You can't live on laxatives

Postmodernity can be good news the way laxatives can be good news. Lyotard, Derrida and Foucault are powerful laxatives! But you can't live on laxatives...There is more to the gospel than deconstruction. There is more to Christian life than protest. Jesus Christ is not a laxative...the Church cannot live on a diet of postmodernist thought...

The other day, Brad mentioned David Fitch's "Postmodernity as Good News for the Church" was worth a look, and I was immediately intrigued. http://www.reclaimingthemission.com/2007/05/postmodernity-as-good-news-for-church.html.

Fitch lists three broad shifts in our culture:

"THE SHIFT in how we know: From 'we know through universal processes of reason' to 'we know through participating in a community and its stories.' I go into Lyotard here.

THE SHIFT in the way language works: From language represents reality to language being reality. I go into Derrida here.

THE SHIFT in the way I understand my-self in the world. From radical individualism to relational selfhood. I go into Foucault here."

Beth: Certainly these are apt and accurate assessments. But what is most interesting is what Fitch doesn't mention: the shift from metaphysics as first philosophy (premodernism) to epistemology as first philosophy (modernism) to aesthetics as first philosophy (postmodernism).

Every journey begins with the first step, and from what I can tell from this blog post Fitch starts in the middle of the journey, assuming epistemology to be the starting point, whereas historically it began with metaphysics. That is, the philosophical journey began with wonder, not d0ubt: its first question was, "what is reality?" not "how can I know what is real?"

Sometimes when you are telling a story, you can start in the middle, and then do flashbacks, or you can start with the ending, and then work from the middle back to the beginning. Nothing says that every story must be told in perfect chronological order! But at some point, if your story is to be a narrative, (and not simply a collection of unrelated phenomenal sensations--aka "the triumph of nominalism") you have to have a point of origin, a trailhead, a start. Premodern realism is that starting point, not modernist anti-realism. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_realism ) . Fitch ignores it.

Fitch continues:

In the session :

I describe why there are no credible metanarratives (Lyotard). I then show why this means we must then more faithfully live our story. The expression of that is a more Missional church, a church driven by participating daily in God's Story. Matt 6:33. 2 Cor 5:14-21.

I describe why truth is textual, communal. In a sense reality is created via community and language (Derrida). I then show why this means we must more intentionally reject violence for hospitality as our way of life in the world. The expression of that is a more Communal church. Acts 2: 41-47

I describe why our "selves" are always being technologized by the culture industries and multi national corporations (Foucault). I then show why this means we must reject consumerism in all its hideous forms for monastic practices of resistance in spiritual formation. The expression of that is a (more intentionally) Transformational church. Rom 12:1-2.

Beth:

"I describe why there are no credible metanarratives (Lyotard). I then show why this means we must then more faithfully live our story."

This is where I get lost. If there are no credible metanarratives that means that no narrative is any better than another. As C.S, Lewis would say, my choice of narrative is then "just a matter of digestion." Or as Skinner would put it, "a matter of environment." Or as Wilson would put it, "a matter of DNA."

At any rate, why must I "faithfully live my story?" What compels me, unless it is nature or nurture? Is that all the gospel amounts to? Unless one is a Calvinist that hasn't been the way the Great Tradition would speak of the faith. For the life of me, I cannot understand why anyone would want to faithfully live out a story, muchless die for it, unless it was true, AND good AND beautiful AND in some way connected me with what is ultimately real. Ah, but I've laid my cards on the table: I am a benighted premodernist.

Fitch:

"I describe why truth is textual, communal. In a sense reality is created via community and language (Derrida)."

Beth:

Well, again, this is part of the story, but not the whole thing. Truth is communal insofar as the Trinity is the ur-community, and yes, reality is created via that community of Father Son and Holy Spirit, and God's word, "Let there be..." But where things get off track is when, in good modernist fashion, we start at the middle (with ourselves) and not at the Beginning (with God), and so fancy ourselves gods able to create reality for ourselves. This is the sin of Descartes. Rather than discover and enter into the Reality which pre-exists us, we either ignore it or rebel against it, fashioning our own fig-leaf words and stories and worlds to cover our nakedness.

