THE CONTENTS OF OUR TABLE
Gather ‘round. Huddle
up. Get those
pinecones in the fire.
Douglas Jones invents a new form of
theological composition—the catapoem.
Nathan Wilson gives praise to cursekillers.
Douglas Wilson on bishops, stupid
people, and strict parents.
Nancy Wilson flushes perfection.
Brendan O’Donnell has found a balm
in Gilead.
Peter Leithart just keeps on baptizing..
Mark B. doodles some more.
Joost Nixon chimes in on messy
memories and messier situations.
Douglas Jones, Brendan O’Donnell,
Ben Merkle, and Nathan Wilson saw
some movies.
Douglas Jones is into drama.
Aaron Rench spoke with Peter Jennings.
Catapoem
Volume 17, Number 4
Thema: Trinity Catechism
Douglas Jones gets all upside down.
“A catechism is never the solution. It might be jolt along the way, a
means to focus our attention. The Spirit working through community
shapes us far more. Catechisms can play a part in communities, especially
families. Catechisms should feel like light, not a donkey load. We can sit
around the table and use catechisms to help show our kids the grandeur
of the gospel, but ultimately the kids see the gospel in the way we love
them.”
4
The Supporting Cast:
Sharpening Iron: Letters to the Editor/ You all
The Cretan Times: New News/ Douglas Jones
Flotsam: Curse-Killer/ Nathan Wilson
Presbyterion: The Bishop Presbyter/ Douglas Wilson
Husbandry: Comparisons/ Douglas Wilson
Femina: Perfectly Domestic/ Nancy Wilson
Ex Libris: Gilead/ Reviewed by Brendan O’Donnell
Childer: Loving the Standard/ Douglas Wilson
Liturgia: Baptism is Baptism V/ Peter Leithart
Doodlat: Mark Beauchamp
Poimen: Dueling Memories/ Joost Nixon
Ex Imagibus: Movie Smatterings/ Gang Reviewers
Stauron: Reading the Lines, II/ Gary Hagen
Cave of Adullam: Mutterings/ Mr. Tumnus
Footnotes: Our Wonderful Sources
Meander: Clam Jamfry/ Douglas Wilson
Counterpoint: Peter Jennings/ interviewed by Aaron Rench
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10
12
13
14
19
20
21
22
24
25
26
28
29
32
33
34
Fiction:
Similitudes: Battle Gray/ Douglas Wilson
23
“But the giant fancied himself a great riddler, and invited them to
his hall. Answer the riddle, he said, and you will all go free. Fail in the
riddle, and into my pie pans you will go.”
Pictura: Rebel Factory: A Play in One Act/ Douglas Jones
30
“Sid: Okay. (Sid stands) Uh, um, okay, paint it black! Paint it
black! I hate my mother. I hate WalMart! I hate—
Personality Director: Sit down, sit down. That’s enough. You’re about
a class-Q4 rebel, right now.
Sid: Oh no, uh, man. I’m higher than that.
Personality Director: Sorry Sid. You’re Q4. Quoting Rolling Stones
lyrics. Hating mommy and WalMart is so college freshman.”
“Things to be done” Volume 17/4
3
THEMA
Trinity: A Catapoem
Douglas Jones
A CATECHISM IS NEVER THE SOLUTION. It might be jolt along the way, a means to focus our attention. The Spirit working through community shapes us far more. Catechisms can play a part in
communities, especially families. Catechisms should feel like light, not a donkey load. We can sit
around the table and use catechisms to help show our kids the grandeur of the gospel, but ultimately the kids see the gospel in the way we love them.
Within the Trinitarian revival of the last fifty years, we often hear complaint that many traditional catechisms, though
glorious in many ways, fail to reveal the Father, Son, and Spirit at the heart of the gospel. Many catechisms will give obligatory
reference to it as an abstract doctrine, but then quickly shift into a default unitarianism.
The catechism below tries, in some way, to fill part of the gap in traditional catechisms. Ideally, the church (or at least
larger bodies of the church) should produce catechisms, not individuals. Consider this, then, an urging in that direction. At least
this catechism doesn’t try anything new. It simply draws on Trinitarian creedal insights from East and West over centuries of
ancient, authoritative reflection by the Church. Many thanks to those theologian-friends and elders who read this and helped me
make corrections; I’ll protect your names.
It would seem that catechisms should be, first of all, works of art and imagination, instead of stiff academic prose. The
Trinity delights, and we ought to try to express that in the way we show the Trinity to our children.
This catechism tries this by using concrete, poetic images instead of theoretical abstractions; it aims to tell something of a story,
as well. It’s written largely in iambic pentameter within an overall pattern of a chiasm, that common biblical literary structure.
The catechism begins with the Trinity and works toward the centrality of Christ; it then turns and walks us through the Trinity
again, from the perspective of the Church. As in any chiasm, the corresponding letters on each side aim to shed more light on
each other. This catechism is aimed at nine and ten year olds, but I’ve seen its effectiveness with younger and older children,
and adults, as well.
I would like nothing better than to see a thousand catechisms on the Trinity, each vying to delight the next generations in
better and better ways.
Opening
A’. What is man, that Thou art mindful of him?
And why has He crowned us with such glory?
Praise God’s excellent name—Father all-gracious,
victor, Son our mansion, Spirit our breath.
B’. How do we come to love the wedding and not the dark?
By nothing in ourselves; God’s foolishness
undoes ours; He gives new eyes; some He drags,
some He pushes, many come born inside.
C’. Why does God give us a banquet in front of our enemies?
To show the smallness of their hearts; they so
hate their bodies and its hunger, they cannot
dance or bear the triumph of His grace.
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“Things to be believed” Volume 17/4
A. Why do the heathen rage?
The Lord has called them to a feast, quite fat
with milk and honey, rich with meat and bread,
but they would rather die than take a bite.
B. Why do they love the dark and not the party?
The dark helps them pretend they are alone,
where they can play the king of all,
where no one pushes back against their face.
C. And why does God offer a feast?
God is a feast: come taste and see; sweeter
than honey. He is a party, a dance
named Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
“Things to be done” Volume 17/4
5
K. So the three Gods love each other very much?
No, nein, nyet. Only one God lives and moves
and holds his own. Father, Son, and Spirit
are one, not three. Simple math is too loose.
Unity
J. What do we call this mysterious connection of Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit?
This sacrifice, this freedom, this excess
of joy that shapes all things, this dance of God,
this bond, this heart divine, we call: love.
K’. How does Scripture go about showing Father, Son, and Spirit are one?
Scripture calls each one God and marks their work:
creating, saving, judging, all divine,
while saying none beside or like Him lives.
Community
J’. Why can’t hermit-like gods of other religions love like the Trinity?
They “lived” alone from all eternity,
not sharing, giving, speaking to an equal;
they had no social skills, just solitude.
G’. Why is it often so hard for humans to get along together?
The modern world believes we’re little gods,
each alone, each supreme, each full, each a bead,
disconnected, rolling for no goal.
G. But some people who live long together despise one another.
But Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
give up life for one another, a sacrifice,
a gift received by each with greater thanks.
H’. Is the will of God arbitrary, able to change any which way?
Loner gods live like that, with no one else
to press against, but Father, Son, and Spirit
submit their wills in love, creating one.
H. Why do they sacrifice for one another?
Each counts the other better, like friends who
brave a burning house to free a failing
friend; he cannot live without their breath.
I’. Should we think of three first then one, or one first then three?
God’s mystery declares for both, as one
ancient said, I cannot think one without
the three, nor three without the one.
I. But does that mean that God can die?
God cannot die; His sacrifice gives life,
more and more, a miracle of glory,
a light upholding light for evermore.
F. Why do Father, Son, and Spirit enjoy each other so much?
They have never been alone. Forever
side-by-side and through-and-through; they
have no secrets, and know each other inside out.
Community
F’. How can we imitate how the Father, Son, and Spirit enjoy each other?
For us, love must cover many little sins,
consider others as better than ourselves,
and keep our eyes on what’s important.
Closing
D’. Why does God laugh at those who reject His gifts?
Loyalty: the Son turns tables for the Father,
the Spirit defends the Christ, the Father
mocks those who seek the Son’s inheritance.
D. But what sort of dance is the Lord?
The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit dance
like heroes after triumph, King David,
and those women whirling at God’s wedding.
E’. Why do Father, Son, and Spirit wish to share their life?
They find each other most intriguing—artists,
after all, of eagles in air, serpents on rock,
ships across sea, and men and women kissing.
E. Wait, why does God have a wedding?
His joy bursts out, spilling; He wants to share
the pleasure of this dance. The Spirit woos;
the Father calls; the Son seeks out His bride.
THEMA
THEMA
L’. How do we learn these mysteries of love?
We do not learn them in a lab or draw
them in a proof. The Lord reveals these things
in Scripture and leads the Church to truth.
L. Does this three-is-one not hurt your head?
No, we love the thrill. I am no judge
of God; no human mind would make this up.
We’re too bland and flat to match His art.
M’. What does giving up life and strength look like?
The laws of God express the love of God,
they show us sacrifice and loyalty,
tenderness and jealousy, faith, hope, and gift.
M. But still, can you make any sense of God’s oneness?
“The Lord our God is One” because the Son
indwells the Father, Father indwells Son,
Spirit in the Father, Spirit in the Son.
N’. How do we indwell one another?
We indwell by giving up our life and strength
for others, making them more free and full,
and they, in love, return the gift to us.
N. Is God also one from some other angle?
The Father brings forth the Son, begotten,
not made; the Son sends out the Spirit,
almighty, advancing from the Father.
O’. Why is God’s oneness important for the Church?
The Son prayed for union within His bride,
as Father dwelt in Him, and He in Father,
and so one day our splinters will connect.
O. Why is the oneness of God important?
We need not fear a thousand gods at war;
no petty squabbles with Zeus and Hera;
our One a handshake, a bond of harmony.
Unity
P’. How do the real differences between Father, Son, and Spirit reflect life?
God sends us death, disease, and war to help
us love the burning chasms bright within
His glory, depths beyond compare.
P. So this one God must have three parts or wear three masks, a mask for
Father, one for Son, one for Spirit?
No, nein, nyet. He wears no masks; God’s truly
three, each unique. The Father’s not the Son,
nor Spirit, Son, nor Father, Spirit.
Q’. How does the Father shape the Church?
The Father calls the Church to love the past,
learn its story, overcome, hear the Son,
and boldly walk through earth and heaven.
