Maddening Love

Sometimes it is more loving to make people mad, than to make people happy.

Legalizing gay marriage would make a lot of people happy but it would not lead to their happiness. Restraining them would make them unhappy, but might lead to a greater happiness. This is because living in harmony with "nature and nature's God," despite their desires, will lead to true happiness.

Heterosexual people must do this too. They have to resist their desires to be unfaithful to their spouses.  Desires, by themselves, are not a guide to what's natural.

Luther the Monk

The content of Luther's theology is heavily influenced by Augustine's doctrine of grace, which his father-confessor Johan von Staupitz introduced to him in the Augustinian monastery. Luther's theological method came from Ockham and Gabriel Biel who were monks and part of the via moderna tradition in the Catholic church.

Luther's whole quest for a gracious God is a monk's quest. Monks were experts on expiating sin and guilt through works of satisfaction. Luther said, "If there was ever a monk who got to heaven by his monkery it was I." It was the failure of the monastic solution at the time, which led Luther the monk to find the solution in Scripture with help from Augustine.

Another influence on Luther of comes from Renaissance humanism, which taught Luther to approach texts grammatically and historically.

Atheism without Meaning

"Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning." C. S. Lewis

You can't deny objective meaning with objective meaning.

Why Are Religious People Considered Politically Dangerous?

I recently read Douglas Murray's, "Atheists vs Dawkins. My fellow atheists, it’s time we admitted that religion has some points in its favour." Murray was supposed to be on the side of his fellow atheist Richard Dawkins in a recent debate but ended up arguing against him. It turns out that Murray can't play with Dawkins when he portrays religion as "a force of unremitting awfulness, a poisoned root from which no good fruit could grow." Murray opines, "It seems to me the work not of a thinker but of any balanced observer to notice that this is not the case."

I would argue that Christianity is not a religion like any other because it presents God as graciously condescending to save man rather than teaching man to ascend to God through good works. It was Christianity and its doctrine that all people are made in the image of God and are objects of redemption that brought human rights into the Roman Empire. Women converts were a majority in the early church because they recognized the dignity the gospel brought to them. It was Christianity that ended the gladiatorial games, abortion, and infanticide in late antiquity. It was Christianity that ended slavery during the Middle Ages and again in the British Empire and most of the abolitionists in the US were Christians. It was Christianity that founded the first hospitals and is still the greatest source of charity in the world.

But other religions besides Christianity have obviously done good in the world. Even Dawkins' religion of scientism has been responsible for some good. Dawkins himself is supposedly a very kind and polite man and even a careful scholar when he is not attacking Christianity.

Murray is dead on when he says:

My fellow atheist opponents the other night portrayed the future — if we could only shrug off religion — as a wonderful sunlit upland, where reasonable people would make reasonable decisions in a reasonable world. Is it not at least equally likely that if you keep telling people that they lead meaningless lives in a meaningless universe you might just find yourself with — at best — a vacuous life and a hollow culture? My first exhibit in submission involves turning on a television. 

But then Murray swerves off course:

Religions must give up the aspiration to intervene in secular law in the democratic state. In particular they must give up any desire to hold legislative power over those who are not members of their faith. In much of the world the Christian churches have already done this. Of course there are other religions and places where this separation has not been so nearly achieved. But the concession is vital, not least because the ability to dictate politics or law is the ability that most rightly concerns the non-religious about religions.  

Why is it assumed that only religious people would legislate morality? Why is it assumed that secular law has no moral agenda to legislate? The question is not whether morality will be legislated but which morality will be legislated. Will it be a morality grounded in nature, the way things are, or a morality based upon what we want nature to be?

Why is it assumed Christian morality is oppressive when the historical record shows otherwise? Though Christians have been inconsistent with their founder many times, their movement has liberated the world from tyranny again and again. Christian influence in politics, properly conceived, doesn't impose Christianity on non Christians. It doesn't try to make Christians out of non Christians through the political process. It appeals to something believers and non-believers share in common and that we all know by heart: natural law.

