From evening to evening?

Nick Kersten, the executive of the Seventh Day Baptist Historical Society, calls attention to an article from the Intelligencer Journal/Lancaster New Era, a newspaper in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The article is about the upcoming Seventh Day Baptist General Conference sessions which will be held at Lancaster Bible College from July 26 through August 1. Rob Appel, the denominational executive, is quoted in the article, describing who we are. Part of what he is quoted as having said:

.... Apple [sic] said the Internet has been a "blessing for us" because it has enabled people to learn that Seventh Day Baptists are just Baptists that worship on the Sabbath and are not Seventh Day Adventists.

"We truly are Baptist. We have congregational polity and autonomy of churches," he said. "The only difference is that we worship on the Sabbath, from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday — the same Sabbath Jews keep today — although a number of Seventh Day Baptist churches keep it as a 24-hour period from 12:01 a.m. Saturday to 11:59 p.m. Saturday."

On a scale of all the Baptist denominations, the Seventh Day Baptists resemble the conservative Southern Baptists most closely, Apple said. .... [more]

Assuming Rob was quoted accurately I found the comparison to Southern Baptists interesting and am curious about how other Seventh Day Baptists feel about the characterization.

I didn't know that some of our churches observe Sabbath from midnight to midnight. Although I'm sure that makes it much easier to participate in Friday night activities of various sorts, it does rather vary from our usual interpretation of the time frame of the weekly Sabbath — as Rob says "...we worship on the Sabbath, from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday — the same Sabbath Jews keep today...."

LancasterOnline.com:Religion:7th Day Baptists to meet at Lancaster Bible College

"O God, Thy all-discerning eyes..."

Conjubilant With Song, a great blog about hymns, hymn writers, and hymn tunes, has discovered that John Quincy Adams, President, son of a President, ambassador, Congressman, was also a hymnwriter, and wrote paraphrases of the entire Psalter. Adams's paraphrase of Psalm 139 as provided by Conjubilant:

O God, thy all-discerning eyes
My inmost purpose see;
My deeds, my words, my thoughts arise
Alike disclosed to thee;
My sitting down, my rising up,
Broad noon and deepest night,
My path, my pillow, and my cup
Are open to thy sight.

Before, behind, I meet thine eye,
And feel thy guiding hand;
Such knowledge is for me too high
To reach or understand:
What of thy wonders can I know?
What of thy purpose see?
Where from thy spirit shall I go?
Where from thy presence flee?

If I ascend to heav'n on high.
Or make my bed in hell;
Or take the morning's wings, and fly
O'er ocean's bounds to dwell;
Or seek, from thee, a hiding place
Amid the gloom of night,
Alike to thee are time and space,
The darkness and the light.

Conjubilant With Song: John Quincy Adams

Try thinking fewer original thoughts

All that is not eternal, is eternally out of date.
C.S. Lewis

On the 500th anniversary of John Calvin's birth, Kevin DeYoung tells us why he remains important centuries later when so many who were famous in their day are unknown today. The lesson is the same for us all, however great or modest our ambition.

.... Strive for relevance in your day, and you may make a difference for a few years. Anchor yourself in what is eternal and you may influence the world for another five centuries.

I’m all for young people dreaming big dreams. Go out and change the world. Make a difference. Discover a cure for cancer. Write a best-selling novel. Become president. But remember, your “glory” (and mine) will not last. Your great accomplishments will fall away—either in your lifetime, or in a generation, or at the end of all things.

No one will care about your GPA and SAT scores in ten years. If you win a state championship, you’ll be forgotten the next year you don’t. Your beauty will get wrinkles and trim figure plump. Write a great book and it will gather dust in a library some day. Have a big famous church, it won’t last forever. Be an important person in your field, you still be unknown to over 6 billion people in the world. Build an amazing house, it will crumble some day, if it doesn’t go into foreclosure first. All of our achievements and successes are destined to be like dead grass and faded flowers.

But...the word of our God stands forever. The word about Babylon in Isaiah 40 stood firm. and so will his word in our generation. All God’s declarations about himself and his people are true. All his promises will come to pass. Our only confidence is in the word of God. John Calvin was a man, an imperfect, sinful man, but a man that God used enormously because he put his confidence in the word of God. ....

The truly significant people in this world know that God is everything and they’re nothing. Fads and fashions will rise and fall, but the word will keep on accomplishing its purposes. It will outlast us all. So let our reading, memorizing, catechizing, and preaching be saturated with the word. Let our songs, ministries and mission submit to the word. May all of our theological questions, relationship questions, family questions look to the word. May every new doctrine, new movement, new church, and new book be tested against the word. May all our living and dying be undertaken with the firm conviction that God is true though everyone were a liar (Rom. 3:4).

God's word is smarter, clearer, truer, and speaks to people's deepest needs more than you and I ever could. So try thinking a few less original thoughts and people just might find you relevant in 500 years. “A voice says, Cry out. And I said, What shall I cry? All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the Lord blows on them. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever” (Isa. 40:6-8). [more]

DeYoung, Restless, and Reformed: Withering and the Word: John Calvin at 500

"Why I am not a Libertarian"

Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will
and appetite be placed somewhere;
and the less of it there is within,
the more there must be without.
It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things,
that men of intemperate minds cannot be free.
Their passions forge their fetters.
Edmund Burke

I was reminded of this quotation as I read Joe Carter's explanation of why, although he has found Libertarianism attractive, he is not one. This is the portion that reminded me of Burke:

.... By placing an overemphasis on individual liberty without an equal accent on individual virtue, the libertarian unwittingly erodes the foundation of order on which his political theory stands.

Order is a necessary precondition of liberty and must be maintained from the lowest level of government (the individual conscience) to the highest (the state). The individual conscience is the most basic level of government and it is regulated by virtues. Liberty, in this view, is not an end unto itself but a means by which eudaimonia (happiness or human flourishing) can most effectively be pursued. Liberty is a necessary component of virtue ethics, but it cannot be a substitute. Since it is based on the utilitarian principle that puts liberty, rather than eudaimonia as the chief end of man, libertarianism undermines order and becomes a self-defeating philosophy.

Contrary to what libertarians might believe, order does not arise spontaneously. It is either cultivated from within, through self-disciple, or is forced upon an individual from forces outside themselves (i.e., by the laws or mores of the community) if they lack the requisite character. Once established, this order has to be maintained to be effective. In the absence of order there is no peace, no justice, and certainly no natural harmony. .... [more]

The immediately previous post on this blog makes a closely related point.

First Thoughts — Virtue Ethics and Broken Windows or Why I Am Not a Libertarian

"Manners are of more importance than laws"

David Brooks goes "In Search of Dignity" and laments the loss of standards of behavior that were still common in my father's generation:

When George Washington was a young man, he copied out a list of 110 Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation. Some of the rules in his list dealt with the niceties of going to a dinner party or meeting somebody on the street.

“Lean not upon anyone,” was one of the rules. “Read no letter, books or papers in company,” was another. “If any one come to speak to you while you are sitting, stand up,” was a third.

But, as the biographer Richard Brookhiser has noted, these rules, which Washington derived from a 16th-century guidebook, were not just etiquette tips. They were designed to improve inner morals by shaping the outward man. Washington took them very seriously. He worked hard to follow them. Throughout his life, he remained acutely conscious of his own rectitude.

In so doing, he turned himself into a new kind of hero. He wasn’t primarily a military hero or a political hero. As the historian Gordon Wood has written, “Washington became a great man and was acclaimed as a classical hero because of the way he conducted himself during times of temptation. It was his moral character that set him off from other men.”

