Photo: Banks Cabin, Camp Sankanac
May 2021 - The Last Battle
(The Headmaster's entry in a 1,000-word Narnia essay competition)
The Magician’s Nephew sang new life into my cosmology. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, with all its Anglo-charms, was ancient magic put to print. The Horse and His Boy seemed to me a world within a world coupled with an elegant yet humble romance. Prince Caspian was the continuation of that enchanted dream enjoyed by all friends of the Pevensies. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader expanded this fictitious world’s realm only to expose that human frailty knows no bounds. The Silver Chair illumined within me the need for Puddleglums: outwardly unassuming, but inwardly true Narnians who know the real world, unseen though it may be. But it is the bookend of The Last Battle that stirred my spirit most. Having read this series many times, I have recently determined that the final chronicle is the most powerful due to its arguably autobiographical nature, its lucid prescience for our times, its dramatic narrative arc, and its satisfyingly tear-inducing resolution.
Half-expecting another delightful allegorical tale exposing Lewis’ keen insights into the natures of man and metaphysics, for a long time I had been left markedly confused by this installment. As in The Horse and His Boy, the world developed in The Last Battle seemingly has no place in the Narnia train. Two utterly ordinary talking beasts, though foreign until now in the series, make their pitiful appearance: a self-serving ape called Shift and a servile donkey, Puzzle. For years, I was mystified over their unusually drab names wondering why Lewis, who had generated fable-worthy monikers like Glenstorm, Revilian, Trufflehunter, Coriakin, and Maugrim, could have settled for such ordinariness in this extraordinary world. Even the pleasing sound of Aslan (Turkish for lion), fits the mythopoeic Narnian universe. But recently, upon further investigation into Lewis’ own life and conversion from modernistic atheism to joy-filled Christianity, I began to wonder if the names didn’t subtly carry a symbolism of their own. Mightn’t the ape sarcastically represent the modern, highly evolved man who inarguably knows the whole truth of the world through his sciences which ironically “shift” from decade to decade? And mightn’t the donkey represent a duped Lewis whose unquestioning, confused servitude to the ape perpetually leaves him puzzled? In this way I suspect that Lewis projected his own pre-converted self onto this second piteous beast; he could have chosen a brainless sheep or a distractible squirrel, yet, in what might be a self-deprecating way, he opted for [a donkey].
From the outset, the world of Narnia is bad and getting worse. Disregarding certain strong objections raised by some who love to debate eschatology, a simple interpretation of our own current events, at least here in the West, indicates that the way of the world is down, down, down. We know civilizations rise and fall, as do the cultures therein, but a natural reaction often held by Christians is to view current events pessimistically. In our own present reality, it seems that man could not get much further from reason, logic, and truth. We seem to be a people who walk in darkness and the sporadic lamps are fighting hard to keep burning. It seems that Lewis’ own eschatology may have been on display in this book. Like St. John’s ever-relevant vision on Patmos, The Last Battle may be a rallying-cry for Christians throughout the centuries not to abandon hope. Nevertheless, hopelessness abounds as the shifty monkey crowns himself king, leading the taciturn equine about donned in a dead lion’s skin convincing the masses it is Aslan himself. Certainly this is indicative of the Bible’s warnings that anti-Christs, or the Antichrist, will mislead many before the world is made new again. Having poetically made Modernism and Scientism the engines behind such an apocalyptic deception, time will tell if Lewis accurately predicted the manner in which our own world’s final Antichrist will come to power. By then there may be little interest in speculating about it. Well played, Jack!
From the perspective of dramatic arc, The Last Battle generates ominous storm clouds on the horizon with momentary glimpses of the sky which grow fewer and further between. The ugly, mischievous ape-donkey duo present an immediate villainy clearly distinct from the old crew of witches, but the refreshingly valiant Tirian and bright Jewel offer a glimmer of hope to the flickering kingdom. Yet, even with their small brigade of ragtag help, the world seems only to continue its cascade. They prove to have no power in stopping the dwarven and Calormene rebellions against the created order of Aslan, and, like a ball bouncing down steps, the minor upward victories only seem to land them lower in their goal of preserving Narnia. The onslaught of defeat is incessant. One by one, each of the beloved characters continue on that collision course before crashing through the door of death and tumbling into the verdant valleys of the world beyond.
And here it is that Lewis’ pen most forcefully awakens the innate affections and longings for eternity within the reader. As cool water soothes the parched tongue, the mind-defying, infinitely expansive world of Aslan’s country mushrooms into our imaginations. “Further up, and further in!” cry those whose re-awakened and enhanced senses are finally refreshed beyond all measure. They race across fields as fleet as horses, they swim up waterfalls otherwise impossible to ascend. Time is governed by a new, liberating mechanism. Old, old friends reunite. They all yearn for the source of this joy which grows richer as they near it, and yet the realm counterintuitively broadens with every step. The destination is upward atop a mountain - the True Mountain - which shames Earth’s highest peaks. Although one would expect the mountain to end in a summit, it seems never to do so like Almighty God Himself who can never be fully ascended. And come to greet them, bounding down that eternal mountain, is Aslan himself, or rather, Him whom the lion depicted.
Half-expecting another delightful allegorical tale exposing Lewis’ keen insights into the natures of man and metaphysics, for a long time I had been left markedly confused by this installment. As in The Horse and His Boy, the world developed in The Last Battle seemingly has no place in the Narnia train. Two utterly ordinary talking beasts, though foreign until now in the series, make their pitiful appearance: a self-serving ape called Shift and a servile donkey, Puzzle. For years, I was mystified over their unusually drab names wondering why Lewis, who had generated fable-worthy monikers like Glenstorm, Revilian, Trufflehunter, Coriakin, and Maugrim, could have settled for such ordinariness in this extraordinary world. Even the pleasing sound of Aslan (Turkish for lion), fits the mythopoeic Narnian universe. But recently, upon further investigation into Lewis’ own life and conversion from modernistic atheism to joy-filled Christianity, I began to wonder if the names didn’t subtly carry a symbolism of their own. Mightn’t the ape sarcastically represent the modern, highly evolved man who inarguably knows the whole truth of the world through his sciences which ironically “shift” from decade to decade? And mightn’t the donkey represent a duped Lewis whose unquestioning, confused servitude to the ape perpetually leaves him puzzled? In this way I suspect that Lewis projected his own pre-converted self onto this second piteous beast; he could have chosen a brainless sheep or a distractible squirrel, yet, in what might be a self-deprecating way, he opted for [a donkey].
From the outset, the world of Narnia is bad and getting worse. Disregarding certain strong objections raised by some who love to debate eschatology, a simple interpretation of our own current events, at least here in the West, indicates that the way of the world is down, down, down. We know civilizations rise and fall, as do the cultures therein, but a natural reaction often held by Christians is to view current events pessimistically. In our own present reality, it seems that man could not get much further from reason, logic, and truth. We seem to be a people who walk in darkness and the sporadic lamps are fighting hard to keep burning. It seems that Lewis’ own eschatology may have been on display in this book. Like St. John’s ever-relevant vision on Patmos, The Last Battle may be a rallying-cry for Christians throughout the centuries not to abandon hope. Nevertheless, hopelessness abounds as the shifty monkey crowns himself king, leading the taciturn equine about donned in a dead lion’s skin convincing the masses it is Aslan himself. Certainly this is indicative of the Bible’s warnings that anti-Christs, or the Antichrist, will mislead many before the world is made new again. Having poetically made Modernism and Scientism the engines behind such an apocalyptic deception, time will tell if Lewis accurately predicted the manner in which our own world’s final Antichrist will come to power. By then there may be little interest in speculating about it. Well played, Jack!
From the perspective of dramatic arc, The Last Battle generates ominous storm clouds on the horizon with momentary glimpses of the sky which grow fewer and further between. The ugly, mischievous ape-donkey duo present an immediate villainy clearly distinct from the old crew of witches, but the refreshingly valiant Tirian and bright Jewel offer a glimmer of hope to the flickering kingdom. Yet, even with their small brigade of ragtag help, the world seems only to continue its cascade. They prove to have no power in stopping the dwarven and Calormene rebellions against the created order of Aslan, and, like a ball bouncing down steps, the minor upward victories only seem to land them lower in their goal of preserving Narnia. The onslaught of defeat is incessant. One by one, each of the beloved characters continue on that collision course before crashing through the door of death and tumbling into the verdant valleys of the world beyond.
And here it is that Lewis’ pen most forcefully awakens the innate affections and longings for eternity within the reader. As cool water soothes the parched tongue, the mind-defying, infinitely expansive world of Aslan’s country mushrooms into our imaginations. “Further up, and further in!” cry those whose re-awakened and enhanced senses are finally refreshed beyond all measure. They race across fields as fleet as horses, they swim up waterfalls otherwise impossible to ascend. Time is governed by a new, liberating mechanism. Old, old friends reunite. They all yearn for the source of this joy which grows richer as they near it, and yet the realm counterintuitively broadens with every step. The destination is upward atop a mountain - the True Mountain - which shames Earth’s highest peaks. Although one would expect the mountain to end in a summit, it seems never to do so like Almighty God Himself who can never be fully ascended. And come to greet them, bounding down that eternal mountain, is Aslan himself, or rather, Him whom the lion depicted.
With that the adventure ends. Or it really begins. What story can compare?
April 2021 - A Spiritual Principle from Math and Science
(General insights gleaned from general revelation)
No doubt you have contemplated the problem of evil in this world. Who hasn’t? There is no way around it. Goodness exists and evil clearly exists as well. We find it in our leaders, our neighbors, our friends, our family members. And for the spiritually introspective, we primarily find it in ourselves. Sometimes it’s horrifying how much evil we are capable of producing – how much villainy is deep within us. The Apostle Paul went from seeing himself as least among the apostles to chief among sinners. No one is immune.
To many, the two forces of good and evil can seem like competing teams. Sometimes good wins a bit, sometimes evil. For Christians, you have the triune God and the forces of good, and then there is the great wannabe deity, Satan, and his forces of evil. And sometimes it seems like mankind can be tugged in the direction of good and yanked in the direction of evil, but ultimately there is a balance. In many ways, this view is akin to the Chinese yin and yang wherein the universe exists in a balanced state. It can have the same feel as a number line. For every unit in the positive direction, a person could be capable of choosing to go an equal number of units in the negative direction. The zero is often where we picture reality to be, and sometimes people tend toward the positive to a varying degree, and other times they can tend toward the negative.
But the thing wrong with this notion is that it pits the two halves of the continuum as potentially equal. Positive five and negative five will ultimately cancel each other out. The same could be said positive ten billion and negative ten billion. And we find ourselves hoping that the goodness of God is numerically greater than the badness of Satan.
Here is where I’d like to suggest a paradigm shift from that old model of good and evil balanced on scales to one which I believe more accurately resembles reality and which I pray is helpful for you. Some keen students of the subject have noted that evil is not actually an entity of its own but rather an absence of good. This is much like how temperature operates. Although it is unmistakably felt, coldness is not technically a condition but rather it is better understood to be the absence of heat. You’ve heard this taught in physical science class. The hotter an object is, the more its atoms and molecules “wiggle” or bounce around. The colder it is, the more still its atoms and molecules become. This is because heat is a measure of the average molecular movement of a substance, and cold is an absence of that movement. With the singular exception of solid water, the colder matter gets, the more it contracts, and the hotter it gets, the more it expands. This is because the molecules are either speeding up there motion and spreading out (hotness) or they are slowing down their motion and becoming still (coldness). But how much can the matter contract by its molecules slowing down? There must be a limit, and there is. Physicists have coined the term Absolute Zero for the point at which molecular motion stops. Matter cannot be colder than that; it cannot be stiller than totally stopped.
Now consider when we apply the same logic to good and evil. If evil is the absence of good, and if there is an “absolute zero” amount of goodness, then evil easily has its ultimate limit. On the other hand, if good is like heat, there is no perceivable maximum wherein it reaches its full capacity. Good, like heat (so far as we know), can grow infinitely. Evil shrinks until it is nothing. The same might be said our spirits. The more we practice evil, the smaller our spirits become. The more we practice good, the greater, more enlarged and expanded our spirits become. The more attractive we become when we give ourselves to that unassailable height, the top of which is God himself. The more we practice evil, the tinier, more isolated, more inward-focused, shrunken, and limited we are. Who can argue with that?
Is it true? I believe so. Is it helpful? I hope so. But if you don’t find it a particularly useful thought, at the very least I hope it encourages you to recognize that the evilness of that the father of lies does not hold a candle to the blazing stellar inferno which is God’s goodness. And secondarily, I hope it allows you to view the devil’s way as the ultimate “Absolute Zero.” For, to borrow wisdom from Martin Luther,
To many, the two forces of good and evil can seem like competing teams. Sometimes good wins a bit, sometimes evil. For Christians, you have the triune God and the forces of good, and then there is the great wannabe deity, Satan, and his forces of evil. And sometimes it seems like mankind can be tugged in the direction of good and yanked in the direction of evil, but ultimately there is a balance. In many ways, this view is akin to the Chinese yin and yang wherein the universe exists in a balanced state. It can have the same feel as a number line. For every unit in the positive direction, a person could be capable of choosing to go an equal number of units in the negative direction. The zero is often where we picture reality to be, and sometimes people tend toward the positive to a varying degree, and other times they can tend toward the negative.
But the thing wrong with this notion is that it pits the two halves of the continuum as potentially equal. Positive five and negative five will ultimately cancel each other out. The same could be said positive ten billion and negative ten billion. And we find ourselves hoping that the goodness of God is numerically greater than the badness of Satan.
Here is where I’d like to suggest a paradigm shift from that old model of good and evil balanced on scales to one which I believe more accurately resembles reality and which I pray is helpful for you. Some keen students of the subject have noted that evil is not actually an entity of its own but rather an absence of good. This is much like how temperature operates. Although it is unmistakably felt, coldness is not technically a condition but rather it is better understood to be the absence of heat. You’ve heard this taught in physical science class. The hotter an object is, the more its atoms and molecules “wiggle” or bounce around. The colder it is, the more still its atoms and molecules become. This is because heat is a measure of the average molecular movement of a substance, and cold is an absence of that movement. With the singular exception of solid water, the colder matter gets, the more it contracts, and the hotter it gets, the more it expands. This is because the molecules are either speeding up there motion and spreading out (hotness) or they are slowing down their motion and becoming still (coldness). But how much can the matter contract by its molecules slowing down? There must be a limit, and there is. Physicists have coined the term Absolute Zero for the point at which molecular motion stops. Matter cannot be colder than that; it cannot be stiller than totally stopped.
Now consider when we apply the same logic to good and evil. If evil is the absence of good, and if there is an “absolute zero” amount of goodness, then evil easily has its ultimate limit. On the other hand, if good is like heat, there is no perceivable maximum wherein it reaches its full capacity. Good, like heat (so far as we know), can grow infinitely. Evil shrinks until it is nothing. The same might be said our spirits. The more we practice evil, the smaller our spirits become. The more we practice good, the greater, more enlarged and expanded our spirits become. The more attractive we become when we give ourselves to that unassailable height, the top of which is God himself. The more we practice evil, the tinier, more isolated, more inward-focused, shrunken, and limited we are. Who can argue with that?
Is it true? I believe so. Is it helpful? I hope so. But if you don’t find it a particularly useful thought, at the very least I hope it encourages you to recognize that the evilness of that the father of lies does not hold a candle to the blazing stellar inferno which is God’s goodness. And secondarily, I hope it allows you to view the devil’s way as the ultimate “Absolute Zero.” For, to borrow wisdom from Martin Luther,
“The best way to drive out the devil… is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn.”
March 2021 - How are the mighty fallen
(reflection on Sad news in the evangelical christian community)
In May of 2020, a champion of contemporary apologetics, Ravi Zacharias, crossed into eternity. A few years prior to his passing, Ravi had been embroiled in an alleged communications scandal with a married woman not his wife. When the details were all sorted out, it seemed that he had been maliciously targeted and simultaneously let his guard down. Nevertheless, the matter was discussed openly with his wife, and the mistakes were accounted for. The giant tottered.
But within a short time after his passing, other details emerged that Ravi’s life was in other ways pocked by infidelity. We may never know the extent of his errors, but enough has surfaced that rings with the words, “How are the mighty fallen in the midst of battle. O [Ravi], thou wast slain in thine high places.”
There seems to be a boom lately in high-profile Christians who have stumbled or plainly rejected their faith in this decadent culture. Joshua Harris, author of I Kissed Dating Goodbye; Rhett McLaughlin & Charles Lincoln "Link" Neal III of “Good Mythical Morning”; Jerry Falwell, Jr., former president of Liberty University; Derek Webb of “Caedmon’s Call”; and now Ravi, a titan of Evangelism. Though sad, this really should not come as a surprise to us, not because each of these men lacked a sufficient basis for their faith, but because each is (or was) a sinner and insufficient to lead the perfect Christian life in and of himself. Furthermore, fame and fortune are mighty burdens for the believer. These men’s errors should not serve as proof against Christianity but rather a validation that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).
The Bible’s heroes were similarly blanketed by sin. Adam disobeyed. Noah got drunk. Abraham lied. Moses murdered. Samson lusted and boasted. David destroyed a family. In our day, few, if any, Christian heroes throughout the centuries presented a faultless record, for if they could, then they wouldn’t have been in need of Christ. (The late Reverend Billy Graham seemed to be an anomaly; not that he was sinless as he himself would be first to confess but insofar as his wisdom was unparalleled in maintaining an unimpeachable public record across his career as a minister.)
It seems clear that the more comfortable we get, the easier it is to slide into sin or outright rejection of the Lord. Therefore, it can be trusted that “Blessed are the poor in spirit, … those who mourn, … the meek, … those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, … the pure in heart, … the peacemakers, … and those who are persecuted because of righteousness” (Matthew 5:3-10). These attributes arise through trials and suffering and help to keep us rightly on bended knee before the Lord. And so we should “Count it all joy, Brothers, when [we] meet trials of various kinds, for the testing of [our] faith produces steadfastness” (James 1:2).
We cannot know the heart of Ravi, and he is no longer with us to confess his now public sins. For this reason, I was tempted to think that Ravi had posthumously announced to the world a recantation of his faith. But while discussing this tragic news with a group of friends, one wisely offered, “I think we do well to remember that the fact that Ravi was a sinner would not have surprised Ravi. He knew the Gospel that he preached.”
For all have sinned, and Ravi knew that as well as any man. That said, no Christian preacher, author, missionary, teacher, or athlete should usurp the place of Jesus Christ in our esteem. To so disorder our affections is to prime ourselves for disappointment. Instead, we must see the Hero behind our heroes: the One who is the reason for any heroism whatsoever to be found in frail mankind. Of what mere man can the following be said?
But within a short time after his passing, other details emerged that Ravi’s life was in other ways pocked by infidelity. We may never know the extent of his errors, but enough has surfaced that rings with the words, “How are the mighty fallen in the midst of battle. O [Ravi], thou wast slain in thine high places.”
There seems to be a boom lately in high-profile Christians who have stumbled or plainly rejected their faith in this decadent culture. Joshua Harris, author of I Kissed Dating Goodbye; Rhett McLaughlin & Charles Lincoln "Link" Neal III of “Good Mythical Morning”; Jerry Falwell, Jr., former president of Liberty University; Derek Webb of “Caedmon’s Call”; and now Ravi, a titan of Evangelism. Though sad, this really should not come as a surprise to us, not because each of these men lacked a sufficient basis for their faith, but because each is (or was) a sinner and insufficient to lead the perfect Christian life in and of himself. Furthermore, fame and fortune are mighty burdens for the believer. These men’s errors should not serve as proof against Christianity but rather a validation that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).
The Bible’s heroes were similarly blanketed by sin. Adam disobeyed. Noah got drunk. Abraham lied. Moses murdered. Samson lusted and boasted. David destroyed a family. In our day, few, if any, Christian heroes throughout the centuries presented a faultless record, for if they could, then they wouldn’t have been in need of Christ. (The late Reverend Billy Graham seemed to be an anomaly; not that he was sinless as he himself would be first to confess but insofar as his wisdom was unparalleled in maintaining an unimpeachable public record across his career as a minister.)
It seems clear that the more comfortable we get, the easier it is to slide into sin or outright rejection of the Lord. Therefore, it can be trusted that “Blessed are the poor in spirit, … those who mourn, … the meek, … those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, … the pure in heart, … the peacemakers, … and those who are persecuted because of righteousness” (Matthew 5:3-10). These attributes arise through trials and suffering and help to keep us rightly on bended knee before the Lord. And so we should “Count it all joy, Brothers, when [we] meet trials of various kinds, for the testing of [our] faith produces steadfastness” (James 1:2).
We cannot know the heart of Ravi, and he is no longer with us to confess his now public sins. For this reason, I was tempted to think that Ravi had posthumously announced to the world a recantation of his faith. But while discussing this tragic news with a group of friends, one wisely offered, “I think we do well to remember that the fact that Ravi was a sinner would not have surprised Ravi. He knew the Gospel that he preached.”
For all have sinned, and Ravi knew that as well as any man. That said, no Christian preacher, author, missionary, teacher, or athlete should usurp the place of Jesus Christ in our esteem. To so disorder our affections is to prime ourselves for disappointment. Instead, we must see the Hero behind our heroes: the One who is the reason for any heroism whatsoever to be found in frail mankind. Of what mere man can the following be said?
“For our sake [the Father] made him to be sin who knew no sin,
so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
February 2021 - The Snowstorm
(A poem in celebration of A long-awaited snowfall)
A poem is such because it says so much in far fewer words than most folks could otherwise use to express the same thing. It is a neat package of emotions or experiences, and it serves to transport the hearer to a distant time, place, or memory. Modern man has little use for such a deeply spirit-moving practice as that of steeping one’s mind in literary treasures like poems. But the creative act of poetry is, after all, what separates man from both beast and machine. Thus, it seemed an appropriate diversion from my usual fare to offer a few lines related to the wintry weather currently upon us. And now, I offer you a timeless piece for your repertoire: “The Snow-Storm” by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farm-house at the garden's end.