"Bookkeeping Hearts"

"First, confession of sin should be thought of as a matter of tending to relationships, and it should not be thought of as a matter of karmic bookkeeping. You are dealing with people, not ledgers. Unfortunately, many people who are carrying a burden of guilt around have bookkeeping hearts (part of the problem), and they think of confession as though it were 'making a payment on a debt.' This means that wrong-headed confession can make things messier. Confession and forgiveness are functions of grace, not bookkeeping." Doug Wilson

What We Can't Avoid

To say that its "wrong" to legislate morality is a legislation of morality.  

The question isn't whether we will legislate morality, but what morality will we legislate?

The question isn't whether we will tax or not, but what will we tax?

Political Sanity

"For the political activists, we must confront the realization that there is no political solution for the challenge we face. Laws won't do it. For the gospel-firsters, those who keep the gospel sealed off away from our public dilemmas and challenges, we must realize that while politics is no savior, politics desperately needs to be saved." Doug Wilson

The project of renewing Christendom is to answer the call to be the church. As that happens the renewal of the political order is bound to follow suit. "Hello!"

Worthy of Belief

Reason isn't the antithesis of faith but presents to faith what is worthy of belief. In this way, reason is a subset of faith.

Don't Go There!

The step from multiculturalism to relativism is not a necessary one. If we were truly multicultural then we would be comfortable with robust public discussion about religion, morals, and politics. Instead, we chant the mantra, "Don't go there."


 

Is the Reformation to Blame for Secularism?

True Patriotism

The true patriot repents for and calls for the repentance of his nation: "Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people" (Proverbs 14:34 ESV).

The Life of Lewis's Imagination

The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C. S. Lewis by Alan Jacobs
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Jacobs shows how Lewis's imagination saved him from rationalism, and thank God it did. If the Great Knock had shaped Lewis more than G. K. Chesterton and Tollers, we might never have been treated to Lewis's beautiful fiction, at least not in the way we have it. Narnia might have read more like the Golden Compass.

Jacobs give us a biography of Lewis's imagination, which at times takes Lewis to task. Lewis would appreciate the criticism but at times Jacobs faults Lewis for not falling in line with evangelical feminism.

In defense of Lewis, the feminine is no more inferior in submitting to the masculine than God the Son is inferior in submitting to God the Father. Of course, no woman should submit to a man who is abusing his authority. She must appeal to Christ who made both male and female in his image.

God bless Lewis for saying, "The husband is the head of the wife just in so far as he is to her what Christ is to the Church. He is to love her as Christ loved the Church—read on—and give his life for her (Eph. 5:25). This headship, then, is most fully embodied ... in him whose marriage is most like a crucifixion." The problem is with men who don't give women anything worth their sacrifice.

I've read a lot of biographies of Lewis and George Sayer's Jack is still the best. Douglas Gresham's Lenten Lands is probably second (though it's really Gresham's autobio). Diana Pavlic Glyer's The Company They Keep is great on Lewis in community with the Inklings. Jacobs is probably my next fav.

It has a good bit of material absent from others, like the former student turned playwright who Lewis may have led to Christ simply by his example of honest scholarship in service of the gospel. The criticism is refreshing, especially after having read Gresham's hagiographic Jack's Life, and most of it is constructive.



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Stinking to High Heaven

Last night I was asked about a serious of prints hanging in our school library that portray a civilization developing out of nature, flourishing into a golden age, and then decaying into ruins. Someone remarked that we should probably take down the decaying into ruins part.

Here's an argument for keeping that front and center. Every civilization, except the very young ones alive today, have all over ripened, stunk to high heaven, and died. Every civilization except the one based on the church instituted by Christ.

