Grant us grace to love as we ought.

Via By Every Word:

Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills & affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command & desire what you promise; that among the swift & varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives & reigns with You & the Holy Spirit. One God, now & forever, Amen
- A Book of Common Prayer

By Every Word...: Order our unruly wills...

Who owns the term "Seventh Day"?

Julia Duin writes about a recent issue regarding who has the right to use a particular religious designation:

.... On Monday, this blog ran a report that mentioned an Adventists for Life Facebook page for Seventh-day Adventists who oppose abortion.

The SDA headquarters, based in Silver Spring, Md., reacted quickly, asking Facebook to remove the offending page. I contacted Facebook on Wednesday to ask why no one checked with the folks behind the page before killing it. I received a copy of their policy that says once someone lodges a plausible claim of trademark infringement, Facebook removes or disables access, no questions asked. ....

I called SDA spokesman Garrett Caldwell to see what was up. He told me his organization had complained about trademark infringement; that is, the unauthorized use of the SDA brand.

"We are working hard to try to protect the name and organization associated with the name," he said. "Both 'Adventist' and 'SDA' are trademarked and registered names. We want to make sure the use of the name is connected with our organization." .... (more)

One of commenters wondered whether anyone had registered or trademarked "Baptist" and then listed some fifty Baptist denominations or associations in North America, the last of which was the Seventh Day Baptist General Conference, my denomination. He then adds:

Let's hope too that the SDA hasn't trademarked the term, "Seventh Day", or else that last Baptist organization is going to have a fight on its hands!

Under God: Who owns the word 'Adventist,' or 'Catholic'? - Julia Duin

Integrity

One of the best things that can be said about a person is that he seems to be what he is, and he is what he seems to be. And the best thing that can be said about a hypocrite is that he wishes to be seen as what he ought to be.

Epiphany IV: By Thy help we overcome.

God, which knowest us to be set in the midst of so many and great dangers, that for man's frailness we cannot always stand uprightly; Grant to us the health of body and soul that all those things which we suffer for sin, by Thy help we may well pass and overcome; through Christ our Lord. Amen.
[Thomas Cranmer]

WHEN he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him. And, behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou anst make me clean. And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. And Jesus saith unto him, See thou tell no man; but go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them. And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him, and saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented. And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him. The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. And I say unto you, that many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour.
[Matthew 8]

Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah,
Pilgrim through this barren land.
I am weak, but Thou art mighty;
Hold me with Thy powerful hand.
Bread of Heaven, Bread of Heaven,
Feed me till I want no more.

Open now the crystal fountain,
Whence the healing stream doth flow;
Let the fire and cloudy pillar
Lead me all my journey through.
Strong Deliverer, strong Deliverer,
Be Thou still my Strength and Shield.

Lord, I trust Thy mighty power,
Wondrous are Thy works of old;
Thou deliver’st Thine from thralldom,
Who for naught themselves had sold:
Thou didst conquer, Thou didst conquer,
Sin, and Satan and the grave.

When I tread the verge of Jordan,
Bid my anxious fears subside;
Death of deaths, and hell’s destruction,
Land me safe on Canaan’s side.
Songs of praises, songs of praises,
I will ever give to Thee.
[William Williams, 1745]

Sound judgment

Irving Kristol, from a 1984 essay reprinted in a new collection of his essays, via Bill McGurn at Ricochet.com:

[F]or myself, I have reached certain conclusions: that Jane Austen is a greater novelist than Proust or Joyce; that Raphael is a greater painter than Picasso; that T.S. Eliot's later, Christian poetry is much superior to his earlier; that C.S. Lewis is a finer literary and cultural critic than Edmund Wilson; that Aristotle is more worthy of careful study than Marx; that we have more to learn from Tocqueville than from Max Weber; that Adam Smith makes a lot more economic sense than any economist since; that the founders had a better understanding of democracy than any political scientists since; that ... well enough. As I said at the outset, I have become conservative, and whatever ambiguities attach to that term, it should be obvious what it does not mean.

Missing Irving - Ricochet.com

"One death is a tragedy..."

