“Ye shall be as gods”

Via David Limbaugh at Ricochet.com, Whittaker Chambers in Witness on the appeal communism then had; a warning that  applies equally to every utopian cause:

Their power, whose nature baffles the rest of the world, because in a large measure the rest of the world has lost that power, is the power to hold convictions and to act on them. It is the same power that moves mountains; it is also an unfailing power to move men. Communists are that part of mankind which has recovered the power to live or die—to bear witness—for its faith. And it is a simple, rational faith that inspires men to live or die for it.

It is not new. It is, in fact, man’s second oldest faith. Its promise was whispered in the first days of the Creation under the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: “Ye shall be as gods.” It is the great alternative faith of mankind. Like all great faiths, its force derives from a simple vision. Other ages have had great visions. They have always been different versions of the same vision: the vision of God and man’s relationship to God. The Communist vision is the vision of Man without God.

It is the vision of man’s mind displacing God as the creative intelligence of the world. It is the vision of man’s liberated mind, by the sole force of its rational intelligence, redirected men’s destiny and reorganizing man’s life and the world. It is the vision of man, once more the central figure of the Creation, not because God made man in His image, but because man’s mind makes him the most intelligent of the animals. ....

The vision is a challenge and implies a threat. It challenges man to prove by his acts that he is the masterwork of the Creation — by making thought and act one. It challenges him to prove it by using the force of his rational mind to end the bloody meaninglessness of man’s history — by giving it purpose and a plan. It challenges him to prove it by reducing the meaningless chaos of nature, by imposing on it his rational will to order, abundance, security, peace. It is the vision of materialism.

Whittaker Chambers Speaks to Today - Ricochet.com

"There I have another name"

Later this week the third film in the Chronicles of Narnia series will appear in American theaters. This review in World Magazine by Megan Basham is encouraging to those of us somewhat disappointed by the treatment Prince Caspian received and worried that some of C.S. Lewis's quite specifically Christian allusions might have been altered or eliminated for a general audience. On the new film of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader:

For those who know and love the books (and even for those who don't), the first third of the movie is pitch-perfect. Perfect in the way Peter Jackson's rendering of The Shire and Gollum were perfect. It begins with Will Poulter as the smarmy, pestilential cousin of the Pevensies, Eustace.

Poulter owns the character like an old-time stage actor. His body language is starched, his speech affected, and his mannerisms irritating. In short, he is exactly what one would expect from someone named Eustace Clarence Scrubb. Even more impressive is Poulter's portrayal of Eustace's redemption. As believable as he is before the lion, Aslan (Liam Neeson), peels away his dead, gnarled shell, he is equally authentic in his transformation into a new creation with a tender heart. Simon Pegg, voicing the valiant mouse Reepicheep, is another phenomenal addition who is easily on par with all the great character actors peopling Harry Potter's world. ....

...Christian audiences may be stunned and grateful to see how the filmmakers reveal the true nature of the great lion. His direct-from-Lewis explanation that he is in our world too and we must learn to know him by another name will be like a spring in the desert for thoughtful parents whose time is often spent in theaters enduring cheap bathroom jokes and even cheaper believe-in-yourself messages. And it certainly makes Walden worthy of helming Narnia into the future. .... (more)

WORLD Magazine | Dawn Treader | Megan Basham | Dec 18, 10

Advent II: Blessed Hope

Blessed Lord, which hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning; grant us that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them; that by patience and comfort of Thy holy word, we may embrace, and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which Thou hast given us in Our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. [Thomas Cranmer]

WHATSOEVER things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be like-minded one toward another according to Christ Jesus: that ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God. Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers: and that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy; as it is written, For this cause I will confess to Thee among the Gentiles, and sing unto Thy name. And again He saith, Rejoice, ye Gentiles, with His people. And again, Praise the Lord, all ye Gentiles; and laud Him, all ye people. And again, Esaias saith, There shall be a root of Jesse, and he that shall rise to reign over the Gentiles; in him shall the Gentiles trust. Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost. [Romans 15]

