Karl Barth the fundamentalist

Karl Barth is a pleasure to read. I guess I should add my fundamentalist caveat here and say that I have strong disagreements with him in certain areas (for example, we differ on inerrancy). Nonetheless the bit of his Church Dogmatics that I have read I found quite enjoyable (though at times he was not particularly lucid). I was quite startled, for example, to find a couple comments that resemble very much something a fundamentalist would say. I have included them for your pleasure here.

"Because in heresy, [unbelief] appears simultaneously as a form of faith, here it becomes serious, and there may and there must be conflict, between faith and heresy" (Church Dogmatics I/1.2).

"So different is the Church's interpretation from that of heretics that the question threateningly enough arises, whether what is involved on each side is not some quite different theme, whether the opposing difference of belief ought not perhaps to be regarded merely as unbelief" (I/1.2).

I find militancy so refreshing.

And just to realign myself with the fundamentalists in our audience, how about we close with a similar line from J. Gresham Machen's Christianity and Liberalism:

"Truth cannot be stated clearly at all without being set over against error" (174).

Happy Birthday C. S. Lewis

In 1898, C. S. Lewis was born on this day, Nov 29, in Belfast. In honor of his birthday, I have given a couple of interesting selections from his An Experiment in Criticism, the first on Bach and the second dealing with how we should appreciate art:

"Many people enjoy popular music in a way which is compatible with humming the tune, stamping in time, talking, and eating. And when the popular tune has once gone out of fashion they enjoy it no more. Those who enjoy Bach react quite differently" (4).

"In general the parallel between the popular uses of music and of pictures is close enough. Both consist of 'using' rather than 'receiving'. Both rush hastily forward to do things with the work of art instead of waiting for it to do something to them. As a result, a very great deal that is really visible on the canvas or audible in the performance is ignored; ignored because it cannot be so 'used'. And if the work contains nothing that can be so used--if there are no catchy tunes in the symphony, if the picture is of things that the majority does not care about--it is completely rejected. Neither reaction need be in itself reprehensible; but both leave a man outside the full experience of the arts in question" (25-26).

Advent music on-line

Those of you who appreciate sacred music may find Classic Church Music enjoyable. You will have to endure through some annoying ads, both visual and audible, but I think it is worth it in the end. The current focus for the station is Advent music. The station is described, "Classic choral and organ works, celebrating music of the Advent season until Christmas Eve."

In another place it says, "Classic music for the church, running the gamut from organ works to choral anthems and motets to chant (both plain- and Anglican) to instrumental works. Some historical works, some private recordings. Station is updated according to church season, or at least once a month in ordinary time. Broadcasting for 2 years as of October 2005! Nominated for Best of Live365 Classical Station in 2004."

Give it a try!

Machen critiquing hymns

Although some may see efforts to critique both old and new church music as elitist or judgmental, we have an excellent example of this sort of thing done by J. Gresham Machen. In Christianity & Liberalism he distinguishes between three different hymns, explaining how the text in each either fails or succeeds at describing well the marvellous atonement in the Cross of Christ:

"The Christian doctrine of the atonement, therefore, is altogether rooted in the Christian doctrine of the diety of Christ. The reality of an atonement for sin depends altogether upon the New Testament presentation of the Person of Christ. And even the hymns dealing with the Cross which we sing in Church can be placed in an ascending scale according as they are based upon a lower or higher view of Jesus' Person. At the very bottom of the scale is that familiar hymn:

Nearer, my God, to thee,
Nearer to thee!
E'en though it be a cross
That raiseth me.

That is a perfectly good hymn. It means that our trials may be a discipline to bring us nearer to God. The thought is not opposed to Christianity; it is found in the New Testament. But many persons have the impression, because the word 'cross' is found in the hymn, that there is something specifically Christian about it, and that it has something to do with the gospel. This impression is entirely false. In reality, the cross that is spoken of is not the Cross of Christ, but our own cross; the verse simple means that our own crosses or trials may be a means to bring us nearer to God. It is a perfectly good thought, but certainly it is not the gospel. One can only be sorry that the people on the Titanic could not find a better hymn to use in the last solemn hour of their lives.

"But there is another hymn in the hymn-book:

In the cross of Christ I glory,
Towering o'er the wrecks of time;
All the light of sacred story
Gathers round its head sublime.

That is certainly better. It is here not our own crosses but the cross of Christ, the actual event that took place on Calvary, that is spoken of, and that event is celebrated as the centre of all history. Certainly the Christian man can sing that hymn. But one misses even there the full Christian sense of the meaning of the Cross; the Cross is celebrated, but it is not understood.

"It is well, therefore, that there is another hymn in our hymn-book:

When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.

There at length are heard the accents of true Christian feeling--'the wondrous cross on which the Prince of glory died.' When we come to see that it was no mere man who suffered Calvary but the Lord of Glory, then we shall be willing to say that one drop of the precious blood of Jesus is of more value, for our salvation and for the hope of society, than all the rivers of blood that have flowed upon the battlefields of history" (126-128).

Christ, Christmas, and American Commercialism

I used to get quite upset around this time of year. Every time I heard "Happy Holidays" or even "Happy X-mas" instead of Merry Christmas, I was convinced that there was some underhanded pagan strategy to "take Christ out of Christmas." Yes, the American Corporate World was banding together to rid the world of Jesus. Now, however, I am glad they are doing it.

Now it may seem like I am throwing up the white flag on the culture wars, but let me try to explain why. I am sick of American Christmas. I am sick of people trying to make money on Christ. I am sick of religion being reduced to a means of padding the bankrolls of the irreligious. I am infuriated that I am coerced into covetousness over what should a sacred holiday. I do not want Walmart to make money over Christmas. I do not want CBD to make there year's sales goals because of the five weeks following Thanksgiving. I am sick of The Passion gift sets, Veggietale Bible covers, one more Amy Grant Christmas CD, and every other act of simony baptized under the dubious auspices of "Jesus is the Reason for the Season." I am angered by the purveyors of consumer electronics and their plans to make millions off of Americans, Christian and otherwise, who are addicted to the pleasures of this age.

I work in the corporate office for a small to medium-sized retail corporation. Listen, Christian, do know how they plan to use you? They are going to suggest you buy their things for "gifts." Not just suggest, but push. Their yearly sales will be shored up by your spending at our retail locations. They strategize how to lure you in, how to set up the bait, how to "go in for the kill." They carefully plan to get you to buy. Do they care about Jesus Christ? Yeah, they do--but only if He helps the fourth-quarter sales numbers. And the Christian corporations are largely no different. They are right in line with the profiteering and promotion of greed, except they are only more explicit in their simony. They actually have the audacity to sell religious things for these ends.

Of course, the ironic thing here is that "Christmas" is intentionally being deleted from the coffee cups, the bags, the POP, the background music, and so forth. Why? Because being politically incorrect, they figure, does not sell as well as the harmless inoculation of all the other season's greetings they could pass along. They want to have their cake and eat it too. Yes, they will sell billions upon billions of dollars of junk that will end up in a garage sale twenty years from now all because of "Christmas", all while subtly removing any mention to the Person at the center of the holiday--the person in whose name all these "Christians" will go out and buy this junk. I don't know about you, but I feel like I'm being double-crossed. I guess I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. Am I glad they are taking "Christ" out of Christmas? Well, yes--I grieve that the Lord Jesus Christ's name is being blasphemed so. But am I glad they are taking "Christ" out of Christmas? Well, no. As long as they are making millions off of Christians, they might as well have the guts to admit that it is all in the name of Christ. But my "yes" reason trumps my "no" reason. Will this dereligiousizing of Christmas have any great effect? Probably. But we Americans like our holidays essentially meaningless (except for Valentine's Day). The less meaning, the better. Far better for Americans to give thanks to nobody, ask for candy on the eve of All Saint's Day, and celebrate "the holidays" than to actually understand what these holy days are all about.