"One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic." Josef Stalin

Timothy Snyder asks "Hitler vs. Stalin: Who Was Worse?", which amounts to a nonsense question as he acknowledges. We now have a much clearer accounting of how many each of them murdered, and both are among the most horrific mass-murderers in history. A paragraph from Snyder makes this point:

Discussion of numbers can blunt our sense of the horrific personal character of each killing and the irreducible tragedy of each death. As anyone who has lost a loved one knows, the difference between zero and one is an infinity. Though we have a harder time grasping this, the same is true for the difference between, say, 780,862 and 780,863—which happens to be the best estimate of the number of people murdered at Treblinka. Large numbers matter because they are an accumulation of small numbers: that is, precious individual lives.

It has seemed to me that the theological problem posed by mass murder, or any other horrible event resulting in mass death or suffering, is no greater [and no less] than that posed by a single instance.

Hitler vs. Stalin: Who Was Worse? by Timothy Snyder | NYRBlog | The New York Review of Books

Reading old books

Skye Jethani explains why he reads dead people:

People ask me all the time, “Who do you read?” In most cases they’re looking for book recommendations. (Some people, particularly Calvinistas, are trying to determine if I’m safe--are my ideas and my theology grounded in what they see as credible sources.) But my answer usually surprises them: “I read dead people.” ....

.... If someone has been dead for a while and his book is still in print and widely read, then it’s probably worth reading. And, if we’re honest, there are precious few books written by Christian authors today that will still be read in 24 months, let alone 24 years. I want to use my reading time to immerse myself in powerfully formative material, and not just flash-in-the-pan trends. Does this mean I never read living authors? No, of course not. But if they’re not dead, I like them to be pretty close. I can usually trust that they’re not going to waste what time they have left on this earth writing sappy Hallmark card sentimental Evangelical fluff. ....

Jethani quotes from an interview with author Steve Samples:

Of the hundreds of thousands of things that men and women have written 400 years ago or before, only about 25 to 50 are widely read today. So there's something very special about these 25 to 50 texts. They influence everything that is written and spoken in our society to an unprecedented degree.

You can usefully spend your time reading any of the supertexts, even over and over again, because they probably tell us more about human nature than anything else we have at our disposal. But for books that are not the supertexts, I think a person has to be very, very selective.

Earlier, C.S. Lewis [a dead person very much worth reading] made much the same point:

...[I]f he must read only the new or only the old, I would advise him to read the old. And I would give him this advice precisely because he is an amateur and therefore much less protected than the expert against the dangers of an exclusive contemporary diet. A new book is still on its trial and the amateur is not in a position to judge it. It has to be tested against the great body of Christian thought down the ages, and all its hidden implications (often unsuspected by the author himself) have to be brought to light. .... The only safety is to have a standard of plain, central Christianity ("mere Christianity" as Baxter called it) which puts the controversies of the moment in their proper perspective. Such a standard can be acquired only from the old books. It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. If that is too much for you, you should at least read one old one to every three new ones. .... (more)

I Read Dead People | Out of Ur | Conversations for Ministry Leaders, JOLLYBLOGGER: C. S. Lewis on the Reading of Old Books

Hollywood discovers the GULAG

Peter Weir makes good movies. Master and Commander and Witness come immediately to mind. One of the things he does really well is recreate the world of his story authentically and down to the last detail. Today, in the Washington Post, Anne Applebaum writes about Weir's most recent project, a film about the GULAG and some men who escaped from it. Applebaum wrote GULAG: A History, and was consulted by Weir about the Soviet camps in preparation for the filming.

.... The Way Back is based on a book called The Long Walk by Slavomir Rawicz, a Gulag survivor who "borrowed" his escape story: Three Poles crossed the Himalayas from Siberia into India in the 1940s; the Polish consulate recorded their arrival; one of them told his story to Rawicz. But the film is "true" in every way that matters. Many of the camp scenes are taken directly from Soviet archives and memoirs. The starving men scrambling for garbage; the tattooed criminals, playing cards for the clothes of other prisoners; the narrow barracks; the logging camp; the vicious Siberian storms. Among the very plausible characters are an American who went to work on the Moscow subway and fell victim to the Great Terror of 1937, a Polish officer arrested after the Soviet Union's 1939 invasion of Poland and a Latvian priest whose church was destroyed by the Bolsheviks. ....

