayed: “Hurry, Lord Jesus!” Amen.

Holding Out For Heaven

2006-03-14T19:41:00.000-05:00

While I was walking the dog tonight, a snatch of Springsteen's "Thunder Road" descended on me out of nowhere. I haven't thought of any of The Boss' music for a long time. It's a great song, although of course I don't approve the values and attitudes that it represents. It's vibrant and poetic and brimming with energy, like so much of his earliest work.

Well, now I'm no hero:
That's understood.
All the redemption I can offer, girl,
Is beneath this dirty hood ...

The persona is that of a bad-boy type calling on his somewhat more reserved girl to jump in his car and go for a drive, with the clear warning that it might lead to some serious fooling around. Throw caution to the winds, he's telling her. But he uses religious language, which is kind of funny.
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We got one last chance to make it real:
To trade in these wings on some wheels.
Climb in back,
Heaven's waiting on down the tracks.

Up to now, I'm guessing, she's "been good," been rebuffing his advances; hence the wings (he could have said, "lose the halo" but wings-to-wheels works better).

Oh, come take my hand,
Riding out tonight to case the promised land.
Oh Thunder Road...

"To case the promised land"--I love that line.

Thinking of that got me thinking about another song. Zip forward thirty-some years. Leaving the gritty garage-rock devil-may-care feeling of the E Street Band, we find ourselves grooving to the techno-dance beat of Steely Dan's "Century's End."

Time to find some trouble again
Make a bid for romance
While the dollar stands a chance
Dumb love in the city at century's end.

The juice and reckless passion of Thunder Road give way to the jaded, cynical hipness of the club scene.

We cut to this blonde
Dancing on a mirror
There's no disbelief to suspend
It's the dance, it's the dress
She's a concept, more or less
Dumb love in the city at century's end

Yet still they're "casing the promised land"--or are they?

At century's end
Nobody's holding out for heaven
It's not for creatures here below
You just suit up for a game
The name of which we used to know
It might be Careless Rapture

They've given up on delayed gratification, having decided that their nature renders them unsuitable for whatever rewards there might be for those who wait. "We're just earthly creatures, so we have to take what we can get in the here and now." This sounds suspiciously like the scoffers of 2 Peter 3:3f, in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, "Where is this `coming' he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation." They have declared that there is in fact no promised land, and if there is, it doesn't fit our nature as animals who just happen to use bipedal locomotion. Having redefined ourselves thus, we are free to follow our desires.

It's not so great, though;

Time to shoot the love scene, my friend
Which means look, maybe touch
But beyond that not too much
Dumb love in the city at century's end.

The last time the "nobody's holding out for heaven" bridge comes around again, the last line has been changed to "By now it's second nature." What once was "Careless Rapture" fades away into "dumb love," love that either cannot think, or cannot speak, or both. Hemmed in by the threat of STDs that can kill, and the general ennui of the end of the 20th century, they settle for what they can get.

There's no juice, no pulsing in the veins, just the dull mechanical bop of the drum machine. The synthesized-harmonica solo line makes ample use of the pitch wheel, but its just so much Muzak.

Back in the day, when Western society still had taboos, there was frustration, but there was also pleasure. Sometimes it was stolen, and so was wrong, but it seems to me it was more human. Today, everything is allowed, hence nothing is enjoyed. The more we eat, the less satisfied we are.

Me, I'm holding out for heaven.

Call Me Joe

2006-03-13T10:59:00.000-05:00

Over a year ago, I decided to get involved in this blog business. But before that, I had stuck my big toe in the water, by taking part in some of the conversations at World Magazine's blog. I decided to use my real name, and my title.

Lately I'm just using my first name. I'm still a pastor, but after a year of experimenting with taking part in a public forum, my original reasons for commenting as "Pastor Joe Fremer" no longer carry much weight.

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What were the original reasons? I offer one that was intentional and examined, and one that was lurking beneath the surface.

A distrust of my flesh. I thought that, if I were hiding behind a pseudonym, the temptation to "post first, think later" might prove too strong. I felt that I needed accountability, of the kind that could only come if it were possible for someone to look up my RL phone number and call me on the carpet for something I said. I've never been that kind of a person, to mindlessly flame someone, but in the heat of a debate, you don't know what might happen...

A desire for recognition. I thought if the word Pastor were in my comment name, it might make people say, "Hey, who's this guy calling himself a pastor? I'm just gonna check him out." In short, there was somewhere in there, still in perfect working order after all these years, the willingness to use God's calling for my own selfish interests--in this case, to get people to visit my blog. This started when I coveted a position on the sidebar of World Magazine's blog, where it listed "Blogging Pastors." I never made it, and a good thing too. My blogging tends to be infrequent and quite marginal. I do not deserve to be in the same list mentioned alongside people like Paul McCain, Rev. Cwirla, and Aardvark Aalley. (Where do they get the time?)

The first reason is worthy, but I think I have demonstrated that I can bite my tongue and think first. The second is despicable. I thought I was over that. God forgive me!

He does. He did before, too, when I was entering my teens, and telling people I wanted to be a pastor because it got me good strokes. When He confronted me with what I was doing, I assumed that I'd blown it. He let me think that for a while, so I could fall out of love with the image of myself as a pastor. Then He tapped me on the shoulder and said, "You know, I never did say you couldn't be a pastor."

So, suitably humbled and genuinely repentant, I became a pastor, but I always thought of that as a privilege, not as a badge of status. (I never liked the word "reverend.") My goal has been this: always to sound like a Christian, never to sound like a pastor. If you've met guys who carry the pastor thing around them, like a cloud of perfume--guys who sound like a pastor even when they are phoning in an order for chop suey--you know the type that I mean.

Call me Pastor--it's the title I love best--but if you are not in my flock, it's quite all right with me if you call me Joe.

"We Would See Jesus"

2006-03-06T11:50:00.000-05:00

Recently acquired an old book: Book Of Hymns for the Evangelical Lutheran Joint Synod of Wisconsin and Other States. [no date] Northwestern Publishing House, Milwaukee. It's really cool. Pocket sized. Words only (in English, too!) Arranged alphabetically by first line within several broad categories.

Here's a gem attributed to Anna Warner, 1832.

We would see Jesus; for the shadows lengthen
Across this little landscape of our life;
We would see Jesus, our weak faith to strengthen,
For the last weariness, the final strife.

We would see Jesus, the great rock foundation
Whereon our feet were set by sovereign grace:
Nor life nor death, with all their agitation,
Can thence remove us, if we see His face.

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We would see Jesus, other lights are paling,
Which for long years we have rejoiced to see;
The blessings of our pilgrimage are failing;
We would not mourn them, for we go to Thee.

We would see Jesus; yet the spirit lingers
Round the dear objects it has loved so long,
And earth from earth can scarce unclasp its fingers;
Our love to Thee makes not this love less strong.

We would see Jesus: sense is all too binding
And heaven appears too dim, too far away;
We would see Thee, Thyself our hearts reminding
What Thou hast suffered, our great debt to pay.

We would see Jesus: this is all we're needing;
Strength, joy, and willingness come with the sight;
We would see Jesus, dying, risen, pleading;
Then welcome day, and farewell mortal night!

This hymn made me think of the pastor who trained me on my vicarage (LC-MS for "seminary internship year"). He told me about a vacation trip he had taken. On Sunday he worshiped at a local church. When the service was over, and he met the pastor on the way out the door, he wanted to hand the pastor a scrap of paper with the words John 12:21 on it: "Sir, we would see Jesus." (21st century American English translation: "Sir, we want to see Jesus.") May no one ever want to say that to me after one of my sermons!

The Semantics of Liturgy

2006-03-01T14:29:00.000-05:00

[Joe's note: although I am not permitted to post entire prayers, there are other "gems" in the 1936 Liturgy & Agenda that I can use, in the Fair Use way.]

General Semantics (one of my interests) is a system of, call it, practical epistemology. One of the things that was a hallmark of Korzybski's methodology is what he termed consciousness of "levels of abstraction"; that at different levels, there are different behaviors and interactions between the mental map and the external "territory."

Thus General Semantics really laid the groundwork for "systems theory." Anyway, there is a basic recognition that there are fundamental differences to be expected between a complex object when conceived of as a collection of parts, and the same object when viewed as a system. Or as we say in English, something is "more than the sum of its parts."

What does this have to do with liturgy? Simply this: in the public services of a congregation, is it simply a bunch of individuals coming together to worship God individualistically en masse? Or it is something more?

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If it's hard to think what that would be like, just focus on the worshipers, each with his own personal conceptions of God, coming together to commune only vertically--"Me & My Jesus" writ large. Holy Communion in such a setting is only vertical. The other people are related to me in that we share responsibility for paying the utilities, but what happens in the Sacrament is intensely, and exclusively, personal. Sound familiar?

The Lutheran answer has always been, "It is definitely something more. It is a horizontal communing as well, and not just in the Sacrament."

In 1916 "the Committee" wrote this in the preface to the Liturgy and Agenda.

Whatever forms are adopted to express the homage of a company of believers, they must center around the communal interests of Christians. In the worship of the congregation the vox ecclesiae is to be heard, responding to, and reechoing, the vox Dei in the Scriptures. Accordingly, the grand central truths of the Christian faith must find sole recognition and expression in a Christian formulary of worship. While the individual worshiper comes, indeed, to feed his own soul at the common banquet spread for all, and satisfies the special needs of his inner life from the stores of divine grace provided for all; while the individual believer in his heart undoubtedly connects with the common prayers, praises, petitions, and thanksgivings of all believers particular meanings which the words have assumed to him because of the peculiar way in which his Christian course is being shaped for him, still there is in the liturgical formularies of the Church little, if any, room for the expression of private spiritual experiences. For these, other provisions must be made. The liturgy of the Church and the official sacred acts of her ministers must be characterized by objectiveness.