Q. How is the Father unique?
The Father’s known for origins, beginnings,
and the past. He gets the story started,
then betrayed, and speaks the Son, begotten.
R’. How does the Son shape the Church?
The Son gives His body, His righteousness,
so we can share His throne beside the Father,
and join the song against His enemies.
R. How is the Son unique?
The Son is known for body, fully God
in flesh, the present, faithful Word, the king
and priest who comes to win his bride.
S’. How does the Spirit shape the Church?
The Holy Spirit changes us, step-by-step,
matures us for divine surprises now
and evermore, expectations unimagined.
T’. How do connections in the Church somewhat reflect the Trinity?
The Church is one, a body joined by bone,
skin, and blood; some of us knees, some eyes, all
dependent, no toes surging to be lips.
Particularity
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Particularity
“Things to be believed” Volume 17/4
S. How is the Spirit unique?
The Spirit’s known for power, giving life
to bones, the future. He brings relief and fire,
perfects with beauty, completes the story.
T. So some divine persons are better and some submit?
No, all are equal, wholly God on par,
none better, stronger, but the Son submits,
Spirit proceeds, none grasping for equality.
THEMA
History
U. How, then, does God begin to draw us to His wedding?
At first, He pressed His face through matter,
His grin seen in whales, lions, ostriches,
that style shown in horses, locusts, marriage.
V. What marriage in creation is this?
Adam and Eve were married in the Garden,
a king and queen, enjoying peaches, hawks,
each other, sent to build bridges, phones, toys.
W. Why did they never accomplish these things?
They grew impatient, ungrateful, fussy;
they pictured God as simple, stingy, a rule.
God closed His dance and sent them off to grow.
U’. How does God send us from the wedding?
He loads our arms with water, wine, and bread
and sends us cheering down the highway,
to fill the wedding hall with guests.
V’. What is the purpose of this marriage of Son and Church?
This new Adam and Eve pick up the work
abandoned by the first—to raise a godly
seed, expand the feast, and build a garden city.
W’. How can the bride not fall again, like in the Garden or
the desert?
Unlike Mosaic saints, who strained without
a will, God poured the Spirit in His Church,
empowering us for loyalty and love.
X’. Where did the Son take her? What does she do?
United to His wife, He raised her from
the dead, ascended into heaven, and joined
the dance, the fellowship of Trinity.
X. Where did they go? What did they do?
Their numbers grew, and some loved Oneness,
as tyrants, others loved the Many, as
fragments; they could not dance the One-in-Three.
Y’. How could the dirtied bride enter the Son’s wedding?
Christ killed her sin upon His bloody cross;
Like Father and the Spirit, triune life
is death and gift, a dance of sacrifice.
Y. How would they ever return to God’s wedding?
God gave them wedding gifts: sweet law, good land,
and death; he gave big piles of promises,
free desert trips—but no groom, no Son or Spirit.
History
Z. Who could overcome such thirst? such darkness? such death?
The Trinity unveiled in flesh, in Jesus Christ,
the long awaited groom, the Son of God,
who came to free His dirtied bride, weeping
and torn, now longing for the dance. He
slayed her dragon, poured her water, fed her
bread and wine. He brought her new white clothes
and a new white name, Church. He pulled her close
and whispered: Rage no more, just kiss the Son.
“Things to be done” Volume 17/4
7
SHARPENING IRON
From Us:
We know a man who ate all the gravy.
All the gravy. All the gravy. He ate it
with the lumps in. Lumps in. Bumps in.
Humps in. He ate it with the lumps in,
and now he’s no friend of ours.
Gravy is serious business. Like a
good worldview, all things should travel
through it—beans, bread, bird, beef,
give it to us thick and brown. Or tan, or
beige, yea even taupe. All things on the
plate—gravied. Jello, when present at
all, can even have a slick superficial echo
of this savory grace before squirting its
sugary self around the tongue.
These, our words, and all that we
are, strive for such loftiness. We would
be gravy. Sop us with your roll.
From You:
CINDERELLA MAN
Dear Editor,
Brendan O’Donnell’s review of
Cinderella Man [C/A, 17.3] missed a key
point. Not that the director ever saw it
coming; but key nonetheless.
In the film’s opening, Jimmy
Braddock was a mediocre boxer able to
feed his family on the strength of his left
jab. His right hand was practically
nonexistent.
When he broke his left hand and
the stock market crashed causing him to
lose everything, he was forced to take a
job on the loading docks. While lifting
heavy bags, he developed his right hand
to the point that when he made it back
into the ring, he was a complete boxer
and ultimately won the world championship. That never could have happened without a right jab.
The point is this: Braddock had no
way of knowing when he lost everything
and watched his family suffer that God
had a plan for his ultimate benefit. It is a
picture of the Christian journey where
we look at our momentary suffering as
8
“Things to be believed” Volume 17/4
divine retribution for our numerous sins
rather than the blessing God intends our
suffering to bring about.
Steve Leffer
Memphis, TN
Editor’s reply: You might have your
hands mixed, but your point is spot
on. Thanks.
BLUES AND HURRICANES
Dear Editor,
Greatly enjoyed Douglas Wilson's
article on the Blues. I’m down in
Mississippi for two weeks helping with
the relief effort. There’s a Delta
Bluesman down here named Willie
King. I bought his “Juking at Betty’s”
CD. It’s Blues from a Christian
worldview. Great stuff but I don't know
if its available nationwide.
Also, Bob Dylan’s blues song
“Down in the Flood” is worth a listen.
It was written in 1967 and is on his
Greatest Hits Vol. 2. It’s a story about a
man pleading with his woman (his “best
friend”) to leave before the levee breaks.
Some selected phrases “Crash on the
levee, water’s gonna overflow” and
“pack up your suitcase, don’t you make
a sound” and also “this is the meanest
flood anyone’s ever seen.”
Jim Hagan
Falls Church, VA
SMALL ROUND STEAK
Dear Editor,
What can I say? Filet mignon for
the Christian—thank you.
Kathaleen Hughes
Chattanooga, TN
Editor’s reply: Why the meat
comparisons? Are we just objects
to you all? We’re feeling used.
GOOD ENEMIES
Dear Editor,
You have certainly been a blessing
to my family and me. I know that you
guys are taking a great many punches
right now, but take heart. You are
certainly on target with the type of
enemies that you are making—at least, I
admire you for the enemies you have
made. Keep up the good work.
R. C. Phillips
Moody, AL
GETTING BETTER
Dear Editor,
You keep getting better. What a
charge we get when a new issue arrives.
We always dig right in (after pausing to
absorb the latest cover), and then keep
returning to it day after day like a big
Christmas ham.
Damien Howard
Cambridge, MD
LEITHART BABBLES
Dear Editor,
I’m sorry to inform you that I can
no longer support your publication. I
find it promotes doctrine that is too far
from the historic Christian faith. Some
of what you are publishing is useful, but
much of it, particularly the articles on
baptism by Peter Leithart, is worthless
babble.
I’m disappointed because you got
off to a good start. Somewhere along
the way you got off the path. I don’t
know where you’re headed now.
Les Cover
Alamogordo, NM
SHARPENING IRON
DON’T HIT US
Dear Editor,
Please continue your good work
and press on in your writing. We do,
however, ask one favor: take it easy on
the homeschoolers in your upcoming
issue! There’s a few of us on your side.
Brett Flenniken
Hudson, OH
rumaging through the cupboards,
reading all our back issues, which cuts
down on the fighting over the most
recent issue.
Also, could you send issues to two
of our friends who have shown an
interest ever since we shared with them
the article “Playing with Knives” [C/A,
16.3]. Keep up the good work and
ignore the critics.
Rebekah Crawford
Parker, AZ
Nathan D(ursley) Wilson: When did
you become a lackey for Doug Phillips
and start pushing his anti-Potter
agenda?
Douglas (Muir) Wilson: Where
does acid rain come from (and could a
Trinitarian scientist spot it)?
David Cooper
Lynchburg, VA
MEAT AND POTATOES
MORE FRIENDLINESS
Dear Editor,
Please keep those remarkable issues
of your magazine coming.
Two of our daughterswho have
“come of age” in the literary sense are
TWO THINGS
Dear Editor,
The “Blues” issue of Credenda left
me asking some important questions.
Dear Editor,
My wife and I just read your article
on Meat and Potato Blues. We just
wanted to write and say thanks for the
kind words and God bless!
Donnie and Leonetta V.
Somewhere Land
The Envious Glance
the sky is shorn of mist
and clear below the spinning spheres
of angels and of gods
whose winged dance, divine
and vast, has brought them near
to this: the crown of all
that is and was and is to come
the weakest of the worlds
a womb of breath and sweat and death
where feeble lords attend
the garden of Jehovah God
in fallen reverence.
Loss
Here in the dark
I am a moon, cold and pale,
unable to hide in the high, hushing clouds
from this alone.
I am the branches
of a tall white birch
staring down at my own bareness.
J. Bennett Carnahan Jr.
I am luffing grey ashes
remembering warmth.
I am the seashore after tide.
Roberta Dahlin
“Things to be done” Volume 17/4
9
CRETAN TIMES
Candlelight Vigil Brings War to a Halt
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a
prime-time press conference Thursday,
President Bush announced he has called
off the war in Iraq due to the “stubborn
peace activists standing their ground
and holding their candles, every Friday,
in Alton Park, Iowa.” The president
noted he was not convinced by any other
peace vigils around the world, “just
Alton Park’s because they looked
sincere and held those candles so still.
Who wouldn’t be moved to peace in the
face of that?”
Fran Grady, organizer of Alton
Peace Aflame, said, “There is no force
like people united in their desire for
peace. We’ve finally proved that.” Ms.
Grady noted how their vigils had been
aided by having participants take part in
seminars on how to look forlorn. “It
takes people to stick their necks out and
risk; people need to be willing to risk,”
said vigilist Maria Noren.
The mayor of Alton Park, Fred
Duncan, conceded he was no friend of
the peace vigil. “I thought it was just a
self-righteous thing so they could praise
each other and feel good about themselves. But now I’ll rethink my position.”
The group concedes it never wrote
to the president or appeared on
television. “We don’t know how the
president even found out about us,” said
Grady. In a communiqué issued after
the press conference, President Bush
said he discovered the group because
“simple sincerity and standing still for
hours have an osmosis-like effect on
politicians. We just feel it.”