I haven't found any reviews, so far, that hail this as Hollywood's first Gulag movie, perhaps because hardly anyone noticed that there weren't any before. Weir told me that many in Hollywood were surprised by the story: They'd never heard of Soviet concentration camps, only German ones. "If you need to explain what a film is about," the film is in trouble - and this one almost was. Weir had difficulties getting it distributed and some problems explaining the final scene to his financial backers.

Yet that final scene is exactly what makes this movie "real": Instead of returning home at the end of his harrowing journey, the hero is shown "walking" across time - across the Soviet occupation of Central Europe, across the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, the Prague Spring of 1968 - finally returning home to Poland only after communism collapses. The absence of an instant happy ending also bothered some of the film's reviewers, even though, in "real life," there were no happy endings for anyone who lived in the eastern half of Europe after the end of the Second World War. People who escaped from the Gulag, survived the war or evaded the Holocaust didn't necessarily live happily ever after. Perhaps that's a truth too difficult to learn from a movie. [more]

Anne Applebaum - A real-life look at the Gulag

The old faith for a new day

I just ordered Don't Call It a Comeback: The Old Faith for a New Day, edited by Kevin DeYoung. It is designed, according to DeYoung's introduction:

...to introduce young Christians, new Christians, and underdiscipled Christians to the most important articles of our faith and what it looks like to live out this faith in real life. I'll be the first to admit that we are not aiming for originality in these chapters. In fact, we hope that what we are saying has been said by many before us and will be said by many after us. But if we are not claiming any new discoveries, we are eager to communicate Christian faith and practice in a way that resonates with teenagers, college students, young adults, and any others who need to have a better grasp of what they believe and why they believe it. We are all young Christians—in our twenties and thirties when this project began—who want to see the next generation of Christians learn to think, live, and worship in ways that are heartfelt, biblical, and unapologetically theological. We want to see the next generation joyfully embrace and winsomely articulate the truths that matter most.

The second aim of the book is to reassert the theological nature of evangelicalism. In recent years the term evangelical has lost almost all its meaning. It has become a political category or a term used by sociologists for Christians affiliated with certain denominations or institutions. Evangelical has come to mean everything and nothing. But we think there is still merit to the label, provided it can be infused with theological meaning that manifests itself in some key ethical, social, and ecclesiastical stances and practices. ....

Justin Taylor provides the table of contents:

Part 1: Evangelical History: Looking Forward and Looking Back

1. The Secret to Reaching the Next Generation (Kevin DeYoung)
2. The Story of Evangelicalism from the Beginning and Before (Collin Hansen)

Part 2: Evangelical Theology: Thinking, Feeling, and Believing the Truths That Matter Most

3. God: Not Like You (Jonathan Leeman)
4. Scripture: How the Bible Is a Book Like No Other (Andy Naselli)
5. The Gospel: God’s Self-Substitution for Sinners (Greg Gilbert)
6. New Birth: “You Must Be Born Again” (Ben Peays)
7. Justification: Why the Lord Our Righteousness Is Better News Than the Lord Our Example (Jay Harvey)
8. Sanctification: Being Authentically Messed Up Is Not Enough (Owen Strachan)
9. Kingdom: Heaven after Earth, Heaven on Earth, or Something Else Entirely? (Russell Moore)
10. Jesus Christ: The Only Way and Our Only Hope (Tim Challies)

Part 3: Evangelical Practice: Learning to Live Life God’s Way

11. It’s Sometimes a Wonderful Life: Evangelicals and Vocation (Ted Kluck)
12. Social Justice: What’s God Got to Do, Got to Do with It (Darrin Patrick)
13. Homosexuality: Grace, Truth, and the Need for Gentle Courage (Eric Redmond and Kevin DeYoung)
14. Abortion: Why Silence and Inaction Are Not Options for Evangelicals (Justin Taylor)
15. Gender Confusion and a Gospel-Shaped Counterculture (Denny Burk)
16. The Local Church: Not Always Amazing, but Loved by Jesus (Thabiti Anyabwile)
17. Worship: It’s a Big Deal (Tullian Tchividjian)
18. Missions: The Worship of Jesus and the Joy of All Peoples (David Mathis)

Don’t Call It a Comeback! – Justin Taylor

"Weep with those who weep"

I am one of those who, in situations like this, is apt to say something  really stupid, or at least cliched [which embarrasses me just as much]. And I don't deal with sympathy very well either. Elizabeth Bernstein provides good advice:

How can you comfort someone grieving the death of a loved one? What can you say that might adequately offer solace? "I'm sorry" doesn't seem to cut it. ....

