Vampires and Vitality

"Vampire stories and the Real Presence", James Rogers

Rather than the resurrected Lord who willingly offers his own sacrificed body and blood to give humans eternal life, Vampires are resurrected lords who sacrifice unwilling humans to take their blood for eternal life for themselves.

(HT: Gene Veith)

"Jesus Christ himself proposed a still more frightening question..."

"Yet there is a sense in which a focus on today's obedience makes a long view possible: it does not yield a map, but it does yield a confidence that he who has called us is faithful, and will conduct the whole Church to her journey's end. About a dozen years ago, Pope John Paul II agreed to answer some questions posed to him by an Italian journalist named Vittorio Messori. (His answers ultimately became the book Crossing the Threshold of Hope.) One of those questions concerned demographic predictions that Muslims would outnumber Catholics by the year 2000: "How do you feel when faced with this reality, after twenty centuries of evangelization?" 

To this inquiry - with its freight of implicit worry - the pope replied placidly. After all, Jesus Christ himself proposed a still more frightening question: "When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?" (Luke 18:8) - will there be any faithful believers at all?" 

Alan Jacobs. Wayfaring: Essays Pleasant and Unpleasant, "Choose Life.

Why I Can't Find Good Friends

"Therapeutic theology raises expectations, and it raises self-regard. It isn't surprising that people taught to be constantly enamored with their own godlike qualities would have difficulty forging relationships with ordinary human beings."

Ross Douthat

Here's Mr. Douthat's talk regarding his book, Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics. The talk begins at about the 8:20 mark.

Are We in a Grave Story?

A series of events conspired which led me to reflect on how we view the meaning of our circumstances. Firstly, my eldest had to do a report on Shakespeare's Much Ado about Nothing. In turn we watched the Kenneth Branagh screen adaptation. As she and I discussed the play and movie, I began to wax on Alan Jacob's discussion of the play in the Epilogue of his book, Original Sin, and in particular, W.H. Auden's category of Christian comedy. (To my daughter's credit, she recognized Much Ado as a "garden story" -- that is a story in which the innocents in the garden fall and become alienated. What is remarkable about Shakespeare's garden story is the manner in which the restoration and reconciliation is effected.)

At the same time I was preparing to preach on the account of Jacob's reconciliation with Esau from Genesis 33. What struck me in the passage was not so much the didactic messages in the passage, but rather the beauty of the story. What sorts of qualities are present for such a warm and sweet reconciliation? One of those qualities which is necessary is a "lightness" with respect to one's own rights and privileges. And so Dr. Jacobs helped me again in that same discussion in commenting about the trap of taking ourselves too seriously. Indeed, it was for the "joy set before him" that Jesus endured the cross and scorned its shame. In talking about the danger of taking ourselves too seriously, Jacob's writes,

“Well, these are sobering thoughts, indeed, and we should take them seriously—as seriously as we can take any thoughts. The immensely difficult trick is to do so without taking ourselves seriously, because one could argue that at or near the very heart of our bent wills is a determination to uphold our own dignity. Milton tells us that Satan decided to rebel against the Almighty because of his sense of ‘injured merit’: he was the one who deserved to be named Messiah, not God’s Son who surely was chosen not because of his ‘merit’ but on account of some divine nepotism. Looked at in the proper way, this idea of Satan’s is simply laughable, which is what G.K. Chesterton was indicating in one of his wisest aphorisms: ‘Satan fell by force of gravity.’”

Alan Jacobs, Original Sin 

The patriarch, Jacob, it seemed to me, could have only received the promise and appropriately humbled himself before Esau, if he did not take himself too seriously. Therein's a beauty.

Serendipitously, just a few days later, Dr. Jacob's posted the Auden quote on his online common place book, more than 95 theses. Reflection upon Auden's categories and Jacob's commentary has proved to be fruitful soil to contemplate the meaning of the stories which make up my life and of course those things about which I am so serious.

"Comedy … is not only possible within a Christian society, but capable of a much greater breadth and depth than classical comedy. Greater in breadth because classical comedy is based upon a division of mankind into two classes, those who have arete and those who do not, and only the second class, fools, shameless rascals, slaves, are fit subjects for comedy. But Christian comedy is based upon the belief that all men are sinners; no one, therefore, whatever his rank or talents, can claim immunity from the comic exposure and, indeed, the more virtuous, in the Greek sense, a man is, the more he realizes that he deserves to be exposed. Greater in depth because, while classical comedy believes that rascals should get the drubbing they deserve, Christian comedy believes that we are forbidden to judge others and that it is our duty to forgive each other. In classical comedy the characters are exposed and punished: when the curtain falls, the audience is laughing and those on stage are in tears. In Christian comedy the characters are exposed and forgiven: when the curtain falls, the audience and the characters are laughing together."