BOTTOM LINE:

yes, postmodernity can be good news the way laxatives can be good news. Lyotard, Derrida and Foucault are powerful laxatives! But you can't live on laxatives. Only anorexics do that, and they wind up killing themselves. Neither can the church live on a diet of postmodernist thought.

I agree wholeheartedly with Fitch:

"Let us as a church understand our own allegiances and cultural formation first. Then, with who we are and what God has given us (historically) let us take up (incarnational) residence in a different culture and allow God to build relationships in mutual submission out of which God works through hospitality, humility and love."

Protestantism's allegiances and cultural formation has roots in modernism. Fitch is absolutely right, we do need to understand those roots. No wonder protestants are so fascinated with postmodernism, because it is the last chapter of our story; our trail's end. (As Rodney Clapp has pointed out, we really should call it hyper-modernism, rather than postmodernism.) And what we are discovering is that, having binged and purged, we are now hungry, so very, very hungry...

There is more to the gospel than deconstruction. There is more to Christian life than protest. Christ is not a laxative. He is the Bread of Heaven. Take, eat. This is His body broken for us.

JOHN 6:

35Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. 36But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. 37All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. 38For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. 39And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 40For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day."
41At this the Jews began to grumble about him because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven." 42They said, "Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, 'I came down from heaven'?"
43"Stop grumbling among yourselves," Jesus answered. 44"No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. 45It is written in the Prophets: 'They will all be taught by God.'Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me. 46No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. 47I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life. 48I am the bread of life. 49Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. 50But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. 51I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."
52Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"
53Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. 57Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever." 59He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.

In-spired: Pentecost, 2007

It is a tradition at VCC that Acts 2 be read in the many different languages persons in our congregation are able to speak. This year we had the following lineup:

Greek -- Steve
Farsi -- A.M.
Latin -- Susan
English -- Kent
French -- the Honns
Spanish -- Emma
Italian -- Rob, David F. and me
German -- Jeff
Czech -- Lubos
Swahili -- Carl
Japanese -- (a last minute save by David S!)
Norwegian -- Elizabeth, the Shepherd's exchange student

Each person reads a verse or so , and then everyone joins in to simultaneously read verses 22-24 together, to recreate the "sound" of what it must have been like that first Pentecost.

What was even more amazing is that A. was able to stand with us, and that she did not read her verse: she had memorized it! A. is a living parable among us; certainly the embodiment of Steve's
message that morning:

"Breathe in God’s breath. Breathe in the Bible. Come listen to the Word taught in Christian formation and worship on Sunday mornings. Join or form a small group and study together during the week. Open up the Scriptures and read some of it every day. Draw the Bible into you regularly, and you will find it easier to draw God’s breath of life to you when you need it most. May God’s Word constantly be for you the fresh breath that you need to live. May it fill and inspire you to the new life we have in Jesus." (May 27, 2007 Sermon MP3, "Fresh Breath")
http://www.valleycovenant.org/sermons.htm

Yesterday, we were all in-spired!

St. Theresa's less popular meditation

"I suffer much but do I suffer well? That is the important thing."

--from Prayers and Meditations of Therese of Lisieux

"I think God is Doing Something" (or, What Hath God Mixed, part 2)

1) Today Brad's blog (May 19, 2007) reports:

"Robert Koons, professor of philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin, and Right Reason blogger with Francis Beckwith (Baylor professor who resigned as president of the Evangelical Theological Society when he became a Roman Catholic a few weeks ago) says that he is crossing the bridge from Wittenberg to Rome. (No, Beth, I have no desire to take a dip in the Tiber with you. The company would be good but the water is too cold.) "

Beth: Anscombe...Chesterton...Copleston...Dorothy Day...Dulles...Endo...Geach...Guiness...Hopkins...Howard...Kreeft...
Mahler...Maritain...Newman...Tolkein...Vermeer...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Catholic_converts
Beckwith...and now Koons.

