| current | >< | archive » | >< | Site Feed | HSC Home Page |
|
Saturday, November 29, 2003 posted by R.C. 4:17 PM link |
Kinder, Gentler, Lefter It’s not easy getting a place at the table. The masters of the feast are a rather particular bunch, who, for all their broad-minded posing, don’t much care for our kind. Still, every now and again, someone makes the grade. You can always spot this person, because of the way the powers-that-be speak about him. Senator So and So, once considered to be a knuckle-dragging rube, is now described as having “grown.” Strangely they never grow up, they always grow to the left. The pattern is so obvious that others are taking note. The fine art of positioning, of framing oneself, has become a veritable race to the left. The President started it all by pronouncing himself a “compassionate conservative.” Compassionate apparently means supporting the right of some women to murder their children, being for free trade, except for his good friends in the steel industry, and socialized drugs for the grey voting block, I mean, the greatest generation. He likewise has taken the same bold stand with respect to his “faith.” He’s a Christian, all right, but one who thinks Islam, that religion of peace, worships the same God that I worship. (You can’t blame the guy. After all, how faithful can he be expected to be to Jesus, since he has to be everyone’s president?) It doesn’t surprise me that such passes for wisdom in the Stupid Party. What surprises me is that it is all the rage among Reformed folk, even among what was once the hard right. “I believe in God’s law. No other standard, and all that. But I’m not one of those cranky folks no one can get along with. Heck, just so you’ll know how mature I’ve become, how I’ve learned the hard realities, I voted for abortion loving, sodomite embracing Arnold.” Or worse still, “Oh yes, I’m deeply committed to the Reformed faith, same as I’ve always been. Why, I even bravely said so to my Cathodox brethren the other day at our power meeting.” I sympathize with this point of view, or rather with those who hold it. When your reason for being is to get a place at the table, and to show others how to do the same, but your constituency is on the right, all that’s left for you to do is to claim to be right to your friends, while “growing” left for your masters. And then you teach others to do the same. To put it another way, you cross land and sea… To put it still another way, because you are so desperate for that place at that table, you end up telling the real Master of the real feast that you can’t make it right now—but you’ll come as soon as you can. [comments] |
|
posted by Rick 10:07 AM link |
Letters. We get them. R.C.'s squib on the great man and the little girl elicited this response from reader A.I.:This little article put a smile on my face and tears in my eyes.But a few readers were not pleased by the comparison between C.S. Lewis and Dave Hunt. Reader B.B. writes: I must beg to differ.And this from reader J.B.: Thank you for another good article ("Inkling of wonder"). |
|
Monday, November 24, 2003 posted by R.C. 12:43 PM link |
On Shaking Dust It’s bad enough being more Catholic than the Pope, or more Reformed than Calvin. But what are we to make of our brothers (which doesn’t include, by the by, those who are either more Catholic than the Pope, or equally as Catholic as the Pope) who do far worse, who are more pious than God? That expression—one of my favorites—is not designed to fuss at those who are scrupulous about God’s law. We all ought to be tithing our mint and our cumin, while not neglecting the weightier matters of the law. You cannot excuse disobedience on the small things by claiming obedience on the large. The point of the insult is not that it’s a lot of piety, but that this piety looks down its nose at the law of God. One of the most frequent places this flares up is in the realm of biblical divorce. There are here two different groups more pious than God. First, there are those who say we can never, never divorce. After all, God hates divorce. It says so right in the Bible. (God does indeed hate divorce. That’s why for the nation of Israel He called for the execution of those who caused it by adultery.) More pernicious, however, are those who affirm what the church has always taught that the Bible has always taught, that victims of adultery, and desertion by unbelieving spouses, are free to divorce—but then go on to suggest that the better choice is always reconciliation. The clear implication here is, “Of course God allows it, and therefore it would not be a sin. But if you were really spiritual, you wouldn’t do this.” And so we add our burdens upon God’s light law. But marriage, adultery and divorce are mere earthly matters. Those who are more pious than God really spit shine their halos when it comes to evangelism. We preach, and we preach, and we preach, and like that idiosyncratic political animal, the vertebrate Republican, we swear we’ll filibuster till the jackasses come home. We beg, we plead, we cajole, we promise that the busses will wait. We love-bomb and cuddle and comfort. We refuse to discipline because we are of grace, and want follow the eleventh commandment: whatever else you do, keep the communication lines open. We allow ourselves to be held hostage by the heathen. We are head-bangers for Jesus. [comments] But the Christ we claim to proclaim will have none of it. In our evangelism, we are commanded to disciple the nations, to teach them to observe all that He commanded us, including this: “And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town.” The frightening question is, will we, who refuse to listen to His words about shaking the dust off our feet, become the dust He shakes off His? If we are more pious than God, perhaps He doesn’t want us around. |