Advent is a time of waiting. Our whole life, however, is Advent - that is, a time of waiting for the ultimate, for the time when there will be a new heaven and a new earth, when all people are brothers and sisters and one rejoices in the words of the angels: "On earth peace to those on whom God's favor rests." Learn to wait, because he has promised to come. "I stand at the door?" We however call to him: "Yes, come soon, Lord Jesus!" Amen. [Dietrich Bonhoeffer]

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

One of the characteristics of the debate about the appropriate relationship between church and state has been the selective use of history in support of one or another interpretation of the beliefs of the Founders. On the one hand there are those who argue that the United States has been a "Christian nation" from the start, and on the other that Deism and skepticism were more typical. Good history can help to sort this out. Thomas Kidd is one of the academic historians who have done that work, particularly in his God of Liberty: A Religious History of the American Revolution. In "The Tea Party, Fundamentalism, and the Founding" Kidd responds to a recent book that seems to have brought more heat than light to the discussion:

.... First, I think that Lepore is right that conservatives, especially Christian conservatives, get into dangerous territory when they treat the Founders as saints and its key documents as holy writ. This exaggerated reverence has, at times, shaded into presenting the story of the Founding as one of unvarnished holiness and perfection. For Christians, admiration for the American Founding and devotion to Christ must remain strictly separate, lest we slide into a corrupted kind of civil religion. We might easily note that religious principles undergirded the Revolution (as I do in my book God of Liberty), or that many of the rank-and-file Patriots were serious Christians. But to baptize the Founding as a unique work of God is risky business.

When we simply admire the best qualities of the Founding and do not try to conflate it with the sacred, we can comfortably affirm that the Founders achieved a very high level of political wisdom. They led Americans through a war that would have probably ruined people of lesser courage, and they set up a government that, with all its imperfections, has endured as the longest-standing republic on earth. Surely we can admire these things without bending the knee to worship.

.... Surely we all agree that the leaders of our Revolution were products of a culture that was morally faulty, just as our own society is. But entirely dismissing the wisdom of that age throws out the very principles — especially the notion that "all men are created equal" — that helped us move past the limitations of the Founding. .... [more]

An essay by Patrick Allitt in The Claremont Review of Books — surveying several histories touching on the role of religion during the Revolutionary era — includes this about Kidd's God of Liberty:

.... Agreeing with a wide consensus that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, and other central figures were Deists who doubted the inerrancy of scripture and denied the divinity of Jesus, he shows how they nevertheless collaborated with zealous evangelical Christians to defeat Britain and create a republic. What's more, they understood their work as having divine as well as secular significance, and they worked against a backdrop of millennial enthusiasm as end-of-the-world sects sprang up around them.

Despite their many differences, Kidd notes, nearly all the revolutionaries shared five religious principles. First, they believed in a creator God who made all men equal and therefore free, possessing the same basic rights. Second, they agreed that God moved through history and sometimes made nations His providential instruments. Third, they agreed that there is a deep human propensity to sin that must be checked by the right institutions. Fourth, they believed that even with these institutions the republic would only succeed if men conquered the temptation to sin and acted virtuously. Finally, they favored religious liberty. Agreement on these fundamentals enabled them to cooperate despite striking differences on theological questions. "During and after the Revolution," Kidd writes, "many people conflated America's political affairs with divine purposes, which lent an aura of redemptiveness to the war and to the agenda of a fledgling nation." ....

Those five areas of agreement seem to me still a pretty good way to think about religion, the state, and human nature.

Thomas Kidd: The Tea Party, Fundamentalism, and the Founding, The Claremont Institute - Patrick Allitt: God and Country

"When I Was Sinkin' Down..."

David Neff at Christianity Today reviewing a history of the original Fisk Jubilee Singers, "Tell Them We Are Singing for Jesus": The Original Fisk Jubilee Singers and Christian Reconstruction, 1871-1878, explains how spirituals ended up in all the hymnbooks.

.... The story of the Fisk Jubilee Singers is ironic. White Christians aimed to give black Americans Christian civilization, but they received a dose of slave spirituality that shaped Anglo-American Christianity for the better.

