Sin And Choice

"I am thankful / that I'm incapable / of doing any good on my own..." - Caedmon's Call, Thankful (40 Acres)

I thought about these words for a long time. I kept thinking about them. Then I thought about them some more.

These words made me uncomfortable. I didn't really like the sentiment - it seemed fabricated and fatalistic. Then one day it dawned on me that will and action are - in this context - two quite separate ideas.

I thought immediately of Romans 7:

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

We have the capacity to will good. We do not have the capacity to do good. And it is precisely this great moral disconnect that Jesus died to set right: to absolve us from our past sins and bless us with the indwelling Holy Spirit to incrementally (or sometimes immediately) overcome our present ones.

We must will ourselves into the position where God can knead His holiness into our lives; where His Spirit invades us like yeast invades cold dough and awakens it with life and purpose. It is a painful and far from passive process.

I'm responsible for the grunt work. God's responsible for the glory.

We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.

- 2 Corinthians 4:7

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Unseen Adventures

Ever have that feeling like you're right on the edge of something?

The EduCore Project (3)

"For each succeeding generation, the problem of Education is new."
- Alfred North Whitehead

I completed the School & Society textbook in early May, far ahead of schedule. (I tend to get through things quicker than planned not because I'm an especially high acheiver, but simply because I have trouble multitasking.) I closed out the Educore blog for now with Rich Mullins' Higher Education And The Book Of Love - (hat tip to Max for the inspiration.)

I've also finished (with the exception of the "Appendices",) Gordon Clark's A Christian Philosophy Of Education, which as you remember is the subject of the essay. It's quite a strict book: he's not joking about the "philosophy" bit.

Aside from his erratic flares of idiosyncratic dogmatism and his ever-present Calvinism, Clark seems to be a man of sense and conviction. However, you get the sense that as an author he was more prolific than poignant, and unfortunately these types of books tend to fill more shelves than they do minds.

Now, I've started into The Future Of Christian Higher Education, a collection of essays and addresses on the subject from around the turn of the millennium. The book has its full share of the kind of vague, circular stuff that characterizes scholarly writing, but there are also some strong meaty sections that may earn this title a dedicated post.

I haven't been keeping score as far as the page count is concerned, but I'm feeling generally optimistic. There may be one title that gets cut from the initial list, due to lack of time or lack of patience or both, but overall the study is progressing nicely.

Of course, integrating all the information is a challenge, and I have yet to see some clear themes emerge that I can begin to work with and address. I expect they won't crystallize fully until these keys start clattering out the essay.

"We must leave behind the notion that Christian scholarship is the same as any scholarship, except that it adds a little something of Christian history or values on top. No, Christian scholarship - authentic, honest, truth-seeking scholarship - is fundamentally different and cannot be faked." - Robert C. Andringa, The Future Of Christian Higher Education, Foreword, pg. xvii

"Even in the teaching of arithmetic a pessimistic education will be distinguishable from a theistic and optimistic education, at least on rainy days." - Gordon H. Clark, A Christian Philosophy Of Education, Chapter 3: The Alternative To Christian Theism, pg. 45

Miracles

I'd apologize for talking so much about C. S. Lewis, except that I'm not sorry. His work and the work of his contemporaries is some of the most real and penetrating I have ever read, and his masterpiece Miracles is no exception.

These days, when it is fashionable even in Christian circles to deny or at least diminish the supernatural nature of the Gospel, the issue of miracles deserves all the more attention.

The naturalists desire to recast Jesus as merely a "good teacher" who went around doing "charitable things." When you read the Gospels, it is very clear that Jesus was a highly controversial, subversive figure who went around doing miraculous things. His whole life was one unbroken miracle - from immaculate conception to transfiguration to resurrection - which miracle we collectively call the incarnation. Lewis appropriately devotes an entire chapter to this incredible truth (Chapter 14: The Grand Miracle).

