Considered Opinion

The Forgotten Gospel

2011-12-24T14:33:00.012-06:00

A men’s study group I belong to recently wanted to discuss the issue they saw posed in Hebrews 6, where the writer states, “For it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they then commit apostasy, since they crucify the Son of God on their own account and hold him up to contempt” (Hebrews 6:4-6).

The question that intrigued my fellow group members was whether a person can “lose his salvation.” A lively discussion produced no consensus, as is so often the case with problematic Bible passages — but that is not the matter I want to discuss here. What intrigued me was that phrase “those who have once been enlightened.” The author of Hebrews seems to link “enlightenment” with the receiving of the benefits of what we commonly call salvation. The person who comes to Christ comes, first of all, because he has been enlightened. He has absorbed certain information; a certain knowledge has been imparted to him.

I was reminded that the early Christian church, in celebrating the Lord’s Supper, made a point of thanking the Lord for the knowledge that has come through Christ. In a passage in the Didache, the earliest (second century) account of a Christian worship gathering, the leader prays over the bread in this way:

We thank You, our Father, for the life and knowledge which You made known to us through Jesus Your Servant; to You be the glory for ever.

In the same vein, after the worshipers have received the bread and the cup the leader prays as follows:

We thank You, holy Father, for Your holy name which You caused to tabernacle in our hearts, and for the knowledge and faith and immortality, which You made known to us through Jesus Your Servant; to You be the glory for ever.

The stress on the enlightenment that comes through Jesus is unmistakable here. The eucharistic (thanksgiving) prayer does not focus upon the shed blood and broken body of Jesus, but rather on the abiding presence of the Father (His “holy name”) and the knowledge the worshiper now enjoys as a result of Christ’s coming. Normally, when evangelicals of today partake of the Lord’s Supper they focus on the sacrifice of the cross that atones for our sin. That note is absent in this earliest ordered account of a Christian worship service centered around the Lord’s Table.

What do we make of this? Had the second-century church already lost the significance of the Lord’s Supper as the remembrance of Christ’s death, and instead turned the Supper into a celebration of the sort of “head knowledge” that preachers often deride as a substitute for true commitment to the Lord?

I hardly think so, for the New Testament itself often mentions the knowledge, or enlightenment, that Christ brings into the world. In addition to the passage from Hebrews cited above we have the powerful image with which John begins his Gospel: “The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not” (John 1:9-10). The apostle Paul might be driving toward this same thought when he prays for the Ephesians “that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you" (Ephesians 1:17-18). Paul tells the Colossians that he has been praying for them also, “that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding” (Colossians 1:9). And to Timothy he writes of “God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4). True knowledge, understanding, or enlightenment is a key to being saved.

This raises the question of what it means to be “saved.” Biblically, salvation is deliverance or rescue. In the Scriptures, salvation is not usually related to sin — other words, such as “cleansed,” are used — or to heaven, which is the abode of the God who delivers. Most often, in Scripture, salvation is deliverance from some threatening external situation such as enemy oppression or attack. (See our study What Is Salvation? on the Laudemont Ministries web site.)

In the first recorded Christian preaching, Peter’s message on the Day of Pentecost, salvation is deliverance from “this crooked generation” — that is, from a culture whose twisted thinking blinds it to the ways of God (Acts 2:40). To be rescued from this faulty paradigm a person must first come to a new understanding of reality, or to repentance (the New Testament term, metanoia, literally means a “change of mind”). This intellectual enlightenment is what initiates the process by which a person is rescued from his oppressing environment.

It was enlightenment concerning Jesus’s resurrection, as evidenced by the gift of the Holy Spirit and the explanation Peter offered, that persuaded the earliest Christian converts to change their minds about Jesus and acknowledge Him as Messiah. Those who had taken part in His crucifixion came to a new understanding that caused them to seek membership in Jesus, through baptism (Acts 2:21). They had to lay aside a false paradigm, or world view, that prevented them from recognizing the work of God in their midst. The same enlightenment came to Saul of Tarsus on the Damascus road through the appearance of the risen Jesus; he was forced to change his mind about Jesus, in a radical turn-around of his entire way of life.

This enlightenment, or knowledge, that God imparts through Jesus Christ is often the forgotten Gospel in evangelical preaching today. Sometimes worshipers are told to accept Christian truths “on faith,” without engaging in a deep intellectual grappling with them. People are not encouraged to explore the coherence of the Bible’s world view, or to understand how it synchronizes with knowledge arrived at through other avenues such as science — particularly cosmology, the study of the origin and nature of the universe. Forgotten is Paul’s assertion that “ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made” (Romans 1:20). The result is ineffective congregations of Christians who are simply flitting around the edges of churchiness, mouthing standardized formulas of doctrine and devotion without being penetrated by the knowledge that exposes the false values of their surrounding culture.

The second-century Christians whose worship gathering is recorded in the Didache, in giving thanks to God, celebrated “the life and knowledge which You made known to us through Jesus Your Servant.” Their insight was biblically based. Without the knowledge that comes from Christ his followers would be unable to do what Paul says we do, to “destroy arguments and every proud obstacle to the knowledge of God” (2 Corinthians 10:5). Without an intellectual grasp of a coherent biblical world view Christians are liable to be “tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the cunning of men, by their craftiness in deceitful wiles” (Ephesians 4:14). We need to recover, and be informed by, the forgotten Gospel: “The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him . . .”

The Heavenly City

2011-11-27T23:09:00.004-06:00

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to a judge who is God of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant . . . (Hebrews 12:22-24).

Here the author of Hebrews states, in no uncertain terms, that his readers have already come to “the heavenly Jerusalem.” The heavenly city isn’t something awaiting us after death, or in the far-off future; it’s a present reality. The writer’s emphasis is similar to John’s vision at the end of the Revelation: “And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God . . .” (Revelation 21:2). As John sees it, the heavenly city isn’t someplace we’ll go off to where, one day, we’ll meet God. The city comes to us “out of heaven from God,” and we live in it here on earth.

How can this be? Our life in this world often seems anything but “heavenly,” so it appears ludicrous to claim that the heavenly city is already here. Of course, we can apply the concept to entering the Lord’s presence in Christian worship. Hebrews refers to a festal, or joyful, gathering and speaks of the assembly of those who, through membership in Christ, are among the “firstborn” of God’s new creation (see Colossians 1:15). And John describes the city as the place where “the dwelling of God is with men” (Revelation 21:3), and states that its temple or central focus is “the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb” (22:22). Paul makes it clear that our entire renewed life, as followers of Christ, is our “spiritual worship,” so there is a sense in which every faithful Christian is experiencing the life of the city that comes from God.

But there is more to this “heavenly city” than the overtly spiritual dimension we typically recognize. Is there a way to understand the city of God as encompassing all healthy and constructive aspects of our present life, as well as the life to come? God has created all features of our physical environment and called them “good” (Genesis 1). Therefore, we see His providential activity and wise governance across the wide spectrum of our daily experience.

Turn the ignition key of your car, and realize that God made the raw materials out of which your vehicle was fashioned. He ordered the elements of the universe so that fuel and oxygen would combine to produce the energy to propel it. He created the human mind with the intelligence and skill to design and build your car and the roads on which you drive. You live in the heavenly city.

Slip into the voting booth and exercise your ability to discern what is right for your community and nation, and what is wrong. God gave His Word to guide us, so we can differentiate between them. He gave the vision to our nation’s founders, who believed that our Creator endowed us with certain unalienable rights including the liberties we enjoy. Be thankful you live in the heavenly city.

Contemplate your children, share tender moments with your spouse, enjoy the excitement of a youthful romance. God made us male and female in His image, establishing that intimate relationship that is the basis for the family and all human community, and the means of perpetuating the human race. The exercise of our distinctive role as a man or woman is evidence that we live in the heavenly city.

Boot up your computer, or use your digital camera. When God said, “Let there be light,” and divided light from darkness, He established the principle of information: the difference between one thing and another, between off and on. He created that digital difference upon which so much of our technology depends in this heavenly city.

In every facet of our lives we detect the work of God’s governing hand, ruling over His new Jerusalem. As Paul says, doubters have no excuse because His power and authority are “clearly perceived in the things that have been made” (Romans 1:20). The heavenly city is here because God is here, working out His purpose for us in all these things and calling us into His living presence to worship Him through Jesus His Son.

The Law of the Vacuum

2011-10-27T13:28:00.006-05:00

"When the unclean spirit has gone out of a man, he passes through waterless places seeking rest; and finding none he says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when he comes he finds it swept and put in order. Then he goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first." (Luke 11:24-26)

“Nature abhors a vacuum.” The origin of the saying is ascribed to Aristotle, who explained the operation of a water pump by suggesting that the vacuum draws up the water. He wasn’t quite correct, since a vacuum is nothing, and nothing can’t do anything. In 1643 Evangelista Torricelli showed that it was atmospheric pressure that forced the liquid up in a vacuum tube; this was the invention of the barometer.

But the “vacuum principle” is still useful, whether or not we understand the physics of it. We sweep our carpets, seal jars of canned tomatoes, or sip lemonade through a straw knowing that if a vacuum is “created” something will try to flow in to take its place. And the principle extends to realms other than the behavior of physical substances. A vacant building draws vandals and arsonists; the plain side of a car in the railroad yards attracts “taggers” and their bold graffiti. And, as Jesus pointed out, a mind cleansed of demonic influence is soon invaded by influences even more demonic than the original, if nothing positive fills the void.

It’s not enough to simply try to rid ourselves of negative thoughts, dysfunctional patterns, harmful habits or addictions, and other “demons” that have a detrimental effect on our quality of life — not to mention the influence of genuinely demonic spiritual forces. The law of the vacuum suggests that these destructive factors will resurface with greater power unless a resisting force has replaced them.

It’s important, then, to exchange hurtful attitudes, warped beliefs and destructive behavior patterns with new thoughts and actions that tend toward what is healthy and good. The apostle Paul illustrates the “vacuum principle” this way:

Therefore, putting away falsehood, let every one speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his hands, so that he may be able to give to those in need. Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for edifying, as fits the occasion, that it may impart grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. (Ephesians 4:25-32).

In other words, we don’t just give up devious ways, but make the intentional effort to be truthful. We don’t just stop avoiding work or trying to get by at the expense of others; we apply ourselves to earning what we need to assist others who need help. We don’t just quit malicious or vulgar talk; instead, we learn to steer our conversation toward that which encourages and builds up other people. The “pressure” from the healthy replacement behavior helps to keep the old ways from returning. Ultimately, as Paul’s words suggest, it’s the Holy Spirit who must replace our self-seeking tendencies, or those “demons” will only come back to grieve Him, and us.

Where Is the Wise Man?

2011-09-08T22:50:00.003-05:00

Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. — 1 Corinthians 1:20-25

Paul’s question seems to imply that the “wise man” is nowhere when it comes to understanding what God has done through the cross of Christ. It would be easy to take this passage as a denigration of any attempt to apply the intellect to the understanding of the Christian faith. And sometimes we do suffer the rant of unreflective preachers who put down the value of higher learning.

But this passage wasn’t written by an uneducated ignoramus. Paul came from Tarsus in Asia Minor, a university town, and received an intense rabbinic education in Jerusalem at the feet of the esteemed Gamaliel. It took a brilliant mind to reach the insight expressed in these words. Paul’s intellectual achievement in discerning the core of the Christian gospel for his culture was exceeded only by the brilliance of Jesus, in His reshaping of Israel’s story around Himself so that God’s people might be renewed in their Abrahamic calling to bless all of humanity. Among all the apostles it was Paul who most effectively built upon Jesus’ masterful insight.

Paul, here, contrasts two ancient cultures, the Semitic and the Hellenistic: “Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom.” In other words, Jews want something spectacular, something with a “wow!” factor. And Greeks want something they can speculate about, catalogue and document with footnotes. A man dying a criminal’s death on a Roman torture instrument doesn’t fit either expectation. Instead, Paul asserts, Christ on His cross takes the issue to another level, the level of calling and commitment. Jesus’ resurrection makes it plain that God is involved in what He did. Either you buy into God’s plan, recognizing the true power and wisdom of God, or you sidestep it with lame excuses when it doesn’t mesh with your cultural norms.

There are plenty of “Jews” and “Greeks” around today, people who look for the Christian faith to do something for them in terms of priorities imposed by non-Christian sources. We might be among them, attempting to cram the faith into the parameters of our own agenda and presuppositions. Is Christianity a tool we use to achieve our ends, or are we God’s instruments in the plan He has revealed in the cross?

As long as our self is the center of our concern, we partake of the foolishness Paul describes—a foolishness that passes for wisdom in the contemporary scene. Let’s examine our own thinking about the gospel to see whether we adequately appreciate its mysterious, but powerful, irony. For the story it tells calls into question the twisted worldview that so insidiously warps our perspective and makes us into the arbiters of coherence and effectiveness. May we have the grace to restrain our self-centered efforts to control the story, and to align ourselves with God's story that breaks free of our outworn cultural constraints.

Insight

2011-07-17T22:54:00.003-05:00

Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser; teach a righteous man and he will increase in learning. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight. (Proverbs 9:9-10)

Until Galileo’s time, philosophers assumed that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones. They believed this because earlier thinkers had believed it. The idea sounds logical enough, but nobody had ever taken the trouble to test it with real objects. Galileo’s experiments showed that objects dropped from a height fall at the same rate regardless of their weight. His finding came through insight, when he stepped outside the conventional thinking of previous generations.

It was insight by which Isaac Newton arrived at the first law of motion: that a moving object will continue in the same direction and speed until acted upon by an outside force. Before Newton’s time physicists thought that a moving object’s innate tendency was to come to rest. Newton showed this wasn’t so; the object stops only when something else stops it. His theory of inertia broke through conventional thinking.

Galileo and Newton, and others such as Albert Einstein, arrived at new understandings of the nature of the universe by pushing past previous perimeters of thought. Since God is the Creator of the universe, their insights may be considered “the knowledge of the Holy One,” whether or not these thinkers professed a belief in the Creator — as many did.

But insight isn’t limited to the physical; it allows us to penetrate social interactions as well. By insight we come to understand how our actions influence, and are influenced by, those of others. Norbert Wiener developed the theory of cybernetics, the idea that events are controlled by an information loop that includes more than the acting instrument. When we put our car on cruise control, its speed is governed by a feedback loop that includes not only the amount of fuel injected but also the engine’s revolutions-per-minute, the cruise control setting, and any other factors that come into play. The same principle applies to our relationships with others. How people act toward us depends, in part, on how we behave toward them in a constant circle of feedback. If that circle is dysfunctional, spiraling downward toward dishonest dealings and ruptured relationships, insight allows us to break free of the conventional pattern and introduce new information into the cybernetic loop so that healing can begin. Jesus put the principle this way: “For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get” (Matthew 7:2).

The Bible has another word for insight; sometimes it calls it revelation. By thinking that transcended the world of the senses, Scripture’s inspired writers came to a new understanding of God and His ways that defied the conventions of their time. By the Spirit of God the same revelation is available to us. It isn’t the revelation of new truth, but — as Kenneth Copeland reminds us — it’s insight into truths that have always been present in the Word of God. We’ve just never seen them before.

Creation and Conduct

2011-06-03T21:29:00.004-05:00

The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. . . . The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. (Psalm 19:1-2, 7-8)

Some nineteenth-century literary critics, who regarded the Bible as a work of exclusively human origin, were convinced that Psalm 19 was a composite of poems from two different sources. The same author could not have composed both parts, they believed, because of their contrasting subject matter. The first section deals with the natural order, the starry heavens and the sun’s course across the sky. Never mind that the idea of the heavenly bodies communicating knowledge seems fanciful, or that the sun’s revolving around the earth is an antiquated concept in today’s Copernican view of the solar system. At least this part of the psalm celebrates a universal perspective.

By contrast, the second section focuses narrowly on an Israelite nationalistic concern, and celebrates the Law of Moses. An enlightened perspective, the critics thought, would surely relegate most of the Jewish Law to its proper niche in the museum of discarded standards, where they believed the superior insights of modern social and religious thought had placed it. Evolving humanity had arrived at a new way to formulate morality, one that didn’t purport to originate in divine pronouncements from on high.

What did these critics miss? They overlooked the insight that no “law,” or pattern for human conduct, rests upon any enduring foundation apart from the acknowledgment of God’s “handiwork” in the creation of the physical universe. If God is not “real”—if His work doesn’t underlie all that exists—then neither is there any basis for order on the plane of human relationships. Values and standards will be set merely by whichever human group is able to impose its ways upon others and force them into its mold. As William Penn said, “Those who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants.” The God who brought what is seen out of what is unseen, who separated light from darkness, has also differentiated human conduct into actions that are either right or wrong—and made the differentiation clear.