How long will it be before Ralph Wood
http://www3.baylor.edu/~Ralph_Wood/bio1.htm goes swimming? What a wise and precious man he is! He's already been wading for a while under the Canterbury bridge. Is it just too hot in Texas, so that is why everyone is cooling off in the Tiber? And what about Jay and Jan? Sigh. Though they're way north of Texas, they've been residents of Canterbury for nearly 30 years now, almost all of them in the same parish, until the recent Troubles. Will the ECUSA conflagration force them to seek sanctuary in Rome?

Ah, Brad, according to Yahoo weather it is 79 degrees right now in Guam, and I expect you are enjoying some cool ocean breezes. No wonder you're so content! : ) Things can get downright scorching elsewhere, even here in Eugene! (But, as Steve would say, maybe I what I need is a stronger dosage of estrogen.) Meanwhile, I continue to splash my feet in Latin waters, (precisely because the company there is so compelling!) while always remembering that baptismal water originates from Christ's own pierced side.

I first encountered Koons through his Western Theism class notes at the Philosophy of Religion Hub http://startthinking.homestead.com/philrel_hub.html. Then every so often I would run into him at Leadership University http://www.leaderu.com/. HIs website has been listed on bibliographies for several of my own classes. http://www.utexas.edu/cola/depts/philosophy/faculty/koons/ I greatly respect him as a Christian scholar.

2) A comment on Koon's blog:

"I think God is doing something. There seem to be these huge shifts every 500 years. 1000 - East and West split. 1500 - Protestants split. Is it happening again now? Are we seeing the beginning of God's people finally coming back together in a visible way? What a great time to be alive! Congrats!"

Posted by: Tiber Swim Team 2007 May 18, 2007 6:42 PM

Beth: I've long maintained that God "broadcasts" simaultaneously on Three Channels. From about @ 500-1500 humanity was tuned in to the Father Channel. Then from @ 1500 -2000 we were tuned in to the Son Channel (the Reformation.) Since then we've been tuned in to the Spirit channel (Pentecostal-Charismatic movement). From my perspective, the splits happened when certain groups began receiving a "new" Voice and thought that it was
THE true Voice. The East-West split was just that: a split between two languages and cultures, not picking up a new "Channel."

However, I agree with "Tiber Swim Team 2007" that this is a great time to be alive. We are like Abraham, who saw the promise from afar: God is indeed gathering His people back together in a visible way. Chiasm isn't just a literary device!

3) "A Lutheran's Case for Catholicism" by Robert Koons http://utexas.edu/cola/depts/philosophy/faculty/koons/case_for_catholicism.pdf
Beth: I quickly skimmed this and intend to give it more attention once the Youth Garage Sale and the Senior Banquet are over. Koons clearly articulates the very things that have bothered me, and in good analytic fashion holds them up for examination:
(R)= Roman Catholic; (L) = Lutheran.

"Justification (R) = the whole process by which sinners are reconciled, redeemed, and made fit for eternal life. Includes sanctification and glorification.

Justification (L) = the process by which a sinner is reconciled to God, including the forgiveness of sins and the crediting to him of Christ’s own righteousness. Excludes sanctification and glorification, which are, however, inseparable effects of it.

Grace (R) = God’s supernatural assistance, poured into the believer’s heart, enabling him to possess the supernatural virtues of faith, hope and love.

Grace (L) = God’s favor and forgiveness, undeserved by the sinner

Faith (R) = the supernatural ability to believe what God has revealed through the Scriptures and the Church. Does not include hope and love (although it finds its natural completion in them).

Faith (L) = the supernatural ability to trust in God for one’s salvation. Includes hope and an attitude of trust and reliance in God.

For a long time now I have been persuaded that Christ's virtues are infused into us, not simply just imputed on to us. That alone puts me at odds with much of Protestantism. I am eager to read what Koons has to say.

4) Tomorrow's Lectionary reading: John 17: 20-26

20 "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
24 "Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.
25 "Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. 26 I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them."

Just wondering...