Jesus never promised that the gates of hell wouldn't prevail against Constantine, medieval Christianity, the Great American Awakenings, or the Energizer Bunny. "The Bunny, the Bunny, Oh! I love the Bunny." Ok, I stop it now.

He promises that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church because he is the chief cornerstone. That means the source of Christian civilization will keep it "going and going and going." The church has outlasted every philosophical fad that predicted its demise from Voltaire, to Nietzsche, to Sartre.

So the question remains, what are we building on? What are we investing our time, talent, and treasure in? Is it a kingdom of the world, or are we trying to reform those kingdoms with the everlasting truth of Christ crucified, risen, reigning, and returning.

Living Branches on Dead Roots

A student of mine recently wrote in a paper: "The rejection of miracles is the cornerstone of Deism. Not coincidentally, miracles are the cornerstone of Christianity, considering that the miracle of the resurrection is what sets Christianity apart from all other religions."

Thus Deism's effort to redefine Christianity as a religion of mere morals is a gutting of the Faith. No wonder every mainline Christian denomination is dying. They are dying simply because they try to reduce Christianity to the moral code it has in common with all other religions.  You can't put a living branch on a dead root and expect life.

Black and White and Grey Matters

Rene Descartes famously said "Cogito ergo sum" ( I think, therefore I am). The mind was undoubtable.  The universe was matter but man ruled it with his mind. It was mind over matter. What could be the matter with that?

Well the modernists said mind is nothing more than matter, that is "grey matter." The mind is merely a function of the brain. In fact, as Carl Sagan famously said, "The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be."

If this is the fact of the matter, then nothing really is the matter with anything. Mind, will, and emotions are the secretions of matter that's subject to the laws of the material universe. You can't hold someone accountable for following the laws of the universe, unless there's something else in the universe and beyond it. If we're reduced to grey matter, there's no black or white.

C. S. Lewis once said something like: you cannot posit evil in the world unless there's a Good beyond it. When a man calls a line crooked he must know what a straight line is. When we complain about this world we must be comparing it to something.

So if man is more than matter in motion, where do we get our transcendent standards?


Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
(Genesis 1:24-27 ESV)

Nature and Gay Marriage

Marriage begins in a wedding, which implies the bringing together of two people who fit together. God is the God of nature and he has left in nature a testimony of what goes together and what doesn't. We don't need a degree in anatomy to see the obvious.

Nature has not equipped people of the same sex for sexual union. Do we need further proof? Those unions don't have the "innate" ability to reproduce. In other words, reproduction isn't natural to those unions. The receiving of children to those unions is artificial and thus not endorsed by nature or nature's God.

Now what state would have a problem recognizing that nature of things? Maybe a state separated from nature and nature's God. The two go together, don't they. If we reject God we lose our common sense grip on the nature of things. We start thinking that we can make nature conform to us, instead of conforming ourselves to the nature of things.

This is not to deny that same sex attraction is a real thing. But when we start thinking that any desire we have is natural, we can justify anything. We cannot lose sight of the fact that we are fallen. Something has gone wrong with our sexuality, and nature and nature's God stand as a testimony to that fact. Our desires need to be directed toward the Good as defined by nature. What state cannot recognize this fact? Our state? I hope not.


Righteousness exalts a nation,
but sin is a reproach to any people.
(Proverbs 14:34 ESV)


Now therefore, O kings, be wise;
be warned, O rulers of the earth.
Serve the LORD with fear,
and rejoice with trembling.
Kiss the Son,
lest he be angry, and you perish in the way,
for his wrath is quickly kindled.
Blessed are all who take refuge in him.
(Psalm 2:10-12 ESV)

Don't Bow Before Reputation

G. R. Evans is a well respected Medievalist, who wrote a book about the roots of the Reformation. Her work was endorsed by some of the best in the biz, who now probably wish they would have read as closely Carl Trueman. Trueman's review was so devastating that IVP has pulled the  book and will re-release it after a major clean up.