Paul wrote to the Romans concerning those who would sidestep this truth, “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse . . .” (Romans 1:19-20). Psalm 19, in linking the Law of the Lord to the cosmic panorama, makes the same point. However enlightened we may consider ourselves, when it comes to questions of how to deal with others and manage our personal lives—or the life of our society—we can’t write our own standards. The parameters have been set by the Word of Him who made all things.

The Analyst

2011-05-16T20:19:00.004-05:00

Our Creator is an Analyst.

It wasn’t enough just to launch the “big bang,” when “what is seen was made out of things which do not appear” (Hebrews 11:3). In the beginning there was nothing but light. But light reveals nothing if there’s nothing else to reveal. So the Creator took a further step. He “separated the light from the darkness.” As the older translations say, He divided. That’s what an analyst does, for analysis is the process of differentiating things into their components. God continued His analysis until the created order began to take shape, no longer “without form and void.”

In other words, God created information. As Gregory Bateson pointed out, information is “a difference that makes a difference.” There’s no information in sameness; information is the difference between one thing and another. That’s the principle of the digital computer. A “bit” is either on or off, and everything the computer does for us is based on the difference between what’s on and what’s off. God is the original Programmer-Analyst.

In a day of post-modern skepticism about the possibility of knowing what’s true and what isn’t, the Christian thinker needs to emulate the Creator in His digital differentiation. As Harry Blamires wrote five decades ago, “The thinker hates indecision and confusion; he firmly distinguishes right from wrong, good from evil; he is at home in a world of clearly demarcated categories and proven conclusions; he is dogmatic and committed; he works toward decisive action.”

A Christian intellectual may well acknowledge nuances and “gray areas,” but works through them to a firm conclusion. He or she is like the men of the tribe of Issachar “who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do” (1 Chronicles 12:32).

In submission to the Creator, we pursue His analytical ways. We learn to differentiate and distinguish, in order to contribute to His purpose for human civilization. The English Old Testament begins with God’s differentiation of the created order. It closes, in Malachi 3:18, with an admonition to carry the process of analysis into the realm of human conduct: “Then once more you shall distinguish between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him.” With our culture in moral meltdown today, we need this type of analytical skill more than ever.

Am I Really Worshiping?

2011-04-04T21:27:00.002-05:00

Worship isn’t a program we watch; it’s a meeting with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ. We’re God’s people gathered in His presence, reaffirming our covenant with him. That has implications for how we structure a worship service. Worship isn’t about me, or you, it’s about the Lord — and how He meets us for healing, encouragement, instruction in right living, and other benefits of being in His presence.

This leads to a larger question: How do we prepare ourselves for worship, and are we really worshiping if we’re not inwardly prepared and focused? Here’s my “take” on what it means to really be worshiping.

The biblical words for worship, in both Hebrew and Greek, refer to specific actions — usually either bowing or falling prostrate, or “giving thanks” which is a word derived from the word for “hand” and really refers, not to gratitude, but to taking an oath of loyalty to the Lord with uplifted hands. So you can see that the biblical worshiper knew he was worshiping when he performed the associated physical actions. It would never have occurred to David, for example, to ask whether he was really worshiping.

Perhaps some will object that in the New Testament there’s more concern with inward motivation in worship. In my opinion, the two Testaments don’t differ in this respect. The Old Testament worshiper also had a heartfelt motivation to express his loyalty to the Lord, as a member of the covenant community. This comes out, for example, in many of the Psalms.

The New Testament is also concerned with our outward, as well as inward, response. Paul, talking about the Lord’s Supper, says that we shouldn’t receive it in an unworthy manner. But the context of his statement shows that he didn’t mean introspection into our personal spirituality. It was, rather, an awareness of our place within the body — the believers around us — so that in eating and drinking we don’t neglect the needs of our brothers and sisters (1 Corinthians 11). And Jesus makes an astounding statement in the Gospels (Matthew 23:16-19) when he speaks about swearing by the gift on the altar. He says it’s the altar that makes the gift sacred, not our offering that sanctifies the altar. In other words, it’s God, represented by His altar, who validates our worship, and not our motivation. To concentrate on our motivation, or whether we’re “prepared,” is to put ourselves into the central focus — and that’s idolatry.

We in the Western world have become so used to thinking of worship as a cognitive or “thought-type” activity, internal rather than external, that we tend to navel-gaze, wondering whether our motives are what they should be. But when worship has a recognized, biblically based structure, and when we participate along with others in following that structure with the intent to bring honor and glory to God, why should we ever have to ask ourselves whether we are worshiping? Our feelings aren’t relevant to this question, if we’re obeying what God has commanded us to do to honor Him.

Jesus tells this parable in Matthew 21:28-31: “What do you think? A man had two sons; and he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ And he answered, ‘I will not’; but afterward he repented and went. And he went to the second and said the same; and he answered, ‘I go, sir,’ but did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” Jesus doesn’t even go into the question of the two sons’ motivation; he focuses on how they acted. His answer indicates that the one who did the right thing, after repenting, was the one who pleased his father.

What I’m trying to do here is to offer a word of liberation to those who are under the bondage of excessive introspection and self-criticism. Let’s trust that God is big enough to accept our worship and be blessed by it, even if our motivation — by our standards — may not be as pure as we would like. Is it paradoxical to imagine that we might have standards more stringent than those of the holy God? But perhaps that’s the case!

[This material appeared originally in the January, 2005 issue of ReUnion, newsletter of Union Congregational Church, North Aurora, Illinois.]

Impermeable Matter and Subatomic Space

2011-02-20T19:49:00.004-06:00

To us, the physical universe appears “solid” — that is, most physical objects appear impermeable. If you strike a nail with a hammer, the nail head does not pass through the head of the hammer. If it did, the hammer would be useless as a tool for driving nails. Fluids or gases, of course, behave differently. We can pour one liquid into another, such as two-cycle oil into gasoline for our line trimmer or snow thrower. The fluids mix in such a way that we can’t immediately grasp the oil and pull it bodily out of the gasoline. But the two fluids remain what they were, and if left undisturbed the oil may eventually separate from the gasoline. Unless a chemical reaction results in the recombination of the molecules into some new compound, the molecules of each fluid or gas in the mixture remain “impermeable” — that is, they retain the properties of the original substances.

What makes the impermeability of “solid” substances, such as steel, wood or even human flesh, a puzzling phenomenon is that no object we encounter in the normal course of events is really solid. All substances and objects are made up of atoms which, in turn, consist of subatomic particles — protons, neutrons, electrons, with the first two being further subdivided into “quarks.” (This is an oversimplification of a more complicated picture, which I am equipped neither to fully understand nor to describe.) The distances between the components of an atomic nucleus, and between the nucleus and its orbiting electrons, are comparable in terms of scale to the astronomical distances between the bodies of our solar system. This means that “solid” substances are not solid at all; in fact, the space they occupy is mostly just that — space. It has been suggested that if the space between all subatomic particles of the universe could be removed, the entire universe would shrink to the size of something like a grapefruit, or even a golf ball. Physical objects are not “solid” at all, but consist mostly of space between the subatomic particles that make up their molecules.

Within four-dimensional Newtonian space, material objects and substances — despite their not being “solid” at all — are held together by some kind of organizing force. Their molecular structure is sustained by what is called “nuclear binding energy,” or some similar term. Several nuclear, electro-magnetic and gravitational forces operate to both bind and keep apart the subatomic particles of matter. Reading discussions of this topic, one gets the feeling that physicists do not really understand how these forces and energy particles operate but are simply giving technical names to phenomena thought to occur, as though naming them would explain why they behave as they do. This is like saying that people gather together because they are gregarious, when being gregarious is just another way of saying that people like to be sociable. Exactly how and why an object or substance is able to hold its “shape,” given the fact that it consists mostly of space, is probably as puzzling a question now as it ever was.

What would happen if, from within four-dimensional Newtonian space, we could observe the effect of introducing additional dimensions into consideration — dimensions of which we cannot conceive given the limitations of a four-dimensional world of distance, volume and time? Would some kind of “nuclear binding energy” allow an object to retain its shape while ceasing to be impermeable? There is plenty of space between the subatomic particles of physical objects to allow them to “pass through” each other, if particular forms of binding energy allowed each object to retain its integrity while doing so.

Is this what happened at the resurrection of Jesus Christ? “Eight days later, his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. The doors were shut, but Jesus came and stood among them, and said, ‘Peace be with you’” (John 20:26). A four-dimensional universe could not have come into existence unless its Creator was operative in dimensions beyond the four that we normally experience. Could Jesus’s resurrection, and what He is able to do as the risen Lord, be the result of God’s continued multi-dimensional activity? Perhaps the universe is kept from collapsing into a tiny “golf ball” of spaceless matter through Jesus Christ, who “reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature, upholding the universe by his word of power” (Hebrews 1:3).

Scientific Knowledge and Faith

2011-02-08T08:28:00.004-06:00

For most people of contemporary Western culture the arbiter of reality, or truth, is probably the enterprise we know as “science.” We understand truth to be that which can be scientifically verified. The word science comes from the Latin scio, “I know,” and science represents for us that which we can know for certainty. But our confidence in science as the uniform guarantor of knowledge might be misplaced.

A typical image of the progress of science pictures succeeding generations of scientists building upon the achievements of their predecessors, verifying their conclusions and correcting their errors. Few people are aware that science, as we understand it today, has not developed in this manner, but instead has evolved through a series of “revolutions” in which the underlying assumptions of the previous era have been called into question. Science has moved forward not by the steady accumulation of data, but by the replacement of old paradigms of understanding with new insights — insights which came not from newly discovered data but from a different way of structuring and interpreting the data already available.

For example, ancient and medieval astronomers operated with Ptolemy’s system in which the earth was the center of the universe. The Polish astronomer Copernicus, however, developed a different paradigm in which the sun, not the earth, was the center. In this heliocentric model, which he published in 1543, the observed movements of stars and planets in the night sky were no longer understood as their movements with respect to the earth, but as resulting from the earth’s revolution about the sun.

At the time there was no real “proof” of Copernicus’s theory, since the observations of astronomers could still be forced into Ptolemy’s geocentric system of epicycles. Copernicus’s system was thought to be an interesting possible alternative to Ptolemy’s, but was no more “scientifically” challenging; thus it failed to generate much controversy when first proposed. A century later, when Galileo invented the telescope, more accurate observations of the night sky provided the data needed to completely call into question Ptolemy’s earth-centered model. It was only then that Copernicus’s system became controversial. This was largely due to a failure, on the part of church leaders, to separate biblical teaching and Christian doctrine from philosophical assumptions on which the old science was based. Eventually, of course, even Copernicus’s heliocentric model had to be abandoned once vastly more powerful instruments revealed the enormous, multi-galactic scope of the universe.

The example of the “Copernican revolution” shows that science evolves not by accumulation of new facts but by the insight of individuals who are willing to question the unproven assumptions of a previous scientific establishment. The history of science is filled with breakthroughs of this sort, such as Isaac Newton’s “laws” of gravitation, or Einstein’s theory of general relativity which modified and replaced them. Einstein’s theory, which suggests that gravity is an effect of the “curvature” of space, is not self-evident to an observer working within the Newtonian four-dimensional structure, which has no place for “curved” space. Scientific advance, then, does not depend on accumulating observations or measurements or copious experimentation within the established paradigm; it depends on the insight of an individual who is able to break out of that paradigm and think about the phenomena of the universe according to a different model. (The classic discussion of this issue is Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, first published in 1962.)

The early nineteenth-century French mathematician Laplace developed a theory of causal determinism: if we could know the precise present state of every atom in the universe, we could determine the exact course of past and future cosmic events. A popular view of science might agree with Laplace — would not the knowledge of everything be the key to the solution of all problems, through science? But this “thought experiment” destroys science itself by removing the element of human insight by which scientific knowledge actually moves forward. Therefore, Laplace’s hypothesis is sometimes called “Laplace’s demon.”

The point of this discussion is that science is not a mere objective body of knowledge requiring no personal involvement. Science is simply what scientists do, based on their unproven and unprovable philosophical assumptions about the nature of reality and how it can be known. The scientific enterprise is an exercise in personal commitment, and scientific knowledge is personal knowledge (see Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge, 1962). It is, therefore, akin to religious knowledge; like religious knowledge, it depends upon the exercise of faith.

Can the faith of the scientist be correlated with the faith of the Christian believer? If the universe is God’s creation, and if Jesus Christ is “upholding the universe by his word of power” (Hebrews 1:3), then the faith of the Christian and the faith of the scientist must become one. We will explore that thought in future entries.

“Martin Luther King Day” in Evangelical Perspective

2011-01-17T12:00:00.004-06:00

As a student at Boston University in the 1960s, I was part of a group that was bused down to Selma, Alabama, just before Martin Luther King’s Selma-to-Montgomery march. The atmosphere in Selma was like that of an evangelical revival; we sang gospel songs and listened to fiery sermons — one being by A. D. Williams King, MLK’s brother. We marched around Selma in a civil rights demonstration, jeered by the bystanders and soaked by a downpour. Later, as pastor of a small Methodist church, I heard Dr. King speak on Boston Common, and I and a few of my parishioners picketed the Massachusetts State House singing “We Shall Overcome.” As a Boston University graduate student I examined King’s typed doctoral dissertation in the School of Theology library, on a comparison of the idea of God in the thought of Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman, and may have quoted from it in term paper.

Those were in my “liberal” days. Later, when I became an evangelical Christian, my perspective changed. The civil rights movement had lost its original Christian impetus — if that was, really, anything more than window dressing. I understood that the drive for “equality” was based on the New Testament principle of oneness in Christ (e.g., Galatians 3:28), but that divorced from its Christian orientation it becomes distorted and just one more example of totalitarian “political correctness.”

Combined with the contemporaneous “sexual revolution,” the civil rights movement has done much to destroy African-American family structure. It may have restricted economic and educational opportunities for black people by eliminating their distinctive institutions in the effort to integrate them into the larger social fabric. Shaping congressional districts to ensure the election of minorities has actually reduced the number of African-Americans in congress, by making them non-competitive in the “white” districts that remain (non-competitive not because of their race, but because of their political ideology). As one African-American noted in a TV discussion I heard several decades ago, “we’ve been civil-rightsed to death.”

I do not blame Martin Luther King for what happened to the movement after his passing. My point is that he has become an inappropriate symbol for what passes for “civil rights” today, which includes homosexual “marriage” and all the rest. It is well for the evangelical church to steer clear of MLK Day. It grieves me that evangelical churches have adopted the secular and popular calendar as their “liturgical year” — Mothers Day, Valentines Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Armed Forces Day, even Pastor Appreciation Day. The liturgical churches, which follow the traditional church year, have been in a measure protected from this incursion.

“Majoring in the Minors” in the Church

2011-01-01T14:00:00.005-06:00

As a student at Illinois Wesleyan University in the late 1950s I was required to select a major field. I was headed for the ministry in The Methodist Church, but at that time Methodist seminaries didn’t recommend a college major in religion for pre-theological students. (I think seminary faculty were afraid that students entering with a college religion major would have to be re-educated!). As a result, I needed to choose a different major.

Because of my interest in music I chose to major in that field. Illinois Wesleyan had a prestigious School of Music, but I was in the College of Liberal Arts. Therefore, I became the only liberal arts music major in the university, and took forty hours in that field. Although I had enough religion credits to count for a major, and was going on for more work in that field rather than music, I spent my college years “majoring in the minors.” (I couldn’t even minor in religion, because IWU’s course catalog didn’t provide for a “minor” designation at that time.)

I’ve never regretted my “majoring in the minors,” because the knowledge and enjoyment of music has always been an important part of my adult life and has certainly contributed to the ministry. However, when the process of “majoring in the minors” is applied to areas of life outside of academia the results can be ludicrous.

A man who pursues a hobby, to the neglect of his family relationships or gainful employment, is pursuing the wrong major. A parent who pushes a child to develop talent in sports or some other field, to the neglect of the child’s character development, is doing the same thing. A politician who focuses on superficial solutions to public issues, such as government-run health care, is misplacing his emphasis. In this instance the focus ought to be on the reduction of medical costs through the elimination of layers of bureaucracy, the reform of litigation, and education in life-style changes that promote better health and reduce reliance on harmful and expensive drugs. You can easily multiply the examples where “majoring in the minors” has unintended consequences that only add to life’s problems.

The church in North America today is similarly addicted to misplaced emphases. Church leadership is always tempted to stress denominational distinctives; theologians tend to focus on the salient aspects of their particular point of view. Catholic, Reformed, Dispensational, or Pentecostal doctrine comes to the forefront in place of what C. S. Lewis wanted to call “mere Christianity.” These things become the “majors,” while the heart of New Testament faith — the living presence of Jesus Christ with His people — becomes the “minor,” mentioned only in passing.