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.
Come see the north wind's masonry.
Out of an unseen quarry evermore
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his white bastions with projected roof
Round every windward stake, or tree, or door.
Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work
So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he
For number or proportion. Mockingly,
On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;
A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn;
Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall,
Maugre the farmer's sighs; and, at the gate,
A tapering turret overtops the work.
And when his hours are numbered, and the world
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work,
The frolic architecture of the snow.
January 2021 - A New Hope
(Thoughts for the New Year)
It’s New Year’s Eve. Today officially marks the last day of 2020. Finally!
Folks have joked about all of the terrible things that have happened this year. I don’t even want to give it the dignity of reflecting on those things because they were just that bad. But the truth is, we’ve all survived it, and next year could be worse…
[Screeeeech!]
Okay, okay. I’m only kidding; it might not be worse. But, then again, it could be. To be totally honest, it could make 2020 look tame in comparison. Based on the outlandishness of this past year, I’d say there’s about a 50/50 chance things will improve or worsen.
There is happy news, though. No matter how good or bad anything gets, as Christians our hope is anchored in a reality much more permanent than these temporal circumstances. We are rooted to the unchanging, everlasting, almighty, and infinitely good Creator of the universe. He will neither leave us nor forsake us (Deuteronomy 31:6). All things, even the ugly events of 2020, work together for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28). That’s something to take heart in!
You see, we have something immeasurably greater than the fragile prospects of a “Happy New Year.” Who knows if it will go happily or tragically? Did we not wish each other a happy one at the end of 2019?
During the truly dismal wartime days in Great Britain (1942), C. S. Lewis once gave a public radio address which has been transposed into the classic work Mere Christianity. In it, he suggests that believers are of a different caliber than nonbelievers, and they are sometimes recognizable without even speaking about their beliefs. They always seem to have more time to spare for helping others and a cheery demeanor in so doing. Is your life marked by such traits? Let me encourage you to make it so if it is not, and the reason is because we have this aforementioned hope within us. Furthermore, the Apostle Peter exhorts us to always have a defense for the hope that is within us (1 Peter 3:15). Do you have that hope? Can you articulate a reason for it? If not, then you are missing one of the treasured virtues of the Christian religion: faith, hope, and love (1 Corinthians 13:13).
Hebrews 11 explains that faith is being sure of what we hope for and being certain of what we do not see. Although the idea is unpalatable to many, we live within an invisible reality which is unshakable by any creaturely means. As the reverent Master and Commander protagonist Captain Jack Aubrey so succinctly put it to his ship’s naturalist doctor Stephen Maturin, “Not everything is in your books, Stephen.” In other words, there are un-seeable forces at work as well as promises more ancient than Science itself which were established for the benefit of God’s faithful.
In John’s vision on Patmos, Jesus exclaims, “Behold, I am coming soon.” For many, this is a message of dread. For the faithful who are weary and heavy laden, this is meant to wash over us like a midsummer dip into a pristine mountain lake. Be refreshed! In spite of whatever circumstances come at us, the Lord’s yoke is easy, and his burden is light (Matthew 11:28-30). From Lewis’ Mere Christianity:
Folks have joked about all of the terrible things that have happened this year. I don’t even want to give it the dignity of reflecting on those things because they were just that bad. But the truth is, we’ve all survived it, and next year could be worse…
[Screeeeech!]
Okay, okay. I’m only kidding; it might not be worse. But, then again, it could be. To be totally honest, it could make 2020 look tame in comparison. Based on the outlandishness of this past year, I’d say there’s about a 50/50 chance things will improve or worsen.
There is happy news, though. No matter how good or bad anything gets, as Christians our hope is anchored in a reality much more permanent than these temporal circumstances. We are rooted to the unchanging, everlasting, almighty, and infinitely good Creator of the universe. He will neither leave us nor forsake us (Deuteronomy 31:6). All things, even the ugly events of 2020, work together for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28). That’s something to take heart in!
You see, we have something immeasurably greater than the fragile prospects of a “Happy New Year.” Who knows if it will go happily or tragically? Did we not wish each other a happy one at the end of 2019?
During the truly dismal wartime days in Great Britain (1942), C. S. Lewis once gave a public radio address which has been transposed into the classic work Mere Christianity. In it, he suggests that believers are of a different caliber than nonbelievers, and they are sometimes recognizable without even speaking about their beliefs. They always seem to have more time to spare for helping others and a cheery demeanor in so doing. Is your life marked by such traits? Let me encourage you to make it so if it is not, and the reason is because we have this aforementioned hope within us. Furthermore, the Apostle Peter exhorts us to always have a defense for the hope that is within us (1 Peter 3:15). Do you have that hope? Can you articulate a reason for it? If not, then you are missing one of the treasured virtues of the Christian religion: faith, hope, and love (1 Corinthians 13:13).
Hebrews 11 explains that faith is being sure of what we hope for and being certain of what we do not see. Although the idea is unpalatable to many, we live within an invisible reality which is unshakable by any creaturely means. As the reverent Master and Commander protagonist Captain Jack Aubrey so succinctly put it to his ship’s naturalist doctor Stephen Maturin, “Not everything is in your books, Stephen.” In other words, there are un-seeable forces at work as well as promises more ancient than Science itself which were established for the benefit of God’s faithful.
In John’s vision on Patmos, Jesus exclaims, “Behold, I am coming soon.” For many, this is a message of dread. For the faithful who are weary and heavy laden, this is meant to wash over us like a midsummer dip into a pristine mountain lake. Be refreshed! In spite of whatever circumstances come at us, the Lord’s yoke is easy, and his burden is light (Matthew 11:28-30). From Lewis’ Mere Christianity:
“Hope is one of the Theological virtues. This means that a continual looking forward to the eternal world is not (as some modern people think) a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do. It does not mean that we are to leave the present world as it is. If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next.”
December 2020 - Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
(Reflections on the Advent of our dear Savior’s birth)
Mild he lays his glory by,
What child is this, asleep on the lap of a teenage mother? The girl’s name means beloved; or was it bitter? or rebellious? Can one bitter or rebellious also be loved? What’s in a name? In a dusty, nondescript, little town the Hebrews called House of Bread, a child is birthed, wiped, burped, swaddled, suckled, ceremonially circumcised, and bedded in barn fodder. Bethlehem once hailed royal lineage a thousand years prior when a lowly shepherd from its surrounding hills went on to oversee a people who walked in a land of utter spiritual shadow. Then broke forth a beauteous heavenly light whose promise was from of old to intercede for this stubborn, ovine, asinine, once-highest, once-purest, now-fallen line of creatures called Adam. From architect superior to infant inferior, God’s only begotten Son, worshipped in Heaven from ages unknown, entered into his handiwork in the humblest of fashions afforded to men: birth in an impoverished outbuilding.
Born that man no more may die,
From Adam’s first offence which ushered corruption into the once-perfect order, a promise was issued that man would surely die. Existence would increase in difficulty and ultimately end in that painful separation of friend from friend, body from soul. But along with that fully felt curse, a redemptive decree was proclaimed. The deceiving, skulking serpent would himself be skull-crushed. The Deceiver would be deceived. The fallen Light-bearer would be brightly outshined. The prince of the powers of the air would play second fiddle to the Prince of Peace. Death himself would die, no longer stealing; and Life himself would live, ever-giving.
Born to raise the sons of earth,
As love’s pure light became a man, he demonstrated his power through increasingly incredible wonders. He healed proximately. He healed remotely. He cast demons out of men. He cast demons into beasts. He commanded the weather. He defied gravity. He multiplied matter. He made himself unseen. He opened some hearts. He closed other hearts. He called a dead girl to life again. He called a buried man to exit his tomb. But all of these wonders would be surpassed, because for more than 24 hours, Heaven’s joy would lay clinically deceased in a sealed tomb verified by first-hand witnesses and historians alike. But then, up from the grave he arose!
Born to give them second birth.
The God-Man lived, died and now lives again that Death no more has dominion in his presence. And now the Son sits at God’s right hand offering life to all who believe on his name. Yet, paradoxically, Death still works its sting for a while longer; even Lazarus and Tabitha died a second time and await the final resurrection. The life awarded right now to Christ’s followers is, for now, entirely spiritual. But this second birth is for today; it is why Jesus came into this world! Our dead souls are even now raised to new life as we are twice-born. Our former selves shrivel and fade away like kernels of corn which must wither in the ground before sprouting into massive, manifold producing versions of our truer and wholly matured selves.
Christians, as you pay the full homage demanded, may you experience the full joy of that new life and the wonders of His love this Christmas as we sing,
What child is this, asleep on the lap of a teenage mother? The girl’s name means beloved; or was it bitter? or rebellious? Can one bitter or rebellious also be loved? What’s in a name? In a dusty, nondescript, little town the Hebrews called House of Bread, a child is birthed, wiped, burped, swaddled, suckled, ceremonially circumcised, and bedded in barn fodder. Bethlehem once hailed royal lineage a thousand years prior when a lowly shepherd from its surrounding hills went on to oversee a people who walked in a land of utter spiritual shadow. Then broke forth a beauteous heavenly light whose promise was from of old to intercede for this stubborn, ovine, asinine, once-highest, once-purest, now-fallen line of creatures called Adam. From architect superior to infant inferior, God’s only begotten Son, worshipped in Heaven from ages unknown, entered into his handiwork in the humblest of fashions afforded to men: birth in an impoverished outbuilding.
Born that man no more may die,
From Adam’s first offence which ushered corruption into the once-perfect order, a promise was issued that man would surely die. Existence would increase in difficulty and ultimately end in that painful separation of friend from friend, body from soul. But along with that fully felt curse, a redemptive decree was proclaimed. The deceiving, skulking serpent would himself be skull-crushed. The Deceiver would be deceived. The fallen Light-bearer would be brightly outshined. The prince of the powers of the air would play second fiddle to the Prince of Peace. Death himself would die, no longer stealing; and Life himself would live, ever-giving.
Born to raise the sons of earth,
As love’s pure light became a man, he demonstrated his power through increasingly incredible wonders. He healed proximately. He healed remotely. He cast demons out of men. He cast demons into beasts. He commanded the weather. He defied gravity. He multiplied matter. He made himself unseen. He opened some hearts. He closed other hearts. He called a dead girl to life again. He called a buried man to exit his tomb. But all of these wonders would be surpassed, because for more than 24 hours, Heaven’s joy would lay clinically deceased in a sealed tomb verified by first-hand witnesses and historians alike. But then, up from the grave he arose!
Born to give them second birth.
The God-Man lived, died and now lives again that Death no more has dominion in his presence. And now the Son sits at God’s right hand offering life to all who believe on his name. Yet, paradoxically, Death still works its sting for a while longer; even Lazarus and Tabitha died a second time and await the final resurrection. The life awarded right now to Christ’s followers is, for now, entirely spiritual. But this second birth is for today; it is why Jesus came into this world! Our dead souls are even now raised to new life as we are twice-born. Our former selves shrivel and fade away like kernels of corn which must wither in the ground before sprouting into massive, manifold producing versions of our truer and wholly matured selves.
Christians, as you pay the full homage demanded, may you experience the full joy of that new life and the wonders of His love this Christmas as we sing,
“Glory to the newborn King!”
November 2020 - Parent seminar follow-up
(October 22nd delivery given by Dr. Steven D. Boyer on C.S. Lewis and the Moral Imagination)
A special thank-you to all were able to make it out to our annual ALC parent seminar. I definitely felt my mind being stretched throughout those two plus hours of mentally stimulating conversation. Dr. Boyer sure knows his stuff.
If you're like me, you think of all kinds of things to talk about after it's too late. One thing I want to respond to was one parent’s very astute question regarding how to instill a spiritually discerning moral imagination into our children and what sorts of questions to ask them during the guiding process. I think the answer to that is deep and challenging and that it first begins within each parent to know and develop a strong understanding of what is Good, True, and Beautiful (all of which rightly find their sources in Jesus Christ). This is difficult because it involves deliberate study and contemplation of the things around us. I say it's difficult because we Americans prefer our schedules to be fast-paced and our topics broad but shallow. We are smorgasbord samplers without troubling ourselves to get deep into the roots of what makes anything worth pursuing or studying. And what is it that makes something worthy of study? This is a question that every educator should have a well thought-out answer to.
Once we have that answer and have awakened to those permanent fixities - Goodness, Truth, Beauty - then we will be armed to equip our children to awaken to them as well. Next, we need to feed our children with a steady diet of the material which best aligns with the GTB. This comes from classic literature, poems, and films that are classic not because some obscure person said they are but because they resonate with those eternal, transcendental qualities. But just like feeding your child healthy vegetables or vitamin pills, you don't tell them that it's healthy but rather teach them to enjoy it because you have already (theoretically) learned to enjoy it yourself. The healthy stuff might not taste great right away but it always leaves one more improved. It’s worth falling in love with. And love is infectious.
Intentionally pursuing the most GTB material will be swimming against secular society's current. As parents we should be extremely discerning about what our children and jealous of their developing affections. Instead of allowing them to consume whatever the pop culture has served up, craft their interests, don’t simply indulge them. Obviously this is up to the discretion of the parents when it comes to Star Wars, Pixar, Harry Potter, (etc.), but I am convinced that many of us have standards which are far too forgiving regarding what we allow our children to consume. This is an exhortation to myself as well.
Where to begin? Read Charlotte Mason. Everything she wrote. Read Children of a Greater God, For the Children's Sake, Lit!, Realms of Gold, The Read-Aloud Family, Robert Louis Stevenson, Robert Frost, Gerard Manley Hopkins, any of the classic poets (discretion advised). Read epics even if they are long. Make time for this as a family. And gradually expose them to the rich treasures that are all around us on regrettably dusty shelves and cob-webbed corners of the library. This is not natural for us. We gravitate toward the French fries and Cheetohs of what culture has produced. But it need not be so!
If you're like me, you think of all kinds of things to talk about after it's too late. One thing I want to respond to was one parent’s very astute question regarding how to instill a spiritually discerning moral imagination into our children and what sorts of questions to ask them during the guiding process. I think the answer to that is deep and challenging and that it first begins within each parent to know and develop a strong understanding of what is Good, True, and Beautiful (all of which rightly find their sources in Jesus Christ). This is difficult because it involves deliberate study and contemplation of the things around us. I say it's difficult because we Americans prefer our schedules to be fast-paced and our topics broad but shallow. We are smorgasbord samplers without troubling ourselves to get deep into the roots of what makes anything worth pursuing or studying. And what is it that makes something worthy of study? This is a question that every educator should have a well thought-out answer to.
Once we have that answer and have awakened to those permanent fixities - Goodness, Truth, Beauty - then we will be armed to equip our children to awaken to them as well. Next, we need to feed our children with a steady diet of the material which best aligns with the GTB. This comes from classic literature, poems, and films that are classic not because some obscure person said they are but because they resonate with those eternal, transcendental qualities. But just like feeding your child healthy vegetables or vitamin pills, you don't tell them that it's healthy but rather teach them to enjoy it because you have already (theoretically) learned to enjoy it yourself. The healthy stuff might not taste great right away but it always leaves one more improved. It’s worth falling in love with. And love is infectious.
Intentionally pursuing the most GTB material will be swimming against secular society's current. As parents we should be extremely discerning about what our children and jealous of their developing affections. Instead of allowing them to consume whatever the pop culture has served up, craft their interests, don’t simply indulge them. Obviously this is up to the discretion of the parents when it comes to Star Wars, Pixar, Harry Potter, (etc.), but I am convinced that many of us have standards which are far too forgiving regarding what we allow our children to consume. This is an exhortation to myself as well.
Where to begin? Read Charlotte Mason. Everything she wrote. Read Children of a Greater God, For the Children's Sake, Lit!, Realms of Gold, The Read-Aloud Family, Robert Louis Stevenson, Robert Frost, Gerard Manley Hopkins, any of the classic poets (discretion advised). Read epics even if they are long. Make time for this as a family. And gradually expose them to the rich treasures that are all around us on regrettably dusty shelves and cob-webbed corners of the library. This is not natural for us. We gravitate toward the French fries and Cheetohs of what culture has produced. But it need not be so!
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
October 2020 - Why I am A Christian
(An Edited Excerpt from a delivery to the Christian Worldview class on 9/25/20)
College presented me with unique challenges. I finally learned that I was able to think for myself. (My high school basically taught that truth was whatever would be on the test. No more questions, please!) But at Cairn University I was assailed by a volley of ideas and philosophies which really shook my faith. Not only is there difference of opinion regarding the nature of truth from one world religion to the next, but there are differences of opinion between Christians, some of which are monumentally huge. Which one is right? What is true? What if all of this Christianity thing is fake? What if the Bible is a lie? What if it was made up nearly two thousand years ago? What if Jesus was not the Son of God but just a regular person? What if he didn’t exist at all? What if the centuries of church doctrine were all built on a fabrication? How do we know Darwin wasn’t right and that the main narrative pushed by the atheists and the Marxists today isn’t actually the truth? How can I know anything at all?
I went through a period of reducing everything I knew (or thought I knew) until there was just a kernel of my faith left. That kernel would grow into a young seedling built from beliefs informed by some brilliant philosophers:
When I questioned everything and stripped away all that I had been taught, the words that changed my life were from Jesus himself. He said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” How can a person be “the Way”? Why didn’t he say, “Mine is the way”? How can a man be “the Truth”? Why didn’t he say, “I know the truth”? How can a mere human be “the Life”? Why didn’t he say, “I am alive”?
These questions stir any serious, truth-seeking philosopher. The Buddhists are looking for the 8-fold path which is the right way to live. What they don’t realize is that Jesus is God, and God is love, and the path of agape love and forgiveness is the right way to live. Jesus is the Way. Modern day Secularists search for truth. What they haven’t considered is that not only is truth that which is in accordance with reality, but Truth is that which is in accordance with how reality ought to be. And we all know that word: ought. We feel it deep down. If Jesus was the summation of how a man ought to live. Jesus is the Truth. And finally, the Muslims and the Hindus are pursuant of eternal life. But their works fall short if the Spirit of Life Himself does not innervate their hearts to seek Life in Christ. The joy of a right and eternal relationship with God cannot exist for them. Thus they continue to toil under their own highly demanding moral codes toward a hope which they have no guarantee of obtaining. Jesus alone is the Life.
As C.S. Lewis would say, Jesus was either lying, or he was a madman, or he was telling the truth and actually was all the things he claimed to be. Since seeking after him and following his way has brought me new life, I am convinced that he was telling the truth. And finally, from Jesus himself:
I went through a period of reducing everything I knew (or thought I knew) until there was just a kernel of my faith left. That kernel would grow into a young seedling built from beliefs informed by some brilliant philosophers:
- I exist. And because I exist, I must be a sentient being that had a beginning. (Rene Descartes)
- Since I had a beginning, then the whole world must have had a beginning. (Aristotle)
- Something beyond the world began and sustains it. (Thomas Aquinas)
- I am a person and persons have the ability to Reason, Will, and Desire. The creator must have a greater personhood in order to have infused an element of that personhood into me. Therefore, the Creator cannot simply be an impersonal force like Gravity or even Karma. (Francis Schaeffer)
- There is evil in this world. If there is evil, there must be goodness. (C. S. Lewis)
- If goodness exists, then it comes from God. (Boethius)
- Goodness, Truth, and Beauty must extend from somewhere beyond our world. (Plato)
- True joy and contentment is found when we do what we were created for. (Timothy Keller)
- There is more to real Life than a having a pulse, and the great I AM is it. (Jesus)
When I questioned everything and stripped away all that I had been taught, the words that changed my life were from Jesus himself. He said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” How can a person be “the Way”? Why didn’t he say, “Mine is the way”? How can a man be “the Truth”? Why didn’t he say, “I know the truth”? How can a mere human be “the Life”? Why didn’t he say, “I am alive”?
These questions stir any serious, truth-seeking philosopher. The Buddhists are looking for the 8-fold path which is the right way to live. What they don’t realize is that Jesus is God, and God is love, and the path of agape love and forgiveness is the right way to live. Jesus is the Way. Modern day Secularists search for truth. What they haven’t considered is that not only is truth that which is in accordance with reality, but Truth is that which is in accordance with how reality ought to be. And we all know that word: ought. We feel it deep down. If Jesus was the summation of how a man ought to live. Jesus is the Truth. And finally, the Muslims and the Hindus are pursuant of eternal life. But their works fall short if the Spirit of Life Himself does not innervate their hearts to seek Life in Christ. The joy of a right and eternal relationship with God cannot exist for them. Thus they continue to toil under their own highly demanding moral codes toward a hope which they have no guarantee of obtaining. Jesus alone is the Life.
As C.S. Lewis would say, Jesus was either lying, or he was a madman, or he was telling the truth and actually was all the things he claimed to be. Since seeking after him and following his way has brought me new life, I am convinced that he was telling the truth. And finally, from Jesus himself:
“… but I have come that they may have LIFE and have it abundantly.”
September 2020 - A Subtler Revolution
(A shameless plug in favor of Christian Higher education)
Much as I am able, I keep a pulse on the news and general trends in education. It’s something of an addiction.