As might be expected, most of the opposition to miracles comes from the naturalist camp, where modern science - the greedy bastard child of true Science - has repudiated any compunctions about reverent inquiry and attempted to claim the supreme throne of the universe. (1 Tim. 6:20)

Faith does not aim to obstruct Science. However, just as a mother ought not to be forever pandering to every petty whim of her enthusiastic but often errant child, Faith must not be going out of her way to accommodate Science. Doing so always proves ruinous to Her sovereign and serene position in the world.

(Of course, this serenity, when maintained even and unruffled, annoys modern science to no end, seeing how it desires to corrupt us from anything that is absolute, and especially anything that remotely resembles morality.)

The Christian response must be the same as it has always been: namely, to believe God, and to act on that belief. God does not have the last word because He is incompatible with Science, but rather because He invented it. The builder knows much more about the building than we tenants could ever know - for all we can do is observe it and take hesitating notes. The best way to understand the building is to ask the builder, just as the best way to understand a story is to ask the author. Granted, we may get "inside" the building or "inside" the story, but this is precisely the reason our understanding is so inadequate, for we cannot properly get "outside" or "before" either of them. (Of course, all of this presupposes Divine Creation, which is in itself a miracle of no mean proportion. But I will leave this question to more able apologists than I.)

I'm almost through the 6-volume Signature Classics series - just The Problem of Pain left. After that, it's on to Narnia, or perhaps God in the Dock. I'll still be a long ways from completing the entire bibliography, but I'll be doing quite well as far as what's on my shelf, and for now that's my main concern.

"Speak about beauty, truth and goodness, or about a God who is simply the indwelling principle of these three, speak about a great spiritual force pervading all thigns, a common mind of which we are all parts, a pool of generalised spirituality to which we can all flow, and you will command friendly interest. But the temperature drops as soon as you mention a God who has purposes and performs particular actions, who does on thing and not another, a concrete, choosing, commanding, prohibiting God with a determinate character. People become embarrassed or angry. Such a conception seems to them primitive and crude and even irreverent. The popular 'religion' excludes miracles because it excludes the 'living God' of Christianity and believes instead in a kind of God who obviously would not do miracles, or indeed anything else." - Ch. 11, Christianity And 'Religion'

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More Inspiration From Isaiah

I've posted about Isaiah before; it's just such a gorgeous book that I keep coming back to it. For those who do not know, here's an interesting bit of trivia: Isaiah has 66 books, just like the Bible, of which the first 39 are judgmental and the last 27 redemptive, corresponding to the Old and New Testaments, respectively.

It seems we tend to emphasize the liturgical nature of scripture and often wind up underappreciating it as literature. We talk dully about the Bible being "inspired" as if this fact was nothing more than a dusty doctrine buried in a creed somewhere. We forget that it was "inspired" in the most bold and burning sense of the word. I do not suppose the Biblical authors arose in the morning and said "It seems God desires me to write thus-and-so. I suppose I must do it."

Au contraire.

The authors of scripture lived and wrote under the same terrible sky full of the same sparkling stars. They wrote in wonder and joy, and they wrote in stinging bitterness and disillusionment. They wrote in castles, and they wrote in caves. They wrote in peace, and they wrote in prison. They wrote in the dewy sunshine of early spring, and they wrote in the ghastly glare of burning cities. The result is a body of literature most if not all of which is unmatched anywhere else for pure glory and intensity of expression.

Consider this passage, from chapter 5, and judge for yourself if it would not be worthy of the most passionate revolutionaries who ever laid pen to paper or sword to tyrant's neck:

"Woe to those who call evil good and good evil,
who put darkness for light
and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
and sweet for bitter!
Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes,
and shrewd in their own sight!
Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine,
and valiant men in mixing strong drink,
who acquit the guilty for a bribe,
and deprive the innocent of his right!"

If that doesn't make you feel like tearing your clothes, it ought to. God is jealous over justice, and this jealousy has burned within His people through the ages. (These days, you will find most anyone is zealous for justice as an end, but few zealous for justice as a means.)