The Jubilee Singers embarked on their tours to demonstrate that former slaves could perform the best of the Western musical canon. They soon discovered, however, that the spirituals in their concerts moved their audiences deeply, and they devoted their revised repertoire to slave songs of faith. Their arrangement of "Steal Away," with its dramatic dynamic contrasts, left American and British audiences weeping.

The Jubilee Singers did more than create awareness of an important American folk art. They gave white audiences a striking vision of Christ's liberating power. That vision gave hope that those with other bondages might experience their own exodus. Every Jubilee Singers concert was evangelistic. .... [more]

Singing For Jesus | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction

A tame religion

And the sight of the glory of the LORD was like devouring fire on the top of the mount
in the eyes of the children of Israel.
(Ex 24:17, KJV) 

Via Gene Edward Veith, from a recent Peter Berger essay:

.... Sociologists who deal with religion often like to refer to the etymology of the Latin word religio. Supposedly it derives from the verb religare—to re-bind. If so, this points to a very valid insight, most fully formulated by the classical sociologist Emile Durkheim—namely, that religion provides the symbolic ligature that keeps a society together. I understand that Latinists reject this etymology for a different, and actually more interesting one: Religio derives from relegere—to be careful. In other words, the supernatural is a very dangerous reality—one has to approach it with great caution. This understanding was brilliantly formulated by Rudolf Otto, arguably one of the greatest twentieth-century historians of religion, in his book The Idea of the Holy. Religion is always based on an experience, on whatever level of intensity or sophistication, with a reality that is intensely dangerous....

Otto coined the term “numinous” to refer to this experience. His German language too seems to break down, as he falls back on Latin to describe the numinous—it is a mysterium tremendum, both terrifying and alluring. It is totaliter aliter—totally other than the fabric of everyday life. Above all, it is extremely dangerous. This is why, in the Bible and in other sacred scriptures, the first words spoken by an angel to a human being is “Do not be afraid!” ....

Veith comments:

This, I think, is what is missing in so much of today’s Christianity: the fear of God. We have tamed our own religion. We are no longer “careful,” and so we have lost the “numinous” and thus the sense of holiness. I would argue that the historic liturgy and sacramental spirituality retain that sense, whereas so much of the trappings of contemporary Christianity, in its worship and art forms, have the effect of domesticating the supernatural and rendering it banal.

Religion means “be careful” | Cranach: The Blog of Veith, Defanging the Supernatural | Religion and Other Curiosities

Those who do not remember

An explanation of the value of studying the humanities, not to learn some skill, or for some immediate practical gain, but for the sake of learning about humans:

...[W]e live in a historical context, so having a sense of history is actually very useful in itself in making sense of the present: how many political debates have we had on this site that have come down to different interpretations of history? In life, I encounter a startling number of people now who seem to live in an eternal present, in which their society exists, for them, outside of any historical context whatsoever and the past is an amorphous grey zone with horse-drawn buggies. I wonder just how they could participate in their own democracy when they have no sense of how it came into being or how other societies have functioned. They have no historical parallels to draw from. It is never shocking to me to read about totalitarian states that began by rewriting, and finally erasing the historical record in the public mind. Those who do not remember the past have less space to oppose the present.

It’s not just history: all of the humanities, to some extent, give you a broader understanding of the world around you—the world of human beings—and the world within you. .... Ideally, all of the humanities do this—they help you to create your own guide to being human. Even more ideally, academic departments are a place that society allows for its slow and patient thinking to be done. ....

.... The humanities are rooted in the study of texts, which will increasingly put them at odds with a society in which reading is becoming vestigial. People who grow up detached from any cultural/historical context will find academics increasingly alien, if not offensive to their sensibilities. Attacks on the humanities will increase. The way to address them isn’t to trick the public into thinking they’re getting something else for their money, but to repeatedly defend the right of academics to hang back from the passions of the day—to be less-than-useful for whatever desires the society wants satisfied today. That means, by the way, academics in the humanities must drop altogether the pretense of political “activism” and, in their public role, become much more explicitly apolitical and inactivist; conversely, they need to start expressing quite loudly the worth of this eternal hanging back, instead of flattering and placating a culture that is arguably no culture. [more]

Thanks to Joe Carter for the reference.