Washington absorbed, and later came to personify what you might call the dignity code. The code was based on the same premise as the nation’s Constitution — that human beings are flawed creatures who live in constant peril of falling into disasters caused by their own passions. Artificial systems have to be created to balance and restrain their desires.

The dignity code commanded its followers to be disinterested — to endeavor to put national interests above personal interests. It commanded its followers to be reticent — to never degrade intimate emotions by parading them in public. It also commanded its followers to be dispassionate — to distrust rashness, zealotry, fury and political enthusiasm. ....

The old dignity code has not survived modern life. The costs of its demise are there for all to see. Every week there are new scandals featuring people who simply do not know how to act. ....

Americans still admire dignity. But the word has become unmoored from any larger set of rules or ethical system. ....

Manners are of more importance than laws.
The law can touch us here and there, now and then.
Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase,
barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform,
insensible operation like that of the air we breathe in.
Burke

Op-Ed Columnist - In Search of Dignity - NYTimes.com

"Some faint reflections"

Every high school English curriculum used to include Dickens alongside Shakespeare - often a book and a play each year. The TAG class I once co-taught with an English and a Science teacher required students to read Oliver Twist. Dickens remains very much worth reading, and for Christians not least because the books are perfectly compatible with the faith. Brian Murray at First Things writes about "The Social Gospel of Charles Dickens," in particular his efforts to rescue London prostitutes and help them begin new lives as emigrants.

.... Critics and biographers tend to ignore the centrality of Dickens’ Christianity, perhaps because he was so famous for mocking religious hypocrites in his books. Dickens, it is true, was a latitudinarian through and through. But he had never abjured the Anglicanism in which he had been nominally reared. “One of my most constant and earnest endeavors,” he once wrote, “has been to exhibit in all my good people some faint reflections of the teachings of our Great Master. . . . All my illustrations are derived from the New Testament; all my social abuses are shown to be departures from its spirit.” In his will he wrote, “I commit my soul to the mercy of God through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.”.... [more]

First Things - The Social Gospel of Charles Dickens

Seventh Day Baptists in Europe and America

The internet is a wonderful source of all kinds of information made accessible in ways that could not be imagined just a few decades ago. This morning a "Google Alert" informed me that, once again, Seventh Day Baptists in Europe and America (1910), long out of print, is available online. This time the two volumes are scanned from the libraries of Harvard University [Vol. II] and the University of Michigan [Vol. I]. Although careful students of denominational history who have read much more Seventh Day Baptist history than I warn that the articles in these volumes vary greatly in their accuracy and reliability, they are well indexed and contain pictures that are unavailable anywhere else online.

The books are available at these links in a variety of forms:

• Seventh Day Baptists in Europe and America, Vol. I
• Seventh Day Baptists in Europe and America, Vol. II

Seventh Day Baptists in Europe and America

How much are six months worth?

The Wall Street Journal describes how health care rationing works in the United Kingdom:

.... What NICE has become in practice is a rationing board. As health costs have exploded in Britain as in most developed countries, NICE has become the heavy that reduces spending by limiting the treatments that 61 million citizens are allowed to receive through the NHS. ....

.... [NICE] has by now established the principle that the only way to control health-care costs is for this panel of medical high priests to dictate limits on certain kinds of care to certain classes of patients.

The NICE board even has a mathematical formula for doing so, based on a "quality adjusted life year." While the guidelines are complex, NICE currently holds that, except in unusual cases, Britain cannot afford to spend more than about $22,000 to extend a life by six months. Why $22,000? It seems to be arbitrary, calculated mainly based on how much the government wants to spend on health care. That figure has remained fairly constant since NICE was established and doesn't adjust for either overall or medical inflation.

Proponents argue that such cost-benefit analysis has to figure into health-care decisions, and that any medical system rations care in some way. And it is true that U.S. private insurers also deny reimbursement for some kinds of care. The core issue is whether those decisions are going to be dictated by the brute force of politics (NICE) or by prices (a private insurance system).

The last six months of life are a particularly difficult moral issue because that is when most health-care spending occurs. But who would you rather have making decisions about whether a treatment is worth the price — the combination of you, your doctor and a private insurer, or a government board that cuts everyone off at $22,000? ....

Mr. Obama and Democrats claim they can expand subsidies for tens of millions of Americans, while saving money and improving the quality of care. It can't possibly be done. The inevitable result of their plan will be some version of a NICE board that will tell millions of Americans that they are too young, or too old, or too sick to be worth paying to care for. [more]

How much are six months worth? And who should decide?

Wesley J. Smith, responding to another advocate of limiting "end-of-life" care, and drawing the logical—disturbing—conclusion:

I am all for hospice care and refusing unwanted ICU—if that is what the patient wants. As long time readers know, I have been a hospice volunteer. My dad died of colon cancer receiving hospice as have other relatives and very close friends. But here’s the thing: Once we say that a life is not worth preserving based on costs, we have instituted explicit rationing and created a duty to die.

The doctor then talks about a “well thought out plan” for end of life care and the signing of advance directives. Again, I’m all for it, but recall that there are many forces wanting to give faceless bioethics committees the right to veto your desires—even if set in writing. ....

.... [T]hink of all the money to be saved if instead of hospice or an extended time of debilitation we could give the patient a lethal jab or a poison brew! Indeed, it’s already happening: Recall, in Oregon, Medicaid has refused life-extending treatment to cancer patients but explicitly offered to pay for assisted suicide. Not that assisted suicide will become the cornerstone of health care reform. But make no mistake: It is the monster lurking in the shadows that we ignore at all our peril.

So, here’s the gig as I see it developing: In the new health care order, “choice” will be sacrosanct if the choice is death—either naturally or by lethal means. But if the choice is is to go on living—at a certain point “choice” will cease to be operative because you will have become unwanted ballast. Eventually, that could even mean non voluntary euthanasia as now occurs with regularity in the Netherlands.

Of NICE and Men - WSJ.com, Secondhand Smoke — A First Things Blog

What we offer the world

Mark Galli at the Christianity Today site on "The Scandal of the Public Evangelical," the reaction—particularly the reaction of evangelical believers—to bad behavior by public figures who are identified with the faith. Read it all here.

.... It's discouraging to see Christians who could have been models of our faith become merely examples of what G.K. Chesterton called the one doctrine subject to empirical proof: original sin.

There is something in the evangelical psyche that denies this reality. Yes, we're a movement that preaches repentance and confession of sin as a chief means of grace. But after conversion, our holiness heritage kicks in. We preach, teach, and live "discipleship," "obedience," and "following" Jesus. We're deathly afraid of cheap grace. We assume that with sufficient exhortation and moral effort, our sins will become smaller than a widow's mite and our righteousness larger than life.

This is coupled with the long-standing evangelical myth that there should be something different about the Christian. A look. An attitude. A lifestyle. Something noticeable, something that causes the unbeliever to pause and wonder, "What does that person have?" Because it is such an integral part of our evangelistic method, we spend enormous amounts of psychic energy trying exude that something. ....

I sometimes wonder if becoming "sanctified" in this life is mostly about becoming increasingly aware of just how much we are, in the words of the Book of Common Prayer, "miserable sinners," and that, really, "there is no health in us." ....

It is God's utter acceptance of us that allows us to look at our miserable sinfulness and not flinch. If that's not the final step in sanctification, it is certainly a prerequisite to any other step. And it's about all most of us will experience in this life. ....

.... What we offer the world is not ourselves or our moral example or our spiritual integrity. What we offer the world is our broken lives, saying, "We are sinners saved by grace." What we offer the world is Jesus Christ and him crucified.

