Time and Tea

Editing and The Chicago Manual of Style

2011-11-04T11:51:00.000-06:00

I have a copy of The Chicago Manual of Style, so that's the one I'm using. The SBL manual might be more useful for a theology paper, but I don't have a copy.

In any case, the possible ways of referring to books cited in the text are so complicated that I despair of mastering them. Today I changed, for about the third time, the way of citing a chapter that has an author different from the author or editor/s of the book in which it occurs. Navigating The Chicago Manual surely competes in complexity with navigating the city itself.

Editing

2011-11-04T10:06:00.000-06:00

I'm editing today, working on the Ph.D. thesis of a friend. It's about the political theology of Reinhold Niebuhr, and a very interesting work it is! It reflects on Niebuhr's use of Augustine's City of God, so I'm getting insights into that work, too.

Today the surroundings are Atlanta Bread Company (read "great pastries, okay coffee") and music provided by Pandora.com, specifically my JSBach channel, so I'm getting music like Dietrich Buxtehude's Sonata for 2 violins, viola da gamba, & harpsichord in C major. Rock on!

Sermons in Ecclesiastes

2011-09-11T16:08:00.000-06:00

We're getting sermons in Ecclesiastes at church (City Presbyterian Church, Denver) these days. This is one of my favorite books for the following reasons:

1) It affirms the good things of creation as good--wine, women, wisdom, material wealth, building, careers, learning, etc.
2) It admits that pursuing these good things for their own sakes satisfies the pursuer for only a limited time.
3) It expounds the inner hunger that we all have for a significance that goes deeper than self-indulgence, and for a meaning that lasts beyond death.
4) Its continuing theme of vanity "under the sun" points us to a world that transcends this one as the place to seek that deeper and more lasting satisfaction.
5) It eventually focuses on the (relatively) humble goal of taking satisfaction in good work, loved ones, and faithfulness to God, which
6) leads us to look to Jesus here and now for using well the good gifts we have from God and living within a lasting sense of significance and satisfaction in him.

Knowing the outline does not, of course, make following it easy. Having a map doesn't smooth out the terrain, but it does help us detect false paths.

112th birthday of Jorge Luis Borges

2011-08-24T09:45:00.000-06:00

Happy birthday, sir! Google celebrates today with the following image:

"Utterly Empty"?

2011-06-12T11:58:00.000-06:00

Dr. Danny Carroll preached at City Presbyterian Church (Denver) today. He teaches Old Testament at Denver Seminary, and I'm always glad to hear his expositions of Scripture. Today he preached from Ecclesiastes 1:12-14 and 3:1-15.

Along the way he made the point that the meaninglessness that so harshly oppresses the author is in fact part of the meaning of life. That is, since God "has also set eternity in the human heart" (3:11), no non-eternal pursuit can fill that spot. Only God himself can fill it. Thus this ache at our inability to satisfy that hunger is itself a window on what our lives mean and where we are headed.

I wonder how well the maxim, "The journey is the destination," fits that perspective.

Sunday's Coming

2011-06-11T15:19:00.000-06:00

This isn't new, but it still amuses: Sunday's Coming

“Why a Death?” A Meditation for Good Friday, 2011

2011-06-10T17:46:00.001-06:00

(Sorry for being so late in posting this.)

Some people think that re-reading a novel is pointless, since you already know the ending. But some novels are so well written that part of the joy and profit in reading them is to watch the story go by again, to get to know the characters better, to relish the insights the author has in what it means to be human.

We revisit Good Friday each year for similar reasons. We know that Easter is coming, but want and need to see the day of crucifixion again, to understand it better, and to be shaped by it. We mustn’t undercut the seriousness or darkness of the day. But neither can we understand the day if we try to see it apart from the resurrection.

The darkness began when our ancestors decided they would be better off without God. Seeking a life apart from him who is life, they only found death, as God had warned. God had said of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, “In the day that you eat it, you will die.” Usually we interpret this statement as a warning of dire consequences and a threat of punishment, and leave it at that. But could it also be more? Might that warning also be the promise of a cure?

As we read the OT and watch the centuries roll past, it’s obvious that we need some kind of major cure for the desperate mess we have made for ourselves. Mankind is plagued with murder, disease, slavery, strife, demonic forces, ignorance, superstition, blasphemy, starvation, bitter hatred for God and neighbor, corruption—and death of the sort that is anything but hopeful or curative. This death, rather, is the ultimate threat, the great fear, the final enemy.

Enter Jesus. Luke’s gospel announces him as the Savior, the Anointed One, the Lord. Luke portrays him as the one God has sent to fight and defeat all of those oppressors we see in the Old Testament. After his baptism and his temptation in the wilderness, Jesus begins his public ministry in the synagogue in Nazareth by reading from Isaiah 61,

The Spirit of the Lord Yahweh is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are downtrodden, to proclaim the favorable year of Yahweh.

Then he comments,

Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

And then he spends the next three years putting those words into action. He casts out demons, heals fevers, teaches, forgives sin, heals paralysis, raises the dead to life, calms a storm at sea, feeds thousands by miraculously multiplying bread and fish, demonstrates what following God really means, heals lepers and more lepers and more lepers, raises more dead to life, forgives more sins, bring outcasts back into fellowship with God—in short, he achieves victory after victory over every force that has oppressed us from the beginning. Thus he embodies the gospel, the good news of the kingdom of God. Jesus is Lord, he is God-with-us, and he restores his people to life with God.

Then, when he knows the timing is right, he provokes events so that the tide turns against him. His human enemies, fearing loss of power and prestige, capture him and arrange with the Roman military occupation to have him executed by crucifixion. They torture him, strip him naked, and nail him to a crude scaffold in public. This humiliating process usually results in a slow death by suffocation. Yet even there, amid the shame and the pain, he acts like the king he is. While others mock and taunt Jesus, one of the criminals also being executed there asks Jesus to remember him when Jesus enters his kingdom. And even in the middle of his own pain, this shepherd-king will not let one let one sheep die without love and hope. “Today,” says Jesus to the thief, “you will be with me in paradise.”

Not long after this, Jesus dies.

Why? What did the death of Jesus do?

Luke records that, a couple of days later, Jesus has risen from the dead. He is alive and beyond the power of death. He appears to two disciples on the road to Emmaus, saying that the Old Testament foretold that all this was to happen, and he explains the events in detail. And then he tells the disciples to “Go and proclaim forgiveness of sins in my name.” Luke shows that Jesus has defeated death. Death no longer has a hold on him

Beside this portrait of Jesus’ death in Luke’s gospel, let me set some remarks by St. Paul, particularly in II Cor. 5:14-17. What St. Paul says there looks very odd at first glance:

For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this: that one died, therefore all died. And he died for all that they who live should no longer live for themselves, but for him who died and rose on their behalf. Therefore from now on we recognize no one according to the flesh, even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet we now know him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ—new creation! The old things passed away. Behold, new things have come.

One died for all, he says, therefore all died. Somehow, and the passage does not say how, but somehow Christ’s death has changed the reality of us all. His death has accomplished our deaths. We have died because Christ died.

And again, in Gal. 2:19-20, St. Paul comments:

For through the law, I died to the law, that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. And the live I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and delivered himself up for me.

Not only has Christ been crucified, but we also have been crucified with him. We have died in Christ’s death.

And we needed to die. We had so corrupted our lives that they needed to be destroyed and remade. As St. Paul says, “If anyone is in Christ—new creation!” Instead of the isolated, lives that were decaying back into a corruption worse than the nothing from which we were created, Jesus has connected us to himself so that we have his own life and fellowship in us.

So the arrest and crucifixion in Luke’s gospel do not turn the narrative from a series of victories to a final defeat, but rather they move the narrative from the signs of victory to the substance of Jesus’ victory. Jesus died, not so that we would not have to die, but so that we might die in him and in him be raised to a new life, a life beyond the reach of death, a life hidden with Christ in God.

Tonight we remember Christ’s battle against our last and greatest oppressor, death. There is great mystery here. Theology and preaching should help us see and understand more clearly, but should not lead us to think that we have figured it out. Rather, they should lead us to love and praise Jesus, who loves us and gave himself for us.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen.

How ought/must/can one pursue theology? From where you are.

2011-05-22T19:56:00.003-06:00

This question has several important answers, all of which help me to see more clearly, all of which strengthen my hand, all of which help me to be more faithful.

Tonight's answer: You can only pursue theology from where you are. [Tonight's answer is dedicated to Shane Goodwin.]

You are in the middle of things (in media res)! You are already on your way. You are not at an utter beginning, nor can you get there. Your thoughts, assumptions, background, tastes, talents, etc., are already in play and moving. You have been shaped by your culture, your family, your past, your micro-sub-culture. Yes, you can dig some of that up and examine it, but that, too, is a process that starts from where you are.

You are the age you are. Yes, Mozart had composed x operas, y symphonies, and z piano concerti by the time he was your age, AND YOU HAVEN'T! So what? You haven't written the books and articles you wanted to write, you haven't mastered German, French, and classical Greek the way you think you should have by the age of 12. So what? Not only will fretting NOT change your yesterdays, it gets in the way of accomplishing things today.

God has given you today, this hour, this moment. Taste and savor. Give thanks. Relax. This moment, this NOW liberates you into his love. It liberates you into loving your neighbor. It may even liberate you into writing a paragraph that describes God in a way that will lift the spirits of your neighbor or friend.

Find a leaf, a rock, a glass of water and behold the beauty and grace of God's handiwork in it, behold his love for you in it. See it for the personal and amazing gift that it is. Then, then, in contemplating the delicate and yet ferocious love of God for you, you may be able to point to it and say to your neighbor, your friend, "See? See! God loves. Christ is risen indeed! God is with us!" The Bible, the Church, the comments of the saints will help us articulate this. But we need the immediacy, the freshness, the humility, the peace of seeing ourselves not as universal but as local. Our theology cannot be always-and-everywhere, because only God is that. Our theology must and can only be here-and-now, pointing to this God who, although universal, is also here-and-now-with-us.

Look at this. Isn't it amazing? Electrons on a screen - -who would have thought it? God loves. Christ is risen indeed! God is with us!

Perfectionism

2011-05-22T19:33:00.000-06:00

I am tempted to write blogs by sketching them out in a MSWord document first, then editing, letting it sit, polishing, rewriting, then finally posting after it's perfect. Writing immediately onto the blog puts one in danger of mistakes. Even my edit-as-you-go mode does not catch all mistakes, especially the mistakes of tone and nuance.

Perfectionism is one of the temptations that will appear in other essays, but it also deserves a place of its own. "Write nothing until you know everything about the topic, then write with perfect clarity, balance, precision, and thoroughness." That's the voice that keeps one from writing at all.

The Authority of the Bible (a lecture given Feb. 24, 2011)

2011-02-25T10:06:00.005-07:00

… the highest proof of Scripture derives in general from the fact that God in person speaks in it. … Yes, if we turn pure eyes and upright senses toward it, the majesty of God will immediately come to view, subdue our bold rejection, and compel us to obey.

Since for unbelieving men religion seems to stand by opinion alone, they, in order not to believe anything foolishly or lightly, both wish and demand rational proof that Moses and the prophets spoke divinely. But I reply: the testimony of the Spirit is more excellent than all reason. For as God alone is a fit witness of himself in his Word, so also the Word will not find acceptance in men’s hearts before it is sealed by the inward testimony of the Spirit. The same Spirit, therefore, who has spoken through the mouths of the prophets must penetrate into our hearts to persuade us that they faithfully proclaimed what had been divinely commanded.

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1.7.4 (pp. 78, 79)

This is why we believe the Bible. The Holy Spirit has so worked on our hearts and minds that we hear “God in person” speaking in it. This is also why we continue to believe the Bible, why we go back to it again and again, why we respect and maybe even fear the Bible a little.

To define more tightly what it is that we believe about the Bible, we ask what is the over-all message and gist of the Bible, or does it even have one?

Yes, the Bible does have very strong themes common to every book in it. The strongest theme, and the one that ties together the whole book, is the message of God with us. The Old Testament has a great variety, containing law, history, lyric poetry, erotic poetry, moral tracts, and love stories. And all of them depend on the theme that God is with his people, providing for them both materially and spiritually. The book of Exodus, for example, describes God’s deliverance of his people from slavery in Egypt. Psalm 23 describes God’s care for the individual believer. Even Job, who cries out, “Why have you made my your target, so that I am a burden to myself?” (7:20), is troubled precisely because he knows God to be good and just and loving: “But as for me, I would seek God, and I would place my cause before God, who does great and unsearchable things, wonders without number” (5:8). God’s message in the Old Testament is that he makes for himself a people, that he is with his people, and that he rescues them from their trouble.

When we get to the New Testament we find much the same message, but it centers on the person Jesus the Messiah, who is God with us. The author of the book of Hebrews begins ,

God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power” (Heb. 1:1-3a).