But while American commercialism is engaged in their silent protest, I will still force on them a "Merry Christmas" in a few weeks--just to jar them a little. And what do you know? All of sudden a phrase that had lost all meaning will suddenly, because of its newfound political incorrectness, have a new, stark meaning that will remind them why Christians still view December 25th as a holy day.

Worried about church attendance?

Here comes Narnia! The really sad thing is that these actions do not come as any surprise.

David Clark on objectivity

In his monograph, To Know and Love God, David Clark distinguishes two kinds of "objectivity." The first is kind is the sense in which we say that a theological truth is "objective." When we want to say, for example, with "objectivity", that God is holy. The second kind of objectivity is when we say that we study something with "objectivity," i.e., in a manner in which we are not affecting the study. This is the manner in which many evangelicals and fundamentalists who have been greatly influenced by modernity say that they study the Scriptures. If they have any influence over the study itself, they believe it is negligible and can be set aside. Clark argues that both "objectivities" should be approached "modestly." He wants to embrace what he calls a "modest objectivity." This modest objectivity, Clark explains, when applied to the second form of "objectivity," looks like this:

"An Enlightenment model of objectivity posits that we are completely neutral and dispassionate scholars viewing God from an ahistorical, God's eye perspective. I do not defend that artificial sort of objectivity. I say it is impossible. A more modest model of objectivity recognizes that we see from our place in history. Yet our knowledge puts us in touch with God, not simply with our mental pictures of God. So God himself, the object of our knowledge, decisively shapes genuine knowledge of God. The predispositions or desires of the knowing subject need not decisively control genuine knowledge of God and thus obscure God. As theologians, we can allow the subject of investigation--a reality that is outside the knower--to exert a dominant influence on our knowing process" (217).

I think Clark is on to something here. We do not want to say that we are kind of "blank slate" when it comes to our investigations. As Gadamer says, "[The real meaning of a text] is always codetermined by the historical situation of the interpreter." At the same time, though, we do not want to say that we cannot know anything meaningfully outside of ourselves (how's that for a double-negative). No, we can understand with "objectivity." But we always want to approach this objectivity "modestly", acknowledging that we do "read into" texts, even in ways of which we are not aware.

Come, Ye Thankful People, Come

One of the most interesting "thanksgiving hymns" is Come, Ye Thankful People, Come, written by Henry Alford. The song's theme is focused on harvest time, it is true, but uses it as metaphor to teach about coming judgment.

I

Come, ye thankful people, come, raise the song of harvest home;
All is safely gathered in, ere the winter storms begin.
God our Maker doth provide for our wants to be supplied;
Come to God’s own temple, come, raise the song of harvest home.

The first verse has several elements to note. Alford begins here by reminding believers of the goodness of God in harvest. He also brings out the themes of harvest with which he will utilize later--"All is safely gathered in." In my musing over this hymn, I suppose that "raise the song of harvest home" may refer to bringing the song of harvest sung in the fields to home. And it seems that "home" here will serve as a metaphor to our eternal Home, our eternal Rest.

II

All the world is God’s own field, fruit unto His praise to yield;
Wheat and tares together sown unto joy or sorrow grown.
First the blade and then the ear, then the full corn shall appear;
Lord of harvest, grant that we wholesome grain and pure may be.

Now Alford begins the metaphor itself, largely built off our Lord's parable in Matthew 13. We learn that all the world is a field for God, which he has planted in order to bring for to himself. Both wheat and tares, however, have been planted in this field, and we will not know until the end who was a child of God and who was his enemy. Not until "the full corn" or fruit appears do we really find out the difference between the two. The final line is a prayer in response to this truth: "Lord of harvest, grant that we wholesome grain and pure may be."

III

For the Lord our God shall come, and shall take His harvest home;
From His field shall in that day all offenses purge away,
Giving angels charge at last in the fire the tares to cast;
But the fruitful ears to store in His garner evermore.

The third stanza continues to exposit the parable of the Lord. Judgment is promised to the tares, and salvation is promised to the "fruitful ears." All "offsenses" (sins being used for the sinners, I suppose) will be damned in that day, and the angels will cast the tares into the fire, as put forth in Mt 13:30, "Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn." The "fruitful ears" are gathered to be stored "in His garner evermore." A traditional dispensationalist will understand this time of judgment and salvation to refer to the end of the tribulation when the Lord comes back to judge those on the earth who were not raptured, though it is possible that the Lord here in the parable may not be attempting to refer to an actual end-time event but an end-time principle: judgment for the unrighteous and salvation for the righteous, and the reality that these two groups live side by side until the end of the judgment. I should also mention the vivid imagery in the third line, "Giving angels charge at last in the fire the tares to cast." I believe that songs about judgment with imagery such as this are good to have sung in the church of God. In a day where all talk of judgment seems to have left even the most conservative evangelical and fundamentalist churches, these images are sure to startle some. But it is hymns such as these with which the word of Christ is dwelling richly in the congregation, and should be sung to give us reminders of the judgment that comes on those who do not have faith in the Christ.

IV

Even so, Lord, quickly come, bring Thy final harvest home;
Gather Thou Thy people in, free from sorrow, free from sin,
There, forever purified, in Thy garner to abide;
Come, with all Thine angels come, raise the glorious harvest home.

The last stanza is a prayer to the Lord, not only to come quickly, but to bring salvation. Do you not with me find this first line refreshing? "Even so, Lord, quickly come." Alford has the audacity to ask the Lord to come after he has just penned two stanzas talking about possible judgment coming! Oh, what a standing we have in Christ, whereas, even though we deserve to be cast into the fire with the other tares, we know that in Christ we have righteousness. "Bring thy final harvest home," he says, refreshing in our minds the prayer from the first stanza of the hymn. We are to be gathered in "free from sorrow, free from sin"--gathered in with the righteousness of Christ being our righteousness, purified forever in God's garner, or the eternal state. "Come, with all Thine angels come, raise the glorious harvest home.

This hymn is most powerful, because it says to us, "this is what harvest should remind you of"--the coming judgment and salvation of God. He will cast out the tares just like we throw out the weeds. He will save the fruitful ears just like we love to eat the fruitful ears. He will bring us home and put us in his garner, just like we store our food in our barns. This is what harvest points to--salvation and judgment in the end of the age.

And what does this hymn do in the end? Reminds us why we are "thankful people." In a certain sense, this hymn has very little to do with thanksgiving--after all, it is about judgment and wrath and salvation and eschatology in a coming Lord who is to be feared and dreadfully hoped in. This is one of the reasons I am always amazed when people sing it at thanksgiving. But, on the other hand, it is all about thanksgiving, for it reminds us what harvest time points to--larger and greater truths about the world--and it reminds us why were are thankful--because the Lord who has made and will make us "fruitful ears" will gather us into His garner. We are "the Thankful People" spoken of in the first line because we have experienced our Lord's rich salvation.