Studying one Thing to Learn Another

"I give you the example of spittoons"

PJ O’Rourke selects the top five books of political satire for FiveBooks and is interviewed about each of them. If you know PJ O'Rourke, no slouch at political satire himself, you may well enjoy his comments. These are the five he chose:

• Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels
• Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
• George Orwell, Animal Farm
• George Orwell, 1984
• Evelyn Waugh, Put Out More Flags

And here is a selection of the five best books about film noir.

P J O’Rourke | FiveBooks

The story of good and evil

I just got Criterion's Blu-ray edition of The Night of the Hunter — one of my favorite films. It is about menacing evil and human fallibility redeemed by genuine goodness. This review of the DVD from a very good DVD site explains some of the reasons I like it:

Laughton's The Night of the Hunter is something of a marvel considering its timing and history. The 1950s are not remembered as a time of complexity or darkness—in fact, the '50s are often recalled as a moment of joy, simplicity and fun. It's this contrast that makes The Night of the Hunter stand out from most thrillers of the time. Laughton's film features a dreamlike quality that wrestles unease from the viewer's grasp. Robert Mitchum is so evil and engrossing as the manipulative Harry Powell that he's almost impossible to forget, even days after the film's credits have closed. Mitchum had been arrested for possession of marijuana a few years before The Night of the Hunter was made and his time in prison served him well—we believe that Powell is capable of doing whatever is necessary to get Ben Harper's money. Forty-five years later and Mitchum's Harry Powell is still one of the most powerful and disturbing villains ever to grace the silver screen. ....

One of the best things about The Night of the Hunter is the set decoration. Not content to feature just darkness and light, Laughton took special care to craft scenes of dread and menace out of silhouette, shape and contrast. Grassy hills and jagged houses often take on a looming quality that seems almost Tim Burton-esque in their shape. One famous scene involving Powell's search for the children in the basement is so stark and specific—only a portion of the screen is used—that it can be seen as a precursor to many other future horror movies.

As I'm writing this review I'm realizing that I only have praise for Night of the Hunter—it is in almost every way a perfect film (and that's not something I say very often as a critic). The writing is taught and fluid; the performances are striking and memorable; the set design, music and cinematography are all wonderfully realized and evocative. .... [more]

DVD Verdict Review - The Night Of The Hunter (Blu-Ray) Criterion Collection

Knowing what we profess

Rod Dreher, reviewing a new book, American Grace, about the state of American religious life:

.... The good news is that we Americans of different faith traditions get along remarkably well, not by casting aside religion, but by learning how to be tolerant even as we remain religiously engaged.

The bad news is that achieving religious comity has come at the price of religious particularity and theological competence. That is, we may still consider ourselves devoted to our faith, but increasingly, we don't know what our professed faith teaches, and we don't appreciate why that sort of thing is important in the first place. .... [more]

Thanks to Joseph Knippenberg for the reference.

Rod Dreher: All-American Grace | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Morning News | Opinion: Points

Progress

The inclination to force people to behave in ways that will be good for them is hardly limited to any one point on the ideological spectrum and, indeed, the argument about where to draw the line is inevitable in any society governed by law. George Santayana observed a century ago that the only thing liberalism has liberated people from is their marriage vows. Now, as then, those most inclined — in every aspect of life apart from sex — to regulate, prohibit, censor, and mandate how we live, seem to be liberals or, as they once again tend to style themselves, "progressives." George Will wrote today that "Progressivism is a faith-based program. The progressives' agenda for improving everyone else varies but invariably involves the cult of expertise — an unflagging faith in the application of science to social reform." There can be problems with applying "science" to social reform. Wilfred McClay recounts an example from an era when scientific expertise supported ideas today's progressives properly abjure.

With a few honorable exceptions, our historians have tended to gloss over the Progressive Era’s affinity for many of the 20th century’s most troubling ideas. Few Americans know, for example, about the magnetic appeal Italian fascism held in the 1920s for many of the most prominent American liberals and pragmatists. They openly praised Mussolini’s achievement in transforming a chronically disordered nation into “the cleanest, neatest, most efficiently operating piece of social machinery I’ve ever seen,” as FDR Brains Trust adviser Rexford G. Tugwell enthused.