The apostles in the New Testament bear witness to us that God himself has appeared in Jesus the Messiah, that this Jesus is the “God with us” and the fulfillment of all the Old Testament promises.

We have in our hands the writings of the prophets and apostles as their testimony that God has indeed appeared to them, and that, as St. John writes, “

what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, that you also may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ” (I John 1:3).

The really peculiar thing about reading the Bible is that our reading involves us in that fellowship. Karl Barth wrote that when we read the Bible we hear the living voices of the prophets and apostles. What we have in reading this book is not just a transfer of information, but a real and living fellowship. Here we encounter God in a unique way, and here he shows himself to us.

Because of the way this encounter with God takes place when we read the Bible, God acts so that the Book itself has an active role towards us. Other books, when we pick them up, are things that we examine. But when we read the Bible, we find that it examines us. It becomes Canon, which is an ancient word for yard-stick or standard. It is the measure by which we are measured. Barth calls it the “marching orders” that God has given the Church.

Because the authors of the Bible focus so thoroughly on Jesus Christ, they don’t write very much about themselves or about their writing. But they do occasionally address the issue of what the scriptures are.

II Tim. 3:16-17—All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

II Pet. 1:20-21—But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

Luke 1:70—As He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from of old—Salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.

Jer. 1:9—Then the LORD stretched out His hand and touched my mouth, and the LORD said to me, “Behold, I have put My words in your mouth.”

These verses are not proofs, but rather descriptions of how God worked in the lives of the Bible’s human authors to assure the faithfulness of their writings. Because the Bible is the writings of God’s prophets and apostles, giving us faithful accounts of the work and message of God, and because, as Calvin says, “God in person speaks in it,” we believe that the Bible has authority over what we believe and how we act.

How does this authority work? Donald Bloesch describes three general models for understanding biblical authority (Bloesch, Holy Scripture: Revelation, Inspiration & Interpretation, pp. 40 ff.).

The first, the “sacramental” model, sees the Bible to be a “divinely appointed” instrument through which God reveals himself. The Bible is the sign, and God’s revelation of himself in Christ is the thing signified. They are not the same, but we do not have the one without the other. The Bible is both the word of God as well as the words of men, and this model affirms these in a kind of paradoxical or mystical tension.

The second model he calls the scholastic. It holds that our finite minds do have access to the infinite, and it sees the Bible chiefly as a book of revealed truths or propositions. It is the revelation of God written down, and we can gain certainty of it by our reason. It does not tend to distinguish revelation from the Bible. We can grasp the truth of Scripture by scientific or historical examination of it, although salvation requires that we also have faith.

The third model, which he calls the liberal or modernist, focuses on God’s existence within the world rather than his transcendence above it. It wants to make Christian faith understandable and believable to the culture around us. It is more interested in the effect of God on humanity rather than in God’s own nature. It holds that faith needs help and clarity from philosophical concepts. The Bible is a record of human religious experience, but it is useful because it examines important moral values and principles of the spiritual life.

The three views, of course, see revelation differently. “The sacramental model understands revelation as God in action, God revealing the depth of his love and the mystery of his will to the eyes of faith. Revelation has a personal, a propositional, and an experiential pole. … God can be known only as he gives himself to be known (Barth)” (Bloesch, p. 42). The scholastic model, by contrast, takes the Bible to be a collection of God-given, and therefore true, propositions. Reason may not be able to get to the bottom of everything the Bible says, but reason can make sense of it. Last, the modernist views revelation as a kind of self-discovery, or the connection of oneself to the infinite or to God. “What is given in revelation is not information concerning the nature of God or the plan of salvation but a new awareness of ourselves in relation to the divine and to fellow humanity” (Bloesch, p. 43).

With this outline you can begin to predict what each view would say about the question of the infallibility of the scriptures. The sacramentalist looks for God’s action in and around and through the scriptures. Since God himself is faithful, both his past action in moving the authors of scripture and his present action moving us as the readers of scripture lead us into a true understanding of faith and life. “The Bible bears the stamp of infallibility through its unique inspiration and transmits infallible truth through the ongoing illumination of the Holy Spirit to people of faith.”

The scholastic looks for “absolute infallibility and total inerrancy” in the text itself. The authority of the Bible is a kind of deposit, residing there, the possession of the words written. The authority may be derivative, as a gift, but it is now a possession, as much “there” in the text as the information is.

The modernist or liberal does not view the Bible as infallible at all, but as the fallible records of human religious experiences.

Each of these views has its strengths and its problems. It is apparent from Bloesch’s presentation that he takes the sacramentalist view. Someone who takes a scholastic or modernist view might describe these options very differently, or reject this set of three models altogether.

This brings us to the question of inerrancy. That is, “Are there errors in the Scriptures?” Again, Bloesch helps us here:

One can say that the Bible is without error when its assertions are fully understood in the context in which they were made and are properly interpreted for the contemporary church, but this “full understanding” and “proper interpretation” are gifts of the Holy Spirit, not the necessary outcome of historical scholarship. (Bloesch, p. 367, fn. 57)

This statement can withstand some detailed unpacking.

“…when its assertions are fully understood…” Statements have nuance, flavor, bias, direction, particular focus, even a kind of literary tone of voice. Missing any of those can lead us to grotesque, laughable, disastrous, or simply sad misunderstanding of the text. When Jesus said to Judas, “The poor you have with you always,” he was not condemning efforts to eliminate poverty. I have heard that verse applied that way. We all have cultural pre-conceptions and quirks of mind that lead us to make interpretations as bad as that. And even scarier: often we don’t have any idea at the time that we are making such a huge mistake.

“…when its assertions are fully understood in the context in which they were made…” Statements either have no meaning or a completely indeterminate meaning without context. We can’t even make statements without context, because the very fact that we are making them embeds them in the context of our lives and circumstances. Further, our conversation continually refers to popular culture and current events, and we often use terms that we only half understand. For you and me, “Watergate” refers to a political scandal so big that we stick the word “-gate” onto the end of another word to mean another scandal. For people three thousand years ago, “water gate” was the opening in the city wall that led to the river or well. Today if I don’t have any bread, I go to the grocery store to buy a loaf. In the 1960’s, if I didn’t have any bread, it meant my wallet was empty. If we don’t understand the author’s context, we don’t understand what he said. The authors wrote in a world of jokes, current events, scandals, slang, landmark references, and clever turns of phrase. And there’s always the possibility that we know nothing whatever about the one he had in mind while writing.

“…when its assertions are fully understood in the context in which they were made and are properly interpreted for the contemporary church…” This is context taken in the other direction. Just as the writers wrote in their context, we can only understand within ours. And it may take a great deal of explaining to translate from their context into ours.

With all these difficulties you can see why historical scholarship is not enough, and we need the Holy Spirit to understand what God wants us to see in the Bible.

I close with two practical applications.

1) The views laid out in this lecture are complicated. Maybe they bring up problems you haven’t thought about, or maybe you have thought about them. Some people would ask, “Why bring up problems at all?” One answer is that looking at complications helps prepare for trouble. The believer who is content to say, “The Bible says it, I believe it, and that’s enough for me,” may suffer a crisis of faith the first time someone makes a reasonable case that the Bible contains problems or contradictions.

2) Let’s suppose that your friend makes a huge, complex, and well-reasoned case to you that the Bible can’t be trusted. Let’s suppose that you can’t find arguments against that case or holes in its reasoning. Does that mean you should cease to believe the Bible? No, it does not. It may mean that the holes in your friend’s case are well-hidden. It may mean that you and he both make some big assumptions that are completely false. This does not mean that you should distrust reason, but remember the quotation from Calvin that we started with. We believe the Bible because “God in person speaks in it.” Because this is true, because God does speak to us in the Bible, then we can expect that our reason, little by little, will begin to see more of how it all fits together.

Comparing Barth to Packer

2011-02-12T19:16:00.005-07:00

I read books by J. I. Packer long before I read Barth, and his work was an important component of learning to think through theological issues, including doctrine of Scripture.

Barth comes as a shock to someone trained in (what Barth called) a neo-Calvinist environment. His unfamiliar usage of familiar terms, his approach to theology, his habit of turning assumptions on their heads, etc., all disconcert the newcomer. The few times I have read Brunner, his work felt like a walk in familiar territory, as if he were doing much the same thing as American reformed evangelicals even while coming to different conclusions. He seemed farther to the left, perhaps, but on the same spectrum. Barth is working in a different dimension altogether—no, in fact, several different dimensions, all at once.

How does one compare Barth to Packer? With a lot of work, of course, and eventually one’s head may stop hurting. Here I compare the first four sections of Church Dogmatics to a very small sample of Packer that I think and hope represents him fairly: specifically, the first two chapters of God’s Words: Studies of Key Bible Themes (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1981), where he discusses “Revelation” and “Scripture” in turn.

Both in general orientation and in detail Packer discusses revelation and Holy Scripture almost exclusively in terms of information given and received. God tells us about himself. Revelation means that God shows us what was previously hidden. Specifically, in the OT and NT God was revealing himself, his kingdom, his covenant, his law, and his salvation. The action of the Holy Spirit is to help us understand that information. By our study and the Holy Spirit’s work illuminating our hearts we not only understand, we emerge through knowing about God to knowing God. The propositional produces the personal, as it were: “it is precisely by making true statements about himself to us that God makes himself known to us,” says Packer.

Barth doesn’t even handle Church proclamation simply in terms of information. This Good News that the Church proclaims does emphatically include information, yes, but it also at every point carries Christ’s demand to follow him. So even the message has branched out of the indicative dimension to move in the imperative. But we almost miss this syntactic breadth because Barth emphasizes the presence of God himself confronting us in this proclamation, so that not only does the message inform and command, but God is also in the midst of it, in the here-and-now event of revelation, taking hold of the listener. So, according to Barth, revelation is foremost the presence and action of God confronting us with himself, so that all words fall flat without that action, but they hit home when he abides in them. Packer comes close to saying that our encounter with the propositional produces an encounter with the personal, and Barth almost echoes this by saying, “The Bible is God’s Word as it really bears witness to revelation, and proclamation is God’s Word as it really promises revelation” (p. 111). But Barth carries this farther, making his theology more dynamic, more present, when he says, “Because revelation engenders the Bible that attests it, because Jesus Christ has called the Old and New Testaments into existence, because Holy Scripture is the record of a unique hearing of a unique call and a unique obedience to a unique command, therefore it could become the Canon, and again and again it can become the “living” Canon, the publisher of revelation, the summons and command of God, God’s Word to us” (p. 115). This is harder to pin down, because Jesus is harder to pin down than the book that bears faithful witness to him.

Packer’s strength lies in paying more attention to what the Bible says about itself than Barth has done so far, at least up through section 4. Barth has dug deeper in theology, Packer has dug deeper into exegesis up to this point. Would examining the presuppositions behind Packer’s exegesis undo his work? I don’t know. I want to think about that more. Any help from the other Barth bloggers would be greatly appreciated.

Comments on C.D., I/1, §2

2011-01-13T19:14:00.002-07:00

§2.1

The first half of the section seems to consist largely in Barth’s reaction against some of his contemporaries, especially Brunner,

although he also seems to address the principles underlying their work rather than the details of it.

Some of his reasoning escapes me entirely, and some of his assertions seem to rely on being obvious rather than on a set of arguments. Does all apologetics abandon dogmatics, or does he refer only to Brunner’s? I don’t know which he means, and neither assertion is obvious to me. His assertion that apologetics and polemics have never been effective except when unplanned is backed up only with three other bare assertions that are no more obvious than the one they are meant to support.

Still, he makes some good points. Our apologetics surely shouldn’t take unbelief more seriously than it takes faith, and this is a weak point for our culture. It seems impolite not to take the other person’s point of view as seriously as our own; we want to figure out how to explain faith in terms native to the unbeliever, i.e., in terms of unbelief. We try to understand the unbeliever’s point of view and objections and values, and then we imaginatively put ourselves into that place, the place of unbelief, and ask, “How can I get to faith from here so I can show my friend the path to faith?”

This method seems to have several strengths:

1) It tries to clear away mistakes of fact or interpretation held by the unbeliever.

2) It tries to find the other weaknesses and assumptions in which the unbeliever finds security.

3) It attempts to embody a peer-to-peer appeal, rather than give correction or rebuke from a superior to an inferior.

But this method of apologetics also makes several fatal mistakes:

1) It assumes that the path from unbelief to faith is completely rational and that the transformation from unbeliever to believer can be accomplished by human endeavor, when the transformation results from God’s creative work in the hearer.

2) It subordinates the viewpoint of faith to the viewpoint of unbelief by assuming practically that the viewpoint of faith should be understandable to unbelief.