Objective justification; objective truth; mirrored in an objective liturgy that is jointly held in what Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann termed the "social stock of knowledge" (The Social Construction of Reality, Doubleday, 1966).

I don't think this has to mean liturgical uniformity. I don't think The Committee meant that either. But the pandering to individual tastes that is so prevalent today in all aspects of life--the annoying overuse of the word "My" in Windows XP, for instance--the pernicious customizability of modern life--ought to be resisted in corporate worship. When we gather, we are more than just an aggregate of individual idiosyncratic believers.

Sociology Scares Me

2006-02-15T14:53:00.000-05:00

Ok, not really. That was a cheap shot to grab your attention.

What scares me is not sociology, but using social forces to manipulate people in the name of Christ. Ryan over at Wretched Of The Earth wrote a great piece about The Personal Testimony as a staple of Evangelicalism.

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Here's an excerpt:

I was abiding beneath the grandiose deception propagated by Evangelicalism that the chief evidence for the veracity of the Christian faith is found in personal experiences. There is no arguing, it is said, with a changed life. Consequently, pervasive in Evangelicalism is the “testimony,” or autobiography of one's encounter with God, usually following the formula:

1. I was bad
2. I accepted Jesus into my heart
3. I became good

Anybody can have a spiritual experience that leads to improvement of behavior. Happens to plenty of Muslims, Buddhists, atheists, Wiccans, etc.; any schmuck can clean up his act with a little discipline, and maybe the help of a guru or something. But also, as we see in the case of Frey (and probably Sanong, too), when you're making a sell it's in your best interest to make your product as attractive as possible. And in a world of schemes purporting to offer “the abundant life” if you just do a, b, and c, it's all about the sell. Thus, the logical progression is to, well, tweak.

Making a sell. Yeah. A far cry from an authentic Christian witness. As Ryan goes on to say a little later,

the emphasis on personal change and the importance of leading a victorious life means you must hide the fact that you're still [gasp!] a sinner. So you end up with a bunch of Pharisees who are really good at disciplining themselves into showing off a whitewashed exterior, even as inwardly the wretch remains—fed now with a steady diet of pious self-righteousness, the worst kind. Yet at the same time the navel-gazing Evangelical grows in despair because he knows it's a hoax he can't maintain.

Authentic is hard. Much easier to adapt marketing techniques. Many years ago the leadership of the District of which my church is a member got enamored with a program called "The Phone's For You!" It was basically telemarketing. Seems there is some kind of natural law that states that if you make 100,000 phone calls, you'll have a thousand positive results, no matter what you are selling. Some genius said, "Wow! God has revealed this to us so the Church can use it! It's bad stewardship for us to not use this wonderful gift to Grow The Church!"

Maybe, I thought, God revealed it to us, so we can learn yet another way the Church is not to copy the World.

This is why I always got a weird feeling about the Promise Keepers, or any kind of mass-rally event. There is tremendous power in social forces, and sociological study brings them, but to me the best way to use them is in a negative way. To say, "what I'm doing now--what we as a church are doing--this program or that campaign--are we relying on the flesh? Have we forgotten that God said, 'Not by might, not by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord of Hosts'?"

Kyrie eleison. Lord, please save the Church!

Hail And Well Met!

2006-02-15T14:08:00.000-05:00

Dr. Gene "Ed" Veith over at Cranach (see Blogroll to the left) tipped me off to this great site: The Pearcey Report. Actually, about a year ago Ed had recommended Nancy Peacey's book Total Truth to me over lunch at a conference, so I was familiar with the name already.

Nancy's husband Rick writes in the About page,

Our idea of a good time includes the arts, controversies in science, palpitations in politics, plus a timely and strategic look at the news, events, people, and trends of this moment in history. So there is a serious component to what we do in these pages.

My kinda place! But the next paragraph turns out to be almost a manifesto-grade statement for anyone who takes seriously the Christian doctrine of vocation.

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Here is that paragraph:

And yet, nothing written here shall be deemed more important than how each one of us live and work day in and day out -- How we raise our kids, the choices we make, the culture we create, the assumptions we think through, the behavior we affirm or let slide. A disconnect in areas such as these has been known to turn fairly normal people into seedbeds of opportunism for PR sharpshooters, image magicians, money-grubbers, and influence-mongers of all stripes of religion and irreligion (and ever the twain shall meet). We would just as soon see a world without that junk littering the landscape.

Well said, brother, and may we all take it to heart!

Valentine Thoughts

2006-02-09T16:10:00.000-05:00

One year when I was pretty young, it was a leap year. "What's that?" I wanted to know, because I heard people talking about it. "It's terrible!" one male classmate of mine wailed. Another one pshawed that notion, and went on to tell me what it really is.

I turned back to the first kid. "Why's it terrible?"

"Because," he said, with his eyes wide, "on Leap Year the girls chase you, and if you get caught, you have to let them give you a kiss!"

"Ewwwww" we all said in unison, and the fear of catching "cooties" became a strong social factor for the next week. It was like double jeapordy--we had just escaped Valentine's day, and now this?

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I managed to get through February 29th cootie-free that year, even though my mom wouldn't let me bring my pet garter snake to school to protect me.

I didn't learn until I was an adult that St. Valentine was a third-century Christian martyr who died for his faith. There are worse things, obviously, than being caught and forced to submit to a peck on the cheek! Love and sacrifice ought to go together. That's why I never marry a couple unless I have enough time to meet with them several times for premarital counseling, where I drive that point home repeatedly. Jesus is the highest expression of that love, because He was bringing His Father's love to earth, but He didn't bring candy or flowers. He didn't write a mushy poem. He let Himself be caught--and nailed to a cross. He was innocent, but submitted to execution in our place. That's real love, and that's the engine that can drive a joyous courtship, and sustain a successful marriage. Since He became alive again, and offers His help from above, we can abandon the pathetic, stressful, and ultimately self-defeating search for "someone to love me."

Stop running. Let Love Himself catch you.

Doin' The 'Brew

2006-01-25T23:40:00.000-05:00

I've been away from blogging, because my Hebrew verb drill program has been a HUGE project--so far I've entered over 2100 forms. Learned a bit of fancy new programming tricks, too, in the process. Really, it's been refreshing in many ways, because I'm basically re-learning Biblical Hebrew. I used to have a rep in college; they called me Yoseyf HasSopheyr (Joseph The Scribe); but it was largely undeserved. I just had an edge; my work-study was doing research and grading papers for the Hebrew prof, the sainted Art Sekki (passed away a couple of years ago, I heard).

Eventually, my program will be helpful to lots of students, I hope. Right now, it's helping son Noah with his verb drills--and me to rediscover the richness of the First Testament.

Watch for my press release when it's a bit further along...

I Know That My Goalie Lives!

2006-01-02T11:05:00.000-05:00

Blogging's been slow, because I've been working feverishly on a Hebrew vocabulary drill program, trying to get it done before my son goes back for his second semester. (Hammoreh didn't work very well for what we wanted to do.) UPDATE since I wrote those words: He's back in school, and I'm still working on it, but he has a working prototype. I will not be blogging much while I am working on this project.

Researching verb object suffixes, I ran across a funny fact.

The Hebrew root for "redeem" is גָּאַל [sorry if that doesn't come out well. Displaying Hebrew correctly on a browser is a non-trivial research project!). It's pronounced gah-AHL, and in that form it means, "he redeemed."
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The present participle: "redeeming one" (masculine) is go-AYL. In English the redeeming one is better rendered as "redeemer."

Stick a first-person object suffix on it: "the redeeming-me one" and it becomes Go-uh-LEE. No kidding. That is exactly what Job 19:25 has in that famous precursor of the Christian hope, "I know that my Redeemer lives," which gave us one of the greatest hymns in English of all time.

Hockey fans, rejoice!

Great Customer Service!

2005-12-26T15:38:00.000-05:00

KUDOS to The Gramcord Institute's Mark Banks who took my order this St. Stephen's day--from his home, I might add!--and helped me get my son up and running with the Hammoreh Hebrew grammar tutorial. It is truly a pleasure to be able to receive such good service.

I'll get back to you with a review of this tutorial, after we've had a chance to use it for a while. It runs in a DOS window, (it was written in pre-GUI times.) but Noah grew up with DOS and ANSI graphics, so he can handle it.

The Gramcord Institute is a fine old name in original language tools for the study of Holy Scripture.

Resolution and Scope (a work in progress)

2005-12-26T13:18:00.000-05:00

from the depth of the pacific
to the height of everest
and still the world is smoother
than a shiny ball-bearing
so i take a few steps back
and put on a wider lens
and it changes your skin,
your sex, and what you're wearing
distance shows your silhouette
to be a lot like mine
like a sphere is a sphere
and all of us here
have been here all the time

Ani DiFranco, "Everest"

This lovely ballad is about bridge-building, about reaching out across cultural barriers. On another level, it's about something that's been on my mind for a while: call it "resolution." With the growing popularity of digital photography, I think that's a word that many people will be able to get. I'm particularly interested in how it applies to epistemology, and to theology, although lately it's found its way into public policy debates.

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See for example a recent WORLD magazine column by a man I highly respect, Dr. Gene Edward Veith, of the Cranach Institute. Or the fuss raised by a Navy Chaplain, Lt. Gordon Klingenschmitt, who charges that Navy superiors have directed him to not use the name of Jesus in his prayers offered as part of his job.

