I confess...

Recently, there has been a 'confessions' meme circulating the internet that looks to be really interesting. Though I'm still somewhat unsure as to its broader purpose, it does seem to do a good job clarifying the various influences, speculations, and approaches that impinge upon our Christian thinking (and upon the thinking Christian).

I confess that I believe orthopraxy trumps orthodoxy (right living > right thinking), even though I spend much more time on the latter.

I confess that I really don't understand or practice discipline...[yet].

I confess that most of my theological influences have been from high church, paedobaptist, Real Presence, reformed and Roman Catholic thinkers.

I confess that much of my theology is probably more Wright than right, and possibly more Chestertonian than Chalecedonian.

I confess that I want to be filled with joy and hope much more than my face or my heart normally shows.

I confess that academic rigor often seems more trustworthy than common sense (which is often both uncommon and nonsensical).

I confess that I probably read more blogs and electronic essays than I do real books.

I confess that, in my view, denominations tend to be tendentious. For the most part, they seem to distract us from God's purposes in the world so we can focus our energies on clarifying the differences between us and them. It has turned many well-meaning, thoughtful Christians into heresy-hunters who care more about being right than spreading the gospel.

I confess that I make up most of my arguments on the spot...and then promptly forget them.

I confess that I know virtually nothing of anabaptist thought.

I confess that I'm fed more from Bible studies, random discussions, and radio programs than from going to church on the Lord's day.

I confess that my attempts to defend, empower, and extol church fellowship are more of an effort to convince myself than to convince others.

I confess that most of my deeply rooted friendships (aside from family relationships) are not rooted in the church.

I confess that, in my life, the workings of the Spirit are shrouded mysteries, and I tend to mistrust those who think the Spirit is simple and clear.

I confess that I don't know if pacifism is a proper part of the Christian life.

Gospel note

Today, I delved into a few of the drawers in my room, discovering a few jottings that I lost over time.

Jesus is true representative of Israel. As king (and/or priest?), he sums up [represents] his people.

His crucifixion demonstrated victory of the powers over Israel (Judgment). This was turned around when he was raised from the dead (God vindicates him as true Lord of the world). For us to be justified before God [ie declared righteous at the coming judgment], we must be in Jesus Christ (death and resurrection) [thus baptism, like Israel going through Red Sea]. We know that we are in him when the Spirit (our guide in this wilderness and downpayment on the resurrected life) is within us [faith, as fruit of Spirit, confirms this]. This is the guarantee that our own resurrection will reflect his own.

The continuing Christian life is fed and strengthened by the act of remembering God's saving work via judgment [thus communion (or Eucharist), like Passover]. We see this as the Spirit's other fruits live within us [these confirm the fulfillment of God's law within our lives and our continuity with those who are in Christ] as we tromp towards the New Creation.

Whaddaya think?

Unity

Tonight I was talking with (actually, it was probably more 'to' him) a young brother about the idea of unity in the church. I told him that I thought unity was absolutely fundamental, even to the point of saying that I would rather there be physical fights in the midst of the church over doctrinal issues rather than the unity be broken (unless that unity has been broken by the denial of Jesus' Lordship...unforgivable sin?...we can talk about that later). After saying this, I started talking about some of Paul's letters where, I think, his major point is that of unity: Romans, 1 Corinthians, Galatians, and James (though I'm not far enough through James to say for sure). Here is my own cartoonish breakdown of the points of each letter:

1. Romans (cf Rom 15:1-7) - We are justified by faith (and not by circumcision, etc...) and should therefore act as the unified whole by being 'in Christ' (especially by taking part in his suffering for the sake of each other).
2. 1 Corinthians (cf 1 Cor 1:10-13) - Acting 'in Christ' means acting in the full knowledge and hope of our own resurrection (see 1 Cor 15), guaranteed by his own (notice that this resurrection implies action in verse 58).
3. Galatians (cf Gal 2-3, especially Peter's sin in 2:12) - Justification by faith directly implies that our fellowship, that our sharing of communion, that our unity is demonstrated (guaranteed?) by our faith, not by our circumcision.
4. James - This implication must be carried out (you can't just say that we are unified, you must do it), whether it means sitting by the lowly in church (Ja 2) or teaching wisely and carefully in church (Ja 3) leading to wisdom with peace and without partiality (very unifying characteristics, I must say).

