Holy Week Music

 Mache Dich at 17:33 is balm for the soul.

The Flat Earth Temptation

"There comes a point at which those of us who live on the theological fringe must begin to resist the short-term ecstasy of embracing, in knee-jerk fanatic fashion, every anti-establishment fad that comes along. We must resist what I call the Flat Earth Temptation. There is more to the Christian walk than grabbing insatiably at every screwball theory that gets offered to us by self-designated experts in the name of biblical orthodoxy. This lust for the epistemologically bizarre is the Reconstructionists’ version of the charismatic’ endless quest for the “new thing.” We must remind ourselves: He who lives by the bizarre dies by the bizarre."

- Gary North

How to DOMINION

Okay now, the hand is very prominent here. The hand of power. We see here

that faithful slave service to the master is the road to dominion. That's

true in all of life. Anybody who's ever worked for anybody else knows that it's

very easy to get an attitude when you're under somebody else's authority of doing

the minimal to get by. If you do that, you don't acquire dominion. If you do the

best possible job, trying to do a good job to the Lord, you do acquire dominion.

That's just true in all of life. People chafe under authority. They go get a job and then they chafe. They don't like being told what to do. And they squirm around. And then, as a result, they lose dominion and authority. I used to see this in the military all the time. Guy is always doing the least. Now the Bible says serve your masters not just with eye service but unto the Lord. And Joseph is a great example of that. We don't see Joseph chafing under slavery. We see him as a slave doing the best possible job. Serving his master. Jesus says ‘Those who would be great among you must be slaves of all. Those among the Gentiles love to lord it over them.’ Faithful slave service is the road to dominion. Revolution is not the road to dominion. Defying authority is not the road to dominion. Letting the government know how much power you have as an individual is not the road to dominion. Service is the road to dominion. Now that makes sense because in service you learn how to conduct dominion. You don't learn how to do dominion by defying authority, by asserting your rights. You learn how to do dominion by working. Forget your rights. Christians don't have rights. There is no place in Christian theory for a doctrine of rights. Christians have duties. There is no place for a doctrine of human rights and Christian faith. If you're created by God, you don't have rights. You don't have inalienable rights. You don't have any kind of rights. You have duties. One of the sicknesses in American political theory from the beginning was the adoption of the rhetoric of pagan thinking. Only God has rights because only God is self -contained. Men don't have rights. They have duties. It's best not to use the word "rights," best not to think in those categories. Why don't we do some things the government tells us to do, because we have rights? No, because God commands us to do certain duties. And God's command of those duties takes precedence.

- James B. Jordan, Studies in Genesis, chapter 39

A Biblical View of Women

"From the enlightenment on a disregard for women has been basic to philosophy. The debasement of women was an Enlightenment fact. Women were assumed to be like children, emotional rather than rational beings. Their social and intellectual status was thus downgraded. Biblical thinking bars women from authority in the church and headship in the family but Proverbs 31:10-31 is very clear about the managerial and economic abilities of women in business and in other fields. To assume the Enlightenment view as a Biblical one is absurd."

- RJ Rushdoony, "The Preaching of the Cross"

from https://www.lambsreign.com/mcdurmon/rushdoony-and-womens-rights

Worldview Cleanup in Aisle Five ...

When Boris Yeltsin visited the United States in 1989, he made an unscheduled visit to a US grocery story called Randalls outside of Houston.  Later, he wrote: “When I saw those shelves crammed with hundreds, thousands of cans, cartons, and goods of every possible sort, for the first time I felt quite frankly sick with despair for the Soviet people…That such a potentially super-rich country as ours has been brought to a state of such poverty! It is terrible to think of it.” 

When he asked the supermarket manager how many items they stocked, the man apologetically answered "Only 30,000 in this store."

“Even the Politburo doesn’t have this choice. Not even Mr. Gorbachev,”

He told a close associate “the last vestige of Bolshevism collapsed” in
him and his "worldview changed" inside the Randalls that day. 

The Gospel According to Your Baptism ...

 

"The gospel is our power to know that the death and resurrection of Jesus actually accomplished our own death and our own resurrection.  Jesus did not die that I might live.  We say that as a wonderful shorthand, but taken by itself, it's not true.  Jesus did not die that I might live.  Jesus died so that I might die.  Jesus was buried so that I might be buried.  In Jesus, that's where I left all my guilt; all my shame; all my sins; buried there in that tomb two thousand years ago, abandoned.  And if I have died and been buried with Christ, that means I have been raised with Christ.  I am no longer beneath the domain of sin; beneath the tyranny of death.  I have been raised to new life in Him; with Him."