"Be a sinner and sin boldly," said Martin Luther, "but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly. For he is victorious over sin, death, and the world. As long as we are here, we have to sin. This life is not the dwelling place of righteousness but, as Peter says, we look for a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. … Pray boldly—you too are a mighty sinner."

Make no mistake, this is not cheap grace. Not cheap at all—it's free. And it's the most precious thing we have to offer the world. [more]

The Scandal of the Public Evangelical | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction

Who is the King?

A couple of friends and I went out to lunch a bit after noon today and found ourselves at a location where the television would normally have been tuned to sporting events but today broadcast the Jackson memorial service. We ignored most of it successfully but Sean Curnyn at First Thoughts managed to watch some of it:

What is described in the news media as the “golden casket” containing Michael Jackson’s remains is carried towards the stage at the Staples Center, while a gospel choir sings a song called We’re Going to See the King. I have little doubt that the king whom the songwriter had in mind was the King of Heaven and Earth, but it’s almost impossible, in this context, not to infer that we are expected to be thinking instead about the “King of Pop.”

Soon and very soon, we are going to see the King
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! We’re going to see the King.

No more crying there, we are going to see the King
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! We’re going to see the King.

No more dying there, we are going to see the King
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! We’re going to see the King.

A clergyman identified as Pastor Lucious comes to the podium, and praises Michael and the Jackson family. He also assures us that Michael is not gone, but will always be with us and will always comfort us. In his entire time at the microphone, I do not hear him refer to God, by any name—not even once.

Queen Latifah speaks for a while and asserts, “Michael was the biggest star in Heaven and Earth.”

Lionel Richie—perhaps narrowly heading off an earthquake that is about to swallow the Staples Center—then sings his song Jesus Is Love.

On that note, I find the energy to pull myself away from the TV.

First Thoughts — A First Things Blog

"Not by singing about doing it, but by doing it"

Today Challies quotes D.A. Carson on worship. An excerpt from the excerpt:

.... Although there are things that can be done to enhance corporate worship, there is a profound sense in which excellent worship cannot be attained merely by pursuing excellent worship. In the same way that, according to Jesus, you cannot find yourself until you lose yourself, so also you cannot find excellent corporate worship until you stop trying to find excellent corporate worship and pursue God himself. ....

This point is acknowledged in a praise chorus like “Let’s forget about ourselves, and magnify the Lord, and worship him.” The trouble is that after you have sung this repetitious chorus three of four times, you are no farther ahead. The way you forget about yourself is by focusing on God—not by singing about doing it, but by doing it. There are far too [few] choruses and services and sermons that expand our vision of God—his attributes, his works, his character, his words. Some think that corporate worship is good because it is lively where it had been dull. But it may also be shallow where it is lively, leaving people dissatisfied and restless in a few months’ time. .... If you wish to deepen the worship of the people of God, above all deepen their grasp of his ineffable majesty in his person and in all his works. [more]

Worshiping Worship :: worship :: A Reformed, Christian Blog

"If men were angels..."

On this Independence Day, Rich Lowry celebrates our Founding Fathers, especially James Madison, whose understanding of human nature was not the least bit Utopian:

"There is a degree of depravity in mankind," James Madison wrote in The Federalist Papers, "which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust." When revolutionaries talk of depravity, it is often to brand their class or ethnic enemies for destruction. Gas chambers, prison camps and killing fields inevitably follow.

The depravity of which our Founders spoke was different. It ran through the hearts of all men, themselves included. It tempered their expectations of what they could, and what they should attempt to, achieve. No secular millennium, no perfectly harmonious republic — because, as Madison wrote, "the latent causes of faction are sown in the nature of man." ....

"It may be a reflection on human nature," Madison wrote in the famous passage in Federalist No. 51, "that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.

"In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself." ....

They didn't let their view of reality get obscured by abstruse theories or sunny abstractions of the sort that perverted the French Revolution. No philosophes need apply. Instead, a residual Calvinism tinged their worldview. ....

In keeping with their lively view of human fallibility, our revolutionaries set about circumscribing government to limit its abuse. .... [more]

FOUNDING SKEPTICS - New York Post

Dreaming spires

I just got my copy of The Inklings of Oxford: C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Their Friends, which I recommend strongly to anyone interested in the lives of Lewis, Tolkien, Dorothy L. Sayers or any of the others in this generation of Oxford Christians. I suspect that those uninterested in the text but who love the city and university will enjoy the book too. The photographs are gorgeous and those parts of the text I've read so far are good. I've read a great deal about the Inklings and, nevertheless, have already learned new things — for instance that Dorothy Sayers [not technically an Inkling] quit writing the Wimsey mysteries as soon as she had an assured income and thereafter devoted herself to other things she felt worthwhile, especially Christian apologetics.

David Downing describes the pictures:

The photographs in this book are a banquet for the eyes. Nearly all in color, the pictures capture not only familiar images of famous Oxford edifices and much-loved pubs. They also provide artful close-ups of cobbled streets, ornamental woodcarvings, and joyous wildflowers in and around the city of dreaming spires.

I've been to Oxford more than once with particular interest in sites related to Lewis. I wish this book had been available before I went — I would have seen more and been much better informed about what I did see. The pictures and the suggested walking tours make me wish I could go again.

C. S. Lewis Blog: A Picture-Perfect Look at the Inklings’ Oxford

"With a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence"

The Declaration of Independence was published on July 4, 1776:

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. ....

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

The Declaration of Independence

"Jesus Christ is the point and not you"

Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck, authors of the new book, Why We Love the Church: In Praise of Institutions and Organized Religion, have a column in Newsweek's On Faith site: "Church: Love It, Don't Leave It." Excerpts:

Here's what Bono, Oprah, and the guru speakers on PBS won't tell you: Jesus believed in organized religion and he founded an institution. Of course, Jesus had no patience for religious hacks and self-righteous wannabes, but he was still Jewish. And as Jew, he read the Holy Book, worshiped in the synagogue, and kept Torah. He did not start a movement of latte-drinking disciples who excelled in spiritual conversations. He founded the church (Matt. 16:18) and commissioned the apostles to proclaim the good news that Israel's Messiah had come and the sins of the world could be forgiven through his death on the cross (Matt. 28:18-20; Acts 2:14-36). ....

We've been in the church our whole lives and are not blind to its failings. Churches can be boring, hypocritical, hurtful, and inept. The church is full of sinners. Which is kind of the point. Christians are worse than you think. Our Savior is better than you imagine.

But the church is not all about oppression and drudgery. Almost every church we know of visits old people, brings meals to new moms, supports disaster relief, and does something for the poor. We love the local church, in spite of its problems, because it's where we go to meet God. It's not a glorified social/country club you attend to be around people who talk and look just you do. It's a place to hear God's word spoken, taught and affirmed. It's a place to sing praises to God, and a place to serve others. It's a place to be challenged. ....

We love the church because Christ loved the church. She is his bride—a harlot at times, but his bride nonetheless, being washed clean by the word of God (Eph. 5:25-26). If you are into Jesus, don't rail on his bride. Jesus died for the church, so don't be bothered by a little dying to self for the church's sake. If you keep in mind that everyone there is a sinner (including yourself) and that Jesus Christ is the point and not you, your dreams, or your kids, your church experience might not be as lame as you fear.