When asked what evil their peace
group would tackle next, Jeff Winkler,
Supreme Court Nominee Alito’s Elementary School
Writings Reveal Early Edginess
WASHINGTON, D.C. — As a fourth
grader at Queen of All Saints Elementary School, Trenton, New Jersey,
Supreme Court nominee Sameul Alito
doodled tanks in the margins of his
math worksheets. Sister Janet Andrews
discovered the tank marginalia, along
with other writings, in a recent archive
search. “Some tanks are clearer than
others; some might be exploding,” she
said Friday. “Some artillery appear to
be pointing at unfinished arithmetic
problems. That might suggest some
revolutionary fervor.”
English teacher, Sister Mary Ann
Marke noted that Alito’s grammar
practice-paragraphs had a tendency to
return “again and again to the topic of
the recent Ranger VII spacecraft
photographs of the moon.” Sister
Marke expressed concern that this
might suggest early utopian leanings, a
worry confirmed, she said, by one
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“Things to be believed” Volume 17/4
paragraph expressing grief “at the death
of Harpo Marx.”
Supreme Court observers expressed concern in particular over a
worksheet with several games of
hangman sketched across the back.
Nathan Jerome, a history professor at
Duke, noted that “the secret words
chosen for the three hangman games
were: Vietnam, Beatles, and Pope John
XXIII. In the one game where his
classmate lost, Alito inserted a tongue
hanging out of the stickman’s mouth.”
Jerome suggested that this shows Alito
was already “wrestling with the role and
effectiveness of conservatives in
society.” Harvard sociology professor,
Jackie Miens said the real issue of the
hangman games centered on the rulebreaking. “I’m sure you can’t use
proper names in hangman. I worry
about what this says concerning Alito’s
devotion to legal precedent.”
assistant treasurer of the APA, said, “I
don’t like to talk in terms of ‘tackling,’
but we do have our candles aimed at the
beef industry.” Jerry Brook, spokesperson for the National Cattleman’s Beef
Board, said in response, “a peace vigil
would have to look very, very sincere to
topple our industry. They couldn’t
chicken out in the winter either.”
The president has asked Alton
Peace Aflame to join him in Baghdad
during the upcoming troop pullout. The
President said, “Nothing would be
more effective than to bring the vigil’s
risky dedication and message of ‘Yes to
peace, no to war’ to the suicide bombers
and rekindle the light of reason.” Fran
Grady could not be reached for
comment.
DEA Breaks Up Placebo
Rings
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Drug
enforcement agents have arrested 160
people in four U.S. cities and two
countries, and have broken up three
major transportation rings in a 10month placebo-trafficking sting
revealed Friday. “Never underestimate
the power of positive thinking,” said
DEA administrator Tara Landren. “It
cripples millions across the country.”
Dubbed Operation Neverland by the
DEA, arrests were made Thursday in
Minneapolis, Des Moines, Kansas City,
and Fargo. “The streets from Bismarck, North Dakota to Lincoln,
Nebraska are no longer a free trade
zone for mind-twisting lies,” Landren
said in a statement. “Rest assured: the
DEA will be relentless in targeting
placebo traffickers until they no longer
have the means to put their fantasies
into the hands of our children.”
Sugar Pills/ Z81
CRETAN TIMES
Suicide-Bombing Schools
Lag in Alumni Donations
NEW YORK — U.S. News and World
Report international college rankings
show a steep decline in alumni donation
rates among top terrorist schools. The
Al-Saiqua and Hirbeh Schools rank
respectively 727th and 749th among
international universities, a significant
drop from their prior rankings.
“I don’t think anyone is certain
about the cause of the decline in donors
since 1990. It is consistent with a
worldwide national trend,” said
Widaad Amal, dean of Dar-il Harb
College, a leading educator of selfpropelled alumni.
“Alumni giving is an institutional
priority, often called ‘Job One’ by the
president and trustees,” said Buturs
Saiid, associate director of annual giving
at Al-Quds College.
Ali Ahmad, a first-year in the
college, explained soliciting alumni
donations is no easy job. “They usually
say they can’t afford it, whether or not
it’s true, but I’ve heard that the college
is too liberal, that it’s too conservative,
that people don’t like the Mahmuud
building,” Ahmad said. “Many just let
their cell-phones ring and ring forever.”
Graduating fourth-years, busy trying to
secure a strategic mission, say they are
sometimes put off by the College’s
request for them to donate more money.
Statistics show that one way to increase
alumni donation is starting the tradition
early. As the year comes to an end,
another graduating class will enter the
pool of young alumni. Saiid says, “Only
time will tell whether our fundraising
efforts will pay off with new alumni, and
whether giving back will become part of
our tradition. We are starting a
postcard campaign.”
Shuttle Commander Spots Bad Children from Space
HOUSTON — Speaking from the
International Space Station in orbit
around the Earth, shuttle Discovery
captain Eileen Collins said the astronauts could easily identify misbehaving
children around the planet.
“They light up like fireflies,” said
Collins. “I surmise badness has some
connection to plankton glow.” Speaking
to Malaysian officials via satellite,
Collins said that as the Earth revolved
beneath her, huge swaths of misbehaving children were clearly mapped out
below.
“It’s very widespread in some parts
of the world,” Collins said. “We would
like to see, from the astronaut’s point of
view, children of the Earth act more
appropriately and stay in school.”
Collins, on her fourth trip outside
the Earth’s protective atmosphere,
made it clear that she feared the bad
kids were starting to outnumber the
good kids. “Goodness is like an eggshell
on an egg; it’s so very thin,” said
Collins. Collins made clear that her
observations should “also help
demystify a lot about Christmas.”
Al Gore Goes to Rehab
B2
Martha Stewart Sues Ankle
Bracelet Manufacturer for
Chafing
B3
Chirac Surrenders to Peaceful
Rioters
C1
Bush Nominates Confused
Cindy Sheehan Ambassador to
Uqbar.
CO2
Illegal Canadians Create
Northern Border Crisis
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The
Department of Homeland Security has
said it will send more than 500
additional Border Patrol agents to the
U.S. northern border this year to help
stop the flow of illegal Canadians into
the United States. The population of
illegal Canadians surged to more than
10 million last year, according to a new
study from the Pew Canuck Center.
“I was just sick of all the rules posted
everywhere,” said Frank Hayet, an
illegal recently taken into custody. “And
I found out roast chicken wasn’t unique
Canadian cuisine; I’m sick of the lies.”
A few congressmen realize the growing
problem of illegal immigration into this
country and are trying to propose
solutions to fix it. Rep. Robbie Sensang,
R-Wisconsin, is fighting the administration to pass necessary reforms:
“Illegal Canadians depress hockey
wages and drain the U.S. economy of
cigarettes.” Sensang noted illegal
Canadians constantly smuggle low-price
medicines across the border, as well as
gang members, “though their gangs
have yet to threaten anyone.”
A proposed McCain-Kennedy bill
allows illegal Canadians already in the
US to apply for a guest worker visa as
long as they promise not to speak
French, scowl, or open any more
comedy improv clubs.
Some conservative groups have
declared they will fight any legislation
that precludes Canadians from working
as house servants. A poll released last
week shows 84 percent of Americans
favor a plan allowing illegal Canadians
to stay and work in the United States
with an opportunity to become Mexicans later.
“Things to be done” Volume 17/4
11
FLOTSAM
Curse-Killer
Nathan Wilson
THERE IS A YOUNG LION in my sidewalk crack and I am going
to poison it. I am going to spritz it with death before its yellow
heads balloon to fuzz and seed my lawn. Or perhaps I’ll save
the poison for worse creatures and grind this one with my heel
as I walk. Grind it again as I return, and grind on with every
passing until its new hydra heads slink low, crawling low with
bellies down, no longer rearing toward the sun. Then I will
hand my son a stick and teach him decapitation.
A dragon lied to us. We submitted to its lies and now the
earth struggles, cursed. Thistles plague my yard. Cheat grass,
prickly lettuce, morning glory, nettles, all assault my landscape. Fairy rings are strangling the home of my ancestors,
and they are hard to poison, holding grass roots captive,
cutting supply lines to the surface. The siege is difficult to
break. Pierce the rings with direct assault from every position
twice in every day. Air drop detergent to hold the points of
penetration. Soak. A month of such assault could save the
hostage lawn. But it may not. Lawn fungus dies as hard as its
brothers on your toes and in their sorry nails.
I have a friend from a farm, where his family shepherds
tomatoes. Rows and miles of tomatoes, weak, but gathered
and protected. Tomatoes are not the fittest. Thistles are fitter.
Every weed, greedier for the sun, more aggresive in its search
for it, is fitter. Tomato shepherds cannot be passive people.
They cannot wait and react to an assault. They preempt.
They are the aggressors in their struggle with the curse.
Truckloads of poisons commit massive herbicide. Planes dust
every inch of the tomato pastures. The ground is struck with
probes, small lightning rods of electric charge send currents
playing within the moisture of both plants and earth. Then
comes the gaseous death angel, charged for attraction,
glomming its protection even on the underside of leaves. This
magic kills no herbs, but defends the vines against the pests,
the hordes of aphids, wild or tended by the ants, and all other
small hungry things with a taste for a tomato’s life.
But the damage we have done this world has another
incarnation. Man bears the burden of the curse-struck mud.
Man battles with prickly things, nurses the slow-growing
things, defends them to ripeness. Woman shares this war, but
there is another theater. There is a conflict where Woman
does not merely share the fight, a place where men defend a
different kind of fruit. Woman is at stake.
Three times I have watched my wife’s belly swell. I watch
and I know, there is a person inside her, a person too large for
comfort, too large for passive safety, a person that must come
out. I know there must be blood.
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In the Garden a dragon came and I did not defend my
wife. I let her stand, and think, and fight alone, and then I
watched her fall. It is the woman’s fight, I said. It is the
woman’s role. She can make her choices; she can choose her
struggle. She fell toward death and still I did not fight. I
followed her down. It is not her fault that I stood behind her,
and now she dies.
I will not make that mistake again. I will not stand behind
her and let her choose her weapons, her ground, while the
blow, the curse of my old sin begins to fall.
I once watched a woman sliced by men. A baby growing
in her belly had a weed in its chest. No room for lungs, no
room for air. While the woman slept, the men fought her
pain, and fought her child’s death. The mother split, the baby
pulled partway through the hole, still breathing through the
mother’s lungs. A second tiny abdomen was sliced, small ribs
were pried, the cystic weed removed. The lungs were
pumped and filled and trained in place, the mother reconnected.
