The Use of the Old Testament

When I was in seminary, I focused for my STM on the study of the Old Testament (OT).  My thesis was on understanding the census numbers in the book of Numbers, so that they could be read as Christian Scripture.  Passages such as those are often ignored in preaching and catechesis, as they seem like good history (maybe), but not much else.  My answer, after surveying all the possible English (and some German and French) arguments, was that scholars didn't have an answer.  No extant theory can be plausibly sustained: some got close, but all left interpretive lacunae.  Nothing answered all the problems.  I knew, at the time, that some sort of hermeneutical 'paradigm shift' was necessary.  But I didn't have one. I still don't, honestly.

This was brought back to my mind by my pastor's sermon today.  In discussing Acts 17, he noted that St Paul ignores the OT in his evangelism.  In front of diaspora Jews, sure, there's lots of OT history and Psalms.  On the Areopagus, none.  He said to them it would have been irrelevant.  Just like the census lists (I added internally).  So, if we don't need an understanding of he OT for salvation (at least St Denys believes at this point), what good is it?  What, for the Christian, is the utility of the Old Testament?

The Old Testament is mystagogy.

The Lord Christ tells us, in Luke 24, that the whole of the OT (summarized as Law, Prophets, and Psalms) is about Him.  How can that be so?  If we read it straightforwardly as history, as I'd be taught in good Calvinist, redemptive-historical fashion, then it is hard to see this, except to say that the OT gives us the necessary historical conditions for the appearance of the Messiah.  The prophecies point forward, some of the more cryptic Psalms do as well, but once the set has been set, it is hard to see how to apply the OT to the Christian life. (As a side-note, I think this is why Theonomy/Christian Reconstruction became so popular amongst many Reformed in the late 80s through the early 2000s: it made the OT real). But this, truly, isn't satisfying: Marcion could probably jive with such a reading of the OT, as it sets the proper evolutionary tone for its own vestigial obsolescence.

So, what? How is the OT mystagogical? This goes back to my pastor's comment. Mid the OT historical background was so necessary, the Apostle would have started with at least a brief introduction.  But he didn't: he started (and finished) with Christ.  The Messiah is the framework and substance of our salvation, not the history of Israel.  However, as we can see from his letters, mostly written to those who were former Gentiles, the OT has a role yet to play, one that goes beyond history, without ever forgetting its historical truth.  It is the witness, on every page, to Christ and His work.  However, until we have been brought to Christ, and died with Him in baptism, we cannot even begin to read it that way.  It will be so much history, some of which is hard for us moderns to swallow (kill every living human in Canaan?!). If it is pointing to Christ, that means it is also pointing to His Body, which means Mary, the Eucharist, and the Church. In other words, what the Fathers call the allegorical or symbolic level of interpretation, leading to the anagogical (in which we, like St Palamas, behold the heavenly glory of the incarnate Christ and are transfigured by Him).

The allegorical, which we are generally allergic to because of perceived Medieval abuse thereof, is strictly bounded.  The touchstone, as in all things, is Christ.  Hence the early regula fidei, which remind us of the essentials of faith (the purpose of which, may we remind ourselves, goes beyond justification, to Christification or theosis), and therefore call us to greater intimacy and knowledge of our Creator and Redeemer.  St Paul lays is out in 1 Corinthians 10, where the OT stories of the Exodus and Wanderings (including, then, the census lists!) are shown to be typos, examples, for us "upon whom the completion of the ages has come" (v. 11).  This completion, often I helpfully translated 'ends,' is shown to be Christ Himself, gathering up everything in heaven and on earth to Himself (Eph. 1:10, cp. Dt. 30:3-4), so that the Father might be "all in all" (1 Cor 15:28). The OT, more than just mere history, can become what it was always supposed to be: "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work" (2 Tim. 3:16-17), so that we might be "wise unto salvation by faith" as was St Timothy.

(Reflecting on this, here is why Jews have the advantage in Romans: while both Jew and Gentile come to Christ on equal terms -- faith in the faithfulness of Christ -- the Jews had been entrusted with the "oracles of God" (3:1-2) and so could grasp the mystagogical meaning of their Scriptures much more easily, especially if they were faithful in practice of the Torah, which would render them purified and ready for deeper revelation.  Sts Athanasius, Cassian, and Gregory of Nazianzus all speak in this way about the necessity of purification before Scriptural interpretation, so I will refer the curious reader to them.)

What does this look like in practice?

Let's take the theme of the Tabernacle/Temple as our (necessarily cursory) example:  all sorts of legislation and historical narrative surround the planning, building, operation, and maintenance of the Hebrew cultus. Since Christ, of course, it is passing away and has become obsolete (Heb. 8:13).  So what good does it do us, apart from antiquarian interest to study the purity regulations or the forming/filling construction narratives of Leviticus and Exodus (respectively)?  As St Paul might say, much in every way. For, "the Word dwelt (lit. tabernacles) among us and we beheld His glory" (Jn. 1:14, so much could be said here, as this passage is pointing us right back to Ex. 40). The Word of God came among us as in the tabernacle.  What does this tell us?  First, it means that wherever the Word dwelt, there must be holiness, for the true God called for this over and over again,  in fact, once the Temple had been hideously defiled, the glory left it, as shown in Ezekiel 8-10. What does this, then tell us about the Virgin Mary?  First, she truly is Theotokos, for she has given birth to the tabernacling Word.  Second, it is theologically necessary that she be holy, free from sin and defilement, for at least as long as she carried the Word (some might say, how could she do this? "Hail! Mary, full of grace...").  More, of course, could be said.  I refer the curious reader to the Fathers for more (Christian history, and the increasing veneration of Mary -- note: I didn't say worship -- makes a lot more sense once you see these things).  What does our (brief) look into the OT tell us about Jesus? The Temple was the site of cleansing (Lk. 8:43-48), of the forgiveness of sins (Mt. 9:4-6), of the manifestation of God's uncreated glory (Mk. 9:2-7).  Jesus, as the incarnate God-man, is the fullness of what the Temple was.  To understand Him, we must look back through Him to the OT Temple.  At one point, He says that the Jews could destroy this Temple and in three days He would raise it up, referring, as John tells us, "of the Temple of His Body" (2:21).  St Paul remind us that we are His Body, the Church (Eph. 1:22-23, etc.), so all the OT language about the purity of the Tabernacle/Temple (1 Cor. 6) and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2, cp. Ex. 40 and 1 Chron. 5) are for, and about, our ascetic lives "hidden with Christ in God" (Col. 3:3).

The OT has everlasting value, then, as it speaks in a fullness about Christ that can only be brought out and experienced by the Church, the "pillar and ground of the Truth" (1 Tim. 3:15).

Sermon: Luke 23:39-43

Here is the text to my sermon at Chippewa United Presbyterian Church in Beaver Falls on Memorial Day weekend, 2014. I was greeted with hospitality and hope to come back soon.
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Scripture Text: One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”


This weekend is the weekend, in our civil holiday calendar, that we remember and celebrate those who have gone before us in national faithfulness. Regardless of whether or not you have veterans who have fallen in your family, this remembrance is regarded as an important part of our civic consciousness: part of being American is to honor those who have died for the defense and spread of our national ideals – freedom, justice, and democracy. But we know that our memories are short and rather selective; it has become a proverb in my family that if there is something important to remember, I’ve already forgotten it. Last night, around the dinner table with friends, my wife told a variety of stories, some involving me, of which I had no recollection. My age must be finally showing through.