Afterwards, another brother came up and thought that I may be emphasizing unity too much (kind of like saying, 'it's all about love' or 'it's all about peace'). Here I had to both agree and disagree. I agree that unity is a common theme because it plays a key role in the common story, so it comes up again and again. But, in another way I disagreed, wanting to say that these letters were written to church's in the explicit hope that they would be unified in Christ. The incarnation might crop up again and again (Christian metaphysics?), love might be all over the place (Christian ethics?), and peace is quite common (Christian aesthetics?), but this doesn't mean that they're all the same thing.

Ok, this is all to get to another point, namely that of authority. Earlier, I had suggested to brother #1 that authority exists because of unity. Let me explain, I think that the reason only clergy (elders, priests, whatever) should give the Eucharistic meal is that they are the focal point for what brings that particular group of people together. They are the closest thing we get to true unity in the local church. As such, the meal that is all about that unity (remember Galatians) of the church should really be given by the symbol of that unity. We should also remember the whole heresy of Donatism, which says (from my ver limited perspective) that the effectiveness of the sacraments is not based on the moral quality of the person giving it. In other words, it's the position that matters, not the minister. For Protestants who are uncomfortable with this, think about wisdom that you get from preaching; is the wisdom not from God (or less so) if the minister is in sin? If you accept this, then it gets a little bit easier see that the priest or elder or whatever is acting in personae Christi (I probably spelled that wrong), not because he is granted this authority from the eldership (or another ruling council), but because he is the acting as the unifying factor of a particular community that is 'in Christ'.

Finally, then, we can start to see a bit more clearly our own roles in the body of Christ stem from this unity, which sees other roles in the body of Christ besides teachers (1 Cor 12). And I know this might seem frightening to some TULIP-ists, but it also demonstrates that it is possible for us to act outside of our own particular roles within the community. At these times, we are not acting 'in Christ' (under his Kingly rule) but under our own. But at the same time, he has taken those times that we have strayed from his rule via his representational role as King (see the Old Testament, what happens to the king happens to the people and vice versa), was crucified and was then vindicated. As long as we remain within his people, we are promised the same vindication, the same resurrection after we are judged before the throne. How do we know we are his people? I'm not as sure about this part, but I think we recognize this in ourselves and in each other by faith (see Romans) giving us assurance of a favorable judgment (thusly suggesting Rom 10:12-13) though something about the Spirit's fruit and the sacraments (specifically baptism and the Eucharist) might also be suggested, but also definitively meaning that we will act in love, fulfilling the law and thusly receiving the favorable judgment.

Sorry, I know this is rather jumbled, but I though the whole thing about acting out our own unifying positions (known via our gifts) in the church (and thusly in the kingdom), correlating to elders/priests acting out their own unifying roles, as a source of ethics/ecclesiology was pretty darn interesting. Thoughts...?

on Eucharist

What role does the Eucharist play in the life of the Church?

It seems that the many churches that enact closed communion believe that communion is a sign of church unity. Christians who attend other churches are not able to partake in the Eucharist in this situation because they are not considered to be in union with the church that is providing it. I know there are also reasons having to do with individual purity and such concerns (Paul goes into these in 1 Corinthians), but to be honest, this doesn't seem like a convincing argument unless you are willing to say that members of your church have attained that height of purity and that in restricting communion to them alone, you are in a sense protecting others from their own impurity. This seems arrogant to me...but maybe I'm muddled on this.

What interests me, though, is the church unity argument. If I grant that the Lord's Supper is integral to church unity (as I believe that it is), I still struggle with the actual role that it plays. The closed communion position seems to see it as a sign of unity. But I wonder if the Eucharist is actually the source of our unity. If it is actually partaking of Christ's body and thusly becoming one with him and the righteousness of God (God's covenant faithfulness) and our own resurrection in his glory, then the Eucharist is more than the simple outworking of the church's unity. It is in the eating that the church is unified.

My Sister's Christmas Card

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.

JRR Tolkien

on Healing and Community

During one of Mark Moore's lectures on hermeneutics, he discusses some of the cultural differences between Second Temple Judaism culture (think New Testament times here) and today. One of the differences he highlights is that of healing.


Listen to 34:30 to 35:35 (emphasis my own)

[Today], healing is about the removal of pain from your body. That is not what healing is about. Because most people have multiple things wrong with them. In Kenya, there's a lot of people sick. A lot more than here, I would imagine. And if you don't have access to medical attention, you might want a cure for one ailment, but it's really beyond people's imagination or expectation that they would live a pain-free physical life. You have the luxury of making that assumption. The people in the Bible did not. So when they talked about healing, it was not the removal of pain from the body, it was the removal of uncleanness that separated you from your community, whether that was leprosy, or blindness, or deafness, or muteness, or an unclean issue of blood, or demon possession. Are you understanding what I'm saying here? That culturally you have some middle class assumptions that cause you to read the Bible in a certain way.