An even more interesting omission is our neglect of the then-widespread popularity and respectability of eugenics. This new “science” for the systematic practice of selective human breeding for the supposed improvement of society led to the sterilization and segregation of the “feeble-minded” and other “undesirable” individuals and groups in American society. It sounds like a preoccupation of the exotic fringe to most of us now, but nine decades ago eugenics was openly advocated as a mainstream Progressive idea. Indeed, the most certifiably advanced minds of the day promoted and celebrated it. In 1923, former President Charles W. Eliot of Harvard, U.S. Senator Royal Copeland of New York, former President David Starr Jordan of Indiana and Stanford Universities, President Livingston Farrand of Cornell University, and a host of other educational, medical and social-welfare luminaries making up the Eugenics Committee of the United States came forth with a program calling for “selective immigration, sterilization of defectives and control of everything having to do with the reproduction of human beings.” In 1932, Margaret Sanger, founder of the organization that would eventually become Planned Parenthood, advocated “a stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation to that grade of population whose progeny is already tainted or whose inheritance is such that objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring.” ....

Nor was eugenics merely a utopian idea. It formed the basis of concrete policies. For one thing, it lent its strong support to the immigration-restriction statutes of the 1920s. But there were more direct and telling effects. Thirty-three American states passed laws that allowed for the involuntary sterilization of those deemed “unfit.” The famous words of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. in the 1927 Buck v. Bell case—”three generations of imbeciles are enough”—expressed the Supreme Court’s upholding of a Virginia law, thereby signaling the general acceptability of eugenic involuntary-sterilization laws. Such activity was hardly restricted to Southern states. California, well-known to be one of the most Progressive-influenced states in the nation, led all others in performing some 20,000 forced sterilizations and did not cease the practice until the 1960s. .... [more behind a subscription wall]

George F. Will - Our puritanical progressives, Chesterton's Warning - Wilfred M. McClay - The American Interest Magazine

Advent I: Sleeper awake!

Almighty God, give us grace, that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life, (in the which Thy son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility;) that in the last day when He shall come again in His glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal, through Him who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost now and ever. Amen. [Thomas Cranmer]

Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof. [Romans 8]

That day, when sent in glory by the Father,
The Prince of Life His blest elect shall gather;
Millions of angels about Him flying,
While all the kindreds of the earth are crying,
And He, enthroned above the clouds, shall give
His last just sentence, who must die, who live.
[Henry Vaughan]

All praise and thanks...

 
Now thank we all our God, with heart and hands and voices,

Who wondrous things has done, in Whom this world rejoices;
Who from our mothers’ arms has blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.

O may this bounteous God through all our life be near us,
With ever joyful hearts and blessèd peace to cheer us;
And keep us in His grace, and guide us when perplexed;
And free us from all ills, in this world and the next!

All praise and thanks to God the Father now be given;
The Son and Him Who reigns with Them in highest Heaven;
The one eternal God, whom earth and Heaven adore;
For thus it was, is now, and shall be evermore.
Mar­tin Rink­art, c. 1636

And yet...joy

Mike Potemra visits a remarkable urban church and is greatly impressed:

Not enough good things can be said about the ministry of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan. The senior pastor, Tim Keller, is justly acclaimed for his Biblical preaching, which is both (unostentatiously) learned and deeply moving. And thousands of people, mostly young professionals, are attracted there every Sunday. ...I went to the evening service at Redeemer and was rewarded with one of the most spiritually affecting services I have ever encountered. The music at the evening services is provided by a six-piece jazz combo. .... The band was simply great, its uptempo songs almost danceable; and now listen to some of the lyrics: “Sinners, whose love can ne’er forget the wormwood and the gall...”

The convicting message of sin and depravity — wormwood and gall! — could not be clearer in these lyrics. And yet the music is, at the very same time, utterly joyful. This is the Christian message in miniature: Suffering, failure, and heartbreak exist, they are — at least in this world — not abolished; but they are transfigured into something beautiful. This is the Christian understanding of joy: laughter and beauty in the full awareness and experience of tears.