The most famous Biblical incidence of this is found in the book of Genesis, in the Joseph narrative. Joseph properly interprets the dream of the cupbearer, bringing him good tidings of restoration, and asks “Only remember me, when it is well with you, and please do me the kindness to mention me to Pharaoh, and so get me out of this house. For I was indeed stolen out of the land of the Hebrews, and here also I have done nothing that they should put me into the pit” (40:14-15). However, as the story proceeds we learn “the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph, but forgot him” (23). It isn’t for another two whole years (41:1) that Joseph comes up to the remembrance of the cupbearer and eventually joins him as a valued and trusted servant of Pharaoh. The rest of the story, how Joseph saves the kingdom from famine and rises to be chief vizier of the Pharaoh, is well known. How was Joseph able to bear the wait, which must have been excruciating? The text does not tell us, but I think it is safe to speculate that he did not trust in the memory of the cupbearer, but in the memory of God.

It may seem strange to talk about the memory of God. Is it even possible for the God who has made everything, who has declared “the end from the beginning” (Is. 46:10), to forget? Let any such thoughts be far from us! Memory, in the Scriptures, is not mere calling to mind something that has been forgotten. Joseph asked the cupbearer to remember him long before he was forgotten! Rather, it is a term of grace: the one who remembers will act in favor towards and for the one brought to mind: to remember is to act on behalf of someone. So we see, all over the Scriptures, God remembering. His remembrance, though, leads not just to a position of power, as in the case of the cupbearer. His memory leads to our salvation. Again, in Genesis, we read of how “God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided” (8:1): God acted on Noah’s behalf, not leaving him stranded, but guiding that ark of salvation for the world to its resting place. The Psalms, that prayerbook of the Bible, record over and over again cries for God to remember and so to act: “Remember your mercy, O Lord, and your steadfast love, for they have been of old. Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for the sake of Your goodness, o Lord” (Ps. 25:6-7). To be remembered by God is to be saved.

When we reach the criminal on the cross next to the Lord Christ, then, we see his appeal is more than just a casual “bringing to mind.” Rather, he is asking Jesus to act on his behalf in God’s Kingdom. The context of the passage will help us to understand this request more clearly. During the crucifixion, the criminals and the elders of the people and the Roman soldiers all mocked him: “He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his chosen one!” and “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself” and the mocking title from Pilate “This is the King of the Jews”. Through this Luke is bringing to our attention another incident earlier in his Gospel: Jesus is reliving the first temptation from Satan, who had sought to entice Him away from His saving work by promises of status, sovereignty, and safety. The Devil used the same language of “Son of God” as his ace-in-the-hole. Just like in that first encounter with the enemy, Jesus’ answers overcome: there, He had untwisted the Scriptures that the Serpent perverted; here, He offers forgiveness for their ignorant actions (“Lord, forgive them, they know not what they do”) and does not return taunts for taunts, evil for evil, but rather is “like a lamb that is led to slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not His mouth” (Is. 53:7). In the light of this, as the criminal on the left continues the taunting (“Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!”), the criminal on the right begins to see that this One truly is the King of Israel. He has done nothing wrong, nor does He seek vengeance against His enemies, nor does He break out in imprecations against His accusers; rather, He offers clemency to the worst offenders, even to those justly condemned who are being crucified next to Him. And so the thief believes.

This faith is what prompts him to ask for the Lord’s remembrance, for Messianic action on his behalf. “Jesus, remember me when you come into Your kingdom.” Rather than asking for immediate relief from the tortures of death on a cross, though, he contents himself to share that fate with his new Lord. His request is for some future action, once God has vindicated the King and given Him glory, although it is hard to tell what he would have been imagining. The criminal, who tradition names as Dismas, is like Joseph, seeking remembrance from the cupbearer of God, the human messiah, once he is lifted up into the presence of the Great King. The Lord Christ, who in His human nature is the Davidic king, the right-hand man of God, but who in His divine nature and person is that self-same Great King, offers the penitent much more than human remembrance. He offers Dismas immediate divine action. “Truly, I say to you,” offering him a strong oath, “today you will be with me in Paradise.”

Is this not the great mercy and grace of our God? We come, as the prodigal son, seeking merely to be servants to the One we have wronged; He offers us the fatted calf and the family robe and the angelic celebration over one wicked person who repents! But what does this mean “today you will be with me in Paradise”? Didn’t our Lord first need to descend into Hades, the abode of the righteous and unrighteous dead, “in which he went and preached to the spirits in prison” (1 Pt. 3:19)? Wasn’t He in the tomb for three days before He was resurrected and 40 more days amongst us before He ascended to the Father’s right hand? What is this “Paradise” and how could our Lord have offered it to the criminal “today”?

It will help us to examine some of the symbolism in this passage. I mentioned earlier that these events play out as a repeat of the temptation by Satan found in Luke 4. That passage, along with this one, shows how Jesus, the Son of Adam, overcame the temptations by which our foreparents fell. In the earlier passage, Jesus overcomes the Serpent by properly using Scripture. In this passage, the symbolism is deeper: Adam died by eating from the forbidden tree, Jesus hangs on a Tree and dies. Where Adam was disobedient, Christ is fully obedient to the Father. Where Adam accuses Eve and even God Himself (“the woman that You gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree…”), Jesus blesses (“Father, forgive them…”). Christ has rejected the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and instead ascended the Tree of Life, by which He conquered the ancient enemy of humankind. Satan is undone: by the cross Christ “disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them” (Col. 2:15). He ascended this Tree so that “through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery” (Heb. 2:14): that which held Adam and all his descendants in bondage to sin has now been undone, unraveled.

The consequence, though, of Adam’s sin was exile and a barred entrance into God’s garden. The Lord “placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the Tree of Life” (Gen. 3:24). The way is shut, for Adam cannot “reach out his hand and take also of the Tree of Life and eat, and live forever” (3:22). If Adam were to do so without repentance, then the corruption of death and sin would always stay in God’s good creation and God, who had warned Adam about death (“on the day you eat of it, you shall surely die”) would be made into a liar. No, for man’s good, so that he might be saved from the slavery to sin and death, Adam must die. He is, as the thief says, “justly condemned.” How, though, shall we reenter that communion with God that Adam and Eve originally enjoyed? Here it is important to note that the Greek translation of the Old Testament, which the New Testament authors knew, read from, and loved, renders the word ‘garden’ as ‘Paradise.’ Jesus, seeing the faith through death of the penitent, opens up the gates of Eden again, banishing the flaming sword, dismissing the cherubim. He has “opened for us a new and living way through the curtain, that is, through his flesh” so that we might “have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus” (Heb. 10:20, 19). The criminal, by faith, rejects the Serpent’s way and reaches towards the Tree of Life for this restored communion with God Himself, for “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself” (2 Cor. 5:19).