W. H. Auden

And, after Christmas, I will celebrate Twelfth Night by watching a play entitled the same. In Twelfth Night one finds one of the gravest of Shakespeare's characters, Malvolio who is the virtuous rascal classified by Auden.

(HT: Alan Jacobs)

The sovereign Stick up Artist

A quote sent from a friend...

"The evangelical church, or at least a good slice of it, is nervous, twitchy, and touchy about consumer desire, ready to change in a nanosecond at the slightest hint that tastes and interests have changed. Why? Because consumer appetite reigns. And consumer appetite and consumer rights go hand in hand. These rights and appetites are very much alive in what used to be called the pew. Those who attend churches are now like any other customers you might meet in the mall. Displease them in any way and they will take their business elsewhere. That is the fear that lurks in many a church leader's soul because they know that is how the marketplace works.

Like customers everywhere, those who show up in these churches are sovereign. Let us make no mistake about that. They rule. Accepting this fact has become the key to becoming cutting-edge in cultural terms. A mailer from a church in Mesa, Arizona, in 2006, for example, read: "Is your life everything you want it to be? You hear all kinds of offers of ways to improve your life, but do they work? God is offering you a way to make your life everything you truly want it to be." So, there it is! The difference between this offer and the others is that this one works. Here the customer can match self-perceived need with a product. And bingo! Success!

With this kind of thinking in the air, we in the church today are leery of speaking of a Christian faith that is too demanding because of the prospect of offending our market(s). We take care not to cross these lines when speaking from our barstools, or from behind our Plexiglas stands if they have not yet been replaced.

This is a curious thing, is it not? It brings to mind the haplessness of parents in a home where the children have, amidst sullen moods and a creeping sense of the cruel injustice that has been inflicted on them, decided they will take it no longer. It begins with thoughts, the rebellious mists that shroud the mind and hold off the sun's light and warmth. But soon the thoughts become seeds, and the seeds, finding fertile soil in the internal wounds suffered during the journey to adulthood, begin to germinate. The parents, sensing something is amiss, scour their minds to think of what they have done wrong and, understanding little of the labyrinthine coils of the adolescent psyche, decide to back off and take the path that inflicts the least pain. Poor things. They are only trying to do the best they can, but unfortunately they do not quite understand that they are staring down the gun barrel of a stickup artist. They are about to be robbed. Out of their good intentions, space is enlarged around the child, latitude is allowed, rules are rescinded, rebukes are stifled except in rare cases, and expectations are lifted. However, parents being parents, they are never entirely out of the woods with these children because, try as they might, they are never fully successful in setting their children free.

What is interesting about this painful tango of parent and child is that the more the demands and expectations of the parents are moderated, the more onerous and intolerable do the children find those that remain! In fact, the few that remain become more objectionable than the many, taken together, that once were there. Parental moderation only excites fresh cries of outrage and pain. Even more disaffection follows. Murderous glances, defiant behavior, black moods follow each other like clouds shifting across a stormy front. The parents, baffled at this unreasonable behavior, retreat even more. But the further they retreat, the more intense becomes the resentment! Nothing less than their total, abject surrender is acceptable. And when they do yield and hold aloft their white flag of surrender, they are despised even more deeply!

Am I being unreasonable in thinking that there are some parallels to the contemporary church here? Not, of course, that the pastors are the parents and the congregations are the children. That is a Catholic idea. The parallel, though, does seem to hold at the point of who has the psychological edge.

It would be quite wrong to suggest that pastors and other leaders in a local church have an authority that operates with near certain infallibility, or that what they think should be beyond question, or that their teaching, if they still offer such in church, cannot be questioned. All should be held to account before the same standard that is the Word of God.

By the same token, no congregation can take to itself this authority, and that is what is happening implicitly as consumer impulses take root in the evangelical psyche. All consumers, we need to remember, are sovereign, and the consuming impulse, once it enters a church, makes individual preferences the deciding factor, the driving factor in what that church becomes. These preferences become the standard by which the church is measured.