There is some concern whether Lt. K is being completely honest in his charges. A commenter to Dr. Veith's blog post about this reports that she heard a caller to a talk show identify himself as Lt. K's commanding officer, who "categorically denied that there was any order given not to pray in Jesus' name."

Dr. Veith's blog entry was on the question, "Does this constitute establishment of a religion?" In a comment, I opined that it does. But a follow-up comment from another commenter, who identifies himself as "A Navy Chaplain," argued for sensitivity and discrimination as to setting. His comment is very interesting, so I quote it here:

There is no regulation banning Chaplains from praying in Jesus' name. That being said, all Chaplains regardless of background are encouraged to be sensitive to those listening to their prayers. When praying at a Command function or during an evening prayer to the whole ship, sensitivity to the religious backgrounds of all who hear the prayer is advised, but not mandated. Whether I end a prayer with "in your Holy name", or "in the name of our Lord", or just end with "Amen" I know to whom and through whom I am praying. By showing respect for people of other faiths, I have often had a chance to discuss with them matters of faith in other settings.
As to establishment, if I pray in Jesus name or in allah's name at a mandatory Command event where everyone bows with me in prayer, then I believe there may be an issue with establishment. By purposely using more inclusive language in prayers to groups representing many faiths, there seems to be little problem with establishment. Also we are not talking about establishing a religion, since a Change of Command or Retirement Ceremony is not a worship service. On Sunday morning, or Friday night, Chaplains all worship in accordance to their own faith tradition.

I don't understand what a Command event is, but his sentence "if I pray in Jesus name or in allah's name at a mandatory Command event where everyone bows with me in prayer, then I believe there may be an issue with establishment" is thought-provoking. It opens up the whole can of worms of whether, and why, to have religious leaders lead a prayer at a civic event. Dave Adams has done good work on this subject, but I need to go back and re-study that.

But back to resolution. Scope and specificity in religious language. The trend today is to build bridges by following Ms. DiFranco's idea of "take a few steps back, put on a wider lens." To seek a sort of verbal least-common-denominator that will be "more inclusive." You turn down the resolution in prayers, or creeds (e.g. the Roman Catholic/Lutheran "Joint Declaration On The Doctrine Of Justification" by becoming more vague, more general, by adopting language that all parties can "live with."

In the visual arts, you have a range of expression from Realism to Impressionism to Abstract. It's a matter of resolution. Impressionist art requires you to fill in what's missing: lower resolution leads to more viewer involvement. McLuhan would say it was "cooler." (Or was that "hotter"? I always get those confused.)

A statement, or a visual depiction, doesn't have to be exhaustive to be true. A simple map to the mall doesn't have to show all the stop signs, or the peach tree on the corner three blocks before you get there. It is true if it accurately depicts the relationship and connections of here and there and the route between.

However, it should specify origin and destination. If it is titled "How To Get To The Mall," it is pretty much useless, except to its maker and to the person who asked for the information.

If it is offered as a universal map, useful for anyone to get to any mall, it is no longer truth. It is a lie. Actually, the map may be true, but the claim about it is false.

I'm not quibbling about the mechanical use of the words "In Jesus' Name, Amen" at the end of the prayer. Many prayers are offered this way that Jesus would not endorse, I'm sure. My question is, how do we cut through the straw men in this kind of debate, and address the basic philosophical/theological issues that lie behind it? If there is really only one mall, and all roads lead to it, then there's no problem with the map. But then, who needs the map at all?

If there is only one God, and He/She/It is willing to listen to all forms of address, then turning down the resolution is fine. This has never been the Christian position, however. The Bible says that Jesus is the only Way to the Father. A case may be made for saying that prayer not made in the name of Jesus is in fact offered to an idol, not to the true God.

It's a don't-ask-don't-tell world we live in. A world looking for peace through ignoring the hard questions, the questions that result in winners and losers, in A's and F's. Perhaps our calling as Christians, and certainly as confessional Lutherans (I know no other kind worthy of the name!), is to resist the loss of resolution, to keep asking "what do you mean, and what do you not mean?", to fight against the slide through Impressionism to an Abstractist kind of theology that just paints blobs of color and calls it spirituality.

On the other hand, we do want to build bridges, and we do want to be loving as we ask the hard questions. We have to be clear in ourselves that we do it because it is the loving thing to do, and not in some kind of evil glee at pinning down the wriggling purveyors of vagueness. And we have to be ever mindful of God's warning not to get bogged down in useless questions that are quite specific, but divisive. (I need the verse here).

....

Incarnation, Islam, and Moralism

2005-12-21T11:29:00.000-05:00

C.S. Lewis wrote an introduction to the Arthurian poetry of his Inklings friend Charles Williams, titled Williams and the Arthuriad. It appears in one volume with Williams' two poetry collections; you can find it on Amazon.com. It was published by Wm B. Eerdmans in 1974.

Here is an extended quote in which Lewis comments on the figure of Palomides, a Saracen knight who comes to Logres to find out the Christian secret. In a surprisingly effective way, he manages to hit many topics of interest today: Islam, moralism vs. Christianity, and the resurgent-Gnostic "spirituality" that deprecates the material aspects of God's world.

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Since this quote is extended, I will only use blockquote tagging where Lewis uses it (to quote Williams). Enjoy! --Joe

Palomides the Saracen Knight, the unsuccessful lover of Iseult, comes out of Mohammedan Spain ‘through the green-pennon-skirted Pyrenees’ and the ‘cross-littered land of Gaul’ to Cornwall and the house of King Mark. The anachronism whereby Islam is made contemporary with Arthur is deliberate: Islam was for Williams the symbol (as it is certainly the greatest historical expression) of something which is eternally the opposite of Sarras and Carbonek. Islam denies the Incarnation. It will not allow that God has descended into flesh or that Manhood has been exalted into Deity. It is

the sharp curved line of the Prophet’s blade
that cuts the Obedience from the Obeyed.

It stands for all religions that are afraid of matter and afraid of mystery, for all misplaced reverences and misplaced purities that repudiate the body and shrink back from the glowing materialism of the Grail. It stands for what Williams called ‘heavy morality’—the ethics of sheer duty and obedience as against the shy yet (in the long run) shameless acceptance of heaven’s courtesies flowing form the ‘homely and courteous lord’. It is strong, noble, venerable; yet radically mistaken. It had nibbled at Christianity almost form the beginning in the swarm of heresies which denied the full doctrine of Incarnation. That is the point of the Prelude to The Region of the Summer Stars. St. Paul preached ‘the golden Ambiguity’—the irony beyond all ironies which the manger in the Bethlehem stable presents, the ‘physiological glory’. But the ‘ancient intellect’ shrank back from the new doctrine,

The converted doctors turned to their former confessions,
the limitary heresiarchs feared the indiscretions of matter…
Professing only a moral union they fled
from the new-spread bounty.

The Prelude to Taliessin Through Logres is also concerned with this conflict between the ‘ambiguity’ of Incarnation and the heavy lucidity of mere Monotheism. On the historical level it is a fact that ‘the Moslem stormed Byzantium’. On the spiritual level huge areas of the world fell back from the subtler and more ‘scandalous’ Faith—and fall back daily in the sub-Christian doctrines of Christ’s person which are dear to the modern world. This is not the defeat of truth by simple error or of good by simple evil: it is the loss of living, paradoxical truths (for mere Monotheism blinds and stifles the mind like noonday sun in the Arabian deserts till we may well ‘call on the hills to hide us’). It is the defeat of fine and tender and even frolic delicacies of goodness by iron legalism, the ‘fallacy of rational virtue’. Islam is true so far as it affirms: we must rejoice that it conquered the old Dualism of Persia. But it affirms unity in such a way that ‘union is breached’; and then, however truly and with whatever grandeur the muezzin cried ‘Good is God’,

Lost is the light on the hills of Caucasia,
glory of the Emperor, glory of substantial being.

-p. 308f

Great Reading On Vocation

2005-12-16T10:26:00.000-05:00

About a year ago, Dr. Gene Edward "Ed" Veith of the Cranach Institute (and culture editor of World Magazine) got me thinking about the Christian concept of vocation. I've been mulling it over at my usual glacial pace, about how it really draws together the notions I've had all my life about Christian witnessing (in faithful daily living, versus "evangelism" as a "separate" and intentional activity). Anyway, Dr. Veith's blog provoked me to read some excellent articles blogged by Kelly Klages, which I thoroughly enjoyed, on vocation in the Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. The links are hard to see in Veith's blog, so I have pasted them here:
Lord of Vocations, Part I
Lord of Vocations, Part II
Lord of Vocations, Part III
Lord of Vocations, Part IV
Lord of Vocations, Part IVb
Lord of Vocations, Part V

Well done, Kelly! Happy reading, all!

God Help Us

2005-12-06T08:58:00.000-05:00

There it is, in the latest Demotivators® catalog from Despair, Inc. A nugget of truth just begging to be used in a sermon, or a blog, or something. It's not one of their refreshing little poster sayings. Those ought to be left alone, in my opinion; better yet, given as Christmas gifts to a very, very, select few who have the heightened sense of irony to appreciate that kind of humor. No, my nugget of truth for today is in the explanatory material, the rationale for why they do it:

when desperation has disposable income, market opportunities abound.

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Sadly, I am afraid that describes much of the Christian Publishing Industry, which has become pretty much indistinguishable from the rest of the Self-Help Publishing Industry. As a Lutheran, I find this funny, because it is the Law and our sinfulness which makes us desparate, or enlightens us to how desparate our situation is. But God's proper work, what He's really after, is to comfort the desperate, not to heighten their desperation.