The Rev. Keller’s sermon was terrific, relating God’s presence in the burning bush to the “FIRE” that blazed in the mystical experience in 1654 of Blaise Pascal. But the band had the final word, doing a splendid job with the instrumental postlude, “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy,” by Joe Zawinul. (Here’s a version by the Cannonball Adderley Quintet; the version at Redeemer was a worthy competitor.) I strongly encourage visitors to NYC to give Redeemer a try....

The Gospel in Miniature - By Mike Potemra - The Corner - National Review Online

"Men must endure their going hence"

November 22, 1963 was the day of my Grandmother Skaggs's funeral. The family was gathered in my parents' house preparing to go to the church when we heard that the President had been shot in Dallas. We learned upon returning from the graveside that he had died. On that same day C.S. Lewis died. Understandably, news of his death was obscured by the assassination. I didn't learn that he had died for some time afterward but if it had not been for the coincidence of date his death would have received a significant amount of news coverage.

Some time later, visiting good friends then living in England, I had the opportunity to go to Oxford and visit many of the locations associated with Lewis, including the grave site. Somewhere, stored away, I have a photograph taken by one of my fiends of me standing near this grave. The epitaph, "Men must endure their going hence," chosen by CSL's brother, is from Shakespeare's King Lear. It was the quotation appearing on a calendar in Lewis's childhood home on the day his mother died. She died before he was ten. Lewis wrote:

With my mother's death all settled happiness, all that was tranquil and reliable, disappeared from my life. There was to be much fun, many pleasures, many stabs of Joy; but no more of the old security. It was sea and islands now; the great continent had sunk like Atlantis. (Surprised by Joy, Chapter 1)

The actual enduring is borne by those who survive. Lewis was responsible for some of the most attractive imaginings of the experience of Christians after physical death.

The light and coolness that drenched me were like those of summer morning, early morning a minute or two before the sunrise, only that there was a certain difference, I had the sense of being in a larger space, perhaps even a larger sort of space, than I had ever known before: as if the sky were further off and the extent of the green plain wider than they could be on this little ball of earth. I had got "out" in some sense which made the Solar System itself seem an indoor affair. It gave me a feeling of freedom, but also of exposure, possibly of danger which continued to accompany me through all that followed. .... (The Great Divorce, Chapter III)

This is the anniversary of the death of C.S. Lewis, 1898-1963.

The Christian calendar

Next Sunday is the first in Advent and the beginning of the "Church Year" for those worship traditions guided by it. In a post from 2009 Michael Spencer, a Baptist, advocated greater use of the Christian calendar in traditions like ours:

I’m in favor of a modest use of the Christian calendar. I’d use the major seasons—Advent, Nativity, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, Easter, Pentecost—as dominant themes in worship, but I would make many of the minor feasts and days optional. I’d use the lectionary for scripture readers, but be less encumbered by it as determinant for preaching.

I think there is a danger of being too slavish about lectionary preaching, especially in traditions that expect the Gospel text to always be the sermon text. I would counsel a great deal of freedom for any preacher in what he feels he should do on a particular Sunday within the appropriate theme related to Christ. And that is what we want to do, right? Relate all things to Jesus? ....

The Christian calendar should provide guidance and a framework, but not an oppressive confinement. It should be a help to Christ-centered Gospel worship, and be in the background, not the forefront.

For instance, Ordinary time following Pentecost should not be defined closely by the calendar and the lectionary at all. Instead, preachers and leaders should be able to address topics and emphases they feel are important for the church’s overall health. Series that address particular groups or issues can come in at that point. ....

...[T]he Christian Year can help all of us in preaching and planning worship, no matter what our situation. A good use of the Year can allow a journey through books, exegetical messages on key doctrines and creativity in coordinating word, liturgy, music and other elements of worship. Nothing about the year precludes messages on stewardship or church planting. Just look for ways to integrate with the themes available.