The moment disaffection with the church's music, message, style, ethos, amenities, programs, or parking lot(s) begins to take root in a congregation, these new market-savvy pastors fear, they can anticipate dark glances directed toward the front of the church signaling consumer dissatisfaction. The glances will then mature into displeasure, the displeasure will become a seed, the seed will germinate in the internal soil that is ready to receive it, and the decision to walk away will be made. That is the (post)modern version of damnation, at least from a pastor's point of view!

Market-savvy pastors, sensing this, back off. They lift demands and expectations, making Christianity light and easy. They hire new staff who specialize in knowing how to make worship fun, not to mention funny. Polls and soundings are taken each week, just as they are by the major retailers, to see if things are "on target:' Poor things. If only they knew that their congregations, too, have become stickup artists! Or, to change the picture, what is happening here is that the individual has invested his or her desires with a kind of sovereign authority that runs roughshod over everything else, including the Word of God.

Never mind. Is it not better to have these people in the church on their own terms than not at all? Is it not possible that they will hear something there that might "click" with them? Why offend them, then, and guarantee that their weekends will be spent away from church? So, make it all as simple as an advertisement, as pleasing as an ice cream in the heat of summer. Make it as easy on the mind as a relaxing show on television. Only give something that works. Do not talk doctrine. Do not hold forth about anything that takes serious effort to follow. Do not sound churchy."

David F. Wells. The Courage to Be Protestant: Truth-lovers, Marketers, and Emergents in the Postmodern World (Kindle Locations 528-535). Kindle Edition.

Why is Christmas December 25?

Today is Annunciation Day. You can read the account of Gabriel's announcement to Mary in Luke 1:26 and following.

Additionally, Biblical Archeology Review posted a helpful explanation as to why the birth of Jesus Christ is celebrated on December 25. Many have, sadly, bought into the quasi DaVinci Codesque conspiracy theories that Christians were trying to co-opt, ruin, or take over Saturnalia or Sol Invictus. Neither is true. Rather, the birth of Christ is remembered and/or calculated because of Annunciation Day, March 25. For those who ask why Annunciation Day? Their question is answered when they count nine months from March 25th.

Here's a portion of the article on why December 25.

The December 25 feast seems to have existed before 312—before Constantine and his conversion, at least. As we have seen, the Donatist Christians in North Africa seem to have know it from before that time. Furthermore, in the mid- to late fourth century, church leaders in the eastern Empire concerned themselves not with introducing a celebration of Jesus’ birthday, but with the addition of the December date to their traditional celebration on January 6. 

There is another way to account for the origins of Christmas on December 25: Strange as it may seem, the key to dating Jesus’ birth may lie in the dating of Jesus’ death at Passover. This view was first suggested to the modern world by French scholar Louis Duchesne in the early 20th century and fully developed by American Thomas Talley in more recent years. But they were certainly not the first to note a connection between the traditional date of Jesus’ death and his birth. 

Around 200 C.E. Tertullian of Carthage reported the calculation that the 14th of Nisan (the day of the crucifixion according to the Gospel of John) in the year Jesus died was equivalent to March 25 in the Roman (solar) calendar. March 25 is, of course, nine months before December 25; it was later recognized as the Feast of the Annunciation—the commemoration of Jesus’ conception.Thus, Jesus was believed to have been conceived and crucified on the same day of the year. Exactly nine months later, Jesus was born, on December 25. 

This idea appears in an anonymous Christian treatise titled On Solstices and Equinoxes, which appears to come from fourth-century North Africa. The treatise states: “Therefore our Lord was conceived on the eighth of the kalends of April in the month of March [March 25], which is the day of the passion of the Lord and of his conception. For on that day he was conceived on the same he suffered.” Based on this, the treatise dates Jesus’ birth to the winter solstice.

Demonizing is the Fruit of Idolatry

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Spiritual Formation

In her article "Why don't all these disaffected Brits convert to Christianity instead?", Melanie McDonagh reports on recent studies which reveal a surprising number of Brits converting to Islam.

Where the Faith Matters report is convincing is in its interviews with real converts, of whom Lauren Booth seems typical, though rather older than the average, which is aged 27, female, white and fed up with the mores of contemporary Brits. The interviewees identified alcohol and drunkenness, a “lack of morality and sexual permissiveness” and “unrestrained consumerism” as aspects of British society for which Islam was a remedy. Or as Ms Booth put it, after conversion to Islam, “I have glimpsed the great lie that is the facade of our modern lives; that materialism, consumerism, sex and drugs will give us lasting happiness....