John Wenrich has a fine new blog, at http://www.covchurch.org/blogs/vitality. In it he writes,

"More and more, I am learning the importance of asking good questions.Jesus asked good questions.

Remember the story of Jesus left behind at the Temple? Luke reports that his parents “found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers” (Luke 2:46-47)

Could it be that becoming more Christ-like means learning how to ask good questions about the things that matter most? Good questions can lead to good answers. Good questions can start good conversations. Good questions can provide learning opportunities..."

So in that spirit, I wonder....

Will there be missions in heaven?

Will there be missionaries there, actively engaged in spreading the gospel?

No doubt Christ expects His church to be missional this side of heaven! And certainly we still have our work cut out for us. But part of me can't help wonder, if we identify ourselves so strongly (or even exclusively) with the Great Commission, what happens once every knee is bowing and every tongue is confessing Jesus Christ is Lord?

But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me." But the Lord answered her, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her" (Luke 10:38-42).

Tony Blair, too?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article1801237.ece

From The Times
May 17, 2007

Blair will be welcomed into Catholic fold via his ‘baptism of desire’

Ruth Gledhill, Jeremy Austin and Philip Webster


Tony Blair will declare himself a Roman Catholic on leaving Downing Street, according to a priest close to him. Father Michael Seed, who is known for bringing high-profile politicians and aristocrats into the Catholic fold and who says Mass for the Blairs in Downing Street each week when they are in London, made the prediction to friends at a recent memorial service.

Last night, when contacted by The Times, he did not deny his comments, but said he did not know if Mr Blair would ever be received “formally” into the Roman Catholic Church. To do so he would have to take part in a ceremony called the rite of Christian initiation for adults, followed by confirmation and taking the sacrament of Holy Communion.

Did he delay conversion for sake of Irish peace?

Father Seed said: “He’s been going to Mass every Sunday. He goes on his own when he is abroad, not just when he is with his wife and children.”
Another church source said that many of the early saints and martyrs were not baptised. Such people were held to have had a “baptism of desire”.
He said that Mr Blair was a Catholic by desire and that this did not necessitate a formal conversion. “He is an ecumenical Catholic,” said the source. “He is a liberal Catholic. In terms of his private life, he is a Roman Catholic.”

Although technically an Anglican, Mr Blair only “darkened the door” of Anglican churches on state and other formal occasions, he added.
Downing Street would not comment on the suggestion that Mr Blair would declare himself a Catholic. A spokesman said: “This story is always circulating in one form or another. The PM remains a member of the Church of England.”

Mr Blair has always been reluctant to discuss his religious beliefs. Alastair Camp-bell, the former Downing Street communications chief, famously told one interviewer: “We don’t do God.” The Prime Minister has also indicated in the past that he attended Mass so that his family, all Catholics, could worship together. To receive Mr Blair into the fold would be a triumph for the Roman Catholic Church, which has in the past two decades in particular regained its confidence, recovering from centuries of persecution that followed the Reformation.

Mr Blair has been criticised for receiving Communion at Catholic Mass. Cardinal Basil Hume, the late Archbishop of Westminster, wrote to him in 1996 demanding that he should cease taking Communion at his wife’s church in Islington, although he added that it was “all right to do so when in Tuscany for the holidays . . . as there was no Anglican church near by”.
Mr Blair made it clear that he did not agree with Cardinal Hume’s opinion, writing in a pointed letter to him: “I wonder what Jesus would have made of it.”

Writing in The Tablet, the Catholic weekly, Father Seed described how the Prime Minister had regarded his time in office as akin to a “vocation”.
He first made contact with Mr Blair when the family moved into No 10, and strengthened their links with The Passage, Britain’s largest homelessness centre, attached to Westminster Cathedral. Mr Blair launched the Government’s policy on homelessness there in 1998. Father Seed says that being prime minister is both a cross and a privilege....

Blaming and Truth Telling, Part 3

Okay, the last post was done in analytic mode; this one will take the same information and do it in imaginative mode.