Good CD

There are at least two reasons to buy good hymn CDs. First, good recordings of hymns will usually introduce you to hymns with which you are currently unfamiliar. I have learned many new hymn texts and settings from CDs I purchased. Good recordings of hymns also aid your worship. I like them in the background (or, preferrably, the foreground) on Sunday morning. So if you are looking for a good recording of hymns to add to your collection, I strongly recommend Best Loved Hymns.

On the disc, I was introduced to many "Best Loved Hymns" that I did not know. This ignorance, of course, was only partly my fault. Several years ago when I first purchased the disc, the Choir of King's College introduced me to "All My Hope on God is Founded," "Come Down, O Love Divine," "The Day Thou Gavest Lord is Ended," "My Song is Love Unknown," and "Drop, Drop, Slow Tears." The tune ABBOT'S LEIGH to "Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken" is one of the highlights of the CD, a much better setting, I am inclined to think, than Hadyn's AUSTRIA, to which we often sing the hymn here in the United States. I also learned the original words to "Be Thou My Vision", which make much more sense than our abridged American version.

Accompiament and Arrangements. Nearly all of the hymns are accompanied. Most have the organ, and some add brass. "Morning has Broken," "The Lord's My Shepherd," and "Be Thou My Vision" are all ornamented with harp. Most of the arrangements are simple, the hymn with little alteration and a descant at the end--and the descants are glorious. "All My Hope," "Praise, My Soul," "All People," and "Thine be the Glory" are particularly grand and majestic. For those who are not at all accustomed to any kind of modern music, "Let All Mortal Flesh" may be a bit offsetting at first, but with acquaintance it becomes increasingly satisfying. "O What Their Joy" is arranged more like an anthem than a hymn, and has a broad scope--mystical, somber, and glorious in its eight minutes of pure delight.

The Performance of the hymns by the Choir of King's College and Stephen Cleobury is well done, in my opinion. A friend once commented to me that the CD was poorly mixed, but I have never noticed--but that may be my general apathy about how CDs are mixed. This is not "CCM," and it is not Soundforth, the Wilds, or Majesty Music. This is a serious choir in England, desiring to sing serious hymns. No jingles, no puff, and not always "pretty." But the recording is greatly satisifying and has done much good for my soul. Even the Liner Notes are helpful with this CD; I found them very informative.

I should say one word about a couple songs with which I suspect theologically. "Dear Lord and Father of Mankind" comes pretty close to being postmillennial. And I have some discomfort when I read the text to "Drop, Drop, Slow Tears." But these should not be strong enough to hinder you. It is really only the last verse of "Dear Lord" that gives away its postmillennialism (though it is well and subtly crafted into the text), and it could even be reinterpreted, I would dare say, to be premillennial. "Drop, Drop" does not seem to emphasize justification by faith through Christ enough for my doctrinal taste.

In sum, I would highly recommend this recording. It will quickly become, I believe, one of your best loved.

A Word from Jonathan Edwards

Everytime I listen to Jonathan Edwards' "Sinners in the Hands of Angry God", I am astonished at his boldness and frankness. I wonder if our idea of a "pastor's heart" could not stand some scrutiny. I am also struck by his effective use of imagery, giving picture after picture of the idea he wants to convey. And, of course, I am also under great conviction.

Here is an excerpt:

"The bow of God's wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood. Thus all you that never passed under a great change of heart, by the mighty power of the Spirit of God upon your souls; all you that were never born again, and made new creatures, and raised from being dead in sin, to a state of new, and before altogether unexperienced light and life, are in the hands of an angry God. However you may have reformed your life in many things, and may have had religious affections, and may keep up a form of religion in your families and closets, and in the house of God, it is nothing but his mere pleasure that keeps you from being this moment swallowed up in everlasting destruction. However unconvinced you may now be of the truth of what you hear, by and by you will be fully convinced of it. Those that are gone from being in the like circumstances with you, see that it was so with them; for destruction came suddenly upon most of them; when they expected nothing of it, and while they were saying, Peace and safety: now they see, that those things on which they depended for peace and safety, were nothing but thin air and empty shadows.

And another:

"How awful are those words, Isa. 63:3, which are the words of the great God. "I will tread them in mine anger, and will trample them in my fury, and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment." It is perhaps impossible to conceive of words that carry in them greater manifestations of these three things, vis. contempt, and hatred, and fierceness of indignation. If you cry to God to pity you, he will be so far from pitying you in your doleful case, or showing you the least regard or favour, that instead of that, he will only tread you under foot. And though he will know that you cannot bear the weight of omnipotence treading upon you, yet he will not regard that, but he will crush you under his feet without mercy; he will crush out your blood, and make it fly, and it shall be sprinkled on his garments, so as to stain all his raiment. He will not only hate you, but he will have you, in the utmost contempt: no place shall be thought fit for you, but under his feet to be trodden down as the mire of the streets."

All Things Fun and Trivial

I was talking the other day with my three-year-old son about church, and for some reason I thought of a certain comment to add to the conversation. I paused. Could I really say it? "Would this even be orthodox?" I asked myself. "Yes," I thought, "and you should say it." So I let the words stumble out of my mouth.

"You know," I said, "Church isn't supposed to be fun."

There. I had said it. I asked myself How have we descended to the place that I even imagine for a moment that such a statement is heretical?

The Merriam-Webster dictionary (if you will pardon my being a bit pedantic here) defines "fun" as "1 : what provides amusement or enjoyment; specifically : playful often boisterous action or speech." They provide three other definitions, and, may I say, they do not get any closer to orthodoxy. Since when did this need for fun become the hallmark of everything we do? Perhaps the word has slipped in its meaning. If we want to express something as good, we say it was "fun." Weekends are fun. Weddings are fun. Worship is fun. A church event is coming up. We want people to come. "It'll be fun," we tell them.

I am thinking about writing the Westminster Catechism board to ask them if they would consider changing the first question.

Q1:"What is the chief end of man?"
A1: "Man's chief end is to glorify God and to have fun with him forever."

God is to be enjoyed. But we are not to have fun with God. If fun is tied to amusement, how could we say that God is supposed to be fun? To "muse" is to think. Add the "a" on the front of "muse" and you negate it. Yep. To be "amused" is to "not think." So I am arguing that there is a difference between enjoyment and fun. In fact, most of the things in life I really enjoy are not fun. Enjoyment speaks of a full-orbed satisfaction and fulfillment. "Funness" speaks of triviality and banality.

And I think it is indicative of the culture of our churches that we place so high a prize on things being "fun." Not reverence, not holiness, but funness. We do not tremble before God, we hope he is fun. We want to have amused while dealing with things pertaining to him.

Or perhaps we have changed God. We are so lustful for amusements and entertainments that we want God to be fun too. We want God to be amusing. Too bad we cannot get around that rigid first and greatest commandment, with that thorny part in there about "the mind."

I acknowledge that in many respects this drive for all things fun and trivial is aimed at our children. We want them to think church is fun. But the children who eat happy meals their whole life will grow up to want Big Macs in adulthood. Does it make sense to build into our children the very church culture we will want to remove from them when they finally "grow up"? Does it surprise anyone that so many Christians today want to be entertained in church? I wonder where that idea came from. Probably from the fact that church was nothing but fun for the first eighteen years of their life.