Our fight is not so drastic. We are not fighting in the last
ditch. But we can. Here we fight a battle seen a thousand
times, one new life struggling to live alone, to leave a mother’s
body. Here the curse is strong, but not as deadly.
Pain is a flood, an invasion. This pain, according to some,
is a purgation. A woman must pay her debt, be purified. I do
not believe it. I stand beside the bed, beside the blinking
lights, and help her lean against the curse. But I can do more.
I have fought fairy rings. We can lay siege to this curse. We
can destroy its communication. Three different men have
helped me. Three different men have come and brought their
curse-killer.
I hold my wife’s head and shoulders. I hold her still
through waves of pain. A needle comes and numbs the nerves.
A second comes, hollow and piercing, detergent holding the
penetration. A test, and then the final action. A plastic tube
and through it, our assault. We block the growing weed and it
will starve. The pain is quarintined, and her body quietly
returns to labor, undistracted by the noise of enemies.
I have three tomatoes now. One will stand where I have
stood and two will see the struggle from the other side. They
are young, and mostly fat, and full of laughter. Together we
walk, and trip, and hurt our toes, and stomp on fairy rings.
I do not always spray my weeds, or poison my curse. But
I will always grind it with my heel.
PRESBYTERION
The Bishop Presbyter
Douglas Wilson
ON THE VEXED subject of church government, many of the
problems are caused by what I think should be called the
primitivist fallacy. In other words, it is often assumed (on all
sides) that our job is to find out exactly what the form of
church government was during the first century, and then
duplicate it, minus the apostles. Or, if we are riding with the
latest prophetic wave of latter-rain glory, maybe with apostles.
The assumption is that the way the Church was governed
in the New Testament is jure divino—divine law for us in the
details, and further, that the details of said government are
discoverable by us if we refine our exegesis enough. C.S. Lewis
pointed out the error in its extreme puritan form— “They
taught that a system . . . of church government could be found
in the New Testament and was binding on all believers till the
end of the world. To a modern reader, examining the texts on
which they based this theory, it appears one of the strangest
mirages which have ever deceived the human mind.”1 But the
jure divino anti-puritans fared no better. The mirage of
apostolic succession does not have tenuous texts; it has no
texts.
But to question this assumption that the Bible instructs in
the details seems (to some) like rank liberalism—“Who cares
what the Bible says, and let us all do what is right in our own
eyes.” But if the assumption is not questioned, at least to some
extent, the result is that the text will be pounded into place in
order to support details of modern church government in a
remarkably extravagant way. If we require textual warrant for
every aspect of modern church goverance, the only possible
result will be violence to the text. For starters, the New
Testament doesn’t have denominations in it, or headquarters, or
mission boards. Neither does it have stated clerks, or archdeacons.
And who can forget Ambrose Bierce’s magnificent definition
of a monsignor— “a high ecclesiastical title, of which the
Founder of our religion overlooked the advantages.”
There are two basic things that must be remembered as
we pursue the subject. The first is that the Bible’s teaching on
church government does not begin in the New Testament—
God’s people had been governed according to His Word for
millennia before the advent of Christ. The second thing is that
when we take the teaching of Scripture as a whole, we find
significant transitions and changes over time that do not alter
the basic foundational principles of governance.
It is generally acknowledged on all hands that during the
writing of the New Testament, the word for bishop (episkopos)
was used interchangeably with the word for elder (presbyteros).
The apostle Peter identifies himself as a fellow elder with
those to whom he is writing (1 Pet. 5:1), and goes on to say
that they are to act the part of bishops (5:2), taking the
oversight. St. Paul summons the elders of the church at
Ephesus (Acts 20:17), and then commands them to take heed
to the flock over which the Holy Spirit had made them
bishops (20:28). And in writing to Titus, Paul says that he is
to appoint elders in every city (Tit. 1:5), for a bishop must be
blameless (1:7). In writing to the church at Philippi, the saints
are addressed, together with the “bishops and deacons” (Phil.
1:1).
So this certainly excludes a scriptural basis for a jure divino
apostolic succession. To maintain a necessary distinction
between presbyter and bishop when the New Testament uses
the terms interchangeably is problematic. And one church,
like Philippi, could not have multiple bishops (in the modern
sense). She could have a college of presbyters, also called
bishops. Roman Catholic theologian Francis Sullivan acknowledges the force of this reality, even while discussing the church
at Rome: “I have expressed agreement with the consensus of
scholars that the available evidence indicates that the church of
Rome was led by a college of presbyters, rather than by a
single bishop, for a least several decades of the second
century.”2
At the same time, the office of bishop was not a late
development within the Church, brought in centuries after,
along with a host of other superstitions. Numerous bishops
served the Church early, ably, and well. As hardy a Presbyterian as John Knox honored evangelical bishops, like Ridley
and Latimer, and John Calvin was not at all averse to evangelical bishops. What these Reformers rejected was the idea that
bishops held that office by divine right. They had in mind the
edification of the church—and therefore knew that some
occasions required the eliminaton of the office of bishop, while
on other occasions it could be appropriate to retain it.
Now before our Protestant blood begins to boil, and we
start insisting that it is dangerous to start applying ecclesiastical
titles apart from any scriptural warrant for that particular
office (as well as needing a scriptural basis for the enumerated
duties of that office), let me anticipate the objection with a list
of titles—titles in common use in evangelical Presbyterian
circles. Before reading through the list, you might want to get
out a concordance, if you feel like not having to use it. The
list: senior pastor, associate pastor, assistant pastor, youth
pastor, youth leader, worship leader, worship team, chairman,
moderator, stated clerk, missionary, ruling elder, small group
leader, and so on. You get the drift. In addition, there are also
scriptural titles for certain church offices that we don’t use any
more—like steward (Tit. 1:7), under-rower (Acts 13:5), and
widow (1 Tim. 5:9). Why is that?
“Things to be done” Volume 17/4
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HUSBANDRY
Comparisons
Douglas Wilson
THE T ENTH Commandment is the one commandment out
of the ten that directly addresses the heart. Heart issues
are obviously implied in all of them, as Jesus made plain
on the question of adultery, but the prohibition of covetousness makes the heart issue explicit.
In Exodus 20, the prohibition of covetousness itemizes
six things—a man may not covet his neighbor’s house,
wife, manservant, maidservant, ox or ass, or anything else
he might have, which would include his riding lawn
mower. In Deuteronomy 5, the items mentioned expand to
seven, and explicitly include the neighbor’s field.
The prohibition of covetousness means that a man can
break the commandment entirely and completely within
the confines of his own heart. With the other commandments, the heart issues clearly reside at the center, but the
primary referent of the command is not broken until the
object is actually stolen, the idol is carved, or the adultery
is committed. God, who sees the heart, tags the disobedience to each of these in principle at its point of origin, which
is the first stirrings of sin in the heart. But with the Tenth
Commandment, the primary referent of the commandment is the heart. The command begins and ends there. A
man, regardless of what he does or does not do in his
photo-graphable life, is still not permitted to covet any of
his neighbor’s possessions. Among other things, the Tenth
Commandment gives the lie to the view that Old Testament religion was concerned with mere externals. God has
always cared about the heart, out of which come the issues
of life.
Now the reason for discussing this in the context of
marriage is that the neighbor’s wife is off limits, just like his
car, house, view, job, or lawn. And this means that we can
learn some things about the nature of marital contentment
and faithfulness by looking at the other things in the list
that are not marital at all.
But before starting this discussion, certain matters
must be taken as given. A man should be singularly
devoted to his wife. He should be attracted to her alone;
she should be the only woman in the world for him. He
may not covet the wife of any other man in the world. To
lust after any other women is identified by Jesus as
tantamount to adultery. But with all this said, discontent
still has a way of sneaking around, and so we have to work
through the issues carefully.
Some men think that in order to live the truth this
way, it is necessary to tell themselves a lie first. But this
requires explanation, and this is where our neighbor’s car,
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house, and field come in handy. If a man owns some beater
of a car, and his neighbor owns a nice, new, shiny red one,
the first man is required by this commandment to refrain
from coveting his neighbor’s car. But in order to do this, it
is not necessary for him to believe that his own car is
objectively better. He has to believe that in the plan and
purpose of God, it is better for him, but he does not have to
believe that it is a better car.
In order to be faithful, a man does not have to tell
himself (or believe) that his wife is the most beautiful
woman in the world. He does not have to believe that she
would win any and every beauty contest she could possibly
enter. But at the same time, to bring this up across the
breakfast table would make that husband a cad and a fool.
This is not being written so that a husband might say,
“Although many women in the world are more beautiful
than you, nevertheless I am devoted to you alone.” In
faithful marriages, this sort of thing doesn’t really come
up.
But it is an issue in some marriages nonetheless—
mostly because of insecurities and covetousness. So the
prohibition of covetousness addresses the heart in ways
that require us to be ruthless with ourselves. For example,
a man might say that he is not coveting his neighbor’s car;
he is just noticing it. The Bible doesn’t say that he can’t set
up his lawn chair on the property line and look at his
neighbor’s car, does it? Of course, a man can do these
things. But what is his heart doing?
The reason for writing this is that the principle here
tends to be violated by those who are trying to be superspiritual about it—wanting to say that faithfulness requires
that we affirm explicitly what we know is not true. And so
an insecure wife might ask, “Do you think that her hair is
nicer than mine?” Or a covetous man might work it into
conversation because he is supposedly just noticing, and not
explicitly lusting or wishing aloud that he was still single.
In either case it is bad news. Suppose a man tells his wife
about a new couple he met at church. She hasn’t met them,
so he sets about to describe them. “He has white hair, kind
of tall, and she is an attractive woman with auburn hair. . .”
But she interrupts. “Attractive? How attractive?” There is a
difference between being attracted and noticing that
someone is attractive. But suppose she is insecure enough
to ask, “Do you think she is more attractive than I am?”
Only a fool would answer the question. And only a fool
would ask.
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“Things to be believed” Volume 17/4
FEMINA
Perfectly Domestic
Nancy Wilson
IN THE WORLD of platonic domesticity, everything runs like
clockwork. The children all rise up at the same time each
morning, arrive at the breakfast table promptly and dressed
appropriately, and then begin to check off the chores one by
one on the list posted on the fridge door. Soon they all
assemble, homework in hand, ready to leave for school, or
they sit down at their desks at home, all attention and
cheerfulness, ready to begin their daily studies. Throw in
morning worship somewhere in there, and add tidying up
their bedrooms, and we have the platonic form of the
perfectly-run, “godly” home. The only problem is that so
many homes like this can be perfect hell-holes.
