We're not all in the mood for a melody

There won't be live music at Nordstroms.

According to the Seattle Times,

Some Nordstrom department stores are discontinuing their live piano notes in favor of commercially recorded music piped in over speakers.

Nordstrom's store at Bellevue Square recently did away with its pianist, and the Alderwood mall store in Lynnwood will soon follow suit, said company spokeswoman Brooke White.

Apparently, some shoppers prefer popular tunes by the likes of Bob Dylan, Alicia Keys and Frank Sinatra to the jazz and Broadway standards that pianists have been performing in Nordstrom stores for 20 years.

"We know there's a nostalgic value to the piano, and some customers love it. But some don't. They just feel the piano is outdated," White said. "It's a difficult line to walk. We know we're going to disappoint some people."

The Oregonian also quotes White: "We certainly understand that some people are disappointed, and that's something we always hate to do at Nordstrom. But over time, we just evolve our experience."

My gnostic buster antennae are tingling. So live is passe. Now we prefer our music to be canned. The Market knows best! But hold on. Does this have anything to say to us about how people nowadays respond to incarnation? Is it really good news to proclaim "God is With Us!" Does the gospel need to "evolve" too? Yes, we certainly need to do more than just preach; we must get down and dirty. But that's my point. If we do not have Christ's incarnation as our motivation-- the conviction that live is better than virtual--then why bother?

Its a pretty good crowd for a saturday
And the manager gives me a smile
cause he knows that its me theyve been comin to see
To forget about life for a while
And the piano, it sounds like a carnival
And the microphone smells like a beer
And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar
And say, man, what are you doin here?

QUOTES: On sinners

"One must deal with some sinners as with snails: put them first in cool water until they come out, and then cook them little by little before they realize what is happening to them."

--Anthony Mary Claret

SICKO

Steve and I finally watched Michael Moore's Sicko. While it's a typical Moore film, playing fast and loose with representative samplings, it is worthwhile, sobering, and even sickening. NPR's Bob Mondello and Joanne Silberner rate it as entertainment and expose here where you can also find this "Snapshot of America's Uninsured" by Joanne Silberner:

— Nearly 47 million Americans, or 16 percent of the population, were without health insurance at some point in 2005.

— The number of uninsured rose 1.3 million between 2004 and 2005 and has increased by almost 7 million people since 2000.

— In 2005, nearly 15 percent of employees had no employer-sponsored health coverage available to them, either through their own job or through a family member.

— Young adults (18 to 24 years old) remained the least likely of any age group to have health insurance in 2005 – 30.6 percent of this group did not have health insurance.

— Nearly 40 percent of the uninsured population reside in households that earn $50,000 or more. A growing number of middle-income families cannot afford health insurance payments even when coverage is offered by their employers.

Source: National Coalition Health Care

Snapshot of America's Insured

Sicko focuses on people who do have insurance, but insurance that doesn't serve them well. Statistics show that health insurance is becoming more expensive and fewer insurers are offering it.

— Fewer employers are offering coverage to workers, down from 69 percent of employers in 2000 to 60 percent in 2005. The drop stems almost entirely from fewer small businesses offering health benefits.

— Insurance premiums increased an average of 9.2 percent in 2005.

— Annual premiums for family coverage reached $10,880 in 2005, eclipsing the gross earnings for a full-time minimum-wage worker ($10,712).

— 61 percent of all employees with health coverage in 2005 were enrolled in a PPO (up from 55 percent in 2004). Enrollment in HMOs, which generally cost less than PPOs, fell to 21 percent of people with insurance in 2005.

Source: 2006 Kaiser Family Foundation Survey of Employer Health Benefits

Where the U.S. Ranks in the World

After painting a bleak picture of American health care, Moore looks at the health care systems of the United Kingdom, France and Cuba. The World Health Organization did an international survey back in 2000, with some surprising results.

The survey looked at the health care systems of 191 countries based on factors such as the general level of population health, patient satisfaction, equality of access, and health care financing.

And while the U.S. health system spends a higher portion of its gross domestic product than any other country, it ranked 37. The United Kingdom, which spends just 6 percent of GDP on health services, ranked 18. France ranked first. And Cuba, which Moore describes as a great place to get health care, ranked 39.

Other findings:

— A key recommendation from the report is for countries to extend health insurance to as large a percentage of the population as possible, whether in the form of insurance or taxes.

— The United States ranked highest on patient satisfaction, followed by Switzerland, Luxembourg, Denmark, Germany, Japan, Canada, Norway, Netherlands and Sweden.

— On the consumer affordability of health care, Colombia ranked No. 1, followed by Luxembourg, Belgium, Djibouti, Denmark, Ireland, Germany, Norway, Japan and Finland. The United States ranked 54.

A Miracle?

A's scan came back clean.

Completely clean! Those tumors on her bladder and her stomach are gone. The oncologist wants to do two or three more chemos, but has cancelled the exploratory surgery. A begged him to still do it, just to be sure, but he said, "What's the point? The scan shows there is nothing there. If you have any surgery, it will be to remove your kidney stents."

Why is it so hard for me to accept this?
"Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief."

If it is really true that A. has been healed, it will have the potential for a massive impact upon her husband, H. and their whole family. Talk about power evangelism.

Josef Pieper's Three Things to Remember

1. Things are TRUE because they are real.

2. Things can be KNOWN because they are created.

3. Things are UNFATHOMABLE (mysterious) because they are created.

(selections 33-35, from Josef Pieper: An Anthology (Forward by Hans Urs von Balthasar) San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1989.)

New Life: Victims and Water Sampling

I had a wonderful time with an old friend last night. We spoke about many things, but I especially want to remember these two:

1) VICTIMHOOD

It is part of our fallenness to presume that we are victims and so fixate on our own sacrifices. But salvation comes when we quit looking at ourselves, and focus on Christ, the Perfect Victim who gave the only sacrifice that really matters. This is the only way to escape the tomb of self, and receive His new life.

2) WATER SAMPLING

My friend has had it up to here with what she calls "water samplers," those who stand on the edge of the Water of Life and refuse to drink it, or dive in, but instead are content merely to analyze it.

She has a point. Following Christ is not just an act of ratio, of discursive reason; God has created us to be creatures with intellectus. Our intuition is a gift to be received and celebrated, and not supressed. The Christian life is not meant to be lived in the third person, but first person. And first person plural.

But Satan is pleased whenever we miss the Mark, and fasten to the extremes. Just like we need to actually take the plunge, so we need to be doing regular checks to make sure the lake we are jumping into isn't a pool of toxic waste. So it is just as dangerous to be a daredevil as to be a water sampler.