A hymn for Saturday evening

This hymn by Paul Gerhardt (1607-1676) is often sung to INNSBRUCK, a setting harmonized by Johann Sebastian Bach.

The duteous day now closeth,
Each flower and tree reposeth,
Shade creeps o’er wild and wood:
Let us, as night is falling,
On God our Maker calling,
Give thanks to Him, the Giver good.

Now all the heav’nly splendor
Breaks forth in starlight tender
From myriad worlds unknown;
And man, the marvel seeing,
Forgets his selfish being,
For joy of beauty not his own.

His care he drowneth yonder,
Lost in the abyss of wonder;
To heaven his soul doth steal:
This life he disesteemeth,
The day it is that dreameth,
That doth from truth his vision seal.

Awhile his mortal blindness
May miss God’s lovingkindness,
And grope in faithless strife:
But when life’s day is over
Shall death’s fair night discover
The fields of everlasting life.

American Evangelicalism has issues

I stumbled across this critique of a children's DVD called Baptism Central. The critique is alright, and makes some good points. But why must we stoop to these levels to get people baptized? Does identification with the Creator of the Universe and holy Lamb of God in his death and resurrection just not cut it anymore?

Moreover, the video makes baptism into a "celebration" of one's faith in Christ, kind of like "a birthday party." But this makes the gap between faith and baptism too large. Baptism is not a celebration or commemoration, any more than it is a sign of the covenant. Baptism is the profession or testimony of one's faith in Christ, not a remembrance of it. Baptism is a sign of our faith in Jesus Christ and the regeneration we have experienced through faith in him.

The role of the Septuagint in early Christian life

There may be some in our ranks who have an interest in some of the practices of the ancient church. I am right now doing some work in the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia (350-428), so I hope you will indulge my bringing another remark your way. Theodore is well-known for his hermeneutics, and no book on the history of the discipline worth its salt will omit his contribution. His interpretation of Scripture was historical or "literal", and is the leading example of the "Antiochene school" against Origen and the Alexandrian school's allegorical interpretation.

This quotation is on a completely different subject, the Septuagint. What I find of interest here is the role of the Scriptures in the early Church. With Theodore's comment, we get a small glimpse at the place of Scriptures in early Church's liturgy and home.

"The translation into Greek, on the other hand, was done by seventy men, elders of the people, possessing a precise knowledge of their own language and knowledge of the divine Scriptures, approved of by the priest and all the Israelite people as particularly suited to translating. Their translation and publication the blessed apostles clearly seem to have accepted, and to the believers from the nations who formerly had no access at all to the contents of the Old Testament, they passed on the divine Scriptures written in Greek in the translation of the Seventy. All of us, having come to faith in Christ the Lord from the nations, received the Scriptures from them and now enjoy them, reading them aloud in the churches and keeping them at home."

- Theodore of Mopsuestia, Commentary on the Twelve Prophets (Fathers of the Church 108; trans. Richard C. Hill; Washington, D. C.: Catholic University Press, 2004), 289.

New Spiritual Mindsets

From Architecture from the Middle Ages, by Ulrike Laule, Rolf Toman, and Achim Bednorz (ISBN 389985053x; Berlin: Feierabend, 2004), p 8:

"The preserved and excavated legacies of an era make it possible to reconstruct the progeny and development of a style. The precondition for a style's existence is always a new esthetic ideal, a changing feel for space, which may result from changes in devoutness, a restructuring of liturgical rites, a change in the dominant cult, or from a new spiritual mindset."

I am enough of an adherent to the rule of prescription not to require that all churches build cathedrals. Yet this remark is instructive, not merely for why architectural styles have changed from cathedrals, but why all styles change or develop (or disappear). In part, it speaks to the fact that the culture of Christianity has changed. There may what some believe to be good reasons why we do not build cathedrals anymore. The point is that those reasons exist, and that they have become important enough to move us to build our places of worship differently. We also learn here that the decisions we make in how we build our replacements come from somewhere and are based in some different sensibility. We feel and think differently, therefore we, in many instanes, build (and sing and preach and pray) differently.

Christmas a little early

My wife is preparing an advent calendar, and came across this old English carol by Thomas Pestel in my English Hymnal. It is sung to the tune THIS ENDRIS NYGHT.

Behold the great Creator makes
Himself a house of clay,
A robe of virgin flesh He takes
Which He will wear for ay.

Hark, hark, the wise eternal Word,
Like a weak infant cries!
In form of servant is the Lord,
And God in cradles lies.

This wonder struck the world amazed,
It shook the starry frame;
Squadrons of spirits stood and gazed,
Then down in troops they came.

Glad shepherds ran to view this sight;
A choir of angels sings,
And eastern sages with delight
Adore this King of kings.

Join then, all hearts that are not stone,
And all our voices prove,
To celebrate this holy One
The God of peace and love.

Theodore of Mopsuestia on learning

"It is not possible for us to gain precise learning from our mentors unless we distance ourselves from everything and with great assiduity give heed to what is said."

- Theodore of Mopsuestia, Commentary on the Twelve Prophets (Fathers of the Church 108; trans. Richard C. Hill; Washington, D. C.: Catholic University Press, 2004), 249.

Ach wie flüchtig, ach wie nichtig

Ach wie flüchtig, ach wie nichtig
Sind der Menschen Sachen!
Alles, alles, was wir sehen,
Das muss fallen und vergehen.
Wer Gott fürcht', bleibt ewig stehen.

This is the chorale for BWV 26. The entire cantata is about the futility of man's existence. In fact, the entire cantata, which lasts only about fifteen minutes, has no reference to hope or God until the very last line: Wer Gott fürcht', bleibt ewig stehen (whoever fears God remains standing forever.) This is not your normal worship music, and illustrates well how far we are removed from some Christian sensibilities of ages past.

The music in some ways fits the score. It is not pretty or comforting--certainly no "Ich habe genug." The chorale is stable and steadfast after the flurry and tempest of the previous movements.

I often long for this kind of music to return to Christian worship, for reminders of our futility and vanity as men turn us to God. How often we need to be reminded to turn from this present age to the age to come! How often we need to be scolded to seek first the Kingdom of God.

The wasted life

"Who can measure the irrevocable guilt of a wasted life?" - J. Gresham Machen, Christianity & Liberalism

"Resolved, never to lose one moment of time, but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can." - Jonathan Edwards, Resolutions

"The pious man cannot live in idleness and indulgence, in sports and gaming, in pleasures and intemperance, in vain expenses and high living, because these things cannot be turned into means of piety and holiness, or made so many parts of a wise and religious life." - William Law, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life

How often we waste time! With an age saturated by ways of distracting us, we often find ourselves obsessed with leisure. I think part of the fabric of our culture is to be distracted. We have entertainment at our finger tips at any time we want it. If we are not carefully on our guard, we will fall to this temptation. Part of our calling as Christians is to be using our time well, whether for ourselves, our family, or our employer. Obviously, with our employer, we have an ethical responsibility to give them the time we owe them, though we should do this "not as man-pleasers." With our families and ourselves, we owe it to our responsibility to fulfill our chief end. If we care about personal piety, we will do all we can "never to lose one moment of time."