Perhaps Christians are leaving the church because it isn't tolerant and open-minded. But perhaps the church-leavers have their own intolerance too—intolerant of tradition, intolerant of authority, intolerant of imperfection except their own. Are you open-minded enough to give the church a chance—a chance for the church to be the church, not a coffee shop, not a mall, not a variety show, not Chuck E. Cheese, not a U2 concert, not a nature walk, but a wonderfully ordinary, blood-bought, Spirit-driven church with pastors, sermons, budgets, hymns, bad carpet and worse coffee? ....[more]

Church: Love It, Don't Leave It

Hypocrisy and integrity

Christopher Tollefsen at Public Discourse writes about the damage done to integrity when there is a conflict between behavior and professed morality and how the absence of integrity is particularly corrosive when politicians lack it:

La Rochefoucauld famously said that “hypocrisy is a tribute vice pays to virtue.” This is often understood to mean that the hypocrite who says one thing but does another, says what he says because he knows it is right. The hypocrite possesses the knowledge that his behavior is wrong or sinful, and so speaks the truth, even while not living it.

There is something to this. A person’s failure to live up to his stated moral code need not call either the validity of that code nor his belief in the code in question. In fact, given the inevitability of moral failure in our lives, it is similarly inevitable that those with strong moral convictions will sometimes fail to act in the way they publicly identify as morally appropriate.

But is hypocrisy really nothing more than the inability of persons to live up to their own moral code? No. Hypocrisy does not just involve disconnect between word and deed; it involves dissimulation, falsity in how one acts. The hypocrite does not merely make assertions he believes to be true about morality while failing to abide by them. He also makes false assertions, often by his deeds. He deceives others by creating the appearance of virtue while succumbing to vice. Creating this appearance may, of course, take a great deal of work; consider what is involved in maintaining the illusion—to one’s spouse, one’s children, and others—that one is being faithful in marriage, if one is actually having an affair

This makes hypocrisy, just in itself, morally bad for the hypocrite. For, an important and basic aspect of human well-being entails our striving to achieve a unity in the various aspects of our practical lives and selves. Our practical judgments must be harmonized with our choices, our choices with our actions, and all with our feelings. Otherwise we are at war within ourselves, agents who know what is good but choose what is not, or who choose what is good but rebel internally because desire prods us in some other direction. Integrity is a matter of bringing all these aspects of our practical life into line with one another. .... [more]

Thanks to Ryan Sayre Patrico for the reference.

Public Discourse: Ethics, Law and the Common Good

Economic heresy

Good intentions are no substitute for practical results. Just as the promotion of ethanol and carbon taxes will negatively affect the poor the most, various socialist proposals to regulate business and re-distribute wealth retard rather than promote the well-being of those at the bottom of the economic ladder. Our individual and church obligation to the poor is not well served by left-wing economic panaceas.

Michael Novak explains in "Economic Heresies of the Left" that, if the goal is to help the poor, capitalism produces actual results:

.... An accurate presentation of real existing capitalism requires at least three modest affirmations:

1. Markets work well only within a system of law, and only according to well-marked-out rules of the game; unregulated markets are a figment of imagination.
2. In actual capitalist practice, the love of creativity, invention, and groundbreaking enterprise are far more powerful than motives of greed.
3. The fundamental systemic motive infusing the spirit of capitalism is the imperative to liberate the world’s poor from the premodern ubiquity of grinding poverty. This motive lay at the heart of Adam Smith’s important victory over Thomas Malthus concerning the coming affluence—rather than starvation—of the poor.

Since the origins of modern capitalism around 1780, more than two-thirds of the world’s population has moved out of poverty. In China and India alone, more than 500 million have been raised out of poverty just in the last forty years. In almost every nation the average age of mortality has risen dramatically, causing populations to expand accordingly. Health in almost every dimension has been improved, and literacy has been carried to remote places it never reached before.

Whatever the motives of individuals, the system has improved the plight of the poor as none ever has before. The contemporary left systematically refuses to face these undeniable facts. ....

In brief, nearly all the leftish critiques of American and other forms of capitalism are empirically false. They do not fit the actual facts. But these three—greed, unregulated markets, and the idea that capitalism makes the poor of the world worse off—are especially tiresome, and very far from reality.

Will all those good Catholic leftists who announce their own enthusiastic preference for the poor actually help to liberate the poor, even by a little? Will their anticapitalist policies help alleviate poverty? The historical record offers very little evidence for that contention.

And yet wherever a healthy, inventive capitalism goes, the poor soon rise by the millions out of poverty, come to better physical health, and advance into higher education.

You can look up the record. [more]

First Things - Featured Article

Your God is too small

Challies quotes from a favorite book, Polishing God’s Monuments by Jim Andrews. An excerpt from his excerpt:

When the Lord’s ways do not neatly conform to our pat little paradigms of what seems (to our fallible minds) right and just, and good and faithful, it says something about human nature that usually the first thought that comes to mind is that something is wrong with God. Somehow the last thing that occurs to us is that God is simply too big for our small boxes. It is imperative at such times that we learn to be humble, not haughty. God always deserves the benefit of the doubt. ....

Christian common sense should also remind us that divine revelation is always a far more reliable barometer of reality that our personal perceptions, distorted as they are by how we think a moral and upright God is obliged to behave in this situation or that. Friends, my advice is this: discount personal feelings—rest in the biblical facts. Don’t always be awash in how things seem; anchor your faith on how divine revelation says they are. Never allow blind emotions to float you off into the open sea of doubt. ....

Discount Personal Feelings :: quotes, suffering :: A Reformed, Christian Blog

"Sent to Hell, Sir, and punished everlastingly."

An exchange between Samuel Johnson and a Dr. Adams about whether the goodness of God precludes punishment. Johnson:

"That [God] is infinitely good, as far as the perfection of his nature will allow, I certainly believe; but it is necessary for good upon the whole, that individuals should be punished. As to an individual, therefore, he is not infinitely good; and as I cannot be sure I have fulfilled the conditions on which salvation is granted, I am afraid I may be one of those who shall be damned" (looking dismally).
Dr. Adams. "What do you mean by damned?"
Johnson.... "Sent to Hell, Sir, and punished everlastingly."
Dr. Adams. "I don't believe that doctrine."
Johnson. "Hold, Sir; do you believe that some will be punished at all?"
Dr. Adams. "Being excluded from Heaven will be a punishment.. ."
Johnson. "Well, Sir; but, if you admit any degree of punishment, there is an end of your argument for infinite goodness simply considered... A man may have such a degree of hope as to keep him quiet. You see I am not quiet, from the vehemence with which I talk; but I do not despair ... I do not forget the merits of my Redeemer; but my Redeemer has said that he will set some on his right hand and some on his left." [Boswell, 12 June 1784]

Posting

Every now and then I post something here that on later reflection seems to me to belong at another kind of site - some of the more topical posts on political and foreign policy issues are among them. I've removed a few postings that fit those categories, not because I've changed my mind or feel any less strongly about them, but because they just seem more appropriate over at Standfast. So if you miss something you remember seeing here, it has probably been removed for that reason.

All have sinned and fallen short....

"Sir, are you so grossly ignorant of human nature,
as not to know that a man may be very sincere in good principles,
without having good practice?"
Samuel Johnson

Responding to the glee with which many have reacted to Governor Sanford's admission that he has sinned against God and his family, James Bowman observes that those who accuse him of hypocrisy can only do so because he actually has moral standards to fall short of:

.... To watch these hypocrisy-haters sneer, you’d think that the only way for one to have moral principles was always to observe them oneself. But, clearly, that cannot be the case. If it were, there would be no more moral principles at all, since it is in the nature of humanity to fall short of them. That’s why it sometimes seems that doing away with moral principles altogether is precisely the goal of those in the media and elsewhere who are most savage against hypocrisy. What they hate is not that someone has fallen short of his own standards; it’s that he ever dared to have any standards in the first place. (emphasis added) [more]

Joe Carter:

In the eyes of the media, Mark Sanford has committed the unpardonable social sin. No, not adultery—is that even frowned upon anymore?—but the sin of being a hypocrite. ....