In our fallenness we are fascinated with these extremes, and the Enemy delights in tricking us into mistaking them for faithfulness. Lord, as we rebel against the deficiencies of modernism, let us not overshoot your Mark and land in the excesses of postmodernism.

Praying with A. and H.

Tomorrow A. will hear the results of her scan, and on Tuesday her enzyme levels, so I went over tonight to pray for her.

H. met me at the door and wanted to pray with us! He seemed more open to Christ tonight; more like when we first met. Perhaps the damage done by that traveling pentecostal minister is finally healing.

A. was sitting, small and cross legged, on their bed, weeping.She had been at peace with the prospect of dying but now that their son M. is beginning to speak, she is torn once again, wanting to be able to mother him--yea, just get to know him as a toddler, and not just as a baby.

A. is also haunted by those old Moslem tapes that tell her that her cancer is a result of something she did that displeased God. They were on replay tonight. It made me realize that when we are in periods of great stress, we are most vulnerable to all the lies that have ever been fed us.

"I am going away to prepare a place for you...In my house are many mansions..." Lord, I can't wait to see what you've prepared for A.; and I pray that her husband H. might dwell beside her. You already are dwelling in her heart; and H. is there, too. Bring us all into your Kingdom, Jesus.

David Neff on The Well

Thanks to an alert from Brad, here's a keeper from David Neff. Here is his blog entry, the Church Next to the Godiva Chocolate Shop

At lunch today, my wife and I were
discussing ecclesiology. (Does that happen only in our family?)

The subject came up because we had both read an op/ed by Kyle Wingfield, an editorial page writer for the Wall Street Journal Europe.

Wingfield lives in Brussels, and he wants us to know that, for many of the Europeans he has met there, “it's not God who is dead to them as much as it is The Church—the official, often state-supported church, be it Catholic, Anglican or Lutheran.” He then shares his personal experience with a nontraditional church called The Well.

The Well, with its rock-oriented music, would in some ways feel familiar to many American evangelicals. But here’s what wouldn’t feel familiar: it doesn’t meet in its own building, but it uses several decentralized meeting places—including a restaurant called Jesus Paradise and a tavern called La Chaloupe D’Or, billed on the church website as “close to the Godiva chocolaterie.” (Well, count me in!)

The entire 120-member church meets together for worship only once a month. The rest of the time, they meet in these satellite sites.

In a tavern or restaurant, just anyone can happen by. And, Wingfield says, such serendipity is much more likely to occur in the settings chosen by The Well than if the group were to meet in a designated church building.

It's far less intimidating for newcomers to visit a public space with a dozen or so other people than a normal "church" with pews and a steeple and a hundred strange faces. In the course of our gatherings, we also meet people who were just going out for coffee and probably wouldn't have wandered into a sanctuary along the way.

That’s where my wife and I started talking about ecclesiology. “Is it church when confused people get together to discuss religion?” she asked. “Or does church require belief, commitment, and participation in worship?”

I said, the church should fundamentally be a gathering of the committed. And those who are committed should be trained to help the confused sort out their questions.

This tension between meeting the needs of the confused and the nurture of the committed is, of course, not new. It was present in the mid-1970s rise of the seeker-sensitive church, which minimized elements of traditional worship in order to appeal to the unchurched. The tension continues in mainline denominations that want to be so inclusive of everyone and so tolerant of everything that they can’t tell the difference between hospitality and inclusion. (See my review of Good Fences: The Boundaries of Hospitality and my interview with author Carolyn Westerhoff for more thoughts on this mainline Protestant trend.)

From Closed Doors to Public Square

The early church met behind closed doors. That made sense in a truly hostile culture where being a Christian could cost you your life. When it was finally able to meet in public, the church became not only a sacred institution but a civic one as well, with its meeting places prominently located on piazzas. In that new role, what the church gained in openness it lost in distinctiveness.

In a comparatively indifferent culture, some kind of alteration of the barriers makes sense. Barriers to inclusion shouldn’t be erased, of course. The Well’s website says that “at its core, church is people, coming together, becoming more like Jesus than they were before.” True, but not complete. At the heart of Christian life and Christian community, there are things that don’t make sense without study, commitment, and participation. Christian communal life cannot exist apart from common prayer, common confession, and Communion. These are things that unbelievers cannot join in. Because of the nature of the church, there will always be insiders and outsiders.

Placing key elements of church life out in public view is an important part of Christian witness in a secular and indifferent culture. A group like The Well can maintain its distinctiveness from Europe’s post-Christian culture. It can be open and welcoming at the same time. Maintaining that tension consciously and conscientiously will be an important challenge, because without the things that make Christian life distinctive it may be a great opportunity for discussion, authentic sharing, and witness. But it won’t be church.

Nevertheless, bless The Well and similar groups across Europe for engaging in this experiment.

Even babies know right from wrong...

So maybe there is something to natural law, and Romans 2. and oh, that "evangelical saying"

(AGI) - London, 22 Nov. - Long before being able to speak, babies understand the reasons underlying the choices of those around them and are able to distinguish altruists from those counter to them or just simply ignoring them. This was shown in a study carried out in the US by a team from Yale University (Connecticut), which found that infants between 6 and 10 months have a sort of innate ethical morality which causes them to act in accordance with the well-known evangelical saying "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

This ability is clear well before babies are able to socialize, which suggests that it is an innate instinct rather than behaviour learnt from parents or adults in general. In the study, published in Nature, the team of researchers used a group of toys to evaluate the reaction of babies between 6 and 10 months old.

In the first experiment the little ones watched a large-eyed wooden toy trying with difficulty to climb a hill. The "climber" interacted with other toys in different ways: a puppet, in the shape of a triangle, tried to help him and pushed him up the hill, while another, in the square of a square, tried to hinder his progress in any way possible or even pushed him down.

After having shown the little ones the scene, the scientists observed their reactions, giving the babies puppets in the shape of triangles and square. All the 6-month-old babies choose the triangle-altruistic ones, as did 14 of the 16 10-month-old ones.

The second experiment inverted the scenario, with the "climber" wanting to get down the hill (to exclude the possibility that the young ones were influenced solely by the direction of the movement).

In a third test the young ones of both age groups preferred a neutral puppet over the one that hampered the "climber's progress, and an altruistic puppet over a neutral one.

Understanding Nominalism 2

Here's yet another piece of the puzzle I am working with, occasioned by reading an article by Avery Dulles.

If you are a nominalist, then it makes perfect sense to speak of Christ alone, Scripture alone, grace alone and faith alone, because for nominalists, the state of singularity, of independence is what is real. For them, it is a metaphysical "compliment" to view a thing in its autonomy, in its aloneness.