There are at least three lessons in this:

1. History writing requires exacting attention to detail.
2. You need an editor who doesn't take your word for it or bow before your reputation.
3. A book you haven't read don't endorse, or it may end in remorse.

See the review here
or copy and paste this into your browser:
http://www.reformation21.org/articles/you-cannot-judge-this-book-by-its-cover-a-review.php

Who Knew You Could Smoke a Cigar Box?

This is Glenn Kaiser jamming at Cornerstone this year on his homemade guitar. It's a cigar box with only three strings but sounds like two guitars. He's using a slide with one finger while playing cords and soloing with the rest. Love that tiny pignose amp!

Is Katniss Compatible with Christ?

I noticed the Hunger Games is coming out on video, and I have been thinking about putting my two cents in the ring. My son and I went to see the movie when it was on in theaters. He had read the book and I wanted to see what all the excitement was about.

I know the movie doesn't follow the book exactly, but I understand that the premise is the same: young people are forced by the powers that be to participate in a game of survival where they must kill or be killed. This struck me as post modern ethics. What do you do when you can't escape doing wrong? Christianity can't help you because it's simplistic and outdated and thus can't survive when the hard questions whack it over the head. Or can it?

I think the Christian response is and always has been not to participate. There are examples of whole families and communities dying together because they wouldn't play along in the arenas of ancient Rome. The Romans booed the Christians because they wouldn't give the audience the blood sport it wanted.

When Katniss volunteers to take her sister's place that seems to be redemptive, until you realize that she will have to kill someone else's brother or sister to save her own. Thus, the Christian response would be to make the aristocracy kill you themselves. That way they can't pretend it's a game, "And may the odds be ever in your favor."

Now someone may say, "Well you can play your own game and thwart the aristocracy." They may want to see you run through by gladiators but what if that makes the gladiators feel their own gladius? Its only self defense after all. But we must remember that it's being artificially imposed.

What if your playing Galaga, and suddenly the game informs you that instead of alien bugs its going to be real people flying at you with deadly aim. I think we would have to turn it off and let the consequences be what they are. This is what makes the story unsatisfying. The Christian version was told in Quo Vadis whose author won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1905.

Preach the Gospel at All Times and When Necessary Eat More Chicken

Today is National Chic-fil-A Appreciation Day. There has been quite a dust-up between some Christians over participating for fear of further alienating homosexuals. That is a legitimate concern. We don't want to put stumbling blocks in the way of the gospel.

But what if the offense is already part of the gospel? Part of the gospel you say! How so? Well I would suggest that what the Bible says about marriage is good news for everyone. God made us in his image with a human nature that flourishes in marriage between one man and one woman. Any other arrangement is destructive to human nature.

The gospel restores us to these God-defined relationships. This is grace! So I believe that Christians should cheerfully participate in proclaiming the gospel with Dan Cathy and Chic-fil-A by supporting their business against those who have pitted themselves against it. This is for the sake of the gospel, homosexuals and all of us who need it, and the betterment of society which needs more chicken and less chickens :).

Christians should also participate in Chic-fil-A day, because first amendment issues of freedom of religion are also at stake.

The reason Mike Huckabee started the movement to support Chic-fil-A is because Dan Cathy, Chick-fil-A president, said, “We are very much supportive of the family — the biblical definition of the family unit,” which indicates one man and one woman till death do us part. This prompted city officials in Chicago and Boston to oppose Chic-fil-A restaurants from opening in their jurisdictions. This has been termed viewpoint discrimination and rightly so. We must support freedom of religion and conscience from the oppression of those who would falsely define gay marriage as a civil rights issue.

Christians shouldn't fear the politicization of the issue either. It is possible and healthy to distinguish church and state but impossible and unhealthy to distinguish religion and politics. God has given us both the realms of church and state, by which he has commanded us to transform his world. So we should go out equally motivated to fulfill the great commission and the cultural mandate. In fact, they are complimentary.