Truth-Telling Stories

A. A speaks truth objectively; B receives it objectively

Abby: Brett, I'm so glad you're home. But you agreed to be back before midnight. It's 1:30 in the morning!
Brett: You're right, Mom, I am late. I'm so sorry. I didn't pay attention to the time.

B. A speaks truth objectively, B receives it subjectively.

Abby: Brett, I'm so glad you're home. But you agreed to be back before midnight. It's 1:30 in the morning!
Brett: There you go again, finding fault with me! I can never please you, can I? Maybe I should just turn around and go back to Jeff's.

C. A speaks truth subjectively, B receives it subjectively

Abby: Brett Barton Brown--finally! You've come home! Don't you realize what time it is? You don't ever consider anyone but yourself, do you? I've been worried sick about you!
Brett: There you go again, finding fault with me! I can never please you, can I? Maybe I should just turn around and go back to Jeff's!

D. A speaks truth subjectively, B receives it objectively

Abby: Brett Barton Brown--finally! You've come home! Don't you realize what time it is? You don't ever consider anyone but yourself, do you? I've been worried sick about you!
Brett: You're right, Abby, I am late. I'm so sorry. I didn't pay attention to the time.

E. A does not speak truth; B receives it objectively

Abby: So, you've come home. No doubt you were out drinking with your friends til all hours.
Brett: Yes, I'm late, but its not because I was drinking. Actually, I was rear-ended at the corner. The trunk and bumper are all smashed up, and it took the police forever to come.

F. A does not speak truth; B receives it subjectively

Abby: So you've come home. No doubt you were out drinking with your friends til all hours.
Brett: There you go again, finding fault with me! I can never please you, can I? Maybe I should just turn around and go back to Jeff's.

G. A does not speak truth, B does not receive it.

Abby: Good night.
Brett: Yeah, good night.

Hand Me Down Wor(l)d

Steve's sermon for tomorrow,"Hand Me Down Wor(l)d," May 13,2007 (Mother's Day) was not inspired by the comments surrounding Beckwith's conversion but is certainly an appropriate comment upon them. No doubt it would drive Groothuis, Reformation Fellowship and the McKenzie Study Center crowd bonkers! It's available at http://www.valleycovenant.org/sermons.htm.

Blaming and Truth-telling, Part 2

Some logical possibilities:

for any two persons, A and B, here are some ways they can interact:

A. A speaks truth objectively; B receives it objectively
B. A speaks truth objectively, B receives it subjectively
C. A speaks truth subjectively, B receives it subjectively
D. A speaks truth subjectively, B receives it objectively
E. A does not speak truth; B receives it objectively
F. A does not speak truth; B receives it subjectively
G. A does not speak truth, B does not receive it.

H. A blames B positively; B receives it positively
I. A blames B positively; B receives it negatively
J. A blames B negatively, B receives it negatively
K. A blames B negatively, B receives it positively

L. A does not blame B, B does not receive it.

My initial reflections on all this is to ask:

1) Which interactions are most characteristic of the Lord?

A ,C and H, I'd say.

2) Which interactions are least characteristic?

This is harder. The following verses come to my mind. Which ones come to yours?

Luke 6:37

"Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven."

This verse seems to warn against J and K.

John 8:44

"You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of all lies."

This verse seems to warn against E and F.

Revelation 3:15-16

"I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm--neither hot nor cold--I am about to spit you out of my mouth."

These verses seem to warn against G and L. Niether what is true nor what is good/right is being upheld, and because of that person B remains in the darkness.

3) Which interactions most characterize our culture?

I'd say C, F G, J and L. But I live in Oregon, so maybe where you live it is different.

4) Now, the hardest question: which interactions are most characteristic of you?

I'd have to say most of the time, B G and L.

Bottom line: as always, it is the difficult lesson of finding that balance between loving the truth and speaking it with love. Lord, deliver me from wanting to be "nice." Jesus wasn't nice. But He was the Truth and He was Love. Grow me in His intellectual and moral virtue, that He might better shine through me.

