IS IT WRONG TO WORK FOR PEACE?

Christians believe that god- the one, true, living God, was most clearly revealed by allowing himself to be tortured, bled and stuck dying to a tree by his enemies….and all for their sake. It puzzles me when people who claim to represent and speak for this God mock humility, attempts at reconciliation, understanding and forgiveness.

Apparently Christ had it wrong; a life typified by self sacrificing love isn’t the mark of true godlike humanity, rather the distinctive characteristic is the compulsion to conjure up a bull’s-eye just between the eyebrows of everyone who disagrees with you.

The disagreement might be over the most tremendous question imaginable: which god is God, and the ways of interacting are as varied as the answers given. While Christ allowed those who disagreed with his answer to slaughter him and in so doing enacted his faith- “God,” he said before dying, “Is like this towards his enemies,”- Pastor Chuck O’Neal believes that the gospel requires that we refuse to accept overtures of discussion and entreaties of grace, and in so doing enacts his own answer: “God is the one who has no time for people who are wrong.”

Surely such a response reveals a vision of God closer to ancient Rome's Mars than the prodigal father of the gospels.

These hawkish Christians don’t need life or death disagreements to justify the bull’s-eye, either. It's just as likely to appear on the foreheads of brothers and sisters who disagree with them over issues that have remained unresolved since the church began. It might even happen at a conference, between men voluntarily sharing a podium for ostensibly the same gospel cause.

The occasion, big or small, doesn’t matter; or rather it does, because every disagreement, every offer of discussion, every difference of opinion is an opportunity to enact the “god-as-Mars gospel.”

“Can we talk…” draws a resounding “Those are fighting words!”

“It believe…” elicits an abrupt “Those are fighting words!”

“Don’t you think…” Fighting words!

“I’m sorry.” Fighting words!

In response to a group of brave Muslims who offered to begin a conversation, the signatories of A Christian Response extended a presumption of sincerity, asked forgiveness for failing to live up to the faith they proclaim, and encouraged these fellow human being to live up to their own faith commitments.

Did the signatories deny the uniqueness of Christ? No, they recognized the common ethical injunctions of the distinct faiths.

Did the signatories affirm Mohammed’s claim of prophetic legitimacy? No, they pointed out explicitly that both faiths teach the same ethical requirements of love towards God and neighbor. They affirmed that the bombing of innocents is not the way the battle should be fought.

Must their words be interpreted to affirm the identity of the Gods’ of Islam and the Christian church? If the word "god" indicates an abstract category of transcendence, yes. There can be but one ultimately transcendent being. But in regards to which personal transcendent deity, no.

Muslim murders attacked their Western opponents with planes and violence. There is a declaration of a particular vision of God in that.

After failing to take the initiative in working towards the reduction of bloodshed, the church embarrassingly extended grace to the enemy who asked for it. There is a particular vision of God in that.

There’s little doubt that a great war is on. I suspect that none of the signatories of the Christian Response would deny it. The real question is about how the battle should be fought. Which weapons should fall most readily into our armored hands. What default response should an adversary...or an impressionable disciple, expect from us. An individual’s conception of the God they worship will determine the answer.

I’m loosing patience with “Christian” leaders whose constant apocalyptic battling, morph the God of the cross into a weaker version of a violent Allah, and I’m ashamed when those who do not know my God, seem to image him more clearly than his own ambassadors.

Grace is not compromise. Respect is not denial. Measured comments are not universal affirmations, and the gospel doesn’t rule out attempts at charity.

THE CAKE'S THE THING- ICING'S MERELY FROSTING

I’m compromised as a follower of King Jesus.

I’m becoming more and more aware of that. It’s not news, really. Anyone who knows me could tell you as much, but I’ve become aware of an even greater disloyalty than the standard struggle to struggle with pride, anger, lust etc. The really frightening thing is that I’ve been taught this disloyalty by the very tradition that molded my allegiance to the King.

It’s deep and corrupting and ugly, and it seems to fester the deepest in those of us who (sincerely or not) protest our allegiance to Christ the loudest.