The Lord Christ, acting as the Creator God, has planted this Paradise and now is placing this newly-made man in that place with Himself. Instead of understanding “Paradise” as a physical location to which Christ and Dismas go, we should understand it in the same symbolic way the Apostle Paul does: “For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Cor. 5:14-17). The Lord Jesus, taking upon Himself Adam’s self-imposed curse, has died – the righteous for the unrighteous – that all might die in Him through baptism and repentance, being found as new creations through faith. In this new creation is the true Paradise of God, as St Peter tells us, “according to His promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2 Pt. 3:13).

The penitent criminal, bound for Paradise, functions as a symbol of all of us. We who have, by faith, cried out to Jesus for mercy, for remembrance, are made, by His grace, new creations; no longer should we consider one another after the flesh, but as those who are indwelt by and walking according to the Spirit of God. “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” Our flesh, though, by which the Apostle means our connection to the corruption and death brought about by Adam, is crucified with Christ, as the penitent was. We shall no longer walk according to that life, so take hope you who, like me, struggle against the flesh: Christ has put it to death, so that we might share in His eternal, resurrected life, which is the Spirit: “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, against such things there is no law” (Gal. 5:16-23): this is Paradise, this is the new creation, this is the remembrance of the Lord our God, crucified for us, in which we are invited now, “today” as He says from the Cross, to partake in. How shall we partake in this, when it seems so hard and so tiring to fight against the flesh? As the author to the Hebrews says, “let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (Heb. 10:24-25), for “salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly, as in the daytime…put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires” (Rom. 13:11-14). “The Day” is at hand: beloved, it is here! For the penitent, “today” was the day of his death with Christ: this same Lord calls us to “take up our cross daily” (Lk. 9:23): let today be the day that we call to remembrance our Lord Christ and lose our life for His sake, that it might be saved (9:24). All over the Scriptures, this day is the day we are to turn to God and remember Him: “choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Josh. 24:15); “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts” (Ps. 95:7-8); “Working together with [Christ], then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For He says, ‘In a favorable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you.’ Behold, now it the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation…Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God” (2 Cor. 6:1-2; 7:1). Above all, let us remember that He first has remembered our lowly state in Adam (1:52) and visited us (1:68). Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, blessed be the Lord Christ, blessed be the Lord and Giver of Life, the Holy Spirit; one God now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

The Necessity of Method

Today, my pastor gave an excellent sermon on Titus 2.  He spoke of the need to avoid both moralism (what many refer to, erroneously, as 'legalism') and antinomianism.  The message was much appreciated, as it was grounded in the Gospel of the Cross and Resurrection and maintained a necessary synergistic sanctification understanding (that is, our experience of God's holiness, while a pure gift, does require our continual striving to realize).  However, while the necessity of 'watch, pray, and strive' was emphasized, notably missing was a discussion of method.  He did talk about spiritual mentorship, which I'll come back to in a bit.

Thinking about the background to the Pastoral Epistles (I was reminded of this as I revisited lecture notes on these books right before Pascha), it is vital to remember that there is a high level of elision present.  St Paul is not laying everything out for either Sts Timothy or Titus: they already possess the 'deposit' of the Christian Faith (1 Tim. 6:20, 2 Tim. 1:14; cf. Jude 3).  Much important discussion is, therefore, assumed.  To really get at what Paul is exhorting these young Apostle-Bishop-Missionaries to accomplish, we need to know what the 'deposit' contained.  Was it just the kernel of what would (much later) become the corpus of the New Testament?  Was it "the apostles' teaching, the breaking of bread, and the prayers" (Acts 2:42; 'the' before prayers is in the Greek and is necessary to grasp the formal liturgical experience of the apostolic Church)?  The Scriptures were always handed down with their proper interpretive context: the formal worship (testified to in Acts 2 and 1 Cor. 11-14, amongst other places) and a particular method of discipleship.  

What I'm getting at is simple, but profoundly existential for me: without the method -- how the commands of sanctification properly become efficacious in the believer's life -- the Scriptures and worship are nothing more than pious talk, misleading talk at that.  Unless, of course, your soteriology is nothing more than belief and worship as form of post-Cross propitiation.  In that case, where we are seeking to keep God 'happy' with us until we die, why would we need actual holiness? The motions become the point.  I don't bring this up as a strawman either; I think much popular Reformed Christianity functions in this way, even if it would never (thank God!) be encouraged from the pulpit.

True, Biblical soteriology, however, has much more to do with Christic union (what the Fathers call 'theosis') than propitiation, either on the Cross or afterwards.  Our goal, our end, our telos, is conformity to Christ's Image (Rom. 8:29), which is to say that we will be united to the Father by grace in the way Christ, His Word-Image, is by nature.  How are they united?  To use an expression from the Cappadocian Fathers: they share an essence, which is imparticipable (incommunicable), and an energy, in which all Creation can share.  What is this energy (or activity, if you will)? "He who has seen Me has seen the Father" (John 14:9): the activity of the Incarnate Word during His sojourn amongst us is the activity of the Father.  Christ is humble, compassionate, free from sin, and so on.  What He is is what we are supposed to become.  But, returning to the question at hand, how?

Here is where the difficulty of the Pastorals, and all Scripture really, becomes apparent: they already assume a method that is rarely spoken of explicitly.  This isn't to say that the Scriptures are insufficient, nor that they aren't the 'infallible rule for faith and life'.  Rather, it is to say that the Scriptures have always had a context for their proper interpretation and application: the apostolic worship and the method of discipleship, that is, the 'deposit'.  Without the Deposit, or as the Church (following St Paul) would call it, the Tradition, the Scriptures fall into the hands of the heretics that St Peter warned us about (2 Pt. 2:1; this being exactly what Sts Athanasius and Vincent of Lerins spoke of).  The method, to speak historically, is the ascetic form of life passed on from the earliest days of ecclesial life: fasting, feasting, meditation on Scripture, silence (hesychia), alms giving, liturgical prayer -- especially Psalmody, etc.  Without the build up of instruction we have in the Philokalia (for instance) and from seasoned spiritual fathers and mothers, we cannot attain to the commands of Scripture.  In my experience, at the least, they remain in the realm of desire, just out of reach.  However, if we build up the spiritual muscle to "rejoice always and pray without ceasing" (1 Thess. 5:16-17), by the methods passed down from the apostles till today, we will find walking in the Spirit to be neither a thing of moralism nor antinomianism, as we will have transcended that false dichotomy.

However, as all of the saints I've read have carefully and repeatedly asserted, this struggle of discipline -- the actualization of what is already true in the Cross of Christ -- cannot be accomplished alone.  This is where my pastor's sermon really hit the mark. He spoke, eloquently, about the need for spiritual mentorship, of the old by the older, and the young by the older, whether male or female.  However, mentors need more than age: they need proven success in the method traditioned to us.  Are they able to guide us in askesis?  Have they followed the Lord in "denying themselves and daily taking up the Cross"?

While the method does not promise earthly success (it is no snake oil treatment), it is the only way that success -- the healing of the human person which leads to the healing of the cosmos in Christ -- can even be imagined. 

Adulthood (poem)

Adulthood

When I was young, it was easy to grow up;
There was a day, I knew not when,
When it was, simply, true.
No ceremony or rite,
no journey into the wilderness;
Maybe a nod of the head
signaled the journey’s end.

And so, now, I see that adulthood
must be realizing youth’s foolishness.
But this cannot be enough, for,
God, I’m still a fool.
I know more than I did then,
but I’m no better at keeping true.
Could maturity be the piquancy of guilt?