If you are an extreme realist (Platonist) then it makes absolutely no sense to speak of a thing apart from its Ideal; and ultimately, it makes no sense to speak of individual Forms apart from the Good; or to speak of the Good apart from its necessary "overflowing" into the rest of the universe. Everything either is a form or an instantiation of that form.

If you are a moderate realist like Aristotle, then it is possible to speak of particular substances, but they are not absolutely independent of one another, because they are all universal forms individuated by prime matter. If you are a moderate realist like Thomas Aquinas, it is impossible to speak of any creature apart from God, the Creator and Sustainer; for not only does it relate to Him in terms of its beginning, but its existence must also be continuously conserved by Him.

Thus realists are unable to speak of anything absolutely alone. Christian realists hold that God is three persons in one substance: relational to the core. For them, it is a metaphysical insult--nay, perhaps even heresy-- to speak only of autonomy, and ignore the fundamental relational character of reality.

Hence realists do not speak of Christ alone, but Christ and His Church. They do not understand sola scriptura, but they do understand scripture and tradition. They do not preach sola gratia, but rather grace and cooperation. They do not teach sola fides; instead, they teach faith and works.

Does your theology depend on your metaphysics? Or does your metaphysics depend on your theology? Maybe its a both/and! ; )

It happened yet again...

Occasionally, Steve preaches a sermon that God must hear and immediately say, "Okay, walk your talk."

Yesterday, November 19, 2007, the Twenty-fifth Sunday after Pentecost, he spoke from the lectionary text, Luke 21:5-19 and preached a sermon entitled “No Worries?” The gist of it was that in this world we will have worries, but that one way of standing firm against them is to find things to be thankful for.

Steve always gets up way before me on Sunday mornings, and wakes me with a kiss and the flutter of the pages his finished sermon, dropped on the comforter. Now yesterday, because the annual VCC Thanksgiving Dinner was occuring after worship, and we were bringing a turkey, he got up a half-hour earlier than usual, at 4:30 am, to pop it in the oven.

Things were proceeding smoothly, as usual-- kiss, sermon, showers, breakfast along with the delicious aroma of roasting turkey--when suddenly there was a POP! a crackling, a continuous blue strobe of light, a fireworks display of sparks shooting out the sides of the oven door, with flames dancing within, and the overpowering smell of ozone. Our electric oven's element had decided to die at that very moment, in a spectacular self-immolation scene worthy of a Wagnerian opera!

I scrambled for the baking soda but Steve had already jumped out the door and had turned off the power before my ministrations were possible. The bird still had another hour to go! His sermon seemed to mock me:

"Going on in Luke 12 we find the Lord telling His disciples “do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body what you will wear.” Three times in verses 22-31 He asks them not to worry. Consider the ravens, consider the lilies, forget your anxieties about food and clothing. Hakuna Matata!"

My immediate response was: "Grrr!!! 'Don't worry about what you will eat?' Honestly, Lord, its one thing for our family to do without but if this turkey is ruined that will mean lots of mouths will go empty this afternoon!"

But then I realized what was happening. It was another one of those chances to Practice What Was Being Preached, and my personal Screwtape was clearly proud of his morning's efforts. Honestly, it was laughable. As the smoke cleared and we peered into the depths of the inferno, we realized that just minutes before, we had covered the turkey with aluminum foil, and that it had been protected.

Thank you Lord, for that turkey.

Thank you that it was so far along, so that we could safely wrap it up and finish roasting it at church.

Thanks that it's flavor didn't suffer at all from the ozone censing.

Thanks that so many people were at the dinner who were able to enjoy it.

Thank you that our house didn't burn down.

Thank you for reinforcing the lesson about worrying, and helping me to stand firm, and even laugh at this calamity.

Now please help Steve to be able to fix our oven, and so that we won't need to buy a whole new one. (Yes, Lord, I admit it...I am worried about that hole burned in the back wall...)

Somehow I don't think it was coincidence that we sang "Day by Day and with each passing Moment" yesterday. Please help me to keep singing it today.
And tomorrow.
And the day after that.
Now and in the hour of our death.
Amen.

Note to self: Check out this book: The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Holidays

Answering UltraRev's Question

On November 11, 2007, UltraRev asked a good question: "Whatever Became of the Public Reading of Scripture?"

He wrote:

"I wonder what the real thinking in pastor's head is when s/he plans a service and doesn't include a Scripture reading. The people I'm talking about are evangelicals with contemporary services. Do they think, "Well, the Bible is my truth not theirs so I don't want to shove it down their throats?" Is it, "Reading the Bible is so boring and it won't be entertaining enough?" Or similarly, "People just don't connect to reading the Bible out loud any more." Or is it some theological position about the Bible being narrative and not propositional truth, and we don't use the Bible like that (in a public reading sort of way) any more (and never were supposed to)?

In all of those cases they seem to allude to the belief that the Scriptures are some how lacking impact or something useful. Furthermore, it would seem they believe that God doesn't speak through the Scriptures anymore. How did evangelicals get there?

First, the good news is that not all evangelicals, muchless Christians, are at that point. But UltraRev is onto something here. Growing up Southern Baptist, I remember the only scripture ever read corporately was the verse or two our preacher read immediately before launching into his sermon. When I first visited a Covenant Church, and heard a Psalm, OT and NT reading, I was pleasantly surprised. And I was even more amazed when the the entire Passion according to St. John was read at Sacred Heart Cathedral, during a good Friday service I attended while a grad student at Notre Dame. (Moreover, we stood for the entire reading!)

Second, IMO the complete answer tothe Rev's question is wide and complicated, one of the driving themes of this blog. But here's my answer, as briefly as I can state it: Ideas have consequences. These consequences occur despite our having forgotten those ideas; and they occur even if we were never ever aware of them.
-----------------------------------------------------
I. Prior to the 14th century, western philosophy and theology held these ideas:

1) Words/ideas have "depth:" they are connected with what is real ( and by extension, true, good and beautiful).

2) What is real reflects/participates in Him who is Real: Christ, the Alpha and Omega: God, the One in whom we live and move and have our being. So what is real is intelligible, able to be understood; but what is real is also mysterious, unable to ever be fully plumbed. The more real something is, the truer, more beautiful and good it will be.

3) Words are not the ONLY way to connect with what is real (for example, images and unutterable mystical experiences accomplish that as well) but language is a powerful way that humans are able relate to one another and to God.

4) Scripture is Truth, the very word of God, and thus a way (and the only perfect way, as opposed to general revelation, "the Book of Nature") that He relates to us.