Why is this interesting? Recently, one of my Bible Studies have been discussing the gospel as shown in Mark. It's helpful to remember that the healings weren't about Jesus demonstrating how big and powerful he was so that everyone would run after him. And this quotation from Mr Moore's lecture nicely portrays that. The healings are about the restoration of Israel that are taking place right underneath their unsuspecting noses. And a true restoration of the people of God means a restoration of the people to God.

It also gives us a framework for understanding the Gospel as demonstrated in Paul (see NT Wright's discussion of the Gospel in Galatians).The return of the King means the restoration of Israel and the whole world (Thusly, Is 40-55). The healings are restoring the people's physical states (whole world), but only insofar as they are restoring community (Israel).

Perhaps this would also make sense of Mark 6:5. A community that denied the restorative center of the gospel (ie that Jesus is King) would not be able to partake in the restorative effects thereof (though it does say that he was able to do a few healings). I don't know. Just some thoughts...

Note: Also see JollyBlogger's mention of Wright's discussion of this same topic:

For a first-century Jew, most if not all the works of healing, which form the bulk of Jesus' mighty works, could be seen as the restoration to membership in Israel of those who, through sickness or whatever, had been excluded as ritually unclean. The healings thus function in exact parallel with the welcome of sinners, and this, we may be quite sure, was what Jesus himself intended. He never performed mighty works simply to impress. He saw them as part of the inauguration of the sovereign and healing rule of Israel's covenant god.

NetFuture #166

Here's a piece on the alienation of experimenters from their experiment.

We do not need to choose between arbitrary manipulation on the one hand and the pretense that we can live without affecting the destiny of our fellow creatures on the other. No living organism can exist in perfect isolation. Between the detachment of cold manipulation and that of disconnection lies another option: responsible engagement. That is, we can enter into mutually respectful conversation with the other inhabitants of the Earth. Just as we unavoidably influence the people around us and are shaped by them, so it is with all creatures on the planet.
...
Yet given the apparent disinterest of scientists in what animals can tell us, it is no surprise that the cow itself has more or less disappeared from our scientific and commercial calculations. Nor is it a surprise that we can say little about the wisdom or folly of a pharmed goat or re-engineered salmon. We have spent a long time training ourselves to avoid asking the right questions. We have spent a long time averting our gaze from the living organism immersed in its own way of life.

Are we asking the right questions? Last night, Jerry Rauch and I were talking about the challenges of thinking like a Christian (vs thinking secularly). I wonder if this essay on the alienation of science from the real world it studies and manipulates provides us with an answer. For a Christian, the world is not just an object to be studied, or abstract molecular mechanical models without a purpose, or any some such meaningless movement. The whole world looks towards the glory of God. It is inhabited by many animals, and even man, who was honored by God with his own image. The animals are not merely mechanistic, but have purpose and honor with God; nature matters.

For one example (among many) is Is 11:6-9

The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall feed; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The sucking child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.

This is part of the messianic chapter on the coming shoot from the stump of Jesse. This is God's saving power made manifest in the world. This is God's glory and dominion. This is Jesus.

NT Wright on the Sacraments

Last Saturday, a small group from Bluffton trekked into the wild world of theology by taking a drive up to Grand Rapids, MI to see Tom Wright speak on the sacraments. By the way, if any of you haven't heard of Tom's work, I highly suggest it. He's bright, well-spoken, well-informed, thoughtful, hopeful, a sympathetic reader, and consistently seems to bring a deep human quality and fresh perspective to traditional Christianity (even if he's not always as traditional as I might like). As he himself has pointed out, about 30% of what he says is wrong, he just doesn't know which 30% that is. Read, just don't think you can stop questioning. And then read some more.

Needless to say, it was awesome! Here are each of the two lectures he did that day (I'll also provide links for those who want to download them straight from the Calvin Seminary website).

Lecture 1: Space, Time, Matter, and New Creation - (Q&A)


Lecture 2: Sacraments and New Creation - (Q&A)


Note: If 43MB is too big for your internet connection, here's an excerpt from Lecture 1.

Technological E-cclesiastes

It's here.

My favorite part:

I would volunteer my time saving puppies and orphans, I would take pictures of leaves and streams, I would keep a dream journal.
...
If I were to save puppies or orphans I'd do it with a credit card - not a warm embrace, were I to take photographs of anything at all it would be with my phone and the purpose would most likely be a pictorial Caller-ID and, alas, were I to chronicle my dreams I'd do it in XHTML to preserve formatting.