Despite the gaudy, violent, highly publicized street protests and ill-advised efforts to bring about a sort of cultural Marxist revolution in our time, I believe that there is a subtler and more lasting revolution afoot in the echelons of academia. But first, through these protests we are directly witnessing the fruits of a century of ideologies that have long been brewing in the universities. These fruits have grown on the poison tree of secular humanism which is abjectly divorced from Jesus Christ as central to its tenets. A poison will eventually work its way through a system and complete its task. But the effects can be so slow as to be imperceptible. In 1923, theologian J. Gresham Machen addressed the seedling of this movement in his book Christianity and Liberalism. The new way of reinterpreting Scripture and relegating it to a back shelf was what Machen attempted to thwart, but unfortunately the churches and some Christian universities were too slow to counter it with him. To be sure, the philosophies of liberalism gained the most traction during the 1960s, and many of the young students of the hippie era are now firmly entrenched professors in today’s colleges. At these secular institutions, the philosophies have become less conservative, less traditional, less biblical; and the effects are clearly visible in the news.
Deconstructionism, LGBTQIA+, intersectionality, third wave feminism - the issues are obvious and plentiful. (If these terms are unfamiliar to you, now is the time get familiar because it’s the main dish being served to blossoming young minds today.) There are designated “safe spaces” where students can flee if they don’t want to engage in the marketplace of ideas or encounter a message which does not appeal to them. College professors are censored or face the threat of student pushback as in the case of the 2017 Evergreen University professor Brett Weinstein. Many institutions are no longer primarily concerned with educating but rather with garnering larger and larger enrollment numbers. Prestige is now associated with facilitating massive numbers of students, not with producing free and independent thinkers who pursue imperishable truth. Listen to Albert Mohler’s The Briefing on 8/18/20, 8/19/20, 8/21/20, 8/24/20, 9/1/20 for further thoughts on many of these topics.
And why should it be any other way for the university that has dismissed objective truth? What other goal should there be than to acquire profits and garner admiration by providing students with the ultimate “college experience” (whatever that is) all while chipping away at any semblance of an enrollee’s carefully cultivated framework for making sense of this sin-ravaged world? It’s as though the goal is to accept students and graduate warped revolutionaries. And what does secular learning have left to stand on? The towering giant which is higher education has begun erasing his own feet and will in short order come crashing down as a result. All this is to say that unless education in the West goes back to its biblical roots and adopts the view that there is truth which is objectively verifiable, internally transformational, and eternally pursuit-worthy, academia will undo itself.
C. S. Lewis once suggested that this Modern (and subsequently post-Modern) Era might just be something we have to survive before we see how problematic the era was. This stands in direct opposition to the innate “chronological snobbery” many often adopt – a notion which elevates one’s own period as being somehow superior to those prior. Rather, with Lewis, I propose that we are living in an ideological and moral “Dark Ages” and that the re-direction must begin now to get us back into the Light. I believe that the educational revolution will come in small waves of folks like you who ultimately reach the realization that the current state of secular education is in peril, for when truth is relegated to that which is relative, the poison has done its work. But there is an antidote: Jesus Christ who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. And there are a remnant of true Christ-following schools which I hope can carry the torch of real knowledge and wisdom through this quagmire of confusion. Narnia was cursed with a hundred years of winter (and never Christmas!), but we shall have spring again. Perhaps the thaw is nearer than I expect.
Despite the gaudy, violent, highly publicized street protests and ill-advised efforts to bring about a sort of cultural Marxist revolution in our time, I believe that there is a subtler and more lasting revolution afoot in the echelons of academia. But first, through these protests we are directly witnessing the fruits of a century of ideologies that have long been brewing in the universities. These fruits have grown on the poison tree of secular humanism which is abjectly divorced from Jesus Christ as central to its tenets. A poison will eventually work its way through a system and complete its task. But the effects can be so slow as to be imperceptible. In 1923, theologian J. Gresham Machen addressed the seedling of this movement in his book Christianity and Liberalism. The new way of reinterpreting Scripture and relegating it to a back shelf was what Machen attempted to thwart, but unfortunately the churches and some Christian universities were too slow to counter it with him. To be sure, the philosophies of liberalism gained the most traction during the 1960s, and many of the young students of the hippie era are now firmly entrenched professors in today’s colleges. At these secular institutions, the philosophies have become less conservative, less traditional, less biblical; and the effects are clearly visible in the news.
Deconstructionism, LGBTQIA+, intersectionality, third wave feminism - the issues are obvious and plentiful. (If these terms are unfamiliar to you, now is the time get familiar because it’s the main dish being served to blossoming young minds today.) There are designated “safe spaces” where students can flee if they don’t want to engage in the marketplace of ideas or encounter a message which does not appeal to them. College professors are censored or face the threat of student pushback as in the case of the 2017 Evergreen University professor Brett Weinstein. Many institutions are no longer primarily concerned with educating but rather with garnering larger and larger enrollment numbers. Prestige is now associated with facilitating massive numbers of students, not with producing free and independent thinkers who pursue imperishable truth. Listen to Albert Mohler’s The Briefing on 8/18/20, 8/19/20, 8/21/20, 8/24/20, 9/1/20 for further thoughts on many of these topics.
And why should it be any other way for the university that has dismissed objective truth? What other goal should there be than to acquire profits and garner admiration by providing students with the ultimate “college experience” (whatever that is) all while chipping away at any semblance of an enrollee’s carefully cultivated framework for making sense of this sin-ravaged world? It’s as though the goal is to accept students and graduate warped revolutionaries. And what does secular learning have left to stand on? The towering giant which is higher education has begun erasing his own feet and will in short order come crashing down as a result. All this is to say that unless education in the West goes back to its biblical roots and adopts the view that there is truth which is objectively verifiable, internally transformational, and eternally pursuit-worthy, academia will undo itself.
C. S. Lewis once suggested that this Modern (and subsequently post-Modern) Era might just be something we have to survive before we see how problematic the era was. This stands in direct opposition to the innate “chronological snobbery” many often adopt – a notion which elevates one’s own period as being somehow superior to those prior. Rather, with Lewis, I propose that we are living in an ideological and moral “Dark Ages” and that the re-direction must begin now to get us back into the Light. I believe that the educational revolution will come in small waves of folks like you who ultimately reach the realization that the current state of secular education is in peril, for when truth is relegated to that which is relative, the poison has done its work. But there is an antidote: Jesus Christ who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. And there are a remnant of true Christ-following schools which I hope can carry the torch of real knowledge and wisdom through this quagmire of confusion. Narnia was cursed with a hundred years of winter (and never Christmas!), but we shall have spring again. Perhaps the thaw is nearer than I expect.
“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."
AUgust 2020 - The Scholar's Vestment
(Charge to the alc graduating class of 2020)
Every occupation has its uniform. In spite of their white lab coats, doctors and scientists can be distinguished either by the stethoscope or the lab goggles. I learned recently that nurses follow a color code for the scrubs they wear. State troopers can often be identified by their campaign hats whereas riot police look like modern day knights. It’s not even hard for a young child to notice the distinctions between firemen, soldiers, mailmen, fishermen, athletes, pilots, waiters, chefs, clergymen, and many others. Even lumberjacks have a uniform of sorts! These uniforms were not invented arbitrarily but rather have specific functionality or significant meaning behind them.
But what uniform belongs to the educated scholars of our day? What do they wear? How is one to identify an educated man or woman from those of less tutored stock?
The familiar – yet somehow perennially weird – caps and gowns you see before you at institutional graduations have a long history, and, though they’ve morphed over time, these were once very solemnly held uniforms of trained intellectuals denoting a position worthy of a great deal of honor.
An antiquated word for uniform is “vestment.” Vestment comes from the Latin word, vestis or vestire which means “put on oneself.” This term is still used in some high church religious denominations where the parson, priest, vicar, or reverend dons a long gown sometimes with a colored sash or even a simple white collar. It distinguishes him as a sort of vicarious shepherd who tends the flock. Like the many uniforms worn by public servants of our day, clergy still wear this uniform as handed down by tradition from the Middle Ages. In fact, it was during that time when learning was deemed sacred because it revealed truth and the Truth led one to God. Foreign concept today, no? Medieval scholars, though often mocked by today’s “enlightened ones” for living in the so called “Dark Ages”, were actually meticulous preservers of truth. Alcuin of York was Charlemagne’s personally selected tutor from Britain who revitalized the educational system in the Holy Roman Empire. In the 8th Century Anno Domini, after years of turmoil due to the dissolution of the prestigious Roman Empire, you might say that it was Alcuin who made academia great again. He helped to rekindle a respect for rhetoric and implored his fellow intellectuals, who were leaders in the church, “not to neglect the study of letters (or writing), but to apply yourselves thereto with perseverance and with all humility which is well pleasing to God; so that you may be able to penetrate with greater ease and certainty the mysteries of the Holy Scriptures.”
In making such a claim, Alcuin most certainly saw something valuable to the study of the Scriptures. He even saw beyond that and is heralded as one of the greatest scholars of all time, not for his production of novel theorems, but for his broad and deep commentaries on practically every major subject known to Medieval man. The guy was a compulsive thinker. He even invented the question mark, for Peter’s sake. Alcuin saw the beauty of God in every aspect of the created, observable world. If it could be studied, he studied it, for it bears the indelible markings of the Creator Himself. Alcuin believed that through the auspices of the Holy Spirit, Charlemagne’s empire could conceive an Academy of learning greater than anything ever produced by Plato’s school in Athens which had remained unsurpassed a thousand years prior.
As was true in virtually every established world civilization, the Medieval European scholar also certainly had his uniform. It set him apart from the common swineherd, the noble knight, the luxuriant merchant, or the spectacular court fool. He was distinguished for the authority he held by virtue of his learnedness, his time spent in books and in scrolls, his acquisition of knowledge. Some sort of lavish robe was donned often with a hood and/or distinctive hat which marked the man of learning. In some cultures the hats were tall and gaudy. I suspect I’m beginning to conjure within you a subliminal image of a wizard hovering over some smoky, glowing glass orb. But far from being tall and pointy, the medieval cleric’s cap, the biretta, was short and boxlike. It is thought to be the predecessor to the modern tasseled “mortar board” awkwardly cocked on each graduate’s head. It’s called the “mortar board” because it resembles a flat, square metal plate used to hold plaster or brick-layer’s mortar. Strange as the name “mortar board” is, I am fond of it. It’s suggestive of aiding in the construction of solid and lasting masonry buildings. I like things that last, so long as they are good things. And isn’t that what we desire for our scholars? That they be righteous, living stones eternally mortared together by their knowledge and love for God’s Word and known by their love for one another.
Graduates, this stuffy, slightly uncomfortable vestment is a picture that you now wear something much loftier. You have not only been vested by a ceremonial garb, but you have also been robed in a great responsibility – a responsibility to use your hard-earned knowledge to point others toward that Wellspring of Wisdom and Knowledge, the Fount of Every Blessing, Jesus Christ. You are now IN-vested with a task to seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God. And as one of the wisest of all scholars, King Solomon, succinctly stated, “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.”
So now you can walk gingerly out those back doors, then graduate from med school, law school, or business school and live comfortably ever after. After all, getting a good paying job is what all this was for, right?
If you still think that, you haven’t been listening. Go forth. Get wisdom. Get understanding.
Alcuin wrote, “It is easy indeed to point out to you the path of wisdom, if only ye love it for the sake of God, for knowledge, for purity of heart, for understanding the truth, yea, and for itself. Seek it not to gain riches, for the more these are loved, so much the farther do they (the riches) cause those who seek them to depart from the light of truth and knowledge.”
To pursue wisdom and knowledge is the scholar’s vestment. It is an all-encompassing investment. It is a lifetime’s pursuit. But is it worth it? Again, Solomon:
13 Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding.
14 For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold.
15 She [Wisdom] is more precious than rubies: and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her.
16 Length of days is in her right hand; and in her left hand riches and honour.
17 Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.
18 She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her: and happy is every one that retaineth her.
19 The Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth; by understanding hath he established the heavens.
20 By his knowledge the depths are broken up, and the clouds drop down the dew.
21 My son, let not them depart from thine eyes: keep sound wisdom and discretion:
22 So shall they be life unto thy soul, and grace to thy neck.
23 Then shalt thou walk in thy way safely, and thy foot shall not stumble.
24 When thou liest down, thou shalt not be afraid: yea, thou shalt lie down, and thy sleep shall be sweet.
Get Wisdom. More precious than rubies.
Get Understanding. Life to your soul and grace to your neck.
But remember,
But what uniform belongs to the educated scholars of our day? What do they wear? How is one to identify an educated man or woman from those of less tutored stock?
The familiar – yet somehow perennially weird – caps and gowns you see before you at institutional graduations have a long history, and, though they’ve morphed over time, these were once very solemnly held uniforms of trained intellectuals denoting a position worthy of a great deal of honor.
An antiquated word for uniform is “vestment.” Vestment comes from the Latin word, vestis or vestire which means “put on oneself.” This term is still used in some high church religious denominations where the parson, priest, vicar, or reverend dons a long gown sometimes with a colored sash or even a simple white collar. It distinguishes him as a sort of vicarious shepherd who tends the flock. Like the many uniforms worn by public servants of our day, clergy still wear this uniform as handed down by tradition from the Middle Ages. In fact, it was during that time when learning was deemed sacred because it revealed truth and the Truth led one to God. Foreign concept today, no? Medieval scholars, though often mocked by today’s “enlightened ones” for living in the so called “Dark Ages”, were actually meticulous preservers of truth. Alcuin of York was Charlemagne’s personally selected tutor from Britain who revitalized the educational system in the Holy Roman Empire. In the 8th Century Anno Domini, after years of turmoil due to the dissolution of the prestigious Roman Empire, you might say that it was Alcuin who made academia great again. He helped to rekindle a respect for rhetoric and implored his fellow intellectuals, who were leaders in the church, “not to neglect the study of letters (or writing), but to apply yourselves thereto with perseverance and with all humility which is well pleasing to God; so that you may be able to penetrate with greater ease and certainty the mysteries of the Holy Scriptures.”
In making such a claim, Alcuin most certainly saw something valuable to the study of the Scriptures. He even saw beyond that and is heralded as one of the greatest scholars of all time, not for his production of novel theorems, but for his broad and deep commentaries on practically every major subject known to Medieval man. The guy was a compulsive thinker. He even invented the question mark, for Peter’s sake. Alcuin saw the beauty of God in every aspect of the created, observable world. If it could be studied, he studied it, for it bears the indelible markings of the Creator Himself. Alcuin believed that through the auspices of the Holy Spirit, Charlemagne’s empire could conceive an Academy of learning greater than anything ever produced by Plato’s school in Athens which had remained unsurpassed a thousand years prior.
As was true in virtually every established world civilization, the Medieval European scholar also certainly had his uniform. It set him apart from the common swineherd, the noble knight, the luxuriant merchant, or the spectacular court fool. He was distinguished for the authority he held by virtue of his learnedness, his time spent in books and in scrolls, his acquisition of knowledge. Some sort of lavish robe was donned often with a hood and/or distinctive hat which marked the man of learning. In some cultures the hats were tall and gaudy. I suspect I’m beginning to conjure within you a subliminal image of a wizard hovering over some smoky, glowing glass orb. But far from being tall and pointy, the medieval cleric’s cap, the biretta, was short and boxlike. It is thought to be the predecessor to the modern tasseled “mortar board” awkwardly cocked on each graduate’s head. It’s called the “mortar board” because it resembles a flat, square metal plate used to hold plaster or brick-layer’s mortar. Strange as the name “mortar board” is, I am fond of it. It’s suggestive of aiding in the construction of solid and lasting masonry buildings. I like things that last, so long as they are good things. And isn’t that what we desire for our scholars? That they be righteous, living stones eternally mortared together by their knowledge and love for God’s Word and known by their love for one another.
Graduates, this stuffy, slightly uncomfortable vestment is a picture that you now wear something much loftier. You have not only been vested by a ceremonial garb, but you have also been robed in a great responsibility – a responsibility to use your hard-earned knowledge to point others toward that Wellspring of Wisdom and Knowledge, the Fount of Every Blessing, Jesus Christ. You are now IN-vested with a task to seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God. And as one of the wisest of all scholars, King Solomon, succinctly stated, “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.”
So now you can walk gingerly out those back doors, then graduate from med school, law school, or business school and live comfortably ever after. After all, getting a good paying job is what all this was for, right?
If you still think that, you haven’t been listening. Go forth. Get wisdom. Get understanding.
Alcuin wrote, “It is easy indeed to point out to you the path of wisdom, if only ye love it for the sake of God, for knowledge, for purity of heart, for understanding the truth, yea, and for itself. Seek it not to gain riches, for the more these are loved, so much the farther do they (the riches) cause those who seek them to depart from the light of truth and knowledge.”
To pursue wisdom and knowledge is the scholar’s vestment. It is an all-encompassing investment. It is a lifetime’s pursuit. But is it worth it? Again, Solomon:
13 Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding.
14 For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold.
15 She [Wisdom] is more precious than rubies: and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her.
16 Length of days is in her right hand; and in her left hand riches and honour.
17 Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.
18 She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her: and happy is every one that retaineth her.
19 The Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth; by understanding hath he established the heavens.
20 By his knowledge the depths are broken up, and the clouds drop down the dew.
21 My son, let not them depart from thine eyes: keep sound wisdom and discretion:
22 So shall they be life unto thy soul, and grace to thy neck.
23 Then shalt thou walk in thy way safely, and thy foot shall not stumble.
24 When thou liest down, thou shalt not be afraid: yea, thou shalt lie down, and thy sleep shall be sweet.
Get Wisdom. More precious than rubies.
Get Understanding. Life to your soul and grace to your neck.
But remember,
…In Christ alone are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
July 2020 - The culture war
I was reading through some old ALC documents and realized something bizarre that has happened within the last 30 years. These documents alluded to the importance of ALC students adhering to the prevailing cultural values of the day and that students were not to pursue “counter-cultural” trends. Such trends included inappropriate secular music (particularly rock and roll), ripped or baggy jeans, long hair on male students, tattoos, unnaturally dyed hair, and other indications that the document had been developed in the 1990s. This was a time when grunge, heavy metal, and punk rock were viewed as fringe threats to the establishment of a wholesome Christian culture founded on Scripture. During those days, to be counter-cultural at ALC was frowned upon, and rightly so, for “the friendship of the world” always distracts from Him “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3, KJV). My! has American culture come a long way since then, and I’m afraid it’s gone far down the wrong road.
What was culturally ominous and foreboding in the 1990s has become tame and blasé in comparison with today’s entertainment industry standards. The internet also saw the hyper-inflation of the “adult” entertainment industry bringing ruin to many a family. Additionally, there is widespread acceptance of once taboo lifestyles and many novel medical practices. Regardless of whether we call this paradigm shift in American thought politically- or culturally-derived, there is an unmistakable war being waged on biblical Christianity. Lately the Supreme Court has served as an indicator of what is really going on. It doesn’t matter whether you follow left-leaning or right-leaning media, any Christian should hear the resounding exhortation of Isaiah: “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isa. 5:20). Christians, let’s keep ourselves rooted securely on the entirety of Scripture, and live and act accordingly.
I’m expecting a cynical teenager or a hawkish web-surfer to discover what I’ve just written and view it as the ramblings of some wild-eyed fire and brimstone preacher. But come now, and let us reason together; are we in a better place since the 1990s? Assuredly some folks think themselves to be freer and more liberated than ever before. We see them advocating colorfully and proudly leading many to think it’s all just great. But heed Scripture’s words, “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ” (Col. 2:8), and “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8). This is no fiction. To those attentive to the invisible things of this world, Satan’s active, destructive work is as lucid as the fallen light-bearer’s namesake suggests.
Now we come to the dilemma: are we as Christians doing our God-ordained duty by simply watching the devil have his way with the world? What should we do? Vote more strictly according to our faith? Have more kids and catechize them? Withdraw from society? Become social media activists? Protest? I don’t presume to have the answers to these questions, but I think the one sure thing is that we mustn’t just do nothing. We have a divine injunction from God to “tend the garden”, not just watch it grow wild. And the fruits are worth the toil for everybody. It is possible to live a better, freer, happier existence than what that “old deluder, Satan” would have for us, and it is found in Jesus Christ alone who said, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).
I don’t know who this message will offend most – those who hate the idea of a nation built on Scriptural principles; those who say, “Your Christ is not the same as my Christ”; or those who think I haven’t spoken strongly enough about it. The truth is not lost on me that America is a diverse nation in both race and opinion. Nor am I blind to the fact that with Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek. What I am admonishing is that those who profess Christ and who are invested in the Kingdom of Heaven while here on earth should act as such and not yield to the gods of secular society. With regards to the incessant flow of a boggy mire downhill, for that’s what secularism is, theologian G. K. Chesterton encouraged the sort of counter-culture we need today when he wrote,
What was culturally ominous and foreboding in the 1990s has become tame and blasé in comparison with today’s entertainment industry standards. The internet also saw the hyper-inflation of the “adult” entertainment industry bringing ruin to many a family. Additionally, there is widespread acceptance of once taboo lifestyles and many novel medical practices. Regardless of whether we call this paradigm shift in American thought politically- or culturally-derived, there is an unmistakable war being waged on biblical Christianity. Lately the Supreme Court has served as an indicator of what is really going on. It doesn’t matter whether you follow left-leaning or right-leaning media, any Christian should hear the resounding exhortation of Isaiah: “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isa. 5:20). Christians, let’s keep ourselves rooted securely on the entirety of Scripture, and live and act accordingly.
I’m expecting a cynical teenager or a hawkish web-surfer to discover what I’ve just written and view it as the ramblings of some wild-eyed fire and brimstone preacher. But come now, and let us reason together; are we in a better place since the 1990s? Assuredly some folks think themselves to be freer and more liberated than ever before. We see them advocating colorfully and proudly leading many to think it’s all just great. But heed Scripture’s words, “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ” (Col. 2:8), and “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8). This is no fiction. To those attentive to the invisible things of this world, Satan’s active, destructive work is as lucid as the fallen light-bearer’s namesake suggests.