So why is it that the young folk revolted by contemporary excess don’t simply make for the local CofE, or Catholic church, and rediscover the religion of their grandmothers, rather than getting their spirituality via Islam? It is, I think, something to do with the real malaise of contemporary Britain which I wrote about in a little essay in The Spectator concerning the film Eat, Pray, Love. It is the notion that what exists abroad, or what is foreign to your own background, is somehow superior to what you’ve grown up with, what’s under your nose. In the case of EPL, the heroine finds her spiritual identity in Buddhism. It would have been a good deal more interesting if she could have discovered it in her local Episcopalian church. 

It may be that the British young don’t embrace Christianity because they simply don’t encounter it, at least not through the kind of religious education-as-anthropology they get in state school, which is about as opposite as it is possible to be from the Sunday School teaching which their grandmothers would have got. Actually, the death of the Sunday School pretty well marked the end of any practical instruction in Christianity for most children. No wonder they’re susceptible to the certainties of Islam, when they encounter it."

I've been reading Rebecca DeYoung's book on the the Seven Deadly Sins entitled Glittering Vices. What is apparent to me as I read the book is the lack of soul work and spiritual formation which marks much of contemporary Christianity. Rather than growing souls, we focus on an achievement, performance, and experience driven faith which looks a lot like the American dream--full of consumerist virtues and baseless optimism.

(HT Gene Veith)

America's Defining Crisis

Yesterday the March for Life took place in Washington D.C. In recognition of the 38th anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision, here are a few items that are out there.

• Over at Scientific American, we learn that unborn twins are social before birth.
• Ross Douthat at the New York Times wrote this OpEd piece entitled, "The Unborn Paradox".  Here is the post, "Waking Up from the Pill" he references.
• Christianity Today published this piece, "Pro-life Challenges, from a Former Planned Parenthood Director's View".
• George Grant has this piece at Ligonier: "15 Reasons the Abortion Industry is Losing Its Support"
• Here's a piece on the oft repeated accusation that Pro-Life groups are not concerned for the mother, "The Lazy Slander of the Pro-life Cause".
• Slate has had a number of articles on the debate. Here's one on Kermit Gosnell, the Philadelphia abortionist charge with murder.
• Here's a piece which appeared on the Gospel Coalition site on the need for rationally clear arguments for a pro-life anti-abortion position.

Silent Night, Holy Night

This is a rambling reflection which has come together in my mind on the year's darkest day.


Noise
In listening to Volume 104 of Mars Hill Audio, I was fascinated by Ken Myers' interview with Garret Keizer who has written a book called The Unwanted Sound of Everything We Want. It's a catchy title, and I'm interested in hearing more. (Is that ironic?) In his interview he talks about the effect of noise in our culture as well as spending time providing a helpful definition of it. He reminded me that Milton places a region in hell called Pandemonium. This time of year can be just that. Mr. Myer's introduction to the conversation is worthy of a listen in its own right, and he mentions a quote by A.W. Tozer taken from a collection of essays, The Root of the Righteous. Tozer comments,

"The accent in the Church today," says Leonard Ravenhill, the English evangelist, "is not on devotion, but on commotion." Religious extroversion has been carried to such an extreme in evangelical circles that hardly anyone has the desire, to say nothing of the courage, to question the soundness of it. Externalism has taken over. God now speaks by the wind and the earthquake only; the still small voice can be heard no more. The whole religious machine has become a noisemaker. The adolescent taste which loves the loud horn and the thundering exhaust has gotten into the activities of modern Christians. The old question, "What is the chief end of man?" is now answered, "To dash about the world and add to the din thereof." And all this is done in the name of Him who did not strive nor cry nor make His voice to be heard in the streets (Mat. 12:18-21).

Tozer's comments from the 1950's are even more true today.


Introversion
At about the same time I heard Myers and Tozer, I began Adam McHugh's book, Introverts in the Church. McHugh takes on our current presupposition that extroversion is next to godliness and cites a study in which 97% of those polled believed Jesus was an extrovert though, statistically at least, just over half of humanity are introverts. He goes on to say,

If human perfection, epitomized in the person of Jesus, includes extroversion then a large number of the population will always and irredeemably fall short. This adds a theological component to the already-prevailing cultural prejudice that extroversion is the superior temperament.

All this in my own mind causes me to reflect on which (extrovert/introvert) I am and how I would better serve the church by being who He made me rather than trying to be something else. And, in this season, is there any room midst the parties and productions, for contemplation and preparation in solitude?