Blaming and Truth-telling, Part 1

Clarifying the Concepts:

A. What is truth?

1. definitions

truth as pragmatic =truth is a matter of whatever works. The problem with this is, "who gets to decide what works and doesn't?" This is a very postmodern analysis of truth, because it implies a power struggle: those with power determine what is true and the powerless have no recourse. It is also postmodern insofar as it is relativistic: because P works for me, P is true for me. But if P doesn't work for you, then it won't be true for you.

b. truth as coherence=truth is a matter of consistency. This became the favorite modernist definition of truth, because when modernism rejected realist metaphysics and made epistemology "first philosophy," it denied any access to what is "really real." Thus the only criteria for truth is that all the beliefs in any given noetic structure "mesh." The problem with this is that insane people can be extremely consistent. Yet in labeling them as insane we are admitting that they have lost touch with reality, with what is true.

c. truth as correspondence=truth is a matter of reflecting what (better, Who!) is real. It is the theory that characterizes premoderns from Plato to Aristotle to Augustine to Thomas Aquinas. To my mind this is the most fundamental and necessary definition. It is also the most controversial, for, as Alisdair MacIntyre has pointed out in his writings, we do not live in a pluralistic society but rather a fragmented society, picking our way among shards of shattered narratives. We no longer have a shared metanarrative to appeal to, and to discover what is real, true and good.

2. objective aspect

This assumes a realist metaphysic; what is real and true and good is not my own product, or socially constructed. Rather, it's the "X-Files" motto, "The truth is out there," implying that it can be known by more than one person; and that in some way I am responsible for understanding and conforming to it. Josef Pieper calls this the product of ratio, or discursive reason.

3. subjective aspect

This refers to the personal meaning that a truth has for an individual and connects to our non-discursive, imaginative and emotional intelligence. This is the product of intellectus, or intuition, according to Pieper. The apostle James was well aware of this aspect when he wrote about demons who accept the objective truth, "God exists," but subjectively, that truth fills them with fear and loathing. (James 2:19).

B. What is blame?

1. definitions:

--reproach, reprove, reprehend, criticize.

--To blame is to hold accountable for, and disapprove because of, some error, mistake, omission, neglect, or the like: Whom do you blame for the disaster?

--guilt, culpability, fault, sin

--to find fault with (a person)

--to consider someone or something responsible for something bad
--an accusation that you are responsible for some lapse or misdeed; "his incrimination was based on my testimony"; "the police laid the blame on the driver"

--a reproach for some lapse or misdeed; "he took the blame for it"; "it was a bum rap"

--put or pin the blame on [ant: absolve]
--harass with constant criticism; "Don't always pick on your little brother"
--attribute responsibility to; "We blamed the accident on her"; "The tragedy was charged to her inexperience"

2. positive aspect

Just as truth has an objective aspect, so does blame. It is sometimes necessary to make a judgement: to establish responsibility for some error, mistake or sin, in order to hold a person accountable. Without accountability, there cannot be forgiveness, restoration, improvement. But it is a tricky thing to find find the "mean" between the extremes of ignorance and harrassment.

3. negative aspect

The connotations for "blame" that we hold are usually negative ones: constant criticism; scapegoating, harassment, being judgemental. Note that difference? It is one thing to make judgements: you can't be human and not do so. As beings made in God's image, we are called upon to speak truthfully. But it is another thing to be judgemental. As beings made in God's image, we are to speak the truth in love: our judgements must be free of all self-righteousness, pride and ungodly anger.

Whew! Now that we've laid this groundwork, let's move on to consider possible interactions people can have.

My letter to Douglas Groothuis, Ph.D

apropos his response to Frances Beckwith's blog:
http://rightreason.ektopos.com/archives/2007/05/my_return_to_th.html
and his own blog entry:
http://theconstructivecurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2007/05/reversion-of-francis-beckwith.html

Dear Dr. Groothuis,

Can you please explain to me how you dare to include G.K. Chesterton in your list of favorite books on your blog profile? Haven't you read the final two chapters of St. Thomas Aquinas?