HT: (Google Blogoscoped)

GK Chesterton discussed this also:

I have no particular objection to people going about in cars; though I may regret the curious evolution of the human form in America, where wheels have completely taken the place of legs. What was not adequately realized, by those who merely talked about Progress, is simply this: that Progress is never merely the solving of problems, it is always also the setting of problems.
...
Men of the philosophic phase represented by Mr. H. G. Wells always tended to talk as if we should soon disentangle the knots of past problems merely by more science and experiment. What they did not see is that we are always tying new knots and making new tangles, actually because of science and experiment. Progress is the mother of Problems.

The only difference was, that he actually envisioned an ending.

Thus we might almost say that the final triumph of Mr. Ford is not when the man gets into the car, but when he enthusiastically falls out of the car. It is when he finds somewhere, in remote and rural corners that he could not normally have reached, that perfect poise and combination of hedge and tree and meadow in the presence of which any modern machine seems suddenly to look an absurdity; yes, even an antiquated absurdity. Probably that happy man, having found the place of his true home, will proceed joyfully to break up the car with a large hammer, putting its iron fragments for the first time to some real use, as kitchen utensils or garden tools. That is using a scientific instrument in the proper way; for it is using it as an instrument.

Catholic Reasons

Scott Carson critiques Rod Dreher's reasons for converting to orthodoxy.

But Dreher is talking about more than just a personal comfort zone. He's talking about a major crisis in his faith. That is one reason why it is a little disappointing to find him saying things like this:

I had to admit that I had never seriously considered the case for Orthodoxy. Now I had to do that. And it was difficult poring through the arguments about papal primacy. I'll spare you the details, but I will say that I came to seriously doubt Rome's claims. Reading the accounts of the First Vatican Council, and how they arrived at the dogma of papal infallibility, was a shock to me: I realized that I simply couldn't believe the doctrine.

Talk about your wishful thinking. True, lots of other people can't believe it either, but to begin questioning how an ecumenical council arrives at its dogmatic teachings is the doorstep to heterodoxy, not orthodoxy. Granted, the Orthodox Churches don't recognize the validity of all of the Ecumenical Councils, but you can bet your bottom dollar they wouldn't tolerate judging the dogmatic pronouncements of the ones they do accept on the basis of personal, private judgments about the manner in which the dogmata were arrived at! Is Dreher going to become a student of ancient history now, and look through everything that can be known about Nicea, Chalcedon, Constantinople, and all the other Councils accepted by the Orthodox, and decide for himself which ones came up with dogmata in a legitimate way and which ones didn't? Will he discover that the doctrine of the Trinity was forced through by a suspicious vote? Will he discover that physical force was brought into play in the debates over monothelitism? Perhaps he will found his own church someday that all of the other purists can come to.

Actually, Dreher's previous sentences in reviewed paragraph seem relevant.

I had to admit that I had never seriously considered the case for Orthodoxy. Now I had to do that. And it was difficult poring through the arguments about papal primacy. I'll spare you the details, but I will say that I came to seriously doubt Rome's claims. Reading the accounts of the First Vatican Council, and how they arrived at the dogma of papal infallibility, was a shock to me: I realized that I simply couldn't believe the doctrine. And if that falls, it all falls. Of course I immediately set upon myself, doubting my thinking because doubting my motives. You're just trying to talk yourself into something, I thought. And truth to tell, there was a lot of that, I'm sure.

Interestingly, the full paragraph seems to suggest that Dreher's doubts Rome's claims on account of the 'arguments about papal primacy', not on the vague historical recollections that Carson points to as initiators of such doubt. In general, Carson does note his empathy with Dreher's thoughts.

This may sound unfair, of course, and it would be if Dreher had simply given his own personal reasons for leaving and left it at that. But he couldn't do that. Precisely because he is an intelligent person, he knew that Catholicism is right, and he needed an intellectual justification for doing what he was doing, and the only possible way to get that justification would be to call into question the teachings of the Church. In short, he made a conscious decision to become a functional protestant, while wishing nonetheless to continue enjoying the fruits of the genuine Sacraments.

Not only does Mr Dreher's subsequent discussion of the sacraments seem to be more emotionally driven than his doubts about Vatican I, but this arbitrary line between 'personal reasons' and 'intellectual justification' needs a little bit of teasing out. The fact that Dreher is an 'intelligent person' would seem to suggest his 'person reasons' just might be intellectual reasons. Unless Carson is arguing that in matters of faith justification should not be a matter of intelligent thought, and I seriously doubt that he would suggest such a thing, why should the fact that an 'intelligent person' is giving intelligent reasons mean that he 'needed an intellectual justification for doing what he was doing'. This could be inferred from the fact that he didn't go into detail about the causes of his doubt, but his mere presentation of his personal journey should not be expected to be a complete apologia and it sounds as though Carson would agree to this. So where is the line he's talking about? It seems to be the line before one would 'call into question the teachings of the Church'. And on this point, Al Kimel (here too) goes into further (and clearer, I think) detail.

