Postmodern Gnostics: (a meditation on the Incarnation)

What do Alasdair MacIntyre, Wendell Berry and Richard Wilbur have in common? Read Roger Lundin's "Postmodern Gnostics" to find out.

Steve was listening to a Mars Hill CD the other day and afterwards laid a copy of Lundin's article in my lap. It made for quite a Christmas devotional.

"With the breaking of the bond between the self and truth in the late 19th century...the postromantic poet was left with no justifications for imaginative activity beyond those of preference and desire. With the losss of a belief in the psiritual and ethical significance of creation and the human body, the contemporary aesthetic temperament has found an easy justification for license. If nature and the human body are essentially amoral mechanisms to be used as a means to whatever private ends we have, then the human will is free to do with them what it will, confident that any activity may be sanctified as a legitimate manifestation of desire.

The doctrine of the incarnation challenges the amoral and utilitarian orientation of the modern gnostic self. It affirms that nature and the body are significant, not because they are the useful tools of imaginative, willful human activity, but because God has taken on human form and dwelt among us. Because "the Word became flesh," Christians may affirm the significance of creation and wait in hope for its transformation. The incarnation of Christ, in the words of Langdon Gilkey, "was of such a character that it established a new relation between eternity and time which...flattened the cycles of time out to become the linear stage of God's purposes."

In the work of theology, as in all cultural labor, it is essential to maintain a difficult balance--a balance between the demands of the present and the claims of the past and between the power of the human will and the ordered limits of creation. In Western culture since Descartes, there have been more than enough weighty forces siding with the mind against the body, with the creative power of the intellect against nature, and with the promises of the future against the authority of the past. THe works of MacIntyre, Berry and Wilbur are part of a growing minority tradition in contemporary intellectual life. Contrary to Coleridge and the poets and theorists who followed in his wake, these authors tell us that we do indeed receive far more than we give. For that very reason, these minortiy voices need to be heard as they seek to strike a balance by speaking of what is, in actuality a gift--a gift of grace in the given.

Without question, there are many elements in the given world that constitute burdens to be discarded, wounds to be healed, and wrongs to be righted. But there are also in that world gifts to be received. As we will see in the following chapter on Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of the most powerful of romantic voices, those who cannot discern grace in the given are unable to express gratitude for what they have received. This ingratitude, and its attendent resentment, are the distinguishing attributes of much of contemporary literary and cultural theory."

BOUYER 1: Grace as objective/Faith as subjective

I've begun reading Bouyer:

These two expressions ["salvation by grace" and "justification by faith"]...do not indicate two distinct principles, but two aspects of the same principle--the objective aspect being the gift of God; and the subjective the appropriation of the gift by man. Nonetheless, the two aspects are not the same: though we may not separate them entirely, we have to study each in turn. Clearly, it is the first, objective aspect that determines the second; so we begin with the study of the gratutious nature of salvation. A later investigation into the part played in Protestantism by the faith through which salvation is appropriated will, moreover, bring to our notice a marked tendency, running through the whole course of Protestant history, to a separation, in effect, of "grace" and "faith." In principle, however, they are intimately united, and it is quite certain that faith derives its content from grace, and not vice versa. (Louis Bouyer, The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism, p. 33-34)

Beth:

Hmm. So is this one way of understanding the differences between Catholics and Protestants? Do Catholics see "salvation by grace" and "justification by faith" as two sides of the same coin, while Protestants see them as two different coins?

The old medieval motto was "distinguish in order to unite." Is there a corresponding "motto" for Protestantism? "Separate in order to purify?"

Why the need for separation? Or should the question instead be, why the need to unite? How do ones' metaphysical presuppostions color even the way the question is framed?

Hmmm. I'll have to read on.

"God must not love me anymore"

Visited A. today. She now weighs less than 100 lbs and is in constant pain, all over her body. Each day she takes 9 ibuprofins and 3 oxycontins. She's had a straight week of chemo which has left her unable to walk. She was bitterly disappointed to miss her first Christmas at VCC as a Christian. Today's conversation was particularly wrenching:

A: "Beth, God must not love me anymore. I pray and pray and He does not take away the pain. In fact, it has gotten even worse since H. (her husband) has decided he will tell his parents that I am a Christian and that he supports me in following Christ.