This is the sin I’ve discovered on the bottom of my shoe: I’ve sold out to Caesar. I bow before my heavenly king... after getting the wink from the Empire’s throne. When I look around, I see where I first stepped in the filth. It was in the liturgy and the politics of the religious right.

It seems clear to me that Christianity is merely the outer icing we spread on the Cake of Americanism. There are other flavors of frosting- secular, Jewish, agnostic, New Age, but slice us open and we’re all the same inside- solidly, uncritically and shamelessly “American First.”

America, not God’s people, has our first allegiance. Deep down we believe the American Government and the power of its military will change the world for the better; American democracy and its limitless economy is the message we need to get out. The gospel, well, it is mighty to save... souls, but the "good news" of consumerism is the earth altering left hand of God.

I’ve been reminded of this as I struggled with what my family ought to do for the recent Marymass celebration. I knew countless Christians world-wide were continuing the ancient veneration of the lady who bore God. I wondered, could it be that hymns of celebration and invocation were appropriate to this most hallowed of saints?

In the end my conscience dragged its heels. Years of example had worn the appropriate ruts of resistance. It just wouldn’t be right.

But…then I remembered services where we gathered as God’s people, Christ’s name was invoked and we went on to “Pledge our Allegiance” to the one nation cocky enough to declare itself indivisible before God. Ballsy, that.

I remember singing in a service dedicated to King Jesus a hymn to our earthly nation. “America, America” we praised “God shed his grace on thee.” Hmmmm. Why would these same people resist crying out to the mother of their Lord (in the words of scripture, no less) “Hail Mary, full of grace?”

“My Country tis of thee…of Thee I sing," and “Oh Beautiful for spacious skies…” Obviously, conservative evangelicals have no principled problem with praising and invoking powers other than God in their worship services. Just wait until Independence Day, Veterans Day or Memorial Day...even Scout Sunday, and you’ll see. Honoring those we believe to be on "our" side in the context of worship can't be the problem. Rather, it must be who do we reckon as belonging to that "Our." The problem must be a matter of whom we belonging to, whom we are allied with, who we believe (in our gut) to be really worthy of admiration and memory.

America, yes; our brothers and sister across the ages; No.

It’s a difficult thing to give up –if only potentially- the earthly ties that are so precious to us. But the claims of Christ require it. So does our love for those precious ones- whether family, friends, or nation. It is for their sakes that we must be the people that our baptisms declare us to be. The church exists for the sake of the world.

I’m sure that we, as conservative evangelicals, would protest that our identity transcends the boundaries of our national existence, but I’m looking for ways to make that obvious. I’m tired of having to argue that it is so- especially to myself. Surely our calendar, stories and songs would be a good place to look for what’s really under the religious frosting.

Both Labor Day and Michaelmas are fast approaching. Well…you see my point.

TAKING JESUS TO A TOGA PARTY

It used to get you thrown to a hungry lion or smeared with tar and set alight over an emperor’s garden bench; now it’s as ubiquitous and harmless as sneezing. Come to think of it, it’s actually less harmful than sneezing, because sneezing might make others sick or embarrass you with its viscous aftermath. But calling the Christ “Lord,”…well, what could be more natural.

My kids do it daily at prayer. So do their young apostatizing acquaintances. Presidents speak of “the Lord." Actors and business men reference “the Lord”. The name is thrown out in Sitcom’s, standup comedy acts, sporting events and water cooler conversations.

Regularly. Daily. Often, and yet no jailer appears with hungry felines in tow. There’s little people-burnin’ going on. Few heads roll for it. I wonder why?

I suspect it’s because the phrase has become simply a name- a moniker like Joe or Sally. Little offence, there. But for the early church, “Lord” was first and foremost a title. There may be many Joes or Sallys.... or even Lords, but there can only be one LORD…by definition, you see.

The ancient world already had a claimant. Caesar, and the entire empire built around him, declared him to be Lord of Lords and King of Kings. He was the Savior of the World. In him was found its hope of security and fruitfulness. He, and he alone, required ultimate allegiance. Hundreds of competing religions existed- each at peace with the Roman Emperor.

