Do We Want a Shepherd's Christmas?

I've been reading Luther's Christmas Sermons in hopes of finding some Christmas sanity. This is what I found:

"And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night." That was a mean job, watching flocks by night. Common sense calls it low-down work, and men who do it are regarded as trash. But ... the angels ... proclaimed their message only to shepherds watching their flock by night.... They were pure in heart and content with their work, no aspiring to be townsmen or nobles, nor envious of the mighty. Next to faith this is the highest art--to be content.

Oh for some Christmas contentment! But I wasn't convinced that Luther was right about these shepherds. How did he know that the shepherds weren't envious of the townsmen. But I read on:

Who would have thought that men whose job was tending unreasoning animals would be so praised that not a pope or a bishop is worthy to hand them a cup of water? It is the very devil that no one wants to follow the shepherds.

I never thought about identifying with the shepherds. I just thought how nice that God honored these poor fellows.

The married man wants to be without a wife, or the nobleman to be a prince. It is: "If I were this! If I were that!" You fool! The best job is the one you have. If you are married, you cannot have a higher status. If you are a servant, you are in the very best position. Be diligent and know that there are no greater saints on this earth than servants. Do not say, "If I were;" say, "I am." Look at the shepards. They were watching their flocks by night, and an angel came and made them apostles, prophers, and children of God. Caiaphas, Herod, and the high priests were not deemed worthy. I would rather be one of those shepherds than that the Pope should make me a saint or the emperor make me a king.

"And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them: and they were sore afraid." The field was flooded with light --brilliant dazzling. Not the town, but the field was lighted up.... 

"And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people."... I fear death, the judgment of God, the world, hunger, and the like. The angel announces a Saviour who will free us from fear. Not a word is said about our merits and works, but only the gift we are to receive.

"For unto you is born this day," that is, unto us. For our sakes he has taken flesh and blood from a woman, that his birth might become our birth.... If you hear that this Child is yours, that takes root, and a man becomes suddenly so strong that to him death and life are the same.

Now that's a strong cup of Christmas cheer, don't you think?

Hitchens and Historiography

While reading Is Christianity Good For the Word I found this amazing piece of historiography from Hitchens:

On the matter of Stalin and the related question of secular or atheist barbarism, I shyly call your attention to chapter seventeen of my little book [God Is Not Great], which attempts an answer to this frequently asked question. Until 1917, Russia had been ruled for centuries by an absolute monarch who was also the head of a corrupt and bigoted Orthodox Church and was supposed to possess powers somewhat more than merely human. With millions of hungry and anxious people so long stultified and so credulous, Stalin the ex-seminarian would have been a fool if he did not call upon such a reservoir of ignorance and servility, and seek to emulate his predecessor.

Leaving the insult to early twentieth century Russians aside, I would like to comment on Hitchens foray into history. According to this reasoning, history works according to what must be the case. Stalin must have committed his crimes in the name of religion because that would have been the easiest way to pull them off. Not only has Hitchens put this in two books now, but I've heard him use it in debate, and I've heard Richard Dawkins quote Hitchens on this more than once. Hitchens is a clear thinker and a brilliant writer and incredibly well read. He should know better, and he usually does better.

I don't think the atheism of Stalin's regime is any secret. A quick look at Wikipedia revealed that he became a closet atheist while in seminary and only reopened churches and allowed Christian icons during World War II, perhaps to motivate the religious. Prior to this, his policy is pretty clear. In the movie Expelled, David Berlinski quipped that atheistic Darwinism is not a sufficient cause for the crimes committed by Stalin and Hitler but it is a necessary cause.

With regard to Hitchens' historical point, Ben Franklin's witticism is apropos:

So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for every thing one has a mind to do.

Grasping for Truth

I recently finished Is Christianity Good For the World, which is the debate between atheist Christopher Hitchens and theologian Doug Wilson. On the heat to light ratio it scored well on both counts. They are both great polemicists and so there's enough heat to warm the cockles of your heart. They are also clear thinkers so they, especially Wilson, illuminates the fundamental difference between atheism and Christianity.

In fact, I think Hitchens was put a little off his guard by Wilsons' insistence that he provide an atheistic basis for the distinction between good and evil. I've seen Hitchens debate McGrath and DeSouza and, going by that, I think he expected an evidence war on his own turf. Instead, Wilson took the epistemic ground and made Hitchens fight for the right to call something evil or good. 

Wilson also made the point that without God there's no basis for faith in reason or sense experience. Notice that I used the word "faith." Hitchens doesn't want to admit that his position is equally faith-based. He continually goes back to the position that morality is innate and worked out by trial and error as humans attempt to build a coherent, law-abiding civilization. But this begs the question: Why, if morality is a product of the careless process of evolution, do humans care for coherence or law or beauty for that matter? Why aren't we just content with what is? If evolution were the only reality it could not produce any ideals higher than what is. Wilson says to Hitchens:

Your notion of morality, and the evolution it rode in on, can only concern itself with what is. But morality as Christians understand it, and the kind you surreptitiously draw upon, is concerned with ought. David Hume showed us that we cannot successfully derive ought from is. Have you discovered the error in his reasoning? It is clear from how you defend your ideas of 'morality' that you have not done so.... You believe yourself to live in a universe where there is no such thing as any fixed ought or ought not. But God has gifted you with a remarkable ability to denounce what ought not to be.

Hitchen's is living off borrowed capital any time he denounces anything. If he denounces tyranny, which he often does, he appeals a higher moral law than himself to which the tyrant is accountable. He assumes a moral law that binds himself and the tyrant and all of humanity together. He also assumes that the tyrant has transgressed it and must receive his just desserts. 