Now I’m not against being organized. But we have to
model our homes after the style of our Creator, not after the
style of a robot or a computer. How does God organize His
world? Into precise days, minutes, hours, and seconds. But
also into seasons and lifetimes, sunrise, sunset, spring and fall,
winter and harvest, full moons, and summer thunderstorms.
My husband is fond of saying that God is perfect, but He is
not a perfectionist. Perfectionism is man’s invention. And
some well-meaning saints can fall into the temptation of trying
to achieve (so-called) perfection by means of their wellordered schedules which they impose on everyone around
them.
The sun does not get up at the same time every day. But
he does get up. The sun doesn’t even set at the same time
every day, but we always have sunset. Sometimes spring is
early, sometimes late. Snow arrives in October one year and
stays until March, but then never shows up at all, not even for
Christmas, the very next year. God’s world is generally
predictable, but not exactly predictable. If the weather teaches
us anything, it is that God is in charge and He does as He
pleases.
Now how does this translate into overseeing our domestic responsibilities? Am I saying we should be unpredictable,
never serving dinner up at the same time two days in a row?
Of course not. But at the same time, we should not get
stressed out about many of the details. When we say dinner is
at six, it should come out of the oven sometime around six,
give or take a few minutes, and not worrying over such things.
Am I saying it doesn’t matter if your husband shows up to
work on time or not? Of course it matters. But if he is
extremely punctual to the second, he is not spiritually superior
to the man who is occasionally a couple minutes late. Our
flesh wants to take pride in the dumbest things.
This has particular application in raising children. Life
should be generally predictable for them. This gives them
security and makes them feel loved and cared for. But the
schedule should never become more important than they are.
I seem to remember the Lord saying something like this: the
schedule was made for man, not man for the schedule. If
“keeping to the schedule” is an ongoing temptation and
source of friction in the home, then the schedule is a snare and
a trap. If parents think they are godly if they “run a tight
ship,” but the children are like the Von Trapp family before
Maria arrived, then all is not well. Real godliness can discern
the difference between external conformity to the rules, and a
heart overflowing with delight in obedience. Wisdom knows
when the schedule needs to be ignored, stretched, or thrown
out all together.
The spiritual snare in these kinds of things has to do with
self-approval. If we have a regimented home life, with every
hour planned, we can find satisfaction with ourselves when we
have stuck to our schedule, and we view our children as godly
when they check off their daily list of duties. But then we are
tempted to overlook our bad heart attitudes that come out
when we snap at the kids, jerk them by the shoulder, glower at
them when they don’t do what they are told, scold and correct
them for not instant obedience, while all along we are
disobeying the biggies right before their eyes. When we go
beyond snapping and scolding and even yell at the kids over
something little like leaving their shoes in the wrong place,
something is seriously out of order. This can be the result of a
self-imposed pressure to keep everything in its place,
including the children.
But the errors are never just on one side. Some families
could use a good dose of scheduling to calm some of the
chaos in their homes and provide a little order and stability.
And even those families who just careen from one thing to the
next can sin by feeling superior to the families who in their
opinion are much too tidy. The balance comes when we take
ownership of our very own particular sins and weaknesses by
confessing them to God. Only then we can learn from one
another, discipline our own troubles, and not compare
ourselves to our neighbor, either to gloat or to feel inferior.
In the average home, there is much work to be done, and
God does not approve of laziness. But beware thinking that
your schedule (whether it is a home schooling schedule or
feeding the baby schedule) is inspired by the Holy Spirit. Life
in our homes should be characterized by joy and thanksgiving
where children are taught and nourished in a way that takes
their souls into account.
“Things to be done” Volume 17/4
19
EX LIBRIS
Gilead
By Marilynne Robinson
Reviewed by Brendan O’Donnell
THE REVEREND John Ames writes to his son in one place, “I
heard a man say once that Christians worship sorrow. That is
by no means true. But we do believe there is a sacred mystery
in it, it’s fair to say that.”1 Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead
abounds in such plainspoken eloquence, approaching some of
the heaviest questions and situations that will grace a man’s
life with a reverence and dignity all but unheard of in modern
letters. Gilead is a serious and beautiful read, almost impossibly so in places, and expresses such profound themes with an
astonishing, and quite often devastating, artistry.
Regarding plot, the book does not offer an order of
actions and events. Instead, we surmise from the pages that
Reverend John Ames, of Gilead, Iowa, is dying of heart
disease, and has taken upon himself to write letters to his son
to tell the boy of his “begats.” The preacher himself is a son
and grandson of preachers, for whom he is named. John
Ames the grandfather was a violent abolitionist Freesoiler who
sought out the Kansas territory in the 1850s at the behest of a
vision of the Lord. John Ames the father was a pacifist who
defied his father’s ways to the point of simmering bitterness.
Our narrator has spent the majority of his life alone; his first
wife and child died shortly after childbirth, and his domestic
solitude spanned the decades until his late sixties, when he
met his second wife who then gave him a son. In the monthslong course of writing the memoir, the apostate grown son of
his best friend, the Presbyterian preacher named Boughton,
returns to town after years of prodigal absence. Boughton, out
of sympathy for his friend’s childless loneliness, had christened him John Ames Boughton. Our narrator wonders
whether the apostate 40-year-old has designs on his soon-tobe widowed wife and orphaned son.
This storyline, such as it is, must be inferred and cobbled
together in places; enough goes unsaid in Robinson’s text that
the reader must patiently sort through the omissions of details
as diligently as he must through that which is revealed.
Robinson so thoroughly inhabits John Ames that she makes
on as if she knows only what he knows, and suspects only
what he suspects. But her precision as a writer certainly
extends beyond her carefully deliberated words all the way out
to her structure and arrangement. To get at what we know
we’re missing requires that we at once draw near to the details
and subtleties of her prose and also stand back in order to sort
out what sort of lacework her threads have formed. For we
also know that she is John Ames’ creator, and his thoughts are
not her thoughts, and she has orchestrated much more than
he lets on.
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Her most startling omission, the name of the boy to
whom this epistle is addressed, demonstrates her artistry. We
may well guess that he bears his father’s name, but the
nameless boy has several namesakes that he might take after –
a violent great-grandfather, a grandfather who lost the faith, a
ne’er-do-well surrogate older brother, John Ames Boughton,
not to mention a father who spent a great part of his life
heated by embers of resentment for all these men, almost
without knowing it. As much as John Ames wants to raise his
son, we may discern many levels of relief that he won’t live
long enough to burden his son with the Ames temperament
that has caused rifts between all the fathers and sons who have
borne that name. Early on we find him reflecting, almost
hopefully, on the boy’s resemblance to his mother: “You’re
like your mother, so serious about everything. The old men
call you Deacon, but that seriousness isn’t all from my side of
the family. I’d never seen anything like it until I met her. Well,
putting aside my grandfather.”2
Gilead, in great part, concerns itself with the tensions that
grow up between fathers and sons, tensions made far more
stark and interesting by the characters’ resistance to the
impulses driving that conflict. John Ames writes of his senior
that “it grieved my father bitterly that the last words he said to
his father were very angry words and there could never be any
reconciliation between them in this life. He did truly honor his
father, generally speaking, and it was hard for him to accept
that things should have ended the way they did.”3 In that way,
it strikes a peculiarly Christian note; never are we to see the
chasms between fathers and sons as normal and healthy, as
much modern literature is wont to do. Indeed, one finds
expressed, in ways explicit and subtle, that John Ames believes
the great gulfs that form are a tragedy, but will also be
overcome by grace and made right on the last day.
And how this whole book waxes doxological, how it
yearns for grace, and how it finds grace everywhere! “‘He will
wipe the tears from all faces.’ It takes nothing from the
loveliness of the verse to say that is exactly what will be
required.”4 Gilead, in its quiet way, defies the strain of
American literature that sees its Protestant heritage as but
another steamer trunk among all the psychological baggage. It
dares, unfashionably, to present unbelief as needlessly
complicated and lonely; what’s more, it believes that faithfulness is the only secure vantage point to find the grace and
mystery in sorrow and to take in this impossibly beautiful
world.
CHILDER
Loving the Standard
Douglas Wilson
IN THIS SPACE, we have been discussing the issue of sons
leaving home to make their own way, and daughters being
under their father’s authority until they are given away in
marriage.
This of course represents a particular understanding of
Scripture and of the world, and it almost invariably will bring
people who hold to it into some sort of disagreement with
other Christians who see things a bit differently. Some
Christians think that daughters can leave when they are grown,
just like sons, and others think that sons must stay, just like the
daughters. Assuming such disagreements are not the result of
a perverse unwillingness to submit to Scripture in any way,
how are we to process the differences we might have with
others over such things?
In all areas of child-rearing—not just this one—it is the
task of the parents to teach their standards to their children in
such a way that the children come to understand, love and
embrace them. Simply understanding them is not sufficient.
Neither is “loving” them, if loving merely means admiring
and respecting the standards from a distance. The task of
parents is to behave in such a way that the children love what
the parents love, the way the parents love it. The love is seen
when the children gladly do what they have been taught.
There is a vast difference between “knowing what my
father thinks and believes” and “loving what my father loves.”
Truth-oriented parents (the kind who tend to read books on
“how to” oversee a courtship) tend to focus on the syllogism,
or the argument. “Here are the verses, here is the argument,
here is the record of all the times we went over this argument
with you, and why are you so rebellious?”
Just as the sabbath was made for man, not man for the
sabbath, so argument was made for the sake of understanding,
not understanding for the sake of argument. The point of
working through something, the point of arguing a position,
should always be to win the person, not win the argument.
Over the years, I have had to give counsel to many parents
who for many years had been very strict and very clear about
their standards when the kids were growing up. In fact, they
were so clear that the kids, once grown, knew exactly what they
hated, and they knew exactly why they hated it. When
confronted with the indisputable fact of their children’s
loathing of what they taught, the usual tendency is to go over
the argument again.
So bring this around to differences over courtship.