Why weren’t devotees of Isis fed to the beasts? The answer’s simple. They poised no threat to the Roman Lord's... how would you say it, Lordship. They could worship and bow and incense all day long, but when push came to shove, Caesar ran things.

He was Lord.

Well, he just was. It was a no-brainer. One only had to look around at the glory and achievements of the Pax Romana to see that it was so.

What Caesar did, worked. Period.

To the backwards hooligans of Europe, Asia Minor and Africa, Rome had brought peace (insert bloody gurgling sound)…and prosperity (insert crack of whip) and…law (insert fat lecherous Senator’s laugh). It had been done. It was being done. It was fact.

Against the obvious, the early church dared imagine the world in a different way. Jesus, the crucified King of Israel, was the one who was actually running things. Really, that’s what they said. He was the source of security and fruitfulness- even Rome's own. He was the world’s savior. Caesar had better get down on his knees and do some serious toe kissing.

Now that’s the sort of thing that will get you turned into cat chow.

In a very real sense, I think it was easier for our ancient brothers and sisters to be faithful to their baptisms. They understood who their God’s competition was. He was that other dude- the one who claimed the title of “god.” The Kingdom of the Christ was in opposition with that other entity- the one everyone referred to as “the Empire.”

Faithfulness was clearly defined. Either the kingdoms of this world had become the kingdoms of our God or…they had not. It was simply a matter of choosing Caesar and his empire or Christ and his. One was a pretender, but which one?

The early church had a firm opinion on the matter. Other religions got on swimmingly with the Roman sovereign. They met and talked about “going to heaven when you die.” Caesar couldn’t give a rat’s rear end where they went after they died. He just wanted the honorific, economic and militaristic cooperation of those individuals; after that they could go anywhere they wanted- to hell for all he cared.

Good thing we haven’t an emperor today. Right? There is no expanding world-dominating and uniting power. There is no common story that molds the lives of geographically diverse people so powerfully that no one can imagine things differently. Nothing claims our faith and hope for security and prosperity. Christians and non-Christians live for exactly the same things, goals and ends because….the life advocated by Jesus of Nazareth is the only one on the market (and it's pure random coincidence that I chose an economic metaphor just then). True progress is measured in terms of responsibility, justice, sacrifice, contentment, fidelity and mercy. Right?

As followers of Christ we are to show forth the possibility of life lived as our God would live it, and this in stark distinction to the life of other gods. We are necessary to the world as a reminder to them of whom they truly are as human beings.

But many congregations struggle over what the church’s role really is. That’s because we’re blind to the powers that enslave human persons and society’s imagination. There are no powers. Only people and choices. The subterfuge has been so successful that we can not even imagine life lived another way. With the pitiful god’s of history, we bring our little plaster Jesus and bow to the obvious power, glory and promise of the Pax Americana, limitless markets, consumption, technology and convenience.

We go about earnestly hawking our dualist religion. “If you died tonight, do you know where you’d spend eternity,” we ask those passing by. Caesar rises from his throne of golden arches. We are truly humbled. He takes off his mouse-eared crown and helps us to our feet. “I can help you get that message out,” he offers, and we and our plastic Jesus bow with true thankfulness.

OUR CHURCH HAS GONE A WHORIN'

The following is a comment by Mark Krikorian found on National Review Online.

The head of the Episcopal Church, Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, is complaining about Nigerian Anglican bishops coming to Virginia this weekend to formally install the head of the conservative breakaway denomination in this country. Here's what she said: "Such action would violate the ancient customs of the church."I kid you not. The female head of a church with a practicing homosexual bishop planning to "marry" his lover, a church that could accept into seminary the adulterous homosexual governor of New Jersey, a church that embraces splitting open babies' skulls and vacuuming their brains out, is complaining about violating ancient customs? Wow.

HT: Orthodixie

REPENTING OF SENTIMENTALITY

Editorial Note: I'm in a grumpy mood...pissy, even. Thought you ought to know up front.