|
Tuesday, November 18, 2003 posted by R.C. 2:41 PM link |
Feast in a Box. It may be that when historians look back at the collapse of this nation, the signposts they’ll find are the very markers of progress we tend to cheer on. Or they may find markers that we didn’t even notice. Sign 666 that the apocalypse may be upon us is available at a supermarket near you. Even in tiny little Abingdon, Virginia one can purchase, hot out of the oven, the Thanksgiving meal. In fact, you have any number of options, ham or turkey, pecan or apple. It’s a feast in a box, which is no feast at all. Now mind you I have no quarrel with an occasional prepared food. And I happen to like eating out from time to time. But what does it mean that the great American feast is now something people buy rather than prepare? I hate to get all M. Scott Peck, but what about the journey? Isn’t a part of the holiday that we do spend time in the kitchen? Isn’t the point that Grandma is the mashed potato expert, and Johnny’s wife is the only one allowed to make the gravy? I mean, if we can’t give thanks to our Father for the hands that prepared the meal, what can we give thanks for? I suppose the answer is the answer for why there is even a market for these things. Thank God for the job. We buy our feast because we’re too busy to prepare one. And perhaps the busiest is Mom. Mom is too busy earning a paycheck to stuff a bird. Why not hire some other “professional” woman to do it, the woman behind the deli counter at the grocery store? All of which you can thank the state for. Isn’t it an interesting anomaly that the average tax burden on the average family in the last forty years has raised at roughly the same rate as the average amount earned by the average married woman? Just as Samuel promised, when the people clamored for a king like all the other nations, “He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers.” Mom can’t feed us because she’s busy feeding the beast. As you give thanks this year, whether over the factory version of the meal, brought to you by Stouffer’s TV dinners, or the slightly more boutique-y version down at the grocery, remember to give thanks that He has blessed us that our wives don’t have to work. After all, even with the tax burden we are still the most prosperous people on the planet. But then you should repent that we send them out to do so anyway. [comments] |
|
Thursday, November 13, 2003 posted by R.C. 1:34 PM link |
An Inkling of Wonder. Forty years ago next week a great man died. A year ago today a little girl died. The little girl died on her birthday—not the anniversary of her birth, but the day of her birth. Her name is Hope. A few days later our little church had our first funeral, where we celebrated the sovereign grace of God, and looked upon His promises with wonder. That great man wasn’t a theologian, and when he tried to be one he failed miserably. He was as Arminian as Arminius. He was as ecumenical as Peter Kreeft. As an apologist he often made Dave Hunt look like a genius. Yet, after my dear father, I believe no one man has more influenced my own thinking than this man. He is the author of three of my ten favorite books ever written. At Grove City College I had the privilege of taking a course on the thought of this man. The professor, Dr. Andrew Hoffecker, now of Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson is a recognized scholar on the subject. That class, like several others that Dr. Hoffecker taught, changed my life. But it was another professor that has reached across the decades, and today, finally helped me understand why this dead man has meant so much to me. Dr. Dixon, chairman of the Literature department at Grove City, also wasn’t Reformed in his thinking. He was a Wheaton grad—and it showed. He embraced a soft, and safe evangelicalism. But in our Fantasy Lit. class, he explained that what drove men like Tolkien, what empowered their fiction, was a profound sense of wonder. They looked at the universe—or, rather, they listened to the universe—and heard the melody of the Creator. And that is why C.S. Lewis has shaped my thinking; because without being charismatic he heard God, and without being Reformed he felt God’s infinite strength, and without being a mystic he saw God’s beauty. He looked upon God’s Word and His Work, and did what any sane man would do—he fell on his face, and called us to do the same. I believe in the sovereignty of God. My Reformed credentials are impeccable. Heck, I’m more committed to the sovereignty of God than most, because I’m a supralapsarian. But the