Surely this must pain "all true sons and daughters of the Protestant Reformation who lived and died for its truths." Aren't you in danger of embracing serious theological error by giving GKC such approval? After all, GKC certainly was "never well-grounded in the essential doctrines of the Christian faith, as articulated by the Five Solas of the Reformation." Why, the man even believed there was such a thing as (gasp!) philosophia perennis!

Until I hear how this inconsistency can be reconciled, I dare not take your criticisms of Dr. Beckwith seriously. And please, don't tell me its a matter of paradox. We protestants never have our cake and eat it too. It's Catholics like GKC that are into such paradoxes, not protestants! Once you let a paradox's nose in the tent, the whole Roman camel will follow. Sacraments! Thomism! Tradition! St. Theresa! The Culture of Life! Fides et Ratio! Whatever is true, noble, right, pure and lovely!

See what has happened to me? (grin) Reading Chesterton has just exacerbated things! I'd hate for it to happen to you!

P.S. Can you also please tell me, how can there be FIVE solas? I thought the only sola that mattered was Jesus. (Cf. Peter and Martha's confessions.)

Groothuis' reply:
http://theconstructivecurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2007/05/reversion-of-francis-beckwith.html

BB:There is no contradiction. I am listing authors who proved significant to me. That includes Roman Catholics like Pascal and Chesterson. So what? My favorite Chesterton book, Orthdoxy, was written before he became Catholic anyway.One need not believe everything a writer says to be shaped by him or her. I was helped enormously by John Searle's The Construction of Social Reality; it is one of the best defenses of realism I know. Searle is an atheist.
6:54 AM

7:18 AM
Karen LH said...
Dr. Groothuis,I had the same reaction as Beth to your including Catholics like G.K. Chesterton (and Pascal) in your list of influential authors.The reason has to do with the tone of your post here about Dr. Beckwith's reversion. It's one thing to say something like: "I disagree completely with Frank's reasons for returning to Catholicism." It's another to say: "Frank has done some excellent work over the years, but was apparently never well-grounded in the essential doctrines..."In other words, Catholics are not too intelligent and are poorly informed. I guess you're entitled to your opinion, but if that's what you think of them -- that they are not only wrong but stupid -- then it's a little strange that you would include them on a list of recommended authors.Chesterton wrote somewhere regarding his conversion (I looked and can't find the exact quote) something like the following: "When I became a Catholic, I thought that people would say: 'That Chesterton fellow is pretty smart: maybe there's something to the Catholic Church.' Instead they said: 'That Chesterton fellow used to be pretty smart: I wonder what happened to him.'"This seems to be the way a lot of people are treating Dr. Beckwith. If he "has done some excellent work over the years", then maybe he is still doing excellent work. If you disagree with him, then by all means say so and say why. But he deserves to be treated with more respect than a condescending dismissal.(As for Orthodoxy, while it's true that Chesterton wrote it before becoming a Catholic, as I recall it's an extremely Catholic book. Chesterton himself was Catholic for years before he entered the Church. You must know that.)
8:30 AM

What hath God mixed?

Lots of stuff swirling about in my head. I feel like cake batter; but what will come out of the oven? And how long must it bake before it gets burned and unable to be served?

or, to change the metaphor: sometimes I feel like a pencil constantly being sharpened. When will I be able to be used to write?

"They also serve who stand and wait."

1. Brad's Sunday, May 6 blog entry:

Dr Francis Beckwith, the president of the Evangelical Theological Society and a professor at Baylor University, has become a Roman Catholic -- again. Evangelical theologians are a bit dazed and baffled by it all. It was a complicated decision, says Beckwith. See his post on the Right Reason blog. Don't miss the comments section at the bottom of Beckwith's post where Doug Groothuis, in true form, reams him out.
Posted by Brad Boydston at 5/06/2007 0 comments
Saturday, May 5

2. Groothuis' comments:

http://rightreason.ektopos.com/archives/2007/05/my_return_to_th.html
Dear Frank:
This is a sad day for all true sons and daughters of the Protestant Reformation, for all who lived and died for its truths.