It was the Wednesday evening of Holy Week. You’d think the season would have tempered my response, but it didn’t. The church sign should have made me sad, but it pissed me off, instead.

“He is Risen!” it read.

“How could that be,” I wondered “when he’s not even died, yet.”

Before the horror of Good Friday, before even the sadness of Maundy Thursday this group of believers had started Sunday’s celebration. That’s (not helpful), or I don't think so.

Now, the Wayward Saint's going to tell me that this is a bit grumpy. Fair enough. But I'm grumpy because people are being ripped off. Hear me out.

“And they lived happily ever after” could be the summation- the point- of every fairy tale. It’s everyone’s favorite part. But what would happen to the stories themselves, if all we told was the happy ending. What would become of their charm, integrity and power, if we reduced the telling to the resolution?

Imagine a child climbing onto her Grandpa’s knee.

“Tell me about Little Red Riding Hood,” she asks.
“They lived happily ever after.”

“Tell me the story of the three little Pigs”
“They lived happily ever after.”

“Hansel and Gretel”
“They lived happily ever after.”

Those stories just ain’t what they used to be. Not really worth the climb. Does Grandpa not have the time to tell them properly? Of course he does. Maybe he just knows better. That's got to be it. Apparently there’s the need to condense, to make efficient… to skip to the good parts.

Western Christians have long struggled with their attitude towards time. This isn't a "bible thing;" it’s a Western Thing. I’ve been told we learned this from Plato who contrasted the inferior changing realm of things with the unchanging and superior world of Ideas. St. Augustine wondered if anything other than the present even existed, and now we're taught to long for the day when “time shall be no more.”

But that’s wrong headed.

Time was God’s idea. He thought it up; he created it. He pronounced it good. In fact he took his jolly good time in the creating of each and every one of Chronos’ fellow creatures. Six days he labored, we’re told. Six days.

Then there’s that whole round about “Seth to Christ” thing- with innumerable digressions and plot twists. God took his own sweet time in shaping this world. He’s in no hurry to work out its redemption, either. Still working on that, in fact.

But this isn't because God is lackadaisical, rather he values the process. He loves a good story. He knows how to tell it well.

God's simply not sentimental.

Jeremy Begbie defines Sentimentality, in part, as skipping over the tension of a story in order to go directly to the happiness of the final resolution. Surely skipping Good Friday and beginning with Easter is bad story telling, but it’s cruel taunting, too.

It comforting to know that things will work out, that Sunday’s coming. But we need to learn the value of waiting- of living through Holy Saturday. That Sunday is, in fact, still to come. We need to learn the value and importance of Hope, because each of us wakes every morning in that in between time of Christ’s Easter vindication and our own personal glorification.

For you and me…we’re still waiting. Things aren’t how they ought to be- how they one day will be. Not yet. Not yet.

No where is this more clearly seen than in the themes that underpin the story of Holy Week: life and death. Today I read that an upcoming believer's funeral was to be celebratory and without sorrow. Sentimentalism, that...Hurtful, cruel taunting.

Certainly we are not to mourn like those without hope...but we are allowed to mourn. We are commanded to hope, which is to say that we are instructed to acknowledge with Bono that we still haven’t found what we’re looking for.

But more than simply allowing us to concede the reality of where we find ourselves (and aren’t you glad our God knows that it is what it is), a proper understanding of Sister Time frees us to see the goodness of our waiting. Like a good tune- you can’t rush through it, you can’t skip to the end…not without ruining the song.

That in between stuff matters- to music and to our lives.

Fr. Begbie asks that if they marketed The Beatle’s Greatest Hits in an album that played the songs in half the time, would you buy it?

Apparently, many would. That makes me sad. The fact that the church is “selling” it- well, that still pisses me off.

KEEPING SAINT PATRICK'S DAY

Editorial Addition: 3/23/2007- After rereading this thing, I don't care for the "in your face" grumpiness. Could try to launder it out, but I think I'll just leave it alone with my apologies up front.

Many are surprised to find that St. Patrick’s Day has anything to do with the gospel and the church, which it created.