Karl Barth the fundamentalist

Karl Barth is a pleasure to read. I guess I should add my fundamentalist caveat here and say that I have strong disagreements with him in certain areas (for example, we differ on inerrancy). Nonetheless the bit of his Church Dogmatics that I have read I found quite enjoyable (though at times he was not particularly lucid). I was quite startled, for example, to find a couple comments that resemble very much something a fundamentalist would say. I have included them for your pleasure here.

"Because in heresy, [unbelief] appears simultaneously as a form of faith, here it becomes serious, and there may and there must be conflict, between faith and heresy" (Church Dogmatics I/1.2).

"So different is the Church's interpretation from that of heretics that the question threateningly enough arises, whether what is involved on each side is not some quite different theme, whether the opposing difference of belief ought not perhaps to be regarded merely as unbelief" (I/1.2).

I find militancy so refreshing.

And just to realign myself with the fundamentalists in our audience, how about we close with a similar line from J. Gresham Machen's Christianity and Liberalism:

"Truth cannot be stated clearly at all without being set over against error" (174).

Happy Birthday C. S. Lewis

In 1898, C. S. Lewis was born on this day, Nov 29, in Belfast. In honor of his birthday, I have given a couple of interesting selections from his An Experiment in Criticism, the first on Bach and the second dealing with how we should appreciate art:

"Many people enjoy popular music in a way which is compatible with humming the tune, stamping in time, talking, and eating. And when the popular tune has once gone out of fashion they enjoy it no more. Those who enjoy Bach react quite differently" (4).

"In general the parallel between the popular uses of music and of pictures is close enough. Both consist of 'using' rather than 'receiving'. Both rush hastily forward to do things with the work of art instead of waiting for it to do something to them. As a result, a very great deal that is really visible on the canvas or audible in the performance is ignored; ignored because it cannot be so 'used'. And if the work contains nothing that can be so used--if there are no catchy tunes in the symphony, if the picture is of things that the majority does not care about--it is completely rejected. Neither reaction need be in itself reprehensible; but both leave a man outside the full experience of the arts in question" (25-26).

Advent music on-line

Those of you who appreciate sacred music may find Classic Church Music enjoyable. You will have to endure through some annoying ads, both visual and audible, but I think it is worth it in the end. The current focus for the station is Advent music. The station is described, "Classic choral and organ works, celebrating music of the Advent season until Christmas Eve."

In another place it says, "Classic music for the church, running the gamut from organ works to choral anthems and motets to chant (both plain- and Anglican) to instrumental works. Some historical works, some private recordings. Station is updated according to church season, or at least once a month in ordinary time. Broadcasting for 2 years as of October 2005! Nominated for Best of Live365 Classical Station in 2004."

Give it a try!

Machen critiquing hymns

Although some may see efforts to critique both old and new church music as elitist or judgmental, we have an excellent example of this sort of thing done by J. Gresham Machen. In Christianity & Liberalism he distinguishes between three different hymns, explaining how the text in each either fails or succeeds at describing well the marvellous atonement in the Cross of Christ:

"The Christian doctrine of the atonement, therefore, is altogether rooted in the Christian doctrine of the diety of Christ. The reality of an atonement for sin depends altogether upon the New Testament presentation of the Person of Christ. And even the hymns dealing with the Cross which we sing in Church can be placed in an ascending scale according as they are based upon a lower or higher view of Jesus' Person. At the very bottom of the scale is that familiar hymn:

Nearer, my God, to thee,
Nearer to thee!
E'en though it be a cross
That raiseth me.

That is a perfectly good hymn. It means that our trials may be a discipline to bring us nearer to God. The thought is not opposed to Christianity; it is found in the New Testament. But many persons have the impression, because the word 'cross' is found in the hymn, that there is something specifically Christian about it, and that it has something to do with the gospel. This impression is entirely false. In reality, the cross that is spoken of is not the Cross of Christ, but our own cross; the verse simple means that our own crosses or trials may be a means to bring us nearer to God. It is a perfectly good thought, but certainly it is not the gospel. One can only be sorry that the people on the Titanic could not find a better hymn to use in the last solemn hour of their lives.

"But there is another hymn in the hymn-book:

In the cross of Christ I glory,
Towering o'er the wrecks of time;
All the light of sacred story
Gathers round its head sublime.

That is certainly better. It is here not our own crosses but the cross of Christ, the actual event that took place on Calvary, that is spoken of, and that event is celebrated as the centre of all history. Certainly the Christian man can sing that hymn. But one misses even there the full Christian sense of the meaning of the Cross; the Cross is celebrated, but it is not understood.

"It is well, therefore, that there is another hymn in our hymn-book:

When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.

There at length are heard the accents of true Christian feeling--'the wondrous cross on which the Prince of glory died.' When we come to see that it was no mere man who suffered Calvary but the Lord of Glory, then we shall be willing to say that one drop of the precious blood of Jesus is of more value, for our salvation and for the hope of society, than all the rivers of blood that have flowed upon the battlefields of history" (126-128).

Christ, Christmas, and American Commercialism

I used to get quite upset around this time of year. Every time I heard "Happy Holidays" or even "Happy X-mas" instead of Merry Christmas, I was convinced that there was some underhanded pagan strategy to "take Christ out of Christmas." Yes, the American Corporate World was banding together to rid the world of Jesus. Now, however, I am glad they are doing it.

Now it may seem like I am throwing up the white flag on the culture wars, but let me try to explain why. I am sick of American Christmas. I am sick of people trying to make money on Christ. I am sick of religion being reduced to a means of padding the bankrolls of the irreligious. I am infuriated that I am coerced into covetousness over what should a sacred holiday. I do not want Walmart to make money over Christmas. I do not want CBD to make there year's sales goals because of the five weeks following Thanksgiving. I am sick of The Passion gift sets, Veggietale Bible covers, one more Amy Grant Christmas CD, and every other act of simony baptized under the dubious auspices of "Jesus is the Reason for the Season." I am angered by the purveyors of consumer electronics and their plans to make millions off of Americans, Christian and otherwise, who are addicted to the pleasures of this age.

I work in the corporate office for a small to medium-sized retail corporation. Listen, Christian, do know how they plan to use you? They are going to suggest you buy their things for "gifts." Not just suggest, but push. Their yearly sales will be shored up by your spending at our retail locations. They strategize how to lure you in, how to set up the bait, how to "go in for the kill." They carefully plan to get you to buy. Do they care about Jesus Christ? Yeah, they do--but only if He helps the fourth-quarter sales numbers. And the Christian corporations are largely no different. They are right in line with the profiteering and promotion of greed, except they are only more explicit in their simony. They actually have the audacity to sell religious things for these ends.

Of course, the ironic thing here is that "Christmas" is intentionally being deleted from the coffee cups, the bags, the POP, the background music, and so forth. Why? Because being politically incorrect, they figure, does not sell as well as the harmless inoculation of all the other season's greetings they could pass along. They want to have their cake and eat it too. Yes, they will sell billions upon billions of dollars of junk that will end up in a garage sale twenty years from now all because of "Christmas", all while subtly removing any mention to the Person at the center of the holiday--the person in whose name all these "Christians" will go out and buy this junk. I don't know about you, but I feel like I'm being double-crossed. I guess I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. Am I glad they are taking "Christ" out of Christmas? Well, yes--I grieve that the Lord Jesus Christ's name is being blasphemed so. But am I glad they are taking "Christ" out of Christmas? Well, no. As long as they are making millions off of Christians, they might as well have the guts to admit that it is all in the name of Christ. But my "yes" reason trumps my "no" reason. Will this dereligiousizing of Christmas have any great effect? Probably. But we Americans like our holidays essentially meaningless (except for Valentine's Day). The less meaning, the better. Far better for Americans to give thanks to nobody, ask for candy on the eve of All Saint's Day, and celebrate "the holidays" than to actually understand what these holy days are all about.