It is not necessary to adopt the worst aspects of the use of the Christian Year in order to use it. A modest use, with plenty of flexibility, can bring together the best of several traditions.

iMonk Classic: Do You Know What Your Church Is Doing Next Sunday? | internetmonk.com, the image is from The Anglican Church of the Resurrection

False liberty of thought

Via Insight Scoop, John Henry Newman on theological liberalism:

Whenever men are able to act at all, there is the chance of extreme and intemperate action; and therefore, when there is exercise of mind, there is the chance of wayward or mistaken exercise. Liberty of thought is in itself a good; but it gives an opening to false liberty. Now by Liberalism I mean false liberty of thought, or the exercise of thought upon matters, in which, from the constitution of the human mind, thought cannot be brought to any successful issue, and therefore is out of place. Among such matters are first principles of whatever kind; and of these the most sacred and momentous are especially to be reckoned the truths of Revelation. Liberalism then is the mistake of subjecting to human judgment those revealed doctrines which are in their nature beyond and independent of it, and of claiming to determine on intrinsic grounds the truth and value of propositions which rest for their reception simply on the external authority of the Divine Word.

Insight Scoop | The Ignatius Press Blog: "Religion, as a mere sentiment, is to me a dream and a mockery." Amen!

Putting the clock back

Can the clock be turned back? Can social disintegration be reversed? When it seems that things are falling apart, that "the center cannot hold," it may help to remember that there have been times when things did move in a more hopeful direction. For instance, Gertrude Himmelfarb, the great historian of 19th century England, described how the Victorian Era saw a remarkable improvement:

.... One of the extraordinary facts about Victorian England, which came as a revelation to me, was the low illegitimacy rate. Around 1845 the illegitimacy ratio was 7%; by the end of the century it had come down to less than 4%. In the poorest part of London, east London, it was 4% at its peak and 3% by the end of the century. Remember, this was a time of enormous political, economic and social turmoil: the industrial revolution, the cultural revolution, urbanism and so on. And yet it in spite of all these difficulties, illegitimacy was considerably reduced and the English emerged from this period in a state of re-moralization – in dramatic contrast to our present situation where illegitimacy rose from 5% in 1960 to nearly 30% today. ....

.... Like the low illegitimacy rate, the low crime rate is quite extraordinary. There was a drop in the crime rate of nearly fifty percent in the second half of the 19th century; again in dramatic contrast to the crime rate in our own times which in the past thirty years has risen ten-fold. The low crime rate was a reflection of the Victorian virtues – work, temperance, orderliness, and responsibility.

It was also a reflection of the degree to which this ethos had been internalized. We tend to think of stigma and sanctions as being externally imposed by society, by law and coercion. But in fact, what was most characteristic about Victorian England was the internalization of these sanctions. For the most part they were accepted by the individual willingly, even unconsciously; they were incorporated in his superego, as we would now say. This combination of external and internal sanctions made for a powerful ethos, an ethos supported by religion, law, and all the other institutions of society. ....

Alan Jacobs has been thinking about a book describing England in the preceding century and the tendency to believe that "progress" can only move in one direction:

I think it’s fair to say that most of us living in America today assume that, as we like to put it, “you can’t turn back the clock,” that history always and inevitably moves in a liberalizing direction. And we think that whether we consider such “liberalizing” as the epitome of good or the embodiment of evil or something in between. It seems to be endemic to Americans to embrace the “Whig interpretation of history”, that is, to see the whole of history as marching inexorably towards us, to see everything culminating in ourselves — whether we happen to like that culmination or not.

But when we seriously compare the social world of England in 1750 to the social world of England in 1850, it becomes harder to sustain the Whiggish model. As C. S. Lewis once commented, “as to putting the clock back”:

Would you think I was joking if I said that you can put a clock back, and that if the clock is wrong it is often a very sensible thing to do? But I would rather get away from that whole idea of clocks. We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.