Like many of the church’s holy days, the commemoration of the life and death of St. Patrick has become little more than a commercial opportunity and excuse for acceptable partying. Now, it’s obvious that any culture that feels it needs an excuse for festivity is far gone from the gospel, but this day is particularly telling in how far we’ve gone…in how much we’ve forgotten.

First of all, there’s the “Saint” thing in the name. I think everyone still refers to it as “St. Patrick’s” or “St. Patty’s” Day. Hard to overlook that. I suspect that in a land of Evangelicals this simply means “Catholic,” and everyone knows real Christianity has nothing to do with Cath’lics. I don’t blame the average person for this atrocious silliness, but someone’s responsible. It must be the leadership and “teachers” of that subculture. Shame on them.

Secondly, it’s an especially significant indicator of how far the American church has secularized because few people played as significant a role in the existence of the European (and therefore, American) church as did St. Patrick. For spiritual descendants of the British church, St. Columba and St. Aidan might rival him, and for the Germanic peoples of Northern Europe, St. Boniface played a lynchpin role, but without Patrick and his sacrificial life, there may not have been a gospel for Columba, Aidan and Boniface to have heard. So no, there is no real rival to St. Patrick’s influence nor to the debt we owe to him. In important ways he is to European Christianity and civilization as Our Lady is to all of the church. It could have stopped with him and her.

But… and I’m beginning to see…amongst a people who think it a virtue to ignore the painful sacrifice of the woman who gave Christ the body and blood that worked peace between God and man, there should be little expectation that the man responsible for the way of life we enjoy and that same body and blood being weekly “offered for you," would be honored. Shame on those who form us so.

Without Patrick’s life- as he chose to live it- the church, Western Civilization and the world would be unrecognizable today, and….we treat it as if it’s about green clothes and clover. Surely, that’s a pretty good indicator.

Don’t misunderstand.

In our home we will wear green, sport shamrock, drink lots of beer, build Leprechaun traps, check them in the morning, and watch Finian’s Rainbow before we go to bed. Today’s a day to be kept through those things- not because of them. We will also retell the story of Patrick and sing his Breastplate together. We do all of these things because it's our brother St Patrick’s special day.

The problem’s not in colors or four-leafed flora. The problem is thanklessness. We need to be grateful- to our brother Patricus and the gracious God who gave him to us. The church says “Amen” to that, and so has given us this day to keep.

That’s what all the Guinness is about.

AMERICAN P.I.E.

I’ve ranted a good bit against Modernity.

Don’t like it.

At all.

Apparently the few who stop by get that part: I’m against it. But I’ve been asked just what I mean by “it”.

Derrick at Beaten with Brains has provided a very helpful summary of the situation- as it applies to American Evangelicalism, anyway.

He calls it American P.I.E. It's a clever acronym for the Pietism, Individualism, and Egalitarianism that form the lens through which American Christians see the world, God and themselves.

In this series he discusses plain ‘ole generic pietism, but it also comes in delicious varieties. There's this flavor, and this one, too. He then goes on to talk about egalitarianism. Individualism gets attention in every treatment, because it's to P.I.E as milk is to Ice Cream.

It’s a thoughtful summation. After reading it you’re likely to look around and think, “Ah, now I understand.”

GOD, STRAIGHT UP

I had my radio on during the trip home from work last night.

It was a Christian station.

There was “Preaching”.

I know, but it is Lent, after all. A good time for audio self-flagellation. So leave me alone…

Anyway, I was listening to this fellow explaining that his biblical protagonist was in a fix, but fortunately the protagonist knew where to turn. He knew he needed God.

Now there’s certainly nothing wrong with that. It’s dead on, actually. But the preacher didn’t stop there. He made the pastoral point that it was God alone that was needed.

Just God- straight up. He didn’t need a worship service, or a Bible study, nor…whatever. He just needed God- pure, direct and unadulterated.

Perhaps all he meant to say was that its possible to look to all this other stuff instead of our God. True enough. That’s the basic danger of living in a world designed to refract its Creator’s glory. But I don’t think that was where he was going. He was meaning to establish a principled separation between God and …whatever. He wasn’t distinguishing. He was dividing.