If you hold all the above, you are committed to scripture as your means of connecting to God and what is true, good and beautiful. Maginalization of the truth presented in scripture will be a moral and intellectual sin, as so many reformers before the Reformation (St. Benedict, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, St. Dominic, St. Francis, Fra Savanarola and others were wont to remind the Church).

II. BUT in the 14th century, a movement called nominalism arose that challenged these ideas. It held that

1.1) words do not have "depth." They are NOT connected with what is real, but are merely labels, ways human beings agree to "group" the particulars of their experience. In fact, there are no "universals;" things in the world only exist as particulars (cf. Hobbes and Locke, "the state of nature," where the basic unit is not the person-in-community, but the autonomous individual.)Connections/relations no longer have an objective, metaphysical foundation but are subjectively constructed.

2.1) Words thus are labels we agree upon, not reflections of essences and relations that exist independently of us, established by God. We become imprisoned within ourselves, or our language community, unable to connect with what's "really real" outside ourselves, except by the grace of God who provides us some sort of supernatural experience.

3.1) Thus the only way to connect with what is real (i.e., God) is not through ideas, but through "faith." Faith is now interpreted more narrowly to mean submission of one's will to the Sovereign God, who is similarly understood in terms of his divine will. (Cf. Luther, "The Bondage of the Will." This is what "voluntarism" is all about. IMO it has a lot more in common with Islam than with the good news of Christ.)

4.1 We hold scripture to be true just so long as we have faith in God. It has nothing to say to someone who doesn't already accept it as the Word of God. We must first take a "leap of faith" before we can appropriate its truths.

Thus begins an inevitable decay. If words are no longer ideas corresponding to reality, then how do we connect with what is real? Where do we go for truth? How can we be sure what we know is true?

III. Consequences for our day: The Way of the Theist:

(4.1) Luther and Calvin: we connect with what is real through our volition, not our reason. Once God chooses us, we are able to submit our wills to him, and once our wills are submitted, our minds are at last fit to receive his truth.

But this truth is no longer "thick." When we read scripture, we cannot allow multiple meanings; each verse has to have one and one meaning only, the (single) meaning intended by the writer. Protestant scholasticism gets all involved trying to settle the question of exactly what that meaning should be, and so many Protestants get hung up on texts and textual criticism. This eventually leads either to Higher Criticism ( a skepticism about what actually constitutes scripture, and finally confusion and/or despair that God even speaks through the scriptures at all) or else it forks off to the Grammatical-Historical method (and ever-drier articles and esocteric debates over the meaning in the original Greek.)

Consequence: Most people's eyes glaze over when it gets to this point.and they complain, "Reading the Bible is boring."

Other Protestants (including the Pietists) yearn for something more--the letter is dry, but the Spirit is alive! Individual subjective experience thus becomes the vehicle for relationships. Faith/belief is still understood as something opposed to understanding/knowledge: the baby of trust is retained, but the bathwater of dogma is going down the drain.

Consequence: "Well, the Bible is my truth not theirs. They just haven't seen the light yet, so I don't want to shove it down their throats"

Consequence: " It's hard for me to feel the Spirit when the Bible is read publically, so that's why I prefer to read it by myself."

IV. Consequences for our day: The way of the Agnostic/atheist:

(4.1.1) Kant: Everything is either "noumena"--what is really real and beyond our knowing (but which may be our duty to accept, as rational beings) or else it is "phenomena:--that which we are fit to perceive, through our senses, in space and time.

But you can see where this leads: God is outside of space and time, God cannot be seen, tasted, touched, measured.

Consequence: "The Bible not propositional truth; it is neither true nor false; it is not a matter of reason, but of emotion; more like poetry than science. Poetry is nice, but it's really a private, subjective sort of thing; a matter of taste. We don't expect everyone to listen to the same poetry, so why should we expect everyone to listen to the Bible in a public reading? What speaks to me is different from what speaks to you."

(4.1.2) Quantification and prediction increasingly become the hallmarks of what we will accept as "real," and the natural, material world edges out God for our attention. More and more, Nature/science eclipses God/scripture/church/anything spiritual (cf. Deism). God and scripture become less and less "credible," until finally Nietzsche announces His death.

Consequence: "Anyone who reads the Bible-privately or publically--is a fool!"

V. Final Observations

(5.1)We are creatures of habit. If we do not hear scripture read corportately, we will not develop the "ears" to hear it, and thus will find it difficult to follow.

5.2) We are creatures who are lazy and pleasure seeking. We live in an image-driven culture that rewards consumption and superficiality, and shuns words except as means of manipulating our desires. A must read: Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in an Age of Show Business, by Neil Postman.

5.3) A few Emergent voices are questioning radical individualism and the practices that result from it. May they see the need to go further and question the presuppositions that led to this radical individualism in the first place! I predict that when they do , they will inevitably discover the riches of pre-nominalist Christian thought.

Hmmm...too many big words?

Okay, so I took the test too, and this is what I got. I've never been a Hemingway fan, but I am an ardent admirer of John, the Beloved Disciple. His Greek is simple, but his ideas are profound. Wouldn't it be fun to run this on his gospel, or Revelation? Or on every book of the Bible? I wonder what the results would show?

Meditation for Worship, Nov.11, 2007

Father,

we thank you this morning that

we are your sheep,
And that you provide us with green pastures.

We praise you that you are not a god

who condemns us to freedom.
You have not left us as wild animals,

in the jungle of sin,
free to roam and pounce

according to our own bloodthirsty desires;
feral in our freedom;
vicious in our vices.

And we praise you that you are not a god

who strips us of freedom.
You have not confined us,

as if we were animals in a divine zoo,
captives of your commandments;
lashed by your laws.

No! You have assigned us our portion and cup,
You have made our lots secure.
Your boundary lines fall for us in pleasant places,
Because it is in Christ
that we live, and move, and have our being;
Because it is in Christ
that we are freed from sin to fresh friendships
with you
with each other
with all creation.

Today we celebrate this mystery:
It is because we are bound

by Christ’s love and truth,
That we are no longer animals,

either captive or wild.

It is because we are in Christ,
that we are free to be

what you always meant for us to be:

fully human.

This meditation to accompany worship at Valley Covenant Church, November 11, 2007.

Text: I Corinthians 10:23-11:1
Sermon, "Freedom in Christ," available here .

Cyber-Worries

My friend Ted wrote,

"It would be a lot more helpful, Beth, if you would just post a brief summary of the external author's work with a link, and then provide your own thoughts. Without known what you are thinking, I hardly know how to respond. This piece is as much an attack on Protestantism as it is on nominalism."