Sanford may very well turn out to be guilty of hypocrisy if he refuses to resign. But he is repeatedly being refereed to as a hypocrite for the wrong reasons by people who are apparently ignorant about what hypocrisy is.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines hypocrisy as “The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness.” The British literary critic William Hazlitt once explained, “He is a hypocrite who professes what he does not believe; not he who does not practice all he wishes or approves”

By all appearances, Sanford does indeed believe in marital fidelity. His failures so far are due to his behaving in a way that does not comport with those values; a matter not of hypocrisy but of moral inconsistency. .... [more]

Virtual Tar and Feathers by James Bowman - The New Criterion, First Thoughts — A First Things Blog

Doing nothing

Rita Kramer wonders whether the carefree childhood many of us remember ever really existed in "Whatever Happened to Childhood?" I think it did, and if it doesn't now, more's the pity. Of course alongside the over supervised and planned lives of middle-class kids there are also those without any supervision at all. Kramer:

....Along with the planning of children’s lives today – the testing and the over-scheduling of extracurricular activities, all designed to make sure they are properly prepared for entrance to Harvard – there seems to be a kind of conspiracy to rob them of any free time or free thought. What used to be called play. Child labor has been vanquished in the developed world, but it sometimes seems, ironically enough, as though a different kind of work has been imposed in children’s lives.

Children as a special group, requiring different kinds of living arrangements, considerations, clothing and privileges, is a relatively new concept in the history of mankind. Until well into the 19th century, attitudes toward children were determined by socioeconomic conditions. In the pre-industrial world sons were important as workers on the family-owned land or providers working for others. Daughters were helpers in the household and, in higher circles, instruments of forming marital alliances of benefit to the family or the clan. Sons and daughters were expected to care for their aged parents in later life.

It was only with the burgeoning Romantic Movement and the growth of the bourgeoisie in the 19th century that children began to take on a sentimental significance. More of them lived longer, thanks to advances in obstetrical care and understanding of childhood diseases. And there was less need for their labor within or outside the home. ....

In 1957 Robert Paul Smith published a little book titled “Where did you go?” “Out.” “What did you do?” “Nothing.” In it, he evokes memories of his own untrammeled youth (he was born in 1915) in a landscape dotted with vacant lots that could become pirate ships or Western corrals; the games with rules unknown to grownups (“What we learned we learned from another kid”); the freedom to roam the neighborhood without adult direction; even the uses of boredom – what we would call downtime today and fill up with something useful.

So already in the 1950s Americans were bemoaning the over-supervised life of the child – in this case, typical of the time, the suburban child. Smith, who was a novelist and playwright as well as a father, thought his sons (no girls in his story) were missing out not having time “to sit on the front steps and watch some grass growing.” He says, “It never occurred to us that there was nothing wrong in doing nothing, so long as we kept out of the way of grownups.” ....

In those unenlighted times kids made things up – boys ran around challenging each other to feats of one sort or another, girls acted out their fantasies playing house and dressing their dolls. Of course we know now there is something very wrong with this picture, and we take care that our boys are introduced to gentler pastimes and our girls learn to throw a fast ball. And we worry if the little boy who isn’t allowed to play with guns shoots enemies with his pointed index finger and the little girl still prefers the dollhouse to the dump truck.

The private quiet life of childhood days that Smith and I remember is no more. Whether children are better or worse off being prepared “to take their place in a global economy,” as the educators put it, is hard to say. All we can be sure of is that every generation looks with dismay on “kids today” and looks back on a childhood Eden that may or may not have existed the way we remember it. [more]

Family Security Matters » Publications » Exclusive: Whatever Happened to Childhood?

Desecration is a defense against the sacred

Roger Scruton on "Beauty and Desecration":

At any time between 1750 and 1930, if you had asked an educated person to describe the goal of poetry, art, or music, “beauty” would have been the answer. And if you had asked what the point of that was, you would have learned that beauty is a value, as important in its way as truth and goodness, and indeed hardly distinguishable from them. Philosophers of the Enlightenment saw beauty as a way in which lasting moral and spiritual values acquire sensuous form. And no Romantic painter, musician, or writer would have denied that beauty was the final purpose of his art.

At some time during the aftermath of modernism, beauty ceased to receive those tributes. Art increasingly aimed to disturb, subvert, or transgress moral certainties, and it was not beauty but originality—however achieved and at whatever moral cost—that won the prizes. ....

.... It is not merely that artists, directors, musicians, and others connected with the arts are in flight from beauty. Wherever beauty lies in wait for us, there arises a desire to preempt its appeal, to smother it with scenes of destruction. Hence the many works of contemporary art that rely on shocks administered to our failing faith in human nature—such as the crucifix pickled in urine by Andres Serrano. Hence the scenes of cannibalism, dismemberment, and meaningless pain with which contemporary cinema abounds, with directors like Quentin Tarantino having little else in their emotional repertories. ....

Those phenomena record a habit of desecration in which life is not celebrated by art but targeted by it. Artists can now make their reputations by constructing an original frame in which to display the human face and throw dung at it. ....

.... The current habit of desecrating beauty suggests that people are as aware as they ever were of the presence of sacred things. Desecration is a kind of defense against the sacred, an attempt to destroy its claims. In the presence of sacred things, our lives are judged, and to escape that judgment, we destroy the thing that seems to accuse us.

Christians have inherited from Saint Augustine and from Plato the vision of this transient world as an icon of another and changeless order. They understand the sacred as a revelation in the here and now of the eternal sense of our being. .... Every now and then...we are jolted out of our complacency and feel ourselves to be in the presence of something vastly more significant than our present interests and desires. We sense the reality of something precious and mysterious, which reaches out to us with a claim that is, in some way, not of this world. .... [more]

In his description of beauty Scruton uses an example that reminded me of C.S. Lewis's use of Sehnsucht — the longing for something more, something beyond, that an experience can inspire. Scruton:

....Here is an example: suppose you are walking home in the rain, your thoughts occupied with your work. The streets and the houses pass by unnoticed; the people, too, pass you by; nothing invades your thinking save your interests and anxieties. Then suddenly the sun emerges from the clouds, and a ray of sunlight alights on an old stone wall beside the road and trembles there. You glance up at the sky where the clouds are parting, and a bird bursts into song in a garden behind the wall. Your heart fills with joy, and your selfish thoughts are scattered. The world stands before you, and you are content simply to look at it and let it be. ....

The Constable Salisbury Cathedral illustration was my choice.

Beauty and Desecration by Roger Scruton, City Journal Spring 2009

Honor your father and mother

From Wesley J. Smith's blog, Secondhand Smoke, a series of posts describing how rationing actually works in a country that has nationalized health care.

In the UK, utilitarian bioethicists control who gets–and who is denied–treatment via the Orwellian named organization NICE (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence). NICE explicitly uses a quality of life judgment (QALY–quality adjusted life year) to determine which patients are worth treating. It has now denied coverage for anti-dementia medications to mild Alzheimer’s sufferers. From the abstract of the story in the British Medical Journal:

The hopes of people with mild Alzheimer’s disease have been dashed again by the agency that appraises treatments for use by the NHS in England and Wales, which has reaffirmed its original decision to deny them treatment with dementia drugs. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has issued amended guidance but still asserts that the drugs would not be cost effective for the mild stages of the disease.