Having abandoned the distinctives of the Reformation (which are deeply rooted in Holy Scripture), you are embracing serious theological error. I wish I could say otherwise, but conscience-bound, I cannot.

By joining Rome, you are putting an institution above God; you are putting men (and I mean males) ahead of the pure gospel of Jesus Christ (See Galatians 1:6-11).
However, you are doing the right thing to resign from your position at ETS.
I have appreciated much of your writing over the years, but I lament what you have now done.
Sincerely,Doug Groothuis
Posted by: Douglas Groothuis, Ph.D. May 5, 2007 4:39 PM

3. Numbers 23

19 God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?
20 I have received a command to bless; he has blessed, and I cannot change it.
21 "No misfortune is seen in Jacob, no misery observed in Israel. [a] The LORD their God is with them; the shout of the King is among them.
22 God brought them out of Egypt; they have the strength of a wild ox.
23 There is no sorcery against Jacob, no divination against Israel.It will now be said of Jacob and of Israel, 'See what God has done!'
24 The people rise like a lioness; they rouse themselves like a lionthat does not rest till he devours his prey and drinks the blood of his victims." 25 Then Balak said to Balaam, "Neither curse them at all nor bless them at all!"
26 Balaam answered, "Did I not tell you I must do whatever the LORD says?"

4. What Steve recently showed me:

("This ought to get you all fired up!")

In his Explorations in Theology, V. I: The Word Made Flesh, (p. 121) Hans Urs von Balthasar quotes Nebel (Das Ereignis des Shonen, Stuttgart, 1953, p. 188)

Anyone who is concerned with the world in all its range, with forms and proportions, with man's heroism, with morality, with the splendor of forms, witht he exploration of the sphere of myth, will feel repelled by protestantism. Luther destroyed the rich treasury of myth, and replaced it with an arid, official Institute. Anyone enamored of beauty will shiver in the barn of the Reformation, just as Winckelmann did, and feel the pull of Rome.

5. Gerard Manley Hopkins:

"In the tradition of Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas affirms that all being is good, true, beautiful and one (the four transcendentals)."

http://www.gerardmanleyhopkins.org/lectures_2002/aquinas.html

T.E. Lawrence on the progression of Christianity

from Seven Pillars of Wisdom:

"..And then Christianity had had the fortune of later architects of genius: and in its passage through time and clime had suffered sea changes incomperably greater than the unchanging Jewry, from the abstraction of Alexandrian bookishness into Latin prose, for the mainland of Europe, and last and most terrible passing of all, when it became Teuton, with a formal synthesis to suit our chilly disputations north. So remote was the Presbyterian creed from the Orthodox faith of its first or second embodiment that, before the war, we were able to send missionaries to persuade these softer Oriental Christians to our presentation of a logical God."

Chronos and Kairos

Yesterday an exhange with Donn Johnson on his blog started me wondering about the venerable distinction between "chronos" and "kairos."

The lie of modernism is that chronos is a god worthy of worship.

The lie of postmodernism is that we can each create our own kairos.

The truth of premodernism is that chronos is of lesser importance than kairos, and that kairos is always a gift, not something we are able to produce of ourselves. Rather, it is something which we can only receive from God.

( "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." -- James 1:17)

Fr. Patrick Reardon in his article, "Chronos and Kairos" explains the distinction between these two ways of understanding time in terms of "quantity" and "quality." See http://orthodoxytoday.org/articles5/ReardonChronos.php.

I see them as related to two ways of knowing: ratio (discursive reason) and intellectus (intuitive, non-discursive reason). Ratio can only take place in chronos time, because it moves step by step, from premises to conclusion. Intellectus transcends chronos time, thus the seeming "timelessness" and "fullness" of that sort of knowledge.

We live in a world that operates according to twisted notions of time; either idolizing it or idolizing ourselves through it. Josef Pieper gives the ratio-intellectus distinction in his Leisure the Basis of Culture; I wonder if he ever made the connection to these two ways of understanding time?