3) It assumes that the chief barrier between the unbeliever and faith is a matter of reliable information, whereas the chief barrier is a lack of the Holy Spirit’s regenerating work in the unbeliever’s heart.

This leads to a kind of despair and another kind of hope for apologetics:

Despair: I can’t bring my friend to faith. I have to rely on God to change my friend.

Hope: I can rely on God to love my friend more than I do. Therefore, as I bear witness to Jesus Christ by work and word, as I remember to point my friend to Him, God works to make the connection, standing in front of my words, so to speak, so that my friend will eventually see Him as God enables.

§2.2

What does Barth mean by “the being of the Church”? And what does he mean when he says that the being of the Church “is identical with Jesus Christ”? I hope that subsequent material will clear this up. He obviously doesn’t mean that the Church is Jesus Christ, since in this half-section he clearly distinguishes the lordship of Christ from the “subsequent ecclesiastic reality” that we can point to with a secular “There,” to use Barth’s language. He does say (p. 41) that “if the being of the Church is identical with Jesus Christ,” then “the place from which the way of dogmatic knowledge is to be seen and understood can be … only the present moment of the speaking and hearing of Jesus Christ Himself, the divine creation of light in our hearts.” What a tender and promising picture!

A condensation of C.D., I/1, §2

2011-01-13T19:10:00.005-07:00

§02 The Task of Prolegomena to Dogmatics

1. The Necessity of Dogmatic Prolegomena

Prolegomena are the discussions and expositions of how knowledge is attained in a science. Here we ask on what ground dogmatic prolegomena are necessary. Some say that changes in world culture in the last 300 years call theology into question and so make such prolegomena necessary to fight “the self-assurance of the modern spirit and yet appeal to man’s natural “questing after God” (Brunner). This basis is to be rejected for three reasons: 1. There is no theological basis for the assumed difference between our age and earlier times. 2. The task of dogmatics is set aside when we pursue such eristics or apologetics. 3. This view of the necessity of dogmatic prolegomena does not do justice to the “responsibility and relevance” that are the basis of its concern. Yes, the Christian Church must speak to unbelief apologetically and polemically, but this has never been effective unless it is not deliberately planned, for three reasons: a) In such apologetics faith takes unbelief seriously and thus doesn’t take itself seriously; b) all independently ventured apologetics assumes that dogmatics has done its work; and c) an independent eristics runs the risk of making dogmatics think that its conflict with unbelief has been brought to an end.

2. The Possibility of Dogmatic Prolegomena

How are dogmatic prolegomena possible?

Since the Enlightenment it has been proposed that the Church and faith are links in a greater nexus of being. Thus dogmatic prolegomena consist in demonstrating that faith is 1) an anthropological possibility and 2) a historico-psychological reality, and 3) in establishing its methods. This proposal understands such prolegomena themselves not to be dogmatic. It also assumes that there really is such a nexus of being superior to that of the Church. But this is a highly theological assumption. It understands the being of the Church to be piety, an aspect of the reality of man. With this Modernist faith we agree that the being of the Church implies a determination of human reality. But that reality is not a human possibility.

Roman Catholic dogmatic prolegomena assert that the objective principle of knowledge is to be found in the form of Holy Scripture, Church tradition, and the living teaching apostolate of the Church, and that the subjective principle is to be found in the catholic faith, which accepts revelation as proposed by the Church. This presupposes that the being of the Church, Jesus Christ, is no longer the free Lord of its existence, but that he is incorporated into the existence of the Church. It affirms an analogia entis, the possibility of applying the secular “There is” to God and the things of God.

If the being of the Church is identical with Jesus Christ, then the place from which the way of dogmatic knowledge is to be seen and understood can be nether a prior anthropological possibility nor a subsequent ecclesiastical reality, but only the present moment of the speaking and hearing of Jesus Christ Himself, the divine creation of light in our hearts. Thus prolegomena to dogmatics are possible only as a part of dogmatics itself. Evangelical dogmatics realizes that all its knowledge can only be an event, and cannot therefore be guaranteed as correct knowledge from any place apart from or above this event. In the prolegomena to dogmatics, therefore, we ask concerning the Word of God as the criterion of dogmatics, and thus already on the way, we give an account of the way which we tread. We shall attempt a doctrine of Holy Scripture in the context of an embracing doctrine of the Word of God.

Can Non-believers Do Theology?

2011-01-07T14:18:00.002-07:00

Let me turn that question around: Can non-believers not do theology? If Jesus is “before all things and by him all things consist” (Col. 1:17), then how can any act or statement avoid having its existence in relation, one way or another, to Jesus Christ? If “sin” as such is not just transgression of a moral code, but the acts and attitudes of rebellion against God, then how can they not also be theological statements about the nature of the world and one’s independence from and opposition to whatever “gods” might be out there?

What about theology as a focal, conscious pursuit: can non-believers do that kind of theology?

Look around. Don’t non-believers in fact write and publish books and articles about Christian theology? Again, we must answer, “Yes.”

Well, what is Barth getting at in C.D. I/1, §1, when he says, “[T]here is no possibility of dogmatics at all outside the Church. … In faith, and only in faith, human action is related to the being of the Church, to the action of God in revelation and reconciliation. Hence dogmatics is quite impossible except as an act of faith, in the determination of human action by listening to Jesus Christ and as obedience to Him” (p. 17)?

Close attention to Barth’s definition of “dogmatics” is necessary for untangling this knot. “As a theological discipline dogmatics is the scientific self-examination of the Christian Church with respect to the content of its distinctive talk about God” (section heading, p.3). The underlying idea is that Christ has given his Church not only the responsibility for telling the world about him, but also the responsibility for growing in its understanding of him and for reviewing constantly the content of its message to the world. As the world changes and as the Church’s depth of understanding Jesus grows, each day presents the Church with new challenges for articulating its message.

Nor is this merely an archeological exercise, as if two millennia separate the Church from its Lord, requiring the Church to excavate texts as well as Near Eastern ruins. Rather, every day the Church looks to Jesus the Christ for life and sustenance, for guidance and discipline, and therefore for its very words to say to the world. Dogmatics is part of that process, part of a self-examination. Thus, “In dogmatics Christianity means the proper content of talk about God ventured in the fear of God” (p. 18). If one talks about God apart from that fear, apart from faith, then one isn’t talking from within the Church, so such talk isn’t the Church’s self-examination. It may be theology, but it isn’t dogmatics.

Is theology that is done from a non-faith position useful? Barth responds, “Without faith it would be irrelevant and meaningless. Even in the case of the most exact technical imitation of what the Church does, or the most sincere intention of doing what the Church does, it would be idle speculation without any content of knowledge” (p. 17). He continues, “[T]he construction of an impressive form of Christianity without believing in it for better or for worse, is certainly an attractive and rewarding possibility. But there can be no question of this in dogmatics. In dogmatics Christianity means the proper content of talk about God ventured in the fear of God” (p. 18).

I don’t think that in this section Barth mitigates his hostile opposition to giving any place to a theology done from the position of unbelief. In any case, it has not proper place in dogmatics.

But Barth certainly does respond to the idea spoken from outside faith and outside the Church (e.g., Feuerbach, Kant (?), Voltaire) elsewhere in this volume, so he definitely has a use for them. But their work is not dogmatics.

Then we must further ask whether Christians and not-Christians can have profitable theological discussion, and, if so, upon what terms. Daniel Kirk at his blog “Storied Theology” asks

Can there be a shared, assumed arena of conversation for those who study the Bible (et al) as historians or theoreticians or religion on the one hand and those who study while assuming the faith of the church on the other?

While I think the answer is yes, Barth problematizes such a position, in part by asking the would-be biblical theologian if agreeing to the terms of such a parlay isn’t somehow selling the farm.

Again, although such a conversation might be theological, it wouldn’t be dogmatics (“the Church’s self-examination …”).

Yes, Barth does point out the danger of “selling the farm,” but this just raises the question of how to be approachable to non-Christians and faithful to Christ at the same time. Since I have already gone on too long here, let me point my reader [oh—are there two of you?] to some excellent books by Lesslie Newbigin on that very subject, especially The Gospel in a Pluralist Society and Proper Confidence.

Blogging Barth

2011-01-03T21:07:00.005-07:00

Several people are blogging through Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics I/1 in six months! Daniel Kirk instigated this project and has the list of bloggers on his web site, Storied Theology.

Summary of content:

§01 The Task of Dogmatics

1. The Church, Theology, Science

Dogmatics is theology as a science, i.e., as the Church’s self-examination of its speech about Jesus Christ. Like other sciences, it has a definite object of knowledge, it treads a definite path of knowledge, and it must give an account of this path to itself and to others. Although the label “science” is not necessary or especially important, we claim it because we thus 1) bring theology into line with other human concerns for truth, 2) protest the usual pagan concept of science, and 3) reckon the other sciences as part of the Church in spite of their protests.

2. Dogmatics as an Enquiry

We presuppose that dogmatics as enquiry is both possible and necessary. I.e., we can know the true content of Christian talk about God because Jesus Christ is the revealing and reconciling address of God to us. And that content must be known humanly, i.e., in creaturely form which is never clear and unambiguous. Thus dogmatics is always humble and always having to make a fresh start. The Church is challenged to know itself and to ask what to say today.

3. Dogmatics as an Act of Faith

Dogmatics is impossible except as an act of faith in obedience to Jesus Christ. Since faith is God’s gracious address to man, then by presupposing faith dogmatics also presupposes at every step God’s free grace, which he may at any time give or refuse. Thus we can only proceed by saying, “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief."

Note on translation:

The paragraph at the bottom of p. 13 begins, “2. Dogmatics as an enquiry presupposes that the true content of Christian talk about God must be known by men.” I found this confusing, since the ensuing paragraph does not explain why men have to know the content of Christian talk about God. But the G. T. Thompson translation ends the sentence, “… must be known humanly,” i.e., we can’t know it in any other way than in a human mode of enquiry. The ensuing paragraph makes more sense with this beginning.

At times like this I wish I had a copy of the German.

Comments:

From the beginning of section 1 Barth displays the resiliency of a theology that is truly and thoroughly based on God’s revelation of himself to us in Jesus Christ.

Is theology a science? Who cares what scientists think? Their concept of science is pagan, their certainty is quasi-religious, and their Aristotelian tradition is only one among others. And we only call theology a science as a favor to them! LOL!

Glory amid the Messiness: A Christmas Meditation

2010-12-25T12:50:00.003-07:00

Glory amid the Messiness

And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace among those with whom He is pleased." Luke 2:13-14

This passage provokes two questions:

1. Where was God’s glory on that night? Other than the angels themselves, what do we have? Shepherds … childbirth in a barn … God as a tiny creature rather than in the throne room of heaven. We have blood, dirt, and peasants. How glorious is that?

2. Where is the peace? Maybe the night was quiet, but Rome’s pagan army still occupied Israel’s holy land. Herod the psychopath was still king of Judea. We have political oppression, poverty, an inn with no room, Joseph unable to provide anything but a barn for his family, a highly suspicious pregnancy, the pain and messiness and terror of childbirth. What kind of peace are the angels talking about, and where is it to be found?

To answer these questions, we have to ask another pair first: Who is this baby, and what is he up to?

Luke 2 tells us who the baby is—this baby is the Messiah, God’s Redeemer, who would save his people. But somehow this baby is also “the Lord,” a word that in the rest of the chapter refers only to God. God rescues mankind by becoming a man.

The rest of Luke’s gospel tells us what the baby is up to. In this child God affirms the goodness of his material creation by entering it, so that now humanity is also an attribute of God. Throughout Luke’s gospel Jesus, the Messiah, the God-man, shows himself to be Lord of heaven and earth—and the character of his rule is grace and mercy and liberation.

When we read through Luke’s gospel looking for the character of this Lord and his rule, what do we find?

We see that our sin and rebellion against God separate us from God, who is our only source of life and goodness. So Jesus forgives people, and they repent and return to God.

Our lives are twisted and torn apart by sickness, spiritual slavery, natural disasters, and material poverty. So Jesus liberates his people by healing their diseases, casting out demons, calming storms, and feeding the hungry.

Our lives and hopes and purposes are overshadowed by the prospect of death. So Jesus takes our death upon himself, dying on a cross as an outcast—and then rising from the dead, alive beyond all power of death.

All this he does on our behalf and as one of us, making our story his. And, because he has entered our story and made it his, he has also opened his story to us, and brought us into it.

Therefore, if we are to understand our own story, we must first look to him.

Jesus is the Lord. Not Caesar and his political oppression; not money and its economic oppression; not Satan, and not death—and also not us. We are not lords even of our own lives. Jesus is Lord. He has not just taken on a life like ours, he has taken us on. And, therefore, to try to live apart from him warps us away from the peace that God has for us. Trying to understand ourselves apart from him only leads to confusion.