The whole notion of self-help, as a way of addressing our needs, is really contrary to the call of God to repent and believe the good news that Jesus has taken care of our needs completely. Repent means to give up on trying to achieve happiness, or power, or whatever part of the good life you're aiming at, and to turn to God with open hands, ready to receive His gifts in His way.

There is really only one message to publish: Christ crucified. God-help trumps self-help every time!

Why Gr8ful (the Sequel)

2005-11-23T11:15:00.000-05:00

Yes, I know I already wrote about the name of my blog. But I forgot to mention why the URL doesn't spell out Grateful but uses the silly little convention of the digit 8 to stand for the phoneme "ate"--herewith revealed for all the curious readership!
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No, it's not an attempt to be hip, like some aging skateboarder ("Sk8 Or Die!"). It comes from the fact that I like the number 8 a great deal.

When I was 8 years old, I was pretty happy--so happy, as a matter of fact, that I declared my earnest intention to never have another birthday. I wanted that life to continue forever, just the way it was.

Of course, that didn't work, not the way I planned it anyway. It was not until my relationship with Christ blossomed that I was able to recapture that sense of timeless joy. I couldn't stay 8 years old in my first birth. But when I discovered the second birth of faith, and began to claim the inheritance that was bequeathed me in my baptism, I found that I could have everything that made being 8 so much fun.

Meanwhile, in middle school, I had discovered the sign for infinity, which looks like an 8 lying on its side. (I believe it comes from the medieval concept of a snake eating its own tail.) That confirmed my attachment to arabic numeral 8, as there is a little bit of infinity in my Gr8ful orientation toward God.

So there you have it--the full revelation of the mysteries of Gr8fulChristian!

No Thanks

2005-11-22T14:32:00.000-05:00

A public school in a nearby community has this message on the changeable part of its sign:

BE THANKFUL

I suppose they intended a little Thanksgiving seasonal message--but it doesn't work. Other kinds of carefully neutral "values education" statements do work: Be Honest; Be Punctual; Be Considerate. You can have the quality of Honesty within yourself, without reference to others; you can make it a practice to be punctual or considerate in general, to unspecified others; one might say, "to all whom you happen to meet."

It doesn't work that way with being thankful. It was sign language that tipped me off to this.
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In sign language, where visible movement most often pantomimes an action, there are many verbs that are "directional." For instance, you can't sign "give" without the movement flowing in a certain direction, and the direction you choose as you make the sign indicates who is the receiver of the gift. So the best English gloss for such a sign is "give-you," "give-me," "give-to-an-unspecified third party." To put it simply, sign language does not permit you to express an abstract concept of "giving," in normal usage. It is more concrete than that.

"Thank" is another such verb. The sign has to move somewhere. If it moves up toward heaven, it is "thank-God"--if it is from the signer to the person he's conversing with, it is "thank-you"--if it moves in an arc encompassing a group of people, it is "thank-y'all." This isn't just a peculiarity of sign language; it is implicit in the very concept of gratitude. Thanking implies that you are thanking someone.

When I saw the sign, I entered into an imaginary dialog with the school administrator responsible. Whom, precisely, do you mean me to thank? My parents? God? My teacher? The school district? My lucky stars? The veterans who sacrificed for the freedoms we enjoy? The founding fathers? The Indians who helped the Pilgrims through that first rough winter? And when you tell me to whom thanks is due, then my next question will be, thanks for what gift? But because of the current cultural climate, the administrator in my fantasy shakes his head vigorously at any mention of God. He's not gonna go there. He might reply that thankfulness, in general, an attitude that recognizes that we are not self-sufficient, that our successes are creditable in part to the efforts of others, is a good character trait to have in general, without specifying the donor, nor the gift.

But it doesn't wash, any more than you can get away with a computer-generated generic thank you note (Dear donor, thank you for your kind [ ]gift [ ]words [ ]assistance.). Mother's Day is to thank Mom. Teacher Appreciation Day is to thank Teacher. But a bloodless "day of thanksgiving" without reference to God?

No thanks.

(Earth-)Pigs on the Wing

2005-11-18T11:10:00.000-05:00

There's a great post I'd like to point you to at Aardvark Alley. I like the way Pr. Snyder finds spiritual meanings in a non-news news story. Me, I just would have complained yet again, "And why is this news?!?! What a waste of time!!!" But his ruminations lift us above and redeem the time. Thank you, brother!

Just Say Yes

2005-11-18T09:17:00.000-05:00

The Old School Confessional posted some thoughts on the "Being good is hard, so Just Give Up" attitude that shows up, like an illegitimate son at the family Christmas party, in morality and public policy discussions. He concludes,

It's harder work both to maintain civil laws and to stand against sin in the face of societal permissiveness. But it is the loving thing to do, for the sake of the citizenry and for the sake of God's people.

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He expresses some dismay that the argument was allowed to appear on public radio as a part of a debate on immigration policy. The fact that the "just give in" logic gets to weigh in on otherwise reasoned debate is a sad commentary about the morbidity of reason in the public forum. As Francis Schaeffer said, "When man declares God is dead, man (and reason) is dead too."

We run into a similar thing as individuals. My attempts to obey the Law do not save me, nor do they perfect me. Oh, sure, I am a better man for trying, but that's not the point either. When I cave in and quit fighting my sinful nature, it means I've stopped thinking God's way about sin. When I complain that it's too hard to stay on the wagon, it means I've started trying to live the Christian life in the flesh. In both cases, I need a good fresh look at the Cross. That's what Christian repentance is. "Just Say No" doesn't work--we have to look at the Cross of Jesus Christ, and just say Yes. Yes, I see now that sin really is bad (and not just in a pragmatic sense, when victims can be identified). Yes, I see now that God's love is stronger than sin.

As sad and puzzling as it is that the non-rational why-fight-the-inevitable attitude is with us in the public forum, I suspect the greatest benefit to Satan is the way it undercuts the "good fight of faith" in Christians, when he infiltrates us with such worldly attitudes.

Dynamic Duos

2005-11-15T08:39:00.000-05:00

Opposites, paired, in tension, fascinate me. I like to draw on the board a cross section of a road, and show a ditch on the left, and a ditch on the right. I put a car in the middle, and we talk about how safe driving means avoiding the two ditches. Usually the ditches are Despair and False Belief, when I am teaching the Lord's Prayer and Martin Luther's explanation of the Sixth Petition. But there are other opposite extremes that would fit that diagram too.
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A pastor taught a Bible study at a retreat when I was in high school where he exhorted us to steer clear of the twin dangers of excessive legalism ("the Pharisee Heresy") and excessive flexibility ("Sloppy Agape"). I have never forgotten that. It made a deep impression on me, with its simplicity and rightness.

There is a different kind of pairing. These are not extremes to steer between, but valid emphases, which seem contradictory but require us to hold them in balance. My vicarage pastor, the Rev. Paul Mueller of Sioux City Iowa, talked about Church Fellowship this way: we have on the one hand the essential unity of that Christians share in Christ, but on the other hand we have Christ's Great Commission which includes "teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you." These two poles help us to think sensibly about the different levels at which Christian fellowship happens, or should not. Francis Schaeffer pointed out in 1970, in a profound essay to Lutherans threatened by the prospect of a church split, that truth and love are both right, and they need to be held and practiced together. Other pairs come to mind: spontaneity and discipline in relationships, including our relationship with God...

Sometimes I think of them as the twin foci that determine an ellipse. In astrophysics, why are orbits elliptical, rather than circles? Is it because we live in a fallen world?

Sometimes I think of them as the two legs that are involved in the Christian "walk"--walking is accomplished by shifting balance from one leg to the other, with off-balance transitions where you are temporarily being supported by one leg.

Sometimes I think of it like two magnets in a desk toy, and an object hovers between them, suspended in the tension created by the meeting of opposite magnetic fields. Unlike ditches, which we seek to avoid, these poles are things that we a drawn to. Come to think of it, an electric motor works by the alternating power-up power-down of magnets that pull in different ways.

I don't have a nomenclature yet for the two kinds of pairs, apart from "ditches" and "poles." Your suggestions for other pair candidates, or a better vocabular for talking about this stuff, is greatly welcomed!

Small World

2005-11-14T11:00:00.000-05:00

Bob Waters over at Watersblogged! has a post where he mentions that apparently he and I were neighbors for a brief time--about 40 years ago! It's cool to learn that Grace Lutheran Church on Karlov in Chicago played such a pivotal role in the lives of two expatriates from Chicagoland. The world marvels at such synchronicity. We just look up to the heavens, and wink, chuckling.

Got Liturgy?

2005-11-11T17:05:00.000-05:00

It always amuses me when I hear people run down liturgical churches. Lutherans (and other liturgical worshippers) are "God's frozen chosen," right? I once heard Andrae Crouch refer to "churches so cold you could ice-skate down the aisles," although to be fair, I don't think he was talking about worship style, but theological liberalism, with attendant cold intellectualism. I think.
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Anyway, sometimes I like to challenge such folks, when they somewhat proudly announce that their church is liturgy-free. "Mind if I ask you a question?"

"Sure."

"Suppose I come to church with you next Sunday, and sit next to you. Fifteen minutes into the service, I lean over and whisper to you, 'Pssst. What will happen next?' Will you be able to tell me what we're going to do next, or will you have no idea? Do your services really follow no pattern at all?"

Almost always, they answer that of course there is a predictable sequence of events, although there may be some variety, so two or three possible patterns. I answer, "Then you have a liturgy. You just don't have one that continues a historical tradition."