Interesting that NICE is also the acronym for the sinister scientific research foundation in C.S. Lewis's That Hideous Strength.

In another post Smith describes "Futile Care Theory," the idea that care should be withheld when doctors decide it will do no good - something that a NICE-like agency would probably decide once the public cost of health care forces rationing.

A UK bioethicist named Daniel K. Sokol, who writes nary a word in opposition to Futile Care Theory, aka medical futility (meaning, I suspect, he is a futilitarian), has nonetheless written a valuable informative essay in the British Medical Journal (no link, 13 JUNE 2009 | Volume 338) called “The Slipperiness of Futility.” For example, he defines the different “kinds” of futility:

Although ethically aware clinicians need not be familiar with the vast literature on the concept of futility, they might wish to remember the following four points:

• Futility is goal specific.
• Physiological futility is when the proposed intervention cannot physiologically achieve the desired effect. It is the most objective type of futility judgment.
• Quantitative futility is when the proposed intervention is highly unlikely to achieve the desired effect.
• Qualitative futility is when the proposed intervention, if successful, will probably produce such a poor outcome that it is deemed best not to attempt it.

And he points out, physiological futility–which I think a physician should refuse–is the only objective “type.” Indeed, Futile Care Theory isn’t about truly futile interventions, but about withdrawing wanted treatment based on the medical team’s or bioethicists’ values:

As futility is so rhetorically powerful and semantically fuzzy, doctors may find it helpful to distinguish between physiological, quantitative, and qualitative futility. This classification reveals that a call of futility, far from being objective, can be coloured by the values of the person making the call. Like “best interests,” “futility” exudes a confident air of objectivity while concealing value judgments.

Frankly, I would prefer that such "value judgments" about my care be made by me, or by family members or friends, rather than by guidelines prepared by bureaucrats with the incentive to reduce government costs.

Finally [for now], Smith reports an example of what I have no doubt would become common here in a health rationing regime:

Stories like this continue to mount in the UK, and are a warning to us of the growing utilitarian, quality of life/cost-benefit bent in health care. A stroke patient, it is charged, was almost neglected to death–if not worse–at a UK hospital. From the story:

John MacGillivray, 78, from Auchterarder, was admitted to Perth Royal Infirmary having suffered a stroke on May 22. Two days later, his family were told by hospital doctors he would die within hours. His daughter Patricia MacGillivray told Sky News:…”There were several issues we already had with the level of care he had received in the short while he had been in the hospital, so we started to become suspicious. That’s when we started asking about his medication. It was then we learned that the medication we had been told he was going to receive when he was first admitted, which was specifically for stroke, had been changed to medication for treating seizures which we’d never seen him have.

The MacGillivray family instructed doctors to immediately withdraw all medication and launched a round-the-clock bedside watch.Within two days, Ms MacGillivray says her father had made such a good recovery he was being recommended for stroke rehabilitation treatment and four weeks later he was back home walking around his garden in Auchterarder. Ms MacGillivray feels if her family had not intervened in the treatment her father was receiving at Perth Royal Infirmary then her father would not be alive today. “The effect of that medication was to sedate him.”

Not to prejudge the matter, but I think that is a pretty good bet. Indeed, if my private e-mail is any judge, the disdain for the moral worth within the health care community for elderly people with serious brain injuries or illnesses is growing here too. (That being said, I believe American health care remains fundamentally moral precisely because of the people working in the trenches at hospitals and in nursing homes.)

Note: the illustration of a medical ration book is also taken from Smith's site. Its appearance is based on the ration books used during the Second World War.

Update: 6/25 from Warner Todd Huston at RedState:

Obama said during the ABC Special on Wednesday night that a way to save healthcare costs is to abandon the sort of care that “evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve” the patient’s health. He went on to say that he had personal familiarity with such a situation when his grandmother broke her hip after she was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Obama offered a question on the efficacy of further care for his grandmother saying, “and the question was, does she get hip replacement surgery, even though she was fragile enough they were not sure how long she would last?”

But who is it that will present the “evidence” that will “show” that further care is futile? Are we to believe that Obama expects individual doctors will make that decision in his bold new government controlled healthcare future? ....

Government does not work by negotiation. Government does not work from the bottom up. It works from the top down. This singular fact means that no doctor will be deciding if you are too old or infirm to get medical care. It will be a medically untrained bureaucrat that sets a national rule that everyone will have to obey. There won’t be any room for your grandma to have a different outcome than anyone else’s. ....

Secondhand Smoke — A First Things Blog, Did Obama Say We Should Kill the Old Folks to Save Money Last Night? - Warner_Todd_Huston’s blog - RedState

Believing God will do what we desire

I just received an e-mail from a friend, thanking church members and others for our prayers on behalf of a very sick couple and a very premature baby - premature because of the mother's illness. It is indeed good news and I am grateful to God for this blessing. The e-mail ended with these words: "Thanks for all of your prayers. God has heard them and answered them!" I know the writer well and I know that he doesn't live in the illusion that God is ever deaf to our prayers nor that He always gives us what we ask for, but those words reminded me of this recent post by Bob at Wilderness Fandango:

.... We're all about the Lord giveth, but it is not possible, apparently for the Lord to taketh away, at least he wouldn't do that to good, praying Christians.

We just don't go there. It seems to indicate a lack of faith.

That the Lord takes away is a very hard lesson. We want to say that it is the devil who takes away. We live and pray as if the verse said, The Lord giveth, and the devil taketh away (that is if we don't pray enough, obey enough, go to church enough, etc.).

Just listen to the way we pray for people who have life-threatening conditions. The language we use often reveals that we believe that there is a battle between God and the devil for the life of the person in question. The devil brought the life-threatening condition, but we're praying for God to win the battle and restore health to the person. Moreover, we're to believe God will do this, because that's what faith is all about, right? Believing God will do the good thing that we desire. ....

Of course all this sets us up for a major faith crisis when a loved one dies. Instead of God taketh away we cry, How could God let this happen! ....

In Genesis 3 God actually ordains hardship and mortality for Adam and Eve and their descendants. Which means us. Jesus didn't rescind that order for believers, but his mission and ministry, his life and death and resurrection, taken together, shows us the ultimate context of suffering and death in this world. We see death in a new light. The context is not a battle between the devil and God in which sometimes God wins (and we live) and sometimes the devil (and we die). We need to see our own sorrow, pain, hardship, and even our dying in the context of the God's unfolding redemptive plan, which by the way defeated death as an enemy (for those who "look to Jesus") back about 2000 years ago, on a hill called Calvary. [more]

Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head,
and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped,
And said, "Naked came I out of my mother’s womb,
and naked shall I return thither:
the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away;
blessed be the name of the LORD.
In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.
Job 1:20-22, KJV

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God,
to them who are the called according to His purpose.
Romans 8:28, KJV

Wilderness Fandango: The Lord taketh?

Sabbath Recorder, July-August 2009

The July-August, 2009, Sabbath Recorder is available online here as a pdf.

This issue has several articles about Seventh Day Baptist history including one based on material I prepared for the SDB Historical Society Museum about Seventh Day Baptists in North America during the colonial and Revolutionary War period. That overlaps somewhat with an article written by the late Rev Don Sanford recounting the stories of SDBs who have served in military chaplaincies beginning in 1775 and continuing through most of America's wars.