purpose of this doctrine isn’t ultimately about bickering over election. God hasn’t revealed this truth to us who are Reformed so we can lord it over His more ignorant sheep. Rather, He has helped us make sense of the shadows, that we might turn and delight in the Fire. The sovereignty of God muddled the mind of Lewis, but it inflamed his heart—and his imagination. His couldn’t understand the shadows, but had the wisdom to turn and embrace the fire. Today, perhaps, another fire burns. Perhaps there is a birthday party going on in heaven, a cake with but one candle. Perhaps old Jack sits with Hope upon his knee, blowing it out. But there is no wish. For the wonder of it all is that, by His sovereign power, they celebrate together with the Lion. I miss them both. I love them both. All because of the Lion, who was also the Lamb. And—wonder of wonders—one day I will be there with them, knowing that everything that has come so far is simply the first page, the first paragraph, the first sentence of His story. Further up and further in. [comments] |
|
posted by Rick 8:39 AM link |
Letter. Reader J.M. writes about Luther the movie.Interestingly enough, I had planned to take my family to see Luther on October 31st. Seemed appropriate and far preferable to feeding the hordes of ungrateful pagans who lack sufficient manners to traverse the sidewalk rather than my lawn. |
|
Wednesday, November 12, 2003 posted by Rick 3:32 PM link |
Letter. Reader L.H. describes his own experience with Luther the movie.My wife and I saw the movie "Luther" about one week after it was released. I was dying to see it, wondering if it would be accurate, good or another historical revision with plenty of artistic license. Very surprised, we loved it. |
|
Monday, November 10, 2003 posted by R.C. 1:34 PM link |
Either Feast or Feast In the last seven days I have fasted for a day, feasted for a day, and started a diet. The diet is the current circumstance, and as such food is on my mind. (Actually, the fact that I’m awake is sufficient for food to be on my mind.) Nevertheless, during my fast I was surprised to discover how often food is on my mind. A good friend began facing a serious trial last Tuesday. I figured the least I could do would be to pray for him often. The fasting wasn’t designed to earn the favor of the Creator, nor His creatures. Rather it served as a prayer alarm. When I felt hungry, I remembered to pray. Two days ago the Saenz clan put on a feast in celebration of their new son’s baptism. There too there was a connection between our food and our remembrance. We all ate that we might give thanks to God. I remember a month or so back when we had an extended discussion on our forum about the cult accusations we delight in, one person grumbled that we were always bugging people to move here, and another grumbled that we spent way yonder too much time talking about feasting. Life is more than a party after all. And perhaps Mr. Sad Sack had a point. There is a time for everything. And the time for remembering the grace of God is whenever the big hand is anywhere between the twelve and the twelve, and the little hand is anywhere between the twelve and the twelve. When we fast, we do not fast, Jesus told us, with grimaces on our faces. Even as I prayed for my friend, I did so in a spirit of joy. I was not excited about the hardships facing my friend (though perhaps I should have been), but that I had the privilege to pray for him, and to Him. In my concern I couldn’t help but rejoice that God has given me this friend, and better still, that, by the work of Christ, God is his and my friend. We do not rejoice in our feasting and sorrow in our fasting. Rather, we rejoice in all things. Which means, in turn, that even when we fast, we feast. When Jesus told the serpent that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God the point wasn’t that we can be hungry. Instead the point was that we can be full. The Word of God satisfies, delights, pleases, causes us even in our hardship to break out in dancing. Jesus, remember, was also scolded by His enemies, for being a glutton and a winebibber. Why, they wanted to know, were John’s disciples ascetics, but Jesus’ were not. Jesus’ answer should shock us. “How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them?” “Oh,” Mr. Grumpy Pants might reply, “what has that to do with us?” Everything. For the Lord of the Feast told us, “Lo, I am with you always.” [comments] |
|
Thursday, November 06, 2003 posted by R.C. 4:05 PM link |