Me: "Oh, A., it is not God who sends the pain, but Satan. God loves you and will always love you."

A: "But I have so much pain!"

Me: "But His own Son had pain, too, and God loved Him!"

A: "Yes, but Jesus' pain was only a couple of days. I have had pain for months. I pray to Jesus and say, 'let's trade places; give me your pain and please take mine.' But he doesn't hear me."

These are the points where conversation ends and tears begin to flow.

The gift of leisure

What a relaxing day this has been. Lots of sleep. K. came over and Susan showed her how to make baklava. Chinese food for dinner (including Ocean Sky's incomparable "Honey Walnut Chicken") so no cooking. Best of all, I've enjoyed an undisturbed evening of reading. This Christmas, Steve gave me three books I've been drooling after:


1) The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism, by Louis Bouyer

2) Ideas Have Consequences, by Richard M. Weaver


3) The Bible, Protestantism and the Rise of Natural Science, by Peter Harrison

I've started Bouyer and will be posting about it soon. He gives Catholics and Protestants both fodder which will either upset or challenge them.

I'm a sucker for older books. Bouyer's was first published in 1956, Weaver's in 1948. Of course there are parts which show their age, but there can be advant-ages to paying attention to older works:

1) The reader sees the role the book played in how and why we are where we are today;

2) Such books have withstood a test of time, so may often be more "nutritious" than the latest Christian publishing phenomenon.

3) Their weaknesses are more readily apparant (and are often quite humorous!)

Online Etymology Dictionary - advantage
1330, "position of being in advance of another," from O.Fr. avantage, from avant "before," probably via an unrecorded L.L. *abantaticum, from L. abante (see advance). The -d- is a 16c. intrusion on the analogy of Latin ad- words. Meaning "a favoring circumstance" (the opposite of disadvantage) is from 1483. Tennis score sense is from 1641, first recorded in writings of John Milton, of all people. Phrase to take advantage of is first attested 1393.

Hail Joseph

VCC Meditation
Dec. 23,2007

Hail Joseph

Full of doubt and anger,

Emmanuel, the Lord, is with thee.

Blessed art thou among men,

and blessed is the child not born of natural descent,
Nor of human decision,
Nor a husband’s will, but born of God: Jesus.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.
You were the first to see his glory, the glory of the One and Only,
Who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Righteous Joseph,
foster father of Jesus, God with Us,
show us sinners the way of waiting,

now and in the hour of our distress.

(c) Beth Bilynskyj

A Modern-Day Prodigal Son

Driving home last night I heard this story on NPR's "All Things Considered." Joseph Shapiro's "In New Orleans, a Mother's Search for Her Lost Son" is a true, modern day recapitulation of the parable of the Prodigal Son. File this one away for future sermon reference.

Five years ago, Chris Turnbow left home in Marion, Ark., and just disappeared.

His family had reason to believe he was living in New Orleans; a family friend had bumped into him there at Mardi Gras. But that was before Hurricane Katrina. Turnbow's mother, Jean Aaron, tried not to consider whether his long silence meant he was alive or dead.

"I have been so scared since Katrina came, not really knowing anything about what had happened to him, and having the very worst thoughts sometimes," she says. "And then I'd try to be positive about it and know that someday I'd see him again." continued

High Holy Day Hardships

From the looks of things on "Covenant Blogs," evidently the Holy Day Hardships are upon us. Over the past two decades of ministry, I have observed that the Enemy chooses Holy Week and Advent as his favorite times to target Christ's flock. This phenomenon has become so unmistakeable that I finally thought it deserved a name, so I have called it the "Holy Day Hardships."

