Daily Archives: November 19, 2011

Real life and Theology.

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Let’s begin with a quote.

As evangelical Christians, we have tended to relegate art to the very fringe of life. The rest of human life we feel is more important. Despite our constant talk about the Lordship of Christ, we have narrowed its scope to a very small area of reality. We have misunderstood the concept of the Lordship of Christ over the whole of man and the whole of the universe and have not taken to us the riches that the Bible gives us for ourselves, for our lives, and for our culture.
(Francis A. Schaeffer, Art and the Bible, Ch. 1)

Now, this is a serious challenge to us. It implies that all our life and all our creativity are really to be submitted to Jesus. This is not a new position, of course, nor an evangelical one. It is part of the vow of all religious — obedience implies submission. One must work and act, create and edit, under authority.

Until the enlightenment, this was fairly easy to sort out in Christendom. There was a local lord, generally run by an aristocrat with a staff of varying competence, that gave allegiance to a Monarch. People had places in the system… what used to be called your place or your state. There was some movement — one could advance or fall — but everyone was seen as in some form of submission. The Pope had been dethroned, and after the glorious revolution the monarch (at least in England and Scotland) reigned, but Parliament (and the courts of the church) ruled.

In this situation, to be part of the community was to be married. Straying was shameful: to lose one’s virtue was to be ruined. The best female observer of this world was Jane Austen.

In that world, most of the beauty was done by hand, as it was from time immemorial. Women of the upper classes were taught to draw, to play musical instruments, to manage households, and to read. Drawing, like writing, required a certain acuteness of observation. And this was seen as good.

In fact, all work was seen as good. The use of machineries and the mechanisation of production was seen as decreasing the craft involvement — which led to a reaction which ranged from the pre-raphealites to the arts and crafts movement.

No Christian of any period before about 1920 would have challenged the need for total Lordship. (The issue of marital relationships was generally not an issue for discussion in those days. A woman married and promised to love, honour and obey her husband. Women were married quite young, generally to a man who was a few years older and was either able to provide for her, or had the prospects of doing so in a short time. Then one’s natural desires took care of the rest — Edith Schaeffer, in her wonderful biography Tapestry, notes that she spent some time discussing, down to types of underclothing, how to get a husband to respond to her and not to his mistress (who he had been told to leave — in fact he was told to quit his job so he would not see her).

In this time, we have lost a sense of beauty and the ability to value it. Many people are not taught an art — to draw, to sing, to play an instrument, to write. Instead of being introduced to the most excellent children are shown the appropriate — dumbed down, written by hacks who, like Mayavosky, have sacrificed good taste, talent and sense for ideology:

And if for the time being the filthy stigmas of your “common sense” and “good taste” are still present in our lines, these same lines for the first time already glimmer with the Summer Lightning of the New Coming Beauty of the Self-sufficient (self-centered) Word

(I hope he reads better in Russian. The poem, in English, is shite).

We are left with trying to find beauty in junk.

You see, ideology and theology matter. The closer you are to an accurate description of the world — one that does not need somebody for a 40 minute hate (and Christians, mislabelled as fundamentalists, fulfil that role for many readers of the New York Times) — one that deals with the human condition, for we are both wonderfully glorious and deeply flawed — the better one can live one’s life, and the greater one’s ability to deal with the challenges that will, inevitably, come into your personal experience.

As Christians, some of us get hung up about sex (railing against lust, we forget gluttony), or politics, or correct doctrine, to the point that we cannot see either the work of the Holy Spirit nor the goodness that the other does. We need to have what Will S nicely defined as a non-ecumenical unity: the ability to work together and support each other while acknowledging our differences.

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What does that mean here? I enjoy venting, and this blog allows me to do so. Sometimes unwisely, perhaps, but I generally don’t write 800 plus words unless I am either motivated (or avoiding work). But this is not my life. Raising two teenage boys is my life. Working with mad people is my life. Blogging, playing musical instruments, reading books… are things I enjoy, and I guess are part of my life.

But this is my life at present. And in these circumstances, I have to make the most of every day and opportunity. I cannot wait for some wonderful woman to sweep me off my feet and back into the comfort of marriage — in fact, given the state of the boys and their ages, it is unwise for me start a relationship (I hate the word dating. And I find chatting with people on the internet is to a relationship what a reheated three day old big mac is to real food).

This world is fallen. We have to use discernment in our relationships. Troubling times are coming, and we have to be a witness to all that is true, right, proper, of good report… and I would add we should preserve beauty and honour during this period. We are on this planet to do good and glorify God. With all our talents, and in the circumstances we find ourselves. Or as the gospel said, we should seek his kingdom… and in doing that we may find our other needs and conflicts may be resolved.