This is very wrong headed. I don't mean desiring God, certainly; but believing that He wants to be or that its even possible to receive him, unmediated.

At the heart of our faith is the belief that God made himself available, knowable, and powerful in our lives- once and for all, mind you- through the mediation of a human, creaturely nature. We know our God through the blood, touch, tears, work, weakness and humility of a man. We learned this story through the diligence, care and preservation of many men and women. We heard this knowledge through the tissue, sense and sheer physicality of our own bodies.

Mediated, all of it.

Exclusively internal, intellectual, and totally unincarnated notions may form the conduit to God for some faiths, but not ours. Those faiths would teach that the only true bridge to God is located somewhere between our ears. The doorway is a spiritual one only. But our faith teaches that the gate itself is a crucified body and God himself is seen and served in the outstretched hands of a thirsty child.

The problem is Modernity. I really need to work that into the title somehow. Perhaps, Dappled Thoughts- Damn Modernity or Damned Modernity and Dappled Thoughts. Hmmm. I’ll work on it. But in the meantime it needs to be resisted. Here's a start:

Douglas Jones wrote a series of short essays making a beginning toward a more incarnational understanding of truth and knowledge. I hope you'll read each one. [HT: Derrick from whom I stole the links]

Knowing is Doing
Knowing is Haiku
Knowing is Presence
Knowing is Imaging
Knowing isn’t Syllogistic
Knowing is Tracing
Knowing is Loving
Knowing is Story
Knowing is Community
Knowing is Timing
Knowing is Falling

HEAVEN'S NOT MY HOME

I grew up singing “This world is not my home. I’m just a passin’ through.”

I shouldn’t have. Sung it, I mean.

Turns out that I had it exactly backwards.

I believed heaven was a place “somewhere else – over there.” I believed that the phrase The Kingdom of Heaven referred to that specific piece of “somewhere else." I also thought that Jesus, therefore, went around talking to people about how to arrive at that “somewhere else” and that he died on the cross to "save souls"- as opposed to bodies because only souls can make the trip; and so finally, I knew the gospel was about “going to heaven when you die.”

Simple. Popular. Self-evident, really.

And underlying the whole thing was that powerful ditty “This world is not my home. I’m just a passin’ through”

Backwards. All of it.

Remove the ditty and the whole landscape turns on its head.

Let me show you-

1. Heaven is that part of this creation where God is especially present. Sometimes he pulls back the veil to let us see what’s already here. Its just that sort of thing that happened to Elisha and his servant in 2 Kings 6:15-19. When heaven opens (as in Rev. 4:1), we’re not taken away from here, rather we are able to see all of here.

2. When Jesus or his cousin John wandered into a village telling people that the Kingdom of God was at hand, what did the villagers hear?

Come on, now. We have the entire Old Testament from which to answer. Did they hear “this is how you can go to heaven when you die?" Why would they have heard that? People coming out of a Twentieth Century Ole’ Time Revival tent meeting might have heard that, but a second century Jewish potter? I can’t find that sort of thing in the Old Testament at all.

No, the kingdom of God wasn’t a place. The gospel wasn’t a map. Jesus wasn’t saying he’d discovered a new route to a special destination. Rather, the Kingdom of God was a fact. The gospel was a proclamation.

It wasn’t that a new territory had been found; it was that God’s kingship had been asserted and established over this world. God had returned to Israel to set everything right. The kingdom was at hand because the king was present. God was in town.

3. We affirm every Sunday (because Holy Scripture most assuredly teaches it) that God created every visible thing. Stuff was God’s idea. Specifically, these Heavens and this Earth were the handiwork of God, and he took great joy in them. We have scriptural authority on that.

Was it all a mistake? Was Adam’s fall God’s big chance to get out of the whole “stuff” business?

The entire redemption story says otherwise; Romans 8 makes the point explicitly. God is saving all of creation. All of this creation.