And it has settled upon us at Valley Covenant, just as it has settled upon Quest and Christ the King and countless other kingdom outposts. Just in the past 24 hours:

• V. died early this morning, leaving his wife and three kids


• A. has lost 12 more pounds, and now weighs only 100 lbs. We are waiting to hear from the drs. if they will allow her to continue her chemotherapy.


• E, a single mom's little toddler has been diagnosed with a staph infection.


• P., a beloved high school teacher, was taken to the ER with intense stomach pains. At first they thought it was appendicitis; perhaps it is diverticulosis, or c. difficile? He is home awaiting a diagnosis.


• J.'s brother is on his deathbed in California.


• B. is divorcing D, because D. is having an affair and won't end it.

Once again I am reminded of Nouwen's words:

"Our emotional lives move up and down constantly. Sometimes we experience great mood swings from excitement to depression, from joy to sorrow, from inner harmony to inner chaos. A little event, a word from someone, a disappointment in work, many things can trigger such mood swings. Mostly we have little control over these changes. It seems that they happen to us rather than being created by us.

Thus it is important to know that our emotional life is not the same as our spiritual life. Our spiritual life is the life of the Spirit of God within us. As we feel our emotions shift we must connect our spirits with the Spirit of God and remind ourselves that what we feel is not who we are. We are and remain, whatever our moods, God's beloved children.

We have feelings, but they do not define us entirely. What we feel is necessary for making us who we are, but doesn't sufficiently contain all that we are.

Christ weeps over Jerusalem, and at Lazarus' tomb, and in the garden. He is the Man of Sorrows, but that is not all that He is. The truth is that He was, and is, God's beloved Son, in whom the Father is well-pleased. We weep with V., A., E., P., J., B and D. but we live this truth: we are Christ's flock, and He is our shepherd. We believe that Christ is the Truth and that He has told the truth:

"You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy...I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."

Nouwen on the Mystery of the Incarnation

I've been reading Henri Nouwen's Lifesigns this Advent. Here is a wonderful passage on the incarnation:

Words for "home" are often used in the Old and New Testaments. The Psalms are filled with a yearning to dwell in the house of God, to take refuge under God's winds, and to find protection in God's holy temple; they praise God's holy place, God's wonderful tent, God's firm refuge. We might even say that "to dwell in God's house" summarizes all the aspirations expresssed in these inspired prayers. It is there fore highly significant that St. John describes Jesus as the Word of God pitiching his tent among us (John1:14). He not only tells us that Jesus invites him and his brother Andrew to stay at his home (John 1:38-39) but he also shows how Jesus gradually reveals that he himself is the new temple (John 2:19) and the new refuge (Matthew 11:28). This is most fully expressed in the farewell address, where Jesus reveals himself as the new home: "Make your home in me, as I make mine in you" (John 15:4).

Jesus, in whom the fullness of God dwells, has become our home. By making his home in us he allows us to make our home in him. By entering into the intimacy of our innermost self he offers us the opportunity to enter into his own intimacy with God. By choosing us as his preferred dwelling place he invites us to choose him as our preferrred dwelling place. This is the mystery of the incarnation...

....Conversion, then, means coming home, and prayer is seeking our home where the Lord has built a home--in the intimacy of our own hearts. Prayer is the most concrete way to make our home in God.

Remembering Mamma

Today would have been my mother's 87th birthday. She died four years ago, on Valentine's Day, of a brain tumor, after suffering from Alzheimer's Disease for a decade.

The older I get the more I see of her in myself. Some things please me. The way I laugh. The way I hug my own children. Some things scare me. The way I am starting to need naps. The way I am starting to "lose my tongue" halfway through a sentence.

But one thing comforts me: we have the same Saviour. Thank you, Jesus, for Ruth Gertrude Ekstrom Tichacek; for the life she gave me, and the Life you give both of us.

Breaking Silence, Breaking Free

Jason Byassee, assistant editor of Christian Century and an adjunct at North Park, has written an essay entitled, "Not your Father's Pornography" in the January, 2008 issue of First Things. In it he mentions the Covenant's 2007 resolution on Pornography. In another month the journal will allow internet access to the article. It's worth a look.