There is also news about a new church in the oldest SDB Conference - The Faith Seventh Day Baptist Group of North London, a Milton family about to begin as missionaries in Lesotho, southern Africa, an article about SDBs in Uganda, and much else.

The Sabbath Recorder is the magazine of the Seventh Day Baptist General Conference and has been regularly published in some form since 1844.

Tranquility, serenity, peace and repose

Six days you shall labor, and do all your work,
but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.
Exodus 20:9-10

"Six days of labor will feed and clothe the body; Sabbath labor will starve the soul." The underlying principle and God-ordained purpose of the Sabbath is rest. .... The idea of rest has high Biblical authority, and it means far more than just physical relaxation. Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes: "In the Bible 'rest' really means more than 'having a rest.' It means rest after the work is accomplished, it means completion, it means the perfection and peace of God in which the world rests, it means transformation, it means turning our eyes absolutely upon God's being God and towards worshipping him." And Heschel writes: "'Menuha' which we usually render with `rest' means here much more than withdrawal from labor and exertion, more than freedom from toil, strain or activity of any kind. `Menuha' is not a negative concept but something real and intrinsically positive.... it took a special act of creation to bring it into being, ... the universe would be incomplete without it. What was created on the seventh day? Tranquility, serenity, peace and repose." .... Consecrated rest, thus understood, demands also consecrated work—six days of worldly toil that give one the satisfaction of having completed his assigned task in God's plan. The Sabbath gives time for one to reflect on the accomplishments of his work and to glory in their completion. Man "can consecrate his work," writes [A.H.] Lewis, "and from the Sabbath he may renew the eternal life which shall help him to give some sabbatic quality to the work days." As Heschel writes: "The Sabbath is the inspirer, the other days the inspired."

Rev. Herbert E. Saunders, The Sabbath: Symbol of Creation and Re-Creation, American Sabbath Tract Society, 1970.

Read for joy. Read to be enthralled.

Bob at Wilderness Fandango offers "Bob's One Big Awesomely Important Tip on Reading" and he is absolutely right.

.... My mother instilled in me the joy of reading when I was a child. She made sure we visited the local library often, and she let us linger there as long as wanted. The point is, long before I knew that reading was good for me, reading was giving me pleasure. And that, my friend, is the key. ....

Here's my advice. Reading is never going to make it to the top of your to-do list if it's merely a chore, a good-for-me duty, like brushing teeth or watching PBS. What makes a kid love reading is the sheer joy of it, and what's going to make an adult love reading is for him or her to discover that joy also. You might say, it's time to start thinking like a kid again!

Now, admittedly, it's harder for adults to discover joy than it is for kids. We're jaded. We think in terms of future pay-off, kids think in terms of present experience. So this is going to to take a little shift in thinking for some. The question you need to ask is, what kind of book is going to give me joy? ....

I'm serious. Read for pleasure. Read for joy. Read to be enthralled.

One last point. You may not have ever stopped to think about this, but all your favorite movies are stories. That's what they are. Stories. Story-telling is perhaps the art form that undergirds all other art forms, it is a built-in inclination of all humanity. So if by now you're wondering what kind of book might give you pleasure (and I hope you are), my answer is, it's probably some kind of cracking good yarn, that's what kind. And by the way, your local library is full of these, for every reading level. .... [more]

In my case it was my father who read to me [even after I could read - I told him I could hear better when he read], took me regularly to the library, and only resisted briefly when I moved from juvenile books to the adult fiction. I know I am repeating myself, but there is no better gift a parent can give a child than the love of reading.

Wilderness Fandango: Bob's One Big Awesomely Important Tip on Reading

“I freely all forgive!”

John Newton is buried in Olney, England. On his original gravestone was this inscription:

JOHN NEWTON, Clerk
Once an infidel and libertine
A servant of slaves in Africa,
Was, by the rich mercy of our Lord and Sav­iour
JESUS CHRIST,
restored, pardoned, and ap­point­ed to preach
the Gos­pel which he had long laboured to destroy.
He min­is­tered,
Near sixteen years in Ol­ney, in Bucks,
And twenty-eight years in this Church.

At age 11, with but two years school­ing and on­ly a rud­i­men­tary know­ledge of La­tin, he went to sea with his fa­ther. Life at sea was filled with won­der­ful es­capes, viv­id dreams, and a sail­or’s reck­less­ness. He grew into a god­less and aban­doned man. He was once flogged as a de­sert­er from the na­vy, and for 15 months lived, half starved and ill treat­ed, as a slave in Af­ri­ca.

A chance read­ing of Thom­as à Kemp­is sowed the seed of his con­ver­sion. It was ac­cel­er­at­ed by a night spent steer­ing a wa­ter­logged ship in the face of ap­par­ent death. He was then 23 years old. Over the next six years, dur­ing which he com­mand­ed a slave ship, his faith ma­tured. He spent the next nine years most­ly in Li­ver­pool, stu­dy­ing He­brew and Greek and ming­ling with White­field, Wes­ley, and the Non­con­form­ists. He was even­tu­al­ly or­dained, and be­came cur­ate at Ol­ney, Buck­ing­ham­shire, in 1764. [CyberHymnal: John Newton]

Pastor Mark at Grace Dependent provides the full text of the poem from which comes the hymn "Amazing Grace":

In evil long I took delight, unawed by shame or fear; Till a new object met my sight, and stopped my wild career: I saw One hanging on a tree in agonies and blood; Who fixed His languid eyes on me as near His cross I stood. Sure, never till my latest breath can I forget that look; It seemed to charge me with His death, though not a word He spoke. My conscience felt and owned the guilt, and plunged me in despair; I saw my sins His blood had shed, and helped to nail Him there. Alas, I knew not what I did, but all my tears were vain; Where could my trembling soul be hid, for I, the Lord, had slain! A second look He gave that said, “I freely all forgive!” “This blood is for thy ransom paid, I died that thou mayest live!”

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me, I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see. ‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved; How precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed! Thro’ many dangers, toils and snares I have already come: ‘Tis grace hath bro’t me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home. The Lord has promised good to me, His Word my hope secures; He will my shield and portion be, as long as life endures. Yes, when this flesh and heart shall fail, and mortal life shall cease; I shall possess within the veil, a life of joy and peace. The earth shall soon dissolve like snow, the sun forbear to shine; But God Who called me here below shall be forever mine

Amazing Grace « Grace Dependent, John Newton, Amazing Grace

The baptism of children

Guided there from 9 Marks, Justin Taylor recommends this Q&A for parents about the Sacraments:

This document, The Sacraments: Questions and Answers for Parents, is an appendix from a manual for new/prospective members at Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, MD, entitled Starting Point: Our Journey Together at Covenant Life (92-page PDF). The whole thing looks enormously helpful.

Indeed the document does look very good. The following is the advice relating to the baptism of children:

2. What is baptism?

Baptism is the sacrament which uniquely depicts initiation into the Christian life, portraying the believer's union with Christ in his death and resurrection (Romans 6:3-5). It points to the beginning of the Christian life (Matthew 28:19; Acts 2:38) and displays one's commitment to Christ, a commitment which will be lived out in the local church.

"Baptism is the sign of the initiation by which we are received into the society of the church." —John Calvin

3. When should a child be baptized?

Only when he or she can provide a believable profession of faith in Jesus Christ (Acts 2:41; Galatians 3:27).

4. What is a believable profession of faith?

Anyone professing Jesus Christ as Lord should be able to:

• Communicate the content of the gospel as well as an expression of faith in Jesus Christ for salvation.
• Evidence godly sorrow over sin, followed by repentance which leads to the fruit of the Spirit.
  