It's a lot like "non-denominational" churches--they are usually Baptist in their teaching and preaching, but one could say that they fail to provide the courtesy of accurate external labeling. The attitude is more of defining themselves in terms of what they are not, rather than in revealing what they are.

A Paradigm for Corporate Worship Styles

2005-11-10T20:44:00.000-05:00

There has been a lot written and said about the different styles of worship that churches are using today. Sometimes the dialogue has been rather heated, earning the debate the moniker "worship wars." I can't think of a more unfortunate characterization.

I like to think in terms of "throne room" worship 'versus' "living room" worship. 'Versus' is in single quotes, because I feel that they are not antagonistic, but complementary.
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When we worship, we gather in the presence of the Great King. The courtiers, and the supplicants, have an easy time knowing how to behave in His presence. They don't have a choice. The protocols laid upon them are defined by the clear role they have.

Things are a little more confusing for the younger members of the Royal Family, the little princes and princesses. After all, that man with on the big chair is their father! But He's also the King. So they have to learn that sometimes it is appropriate for them to bow low with downcast eyes and address Him thus: "Dread Sovereign, I seek an audience." At other times, it's more appropriate for them to run up to Him, clamber up into His lap, and say, "Hi Daddy! Read me a story?" Part of the burden of being a prince or a princess is learning how to know when it's a throne room, and when it's a family room.

Since Christians are both supplicant subjects, and beloved children, either role can be the setting in which we worship. One uses dignity to emphasize the awesomeness of God's majesty; the other uses homeyness to emphasize the winsomeness of His love. Christians ought to have a regular experience of both, since we relate to Him on both levels.

Personally, I prefer corporate worship on Sundays to be Throne Room worship, with Living Room worship being used in other settings--say, Advent Midweek services, or retreats, outdoor services, youth group around the campfire, etc. But I think there are churches that want to major in one or the other, so they ought to figure out which theme is going to be dominant in their church, and make that style the basic regular pattern of corporate worship that becomes a part of their corporate culture. Whatever you decide, decide to do it well.

What doesn't work, in my opinion, is bastardized combinations of the two. I'm afraid much of what is often called "blended worship" is neither fish nor fowl, an awkward attempt at compromise which sacrifices the best of both styles and leaves everyone frustrated.

Most important of all is charity toward those churches and leaders who choose to do something different from what you feel most natural doing! Liturgies will pass away, but Love lasts forever. The first-century world looked at Christians, and they didn't say, "See how dedicated they are to correct worship forms!" They said, "See how they love one another!"

I'd Like To Thank The Aacademy...

2005-11-07T11:12:00.000-05:00

The Grateful Christian has received a kudo! Pastor Snyder over at Aardvark Alley has graciously bestowed the coveted Aardie (which is also an acronym: "Aardvark Award for Raillery, Doctrine, or Intellect in Exposition") which you see at right, for my post From Status To Feelings. I don't know what to say! Garsh! Umm. Should I speculate that this might be the bellwether for a new movement, a Lutheran return to self-flagellation? (See the first paragraph in his explanation of the Golden Aardvark Aaward.) Could I make a profound theological observation based on Grouch Marx's "I wouldn't belong to any club that would have me?"

Maybe I should just say: Thanks!

Death By Formula

2005-11-05T10:21:00.000-05:00

Saw the DVD of Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith last night. When it was over, my wife and I just shook our heads and wondered why it left us empty and cold. Was it poor casting choices? Or was acting just not a priority? Or is it just us?
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In all fairness, it might be us. We are both keenly aware of the way our tastes in films have changed with the production values over the years. Often I pass over a video rental just because it was made more than ten years ago. We've seen enough of those to know that we will probably find it slow and plodding. We realize that when Star Wars first came out it was awesome to us, because we were so ready for something like that: sci-fi with the heart of a Western. Nobility and heroism were refreshing in an era that elevated the anti-hero. The special effects were dazzling, but they provided a backdrop for the characters, brought their world to life, so they could show their stuff. The Gestalt was correctly constructed: the characters, and their stories, were Figure, and the gizmos and critters were Ground.

These last three Star Wars films have been missing some of that. In no particular order, here are some of my beefs:

Assigning a naturalistic explanation for The Force. Yeah, I know, we pastors like to grouse about the New Age religion that was so blatant in the first set, but it was consistent with the cultural milieu of the world that was created, to have the Jedi be a religion. Now they sound like technicians, comparing scans and going "How many mitichlorians (sp?) did you count?" First time I heard that I said to myself, "Did he mean mitochodria?" Got me thinking about Madeleine L'Engel and what she did with mitochondria in one of her stories, so I missed the rest of the dialogue in that scene.

General lackluster acting. I think it was poor casting. Liam Neeson was a good choice for a Jedi--he just exudes nobility--but there wasn't a single Jedi in Revenge that I could look up to. I like Samuel L. Jackson as an actor, but the Mace Windu role never clicked for him. Ewan McGregor has the look, as far as what a young Alec Guinness might be appearance-wise, but his acting in Revenge was truly awful. He had a great opportunity when he viewed the security holotapes of the slaughter at the Jedi temple, but he blew it big time. Natalie Portman can act--be sure to catch her in The Professional--but she sure didn't this time. The only acting we saw was Palpatine, and Yoda. Yes, Yoda. The muppet was a better actor than almost all the living ones.

Formula-itis. Suspension of disbelief is itself interrupted when you can say, "Oh, I see, Jar-Jar fills the Threepio slot in this film." Or the fact that everything is getting faster, busier, because that impressed people in the first films: blast doors that slam incredibly fast, war vehicles that unaccountably walk on legs (in an age that can make anything fly)--I get the feeling that they felt they had to continue those trends. The little background droids that scoot around--it would have been more realistic to have a few that just tootled around, instead of screaming around corners at ever-more frenetic speeds. There was no stillness in Revenge--busy backgrounds (Coruscant air traffic out the window) detracted from every dialogue where character could have been developed. (Contrast that with the glorious scenes between Arwen Evenstar and Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings, set as they were in silent forests, so you could hear a catch in the throat, or study the furrow in a brow.) I had the feeling that the production staff had all been forced to go to seminars that indoctrinated them into The Entertainment Requirements Of Generation X As A Target Audience. (Yes, Gen X--remember when they started working on this film.) And the weird need to incorporate later characters into the prequels--I dunno, they lost me when Threepio turned out to be the hobby creation of young Anakin, and now Chewbacca knew Obi-Wan in earlier days? R2D2 was in on the whole thing, from the beginning? It's just too much.

In the end, I think it was formula that was the death of the bright and shining brainchild of a young visionary, George Lucas. The Garden curse--thorns and thistles growing up alongside the wheat--applies to artistic work as well, doesn't it.

From Status To Feelings

2005-11-01T20:23:00.000-05:00

(Part of an ongoing project about the stealthy replacement of Christian meanings with worldly counterfeits.) One of the things I love about Pride & Prejudice, and all "period" pieces, is the peek into what it was like when social class was a dominant fact in the lives of Europeans. (If you are the type of person who feels an irresistable knee-jerk desire to remind me that our society is not yet egalitarian, please stop reading and surf away, because you won't like this blog.)

Back in the day, you were born into a class, and it defined your life in several important ways. It was sometimes resented, but mostly it was accepted as a part of the natural order of things. Aristocracy and peasantry seemed to mirror on earth the hierarchies of the heavenly spheres.

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What was useful about class, for the valid mission of the true (i.e., invisible) Church, was that it gave us a structure for thinking/talking about the low status of man vis-a-vis the high status of God. Our experiences with lords helped us to understand what it means to address God as Lord. Interesting bit of trivia: in Pidgin (as used in Papua New Guinea), the word for "Lord" is Bikpela ("Big Fella").

The ills of such rigid social stratification are a thing of the past, and good riddance. I would not call them back. I do not complain about the drabness of our egalitarianism, just the tendency for it to normalize coarseness and dumb-down nobility as an anachronistic ideal. But that is not my real beef here.

What bothers me is that where we still use the vocabulary of class comparisons, the content of those words has been replaced. What once meant status, now means feelings. For example, the confession of sin we use in our liturgy says this:

I, a poor, miserable sinner, confess unto Thee all my sins and iniquities with which I have ever offended Thee.

Poor meant I have no money. Miserable meant I have no status in Your eyes--I am a peasant. I have reason to believe that modern participants use this time-honored confession with very different content. Today, poor means either "I'm a victim (poor me!)" or else "I'm not very good at being good." Miserable, of course, now means "I feel just awful about it." Words that once described the objective, outward fact of one's social standing before God, have come to describe the subjective, psychological "fact" of how I feel.

I know this because a visitor (an ex-Lutheran) wrote me a note during the service, objecting to being asked to describe himself as miserable. "I do not feel miserable, and I don't see why I should," he said, "since the blood of Jesus washed away my sins. I am joyful, not miserable!"

Church lingo, like all lingo, suffers from institutional ossification, but what bothers me is the way subjective feelings have quietly replaced objective truth on every level. The church down the street has on its sign, HUMBLE YOURSELF TO BE EXALTED. I wonder how many passers-by know that "humble" is not an attitude of self-deprecation, but a statement of objective value? Or that "exalted" isn't an ecstatic feeling, but a matter of social status and honor?

In a "classless" society, how do we teach people to abase themselves as they approach God in His awesome majesty? In a society where everyone is equally "important," how do we teach real humility? We despise our bosses, we dishonor our judges, we heap You Da Man!s on the goofiest and lowest among us.