I used to think I could do it on my own,
but the older I become, and I feel it,
the more I need companions, hell,
the more I need my parents;
but that ship has sailed, I fear,
years and years and years of neglect
and strain and secret resentment:
how can I come home now?

Could this be why I’ve resisted this so long?
Three kids in and I still want to be
that geeky college kid, universally adored
in his own mind.
But fear, more often than not, is irrational:
who is there to catch me if I fail?
No one. And everyone.
Adulthood is the realization of love
and the loving of all;
forgiveness, repentance, reconciliation –
these, these!, are our prime meals.

Children cannot handle bitterness
and so gravitate to the sweet;
it is the special province of the aged
that these bitters are desired.

The Judgment of Christ

“For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgement to the Son” (Jn. 5:22).

Does this saying of the Lord Jesus apply only to the Incarnation (and afterwards), or to the whole of the economy of salvation?  Before, I was inclined to see it as the first; however, I'm leaning towards the second. Part of this is seeing Jesus as always and eternally the Son, not just as being Son via the Incarnation (Lk. 1:35).

If the second option is true, then something wonderful happens in Genesis. God (the Son) gives Adam judgment: "on the day you eat of [the tree], you shall surely/be liable to die" (there is an important ambiguity in the Hebrew here; not sure offhand how it looks in the LXX). When Adam does rebel, the judgment starts to bear fruit: mankind really is liable to death, even violent death as Cain discovers, or innocent death as Abel experiences. However, if the Incarnation was to always happen, and Revelation, at least, seems to imply this (13:8, cf. 1 Pt. 1:20), then this means that the Son, when warning Adam of the consequences of sin and then applying them in assize, is signing His own death warrant. The Cross is found in Genesis 2 and 3, as the judgment of God is revealed to be an outpouring of His grace, freely chosen from before the first sin ("the foundation of the world"?). 

This is truly beautiful.

Christmas Sermons from the Fathers

For those who have the traditions of singing carols, reading the birth narratives of Christ, and generally celebrate when the Light came into he world, enlightening all men, might I suggest reading a Christmas sermon or two?  Maybe one that has stood the test of time?

Here is a list of Christmas sermons I enjoy, from the Fathers.  It is only a beginning.  If you have other recommendations, please leave a comment!

The first extant sermon belongs to St. John Chrysostom

St. Gregory the Theologian offers a brief meditation, as part of a series that runs all the way through Epiphany

St. Leo the Great with a lengthier discourse

That's all for now!  I'll keep adding as I find and enjoy more!

The Problem of Theological Authority

This is a subject that, I suspect, I will return to again and again.  From whence derives theological authority?

If we say the Scriptures:
--which ones?  Who determines the canon, that is, which books are to be read amongst catechumens (learners not yet baptized), which are to be read in the liturgy/mass/service, which are for the mature, which are not allowed?  Alas, our early copies of the Scriptures come without a table of contents!
--which text families?  Who determines whether we use the Byzantine text type, the Textus Receptus, the modern eclectic critical texts?  Should we privilege earlier manuscript traditions, on the assumption that earlier = less adulterated?  Should we privilege the ones that the Church herself has held close, even if the manuscript evidence is later?  Which textual variants (most insignificant, some of utmost importance) should we go with when translating?  What text critical philosophy and translation philosophy shall we adopt?
--which Old Testament?  Masoretic? Septuagint? Vulgate? Peshitta?  Samaritan?  An eclectic combination of all the above?  I've heard, although I don't recall where, one Orthodox argue that the text used is whatever Chrysostom quotes in his sermons.  I'm unaware if a full text has been compiled from his writings -- that would be quite a helpful project to undertake!
--whose interpretation?  Once the dust of canon and texts has settled, the Book still needs interpretation.  Shall it be the individual conscience?  The schoolmen, whether higher critical or not?  Shall it be the Church's?  If so, which Church: Reformed through the Confessions, Roman Catholic through the Magisterium, Orthodoxy through the Fathers/the Councils/theoria?  Shall the interpretation be according to the "Allegory of the Theologians" outlined by Origen, Cassian, and others?  Shall it be according to a redemptive-historical method? A historical-critical method? A canonical method?  A combination of some/all/none of the above?

It is important to note that I am not making any choices here; rather, I am trying to uncover all the issues involved in theological authority.  As you can see, even when thinking just about the Scriptures, the questions to answer are legion.

If we say the Church:
--which Church?  Each version/branch/division/sect/denomination has a different basis of authority, even though they all claim the same divinely-given status.  God is not the god of confusion, but of logos, of order, rationality, of the peace that arises out such a stable (and therefore freedom giving) cosmos.  So, not all the churches can have the same claim to divine authority: this does not automatically mean that they are deriving authority from a demonic source, but they are deriving from some "lesser good(s)" in creation.  It is imperative that this question be answered honestly and frankly, without regards for the possible consequences: the truth must be followed.  Christ has one Church, made up of many members -- but they are united.  The question that then arises is: what is the basis of that unity?  Is it doctrinal?  Is it hierarchical?  Is it Eucharistic?  Is it a combination of some/all/none of the above?
--which definition of "Apostolic Tradition"?
--what do we do with the checkered history of the Church?  How can an entity that drowns Anabaptists, holds a Thirty Years War, has Crusades and Inquisitions, etc. have any moral and spiritual authority?  How could an entity that doesn't go to war for the truth have any moral or spiritual authority?

If we say the individual conscience:
--what about the role of sin (the so-called noetic effects of sin)?  How much has reason, when searching into the things of the holy God, been hampered/distorted/perverted due to the corruption of human nature?
--whose individual conscience?  The history of American evangelicalism and revivalism is full of folks being "led by the Spirit" to say and do and start problematic, often heretical, things.

It is an adage, given to us by St. Paul, that the Holy Spirit is the One who interprets the deep things of God.  St. John reminds us that "no one has seen God at any time...the only begotten Son/God [one of those few important textual variants] has declared [exegeted/interpreted] Him."  In other words, theological authority must derive from the Triune God: Father, Son, Spirit.  But, the question of how we connect to the Spirit is wide open: is it through careful interpretation of the Scriptures (which sends us back to our list of questions above)?  is it through charismatic experience?  Is it through hesychastic prayer?

And so, I'm at the point that I always return to, and have returned to for many years: who has the Spirit?  Which community is the bearer of God's Life?  How would we know?  St. Paul, to his plenipotentiary St. Timothy, writes: "the Church of God...is the pillar and ground/foundation of the Truth" (1 Tim. 3:15).  The Church is the Body of the Resurrected Messiah: she is possessed by the Spirit, is the Body of the Son, and offers worship, on behalf of all, to the Father.  The most prime task, then, is to determine who the Church is.  This leads, of course, to another whole set of questions -- but what more important subject is there in the entire world?

The Holiness of Mary

I've heard plenty of sermons, read plenty of books, and participated in plenty of discussions that include, in one form or another, the statement that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was a sinner just like us.  I've even heard the phrase "dirty, rotten sinner" used.  However, there is something amiss here.

If Jesus is God (something that I no longer question; my opinion changed when I met Him), then we must consider the dwelling places of God in the Old Testament as we seek to understand Mary.  This also has ramifications for our own existence, as we are dwellings of the Holy Spirit: the symbols of the Tabernacle and the Temple apply to us -- in other words, Leviticus becomes an eminently practical book in the Christian life.