Lay people sometimes fare no better. They might choose a church to attend based on such things as worship style. Do we sing “contemporary” choruses, old-time “gospel songs,” or stately organ-accompanied hymns or chants? Does the preacher use a manuscript, or speak in extemporaneous fashion? Do officiants wear casual clothes, encouraging other worshipers to do the same, or do they dress more formally or even wear vestments? Do we lift our hands or pray in other tongues during worship, or do we participate more placidly? Compared with the presence of the risen Jesus Christ, by the Spirit, these differences are only differences in style. Elevating them to prominence is truly “majoring in the minors.”

If Jesus Christ is who the Scriptures say He is, Christians need to become trans-denominational. If, as Hebrews (1:3) states, Jesus is “upholding the universe by his word of power” (1:3), and if, as John (1:3) says, “all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made” — then the living Christ is present wherever His people gather to honor and celebrate Him. We can be aware of His appearance, or parousia, in any worship setting regardless of style.

The presence of God, revealed in His Son, can break through into our lives because Jesus is alive — and, as Paul reminds us (Acts 17:28) quoting a Greek poet, “In him we live and move and have our being.” In a culture increasingly hostile to Christian faith, it is time for Christians of all traditions to quit “majoring in the minors,” and make it evident in all aspects of living, including formal worship, that Christianity is Jesus.

Why Young Believers Become “Young Leavers”

2010-12-15T15:11:00.010-06:00

Why do so many children of Christian families not return to their evangelical churches once they’re “out of the nest?” Estimates run as high as 75 to 80 percent for the number of young believers who fail to maintain their Christian connections after leaving their parents’ home.

Analysts have suggested several reasons for this exodus. According to Frank Turek, in his TV-DVD series "I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist", the principal cause is that the evangelical church isn’t presenting a substantive apologetic for the existence of God and the truth of Scripture. When young people encounter atheist influence on the college campus, in the media or elsewhere, they’re ill-equipped to counter the intellectual arguments against the biblical worldview, and hence the validity of Christian faith.

A 2010 survey by George Barna identified several trends that factor in the failure of churches to retain younger believers. These interconnected trends all appear to stem from cultural relativism, or what Barna labels “the postmodern insistence on tolerance.” Christians, increasingly biblically illiterate, lack the confidence to confront opposing views for fear of being labeled “judgmental.” They are reluctant to engage in faith-oriented conversations because of greater religious plurality in our culture, due largely to immigration. At the same time, atheists have become more aggressive in championing a godless worldview, especially in the academic environment to which younger Christians are becoming exposed. Current economic uncertainty leads to a focus on survival in the present, as opposed to spiritual possibilities and eternal values; according to Barna, believers tend to compartmentalize their lives to the point that their faith fails to become “a central means of optimizing our life experience.” Media have downplayed the Christian contribution to Western culture while highlighting the shortcomings of Christian churches and leaders; as a result, the relevance of a Christian commitment to issues of contemporary life has become clouded.

Countering the trend of “young leavers,” a few churches have successfully involved a large percentage of younger people. Observers sometimes claim that their success is due to their relevant presentation of a kind of life that Christ offers. Younger people, they say, are not interested in intellectual arguments for the validity of Christianity; they want to try it out and see how living it affects their lives. For example, in one “seeker” church we attended for several months we never heard much about becoming a “Christian”; the preferred term was “Christ-follower.” This approach ties in with another of Barna’s findings, that most people who become Christians today do so in response to some life-crisis; the witness that impresses them most is how other believers are able to integrate their faith into their lives for the healing of emotions, relationships, and dysfunctional behavior patterns.

Without dismissing the effectiveness of ministries that focus on “what Jesus has to offer you,” I wonder if such an approach will have a lasting impact on the tendency of younger Christians to leave the church behind when they “strike out on their own” — a life choice, by the way, that increasing numbers of young people seem to be delaying, preferring to remain in their parents’ homes even after graduating from college or entering the work force. One reason I am doubtful about the “what-Christ-offers-you-if-you follow-Him” approach is that it’s open to serious distortion of what Jesus came to do in the first place. Transposing the narrative of His ministry directly into twenty-first century American culture, without the necessary exercise in historical recontextualization, is unfaithful to the Scriptural record and to God’s original purpose in the incarnation of His Son.

Why people followed — or didn't follow — Jesus during His “earthly” ministry has to be a matter of historical analysis of first-century Palestinian Jewish culture, with its continuing “exile” mentality due to Roman hegemony. Jesus' focus on the present kingdom of God — visible in his own person and the new community of his disciples — threatened the Pharisaic focus on the Law as a Jewish badge of superiority that, if fulfilled, would bring on the appearance of Messiah and lead to political liberation. Jesus saw the futility of that expectation and warned his contemporaries to repent of it (Luke 13:1-9). The leadership of the community did not repent, resulting in the events of AD 70 just as Jesus warned them.

The discussion of “what Jesus has to offer” today, if it relates to the phenomena of His Palestinian ministry, requires a homiletical exercise in recontextualization because our situation is not that of the first-century Jewish community. How does what Jesus came to do for His people in that era relate to what He comes to us for now, in His ongoing parousia or appearance? In the New Testament, Paul and John have already begun this process of recontextualizing the work of Christ into another cultural setting — not exclusively so, because both were writing to pre-AD 70 Jews, but the focus is beginning to shift.

In my opinion it is Jesus’ resurrection — not the features of his ministry, though resurrection is implicit therein, revealed in both his teaching and his “wonders” or acts of healing — that is the motivation to “follow” him today. And it is more than just “following,” because the New Testament proclaims the possibility of our entry (e.g. through baptism, Romans 6:3-11) into His resurrection life. The post-Enlightenment, Newtonian worldview rules out the idea of resurrection. That is why a worldview change (repentance, change of thinking) is needed so that the Newtonian four-dimensional, materialistic shackles of our thinking can be overcome. Focusing on how following Jesus can help us deal with life-issues may not have a lasting impact, because people who respond to such a self-centered appeal can easily fall away to the next “spiritual” fad that comes along. The manifest presence of the living Christ does not appeal to self-centeredness; instead, it confronts people with a reality that must be dealt with. But, until our worldview changes, that reality seems more like fantasy. Hence the importance of challenging today’s faulty relativistic worldview with a believable counter-argument.

One approach to this is to explore cosmology, with its evidence that the universe couldn’t be here without a Creator — exactly the Bible's “argument,” of course, in Genesis 1, Romans 1, Hebrews 1 and elsewhere. The so-called “science” that sidesteps the question of how anything came to be in the first place (and hence comes up with evolution as a hypothesis) is the basis for contemporary relativism, and is what needs to be exposed as a truncated, false worldview. Einstein led the way to this breakthrough with his recognition that everything in the universe is, essentially, energy, not "hard" stuff. The universe is the result of a willed “Let there be light!” that had to come from outside the space-time continuum. Realizing this makes it possible to accept the presence, or parousia, of the risen Christ who “upholds the universe with his word of power” (Hebrews 1:3). But without such a paradigm shift, people who “accept Jesus"” (that’s putting it backwards, really, because it puts us in the driver’s seat) because of his teaching, or because of “what he has to offer” to us in a setting recontextualized from ancient Judaism, might easily fall prey to the next trend in a relativistic world.

There is much to add to this discussion. How does the resurrection life of Christ become a “manifest presence,” once we accept the cosmological basis for its believability? We can suggest one area of exploration, that of the fine arts. The trans-physical life of Christ partakes of that quality for which Rudolf Otto coined the term numinous (The Idea of the Holy, 1923; original German title Das Heilige). The numinous is that reality which is experienced through an encounter with that which cannot be comprehended within the limits of the four-dimensional world. It is experienced intuitively, not rationally, though the experience is quite “real” — and the Bible is full of such encounters. The fine arts, which make their appeal to the imagination and intuition as well as the intellect, can be a primary vehicle for the experience of the numinous. Music is one of the most intuitive of the arts — no one can explain, scientifically, why music has the effects it has on us. This explains why music itself has become a virtual religion for many young people, preoccupied with iPod downloads, rock concerts and other features of today’s youth culture. Can well-crafted Christian music with theologically rich texts, along with the intellectual challenge to the culture of relativism, become features of church life that contribute to the retention of young believers within the fold of Christ’s body?

The Elements of Style

2010-10-14T16:48:00.004-05:00

The plot of 1950s movie classic Singin’ in the Rain centers on the 1920s introduction of talking motion pictures. In one scene the characters are discussing the first sound movie, in which the actors talk. The would-be heroine of a new film pipes up: “Of course they talk. Don’t everybody?” But her remark underscores that her way of talking — her tone of voice and word choice — are unsuitable for a “talkies” role.

Much the same could be said of writing: “Of course they write. Doesn’t everybody?” Yes, everyone writes something, somehow, if only a grocery list scribbled on a Post-it. But just because someone writes doesn’t mean his writing can be published and appreciated as good writing.

That’s where the matter of style, or one’s way of writing, comes into question. And here, a valuable resource is The Elements of Style by William Strunk, originally published in 1919 and revised several decades later by Strunk’s former Cornell student, author E. B. White. (We have the fourth edition, ©2000 Allyn & Bacon).

In this pocket-sized volume Strunk and White discuss rules of English usage, elementary principles of composition, some matters of form, commonly misused expressions and words, and an approach to style itself. Here are a few gleanings.

On the use of a dash (—) the authors state, “Use a dash to set off an abrupt break or interruption and to announce a long appositive or summary.” Two examples they give are: His first thought on getting out of bed—if he had any thought at all—was to get back in again, and The rear axle began to make a noise—a grinding, chattering, teeth-gritting rasp. In our opinion, writers often ignore the dash where it can be effective, so the Strunk/White reminder is a useful one, with the caution that the dash can be overused.

Another reminder is that “a participial phrase at the beginning of a sentence must refer to the grammatical subject.” Violating this rule can yield laughable results, such as Being in a dilapidated condition, I was able to buy the house very cheap.

Included in the authors’ list of some 120 misused words are currently and literally. The first is redundant, as in We are currently reviewing your application. Whatever is being done currently is being done now, so if the sentence is in the present tense the word is unnecessary. The word literally is often misused to express exaggeration, as in literally dead with fatigue. If a person is tired, he obviously isn’t dead; he might feel he’s almost dead, but he isn’t literally so.

Style is harder to pin down, because differing writing styles can all be grammatically correct. The Strunk/White volume discusses style partly in terms of what we might call the “flair” of a writer. Thomas Paine’s These are the times that try men’s souls could have been written Times like these try men’s souls. Or one could exclaim How trying it is to live in these times! Other options are These are trying times for men’s souls or Soulwise, these are trying times. But none of these alternatives have the enduring, ringing quality of Paine’s words; their style is unremarkable, or even trite.

The above are just a few samples from the riches contained in The Elements of Style. We believe all writers (and doesn't everybody write?) will gain from a survey of this modest volume.

Developing Theology from a Biblical World View

2010-08-12T22:38:00.010-05:00

I am pressing toward a way of “doing theology” that grows out of the Scriptural witness itself, so that the Word establishes the framework through which we understand what the issues really are and how they can be talked about. I believe we shouldn’t let either culturally dominant world views (rationalistic scientific modernity, postmodern relativism and subjectivity, or whatever) or historic theological traditions (Reformed, dispensational, Wesleyan, Thomistic, etc.) determine the terms of the debate. We need to ask ourselves something like, “What did Jesus and the biblical writers have in mind, when speaking of God and his purposes, within their religious-political environment, and in terms of their literary context?” Then we need to ask, “Where do we fit into that picture?” The question is not, “How do we interpret Scripture,” but rather, “How does Scripture interpret us?” It’s our life and world that need clarification, not the Word of God.

In Christian teaching and preaching, I think there is always the tendency to “go beyond” what the Bible says (1 Corinthians 4:6) in the fear that people will not get the whole truth from the reading and study of Scripture itself. But should we think of Scripture as pointing to a “truth” external to itself — in which case there is a criterion of truth higher than Scripture — or should we follow the lead of Jesus who prayed, “Thy Word is truth” (John 17:17)? That is, the Word of God not only answers our questions, it also defines which questions are askable and answerable, and establishes the world view and perceptive grid in which those questions may be discussed. The problem with doctrinal systems and denominational statements of faith — the subjects of much theological debate — is that they step out of this biblical world view and superimpose on Scripture a scheme for resolving questions that the Bible often does not raise. When we do that, we have moved beyond Scripture to something like Irenaeus' “rule of faith,” the Roman Catholic magisterium, or Confessionalism of any type. (In my opinion, Sola Scriptura trumps any other “Solas” — and how can there be more than one “only”?)

N. T. Wright, in his 814-page The Resurrection of the Son of God, concludes that Jesus’ resurrection had revolutionary implications for the first-century era within both the Jewish and pagan worlds. In working through this question Wright lays the groundwork, I believe, for an approach to theological issues that emerges from a biblically based world view. If the resurrection of Jesus was revolutionary in the period of Christian origins, would it not have an equally revolutionary impact on our church life, and on the church’s witness to people in our culture, if we were bold enough to make it the centerpiece of our theology and proclamation? It certainly was the centerpiece for Paul, who declared to the Athenians that God “has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all men by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17:31). It wasn’t because all doctrinal issues had been reconciled that the early Christians prevailed over a hostile world, but because in the beginning they had seen the risen Jesus and through the Spirit were continually led by him. It was only when the Presence of the living Christ had become obscured by other concerns that doctrine about Christ, rather than life in Christ, became the burning issue for the church. We need to get back to being a Presence-driven church.

One of those obscuring concerns, I suggest, is the contemporary debate about “justification.” Let us remind ourselves that, biblically, justification is not a “thing” that exists somewhere in the abstract, but describes a relationship of “rightness” between persons. If God gave a Law, or commandment, that Paul considers “holy and just and good” (Romans 7:12), then one would expect Paul to assume that how people relate to God must have something to do with honoring the Way he has outlined in Scripture. Typically, Protestantism has held that “faith” alone, as opposed to “works,” is what rights the broken relationship between God and his errant people. But this is usually taken in too simplistic a way: “Faith” is understood as belief or trust, and “works” are understood as attempts to win God’s favor through keeping the Mosaic teaching. Neither of these, it seems to me, quite describes what the New Testament means by these terms.

Faith is more like “faithfulness,” i.e. commitment, or a relationship of covenant loyalty, of the type epitomized in Thomas’ confession “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28) which is in the tradition of the worshiper’s confession of homage and loyalty in the Psalms (e.g., Psalm 63:1 and elsewhere). And works may go deeper than simply actions, as they relate to “works of the Law.” There is a Dead Sea Scrolls text called MMT, or “The Works of the Law,” and some have made a case that the document was well known in Judaism of the first century and that it is this document, with its comprehensive provisions regarding Jewish religious practices, to which Paul was referring. The scribes, whom we meet frequently in the Gospels, were the keepers of an unwritten, esoteric tradition that went well beyond the written form of the Torah, and which made them the most revered functionaries within the Jewish community. Jesus certainly inveighed against “teaching as doctrines the precepts of men” so as to lay burdens upon the people they were unable to bear, and Paul refers to “human precepts and doctrines” (Colossians 2:22) about forbidden things. But neither Jesus nor Paul meant the Torah when speaking this way, only the improper use to which it had been put in certain Jewish circles of the time and to its surrounding encrustation of restrictive traditions of which the scribes and Pharisees were the self-appointed custodians.

Thus, to play the Torah off against grace vis-a-vis the issues of “salvation” and “justification” may, indeed, be a false understanding of the uses of the Torah (in its extended forms) in first-century Judaism. It was not, as is commonly thought, a vehicle for earning salvation, or God’s acceptance. The Pharisees already believed they had God’s favor. In their hands the Law, extended by their traditions, was rather a means of purifying the Jewish community in preparation for the coming of the Messiah who would lead them in throwing off the Roman yoke. The Pharisees’ stress on the Law was not salvific but revolutionary. But Jesus threatened their agenda, because he saw the futility of this misuse of the literary deposit from God’s covenant. Israel had been called to be a “light to the nations,” but under Gentile oppression certain Jewish parties had altered the goal to liberation from the nations. Jesus’ preaching of the Kingdom called for his people to repent of this false agenda and return to their roots, their Abrahamic calling — to which, of course, Paul also returns in his emphasis on the faith of Abraham. Jesus warned that unless his people repented they were destined to be slain by Roman soldiers or crushed under falling buildings (Luke 13:1-5). These things, indeed, occurred in the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple in AD 70 — an event that I believe John expects to see as the vindication of the martyrs under Jewish persecution (Revelation 6:10).