Here are some suggestions, culled from grief experts and people who have lost a loved one:

• Say something simple. "I am sorry to hear the news" will suffice at first. Then, on an ongoing basis, "I am thinking of you."
• Admit that you don't know what to say, says Ms. Walker, the grief educator.
• Don't ask, "What happened?" "You are making the grieving person relive pain," says Ms. White, who lost her husband.
• Don't launch into a detailed account of your loss of a loved one. "Give them just enough to let them know that you can relate," says Ms. Walker. "What you are trying to say is, 'I lost my mother, too. What is it like for you?' "
• Avoid clichés. That includes, "Good things come from bad," "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" and "He's at peace now." Ms. Walker says they're "preachy, presumptuous and impersonal."
• Don't claim to know how the grieving person feels. You don't. Don't suggest that the mourner "move on." Stay away from words such as "ought," "should" and "need." You may want to say, "I can only imagine what you are going through."
• Follow the mourning family's lead regarding Facebook. Have they posted about the death? If they haven't, don't expose their grief. Should you decide to use Facebook, simply express condolences or share a memory. Do not discuss circumstances of the death.
• Keep your religious beliefs to yourself unless you are sure that the person you are trying to comfort shares them. (It is OK simply to say that you will keep the family in your prayers.)
• If you are reaching out or offering help, don't expect a response. Explain that you are checking in but understand that the mourner may not be able to get back to you and so you will call again.
• Promise to be there in the coming weeks and months. And keep your promise.

How to Express Sympathy to a Friend Grieving the Death of a Loved One - WSJ.com

The theology of Calvin and Hobbes

"The Theology of Calvin and Hobbes," posted at First Things, directs our attention to the work on that subject by Richard Beck, who explains:

Last school year I wrote a series of essays for an "online book" about The Theology of Peanuts. I had such fun with that project and so many of you enjoyed it that I thought I'd offer up this sequel, The Theology of Calvin and Hobbes.

Later Beck writes:

.... Watterson has stated that he's never attended any church. And yet Watterson clearly has theological sensibilities. He has described some of his strips as "little sermons" and he uses the Christmas strips for "Calvin to wrestle with good and evil." Calvin's school teacher, Miss Wormwood was named after the character in C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters. Further, many strips themselves bring up theological questions:

And, finally, we can note the obvious: Watterson explicitly named his lead character after "a sixteenth-century theologian who believed in predestination."

And yet, it must be stated stated that Calvin and Hobbes does not present an overt and systematic theological worldview. Rather, Calvin and Hobbes is best read as posing theological questions rather than providing answers. ....

I have yet to read either of his extended essays [well illustrated with cartoon strips] but if you find the titles interesting the contents are available here in their entirety:

• The Theology of Calvin and Hobbes
• The Theology of Peanuts

Experimental Theology: The Theology of Calvin and Hobbes: Table of Contents

"Place thyself in God's presence"

From the first chapter of The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living by Jeremy Taylor [1651]:

In the morning when you awake, accustom yourself to think first upon God, or something in order to His service; and at night also, let Him close thine eyes: and let your sleep be necessary and healthful, not idle beyond the needs and conveniences of nature; and sometimes be curious to see the preparation which the sun makes when he is coming forth from his chambers of the east.

Begin every action in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; the meaning of which is: that we design it to the glory of God: and that it may be so blessed that what you intend for innocent and holy purposes, may not, by any chance, or abuse, or misunderstanding of men, be turned into evil, or made the occasion of sin.

In the beginning of actions of religion, make an act of adoration, that is, solemnly worship God, and place thyself in God's presence, and behold Him with the eye of faith; and let thy desires actually fix on Him, as the object of thy worship, and the reason of thy hope, and the fountain of thy blessing.