Now we come to the dilemma: are we as Christians doing our God-ordained duty by simply watching the devil have his way with the world? What should we do? Vote more strictly according to our faith? Have more kids and catechize them? Withdraw from society? Become social media activists? Protest? I don’t presume to have the answers to these questions, but I think the one sure thing is that we mustn’t just do nothing. We have a divine injunction from God to “tend the garden”, not just watch it grow wild. And the fruits are worth the toil for everybody. It is possible to live a better, freer, happier existence than what that “old deluder, Satan” would have for us, and it is found in Jesus Christ alone who said, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).
I don’t know who this message will offend most – those who hate the idea of a nation built on Scriptural principles; those who say, “Your Christ is not the same as my Christ”; or those who think I haven’t spoken strongly enough about it. The truth is not lost on me that America is a diverse nation in both race and opinion. Nor am I blind to the fact that with Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek. What I am admonishing is that those who profess Christ and who are invested in the Kingdom of Heaven while here on earth should act as such and not yield to the gods of secular society. With regards to the incessant flow of a boggy mire downhill, for that’s what secularism is, theologian G. K. Chesterton encouraged the sort of counter-culture we need today when he wrote,
“A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.”
June 2020 - That they may be one
A couple of years ago, an insightful ALC senior shed allegorical light on the Star Wars franchise in a way that helped me better understand Christianity. The Rebel Alliance, as the senior pointed out, represents a diversity of people and backgrounds unified by a common pursuit which trumps their differences. Although an imperfect analogy, this is akin to how Jesus Christ unites all believers regardless of race, socio-economic status, gender, (etc.). The Empire, on the other hand, represents a sterile and monochromatic machine populated by automatons whose slightest departure from the Emperor’s plan could warrant a Force-powered asphyxiation.
When the Coronavirus lock-downs began, I developed a fairly firm opinion about the matter. The more I read and followed the data, the more established my opinion became. It seemed to me that there was only one interpretation of the events as they unfolded, and that was the one I held. I’m not going to share that opinion with you; I only want you to know that I began to inwardly criticize those of the opposite camp. I thought that surely they must not have all the information as I had, and they were making a grievous error. The social media comments annoyed me so much that let’s just say it’s good that I’m not actually Darth Vader or Kylo Ren. For that’s how my heart felt. It was wrong, and this is my confession.
As I talked the matter over with a thoughtful friend who had one foot in each perspective, he helped me see that, in relation to this matter, being right and having others see things my way ought not be a Christian’s primary concern. The main issue is that in spite of their differences in response to Covid-19, Christians must display that which is truly miraculous and more powerful than any vaccine: unity amid diversity.
John 17 records Jesus’ “high priestly prayer” in which he appeals to God the Father to form the bond between believers. He knew this would be people who might have nothing else in common other than the Gospel. I once heard a pithy statement to combat racism: “We all bleed red.” In a similar way, all Christians bleed Christ’s blood meaning, despite being wounded or transgressed against, we are all called to bear one another’s burdens, love our enemies, take up our cross, die to self, and forgive as we have been forgiven. We couldn’t have a more perfect model – Jesus Christ – to represent this way of life. He forgave the indignant malice of the world which was directed at him though he did nothing to deserve it. Can we who are not even perfect as he was also extend the hand of fellowship to those believers who might have offended our supposed sensibilities? Not only is Christ the perfect model, but according to his promise the Holy Spirit of God will help us (John 14:16) and empower us to imitate his supernatural ability to forgive others.
This is a critical time to be considering these things. As churches begin opening their doors, differences of opinion will meet face to face. Will the Gospel of forgiveness and Christ’s high priestly prayer for unity prevail? Or will we be outwitted by Satan’s designs (2 Corinthians 2:11) and driven toward fragmentation? Obviously we are to pursue the former. Consequently, the forgiveness demanded by the Gospel of Jesus Christ is one of the great secrets to solving all the world’s problems. It’s not a matter of making everyone else to act, be, or think like ourselves simply for convenience. Christians will never completely all be of like mind this side of eternity, and yet, despite those differences not clearly addressed in Scripture, our Lord lends us unity. For all the other minute shades of opinion we mustn’t let our differences drive us apart, for that, as C. S. Lewis poignantly expressed it in The Great Divorce, is at the heart of Hell itself.
Happily we do not reside in a universe governed by an impersonal Force, but rather a living God of love and peace who instructs us through the apostle Peter,
When the Coronavirus lock-downs began, I developed a fairly firm opinion about the matter. The more I read and followed the data, the more established my opinion became. It seemed to me that there was only one interpretation of the events as they unfolded, and that was the one I held. I’m not going to share that opinion with you; I only want you to know that I began to inwardly criticize those of the opposite camp. I thought that surely they must not have all the information as I had, and they were making a grievous error. The social media comments annoyed me so much that let’s just say it’s good that I’m not actually Darth Vader or Kylo Ren. For that’s how my heart felt. It was wrong, and this is my confession.
As I talked the matter over with a thoughtful friend who had one foot in each perspective, he helped me see that, in relation to this matter, being right and having others see things my way ought not be a Christian’s primary concern. The main issue is that in spite of their differences in response to Covid-19, Christians must display that which is truly miraculous and more powerful than any vaccine: unity amid diversity.
John 17 records Jesus’ “high priestly prayer” in which he appeals to God the Father to form the bond between believers. He knew this would be people who might have nothing else in common other than the Gospel. I once heard a pithy statement to combat racism: “We all bleed red.” In a similar way, all Christians bleed Christ’s blood meaning, despite being wounded or transgressed against, we are all called to bear one another’s burdens, love our enemies, take up our cross, die to self, and forgive as we have been forgiven. We couldn’t have a more perfect model – Jesus Christ – to represent this way of life. He forgave the indignant malice of the world which was directed at him though he did nothing to deserve it. Can we who are not even perfect as he was also extend the hand of fellowship to those believers who might have offended our supposed sensibilities? Not only is Christ the perfect model, but according to his promise the Holy Spirit of God will help us (John 14:16) and empower us to imitate his supernatural ability to forgive others.
This is a critical time to be considering these things. As churches begin opening their doors, differences of opinion will meet face to face. Will the Gospel of forgiveness and Christ’s high priestly prayer for unity prevail? Or will we be outwitted by Satan’s designs (2 Corinthians 2:11) and driven toward fragmentation? Obviously we are to pursue the former. Consequently, the forgiveness demanded by the Gospel of Jesus Christ is one of the great secrets to solving all the world’s problems. It’s not a matter of making everyone else to act, be, or think like ourselves simply for convenience. Christians will never completely all be of like mind this side of eternity, and yet, despite those differences not clearly addressed in Scripture, our Lord lends us unity. For all the other minute shades of opinion we mustn’t let our differences drive us apart, for that, as C. S. Lewis poignantly expressed it in The Great Divorce, is at the heart of Hell itself.
Happily we do not reside in a universe governed by an impersonal Force, but rather a living God of love and peace who instructs us through the apostle Peter,
“Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.”
May 2020 - Recommended Reading
(A Diversion from the ubiquitous Covid-19 Commentary)
As many of you know, I spend the majority of last summer reading and researching for my culminating Master’s degree project which I entitled “Teach a Man to Learn.” During that time and over the previous few years I was being coached and encouraged by Rick Patton to better understand ALC’s unique philosophy of education which greatly aided me in the completion of that degree. I truly felt like I received a second education under his tutelage alone, and so I want to pass along some of what I found to be excellent material for driving my passion for home education and Christian classical education. This marks the beginning of a series I intend to write on home schooling and teaching in general beginning next year, but I want you to at least have the summer to begin exploring some of these great works. Not all of it is hot off the press, but it’s all good.
The Seven Laws of Teaching by John Milton Gregory (2014)
John Milton Gregory’s (1822-1898) thorough-going Christian worldview is firmly rooted throughout this excellent little manual on seven simple rules teachers should follow in training up young men and women of This reprint is a must-read for all educators; if I led a college for teachers, it would be required reading every year.
Desiring the Kingdom by James K. A. Smith (2009)
James K. A. Smith is a rising name among Christian academics. This book helps to shed fresh light on the fact that human beings are primarily “desiring agents” whose thoughts and actions are motivated by their innermost affections. These are the years to be training the affections in our children. It’s not impossible to do.
The End of Education by Neil Postman (1995)
Neil Postman is a household name among many classically-minded educators due to his fair and at times scathing critique of the cultural trends at the close of the last century. Still applicable today, this book represents Postman’s thoughtful analysis of what the real purpose of education should be juxtaposed to what it has become.
Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning by Douglas Wilson (1991)
After Douglas Wilson wrote this book, he effectively drew attention to a 1948 publication by Dorothy Sayers (friend of C. S. Lewis) called The Lost Tools of Learning which is a defense of the classical trivium approach to education. Wilson’s book helped to ignite the Christian home schooling movement as well as the Christian classical school movement which has been gaining more and more traction over the last few decades.
Children of a Greater God by Terry Glaspey (1995)
Similarly to Desiring the Kingdom in its focus on the heart of education, Terry Glaspey writes a more accessible book on how to train our children’s “moral imagination.” This term refers to the deep-seated longings to live rightly that we incur from reading edifying classics, listening to soul-enriching music, and the cultivation of appreciation for the good, true, and beautiful things all around us in the resplendent universe of liberal arts from the Christian perspective.
The Seven Laws of Teaching by John Milton Gregory (2014)
John Milton Gregory’s (1822-1898) thorough-going Christian worldview is firmly rooted throughout this excellent little manual on seven simple rules teachers should follow in training up young men and women of This reprint is a must-read for all educators; if I led a college for teachers, it would be required reading every year.
Desiring the Kingdom by James K. A. Smith (2009)
James K. A. Smith is a rising name among Christian academics. This book helps to shed fresh light on the fact that human beings are primarily “desiring agents” whose thoughts and actions are motivated by their innermost affections. These are the years to be training the affections in our children. It’s not impossible to do.
The End of Education by Neil Postman (1995)
Neil Postman is a household name among many classically-minded educators due to his fair and at times scathing critique of the cultural trends at the close of the last century. Still applicable today, this book represents Postman’s thoughtful analysis of what the real purpose of education should be juxtaposed to what it has become.
Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning by Douglas Wilson (1991)
After Douglas Wilson wrote this book, he effectively drew attention to a 1948 publication by Dorothy Sayers (friend of C. S. Lewis) called The Lost Tools of Learning which is a defense of the classical trivium approach to education. Wilson’s book helped to ignite the Christian home schooling movement as well as the Christian classical school movement which has been gaining more and more traction over the last few decades.
Children of a Greater God by Terry Glaspey (1995)
Similarly to Desiring the Kingdom in its focus on the heart of education, Terry Glaspey writes a more accessible book on how to train our children’s “moral imagination.” This term refers to the deep-seated longings to live rightly that we incur from reading edifying classics, listening to soul-enriching music, and the cultivation of appreciation for the good, true, and beautiful things all around us in the resplendent universe of liberal arts from the Christian perspective.
April 2020 - The frailty of human institutions
(Reflections on the societal effects of covid-19)
In October of 2001, Dr. Jeremy Begbie of Duke Divinity School supplied a message to The Veritas Forum at the University of California at Berkeley. His message was entitled “The Sense of an Ending”, and in it he remarked,
"After September 11, 2001, the air seems thick with a sense of an ending. I don’t mean a sense that the world’s going to grind to halt in a week or two. (That’s a minority view and a pretty shaky one, I think, considering that for thousands of years, every prediction that the world’s going to stop in a fortnight has turned out to be wrong.) No, I mean the ending of a confidence that great futures are possible, that we can build a new and great age, that we are basically omnipotent through technology, and can bring civilization to some kind of glorious climax, or at least bring it much closer. That confidence does seem to have been severely dented."
(As quoted in Dallas Willard’s A Place for Truth)
Nearly twenty years later, and in a much broader, global context, that same sense of an ending has quietly crept across the minds of both the optimistic and the pessimistic alike. COVID-19 has hamstrung virtually every state in the U.S. for the past two weeks. Here in Pennsylvania, schools, restaurants, and non-life-sustaining businesses have been ordered to close. The main street outside my house is much quieter than usual. People are avoiding each other, well, like the Plague. The staples of daily life that we came to expect have been altered. As the renowned explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton might attest, it seems akin to the accidental discovery a giant snow-concealed fissure when hiking across the Antarctic continent; what once seemed solid is now no longer able to support anything at all.
The institutions of man are much the same. Rome would never fall. Tell that to the barbarous Goths. The Titanic would never sink. Tell it to the silent iceberg. The Great War (WWI) would be the war to end all wars. Again, the obstinate hearts of European fascists and communists didn’t get that memo. Americans will never back down. Well this time it’s a “simple” microscopic pathogen: too small to see, too aggressive to counter, and too prolific to thwart. He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision (Psalm 2:4).
If we can’t place stock in man-made institutions to last forever, there is but one sure Foundation, and it is my prayer that the citizens of this nation come to realize it. For as the psalmist extols,
The institutions of man are much the same. Rome would never fall. Tell that to the barbarous Goths. The Titanic would never sink. Tell it to the silent iceberg. The Great War (WWI) would be the war to end all wars. Again, the obstinate hearts of European fascists and communists didn’t get that memo. Americans will never back down. Well this time it’s a “simple” microscopic pathogen: too small to see, too aggressive to counter, and too prolific to thwart. He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision (Psalm 2:4).
If we can’t place stock in man-made institutions to last forever, there is but one sure Foundation, and it is my prayer that the citizens of this nation come to realize it. For as the psalmist extols,
“The Lord foils the plans of the nations;
he thwarts the purposes of the peoples.
But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever,
the purposes of his heart through all generations.”
he thwarts the purposes of the peoples.
But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever,
the purposes of his heart through all generations.”
March 2020 - Confessions
(INSPIRED by readings from st. Augustine)
O Lord, hear my prayer. Be it unto thee a delight to thy ears and a sweet smelling parfum in thy holy presence. I know that I come bearing nothing of my own goodness except that which thou hast put in me. Hold this not against me, but count Christ’s blameless work in the stead of my iniquities, which I know to be ever before me. In the light of his glory and grace I rest my whole trust.
Be lifted up, O Lord - O Ancient One - who was, who is, and whose return is imminent and unthwartable. I seek thy glory and not my own. Thou knowest the inner chamber of my heart. But do I? I tell myself that I seek thee before all else, but is it true? Could ever I search the recesses of my own soul; and, were it so, what would I find therein? I know what I wish to find, and that is to see my Lord’s name lifted above every name, but I know also that secretly I desire my name to be lifted with it. O, wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me, who shall excise from me the part of my soul which clings to my own self-seeking adulation. Far it be it from me, O Lord, to rob thee of an ounce, a kernel of thy rightful magnification.
I am thy servant. Trainest thou me to know thy ways. Not just to know, but to do also. For I can have all knowledge and understanding, but if I have not the love of thy Spirit of holiness, what am I? A resounding gong, a clanging cymbal, a tray of tableware spilled to the floor. My hands are weak, my mind wanders and falters. Unless thou buildest it, O Lord, this laborer builds in vain. All of my work, my whole life, this world itself, is meaningless if its meaning is divorced from thee. I am a disengaged engine that doth spin it driver to no avail when I am not engaged with thee. Moreover, my soul wanders in a desert land and is restless until it finds its rest in thee.
O Lord, my God, consider my calling. Hide not thy face far from me. For, as yet, I feel like a stranger with thee, and a sojourner whose wanderings are aimless. Root me instead by rivers of living water, so that my withered leaves begin again to grow heavenward as the healthy vine grows toward the sun, the source of its life.
I need thee now more than ever. But ever have I needed thee. Only now I know it more than ever. My soul telleth me it is so because of my shortcomings. But use what is weak within me to show thyself excellent, O Lord! For a mighty warrior is truly formidable whose steed is tired and panting, and even so he vanquisheth his enemies. Not that I am thy beleaguered steed, but rather a dry fleck of foam on its jowl.
Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. A bent reed is not broken. I pray thee to heal me and ready me for thy work ahead. For I borrow those quickening words of your humble servant and my friend and fellow brother St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo,
Be lifted up, O Lord - O Ancient One - who was, who is, and whose return is imminent and unthwartable. I seek thy glory and not my own. Thou knowest the inner chamber of my heart. But do I? I tell myself that I seek thee before all else, but is it true? Could ever I search the recesses of my own soul; and, were it so, what would I find therein? I know what I wish to find, and that is to see my Lord’s name lifted above every name, but I know also that secretly I desire my name to be lifted with it. O, wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me, who shall excise from me the part of my soul which clings to my own self-seeking adulation. Far it be it from me, O Lord, to rob thee of an ounce, a kernel of thy rightful magnification.
I am thy servant. Trainest thou me to know thy ways. Not just to know, but to do also. For I can have all knowledge and understanding, but if I have not the love of thy Spirit of holiness, what am I? A resounding gong, a clanging cymbal, a tray of tableware spilled to the floor. My hands are weak, my mind wanders and falters. Unless thou buildest it, O Lord, this laborer builds in vain. All of my work, my whole life, this world itself, is meaningless if its meaning is divorced from thee. I am a disengaged engine that doth spin it driver to no avail when I am not engaged with thee. Moreover, my soul wanders in a desert land and is restless until it finds its rest in thee.
O Lord, my God, consider my calling. Hide not thy face far from me. For, as yet, I feel like a stranger with thee, and a sojourner whose wanderings are aimless. Root me instead by rivers of living water, so that my withered leaves begin again to grow heavenward as the healthy vine grows toward the sun, the source of its life.
I need thee now more than ever. But ever have I needed thee. Only now I know it more than ever. My soul telleth me it is so because of my shortcomings. But use what is weak within me to show thyself excellent, O Lord! For a mighty warrior is truly formidable whose steed is tired and panting, and even so he vanquisheth his enemies. Not that I am thy beleaguered steed, but rather a dry fleck of foam on its jowl.
Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. A bent reed is not broken. I pray thee to heal me and ready me for thy work ahead. For I borrow those quickening words of your humble servant and my friend and fellow brother St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo,
“Grant what thou commandest, and then command what thou wilt.”
February 2020 - George Muller (1805-1898)
Facts about great individuals often transform into myths. Somehow the real, nitty-gritty, ordinary details of life get forgotten and the wondrous, fantastic events surface and last in our memories. This happens for historical heroes like George Washington and his legendary deeds at the Delaware River, his policies as a statesman, and even his respect for honesty with the cherry tree account. Villains get a similar treatment although their wickedness gets enhanced, and rightly so.
I recently finished reading a biography about the Christian hero George Müller. While his younger years, like St. Augustine’s, were less than worthy of emulation, the Lord quickly turned this Prussian teenager’s life around through simple and regular fellowship with Christians. These Christians kneeled together in prayer and sang hymns with one another all of which indelibly marked the young man’s conscience. Convicted of his time wasted and money squandered as a teen indulging in the frivolities afforded to well-to-do youth, George Müller committed his life to prayer and service to Christ’s kingdom through moving to England and opening up what would eventually become a world-renowned orphanage.
Although progress started off slowly with these efforts, Müller and his staff early trusted in God’s promises: “In everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God”; “Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it”; “Ask and it shall be given to you”; “Whatsoever ye ask in my name, that will I do”; and “Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not… yet your Heavenly Father feedeth them.” Passages such as these were taken strictly to heart by this young, newly-married Christian servant, and he made a practice of relying solely on the Lord to provide for the needs of the orphanages. In the end, without advertising or appealing to any person for financial help, the Lord channeled the equivalent of millions of dollars in today’s money through this man’s ministry. Unlike some prominent Christian leaders today, however, Müller kept a very low salary and only the possessions he needed most.
It wasn’t always easy. Sometimes the orphanage staff had to rely on God for that very day’s next meal for the children. As the story goes, one morning there was no food available for the orphans to eat and no money to buy more. The faithful man assembled the children for breakfast and prayed to God thanking Him for the food He would provide. Moments later there was a knock at the door. It was a local baker who, at 2AM that morning, was compelled to bake bread for the orphanage. Shortly after he left came another knock on the door. A local milk delivery man’s cart had broken on the street outside and his milk would spoil prior to being delivered; and would the orphanage like to have it for free?
Müller read through the whole Bible cover to cover more than 200 times in his life. He also kept a prayer journal of over 50,000 prayers, 30,000 of which, according to the missionary himself, were answered the very same day and often the same hour that they were prayed. Although he was not a perfect man and his walk of faith was at times hounded by doubt, George Müller’s example goes to show us that God can fashion anyone from a spiritual lump of clay into a titan of the faith. So take heart, and prayerfully trust in God! For as Müller himself once said:
I recently finished reading a biography about the Christian hero George Müller. While his younger years, like St. Augustine’s, were less than worthy of emulation, the Lord quickly turned this Prussian teenager’s life around through simple and regular fellowship with Christians. These Christians kneeled together in prayer and sang hymns with one another all of which indelibly marked the young man’s conscience. Convicted of his time wasted and money squandered as a teen indulging in the frivolities afforded to well-to-do youth, George Müller committed his life to prayer and service to Christ’s kingdom through moving to England and opening up what would eventually become a world-renowned orphanage.
Although progress started off slowly with these efforts, Müller and his staff early trusted in God’s promises: “In everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God”; “Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it”; “Ask and it shall be given to you”; “Whatsoever ye ask in my name, that will I do”; and “Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not… yet your Heavenly Father feedeth them.” Passages such as these were taken strictly to heart by this young, newly-married Christian servant, and he made a practice of relying solely on the Lord to provide for the needs of the orphanages. In the end, without advertising or appealing to any person for financial help, the Lord channeled the equivalent of millions of dollars in today’s money through this man’s ministry. Unlike some prominent Christian leaders today, however, Müller kept a very low salary and only the possessions he needed most.