These are but a few examples suggesting that before we can meaningfully discuss issues like justification, Jesus’ humanity and divinity, or other important theological matters we may need to step back and take another look at what is actually occurring in Scripture. Insofar as it is possible after a gap of two millennia, we need to try to get into the mind and perspective of Jesus and the biblical writers and try to appreciate what they were saying, as set against the political and religious trends and themes swirling about in their cultural environment. In so doing we will come to see what a brilliant thinker and incisive theologian Jesus is, speaking even from the human standpoint. To me, that is a deeply “incarnational” approach, recognizing that God chose that moment “when the time had fully come” (Galatians 4:4) to send forth his Son. In like manner we come to have the same appreciation for the intellectual, as will as the inspirational, gifting of Paul, the four Evangelists and other New Testament writers.

Using Alliteration in Poetry

2010-07-20T22:09:00.001-05:00

Alliteration has long served as a structural scheme in English poetry, together with rhythm, meter or rhyme. Alliteration is the use of consecutive (though not necessarily adjacent) words beginning with the same sound, as in the phrase “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.” The alliterative sound may also occur on an accented syllable, rather than at the beginning of the word.

The Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf is known for its consistent use of alliteration, a feature that aided its transmission by word of mouth before it was written. Here is the beginning of the poem in the original, with a translation by Francis B. Gummere in the Harvard Classics:

Oft Scyld Scêfing sceaðena preátum,
monegum maegðum meodo-setla ofteáh.
Egsode eorl, syððan ærest wearð
feá-sceaft funden : he päs frðfre gebâd,
weðx under wolcnum, weorð-myndum ðâh . . .

Oft Scyld the Scefing from squadroned foes,
from many a tribe, the mead-bench tore,
awing the earls. Since erst he lay
friendless, a foundling, fate repaid him:
for he waxed under welkin, in wealth he throve . . .

Here are a few later excerpts from English poetry as examples of alliteration:

Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down, and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love’s day.
— Andrew Marvell (1621-1678), “To His Coy Mistress”

My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled,
Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun,
All felled, felled, are all felled;
Of a fresh and following folded rank . . .
— Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889), “Binsey Poplars”

It can be an enjoyable exercise to try alliteration in composing poetry; I have used it several times. In Heart of the Highriders, the novel I wrote jointly with my daughter Charity Silkebakken, the Councilor Lincaemon the Elder utters a funeral lament for the fallen ruler Fauntflooy:

Bewail our Fauntflooy, noble and strong,
who ruled the realm with right
and was first to fight the fiercest,
in brutal battle bold!
Bewail our Fauntflooy, and weep,
for he furnished you with finery,
wrapped you in riches,
favored you with food and fatness,
shielded you in safe shelter,
left your life with no lack!

My poem “Peculiar People,” which my wife, Shirley Anne, kindly included in her chapbook The Promise, uses alliteration throughout. Here is the first stanza:

Pilgrims we are, passing through this plane
of dismal dreariness, our destination
not this trial-torn, terrestrial turf
where falsehood flaunts its frightful face,
but bound for blessedness and beauty,
land of life and luminous love
where Christ the crucified, our King, controls.

Alliteration seems especially appropriate when you’re trying for a rhetorical impact, but it has other uses such as creating a sound effect or bringing out humor. If you’re stumped sometime by difficulties with meter or rhyme, try alliteration as a device to help your poem “hang together.”

First published in WestWard Quarterly, Spring 2010 Issue.

Posture in Worship

2010-06-12T17:17:00.005-05:00

Recently a friend of my wife’s raised the issue of the correct posture for prayer. Brought up in a church where it was customary to kneel for prayer, she now finds herself attending one in which the congregation stands for prayer, but she feels uncomfortable doing so. Her pastor, himself, became aware of the issue and outlined several different prayer postures that he found in Scripture, depending on the mood or purpose of the prayer. Obviously, consideration of the proper Biblical posture for prayer is linked to that for all aspects of corporate worship, which in one way is simply “public prayer.”

Why is the question of posture in worship important? Isn’t it our inward motivation and direction toward God that is more important? Well, yes and no. Biblical worship always has a visible, as well as invisible, component. The words translated “worship” in English versions of both the Old and New Testaments are words of movement or posture. The Hebrew hishtachavah signifies bowing down or falling prostrate, and the Greek proskuneo means, literally, to fall to the knees. In the ancient world these were the proper gestures for expressing homage to a sovereign ruler or superior, signifying one’s loyalty and submission. These gestures are especially important within the framework of the Biblical covenant, which is a relationship between a King and the people that is faithful to Him as their Authority and Source. Biblical worship is the expression of this relationship of fidelity and dependence.

Perhaps, in our contemporary culture, it is difficult to understand the need for gesture as an expression of honor and loyalty. Within the military, of course, the salute preserves this concern for an outward sign of respect, but many such gestures have disappeared from common life. At one time a gentleman removed his hat, or stood up if seated, when a lady entered his presence. A man always removed his hat within a building, unless it signified some official role (the headgear of a policeman, for example, or that of a bishop during a liturgy). Today, however, it is common to see men eating in restaurants wearing baseball-style caps. In our “casual age” we have largely lost the sense of what is appropriate gesture and posture (or clothing, for that matter) in various venues, including that of Christian worship.

The Old Testament describes various postures and movements associated with Israelite worship — not only bowing down, but also processions, dance, lifting the hands, and standing (not, however, sitting, which was a posture of honor accorded to teachers, see Matthew 5:1). The earliest Christians met in private homes, often at night and under some threat of persecution if their gathering came to the attention of local authorities. Under such conditions the full range of postures characteristic of Israelite festive worship was not available to them. We know that New Testament worshipers sang, prayed, prophesied, taught from the Scriptures, and partook of the Supper of the Lord. Given the scarcity of furniture for sitting in ancient times — even meals were typically eaten in a reclining position — it is likely that the congregation stood throughout the time of the gathering. (This was the custom in the chairless Medieval cathedrals and is still the practice today in the Eastern churches.) Depending on the number of people present, there was probably not room for more spacious postures within the confines of the home where the assembly gathered.

Nevertheless, Paul refers to the unbeliever visiting the Christian assembly who, moved by the word of prophecy, “falls on his face” to worship God (1 Corinthians 14:25). And this is the gesture Paul envisions for worship when the authority of Christ becomes universally recognized; he looks forward to the time when “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:10-11). The same posture of prostration is in view in the worship described in the Revelation to John, in which “the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives for ever and ever; they cast their crowns before the throne” (Revelation 4:10). In addition, Roman catacomb illustrations of early Christians praying show them in the “orant” position, lifting their hands just as Paul suggests in 1 Timothy 2:8: “I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling.”

Prostration and the lifting of hands are both gestures of “confessing that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Romans 10:9), which I suggest is the heart of New Testament worship. They are consistent with the act of “giving thanks,” which Biblically does not mean to express gratitude but to affirm one’s loyalty to God alone. The Hebrew word todah, translated “give thanks,” is derived from the word for “hand” (yad) and refers to lifting the hand in the oath of loyalty (a gesture preserved today in the “swearing in” of public officials). We see this close connection in what Paul says of the apostate Jews in Romans 1:21: “For although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened.” The Christian Holy Communion or Eucharist — a word derived from the Greek term eucharisteo, “give thanks” — therefore contains this element of pledging one’s faithfulness to God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

It comes down to this: Christian worship is not a spectator sport but an active expression of covenantal faithfulness to the Lord. Prostration, bending the knee, lifting the hand, “giving thanks” or partaking of the Lord’s Supper are all actions that symbolize this theological truth. I do not say that they are the only acts capable of expressing faithfulness to God. But I am suggesting that Christian gatherings that fail to make a place for some visible and significant expression of faithfulness through movement, posture and gesture are missing the point of New Testament worship. Such “meetings” have lapsed into an audience-entertainer format in which the only expression of commitment is inside one’s head, where no one else can call you to account for it. Of course, true worship — as Jesus insisted — is worship “in spirit and truth” (John 4:24). However, it is a mistake to think of the “spiritual” as the “invisible.” In fact, in Scripture whenever someone is described as being “filled with the Spirit” we know it because of the actions we see them perform.

Judas Iscariot (A Dramatic Monologue)

2010-04-02T21:18:00.005-05:00

I know people won’t understand,
but I thought I was doing the right thing.
I believed in Him, like all the others,
and He must have known that,
or He would never have called me to be one of His disciples.
I remember how it was in the beginning.
We had such high hopes
that God was about to do something great.
And we did see great things —
I was one of those He sent out,
and we found that even the demons were subject to us —
yes, even to me!
We came back to Him with such a glowing report.
But, as time went on, things started to go sour.
He began to talk about suffering and death
instead of the victory we were looking for.
I was tempted to drop out, as some others did,
but I stuck with Him.
After all, I had a responsible position in the organization
as chief financial officer of the movement.
Some of the guys, like John, claimed I was misusing the funds.
But if you’re going to administer a program of aid to the poor
you need a professional to manage it.
Surely I was entitled to a small consulting fee,
plus reimbursement for expenses.
Yes, I stayed with Him right up to the end.
But it drove me crazy to see Him
not doing one thing to oppose the Romans.
I thought He ought to act boldly,
to call in those legions of angels
who could put God’s enemies in their place.
And, except for that one incident in the Temple,
He didn’t do anything about the corruption in the hierarchy.
He just hemmed and hawed, and kept talking
about giving His life as a ransom — for whom?
for the many? For all those Gentiles?
What about us Jews — don’t we deserve a break, at last?
I had to do something to get Him moving.
I figured that when the Temple guard came after Him
He would have to act like the King he was supposed to be.
But it didn’t work out that way.
It wasn’t the money, believe me;
they can take back their thirty pieces of silver
and do what they like with them —
buy more real estate, I suppose.
As for me, now that He’s in Roman custody
and slated for execution any time now
there’s nothing more I can do for Him.
I know I’ll be misunderstood for what I did,
and right now I don’t even understand myself.
I don’t know where I’ll go. or what I’m going to do,
but I have an idea it won’t be good.

What Is Worship?

2010-02-18T22:31:00.008-06:00

We’re used to calling the church’s main Sunday gathering a worship service. But what do we mean by worship? Is it worship to listen to a preacher? Is it worship to sit and listen to others singing or performing on instruments? Is it even worship when we sing songs about our faith, or our devotion to God?

All of these things may have a place in our weekly gathering, but they don’t really define worship in a Biblical sense. Some have tried to define the word worship by breaking it up into its component parts — worth-ship, that is, ascribing worth to God. That’s fine, for as God’s people we should be doing that. Just one problem: the Bible wasn’t written in English, so using the English dictionary definition or etymology doesn’t really help to get at biblical insights.

Worship, in the Bible, has a particular meaning. The two words translated as worship in the English Bible are the Hebrew hishtachavah and the Greek proskuneo. Both words mean to bow down or to fall prostrate. They refer to the act of homage and loyalty one pays to a King or other high authority. One is worshiping when he is bowing down to acknowledge the superiority and power of Another.

There may be times when it’s appropriate to bow down in our worship, and bowing is practiced in some churches. But the main point is the concept behind bowing down, which is to exalt the Lord and enthrone Him as our Sovereign. If our Sunday gathering doesn’t exalt the Lord, then it isn’t really worship.

So when we sing, we should be singing about Him and His greatness, and not about us and our faith or devotion. In fact, we should be singing to Him, telling Him of our love and our praise. A worshiping congregation is one that talks to God and sings to God, and not just to each other.

Worship isn’t a performance we watch, but a meeting with our God who has rescued us through His Son. The risen Christ is present, the Lord God and the Lamb are dwelling in the temple of their holy people. We enter into his presence not to be entertained but to bow down — literally or figuratively — before Him.

Therefore, when we leave the church on Sunday, our response is not, “The choir did a great job” or “The worship leader blew it today” or “I enjoyed the sermon” or “I didn’t like the music they picked.” The only relevant question is, “Did I meet God today, and did I express to Him my love and adoration and loyalty?”

Worship. Think about it.

First published in ReUnion, newsletter of Union Congregational Church, North Aurora, Illinois, October 2004.

Truth in the Bible

2009-12-21T17:02:00.007-06:00

Biblical logic, to the consternation of Western minds, is not linear but circumferential. That is, a biblical “argument” does not proceed in linear fashion, by the exclusion of illogical alternatives, to the point where a single final “truth” emerges. Instead, biblical logic surrounds a subject with arguments from various angles until there remains nothing further to be said, and the matter is dropped in favor of the next topic. (See the study Biblical Logic and Interpretation on our ministry web site, from which this material is excerpted.) This consideration has implications for the understanding of “truth” in Scripture.

This circumferential character of biblical logic stems from a basic presupposition of the biblical world view, the understanding that all truth inheres in the will of God. Truths — we might speak of them today as “facts” or insights — have no force apart from the intention and activity of the Creator. As Proverbs puts it, “No wisdom, no understanding, no counsel, can avail against the Lord” (Proverbs 21:30). This must be the perspective behind Jesus’ prayer, “Thy Word is truth” (John 17:17). No factoid, principle or “law of physics” can have independent reality apart from the work of Yahweh — or, in the case of the New Testament, apart from Christ who is the incarnation of the Word of the Lord, in whom “all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17) and who is “upholding the universe by his word of power” (Hebrews 1:3).

The Hebrew word ’emet, often translated as “truth,” does not denote abstract factuality independent of the operation of God’s purpose. Instead, biblical truth is reliability or faithfulness, in particular faithfulness to God and his will as revealed in the purposes of his covenant with Israel. The New Testament writers understand these purposes to be fulfilled, or renewed, in the ministry, death, resurrection and reign of Jesus Christ. Truth, then, consists in faithfulness to God’s covenant, and in submitting to his purpose for human life as revealed in the event of Christ.

But the divine purpose is not confined to the sphere of religion, nor even to the realm of human culture; it encompasses all that the Creator has brought into being. Hence the apostolic witness views the appearance of Christ, especially his resurrection from the dead, as a window into the renewal of the entire created order. When humanity, as “the sons of God,” comes to participate in the life of the risen Christ, then “the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay” (Romans 8:21). For Paul, indeed, there need be no “waiting period” since the Christian believer, incorporated into Christ through baptism (Romans 6:3-5), already shares the life of Christ’s resurrection (Colossians 3:1). If anyone is “in Christ,” incorporated into the body of the resurrection, that person belongs to the renewed creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). The writings of the apostle John present the same essential perspective — if stated in different terms — based on the understanding that the coming of Jesus Christ brings to human incarnation the very creative purpose which underlies the existence of all things (John 1:1-3, 14).

God, then, has written two “books” as the revelation of his truth, or his purpose for the universe and life within it. The first book is the Holy Scripture, with its testimony to the living Word in Jesus Christ. But the second “book” is the universe itself, which also testifies to the Creator’s activity and intent. Paul states the matter clearly in Romans 1:19-20: “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.”

Since truth inheres in faithfulness to the divine purpose, and both “books” testify to that purpose, they cannot be played off against one another in a supposed search for “objective truth” according to the Western pattern of logic. The two “books” must remain in dialogue, consistent with the circumferentiality of biblical logic. The findings of science, or cosmology, regarding the structures and operations of the physical universe cannot be marshaled in an attack upon the perspective of Scripture, nor can the teaching of the Bible be made to contravene the results of scientific inquiry and experimentation. Truth is commitment to the Creator’s intention, and each witness to that intention must be heard in its integrity, since God is the author of both.

How Far Is It from “Here” to “There”?

2009-10-26T11:20:00.002-05:00

I stood in the center of my living room, faced north, and asked my friend to watch me. I held my left forearm across my body, and pointing with my right hand I asked, “How far is it from here [touching my left elbow] to there [touching my left fingertips]?”

“I would say its about seventeen or eighteen inches,” my friend replied. “That’s what the Bible calls a cubit, isn’t it?”

“True, but that’s not what I mean. Let me do it again.” I repeated the exercise.

“I still say it’s around eighteen inches,” he answered.

“Think again. Where was I when I pointed to my elbow, and where was I when I pointed to my fingertips?”

“Why, right here in your living room, both times!”

“But it took me one second to move my hand from my elbow to my fingertip, didn’t it?”

“So?” he frowned. I perceived that my visitor was beginning to wonder about my degree of sanity.

“Consider this,” I countered. “The earth rotates on its axis from west to east. At our latitude of around 40 degrees, the speed of rotation is about 667 miles per hour. In one second, our position ‘here’ moves about two-tenths of a mile — .185 mile, to be exact. So that was the distance from ‘here’ to ‘there.’”

You’re goofy,” he exclaimed. “Or a dork.”

“No, seriously. I was facing north, so my left forearm was parallel to the direction of the earth’s rotation. But that wouldn’t have made much difference, only the difference between seventeen inches and .185 of a mile.”

My visitor groaned. “And I suppose you can calculate how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?”

“It depends on how long their bounce lasts. Now, the better dancers can stay up . . .”

He rose from his seat on the sofa. “I’m getting out of here before this conversation affects my sanity!”

“Wait! we’re not through.”

He paused. “Well, make it quick. I have an appointment in fifteen minutes with my therapist. At least he’s not crazy — I think.”