God is in every place: suppose it therefore to be a church; and that decency of deportment and piety of carriage which you are taught by religion, or by custom, or by civility and public manners, to use in churches, the same use in all places.

God is in every creature; be cruel towards none, neither abuse any by intemperance.

He walks as in the presence of God that converses with Him in frequent prayer and frequent communion; in all his necessities, in all doubtings; that opens all his wants to Him, that weeps before Him for his sins; that asks remedy and support for his weakness; that fears Him as a Judge; reverences Him as a Lord; obeys Him as a Father; and loves Him.

O Almighty God, infinite and eternal, Thou art in the consciences of all men. Teach me to walk always as in Thy presence, to fear Thy majesty, to reverence Thy wisdom: that I may never dare to commit any indecency in the eye of my Lord and my Judge; that I, expressing the belief of Thy presence here, may feel the effects of it in eternal glory; through Jesus Christ. Amen.

Christian Classics Ethereal Library, Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667), Holy Living.

Epiphany III: "Ye who follow, shall not fall"

Almighty and everlasting God, mercifully look upon our infirmities, and in all our dangers and necessities, stretch forth Thy right hand to help and defend us; through Christ our Lord. Amen.
[Thomas Cranmer]

BE not wise in your own conceits. Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.
[Romans 12]

All my hope on God is founded;
He doth still my trust renew,
Me through change and chance he guideth,
Only good and only true.
God unknown,
He alone
Calls my heart to be his own.

Daily doth th' Almighty Giver
Bounteous gifts on us bestow;
His desire our soul delighteth,
Pleasure leads us where we go.
Love doth stand
At his hand;
Joy doth wait on his command.

Still from man to God eternal
Sacrifice of praise be done,
High above all praises praising
For the gift of Christ his Son.
Christ doth call
One and all:
Ye who follow shall not fall.
[Joachim Neander/Robert Bridges]

Exegesis

"When a man is discussing what Jesus meant, let him state first of all what He said, not what the man thinks He would have said if He had expressed Himself more clearly."

[G.K. Chesterton, Varied Types, 1908]

"For valour"

The Victoria Cross is the "highest decoration for valour in the British armed forces," roughly comparable to our Congressional Medal of Honor. Lord Ashcroft has made a collection of them and they are currently on exhibit at the Imperial War Museum in London. In The Telegraph he provides accounts of "Fifty great heroes," awarded the VC. Those familiar with the Flashman books may recall a fictionalized account of this one:

William McDonell is one of very few civilians to have been awarded the VC. As a member of the Bengal Civil Service, he was involved in trying to quell the Indian Mutiny as the rebellion spread in 1857. In July of that year, the British were determined that the city of Arrah should not fall because the entire Bihar region might then be seized. McDonell was sent to guide a steamer carrying a military force to the city.

On July 29, a force of more than 400 men marched on Arrah House, but they were ambushed by rebel forces. McDonell was fearless in battle, during which he was wounded. Outnumbered, the British force had to retreat to the River Sone, where McDonell helped the soldiers into small boats so that they could reach the safety of their steamer. It was only when McDonell and his comrades got into the final boat – under heavy fire – that they discovered the rebels had removed the oars and tied the rudder to the side.

With the 35 men in the boat unwilling to get out to cut the rudder free, the injured McDonell braved the fire himself. Miraculously, he was uninjured by a hail of bullets. A Royal Warrant of 1858 extended the eligibility of the VC to civilians who were under the orders of an officer – and McDonell was eventually awarded the decoration in February 1860. .... [more here and here]

Fifty great heroes: 1-25 - Telegraph, Fifty great heroes: 26-50 - Telegraph

"I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart"

Via Justin Taylor:

“Clarence Macartney told the story about Dr. John Witherspoon...a signer of the Declaration of Independence and president of the (then) College of New Jersey. He lived a couple of miles away from the college at Rocky Hill and drove horse and rig each day to his office at the college.

“One day one of his neighbors burst into his office, exclaiming, ‘Dr. Witherspoon, you must join me in giving thanks to God for his extraordinary providence in saving my life, for as I was driving from Rocky Hill the horse ran away and the buggy was smashed to pieces on the rocks, but I escaped unharmed!’