It wasn’t always easy. Sometimes the orphanage staff had to rely on God for that very day’s next meal for the children. As the story goes, one morning there was no food available for the orphans to eat and no money to buy more. The faithful man assembled the children for breakfast and prayed to God thanking Him for the food He would provide. Moments later there was a knock at the door. It was a local baker who, at 2AM that morning, was compelled to bake bread for the orphanage. Shortly after he left came another knock on the door. A local milk delivery man’s cart had broken on the street outside and his milk would spoil prior to being delivered; and would the orphanage like to have it for free?
Müller read through the whole Bible cover to cover more than 200 times in his life. He also kept a prayer journal of over 50,000 prayers, 30,000 of which, according to the missionary himself, were answered the very same day and often the same hour that they were prayed. Although he was not a perfect man and his walk of faith was at times hounded by doubt, George Müller’s example goes to show us that God can fashion anyone from a spiritual lump of clay into a titan of the faith. So take heart, and prayerfully trust in God! For as Müller himself once said:
“Only a life of prayer and meditation will render a vessel ready for the Master’s use...”
January 2020 - The Beautiful
(PART four IN A FOUR-PART SERIES LONG, LONG OVERDUE)
We are told that it’s in the eye of the beholder. What a reductionistic response to an immensely complicated subject! The perception of Beauty is a mystery that has intrigued the thinking man for millennia. Does it find its source from within us or from without? The relativism adopted by Postmodernism has assumed the final word by making Beauty be defined by the perceiver. “Modernity has come to think of beauty as being relative to the individual,” writes Pastor Douglas Wilson. “Our problem is that we have deified ourselves and have assumed, contrary to the visible results, that whatever proceeds from us must be beautiful.”
Alternatively, in an inexplicable way, Beauty, as one classical philosopher put it, seems to be a marriage between the True and the Good and these are not relative. John Keats declared, “Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty – that is all ye know on Earth, and all ye need to know.” Beauty is the vague flicker of that celestial blaze which is God’s glory for, as Emily Dickinson expressed it, Beauty like Truth “must dazzle gradually or every man be blind.”
“Beauty is one of the surest antidotes for vexation,” wrote George MacDonald. It is soothing, comforting, relieving, and strangely at times invigorating. It can excite a tepid life toward action. It can quell the rebellion of the heart to a state of peaceable inaction. Additionally, Beauty is often surprising. It catches us up to something or someplace higher than where we were. Perhaps that is because we sadly have come to expect the mundane – a possible symptom of our separation from God and from Eden.
As suggested by Douglas Wilson, Beauty stems from the deity who is God, and this God is beautiful. To make things more complicated, this beautiful God is repulsive to those who reject Him. And as if to further confuse us, the things God has infused with Beauty are generally agreed upon to be aesthetically pleasing by both those who love Him and those who hate Him. How can this be?
Is Beauty then subjective or is it objective? The debate is unlikely to be settled soon, but I contend that true aesthetic pleasure is a gift from the Almighty. Wilson again writes, “A love for the triune and holy God is the foundation of any true love for beauty. Like the seraphim, we do not see this beauty directly, for our faces, like theirs, are of necessity covered.” If Moses on Sinai looked fully upon the Source of Beauty, it would have obliterated him. But in our frail frames we can only be gradually introduced to this “source of purest pleasure” who so beautifully says, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
If Beauty really does find its source in God, then C.S. Lewis’ words from The Weight of Glory ring true:
Alternatively, in an inexplicable way, Beauty, as one classical philosopher put it, seems to be a marriage between the True and the Good and these are not relative. John Keats declared, “Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty – that is all ye know on Earth, and all ye need to know.” Beauty is the vague flicker of that celestial blaze which is God’s glory for, as Emily Dickinson expressed it, Beauty like Truth “must dazzle gradually or every man be blind.”
“Beauty is one of the surest antidotes for vexation,” wrote George MacDonald. It is soothing, comforting, relieving, and strangely at times invigorating. It can excite a tepid life toward action. It can quell the rebellion of the heart to a state of peaceable inaction. Additionally, Beauty is often surprising. It catches us up to something or someplace higher than where we were. Perhaps that is because we sadly have come to expect the mundane – a possible symptom of our separation from God and from Eden.
As suggested by Douglas Wilson, Beauty stems from the deity who is God, and this God is beautiful. To make things more complicated, this beautiful God is repulsive to those who reject Him. And as if to further confuse us, the things God has infused with Beauty are generally agreed upon to be aesthetically pleasing by both those who love Him and those who hate Him. How can this be?
Is Beauty then subjective or is it objective? The debate is unlikely to be settled soon, but I contend that true aesthetic pleasure is a gift from the Almighty. Wilson again writes, “A love for the triune and holy God is the foundation of any true love for beauty. Like the seraphim, we do not see this beauty directly, for our faces, like theirs, are of necessity covered.” If Moses on Sinai looked fully upon the Source of Beauty, it would have obliterated him. But in our frail frames we can only be gradually introduced to this “source of purest pleasure” who so beautifully says, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
If Beauty really does find its source in God, then C.S. Lewis’ words from The Weight of Glory ring true:
“We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough.
We want something else which can hardly be put into words - to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it,
to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.”
We want something else which can hardly be put into words - to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it,
to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.”
December 2019 - THE True
(PART Three IN A FOUR-PART SERIES LONG, LONG OVERDUE)
Pilate, the Roman-appointed governor of Judea, dismissively said to Jesus, “What is truth?” Here was a man of wealth and prestige and likely a good deal of learning. Pilate doubtless spent time in the Empire’s town squares where he heard the orators and the pontificators, the lingering Greek-inspired sophists of the day. Having heard the dialogue he ought to have a good handle on the truth of their day, but instead he was jaded and disinterested in hearing from the humbly attired master of the craft, the Truth himself.
But how can a person be truth? Isn’t truth something spoken or printed? Yes, a person’s existence can be claimed in books as historical or the events in their life to be factual or un-factual. But to be considered a part of the truth and to be called the “Truth” itself are philosophically worlds apart. In our modern era, truth is that which is measurable, quantifiable, calculable, observable or recordable. The philosophy of materialist naturalism has long preached to us that the corpus of human philosophy is ultimately reducible to the wholesale movement of electrons in our collective brains. It is a tragic misplacement of the cart before the horse.
Sadly, for many, we are like fish incapable of seeing the water in which we exist. In trying to extricate my students from those waters of modernistic scientism, I inform them that there are two ways of understanding truth. First, there is “truth”, or that which is in accordance with reality. This is easily seen in the physical realm and less easily perceived, but no less real, in the spiritual realm. And second, there is “Truth”, or that which is in accordance with how reality ought to be. To say an arrow flew straight and “true” means that it hit the archer’s intended mark, or the mark it ought to have hit. Tennyson wrote that the Lady of Shalott “hath no loyal knight and true” meaning she was bereft of the ideal knight. In this sense, the perfect person can be the Truth by always having done what he ought and never having done what he ought not. Pastor S.M. Lockridge said of Jesus, “He's the loftiest idea in literature. He's the highest personality in philosophy. He's the supreme problem in higher criticism. He's the fundamental doctrine of true theology.” When we think of how mankind ought to be, the Lord Jesus Christ’s life is the preeminent model for it, for it is he who made us and we are his.
To illustrate then how Christ’s “Way” is the Truth, if you don't follow the news already, there was a story of a white Texas female police officer who allegedly accidentally shot a black man named Botham Jean in his own apartment thinking it was hers. As the report goes, she went to the wrong floor, saw the door ajar and shot the man inside and then failed to provide the necessary life-giving aid required by a responsible law enforcement officer. Honest mistake or racist hostility? That's the continued de-bate. But Botham Jean's brother had the answer that the whole world needs to hear: he openly forgave her in front of a court of law. While the officer will still answer to the state, this man’s display was a reflection of the forgiveness shown him by Christ and which will set the world aright – as it ought to be.
When you are tempted to ask, "Is the Bible really the Truth?" Remember that not only does the truth align with that which is accordance with reality, but the Truth also states that which is in accordance with how reality ought to be. Stories like this one help remind me that there is a greater Truth than facts and data and that it is found in and through the Word of God.
But how can a person be truth? Isn’t truth something spoken or printed? Yes, a person’s existence can be claimed in books as historical or the events in their life to be factual or un-factual. But to be considered a part of the truth and to be called the “Truth” itself are philosophically worlds apart. In our modern era, truth is that which is measurable, quantifiable, calculable, observable or recordable. The philosophy of materialist naturalism has long preached to us that the corpus of human philosophy is ultimately reducible to the wholesale movement of electrons in our collective brains. It is a tragic misplacement of the cart before the horse.
Sadly, for many, we are like fish incapable of seeing the water in which we exist. In trying to extricate my students from those waters of modernistic scientism, I inform them that there are two ways of understanding truth. First, there is “truth”, or that which is in accordance with reality. This is easily seen in the physical realm and less easily perceived, but no less real, in the spiritual realm. And second, there is “Truth”, or that which is in accordance with how reality ought to be. To say an arrow flew straight and “true” means that it hit the archer’s intended mark, or the mark it ought to have hit. Tennyson wrote that the Lady of Shalott “hath no loyal knight and true” meaning she was bereft of the ideal knight. In this sense, the perfect person can be the Truth by always having done what he ought and never having done what he ought not. Pastor S.M. Lockridge said of Jesus, “He's the loftiest idea in literature. He's the highest personality in philosophy. He's the supreme problem in higher criticism. He's the fundamental doctrine of true theology.” When we think of how mankind ought to be, the Lord Jesus Christ’s life is the preeminent model for it, for it is he who made us and we are his.
To illustrate then how Christ’s “Way” is the Truth, if you don't follow the news already, there was a story of a white Texas female police officer who allegedly accidentally shot a black man named Botham Jean in his own apartment thinking it was hers. As the report goes, she went to the wrong floor, saw the door ajar and shot the man inside and then failed to provide the necessary life-giving aid required by a responsible law enforcement officer. Honest mistake or racist hostility? That's the continued de-bate. But Botham Jean's brother had the answer that the whole world needs to hear: he openly forgave her in front of a court of law. While the officer will still answer to the state, this man’s display was a reflection of the forgiveness shown him by Christ and which will set the world aright – as it ought to be.
When you are tempted to ask, "Is the Bible really the Truth?" Remember that not only does the truth align with that which is accordance with reality, but the Truth also states that which is in accordance with how reality ought to be. Stories like this one help remind me that there is a greater Truth than facts and data and that it is found in and through the Word of God.
“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except through me.”
November 2019 - The Good
(PART two IN A FOUR-PART SERIES LONG, LONG OVERDUE)
First, I have to question whether or not it is really necessary to give my perspective on The Good, The True, and The Beautiful. Hasn’t this topic been discussed at length? Haven’t philosophers finally unmasked the mystery of what lies behind it all? Yes, and no. If these three transcendental values find their sources in the One who is transcendent above all creation and whose robes of glory have no edge, then the exploration of Him and these things will be ceaselessly engaging and eternally, but satisfactorily, mystifying. Thus I am not dissuaded from proceeding.
I have to press my older students to discern what they actually mean when they report that a certain new movie in the theaters was “good.” Do they simply mean that they liked it? Because to like a thing and to call the thing “good” is a crucial distinction. It is not hard to imagine that one might like a thing that is clearly not good. (I won’t ask for a show of hands.) Might that be the case with the new film as well? Another might dislike something which is unarguably good. The proper exacting of Justice is one of these indisputable scenarios. Some in our day are tempted to say, “Well Justice is good for everyone except for the criminal who got caught.” And to that I would retort, “Is it? Then does Justice not exist as a form of goodness even if the whole population are criminals?” Of course Justice would still exist regardless of whether or not we like it. That is because Justice is sourced in Goodness, and Goodness is a universal transcendent value. Goodness lies somewhere outside of the individual. Moreover, if society is made up of a mass of individuals, and if Goodness is not determined by the individual, then neither is Goodness a result of the collective beliefs of a larger group of individuals. Goodness is a fixed, absolute, and transcendental value regardless of what people think about it. But what exactly is Goodness?
It has been noted that there is a similarity between the words “good” and “God.” The Christian who studies the book of James knows that Goodness comes from Father of lights who Himself is changeless. Micah, too, teaches that God has shown man what is Good: mercy, justice, humility. God, according to Christian philosopher Harry Lee Poe, is the standard of Goodness and that it is God’s omniscient opinion that defines for us what Goodness is.
But why do we often find ourselves liking things even if we know them to be not good? St. Augustine, bishop of Hippo, surmised that the Fall from Eden has caused our affections to become “disordered.” In his perspective of ordered loves (ordo amoris), Augustine argues that God deserves supreme rank in the hierarchy of our desires, but that sin has caused a re-arrangement of those things which we desire and therefore we regularly place even a good thing above God who is the true source of the pleasures offered by that good thing. We tend to usurp God by using His creation to access what we think to be the desires that will satisfy our hearts. This distortion is not Good.
We are privileged to be participants in a miraculous and sumptuous universe. There is room for tastes, opinions, styles, rhythms and myriad other sensibilities. To label the particular objects of the world as good or bad in and of themselves is in error. Rather, we should be contemplative as to whether the universal value undergirding an object’s use draws us toward or away from God. For we must recognize God as the first and highest source of all good things and to heed His word when he says of a thing, “It is not good.” If it is not Good, then it is not of God.
I have to press my older students to discern what they actually mean when they report that a certain new movie in the theaters was “good.” Do they simply mean that they liked it? Because to like a thing and to call the thing “good” is a crucial distinction. It is not hard to imagine that one might like a thing that is clearly not good. (I won’t ask for a show of hands.) Might that be the case with the new film as well? Another might dislike something which is unarguably good. The proper exacting of Justice is one of these indisputable scenarios. Some in our day are tempted to say, “Well Justice is good for everyone except for the criminal who got caught.” And to that I would retort, “Is it? Then does Justice not exist as a form of goodness even if the whole population are criminals?” Of course Justice would still exist regardless of whether or not we like it. That is because Justice is sourced in Goodness, and Goodness is a universal transcendent value. Goodness lies somewhere outside of the individual. Moreover, if society is made up of a mass of individuals, and if Goodness is not determined by the individual, then neither is Goodness a result of the collective beliefs of a larger group of individuals. Goodness is a fixed, absolute, and transcendental value regardless of what people think about it. But what exactly is Goodness?
It has been noted that there is a similarity between the words “good” and “God.” The Christian who studies the book of James knows that Goodness comes from Father of lights who Himself is changeless. Micah, too, teaches that God has shown man what is Good: mercy, justice, humility. God, according to Christian philosopher Harry Lee Poe, is the standard of Goodness and that it is God’s omniscient opinion that defines for us what Goodness is.
But why do we often find ourselves liking things even if we know them to be not good? St. Augustine, bishop of Hippo, surmised that the Fall from Eden has caused our affections to become “disordered.” In his perspective of ordered loves (ordo amoris), Augustine argues that God deserves supreme rank in the hierarchy of our desires, but that sin has caused a re-arrangement of those things which we desire and therefore we regularly place even a good thing above God who is the true source of the pleasures offered by that good thing. We tend to usurp God by using His creation to access what we think to be the desires that will satisfy our hearts. This distortion is not Good.
We are privileged to be participants in a miraculous and sumptuous universe. There is room for tastes, opinions, styles, rhythms and myriad other sensibilities. To label the particular objects of the world as good or bad in and of themselves is in error. Rather, we should be contemplative as to whether the universal value undergirding an object’s use draws us toward or away from God. For we must recognize God as the first and highest source of all good things and to heed His word when he says of a thing, “It is not good.” If it is not Good, then it is not of God.
Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.
OCTOBER 2019 - POSTMODERNISM AND ITS ANTIDOTE
(PART ONE IN A FOUR-PART SERIES LONG, LONG OVERDUE)
The Preacher of Ecclesiastes writes, “There is nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing of which it is said, ‘See this is new?’ It has already been in the ages before us.” These words are, of course, a simplification of things, but they are directed toward the one who clamors for the new and novel philosophies this world offers. To such a person, latest is greatest and newest is truest.
I am not criticizing new things in general; I wrote a Kilns celebrating newness as offering its own kind of fresh beauty. But the “freshness” offered to the art community by Marcel Duchamp in 1917, like an amputee’s old war bandage which has never been changed, now festers and stinks.
The novelty Duchamp ushered in with his ‘Fountain’ urinal exhibit sought to challenge the high society norms associated with art during his time. After all, while men were being dismembered on the battlefields of the Somme, there were still societal elites sipping champagne and judging whether a thing was art or not. His gesture gave rise to a movement that anything can be considered art so long as it is intended by its maker to give pause to thought or evoke emotion within the viewer.
Fine. It might have been time for a challenge to the establishment to shake things up and evaluate the elitist evaluators themselves. But it also set in motion a century of art philosophy which seemed unable to shake the snarkiness associated with Duchamp’s gesture. It seemed as though it was the powder keg that detonated something inside of man which says, “It’s art because I want it to be so, and who can argue with that?” And this constant relativism has seeped into philosophy altogether pandering to a world with no apparent guidelines to contain it.
In 1951, music theorist John Cage “composed” a piece for piano called ‘Music of Changes’ by employing chance alone to dictate the notes. (See, this is new!) It was never done before and it certainly challenged the art establishment as it challenges the audial tolerance of virtually all who listen to it. But, as some would argue, doesn’t a waterfall or a breeze through the trees produce a sort of randomized, almost musical beauty? Certainly it does and in a mysterious manner known only to God. But all Postmodernism did was kick out the foundations for criticism and for any substantiated thought, for how is thought substantial with no firm bedrock on which it is built?
I advocate for a not-so-new yet lasting basis upon which we can evaluate a thing’s worth. It misses the mark to ask “Is it art?” or even, “Is it a legitimate worldview?” Rather, Christians should be asking whether a thing is Good, True, or Beautiful. Contrary to popular opinion, these are not merely subjectively felt notions but find their roots in the Creator of the universe Himself. It is not lost on me that I am swimming against the current with these beliefs. But, as G.K. Chesterton warned, it is dead things which flow along with the current. And so, in the hopes of awakening dormant life in any readers, I am challenging myself to address each of the aforementioned transcendent values as articulately and faithfully as I can in the confines of a Kilns entry. Some may say that it is it just my opinion. That’s okay with me, so long as my opinion is just.
I am not criticizing new things in general; I wrote a Kilns celebrating newness as offering its own kind of fresh beauty. But the “freshness” offered to the art community by Marcel Duchamp in 1917, like an amputee’s old war bandage which has never been changed, now festers and stinks.
The novelty Duchamp ushered in with his ‘Fountain’ urinal exhibit sought to challenge the high society norms associated with art during his time. After all, while men were being dismembered on the battlefields of the Somme, there were still societal elites sipping champagne and judging whether a thing was art or not. His gesture gave rise to a movement that anything can be considered art so long as it is intended by its maker to give pause to thought or evoke emotion within the viewer.
Fine. It might have been time for a challenge to the establishment to shake things up and evaluate the elitist evaluators themselves. But it also set in motion a century of art philosophy which seemed unable to shake the snarkiness associated with Duchamp’s gesture. It seemed as though it was the powder keg that detonated something inside of man which says, “It’s art because I want it to be so, and who can argue with that?” And this constant relativism has seeped into philosophy altogether pandering to a world with no apparent guidelines to contain it.
In 1951, music theorist John Cage “composed” a piece for piano called ‘Music of Changes’ by employing chance alone to dictate the notes. (See, this is new!) It was never done before and it certainly challenged the art establishment as it challenges the audial tolerance of virtually all who listen to it. But, as some would argue, doesn’t a waterfall or a breeze through the trees produce a sort of randomized, almost musical beauty? Certainly it does and in a mysterious manner known only to God. But all Postmodernism did was kick out the foundations for criticism and for any substantiated thought, for how is thought substantial with no firm bedrock on which it is built?
I advocate for a not-so-new yet lasting basis upon which we can evaluate a thing’s worth. It misses the mark to ask “Is it art?” or even, “Is it a legitimate worldview?” Rather, Christians should be asking whether a thing is Good, True, or Beautiful. Contrary to popular opinion, these are not merely subjectively felt notions but find their roots in the Creator of the universe Himself. It is not lost on me that I am swimming against the current with these beliefs. But, as G.K. Chesterton warned, it is dead things which flow along with the current. And so, in the hopes of awakening dormant life in any readers, I am challenging myself to address each of the aforementioned transcendent values as articulately and faithfully as I can in the confines of a Kilns entry. Some may say that it is it just my opinion. That’s okay with me, so long as my opinion is just.
“Hier stehe ich, ich kann nicht anders.
Gott helfe mir. Amen!”
Gott helfe mir. Amen!”
September 2019 - to Hear
(PART Five IN A SERIES ON T.E.A.C.H. – THE MARKS OF AN EDUCATED CHRISTIAN)
With so much information and opinion surrounding us, it’s hard to know what to believe. The Preacher of Ecclesiastes recorded, “For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases in knowledge increases in sorrow.” Have you felt that? Do you resonate with the words of the villainous Cypher of Matrix fame when he succinctly surmised, “Ignorance is bliss.”
Social media, the newspaper, mainstream news broadcasters, and even Hollywood itself are so loaded with spin and bias that it’s hard to know who to trust, too. It’s easy, then, to surround oneself with opinions that soothe the soul. This can be done easily enough on social media by blocking or filtering content so that one only hears what one likes. Television is easy because we can flip to the media channels whose agendas we support. The effect, then, is what has come to be called an “echo chamber” where the same ideas and principles bounce around and may even become amplified in our own minds.
We probably agree that such a perspective is limiting and has the propensity to become dangerous to the undiscerning mind. Extremism tends to be incubated by such an environment, and any of us, if we are not careful, are liable to be sucked into its vortex.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not advocating for unrestrained media immersion. There are some things no one should hear; some thoughts have ruinous consequences. And therefore I am not proposing that Christians lay down their battle gear in acquiescence to the notion that all views are equally acceptable, I only mean that if we are to be defenders of the Truth and do not know the battle plans of the enemies of Truth, how will we meet the enemy on the field of battle?