But if Hitchen's is right about there being no creator or revealer of right and wrong, then right and wrong is only what Hitchens thinks it is. And whatever Hitchens thinks is right or wrong, cannot be binding on anyone else. As Dostoevsky said: "If God is dead, all things are permissible." Hitchens seems to miss the fact that there can be no right and wrong if there is no standard for right and wrong.

Wilson's reference to Hume's point that "we cannot successfully derive ought from is" is telling for Hitchens. If Hume and Hitchen's worldview is correct there would be no way to tell someone they ought to do something (like help an old lady across the street) because of what is the case (she's old). But the fact that Hitchens and Hume do this kind of thing, shows that they cannot live consistently within their own worldview. In fact, Hume is saying that it is the case that you ought not derive an ought from an is. The philosophy is self-defeating and this is Wilson's point that Hitchens hasn't yet grapsed.

Questioning God at Christmas

At family worship the other night we read the passage where an angel visited Zechariah and told him that he and his wife were going to have a son. The text says, "They had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were well advanced in years" (v. 7). Zechariah was a priest and offering incense in the temple when the angel appeared. The Angel Gabriel told Zechariah not to be afraid "for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John" (v. 13). Zechariah replied, "How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is well advanced in years."

When Gabriel visited Mary not long after, announcing that she would conceive the "the Son of the Most HIgh," who would reign on "the throne of his father David" and "over the house of Jacob forever," she asked, "How will this be, since I am a virgin?" Gabriel told Mary that "the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the most High will overshadow you; therefore the child ... will be called ... the Son of God." In contrast, Gabriel struck Zechariah's mute button, so that he could not speak until John was born.

Then my son Jonathan said "Why did God punish one and not the other for questioning the angel?" "Great question" said I, scrambling a bit, "what's the difference?" He just looked at me, so I said, well, Mary sounds like she believes the angel but she wants to know how God will do it. She says, "How will this be since I am a virgin." But Zechariah says, "How shall I know this," which means ... then Jonathan said, "He wanted a sign!" "Right!" said I. His was a question of unbelief while Mary's was a question of faith. Gabriel told Zechariah, the trained theologian, "you will be ... unable to speak ... because you did not believe." When Mary heard Gabriel's response she said, "Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word."

Zechariah should have known that God was in the baby business for old barren couples (the BBOBC) since this happened to Abraham and Sarah in one of the most memorable stories of the Old Testament that led to the creation of Israel itself. Zechariah must have been praying for this as well (at least at some point in his life) because Gabriel said " your prayer has been answered." Isn't it funny that we cannot accept it when God answers our prayers. It's too good to be true! 

Speaking of funny, I said to Jonathan that Zechariah was basically asking for a sign in the presence of an archangel! To which we both started laughing. Five year old Kate already knew this story and had been participating the whole way. She immediately piped up and demanded that we stop laughing. I said, "That's OK sweetie. Zechariah probably laughed about it later, 'Can you believe I asked for a sign and the angel was standing right there'!" :-)

We should let Mary teach us how to question God, not Zechariah and not the unbelieving world. Faith is a better questioner anyway, because faith seeketh understanding (credo ut intelligam) and unbelief just wants to look clever or wants off the hook. Praise the Lord that Zechariah learned his lesson. Mightn't we?

C. S. Lewis on G. K. Chesterton & the Charm of Goodness

When a yet unconverted Lewis was convalescing after a WWI battle wound he says:

It was here that I first read a volume of Chesterton's essays. I had no idea of what he stood for; nor can I quite understand why he made such an immediate conquest of me. It might have been expected that my pessimism, my atheism, and my hatred of sentiment would have made him to me the least congenial of all authors. It would alomost seem that Providence, or some "second cause" of a very obscure kind, quited overrules our previous tastes when it decides to bring two minds together. ... I did not need to accept what Chesterton said in order to enjoy it. His humor was of the kind which I like best--not "jokes" imbedded in the page like currants in a cake, still less (what I cannot endure), a general tone of flippancy and jocularity, but the humor which is not in any way separable from the argument but is rahter (as Aristotle would say) the "bloom" on dialectic itself. The sword glitters not because the swordsman set out to make it glitter but because he is fighting for his life and therfore moving it very quickly. For the critics who think Chesterton frivolous or "paradoxical" I have to work hard to feel even pity; sympathy is out of the question. Moreover, strange as it may seem, I liked him for his goodness. ... In reading Chesterton, as in reading MacDonald, I did not know what I was letting myself in for. A young man who wishes to temain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading. There are traps everywhere--"Bibles laid open, millions of surprises," as Herbert says, "fine nets and stratagems." God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous (Surprised by Joy, Harvest, Harcourt, 190-191).

I think we should talk more about the seductiveness of holiness. Enjoying goodness makes one feel clean. Once your soul cultivates a taste for that, victory over sin leaves no regret over cheap pleasures missed. We must remember that it is the "kindness of God" that leads us "to repentance" (Romans 2:4).

Lewisian Education

I teach at a classical Christian high school where we spend most of our time wrestling with ancient texts that have, for one reason or another, stood the test of time. There is a lot of pressure to modernize and teach more and more subjects. We don't want our students to be behind in applied sciences and advanced math and to be overlooked for sports scholarships. But there was a time when education was not about getting a job or "the love of the game," both of which are good. Education used to be about becoming educated. Gasp! In fact, it was about becoming educated in, what Matthew Arnold called, "the best that has been said and thought in the world." Consider what C. S. Lewis said in Suprised By Joy:  

In those days a boy on the classical side officially did almost nothing but classics. I think this was wise; the greatest service we can do to education today is to teach fewer subjects. No one has time to do more than a very few things well before he is twenty, and when we force a boy to be a mediocrity in a dozen subjects we destroy his standards, perhaps for life.