But while American commercialism is engaged in their silent protest, I will still force on them a "Merry Christmas" in a few weeks--just to jar them a little. And what do you know? All of sudden a phrase that had lost all meaning will suddenly, because of its newfound political incorrectness, have a new, stark meaning that will remind them why Christians still view December 25th as a holy day.

Worried about church attendance?

Here comes Narnia! The really sad thing is that these actions do not come as any surprise.

David Clark on objectivity

In his monograph, To Know and Love God, David Clark distinguishes two kinds of "objectivity." The first is kind is the sense in which we say that a theological truth is "objective." When we want to say, for example, with "objectivity", that God is holy. The second kind of objectivity is when we say that we study something with "objectivity," i.e., in a manner in which we are not affecting the study. This is the manner in which many evangelicals and fundamentalists who have been greatly influenced by modernity say that they study the Scriptures. If they have any influence over the study itself, they believe it is negligible and can be set aside. Clark argues that both "objectivities" should be approached "modestly." He wants to embrace what he calls a "modest objectivity." This modest objectivity, Clark explains, when applied to the second form of "objectivity," looks like this:

"An Enlightenment model of objectivity posits that we are completely neutral and dispassionate scholars viewing God from an ahistorical, God's eye perspective. I do not defend that artificial sort of objectivity. I say it is impossible. A more modest model of objectivity recognizes that we see from our place in history. Yet our knowledge puts us in touch with God, not simply with our mental pictures of God. So God himself, the object of our knowledge, decisively shapes genuine knowledge of God. The predispositions or desires of the knowing subject need not decisively control genuine knowledge of God and thus obscure God. As theologians, we can allow the subject of investigation--a reality that is outside the knower--to exert a dominant influence on our knowing process" (217).

I think Clark is on to something here. We do not want to say that we are kind of "blank slate" when it comes to our investigations. As Gadamer says, "[The real meaning of a text] is always codetermined by the historical situation of the interpreter." At the same time, though, we do not want to say that we cannot know anything meaningfully outside of ourselves (how's that for a double-negative). No, we can understand with "objectivity." But we always want to approach this objectivity "modestly", acknowledging that we do "read into" texts, even in ways of which we are not aware.

Come, Ye Thankful People, Come

One of the most interesting "thanksgiving hymns" is Come, Ye Thankful People, Come, written by Henry Alford. The song's theme is focused on harvest time, it is true, but uses it as metaphor to teach about coming judgment.

I

Come, ye thankful people, come, raise the song of harvest home;
All is safely gathered in, ere the winter storms begin.
God our Maker doth provide for our wants to be supplied;
Come to God’s own temple, come, raise the song of harvest home.

The first verse has several elements to note. Alford begins here by reminding believers of the goodness of God in harvest. He also brings out the themes of harvest with which he will utilize later--"All is safely gathered in." In my musing over this hymn, I suppose that "raise the song of harvest home" may refer to bringing the song of harvest sung in the fields to home. And it seems that "home" here will serve as a metaphor to our eternal Home, our eternal Rest.

II

All the world is God’s own field, fruit unto His praise to yield;
Wheat and tares together sown unto joy or sorrow grown.
First the blade and then the ear, then the full corn shall appear;
Lord of harvest, grant that we wholesome grain and pure may be.

Now Alford begins the metaphor itself, largely built off our Lord's parable in Matthew 13. We learn that all the world is a field for God, which he has planted in order to bring for to himself. Both wheat and tares, however, have been planted in this field, and we will not know until the end who was a child of God and who was his enemy. Not until "the full corn" or fruit appears do we really find out the difference between the two. The final line is a prayer in response to this truth: "Lord of harvest, grant that we wholesome grain and pure may be."

III

For the Lord our God shall come, and shall take His harvest home;
From His field shall in that day all offenses purge away,
Giving angels charge at last in the fire the tares to cast;
But the fruitful ears to store in His garner evermore.

The third stanza continues to exposit the parable of the Lord. Judgment is promised to the tares, and salvation is promised to the "fruitful ears." All "offsenses" (sins being used for the sinners, I suppose) will be damned in that day, and the angels will cast the tares into the fire, as put forth in Mt 13:30, "Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn." The "fruitful ears" are gathered to be stored "in His garner evermore." A traditional dispensationalist will understand this time of judgment and salvation to refer to the end of the tribulation when the Lord comes back to judge those on the earth who were not raptured, though it is possible that the Lord here in the parable may not be attempting to refer to an actual end-time event but an end-time principle: judgment for the unrighteous and salvation for the righteous, and the reality that these two groups live side by side until the end of the judgment. I should also mention the vivid imagery in the third line, "Giving angels charge at last in the fire the tares to cast." I believe that songs about judgment with imagery such as this are good to have sung in the church of God. In a day where all talk of judgment seems to have left even the most conservative evangelical and fundamentalist churches, these images are sure to startle some. But it is hymns such as these with which the word of Christ is dwelling richly in the congregation, and should be sung to give us reminders of the judgment that comes on those who do not have faith in the Christ.

IV

Even so, Lord, quickly come, bring Thy final harvest home;
Gather Thou Thy people in, free from sorrow, free from sin,
There, forever purified, in Thy garner to abide;
Come, with all Thine angels come, raise the glorious harvest home.

The last stanza is a prayer to the Lord, not only to come quickly, but to bring salvation. Do you not with me find this first line refreshing? "Even so, Lord, quickly come." Alford has the audacity to ask the Lord to come after he has just penned two stanzas talking about possible judgment coming! Oh, what a standing we have in Christ, whereas, even though we deserve to be cast into the fire with the other tares, we know that in Christ we have righteousness. "Bring thy final harvest home," he says, refreshing in our minds the prayer from the first stanza of the hymn. We are to be gathered in "free from sorrow, free from sin"--gathered in with the righteousness of Christ being our righteousness, purified forever in God's garner, or the eternal state. "Come, with all Thine angels come, raise the glorious harvest home.

This hymn is most powerful, because it says to us, "this is what harvest should remind you of"--the coming judgment and salvation of God. He will cast out the tares just like we throw out the weeds. He will save the fruitful ears just like we love to eat the fruitful ears. He will bring us home and put us in his garner, just like we store our food in our barns. This is what harvest points to--salvation and judgment in the end of the age.

And what does this hymn do in the end? Reminds us why we are "thankful people." In a certain sense, this hymn has very little to do with thanksgiving--after all, it is about judgment and wrath and salvation and eschatology in a coming Lord who is to be feared and dreadfully hoped in. This is one of the reasons I am always amazed when people sing it at thanksgiving. But, on the other hand, it is all about thanksgiving, for it reminds us what harvest time points to--larger and greater truths about the world--and it reminds us why were are thankful--because the Lord who has made and will make us "fruitful ears" will gather us into His garner. We are "the Thankful People" spoken of in the first line because we have experienced our Lord's rich salvation.