Outside is everyone who practices falsehood

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One of the things that I have been thinking about over the last two to three days is how do I advise my boys. Attached to that is how do I advise myself.

For we are all post pubertal, and we are all single. Now the Catholics would be quite firm here, and say that I, as a divorced man, should remain celibate. I would argue, like Calvin, that scripture does not support this tradition… but it does open up a slippery slope. I see friends, members of church, moving in with each other. Falling in love. Unlike son number one (who has not been struck by the arrow of Venus… yet) I miss the wounds of love. The secular “go your own way” meme is not helpful. I am a father: I have sons and daughters. And both are suffering.

Will then challenged me on what I meant by Christianity and Men’s Rights. On reflection, the answer is exactly the same as for feminist Christianity — when you speak and practice falsehood, you are in error.

Revelation 22:14-21

14Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they will have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates. 15Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and fornicators and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.

16“It is I, Jesus, who sent my angel to you with this testimony for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.” 17  The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.”  And let everyone who hears say, “Come.” And let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift. 18I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this book; 19if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away that person’s share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book. 20The one who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!

Matthew 18:21-22

21Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” 22Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.

There are two big errors that we commit. The first is that we take it all far to personally. We forget that we are sinners and we will inevitably be in error. The truth that is hidden in the idea that the church is infallible (a rank heresy) is that we cannot see our own errors.
But yesterday the comments here became name calling. Now, I am not blaming BF, Will, Lacey or anyone else. It is human nature and can occur across denominations. We can become condemnatory and legalistic.

Two examples of this error will help. This one is clearly Catholic

The validity of the Protestant Episcopal orders was an object of a serious controversy. Leo XIII solemnly declared that the ordinations of the Anglican confession were invalid, and therefore, the sacraments ministered there are without value. If this is true with regard to the Anglicans, something similar would apply to the other Protestant sects who accept bishops. It is absolutely certain that the declaration of Leo XIII is rigorously applied to the Presbyterian and Anabaptist sects, since they, by not admitting bishops, are “ipso facto” incapable of having valid episcopal ordinations. Thus the baptism that exists among the Episcopalians, of which the Lutherans are a branch, is a motive of very serious doubt. This is why, up until Vatican II, when the Catholic Church received a converted Lutheran, a new conditional Baptism was administered. Hence, there is an element of uncertainty in the Protestant baptism.

Therefore, the common renewal of the vows of Baptism made by Catholics and followers of Luther in Augsburg ignores what was described above and takes as a consummated fact the “validity” of the Protestant baptism. This is equivalent to stating that the prior tradition of the Holy Church has no effect. This act carries a series of grave consequences:

  • it supposes a true apostolic succession among the Lutheran bishops; it supposes the validity of their sacraments;
  • it leads one to accept as valid the “sacraments” of the more radical Protestant sects.

Each of these consequences would be sufficient to declare a person or a movement heretical or suspect of heresy, were the old Code of Canon Law still in place. Incidentally, according to the Code, the simple participation in the same religious ceremony with heretics merited a very rigorous excommunication, an automatic excommunication, without need of any declaration by the authority.

Well, this Presbyterian is quite Calvinist and does not accept apostolic succession. But we can be just as much in error

There is no other head of the Church but the Lord Jesus Christ: nor can the Pope of Rome in any sense be head thereof; but is that Antichrist, that man of sin and son of perdition, that exalteth himself in the Church against Christ, and all that is called God.

 

OK, that is error one.

Error two is more subtle. I mentioned it yesterday, and it is the whispering of falsehood. For men they include “She will take all your money and remove your children. She will divorce you”, or “you will support children that are not yours”, or “you will work your butt into the grave to support her sitting at home eating bon-bons”. For women, it is that “You are a special person, and wonderful, and you deserve the very best man in the world”  (the sex in the city meme) and “He will not understand your need for development and spirituality. You need to find yourself. It will all work out for the best”. (The eat, pray, love meme).

These memes are wrong. When you add the PUA “All women want it, and all women are interchangeable if you know game”. then you have a toxic environment.

Let’s come back to today’s lectionary. Those who practice falsehood will not enjoy the perfection to come in Christ. We are told to come to Christ.

But we are also told to forgive each other. If we know our church history, and how the church has moved, like a drunken sailor, in and out of error and returning to orthodoxy, we can work together without too much disagreement.  If we are honest, we will know that we have hurt people unfairly. The blood of god covers much, God accepts our honest doubts, questions and errors.

He cannot accept us turning reality into a distortion, a lie. For that places us in the centre of creation, damages those among us — and leads to the kind of fragile personalities I see in the emergency room at work. After overdoses and self lacerations..