The sternly beautiful picture of the nation serving as the Lord's instrument of justice makes my pulse quicken with military adrenaline and fills me with a desperate desire to be part of such a company:

"He will raise a signal for nations afar off,
and whistle for them from the ends of the earth;
and behold, quickly, speedily they come!
None is weary, none stumbles,
none slumbers or sleeps,
not a waistband is loose,
not a sandal strap broken;
their arrows are sharp,
all their bows bent,
their horses' hoofs seem like flint,
and their wheels like the whirlwind.
Their roaring is like a lion,
like young lions they roar;
they growl and seize their prey;
they carry it off, and none can rescue.
They will growl over it on that day,
like the growling of the sea.
And if one looks to the land,
behold, darkness and distress;
and the light is darkened by its clouds."

Can you not hear "the growling of the sea"! This is high and holy language, full of life and color - "blood and sap," as Lewis would say. And no wonder, for these are the very words of God.

People may say many things about the Bible, but they cannot say that it ignores the real nature of things. It never "smooths over" the agonies and ecstasies of existence: it plunges into them headlong - rashly almost - and comes out the other side bloody, exhausted, and victorious. Even C.S. Lewis's oft-quoted praise of Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings - "Here are beauties that pierce like swords and burn like cold iron" - is surpassed by the ringing words of the anonymous writer of Hebrews:

"For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do." - Hebrews 4:12-13

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Turning Over Tables

Occasionally when I'm down in the city I'll stop by Berean and browse the clearance books. I've found some useful (and not-so-useful) titles in this way, usually at a generous discount.

While it is true I do shop there, and sometimes fancy that I almost enjoy the experience, I must take issue with Berean's self-branding as a "Christian Store." Berean is not a Christian store. Berean is a religious store. There is a difference.

The spiritual squalor of the place never ceases to appall me. From the toothless grinning vegetables that gape at you from the children's section, to the glaring punk musicians that make Peter Jackson's Orcs look positively friendly, to the shameless nonsense advertised on the covers of cheap dating books, the whole thing begs the classic question: "Where are we going, and why are we in this handbasket?"

You may have noticed that the restroom in the back invariably smells of microwave popcorn. Last time I was there, I could not help but imagine the Devil kicking back with some buttery Redenbacher's in one of the back corners of the store, wickedly snickering to himself, finding the whole scene supremely entertaining, not to mention gratifying.

We are greatly deceived if we think that the cultural presence these stores provide scores an automatic point for Christianity. It doesn't. The Devil is perfectly happy to market Christianity, so long as he can vulgarize it, water it down, and generally make it cheap and stupid. (Besides, carnality sells so much better when dressed up as piety anyways. Why do you suppose immorality has been sacramentalized in nearly every pagan culture?)

It's not a Christian store. It's spiritual promiscuity scented with potpourri.


Perhaps you're thinking that it's been too long since I've smashed something and I'll feel better after I get some sleep. Perhaps you're right. But I really believe that there is some serious sabotage going on here and that we need to be awake and on the alert. ("I'm turning shepherds into sheep / And leaders into celebrities / It's holy sabotage - just look around you / 'Cause everything's for sale in the 21st century..." -dW)

None of this is intended to deny the relevance of Philippians 1:15-18 to this situation. Proclaiming Christ - "in pretense, or in truth" - always constitutes a miscalculation on the Devil's part. The name "Jesus" is eternally invested with a sublime power - whether uttered in anger, apathy or adoration. Indeed, one of the best arguments for Christianity is simply "all the fuss." G.K. Chesterton, recalling his own spiritual journey, speaks of the "odd effect of the great agnostics in arousing doubts deeper than their own:"

As I read and re-read all the non-Christian or anti-Christian accounts of the faith, from Huxley to Bradlaugh, a slow and awful impression grew gradually but graphically upon my mind - the impression that Christianity must be a most extraordinary thing. - G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, Doubleday, p. 85

You can still buy a plain Bible at Berean, provided you have the patience to sift through the reference versions annotated by the gurus and the teeny-bopper or God-and-graffiti ones marketed to the teenagers. Since we are all so blessedly "individual," we must of course also have the full round of "I-am-me-and-there-is-no-other" editions: "The Sportsman's Bible"; "The Teacher's Bible"; "The Sailor's Bible"; "The Policeman's Bible"; even "The Golfer's Bible." If these titles were tongue-in-cheek it would be funny. They're not, and it's not.