Contemplation
At the beginning of the month, I came across this post (H.T. G Veith) on the season of Advent over at First Things Blog entitled, "Let's Hold Back the Christmas Cheer". In it Losana Boyd reminds us the the true spirit of that season which leads up to the feast days of Christmas to Epiphany. Boyd writes,

Advent is the great season of preparation for the greatest of all gifts: Christ Himself. But as our culture makes all too obvious, this is also a season of high commercialism. As Fr. George Rutler from Our Saviour Parish in New York City reminds us:

The season of Advent is lyrically beautiful if one is willing to engage the realities it teaches: Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell. The alternative is to create a parallel universe partying in a faux Christmas confection of jingle bells, dancing elves, and self-conscious bonhomie, avoiding the Incarnation of God.

Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell—the themes of the four Sundays in Advent don’t exactly seemed filled with Christmas cheer. Instead, they are sobering, encouraging a state of wakefulness from the distractions of frivolity. Advent has become something truly countercultural–at a time when holiday parties and merry making are at a fever pitch, Advent calls us to remember the passing nature of this world and the eternity that awaits.

Silence
During an evening commute I heard this report on NPR here about Brittain's X-Factor music contest in which a number songs have been submitted in protest of Simon Cowell's influence on the music industry in the U.K.. One of the bands in contention for this year's prize has submitted John Cage's protest song 4 minutes and 33 seconds. You can listen anywhere.

Quietness
Lastly, and this brings me back to noise and worship and Christmas, I was reminded of a conversation in C.S. Lewis' The Horse and His Boy between Aslan and the three companions, Hwin, Bree, and Aravis. As Aslan speaks with each, he tells them some about who they are and why events have happened to them. After Aslan leaves, Lewis writes,

Strange to say, they felt no inclination to talk to one another about him after he had gone. The all moved slowly away to different parts of the quiet grass and there paced to and fro, each alone, thinking.

It's interesting to me that sometimes the most appropriate response to the Word is silence (see: Rev 8:1).

Silent Night
And so, here we are in a season, THE season of preparation, and the spiritual benefit we might derive from it is driven back by all the noise of its production. This season which is to have so much meaning is drained of it's power just as we are drained of the joy of the news we gather to celebrate. Christmas becomes something to endure, ride out, get through, and finally be done with. It seems to me we've turned it on its head, and the feast takes place for a month prior to THE FEAST, and THE DAY becomes the heartbreak hill of this festive marathon rather than the dawning of a new age. And so, we gorge ourselves on hors d'oeuvres and have nothing left for the meal. What should be a season of preparation and anticipation in repentance, quietness, and contemplation, leading us into the joyful news that the King is born, instead gives birth to disappointment, depression, and alienation and all because of the noise of the "holiday" production.

A Victorian Christmas

I've known Charlie and Ruth Jones (aka Peculiar People) for almost 20 years. Since they moved to Greensboro from Nashville, about 3 years ago, I was able to attend their N.C. performance at their home on S Elm St. My wife and I had a great time, and I thought that my friends would enjoy it.

Since then, as I've thought about the show, the time period (Victorian England), the main character (G.K. Chesterton-who was himself a journalist), it occurred to me that the show fit perfectly with Korner's Folly. Charlie and Ruth's heart to see Christians engage and be engaged by the arts and the Korner's love the arts along with their desire to engage the community with the arts seemed to line up. So, in mid-October, I invited Charlie over to visit the Folly and asked him to consider bringing his show to Kernersville. Charlie was really taken with the house and the Korner's story: their love of the arts, community-mindedness, love of hospitality, and he was also taken with the house itself; it charmed him. We spoke with Bruce Frankel about the possibility of having the show at the Folly and how we could use the event to be a blessing to the community. Bruce was very helpful and accommodating, and we were able to set a date.

Personally, this event allows opportunity to introduce others to this wonderful home and a wonderful ministry. I have a heart both for the Folly and for the ministry of Family Promise. Victorian Christmas brings together a number of things I love: Charlie and Ruth, G.K. Chesterton, the Folly, Family Promise, music/poetry/the arts, and my friends whom I know would enjoy the evening. Additionally, the enjoyment of the company of others enjoying themselves and each other feels particularly like giving a gift. So much of Christmas becomes a trap about all the stuff. This evening reminds us of what is precious: one another and particularly the one whom G.K. Chesterton devoted his life to following: Jesus Christ.