- Pastor Joe Carlson

A Meditation with both Palm Sunday and Good Friday in Mind ...

 

"My thesis that the practice of nonviolence requires a belief in divine vengeance will be unpopular with many Christians, especially theologians in the West. To the person who is inclined to dismiss it, I suggest imagining that you are delivering a lecture in a war zone (which is where a paper that underlies this ... was originally delivered). Among your listeners are people whose cities and villages have been first plundered, then burned and leveled to the ground, whose daughters and sisters have been raped, whose fathers and brothers have had their throats slit. The topic of the lecture: a Christian attitude toward violence. The thesis: we should not retaliate since God is perfect noncoercive love. Soon you would discover that it takes the quiet of a suburban home for the birth of the thesis that human nonviolence corresponds to God’s refusal to judge. In a scorched land, soaked in the blood of the innocent, it will invariably die. And as one watches it die, one will do well to reflect about many other pleasant captivities of the liberal mind."

- Miroslav Volf 

Exclusion and Embrace pgs. 303-304

10 Guidelines for Churches Considering Reopening

1. Make a full plan and ACTUALLY GET all necessary supplies before going public with it.  First of all, if you make a good plan, go public with it, and then find that you can’t get any of the gloves or Purell your plan depends on for another four weeks, your good plan just evaporated.  Furthermore, if you can’t get masks, then there’s a chance your dentist can’t either.  If you can’t get Clorox wipes, then there’s a chance the Dermatology office is also waiting in line.  If you can’t find hand sanitizer, then think about the local restaurant owner that you appreciate so much.  Only these peoples’ very lives depend on the speed at which they can get back up and running.
2. Know the plan for businesses/activities in your area… you are not a modern-day Martin Luther [or MLK Jr] if you have not taken the time to hear the other side.  Ignorant antinomianism is not civil disobedience in the cause of justice.  Know the criteria that are being used by your Governor, Mayor, or County authorities.  Take the time necessary to hear their thoughts and understand their approach.  It may not be as crackpot or Draconian as that guy on Facebook made it out to be.  Have you done your due diligence?  Start with the Johns Hopkins Guidelines to Governors for Phased Reopenings.  It’s a great, reasonable resource.
3. Know the plan of other churches in your area … don’t be slavishly bound to it, but don’t be too proud to be aware of and informed by what others are doing.  Like me, you might learn a thing or two from others in Christ’s body nearby.  There is also a strong possibility of an increased testimony from Christian unity as well as potential legal protection if you are able to act in concert with other churches in your local community.
4. Continue livestreaming – it is either disingenuous or unkind or both to give your high-risk folks “permission” to stay home during the uncertain transition-back period, and not continue to livestream for them during that time.
5. Consider Polling – finally a good reason for a congregational poll! … I’m almost always against church member polls, but in this case, there is a lot of value that can come to Church leaders by knowing where folks are – how many are comfortable returning?  How many would prefer to stay home another month?  How many would wear PPE?  How many would insist upon it?  How many would object to it?  This is really good information for those whose planning depends on willing participation from their folks.
6. Take Attendance – if you have multiple services, be specific.  The doctors are telling us a ‘cure’ is likely a long way away.  If someone in your church tests positive four months from now, it would be helpful to know which service they attended that week and who was near them.  For some techie churches, it may be as simple as a mid-service, wide-angle snapshot.
7. Eliminate high-touch surfaces as much as possible.  Passing offertory plates or communion trays from row to row, each touched by a hundred hands before making its way into yours… that shouldn’t be happening right now.  Consider going to bulletins or a projector as opposed to hymnals and prayerbooks [the traditionalist in me cringes to say it, but as a temporary measure, it’s worth considering.]  Put bulletins on chairs, rather than on a common pick-up table/basket.  Most churches don’t have automatic doors.  Consider propping doors open at start/close of services.  Our deacons are forming cleaning teams to wipe down arm rests, door handles, light switches, thermostats, bathrooms, etc. between services.  And our facilities manager just purchased an HVAC air purifier.  Lots of churches are investing in hand sanitizer dispensers by entry/exit points.  Don’t forget trashcans.  There will be lots more wipes, tissues, masks, and gloves than normal.  Where are these going to end up?
8. Think in terms of households.  Hey, it’s a category all over the New Testament! :-)  Medical guidelines suggest at least 6 feet of separation [more if singing btw] between households, not individual members.  The assumption being, everyone in the same household already shares the same level of exposure.  They don’t need to be separated from one another.  This may or may not help with seating.  Many reopening guidelines are based off of seating capacity, rather than a total number anyway.  Lots of churches are temporarily resuming service attendance on a sign-up basis.  Once the sign up list is full, assigned seating is arranged according to households.  A strange but effective approach for this unusual season.  Whatever your plan, be sure to have something in mind for those who might show up without signing up first [the same for those who arrive visibly sick or symptomatic.]  Even the most callous Calvinists among us would have a hard time turning away visitors at the door. :-)
9. Children’s ministries are in a different category – kids have zero concept of personal space and social distancing.  You know this.  So do our authorities and policymakers.  Kids’ activities are the last to resume.  If your church operations are interdependent so that you can’t restart regular worship services without children’s church going simultaneously, reopening will take longer.  In other words, the bigger your church, the slower your restart will likely need to be.
10. Expect big changes – Lowes, Walmart, McDonalds have all had to make big changes.  So will you.  Going out in public feels different now.  Church will not be an exception. Remember to manage expectations [theirs and yours] by communicating this.