“Witherspoon replied, ‘Why, I can tell you a far more remarkable providence than that. I have driven over that road hundreds of times. My horse never ran away, my buggy never was smashed, I was never hurt.’

“So we must beware of thinking that God is only in the earthquake, wind, and fire; of thinking that manna but not grain is God’s food. Most of God’s gifts to his people are not dazzling and gaudy but wrapped in simple brown paper. Quiet provisions of safety on the highway, health of children, picking up a paycheck, supper with the family—all in an ordinary day’s work for our God.”

—Dale Ralph Davis, Joshua: No Fallen Words (reprint: Christian Focus, 2000), pp. 48-49

Do You Recognize the Extraordinary in God’s Ordinary Providence? – Justin Taylor

The city of God and the city of man

Naomi Schaefer Riley reviews one of the best recent books about Christians and politics, City of Man, by Michael Gerson and Peter Wehner:

.... City of Man—its title taken from Augustine’s formulation of how man should act here on earth—is a kind of response to both internal and external voices criticizing religious conservatives.  ....

As Gerson and Wehner write, “Unlike Moses or Muhammad, Jesus of Nazareth did not set out a political blueprint or ideal of any kind. He specifically rejected the political utopianism of some of His followers. He lived within a Roman Empire whose existence he hardly mentioned.” And yet that does not mean that religion must live apart from politics. “As all human activity—from the mundane to the profound, from personal lives to professional careers—falls under God’s domain, so authentic Christian faith should be relevant to the whole of life; it ought not to be segregated from world affairs,” they write. ....

Gerson and Wehner want Christians to remember that there is a morally significant role for government in the Christian worldview and it does not involve the creation of a theocracy, as some critics suggest. The authors emphasize, for instance, the importance of maintaining order in creating a moral society. And so that is how, in the middle of a book about religion and American politics, one finds discussion of a famous philosopher supporting the “broken windows” theory of policing. “Public disorder,” Gerson and Wehner write, “is evidence of a permissive moral environment. It is a signal that no one cares. As Plato framed the same point, it suggests ‘corruption in the very souls’ of those charged with keeping order.” ....

The book’s authors are political strategists who are also men of faith. Their advice—that this is not the time for Christians in America to retreat from public life—is heartfelt and sincere. Before Christians run off to join the religious left or the Tea Party movement, they would do well to consider the arguments in City of Man. Whatever they decide, they can’t but benefit from Gerson’s and Wehner’s advice: “One trap for Christians is to begin to believe that they and their cause are indispensable and that God can’t accomplish His purposes without them....The struggle many of us face is to keep from believing that God depends on us instead of the other way around.”

Commentary: City of Man, by Michael Gerson and Peter Wehner

Epiphany II: Assurance and peace

Almighty and everlasting God, which dost govern all things in heaven and earth: mercifully hear the supplications of Thy people, and grant us Thy peace all the days of our life. Amen.
[Thomas Cranmer]

THE beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God; as it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. And there went out unto him all the land of Judaea, and they of Jerusalem, and were all baptized of him in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins. And John was clothed with camel's hair, and with a girdle of a skin about his loins; and he did eat locusts and wild honey; and preached, saying, There cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose. I indeed have baptized you with water: but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost. And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in Jordan. And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit, like a dove, descending upon him: and there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
[Mark 1]

'How long, how long, will you keep saying "To-morrow"?' 'Why not now?' 'Why not an end to my shame in this very hour?' This was what I was saying, and with bitter contrition in my heart, when suddenly from a house close by I heard the voice of a boy or girl, I don't know which, singing and constantly repeating the words 'Take and read, take and read.' Instantly my look of sadness changed, and I began to consider intently whether there was any kind of game in which children used to repeat a song with words like that in it, and I could not recall having heard them anywhere at all. Stifling my tears I rose, reckoning that this was nothing less than a command from God to open the book and read the first passage I came upon. ...I went back to where Alypius was sitting, and where I had put down the book of St Paul's Epistles when I got up. I seized it and read in silence the first passage my eyes fell upon: 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 13:13]. I had no wish to read further, and there was no need. The moment I came to the end of this sentence, the light of certainty flooded my heart, as it were, and every cloud of hesitation rolled away.
[St. Augustine, 386 AD]

"What have I to dread, what have I to fear..."