Moreover, it’s entirely natural for one to assume that what he believes is the Truth when it may in fact be nothing of the sort. We need first to be students of the Truth in order to know it, and then we must be fully aware that we can also be enemies of the same Truth we defend. Consider cartoonist Walt Kelly’s spin on a more famous quote: “We have met the enemy, and he is us.” This is why we must learn to hear. The keys to being able to hear aright are patience and humility. It takes great patience to converse at length with a party of an opposing persuasion. It takes an equal amount of humility to recognize one’s own place on the path to Truth fully admitting that we might not yet have all the answers. To hear is the first step in being able to understand, and to understand is a great ally in reducing one’s exertions and losses in the defense of Truth. For how can we think if we cannot understand, and how can we understand if we do not hear the opposition? We will be expending needless energy talking past the opponent and landing no impactful connections.
There is a Japanese martial art called Aikido. As a means of physical self-defense, the defender waits patiently for the blow which is met smartly by stepping aside or gracefully redirecting the force of that blow into thin air. More complicated maneuvers result in landing the aggressor on his back and out of commission.
Defending Truth is much like Aikido. However, one must patiently wait to observe, or hear, the claims of the opponent before turning the argument on its head which, if it is not Truth, will be feasible. If the opponent speaks Truth, then we should be unable to destabilize his argument, and therefore we should yield to it.
Social media, the newspaper, mainstream news broadcasters, and even Hollywood itself are so loaded with spin and bias that it’s hard to know who to trust, too. It’s easy, then, to surround oneself with opinions that soothe the soul. This can be done easily enough on social media by blocking or filtering content so that one only hears what one likes. Television is easy because we can flip to the media channels whose agendas we support. The effect, then, is what has come to be called an “echo chamber” where the same ideas and principles bounce around and may even become amplified in our own minds.
We probably agree that such a perspective is limiting and has the propensity to become dangerous to the undiscerning mind. Extremism tends to be incubated by such an environment, and any of us, if we are not careful, are liable to be sucked into its vortex.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not advocating for unrestrained media immersion. There are some things no one should hear; some thoughts have ruinous consequences. And therefore I am not proposing that Christians lay down their battle gear in acquiescence to the notion that all views are equally acceptable, I only mean that if we are to be defenders of the Truth and do not know the battle plans of the enemies of Truth, how will we meet the enemy on the field of battle?
Moreover, it’s entirely natural for one to assume that what he believes is the Truth when it may in fact be nothing of the sort. We need first to be students of the Truth in order to know it, and then we must be fully aware that we can also be enemies of the same Truth we defend. Consider cartoonist Walt Kelly’s spin on a more famous quote: “We have met the enemy, and he is us.” This is why we must learn to hear. The keys to being able to hear aright are patience and humility. It takes great patience to converse at length with a party of an opposing persuasion. It takes an equal amount of humility to recognize one’s own place on the path to Truth fully admitting that we might not yet have all the answers. To hear is the first step in being able to understand, and to understand is a great ally in reducing one’s exertions and losses in the defense of Truth. For how can we think if we cannot understand, and how can we understand if we do not hear the opposition? We will be expending needless energy talking past the opponent and landing no impactful connections.
There is a Japanese martial art called Aikido. As a means of physical self-defense, the defender waits patiently for the blow which is met smartly by stepping aside or gracefully redirecting the force of that blow into thin air. More complicated maneuvers result in landing the aggressor on his back and out of commission.
Defending Truth is much like Aikido. However, one must patiently wait to observe, or hear, the claims of the opponent before turning the argument on its head which, if it is not Truth, will be feasible. If the opponent speaks Truth, then we should be unable to destabilize his argument, and therefore we should yield to it.
He who has ears, let him hear.
August 2019 - To Communicate
(PART Four IN A SERIES ON T.E.A.C.H. – THE MARKS OF AN EDUCATED CHRISTIAN)
A friend of mine during sophomore year in high school said that it wasn’t wrong to swear. I didn’t see how he figured that. He advanced to me notion that words can mean whatever one wants them to mean. Words have, after all, come to take on different meanings than they had in the past. “Dumb” was once understood to simply mean “unable to speak” which is a real condition. According to my friend, to say what society deems to be a “bad word” is no different than calling someone a “tchotchke” and meaning it badly. In the end, if words could be malleable, then why pay them so much needless attention?
Ironically, for a time I succumbed to this notion, one which asserted that words ultimately mean nothing. It took me until adulthood to realize this error and the real significance of words. To me, words carried with them only a shadowy shred of meaning somehow connected the speaker’s momentary will.
But the truth is that words do have meaning. Or, perhaps more fittingly, meaning itself is attempted to be captured and conveyed by man-made words and languages. Surely you know the experience. You feel something so deeply that no word can sufficiently express it. Or you know a rich truth but the suitable word for the situation evades you. Although I am a mere infant in this study, I hold that there are transcendent values, or universals, which have been sought to be expressed by people regardless of time or culture. Honor is one of these values. Justice another. Love: the greatest of these. We know them not because our words create them: they exist in spite of our words.
There is an ominous movement that has seeped into our culture which says the opposite. It assumes meaning is created by words or by individuals. It is a notion advanced by postmodernist philosophers such as Richard Rorty who said, “There is nothing deep down inside us except what we have put there ourselves.” (If that is true, Mr. Rorty, then why bother trying to convince anyone else of that?) I call the movement ominous because Rorty also said, “Truth is what your contemporaries let you get away with.” I’m sorry, but I can’t let him get away with that because it’s just not true!
The Bible teaches that the cosmos was spoken into existence by God. Time and again the prophets refer to the “word of the Lord.” Indeed, Jesus himself is called “the Word.” Repeatedly throughout scripture when God wished to make a thing known to a person, He elected an angel to carry the message. Today God communicates to us through the Bible and through other believers. Clearly there is an argument to be made for the importance of the effective communication - and preservation of - the truth.
The educated Christian must be equipped to say what he means and mean what he says. And he must say it well enough that others know clearly what he means. This is the basis for the subject of Rhetoric in the classical model of the Trivium. It assumes that truth is a transcendent value and that it must be preserved and carefully conveyed by words from one mind to the next. What are we if we cannot transmit real and lasting meaning from another’s words?
Ironically, for a time I succumbed to this notion, one which asserted that words ultimately mean nothing. It took me until adulthood to realize this error and the real significance of words. To me, words carried with them only a shadowy shred of meaning somehow connected the speaker’s momentary will.
But the truth is that words do have meaning. Or, perhaps more fittingly, meaning itself is attempted to be captured and conveyed by man-made words and languages. Surely you know the experience. You feel something so deeply that no word can sufficiently express it. Or you know a rich truth but the suitable word for the situation evades you. Although I am a mere infant in this study, I hold that there are transcendent values, or universals, which have been sought to be expressed by people regardless of time or culture. Honor is one of these values. Justice another. Love: the greatest of these. We know them not because our words create them: they exist in spite of our words.
There is an ominous movement that has seeped into our culture which says the opposite. It assumes meaning is created by words or by individuals. It is a notion advanced by postmodernist philosophers such as Richard Rorty who said, “There is nothing deep down inside us except what we have put there ourselves.” (If that is true, Mr. Rorty, then why bother trying to convince anyone else of that?) I call the movement ominous because Rorty also said, “Truth is what your contemporaries let you get away with.” I’m sorry, but I can’t let him get away with that because it’s just not true!
The Bible teaches that the cosmos was spoken into existence by God. Time and again the prophets refer to the “word of the Lord.” Indeed, Jesus himself is called “the Word.” Repeatedly throughout scripture when God wished to make a thing known to a person, He elected an angel to carry the message. Today God communicates to us through the Bible and through other believers. Clearly there is an argument to be made for the importance of the effective communication - and preservation of - the truth.
The educated Christian must be equipped to say what he means and mean what he says. And he must say it well enough that others know clearly what he means. This is the basis for the subject of Rhetoric in the classical model of the Trivium. It assumes that truth is a transcendent value and that it must be preserved and carefully conveyed by words from one mind to the next. What are we if we cannot transmit real and lasting meaning from another’s words?
Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.
July 2019 - to Act
(PART Three IN A SERIES ON T.E.A.C.H. – THE MARKS OF AN EDUCATED CHRISTIAN)
“All the world’s a stage,” wouldn’t you say? Are we not but actors upon it?
The word educate comes from two possible Latin roots differentiated only by a single vowel. Educere means to lead out, and educare means to train or to mold. Therefore, to educate could mean either to bring from or to fashion into – or both. It is a term that implies intentional change from a past form to a future, and ideally improved, form.
For Christians (or “little Christs,” as some have owned), this new form into which we are being molded is no vague notion. We are being transformed into the same image (that of our Lord), from one degree of glory to another (2 Cor. 3:18). But from what confines are we being led out? Toward what pastures are we being freed through a Christian liberal arts education?
English poet John Milton suggested an answer when he wrote, “The [purpose of education] is to repair the ruins of our first parents [Adam and Eve] by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him, as we may the nearest by possessing our souls of true virtue….” Milton stands tall among those who advocate for the virtuous improvement of the soul and the subsequent help that such an endeavor will offer to others. For that’s what virtue is: the demonstration of high moral standards which must be acted out.
The educated Christian must act upon what he knows. In a sense, we must all be acters – not actors who put on masks and who make others think they are someone they are not, but act-ers – ones who act upon what has been learned. In addition to using our heads to think critically, and our hearts to empathize rationally, we are given the opportunity to use our hands to act accordingly. To simply have all knowledge and wisdom and do nothing constructive with it is utter folly in God’s eyes. Instead, the Christian who has been “led out” should be a fool in the world’s eyes by proactively offering his life as a living sacrifice, utilizing his hard-earned knowledge to bless and build up the Kingdom. It has been said of our Master that if one were to have recorded all of His deeds, the whole world itself could not contain the books that would be written (John 21:25). The bar could not be set higher. And yet, if we are to be little Christs on this earth, then we must get busy acting like it and acting upon it. For not to do so would mean to remain in bondage to our former, unliberated selves wallowing in John Bunyan’s “City of Destruction” and watching the clock tick down to the great day of reckoning. Folly indeed!
The word educate comes from two possible Latin roots differentiated only by a single vowel. Educere means to lead out, and educare means to train or to mold. Therefore, to educate could mean either to bring from or to fashion into – or both. It is a term that implies intentional change from a past form to a future, and ideally improved, form.
For Christians (or “little Christs,” as some have owned), this new form into which we are being molded is no vague notion. We are being transformed into the same image (that of our Lord), from one degree of glory to another (2 Cor. 3:18). But from what confines are we being led out? Toward what pastures are we being freed through a Christian liberal arts education?
English poet John Milton suggested an answer when he wrote, “The [purpose of education] is to repair the ruins of our first parents [Adam and Eve] by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him, as we may the nearest by possessing our souls of true virtue….” Milton stands tall among those who advocate for the virtuous improvement of the soul and the subsequent help that such an endeavor will offer to others. For that’s what virtue is: the demonstration of high moral standards which must be acted out.
The educated Christian must act upon what he knows. In a sense, we must all be acters – not actors who put on masks and who make others think they are someone they are not, but act-ers – ones who act upon what has been learned. In addition to using our heads to think critically, and our hearts to empathize rationally, we are given the opportunity to use our hands to act accordingly. To simply have all knowledge and wisdom and do nothing constructive with it is utter folly in God’s eyes. Instead, the Christian who has been “led out” should be a fool in the world’s eyes by proactively offering his life as a living sacrifice, utilizing his hard-earned knowledge to bless and build up the Kingdom. It has been said of our Master that if one were to have recorded all of His deeds, the whole world itself could not contain the books that would be written (John 21:25). The bar could not be set higher. And yet, if we are to be little Christs on this earth, then we must get busy acting like it and acting upon it. For not to do so would mean to remain in bondage to our former, unliberated selves wallowing in John Bunyan’s “City of Destruction” and watching the clock tick down to the great day of reckoning. Folly indeed!
But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.
June 2019 - to empathize
(Part two in a series on T.E.A.C.H. – the marks of an educated Christian)
I read a news article last month about a recent shooting at a California synagogue. According to the article, the perpetrator was a 19-year-old nursing student – a stellar academic who took AP courses, whose father was a science teacher, and who was a longtime member of local Bible-preaching Orthodox Presbyterian Church congregation. My heart sank.
Emotionally susceptible to the barrage of crime and terrorism reports world- and nation-wide, as a teenager I regrettably resorted to packing ice around my heart lest it should break again and again for the victims’ families. It was a means of inoculation – self-preservation to crystalize my feelings and hopefully protect my sanity. Victims aside, the culprit won’t receive a shred of sympathy from me. For that matter, it’s best to not feel anything at all, right? But this particular article caused a fresh pang; here a Christian teenager from a respectable denomination used an AR-type assault weapon to execute defenseless worshippers in a sanctuary committed to life and peace. This was not the typical fomenting extremist nutcase of your all-too-regular mall shooting. This was one of our own flock who donned wolf’s clothing and, in a manner of speaking, bit the Shepherd.
It is not within the space if this page for me to psycho-analyze the boy or lay blame with some facet of his upbringing as is societally customary when a tragedy like this occurs. But I can identify a parallel thread between his heart and mine, and that commonality is the willful suppression of empathy. Would I have wept over Jerusalem as did our Lord?
Empathy is the ability to understand and experience the feelings felt by someone else. It requires a basic knowledge of their situation, a deeper understanding of the effects of that situation, and a deepest resolve to allow the burden of that situation to affect oneself. The educated Christian must be able to empathize.
The ability to empathize is similar to the I Corinthians 13 (ESV) description of love, elements of which I have underscored for attention. “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
Generalizations are dangerous, but in my experience I have found that conservatively-minded Christian often times struggle to empathize more-so than do those with a more progressive disposition. The arguments legitimizing this non-empathetic mentality are ample and with varied potency, but our scriptures do require us to rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn. Teaching our youth to do so may dissuade the sort of stone-heartedness fostered by the synagogue shooter. Heed C. S. Lewis’ words from The Four Loves when he writes:
Emotionally susceptible to the barrage of crime and terrorism reports world- and nation-wide, as a teenager I regrettably resorted to packing ice around my heart lest it should break again and again for the victims’ families. It was a means of inoculation – self-preservation to crystalize my feelings and hopefully protect my sanity. Victims aside, the culprit won’t receive a shred of sympathy from me. For that matter, it’s best to not feel anything at all, right? But this particular article caused a fresh pang; here a Christian teenager from a respectable denomination used an AR-type assault weapon to execute defenseless worshippers in a sanctuary committed to life and peace. This was not the typical fomenting extremist nutcase of your all-too-regular mall shooting. This was one of our own flock who donned wolf’s clothing and, in a manner of speaking, bit the Shepherd.
It is not within the space if this page for me to psycho-analyze the boy or lay blame with some facet of his upbringing as is societally customary when a tragedy like this occurs. But I can identify a parallel thread between his heart and mine, and that commonality is the willful suppression of empathy. Would I have wept over Jerusalem as did our Lord?
Empathy is the ability to understand and experience the feelings felt by someone else. It requires a basic knowledge of their situation, a deeper understanding of the effects of that situation, and a deepest resolve to allow the burden of that situation to affect oneself. The educated Christian must be able to empathize.
The ability to empathize is similar to the I Corinthians 13 (ESV) description of love, elements of which I have underscored for attention. “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
Generalizations are dangerous, but in my experience I have found that conservatively-minded Christian often times struggle to empathize more-so than do those with a more progressive disposition. The arguments legitimizing this non-empathetic mentality are ample and with varied potency, but our scriptures do require us to rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn. Teaching our youth to do so may dissuade the sort of stone-heartedness fostered by the synagogue shooter. Heed C. S. Lewis’ words from The Four Loves when he writes:
“There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly
be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.”
be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.”
May 2019 - To Think
(PART One IN A SERIES ON T.E.A.C.H. – THE MARKS OF AN EDUCATED CHRISTIAN)
In my last contribution to The Kilns, I promised a series on my current thinking regarding the issue of what constitutes the “educated Christian.” My five criteria worked into an easy-to-remember acronym - TEACH - in which the educated Christian must be able to Think, to Empathize, to Act, to Communicate, and to Hear. In the limited space that follows, I will be unable to deliver a message worthy of what the subject is owed, but I pray that these few words spark renewed vigor and direction into the hearts and minds of many who read them. Shall we commence?
It is a misnomer to equate the ability to think well with simply being knowledgeable or intelligent. I often reflect on the villains from DC Comics’ Batman series, those maniacal geniuses (Joker, Two-Face, Penguin, Riddler, et al.) who regularly find themselves incarcerated in Arkham Asylum, not for lack of logic or mental processing abilities, but for a lack of wisdom in how to best use their brilliance. To put it bluntly, it is very possible to be a stupid genius. Happily, the comic book writers understand justice well-enough to discern wisdom from folly and give the villains their due. But why do these fictional characters (who represent a real type of person) keep making the same mistakes? Why does their thinking, sharp though it may be, lead them back to the madhouse?
I propose to you that one does not need to be a repository of facts or a hatchery of quick wit to be able to think well. The plodding farmer can easily be a better thinker than the plotting heister. While both require knowledge varying in category and degree, the well-educated one must only be able to take what he hears and contrast it with what he knows. Here, the Bible-believing Christian has the advantage over the truth relativist because he owns that there is a basis for that which can be known and a Good Book which guides us to that foundation. The thinking is not awash in a sea of uncertainty, but rather it has its reality firmly affixed to the Cornerstone who does not change like shifting shadows.
Furthermore, to think critically is key. The critic critiques what he hears, sees, feels, or in any other way observes, and he holds the object of criticism against a standard for valuation. It is of no import to say that a thing is not good because “I don’t like it.” That is a platform which holds little to no relevance for another critic. Generally a bona fide art critic will peruse the museum with a set of criteria from which he assigns value to the various works of art. He knows something about the artistic skills required, mediums employed, proportions meted out, and any other aspects which deem the work of art to be worthy of praise. The work is compared to a standard and determined to fall short of, meet, or surpass that standard.
So too is it with knowledge, information, and arguments. In order to think clearly about these things, we must have a standard by which we critically esteem them else we fall victim to A) believing everything we hear, and/or B) misappropriating value toward areas in life where it does not belong. In order to think critically we must have a scripturally grounded base upon which to critique or judge a thing. And yes, right judgment is a necessary weapon in the educated mind’s arsenal. Without it, thought dies a defenseless death.
It is a misnomer to equate the ability to think well with simply being knowledgeable or intelligent. I often reflect on the villains from DC Comics’ Batman series, those maniacal geniuses (Joker, Two-Face, Penguin, Riddler, et al.) who regularly find themselves incarcerated in Arkham Asylum, not for lack of logic or mental processing abilities, but for a lack of wisdom in how to best use their brilliance. To put it bluntly, it is very possible to be a stupid genius. Happily, the comic book writers understand justice well-enough to discern wisdom from folly and give the villains their due. But why do these fictional characters (who represent a real type of person) keep making the same mistakes? Why does their thinking, sharp though it may be, lead them back to the madhouse?
I propose to you that one does not need to be a repository of facts or a hatchery of quick wit to be able to think well. The plodding farmer can easily be a better thinker than the plotting heister. While both require knowledge varying in category and degree, the well-educated one must only be able to take what he hears and contrast it with what he knows. Here, the Bible-believing Christian has the advantage over the truth relativist because he owns that there is a basis for that which can be known and a Good Book which guides us to that foundation. The thinking is not awash in a sea of uncertainty, but rather it has its reality firmly affixed to the Cornerstone who does not change like shifting shadows.
Furthermore, to think critically is key. The critic critiques what he hears, sees, feels, or in any other way observes, and he holds the object of criticism against a standard for valuation. It is of no import to say that a thing is not good because “I don’t like it.” That is a platform which holds little to no relevance for another critic. Generally a bona fide art critic will peruse the museum with a set of criteria from which he assigns value to the various works of art. He knows something about the artistic skills required, mediums employed, proportions meted out, and any other aspects which deem the work of art to be worthy of praise. The work is compared to a standard and determined to fall short of, meet, or surpass that standard.
So too is it with knowledge, information, and arguments. In order to think clearly about these things, we must have a standard by which we critically esteem them else we fall victim to A) believing everything we hear, and/or B) misappropriating value toward areas in life where it does not belong. In order to think critically we must have a scripturally grounded base upon which to critique or judge a thing. And yes, right judgment is a necessary weapon in the educated mind’s arsenal. Without it, thought dies a defenseless death.
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
April 2019 - Endgame
Toward the end of this month, the follow-up to the film Avengers: Infinity War is slated for release, and it’s tantalizingly named Avengers: Endgame. Purportedly, it is the culminating tale of Marvel’s heroic team of Avengers who are planning the demise of the ultimate foe, Thanos, whose name in Greek means Immortal (and interestingly the similarly spelled thanatos means Death). Thanos’ quest is to obtain the six “Infinity Stones” - Soul Gem, Time Gem, Power Gem, Reality Gem, Mind Gem, Space Gem – and success in so doing will render him matchless, godlike and divine.
But this message isn’t supposed to be a shameless superhero movie plug. This is about something far more significant than the acquisition and misuse of comic book power gems. Rather, Thanos’ real-life spiritual equivalent fell from heaven like lightning and prowls around like a roaring lion seeking to devour not only actual living souls like yours and mine but also bodies and minds if he is able. The “Thanos” of our world was once a glorious angel of light named Lucifer.