What was the character of God's dwelling places?  Holiness.  Absolute purity on pain of death or exile, whichever comes first.

So, if Mary's womb is the Holy of Holies, where the Word resides, what does that make the rest of her?  The Temple of the Lord.

Will God change His mind about holiness as He takes up residence here?  As He takes human nature from her?  As His human existence becomes the new Temple that shall be destroyed, yet three days later raised up?

Now, this doesn't mean that the latterly developed "Immaculate Conception of Mary" is necessary, from a Biblical/symbolic standpoint.  One would think that after the promulgation of the Protoevangelium of James around the year AD 145, that doctrine would make an appearance: but no dice.  It is, rather, a logical extension of St. Augustine's (errant?) views on the passing of guilt in the human race.

It does entail, though, a level of participation in God's holiness (as He is the only source and possessor of holiness -- it isn't a created 'moral' quality) that seems somewhat unprecedented Biblically (on the human level: the buildings of Temple and Tabernacle had already partook of the incarnational grace): this really isn't bothersome, though, as Mary is no ordinary human, even though she is just like us ontologically.  She is fully human, not a demi-god(dess).  But, she is the "birth-giver to God" (a more precise translation of Theotokos than "mother of God"), a status, role, and honor that no other human being will ever have.

Two possibilities arise from this: either Mary never sinned and was cleansed from ritual impurity by the direct action of God or she sinned but was forgiven.  I'm not sure it really matters: however, we often like to point out the moral failings of Biblical characters, so that we can relate.  Why, though, should that be our default position?  Holiness, righteousness, etc. are about participation with God through His grace, not about moral strength/willpower.  There certainly is an element of struggle (ascesis), but that should spur us on to imitation, not depress us: Mary is human like us, her faithfulness to God is what we should emulate; not whether or not she sinned.

At any rate, there does seem to be an underlying theological principle that the Mother is the symbol of the Bride: in other words, if we want to know what the Church is to be, we need to look to Mary.  The Church is to be a spotless virgin; Mary was a spotless virgin.  The Church is to obey her Lord, for she is His agent of Life in the world; Mary, in her act of obedience ("let it be according to your word"), brings the Life into the world.  The list could go on.  The most telling moment, though, is what Mary says after asking her Son to help at Cana: she turns to those in charge of the festivities and says, "Do whatever He tells you."  Whatever role Mary has (and, for those who follow the Regulative Principle of Worship, "all generations shall henceforth call me blessed"), she should be listened to here: she always will point us towards obedience, for the Life of the world.

The First Rule of the Humanities

It isn't what someone, say, Homer, writes; it is how he is interpreted and applied in later generations.

Limits

One of the most important, but often overlooked, aspects of engaging in theology is to know when to speak and when to be silent.

Most heresies, it seems, stem from a desire to comprehend God, rather than worship Him within our creaturely limitations.

The Face of God (Brief Advent Sermon)

This is a bit premature, as I won't be presenting this until tomorrow night, but here it is anyway.  Otherwise, I'm prone to forget to post it.  The inspiration behind it, if I may use that term, is St. Gregory the Theologian's Oration 38, of which and to whom I am not worthy to hold a candle.  May God be gracious to you during this Advent season.
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The Face of God

“No one has seen God at any time…” (John 1:18)

“No one may see My face and live…” (Ex. 33:20)

“And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the might men, every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, and said to the mountains and rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the Face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?” (Rev. 6:15-16)

“Woe to me, for I am undone!  Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts!” (Is. 6:5)

And yet…

“The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make His Face shine upon you, and be gracious to you.  The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.” (Num. 6:24-26)

“If My people, who are called by My Name, will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” (2 Chron. 7:14)

“When you said, ‘Seek My Face,’ my heart said to You, ‘Your Face, Lord, I will seek.’ Do not hide Your Face from me…” (Ps. 27:8-9a)

There is a dual movement in Scripture, both wonderful and paradoxical: we are made to be face-to-Face with God, yet it is this very Face that strikes in us terror, that undoes us, and is invisible to us.  It is not without purpose that St. Paul says, “The blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable Light, whom no man has seen nor can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power.  Amen!” (1 Tim. 6:15-16) Here we seem to be without hope: for how can we see, or seek, or have shine upon us that which seems so far away?

Let us return to the first quote of the night, that from St. John’s Gospel, “No one has seen God at any time…” and finish it: “The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.”  Our desire, our true end, as human beings is to be in the Presence of God; yet this is impossible for us.  However, Jesus Christ, in His Incarnation, the Word and Image and Son of God become flesh “for us and for our salvation” as the Creed puts it, declares the Father.  He is the Image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15), the visible One of the invisible One, taking human existence to its highest level so that He will tell His disciples, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father!” (John 14:9)

But there is even more.

Why did God forbid the making of images in the Old Testament?  (Ex. 20:4-6) His Image had not yet been revealed (Deut. 4:15).  Certainly, Adam and Eve were made “in the Image and Likeness of God,” (Gen. 1:26) but through sin instead passed on their own image to their children: “And Adam live on hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth” (Gen. 5:3).  The image of man in Adam could never suffice, since it was a tainted image, one that bore the marks of rebellion and sin and corruption.  All such images could be nothing more than idols, leading us to “exchange the truth of God for the lie, and worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever” (Rom. 1:25). Christ, who as Son of God is the Image of the Invisible Father, has restored in humankind that Image by taking on our flesh, our full human nature, and redeeming it.  Now, as St. Paul says, we can not only look at the glory of God, but be transformed by it: “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor. 3:18)  Christ’s coming in the flesh, as the God-Man, not only reveals God the Father, but also fulfills God’s good purposes to make us look like Him as well: “For who He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the Image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren” (Rom. 8:29).  When we, being transformed and conformed, are seen by those outside, they are to see the Image who is Christ, we are little images, no longer of Adam, but of Christ, who is the Image of God the Father.  For “as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man” (1 Cor. 15:49).

This season of Advent, we who are unworthy are being invited to see the Face of God in Jesus Christ, the Face that was hidden because of sin and corruption and death.  Let us make haste to join ourselves in union to Christ, to share in His sufferings, to partake of His death, and to be raised from the dead with Him, so that His Face might shine upon us, and we might, reflecting the Light of the World, be a city on a hill, letting our light, the Unapproachable Light of God’s Glory in the Face of Jesus Christ, so shine that those outside might see our good works and glorify, not us, but our Father who is in Heaven (Matt. 5:16).  This Christmas, O Lord, may the words of your prophet be fulfilled in us: “Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but to Your Name give glory, because of Your mercy, because of Your Truth” (Ps. 115:1).  Amen.

A Dialogue Concerning the Good

'L' is our learner.  'C' is our catechist.  I'm still seeking the best "names" for these characters.
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L: Since God has created all things 'good' and 'very good' (Gen. 1), why does our Lord Christ command us to "renounce all things" (Lk. 14:33) to become His disciple?

C: Ah, a difficult teaching of our Lord, yes?  First, answer me this: who shall inherit the earth?

L: The meek (Mt. 5:5).

C: And who are the meek?