So then, what does it mean to live or to understand in the light of Jesus? Three things:

1) Faith is an acknowledgement and a trust. We acknowledge that Jesus is Lord and we are not. And we can trust him because his lordship, as St. Luke shows us, is a lordship of grace and mercy, liberation and love. He cares for us. So faith looks to Jesus for direction, for the ability just to keep putting one foot in front of the other. We listen to his words, we meditate on them, and we trust that even in this mess, this painful, dirty, bloody, confused, frightening mess, full of foolish people like you and me—we trust that even here he will show up. We can trust that our little lives are ultimately about something bigger that we usually can’t see. We can trust that the good Shepherd will bring all his sheep home, especially from dark and scary places.

2) This is our hope, that Jesus will bring us home. Zacharias expresses his hope in the previous chapter,

SalvationFROM OUR ENEMIES, And FROM THE HAND OF ALL WHO HATE US; To show mercy toward our fathers,And to remember His holy covenant, The oath which He swore to Abraham our father, To grant us that we, being rescued from the hand of our enemies, Might serve Him without fear, In holiness and righteousness before Him all our days.

3) And, since his lordship has the character of love, walking with him means that we, also, pursue a life of love. Not to earn marks, not to make God like us, not as another set of obligations piled on the others that we already can’t meet. No, but because love is the source of life. Literally, Love Rules. Love became this baby, this Ruler, this Lord, who rules. And you see his love work everyday. You extend love to other people and it changes them, it energizes and enables them. God does this for us. Frankly, if he didn’t, then we wouldn’t be able to do it. Our meanness, our fear, our pain, our confusion would take over again if God did not uphold us.

The newspapers today were full of mixed news again. Some news was hopeful, but most wasn’t. The world is still full of death, political oppression, disaster, hunger, hate, fear, psychotic rulers, terror, and inns with no room.

This room is full of pain and disappointment and the fear that tomorrow holds nothing but more of the same. Please do not take my remarks to deny or even minimize that. You hurt, I hurt, and it’s real. It’s bigger than we are.

That’s why Jesus came. That’s why angels sang to hurting, dirty, poor, confused, frightened, outcast people.

And that’s the glory—God himself has become our hero, our rescuer. God himself has lived in our hurt—and killed it. It’s still punching us only because it doesn’t know it has been defeated.

And there is our peace. In the middle of real, anguishing pain, God tells us that he feels it even more than we do, and that he will deliver us through it.

Christmas trees are not biblical, but I like them very much because they say something very biblical indeed. The sparkly lights, the plastic tinsel, and the fragrance of evergreens tell of a glory that is coming and will not be hidden by darkness and doubt, of a peace that is coming and will not be hidden by fear and pain. So tonight we can sing with the angels,

Glory to God in the Highest, and on earth Peace among those with whom he is pleased.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Atonement in the Gospel according to John

2010-08-27T16:51:00.006-06:00

Recently I looked through St. John's gospel and found some interesting patterns. In every chapter but the last I could find some description of Jesus as the one who removes the barrier between us and God, a description of that action, and something in the context that connects that action with atonement. Unfortunately I couldn't figure out how to paste it into the blog in a table, so I put it into a less handy format. Here are the results:

Ch. 1. Title: The Word of God
Atoning Action: became flesh
Connection with atonement: God takes on our flesh, becoming “at one” with us (v. 14)

Title: The Lamb of God
Atoning Action: who takes away the sin of the world
Connection with atonement: Reference to the use of lambs in the Levitical sacrificial system

Ch. 2. (no title; Jesus is a wedding guest)
Atoning Action: turns water of purification to wine
Connection with atonement: Purification (stone waterpots, v. 6) and giving life (wine, v. 10)

Title: Son of the Father
Atoning Action: cleanses the temple
Connection with atonement: "Temple" refers his own body and death (vv. 19-21)

Ch. 3. Title: Son of Man, Son of God
Atoning Action: sent to save the world & give eternal life
Connection with atonement: Eternal life (vv. 16-18, 36)

Ch. 4. Title: The Messiah
Atoning Action: who gives the water of life
Connection with atonement: Eternal life (vv. 14, 25,26)

Title: The Lord
Atoning Action: who gives life
Connection with atonement: Eternal life not mentioned, but giving life is the prerogative of God (vv. 49, 51)

Ch 5. Title: The Son
Atoning Action: who works to heal
Connection with atonement: His healing is part of his father’s work, which is the reconciliation of God and man(vv. 8-9, 17)

Title: The Son
Atoning Action: who obeys the Father and gives life instead of judgment (condemnation) to believers
Connection with atonement: Believers honor the Son and have passed from death to life (vv. 19-24, 27)

Title: The Son
Atoning Action: who bears witness
Connection with atonement: “That you may be saved” (v. 34)

Ch 6. Title: The Son, The bread of life, the bread of God
Atoning Action: who gives life to the world
Connection with atonement: Resurrection and eternal life (vv. 39-40)

Ch 7. Title: The prophet, Messiah
Atoning Action: who gives living water
Connection with atonement: Reference to life & the Holy Spirit (vv. 38-39)

Ch 8. Title: The light of the world
Atoning Action: who gives the light of life
Connection with atonement: Connection of light with life (v. 12)

Title: The Son
Atoning Action: who makes free
Connection with atonement: Freedom from the slavery of sin (vv. 31-36)

Ch 9. Title: The light of the world
Atoning Action: who gives sight
Connection with atonement: Judgment (v. 39) and the removal, or not, of sin (v. 41)

Ch 10. Title: The door of the sheep
Atoning Action: who gives salvation and pasture
Connection with atonement: Connection of pasture with salvation (v. 9)

Title: The good shepherd
Atoning Action: who lays down his life for the sheep
Connection with atonement: Gives life by dying (v. 11)

Title: The shepherd
Atoning Action: who knows &calls the sheep
Connection with atonement: Knowing (v. 15) & hearing (v. 16) express union & belonging, esp. with the comparison “even as the Father knows me and I know the Father” and the result, “and I lay down my life for the sheep,” both in v. 15.

Title: The shepherd
Atoning Action: who knows the sheep & they follow
Connection with atonement: Knowing and hearing related to eternal life (vv. 27-29)

Ch 11. Title: The Lord, Christ, Son of God
Atoning Action: who gives life
Connection with atonement: Reference to the resurrection (vv. 24-25, 43-44)

Ch 12. Title: The Son of Man
Atoning Action: who draws all men to himself
Connection with atonement: Connection with “if I be lifted up,” v. 32.

Title: Light
Atoning Action: who delivers believers from darkness
Connection with atonement: Light and belief connected with being converted and healed (v. 40)

Ch 13. Title: The Servant
Atoning Action: who washes us
Connection with atonement: Connection with the OT washings (implicit)

Ch 14. Title: The Son
Atoning Action: who prepares a place for us
Connection with atonement: in the Father’s house (v. 2, 3).

Title: The Son
Atoning Action: who gives the Spirit
Connection with atonement: to be with us forever (vv. 16-17).

Ch 15. Title: The true vine
Atoning Action: through whom the branches bear fruit
Connection with atonement: These are the branches that the Father prunes (v. 2) and keeps (v. 6).

Ch 16. Title: The Son
Atoning Action: who goes to the Father
Connection with atonement: Connection with giving the Holy Spirit (vv. 7 ff.) and the Father’s love for us (vv. 27-28)

Ch 17. Title: The Son
Atoning Action: who gives eternal life
Connection with atonement: Eternal life (v. 2)

Title: The Son
Atoning Action: who manifested God’s name to his disciples
Connection with atonement: and God gave them to him (v. 6).

Title: The Son
Atoning Action: who prays on our behalf
Connection with atonement: “Sanctified in truth” (v. 17) means belonging to & union with God (vv. 21, 23).

Ch 18. Title: King of the Jews
Atoning Action: who bears witness to the truth
Connection with atonement: “Hearing” is connected in previous passages with belonging to Jesus

Ch 19. Title: King of the Jews
Atoning Action: crucified
Connection with atonement: References to the Passover (vv. 14, 36) depict Jesus as our Passover lamb; reference to Zechariah 12:10 (v. 37) connects the crucifixion with the coming of "the Spirit of grace and supplication"

Ch 20. Title: The resurrected Son
Atoning Action: grants peace
Connection with atonement: Peace with God (v. 21)

Title: The resurrected Son
Atoning Action: gives the Holy Spirit
Connection with atonement: Union with God (v. 22)

Ch 21.

My Neighbor Totoro - movie review

2010-06-13T19:26:00.003-06:00

Because I have greatly enjoyed the work of Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli (see Spirited Away (2001, and Academy Award winner in 2002), Howl’s Moving Castle (2004), and others), last night I watched his earlier work, My Neighbor Totoro (1988). It takes place in rural Japan in 1958. A father moves to an old house in the country with his two daughters (roughly 10 and 4 years old). Totoro is a spirit-creature living in the nearby forest. The portrayal of the two girls is witty, charming, and credible, at least to the eyes of a bachelor who has been able to befriend and observe the children of his friends. Look at the Wikipedia article or the plot line at imdb.com for more information about the movie, plot, critical reception, history, etc.

The movie successfully evokes a simplicity of time, place, and culture that contrasts sharply with late 20th to early 21st century America. But it can help us understand the assumptions and values of my parents’ and grandparents’ generations. Most people in the film don’t have cars, so they get around by foot or bicycle. Some of the roads are paved, but many are not. Not every house has a telephone. Kids ran around unsupervised. The music and graphics produce an atmosphere of peace and stability. The amenities of the house are minimal and rustic. The conveniences include a hand-pumped well just outside the house that needs priming from the stream down the hill. The walls have moving segments and shutters, the better to capture a breeze. The family spends a lot of time cleaning floors and pots and pans and clothes. A neighbor helps with the laundry. They all work hard at daily chores and think nothing of it.

Yes, the film idealizes this lifestyle by leaving out much of the dreariness, lack of opportunity, lack of medicine, and closed-mindedness that often accompanied it. But we technology-laden, globally-minded folk can profit from savoring this portrait of simplicity and asking what it can teach us. Do our techno-toys, our pace of life, and our grasping for more material wealth help us to be more human or do they erode peace and true community? Have our toys become our masters? Are we amusing ourselves to death, to borrow Neil Postman’s title? And, positively, we should evaluate our lives to find God’s kingdom, his glory, and his consequent Shalom.

Weather

2009-04-20T16:05:00.000-06:00

This past Friday snow fell all day and into the night. Today the temp is in the 80s. I love Denver!

How do?

2009-04-08T00:25:00.000-06:00

So what is giving you a new lease on life this week?

Futility in the Flurries

2009-02-09T23:33:00.002-07:00

I went to Breckenridge today with some friends, planning to do some work while they snowboarded. The Wi-Fi connection was very strong, but it required a password from the hotel at the base station.

I read instead. Ah well.

Book Review: How People Change

2009-01-30T15:13:00.006-07:00

I have been reading How People Change, by Timothy Lane and Paul David Tripp (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2006). The book does not offer a method like a 12-step program, nor does it give simple answers. Instead, it points the reader to the importance of pursuing Christ himself. Although principles for behavior, theological systems, therapy, goals, etc., all have use and value, trying to use them apart from the pursuit of Christ will only affect the symptoms of our problems. Jesus has taken us to himself as his own delight and special possession, as his beloved and his bride. Any way of life that does not respond to His presence, his love, his pursuit of us, will necessarily mire us in futility, frustration, and even disaster.

The book has a somewhat dense style, but it gives great encouragement by examining the necessity and possibility of pursuing the Christ who pursues us. It helps construct a frame of mind in which to hear Christ and follow after him. It examines and analyzes common stumbling blocks that interfere with that pursuit. It gives help along the way.

I finished chapter 4 this morning.

Weather

2009-01-25T14:23:00.003-07:00

It's snowing again here in Denver, but only lightly. Our church holds its annual Vision Dinner tonight, but I don't expect that we will get enough snow to interfere.

The air here has been so dry lately that static electricity builds up more than usual. I hold my car door as I slide out, to discharge the static as it builds, instead of getting the shock when closing the door. The "moisture" in my nose dries so much that in the morning my sinuses feel like they have been paved.

Gossip?

2009-01-25T14:19:00.003-07:00

Is it gossiping if I tell scandalous stories that are true, and I say what church the people in the stories attend, but I don't know their particular names?

Christmas gift

2008-12-26T10:33:00.002-07:00

Yesterday some friends gave me a bottle of Pyrat rum, XO reserve, from the British West Indies, in a very pretty presentation box. This stuff is luscious! It has strong, smooth flavors of orange peel and caramel, with a hint of lime. I only take a very small sip at a time of this 80 proof elixir, and mixing it with anything, except perhaps an ice cube, would upset its wonderful balance.