One extra – if I may humbly suggest:
11. Make vital mental distinctions – Brothers, remember that this is not the Church being persecuted or singled out unnecessarily.  Again, read the Hopkins Guidelines. Church activities are being reviewed alongside every other community activity and rated according to very rational criteria for risk vs modifiability.  Church services are potential superspreader events.  It’s just a fact.  Be patient as our authorities try to reopen the right way.  Good grief – they are talking about cancelling the NFL.  If that doesn’t show you how serious this thing is across the board, nothing will!  Be willing to wait in line and recognize that there are lots of folks in line ahead of us whose lives and livelihoods depend on them restarting before we do.  We are not being told to stop preaching in Jesus’ name [Acts 4.18].  We are being asked to continue doing so online for some number of weeks more.  Recognize that while we are doing this, everyone else around us is sacrificing.
Also, be willing to do the nearly impossible work of mentally distinguishing personal political philosophies you hold from truly Scriptural Convictions based on plain Scriptural Commands  [IOW, do not confuse the traditions of men, even good, Conservative, Christian men, with God’s Words and God’s Commands!]  As much as we may hold them dear, “don’t tread on me”; “no king but Jesus”; “all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”; or “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the right of the people peaceably to assemble” are not phrases we got from the Bible.  They are political concepts we might hold, I hope for good reason, but I also hope not with the same degree of zeal or affection that we do the tenets of our most holy faith and commands of Scripture.  Be self-aware enough to recognize this.  And for Pete’s sake – stop the spread of misinformation and specious arguments!  There are reasons Walmart and liquor stores are allowed to stay open in times of public crisis while church buildings are closed.  It’s textbook civic management.  Be patient with your authorities.  It is no easy thing to run a city [let alone a county, state, or nation!].

photo credit: Vatican News

What is Success?

"People are successful in my book to the extent that they do something they care about.  If you can pull that off, I think you've won."

- Malcolm Gladwell, on Socrates in the City

Autoculturalism

"The identities we are chattering about today tend to impose a kind of imperative to restlessly reinvent oneself; to construct - what I call - a culture of one.  We are less threatened by multiculturalism than by autoculturalism."

- Ken Myers, Mars Hill Audio Journal

An honest word, like a kiss on the face ...

"A good sermon makes a mole hill out of a mountain."

-my wife

 [after I preached a particularly long sermon...]

Against Heterosexuality by Michael Hannon [abridged]

Over the course of several centuries, the West had progressively abandoned Christianity’s marital architecture for human sexuality. Then, about one hundred and fifty years ago, it began to replace that longstanding teleological tradition with a brand new creation: the absolutist but absurd taxonomy of sexual orientations... 

Michel Foucault, an unexpected ally, details the pedigree of sexual orientation in his History of Sexuality. Whereas “sodomy” had long identified a class of actions, suddenly for the first time, in the second half of the nineteenth century, the term “homosexual” appeared alongside it...designating not actions, but people—and so also with its counterpart and foil “heterosexual.”...cementing these categories of hetero- and homosexuality in the popular imagination...Sexual orientation, then, is nothing more than a fragile social construct, and one constructed terribly recently. designating not actions, but people—and so also with its counterpart and foil “heterosexual.”