Yes, I know I have a nasty habit of doing that, but there are several reasons why I do. First of all, this blog exists not only for conversation but it also functions as my personal record for some provocative things that I've read and want to be able to chew on for the future. I worry that in the constant swirl of cyberspace, some sites will disappear, making their links useless, and any subsequent reflection or conversation about them devoid of context.

I also am concerened that if I just post the link, people won't bother to check it out, whereas if I post the article, and highlight the interesting areas, they might be tempted to read it in its entirety. (Perhaps I'm wrong about that, but nevertheless it bothers me.)

Finally, I'm not prepared to give a final answer about any of this stuff. (Philosophy is first and foremost about dialogue.) I've been exploring nominalism now for the past year, ever since teaching a course about epistemology and metaphysics. The more I read about it, though, the more some things seem to be falling into place for me. But I also want to avoid being like the proverbial man who found a hammer, and for whom everything from that point on appeared to him as a nail. That's why I'm depending on voices like Ted's for input. And that's why, whenever possible, I am starting to avoid digests for particularly controversial articles, so as to offer readers the opportunity to encounter them first for themselves, apart from my analysis.

For my own thoughts so far (as I mentioned to Donn earlier) those interested can check the following entries: "The Slippery slope of Nominalism" (Nov 18, 2005) , "Institution or Body?", (June 14, 2007) and "Square Circles and Nominalist Christians" (November 3, 2007). I'm also in the process of writing "Nominalism 2" in response to the rest of Ted's comment. I promise more as time permits.

Many thanks to Ted, Donn and Kent for your contributions. I welcome help from any other readers, in locating sources on nominalism which have been helpful to them, especially from a pastoral perspective. I am particularly interested in any works which would be written from a Protestant point of view, defending nominalism's "upside," or demonstrating how Luther and Calvin might not actually have been influenced by nominalism. Stay tuned... : )

Understanding Nominalism, Part 1

What's in a Name?

by Carl E. Olson

— God could have redeemed us by becoming a donkey.
— God justifies man, but man remains as sinful inwardly as before.
— Words have no meaning but are merely text.

What do these statements have in common? Apparently little: The first was the belief of a fourteenth-century Franciscan theologian. The second captures the heart of classical Protestant soteriology (the theology of salvation; see sidebar). The last is the essential position of postmodern deconstructionists.

Yet the common intellectual source of the three statements is one of the most powerful ideas that nobody talks about. It is an idea that has had a deep influence on Western thought and has helped shape Christian theology and Western thought for six hundred years. That idea is nominalism. If there was ever a poster child for the remark that "ideas have consequences," it is nominalism.

What are universals?

In 1948, Richard M. Weaver (1910-63), a professor of English at the University of Chicago, published Ideas Have Consequences. Decrying the modern assault on language and objective truth, Weaver laid the blame for such attacks at the foot of William of Ockham (c. 1285-1347). The English Franciscan, Weaver wrote, "propounded the fateful doctrine of nominalism, which denies that universals have a real existence. His triumph tended to leave universal terms mere names serving our convenience."

It may sound like a lot of ivory tower irrelevance, but the denial of universals has had deadly consequences in our society. So what are these "universals"?

Whereas St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-74) had taught that man can know the true, objective essence of things, Ockham denied it was possible. As Benjamin Wiker observed in Moral Darwinism (InterVarsity, 2002), Ockham believed that "when we use the word dog there is really no universal entity, essence or dog-ness that we perceive. Dog is merely a name we apply to particular things that happen to look alike. Hence, the name of his system, nominalism, for the Latin nomen, 'name.'"

In other words, nominalism is a philosophical system claiming that everything outside the mind is completely individual: Reality cannot be comprehended through the use of universal and abstract concepts but only through the empirical study of specific, individual objects. Historian and Benedictine monk David Knowles, in The Evolution of Medieval Thought, wrote that nominalism holds that "there is no such thing as a universal, and it is nonsense to speak of the thing known as present in an intelligible form in the mind of the knower."

Yes, it's a complex idea — but the consequences are very real. By denying that there is any basis in reality for universals that every human mind can grasp, nominalism moved knowledge away from objectivity and toward subjectivity and prepared the way for further radical propositions in the realms of theology It makes sense: If God's acts do not possess a logical, objective nature — as Ockham and his disciples taught — then they are merely the result of a groundless divine will unconcerned with what humans call "reason" or "logic." If that is the case, obviously man cannot use his reason or logic to determine what is just or unjust. Natural law, then, is simply nonsense.

Ockham went so far as to say that the Incarnation had value only to the extent God gave it value; God could have redeemed mankind just as easily by becoming a stone, tree, or donkey. If there is no common, or universal, human nature, the Incarnation was not so much about the Logos taking on human nature as it was about God working as he wishes, in a manner unrelated to any sort of logic or reason.

Because of the arbitrary nature of reality, man cannot know the essential nature of sin and grace. Thus, he has no way of knowing his state before God — outside of intuition and inner experience. Besides, nominalism insisted, God can declare sin and grace to exist within man at the same time, regardless of man's worthiness.

Apparently, Ockham was motivated by what he thought was proper humility before God's greatness. He viewed Thomistic realism (and its respect for Aristotelian logic) as an arrogant approach that claimed to understand God in a systematic and supercilious fashion. Unfortunately, however good his intentions were, Ockham set the foundation for some of the most powerful and mistaken ideas of the Protestant revolt.

Mystery destroyed

Heiko A. Oberman, a leading Luther scholar (and admirer), admitted in Luther: Man between God and the Devil that "Martin Luther was a nominalist; there is no doubt about that." Fr. Louis Bouyer, a former Lutheran pastor and theologian, stated in The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism that this connection to Ockham's nominalism is the key to the "negative elements" of the Reformation:

No phrase reveals so clearly the hidden evil that was to spoil the fruit of the Reformation than Luther's saying that Ockham was the only scholastic who was any good. The truth is that Luther, brought up on his system, was never able to think outside the framework it imposed, while this, it is only too evident, makes the mystery that lies at the root of Christian teaching either inconceivable or absurd.

That "mystery" is divinization: the Catholic doctrine that God's grace — his supernatural life — can infuse man and heal his wounded nature, especially through the sacraments. This belief was abhorrent to Luther, who believed such communion between God and man impossible, even blasphemous. Justification, Luther taught, was not an inner change but a juridical or forensic reality, outward only and imputed by Christ. The justified man is still as sinful as before, but he is "cloaked" in Christ's righteousness.