But, like Iron Man and Captain America, Christians have defensive tools of our own. We protect our souls with faith, prayer and brotherhood bearing in mind the endgame being the sanctification of our spirits and the pursuit of holiness. Additionally, we protect our mortal frames by exercising and eating right with the endgame being effective service and longevity.
But what is the endgame for the mind? Asked another way, while we know that education has something to do with the improvement of the mind, what does the final product look like? More appropriately, what does the “Educated Christian” look like? Is it Advanced Smartness? Quick Wit? Correctness? The ability to intellectually dismantle the opposition? While these may be good things and have their place as tools for Christians, I do not believe them to be the marks of an “educated” man or woman. In the brief space that follows I have laid out my condensed answer to the question of “What does the educated Christian look like?” I will spend the next several newsletters unpacking it in greater detail.
Educators have an inordinate affection for acronyms, and with some marriage of Mr. Patton’s thoughts with my own, an acronym that I find most suitably answers this question is TEACH. With no particular progression in mind, the educated Christian must be able to Think, to Empathize, to Act, to Communicate, and to Hear. (Again, there is not necessarily an order to those verbs except that TEACH works better than CHEAT.) With the TEACH acronym in mind, we can better focus our efforts to educate not only our children but also our selves as we continuously defend against the one who would destroy us or, even more pitiably, allow us to destroy ourselves through lethargy of the mind and apathy toward the God of all that is Good, True, and Beautiful.
But this message isn’t supposed to be a shameless superhero movie plug. This is about something far more significant than the acquisition and misuse of comic book power gems. Rather, Thanos’ real-life spiritual equivalent fell from heaven like lightning and prowls around like a roaring lion seeking to devour not only actual living souls like yours and mine but also bodies and minds if he is able. The “Thanos” of our world was once a glorious angel of light named Lucifer.
But, like Iron Man and Captain America, Christians have defensive tools of our own. We protect our souls with faith, prayer and brotherhood bearing in mind the endgame being the sanctification of our spirits and the pursuit of holiness. Additionally, we protect our mortal frames by exercising and eating right with the endgame being effective service and longevity.
But what is the endgame for the mind? Asked another way, while we know that education has something to do with the improvement of the mind, what does the final product look like? More appropriately, what does the “Educated Christian” look like? Is it Advanced Smartness? Quick Wit? Correctness? The ability to intellectually dismantle the opposition? While these may be good things and have their place as tools for Christians, I do not believe them to be the marks of an “educated” man or woman. In the brief space that follows I have laid out my condensed answer to the question of “What does the educated Christian look like?” I will spend the next several newsletters unpacking it in greater detail.
Educators have an inordinate affection for acronyms, and with some marriage of Mr. Patton’s thoughts with my own, an acronym that I find most suitably answers this question is TEACH. With no particular progression in mind, the educated Christian must be able to Think, to Empathize, to Act, to Communicate, and to Hear. (Again, there is not necessarily an order to those verbs except that TEACH works better than CHEAT.) With the TEACH acronym in mind, we can better focus our efforts to educate not only our children but also our selves as we continuously defend against the one who would destroy us or, even more pitiably, allow us to destroy ourselves through lethargy of the mind and apathy toward the God of all that is Good, True, and Beautiful.
“Written into… vocation is an epistemological challenge, a way of knowing that is not and can never be morally neutral, but is always morally directive. We must not only know rightly, but do rightly. And we must know and understand and love – at the same time.”
Steven Garber – Visions of Vocation
March 2019 - home
It’s an overused expression, but it rings with truth: Home is where the heart is. But what is the heart a home to? As Christians we believe that the heart is home to the immortal soul whose ethereal self is inexplicably housed in a castle of cells. If this is so, then what does your heart look like? I don’t mean the physiological aspects of it – its pinkishness, muscularity, ventricle size, cholesterol build-up, etc. I mean, what is the spiritual condition of that organ which is so often identified by Christ as the source of all outward actions, good or poor?
C. S. Lewis expressed that heart is very much like a house, and each of us is born with a fairly small and relatively dilapidated one. I suspect that if you are like me, your heart prior to Christ’s transformative work was not much to look at. Even now it may be uninviting with boards over the windows, badly lit from within or from without, producing a repulsive odor that drives others away. Does it spring leaks of gossip or slander? Do random pipes burst under various pressures it is subjected to? Perhaps it is even dangerous to let people in if yours is laced with traps and pitfalls as many hearts are.
Have you been in or around any “homes” like this? Has your heart been such a home to another person? Lewis writes that there is good news: our imperfect hearts are improvable. He writes, “Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The ex-planation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.” (Mere Christianity)
If you didn’t already know it, the process to which Lewis is referring is a biblical one called sanctification. It is the restorative work of God in every believer who has called upon the name of Christ. As we endure our own sometimes painful sanctification, we endure the sanctification of others too. My heart is still far from finished: Caution – Remodeling.
C. S. Lewis expressed that heart is very much like a house, and each of us is born with a fairly small and relatively dilapidated one. I suspect that if you are like me, your heart prior to Christ’s transformative work was not much to look at. Even now it may be uninviting with boards over the windows, badly lit from within or from without, producing a repulsive odor that drives others away. Does it spring leaks of gossip or slander? Do random pipes burst under various pressures it is subjected to? Perhaps it is even dangerous to let people in if yours is laced with traps and pitfalls as many hearts are.
Have you been in or around any “homes” like this? Has your heart been such a home to another person? Lewis writes that there is good news: our imperfect hearts are improvable. He writes, “Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The ex-planation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.” (Mere Christianity)
If you didn’t already know it, the process to which Lewis is referring is a biblical one called sanctification. It is the restorative work of God in every believer who has called upon the name of Christ. As we endure our own sometimes painful sanctification, we endure the sanctification of others too. My heart is still far from finished: Caution – Remodeling.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
february 2019 - Community: an analogy drawn from science
“They have very good chemistry.”
“Everyone in the group really bonded well.”
“When those two get together, there’s always a volatile reaction.”
Can lessons about relationships be learned from atoms? Did God infuse wisdom to be gleaned from the secrets of the foundations of the material world? I think so. Recently, I have been teaching about types of bonds in chemistry class. Is your memory feeling a bit tarnished by the passage of time since you last studied this subject? Let me distill the matter down for you a bit and allow your recollections to precipitate into solidified understanding.
There are three main types of bonding: ionic, covalent, and metallic. The key to understanding which atoms bond with which and in what manner is as simple as ascribing these common human attributes to the otherwise impersonal elements: greedy and generous. But greedy or generous for what? In order for individual atoms to bond with others they must undergo a transaction of electrons not unlike the cashing of a check at the bank or the signing of prenuptial agreements. The elements are thoughtfully arranged on the periodic table with the most electron-generous types being to the far left and the most electron-ravenous types being to the far right (excepting the Noble Gases, of course). In short, a generous element and a greedy element can bond, and when they do, it is called ionic bonding. In ionic bonding there is a donation of electrons from the generous to the greedy. Additionally, a greedy and a greedy element can bond, but since both are greedy, they share their electron(s) between themselves to the exclusion of all other local atoms. And finally, metallic bonding is the combination of generous with generous elements, and the electrons are shared freely and equally throughout the whole wherever there is need.
Which type of bonding produces the strongest conglomerate? Ionic bonds tend to form well-organized crystals such as salts, but they fracture easily and are liable to dissolve in the presence of a solute. Covalent bonding certainly creates some very strong bonds that are difficult to rip apart, but these molecules often exist in liquid or gaseous states as individual diatomic or polyatomic units. Metallic bonding typically produces strong, durable connections in solid phase which can be malleable and shaped to fit practically any mold or design.
Which bond best describes the Christian community? In this illustration, do not think of electrons as simply being money. Shared money without discretion is foolishness. Rather, think of electrons as being like our free time, our personal resources, our homes, our meals, our prayers, our skills, and anything of which a contribution would mean a personal sacrifice. The type of community Christ calls us to, as I see it, is most closely represented by the metals. Of course, the analogy is not perfect in every way. But when a group of people truly apply the sacrificial principles rife throughout Christ’s message, then, like the metals, their bonds will be very durable, lustrous, and valuable indeed.
“Everyone in the group really bonded well.”
“When those two get together, there’s always a volatile reaction.”
Can lessons about relationships be learned from atoms? Did God infuse wisdom to be gleaned from the secrets of the foundations of the material world? I think so. Recently, I have been teaching about types of bonds in chemistry class. Is your memory feeling a bit tarnished by the passage of time since you last studied this subject? Let me distill the matter down for you a bit and allow your recollections to precipitate into solidified understanding.
There are three main types of bonding: ionic, covalent, and metallic. The key to understanding which atoms bond with which and in what manner is as simple as ascribing these common human attributes to the otherwise impersonal elements: greedy and generous. But greedy or generous for what? In order for individual atoms to bond with others they must undergo a transaction of electrons not unlike the cashing of a check at the bank or the signing of prenuptial agreements. The elements are thoughtfully arranged on the periodic table with the most electron-generous types being to the far left and the most electron-ravenous types being to the far right (excepting the Noble Gases, of course). In short, a generous element and a greedy element can bond, and when they do, it is called ionic bonding. In ionic bonding there is a donation of electrons from the generous to the greedy. Additionally, a greedy and a greedy element can bond, but since both are greedy, they share their electron(s) between themselves to the exclusion of all other local atoms. And finally, metallic bonding is the combination of generous with generous elements, and the electrons are shared freely and equally throughout the whole wherever there is need.
Which type of bonding produces the strongest conglomerate? Ionic bonds tend to form well-organized crystals such as salts, but they fracture easily and are liable to dissolve in the presence of a solute. Covalent bonding certainly creates some very strong bonds that are difficult to rip apart, but these molecules often exist in liquid or gaseous states as individual diatomic or polyatomic units. Metallic bonding typically produces strong, durable connections in solid phase which can be malleable and shaped to fit practically any mold or design.
Which bond best describes the Christian community? In this illustration, do not think of electrons as simply being money. Shared money without discretion is foolishness. Rather, think of electrons as being like our free time, our personal resources, our homes, our meals, our prayers, our skills, and anything of which a contribution would mean a personal sacrifice. The type of community Christ calls us to, as I see it, is most closely represented by the metals. Of course, the analogy is not perfect in every way. But when a group of people truly apply the sacrificial principles rife throughout Christ’s message, then, like the metals, their bonds will be very durable, lustrous, and valuable indeed.
“I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements, etc, is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charitable expenditure excludes them.”
CS Lewis – Mere Christianity
January 2019 - the word of the lord
“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.”
Thus begins the Book of Psalms.
For a long time these words have been just that to my ears: words. I had not thought deeply about the meaning behind them. But lately a curious burden has been laid on my heart for the ALC community, and incidentally I have learned that I am not the only one who has been experiencing this burden. Walk with me through it.
Some stories are so good and true that they become legends. Sometimes a legend is subjected to exaggeration thus challenging our confidence, but other times the legend remains just as true as the day it began. You can decide for yourself about the Moravians of Herrnhut.
According to Christianity Today, this Christian sect in a small eighteenth-century village in Saxony made a covenant with God to hold a “round-the-clock” prayer vigil during which twenty-four men and twenty-four women slated a different hour of every day to being in prayer. This constant interceding lasted for over a hundred years! After sixty-five years, the small community sent out three hundred missionaries (presumably not of the short-term variety). There is a clear connection between their fervent dialogue with God and the community’s spiritual vitality.
I am not proposing that we do the same with prayer; my faith is not strong enough for that yet. But I do suggest that, during this new year, every ALC family commits to being in the Word at least once daily for the entire duration of 2019. Do not despair if you miss a day or two due to hectic seasons; my own 2018 reading log is pocked with holes. But the key is not to allow a spell apart from the Word to become a season and then a lifestyle.
There are Christians around the world who have no Bibles due to poverty or government restrictions and yet they sacrifice life and limb to obtain and hide these from search and seizure. The opposite is true in America. In 2013, the Huffington Post published an article that offered an estimate of 4.4 Bibles per American home. The article was called, “Americans Love the Bible but Don’t Read it Much, Polls Show.” How do we excuse ourselves from being in the Word? Easy: I don’t have time, I don’t feel like it, I don’t get anything from it, it’s not my thing.
This January, let’s rally together and make a concerted effort to read our Bibles daily. It would be especially beneficial if we used the same plan. Maybe you already have one; if so, please continue with it. If not, then I recommend the Robert Murray M’Cheyne year-long plan to read through the entire Bible. It is a great tool for leading family devotions and listening to the voice of God daily. (Find it attached to the accompanying email.)
Why do I think this is so important? Well, do you care about your children? Do you believe the words of scripture are the Truth? If the answer to both of these questions is yes, then consider the effect that daily reading of the Word has on the one who meditates on scripture day and night.
“He is like a tree planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.”
In all that he does, he prospers.”
December 2018 - New things
No one is 100% certain of the exact day that Christ’s birth occurred. Some argue that December 25th is the true and actual date. Maybe so, but if it is not, then who decided that December 25th should commemorate the Lord’s birth? Was it originally a pagan solstice celebration? We don’t know. But regardless of how it was settled, let’s just say that I am pleased that Christmas is in December.
December is a time when the grass has remised and the leaves have long been ushered from their blustery abodes. The sun hangs lower in the sky and its visits are shorter, and the land resembles Thomas Hardy’s description of the desolation wrought by Winter’s Dregs in “The Darkling Thrush” (read it!). An old man is sometimes said to be in the “winter of life.”
It is a time that yearns for freshness and new birth. Although in Chester County there are yet months more until the crocuses hatch from their frost-thawed slumbers, the decking of halls and the giving of sweet things seems to remedy the season’s otherwise dismal display. Perhaps our increasingly materialistic customs are a means of staving off seasonal depression.
Nevertheless, however rightly, we give gifts. It lightens the mood. It replaces worn out things. And for those who are in the know, it reflects the ultimate gift to mankind from God: His only son, Jesus Christ.
But the giving of mere gifts at Christmastime is not my focus – it is the easel on which I want to display another picture, one which regards the appeal of new things in particular. There is something unmistakably refreshing about being gifted a crisp new book as opposed to a used one. Your old pill-bally sweater might comfort you when you’re down with the flu, but it’s the new J. Crew sweater that you wear to church the following Sunday. The prospect of a brand new car fills us with hope and longing, but generally the “new” used car will fit the bill, and until then the all-too-familiar currently owned third-hand vehicle will have to suffice.
And somehow, the comfort and thrill of the newness doesn’t last. Wisdom and experience will tell you that. But I still can’t quite put my finger on what it is about new things which draws us. It’s not just that it is new to us; if it was that simple, then every cheap thing in the thrift store would be incredible! Rather, it’s something about the youthfulness and purity of the thing which draws us. It has not seen too much of the weariness of this world yet. It has not yet begun to wear out or wind down, for as we know, nothing gets younger or newer with time.
But this threat of demise with age is surely a result of the Curse. There will be an eternal day when age only improves the desirability of a thing - actually increasing the freshness of it while multiplying the security and reliability it offers. This Christmas, when you get something new, remember that there will be a time when age only brings fresher newness (yet without sacrificing the good qualities that the old and familiar offer us as well). How can this be? There is one way…
December is a time when the grass has remised and the leaves have long been ushered from their blustery abodes. The sun hangs lower in the sky and its visits are shorter, and the land resembles Thomas Hardy’s description of the desolation wrought by Winter’s Dregs in “The Darkling Thrush” (read it!). An old man is sometimes said to be in the “winter of life.”
It is a time that yearns for freshness and new birth. Although in Chester County there are yet months more until the crocuses hatch from their frost-thawed slumbers, the decking of halls and the giving of sweet things seems to remedy the season’s otherwise dismal display. Perhaps our increasingly materialistic customs are a means of staving off seasonal depression.
Nevertheless, however rightly, we give gifts. It lightens the mood. It replaces worn out things. And for those who are in the know, it reflects the ultimate gift to mankind from God: His only son, Jesus Christ.
But the giving of mere gifts at Christmastime is not my focus – it is the easel on which I want to display another picture, one which regards the appeal of new things in particular. There is something unmistakably refreshing about being gifted a crisp new book as opposed to a used one. Your old pill-bally sweater might comfort you when you’re down with the flu, but it’s the new J. Crew sweater that you wear to church the following Sunday. The prospect of a brand new car fills us with hope and longing, but generally the “new” used car will fit the bill, and until then the all-too-familiar currently owned third-hand vehicle will have to suffice.
And somehow, the comfort and thrill of the newness doesn’t last. Wisdom and experience will tell you that. But I still can’t quite put my finger on what it is about new things which draws us. It’s not just that it is new to us; if it was that simple, then every cheap thing in the thrift store would be incredible! Rather, it’s something about the youthfulness and purity of the thing which draws us. It has not seen too much of the weariness of this world yet. It has not yet begun to wear out or wind down, for as we know, nothing gets younger or newer with time.
But this threat of demise with age is surely a result of the Curse. There will be an eternal day when age only improves the desirability of a thing - actually increasing the freshness of it while multiplying the security and reliability it offers. This Christmas, when you get something new, remember that there will be a time when age only brings fresher newness (yet without sacrificing the good qualities that the old and familiar offer us as well). How can this be? There is one way…
“Behold, I am making all things new. Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
November 2018 - Wormwood's wisdom
Ghastly Ghouls, Miserable Minions, and Wretched Wraiths, I salute thee.
We foul sprites, fateful followers of Our Father Below, have the most pitiable rank among his fallen spirits for we each have employed our cruelest efforts but failed to successfully un-convert our assigned Patients before their eternal passing into the Enemy’s Territory. Would that the human doctrine of Karma were not true for us; but alas, we who fare poorly are demoted to yet worse existences.
Even so, that does not mean we give up! There is still hope in the spreading of our misery even if our newly assigned Patients have securely latched themselves like the leeches they are onto the blood of the Enemy’s Son. Some say there is no undoing that, and maybe so, but all is not lost. Our job now is to thwart, belittle, undermine, confuse, and embitter our new Subjects while we still can before the “Appointed Time.” Thus, hearken to my hard-learned wisdom, much of which I have inherited from my once-affectionate Uncle Screwtape.
First and foremost, convince your Patient of the uselessness of prayer. While It (that is, your Patient) might not be able to be extracted from the grasp of the Enemy, It can be kept from talking to Him, which takes very little effort on our part to bring about. All that is needed is a fresh sense of the Subject’s failures and perceived inadequacy of faith to all but entirely eradicate heartfelt prayer. Let It feel like the Enemy is very distant. Distance magnifies disdain. How funny it is that a few inches of block wall between two friends in a prison camp can make them feel worlds apart. Play upon that notion.
Second, dampen Its hope in anything beyond the material world. I had a patient whom I kept very close with things. These I used with lucid timing and cunning efficiency to distract It from the Maker of the very things themselves. Make the Subject’s own comfort be Its priority, and yet keep this at bay. Wrap It up in Its own immediate gratification to be concerned at all with the benefit of others. If that fails, introduce the idea that there’s too much work to do to enjoy living or to help others to enjoy it at all. You’ll find this to be as simple as throwing peanuts to a starved and angry elephant: one by one but with longer intervals betwixt. Materialism gets them every time. They don’t say “it works like a charm” for no reason.
Third, communicate to It that when problems arise, no one will be interested in offering help or that no amount of help will suffice. The crisis is too big. No one can fix this but me. No one should fix this but me. Or I don’t need any of their (!) help. (If you can, try to make It think of an expletive to accompany the word help. Such banal language goes a long way in convincing Patients that they feel more strongly about a thing than is actually the case.)
Fourth, if the Patient lives with others, promote discord. Need I say more? To quote with scorn the Enemy’s book, Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses. Push hard on your Victim - I mean Patient – the idea that love is a feeling and not a decision, and also promote the ideology that forgiveness requires an apology. These are failsafe methods to whisk up a house dripping with dysfunction and disdain.
Fifth, pride is personally my favorite string to tug upon. In contrast to my first point, if you can get your Patient to forget that Its own efforts are sub-par without causing It to grasp onto the Enemy’s Son, then you can begin drawing the accusation card against other people. No one will measure up to your Patient’s own self-perceived perfection. This is a beautifully hideous approach which slows the Enemy’s progress in said Target’s – er, Subject’s – life.
Sixth, and finally, repeatedly call into question the accuracy of Its religious text. If that Book ever vanishes - which is doubtful considering our Father Below’s failed efforts (curse his unholy bowels) - then all faith in the Enemy will dissolve like sulfur in a magma floe. But the Book shan’t vanish, so for now allow it to gather dust on the Prey’s shelf. Every day that the Book gets use is another tick on your back with the branding iron. Needless to say, the one with the least ticks wins.
Ah, six. That’s a good number with which to end. Now let’s get to work. I want to see your human’s eyebrows furrow, Its smile fade, Its fingers accuse, and Its ears blow steam like a kettle.
We foul sprites, fateful followers of Our Father Below, have the most pitiable rank among his fallen spirits for we each have employed our cruelest efforts but failed to successfully un-convert our assigned Patients before their eternal passing into the Enemy’s Territory. Would that the human doctrine of Karma were not true for us; but alas, we who fare poorly are demoted to yet worse existences.
Even so, that does not mean we give up! There is still hope in the spreading of our misery even if our newly assigned Patients have securely latched themselves like the leeches they are onto the blood of the Enemy’s Son. Some say there is no undoing that, and maybe so, but all is not lost. Our job now is to thwart, belittle, undermine, confuse, and embitter our new Subjects while we still can before the “Appointed Time.” Thus, hearken to my hard-learned wisdom, much of which I have inherited from my once-affectionate Uncle Screwtape.
First and foremost, convince your Patient of the uselessness of prayer. While It (that is, your Patient) might not be able to be extracted from the grasp of the Enemy, It can be kept from talking to Him, which takes very little effort on our part to bring about. All that is needed is a fresh sense of the Subject’s failures and perceived inadequacy of faith to all but entirely eradicate heartfelt prayer. Let It feel like the Enemy is very distant. Distance magnifies disdain. How funny it is that a few inches of block wall between two friends in a prison camp can make them feel worlds apart. Play upon that notion.