L: Well, the word means the 'humble.'  But, forgive me, I don't know what this has to do with my question.

C: Patience, patience.  To be meek, surely, is to be humble.  But to be humble, in this case, is to be like Christ, as all the beatitudes speak of Him, the Blessed One (Mt. 21:9).  What do we know about the humility of Christ?

L: The Apostle Paul speaks of it in Philippians 2:5-8 -- "Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross!"

C: And did He inherit the earth?

L: Certainly!  The Apostle continues to speak of His exaltation, which is an echo of our Lord's own words, "All authority in heaven and on earth have been given to me" (Matt. 28:18).

C: What is our relationship to His humility?

L: We are to make ourselves humble, as His command states.  So, are you suggesting that by being meek, we are to renounce all good things that we might have access, through our Lord Christ, to the Greatest Good, the Father?

C: You are exactly right.  There is, undoubtedly, a hierarchy of the 'goods' that comprise this world.  Some goods we seek after in certain contexts, some are external, some are internal, etc.  All are good, since they are created as such by God.  However, that means that they retain their goodness only in the proper creational context, which has been distorted by the entrance of sin and death in the world.  'Goods' are still good, but only when they are redeemed through the death of Christ; otherwise they can quickly become 'goods' that lead us away from the Good One.  Here is the paradox at the heart of our faith: if we choose these lesser goods as ultimate or satisfactory, we lose all goods.  Instead, we must forsake all earthly goods for the Eternal Good, through which we inherit all good things.  In uniting to His humility, His death -- which we must die every day -- He unites us to His exaltation, His powerfully proclaimed sonship, and His inheritance.

On the end of American Christendom

It is always interesting to me when big partisan political events happen here in America.  Not because of the political implications (which are, regardless, important), but the reactions of Christians.  The same people (and I'm not excluding myself) who a week before say, "God is love.  No sinner is outside of His grace, etc." will now say, "Obama/Republicans/Democrats/etc. are evil/idiotic/unworthy of political office, etc.".  There is a disconnect between our fake Jesus talk and what we really believe: God loves those who we think He should.  Anyone who battles against our own emotivist sub-worlds is obviously wrong.  We forget the complexities of these interminable debates, opting for simplistic rationales that vaunt our own supposed wisdom; we forget that these men and women (conservative or liberal) are just in as much of grace as we are, rather, according to St. Paul, we need more grace than they: "The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost" (1 Tim. 1:15).  Lest we think that Paul is just talking about himself, the whole phrase has been used since the beginning as a liturgical phrase spoken by each individual before they received the Eucharist.

What is our response to the political hubbub of the day to be?  St. Paul also instructs us in this, in a myriad of places:

"Remind them [Christians] to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work [like, I don't know, tending the health of the poor, the widow, the orphan, the leper, the lame, the blind...whatever Obamacare may or may not be, it is surely a sign that the Church has abjected failed in her mission -- I'm not speaking of it merely as an "institution" here either: we have all failed and will have to answer for it, as Matthew 25 so starkly tells us], to speak evil of no one, to be gentle, to show perfect courtesy toward all people..." (Titus 3:1-2)

Or:

"First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.  This is good and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desire all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth..." (1 Tim. 2:1-4)

And so on.

What to do, then?  First of all, pray.  If you don't pray for your public leaders in your weekly public assembly, ask your pastor/elders/priests to do so.  If you already have these prayers in your liturgy, don't just breeze through them.  I love liturgical worship -- it gives me a grammar that I inherently lack: but I've been to enough of them where the prayers are intoned with no conviction.  When we are praying, we are invoking the name of God, Father, Son, and Spirit.  To pray flippantly is to "bear the Name in vain" as spoken of in the Ten Commandments.

Secondly, if you want change, you must first purify yourself.  What do you receive from the government?  Start providing it for yourself and your neighbors.  Is the health care regulation a concern to you?  Then start living a healthy, ascetic life.  Help your neighbors out of the slavery of too much food, too little food, eating disorders, junk food, loneliness, alienation from family, and so on.  If we were a healthier nation, by which I mean a neighborly nation, we wouldn't need federal health care -- these things would be taken care of at the lower levels of society.  But we don't know our neighbors, we don't pray for them, and so we die, poor, alone, and lost.

Is this a cure all?  No.  But it will go a long way and do a lot more good than complaining about the inherent problems of democracy.  Remember, God called you to love Him and your neighbor; He didn't call you to be a Republican, a Democrat, or an autonomous individualist.  The Enlightenment style of society we've inherited isn't the Gospel.  The love of Jesus Christ that calls us to put ourselves to death for the life of our neighbors, however, is.

To My Wife (poem)

To My Wife
_____________________

How shall I begin?
It is easy to speak about
    some phantastical delight
    of a nightingale, or the sun
    on dew-drenched grass.
Much harder to call to the pen
    the familiar.  For what is marriage
    but the essence of the mundane?
The work of a myriad myriads of
    generations: the feeding,
    the sheltering, the nurturing
    and the cajoling.
The tender affection and private
    play, mixed but unadulterated
    with the senseless infliction
    of pain, too keenly sensed.

I read the other day, a news report
    of mens' despondency when
    their wives make money.
How easy to forget it is no longer
    my work or your reward
    my pride or your comfort.
On that day, I ceased to be
    and you left all old realities
    becoming, til time's end, we.

The Resting Place (poem)

And what does it mean to know
that all our heroes and our gods will fail us?
When sharing bread has become no more than a meal;
and who we are is solisp ideal?

I look at my child newly born
Sleeping in my resting arm.
I have brought her into this terror world
I do not know whether to feel guilt or fear;
but feel I must.

And when she rests me in my tomb
--for dust am I and to dust must I return--
and looks on me no more, it will not be
guilt and fear that stay,
nor will they follow me. But pain.

Here is where I'm tempted to despair:
Pain borne alone is only death.
It is in commune that we not merely live--
This necessity finds its home there.
And in this place can grief and sorrow exhausted lay
while sweet maternal lullabies stir the air.

Untitled (poem)

I found this one scrawled in my HUM 103 teaching notes. I cannot remember when I wrote it, although with this set of notes it would have had to have been within the last three years...I think. There is no title on it.

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A poet is to take the unspeakable
and gently place it into
the container of words.
The ocean in a jar
both is and is not.
For that within is an image,
an icon,
with a longing to return.

So the words that circumscribe
love
Partake and like the salty brine
cause the water and the drinker
to yearn
To long for communion where they
are not lost
But have their fullest place.

Nepsis (poem)

Nepsis

What is love but watchfulness?
An ascesis of patience
A participation in He who is
with another.
Our communion becomes
in His patient passion
Divine.

The voices of children
proclaim the good news:
the two intertwined
unconfused
united
Two persons mirroring
the One
Who in the Love He is
has made us
the one Flesh
Which is the Life of the World.

The Triduum (poem)

The Triduum

It was a day of tumult and song
When the Conquerer conquered was
And our masters swooned their devilish delight
To see the one who refused at the pinnacle
Fall from such a great height.

That auspicious day! Day of triumph and victory!
was no day of light
but deepest gloom that could be felt.
For his cross was the bar
that pried the doors from their hinges.

And the gates of hell
shall not prevail
And devil's flee
from sinners set free.