St. Stephen's Day

2008-12-26T10:31:00.001-07:00

Today is also called "Boxing Day" in Britain.

Happy boxing!

The Song of Heaven and Earth

2008-12-26T10:14:00.003-07:00

Christmas Eve homily, 2008

Scripture – Rev. 5
8When He had taken the book, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each one holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. 9And they sang a new song, saying, "Worthy are You to take the book and to break its seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. 10You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign upon the earth."
11Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne and the living creatures and the elders; and the number of them was myriads of myriads, and thousands of thousands, 12saying with a loud voice, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing." 13And every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all things in them, I heard saying, "To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever." 14And the four living creatures kept saying, "Amen " And the elders fell down and worshiped.

Sermon
I like to brag about people I know. Not name-dropping, trying to connect myself with someone famous, but telling stories about my friends and what they do, saying things like, “Did I tell you about my friend X? He combines tenderness and toughness towards children in a way that matures them but without bruising them, and they keep coming back for more.” Or, “Did I tell you about my friend Y? She helps people turn their lives around, getting them out of toxic habits and showing them the love of God.” I have some pretty amazing friends. They make good stories.

The Advent sermons this year at City Presbyterian Church have been about the songs in the first two chapters of St. Luke’s gospel: The Song of Zecharias, the Song of Mary, the Song of the Angels, and the Song of Simeon. Tonight we look at one more song, in the fifth chapter of Revelation. This is a song that all heaven and earth sing, praising Jesus, whose birth we celebrate tonight, and it shows the whole sweep of his mission to rescue us. It connects to the other songs in Luke, and, like them, it praises God and Jesus whom he sent. All these songs brag on Jesus and say how great he is.

By the way, have I told you about this Jesus? Very God of very God, He was God with God from everlasting, from before time, and yet, when we, his people, rebelled and got ourselves into such trouble that it would destroy us, he took on our humanity as his own to come and rescue us.

What do you mean impossible? Well, yes, I suppose so. There are people, some very smart people, who say that. If you already know what’s possible for God and what isn’t, and you know that incarnation isn’t included in the possibility list, then either this didn’t happen, or maybe, just maybe, God can do what we don’t understand.

Let’s make it even more of a problem. This Jesus was born to a virgin. Oh, yes, of course that kind of thing doesn’t happen. People back then knew it too, so when his mother became pregnant, it caused a typical small-town scandal. His mother, Mary, was poor and only engaged to be married, to a carpenter named Joseph, and he was prepared to break up with her quietly, but angels appeared to both of them to tell them that God and not man had caused this pregnancy. Confusing and Scary? I should think so! The first thing angels usually tell people is not to be afraid, they are that scary! But anyway, Joseph and Mary stayed together, and so God in human flesh was born.

And name the baby “Jesus,” which means “Yahweh saves.” Pretty cool name, huh? And he grows up to be a teacher and a miracle-worker, healing people of diseases, calming storms, and teaching people how to love God and each other.

What? Well, yes and no, he had a big following and was respected by quite a few people, but the authorities didn’t like him much. Why? Well, because he was and still is too much of a challenge for anybody. He’s God, after all, and we are fundamentally in rebellion against him. But he heals our hearts so we can really, really hear him, so we understand that he himself is our light and our life. And that shows us the darkness and death that we have preferred. He is real bread and living water, and that shows us the ashes and dust that we have mistaken for food. Can you see how big a challenge that is, to tell us that our attempts to be self-sufficient are a sham and a fraud? To call our treasures junk, to call our banquets poisonous, to call the kings of this world upstarts and imposters? Yes, you can imagine how much trouble THAT caused. And it caught up with him.

Ha! Yes, you have that right. “If he was really God, don’t you think he would see what would happen?” Oh yes, he did. Just by being himself he stirred up trouble, and he did it on purpose, he did. So the God-man appears, and the powers of this world take him down.
No. No. They didn’t just “try” to take him down. They did it. They did. And that’s the darkest part of the story. They killed him, and in a very painful, grotesque way, by nailing him to a cross.

Why did he let them do this? It was part of his plan. These people he came to rescue, we, the rebels against God, needed more than an example, because we couldn’t have followed it. We wouldn’t have wanted to do so. We needed more than a picture of the kingdom of heaven, because it wouldn’t have interested us. We had twisted ourselves so badly that we needed to be re-made. We were so deeply, thoroughly infected that—well—the problem wasn’t like a bad kidney that could be pulled out or replaced and we would be better. No, the badness, the anti-God-ness, the me-first-ness, the I-will-be-my-own-God-ness, was in every cell and atom and breath of our being. The whole thing had to be destroyed, we had to be done away with and re-created. And that’s why he died. We were included in his death, so that, when he died, we died. No really, we did. Yes, it sounds absurd, but reality is like that. Ask a physicist who looks at sub-atomic particles, an astronomer who looks at the edge of the universe, or anybody who deals with small children. Reality is just strange when you see it the first time. And then you see it, and you see the wonder of it.

Of course, the people who loved him and followed him didn’t see it, either. They were caught by surprise, even though he had tried to warn them. They were terrified, because it looked like Death and Sin had killed him who was Life and Holiness. It looked like the Dark had put out the Light.

But on the Sunday morning after that dark Friday, the tomb they buried him in was empty. Angels appeared again, frightening people the way they do, but saying that Jesus had risen from the dead. And then he himself shows up to his followers. And he’s not just a spirit, he has risen in his physical body. He eats and drinks with his followers and hangs around for 40 days, then is taken bodily into heaven. And our new life, our new creation, the new “us” is in him. You might think that center of our life is in this material body that we daily clothe and feed, but no, our life is hidden in him in heaven. That’s why we can treat our bodies with respect and care, but ultimately live dangerously, because our life is hidden with him.

Why care about our bodies? Oh, because they are wonderful gifts from him. After all, he shows us the goodness of the material world by taking a body for himself and living in this world that he created.

Why not just go to heaven right now? Because he lets us take part in his mission, his war, his conquest, to proclaim that Jesus is Lord of every bit of the world that rejects him.
No, not by smashing the people who resist, but by loving them. It’s Jesus who is Lord, and his lordship is like him—gentle, loving, not giving up but patient, insistent, unrelenting and, ultimately, winning. If there’s any conquering to do, then he does it by melting the coldness of hearts. Yes, there will be real opposition, opposition that is equipped with power, wealth, gossip, and malice. We are here as invaders in a world where they think they are lords. And so we will have to oppose people who fight against Jesus, but our opposition must be like his, not like theirs.

And, finally, we come to our text. The people of Jesus are often the powerless, the poor, the despised. But in the book of Revelation he reveals himself to be the beginning and end of all things. He works in and through and around us, so that the victory is his, and we share his victory with him. The book of Revelation is like an ancient Roman triumphal parade. We see all manner of bizarre sights go by, strange creatures doing strange things, with choirs going before and after, singing these songs of praise, proclaiming that Jesus has conquered all darkness and sin and death. His enemies, these spiritual powers that opposed him and killed us, and the people who have refused God’s love and lordship, are also in the parade, bound in chains and thrown into a pit.

In Chapter 5 we see and hear the choirs, all heaven and earth proclaiming that this lamb who was killed has rescued us and brought us home, safe and alive. This God took on our flesh and became one of us that we might live with him. And so he is worthy to “to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.” And all heaven and earth sing, “To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever." And in chapter 11 the choirs sing, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ; and He will reign forever and ever.” And if we hear the music of Handel in their voices, that’s not a bad thing.

And so tomorrow we open presents and eat holiday food, and we sing songs about this Jesus, the God-man, who was born and died and was resurrected and ascended for us. Let us give thanks for this great gift of himself that he gave us. And, having received him, let us live in him and by him. And let us pass this gift along to others, loving them as he loves us. And let us brag on our Savior, maybe start a conversation by saying, “By the way, have I told you about Jesus?”

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

snow again!

2008-05-01T09:50:00.002-06:00

The temperature on Tuesday hit 80, yesterday was still short sleeve weather, and this morning it's snowing again! The large clusters of flakes won't last very long on the ground, although the cars look like they've collected an inch or two.

Wednesday Lunch

2008-04-30T11:17:00.000-06:00

I’m having lunch at the City O’City cafe, which is about a block from my flat. The tea is Ceylon Mango, and I have ordered the Pesto Plate, “A sampling of our basil pesto, olive tapenade, fig sauce and hummus topped with sheep’s milk feta and served with warm flat bread.” Yummy!

Retraction

2008-04-25T14:14:00.002-06:00

To my Readers (both of them) I offer this apology for having posted sloppy work, a retraction of the offending material, and an examination of the error.

I have removed the following paragraph from my comments on the Cry of Dereliction, posted on March 06, 2008:

This view also assumes, without exegetical support, that Jesus took our sins upon himself (or that they were laid on him) at some point on that Good Friday. The better exegesis of the New Testament would be that he bore our sin all his life long, from the assumption of our humanity at his conception to the resurrection of it in his resurrection. The fellowship of Jesus with the Father shows the Father’s attitude to the One who fully lives in metanoia, i.e., in a constant “turning” from the dictations of sin, the flesh, and the devil to the Father in the power of the Spirit.

This had been the fourth of five paragraphs under “Theology.” The reasons for that change are twofold:

1) Even if we assert that Jesus “bore our sins all his life long,” for which I still think there is good exegetical and historical support (see Note below), the final conflict and conquest that occur at the cross differ both in kind and extent from the rest of his life. The agonizing prayers in the Garden of Gethsemane introduce the successive horrors of betrayal and desertion by his friends, a rigged trial by the supposed shepherds of Israel, being ejected from the covenant community for judgment, a public and shameful execution in extreme physical pain, and (harshest of all) the silence of his Father. As the prophets and apostles show us, Jesus there took upon himself the curse due to us that we might instead receive God’s blessing (Gal. 3:10-14). See also, for example, Isaiah 53:3-11, esp. vv. 6, 11; II Cor. 5:14-21, esp. v. 21; I Pet. 2:24.

2) Given these passages and others, the wording “without exegetical support” makes a universal negative claim that is plainly (and embarrassingly) untrue. See Calvin’s masterful treatment of the relevant passages in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, II.xvi.6; II.xvii.4.

Note:
Although it is possible to interpret John 1:14, Romans 8:3, Phil. 2:7, Heb. 2:17, and Heb. 4:15 as attributing to Jesus a human nature that is, unlike ours, untouched by the fall, I think that this kind of abstraction is alien to the texts and that they, rather, state that Jesus, by his incarnation, entered fully into the human situation with all its weaknesses and that he did not himself commit sin, but turned that nature to complete obedience to the Father. The Heidelberg Confession, Q. and A. 37, takes a similar position.

Calvin on Mt. 27:46

2008-03-08T16:33:00.004-07:00

Just to show that my comments above on the Cry of Dereliction are not entirely an innovation, I quote some of Calvin's comments here:

Institutes, 2.16.11 (translated by Henry Beveridge)
To such a degree was Christ dejected, that in the depth of his agony he was forced to exclaim, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” The view taken by some, that he here expressed the opinion of others rather than his own conviction, is most improbable; for it is evident that the expression was wrung from the anguish of his inmost soul. We do not, however, insinuate that God was ever hostile to him or angry with him.[260] How could he be angry with the beloved Son, with whom his soul was well pleased? or how could he have appeased the Father by his intercession for others if He were hostile to himself? But this we say, that he bore the weight of the divine anger, that, smitten and afflicted, he experienced all the signs of an angry and avenging God.

[260] See Cyril. Lib. 2 De Recta Fide ad Reginas; Item, Hilarius de Trinitate, Lib. 4 c. 2 and 3.

Harmony of the Gospels, Mt. 27:46
But it appears absurd to say that an expression of despair escaped Christ. The reply is easy. Though the perception of the flesh would have led him to dread destruction, still in his heart faith remained firm, by which he beheld the presence of God, of whose absence he complains. We have explained elsewhere how the Divine nature gave way to the weakness of the flesh, so far as was necessary for our salvation, that Christ might accomplish all that was required of the Redeemer. We have likewise pointed out the distinction between the sentiment of nature and the knowledge of faith; and, therefore, the perception of God's estrangement from him, which Christ had, as suggested by natural feeling, did not hinder him from continuing to be assured by faith that God was reconciled to him. This is sufficiently evident from the two clauses of the complaint; for, before stating the temptation, he begins by saying that he betakes himself to God as his God, and thus by the shield of faith he courageously expels that appearance of forsaking which presented itself on the other side. In short, during this fearful torture his faith remained uninjured, so that, while he complained of being forsaken, he still relied on the aid of God as at hand.

