CLIMBING THE WALLS

Every time I get a haircut the conversation invariably turns to theology. That’s because my barber knows I’m a retired pastor and, though not a church-goer, she’s more than a little curious about the whole Christianity thing.

The last time I was there she touched on the subject of judgment. We’re not supposed to judge, right? She walked right into a buzz saw on that one.

I explained that love is indeed the basis for Christianity, but that love hardly eliminates the need for judgment. In fact, just the opposite.  

If you fall in love, you’re not free to do whatever you please – or shouldn’t be. That’s because relationships make demands on us, just as being part of a family, a neighborhood, or even being a citizen does. If you truly love, you make every effort to ensure your behavior honors and respects the other. And this will require considerable disciple and sacrifice.

Continue reading “God-Talk in the Barber’s Chair”

The Oxford Dictionary defines an abstraction as “a general idea not based on any particular real person, thing or situation.” It is “the quality of dealing with ideas rather than events,” as “something which exists only as an idea.”

We live in a world of abstraction. Modernity, effectively begun with the Enlightenment, took thoughts and ideas distilled over vast periods of time – that is, traditions, social norms, cultural institutions, philosophy, literature, law, and religion – and abstracted them into free-floating, standalone concepts torn from the real-life communities that birthed them. They became orphans.

Concepts such as progress, freedom, autonomy, emancipation, pluralism, tolerance, openness, equality, and human rights, to name but a few, were cut off from their roots, i.e. Western tradition and its associated virtues and duties. These newly abstracted concepts then took on a preeminent role as sacred aims, alone capable of paving the way to a new, felicitous future.

Continue reading “And Another Thing…”

My parents were totally sold on college. From the earliest age I repeatedly heard how important it was to get into a good school. I remember the trips we would take every fall to attend football games at Amherst College (my father’s alma mater). It seemed magical somehow. The place had a certain mystique – austere and even noble – steeped as it was in tradition and the disciplined, hard-won pursuit of knowledge, wisdom, and truth.

Today, that luster is mostly gone, at least for me. I recently exchanged a few text messages with my oldest brother who also attended Amherst, much to my father’s delight. Yet our texts dealt mostly with the lunacy that’s overtaken the school and higher education in general, especially among elite institutions.

The issue at hand was a 36-page brochure, a true testament to strident political correctness, the “Amherst Common Language Guide,” created by the Orwellian-sounding Office of Diversity and Inclusion.

Continue reading “Banned from Middlebury”

Virtually no one today would deny that the Roman Catholic Church at the time of the Protestant Reformation was in need of reform. And that includes modern-day Catholics.

It is well known that the church had become overly involved in worldly matters, perhaps especially in politics. Bishops and archbishops served as princes and other such positions of power. They held vast amounts of wealth and owned large tracts of land. Their worldly power was considerable.

Not only that, a system of indulgences had developed where the faithful were urged to give money to the church in order to secure a fortuitous slot in heaven. To be crass about it, you literally could buy yourself out of Purgatory and straight into heaven.

Indeed, there were other issues, many theological in nature, far too extensive to detail here. But suffice it to say, there was considerable discontent within and without the church.

Continue reading “My Beef with the Reformation”

Today, we in the West are completely sold on the idea of democracy, despite the fact that this was not always so.

One is reminded of Winston Churchill’s apparent endorsement: “Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”

This quote is often used to defend democracy against all comers. But is this what Churchill meant? While giving it relative merit, his was not a ringing endorsement.

Surely he was aware that the ancient philosophers, in attempting to determine the best political regime, had rejected democracy out of hand.

Continue reading “Is the Kingdom of God a Democracy?”

Whether we realize it or not, we’re children of the Enlightenment. This is both a good thing and a not so good thing.

It’s good in that the Enlightenment freed the individual from a feudal system that forced people into predetermined slots. It enshrined human rights and liberated people to pursue lives independent of the often-arbitrary constraints of traditional European society.

The downside is that such individualism failed to account for the central importance of community for human flourishing, along with its corresponding responsibilities. While the Enlightenment stressed individual liberty, it implicitly denied communal duties.

Worse still, the Enlightenment effectively jettisoned the accumulated wisdom of the ages in an effort to begin history anew. The foundations and authority upon which traditional society had rested – the church, the family, the crown (political order), history, tradition, laws, customs, norms, and communal life in general – were now suspect.

Continue reading “Why I’m Not an Evangelical (Though Sometimes Wish I Were)”

I recently came across a timely article in our local newspaper written by a former colleague. The subject was how to heal our nation from the strife and conflict we witness daily. No small task, that.

The pastor, daunted by the assigned undertaking, notes the importance of healthy communication in helping facilitate such healing. He is quick to point out that the purpose of dialogue is not necessarily to eliminate disagreements but to make them productive and growth-producing, rather than leading to ever-greater chaos.

How might this be achieved? By basing all communication on “common values of truth and respect” which, among other things, involves “listening responsibly.” Perhaps most importantly, it must include prayer and, more generally, “[turning] to God for help.”

Shortly after reading this, I came across an editorial in the journal Inside Higher Ed by David R. Harris, president of Union College, a small elite liberal arts school in upstate New York. The subject was free speech. Notably, in the fourth paragraph he makes this startling admission: “I oppose free speech on college campuses.”

Continue reading “Civility”

Mirriam-Webster’s dictionary defines Mea culpa as meaning “‘through my fault’ in Latin, [which] comes from a prayer of confession in the Catholic Church. Said by itself, it’s an exclamation of apology or remorse that is used to mean ‘It was my fault’ or ‘I apologize.’” 

So what do I have to apologize for? Well, nothing really. And why might that be? Because there’s method to my madness.

Specifically, I’m referring to my tendency to look at social and theological problems rather than what some might consider more uplifting themes. The glass is always half-empty. It’s negative, not positive. And it’s depressing too.

Back when I was in divinity school I took a second master’s degree in pastoral counseling. I thought that was what I wanted to do. But after 2 or 3 years serving a church, I decided that the church was where I belonged.

Continue reading “Apologia”

In 2011, a new twist to the standard murder mystery emerged. The television show that started it all was “The Killing,” a Danish production. A plethora of shows later copied its wild success. The genre today is known as “Nordic noir” or “Scandinavian noir” or, in abbreviated form, “Scandi noir.”

The shows all have an easily identifiable quality. The landscapes are unrelentingly bleak and the mood dark and morally complex. Underneath the still, placid settled-ness of Nordic culture lurks untold evils, ready to pounce at any moment, producing an unnerving, eerie sort of suspense.

The language is spare, the pacing slow and anguished. The characters appear world-weary, drained of feeling. It’s as if they’re just going through the motions, while external forces draw them inexorably towards an unknown but stealthy oblivion. All human interactions are muted, if not utterly joyless. They walk through an inhospitable and unforgiving world as if zombies.

Continue reading “Scandi Noir and the Charm of Disenchantment”

My father used to relate the story with considerable affection and humor. The date was Sunday, December 7, 1941, otherwise known as the “day of infamy.” Pearl Harbor Day. My father’s mother called her two sisters in Bethlehem, PA to tell them her husband, my grandfather, had died suddenly of a heart attack in Virginia. He had been scheduled to preach that morning at the dedication of a new church.

Aunt Lucy, my great-aunt, received the news somberly, and then offered this memorable gem, a line that lives on in family lore: “Oh dear,” she sighed heavily, “the cat died today too!”

Nothing like keeping things in perspective. God bless her.

My grandfather is pictured above, a photograph from the cover of the Messenger, the flagship publication of the Evangelical and Reformed Church (now part of the U.C.C.).

Continue reading “Acts 6”