Second, dampen Its hope in anything beyond the material world. I had a patient whom I kept very close with things. These I used with lucid timing and cunning efficiency to distract It from the Maker of the very things themselves. Make the Subject’s own comfort be Its priority, and yet keep this at bay. Wrap It up in Its own immediate gratification to be concerned at all with the benefit of others. If that fails, introduce the idea that there’s too much work to do to enjoy living or to help others to enjoy it at all. You’ll find this to be as simple as throwing peanuts to a starved and angry elephant: one by one but with longer intervals betwixt. Materialism gets them every time. They don’t say “it works like a charm” for no reason.
Third, communicate to It that when problems arise, no one will be interested in offering help or that no amount of help will suffice. The crisis is too big. No one can fix this but me. No one should fix this but me. Or I don’t need any of their (!) help. (If you can, try to make It think of an expletive to accompany the word help. Such banal language goes a long way in convincing Patients that they feel more strongly about a thing than is actually the case.)
Fourth, if the Patient lives with others, promote discord. Need I say more? To quote with scorn the Enemy’s book, Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses. Push hard on your Victim - I mean Patient – the idea that love is a feeling and not a decision, and also promote the ideology that forgiveness requires an apology. These are failsafe methods to whisk up a house dripping with dysfunction and disdain.
Fifth, pride is personally my favorite string to tug upon. In contrast to my first point, if you can get your Patient to forget that Its own efforts are sub-par without causing It to grasp onto the Enemy’s Son, then you can begin drawing the accusation card against other people. No one will measure up to your Patient’s own self-perceived perfection. This is a beautifully hideous approach which slows the Enemy’s progress in said Target’s – er, Subject’s – life.
Sixth, and finally, repeatedly call into question the accuracy of Its religious text. If that Book ever vanishes - which is doubtful considering our Father Below’s failed efforts (curse his unholy bowels) - then all faith in the Enemy will dissolve like sulfur in a magma floe. But the Book shan’t vanish, so for now allow it to gather dust on the Prey’s shelf. Every day that the Book gets use is another tick on your back with the branding iron. Needless to say, the one with the least ticks wins.
Ah, six. That’s a good number with which to end. Now let’s get to work. I want to see your human’s eyebrows furrow, Its smile fade, Its fingers accuse, and Its ears blow steam like a kettle.
Until next time, I am, but won’t necessarily always will be,
Your Insidious Taskmaster:
WORMWOOD
Your Insidious Taskmaster:
WORMWOOD
October 2018 - On Gardening
It is the end of the growing season, and our garden weeds are at their zenith. The brick patio is verdant with spotty attention and neglect. Chinese yams have tangled their way up the more desirable flora robbing them of optimal sunlight. The spotted lantern flies have overtaken our silver maple. The petite blueberry bush won’t grow any taller. The Russian sage won’t stop growing. Spear-like roots of crab grass snake their way indiscriminately through every soil type. The tomato vines are gangly messes. The cucumbers have been planted too late. Black rot has halved our typically bountiful Concord grape harvest.
In short, a garden needs constant tender care. If you neglect it, it will fail. Isn’t that just like life? It’s no wonder that the Bible has so many references and comparisons to gardening. Most of these were vague or lost on me before I took up the hobby. Now I cannot advocate enough for gardening even it only involves a few potted plants. The spiritual lessons it teaches are profound. Here are a few.
The fruitful plant, like the fruitful soul, needs a strong connection to the stem. Paul writes that our souls can bear fruit: fruits of the Holy Spirit among which are kindness, peace, and gentleness: sweet to the soul as fruit is sweet to the taste buds. It was Jesus’ own words in John 15 about being the true vine and his disciples being the branches that bid me to reflect on how these ideas came together. The only way to bear good spiritual fruit was to abide in Christ. When my examined young-adult life produced very little evidence of good fruit, I was compelled to admit that I was not connected to the vine.
Vines, like children, need to be trained. If you train a vine up in the way that it should grow, that is with continued guidance and pruning, it will not depart from the course set for it. It cannot. And it will flourish in that state rather than being allowed to grow haphazardly. Proverbs says this about children. Although it would be nice, no single word or well-timed sentence will set them on the course toward righteousness. Instead, children, like plants, need constant care and attention in patient love.
Weeds can easily squelch the desired life. They come through every crack and crevice. They are the most immediate evidence of the passive gardener. If they are not pulled, separated and burned, they will go to seed and propagate more of the same trouble. Even roots that are pulled, if they are not discarded, are liable to re-root themselves. It is a vivid picture of sin which infects our daily lives and needs to be pulled out, roots and all. Those roots of sin go down into our very hearts where they find their source. Jesus told the rich man to sell everything and give to the poor, and the rich man went away very sad because he had his things as the focus of his heart.
Water is essential for growth. David writes lucidly that he walks through a dry and weary land where there is no water. I am convinced that he is speaking of the spiritual droughts common to all faithful adherents to the one true God. And yet, he would not have used such a powerful metaphor if he hadn’t also experienced lack of water physically. Water keeps the living organism refreshed and functioning at capacity; a few days without water and the wilting will set in. Even so, it was Jesus who told the Samaritan woman at the well that only he could give her water that will never allow one to thirst again.
In short, a garden needs constant tender care. If you neglect it, it will fail. Isn’t that just like life? It’s no wonder that the Bible has so many references and comparisons to gardening. Most of these were vague or lost on me before I took up the hobby. Now I cannot advocate enough for gardening even it only involves a few potted plants. The spiritual lessons it teaches are profound. Here are a few.
The fruitful plant, like the fruitful soul, needs a strong connection to the stem. Paul writes that our souls can bear fruit: fruits of the Holy Spirit among which are kindness, peace, and gentleness: sweet to the soul as fruit is sweet to the taste buds. It was Jesus’ own words in John 15 about being the true vine and his disciples being the branches that bid me to reflect on how these ideas came together. The only way to bear good spiritual fruit was to abide in Christ. When my examined young-adult life produced very little evidence of good fruit, I was compelled to admit that I was not connected to the vine.
Vines, like children, need to be trained. If you train a vine up in the way that it should grow, that is with continued guidance and pruning, it will not depart from the course set for it. It cannot. And it will flourish in that state rather than being allowed to grow haphazardly. Proverbs says this about children. Although it would be nice, no single word or well-timed sentence will set them on the course toward righteousness. Instead, children, like plants, need constant care and attention in patient love.
Weeds can easily squelch the desired life. They come through every crack and crevice. They are the most immediate evidence of the passive gardener. If they are not pulled, separated and burned, they will go to seed and propagate more of the same trouble. Even roots that are pulled, if they are not discarded, are liable to re-root themselves. It is a vivid picture of sin which infects our daily lives and needs to be pulled out, roots and all. Those roots of sin go down into our very hearts where they find their source. Jesus told the rich man to sell everything and give to the poor, and the rich man went away very sad because he had his things as the focus of his heart.
Water is essential for growth. David writes lucidly that he walks through a dry and weary land where there is no water. I am convinced that he is speaking of the spiritual droughts common to all faithful adherents to the one true God. And yet, he would not have used such a powerful metaphor if he hadn’t also experienced lack of water physically. Water keeps the living organism refreshed and functioning at capacity; a few days without water and the wilting will set in. Even so, it was Jesus who told the Samaritan woman at the well that only he could give her water that will never allow one to thirst again.
“Sir, give [us] this water, that [we may] thirst not…”
September 2018 - The end of education
I bet I know what you’re thinking. The End of Education? Shouldn’t a more suitable title for the month of September would be The End of Summer and the Beginning of the Next Academic Calendar Year.
Neil Postman, an arguably prophetic and distinctly counter-cultural writer of the 1980’s and 90’s, wrote a book by the same title as this newsletter. (I am borrowing it from him.) On the cover of the book, the publishers presented a zoomed-in image of the sharpened tip of a pencil, or its end. Knowing little of Postman as an author, when I first picked up this book, I half expected it to be chock full of doom and gloom sentiments about America’s current state of education. To my surprise, that was not his thesis.
Like the cover image of the pencil point, Postman’s book discusses the point, or purpose, of education. I agreed with him on much and disagreed with him on a little, yet the book got me thinking for myself about what I believe the purpose of education ought to be. This is no small question. After all, we invest major portions of our lives pursuing it and chalking up its value, but can we really succinctly state why it is that we educate and for what reasons we choose to do it in the manner that we do?
In a recent article by one of my favorite Christian journalists, Sophia Lee quotes radio personality Dennis Prager as he challenged parent-listeners with a poignant question. He told the parents to ask their children what they (the children) think the parents want most for their kids to be in life, and he lists a few options: smart, successful, happy, or good. Prager reported that whenever he challenges parents in this way, very few state “good” as the feedback from their children. He concludes that this is because most parents don’t communicate or demonstrate to their children that being good is the highest priority, and then he humorously adds, “Everybody wants everybody else to have ‘being good’ the most important thing in their life. ... But they themselves—that’s not their No. 1 priority!”
Do you see what Prager is saying? To put it another way, practically everyone loves Captain America because of his rock solid goodness, but how rare it is to see families raising their children to emulate such a role model. And of course, we know that Captain America, were he even real, is just a dim shadow of the True Goodness that established and sustains this world.
Goodness is what we ought to be training our children toward. I am proposing that it is the end, aim, or goal of education. But I must be clear: goodness, as it is rightly understood, is not simply the behavior of acquiescence to authority; it is not the command “Be good!” so that the kids are easy to deal with. Neither is it an illusory quality that exists in our minds alone as some current thinkers assert. Far from it! Realize with me that it is unfathomably richer and more mysterious than those. Defining goodness as a quality has taken some philosophers a lifetime to grapple. But the student of the Bible has a lead.
Neil Postman, an arguably prophetic and distinctly counter-cultural writer of the 1980’s and 90’s, wrote a book by the same title as this newsletter. (I am borrowing it from him.) On the cover of the book, the publishers presented a zoomed-in image of the sharpened tip of a pencil, or its end. Knowing little of Postman as an author, when I first picked up this book, I half expected it to be chock full of doom and gloom sentiments about America’s current state of education. To my surprise, that was not his thesis.
Like the cover image of the pencil point, Postman’s book discusses the point, or purpose, of education. I agreed with him on much and disagreed with him on a little, yet the book got me thinking for myself about what I believe the purpose of education ought to be. This is no small question. After all, we invest major portions of our lives pursuing it and chalking up its value, but can we really succinctly state why it is that we educate and for what reasons we choose to do it in the manner that we do?
In a recent article by one of my favorite Christian journalists, Sophia Lee quotes radio personality Dennis Prager as he challenged parent-listeners with a poignant question. He told the parents to ask their children what they (the children) think the parents want most for their kids to be in life, and he lists a few options: smart, successful, happy, or good. Prager reported that whenever he challenges parents in this way, very few state “good” as the feedback from their children. He concludes that this is because most parents don’t communicate or demonstrate to their children that being good is the highest priority, and then he humorously adds, “Everybody wants everybody else to have ‘being good’ the most important thing in their life. ... But they themselves—that’s not their No. 1 priority!”
Do you see what Prager is saying? To put it another way, practically everyone loves Captain America because of his rock solid goodness, but how rare it is to see families raising their children to emulate such a role model. And of course, we know that Captain America, were he even real, is just a dim shadow of the True Goodness that established and sustains this world.
Goodness is what we ought to be training our children toward. I am proposing that it is the end, aim, or goal of education. But I must be clear: goodness, as it is rightly understood, is not simply the behavior of acquiescence to authority; it is not the command “Be good!” so that the kids are easy to deal with. Neither is it an illusory quality that exists in our minds alone as some current thinkers assert. Far from it! Realize with me that it is unfathomably richer and more mysterious than those. Defining goodness as a quality has taken some philosophers a lifetime to grapple. But the student of the Bible has a lead.
Who has ascended to heaven and come down? Who has gathered the wind in his fists? Who has wrapped up the waters in a garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth?
August 2018 - Discipline
Commitment. The other day, my family and I were driving past an Amish farm. There was girl, perhaps seventeen, kneeling in plain clothes beside a rough wooden fence post with a bucket and brush in hand; she was painting the post with some sort of sealant. This particular fence construction involved a series of these wooden posts strung tight as a bowstring with wires designed to contain the livestock. Because it was in a fleeting instant that I saw her, I did not notice how many of these posts she had painted. But as I drove, I estimated that there were hundreds left yet to do.
Duty. One of my fondest and most obscure memories growing up is that of my mother pulling summertime weeds in the garden, well after twilight. I can vividly remember her laying the pair of floral patterned work gloves in a bucket brimming with garden refuse when she would finally come inside for a cool drink. Then she would head upstairs to work on the Sunday School lesson that she would be teaching in a few days. There, she would work for hours more; how many hours, I will not know, because I would be fast asleep.
Self-Denial. Around the time of WWI, Sir Ernest Shackleton, a current hero of mine, led a failed expedition in an attempt to cross the Antarctic continent. When his ship, the HMS Endurance, was trapped and slowly dismantled by encroaching pack ice, he knew his men would have to survive on penguins and seals for an indiscernible duration of time. After months of living adrift in tents on the ice, and when rations were getting critically low, Shackleton took a re-outfitted lifeboat, a pitiful shortage of supplies, a handful of his 27-man crew (two of them being the nastiest for getting along with), and sailed 800 miles in frigid Antarctic waters to what would prove to be the wrong side of the nearest whaling station island. Instead of giving up and calling it quits, the rescue party then proceeded to cross the island’s mountainous, ice-covered terrain at a rate which has never since been surpassed by any venturer to follow despite having less food, poorer sleep and worse equipment. The party finally reached their destination, this remotest of “civilized” whaling outposts. Upon seeing Shackleton’s party in their bedraggled and hideous condition, one of the station’s sea-hardened whalers broke down and wept. Eventually, all 27 men would live to tell of Shackleton’s selfless rescue effort.
Sacrifice. I just finished reading Elisabeth Elliot’s Discipline: The Glad Surrender. Although there is little mention of her incredible missionary story in this book (read Through Gates of Splendor for that), here is a woman who returned to minister to the Ecuadorian tribesmen responsible for spearing her husband and four fellow missionaries to death. Then she went on to sacrifice the rest of her life to the proliferation of the message of love from the God whom the World would argue had failed her. Read all of her books.
There is a tendency to think of discipline as something to avoid - something negative. It can, of course, involve punishment incurred from wrong-doing, but it includes much more than just that. Discipline implies being set, or reset, on the right path. And there is a right path to follow. Commitment, duty, self-denial, and sacrifice are all synonyms for the title of this message. And don’t these terms all reflect unique facets of our Savior? And isn’t this Savior appropriately referred to as The Way?
Duty. One of my fondest and most obscure memories growing up is that of my mother pulling summertime weeds in the garden, well after twilight. I can vividly remember her laying the pair of floral patterned work gloves in a bucket brimming with garden refuse when she would finally come inside for a cool drink. Then she would head upstairs to work on the Sunday School lesson that she would be teaching in a few days. There, she would work for hours more; how many hours, I will not know, because I would be fast asleep.
Self-Denial. Around the time of WWI, Sir Ernest Shackleton, a current hero of mine, led a failed expedition in an attempt to cross the Antarctic continent. When his ship, the HMS Endurance, was trapped and slowly dismantled by encroaching pack ice, he knew his men would have to survive on penguins and seals for an indiscernible duration of time. After months of living adrift in tents on the ice, and when rations were getting critically low, Shackleton took a re-outfitted lifeboat, a pitiful shortage of supplies, a handful of his 27-man crew (two of them being the nastiest for getting along with), and sailed 800 miles in frigid Antarctic waters to what would prove to be the wrong side of the nearest whaling station island. Instead of giving up and calling it quits, the rescue party then proceeded to cross the island’s mountainous, ice-covered terrain at a rate which has never since been surpassed by any venturer to follow despite having less food, poorer sleep and worse equipment. The party finally reached their destination, this remotest of “civilized” whaling outposts. Upon seeing Shackleton’s party in their bedraggled and hideous condition, one of the station’s sea-hardened whalers broke down and wept. Eventually, all 27 men would live to tell of Shackleton’s selfless rescue effort.
Sacrifice. I just finished reading Elisabeth Elliot’s Discipline: The Glad Surrender. Although there is little mention of her incredible missionary story in this book (read Through Gates of Splendor for that), here is a woman who returned to minister to the Ecuadorian tribesmen responsible for spearing her husband and four fellow missionaries to death. Then she went on to sacrifice the rest of her life to the proliferation of the message of love from the God whom the World would argue had failed her. Read all of her books.
There is a tendency to think of discipline as something to avoid - something negative. It can, of course, involve punishment incurred from wrong-doing, but it includes much more than just that. Discipline implies being set, or reset, on the right path. And there is a right path to follow. Commitment, duty, self-denial, and sacrifice are all synonyms for the title of this message. And don’t these terms all reflect unique facets of our Savior? And isn’t this Savior appropriately referred to as The Way?
“Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.”
July 2018 - Same Newsletter, New Name
Pray for me.
I have been sitting at this keyboard punching away for the better part of far-too-long and then deleting everything I composed. Obviously, at this point it’s too late for you to pray that I come up with something, because here it is. Rather, pray for me to make this newsletter project a useful tool for communicating and encouraging. Writing something both meaningful and concise deserves far more time than I will be able to give it, and that is exactly why I need your prayers regarding this matter. Pray that God would use this window of time I spend so that it may in some way help people right now where they are.
As you can see, Mr. Patton’s “This N That” is now being dubbed “The Kilns.” Cool, huh? I wish I could say I was clever enough to have invented that name myself. Alas, God has not endowed me with such originality. No, the Kilns is the name of a place dear to many including myself but one which I have never visited. Even so, it no less holds profound significance with me.
Built in 1922 on the site of a former brickworks near the Oxford University in England, the Kilns (now a museum) was a single-family residence which became home to the one and only C.S. Lewis who wrote the entirety of his Chronicles of Narnia there. I suspect that Lewis decided to name his home Kilns with a nod to its geographical history, but also, in wry British fashion, I have an inkling it was for the subtler metaphorical reason of what went on under that roof involving pen and paper. A kiln is a furnace intended to cook clay into a useable building material (indeed, the primary exterior component of this home is red brick). Once the fires get stoked in a kiln, temperatures may approach or exceed 2000 °F. The intense heat drives off useless water from the clay and causes the pre-formed bricks to harden into strong and durable blocks designed for building, protecting, and preserving.
Can you see where this is going? Including the Narnia series, Lewis cooked scores of other spiritually invaluable and lasting pieces of writing in this same rust-colored abode. How many people have had their faith bolstered, shielded, girded, or in any way strengthened by Lewis’ boiler-room mind and pen. It was in this home that he budded as a young believer in God generically and shortly thereafter as a believer in the biblical triune God specifically. Here it was that he married late and suffered the passing of his dearly loved wife of four years. Finally, three years later, the Kilns became Lewis’ very last earthly dwelling before he himself passed on to the realm of which his land of Narnia is a mere imitation.
It’s a pretentious name for a newsletter, I admit it. Nevertheless, it is my sincere hope to use “The Kilns” as an intentional writing outlet to guide this community of Christ’s disciples academically and spiritually to better know Him whom Lewis serves eternally. May I leave you with one of his bricks?
I have been sitting at this keyboard punching away for the better part of far-too-long and then deleting everything I composed. Obviously, at this point it’s too late for you to pray that I come up with something, because here it is. Rather, pray for me to make this newsletter project a useful tool for communicating and encouraging. Writing something both meaningful and concise deserves far more time than I will be able to give it, and that is exactly why I need your prayers regarding this matter. Pray that God would use this window of time I spend so that it may in some way help people right now where they are.
As you can see, Mr. Patton’s “This N That” is now being dubbed “The Kilns.” Cool, huh? I wish I could say I was clever enough to have invented that name myself. Alas, God has not endowed me with such originality. No, the Kilns is the name of a place dear to many including myself but one which I have never visited. Even so, it no less holds profound significance with me.
Built in 1922 on the site of a former brickworks near the Oxford University in England, the Kilns (now a museum) was a single-family residence which became home to the one and only C.S. Lewis who wrote the entirety of his Chronicles of Narnia there. I suspect that Lewis decided to name his home Kilns with a nod to its geographical history, but also, in wry British fashion, I have an inkling it was for the subtler metaphorical reason of what went on under that roof involving pen and paper. A kiln is a furnace intended to cook clay into a useable building material (indeed, the primary exterior component of this home is red brick). Once the fires get stoked in a kiln, temperatures may approach or exceed 2000 °F. The intense heat drives off useless water from the clay and causes the pre-formed bricks to harden into strong and durable blocks designed for building, protecting, and preserving.
Can you see where this is going? Including the Narnia series, Lewis cooked scores of other spiritually invaluable and lasting pieces of writing in this same rust-colored abode. How many people have had their faith bolstered, shielded, girded, or in any way strengthened by Lewis’ boiler-room mind and pen. It was in this home that he budded as a young believer in God generically and shortly thereafter as a believer in the biblical triune God specifically. Here it was that he married late and suffered the passing of his dearly loved wife of four years. Finally, three years later, the Kilns became Lewis’ very last earthly dwelling before he himself passed on to the realm of which his land of Narnia is a mere imitation.
It’s a pretentious name for a newsletter, I admit it. Nevertheless, it is my sincere hope to use “The Kilns” as an intentional writing outlet to guide this community of Christ’s disciples academically and spiritually to better know Him whom Lewis serves eternally. May I leave you with one of his bricks?
“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen:
not only because I see it,
but because by it I see everything else.”
not only because I see it,
but because by it I see everything else.”