If I were to list my ten favorite films, two or three of them would certainly be films made by the Coen brothers, and most of the rest of their films would easily make my top fifty. Armond White, in "The Coens Keep the Faith," explains why they are more than simple entertainments:

.... Common as agnostic pronouncements are in faddish Hollywood, where stars routinely embrace cults and exotic, indulgent philosophies, the Coens take a different route by regularly—steadily—examining their characters’ principles and their own ethnic-cultural roots. The lack of honor among thieves in Blood Simple, the post-Carnegie corporate ethics in The Hudsucker Proxy, the lapsed 1960s radicalism in The Big Lebowski, the Washington, D.C., conspiracies in Burn After Reading, the commercial exploitation of marriage vows in the legal comedy Intolerable Cruelty—all show the Coens reflecting on fundamental social values as a way of taking the contemporary moral temperature. That return to basics explains the genius of updating Homer’s Odyssey to the pre-civil-rights era American South in the Coens’ folk-music operetta O Brother Where Art Thou?; refracting film-noir codes in Miller’s Crossing and pulp-fiction fantasy in The Man Who Wasn’t There; the Yiddish folktale prologue of A Serious Man; and the collision of a black Southern Baptist woman with an unscrupulous white con artist/professor and his gang in The Ladykillers. ....

The classicism of the Western permits the Coens to reiterate the strange longing that was almost inchoate in No Country for Old Men, when Tommy Lee Jones, after witnessing the abyss, recounted a dream about seeing his father in the hereafter—a monologue that puzzled horror-movie habitués keyed up by the film’s cavalcade of senseless, unstoppable violence. They could not comprehend Jones’ belief in the hereafter but expected fashionable nihilism. Yet this longing—recurring as it does in the heartfelt twang of True Grit’s score (“Leaning on the Everlasting Arms” sung dulcetly by the great folk artist Iris Dement) and in the film’s blasted landscape, which describes America’s long fall from paradise—is also what distinguished the Coens’ modern spiritual search in A Serious Man. The Coens’ most Jewish film holds hands with True Grit and its Christian fundamentalism. Both films reveal the brothers’ richest, most ecumenical meaning—and without a single snarky moment. Who knew America’s coolest filmmakers would turn out to be its most openly spiritual? [more]

The Coens Keep the Faith| First Things

"Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it so"

Abraham Lincoln asked: “How many legs will a sheep have, if you call the tail a leg?”
“Five,” was the response.
“No,” said Lincoln. “Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it so.”

Sitting in a waiting room the day before yesterday, I was enjoying pleasant conversation with some of the others there when the news reported the appearance of members of the "Westboro Baptist Church" in Tucson. I was soon explaining, once again, that I, a Baptist, had nothing in common with those folks. Today I read Thomas White of Southwestern Seminary explaining better why the Westboro group is neither Baptist nor a church:

.... According to the Bible, a church is a gathering, but a gathering with a purpose ... an ecclesia. This Greek word is a compound word from "ek" and "kaleo" meaning the "called" "out" ones. The church is made up of those called out for God's purposes. There are other assemblies in the New Testament. People called out and gathered for political reasons which may form assemblies but not churches. You see, a church has a special mission, which is the mission of Christ. Christ came to offer love and hope, and saving grace to those who were hopeless, unloved and sinners.

So it really upsets me when a group calls themselves a Baptist church and then conducts themselves disgracefully. As a member of a Baptist church, I want to go on record as saying that the group calling itself "Westboro" is neither Baptist nor a church. They are not a member of the Southern Baptist Convention or any other denomination. They do not follow the New Testament or the commands of Christ. They act nothing like a church should act and they do not demonstrate the characteristics of a true church. They should do everyone a favor and change their name to reflect reality. They appear to me as nothing more than a hate group with an extreme agenda. God will set things right on judgment day, and I would not want to be in their shoes.

Baptist Press - Westboro: a hate group, not a church - News with a Christian Perspective