To be Catholic is to refuse to doubt the de fide teachings of the Catholic Church, for to doubt these teachings is to doubt Christ himself: “It is, then, perfectly true, that the Church does not allow her children to entertain any doubt of her teaching; and that, first of all, simply for this reason, because they are Catholics only while they have faith, and faith is incompatible with doubt. No one can be a Catholic without a simple faith, that what the Church declares in God’s name, is God’s word, and therefore true. A man must simply believe that the Church is the oracle of God; he must be as certain of her mission, as he is of the mission of the Apostles” (“Faith and Doubt”).

and

To become Catholic, to be Catholic, is to surrender one’s private judgment to the magisterial teaching of the Church. It is to believe that what the Church teaches and will teach as belonging to the deposit of revelation is from God. One may investigate the rational grounds for de fide dogmas; but one may not doubt them nor inquire whether or not they may be true. As Newman remarks, a Catholic “cannot be both inside and outside of the Church at once.”

But Carson's line of inquiry brings up some interesting questions. How can an individual Christian be expected to make decisions when each decision they make is bound to stem from 'personal, private judgments'? Stanley Hauerwas notes

The project of modernity was to produce people who believe they should have no story except the story they choose when they have no story.

I have to wonder what it would mean then for a non-Catholic to 'come home' to the Church, or an atheist to become a Christian, or a (God forbid) Catholic to become an Orthodox. Aren't all of these examples of people believing that the story they choose will be there story? If one postulates that Catholic Church's authority is absolute on issues of theology, no matter what their reasoning or 'intellectual justification', where comes the individual's authority to recognize the Church's authority? Is this too to be taken on some 'blind faith' that smacks more of Kierkegaard than it ever would of Paul? There must be some sense in which recognizing/choosing the right thing is part of an individual's authority.

Michael Liccione's take (from back in May) seems, to me, to be most honest and insightful (his recent commentary gives a quick overview of some of the aforementioned themes).

The Pope knows that such is where the chief difficulty lies: he often says, in one way or another, that true holiness is the most effective argument for the truth of the Catholic faith. It must be admitted that the converse also holds: the lack thereof is the most effective argument against the truth of the Catholic faith.

Now on one hand, this seems to make quite a bit of sense. After all, if some teacher claimed that if you just believed what he said, your life would be transformed and you looked around and the believers' lives were not transformed, wouldn't this suggest that the teachings were wrong? A good example I can think of is something like Marxism, where the theory sounds all nice and easy in theory, but never seems to work out in practice. A great contrary example might be Mormonism, where many confess to followers' piety, but few would suggest that that alone would confirm the accuracy of the teachings.

I guess that this leaves me with a few thoughts.
1. Authority is important.
2. The Catholic sense of authority makes sense of Church's authority to clarify doctrine, but seems lacking (from the little that I know) when it comes to an individuals' ability to make day-to-day decisions.
3. The Protestant denominations either don't even worry about authority or tend to move towards some modern sense of liberalism.
4. Holiness is important, but it's not an argument in itself.
5. The involvement of the Holy Spirit in this area needs to be discussed more (looking at recognition of the truth in the Bible might lead in this direction).

Lear and the Psalms

Today I ran into a powerful section of poetry in the play King Lear. The play shows the plague of evil beating down the nation, beating down love, and especially beating down the king. When he enters the last scene of the play, his first words are:

KING LEAR Howl, howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stones:
Had I your tongues and eyes, I'ld use them so
That heaven's vault should crack. She's gone for ever!
I know when one is dead, and when one lives;
She's dead as earth. Lend me a looking-glass;
If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,
Why, then she lives

Even though the faint whispers of possible redemption waft through the final lines of this selection, for Cordelia is certainly dead and the madness is creeping through the King. Even when you find that one of the villains has perished and Albany notes

All friends shall taste
The wages of their virtue, and all foes
The cup of their deservings. O, see, see!

quickly followed by

KING LEAR And my poor fool is hang'd! No, no, no life!
Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,
And thou no breath at all? Thou'lt come no more,
Never, never, never, never, never!
Pray you, undo this button: thank you, sir.
Do you see this? Look on her, look, her lips,
Look there, look there!
Dies

Even though he's traversed this sod 'fore, his madness continues to see redemption beyond the next moment. Notice Ps 88 (I've removed the verse numbers).