I was privileged to be part of the commission that wrote that resolution, and I can't help but be proud that it is being recognized nationally through Byassee's essay. May it be a means of mobilizing Christians to confront this epidemic, so that our resolution will not be merely "a wail in the wilderness."

Fishers of Men

I wish I could find this as a T-shirt to give Steve this Christmas!

Just Wondering: Did God Ever Pay Mary?

I am looking for extra work, now that one of the schools I've been teaching at has encountered rough financial waters, and has dismissed all its adjuncts. So I've been faithfully reading our Eugene Craig's List. Tonight I saw this entry. I understand that infertility is a horrific thing, and have had my own experiences with it. But is this really the direction that we should go?

Gilbert Meilaender makes an important distinction between "procreation" and "reproduction." Procreation is a matter of passion, and of receiving a child as a gift from the Lord. "Reproduction" is a matter of our own planning and construction; making a child becomes a project under our own control. Children which are so "made" are products, and like all products eventually are subject to quality control and the whims of fashion.

Somehow this just doesn't sound right:

[WARNING: what follows is meant to be read with the same spirit of irony as Swift's "A Modest Proposal." My apologies in advance for those who might be offended. ]

"In the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, 'Greetings, you who are pretty and bright! The Lord wants to employ you for his Next Big Project: the production of the Messiah!'"

Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you are in the upper tenth percentile for IQ and have a body mass index of 21.5.Your genome shows a less than 10% chance for developing Tay-Sachs, cystic fibrosis, hypospadias, spina bifida or transposition of the great arteries. So you will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David,and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end."

"How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?"

The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be produced will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month, thanks to the Greater Galilee Fertility Clinic! For no word from God will ever fail; his success rate is 100%, according to the Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) Report: 2007 Preliminary State Clinics List!"

'Okay, but be sure He pays you the $5000 Donor Matching Fee you deserve, Gabriel,' Mary answered. "And my fee will be $22K in compensations and allowances plus expenses." Then the angel left her.

(c)Beth Bilynskyj, Dec. 10, 2007

---------------------
Surrogates Needed

$22,000 In Compensation and Allowances Plus Expenses


One of the country's leading surrogacy agencies is looking for healthy, non-smoking parents who live in your community. Surrogates carry to term an embryo created from donors. If you love being pregnant, then you can help bring immeasurable joy to the lives of others! Please visit http://www.surrogateweb.com.Some couples pay hefty fees to the prettiest, brightest women. They also pay a fee, usually around $5,000, to the company that matches them to a donor.The second program is called ?gestational? surrogacy. This involves one woman serving as an egg donor and another woman serving as a gestational surrogate. Through the process of , eggs provided by the donor are fertilized with the sperm of the future father. The embryos are then transferred to the gestational surrogate, who carries the child to term. With the gestational process, it?s generally necessary for the women to synchronize their menstrual cycles. This requires self-administered injections by the surrogate. In most cases it takes two or three transfers to .

Compensation: 22,000.00+
This is a part-time job.
Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
Please, no phone calls about this job!

Just Wondering: Barna on Designer Faith

The Dec. 3, 2007 Barna report "identifies several patterns that are significantly affecting the development of American culture. Those transformations were described as Americans’ unconditional self-love; nouveau Christianity; the five Ps of parenting; and designer faith with rootless values." Today I want to wonder about this one:

Designer Faith, Rootless Values

"As young adults, teenagers and adolescents have become accustomed to radical individualism, they have introduced such thinking and behavior into the faith realm, as well. Faith is an acceptable attribute and pursuit among most young people. However, their notions of faith do not align with conventional religious perspectives or behavior. For instance, young people are still likely to claim the label "Christian," but the definition of that term has been broadened beyond traditional parameters.

In fact, the values that young people are prone to embrace are often consistent with Christian beliefs but are not based on biblical foundations. For instance, while young Americans have adopted values such as goodness, kindness and tolerance, they remain skeptical of the Bible, church traditions, and rules or behaviors based upon religious teaching."