The Spirit of the Reformation It was nearly ten years ago when I took my wife away to celebrate our anniversary. That afternoon I took her to the movies. We saw the greatest movie of all time. That movie, by the way, I’ll be watching in a few weeks, when my two oldest turn 10 and 8. From the time they could talk they have heard of this movie. And from the time they heard of it they’ve asked, “When can we see it?” I told my son when he was 8, my daughter when she was ten. That first night, however, I said precious little as we drove to a restaurant after the movie. We sat down in our booth, I looked across at my bride of two years and I asked her, having witnessed the life and death of Sir William Wallace, “Now do you understand me?” I don’t think my question was arrogant, in that I thought, or think myself the equal of Wallace. Rather I knew when I saw the movie that though I was no such thing, that was the kind of man I wanted to be. And today my heart feels the same longing. For last night I saw what may be the second greatest movie of all time, Luther. I know precious little about the art of film making. Though I am a zealot for objective beauty, I am not an expert on aesthetics. What makes both movies so outstanding is what they inspire—a brave heart that at once cries for freedom, and is held captive by the Word of God. For the two are but one. Luther the movie, like Luther the man, is redemptive, in more ways than one. When the young pastor preaches to his flock that when the devil accuses, our response is to boldly affirm our sin, and to boldly affirm that Christ suffered in our place, to proclaim both His life and death, the beauty of the gospel brought forth tears. But it is a redemptive more here as well, that the very character of Luther made manifest my own sins. Like so many that surrounded him, like Luther himself at times, I am cowardly, craven, calculating. I am ashamed of my weakness. But then Luther the movie and Luther the man point me to the Strong Man, the one who binds not only the plunderer, but my own sins, the one who can make heroes out of uncouth mad men who care for nothing … save the gospel. In my own madness, I pray that He would make of me such a man. For even here the devil is at work. That this movie is not sparking a new Reformation is evidence of the power and the weakness of the Reformation. Luther railed against that whorish church that flailed the consciences of the sheep. In so doing he set those sheep free. Whereas our consciences are reified, as stony and cold as our hearts. He introduced us to His grace. But in his success, we have grown accustomed to it. We think ourselves so free from His law that we are slaves to our sin. And secondly, we have embraced the critic-hood of all believers. We miss the power of the movie because we come to it as we come to the preaching of the Word. We come to judge, rather than to be judged. The gospel will not convict as long as we stand above it. But by His grace, it is beneath and not above the cross of Christ I stand. I can do no other, God help me. Lord make us Luthers. Give us brave hearts. [comments] |
|
Tuesday, November 04, 2003 posted by R.C. 2:09 PM link |
Fascist Dogs, or Putting English on our Language Several years ago we published an issue of our magazine Every Thought Captive devoted to the problem of spin. Post-modernism is simply sophism in academic gowns as opposed to Greek togas. Once we concede that all language is power, all we’re left with is the wrestling match. It is a more potent wrestler who has more than one weapon. Spin works in both directions. When you’re covering up, you use soft-soap. And when you’re selling, you hype. But given the post-modern mood, wherein there’s nothing to get worked up about, because nothing is true, the trend is toward the soft-soap. We find safe ways to say things, because the highest good is that we all get along. Which may help explain why sometimes I make folks mad. It may explain why people think I’m given to dropping rhetorical bombs. Because they’re so used to cues that spin left, they think an unspun cue must be spinning right. I plead not guilty. When I refer to petty bureaucrats, and their petty tyrant bosses as “fascist dogs,” I must confess that I do not think they are actually dogs. That part is intended to be an insult, to reflect a moral judgment to go along with fascist. That fascist part, however, I mean. Consider, for instance, what my friend Rick is going through this week. Saturday he will be hosting a feast in honor of the baptism of his newest son. He will be serving brisket he smoked himself, rolls, assorted other goodies, and, with the king’s permission, beer. That last part is still up in the air. It seems the state needs a week (and Rick has only five days) before they can issue a permit for serving beer at a private party. That supposedly leaves sufficient time for the “investigator” to investigate. What he investigates one can only guess. The form, by the way, includes circumstances where you wish to sell beer, where you wish to give it away, and where the event is byob. It covers events in private party halls/rooms, government owned venues, and—are you ready for this?—in your own home. If you want to offer your friend a beer while you watch the game, it will take a week. About the same length of time you’ll have to wait to buy that gun you’ll want to put yourself out of your misery. This is spin, to suggest that filling out these forms is a minor inconvenience, a mere bureaucratic hassle more to be laughed about than fumed over. This is the truth—the state thinks it has the right to determine what you can serve your guests in your own home. It insists that you must have permission to uncork that wine, or crack open that beer. (They have different forms for distilled spirits.) And that friends, is a totalitarian state—even if, so far, I can still write about it. [comments] |