O Lord, God of my salvation, when, at night, I cry out in your presence, let my prayer come before you; incline your ear to my cry. For my soul is full of troubles, and my life draws near to Sheol. I am counted among those who go down to the Pit; I am like those who have no help, like those forsaken among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, like those whom you remember no more, for they are cut off from your hand. You have put me in the depths of the Pit, in the regions dark and deep. Your wrath lies heavy upon me, and you overwhelm me with all your waves. (Selah) You have caused my companions to shun me; you have made me a thing of horror to them. I am shut in so that I cannot escape; my eye grows dim through sorrow. Every day I call on you, O Lord; I spread out my hands to you.

Do you work wonders for the dead? Do the shades rise up to praise you? (Selah) Is your steadfast love declared in the grave, or your faithfulness in Abaddon? Are your wonders known in the darkness, or your saving help in the land of forgetfulness? But I, O Lord, cry out to you; in the morning my prayer comes before you. O Lord, why do you cast me off? Why do you hide your face from me? Wretched and close to death from my youth up, I suffer your terrors; I am desperate. Your wrath has swept over me; your dread assaults destroy me. They surround me like a flood all day long; from all sides they close in on me. You have caused friend and neighbor to shun me; my companions are in darkness.

This Psalm of lament isn't resolved simply or easily. We aren't left with a warm, fuzzy answer that puts us to sleep. This passage, just as King Lear's lines above aren't answers to our questions, but simply explorations of it. And that exploration is an answer in itself. Just as Lear is still looking for redemption at the end, the Psalmist is still praying, still crying out day by day. Albany's attempt to make it look a little more just fails. When we read the Psalms, we live in the same tension between now and not-yet, but now we're part of the not-yet. It makes us yearn for home all the more, but suffering cannot be ignored or justified or set aside. It is meant to be lived, knowing all along that 'her breath will mist or stain the stone'. How do we know this? Because He lives.

Note: See this great post on handling tragedy in the church.

Questions

Sorry to everyone checking this site over the past silent month or so. I've been....well, lazy, and haven't really done much substantial writing in quite awhile. Though I'm not really prepared for that at the moment either, I'd like to post a list of questions I've had rolling around in my mind. If anyone wants to comment or email me about them, you're more than welcome.

1a. Living Sacramentally - How to live obediently, sharing the Kingdom of God with everything we do (example: living enviornmentally responsible, dealing with poverty that is far away, living in a media saturated world, etc...).

1b. Politics and the Lordship of Christ - How can we bring faithful and Christ filled-ideas and opinions into today's connected world (where politics is the modern religion)?

2. Christian epistemology - This category would include thoughts ranging from hermeneutics to science (hint: I think a good starting point to the science bit would be the aforementioned poem by Hopkins, but I'll talk more about that some other time).

3. Spiritual authority - Where does spiritual authority come from and how do we recognize it?

4. Worship and the Church - How can we worship better (Calvin's description of the Psalms as 'an anatomy of all the parts of the soul' might be a good place to start)?

These questions are not in order of importance or priority and there are obvious overlaps (1b and 3, 1a and 1b, 2 and the rest, etc...), so that answering any one question would lead to the rest of the dominoes falling over. I'm not really sure how to proceed, but I'm trying to study certain books in the Bible to come to some better place as to formulating answers to these questions (for example, recently I've been doing some reading on and of Psalms, which has some really wonderful echoes of sacramental life, worship, and authority).

Small Thought

the New Pantagruel: "I’m anxious, angry, and confused, but I’m not bitter or hopeless. I like Gramsci’s advice: “pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.” The only way to really hold those two things together, however, is not through faith in dialectical historical development, but through faith in Christ. "

on vain knowing (or on blogging)

Chad's post reminds us to be wary in our technologically damaging world. By binding us to abstact arguments, factoids, and ultimately to passive propositions, perhaps we are losing sight of real relationships, stories, and ultimately of God. (Sorry Chad, this probably goes further than your post hoped to, but it's definitely something I've found in my own life):

"What is important? Well, for one, vain intellectual pursuits aren’t, like interminable arguments with my parish liturgist which never change either one of us. Neither is blogging. Oddly, I can see a pattern: as I get more wrapped up in the latest news, the latest argument, my latest essay, other things suffer: first and foremost, I don’t pray as much, and I sin more."

To which this quotation from one of CH Spurgeon's sermons fits nicely:

"That insatiable craving to know everything just draws away the life of men from what ought to be - their insatiabe craving, namely, to be like God, to know him, to trust him, to love him, and to serve him."