The evening is set at Christmas in the London home of G.K. Chesterton. As people arrive the Folly they will be welcomed and introduced to the Folly and invited to tour the home before the show and see all the Christmas decorations as well as enjoy the charm of the home. At about 7:30 people will be invited to the second floor Reception Room where we will join the Chestertons and their friends for a Christmas party. The evening is interactive, and the audience is invited to join the Chestertons in singing carols and playing games. Throughout the evening the Chestertons share their talents by reciting poetry and telling stories. Additionally, a story is unfolding among the characters themselves as they celebrate Christmas. The evening is very engaging is appropriate for primary ages and up. During the evening, we will invite people to make donations to Family Promise of Forsyth County as well as acknowledge opportunities to support the preservation of the Folly.

There are a number of reasons why we need to support ministries like Family Promise. Firstly, the ministry is about homelessness, and we are in the coldest part of the year. I cannot imagine a family trying to survive sleeping in car in a parking lot somewhere; that doesn't need to happen.

Secondly, Christmas reminds us of the blessing of hospitality. In this age of 'entertain-me', that is, the culture we live in causes us to expect high-quality, competent entertainment and service in whatever we participate in. It is good to be reminded that we are called serve others by opening our lives and homes. Because of the high level of expectation and the pressure to succeed, I believe we shut down and shut out others because fear failing at "entertaining". "Entertaining" sounds so burdensome. Why not merely be open to receiving others warmly? I think that is what hospitality is about, and the warmth of community and fellowship is certainly what we should be about as we celebrate God drawing near to us. Over and over again one reads and hears that this is the loneliest time of year. I think this is very sad.

Lastly, the first Christmas was about hospitality. The Word who made this home for us and placed us in it, came to visit and he was not received so warmly. Additionally, Mary and Joseph were refugees of sorts in a home which was occupied by enemies. They were not received by family or even the inn, but relegated to the stable. The care of those in need was very close to Jesus' heart and the community which he established. Family Promise has more which it is doing, but the primary ministry is to offer hospitality to homeless families. We have the means through our resources: financial, abilities, time, and building space to alleviate significant suffering in the lives of others. It would be a tragedy to repeat the unkindness to Jesus himself by continuing to neglect those whom we might help.

The event is Tuesday, December 14 from 7-9pm. Resevations and tickets may be purchased by calling Grace Presbyterian Church, 993-3384 x12 or at the church office from 9-Noon, Mon-Friday.

High-tech Hearts

John Muether, both a professor and friend at RTS in Orlando has this to say in an article posted on Ligonier's website about cyber-friends and communities.

Contrary to the inconvenience and inefficiency of genuine community, virtual communities have the advantage of allowing one to leave as easily as one joined. Disappearing can be as simple as not responding to an email. (Who among us is prepared to cast the first cyberstone at someone who got buried under his email inbox?) Or there is a one-click means of “unfriending” a cyberpest. With these exit strategies, social networks are less communities than lifestyle enclaves. One sociologist has aptly described them as “networked individualism.” Individualism and consumerism were not invented by the internet, of course. But the internet allows these dynamics to flourish and to dominate our social arrangements.

So our challenge is to reckon with the multitasking, split-screen, ringtone culture of the internet. Calvin College’s Quentin Schulze encourages us to distinguish between good and bad “habits of the high-tech heart.” Technological restraint is good for the soul, the mind, and the church. We need to reshape our environment to enlarge our attention spans and deepen our commitments to friends and community.

Imaginative Redemption

There's been a good bit or hubbub in the news in response to Al Mohler's blog post, "Yahoo, Yoga and Your's Truly"

Our local FOX news channel ran this piece last week, and the NBC affiliate WXII has this Associated Press piece posted on their website.

John Mark Reynolds at First Things, Evangel Blog has written both a winsome and clever rejoinder to Mohler. He writes,

"We must acknowledge that many good things come to mankind through the common image and grace of God in each human being. Christians of all stripes would never want to hide the truth that some great idea or good thing came from another faith. That is the false path of those Muslims who take Christian churches, turn them into mosques, and then bury the earlier Christian history as if it did not exist.

Better is the acknowledgment of what a thing was and then a joyful description of what it now is.

For example, in the United States of America the art of some city landscapes was often built on materialist or secular assumptions and ignored the needs of human beings. It needs imaginative redemption and artistic reconceptualization.

Such an appropriation of the best of the cityscape cannot be syncretistic, but must condemn the greed and the materialism that sent money makers soaring over cathedral domes. This can be done, however, without tearing down a single beautiful building or covering up their sordid histories. Just as the Narnia stories redeemed the image of Bacchus for generations of children, so better Christian story tellers can redeem the best of the skyscrapers in our cities."