“This won’t take long. Think about it this way. The earth’s orbit around the sun is about 600 million miles. In a 365-day year there are 31,536,000 seconds. So the earth moves about nineteen miles per second — more or less, depending on which side of the earth we happen to be on when we do our measurement, because the direction of the rotation on the earth’s surface either adds or subtracts from that orbital speed.”

“Then you’re saying that the distance from ‘here’ to ‘there’ was nineteen miles?” He turned toward the front door, looking as though he would like to exit my house at that same speed.

“No, there’s more. The solar system orbits around the center of the galaxy at a speed of 220 kilometers per second. So from ‘here’ to ‘there’ is actually 136 miles, plus or minus the other factors. But then, we have to consider the rotational speed of our galaxy around the galactic center, and the speed of our cluster through ‘absolute space,’ if we could ever measure that. Michelsen and Morley’s experiment in 1887 was inconclusive . . .”

But my friend was out the door by this time. Therefore he failed to hear my final point. “So this all shows that whenever we try to state a truth, we always need to ask from what perspective we’re gauging the accuracy of our statements. Now this could apply to anything we care to talk about, such as . . . oh, I guess he’s gone.”

Insight into a Creative Process

2009-09-11T22:15:00.003-05:00

In 2003 I acquired a CD recording of the Symphony No. 3 by the English composer Sir Edward Elgar. Elgar will be familiar to you as the composer of “Pomp and Circumstance” March No. 1, the “trio” of which is almost universally used for the processional at college and high school graduations. This music was performed at Yale University in 1905 during commencement ceremonies in which Elgar was awarded an honorary degree; its use spread from there to other college and secondary campuses.

What is remarkable about the Third Symphony is that Elgar died in 1934, leaving only some 120 pages of sketches for its four movements. In most cases the sketches are fragmentary, providing few indications of their orchestration or where the fragments were to fit into the flow of the music. However, with the eventual encouragement of Elgar’s heirs, composer Anthony Payne took those sketches, elaborated them and created a complete symphony which was first performed in 1998 by the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

Purists insist the work is an “Elgar/Payne Symphony,” and no doubt had Elgar lived to complete it the opus would have taken a different form. Nevertheless, Payne’s compositional skill and empathy for Elgar’s style and working method render this work eminently satisfying as an expression of Elgar’s own creative genius. It is music of both vigor and lyricism and, in my opinion, greater depth than that of Elgar’s first two symphonies of 1908 and 1911.

Recently, upon replaying my recording of Symphony No. 3, I became newly fascinated with it and subsequently acquired three additional CDs of the work, plus a recording and a book in which Payne explains how he went about realizing the sketches Elgar left. Listening to this music, and poring over the explanatory material, I realized that I was receiving insight into a creative process, one applicable to literature and other arts as well as to music.

Elgar’s method of orchestral composition was distinctive. He did not plan out a work in advance, but jotted down sketches for various segments mostly in “short score,” i.e. a piano score only. Often, it was not until he wrote out the full instrumental score that he arranged the sketches in their final order, developing them into longer sections. In the case of the Third Symphony this task was left for Payne to complete, using not only his knowledge of Elgar’s method and his familiarity with the content of the sketches, but also his own creative intuition by which he tried to put himself into Elgar’s frame of mind.

In short, a creative work has come about in spurts of “inspiration,” if you will, during which fragments emerge — but a final “vision” must emerge in which the goal of the work becomes clear and the fragments fall coherently into place. Elgar had played through most of his symphony in his home with close friends, but never brought it to completion. Terminally ill in late 1933 and early 1934, he either never attained that final coherence or was too weak to bring it to expression. Another was to achieve it — if not Elgar’s vision, one that has an Elgarian “ring” to it. Elgar himself, near the end of his life, had foreseen this possibility.

Reflecting upon all of this, I realized that I have often worked by a similar creative process. With a novel, a fragment of speech, a part of an incident or a scene will come to me, and I will write it down. (In the case of a work of scholarship, the fragments may take the form of some trenchant articulation of a point, or a more developed paragraph of discussion.) But where these pieces fit in the eventual flow of the book may not become apparent until the larger scheme emerges. At that point I may discover that new material needs to be created as a transition between the already-written segments, or to “set the stage” for some critical development in the story that I have already narrated. And I may be surprised by new insights into my characters, and realize that more of their story needs to be told, here and there, to “flesh out” their internal struggles and explain their actions. My wife agrees that some of that “initial sketches — cohering vision — final revision” process occurs in the creation of her poetry.

I don’t claim this insight is unique. Probably many, if not most, writers, composers and other creative artists work by a similar process. Seeing it brought out, though, in the discussion of how Elgar’s Third Symphony came to light has been stimulating and instructive.

Bucking the Fiction Template

2009-07-21T14:59:00.003-05:00

On a fiction writers’ discussion group I belong to, one author recently wrote, “It seems that when telling was more acceptable, the reader had the opportunity to ‘see’ the story in their own minds better, and now, we spell it ‘all’ out in the showing. Since most of us struggle with this, I was just curious. I know the hurried pace has changed a lot in movies and theatre . . .”

That’s part of the story, of course. When I was a child — and that goes back to the 1940s, before TV — I loved to listen to radio programs such as Jack Benny, The Great Gildersleeve, Fibber McGee, Mr. Keen ‘Tracer of Lost Persons’, etc. I could visualize the scenes in my head; I didn’t need to have the script “show” everything to me. (Later, of course, when I saw some of these actors or characters in movies, I had to revise my mental image somewhat.) It was the same with reading; as the reader, I took part in the creative process by forming the visual impressions in my own mind even if the author didn’t “show” everything to me. But today everything is laid out for us visually on the screen, and writers feel they have to follow suit.

But that is only one factor motivating the “show, not tell” mantra. The other factor, and I think it’s the main one, is the dumbing down of public education, and culture in general, so that students are no longer stimulated to think or be creative. A hundred years ago people went to Chautauquas to hear lectures, or took part on choral contests, or went to orchestral concerts and other events that required a personal intellectual investment in appreciation and interpretation of creative efforts. Today teens, and adults, walk around with earphones absorbed in whatever trivia is coming through their iPods.

Our grandson was helping us move recently and we could hardly get him to pay attention to our instructions about what to carry, because his earphones were filling his head with “music.” Another grandson who was helping us had constantly to be diverted from texting his girl friend. Popularly available technology has resulted in a situation in which many people never have to think or be creative for themselves; what they think of as art or talent is simply imitating what they experience through media. Every teen guy who doesn’t want to be in the NFL or NBA seems to want to be a “rock” (or “rap,” or whatever) star, or possibly a computer tech or auto mechanic. Rare is the young person with the ambition to compose a symphony, write a novel or make some important scientific discovery. Public education (with some exceptions, of course) and our media culture are not challenging young people to become participants in an intellectual process, and have not been doing so for several decades.

For me, as a fiction writer, the answer is not to reduce my narrative to the fifth-grade level in the vain hope that some publisher will take a chance that America’s dumbed-down readers will actually buy it. As Christian artists we are to participate in the work of the Creator, and His Son who upholds the universe by his powerful word (Hebrews 1:3). The adversary cannot create, he can only imitate and pervert what God has created. We have a higher calling, to be co-creators with the Father and Son with whom is our fellowship (1 John 1:3).

Consequently, in my writing I will seek to elevate the literary standard of my readers rather than conform to their supposedly low level. In my observation, actual readers have a much wider tolerance for “traditional” writing once they are exposed to it — even if it involves “telling” as well as “showing” — than do some editors and publishers. I believe the bottleneck for good Christian fiction is not at the reader level but at the level of the gatekeepers who operate out of the fear that what they publish will not be accepted because it does not conform to the template created by electronic and other media.

Therefore I will not write according to the current template for Christian fiction, but will attempt to follow a style established by older writers in the hope that my output will contribute to the restoration of a higher literary standard. (I do not claim to be successful in this effort, only that I view it as a goal.) Probably the most successful Christian fiction writers — successful in working out their God-given creative vocation — will be those who can make it appear that their work conforms to the current template, while in reality they are writing to a higher standard and so raising the reader’s level of appreciation. I am not certain I have the talent to fool the gatekeepers in this way, but I am sure there are some Christian fiction writers clever enough to do it.

Verse and Universe

2009-06-06T14:22:00.006-05:00

By Shirley Anne Leonard

My wife Shirley Anne, editor of WestWard Quarterly, wrote this piece for the Summer 2009 issue of the magazine.

In his book The Pursuit of Poetry (McGraw-Hill, 1960) Robert Hillyer observes that the word verse means a turning, and since the turn must come full circle on itself, it is a repeating rhythm just as in music. He also observes that the word universe means a concerted turning. "We walk, we breathe, our hearts beat in recurrence; the sun and moon, the stars in their courses, the changing seasons — all these are recurrent: we are metrical creatures in a metrical universe" (pp. 8-9).

Ancient musicians looked out on the universe, noted the ratios of the different planetary cycles, counted the rhythmic periodicities in nature, and calculated the ratios of the human body. They put together a geometry, a set of mathematical ratios and proportions. They believed that these ratios, if used in the sounds of music, would resonate with the life forces of the universe and thus enhance life. These particular sounds and rhythms, they thought, would make life healthier and more abundant. Such ideas were handed down to the composers of Baroque music. Musicians in that era were trained to use these particular numbers and patterns for harmony, counterpoint, rhythm, and tempo in their music. This "mathematical" Baroque music was supposed to affect a synchronizing of our minds and bodies to more harmonious patterns. But is there more to that?

Musicologist Julius Portnoy found that not only can music, "change metabolism, affect muscular energy, raise or lower blood pressure, and influence digestion," but "It may be able to do all these things more successfully ... than any other stimulants that produce those changes in our bodies" (David Tame, The Secret Power of Music, Turnstone Press, 1984, p. 138).

An intensive series of studies carried out by Dorothy Retallack of Denver, Colorado, demonstrated the effects of different kinds of music on a variety of household plants. The experiments were controlled under strict scientific conditions, and the plants were kept within large closed cabinets on wheels in which light, temperature and air were automatically regulated. Plants grown in scientifically controlled chambers were given concerts of different kinds of music from rock to Baroque. All the plants that were next to the rock music leaned away from the speakers, trying to get away from the music! And to show that it was not just the noise itself, the plants next to the classical music leaned toward the speakers — actually trying to get closer to the music. In the end all the plants next to the rock music died!

What has this to do with poetry? you may ask. It occurred to me that, if music could have this effect, then what about poetry? Could it be that the lack of interest in poetry in our culture is because much of it has been written without harmonious rhythm, and some with intentionally discordant rhythm? The reader who thinks he does not care for poetry may be reacting to the type of poetry that is written today.

As Featured Writer Leland Jamieson stated in his article in the Spring 2008 issue of WestWard Quarterly, "My outlook on writing poetry is this: the healing incantatory energy of meter and rhyme is the reward for both the poet and the reader. There will be no resurgence of readers of poetry until poets give them sufficient reward for their effort. In giving reward to readers, they will give it to themselves as well. . . . It is necessary along the way, of course, for poets to rediscover their roots in an English language tradition going back past Shakespeare to Chaucer. There is plenty of good poetry to serve as a model."

Why This Blog Doesn’t GetUpdated Very Often

2009-04-12T12:28:00.007-05:00

If you visit this page occasionally, you’ve noticed that this blog sometimes doesn’t get updated for weeks at a time. Perhaps you’d like to know why that’s the case.

I know there are people who live for their blogs. One can picture the dedicated blogger, pajama-clad till mid-afternoon, religiously pounding away at the keyboard in the fervent belief that the cyberworld awaits his latest mind dump with bated breath. But that’s not who we are. We’re under no illusions about the size of our audience or its eagerness to absorb what we have to say. (Google Analytics makes that clear enough.) So we aren’t under constraint to provide something novel every day, or even every week.

But that’s not the main reason our blog is relatively static. The main reason we don’t update it regularly is, frankly, that we have too much else to do. Here’s a rundown:

We manage and regularly update a group of web sites — those of several churches, a missionary in India, our local library and Chamber of Commerce, our personal ministry and publishing activities, our family, our poetry magazine, and our railroad hobby interest. All told, we’re responsible for maintaining 29 web sites if you count all the separate components of our Rail Archive. All these web sites are linked at our server operation site, ForeCyte.com. If our blog isn’t regularly updated, these other sites are.

Servicing the church-related sites involves formatting weekly sermons, updating monthly calendars, formatting and posting monthly newsletters and semi-monthly missionary reports, and regularly revising other material. On our ministry site, Laudemont Ministries, we’re currently adding some of my older sermons my wife is transcribing from cassette tapes. Our Rail Archive regularly gets augmented with new photos, either those I have taken or those other rail hobbyists send me, plus supporting commentary. Recently I’ve been posting my railroad photos not included in the Rail Archive to another site, the NERAIL North American Railroad Photo Archive.

Obviously a good deal of graphic work is involved with all these sites, for which we use Paint Shop Pro 7. We build all our sites in straight HTML; we don’t use any third-party software except the one for this blog, which we have modified to fit into this page.

I also publish WestWard Quarterly, the poetry magazine edited by my wife, Shirley Anne. I work with her in producing each issue, which we print at home on our own equipment. In January I took delivery of my third novel, New America, which I formatted for publication myself including the cover design; now I’m involved in distributing it.

I just completed a two-year term as a trustee of our local library, and two years as a director of the Greater Kirkland Area Chamber of Commerce.

In addition to all that, we’re getting ready to relocate to Hamilton, Illinois in June, sifting through our possessions to trim down for the move and trying to sell our home here in Kirkland.

We believe what we post on this blog is interesting and thought-provoking material, and appreciate those of you who read it. But if this blog doesn’t get updated for a while, you know the reasons why.

Principles of the Kingdom

2009-02-28T06:43:00.003-06:00

Over the past few weeks my wife and I have been re-reading The Secret Kingdom, published by Pat Robertson (with Bob Slosser) in 1982. It is striking how this 27-year-old book is still so timely, particularly with respect to the world’s current economic woes. Of course, the “secrets” of the kingdom of God, as laid out by Jesus and the New Testament writers, are always timely. But, especially now, a review of these kingdom “laws” will help us to live our lives above the fray of current events. Let’s take up these principles, in brief, as Robertson discusses them.

The Law of Reciprocity. This follows from Jesus’ so-called “Golden Rule,” and his statement, “Give, and it will be given to you.” Our actions, for good or ill, will bring about a corresponding response from our environment.

The Law of Use. Like the servants in Jesus’ Parable of the Talents, if we utilize what we have we will gain more of it; if we fail to do so, it will dissipate. “Use it or lose it.”

The Law of Perseverance. Faced with a challenge, we’re tempted to give up too quickly. But, like the widow appealing to the corrupt judge in Jesus’ parable, we find that persistence in a worthwhile effort will eventually bring results.

The Law of Responsibility. “To whom much is given, of them much is required.” The more ability or wealth we have, the more we’re under obligation to look to the needs of others.

The Law of Greatness. As Jesus taught His disciples, the one who would be greatest must become the servant of all. True greatness comes from humility; whoever would enjoy the benefits of the kingdom must receive it “as a little child.”

The Law of Unity. God created mankind, and all things, in the unity of the Holy Trinity: “Let us make man in our image . . .” Prayer, when we gather as two or three in unity, brings results where a lone appeal may not. Lack of harmony frustrates our efforts to solve problems.

The Law of Miracles. God has all power, and His will cannot, in the end, be frustrated. Reliance on His mercy, and faith in His ability to work wonders, are keys to success in every area.

The Law of Dominion. God created people after His own pattern, to have dominion over their environment. This authority, seen most clearly in Jesus to whom “all authority in heaven and earth” has been given, brings with it a mandate for wise stewardship of the world’s resources. But awareness of our dominion also keeps us from becoming too timid to take the action needed to deal with our challenges.

These principles seem to turn our world upside down; they fly in the face of commonly accepted cultural values. But, as Jesus repeatedly states, “Whoever . . .” The laws of the kingdom work for anyone who will practice them, whether Christian believers or not. Through application of these principles of God’s “secret kingdom” we can weather the turmoil of our times, and be the “blessed” Jesus speaks of in His Beatitudes.

Our nation, and the world community, seem to find themselves on a downward slope, grasping at straws. Foolish and short-sighted measures — at the highest levels of government and at the individual level — have been the order of the day, but in the end they will fail. Eventually the world must realize that Jesus Christ, and His inspired spokesmen, have had the only answers all along.

When Trying Harder Doesn't Work

2009-01-15T10:29:00.008-06:00

All serious Christians are concerned about the strength of their faith in God and the level of their commitment to His purposes. The shelves of Christian bookstores sag with the weight of books purporting to guide and encourage the believer in developing a stronger faith.