Jesus' Cry of Dereliction

2008-03-06T21:40:00.004-07:00

Theologians and preachers sometimes interpret the cry of Jesus on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mt. 27:46, Mk 15:34 ) to mean that God has turned his back on Jesus while the latter bears the sins of the world. Sometimes this rift is described as being between the Father and the Son, i.e., within the Trinity, and sometimes the placement of the rift gets no detailed attention. Thus Jesus bears the rejection due us as part of God’s response to our sin. R. C. Sproul, in a series of films in which he gives a survey of the New Testament, describes Jesus as “the most obscene object in the universe” at that point during the crucifixion.

It is not necessary to adopt Dr. Sproul’s assessment of “obscenity” in order to hold the view that God turned his back on Jesus at that cry, and other variations on this theme are certainly possible, so let me group them under the heading “Rift” views or interpretations. (My only intention in using this label is brevity, not disrespect.)

These Rift views, despite having some very appealing strengths, also have some insurmountable theological and exegetical problems.

Theology

The chief theological strengths of the Rift interpretation are its emphases on God’s utter rejection of sin, Christ’s exchange with us of his life for our death and his cleanness for our foulness, the horror of Christ’s experience on the cross, and the depth of God’s love for us to undergo such torture on our behalf. The New Testament presents these important points in several places, and we must not abandon them. But we must also not let our imaginations (and traditions) run away with us, based on these points and the single word “forsaken” in the saying from Jesus on the cross.

Putting a rift between divinity and humanity on the cross means that it was not God who took away our sins. Putting a rift between the Father and the Son is even worse, because it means that God has abandoned his own nature (unity), it effectively proposes a second God (the Son in isolation), and it calls into question the existence and activity of the Holy Spirit (if he is not the love of the Father and Son for each other, then who is He and what is He doing?). This interpretation allows our notion of sin to dominate our notion of God: it says that sin can split God, dividing Him against Himself.

At the crucifixion the burden of our sins heightens into an agony. Yes, Jesus dies as the Rejected of God, the Curse of God (Gal. 3:13), the One who became sin for our sakes (II Cor. 5:21). But underneath all those real and agonizing aspects of the cross lies the deeper reality that He is the Beloved, the Blessing of Abraham, the Righteous One. In his very sin-bearing he is being obedient. In dying, he takes our humanity to its agonized destruction, and thus we die in him. But he dies that, in his rising again, he may bring us also back to life. Thus we are in him a “new creation”: the old one had to be destroyed (II Cor. 5:17), and it was Jesus who bore the pain of that destruction.

Exegesis

The chief method and exegetical strength of the Rift interpretation is its attention to the word “forsaken” (sabachthani in Aramaic, 'egkate/lipe/v in Greek in both texts). Take the word “forsaken” in a straightforward sense, with all the devastation that it carries, and it aptly describes our place before God without Christ. Jesus gives us several pictures of forsakenness and accursedness in his parables, as in Mt. 25:41, “Depart from me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels.” Mt. 22:13 gives another picture, “Bind him hand and foot, and cast him into the outer darkness; in that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” That was our place, and Jesus took it for us.

The two main subsidiary texts used for interpreting the cry of dereliction this way are Gal. 3:13 (“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is every one who hangs on a tree’—“) and Hab. 1:13 (“Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity: wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he?” KJV, italics in the original). The Galatians text is interpreted as implying God’s utter rejection of Christ by its use of the word “curse.” The Habakkuk text is interpreted as describing God’s aversion to sin, and thus his aversion to Christ when he carried our sin.

But the text in Habakkuk does not treat sin as if it were some substance, or even as a nature, but rather as an activity, doing evil, pursuing that which God has forbidden. Further, the Hebrews used their language in a much more poetic way than Westerners sometimes allow. Notice that in the same verse the author says both “you can’t look” and “you do look.” The NASB accurately translates the first verbs as “look with favor” for the more literal-minded. To say that sin can force God’s hand, or his eyes, attributes too much power to sin and too little to God. Thus this verse cannot apply to Christ on the cross. Although he bore our sin, he himself did not pursue sin.

The text in Galatians quotes Deut. 21:23, “for he who is hanged is accursed of God,” or more literally, “the curse of God.” Christ becomes a curse for us who have not kept the Law (3:10), so that we may, in contrast, inherit the blessing of Abraham (3:14). The application of this verse to the crucifixion scene depends on the content that we give to the word “curse.” On the one hand, we must not undercut the severity or profundity of this word; on the other hand, we must allow the scriptures, and not our own imaginations, to provide details of its content.

The biggest exegetical problem of some of the Rift interpreters is their failure to use the most important scriptural reference, Psalm 22. This cry does not originate at the cross: Jesus is quoting Psalm 22:1. No, it is not merely a quotation, but he points us to Ps. 22 because it tells us what he is going through. The whole psalm is rich in references to the crucifixion and resurrection. By the parallelism of its structure it also tells us what “forsaken” means in this case, namely, God’s inaction, his failure to deliver, to answer, to give rest (vv. 1-2). Far from denoting God’s absence, it presupposes his presence and his hearing. It also contrasts the forsakenness with God’s holiness (v. 3), showing that the psalmist (and therefore Christ) knows that, in and with and under this excruciating event, God is indeed present and delivering in a way neither presently seen nor experienced. By v. 24 the psalmist expounds this in more detail: “For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; Neither has He his is face from him; But when he cried to Him for help, He heard.”

No, this does not reduce “forsaken” to mere appearances. Jesus suffered a painful dying on the cross, both physically and spiritually, and his Father did not deliver him from it. The full brunt of the Father’s rejection of our sin and the annihilation of our fallen humanity fell on him. But underlying that reality was the deeper reality without which our salvation would not have been possible, namely, the love of the Father for the Son and for us in the Son by the Spirit; the Son’s love for and obedience to the Father in the Spirit; and the Spirit’s loving union of the Father with the Son, and us in the Son.

Hasty Judgment

2008-02-08T21:40:00.000-07:00

I meant to post this last month:

Jan. 19, 2008
Denver had about 4 inches of snow again last night, so, instead of riding my bike, I walked to the Civic Center bus station at the head of 16th Street and took the free bus down to Wynkoop St., which is at the other end of the 16th Street Mall. The bus is designed mostly for standing, although there are some seats. A young man was sitting in the only seat near the front when I got on, and some people were still crossing the street in front of the bus. One of them was an elderly man with a cane and a hat emblazoned, “WWII Veteran.” He boarded the bus slowly. The young man offered him the seat, but he said, “No, I can’t sit. Go ahead and sit down.” Maybe his knees hurt and he had difficulty getting up again after sitting.

It occurred to me that, if I had boarded the bus about two blocks later and had seen the young man sitting while the veteran stood, I would have been annoyed that people are so discourteous. Just goes to show how ready I still am to jump to conclusions about people on the basis of inadequate information.

Giving up theology?

2008-01-01T14:00:00.000-07:00

I have several times considered giving up my pursuit of theology, for the following reasons:

• Why write something that few will read, fewer will see as a positive contribution, and will otherwise sit on a dusty shelf, which is already weighed down by uncountable books?
• My writing is stuck, anyway.
• I am puzzled regarding how I can use it for others.
• The problems regarding such topics of interest as justification and the nature of the Adamic covenant are mountainous, complex, and probably insoluble.
• The people already discussing said topics keep generating more material than I can keep track of, much less read.
• And what’s the point?

The last item is the most important: Why study theology? I have often pursued it because of a fascination with its beauty, as I have occasionally pursued mathematics. Both involve systems of complexity and beauty, with intricate problems to be solved. Theology can be pursued as a science, adapting the mode of study to the object studied, enabling the student to see God more clearly and appreciate him more deeply.

Solving problems, gaining insight, helping others see—these are good goals. But if these activities change so that they treat God as a problem to be solved more than the Lord to be loved and obeyed, and if they treat other people as needing to be corrected more than to be served, then the whole enterprise needs serious re-adjustment.

Further, science and mathematics are not the only, and perhaps not the best, paradigms for applying to theology. Considering that the Bible consists largely of poetry, poetic prose, dramatic narrative, nightmarish visions, parable, and very little of what we would call sustained logical argument, perhaps the theologian who emphasizes analytical essays needs a great input of non-analytic theology.

And why not give up theology? The biggest reason is that it has profoundly changed for the better the way I see God and other people. For example, before I went to Aberdeen to study, I thought that theology and ecclesiology were what united any given body of believers. What we believe and how we organize ourselves is, no doubt, important, but these criteria do not distinguish the Church from a political party or fraternal club. What unites us as Christians is Jesus himself. It is his faithful activity, and not our poor attempts (largely failures) at obedience. This change in perspective came embarrassingly late in life, but I’m thankful that it came at all.

St. Paul’s own theological letters often break out in doxology. That’s where all theology should culminate.

The Brewery Where I Go to Church

2007-09-30T15:38:00.000-06:00

This is the brewery where I attend church in Denver. Actually, it has been converted to a student center that serves the colleges in Denver, and they rent major space to City Presbyterian Church. Today was my third day to attend services there. They have two services each Sunday, one at 8:30 and the other at 11:00, with Sunday School between. Great preaching!

T&T

Hunting Brambles

2007-09-24T23:04:00.000-06:00

“No, there are no brambles in the park,” said the locals, “brambles” being the Scots word for blackberries.

Unconvinced, he nonetheless took the boy out to look for brambles. The boy needed a day out, an adventure, so off they went to see for themselves. The boy held the basket and his older friend’s hand.

Was the sky overcast that day? Memory paints it thus, but “overcast” is the default setting for Aberdeenshire skies, except in high summer. Since bramble season is runs form June through September, the skies may well have been clear. In any case, it wasn’t raining, which meant that it had been raining recently and would be again soon.

Down past the Post Office and General Store, to the corner and catty-cornered across to the church, past the yews and stones in the church-yard, then into the playground of the Park. At the opposite corner of the Park, behind the soccer field stood a copse of pines and larches, holding the suspicion of brambles. The companions chatted about whatever weighty matters filled the world of a 3-year-old. They were dressed against the chill and did not notice it.

The copse was tall and light-filled. The undergrowth admitted paths, and did indeed contain brambles in full fruit, sweet, black, plump, ready for eating and baking, should any berries remain from immediate consumption. And, yes, there were plenty for then and later. They plucked and ate and filled the basket. Are there ever enough berries in the world? Maybe not, but that day’s crop filled the basket with enough for a pie later. The boy spilled the entire contents once, as boys of that age may be predicted to do, but the outing was about adventure, not efficiency. Between them they picked up the spillage, and the boy, aware of his appointed task, carried the basket safely from the copse to his parents’ flat above the General Store and Post Office, rewarded with their approval and with blackberry crumble for desert.

The older friend later wrote some papers in Scotland, but their significance has faded when compared with that hunt for brambles.

Sunset over the Rockies, seen from Sloan’s Lake

2007-09-22T16:44:00.000-06:00

Fading of sunshine explodes in a glory,
splits fragments of orange,
to robe the high peaks in imperial purple.
Above and below shout the shards of bright sunlight from heaven,
declining from sight yet proclaiming the victory won, ever winning,
no darkness can counter,
though the interim threatens to drown all our hopes
in the fear of abandonment.
He will return, righteous, reigning, resplendent.

Thursday Sunset

2007-09-21T14:08:00.000-06:00

The route to King Sooper’s (grocery store) from the house where I am staying in Denver goes around Sloan’s Lake. Last night’s trip to the store and back occurred just after sunset. As I drove along the east side of the lake, the sunset above the mountains was brilliant orange, the lake was brilliant orange, and the mountains between water and sky were deep purple. Ab-so-lutely, gob-smackingly amazing. The colors lasted 5 or 10 minutes. What a gift, to have seen this and to remember the One who made it.

Meaning of Life? 1

2007-08-25T14:33:00.000-06:00

If our chief end is “to glorify God and to enjoy him forever” (Westminster Shorter Catechism 1), then it’s very natural to ask how any particular person can use that axiom for direction and meaning in life. Does it indicate what to do, or just the manner of doing it? It implies that I must not do that which God forbids, but it doesn’t tell me whether I should be a plumber or a banker, whether I should live in Denver or London, or whether I should spend this moment praying or shaving. Or does it?

When we ask for direction or guidance or meaning, we ask amid a complex of dynamic circumstances. It does us no good to ask abstractly, because that isn't where we are. We are “in the middle of things” (in media res) and “on the way.” We have at our hands a specific set of resources and responsibilities. We are connected to these friends and loved ones. We are in the hands of this God.

God tells us to come to him for wisdom (James 1:5). He is our Father, our Creator, our Redeemer, and therefore our chief point of reference for the deep questions like this. Prayer and bible study orient us towards him. They orient us to the contours of reality. They begin to transform the illusions that we have inherited from our culture (both inside and outside the church) into true vision. Thus prayer and bible study, done both corporately with the church and privately, are necessary media for drinking the wisdom of God.