The Grand Design ain't so grand, and as for design?

A review over at The Economist has this to say of Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow's new book, The Grand Design. Particularly curious is the assertion of Hawking and Mlodinow that "philosophy is dead".

There is a potted history of physics, which is adequate as far as it goes, though given what the authors have to say about Aristotle, one can only hope that they are more reliable about what happened billions of years ago at the birth of the universe than they are about what happened in Greece in the fourth century BC. Their account appears to be based on unreliable popularisations, and they cannot even get right the number of elements in Aristotle’s universe (it is five, not four).

The authors rather fancy themselves as philosophers, though they would presumably balk at the description, since they confidently assert on their first page that “philosophy is dead.” It is, allegedly, now the exclusive right of scientists to answer the three fundamental why-questions with which the authors purport to deal in their book. Why is there something rather than nothing? Why do we exist? And why this particular set of laws and not some other?

It is hard to evaluate their case against recent philosophy, because the only subsequent mention of it, after the announcement of its death, is, rather oddly, an approving reference to a philosopher’s analysis of the concept of a law of nature, which, they say, “is a more subtle question than one may at first think.” There are actually rather a lot of questions that are more subtle than the authors think. It soon becomes evident that Professor Hawking and Mr Mlodinow regard a philosophical problem as something you knock off over a quick cup of tea after you have run out of Sudoku puzzles.

Of these sorts of philosophical leaps as well as the assertion that science has superseded it, C.S. Lewis wrote,

If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of Man was an accident too. If so, then all our present thoughts are mere accidents--the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the thoughts of the materialists and astronomers as well as for anyone else's. But if their thoughts--i.e. of Materialism and Astronomy--are merely accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident should be able to give me a correct account of all the other accidents. It's like expecting that the accidental shape taken by the splash when you upset a milk-jug should give you a correct account of how the jug was made and why it was upset.

"They love the sweetness of life"

I've been thinking about the ethics of scientific animal research. I see the benefit humanity has derived from the cures and treatments which have been developed through animal research. Indeed, I personally have benefited from the cures and protocols developed through that research.


On the other hand, I know that how we treat animals and how we view them as beings is not merely a question of ends but of our humanity--our humaneness if you will. The forces which drive animal research are not merely the altruistic concern for others and the benefit they provide our fellow man, but the potential profit and fame enjoyed by those who find cures (researchers and pharmaceutical companies). The payoff for finding a cure for, say cancer, can feed a greediness which pushes people to think in categories of industrial efficiency to maximize profit rather than the best way to demonstrate humane compassion.
As I've been thinking, here's what I've been reading.


C.S. Lewis (via BBC) wrote against a contemporary practice of performing surgical operations on animals without sedation or anesthesia which is illegal today. In his essay, "Vivisection" he writes the following:

"The Christian defender ... is very apt to say that we are entitled to do anything we please to animals because they 'have no souls'. But what does this mean? If it means that animals have no consciousness, then how is this known? They certainly behave as if they had, or at least the higher animals do. I myself am inclined to think that far fewer animals than is supposed have what we should recognize as consciousness. But that is only an opinion. Unless we know on other grounds that vivisection is right we must not take the moral risk of tormenting them on a mere opinion. 

On the other hand, the statement that they 'have no souls' may mean that they have no moral responsibilities and are not immortal. But the absence of 'soul' in that sense makes the infliction of pain upon them not easier but harder to justify, for it means that animals cannot deserve pain, nor profit morally by the discipline of pain, nor be recompensed by happiness in another life for suffering in this. ... 'Soullessness', in so far as it is relevant to the question at all, is an argument against vivisection."

The news media has brought the subject up once again because of several situations here in North Carolina:

• A researcher in Winston-Salem was lately criticized for his apparent insensitivity as reported in the Winston-Salem Journal's Researcher regrets use of slides in presentation.
• Several months ago an animal research facility was shut down because of apparent violations with respect to its animal care. You may read an article here about the lab's closing.

And here are a series of articles posted at Slate.com about the circumstances which exposed the need for more government oversight of labs doing animal research.

Lastly, Ron Lutjens writes a two-part series in ByFaith Magazine on a Christian view of animals entitled "The Chief End of Animals" (and the second part is here).

The following prayer is take from 4th Century church father, St. Basil, and is the lead paragraph of Ron Lutjen's article listed above.