For it was not just a mere incursion
But a full blown invasion
as he fit each captive now free
with weapons sharp and two-edged.
This one has, since that dark day,
ne'er failed to steal more away.

Our songs are new
as we come full force
past the strong man bound and gagged
to do these works of God
for the life of the world.

A New, but Really Old, Vision for the Humanities

Disclaimer: This rethinking is for a Christian college/university setting. I cannot claim to speak for those parts of the Western humanistic tradition that aren't Christian.

Teaching the Humanities in today's academy can be hard. We are, essentially, teaching a history of Western civilization to many who have been so divorced from a pre-Enlightenment past that we seem to be nothing more than bemusing antiquarians. Why does the Theogony matter? Who cares about Homeric understandings of hospitality? Does it really matter that Roman social classes were based on an honor/shame dynamic? Everyone knows there aren't nine levels of Hell and so few of us live in Florence, so why read Dante? etc. Most of all, aren't these things in the past? We live in an ahistorical world, one that believes we have left home, so to speak, and that has made all the difference in our wild, wonderful, and utopian modern world.

And here the most bizarre element in student (and, I would argue, public and political) thinking comes out: we often reject the past because they didn't have it together, like we do. But, we don't have it together. The last century was the most violent in human history, with most of the deaths being administered by governments on their own people. So much for the equity and justice that will come from breaking old kinship ties and establishing the nation-state (this, of course, is not to argue that the nation-state has not brought some good things -- it is, however, to argue against the bizarre myopic utopianism that still accompanies pretty much anything out of the Enlightenment, even if it has been uniformly bad). We refuse, possibly because we are afraid to fall into in anomic Void, to see that the Emperor has no clothes, much less to call him on it (one risks being a "premodern" or a "fundamentalist" if this is attempted). It is precisely the power of the Humanities to bring on a clarity of vision that allows us to call things what they really are. Plato's Allegory of the Cave is apropos here: all that we see is not necessarily the true reality.

One of the greatest problems, though, is our way of teaching the Humanities as history. We bow to modern standards of what history should look like, how it should be told, and we wonder why students have no interest. History, alas, means very little to people, unless if it can be connected to aliens. I don't think we should abandon history, but it cannot be the framework in which we tell the story of Western Civilization. Part of the reason for this is because we lack a cogent Christian philosophy of history. While linear progression theories, popularized I'm told by St. Augustine, seem to make some sense, they fail for two reasons: 1) we disagree about what the ending will look like (pre-, post-, a- mill, for example) and this makes telling the story incoherent (see, for example, what happened to the show Lost, both before they knew what ending they were making and then after they determined a milquetoast finale) and 2) linear progression assumes, implicitly, a "betterification" of the world, that is, we have surpassed our elders and so can learn only from their mistakes (if that). I see this last one a lot in many Protestant views of Church History, calling the Fathers the "Church Babies" for instance, or in generally thinking that the Reformation put the Fathers right where they had erred (especially when they cannot hold a candle to the holiness of the martyrs and confessors). Until we rectify these things, our teaching of Humanities as an essentially historical discipline will fail.

Instead, let me harken back to a formula that still has some cultural cachet, goodness:beauty:truth. All Western humans, and Christians especially, have some sort of sense of these things. Yes, our understanding of each of them is hindered by emotivism, but often we attempt to reach beyond ourselves in getting a grip on them. The Western tradition could be classified as the search for these things, whether as universals (Plato), as discrete units (Aristotle), or as participation in the logoi of the Logos (Maximos). What that might mean, in practical pedagogical terms, is this:

Goodness is the study of philoethikos, of "love of ethics": each student would receive a grounding in the various questions about what it means to live a good, successful, pleasant life that reaches the human telos of glorification in Christ.

Beauty is the study of philokalia, of "love of beauty": each student would receive a grounding in the various questions of what it means to ascertain and use (in the Augustinian sense) beauty, aesthetics, proportion, and cultural artifacts.

Truth is the study of philosophy, of "love of wisdom": each student would receive a grounding in the various questions of what it means to connect to that which makes the world work on the human level, whether through asking questions about society, about human constitution, or about the "natural sciences."

It is possible to make this a three-course sequence, one leading to the other. They could be treated historically, or they could be treated in a "classics" or "Great Books" way. But they would, in a Christian setting, end in philotheos, or "love of God" in which we see how these things all are gifts from the Divine Benefactor who created all beauty, goodness, and truth so that He might sacramentally unite us to Himself in Jesus Christ. Theology, that is the study of God through prayer and ascesis, would take her rightful place as the apex of the sciences that transcends all science: for we must know God through created means while still knowing that He transcends all created categories.

The Failure of American Christian Culture

This week, due to my wife's birth-giving of our third child, I've been around the campus of the University of Pittsburgh. It is a place, in common evangelical terminology, ripe for the harvest of the Gospel: gays, lesbians, drag queens, homeless, "loose" people populate the streets. This, combined with a first reading of Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue, has led me to reflect on why Christianity is becoming less and less of a viable option in American culture generally, and with the young, urban, educated set particularly.

To do so, though, will require engaging MacIntyre's understanding of what "emotivism" is. "Emotivism is the doctrine that all evaluative judgments [that is, judgments as to whether something is "right or wrong", "good or bad", "true or false", etc.] and more specifically all moral judgments are nothing but expressions of preference, expressions of attitude or feeling, insofar as they are moral or evaluative in character" (12, emphasis original). In other words, all value decisions are based on what we take, in our various and self-contained "sub-worlds," to be good, true, and beautiful. There are no rational or universal outside standards on which to adjudicate such evaluative claims. MacIntyre goes on to argue, and I think he is substantially right, that our culture is, by-and-large, emotivist. Mutually exclusive moral claims, such as for or against action in Syria by the US military/government, cannot ever really talk to each other because the claims themselves are not based on any shared rational grounds, nor can they be since there are no shared rational grounds on which to be based.

To return to my initial reflections, I see two dominant Christian cultures in the United States today, both of which are unable to speak in the public square (say, at Pitt) because they cannot overcome the emotivist quandry. The first culture is the culture of moralizing Christianity: the claim is that these folks are "living in sin" and need to change their lifestyles to avoid [judgment, Hell, social breakdown, etc.] However, in the face of emotivism, these claims are nonsensical: how can this group say what is "good" or what human teleology is, since that is reserved for the autonomous individual? The call to a different way of living, whether done in or out of love, ends up being a personal assault on the hearer -- the call to a lifestyle change is a call to living in the confusion of the void, as their identity is, more often than not, tied to the various social and sexual roles that they inhabit. To say that their reasons for doing something or living a certain way is an assault on the autonomy of the individual, which in an emotivist context, becomes an assault on sense of self. This method is, alas, doomed to fail in any long-range way (this is not to say that individuals are not converted through such presentation, but this old revivalist style has had its day -- many historians question whether or not within its day it was actually effective, but that's another matter entirely).