Of course, we can and will disagree about what counts as real progress — about whether the clocks are wrong at all, and, even when we agree that they are wrong, where they should be re-set. But the key point is that history does not move in a single, inevitable direction — or at least, has not done so thus far — and if we imagine our grandchildren’s world as nothing but a continuation of our own, an extension or our own values and inclinations, we may prove in the end to be as wrong as wrong can be. (more)

Learning from Victorian Virtues | Acton Institute, A Not-So-Distant Mirror | Big Questions Online

Intellectual triviality and sheer boredom

I received what was known as a "liberal arts" education. That meant that in addition to the courses in my major and minor I was required to take a series of survey courses designed to familiarize me with the natural sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities, including English literature, and the history and appreciation of music and art. No doubt the requirements were unforgivably Western and altogether too reliant on the insights and creations of "dead white males." In any event, even during my time in college, such requirements began to disappear or at least be modified so as to bear no real similarity to my experience.

Now, apparently, not only the requirement, but even the option, of studying many of those courses is disappearing on many campuses. John M. Ellis argues that those who are today trying to preserve the humanities on these campuses are doing so under a false flag. In the excerpts below, first how study of the humanities has traditionally been justified, and then a diagnosis of the problem.

...[E]xposure to the best of our civilization's achievements and thought gives us the trained minds of broadly educated people. We learn about ourselves by studying our history, and understanding how it has shaped us and the institutions we live by. As European civilization developed it produced a range of extraordinary thinkers who grappled memorably with questions that will always be with us, leaving a rich and varied legacy of outstanding thought on philosophical, ethical, religious, social and political matters. Its creative writers left a record of inspired reflection on human life and its challenges. Studying the humanities make us better prepared for civic life and for living itself, and better citizens.

And so "Defend the Humanities" is a most attractive flag to sail under. The trouble is that for those who are now using it, it is a flag of convenience only, and a deeply dishonest one. For the conception of the humanities set out above is despised by those who now ask for our help in saving the departments they run. Long ago, they took aim at it, defeated it and abolished it, and that is precisely the source of their present troubles. The story of how they did it and why is well-known. A virulent strain of Marxist radicalism took refuge in college humanities programs just as it was being abandoned in the real world because of catastrophic results world-wide. This created a mismatch of temperaments: humanistic scholars are naturally animated by a profound respect for the legacy of our past, but all the instincts of political radicals go in the opposite direction. Their natural instinct is to denigrate the past in order to make the case for the sweeping social change that they want. That's why they don't look at the past and see accumulated knowledge and wisdom, but instead only a story of bigotry, inequality and racial and sexual prejudice that needs to be swept aside. Political radicals are interested in the utopian future and in their present-day attempts to achieve it, not the cultural past which must be overcome to get to where they want to be.

Accordingly, they set out to dismantle the humanities curriculum that they saw as standing in the way of radical social change. Freshman core courses that gave an overview of the achievements of Western culture were soon abolished almost everywhere, mandatory courses in this nation's history and institutions went too, and literature departments even stopped requiring that Shakespeare be an essential part of the English literature major. Even when formerly mandatory courses are still offered as options, they are often presented through the lens of a jaundiced view of our cultural past that tends to discourage further study. ....

There was a time when "save the humanities" would have been an appropriate cry, but that was years ago, when they were being dismantled in one department after another and replaced with the intellectual triviality and sheer boredom of endlessly repetitive Marxist identity politics, as cowardly administrators looked on and did nothing. The poverty of intellectual content was masked by an elaborate jargon, but that only made things worse: the remade programs became the laughing stock of their campuses. But now the day of reckoning has arrived. Enrollments have collapsed, to the point where the smaller departments face extinction. Those enrollments are sinking not because students don't value the humanities, but because they do. .... [more]

'Defend the Humanities'--a Dishonest Slogan

A "niceness" problem?

Kevin DeYoung is analyzing his own denominational tradition, but I'm inclined to think this observation, at least, might also apply to mine:

I know you can’t prove these things, but again in my experience, I have seen a niceness and “inbredness” that leads Christians to avoid careful delineation and controversy. The unwritten rule is that he who mentions the problem is the problem. Getting along, maintaining the peace, not rocking the boat is the name of the game. And since there are so many overlapping family relationships (not really inbred of course), controversy is usually avoided at all costs. It’s too easy for family ties to be upset or for close friendship way back from Hope and Calvin days to be threatened. As a result, theological laxity is a huge problem.

Can the Reformed Resurgence Fly in Grand Rapids? – Kevin DeYoung