"O God, enlarge within us the sense of fellowship with all living things, our brothers the animals to whom thou gavest the earth as their home in common with us. We remember with shame that in the past we have exercised the high dominion of man with ruthless cruelty so that the voice of the earth, which should have gone up to thee in song, has been a groan of travail. May we realize that they live not for us alone but for themselves and for thee, and that they love the sweetness of life."                                                                                     --Basil the Great, c. 330-379 A.D. 

Mormon Politics and American Nationalism=Another Gospel

Russell Moore on "The Gospel and Glenn Beck" via his blog, Moore to the Point.

"Too often, and for too long, American “Christianity” has been a political agenda in search of a gospel useful enough to accommodate it. There is a liberation theology of the Left, and there is also a liberation theology of the Right, and both are at heart mammon worship. The liberation theology of the Left often wants a Barrabas, to fight off the oppressors as though our ultimate problem were the reign of Rome and not the reign of death. The liberation theology of the Right wants a golden calf, to represent religion and to remind us of all the economic security we had in Egypt. Both want a Caesar or a Pharaoh, not a Messiah."

Is No Fault a Fault?

Beverly Willett writs an article on New York's recent adoption of no fault divorce at The Daily Beast.

Last Sunday, I read that Governor Paterson had signed a bill making New York the fiftieth and final state in the country to enact no-fault divorce. I was heartsick. We would never stand for arranged marriages, so why do we tolerate unilateral divorce, where the power rests in one person's hands to vote on behalf of the whole family? If no-fault is good, why do we have the highest divorce rate of any Western nation? Why is the divorce rate for second marriages even higher? Studies show most “unhappy” marriages ride out the storm. No-fault removes that option.

American Teenage Mutant Christians

 Thanks Nathan G for pointing to this.

( via CNN) -- If you're the parent of a Christian teenager, Kenda Creasy Dean has this warning:

Your child is following a "mutant" form of Christianity, and you may be responsible.

Dean says more American teenagers are embracing what she calls "moralistic therapeutic deism." Translation: It's a watered-down faith that portrays God as a "divine therapist" whose chief goal is to boost people's self-esteem.

Dean is a minister, a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary and the author of "Almost Christian," a new book that argues that many parents and pastors are unwittingly passing on this self-serving strain of Christianity.

She says this "imposter'' faith is one reason teenagers abandon churches.

Are You Hip?

Article in the Wall Street Journal by Brett McCracken earlier this week on hipster Christianity here. He concludes,

"If the evangelical Christian leadership thinks that "cool Christianity" is a sustainable path forward, they are severely mistaken. As a twentysomething, I can say with confidence that when it comes to church, we don't want cool as much as we want real.

If we are interested in Christianity in any sort of serious way, it is not because it's easy or trendy or popular. It's because Jesus himself is appealing, and what he says rings true. It's because the world we inhabit is utterly phony, ephemeral, narcissistic, image-obsessed and sex-drenched—and we want an alternative. It's not because we want more of the same."

The Real Power

"Haven't you been told that it's strictly non-political?"

"I've been told so many things that I don't know whether I'm on my head or my heels," said Mark. "But I don't see how one's going to start a newspaper stunt (which is about what this comes to) without being political. Is it Left or Right papers that are going to print all this rot about Alcasan?"

"Both honey, both," said Miss Hardcastle. "Dont' you understand anything? Isn't it absolutely essential to keep a fierce Left and a fierce Right, both on their toes and each terrified of the other? That's how we get things done. Any opposition to the N.I.C.E. is represented as a Left racket in the Right papers and a Right racket in the Left papers. If it's properly done, you get each side outbidding the other in support of us--to refute the enemy slanders. Of course we're non-political. The real power always is."

C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength

Re-reading That Hideous Strength, I came across this discussion between Fairy Hardcastle and Mark Studdock. In light of the the growing animosity between Right and Left politics, I found the the insight offered by Fairy Hardcastle that the 'real power is non-political' very helpful. We know that that the gospel is neither conservative nor liberal, traditional nor contemporary. The presence of the Kingdom of God will not be defined by any other standard. I had, however, not considered that evil is the same way.

Because evil is neither Right nor Left means that it can employ either Fascist or Communist ideology -- or to put another way either traditional/conservative or progressive/liberal. Traditional values can be used to advance an agenda which oppress, violate, foster injustice -- so too can those who promote progressive values. Neither one is either Kingdom, but rather are means by which the real powers are obscured or hidden.