And no wonder. The Scriptures and the history of our faith are laced with the accounts of men and women of God who serve as examples of deep spirituality and unshakeable commitment. Consider, among others, the perseverance of Abraham, the unrelenting vision of Moses, the tenderness toward the Lord of David, the determination of Nehemiah. Consider the single-mindedness of the Apostle Paul whose “this one thing I do” resulted in the establishment of the gospel of Christ across the Mediterranean world. The Biblical “heroes of the faith” are joined by others: Augustine, who could find no rest till he found it in God; Luther, whose “Here I stand” thunders through history as the battle-cry of ecclesiastical reform; Wesley, who logged hundreds of thousands of miles on horseback to evangelize England.

In the last century we can point to such figures as Pastor Martin Niemoller and the ten Boom family, who endured Nazi concentration camps and suffered death because of their determination to maintain a Christian witness; to Joni Eareckson Tada, who overcame depression to build a ministry of encouragement to thousands despite her paraplegia; or to theologian-philosopher Francis Schaeffer who, emaciated from cancer, stood in the cold to picket a hospital that performed abortions just three weeks before his death.

And then we come to you and me. Where is our faith compared to that of the spiritual giants of yesteryear, or even of today? Admittedly, comparisons may be inappropriate; the Lord has called each of us to serve in his own way. Still, when we consider the great examples of what can be done through faith, many of us stagger along on a guilt trip because we haven’t been so spiritually motivated, or haven’t accomplished more for the kingdom of God.

Once we set out on that guilt trip we can go one of two ways. We could just become indifferent or resigned to our lack of spirituality, and perhaps give up any effort to change. Or, we could try harder. Maybe we should pray more regularly and read the Scriptures more intently. Perhaps we shall set ourselves to participate more actively in worship, schedule a daily “quiet time,” read more of those Christian self-help books, or try witnessing to our unsaved friends. Or, if we are convicted about some habit or personality quirk that doesn’t honor the Lord, we steel ourselves to “kick it” and to amend the manner of our life. With a little more effort, maybe we too can become a “spiritual giant.”

The trouble is, if we aren’t spiritual it’s usually because, at heart, we aren’t motivated to be spiritual. A battle rages within ourselves; our inner being becomes what Joyce Meyer calls “the battlefield of the mind.” In traditional terms, our flesh is at war with our spirit; we want to become infused with “the mind of Christ,” but we want to do it on our own terms or by our own devices, in that self-assertion the Bible calls “the flesh.” So when we try to be more spiritual than we really want to be, the effort to change can just make us more resentful and discouraged with our lack of success.

Such effort also makes us a prisoner of what Paul calls “the law of sin and death,” since any “success” in becoming more spiritual boomerangs. It builds up the very ego whose self-preoccupation kept us so unspiritual in the first place. If we really aren’t motivated, trying harder doesn’t do it. Unspiritual people “don’t have a prayer” — or, maybe, the only genuine prayer for such a time is, “Lord, make me willing to be made willing.” A Scriptural version of the same prayer might be Paul’s utterance: “Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”

When trying harder doesn’t work, the only thing to do is to quit trying in our own strength and fall back on Christ alone. I like what John and Paula Sanford wrote years ago in The Transformation of the Inner Man:

Paradoxically, we are healed by being taught to put no confidence whatsoever in our own flesh, simply to rest in Him...A self-image is something we build, in which we falsely learn to trust. A self-image necessarily sets us into self-centered striving—to live up to it, to make sure others see and reward it. . . . Christian healing comes then not by making a broken thing good enough to work, but by delivering us from the power of that broken thing so that it can no longer rule us, and by teaching us to trust His righteousness to shine in and through that very thing. . . . We do no good thing. He accomplishes all. For the soul, there is in that sense no healing— only death and rebirth. . . . The Lord wants us to accept ourselves as we are, rotten and unchanged, and then let Him express His goodness and righteousness in us through His Holy Spirit.

Not being a spiritually inclined person, I find myself too often feeling like a “phony” when trying to pray, to worship the Lord or to instruct in Christian truths. I am overwhelmed by my inner awareness of what the Sanfords call “the unbelieving heart of the believer.” For me, trying harder doesn’t do it; I only despise myself for passing myself off as a real believer. Yet, in facing this truth about myself, a strange thing has happened. The less of the phony me there is in my worship and Christian living, the more of the Lord there seems to be.

Spiritual giants of the past endured their own struggles, till the Lord set them free. Their examples are always before us. But if you’re not a spiritual giant yourself, it’s living death to strive to be one. Better to “hit bottom,” face the truth about yourself, and begin to pray, “Lord, make me willing to be made willing . . .”

Writing with a "Ring"

2008-12-22T22:18:00.005-06:00

“In North America ninety years ago, our ancestors established a brand new governmental entity. They thought of it in terms of civil rights, and focused on the idea that everybody starts out on an equal basis. . . . From these battle casualties that we’re memorializing, we need to pick up their same level of commitment to the program they gave their lives to promote. We’ve got to really make sure these combatants didn’t die for nothing, and work together so that our country — under a Higher Power, of course — will guarantee everybody’s rights all over again. We’ve got to do that so that a government the people vote for, one that benefits them, won’t just go down the drain.”

Fine patriotic sentiments, perhaps, after a major incident in warfare. But consider how President Abraham Lincoln said it on November 19, 1863 at Gettysburg:

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. . . . that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Compared to the Gettysburg Address the first example sounds flat and tasteless, doesn’t it? Unlike Lincoln’s words, it has no “ring” to it. It doesn’t sound very “literary.” Today’s fashion may be to make writing sound like ordinary casual or conversational speech. But if what we write sounds just like how we talk, why bother to write? Yes, there’s often a place for the colloquial and, perhaps, even the banal especially if we’re dealing with dialogue. But to compose a poem, essay or narrative that will elevate the reader’s appreciation for your topic — that requires us to write words and expressions that “ring.”

The English language, because of the way it developed, has a larger vocabulary than most other tongues. In English there are many different ways to say the same thing, a multitude of approaches to getting your idea across, a plethora of choices when it comes to how to express oneself. (You get the idea.) Writing would not be a craft if there were not such a variety of possible ways to fashion the writer’s concept. Perhaps we cannot always aspire to the level of the Gettysburg Address, Shakespeare or the King James Bible, but we can employ our craft to select our words and shape our phrases so that they “ring” with a reverberation that’s a cut or two above the mundane.

Back and Forth with Genesis 1

2008-11-23T23:42:00.005-06:00

If we accept the Bible as the authority that defines our perspective on reality, how do we regard Scripture’s opening chapter, the account of the creation? Does the Bible teach a literal six-day creation, or can what it says be understood another way? Or, even if it does specify creation in six days — an idea that sounds ridiculous to secular cosmologists — are there some underlying insights in the biblical account that transcend the surface narrative? Perhaps these insights make sense even to someone who regards a literal six-day creation as a discredited doctrine.

To begin with, the Genesis account clearly says, “... one day ..., ... one day ...” So it does teach a six-day sequence of creation. On the other hand, “days” as we know them are earth days — a rotation of the earth on its axis demarcated by the appearance of the sun in the sky. And according to Genesis, the sun and moon aren’t created till the fourth “day.” So how could “days,” as we understand the term, be used to mark off the successive phases of creation?

Some interpreters nuance the account by claiming that the word “day” in Genesis means epochs of astronomical length in the gazillion-year history of the universe. But there’s no warrant for interpreting the Hebrew word yom (“day”) in that sense. Does that clinch the case for understanding the Bible as teaching a literal six-day creation?

Look again at the structure of Genesis 1, with its repeated refrain, “And God saw that XXX was good ... And there was evening and there was morning, X day.” Repeated refrains do not occur in historical accounts or textbooks of cosmology, they occur in hymns. Genesis 1 appears to be a prose paraphrase of a poetical, hymn-like structure, a hymn celebrating the Creator’s activity. Do you look into your church hymnal when you want to find an explanation of some problem in astronomy, physics or chemistry? Not likely. So maybe Genesis 1 isn’t the place to look for a description of how the world actually came into existence. Maybe the biblical account has a different purpose.

But, on the other hand, if you look at the Genesis account it starts with the creation of the most basic “element,” light. It then proceeds, by a process of division, to separate out the generalized components of the universe as the Israelites saw it: light and darkness, the heavens and terra firma, land and sea. That process of division is called analysis, the first principle of scientific inquiry.

By the way, the creation of light is a digital, or binary, separation, the basis for today’s computers. The presence of difference is the basis of information, because information is found in the difference between one thing and another — not in sameness.

The Genesis account then goes on to relate the creation of an ascending hierarchy of living things — plants, then water creatures and birds, then land animals and finally mankind. That is something like the sequence posited in the evolutionary view, though the theory of evolution itself is problematical.

Finally, one looks at other ancient “myths” of creation and notices that the creation of the earth, and of mankind, is only a byproduct of some cosmic struggle between competing deities, whereas in the Bible the universe is created deliberately in a planned and orderly sequence. The sun and moon are perhaps deliberately placed out of order to counter the tendency to worship these bodies, as was common in polytheistic religions.

Furthermore, God is not part of his creation but is separate from it. This implies that mankind, as his agent in the administration of the natural order — made in his “image,” as Genesis puts it — can approach that order in a “secular” way, i.e., without worrying about offending the god of this or that natural phenomenon.

So, in sum, one goes back and forth with the Bible account of creation. First, we accept that it doesn’t square with the scientific view, then we see how it adopts a view generally consistent with science, and finally we realize that it presents the only view that makes science possible.

Renewing the Mind Through Meditation

2008-10-29T22:48:00.004-05:00

By Shirley Anne Leonard

My wife Shirley Anne wrote this piece a few days ago. I thought I would share it with others here.

Why don’t we have victory? We have never sat down and meditated long enough on the Word. What is meditation? Well, if you know how to worry you know how to meditate. Meditation is ruminating, working something over and over in you mind. Our minds just naturally do this all day long. Usually it is about how bad things are, about the ache in our bodies, or this or that problem confronting us.

Controlling the mind is like pushing one of those grocery carts that has a bad wheel and is always trying to swerve to the left. You have to purposely keep turning it back to the right. The good fight of faith is not always with an outside adversary, it’s more often with our own minds.

When the Word says to renew our minds, that’s not just a nice suggestion. God tell us that because He knows that if we let our minds go their natural way they take us down the wrong road — the road to sickness, worry, frustration and depression.

The Lord has another way to go. He tells us to think about ourselves and circumstances the way He does. Where does He say that? Well, He tells us to have the mind of Christ. If you have the mind of Christ then you are thinking the right thoughts. We’re victorious over the world as He was. Remember what Jesus said: “I have overcome the world.” And so can you!

So if someone asks you if you’ve ever meditated, don’t say “No.” You have meditated (worried) about all the wrong things. The solution is to sit down several times a day and purposely meditate on a verse of Scripture that tells who you are and what you can do — like the TV preacher who holds the Bible up at the beginning of a service and asks everyone to repeat the words, “This is my Bible. I am what it says I am and I can do what it says to do.”

Physical “Laws” and “Miracles”

2008-10-07T18:33:00.005-05:00

Commentators customarily speak of the “laws” of the physical universe, such as the law of gravity, the law of inertia, or the laws of thermodynamics. Such terminology tends to portray the universe as a closed system of cause and effect in which natural phenomena cannot behave contrary to the “laws” of physics, mathematics and the like. Nor can any external power interpose to contravene those “laws.”

What such usage fails to recognize is that the term “law” is poorly chosen when applied to the operation of physical phenomena. “Law” is a construct of human culture and interaction, and the operation of laws depends upon social structures for enforcement and personal motives of compliance. That is, to be effective a law must be obeyed, and obedience requires the decision of a sentient being. The substance of the physical world consists of electrons and other subatomic particles. To ascribe to such phenomena the property of obedience to a law is to anthropomorphize them — to credit them with qualities or behavior applicable only to sentient beings, particularly human beings.

Phenomena of the physical realm do, indeed, behave in predictable ways, at least under “normal” conditions (recognizing that “normality,” itself, may be as questionable concept here as “law”). But to describe such behavior in terms of “laws” is only an inaccurate way of saying that the behavior of these phenomena has followed typical patterns. A solid object dropped from a third-storey window will, absent any extraordinary condition such as hurricane-force winds or strong magnetic attraction from a higher storey, be observed to fall to the earth. But to call such behavior the operation of the law of gravity is to ascribe mechanisms of enforcement and obedience to phenomena that have (as far as we can tell) no capacity for choice or decision. (And as for gravity, no one understands what it is anyway; it is not the same as magnetism.)

As Bernard Lonergan pointed out a half-century ago (Insight: A Study of Human Understanding, 1957), observed phenomena form a statistical continuum of events within a system. But such a continuum can never cover all possible eventualities. Statistics constitute an admission of ignorance; if all facts and events were known there would be no need for a statistical abstraction from specific observed data to a generalized system. On the statistical continuum there is always the possibility of a non-systematic “empirical residue” (to use Lonergan’s term), i.e., events that do not fit into the hypothesized continuum.

All of the above is relevant to the consideration of so-called “miracles,” or events that appear to run counter to the “laws” by which the physical universe operates. As stated above, no such “laws” are operative in the behavior of non-sentient phenomena. The observation of repeated events, such as the falling of an object when dropped from a height, can only form a statistical continuum masking our ignorance. No matter how often the phenomenon is observed, the probability that it will occur the next time in the same way cannot be extended to infinity.

What we call “miracles,” far from being perturbations in the operation of physical “laws,” are simply events that do not fall along the line of the hypothetical statistical continuum. They are non-systematic “empirical residue.” As to how and why such events occur, no explanation may be possible in terms of the four-dimensional world in which the physical “laws” are said to operate.

Jesus calmed the storm with the command, “Peace! Be still” (Mark 4:39). The disciples asked, “Who then is this, that he commands even wind and water, and they obey him?” (Luke 8:25). Such language may be the only way human beings can speak of the inbreaking of the non-systematic into a supposed closed system of physical laws. But in speaking this way we need to recall that Scripture testifies to the way Christ is ever “upholding the universe by his word of power” (Hebrews 1:3). The phenomena of the universe are not blindly obeying physical laws. In some way inaccessible to our comprehension they are responding to the “word” of their Creator.

Offering the “High Praises”

2008-09-21T20:01:00.004-05:00

The expression “high praises” occurs only in Psalm 149:6. “Let the high praises of God be in their throats and two-edged swords in their hands.” The word in Hebrew is romemot, the plural construct form of romam, high or extolling praise. The Hebrew verbal root for the word is rum (pronounced “room”), with the basic meaning of “rise, be exalted.” A similar expression, derived from the same root, is found in Psalm 66:17, “I cried aloud to him, and he was extolled (romem) with my tongue.”

Note that the word is plural, not “high praise” but “high praises.” This suggests that the focus is not on the concept of exaltation or praise, but on the actual activity of praise as performed repeatedly and simultaneously by a group of people gathered together for this purpose. The “high praises of God” are not offered by an individual worshiper, but by an entire worshiping community in festive assembly.

Psalm 149 is an interesting expression of the power of spiritual warfare. Through the “high praises” of God” and the “two-edged sword” of his judgment, the enemies of his rule are subdued. The “two-edged sword” could be taken literally as the enforcement of the precepts of God's law upon the order of society. But, as we know, the “two-edged sword” is also a biblical metaphor for the Word of God (Hebrews 4:12, cf. Revelation 1:16; see also “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,” Ephesians 6:17).

Psalm 149 thus combines two central elements of biblical worship: the free and enthusiastic corporate offering of praise to God, and the proclamation and enactment of his Word. The language of the psalm reinforces our understanding that Christian worship is an action of spiritual warfare. Through our gathering together to exalt the name of the Lord in “high praises,” and to rehearse the judgments pronounced in Scripture against everything that opposes his kingdom, we are taking part in the battle against the forces of darkness and evil.

The psalm is therefore a paradigm for strong, vibrant worship that celebrates the majesty and integrity of the living God. It is an exuberant worship marked by a certain holy abandon in the presence of the Almighty, an exercise in “high praises” including great rejoicing and gladness, the “new song” (which may be free-form singing “in the Spirit”), the use of festive instruments, and even the movement arts such as dance or procession.