There’s no better guarantee of this than the verity of Christ’s resurrection on Easter morning. While Good Friday was God’s “No!” to the fallen state of things in his world, Easter was his great "Yes!” to the goodness of Creation. Good Friday might have been followed by something else. If God had changed his mind, this was the time and place to show it.

“All of this is cursed” the cross declared, “and now….we’re going to do this instead.”

But that’s not what happened. Christ’s death was followed by a bodily resurrection. He put this world on in his incarnation; and he refused to take it off again- even after his death. Weeks later, on a Thursday, he took that same flesh back into the very life of the Trinity. Heaven and Earth met in that individual; because of him Revelation 21 promises the same for this world.

God isn’t in the business of saving bodiless souls. God has saved, is saving, and will save this world of men and women. He does so without destroying their humanity. Could salvation work in any other way?

This, then, is the great Christian hope. We do not look forward to “going to heaven when we die," rather we look forward to “the resurrection of the dead” and the New Heavens and New Earth that will be transformed along with our risen bodies- as was our Lord’s.

If my family were to travel to Disney World, we might stop for the night in Valdosta. Motel stays are a rarity for us; so no doubt, we’d have a good time, but in the morning we’d be off- because our destination is Disney World, not Motel 6. Heaven considered as a separate realm of this creation is not my home. It may be the case that after my death, God will preserve me there for awhile, but that’s not where I’m going. I shouldn’t confuse the two.

No doubt Christ has those who have fallen asleep before the final renewal of all things well in hand. Though questions of post mortem existence are important, they are insignificant when compared with the rest of the story- simply because they are a mere hiatus along the way.

This is tremendously practical. This life, this world, this enfleshed human person is the point of God’s activity. As someone else has suggested, the proper question for evangelism isn’t “If you were die tonight where would you spend eternity?," but rather “If you were to live for another 1000 years, what kind of person would you be?”

Salvation's not about life after death, but rather about life after life after death. Perhaps the best introduction to this historic understanding is N.T. Wright’s inexpensive booklet New Heavens, New Earth: The Biblical Picture of the Christian Hope. It’s available here from Grove Books.

MOMENTARY MEN

Evangelicals are fleeing in record numbers to churches whose traditions, sensibilities and voice burrow deeply into the ancient soil of mystery, beauty and weighty common consent. This isn’t simply a religious revolution; it is one manifestation of a great cultural repentance.

The rationalistic and pragmatic disregard for glories- both light and heavy- and individualistic arrogance of modern man have rendered his world sterile, bare and almost unbearable to the human soul. Quick and shallow distraction becomes laudable and almost necessary- a blessed and charitable diversion to tingle our emptiness away.

People are looking for more. The human demand’s more.

It is doubly sad that many of the faithful within the Anglican tradition have chosen this time to sample a taste of the dehumanizing experiment that has managed to spin cultural stubble out of the gold of our Christian heritage.

It is sad first of all because of its claim. It measures Christendom against Modernity and finds Christendom wanting. It is wrong.

It is doubly sad because of its timing. Everyone who has lived through the fruitlessness of a world without magic, tradition or communal authority knows that it is wrong, and is retreating into ancient sanctuaries- even into those of their own making and imagination. Witness the growth of the pop pagan practices, which are collectively known as Wicca.

It is sad in the first place because the modern Wiccan understands creation more truthfully than does the modern worshiper of markets- even the Christian ones.

It is sad in the second place because just when the modern world is turning to embrace the view of reality offered by our ancient faith, we have turned to pursue that which they have determined to leave behind.

Like the companies of the late 90’s that invested tens of thousand of dollars to rebrand themselves with a dotcom on the end of their name, while the internet venture balloon burst around them, those parishes will have to find the stomach and resources to return to their former selves, or they will look foolish and dated as the world moves on to its next marketing fad.

I believe it was Allan Tate who said that in our attempt to be modern men, we have only succeeded in becoming momentary men. I think that’s right.

Full Homely Divinity [HT Patristic Anglican] offers some helpful resources to those who wish to preserve an alternative way of being human. There are other valuable ways, as well. But they can’t be found in the cultures of Walmart, McDonalds or MTV.