My own prediction is that we will see this binary thoroughly deconstructed within our lifetimes. But in my view, we proponents of Christian chastity should see the impending doom of the gay–straight divide not as a tragedy, but as an opportunity. More than that, I want to suggest that we should do our best to encourage the dissolution of orientation within our own subcultural spheres wherever possible...

The Main Problem with the Media ... [might not be what you think]

"I think that the main problem with the press is not bias.  The complaint of those on the left and conservatives is that it is.  I think the main problem with the press, rather, is superficiality.  Their inability to go beyond the narrative structure of antagonist and protagonist; who's up and who's down; their inability to understand, frame, and report on issues that are not simply political.  The tendency is to force these kinds of cultural issues onto a political frame of reference; to see them only as struggles of power."

James Davison Hunter
in a Mars Hill Audio Journal interview with Ken Myers [ from 1994!]

... don't you want to keep reading???? [below]

Phos Hilaron

For our midweek Advent devotionals, we've been looking at several ancient Christian hymns.  The following are the notes I used for my favorite along with two videos.  Enjoy!

John 14…

6Jesus answered, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. 7If you had known Me, you would know My Father as well. From now on you do know Him and have seen Him.”

8Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.”

9Jesus replied, “Philip, I have been with you all this time, and still you do not know Me? Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me? The words I say to you, I do not speak on My own. Instead, it is the Father dwelling in Me, performing His works.

The word of the Lord!

…

This evening, with God’s help, I’d like to spend a few minutes introducing [reviewing] what is the oldest Christian hymn known in history outside the Bible.

There are apparently ancient Christian hymns actually INSIDE the Bible – for instance scholars believe that the passage we heard a few moments ago, John 1 – John's “prologue” … was an example of one.

There are others also. 

The Bipolar Life of Ministry

"To identify with Paul's experience we do not need to be shipwrecked or imprisoned or lowered in a basket from a city wall. Even without the physical dangers of Paul's career, anyone who throws himself into the work of Christian ministry of any kind with half the dedication of Paul will experience the weakness of which Paul speaks: the times when problems seem insoluble, the times of weariness from sheer overwork, the times of depression when there seem to be no results, the emotional exhaustion which pastoral concern can bring on - in short, all the times when the Christian minister or worker knows he has stretched to the limits of his capacities for a task which is very nearly, but by God's grace not quite, too much for him. Anyone who knows only his strength, not his weakness, has never given himself to a task which demands all he can give. There is no avoiding this weakness, and we should learn to suspect those models of human life which try to avoid it. We should not be taken in by the ideal of the charismatic superman for whom the Holy Spirit is a constant source of superhuman strength. Nor should we fall for the ideal of the modern secular superman: the man who organizes his whole life with the object of maintaining his own physical and mental well-being, who keeps up the impression of strength because he keeps his life well within the limits of what he can easily cope with. Such a man is never weak because he is never affected, concerned, involved or committed beyond a cautiously safe limit. That was neither Jesus' ideal of life nor Paul's. To be controlled by the love of Christ means inevitably to reach the limits of one's abilities and experience weakness."

- Richard Bauckham, Weakness - Paul's and Ours  

Scripture Ought to Make You a More Interesting Person

"Why do the gospel writers read Israel's history in ways that look funny to modern sensibilities?  Is the notion of the fulfillment of Old Testament texts intellectually implausible?  The gospel writers summon us to a conversion of the imagination.  They summon us to become more interesting readers... the gospel writers are trying to make us more interesting people.  They are trying to make us more interesting readers who are not locked into this modernist literalism about everything.  I want to suggest to you that we will learn to read Scripture well only if our minds and imaginations are opened up by learning to read the Scriptural texts by learning to read in the 'figural' ways that the four gospel writers actually read Israel's Scripture.  The gospels teach us how to read the Old Testament.  And at the same time the Old Testament teach us how to read the gospels.  There is a circle of interpretation."

Richard Hays, "Do the Gospel Writers Misread the Old Testament?"