Psalm 149 leaves no place for an insipid, sentimental kind of “worship” that focuses on how we feel, or caters to our preferences and our hurts. What passes for worship in many churches is, I fear, a “celebration” of the faith of the worshiper, rather than a celebration of Him to whom that faith and worship are directed. There is, of course, a place for reflection and self-examination in the Christian life, and our gatherings can make a place for these things where appropriate. But the victorious worship-warriors of Psalm 149 are not concerned with themselves, but with the judgments of God against an ungodly world. They go forth armed not with their own resources but with the weapons of God, which they take in their mouths and in their hands. They do battle not as isolated individuals, but as a community bonded by their common concern for the exaltation of God, his enthronement upon the praises of his people (see Psalm 22:3), and the enactment of his justice in the face of the evil structures of world cultures. “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Biblical Logic

2008-08-26T19:13:00.006-05:00

People who live since the Enlightenment of the seventeenth century, when a supposedly “scientific” view of reality came into vogue, have trouble with the Bible because they feel compelled to reconcile various parts of Scripture that seem to be contradictory, or at least not to mesh very will with each other. And they feel compelled to reconcile what we read in the Bible with the findings of today’s science and cosmology. The modern view of truth is that words, to be true, must correspond to an external, scientifically verifiable, reality. In this view the Bible is true because it can be proven to correspond to “truth,” scientifically and logically established. The Bible, then, is referential to truths that are external to the Bible.

Consider, though, what this does to the authority of Scripture. Instead of the Bible being the authority for our view of reality, science and logic become the criteria, and Scripture must be forced into their mold. But Jesus Christ said, “Thy Word is truth.” In other words, we begin with Scripture and try to understand it on its own terms, without forcing its words into the framework of a world view that came into vogue only three or four centuries ago. Instead of letting our culture build our world view, we start with the Bible’s world view and allow it to critique the pathological world views being foisted upon us by Western or other world cultures. (On biblical logic and world-building, consult such titles as G. B. Caird, The Language and Imagery of the Bible, 1980, or Hans Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative, 1974.)

This means that when we read the Bible we must enter its own world and be governed by its logic, or we misread its message. Biblical logic is not linear, like modern logic that says “If this condition exists, then that follows.” Biblical argumentation is circumferential, rather than linear. That is, to make a point the speaker or writer surrounds his topic, approaching it from as many angles as possible — and any particular way of approaching the subject may not necessarily be consistent (by modern standards) with the others. The purpose of a biblical argument is not to prove a point, but to “talk it to death.” Obviously, in a biblical argument the “winner” is whichever speaker is left standing after the problem has been bombarded from all possible viewpoints. The loudest or most persistent voice, in other words, is the one whose argument prevails.

The Book of Job is a primary example of biblical logic. Though Job’s three friends offer perfectly good arguments that are consistent with other parts of Scripture, they are ultimately in the wrong because Job meets Another with a more powerful voice than they who is finally able to confront Job with his own presumption. The young man Elihu interrupts the debate with what he considers to be a conclusive argument in defense of God’s ways. Nevertheless, neither Job nor God take any notice of Elihu’s utterance. Only when God himself speaks does the issue come to any resolution, even though God’s argument was anticipated in many of the things Elihu had said.

Proverbs 26:4-5 provides another example of biblical reasoning:

Answer not a fool according to his folly,
lest you be like him yourself.
Answer a fool according to his folly,
lest he be wise in his own eyes.

The question is, How should one respond to a foolish person’s utterance? By “modern” logical standards the advice of the second couplet contradicts that given in the first. But the approach of biblical logic is to surround the question and bombard it from two directions at once.

A New Testament example of biblical logic appears in Paul’s discussion of the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15:12-20. Paul’s argument for the certainty of resurrection seems to be circular. He asks, in effect, “How can you deny the resurrection, since we testify that Christ has been raised?” On the other hand, if there’s no resurrection then Christ has not been raised, after all. There’s no “logical” way out of this circle, so the escape is provided not by reasoning but by an event that demonstrates the power of God: “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep” (15:20).

Although the above may challenge some traditional assumptions regarding the message of the Bible, it is well to follow the example of the Jews of Beroea, who “were more noble than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with all eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see if these things were so” (Acts 17:11).

For an extended version of this entry, see the study Biblical Logic and Interpretation on the Laudemont Ministries web site.

No Laughing Matter

2008-07-29T23:14:00.003-05:00

The latest issue of a prominent Christian magazine includes a cartoon in which a self-satisfied man stands next to a wall with a no-smoking sign. He’s saying to his companion, “Don’t forget: we Christians were intolerant of smokers years before it caught on with the rest of society!”

I’m not sure what the editors’ purpose was in including this cartoon. Were they lampooning smug Christians who highlight their long-standing tobacco prohibition as a badge of honor, now vindicated? If so, the lampoon falls flat. I don’t see the point of making fun of someone who’s been right all along about a major social issue, regardless of his or her attitude. Would that more people would be right about such issues, despite popular trends!

I grew up as the son of a minister and college professor in a major Protestant denomination. Our church circles weren’t evangelical, by any means. In fact we belonged to the “modernist” wing. But there was a residue of piety in our ecclesiastical environment that ruled out the use of tobacco and, for that matter, alcohol. During my preteen and earlier teen years we didn’t even know people who smoked or drank. My parents wouldn’t patronize a restaurant where alcohol was served.

Once my brother and I found a pack of cigarettes someone had dropped on the sidewalk. My mother let us go upstairs in our garage and smoke the stale things, just to see what they were like. That was the end of it. And, through the years, my use of alcohol has been pretty much limited to receiving Holy Communion in liturgical churches, or perhaps sharing half a glass of wine with my wife once a year at an Italian restaurant.

These habits — or the lack thereof — go back to my childhood in that non-evangelical denomination where, at least, we got a few things right about healthy living. That was the 1950s, and that denomination has since moved even further away from Bible-believing faith. I’ve changed denominations since then, seeking an evangelical environment where our tithe money didn’t go to support Marxist revolutionaries in Africa. But the old no-smoking, no-drinking life style stays with me.

You can lampoon that no-smoking, no-drinking mentality if you want to, and call it hypocritical because it overlooks some other important issues. But that’s a shallow response. I remember debates in college where the question of hypocrisy came up in relation to these strictures. Somebody finally pointed out that few people are killed by drivers who are hypocrites, compared with those who die at the hand of drivers who drink. As for the harm that comes from the use of tobacco — you may not smoke yourself, but when you pay your taxes or your medical insurance premiums you’re paying for the societal costs generated by those who do.

Make fun of blowhards who pat themselves on the back because of their intolerance of smoking? Go ahead, but I wouldn’t call it a laughing matter. Christians, evangelical and otherwise, got some things right a half-century ago.

The New Hitler Youth

2008-07-10T12:42:00.004-05:00

During the Nazi era in Germany all young people were required to join either the Hitler Youth (Hitler-Jugend) for boys or its sister organization, the League of German Girls (Bund Deutscher Mädel). Members of both groups were indoctrinated in the National Socialist belief system, including its anti-Semitism and the motivation to fight for the official "party line" of the Hitler movement. Even young Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), growing up in Bavaria, was forced to join the Hitler Youth although his parents were bitterly opposed to Nazi policies.

A year or so ago my wife and I were guests for "Grandparents' Day" at the elementary school attended by two of our grandchildren. In the classroom session our granddaughter's teacher enthusiastically presented a unit on environmentalism, laying out all the life-style changes that were supposed to be good for the earth and counter the effects of global warming. The study materials gave no consideration to the possibility that man-made climate change was only a scientifically questionable theory; the teacher listed all the things children should do to play their part in the environmentalist movement.

Then, recently, I was speaking with an older granddaughter who attends high school. In her mind, global warming is a reality brought about by malevolent human activity. I suggested that a cycle of solar warming could be the cause of temperature increases on the earth, not the factors usually cited by environmentalists. I referred to the finding that temperature increases have also been detected on Mars. Our granddaughter insisted that people were responsible for global warming on Mars as well; no logic I applied to this view could convince her otherwise, so thoroughly has she been brainwashed.

Indoctrination of our young people, on a par with that of the Hitler Youth, is a reality today in our public school system. The purpose of this indoctrination is to soften children, and through them their parents, to the efforts of a ruling elite to force life-style changes upon the entire population of our nation. Once people accept the theory that human activity is creating global warming, it's a short step to the control of all facets of our life by a small cadre of ideologues. Not only environmental behavior but social and personal activity of all types, including issues of sexuality, will come under their purview.

In short, our public education system has become the New Hitler Youth. One can only hope that the indoctrination it offers will be about as effective as some of the other things it tries to teach.

Common English Errors

2008-07-05T09:30:00.007-05:00

Listening to people talk, reading online email or forum messages, and even checking out some web sites I notice several recurrent errors in English usage.

One of the most common errors is to insert an apostrophe in the possessive pronoun its, as in “She returned the item to it’s place.” The word it’s is a contraction for it is, but the proper form of the possessive pronoun is its, by analogy with his or hers (no apostrophe). Even some seasoned writers fail to make this connection.

A frequent mistake is to use lay in place of lie, as in “After supper I will lay down.” Lay is transitive; that is, it takes an object. You can lay something else down, but if you place yourself in a position of repose you lie down (intransitive). The confusion arises because lay is the past tense of lie, as in “Yesterday I lay down for a while.” The past tense of lay (transitive) is laid, as in “He laid the book on the table.”

Another error is to treat lead as a past-tense verb, as in “Then he lead me to the door.” The past tense of lead is led. “I will lead you now as I led you in the past.” The confusion no doubt arises from the pronunciation of lead as a name for a metal. (English is crazy, isn’t it?)

We often hear something like, “He was reticent to take that step.” The speaker meant, “He was reluctant,” that is, not eager to do something. The word reticent means to speak little, as in “She was reticent about her many accomplishments.”

Even news broadcasters and politicians commit a frequent speech error when they say something like, “The thing is, is she didn’t really say that.” There is no need for the repetition, is is. Do people not listen to themselves when they speak? If they did, they would recognize the redundancy. And they should recognize the error in “It was a good move for Michael and I.” Would one say, “a good move for I,” instead of “for me”?

How often have you heard something like, “So I brought him all his books and papers, eck-cetera,” taking the abbreviation etc. (Latin et cetera, “and the rest”) as though it were ect. or something similar. That brings up another error, the confusion of bring and take. We hear, “I’ll bring you over to Kristin’s house,” when the speaker is at Justin’s house. The speaker should have said, “I’ll take you over to Kristin’s house.” Only if the speaker were already at Kristin’s would she be correct to tell Justin, via telephone, “I’ll bring you over.” To bring means to transport someone, or something, from there to here. When transporting from here to there, the correct verb is take.

Another mistake is to assert that something is very unique. If a thing is unique it is, by definition, one of a kind, so there can’t be any degrees of uniqueness. It’s either unique, period, or it’s not unique at all.

My favorite overheard expression is, “It’s raining outside.” I’m tempted to say, “Thank goodness—it’s not raining inside.” Hopefully, all your rainstorms will deposit their precipitation on the exterior of your residence. If the situation is otherwise, call a roofer.

Monitor your speech and writing for these and other common errors. They can slip in when we’re not watching. As a friend of mine used to say, “Correct me if I’m not mistaken.”

Thinking Christianly About Gas Prices

2008-06-18T21:20:00.004-05:00

A few decades ago an astute evangelical pastor recommended to me a book by the British author Harry Blamires entitled The Christian Mind: How Should a Christian Think? A few weeks ago I finally acquired a used copy and began to read.

Blamires' thesis is that whenever Christians think and talk about anything other than specifically "Christian" issues they simply adopt the perspective of secular culture and debate the issues using the same criteria as non-Christian thinkers. The "Christian mind" no longer exists. That is, there is no longer a field of Christian discourse into which a Christian thinker can enter on such issues as politics, social policy, war, economics and the like. If an individual tries to bring a specifically Christian, or biblical, perspective to such public issues he or she is dismissed as a religious fanatic, someone who lives "in a world of his own."

Blamires, a student of C. S. Lewis, wrote 45 years ago. While today there are some forums where Christians can engage the overriding issues of our time from one or another Christian viewpoint (such as the periodical First Things), in the main the situation Blamires describes has probably worsened, rather than improved, within the Western world.

One example Blamires gives is a striking one, given the current upheaval in gasoline prices at the pump. Blamires asks if there is a way to think Christianly about something as mundane as a "petrol pump." He lists several questions a gasoline pump might raise for a Christian thinker, such as the degree to which automobiles have made us slaves of a mechanized order, whether it's right for a privileged few worldwide to enjoy the benefits of a motorized society, or whether our dependence on machinery has pulled us away from dependence on both the natural and supernatural orders.

Blamires' examples, reflecting the world of four decades ago, impress me as dated and almost trite. But the price-per-gallon on today’s "petrol pump' might be another matter. How do we think Christianly, or biblically, about a national average now well over $4.00 per gallon and climbing? I just tried to ask myself some questions that issue raises. The possible answers to these questions may seem contradictory, but this is only an exercise in "Christian" thinking about a "secular" issue.

(1) In a world where the price of gasoline exceeds $18.00 per gallon in some countries, what is the Christian's attitude toward paying only $4.00-plus? Is there a place for thanksgiving in the Christian's life, replacing the idea that we're somehow entitled to pay less than most of the rest of the world?

(2) Further, does a Christian recognize that the earth itself does not make a charge for the resources God has placed in it? Money is always paid to people, in this case all the people involved in the production and distribution of gasoline and the financing thereof. While the Christian, on biblical grounds, may be scandalized by the greed shown by speculators or Arab potentates, does he or she begrudge the prosperity of pension funds that have invested in oil for the benefit of their retirees?

(3) "A prudent man sees danger and hides himself; but the simple go on, and suffer for it" (Proverbs 22:3). Should more prudence have been applied when the Interstate highway system was constructed, resulting in the expansion of motor carrier traffic and the abandonment of a large proportion of the railroad network? The unintended consequence is that the transportation of goods is becoming more expensive, resulting in higher prices for food and other items. Now some major cities with no rail passenger service are in danger of losing their airline service as well. Can American voters show prudence today by electing leaders who will have the wisdom to take the long-range view that was lacking in the massive conversion to highway transportation?

(4) Finally, what about drilling? Environmentalists object to extracting oil from the "pristine wilderness" of ANWR. But what is there in the Christian perspective that exalts a wilderness? In the Bible the wilderness and its conditions are part of the curse upon the disobedient; God’s plan for His people takes the form of a city (Revelation 21). Mankind wasn't placed in a jungle but in a garden, and was told to "subdue the earth" (Genesis 1:28). Can a Christian support the environmentalist mantra about keeping wilderness areas "unspoiled," with the resulting effects on the price at the pump?

These are only a few of the possible Christian approaches to today's "petrol pump." As I said, the questions may point in different, even contradictory, directions. But it's time to bring the price of gasoline, along with other public issues, within the parameters of the Christian mind.

Appropriate Critical Criteria

2008-05-21T15:31:00.001-05:00

A few days ago I received an email from a writer mentioning that in his former critique group he was the only male. He expressed a certain frustration that “chick lit” or other unsuitable criteria were being applied to the kind of writing he was doing.

I had a similar experience in a group I belonged to. I learned a lot from those female authors, and am a much better writer for their input. But occasionally I felt that a “women’s fiction” template was being placed over what I was trying to do with my story.

Listening to the local classical station today, I thought of an analogy. I admire the symphonies of Robert Schumann (1810-1856), frequently heard on that station. Having studied music history, I am aware that critics have sometimes considered Schumann a poor orchestrator — that is, he was not very imaginative about which instruments played which melodic lines.

But the interest in Schumann’s symphonies is not in the orchestration. His work exhibits a tremendous strength in the harmonization, the interplay of various musical ideas, and the development of the music until a climactic moment is achieved. That’s where the interest lies in Schumann’s type of composing, and re-orchestration of his works would hardly bring an improvement in their effect.

True, Schumann wasn’t a colorful orchestrator like Berlioz (1803-1869) or the later Elgar, Ravel and Mahler, whose symphonic works sparkle with fascinating instrumental effects. But there is little in symphonic literature to rival the excitement as Schumann’s Third Symphony (for example) builds to its conclusion. It’s an excitement of structure and melodic and harmonic interplay that would benefit little from a revised orchestration.

One might take this example to heart in the realm of writing. In applying a critique to a novelist’s chapter, the commentator needs to ask: What’s the writer’s purpose? Would adding certain details (such as character description, emotional response, and the like) contribute much to the overall effect? Perhaps yes, perhaps no. But the question needs to be asked from the right perspective, and not through some popular critical grid.

I am thankful that Schumann’s music has survived his critics, to be enjoyed by discerning listeners to this day. May that be true of our good writing, whatever form it takes.

Plots that Underlie All Stories

2008-04-30T21:12:00.003-05:00

Recently members of a writers' group to which I belong were discussing a 37-point typology of story plots that was apparently developed in the early 1800s by Georges Polti. Without going into detail regarding Polti's scheme, it seemed to me to be repetitive. For example, I didn't see any great difference between "a story about hating someone you should like" and "stories about hurting someone who turned out to be important to you." It seemed to me that, in discussing the typology of plots, something less complicated and more basic might be more helpful. Interestingly, I am currently reading Leland Ryken's The Literature of the Bible (Zondervan, 1974), in which the author begins by discussing plots that have typified literature from ancient times.