The second culture is that of telic Christian identity. This culture hinges upon language such as "your true identity is in Christ" or "become what God made you to be" or some such. This culture is the one that I am most comfortable with, as I believe (emotivistically, I'm sure) that this is proper linguistic framework, building off, as it does, the Biblical and Patristic "image of God" tradition. However, this too is bound to fail, but for significantly different reasons. If we are to call others to a different moral framework, one which is founded and maintained outside of the human self (outside of individual emotivist restraints), we need living exemplars to refer to. However, as the amount of moral scandal in evangelical Christianity proves, this is no easy task. We are, by-and-large, without consistent standard bearers. Not only with those who fail, but often with those who have some sort of moderate success. Either they become "A-holes for Jesus" (as I've heard them described before) or they are attacked under the rubric of antinomianism: Christianity isn't about how you live, it is about Jesus' grace, blah blah blah. (The historical fact that a strident "Law/Gospel" distinction always ends up in a rejection of Christian virtue or a legalistic Pietism seems to be lost on modern exponents of it). Some might say that we have the exemplary lives of the saints of yore to point to. While this is a good option, it fails to answer the question of our contemporary moment: is this sort of thing possible still? Or has the world changed too much (whether we consider it to have matured or devolved) for that to even be possible? To cut to the point, the phraseology of telic evangelism falls short since no contemporary examples of the category can be produced, whether because of moral failure or actual impossibility. For an emotivist to make the jump from self-sustained identity to Christic identity would require not just rational dialogue, but actually examples of the jump that can be imitated with some measure of success (this is not, however, to be read as an easy task: ascesis is not easy -- we do no one any favors by broadcasting Christianity as 'easy').

What to do, then? Are we stuck, at this historical moment, with an impotent Church?

Option one, moralism, is unsustainable. If we latch onto this particular brand of Christian life and witness, we will continue to fail. As I've heard a couple of preachers put it, "God didn't come to make bad men good; He came to make dead men live." Same goes, I imagine, for women. It is futile to call those who have identity formation tied closely into lifestyle choices to a facile, will-driven change of existence.

Option two, telic identity, is still workable; but not in the current instantiation. One of the present ways that we've sought to overcome our inability to produce exemplars is by focusing on shared "brokenness." We are all broken, so we cannot judge those outside, nor those on the inside. While, of course, there is some truth in this (we all inherit something from Adam other than a baseline human nature), it is a celebration not of what Christ came to do or has, on the Cross and through the Resurrection, done, but rather it is a celebration of a failure to have become what His actions have made it possible for us to become. That is, this point of "brokenness" is where the two cultural forms of Christianity seem to meet and fuse: we are supposed to become like Christ, Christ is moral (defined as "He perfectly keeps the Law"), therefore our ultimate end is to be moral; however, we fail to be moral, but since Christ is "our righteousness" this doesn't actually matter, therefore we celebrate our continued lack of morality or failure to be moral as a sign of God's continuing grace towards us. We might (should!) question a few of the premises in this argument (I do not know of anyone who puts it this way, but it seems to be a common enough, yet implicit, argument), most especially that of the "active/passive obedience" paradigm that informs both Reformed and evangelical Christianity (that remains for another day, however). The celebration of "brokenness" is rather a tacit celebration of the ineffectiveness of the Cross and Resurrection in the face of sin, death, and corruption. Any time the Christian Gospel speaks of defeat, whether in the eschaton or in history, it has ceased to be the Christian Gospel.

A different way of understanding our telic identity in Christ, then, is necessary. I do not think, though, that this needs to a new or novel understanding. In our theological heritage, we have plenty of unmined resources to draw from. Particularly, the inheritance from monasticism would be powerfully useful. However, for it to speak to our current cultural malaise, it would have to be un-cloistered: to separate from the world, while still a powerful witness (I think of St. Antony of the Desert as the prime example) would miss the cultural effectiveness I am aiming for. Rather, the concept of ascesis, which has historically been guarded and maintained in monastic communities, would allow many to become the effective exemplars of Christian identity (that is, of post-Resurrection Christic participation).

But isn't ascesis the same as moral striving? Yes and no. They do share some of the same forms, but for different reasons and ends. Morality hinges, normally, on the anger/judgment/wrath of God. Do this or be damned! Ascesis, though, hinges on the actual becoming because of the love of God: we fast not because we are avoid God's wrath, but because this is the means by which we disconnect from the corruption of the world and connect to God's grace which is remaking our nature. It isn't being moral for morality's sake; it is become like Christ for the sake of the world. More needs to be said on this, of course, but I should go back to attendance on my young family.

The Gay Science (with some half-hearted apologies to F. Nietzsche)

The Madman

"Where is Man gone?" he called out. "I mean to tell you! We have killed him, you and I! We are all his murderers! But how have we done it? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the whole horizon? What did we do when we loosened this earth from its sun? Whither does it now move? Whither do we move? Away from all suns? Do we not dash on unceasingly? Backwards, sideways, forwards, in all directions? Is there still an above and below? Do we not stray, as through infinite nothingness? Does not empty space breathe upon us? Has it not become colder? Does not night come on continually, darker and darker? Shall we not have to light lanterns in the morning? Do we not hear the noise of the grave-diggers who are burying Man? Do we not smell the divine putrefaction? - for even we human divinities putrefy! Man is dead! Man remains dead! And we have killed him! How shall we console ourselves, the most murderous of all murderers? The holiest and the mightiest that the world has hitherto possessed, has bled to death under our knife - who will wipe the blood from us? With what water could we cleanse ourselves? What lustrums, what sacred games shall we have to devise? Is not the magnitude of this deed too great for us? We mortals aspired to God and earlier killed Him; so we took His place. And now we have become mad and slit our own wrists and throats with democracy! There never was a greater event - and on account of it, all who are born after us belong to a higher history than any history hitherto!" Here the madman was silent and looked again at his hearers; they also were silent and looked at him in surprise. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, so that it broke in pieces and was extinguished. "I come too early," he then said. "I am not yet at the right time. This prodigious event is still on its way, and is traveling - it has not yet reached men's ears. Lightning and thunder need time, the light of the stars needs time, deeds need time, even after they are done, to be seen and heard. This deed is as yet further from them than the furthest star - and yet they have done it themselves!" It is further stated that the madman made his way into different embassies on the same day, and there intoned his Requiem aeternam homo. When led out and called to account, he always gave the reply: "What are these governments now, if they are not the tombs and monuments of Man?"

On the brink of war, he who has ears, let him hear.

Ozymandius (poem)

Irony is what I saw near Ozymandius' sandy grave
For this once great king eulogized
By a once great poet
of a once great civilization
Had asserted his power one last time.

And Shelley's point of power fading
Has been lost on all leaders,
great and small;
For the feverish grasp of authority
legitimacy and legality
Has ground us down finer than his powder.

Caius remains a mortal; yet no mortals are we
if care we take to guard our legacy --
we shall be remembered as the freedom fighters
who destroyed the tyrannies
of marriage and bonded sexuality;
of peace and the rule of law;
of religion and the healing of man.

The great statue's somber sneer
has, as of late, taken on a queer
aspect as his frown
has contorted the other way 'round.
A chortle one might hear
escape those sun parched lips
as his message rings out loud and clear.

The West II (poem)

In the twilight of the West
when the sun completes his crest
we prepare for the long dark.

For the world once so sure
does not appear quite secure
and the dawn may never spark.

But the light of the blasts
and the breaking of the castes
assures us of their target mark.

Let us then, night dwellers,
Bomb the world from our cultural cellars
And alight the world in her glorious stark.

For this night, our night,
Has long been our eager delight
And this tomb is our self-made dark.