An Unsatisfying Hermeneutic

Dr Abraham Kuruvilla of DTS is a gifted and passionate Biblical scholar and teacher.  In preparing for an upcoming sermon, I reviewed his study of the story of Abraham's call to sacrifice Isaac in Genesis 22.  I can honestly say that I benefited greatly from many of Dr Kuruvilla's insights, but found a deep dissatisfaction with his zealous refusal to read any Christological perspective from the New Testament back into Genesis.  Dr K eschewed such attempts as confusing and actually quoted a passage from Calvin to warn against hasty redemptive-historic allegorizing.

At the end of his study, Dr K repeated his insistence that we must read the Old Testament narratives as they were written by both their author and capital-A Author to find their purpose for writing, rather than imposing symbolic meanings from the New Testament.  He then went on to say that such strict interpretation actually leads to good preaching because the capital-A Author's purpose in O.T. narratives is "always to make us more Christlike."
As much as I appreciate his point that redemptive-historical preaching can fall short in application or imperative instruction [which it can!], I was left quite befuddled how the Author always intended for us to become more Christlike as a result of our reading, but never intended for us to find Christ in what we read.

DTS has a long history of hermeneutical struggle.  Founded as a conservative and dispensational seminary, they are working to oppose liberal interpretations on the one hand, while also resisting covenantal interpretations on the other.  This is a hard task, no doubt.  My own alma mater came out of a similar origin, but I sense a movement and growth toward in better directions.  I hope this is what Dr Kuruvilla's work represents also and that time will make it all the more apparent.



Dr Kuruvilla is author of Genesis: A Theological Commentary for Preachers.  He has also written systematically about interpretation in his 2013 textbook: Privilege the Text! A Theological Hermeneutic for Preaching.  He teaches at Dallas Theological Seminary.

Deep Gospel-infused Beauty

"Bach is inseparable from the words that he uses.  He's a religious composer and his outlook on life is told to us in the cantatas.  And even in the secular music, one has to embrace his worldview.  No matter how the voice leading it is so wonderful or the counterpoint is so wonderful, it goes beyond itself.  It tries to tell us a message and that message is usually complicated.  It's not quite simple.  So I think there's a lot more to Bach than the surface."

- Murray Perahia

The Banality of Evil

In Macbeth, Shakespeare uses his considerable genius to express the abhorrent beauty of absolute evil... It's true that lady Macbeth and Macbeth are never more alive than when they contemplate killing the king.  They thrill with vitality and excitement.   But as soon as they commit the act, they're oppressed with the banality of evil.  And I'm not just talking about guilt.  To be sure they are both tormented by guilt.   But even more afflicting that Macbeth's guilt is his ennui.  His awesome will to power, magnificently manifested in Duncan's murder, gives way to an all-consuming listlessness.

He'll murder many more times, but each time it becomes more mechanical, more tiresome, more wearisome.  What really wears on Macbeth is the tedium of evil.   In his wickedness he cannot find contentment or joy or even desire.  There's nothing but this: tomorrow tomorrow and tomorrow creeping at its petty pace to the last syllable of recorded time.  And perhaps this is the ultimate truth of the tragedy.  When decency and goodwill give way to wickedness and evil, life loses its meaning.  It can be no more than a tiresome monotony.  A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing.

Professor Kent Lehnhof

What Punishments of God are not Gifts?

This from a GQ interview.  Stephen Colbert describes the plane crash that suddenly killed his father and brother when he was 10 years old.

 “ ‘You gotta learn to love the bomb,’ ” he said. “Boy, did I have a bomb when I was 10. That was quite an explosion. And I learned to love it. So that’s why. Maybe, I don’t know. That might be why you don’t see me as someone angry and working out my demons onstage. It’s that I love the thing that I most wish had not happened.”…

I asked him if he could help me understand that better, and he described a letter from Tolkien in response to a priest who had questioned whether Tolkien’s mythos was sufficiently doctrinaire, since it treated death not as a punishment for the sin of the fall but as a gift. “Tolkien says, in a letter back: ‘What punishments of God are not gifts?’ ” Colbert knocked his knuckles on the table. “ ‘What punishments of God are not gifts?’ ” he said again. His eyes were filled with tears. “So it would be ungrateful not to take everything with gratitude. It doesn’t mean you want it. I can hold both of those ideas in my head.”

He was 35, he said, before he could really feel the truth of that. He was walking down the street, and it “stopped me dead. I went, ‘Oh, I’m grateful. Oh, I feel terrible.’ I felt so guilty to be grateful. But I knew it was true.”