Total depravity

Neither Luther nor John Calvin could conceive of man as somehow sharing in God's divine nature, because man, in their estimation, was totally depraved and incapable of any good. The nominalism of Ockham and his disciples congealed in the teachings of these Protestant fathers, resulting in a skewed understanding of God and his relationship with man.
"What, in fact, is the essential characteristic of Ockham's thought, and of nominalism in general," Bouyer asked, "but a radical empiricism, reducing all being to what is perceived, which empties out, with the idea of substance, all possibility of real relations between beings, as well as the stable subsistence of any of them, and ends by denying to the real any intelligibility, conceiving God himself only as a Protean figure impossible to apprehend?"

The nominalist fragmentation between substance and nature became the cornerstone for two principles of classical Protestant theology: total depravity and sola fide.

Man, being totally depraved, lacks any free will and the ability to know what is right. For Luther, looking through nominalist-colored lenses, grace was a quality external to man and therefore unknowable in any objective way. Grace is God's divine favor and belongs to God alone. Luther believed that if God did infuse man with his divine life, then God would be joined to man and obligated to him in a manner incompatible with his sovereignty and omnipotence. Man can have no part in grace except in an outward manner — imputed righteousness — in which no real communication of the divine life occurs.

So sola fide — faith alone — became the means of salvation because faith, for the Protestant fathers, is an inner quality, knowable through experience and intuition; it is not a sharing in God's divine life.
"Similarly, and as radically," wrote Bouyer, "it follows that grace, to remain such, that is the pure gift of God — must always be absolutely extrinsic to us; also, faith, to remain ours, so as not to fall into that externalism that would deprive man of all that is real in religion, must remain shut up within us."

Radical individualism

This prepared the way for the radical individualism — what French Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain called "the advent of the self" — that became a distinguishing feature of Protestantism. In the moral realm this radical separation of faith and grace meant a severing of the moral act from its actual value. If God can impose any value he desires upon a moral act arbitrarily, then it follows that man's actions cannot possess any objective value relating to grace or the meriting of eternal life. Protestant theologian Alister McGrath summarized the Reformers' view in his volume on justification, Iustitia Dei (Cambridge University Press, 1998):

There is a fundamental discontinuity between the moral value of an act — i.e., the act, considered in itself — and the meritorious value of an act — i.e., the value that God chooses to impose upon the act. Moral virtue imposes no obligation upon God, and where such obligation may be conceded, it exists as the purely contingent outcome of a prior uncoerced divine decision.

Calvin systematized this discontinuity by basing his Institutes of the Christian Religion around the central theological theme of predestination. Calvin made it clear that God can be sovereign only if man is nothing, that is, totally depraved and lacking any free will.

It has been said that for the Protestant fathers justification was the article of faith upon which the Church either "stand or falls." But their denial of free will is actually the key article of faith, as it informed their position on justification as well as that of Scripture, Church authority, and the sacraments. Without free will, man's moral actions mean nothing, so justification becomes a legal fiction, not a lifetime of growth in God's divine life.

The Reformer from Geneva also took up Ockham's view of the Incarnation, as McGrath noted in A Life of John Calvin (Cambridge: Basil Blackwell, 1990). Calvin "makes it clear that the basis of Christ's merit is not located in Christ's offering of himself," McGrath wrote, "but in the divine decision to accept such an offering as of sufficient merit for the redemption of mankind (which corresponds to the voluntarist [nominalist] approach). For Calvin, 'apart from God's good pleasure, Christ could not merit anything' [Institutes, II.xvii.i-iv]." McGrath also noted that "Calvin's continuity appears to be with the late medieval voluntarist tradition, deriving from William of Ockham and Gregory of Rimini."

The crucial break between each moral act (known by revelation) and its meritorious value (unknown and reliant on God's arbitrary will) is evident. So Calvin taught a distinct break between justification and sanctification. The former is external, imputed, and eternal; the latter is internal and pertains to salvation as an evidence only shown by good works, a sign of perseverance, which the truly predestined saint will possess. Believers can know they are saved by the signs of their works, all the while knowing that those works possess little, if any, actual value in the eyes of God.

Seeds of skepticism

Like a stream growing as it flows from a mountain into a valley, nominalism has helped shape modernity's view of God, man, and reality. Ockham's focus on empirical knowledge played a vital role in Luther and Calvin looking inwardly in search of faith. But it was not long before Enlightenment thinkers would cast aside the tenuous reality of self-enclosed faith and begin searching for data and evidence in a new way.
Instead of looking to the detached and unknowable God of nominalism, intellectuals and theologians began looking to the immediate, concrete world around them. After all, if God does not want to have communion with man but only desires to show his sovereignty, what keeps man from turning his back on God and demonstrating his own power and autonomy? While God, for the Protestant fathers, is free from any obligation to man, in the Enlightenment era man became equally autonomous, free from any obligation to God and his natural law.

What the Protestant revolt and later modernity had in common was that a subjective, individualistic view of reality turned into the essential basis of knowledge. The difference was in the object of focus. The Reformers looked to God, relying on intuitive, subjective experience. Later thinkers, relying on their own intuitive experiences, concluded that man is autonomous and God is unnecessary. The former resulted in Lutheranism, Calvinism and a host of splintering groups. The latter resulted in all sorts of nasty "isms": empiricism, positivism, moral relativism, and deconstructionism.

Summarized, the move toward subjective and intuitive knowledge, opposed to abstract and universal knowledge, led to increasingly radical philosophical propositions. G.W. F. Hegel, Immanuel Kant, and Karl Marx pushed the envelope of nominalist-indebted thought. German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) wrote, "There are no facts, only interpretations" — a sentiment echoed in the common contemporary refrain: "There is no truth, only opinions."

In the twentieth century, Jacques Derrida's work in deconstruction — which asserts that truth cannot be known and words lack real meaning — was a type of hyper-nominalism. Derrida's famous statement that "there is nothing outside the text" was a denial that words refer to a reality beyond them.

Like a constantly mutating virus, nominalism lives on. Yes, ideas do have consequences. And bad ideas, no matter how well-intentioned, have bad consequences.

Soteriology: Catholic v. Protestant

"Classical Protestant soteriology" refers generally to the teachings of Martin Luther, John Calvin, and their followers about the nature and means of salvation. Classical Protestantism emphasizes the salvation of man by a personal act of faith in response to God's divine (and essentially external) favor, while Catholic soteriology emphasizes the divinization of man by the infusion of God's grace, or supernatural life, especially through the sacraments. In Catholic doctrine, as articulated by the Council of Trent, justification and sanctification are distinct but intimately bound together in the process of salvation. In classical Protestantism they are separated, sometimes to the point where the two have little to do with each other: Justification is a matter of legal standing with God while sanctification is the subsequent inner work of the Holy Spirit. While Catholicism recognizes the primacy of faith, it also emphasizes the need for good works done by grace in the "working out" of salvation. Classical Protestantism stressed the doctrine of sola fide ("faith alone"), which denied that good works, no matter their source, had anything to do with justification.