Suppose a man believes that a son does not have the authority
to marry apart from his father’s blessing. Suppose further that
he has been such a wonderful father that his son would not
dream of marrying against his father’s wishes—the son
believes exactly as his father does. I may disagree exegetically
(as I would), but God bless them all. Suppose a family thinks
for various reasons that daughters are on their own the same
way and at the same time sons are. I differ with this also—but
if the daughter loves her father’s standard (and not just the
liberty it gives her), and she respects and honors him in all
that she does, then God bless them too. In both cases, the
fundamental things are sound.
Whenever parents apply a standard to their children that
requires compliance or obedience, the parents are writing a
check. Truth-oriented parents tend to focus on whether or
not it is their check-book, and whether or not they are an
approved signatory on that account as far as the bank is
concerned. “I am your father. That means I have the legal
right to sign this check. Outta my way.”
But there is another level of discussion altogether. I may
have my checkbook, and be a signatory, and still not have any
money in the bank. When parents teach their children to
genuinely love the standards being inculcated, this is just
another way of saying that there is plenty of money in the
account. It would not be unwise to write that check.
Legal authority to sign is not the same as moral authority
in signing. This is why “strict” parents so often have children
who rebel. And frequently children (particularly daughters)
rebel in matters of courtship because courtship is seen by the
daughter as her one ticket out. I put the word “strict” in
quotation marks because the real problem is that such parents
are not strict enough. If someone carefully got out the right
checkbook, and scrupulously signed their legal name on the
proper line, but it was a check for $2500 and only $50 was
in the account, I would not describe the problem as being
“too strict.”
But many times such parents are truly baffled by what is
going on in their homes. If I tell them that they should not
“write this check,” in their defense, they point to all the
wrong things. They point to the Bible verses that give them
the right to sign checks. They point to the articles I have
written that say they have the right to sign these checks.
A high view of Scripture invites us to build up enormous
amounts of capital in our kids. More than that, we are called
and required to do so. But in all areas of life, spending within
our means is a discipline that takes practice. When it comes
to matters of courtship, parents should be particularly careful
to spend within their means. If a father has left his daughter
emotionally deserted and insecure for twenty years, and then,
when a young man comes around, the father starts assuming
his paternal prerogatives and starts saying no, he is being
extremely foolish. He is on his way to bouncing a big check.
“Things to be done” Volume 17/4
21
LITURGIA
Baptism is Baptism, V
Peter Leithart
“For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed
yourselves with Christ” (Galatians 3:27).
James D. G. Dunn, retired professor of New Testament at
Durham, claims to be part of a small minority of commentators who do not believe Paul was referring to water baptism in
Galatians 3:27. So let’s start with him.
In his 1970 book, Baptism in the Holy Spirit, Dunn suggests
that the phrase “baptized into” is a “metaphor drawn from
the rite of baptism” that describes “the entry of the believer
into the spiritual relationship of the Christian with Christ” or
the “spiritual transformation which makes one a Christian.”
Paul’s reference to “clothing” is metaphorical, and therefore
“baptized” must also be metaphorical—as if Paul could not
write both literally and metaphorically in one sentence.
Further, Dunn says, Galatians as a whole deals with the
contrast between a “relationship with God . . . through the law
and which is entered by an outward, physical rite” and the
new covenant relationship “through the Spirit of Christ and
which is entered by the act of believing.” Since Paul has spent
so much of the letter polemicizing against finding identity
through the physical rite, he could hardly be expected to
return to a different physical rite here. Paul does not challenge
the Jews by saying, “Your rites are ineffective, but ours are
effective,” but instead points “to the cross and resurrection, to
faith and the Spirit.” Anyone who focuses on the baptismal
rite itself is like a child who “remembers the illustration but
pays too little heed to the moral drawn from it.”
To that I am tempted to repeat something I heard
somewhere: Become like a little child.
But perhaps a counter-argument or two is necessary. For
starters, Paul did not see the shift from the Old to New as a
simple shift from external to internal. He reminded the
Galatians, after all, that they received the Spirit through
“hearing with faith” (3:2), that is, through the physical act of
preaching. He teaches that Christ has been slaughtered as a
Passover Lamb (1 Corinthians 5:7), but he immediately
follows with an exhortation to keep a new covenant feast
(5:8). The new Israel as much as the old celebrates an actual
Passover feast, with physical food and physical eating and
drinking. Further, the phrase “baptized into Christ” may be a
shortened version of the phrase “baptize in the name” (Acts
2:38; 8:16; 10:48; 19:5; 1 Corinthians 1:13, 15). If there is
an allusion to the baptismal formula here, Paul is talking about
the rite of water baptism.
More importantly, it’s essential to see how baptism fits
into Paul’s argument in Galatians. Paul’s letter is not primarily
about individual soteriology, but about the union of Jews and
22
“Things to be believed” Volume 17/4
Gentiles in the one new man, Jesus the Christ, and the coming
of a new creation through His death and resurrection. Paul
gets to the heart of his rebuke in 3:1–5: The issue is whether
the Spirit comes through the “works of the law”or through
hearing the gospel with faith. If the Spirit initially came to
those who believed the gospel, then they must be “perfected”
in the same manner, and refuse the temptation to return to the
“fleshly” ordinances of the Law (3:3).
Paul then launches into a review of redemptive history,
showing that the Law was nestled within the promise, and, by
bringing Israel under a curse, was the paradoxical means for
bringing the Spirit to those who share the faith of Abraham
(3:6–14). What was the purpose of the Law, then? Paul says
here that it was given as a temporary “paedagogue” that kept
Israel in custody until “faith” came (3:19, 23–24). In
Galatians, the good news is that the promise to Abraham has
been fulfilled, the pre-evangel that “all the nations shall be
blessed in you” (3:8). Faith has come, and the Jews and
Gentiles who believe in Jesus are no longer under a tutor, nor
under the “elementary principles” that governed the world in
its infancy (4:1–7).
This is the context for Paul’s claims in 3:26–29. All those
who share the faith of Abraham are “sons of God” (v. 26),
that is, true Israelites (cf. Exodus 4:23). Whether they are of
Jewish or Gentile origin, whether they are of slave or free
class, whether they are male or female, they are all heirs of the
inheritance promised to Abraham, the promise of the Spirit
(vv. 28–29). The context for verse 27 is thus all about the
formation of a new community of Abraham’s seed. Baptism
into Christ and being clothed with Christ is thus all about
incorporation into membership in this new body, the body
that is “one in Christ Jesus” (v. 28) the community of those
who “are Christ’s” (v. 29). Galatians has to do with the remapping of Israel and the Church that occurs in the death and
resurrection of Jesus. It is talking about the formation of a new
historical body.
That new body is strikingly different from the old. In the
Old Covenant system, only members of the covenant people
were circumcised, and even God-fearing Gentiles remain
uncircumcised. Circumcision distinguished between Jew and
Gentile, and also between male and female. In the New
Covenant, baptism is applied indiscriminately to all who
believe—whether Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or
female. Baptism thus symbolizes and enacts the union of Jew
and Gentile in the church, ritually marking all the baptized as
sons of Abraham.
A reference to the rite of baptism fits the logic of Paul’s
argument. Surely, there is nothing in Galatians 3 that requires
us to understand “baptized” metaphorically. Once again,
“baptism” means baptism.
SIMILITUDES
Battle Gray
Douglas Wilson
“I thought they were nice,” Andrew said.
“They were pleasant enough,” Beow said, “because
they had no need to be otherwise. Hrethric understands
much. But each of his longboats has a chieftain of its own,
and Hrethric is driven by them as much as by the wind at
his back. They do not understand as much as he does.”
Beow and Andrew were walking up a long slope, two
days after they had left the Viking encampment. They had
spent just one night with the Vikings and had departed
early the next morning.
“Why did they let us go?”
“We have nothing they want or need—at present. But
I would wager that they will soon be sailing down the coast
alongside us. They are not dragon-fighters—although the
Kale sometimes are. But they would not mind being in the
neighborhood if someone else came to confront the
dragon, and perhaps prevailed. And they know that we
mean to challenge the dragon.”
Heather was thick along both sides of their path, and
around mid-day they crested the ridge. A long way off to
the right, they could see the distant glint of the ocean.
“Look,” said Beow. Along the horizon, back over their
right shoulder, Andrew could see a very small row of sails.
They turned back and looked down the road ahead of
them, and Andrew muttered something under his breath.
He had never seen so much dramatic and striking gray in
his life. About six miles out, the ocean off to their right
swept around in front of them and marked the end of
Greenland. Away in the distance, straight ahead of them
on the horizon, a towering black and gray thunderhead
rose up from the ocean. The sea in front of the gigantic
cloud was gray also, miles of it, with plumes of white flying
up from the slow chop. For about two miles inland from
the beach huge gray boulders were cast about, as though
God had gotten tired of doing things in an orderly way at
creation. And there, right on the edge of the sea, was a
ruined castle built out of the dark gray basalt. The rim at
the top of the thunderhead was silver, almost white, and a
few stray shafts of sunlight came through. In the sky above
the castle, Andrew saw a small speck, an object flying. “Is
that . . . is that the dragon?”
“Aye. That’s the dragon,” Beow said.
They both stood there and stared for a long time. The
dragon did not see them, or was not interested in them,
and just circled lazily above the ocean beyond his lair.
After a long silence, Andrew said, “How am I
supposed to kill that?”
“You come from a line of men who know what to do.
I trust you.”
Andrew sat down on a rock by the side of the path to
think. Beow bent his head over him. “If you are thinking
about the weather coming in, you don’t need to worry
about that thundercloud. It is always there—it is the end
of our world. Some have sailed out there, but no one
returns. They go to be with the Lord Christ, or to the
mother world . . . we don’t know. Not many sail there
anymore.”
Andrew nodded soberly. “I am just a boy,” he said.
“It would be silly to try to meet him with main force.
Dragons are great deceivers, and they think that they are
capable of deceiving everyone, luring everyone. I will let
him think he is doing so with me. I will deceive the
deceiver.”
“Be careful,” Beow said. “The plan may be a good
one, and I am not trying to dissuade you. But pretending
to him that you are deceived can easily be the first step in
being deceived. His black dragon heart has many twists
and turns.”
“So I must be straight as this spear, which to him will
be the most subtle twist of all. But I have to think about
what Aelfric told me. The first sign is that the dust will
bite the dragon and nothing else.”
At the words, straight as this spear, a curious look came
over Andrew’s face, and his eyes brightened. The beginnings of an idea had occurred to him. He looked over at
Beow. “In the morning, we will walk down to riddle with
the dragon. We must be careful not to wager great things
on the riddles—perhaps just the right to come back the
next day to riddle some more. But as we go down, let us
think much about the dust of the ground we are walking
on. If it is the dust that shall bite him, we have to think
about how that might be.”