Hmm. Is Barna confirming what I have only informally observed? "Radical individualism" seems to be another way of talking about nominalism. While it is interesting to see this sociological evidence, I would like to see it taken further, because I don't think nominalist thinking is found only among young people.

Is it possible to be a Christian (no matter young or old!) and be skeptical about the Bible and church traditions and teachings? Can one be a Christian without the "baggage" of a community? I have a refrigerator magnet that says, "Friends are the family you choose for yourself." It may be proper for Jesus to call us His friends, and establish His church, but do we have the same power to pick and choose? As I read John 15:16, we do not. Yet this is the great question of our time: is the church a gift, or is it the product of social contract? If it is a gift, then it is not ours to design, but receive and grow into.

Remember those bulky sweaters Aunt Hortense used to knit as Christmas presents? They were always too big in December, but by fall the following year they fit just fine. Is it the same way with Christ's body? The church may contain all sorts of doctrines, people, and practices that may not immediately "fit" us--and indeed, which may feel uncomfortable, causing us to scratch and chafe--but nevertheless they are good for us, and eventually we are grateful. They transform us to reflect Christ.

However, if the church is not a gift, but instead is socially constructed, then we can design the Bible, traditions, teaching, and behaviors however we please. We can have faith without religion; church without institution, spirit freed of the limiting confines of body. I can re-invent myself, as often as I feel the desire to do so, answering to no one but myself. Ultimately, Christianity boils down to Me and Jesus, and Jesus begins to look a lot like Me.

Are Christ and Christmas (and by extension, Christ's body) a gift we receive? Or are Christ and Christmas (and by extension, Christ's body) a product of my own choice and construction?

Let all mortal flesh keep silence
And with fear and trembling stand
Ponder nothing earthly minded
for with blessing in his hand,
Christ our God to earth descendeth,
our full homage to demand.

King of kings, yet born of Mary
As of old on earth he stood,
Lord of lords in human vesture
In the body and the blood,
He will give to all the faithful
His own self for heav'nly food.

O how shall I receive you, how greet you Lord aright?
All nations long to see you, my hope, my heart's delight!
O kindle Lord most holy your lamp within my breast,
To do in spirit lowly all that may please you best.

When the Southern Baptists Discovered Advent

The times they are a-changing.

Growing up as a Southern Baptist in St. Louis in the 60's and 70's, I had no idea what "the church year" meant. We celebrated Christmas, Easter, Mother's Day, Father's Day, and the Fourth of July, but words like "Advent," "Epiphany" and "Lent" never crossed our lips.

However, my dad was Catholic. He was always off to some holy day worship, and my mom was forever having to make fish (which I hated) for dinner. Imagine my shock when, in the early 90's, I was back home accompanying my mother at a Christmas Eve service where, there on the altar stood an Advent wreath, complete with burning candles!

By this time I was a Covenanter, and well aware of Advent traditions. "Mom!" I whispered. "Since when do Baptists have Advent wreaths?""Oh, we've had that for a while now," she replied proudly. "Each Sunday in December we light another candle and remember another part of the prophecies about Christmas. It's really very nice. You should try it at your church." Talk about reinventing the wheel! And yet, thank God this tradition is being rediscovered.

Postscript: look here for an update.
.

The Botafumiero

Susan has started going to an Episcopal church near SPU and reported (with characteristic understatement) "The thurifer did a 360-degree swing in the procession today; it looked tricky."

So I invited her to top this:

The Botafumeiro at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. ; )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QFd_55El1I

(note how many men it takes to swing it.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUxSdgKnYkQ

(this gives a good view of how far and how high it swings, and what it takes to tackle it to stop it.)

Wikipedia has an interesting article about Botafumiero, including this little nugget:

There have been a number of accidents that occurred during the swinging of the Botafumeiro over the years. Apparently at one time, the Botafumeiro was attached to the rope with a hook which sometimes became disconnected.