The Semantics of Family Ministry

2005-10-31T20:44:00.000-05:00

Die Grenzen meiner Sprache, bedeuten die Grenzen meiner Welt. (The limits of my language, means the limits of my world.)

--Wittgenstein, Tractatus logico philosophicus

I ran across this quote in some notes I had taken in my training in premarital counseling. That was a few years ago, so I had to really pore over the notes to see what it was about. The quote got included in my notes primarily because it was irresistable for a student of General Semantics.

Below that I have written, We should be teaching a lexicon of committed love, even as the world is teaching a lexicon of power/using people/self-gratification.

Cross Cultural Ministry

2005-10-31T19:45:00.000-05:00

Been thinking today about cross-cultural ministry. We usually think of that as ministry to people of different nationalities, but nationality isn't really the defining characteristic of an ethnic group; it's language.

I used to be involved in a cross-cultural ministry: Deaf Ministry, conducted in sign language. Some church leaders expressed skepticism that it was a cross-cultural ministry, because they saw Deafness in terms of disability, rather than as a culture of shared experiences, values, and worldview which are mediated by a shared language, and the various pidgins which were devised to interface with the Hearing world. Never mind that we were all North Americans, in fact all citizens of the United States. We came from different worlds.

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It dawned on me today that I sometimes have to deal with people who don't want to think. They are impatient with explanations. They do not value reason except in terms of the most direct route to validate a plan of action.
They are allergic to nuance. Their eyes glaze over when you start to give them some theology. Some, I have noticed, don't glaze over; they just wait patiently for you to finish the theological truth you are carefully presenting to them, balanced and fair as to the different interpretations that have been offered for the Biblical data. Then they say, "Fine, great, but can you just tell me what the Bible says about this?" completely oblivious that I have just done so.

They are constitutionally unable, or willfully refusing, to hear different sides of an issue, unless they can also hear that one side is categorically right and the other is wrong. They are not stupid. They just aren't reflective. They are active, busy people, with no time for the niceties of logic, analysis, critique.

Well, ok. They are loved by God, nevertheless. They deserve the best ministry I can give them. They need to hear God's Law and Gospel just like any other sinner. My problem--and I do mean, MY problem--is I don't know how to relate to being that way. I have only recently realized, self-absorbed sinner that I am, that some people do not place the same value on reasoned analysis that I do. For years I wondered why I sometimes get so frustrated, and why others get frustrated with me.

I didn't know I was doing cross-cultural ministry. We're speaking English, we're both Midwestern Americans; but between the ears, we are worlds apart.

Now that I know, I wonder what to do? My sinful flesh sneers, "Guess you better get to work on 'Christianity For Dummies'," but I know it is contrary to the Holy Spirit to disparage them so. To grossly mangle an inspired illustration in St. Paul, just because they are not an X-acto knife, does not mean they are not part of the Toolbox of Christ!

For some it is laziness, and it needs the Law. "Love the Lord your God will all your mind," deserves to be taken seriously.

For others, it is a matter of the way they have been wired, set up by God's dealings in the environmental forces that shaped them. (For the record, I deny the 'Nature vs. Nurture' conflict. It's a false dichotomy; one's DNA is simply a special case of environmental influence.) How do I minister to them? That question means, how do I speak the Gospel in a language they can understand? How can I enlist their special gift into the broader witness cooperative that we call the Body of Christ? How does this X-acto knife provide leadership to a chisel? My world is about finesse, careful discrimination, objectivity. Theirs is about direct force, strength along a line and hardness between the wedge angles.

And hardest of all, how do I love them, cherish them, and praise God for the difference of their gifts?

Unpacking the Gift

2005-09-27T14:16:00.000-04:00

Preached on Philippians 2:5 Sunday:
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus... (NIV translation)
and did my best to help people understand that the "attitude" is already in Christ, therefore it is already in Christians, by virtue of our Baptism (see Romans 6). So the task becomes to "have it out," to express it, to "cop an attitude" with other people, particularly in the midst of our life in the Church. Unfortunately, the pericope for that Sunday stopped at verse 11, and so it skipped one of my favorite passages, Philippians 2:12-13.
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One reason it is one of my favorites is that it is very similar to my confirmation verse, Php. 1:6. Anyway, here it is, again in the NIV translation:
Philippians 2:13-14 Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed--not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence--continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.
Some Lutherans are bugged by that phrase "work out your salvation," but there's nothing to be afraid of. The articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae ("article by which the church stands or falls")--the Gospel of salvation by grace through faith--is not violated. "Work out" is literally, to "put in force." The gift has been given, not worked for. But it wants application. Like a bicycle in a box, there is "some assembly required."

No, that's no good. The gift--the righteousness earned for me by Christ's sacrifice on the Cross--is all together. This bicycle is already assembled. It's got a pretty bow on it, standing there all shiny and perfect under the Christmas tree. It wants only to be ridden. Umff. I don't know how to ride a bike yet! So the "assembly required" is to install the only piece missing--my skinny little five-year-old butt in the seat--and learn how to make it go.

My own experience with learning to ride a bike was pretty traumatic. I refused to learn. My father gave up dealing with my panicky screams. So it sat there in the basement, but eventually I got on it and just pushed myself around the basement, feet safely on the floor, and eventually I got the feel for it and was able to coast a bit. When spring came, I took it outside, and coasted farther, and eventually learned to pedal.

But the gift of Christ is self-teaching. The Father Himself holds us up as we ride Christ, but it's still scary, and we still sometimes balk, and cry, and scream that we don't want to fall down. Fear and trembling accompany the repeated need for repentance, for forgiving and loving our enemies, for facing new challenges to our love and obedience. And once we learn the most basic skills (how to go, how to stop) there's still a lot to learn. Bike safety. Bike maintenance. Hand signals. Why gravel is dangerous. What to do with the bell, and the mirror.

Well, those are skills, but in the process we are learning other things: the joy of exploring. The freedom of wind in your face. The thrill of jumping a curb. Tricks. The fun of being in a bike parade. All the cool pretending you can do.

Like all analogies, this one has lots of shortcomings, so let's not quibble over those. The Christians in Philippi were being encouraged to put their faith into practice. They were already doing it. Keep it up, the Holy Spirit had Paul tell them. And don't forget that your desire to do so, and the power to do so, are because God Himself is working in you! The Christian life is simply "unpacking and applying" the life of Christ given to us when we "put on Christ" in faith.

The Message Of Katrina

2005-09-02T10:12:00.000-04:00

Discussion at World Magazine's Blog site in response to a Miami Herald columnist included this comment:

If there is a God who really is in control, we need to be asking ourselves what He is trying to say to us with this hurricane Katrina disaster. It appears that He doesn't seem to be too pleased with us.

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That comment was in response to another commenter who wrote this:

If there is no God in charge of all this then we are truly hopeless.

If there is a God who is in control but doesn't care, we are hopeless.

If there is a good God who can't quite control these things and just sits up there wringing his hands, we are hopeless.

But there is a God in control.

And He is good. If you doubt his goodness, remember the cross of Christ. There we see his heart.

And we can trust his heart when we can't see his plan. So there is hope.

This is well said. My response:
WHAT GOD IS TRYING TO SAY

People asked that question of Jesus, too. Luke 13:1-5 (ESV)
There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish."

So when we see something like the tsunami, or Katrina, we are not supposed to speculate about the guilt of the victims. We are supposed to look instead to our own unworthiness, and throw ourselves on God's mercy, and beg that He does not treat us in a similar fashion.

Christians have an additional responsibility: to do mercy; to pray and work for relief; and to pray for the Christians among the victims, that they will bear courageous and clear witness of God's heart even as they bear this cross that God has laid upon them.

Kyrie eleison.

The Two Kingdoms

2005-08-25T11:14:00.000-04:00

Bob Waters over at Watersblogged wrote a cool piece that combines ruminations about the myth of America as a "Christian" nation, urban legends, Australia, and the doctrine of the Two Kingdoms. Highly recommended! I share his "pet peeve" of "Christian" urban legends.

Referendum on Truth

2005-08-18T12:37:00.000-04:00

May our truth be clear, and our love sincere.

It should go without saying that vagueness is the opposite of clarity. Thanks to the Rev. Paul McCain for reporting important background material on the recent ELCA Assembly actions on sexuality. I was particularly interested, in my Toto role, in the way the debate unfolded. I see it as a referendum on the nature of truth, and the witness of the church.
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McCain writes, "The second recommendation was to retain a policy of
pastoral care for homosexuals, with language that is vague enough to permit the possibility of blessing of same-gender unions." He goes on to demonstrate that the charge of vagueness is not his only, but came out in the assembly debate itself.

Two amendments were proposed, and defeated. The first would have made it policy to allow local congregations to 'bless' same-sex unions as they saw fit. The assembly said, No.

The second amendment attempted to say that marriage is only for a man and a woman. The assembly said, No.

The assembly seemed to like the original recommendation precisely because it was vague enough to let people operate from whatever they felt comfortable with.
I will quote Pastor McCain at length, because he says it so well:

I've already read one media report claiming that the ELCA turned down same sex blessings. I believe this is absolutely false. It is not accurate to say that the ELCA voted down same-sex blessings. What it voted against was explicit endorsement of it, but it also voted down explicit rejection of it. I believe it is most accurate to say that the ELCA has adopted for itself, as many homosexual advocates clearly understand, a policy on "pastoral care," that will make it possible for there to be same-sex blessings. In my opinion, what the ELCA is effectively a "don't ask, don't tell" situation by which one might well say, "ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies" on this issue.