Beow dropped his horn again. “This is wisdom, and I
will go with you.”
With that, Andrew got up and they walked back over
the crest of the hill to find a place to spend the night.
When they had done so, Andrew laid out his bedroll, lay
down on it, and put his weapons beside him. Straight as this
spear, he thought happily, and went to sleep.
“Things to be done” Volume 17/4
23
DOODLAT
By Mark Beauchamp
24
“Things to be believed” Volume 17/4
POIMEN
Dueling Memories
Joost Nixon
HAVE YOU EVER BEEN SANDWICHED between dueling memories? They aren’t contradictory memories in your own head
(though perhaps that’s possible). The memories belong to
two people you love. They remember a controversial event,
or conversation, differently. And because they each have an
opposing take on what happened, there doesn’t seem to be
any clear path to reconciliation because trust has been
violated.
“He promised.” “No I didn’t—I never would have
committed myself!” “I distinctly remember that . . .” “Well I
remember that you said. . .” And on it goes. When you trust
your own memory implicitly, and your sister presents another
version, what else can be said except that you are shocked and
grieved to discover your sister lying like a rug? Is there a way
out of this? Yes, and the way begins with thinking biblically
about memory.
Memories, by design, are dicey things. At least since the
Fall, God has graciously allowed us to forget. In a sinful
world, this is an ample mercy. A defective memory helps us
think about our forgiven sins like God does. He doesn’t think
about them at all. In fact, He promises not to remember them.
“For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their
sins no more” (Jer. 31:34). Imagine never being able to
forget an insult. Imagine recalling at will a verbatim script of
every quarrel. Imagine the anger and heartache never
dimming, always ready to be poured out to nourish the root of
bitterness. Humanity would be doomed to a fridge stocked
solely with bottles of bile. We would quickly annihilate one
another. And those who were not destroyed by others would
destroy themselves under the burden of a memory that
flawlessly recorded every grievance.
Though memories fade, God does not completely
compromise them. There are things we can and should
remember. Deuteronomy is filled with exhortations to
“remember” and “do not forget.” In fact, God called His
people to set up Eben-ezers, “stones of remembrance” to
remember key instances of God’s faithfulness, like the
miraculous crossing of the River Jordan. Sometimes it is
sinful to forget, and other times it is sinful to remember. And
sometimes—on indifferent matters—forgetting is as sinful as
aging (that is, not at all).
So when you find yourself in the middle of dueling
memories, remind your friends that memories are often
faulty. When you do, expect the rejoinder that “yes, memories fade, but mine hasn’t in this case.” Bitterness does not so
easily concede. And still, they should be willing to admit at
least a token chance that their own memory is faulty. The
refusal to grant so reasonable and biblical a possibility will
“out” their irreconcilable heart. But even if they will not
concede that their memory may be faulty on the point in
question, they should have little trouble conceding a faulty
memory for their sister. This is key, because it is the first step
to rebuilding trust. If her sister’s memory is faulty, then she
really believes her version is reality. Her memory is faulty, but
her integrity intact. She is not being intentionally deceptive.
She is not engaged in brazen prevarication. She is not trying to
elude responsibility for her actions.
At this point, the parties often avoid reconciliation by
going into a holding pattern. “I grant that it is possible that my
memory is incorrect,” or “that her memory is faulty and thus
she is not lying,” but “that simply is not reality in this case.
All the evidence points to the fact that she is being intentionally deceptive.” At this statement, offer silent thanks to God,
because He has opened the barricaded door to reconciliation
another two inches. First, there is her use of the word
intentionally. To be able to look in on the intents of our sister’s
heart is to be God. It is exclusively His prerogative (Jer.
17:9–10). Encourage your friend to repent of judging
motives. Secondly, if she grants the possibility her sister is
suffering from a sketchy memory and not a fractured
character, then love requires her to believe the better option.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things . . . love never fails
(1 Cor. 13:7–8). The only exception to this is when all the
data point overwhelmingly to deception. But this is such a
subjectively loaded determination that a Christian should
never be willing to make it independently—only after
triangulating with several sober, godly saints.
By granting faulty memories, and believing the best, both
parties ought to make progress in reestablishing some level of
trust. This should be enhanced by confession. The sins of
judging motives and believing the worst should be confessed,
forgiven, and forgotten on both sides. With the major
obstruction removed, other sins will bob to the surface. They
too should be skimmed off with the same biblical process.
After all this, what remains should be the central issue(s).
Now what? Well, that depends on circumstances. Both
should stumble over themselves to accommodate their
neighbor. But it may be that both parties agree to bind
themselves to the minimum they agree on. If one remembers
X, and the second remembers X +1, both parties should bind
themselves to X. This time, however, they should do so with a
concrete timeline, in writing, and with third-party accountability. This way the delicate trust is protected from further
trampling. Not all “irreconcilable” differences fit a “promise
and deliver” scenario. But in any case, the principle that we
should prefer being wronged over quarrelling with our
brothers dictates that we bend over backwards to give
preference to one another in love.
“Things to be done” Volume 17/4
25
EX IMAGIBUS
Movie Smatterings
Reviewed by Douglas Jones, Nathan Wilson, Brendan
O’Donnell, Ben Merkle
Corpse Bride
directed by Tim Burton
reviewed by Douglas Jones
Director Tim Burton often aims to teach audiences to be
nonjudgmental about especially pale outsiders: “When people
are open and not judgemental I just find that really beautiful
and great and somewhat rare.” Remember the morality
lessons from Scissorhands? PeeWee Herman? Beetlejuice? Big Fish?
Chocolate Factory? Ed Wood? This time Burton wants us to be
nonjudgmental and embrace a decaying bride. It turns out
that the protagonist groom accidentally places a ring on grave
girl, and she intends to keep him. Christian reviewers have
already praised Corpse Bride as a “poignant meditation on the
daunting weightiness of the vows of marriage.” In fact, we
find out in the third act that the main dilemma of the film—
choosing the living or dead bride—has been fake all along,
since vows don’t hold past death—giving us that deflated
frustration of an oh-it’s-only-a-dream story. The tension was
already gone, though. Also as per cliché, the nasty black-andwhite Christians above ground lack the life of the full-color
dead in hades, a dichotomy Burton almost always has
working. Remember suburbia in Scissorhands? His
nonjudgmentalism is always limited. Enough morality tales.
The Constant Gardener
directed by Fernando Meirelles
reviewed by Brendan O’Donnell
The Constant Gardener presents the reviewer (me) with a
dilemma. On one hand, it epitomizes the genre of the
fashionable liberal social-issue movie, and so invites dismissal
and scorn. On the other hand, its fashionable social issue is the
human tragedy in Africa, which cannot be so flippantly waved
off. Furthermore, it comes from the hand of Fernando
Meirelles, a Brazilian with a brilliant and bracing style who,
unlike so many po-mo Tarantino wannabes, gets involved and
passionate about his subject matter. For what it’s worth, this
movie provokes you to think beyond its two hours, even if it
gives you precious little to agree with.
The story follows Justin, a buttoned-up relief agency
bureaucrat, as he investigates his wife Tessa’s death. Tessa,
Justin’s impassioned, firebrand counterpart on the more
radical end of the “save Africa” campaign, was murdered
alongside another relief doctor—with whom she was
suspected of trysting—in the Kenyan desert. Justin’s investi26
“Things to be believed” Volume 17/4
gation brings him into conflict with the big pharmaceutical
company which has been testing experimental drugs on
“expendable” African AIDS patients, a scheme which Tessa
had been working to expose.
Meirelles shoots a vivid movie; working with oversaturated, grainy film stocks that make for constantly startling and
surprising scenes, he presents a crowded, intense Africa full of
color, filth, life, and rough edges. Europe, on the other hand,
comes across as sleek, modernist, dead, and grey—and the
contrast between them illustrates the broad antithesis the
movie wants us to buy: that of the ruthless capitalist West and
the burgeoning, oppressed Third World. A more particular
antithesis is that of Justin’s bureaucratic approach to charity
and Tessa’s on-the-ground variety. For all its caterwauling
about the imperialist West, the modern liberal set remains as
paternalistic as ever—the light that will drive away
colonialism’s shadow is even more Western involvement. Yet,
for all its muddledness, Gardener’s lone Christian character, a
doctor named Lorbeer doing medical work in the bush, gets
something right: “This whole machine is driven by guilt.” The
line skewers much of what else goes on in the movie, which
gives us the spectacle of an apostate Western culture’s highminded attempt to be the savior of the Third World.
Jarhead
directed by Sam Mendes
reviewed by Ben Merkle
Jarhead gives an authentic portrayal of life in the enlisted ranks
of the Marine Corps while waiting in the sand for Operation
Desert Shield to transform into Desert Storm. Anthony
Swafford is trained as a Marine sniper and then deployed to
the Gulf to wait for his chance to finally engage the enemy.
Tensions mount as the months waiting in the sand drag on.
Men masturbate. A lot. I’m not kidding. They make jokes
about fornication. They make jokes about having sex with one
another. They spend a lot of time naked. The war starts, but
the planes kill all the Iraqis before the snipers ever get a
chance. The war ends without them ever firing a shot. And by
the time they get home, most of them have been dumped by
their girlfriends and wives.
The film is dead on in portraying the reality of life in the
enlisted Marine Corps, which should certainly give pause to
young Christian men who think that enlisting will somehow
help them grow in virtue. However, it’s the sort of film that
gives authenticity a bad name. It is accurate, in a sense.
Marines don’t like to use more than three words in a row
without dropping the F-bomb, are obsessed with fornication,
and are prone to frequent lapses of sanity (sometimes alcoholinduced and sometimes not). But Jarhead stops there and thinks
that it has told the entirety of the story.
Sin and death become the only reality and all thoughts of
redemption are portrayed as vanities. Swafford clings to a
picture of his girlfriend for solace, yet in reality she is already
cheating on him with Jody, the mythological man who steals
every Marine’s girl as soon as he ships out. This sort of
authenticity is an over-the-top lie, because it refuses to see the
bigger story of redemption. The real tragedy of the film will
be the idiotic Christian kids from the middle-class suburbs
who watch the film and praise it for its “reality.”