CH Spurgeon (~2:50)

Also recommended on this topic (and its related tributaries) are these tNP articles on practicing the discipline of place (mentioned in a previous post), agrarianism, and localism as possible solutions to dehumanizing alienation.

Practicing the Discipline of Place

Here's one small quote (from one small section) arising from a rhapsodic essay (one that deserves to be read and reread) from tNP's interminable traditionalist, Fr Jape.

It is the idea that to suffer one’s place and one’s people in the particularity of its and their needs is the only true basis for finding love, friendship, and an authentic, meaningful life. This is nothing less than the key to the pursuit of Christian holiness, which is the whole of the Christian adventure: live in love with the frailty and limits of one’s existence, suffering the places, customs, rites, joys, and sorrows of the people who are in close relation to you by family, friendship, and community–all in service of the truth, goodness, and beauty that is best experienced directly. The discipline of place teaches that it is more than enough to care skillfully and lovingly for one’s own little circle, and this is the model for the good life, not the limitless jurisdiction of the ego, granted by a doctrine of choice, that is ever seeking its own fulfillment, pleasure, and satiation. The Puritan heritage of America has long chafed against this discipline as it necessarily limits one to a small field of action in a world with seemingly little hope for eschatological fulfillment. Thus have American Evangelicals historically pined after their great mission of “giftedness” and “calling,” forsaking that foolishness of the Gospel of our Lord which has ever lain at their doorstep, in need of nurturing care.

"Science" vs ID

Fascinating.

However, I believe that Peter Ward (anti-ID) missed a key assumption in this debate. He assumes that human intelligence can be made distinct from nature. If he thinks we all came from nature alone, then it would not be suprising that intelligence is reflected in nature, because it would be reflected in us.

As such, I do think the real debate is more philosophical and that the 'motive mongering' (as Stephen Meyer so aptly stated) as well as the theory-skeptics (as Mr Ward so poorly defended) and religious implications (as perhaps one of the only substantive points Mr Ward contributed) have caused this particular theory to become political. It's like arguments within small nuclear families - they're often about something else.

Here, people really want to argue about religion or politics, and as such have no problem finding those angles productive (even though the lead nowhere). Scientists have recreated these arguments by bandying about whether ID is a "theory" or not. Religious believers recreate it by pushing the claims of ID (and evolution) further than they belong. Politicians recreate it by separating into camps, vilifying the other side, and coming up with catchy slogans.

So what's it all about? Opposing worldviews and the inability to express them properly.

Michael Ruse (a philosopher of biology and opponent of ID) seems to understand this well (as well as another blogger I know), as an article in the Boston Globe May 2005 points out:

All told, Ruse claims, loading values onto the platform of evolutionary science constitutes ''evolutionism,'' an outlook that goes far beyond the scientific acceptance of evolution as a means of explaining the origins and development of species. Provocatively, Ruse argues that evolutionism has often constituted a ''religion'' itself by offering ''a world picture, a story of origins, and a special place for humans,'' while its proponents have been ''trying deliberately to do better than Christianity.''

Interestingly enough, the hope that the scientists who claim to be impartial will come to grips with the larger implications of the work they do (and that of the larger worldview) is mirrored in their own hope that ID proponents will realize the importance of the religious 'affiliations' that may indirectly control the theory's interests. However, to this point I would argue that the religious are more easily able to realize these consequences than the areligious, who it seems would prefer a certain amount of naivete in a the false grasp for impartiality.

What do you know? Naturalism vs Religion. Who could've guessed?

Vision of Paradise

Boar's Head Tavern:

"When we arrive, the Truly Reformed find it much as they expected: The Other Place is a bar full of Catholics, mystics, apostates and hetro-orthodox buffoons like Chesterton, Lewis, Manning, Capon and the infamous Michael Spencer. Karl Barth is tending bar; Merton is (of course) washing dishes while Henri Nouwen busses the tables. Philip Yancey runs a day-care center with help from Mother Theresa. Rich Mullens leads a worship band that includes Bono, Bruce Cockburn, Bob Dylan, Terry Taylor and Derek Webb, with JS. Bach on the organ. A slightly drunk, happy John Calvin sits at the bar with Beethoven, the two of them laughing too loudly from time to time; the TRs find it unsurprising that he's there, given his stance on Mary. Luther is out back, minding the brewery."

Chesterton on Simplicity

Plain thinking and high living...O, that's the life for me.