One of the most renowned accidents took place during a visit of Princess Catherine of Aragon. She was on a journey to marry the heir to the English throne in 1499 and stopped by the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela. While it was being swung, the Botafumeiro flew out of the cathedral through the Platerias high window. No one was reported to have been injured on this occasion.

The ropes and other devices securing the Botafumeiro have also failed on May 23rd, 1622, and more recently in 1925 and July of 1937. In 1622, the Botafumeiro fell at the feet of the tiraboleiros. In July of 1937, the cords holding the Botafumeiro failed again, and hot coals were spilled on the ground.

Current procedure is to attach the rope to the Botafumeiro with a set of "sailor's knots".[17]

There's a great Ship of Fools discussion about censing at their Ecclesiantics page.

Whew. Makes me glad I'm a Covenanter; I don't think I could handle worrying about all this on top of everything else.

The Chesterton Ornament

Tacky, but fun!

Available from the American Chesterton Society for $19.95.

Dorothy Sayers on the Variety and Commonality of Saints

Via Dead Christians Society Friday, Mar.24,2006

"Saints come in all varieties. The only kind that seems to be rare in real life is the spineless and 'goody-goody' figure familiar to us in the feebler sort of pious fiction and stained-glass windows of the more regrettable periods. There are as many types of saint as of men and women, and most of them are people of great character. There are stormy and complex souls like Augustine of Hippo, with his burning sense of sin and his passionate love and dread of physical beauty, pouring out treatises, sermons, memoirs, apologetics, amide the distracting cares of a busy bishopric, travelling for ever between the city of the world and the City of God. There are anchorites, fleeing this world altogether, and devoting themselves to solitude and prayer: some, sweet and gentle like the desert Fathers; some, harsh and fanatical like Simeon Stylites, perched in austere discomfort upon his pillar. There is Francis, the 'troubadour of God', going barefoot among poor men and singing out his love to God and man and the whole creation: there is Albertus Magnus, toiling conscientiously at his vast commentaries upon Aristotle--certainly no singer, but the conspicuous glory of the Schools. There is Albertus's still greater pupil, Thomas Aquinas, a man to whom virtue seemed to come naturally, whose towering intellect completed his master's work and co-ordinated Greek learning and Christian revelation into a comprehensive system of Catholic doctrine. . . . There is little Theresa of Lisieux, meekly practising the Way amid the trivial duties of daily life and in the face of cramping family opposition: there is mighty Theresa of Avila, the eagle of contemplation, ruling her nuns with that fierce practical ability in which great mystics so often excel, and quite prepared to take God to task, with a tongue as vigorous as Job's and a good deal tarter, when He moved in ways more exasperatingly mysterious than usual. Stubborn martyrs, subtle theologians, ardent missionaries, cloistered contemplatives, homely pastors, brilliant administrators, obscure social workers, orators whose spell-binding eloquence could move multitudes and shake the thrones of princes, the saints seem to have little in common except a heroic love of God and a flaming single-mindedness of purpose.

Dorothy L. Sayers, "Introduction" to Richard of Chichester by C. M. Duncan-Jones (1953), excerpted in Dorothy L. Sayers: Spiritual Writings, selected and introduced by Ann Loades (Cambridge: Cowley, 1993).

A Blog that is Grateful to the Dead

Here's a blog worth exploring: Dead Christians Society. It is written by Chris Armstrong, Associate Professor of Church History, Bethel Seminary; and Senior Editor, Christian History & Biography. Armstrong subtitles it "A tribute to Antony, Gregory, Dante, Margery, John, John, Charles, Amanda, Charles, and Dorothy." I can't wait for his book to be published!

According to his Bethel bio,

He is a member of several professional associations related to church history and the Wesleyan and Pentecostal movements. Armstrong’s research foci include religion and emotion, Christianity and literature, and the Christ-and-culture conversation. His doctoral work focused on the 19th-century holiness movement, and his current research interests include the British “Inklings” authors and modern appropriations of medieval ideas and practices. He is currently finishing a book with the working title Patron Saints for Postmoderns.