How shall I seek his glory? He has put specific tasks in front of me. Some of them are mundane and we often perform them almost automatically: pay these bills, pick up bread and milk at the store, call Mom and Dad to keep in touch, call this list of friend who have been so kind, etc. Others tasks require much harder decisions and work: I am looking for a job, so do I stay in Huntsville or do I move to Denver to look for work? What preparations do I have to make for either route? How can I do this with minimum disruption to others?

Between the prairies of the mundane and the valley of the shadow of huge decisions lie the rolling hills of creativity. Negotiating them requires that we have some relief and leftover energy from climbing through the life-altering decisions, but they offer their own refreshment in return for work invested. I have been editing a book that a friend is writing. That’s one example. Writing this blog is another. And there are some projects that I have started and left hanging unfinished. Friends that have seen my outlines for those projects have encouraged me to continue, so I hope to start them up again. As it happens, the friend’s book, this blog, and several of my own projects all have explicitly theological aspects. Other activities that may not look especially God-ward do, in fact, relate to him because all of life comes from him. Painting, jogging, reading a good book, singing, baby sitting, and other simple activities can glorify God and give profound joy to others and to us.

Another clue about finding the specific goals of one’s own life comes from I Cor. 12 and Romans 12. God gives us gifts, spiritual and otherwise, for building up other people, not for promoting ourselves.

Conclusion: When we apply our gifts to opportunities for serving other people in joy, we will find that we also have grown. If we aim for self-fulfillment, we will find emptiness. If we aim to fulfill others, we will find, as a side effect, that we also have been filled.

Sonnet

2007-08-16T17:53:00.000-06:00

In response to a haiku, composed by Jeff Goldstein at proteinwisdom, I wrote the following:

“St. Paul Addressing Conservatives about Modern Immorality”

They multiply transgressions of the law.
Imagining the darkness light, they twist
God-given wisdom into foolish mist
that leads astray. This gold they turn to straw.

And, not content to maim themselves, they draw
more people to this death-perverted list,
compounding pain, becoming but the grist
for God’s relentless mills, as Moses saw.

But you self-righteous Christian Pharisees,
repent of lovelessness, and from you knees
beg pardon. Jesus, who took our disease
and sin upon himself, reveals the truth and grace
of God. His wrath will fall in its due place.
His love will leave of sin no smallest trace.

Not great, but a gratifying effort.

PCA Rpt on FV and NPP; Comments

2007-06-02T12:54:00.002-06:00

The Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), at its 2006 General Assembly, appointed an ad hoc committee to study the Federal Vision [FV], New Perspective [on Paul, NPP], and Auburn Avenue Theology." Their report can be found here.

Jeffrey Meyers lists 30 reasons not to approve the report.

Strength of Character in Jane Eyre

2007-02-14T08:40:00.000-07:00

John Eldredge, in his book Wild at Heart, claims that men want three basic things in life: beauty, an adventure, and a fight. By comparison to that claim, Jane Eyre seems to be relatively feminine, since it lacks the element of fight. Jane, the character, does not seek a fight, does not seek to impose her view of the world on others, does not try to kill dragons or build a kingdom.

As an example of a more masculine Bildungsroman, look at the recent movie Batman Begins. The adolescent Bruce Wayne opts for revenge when the killer of his parents is paroled. When someone else kills the murderer before Wayne can, Wayne retreats from his home city and wanders the world until a mentor finds him and takes him to the headquarters of the League of Shadows for philosophical, emotional, and physical training. Wayne thus gains a strong sense of identity and integrity, as a result of which he refuses to join the League, returning instead to Gotham to follow his own pathway as the Batman.

Although Jane Eyre, especially by comparison to Batman Begins, is a feminine book, it is not pink and fluffy. Jane becomes a remarkably strong character who displays unusual insight into her own nature and a determination to be faithful and true to the responsibilities laid upon her. The book charts her growth from immaturity into that strength and integrity. The romantic interest of the book revolves around Jane’s growth, her integrity, and her struggle to be faithful to herself and to those around her.

At the beginning of the book a new friend, Helen Burns, challenges Jane’s attitude toward those who have mistreated her. When Jane on p. 48 (All quotations from Jane Eyre in this essay cite the paperback Bantam Classic edition / March 1981) comments, “If she struck me with that rod, I should get it from her hand; I should probably break it under her nose,” Burns responds (in part), “It is far better to endure patiently a smart which nobody feels but yourself, than to commit a hasty action whose evil consequences will extend to all connected with you: and, besides, the Bible bids us return good for evil.”

On p. 50 we see a continued interchange, in which Helen Burns, in all kindness and friendship, explicitly labels Jane’s attitude as heathen and un-Christian:

“But I feel this, Helen: I must dislike those who, whatever I do to please them, persist in disliking me; I must resist those who punish me unjustly. It is as natural as that I should love those who show me affection, or submit to punishment when I feel it is deserved.”

“Heathens and savage tribes hold that doctrine; but Christians and civilized nations disown it.”

“How? I don’t understand.”

“It is not violence that best overcomes hate–nor vengeance that most certainly heals injury.”

“What then?”

“Read the New Testament, and observe what Christ says, and how He acts; make His word your rule, and His conduct hour example.”

“What does he say?”

“Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to them that hate you and despitefully use you.”

Over the course of several, Jane watches Helen embody that attitude in her own behavior and responses to appalling injustice and neglect. Her serenity and even affection for those that mistreat her astound Jane. By the end of the novel, about nine years later, we see these same qualities in Jane.

But the mature Jane avoids an extreme that seems at times to endanger Helen. Jane does not become a doormat for the abuse of others. Like Helen, she accepts the responsibilities that are hers, but, by the time she has left Lowood school, she has also learned to distinguish between the true responsibilities laid on her by God and the expectations of others. She has also learned not to be dismayed or deterred by the refusal of others to love her or to carry out their own responsibilities. Those situations cause her pain, sometimes deeply, but they no longer cripple her as they did when she was a child. Her speech (pp. 29 f.) at age ten to her Aunt Reed, who has just called her a Liar, shows her impatience with the injustice of others:

“I am not deceitful: if I were, I should say I loved you; but I declare I do not love you: I dislike you the worst of anybody in the world except John Reed: and this book about the Liar, you may give to your girl, Georgiana, for it is she who tells lies and not I.”

Mrs. Reed’s hands lay still on her work inactive: her eye of ice continued to dwell freezingly on mine.

“What more have you to say?” she asked, rather in the tone in which a person might address an opponent of adult age than such as is ordinarily used to a child.

That eye of hers, that voice, stirred every antipathy I had. Shaking from head to foot, thrilled with ungovernable excitement, I continued–

“I am glad you are no relation of mine. I will never call you aunt again as long as I live. I will never come to see you when I am grown up; and if any one asks me how I liked you, and how you treated me, I will say the very thought of you makes me sick, and that you treated me with miserable cruelty.”

Thus Jane at ten. Nine years later, when Mrs. Reed is dying, Jane returns to a house that was no more hospitable than before, calling Mrs. Reed “aunt” (p. 225) and “Dear Mrs. Reed” (p. 226). Even after Mrs. Reed confesses that she had prevented Jane from being adopted by a wealthy uncle who her to live with him, she fetches Mrs. Reed a glass of water and says (p. 227), “Love me, then, or hate me, as you will, … you have my full and free forgiveness: ask now for God’s and be at peace.” Jane has learned who she is and has learned how to act on the basis of that knowledge with integrity and compassion.

I once drank a lemon-lime soda, thinking it was straight lemonade. It tasted awful. When I realized that is was a soda, and not the juice drink, it tasted good. Our perceptions of an experience are often affected by the expectation we begin with. Readers who expect or demand an adventure with life-threatening drama, villains to be defeated, and conquests to be won by force of might and cleverness will likely be disappointed by Jane Eyre. The heroine’s circumstances are occasionally life-threatening, but they are more a matter of endurance than sharp conflict. “Adventure” is too outgoing a label for the episodes of the book, and even the cruelest of its characters does not merit the title “villain.” This book lacks the fast pace and the high energy to which current movies have accustomed us, and so it will lose the audience that demands that level of action. But its examination of character-building and of the interplay of personalities gives valuable insights into a wisely lived, Christian life, whether the reader is male or female. Its depth and breadth will broaden the receptive reader.

Three Aspects of Hamlet

2006-12-26T14:10:00.000-07:00

The Senior English teacher at a local high school invited me to lecture on Hamlet. I am no expert, and I have no credentials in the area other than my admiration for the play and the time and thought applied to it. The notes for that lecture follow.

Please note that the references to lines of the play will vary according to the edition you use.

Three Aspects of Hamlet
Read more!

[Lecture, Nov. 9, 2006]

Introduction:

We will examine the concept of self, integrity and duplicity, and Shakespeare's use of language in the play. Notice Hamlet's remark in I.ii.76, "Seems madam! nay it is: I know not 'seems.' " We will use this passage to illustrate these three aspects of the play.

I. The Concept of Self in Hamlet

The play contains many dramatic elements, such as murder, treachery, incest, royal succession, etc., but is the play really about any of these? Prince Hamlet himself is the heart of the play. Who is he? What will he become? Norrie Epstein [The Friendly Shakespeare] claims that this is " a play about writing a play" (p. 328). That is, it allows us to watch Hamlet the prince write out the course of his own life.

When Hamlet considers himself, what is this "self" that he is? The first line of the play is a tense, "Who's there?" We will be asking and answering that question for the rest of the play.

A. Hamlet's concept of self is dominated by the mind, the inner man.
1. Notice Hamlet's contrast between outward "seeming" and inward reality in I.ii.76-86, where he contrasts his outer clothes and actions with "that within which passeth show."
2. Also, in II.ii.255-257 and 260-261, Hamlet comments to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern that the inner attitude shapes one's experience or evaluation of the outside world. While all of us experience this to some degree, Hamlet's wording is very strong.

B. Hamlet seeks truth and honesty in his relations with other selves. See II.ii.174-179, where Hamlet wishes that Polonius were at least as honest as a fishmonger.

C. Yet the self is essentially cut off from others.
1. Hamlet's distrust of those around him has led him to claim [II.ii.316-324] that "man delights not me." Two factors undermine the reliability of this claim: (1) He may not trust Ros. and Guil. enough to be completely honest with them; and (2) he may not be accurately assessing himself here. He is, after all, somewhat confused.
2. Still, as the play progresses, Hamlet cuts himself off from almost everyone except Horatio in his search for truth and his own role, and Horation is not the help that Hamlet needs.

D. The self, thus cut off, tends toward despair.
1. Hamlet is already melancholy and depressed at the beginning of the play because of the unseemly haste with which his mother has remarried after the death of Hamlet, Sr., and because of her astonishing (incestuous?) choice of Hamlet's uncle Claudius as her second husband. See, for example, I.II.129 ff.
2. Through the second act, and with no one to trust, Hamlet's depression deepens amid the court intrigue. See II.ii.219-221.

E. A New Kind of Hero?
1. Norrie Epstein comments (pp. 328 ff.), 'Hamlet is a play about writing a play, Hamlet's inner drama, in which he struggles to become a new kind of hero. ... [He] is torn between the furious medieval avenger, who "out-Herods Herod," and the thougtful modern hero, who doesn't go around killing stepfathers upon the advice of a ghost, who may or may not be trusted.'
2. We see the tension in his struggle clearly in II.ii.575-634. Hamlet is paralyzed for the moment, although the following scenes show him in a flurry of activity. He wants to do right, but he doesn't know what that is.

II. Integrity and Duplicity in Hamlet

A. Again, in I.ii.76-86, Hamlet portrays himself as honest, “I know not ‘seems.’” He dismisses “actions that a man might play” as insignificant compared to “that within which passeth show,” but it is not long before “play” instead of honesty characterizes Hamlet’s actions.

B. A play is a “seeming,” and Hamlet uses a play-within-a-play as a tool to arrive at truth. The actors who arrive at the castle will put on an old play that they know well, The Murder of Gonzago, and Hamlet will add some lines to make it fit recent events in Denmark. He hopes that the King’s outward reaction will display guilt or innocence of Hamlet, Sr.’s, murder.

C. Hamlet’s own life becomes another play-within-a-play. He wants to be the “new kind of hero” described above, acting on truth, but he uses duplicity to arrive there. He also fakes insanity, but sporadically. Which actions are from his sanity, which from his faked insanity? Is the faked insanity becoming the real thing? It’s hard to tell.

D. Almost everyone else in the play is playing a “seeming” part. Ophelia and Horatio are probably exceptions. Polonius advises Reynaldo on how to use deception to spy on Laertes.
Is Gertrude deceiving or self-deceived? That is, was she part of the plot, or is she just trying to insure her survival and Hamlet’s by ignoring inconvenient realities? Claudius is in a completely dishonest position, having stolen his brother’s life, throne, and wife. He sends Hamlet to England under the guise of diplomacy, but with the intent of having him killed there. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern – how honest are they?