"Excuse me, Sir, where can I find a 'Sinner's Bible'?"

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Thinking About Art and Morality

Art is a highly subjective subject. Accordingly, I am not here dealing with art as personal expression, but rather art as cultural and trans-cultural communication. Not the "what" but rather the "why."

(To paraphrase Mark Twain, I am sorry for the long post, but I had not time to write a short one. I trust you understand.)

Primitive cultures had no separate word for "art" - everything was "art." Even the utilitarian making of baskets or weapons was full of art and magic, as seen in the Indian cultures of pre-colonial America or as demonstrated by Tolkien's Elvish craftsmen and weapon-wrights.

We have found it necessary to use the word because our society has developed so many things that are quite obviously "non-art." So many, in fact, that it is more economical to use the term "art" to refer to the positive than it is to develop a term for "non-art" to describe the negative. (May I suggest "politics"?) Artistic things have - sadly - become the exception.

As Christians we subscribe to a particular worldview, a particular epistemology, and a particular artistic perspective. There are things the world celebrates through art that we deplore; there are things the world deplores through art that we celebrate. Perhaps we have missed, however, a third purpose of art: which is to question.

For honest serious-minded people, life is full of questions - indeed, almost characterized by them. From the problem of evil to the problem of existence, the story of any conscientious civilization is the story of a desperate smoke signal for help - like the squiggle rising from the dot in a question mark. [ ? ]

Questions are not un-Christian, but rather simply human. As Socrates said, the only beings who don't ask questions are beasts and gods - because they know too little and too much, respectively. Questions are peculiar to mortals, and constitute an essential part of life. The modern fundamentalist scorn for questions is largely unwarranted. Questions are the "mini-quests" of the larger journey - smoky late-night councils over ancient maps in this epic exploration that is existence.

It is true that Christianity - and more specifically Christ - is the world's greatest answer, or at least the world's greatest hope, if "answer" is too ambitious a word. And so St. Peter says, in essence, "Be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks for a reason for the hope that is in you." (1 Pet. 3:15) We must, however, notice the pattern of initiation in this verse: the Christian was asked. Too often we assume that we have an automatic podium, simply because, after all, we're right - aren't we?

It is precisely here where the bulk of western Christian thought has made a colossal mistake - a mistake so large that it fills your whole field of vision and so goes unnoticed - like when you put your face up close to the bars of a cage and see nothing but freedom. We have made our worldview the point of our art, instead of making art as such. Or, if you like, we have set our worldview above our art, instead of inside it.

Derek Webb articulated this point masterfully in a recent podcast:

I don't think a lot of the idea of promoting yourself or marketing yourself based on your worldview. It just doesn't make any sense. I mean like the longer I do it the less sense it makes to me, and the more it kind of seems to work against me. It's kind of illogical, because Christian music is the only genre that does that...

Thomas Merton said if you're going to be a follower of Jesus and a poet, first, be known as a good poet. Then when people discover your belief, it will lend credibility to your belief. But if you're first a Christian poet, and you're not a very good poet, then it's going to disparage your witness. I think that happens constantly in our market...

I think the idea, the worldview, of Christianity - the idea of following Jesus - is seen as not a very good idea based on the bad art that people make under the heading of Christian art. I think people see bad Christian art, and it makes them less likely to want to even take a look at the person of Jesus, or what it might mean to follow Him.

In a sense, our art should not be so much about giving people the answers as it should be about helping them to ask the right questions. Too often our art - like our evangelism - is full of "strings." We can't seem to give anyone a cup of cold water anymore without slipping a tract inside. And it is precisely this mentality that must be challenged, because the world is very keen about motives. If we can get back to making art for art's sake and loving for love's sake and being good for goodness' sake, we will be closer to the unpretentious simplicity of the gospel.

We don't need more art that moralizes, or sermonizes, or demonizes. We Christians do altogether too much explaining these days. Real art - the art that reaches deep down inside and rekindles the smouldering coals of stifled spirituality - does not explain. It lives.

So much for not being controversial.

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