Get Your Stem Cells, Monthly!

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"When it comes to making major life decisions, there is no time like the present. And when it comes to something as important as collecting potentially life-saving stem cells found naturally in menstrual blood, the ideal time is NOW. Thanks to C'elle's patented technology, and easy-to-use collection kit, you have the reassurance and peace of mind you need, when it comes to collecting, isolating and preserving menstrual blood. Welcome to C'elle – where every month holds a miracle."

CRYO-CELL LAUNCHES C’ELLE, FIRST-EVER PROPRIETARY MENSTRUAL STEM CELL SERVICE

Company’s Newly Discovered Stem Cell Shows Promising Potential in Regenerative Medicine

November 1, 2007 Cryo-Cell International Inc., one of the largest and most established family cord blood banks, today announced its discovery of breakthrough stem cell technology and its launch of the world’s first-ever service provided for women to store their own menstrual stem cells. The new service, called C’elleSM (pronounced “C-L”), enables women to collect menstrual flow containing stem cells, which can be cryogenically preserved in a manner similar to stem cells from umbilical cord blood and may one day serve as a potential source for promising regenerative therapies to treat heart disease, diabetes, neurological disorders like spinal cord injury, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, in addition to cosmeceutical applications such as anti-aging therapies, to name a few. However, realistically, it may take several years for these menstrual stem cells to be developed into potential widely-available commercial therapies. The C’elle service is based on Cryo-Cell’s intellectual property, for which patent applications are pending, related to the procurement, processing, isolation and cryo-preservation of these unique menstrual stem cells. [View Full Press Release]

The Bible Top Ten: Verses, Books, Chapters

Who'd a-thunk it? John trumps Romans! ; )
According to the Christian Post:

Top 10 Verses

1. John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

2. John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

3. John 14:6 Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me".

4. Matthew 28:19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

5. Romans 3:23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

6. Ephesians 2:8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.

7. Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

8. Acts 1:8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

9. 2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.

10. Romans 10:9 That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Top 10 Books

1. Ephesians
2. James
3. Titus
4. 1 John
5. 2 Peter
6. John
7. Philippians
8. Colossians
9. Romans
10. 1 Peter

Top 10 Chapters

1. 2 Peter 1
2. Psalm 1
3. John 2
4. James 4
5. Romans 12
6. Isaiah 53
7. John 3
8. Romans 1
9. James 1
10. Acts 1

Scripture Tableware

Here's a nomination for the Gadgets for God page at the Ship of Fools

Just Wondering: Is denominational leadership no longer important?

Donn asks: (Saturday, Nov. 3, 2007: "President Denominationless")

"What focus should denominational leadership take when their role is not longer assumed to be important by a growing majority of church-goers?"

Well, if a church is congregational in polity, and if it is indeed the case that the majority doesn't think that denominational leadership is important anymore, then the whole question is moot. These people should graciously fade away into memory, accepting the fact that things change and that their time has passed. Or perhaps they should be retained as figureheads (much like the British royalty): objects fit for scandal, amusement, and building dedications.

No?

Okay, then let's give it another try:

"What focus should denominational leadership take when their role is not longer assumed to be important by a growing majority of church-goers?"

I hold that the answer depends on why churchgoers no longer assume denominational leadership is important.

Some will disagree with that, saying that what matters are facts, not causes. This is tempting, because facts are typically obvious and uncontroversial, whereas "causes" are not. But in my opinion, that is like saying, "My roof is leaking, so I need a bucket" rather than saying, "My roof is leaking because the builder used shoddy materials. I will use this bucket for now, but what I really need are some new shingles."

In the end, if we don't address "causes," and only focus on "facts," we will be at the mercy of events, and not necessarily the Spirit. Transformation will be haphazard and half-baked ("blown about by every wind of doctrine") and we will risk failing to fully image God in terms of our discernment and stewardship.

Let's brainstorm here, assuming that the "why" question is relevant, and ask, "Why do chuchgoers no longer assume denominational leadership is important? Here are some possible answers:

1) Churchgoers are no longer are organized according to denominations. Instead, leadership occurs some other way. (For example, everyone becomes Catholic and assents to the authority of the pope; everyone becomes Orthodox and follows the church fathers; everyone reverts to an ancient Hebrew model and is led by a High Priest, or a Judge, or a King.)

Hmmm. This doesn't seem to be the direction toward which things are moving. So let's try again.

2) Churchgoers are so filled with the Spirit, they so mature, that they have at last attained the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Therefore they no longer need apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors or teachers, muchless popes, kings, priests or denominational leaders to prepare them for works of service and build up the Body. (Sort of the spiritual equivalent of the Marxist vision of the withering away of the state, this is the withering away of the denominations/institutional church. cf. Ephesians 4:11-13)

Somehow I don't think we're there yet, either. But I may be mistaken. At least I'm not there yet!
:-)

3) They are so filled with themselves that they do not see that they need help to attain the the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Thus they reject any authority beyond themselves (cf. Judges 21:24-25)

Perhaps this may be true of some, but I don't think that this is a fair characterization of the majority of churchgoers.

4) They are blinded by the gods/philosophies of this age, so that they cannot see that they need help to attain the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Thus they reject any leadership beyond themselves.

Of all the possibilities so far, this is the one I think is most likely, and so I've written elsewhere about the nominalist mindset that I believe undergirds that blindness. If this is an accurate answer, then what responsibility does the church leadership and the church fellowship have to recognize and repent of that mindset?

Hmm. Could this be a possible answer to Donn's question? The focus denominational leadership should take when their role is no longer seen as important by churchgoers is to remind them of the following, and to model it, kinda like what another church leader named Paul did, long ago:

Romans 12:1-8

"Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.

We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.

4) other possibilities. What do you think?
4a) Donn says: "Are our plates so full of cultural offerings that anything more than the local church starts a yawn?" (see comments)
4b) Ted says: "what I guess you could call my alternative #5, can be summed up in one word: cynicism." (see comments)

Square Circles and Nominalist Christians

This recent article appeared on ABET from the Christian Post:

"A Gallup Poll in June found that Americans have less confidence in organized religion. Only 46 percent said they have a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in church/organized religion which was one percentage short of being the lowest in Gallup's history since 1973.