• Have the ability to examine himself and the condition of his soul (1 Corinthians 11:27-32).
• Have demonstrated a willingness to turn away from the world and instead live a life keeping God's commands and loving God's church (1 John 2:15-17; 5:1-5).
• Exhibit fruit which proceeds from regeneration (Galatians 5:22-23).

5. Does God save young children?

Yes! God can and does convert young children (Romans 10:9-13, Acts 2:21). However, we also recognize that the nature of children, their intellectual immaturity, the frequency with which they change their opinions, the ease with which they can be influenced, and for many, their limited exposure to worldly things, makes it exceedingly difficult to discern with certainty whether a child is truly converted. The younger a child is, the more difficult this becomes.

6. What is the role of the parent in evaluating a child's readiness to be baptized?

Parents bear primary responsibility for the condition of their children's souls. They are to:

• Teach their children God's commands (Deuteronomy 6:7).
• Train their children up in the way they should go (Proverbs 22:6).
• Bring their children up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4).

At the same time, pastors bear primary responsibility for administering the sacraments within the local church and for caring for the souls of those who receive them. For these reasons, parents (and especially fathers) should evaluate the readiness of their children for baptism and should actively seek to involve their pastors in this process. Parents know their children best and are ideally situated to discern the fruit of repentance in their children. (Note: the observations of others—in Care Group, trusted friends, and others in the church—will also be extremely helpful in this process.) A parent who believes his child is ready to be baptized should then meet with a pastor so that the pastor can verify the parent's evaluation. Pastor, parent and child should all be confident in the readiness of the child to move forward with baptism.

7. If my child said a prayer and invited Jesus into his heart, isn't that enough to be baptized?

No. The language of 'inviting Jesus into your heart' is not biblical, ignores critical features of the gospel such as justification by faith, and fails to call forth repentance. Experience reveals that it is relatively easy to persuade young children to invite Jesus into their hearts, but many who have made such a commitment or prayed such a prayer later show no evidence of regeneration. [....]

15. Why not baptize infants?

Scripture nowhere instructs us to baptize infants, nor does it describe infants being baptized. Baptism in the New Testament is exclusive to believers, to those who have repented from their sins and placed their faith in Jesus Christ. Because infants are not able to do this, they are not believers and should not be baptized.

16. What do I do if my child was baptized as an infant?

The biblical pattern is for those who have come to faith in Christ to then be baptized. Thus we urge all who have turned to Christ to be baptized by immersion, regardless whether they were baptized as infants. We say this with deep respect for our brothers and sisters who practice infant baptism.

17. What if my child was baptized at an early age, and now I don't think he was really converted until later; should he be baptized again?

If a child was baptized as an unbeliever, his was not a biblical baptism; he should now be baptized as a believer. [more]

The sections I haven't quoted deal with Communion and are also excellent. I have followed Taylor's example and re-numbered since the original document omitted a number "6."

Between Two Worlds: Q&A for Parents on the Sacraments

"No Christ do we follow..."

There continue to be those who profess to believe that Christianity was primarily responsible for the crimes of the Nazis. Many German Christians were complicit, adapting to the ideology, but Nazis were no more sympathetic with Christianity than were Communists. Although Hitler wrote and made public statements seemingly affirming Christianity, his actual beliefs expressed to his colleagues, as well as the behavior of the Nazi regime, demonstrate hostility. Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism provides this description made available at NRO:

...[T]he Nazis worked relentlessly to replace the nuts and bolts of traditional Christianity with a new political religion. .... The German historian Götz Aly explains how Hitler purchased popularity with lavish social welfare programs and middle-class perks, often paid for with stolen Jewish wealth and high taxes on the rich. Hitler banned religious charity, crippling the churches’ role as a counterweight to the state. Clergy were put on government salary, hence subjected to state authority. “The parsons will be made to dig their own graves,” Hitler cackled. “They will betray their God to us. They will betray anything for the sake of their miserable little jobs and incomes.” ...[T]he Nazis replaced the traditional Christian calendar. The new year began on January 30 with the Day of the Seizure of Power. Each November the streets of central Munich were dedicated to a Nazi Passion play depicting Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch. The martyrdom of Horst Wessel and his “old fighters” replaced Jesus and the apostles. Plays and official histories were rewritten to glorify pagan Aryans bravely fighting against Christianizing foreign armies. Anticipating some feminist pseudo history, witches became martyrs to the bloodthirsty oppression of Christianity.

.... The so-called German Christian pastors preached that “just as Jesus liberated mankind from sin and hell, so Hitler saves the German Volk from decay.” In April 1933 the Nazi Congress of German Christians pronounced that all churches should catechize that “God has created me a German; Germanism is a gift of God. God wills that I fight for Germany. War service in no way injures the Christian conscience, but is obedience to God.” When some Protestant bishops visited the Fuhrer to register complaints, Hitler’s rage got the better of him. “Christianity will disappear from Germany just as it has done in Russia . . . The German race has existed without Christianity for thousands of years . . . and will continue after Christianity has disappeared . . . We must get used to the teachings of blood and race.” When the bishops objected that they supported Nazism’s secular aims, just not its religious innovations, Hitler exploded: “You are traitors to the Volk. Enemies of the Vaterland and destroyers of Germany.”

In 1935 mandatory prayer in school was abolished, and in 1938 carols and Nativity plays were banned entirely. By 1941 religious instruction for children fourteen years and up had been abolished altogether, and Jacobinism reigned supreme. A Hitler Youth song rang out from the campfires:

We are the happy Hitler Youth;
We have no need for Christian virtue;
For Adolf Hitler is our intercessor
And our redeemer.
No priest, no evil one
Can keep us
From feeling like Hitler’s children.
No Christ do we follow, but Horst Wessel!
Away with incense and holy water pots.

Meanwhile, the orphans were given new lyrics to “Silent Night”:

Silent night! Holy night! All is calm, all is bright,
Only the Chancellor steadfast in fight,
Watches o’er Germany

Liberal Fascism on National Review Online

"Take Me to the Water"

From the introduction to Take Me to the Water: Immersion Baptism in Vintage Music and Photography 1890-1950:

"Whether you have ever actually experienced a baptism or not, whether you are a believer or not, these pictures and the music that accompanies them transmit all the emotional information: the excitement and the serenity, the fellowship and the warmth, the wind and the water. They are about theatre, pageantry, holiday; inclusion, transformation, enveloping love and transporting joy. They show a great many people in the midst of one of the peak experiences of their lives. Even the calmest scenes are electrified by the ecstacy of the actors. You would have to have heart of tin not to recognize this as one of the happiest collections of archival photographs ever assembled."
— Luc Sante, from the Introduction to the Take Me to the Water: Immersion Baptism in Vintage Music and Photography 1890-1950

And from the description at Vimeo:

Making the past present once again, Grammy winners Dust-to-Digital unveil what could easily be seen as the seventh part of their acclaimed Goodbye Babylon box set. Take Me to the Water is a 96-page hardcover book which contains photographs from the collection of Jim Linderman, a scholar of 20th Century self-taught American art and a noted collector of outsider art, early American folk art, and daguerreotype photographs of even earlier American folk art portraits. Also included is a compact disc featuring rare, vintage songs and sermons recorded between 1924-1940 and an introductory essay by Luc Sante.

I own Dust to Digital's Goodbye Babylon and ordered this one this morning as soon as I became aware of its existence.Dust-to-Digital : Take Me to the Water: Immersion Baptism in Vintage Music and Photography 1890-1950 [DTD-13], Take Me to the Water on Vimeo