III. Shakespeare’s Use of Language
Shakespeare skill with language shows up in several different ways.

A. In I.ii.68-75, Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude, advises him to stop mourning for his father. The time for mourning is over, and death is common. Why does this death “seem so particular with” Hamlet? Like many other adolescents, Hamlet focuses on the otherwise negligible word, “seems,” and makes a major fuss over this minor word, thus diverting the conversation from “why do you wear black” to the hurt he has inside.

But look at this conversation from Shakespeare’s point of view instead of Hamlet and Gertrude’s. It is as if Shakespeare were a master woodworker making an elaborate and ornate chest of drawers from fine wood, with ornate carving and complex design. He picks up an inconsequential splinter from the floor, and from that splinter he carves a perfect, complete miniature of the whole chest of drawers. This is what he has done with language. He has picked up an otherwise inconsequential word from Gertrude’s motherly question, and he turns it into a miniature version of the whole play. What is the difference between what “seems” in the play, and what is real? The prince spends the remainder of the play trying to find an answer to that question.

B. Building an image of words, then blasting it. In II.ii.316-324 Hamlet gives a beautifully worded description of what it means to be human, then says that he just isn’t interested in it.

C. Sudden, odd pictures. In II.ii.397 Hamlet describes his occasional insanity by saying, “I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.” His madness is as changeable as the wind, but why bring up the hawk and the handsaw, besides the alliteration?

D. In II.ii.471, ff., the extended description of the fall of Troy plays on words that could have two different meanings (e.g., “arms” as part of your body or as weapons) and combines them. He combines the idea of a warrior and his coat of arms by saying that Pyrrhus becomes coated in his own heraldry, changing from “sable” (i.e., black from the ash of burning Troy) to “gules” (i.e., red from the blood of his victims). The clarity of the picture, the overlay of different senses of language, and the choice of power words give Shakespeare’s language its power.

E. Comparison of Shakespeare to a distillery. The result is more potent and more pure. Shakespeare makes every word bear its own weight and support the intent of the whole composition.

F. Pages 228 ff. in The Friendly Shakespeare give examples of phrases that were first written by Shakespeare that have passed into everyday speech in English.
i. Brevity is the soul of wit.
ii. Neither rhyme nor reason.
iii. The primrose path
iv. Eaten me out of house and home
v. Till the crack of doom
vi. Dead as a doornail
vii. An eye-sore
viii. Wear my heart on my sleeve
ix. Budge an inch
x. Knock, knock! Who’s there.

A Christmas Meditation on John 15

2006-12-25T20:43:00.000-07:00

Jesus not only became one of us - he has also united himself to his people so that his life and nature become ours. He gives himself to us as our abiding place, and there we give ourselves to him and to each other, in love. We have our being and our iedentity in him. He gives us life and causes us to bear fruit. Our abiding is thus at once active and restful.

In him we also are targets of trouble. The Incarnation plunged Jesus into our troubles, and now we share his. The world hates and resists him, and therefore us. And all of this is at times painful and troublesome. But it is all in the hands of a loving Father, our vine-dresser, who only allows such adversity as will cause us to bear more fruit.

Look around you. The people around you also are targets of trouble. Some are in great pain, even if they do not show it. Love them. Be gentle and thoughtful. Listen very carefully with your ears and heart. Let them see their Savior's love in you.

Here we see Christ, who for us and for our salvation became flesh, that we might be joined everlastingly to him, our Vine. Thus we partake of his nature, which is love, and bear its fruit, which is also love. Thus we are greatly beloved of God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Trollope Still Speaks!

2006-09-01T14:44:00.000-06:00

Anthony Trollope's novel The Warden gives the following description of a fictitious 19th century English newspaper called the Jupiter, describing its headquarters as "Mount Olympus" :

Who has not heard of Mount Olympus—that high abode of all the powers of type, that favoured seat of the great goddess Pica, that wondrous habitation of gods and devils, from whence, with ceaseless hum of steam and never-ending flow of Castalian ink, issue forth fifty thousand nightly edicts for the governance of a subject nation?

Velvet and gilding do not make a throne, nor gold and jewels a sceptre. It is a throne because the most exalted one sits there—and a sceptre because the most mighty one wields it. So it is with Mount Olympus. Should a stranger make his way thither at dull noonday, or during the sleepy hours of the silent afternoon, he would find no acknowledged temple of power and beauty, no fitting fane for the great Thunderer, no proud façades and pillared roofs to support the dignity of this greatest of earthly potentates. To the outward and uninitiated eye, Mount Olympus is a somewhat humble spot—undistinguished, unadorned,—nay, almost mean. It stands alone, as it were, in a mighty city, close to the densest throng of men, but partaking neither of the noise nor the crowd; a small secluded, dreary spot, tenanted, one would say, by quiet unambitious people at the easiest rents. “Is this Mount Olympus?” asks the unbelieving stranger. “Is it from these small, dark, dingy buildings that those infallible laws proceed which cabinets are called upon to obey; by which bishops are to be guided, lords and commons controlled,—judges instructed in law, generals in strategy, admirals in naval tactics, and orange-women in the management of their barrows?” “Yes, my friend—from these walls. From here issue the only known infallible bulls for the guidance of British souls and bodies. This little court is the Vatican of England. Here reigns a pope, self-nominated, self-consecrated—ay, and much stranger too—self-believing!—a pope whom, if you cannot obey him, I would advise you to disobey as silently as possible; a pope hitherto afraid of no Luther; a pope who manages his own inquisition, who punishes unbelievers as no most skilful inquisitor of Spain ever dreamt of doing—one who can excommunicate thoroughly, fearfully, radically; put you beyond the pale of men’s charity; make you odious to your dearest friends, and turn you into a monster to be pointed at by the finger!”

Sound familiar? See the full text of the chapter here. Trollope extends his mock-awe of the Jupiter for several paragraphs.

Book Reviews: "Derrida" and "Leven Thumps"

2006-08-17T02:37:00.000-06:00

If one must be awake at this time of night, then a hot drink without caffeine offers both the comfort of sipping and the possibility of slumber to follow. In this case, the beverage is Celestial Seasonings' "Mandarin Orange" - not that you are really interested in my liquid intake, but here it is for the record. Help yourself, the water is still hot.

Introducing Derrida (Collins and Mayblin, Totem Books, 1996) looked like a comprehensible introduction to this philosopher (or anti-philosopher, take your pick), so I picked it up used for $4. It's part of a series by Totem Books, heavily illustrated, and not quite 200 pages. If you can imagine a comic book that focuses on philosophic disputes, you have a pretty good idea of the approach this book takes. Other topics in the Introducing series include Kant, Wagner, Quantum Theory, and Astrology.

Derrida is associated with the development of post-modernism and especially "deconstruction" in literary criticism and philosophy. The biggest idea behind all of it seemed to be that writing can always be misunderstood, be it ever so carefully couched in clear diction and specific context. Surely that is a grotesque oversimplification that would make Derrida cringe, but that was the impression it made on me. But then, it was only writing, and I may have misunderstood it.

Leven Thumps and the Gateway to Foo (Obert Skye, Simon & Schuster, 2005) was much lighter, but it had better pictures and a faster story line. Skye probably won't make the impression on modern literature and criticism that Derrida has, but he's more accessible. It's not a great book. Although the author occasionally uses some very funny wit ("And the flags that only days before had hung majestically on the top of local flagpoles no longer looked majestic, they looked like multicolored pieces of cloth that had climbed up and tragically hung themselves."), even there the wording could be tighter. The disasters are a bit overdone, the bad guys are often two-dimensional, and I'm not sure if the repeated expressions of confidence in "fate" to provide what the good guys need are merely vacuous or intended to be funny. I gave the author the benefit of the doubt and took it for humor. I still didn't see quite enough development of the central characters to make them deeply likeable, but they're nice enough kids and they have potential.

T&T

Product Review

2006-08-12T13:00:00.000-06:00

Put down the glass of whatever you're drinking, unless you want it spewing out your nose, when you read this review of Tuscan Milk.

H/T Sharp As A Marble

T&T

Religious Irony

2006-08-09T11:37:00.000-06:00

A friend of mine who pastors a church suggested the following as a gift to first-time visitors:

This illustrates the irony in which his mind usually lurks. Yes, he affirms that God created the world (and specifically that creation is in Christ, through him, and for him), but the current debate between creationists and evolutionists can use a bit of humor and self-deprecation.

Movie review: "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels"

2006-08-03T20:48:00.000-06:00

"English Breakfast" may sound inappropriate for late evening, but I opened a fresh tin of loose tea this morning, so I'm celebrating it. You can have some toast with cream cheese and fresh tomato slices with it.

The bathroom walls still need a bit of patching. The first application of joint compound has helped smooth some of the rough spots, but there is plenty of work to be done.

I just finished watching "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels" (1998) (rated R), a crime comedy of errors, written and directed by Guy Ritchie. Good entertainment value, good balance of tension and comedy, very tightly knit. It has a very similar style to "Snatch" (2000), also w&d by GR, and some of the cast is in both movies, notably Jason Statham, Alan Ford, and Vinnie Jones. No Brad Pitt in this one. Both have good entertainment value, balance of tension and comedy, and a story so tightly knit it could be a bullet-proof jumper.

So, does the tea have too much caffeine for this time of night?

Tire-d

2006-08-02T17:52:00.000-06:00

Sorry I'm late. Let me go put the water on.

There, that shouldn't take too long. Today's brew is Celestial Seasonings' (R) "Perfectly Pear" white tea. Yeah, yeah, "If it's white, how can you see it?" Once it's ready, you can tell for yourself.

On my way to the river yesterday, I noticed that a tire on my car was almost flat. It must have been flatter than I thought, because driving it about 6 blocks to a service station to inflate it chewed up the inside of the tire so much that it couldn't be repaired. The new one took about 2 hours to put on and it cost about $ 120.

The paint on my bathroom walls is mostly in the same bad shape that the ceiling paint was. About 70% came off easily, and the other 30% sticks like glue. I think the best approach will be to leave the paint that wants to stick, and use joint compound or spackling to smooth out the edges.

The new shut-off valve to the toilet also has a slow leak at the join to the cast iron intake line. I forgot to brush the rust off the old pipe threads before putting the Teflon tape and new valve on.

Just a minute, the kettle is whistling.

Ahh, that's better. As you can see, the "white" tea has a very pale amber tint. According to "About.com", it's called white because "the leaves are picked and harvested before the leaves open fully, when the buds are still covered by fine white hair." Also, "White tea is similar to green tea, in that it's undergone very little processing and no fermentation. But there is a noticable difference in taste. Most green teas have a distinctive 'grassy' taste to them, but white tea does not. The flavour is described as light, and sweet." The light and sweet flavor go well with the vanilla and pear flavorings that Celestial Seasonings (R) has added to their mixture.

The Triscuits (TM) are gone, so we will have to make do with stale saltines and soft cheese.

T&T

Boat Repair and House Repair

2006-08-01T18:07:00.000-06:00

Come in, the water has just boiled, and this afternoon's tea is Ceylon Black with a bit of mango flavoring. I also have Tricuits(TM) and Laughing Cow(TM) cheese, so help yourself.

The washer is running because I got wet in the river today, helping a friend get his sailboat onto a trailer. The drive train on his outboard had seized up, so he sailed it to the boat ramp, where a mechanic removed the old drive train and installed a new one. The afternoon was pleasant enough - the temperature hovering in the mid-90s, but low enough humidity that a breeze and shade kept us cool.

You will notice that most of the floor has been removed from the bathroom. Some friends helped me tear out the old tongue-and-groove flooring, because it had some rotten spots in it. The subflooring is good, and some friends will help me put down a new floor later this week. That will involve laying down plywood, backer board, and ceramic tile. Have you ever tried to match 50 year old almond ceramic tile with what's available today? On my budget there isn't much choice but to buy off-the-shelf and hope no one notices the shade difference. I'm putting down a black border along the edges, so maybe that will help.

The paint was peeling off the ceiling, and once I started scraping, it came off in sheets. Some of the wall paint is like that, too. The local home supplies store sold me something called "Gripper" that goes on as a primer, and some paint to go over that.

I may come up with a theological question to ponder later, but I'm sapped just now. What's up with you?

T&T

Tea as a conserver of time

2006-07-31T15:30:00.000-06:00

Glad you stopped by. Neither of us has as much time as we would like, but a casual cuppa can do wonders for the day. Oolong or Earl Grey? Good, I'm in the mood for Oolong, too. Milk or lemon? Sugar? Here you are. The only biscuits I have are store-bought chocolate chip cookies, but they're okay.

Now: tell me what's been on your mind lately. We have time - and tea.

T&T