Good CD

There are at least two reasons to buy good hymn CDs. First, good recordings of hymns will usually introduce you to hymns with which you are currently unfamiliar. I have learned many new hymn texts and settings from CDs I purchased. Good recordings of hymns also aid your worship. I like them in the background (or, preferrably, the foreground) on Sunday morning. So if you are looking for a good recording of hymns to add to your collection, I strongly recommend Best Loved Hymns.

On the disc, I was introduced to many "Best Loved Hymns" that I did not know. This ignorance, of course, was only partly my fault. Several years ago when I first purchased the disc, the Choir of King's College introduced me to "All My Hope on God is Founded," "Come Down, O Love Divine," "The Day Thou Gavest Lord is Ended," "My Song is Love Unknown," and "Drop, Drop, Slow Tears." The tune ABBOT'S LEIGH to "Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken" is one of the highlights of the CD, a much better setting, I am inclined to think, than Hadyn's AUSTRIA, to which we often sing the hymn here in the United States. I also learned the original words to "Be Thou My Vision", which make much more sense than our abridged American version.

Accompiament and Arrangements. Nearly all of the hymns are accompanied. Most have the organ, and some add brass. "Morning has Broken," "The Lord's My Shepherd," and "Be Thou My Vision" are all ornamented with harp. Most of the arrangements are simple, the hymn with little alteration and a descant at the end--and the descants are glorious. "All My Hope," "Praise, My Soul," "All People," and "Thine be the Glory" are particularly grand and majestic. For those who are not at all accustomed to any kind of modern music, "Let All Mortal Flesh" may be a bit offsetting at first, but with acquaintance it becomes increasingly satisfying. "O What Their Joy" is arranged more like an anthem than a hymn, and has a broad scope--mystical, somber, and glorious in its eight minutes of pure delight.

The Performance of the hymns by the Choir of King's College and Stephen Cleobury is well done, in my opinion. A friend once commented to me that the CD was poorly mixed, but I have never noticed--but that may be my general apathy about how CDs are mixed. This is not "CCM," and it is not Soundforth, the Wilds, or Majesty Music. This is a serious choir in England, desiring to sing serious hymns. No jingles, no puff, and not always "pretty." But the recording is greatly satisifying and has done much good for my soul. Even the Liner Notes are helpful with this CD; I found them very informative.

I should say one word about a couple songs with which I suspect theologically. "Dear Lord and Father of Mankind" comes pretty close to being postmillennial. And I have some discomfort when I read the text to "Drop, Drop, Slow Tears." But these should not be strong enough to hinder you. It is really only the last verse of "Dear Lord" that gives away its postmillennialism (though it is well and subtly crafted into the text), and it could even be reinterpreted, I would dare say, to be premillennial. "Drop, Drop" does not seem to emphasize justification by faith through Christ enough for my doctrinal taste.

In sum, I would highly recommend this recording. It will quickly become, I believe, one of your best loved.

A Word from Jonathan Edwards

Everytime I listen to Jonathan Edwards' "Sinners in the Hands of Angry God", I am astonished at his boldness and frankness. I wonder if our idea of a "pastor's heart" could not stand some scrutiny. I am also struck by his effective use of imagery, giving picture after picture of the idea he wants to convey. And, of course, I am also under great conviction.

Here is an excerpt:

"The bow of God's wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood. Thus all you that never passed under a great change of heart, by the mighty power of the Spirit of God upon your souls; all you that were never born again, and made new creatures, and raised from being dead in sin, to a state of new, and before altogether unexperienced light and life, are in the hands of an angry God. However you may have reformed your life in many things, and may have had religious affections, and may keep up a form of religion in your families and closets, and in the house of God, it is nothing but his mere pleasure that keeps you from being this moment swallowed up in everlasting destruction. However unconvinced you may now be of the truth of what you hear, by and by you will be fully convinced of it. Those that are gone from being in the like circumstances with you, see that it was so with them; for destruction came suddenly upon most of them; when they expected nothing of it, and while they were saying, Peace and safety: now they see, that those things on which they depended for peace and safety, were nothing but thin air and empty shadows.

And another:

"How awful are those words, Isa. 63:3, which are the words of the great God. "I will tread them in mine anger, and will trample them in my fury, and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment." It is perhaps impossible to conceive of words that carry in them greater manifestations of these three things, vis. contempt, and hatred, and fierceness of indignation. If you cry to God to pity you, he will be so far from pitying you in your doleful case, or showing you the least regard or favour, that instead of that, he will only tread you under foot. And though he will know that you cannot bear the weight of omnipotence treading upon you, yet he will not regard that, but he will crush you under his feet without mercy; he will crush out your blood, and make it fly, and it shall be sprinkled on his garments, so as to stain all his raiment. He will not only hate you, but he will have you, in the utmost contempt: no place shall be thought fit for you, but under his feet to be trodden down as the mire of the streets."

All Things Fun and Trivial

I was talking the other day with my three-year-old son about church, and for some reason I thought of a certain comment to add to the conversation. I paused. Could I really say it? "Would this even be orthodox?" I asked myself. "Yes," I thought, "and you should say it." So I let the words stumble out of my mouth.

"You know," I said, "Church isn't supposed to be fun."

There. I had said it. I asked myself How have we descended to the place that I even imagine for a moment that such a statement is heretical?

The Merriam-Webster dictionary (if you will pardon my being a bit pedantic here) defines "fun" as "1 : what provides amusement or enjoyment; specifically : playful often boisterous action or speech." They provide three other definitions, and, may I say, they do not get any closer to orthodoxy. Since when did this need for fun become the hallmark of everything we do? Perhaps the word has slipped in its meaning. If we want to express something as good, we say it was "fun." Weekends are fun. Weddings are fun. Worship is fun. A church event is coming up. We want people to come. "It'll be fun," we tell them.

I am thinking about writing the Westminster Catechism board to ask them if they would consider changing the first question.

Q1:"What is the chief end of man?"
A1: "Man's chief end is to glorify God and to have fun with him forever."

God is to be enjoyed. But we are not to have fun with God. If fun is tied to amusement, how could we say that God is supposed to be fun? To "muse" is to think. Add the "a" on the front of "muse" and you negate it. Yep. To be "amused" is to "not think." So I am arguing that there is a difference between enjoyment and fun. In fact, most of the things in life I really enjoy are not fun. Enjoyment speaks of a full-orbed satisfaction and fulfillment. "Funness" speaks of triviality and banality.

And I think it is indicative of the culture of our churches that we place so high a prize on things being "fun." Not reverence, not holiness, but funness. We do not tremble before God, we hope he is fun. We want to have amused while dealing with things pertaining to him.

Or perhaps we have changed God. We are so lustful for amusements and entertainments that we want God to be fun too. We want God to be amusing. Too bad we cannot get around that rigid first and greatest commandment, with that thorny part in there about "the mind."

I acknowledge that in many respects this drive for all things fun and trivial is aimed at our children. We want them to think church is fun. But the children who eat happy meals their whole life will grow up to want Big Macs in adulthood. Does it make sense to build into our children the very church culture we will want to remove from them when they finally "grow up"? Does it surprise anyone that so many Christians today want to be entertained in church? I wonder where that idea came from. Probably from the fact that church was nothing but fun for the first eighteen years of their life.