"I would say that [the drop is] because organized religion is organized and it’s religious,” Batterson said.

Among teens, many are not as interested in learning the traditions of their faith or listening to religious teachings as much as they are in making a connection with God and seeking a better understanding of what they believe, a recent Barna study showed. Most teens prefer a church that teaches how their faith should influence everyday decisions and lifestyle rather than one that teaches the traditions and background of their faith.

And as churches begin to break institutional walls and increasingly reflect the body of Jesus Christ, Schuller sees the Church becoming a 24-hour experience.

"[Church] is going to be experiential and lived out in daily lives,” he stated. “If people ask me ‘Where’s your church?’ I’ll often say ‘What time of the day is it?’ This is a good illustration of my point. So, okay it’s 9:00 Wednesday. Elder John is over at his store selling suits. So part of the church is over there. Sister Mary’s just getting back from dropping her kids off at school, so that part of the church is over there.

"I can go with every member of the church and say that’s where the church is," Schuller said.

"I’m talking about where the church of Jesus Christ is recognized not as an institution, not as a building, but is recognized as the individuals that make up the body of Jesus Christ, living by faith and caring for one another and loving one another," he stressed.

(I tried to reply to ABET but as usual, my messages mysteriously disappear into the ether, so I'm posting my response here:)

This is the apotheosis of nominalism, the idea that universals are not real, that the only things that are real are individuals. (The Wikipedia article isn't a bad place to start if you need clarification.) Institutions are universals, so automatically they are taken to be unreal and unecessary.

If we follow this metaphysic to its logical conclusion, there is no such thing as the Body, only the collection of individuals that make up the body. There is no Whole, only the sum of the parts. There is no United States, only the census of its individual citizens. There is no Church, only the individuals.

If we follow this line of thinking, we will be forced to conclude that there is no God, only three Persons. Are we prepared to go there? Furthermore, we will have to rewrite John 15, to eliminate all that talk about a "True Vine" and "remaining in me," and just celebrate the collection of the many various branches. Are we ready to do that?

Certainly, a Christianity without universals and their corresponding institutional incarnations will be increasingly appealing for postmoderns, who prize their individual freedom above all else. But we need to do some serious reflection: Is this a place for the Church to be truly countercultural, and display the mind of Christ, rather than the mind of Modernism and Postmodernism? Is there something greater than individual autonomy? Participation is a limiting concept, for it requires accomodating ourselves to something greater than ourselves, something universal. Can there be church and body without participation in Church and Body?

In my old Covnet days, I used to be known as "Gnostic-buster." Maybe it is time for me to put that mantle aside and assume the title, "Nominalist Buster?"

yours in Christ,

Beth

The Fellowship of Kindred Minds

Blest be the tie that binds

our hearts in Christian love;

the fellowship of kindred minds

is like to that above.

It's a beautiful fall afternoon, and all's right with the world!

I just had coffee and great conversation with A.J. Swoboda, college pastor at the Onyx House, the college ministry of Eugene Faith Center on campus of the University of Oregon. We had a fine time talking about churches, pentecostalism, and the books that have shaped us. Seems like A.J. asks everyone he meets what five books have been important to them, and then he jots them down for future reference/reading. I wish I had started doing that when I was his age! From our conversation it looks like I must get hold of Robert Farar Capon's The Mystery of Christ and Why We Don't Get It. Every so often God blesses us with little tastes of heaven!

From A.J.'s webpage:

"Along with his wife Quinn, they live in a Christian co-op with 60 students just off the campus at the University. He recently graduated from George Fox Evangelical Seminary with a Master’s Degree in Biblical Studies and is working on a PhD right now in England at the University of Birmingham. Currently, he is leading the community at the Onyx House, writing, teaching classes on the Pentateuch and Pneumatology, and reading a ton. He loves the environment, the green cause, reading books by dead Christians, Brian McLaren, and watching “The Office” on Thursday nights. "

Clearly God is blessing Onyx House and the Eugene community through A.J. He and Quinn are going to have to come over for dinner sometime. I know Steve would love to meet him.

LARK NEWS: Emergent Humor

Brad alerts us to this sendup in Lark News:

"Emergent leaders call for ‘missional re-understanding of Jesus-followership and Christ-focus imbued with passionate creativity and emotional authenticity,’ whatever that means

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — At a recent conference-like "gathering" of emergent church leaders, various factions sparred over competing visions for the future of the movement.

Leaders on one side called for "deepening and continuously beautiful efforts toward emotionally true self-divulgence and confession." Other leaders countered with a call for "a theological re-purposing of our objective and subjective missionality within a framework of God-love." Because few in attendance actually understood what either side meant, both ideas were tabled.

The sides did agree that emergent leaders should continue to take every opportunity to make casual, cool cultural references to popular television shows, movies and Internet phenomena to introduce quasi-intellectual spiritual points about the state of the American church.

They also pledged to maintain their reputation for being "more spiritually honest than the millions of people who attend institutionalized churches every week and blindly go along with the programs, sermons and mindset that make American Christianity the colossal failure it is today."

After toasting themselves with various hyper-cool micro-brews, the audience adjourned to begin 7- and 8-hour theological bull sessions in their hotel rooms and local bars.
Conference organizers say they will meet again to do the same thing next year. "

All content © 2007 LarkNews.com. All rights reserved.

All Saints Day and the Sistine Chapel

Today is All Saints Day, and on this day in 1512 - Michelangelo's paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel were first exhibited to the public.

I wonder if this was done intentionally. Certainly the Last Judgement scene gives us a meditation on the place of the saints with Christ through eternity. But there are twelve figures painted upon the pendentives that are also worth thinking about on All Saints Day. All twelve prophesied or represent some aspect of the coming of Christ. Seven of them are male: prophets of Israel. Five of them are female: the prophetesses (sibyls) of the classical world.

They are:
Persian Sibyl (PERSICHA) representing Babylonia
Erythraean Sibyl. (ERITHRAEA) who was from Chaldea and prophesied in Ionia, an area of present day Turkey.
Delphic Sibyl. (DELPHICA) who prophesied near Delphi, but was not associated with Pythia, the oracle.
Cumaean Sibyl. (CVMAEA) prophesied at a Greek colony near Naples
Libyan Sibyl (LIBICA) who prophesied at an oasis in the Libyan desert.

From a Protestant perspective, these five should have no such place of honor, but I love the way Michaelangelo includes them. They remind me of Matt. 8:11, where Jesus says,

"I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven."

Won't it be wonderful when we get to meet all those folks at the Feast?