"So long as human society will leave my spiritual inside alone, I will allow it, with a comparative submission, to work its wild will with my physical interior. I will submit to cigars. I will meekly embrace a bottle of Burgundy. I will humble myself to a hansom cab. If only by this means I may preserve to myself the virginity of the spirit, which enjoys with astonishment and fear. I do not say that these are the only methods of preserving it. I incline to the belief that there are others. But I will have nothing to do with simplicity which lacks the fear, the astonishment, and the joy alike. I will have nothing to do with the devilish vision of a child who is too simple to like toys."
-Heretics (Complete Works of GK Chesterton I (112))

Reconnecting with Reality: An Interview with Caleb Stegall, by David L. Jones:

"My reading is pretty eclectic. All of the larger-than-life personalities from the 16th Century—Luther, Erasmus, More, Rabelais, Shakespeare—for the way they straddle and bind together two great ages of western history. The English conservatives from Samuel Johnson to John Ruskin, and American founders like Franklin and Adams for the way they kept this synthesis alive against increasing progressive pressures. In the 20th Century: Eliot, Chesterton, Evelyn Waugh, Eric Voegelin in political philosophy, Wendell Berry and other American agrarians in the Jeffersonian tradition, Theodore Roosevelt, all for their veneration of the Christian tradition as the antidote to modern liberalism touched by their zest and zeal for living-for a 'thick steak, a frosted stout, and a good cigar' to borrow from Chesterton, or 'laughter in the garden' as Eliot had it. I can even appreciate Ayn Rand for sheer American chutzpah. That is what I think the best of the English/American tradition has to offer: the can-do spirit of the American frontier, drunk on a child-like wonderment of the world and its mysteries, all bounded by and put in service of the deep wells of the Christian tradition and of the Church."

Chris C Mooney on the Lord of the Rings as a Christian work:

"In a 1953 letter Tolkien described 'The Lord of the Rings' as a 'fundamentally religious and Catholic work.' (Letter 172)

But Tolkien's views -- on both religion and fiction -- were complex. In another letter, Tolkien outlined his aspiration to create a new mythology for England, describing the existing body of Arthurian legend as inadequate for the role because it 'explicitly contains the Christian religion.' (He added, 'That seems to me to be fatal.') References to real-world belief systems, Tolkien thought, would detract from the beguiling timelessness he hoped to convey."

It seems that Tolkien knew his Everlasting Man (Chesterton) quite well.

"The point of this book, in other words, is that the next best thing to being really inside Christendom is to be really outside it."

However, the first line above should not be a considered a "wham-bam-thankyou-ma'am". The following quotation provides a more balanced view:

"There is no 'allegory' -- moral, political, or contemporary -- in the work at all. It is a 'fairy-story' ... [written] for adults."

But I was quite surprised by the explicit reference above to LOTR as a religious work, though one of the Wabash professors also enters the fray suggesting that idea might not be as strong as some hope:

But the sacrifice and loss isn't suffered by Frodo alone; it's suffered by all the denizens of Middle-earth: In Tolkien's scheme, the destruction of the one ring necessitates the departure of the Elves from Middle-earth -- and with their parting, much that is beautiful and cherished disappears from the world forever. Evil, meanwhile, will doubtlessly reconstitute itself in yet another form. "That's a very Norse outlook: Even the winners lose," says Stephen MOrillo, a Wabash College medieval historian who's teaching a course this January that covers Tolkien. "That's really what lies behind the morality of 'The Lord of the Rings,' and that's just incompatible with a Christian interpretation."

However, this is one more example of argumentation revolving around terminology. When Christians are claiming the story as theirs, they are in actually approaching the story thematically. To claim that there are Christian themes that course through a story is not to Westernize the story, but to see, as CS Lewis did, that myths (even those that have nothing to do with Christianity) are ultimately pagan prophecies pointing to truths that are inlaid within the fabric of life.

I'm still not sure that LOTR is as religious as many hope (though the 1953 letter, if properly described in context, mentioned above would strongly suggest that it is), and Morillo's argument would certainly be an interesting path to explore (Tolkien certainly did immerse his stories in a consistent Norse past that would never be confused with the rather confused Narnian mythology). Though I would like to point out that, from a purely textual reading, the elves' leaving did not seem to be contingent upon the destruction of the ring (they seemed to know that their time was limited even before the ring was close to destruction).

But ultimately, I don't think it matters. The meaning of the text is far more basic than much of this banter reveals.

Note: I found the quotation regarding LOTR as a religious work in a section from Norman Cantor's book Inventing the Middle Ages, which I thought filled out the thought nicely.

"The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in revision" (230).

I recommend reading the paragraph before (and the whole section if possible) to get a better sense of Tolkien's own vision of the meaning underlying LOTR.