A hymn for Saturday evening

This hymn by Paul Gerhardt (1607-1676) is often sung to INNSBRUCK, a setting harmonized by Johann Sebastian Bach.

The duteous day now closeth,
Each flower and tree reposeth,
Shade creeps o’er wild and wood:
Let us, as night is falling,
On God our Maker calling,
Give thanks to Him, the Giver good.

Now all the heav’nly splendor
Breaks forth in starlight tender
From myriad worlds unknown;
And man, the marvel seeing,
Forgets his selfish being,
For joy of beauty not his own.

His care he drowneth yonder,
Lost in the abyss of wonder;
To heaven his soul doth steal:
This life he disesteemeth,
The day it is that dreameth,
That doth from truth his vision seal.

Awhile his mortal blindness
May miss God’s lovingkindness,
And grope in faithless strife:
But when life’s day is over
Shall death’s fair night discover
The fields of everlasting life.

American Evangelicalism has issues

I stumbled across this critique of a children's DVD called Baptism Central. The critique is alright, and makes some good points. But why must we stoop to these levels to get people baptized? Does identification with the Creator of the Universe and holy Lamb of God in his death and resurrection just not cut it anymore?

Moreover, the video makes baptism into a "celebration" of one's faith in Christ, kind of like "a birthday party." But this makes the gap between faith and baptism too large. Baptism is not a celebration or commemoration, any more than it is a sign of the covenant. Baptism is the profession or testimony of one's faith in Christ, not a remembrance of it. Baptism is a sign of our faith in Jesus Christ and the regeneration we have experienced through faith in him.

The role of the Septuagint in early Christian life

There may be some in our ranks who have an interest in some of the practices of the ancient church. I am right now doing some work in the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia (350-428), so I hope you will indulge my bringing another remark your way. Theodore is well-known for his hermeneutics, and no book on the history of the discipline worth its salt will omit his contribution. His interpretation of Scripture was historical or "literal", and is the leading example of the "Antiochene school" against Origen and the Alexandrian school's allegorical interpretation.

This quotation is on a completely different subject, the Septuagint. What I find of interest here is the role of the Scriptures in the early Church. With Theodore's comment, we get a small glimpse at the place of Scriptures in early Church's liturgy and home.

"The translation into Greek, on the other hand, was done by seventy men, elders of the people, possessing a precise knowledge of their own language and knowledge of the divine Scriptures, approved of by the priest and all the Israelite people as particularly suited to translating. Their translation and publication the blessed apostles clearly seem to have accepted, and to the believers from the nations who formerly had no access at all to the contents of the Old Testament, they passed on the divine Scriptures written in Greek in the translation of the Seventy. All of us, having come to faith in Christ the Lord from the nations, received the Scriptures from them and now enjoy them, reading them aloud in the churches and keeping them at home."

- Theodore of Mopsuestia, Commentary on the Twelve Prophets (Fathers of the Church 108; trans. Richard C. Hill; Washington, D. C.: Catholic University Press, 2004), 289.

New Spiritual Mindsets

From Architecture from the Middle Ages, by Ulrike Laule, Rolf Toman, and Achim Bednorz (ISBN 389985053x; Berlin: Feierabend, 2004), p 8:

"The preserved and excavated legacies of an era make it possible to reconstruct the progeny and development of a style. The precondition for a style's existence is always a new esthetic ideal, a changing feel for space, which may result from changes in devoutness, a restructuring of liturgical rites, a change in the dominant cult, or from a new spiritual mindset."

I am enough of an adherent to the rule of prescription not to require that all churches build cathedrals. Yet this remark is instructive, not merely for why architectural styles have changed from cathedrals, but why all styles change or develop (or disappear). In part, it speaks to the fact that the culture of Christianity has changed. There may what some believe to be good reasons why we do not build cathedrals anymore. The point is that those reasons exist, and that they have become important enough to move us to build our places of worship differently. We also learn here that the decisions we make in how we build our replacements come from somewhere and are based in some different sensibility. We feel and think differently, therefore we, in many instanes, build (and sing and preach and pray) differently.

Christmas a little early

My wife is preparing an advent calendar, and came across this old English carol by Thomas Pestel in my English Hymnal. It is sung to the tune THIS ENDRIS NYGHT.

Behold the great Creator makes
Himself a house of clay,
A robe of virgin flesh He takes
Which He will wear for ay.

Hark, hark, the wise eternal Word,
Like a weak infant cries!
In form of servant is the Lord,
And God in cradles lies.

This wonder struck the world amazed,
It shook the starry frame;
Squadrons of spirits stood and gazed,
Then down in troops they came.

Glad shepherds ran to view this sight;
A choir of angels sings,
And eastern sages with delight
Adore this King of kings.

Join then, all hearts that are not stone,
And all our voices prove,
To celebrate this holy One
The God of peace and love.

Theodore of Mopsuestia on learning

"It is not possible for us to gain precise learning from our mentors unless we distance ourselves from everything and with great assiduity give heed to what is said."

- Theodore of Mopsuestia, Commentary on the Twelve Prophets (Fathers of the Church 108; trans. Richard C. Hill; Washington, D. C.: Catholic University Press, 2004), 249.

Ach wie flüchtig, ach wie nichtig

Ach wie flüchtig, ach wie nichtig
Sind der Menschen Sachen!
Alles, alles, was wir sehen,
Das muss fallen und vergehen.
Wer Gott fürcht', bleibt ewig stehen.

This is the chorale for BWV 26. The entire cantata is about the futility of man's existence. In fact, the entire cantata, which lasts only about fifteen minutes, has no reference to hope or God until the very last line: Wer Gott fürcht', bleibt ewig stehen (whoever fears God remains standing forever.) This is not your normal worship music, and illustrates well how far we are removed from some Christian sensibilities of ages past.

The music in some ways fits the score. It is not pretty or comforting--certainly no "Ich habe genug." The chorale is stable and steadfast after the flurry and tempest of the previous movements.

I often long for this kind of music to return to Christian worship, for reminders of our futility and vanity as men turn us to God. How often we need to be reminded to turn from this present age to the age to come! How often we need to be scolded to seek first the Kingdom of God.

The wasted life

"Who can measure the irrevocable guilt of a wasted life?" - J. Gresham Machen, Christianity & Liberalism

"Resolved, never to lose one moment of time, but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can." - Jonathan Edwards, Resolutions

"The pious man cannot live in idleness and indulgence, in sports and gaming, in pleasures and intemperance, in vain expenses and high living, because these things cannot be turned into means of piety and holiness, or made so many parts of a wise and religious life." - William Law, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life

How often we waste time! With an age saturated by ways of distracting us, we often find ourselves obsessed with leisure. I think part of the fabric of our culture is to be distracted. We have entertainment at our finger tips at any time we want it. If we are not carefully on our guard, we will fall to this temptation. Part of our calling as Christians is to be using our time well, whether for ourselves, our family, or our employer. Obviously, with our employer, we have an ethical responsibility to give them the time we owe them, though we should do this "not as man-pleasers." With our families and ourselves, we owe it to our responsibility to fulfill our chief end. If we care about personal piety, we will do all we can "never to lose one moment of time."