To me, this was a referendum on how you do truth, how you do theology, and sorts well with the precedents that were set earlier in the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification. The ELCA assembly has chosen to continue to sound the trumpet vaguely. They need to think carefully about what the Holy Spirit said through Paul in 1 Corinthians 14:8--If the trumpet does not sound a clear call, who will get ready for battle?

Firewall Around My Heart

2005-08-05T21:57:00.000-04:00

This is a parable, a warning to other exegetes.

I sat down the other day for some Bible reading (not study). As I was reading, I noticed something happening: I was not opening my heart to the Word of God. My mind was getting in the way. It took the form of skepticism, not of the Word of God, but of this English translation I was using. It doesn’t matter which one it is; it happens with all of them: I find myself wondering "How close is this to the original?" Somewhere along the line, this critical faculty that I have—and it is a blessing to have it—of recognizing that translations are approximations to the Word of God (in its original inspired autographs), became for me a sort of firewall around my heart. Immediately a fantasy sprang up in my mind.
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I've written it out as a first-person narrative, from the point-of-view of a commander of a military outpost.
[Click here to skip to the end of the story]

The guys from intel are supposed to be helping, but I’m starting to wonder. There’s something about spooks that breeds suspicion: it’s their job to be suspicious, but now I have a suspicion that when they run interference, they might just be interfering.

Happened again the other day. I was about to sit down with a courier. Hearing the message takes maybe 20 minutes, but I always schedule in some time afterwards for Q&A: how things are going back in HQ, what the top brass think of the job we’re doing here on our particular little front, how the war is going in general. You get lonely, and you want to pick up a little taste of home from someone who’s been there lately.

So I’m in front of the field office, inviting the courier inside while calling for refreshments, when two of the spooks materialize out of nowhere, brisk and professional in their manner. One starts waving a wand up and down the courier’s body, then frisks him, while the other is checking his papers. “Uh, sir,” he says to me sotto voce, “we can’t certify that this man indeed comes from HQ.” I roll my eyes at the same time I’m narrowing them (let me tell you, that’s easier to say than do).

“Okay,” I say evenly. These guys have, after all, saved my butt on more than one occasion. “What do you need to be certain?”

“Voice-print analysis comparison with HQ database would be ideal, sir—”

“These are not ideal conditions, soldier. What can we do here, in the field?”

He glanced uneasily at the courier. “We can compare his prints to our field copy of known-counter-intel operatives… backcheck his last two checkpoints with his physical description… it’ll take an hour.”

“He’s here now. He has a message for me, I might need to know now.” I could feel my annoyance starting to show. “Are you telling me I should not discuss sensitive information with him for the first hour of our meeting?”

“That would be my advice, sir. And I would take his report under careful advisement until we can verify his credentials.”

You know that old joke about military intelligence being an oxymoron? Sometimes you gotta wonder…

So my critical reason runs interference on the verses I'm reading, because they are in an English translation. Reason is unwilling to give complete confidence to them, to give a thumbs-up to my heart to proceed. If I have the time, I can do the research myself, but that leads me to another trap: I get so absorbed in the technical challenge of evaluating the translation, which usually involves making my own translation and comparing them, that I start dealing with the Word of Yahweh only with my brain. My heart is waiting in another room, stubbing out another cigarette, checking his watch—or more likely, going about his business, figuring the sentries will page him when the selected reading has received a security clearance.

In techie terms, it’s like a firewall around my heart. It doesn’t let God touch me in a personal way, when my mind interposes these critical faculties. I began to reflect on this—what arrogant pride is hiding behind my skills, the theological mysteries of the transmission of God’s thoughts in human languages, the quick and easy answers some have found (KJV-only; blind faith in God’s care of its transmission), what the facts concerning the history of the Bible might mean for how God intends us to use it—and of course, all that time, I was not reading the Psalm. I tried to defeat the firewall, and just open myself. “God, I will assume that You are speaking to me, flawed or even inaccurate though this human translation might be. Let Your Spirit deliver Your message to reach my heart.”

But this keeps bothering me. How long have I been doing this? How does this relate to what I read in The Screwtape Letters about corrupting the persona (not acting according to one’s character), and how God intends us to listen to a sermon?

I am thankful for my exegetical training and skills. I worked hard to get them, and to keep them up. The ancient manuscripts are a treasure beyond estimation. BUT even the most useful aide must, in this situation, be told to stand down. I have to learn to trust the Spirit of the Lord for discernment, or my heart will shrivel from a famine of God’s Word.

Why "Grateful"?

2005-07-28T22:57:00.000-04:00

Ryan over at The Wretched of The Earth said it so well, I just had to sit down and start this entry that I've been putting off so long.

He wrote,

The more I understand that I'm free, the more I do out of gratitude what I was supposed to in the first place.

Well said, brother! Now, my elaboration on my fixed assertion that "gratitude is the visible mark of the Christian."

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When we really understand God's requirements, what we call "the Law," if we are honest, we have to cry out, "God, I can't do that! I can't stop being self-centered, to put You in first place! I can't love You with all my heart, and soul, and mind! I CAN'T DO THIS!"

He says, "I know. That's why I sent My Son to do it for you. It's all done. You can quit trying so hard."

This is the Gospel, the Good News. If His Holy Spirit has succeeded in getting me to believe it, to say "Cool! Awesome! Yayyy!" then I immediately say, "Thank You! How can I ever thank You? I certainly can't repay You, but is there something I can do?"

He answers, "Well, y'know those Ten Commandments that you can't keep? The ones that Jesus kept for you? Well, they still reflect My will. Work on those, in the strength of My Spirit, acting out the new nature of My Son that I've started growing in you. You can't fail, even if you fall on your face--you will, you know--because the blood of My Son continues to neutralize your guilt."

Fueled by this sense of gratitude, and out from under the pressure of trying to be good enough in my own strength--loved, cuddled, and comforted--I receive new strength to get up and serve the Lord with gladness. The joy of the Lord is my strength, as Nehemiah told his people when the Law made them weep. God's love is so unstinting... everything good that I do, I do from the position of gratitude. Any other motivation only produces dust and ashes.

Christian-Techie Dictionary: "Justified"

2005-07-25T15:18:00.000-04:00

Justified: (adj.) Certified to be standards-compliant. Ex.: The central message of Christianity is that people are justified by grace, not by doing good deeds. Translation: The central message of Christianity is that people become certified standards-compliant by a unilateral favorable decision of God, offered to people with buggy programs, and not by people debugging their own code.
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For Christians, the standards are found in the Ten Commandments, and further explained by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.

How this works:

The human program has bugs. Jesus, as the Son of God, was fully human, but also fully God. He is the only human whose program actually follows the design Theory of Operation, which for humans, is to love God perfectly and obey God perfectly, and to love other humans too.

Jesus died on the cross deliberately; to hook into the self-perpetuating cycle of buggy code, in order to terminate the process. When he came back to life, the virus was gone, and the registry was clean.

By grace (a server-side transaction) God offers Jesus' standards-compliant code as a wrapper to our object, so that God is able to treat us as standards-compliant even though we continue to have buggy subroutines. This transaction seeks to install the necessary protocols ("faith") for the client to be able to receive, and run, Jesus' program.

As Lutheran Christians put it:
We are justified by grace, through faith.

The question of how a person becomes justified was the central issue of the historical Protestant Reformation in the 16th century.

Back to Roman Days

2005-07-16T18:39:00.000-04:00

Re-reading Michael Green's Evangelism and the Early Church, I found a quote that illustrates some of what is happening in America in the last few years, as we wrestle with the role of religion in the sphere of public policy.
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Romans distinguished between public, civic religion which connected you with a state (religio) and privately held belief (superstitio), which was most often practiced in enthusiast cults such as those of Mithras or Cybele.
Here is the quote:

Why, then, was it that the Romans turned against the Christians? Why did they not offer their customary religious toleration to the new faith? The answer lies in the distinction between religio and superstitio mentioned above. Christianity was not a religio. It could not be described as a link binding any particular nation to the gods. For Christianity was a faith which embraced men of all races and backgrounds, barbarian as well as civilized. It was a superstitio, a private belief, coming from none too savoury a quarter at that; it must be judged, like other superstitiones, on its merits.
The Roman attitude to private religious convictions, supertitiones, was once again entirely tolerant, so long as public decency and order were not outraged by the cult in question.

E.g., when the Christians refused to burn an offering to Caesar, they were viewed as being politically and socially unable to "go along to get along" with the status quo; hence the persecutions often included the charge of atheism, because they had no religio, and would not participate in the Roman one.

This sounds to me a lot like the current trend toward frowning on any degree of religious faith that leads to things that might upset civic peace. The way the words "fundamentalism" and "fanaticism" are bandied about in discussions of terrorist attacks and Christian political activism, seems to me to be heading in this direction.

A Meaty Book

2005-07-15T10:47:00.000-04:00

Wow. Or should I say, "Ooops."

I finished breakfast and poured myself a cup of coffee and packed a corncob pipe, ready for my day-off ritual post-breakfast smoke on the porch, before it gets too hot out there. I needed something to read, so I grabbed Forde's On Being A Theologian Of The Cross, which has been sitting in my library untouched for over a year. I thought a bit of this would help fill the next half hour.

Oooops.
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This is not light reading. I finished the introduction and went, "Wow." I can see that I will be reading this book slowly, like, a page a day. Just the introduction has given me so much to think about, and has spoken to so many issues that have been rolling around in my life in the last year, both personal and theoretical, that a page a day may be too fast.

First insight: The theology of glory is to theory as opinio legis is to practice. Just as the battle against opinio legis is never done for the Christian, the battle against the theology of glory must be fought again, and again, by every Christian who thinks about his faith.