Ryken refers to the composite narrative, or monomyth, that in one phase or another incorporates all plots. The monomyth corresponds to familiar cycles of human experience, such as dawn – zenith – sunset – darkness or birth – triumph – death – dissolution. The monomyth comprises a continuum or cycle of romance – tragedy – anti-romance – comedy. (In these examples Ryken is following an article by Northrop Frye.)

To quote Ryken (page 23): "Romance is literature that describes an idealized picture of human experience. It satisfies our desire for wish fulfillment. Its opposite, anti-romance, presents a world of complete bondage and the absence of anything ideal. A story in which the action descends from romance to catastrophe is a tragedy, and an upward movement from bondage to freedom is comedy. These are the four possible kinds of literary plots, and together they form the circular monomyth that unifies all of literature."

Ryken further lists, on the same page, a number of archetypal motifs that tie into this typology: the journey, the quest, death-rebirth, initiation, and the scapegoat. Obviously a story can easily combine aspects of these motifs, e.g. the hero has to make an arduous journey (literally or, perhaps, figuratively) during which he experiences "initiation," i.e. he passes to a new level of understanding or maturity. Or the hero is a "scapegoat" but experiences "rebirth," i.e. he is vindicated or (as with Jesus) also literally raised from the dead (tragedy to comedy, or anti-romance to romance). But the monomyth and the archetypal motifs it uses seem to be constants in human experience and in literature that reflects it.

As a further thought, in working on my doctoral dissertation (completed 1972) I was asking, "What makes the Bible the Bible?" That is, what about the literature of the Bible made it recognizable as canonical Scripture, even from its first appearance? (I dealt only with the Old Testament.) I found several "theories of the canon." One theory was that Israelite literature was held to be canon because it evidenced a motif of "struggle and victory," i.e. the victory of the Lord and his people over obstacles such as enemies or sin. But on reflection I realized that this theory offered no great insight, since the actual course of historical events often displays this same motif or pattern. If we just write about life we are bound to develop some aspect or theme of the monomyth.

Love and Spirit – Two Words to Avoid

2008-04-22T22:23:00.005-05:00

This will sound like heresy to Christian writers, but two words I believe we should drop from our normal vocabulary are love and spirit.

I suggest this drastic step because love and spirit have specific meanings in the Bible, but these are not the meanings contemporary culture assigns to these words. Simply to use them without putting them into the context of the biblical perspective is to distort them. Even if we quote a Bible passage that uses these words, we need to contextualize them so they won’t convey the wrong impression. Usually, it’s just better to avoid them entirely.

Take spirit, first of all, along with its derivative spiritual. Usually the word is a cover for something we can’t understand or explain. We can get out of dealing with the “nuts and bolts” of an issue if we can just flip it off into the realm of the “spirit,” where logic can’t touch it. Granted, our logic isn’t always reliable because it’s tied in with our cultural presuppositions. But that doesn’t excuse a lapse into the illogical, even the unobservable, and I fear that’s the effect of consigning a matter to the “spiritual” realm.

We tend to think of the spiritual as the invisible, but in Scripture the spiritual always has a visible manifestation. There has to be some perceptible evidence that spiritual factors are operative – in changed human behavior, for example, or (in the primal actions of Spirit, Genesis 1–2) the creation of a universe and of human life. Both the Hebrew and Greek words for spirit mean “breath, wind,” and it’s only the translator’s judgment which English meaning to use. Spirit isn’t a “religious” word in the Bible; it refers to the “breath” that motivates that which lives and moves in observable ways. So, to avoid misunderstanding, in our writing let’s deal with those concrete actions and their motivation instead of shoving them under the “spiritual” rug.

More could be said, but let’s tackle love. I don’t need to point out the contemporary misuses of that term, which should be reason enough for Christian writers to delete it from their working lexicon. Once again, the Bible gives love a concreteness that contemporary usage lacks. I’ll give a Scriptural reference here from Psalm 103:17-18, “But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon those who fear him, and his righteousness to children's children, to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments.” The Hebrew word is hesed, which refers to God’s covenant loyalty — His commitment to those who are committed to Him, and who demonstrate their faithfulness by their obedience.

I suggest that the agape love of the New Testament is a direct development from this Hebraic concept. It has an inherent relationship to the covenant between the Lord and His people, and to be outside that covenant is to be outside the realm of God’s directed love, or faithfulness. Otherwise why would Paul speak, in Romans 1, of those whom God “gave up” because they “did not honor him as God or give thanks to him” — i.e., acknowledge Him as their “senior Partner” in the covenant?

So, in sum, love in the Bible is a commitment, a decision we make to be faithful to another. It isn’t the “warm fuzzy feeling” we have for somebody. But, sadly, Christian writers often use it that way or fail to explain what they really mean. Better to keep our usage of the word love to a bare minimum.

Conventional Unconventionality

2008-04-07T22:57:00.004-05:00

There was a time, not so long ago — perhaps two or three generations — when most Americans did their best to conform to social norms of appearance, outward (at least) morality, and such values as patriotism and respect for religious faith. If you watch movies or TV reruns from the 1940s or 1950s, for example, you’ll note the men wearing suits, ties and the fedora hat; the women wearing highly stylized hairdos; and the characters exuding a pro-American stance with which even Senator Joseph McCarthy might have been pleased. Nobody, or almost nobody, wanted to stand out from the crowd with sloppy dress, bizarre grooming (or lack thereof), or the flaunting of behavior that went against conventional morality. The general tenor of the era was reflected in the novels of such writers as Lloyd C. Douglas, Frank G. Slaughter and Frances Parkinson Keyes.

Then came the 1960s and the onset of the “beatnik” era with its stress on nonconformity. In literature, novelists like Grace Metalious (Peyton Place) and D.H. Lawrence (Lady Chatterley’s Lover) had already broken the taboos about what was suitable to put before the public, and Jack Kerouac’s On the Road had outlined the shape of the beatnik lifestyle of social nonconformity. Blue jeans, beards, long hair, the peace sign, anti-war protests and unrestrained sex signaled a new culture of the unconventional. To be conventional or conformist in the 1950s manner became the great sin. The “me generation” was born, given voice by Frank Sinatra’s memorable rendition of Paul Anka’s song: “I did it my way.”

And the me generation is still with us, with slogans like “Whatever turns you on,” “Be all you and be,” and “Have it your way.” In such a culture the logical reaction to the Wal-Mart clerk’s parting words, “Have a nice day,” would be, “Don’t tell me what kind of day to have!” Politicians try to make capital out of a supposed trait of being a “maverick,” and we’re told to “think outside the box” if we want to solve a problem. Someone who doesn’t want to “walk on the wild side” is a hopeless dork. So pervasive has become the culture of nonconformity that Richard John Neuhaus, in his commentary on opinions expressed in the media, frequently refers to “the herd of independent minds” — who, oddly enough, somehow seem to arrive independently at the same opinion.

And that’s the open secret about the cultural legacy of the “beat generation”: unconventionality is the new convention that no one dares defy.

Consider the area of clothing. Would you dare attend your “seeker” church wearing a suit and tie, or a nice dress from Bergner’s? No, let’s not be so conformist — let’s wear casual clothes, and tell the world how unconventional we are! Why, even the preacher wears jeans and a sweat shirt. Let’s be different, let’s be like him.

And if you’re a writer you wouldn’t want to write conventionally, in the manner of novelists of past generations. No, be unconventional! Get rid of old-style rhetorical phrases such as, “‘Let’s go,’” said Charlie.” It should be “‘Let’s go,” Charlie said.” Or, better yet, use a “beat”: “Charlie tugged at the door knob. ‘Let’s go.’” Avoid the passive voice: “Becky’s words were overlaid by the voice of the professor” should be “The professor’s voice overlaid Becky’s words.”

And avoid recondite, arcane terms that might not be understood by someone with only a fifth grade reading ability. Trying to raise the reader’s level of comprehension, as older writers sometimes did, is insulting. In a culture where everyone has a right to “be himself” (or herself), the reader has the right to remain ignorant. Trying to elevate the reader’s understanding would be too unconventionally conventional.

Musical Idiom in Christian Worship

2008-04-01T13:32:00.006-05:00

The question of musical style or idiom in Christian worship can be a complicated issue. Within the same culture a variety of musical expressions may coexist, some of which are less suited for use in worship than others. In any culture, including that of the West, music that fails to convey the distinctive difference between biblical faith and prevailing values can be counterproductive when used in worship.

For example, Christian faith sees God as Creator acting through history to bring about the redemption of His people whom He loves. Music that is only cyclical — repetitive, such as New Age — runs counter to the biblical principal that history and events have a purpose and goal in God's redemptive plan. Some music from other cultures, especially Eastern cultures, seems to be of the repetitive sort — not progressing from "beginning" to "ending" as we know them from "classical" music. I wonder what message this kind of music would convey about biblical faith. On the other hand, we don't know much about Israelite or early Christian music. It was probably closer to traditional African or Asiatic music than to the modern Western idiom. But the Psalms, in the Bible's book of hymn texts, do progress from start to finish. As I said, it's a complicated issue.

Music that is consistently harsh, dissonant and disjointed, as with some contemporary types both popular and symphonic, can be taken as a statement that the universe and human life are meaningless. Such music denies the biblical perspective, which sees a coherent and purposeful universe created by divine intelligence. In the opening pages of J. R. R. Tolkien's Silmarillion the author imagines Illúvatar's beautiful creation permeated by music, with its harmony marred by the discordant strains of the self-assertive Melkor. Tolkien's fantasy is a parallel to the traditional picture of Satan's rebellion (which owes more to Milton than to the Scriptures), but significantly relates discordant music to a compromise of the created order. One thinks immediately of Psalm 19: "The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims His handiwork" — not through spoken words but through "their voice," which the hymn writer calls "the music of the spheres" (Maltbie D. Babcock, "This Is My Father’s World").

There is something to be said for making Christian music, anywhere, different from what is heard in the streets or popular media. The holy God — Scripture is clear — is "set apart" from the profane; the true sense of His presence partakes of the numinous, or a mysterious otherness. The New Testament, in its portrayal of Jesus, brings the awareness of God's presence into the realm of human personhood and the intimate indwelling of the Holy Spirit. But it's still true that the New Testament retains a sense of the overwhelming, supramundane majesty of God as One not to be trifled with. We see this, for example, in the Revelation to John.

Music that is just like what people hear on the radio or download to their iPods can't convey this transcendent mystery. Worship music needs to bear a certain "exalted" quality, especially where it is directly addressed to the Lord — as far more of it should be. Some types of music just can't bring across this sense of exaltation. For that reason, in my opinion, popular Hispanic or American country music, to mention just a few examples, are inadequate media for Christian worship. I wonder if the overpowering electronic blast of contemporary popular-style music in some "seeker" churches also works against a sense of God’s transcendence. For that matter the trite musical idiom of the evangelical "gospel song," contemporary a century ago, now sounds dated, shallow and focused on me rather than on God.

There are those who seem to believe that when a Christian worship environment isn't "contemporary" people get the idea that the faith isn't relevant, and aren't drawn to the gospel. But was Jesus' preaching "contemporary" or did it challenge the presuppositions and expectations of His contemporaries? Sometimes the gospel needs to be presented in ways that pull people out of their cultural milieu — not immerse them in it. A "different" kind of music might be part of that proclamation.

A Poet Rediscovered?

2008-03-15T20:25:00.014-05:00

In 2003 I was asked to help compile a book of readings on heaven, to be titled The Contemporaries Meet the Classics on Heaven. My responsibility was to collect readings from the “classics” — which, essentially, covered everyone before C. S. Lewis! The book was eventually published, late in 2007, by Howard Books (Simon & Schuster) under the title A Glimpse of Heaven (see panel at right).

In my research on this book I encountered the devotional writings of Anna Shipton (1815-1901), who flourished in England the middle and latter part of the nineteenth century. She published more than a dozen works of devotional narrative or poetry. C. H. Spurgeon included texts by Anna Shipton in a hymnal produced for his church in London, the Metropolitan Tabernacle, and D. L. Moody was fond of quoting her verse. Her best-known title seems to have been Whispers in the Palms, a book of hymns and meditations, which first appeared in 1855 and was reprinted at least four times. Other titles include Hidden Springs, Precious Gems for The Saviour's Diadem, The Sure Mercies of David, Watch-Tower in the Wilderness and Waiting Hours.

The popular devotional Streams in the Desert (first published 1925) includes a selection by Anna Shipton, and a translated text of hers even found its way into a German hymnal published in 1931. The twentieth century, however, seemed to have largely forgotten this author. At the time I was researching what became A Glimpse of Heaven little information about her was available on the Internet, or even in the Wheaton College library (although the library did have a copy of Whispers in the Palms). I could not even track down the year of her birth.

Now, five years later, Anna Shipton’s fortunes seem to be recovering. A search engine query on “anna shipton” yields seventeen pages of links, most of which refer to this writer. Her book “Tell Jesus”: Recollections of Emily Gosse is available from Greater Truth Publishers, and Whispers in the Palms is available online from Google. I was even able, finally, to discover the year of her birth though I have not encountered any biographical information.

One would not be inclined to number Anna Shipton among the great writers of the nineteenth century, but her work was well known in Christian circles in both Britain and the United States and was, evidently, a blessing to many. What I wrote of Fannie J. Crosby in A Glimpse of Heaven might well be said of Anna Shipton: “Although she is not judged an outstanding poet, the simplicity and earnestness of her verse have endeared her songs to Christian worshipers.”

So it is good to note some renewed interest in Anna Shipton’s work. The following is an example of her devotional poetry, from Whispers in the Palms:

          The Soul’s Alarum

     Arouse thee, laggard Soul — awake — awake!
          Rise and depart, for this is not thy rest;
     Bend meekly down, and then as bravely take
          The Cross, God lays on thee. Tho' sore distrest
     And weary be thy way, fear not ! Look up —
          He mighty is to save! He whispers, “Come.”

     Another wine shall fill thy brimming cup,
          In the bright mansions of thy Father’s home.
     To hosts of Heaven, unseen by mortal eye,
          He giveth charge, to fence, to guard thy ways:
     They do their Master's bidding joyfully,
          And mark each triumph with a song of praise;
     Not for their sins He died — He did not take
     His cross to bear for them. — Arise, oh Soul, awake!

The Reader as Co-Creator

2008-03-04T12:28:00.005-06:00

When I was a child—in the late 1940s and early 1950s—I used to enjoy listening to the radio on Sunday evenings. That was back in the days when radio had "programs," and my ear was glued to the entertainment parade headed by The Great Gildersleeve, Jack Benny and Fred Allen. Because this was radio, I had no idea what the scenes or the characters looked like. So I had to imagine them for myself.

Later on, when I saw movies of Harold Peary (or his replacement, Willard Waterman) as Gildersleeve, I had to adjust my mental images of him and the other characters in the show. But, interestingly, the adjustment was not a major one. What I, as the listener, had created almost matched what I saw on the screen.

I think a good novel is like that. The author doesn’t need to describe everything. He or she is "telling a story," not writing a screenplay. It is the reader’s responsibility to fill in the gaps with his imagination. The reader cooperates with the author in creating the story.

In Walking on Water (Harold Shaw, 1980), Madeleine L’Engle wrote: "The reader, viewer, listener usually grossly underestimates his importance. If a reader cannot create a book along with the writer, the book will never come to life. Creative involvement: that’s the basic difference between reading a book and watching TV. In watching TV we are passive; sponges; we do nothing. In reading we must become creators."

I belong to a critique group, and frequent comments about my fiction writing could be, "Don’t tell me, show me," "Nothing is happening; I’m pulled out of the story," or "Let me see his reaction to what she said." I am very sorry, dear friends. The reader who is easily "pulled out" of the story, or who has to be "shown" everything, isn’t the reader I’m writing for. I’m writing for the reader who will be a co-creator with me, who will involve himself in setting the scene and thinking in behalf of the dramatis personae. Only in this way would my novel be a memorable one.

Marshall McLuhan, in Understanding Media (McGraw-Hill, 1964), distinguished between "cool" and "hot" media. His intuition runs counter to what we might suppose. Television is a "cool medium" because it presents itself to both sound and sight, limiting the need for the viewer’s creative involvement. Radio, on the other hand, is a "hot medium" because it encourages the listener’s imagination. Perhaps that explains why TV today is such a wasteland of sensationalist "news," shallow comedy, predictable suspense and pharmaceutical ads—while "talk radio" has captured the attention of millions.

A screenplay is "cool;" telling a good story is "hot." When the reader participates in the creative process he takes away more from the story than he would if everything were laid out for him, because he has built part of the story in his own head. I can still remember the "scenes" I mentally created for The Great Gildersleeve; Fred Allen and Allen’s Alley; Mr. Keen; Tracer of Lost Persons; The Shadow; Fibber McGee and Molly; and others. They live on in my consciousness because I was involved in creating them.