Luther's Sacristy Prayer

2005-07-14T22:51:00.000-04:00

O Lord God, dear Father in heaven, I am indeed, unworthy of the office and ministry in which I am to make known Thy glory and to nurture and to serve this congregation. But since Thou hast appointed me to be a pastor and teacher, and the people are in need of the teachings and the instructions, O be Thou my helper and let Thy holy angels attend me. Then if Thou are pleased to accomplish anything through me, to Thy glory and not to mine or to the praise of men, grant me, out of Thy pure grace and mercy a right understanding of Thy Word and that I may also diligently perform it. O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, Thou Shepherd and Bishop of our souls, send Thy Holy Spirit that He may work with me, yea, that He may work in me to will and to do through Thy divine strength according to Thy good pleasure. - Amen.

(Haven't been able to trace the translator for this, or the location of the original German, but I like this translation better than some of the newer ones.)

"Bono" Fidei

2005-07-11T15:00:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Ed Veith at WorldMag Blog, I found this blog with an excerpt of an interview with U-2's lead singer "Bono," wherein he confesses Christ in a pretty clear fashion (for an entertainer)!

What Does A Pastor Do?

2005-06-26T21:20:00.000-04:00

I have an assignment for a training exercise: I am to write a summary of my ministry in less than 100 words. I decided I am a "Headwaiter."
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"Headwaiter"

I help Christians have an enjoyable experience dining on the Bread of Life.

Individually I help them by counseling, praying for them and with them, and other contacts, to feed on God's Word, to cope with normal life and crisis situations as a Christian. Satisfied customers spread the Chef’s fame.

Corporately I help the congregation by exercising their ministry of Word and Sacrament on their behalf: as the lead Bible teacher, and worship leader. I also, by counsel and example, help them "run the restaurant" in such a way that it stays true to its purpose.

How did I do?

Gloomy Young Fiction

2005-06-25T10:06:00.000-04:00

Janie B. Cheaney's World magazine article titled "All Alone In The World?" raises some interesting points about the young readers' fiction market.

Though exceptions abound, the trend in realistic juvenile literature has been toward the gloomy: stories in which very bad things happen to good kids. The "edgiest" subjects are reserved for the young adult market (average age, 13), but death and divorce are common themes for younger readers.

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I find the whole article to be well-written, concise and thoughtful. It's here (in my blog) because I am interested in how language and literature, as media of culture, affect us. Lately, I have been interested in an off-the-wall correlative: the tendency for us to become false to ourselves.

About Barbara Feinberg (Welcome To Lizard Motel) she writes:

Trying to put a finger on what it is that disturbs her children, she realizes that the protagonist in most of these books is deserted (or at least misunderstood) by parents and friends, and must work out a solution to the problem entirely alone.

In other words, the existential dilemma that infected literature in the early 20th century has worked its way down to 10-year-olds. The notion that the individual is his own best and final arbiter has fueled self-esteem and "values clarification" programs for 20 years, and now dominates the genre of realistic juvenile fiction.

But pre-teens don't normally see their world in existential terms. Their proverbial self-centeredness—the folly bound up in the heart of a child—has one positive facet: a conviction that the universe is somehow interested in them. While enemies lurk out there, so do allies. The dark is a personal threat, but the wind murmurs a lullaby.

I'm quoting too much--because it's hard to see what are just the best bits. The last four paragraphs of the article are the best, and maybe this is a resource for my work on anomie although it seems oblique to my thesis.

How to Yield

2005-06-23T22:53:00.000-04:00

Just about done with Le Morte D'Arthur, volume 1. Can't figure out if the Knights of the Table Round are samurai, or just jocks. While I love the language, it has gotten pretty monotonous, with there being two jousts or more per page, often described in boilerplate phrases.

But I found a gem last night: a formal declaration of yielding.
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It is in Book IX, Chapter 11. Chapter 10 describes a contest between Sir Tristram de Liones with an unnamed knight who knocks him off his horse, causing him to be thoroughly ashamed, and desiring to finish the battle on foot. After two hours of such fighting, they take a break, and introduce themselves; the tough mystery knight turns out to be Lamorak de Gales. They fight some more. (What follows is from the Penguin Books edition, edited by Janet Cowen.)

Then Sir Tristram said to Sir Lamorak, 'In all my life met I never with such a knight that was so big and well breathed as ye be, therefore,' said Sir Tristram, 'it were pity that any of us both should here be mischieved.'

'Sir,' said Sir Lamorak, 'for your renown and name I will that ye have the worship of this battle, and therefore I will yield me unto you.' And therewith he took the point of his sword to yield him.

'Nay,' said Sir Tristram, 'ye shall not do so, for well I know your proffers, and more of your gentleness than for my fear or dread ye have of me.' And therewithal Sir Tristram proffered him his sword and said, 'Sir Lamorak, as an overcomen knight I yield me unto you as to a man of the most noble prowess that ever I met withal.'

I love that. Now I know how to yield. 'Dear God, as an overcomen knight...'

This, oddly enough, is a good place to quote Bob Dylan:

Surrender your crown on this bloodstained ground
Take off your mask.
He sees your deeds--He knows your needs
Even before you ask.

--1979, "When He Returns"

Missouri Synod Woes

2005-06-22T13:18:00.000-04:00

The LCMS is having some problems. "Synod" means "walking together;" what's the best structure for our walking-together work? What's the best way to worship? How "together" do we have to be as we walk? How do we stay faithful to the revealed Word of God, when trying to apply His message to a diverse range of cultures and generations?

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I am not too concerned about the fact that some churches use praise bands, or that some "moderate" candidate was chosen over a "conservative" candidate at some stupid convention. What I am most concerned about at the present is the way that people are getting sidetracked arguing over these and other issues--and I mean, angry arguing, not just discussing--with name-calling, electioneering, letter-writing, and all that stuff that belongs to the flesh.

I believe the Scriptures, and I believe that nothing in them is unimportant. I believe there are good ways, bad ways, and not-so-great ways to do God's work or worship Him. But I know that God can work in spite of our imperfections, and it is better to try and do poorly, than to sit back and take potshots at someone because he's doing sloppy or ill-thought-out work. I would rather be a dull, rusty tool doing useful work in the Gardener's hand, than a sharp, shiny tool that just sits on a shelf in the Gardener's potting shed.

The main trouble with the LCMS today, as I see it, is that we have way too many sharp shiny tools that are snipping away at other tools, instead of snipping away at weeds. These are the whistle-blowers, running around like nasty little boys, tattling to the Teacher that "Johnny isn't using a No. 2 pencil, he's using a pen!!!!!"

Another blogger was expressing some of the same concerns. I posted this paragraph in my comment on it:

Ever watched a drug sniffer dog work? That's what I felt like after I got out of seminary: like we had been trained to sniff out error and bark like mad, hackles up. I have worked hard for 20+ years to try to change that in myself, and it's not easy. I don't mean to blame the seminary per se, but what we have done with confessionalism--our corporate culture of confessionalism. The Christian walk is a combination of movements of both legs (Truth and Love), but we forget that. So we do the confessional hop.

I will continue to fight for a balanced Christian walk until the Day comes (or my personal last day on earth).

"Speaking the truth in love" (Ephesians 4:15) is a great way to describe that balancing act.

May our truth be clear, and our love sincere!

Christian Political Power

2005-06-17T10:25:00.000-04:00

World Magazine's blog had an interesting post this morning titled Christian Conservatives To Interview, about a group of Christian leaders who plan to interview Republican '08 presidential hopefuls to determine how they measure up according to their values. I think this is a bad idea.
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Somebody commented that he is "sure the information that they collect will be helpful. If someone wants to canonize their suggestions, then shame on them." My reply:
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The information *might* be helpful. A small possibility. But the *process* will hurt us, and that's a major probability.

Christians, as citizens, ought to participate in government, and the public forum. But a "Christian power bloc" is an oxymoron. The more power a church, or a group of Christians has, the less that group deserves the name "Christian"--because Christianity is about proclaiming a Savior, not making a safe nation to raise our families in.
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Things that lower the possibility of this being "helpful" as the commenter was thinking of it:

The interviewee might be skilled at representing his values as being more conservative that they really are.
His positions might change over time (i.e., after he is elected).
The values test that the interviewers contrive might have to be too general to be useful, given the breadth of the organizations represented by these 14 people.
Such an endorsement might be the kiss of death for a candidate, with voters who have become allergic to "the Christian Right" due to the way it is characterized by the mainstream media.

Things that practically guarantee that such a process will hurt the true Church, which I define as the sum total of all people who are trusting in Jesus, not themselves, as the solution to their ultimate issues, and the good "visible" churches (denominations that publicly confess the Scriptures and the Gospel of Jesus Christ):

It will become harder to get a hearing when we, as individual conscience-driven Christian citizens, try to take part in the public forum, because people will assume "Christian"="the Christian political Right"
It will become harder for Christians to remember that, while we are free to speak out on public policy and work for our nation to be a better place to live, our main focus is to represent the interests of a kingdom whose King said "is not of this world."
It will become confusing and complicated for many average Christians to sort through all the spin and the counter-accusations in the mainstream media, so many will just withdraw from any participation in discussion of national issues.

In short, this is another example of the "chaff effect" I described in an earlier blog. Only this time, the chaff is being fired by those as perceived as being "on our side."

One of my mentors, the dear departed Prof. Art Sekki, once told me, "Joe, I'm afraid many of our people confuse 'conservative theology' with a conservative Zeitgeist." How right he was, and how foolish of us to perpetuate the confusion.