Millions
directed by Danny Boyle
reviewed by Nathan Wilson
Every director in Hollywood is a legend according to
someone. Danny Boyle has given his artistic guidance to
movies generally appreciated (by some) like Trainspotting, but
then he has also been involved in some real failures (like The
Beach). In this film/morality play, there are moments of
towering genius, and of course whole sequences in which the
narrative becomes unhinged and moves for no good reason at
all. No worries however. Incoherent narrative will always be
called narrative sophistication by some critics.
The Brits are going from pounds to euros and two
motherless brothers learn the nature of humanity, struggle
over goodness, and one discovers Miracle.
The setting is wonderfully magical, and yet suburban.
Our youngest and most central protagonist (Damian) has his
own cardboard hermitage and regularly sees and interacts
with saints. All brilliant.
Then a sack of money (pounds, legal tender for only a
few days) falls out of the sky and lands on Damian’s hermitage, and he and his brother begin their struggle over what to
do with the temporary wealth. We have all the normal
dilemmas but with some more interesting permutations.
Eventually, every option is pursued. It is spent, exchanged,
given to Mormons, glued to a wall, and finally burned. But the
money isn’t the story. Damian is the story, Damian and his
own aspiring sainthood. His culmination as a character comes
when (after a visit from his junior-saint mother) he performs a
miracle equivalent to that of Christ with the loaves and the
fishes (as unfortunately described to him by St. Peter). The
film is a highly enjoyable watch if you aren’t too concerned
with continuity and you can duck before the moral of the story
hits you in the forehead.
Elizabethtown
directed by Cameron Crowe
reviewed by Doug Jones
This film garnered third place in my personal all-time-worst
movies list (still ahead of it are Vanishing Point [1971] and Be
Cool [2005]). Elizabethtown has no legit dramatic question to
drive us forward, and often I begged myself to leave the
theatre, but the film was such a car crash I couldn’t take my
eyes off it. Basically, it has the feel of someone’s blog made
into a film, including—I kid not—a ten-minute phone call
between leads seemingly just out of junior high arguing about
who the societal “they” and “them” are. Like many blogs, the
film feels so personal and trivial and undramatic at places, you
feel like you’re intruding into someone’s dresser. I think it’s a
bad sign when I find myself longing for the leads to get into a
big accident.
Peapod
I am a perfectly written letter
sealed in a strong green envelope.
Nine facts neatly spaced and holding their places
waiting to roll like marbles.
Rachel Jankovic
“Things to be done” Volume 17/4
27
STAURON
Reading the Lines, II
Gary Hagen
NEITHER DO THE scriptures succor this familiar Reformed
defense at this point. The counterargument fails because the
issue that the writer of Hebrews was condemning was not Old
Testament sacrifices per se. What was attacked was a return to
the old symbols as the means of redemption (10:18 cf. Acts
15:1, 5). This misplaced faith as the crux of the issue—and
not a continued use of the symbols themselves—becomes
more readily apparent when we look beyond the pages of
Hebrews to the whole counsel of Scripture.
Recall that Paul warned about the eating of meat
sacrificed to idols (1 Cor. 8). But he did not prohibit that
activity per se. What Paul did caution against was stumbling of
a weaker brother if such a one saw them eating meat offered
to idols. Paul knew that these Christians were not putting
their faith in an idol (v. 4), and so even their eating in the idol’s
temple was not his concern (v. 10). But he was solicitous for
those that might return their faith to that system if they misunderstood what they saw more mature believers doing (v. 7).
In the same way, we learn that first-century Jewish
Christians continued to sacrifice in the temple at Jerusalem,
and this was not a problem! The only exception we find to this in
the Scripture was when Judaizers, who placed their faith in the
old symbols of the law, insisted on observance of the old ways.
And then Paul refused to have any part of it (Gal.2:–-4), as in
his refusal to have Titus circumcised since he was a Greek and
not a Jew. Paul’s letter to the churches of Galatia provides an
extensive and strongly worded warning against a legalistic
slavery to the law (5:1). Yet he elsewhere praises the continued use of the law so long as it is wisely employed for that
which it was intended (1Tim 1:8 cf. Rom. 7:12). Even for the
early apostles this was not always an easy course to steer, and
both Peter and Barnabas were stumbled at certain points in
this until Paul directly challenged them (Gal.2:11–21).
Recall also that while Paul refused to have Titus circumcised when Judaizers demanded this, Paul did have Timothy
(son of a Jewess) circumcised (Acts 16:3). Paul did not follow
a gospel that rigidly prohibited Jewish Christians from
continuing their observances of ceremonial ordinances so long
as these were correctly understood. Yet had Paul permitted
Jewish ordinances to be imposed upon Gentile believers, this
would have incorporated Jewish ordinances as essential
elements of Christianity.
By this time, large portions of the Christian church and
perhaps a majority—those parts composed of converted
Jews—were still zealously observing the law. In fact, James
and the elders at Jerusalem informed Paul that “myriads”
(tens of thousands) of Jews that had believed in Christ fell into
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“Things to be believed” Volume 17/4
this very category (Acts 21:20). Given the context of the
subsequent verses and the “therefore” of v. 23 where James
and the elders at Jerusalem encouraged Paul to participate in
sacrifices (which included a sin offering, a burnt offering, a
peace offering, a grain offering, and a drink offering)
associated with a Nazarite vow (Num. 6:13–21) along with
four other men, we must assume the myriads mentioned also
participated in continuing Old Covenant sacrifices even after
their belief in Christ (Acts 21:17–26, NB v.26). We also see
that Paul made similar vows of this nature on his own accord
in other instances, and kept the Jewish festival days even after
his own conversion (Acts 18:18–21 cf. 20:16).
Not unlike some sects of the Christian church today,
Judaizers of the first century looked upon their religious
ceremonies as the sine qua non of their religion. They placed
their faith—not in the God who had ordained this worship—
but in the ritual practices themselves. Such legalism was
categorically rejected by the apostles and the church council of
elders in Acts 15. And yet in Acts 21, James and these same
elders encouraged Paul’s public observance of Old Covenant
Jewish offerings. And this is not simply a case of different
guidelines for Gentile and Jewish believers. The principle was
one and the same.
Gentiles were advised not to eat things offered to idols in
Acts 15:29, and yet Paul’s letter to the Corinthians (8:4, 8)
makes no such prohibition since idols are nothing. Jews are
warned in the book of Hebrews not to return to the Mosaic
system, yet we see in Acts 21 that thousands of believing Jews
practiced the Mosaic Law with the blessing of the apostles
and elders. Is this a disconnect? Not at all. The issue in both
situations was the locus of faith (cf. Heb 10:29; 1 Cor. 8:10).
We see therefore that the key difference between Acts 21
and what we read in Hebrews 8–10 is not one of the external
practices, but rather an issue of the object of faith for salvation—the symbols or the Savior. In other words, whether
these symbols were superstitious ritual observances—a
righteousness of works—or expressions of true faith makes all
the difference between a legalistic apostasy and walking wisely
in the law.
How then shall we understand Ezekiel’s temple? Are the
premillennialists right in all this? Hardly. But we shall have to
wait until Part 3 for that discussion.
CAVE OF ADULLAM
Mutterings on Regnant Follies
Mr. Tumnus
Hat Trick
I was recently regaled (if letters can do that) by a mass
mailing missive from the ACLU, which in one way makes me
kind of glad. It shows the limits of computer wisdom, for in
that letter I was invited “to become the newest card-carrying
member of the American Civil Liberties Union.” The letter
went on, scaring me something terrible, and said, “With the
election behind them, administration officials also can be
expected to push aggressively a social agenda fueled by the
President’s personal religious beliefs. From abortion rights, to
same-sex marriage . . .”
But what caught my attention was the objection to a social agenda
fueled by Mr. Bush’s “personal religious beliefs.” Since they are against this,
we can only surmise what they might be for. Impersonal religious beliefs?
Personal irreligious beliefs? Personal religious unbeliefs? Or maybe they
might go for all three—impersonal irreligious unbeliefs. To make America
strong again.
Keeping the Faith
One dispensational newsletter writer acknowledges one of the
problems that comes with the territory: “I have also projected
dates for prophetic fulfillment that failed to materialize. Once
again, the culprit in the calculation always seems to be the
assumptions the scenario rests upon. In this regard, I consider
it crucial that we not grow discouraged as some have, and
conclude that no-one [sic] will ever have the prophetic truth
concerning the times in which we live.”
The trick is to get rid of erroneous assumptions without actually
making them go away.
Same Song, Different Verse
Some churches are now renting movie theaters for worship on
Sunday morning. The place smells like popcorn, and one
pastor says that it feels “less churchy” and “less traditional.”
His church features a live band, movie clips, skits and
refreshments.
How many centuries before the less churchy churches start to feel kind
of churchy, making the churchy churches less so, if you follow my drift?
For All Their Faults, We Love Our House of
Peers
upshot of it was that “God was sad” because he was “losing
the fight of good against evil.” The peer returned to us with
the message that “people had to fight harder against evil for
God to win.”
Okay. We resolve to fight harder against evil, and will start with
Pelagianism.
Jesus and the Twelve Podners
A school has opened up in Texas that instructs people on how
to preach Jesus, Western style. No, not Western civilization
style, or Numinor style, but former-rodeo-clown style. Called
the School of Western Ministries, they offer seventeen weeks
of instruction for those “called to minister in any and every
area of the ‘Western world.’”
We recommend this course highly, giving it our highest rating of five
cow pies.
Bless My Sole
In order to prove I am not making this up, let me begin with
the web address—www.in-souls.com, a place where you can
obtain shoe inserts that have Bible verses on them. This is so
that you can “stand” on the Word of God. There is a
discipleship program that goes with this. The first thing is to
study the verse on the insert. Second, you say the summary
confirmation. Third, place in right shoe and stand on it.
Fourth, meditate on the verse with every step. Fifth, record
your experience in the companion journal. Sixth, hang up their
air-freshener thingy. Seventh, complete their “power walk”
Bible study.
The inserts can be customized with the name of your church or
organization. One idea might be to have them made with the name of your
denominational enemy, and have them given away at presbytery for door
prizes.
But There Is Always a Bright Side
Economic shifts and declining birth rates in Europe have set
the stage for the comeback of the wolf. Europe stands to lose
41 million people by 2030, and the wolves are picking up real
estate.
But that is just the first step. After the European forests grow back,
and the wolves start to roam again, we may once again see the resurgence of
the European fairy tale. For as we all know, most of our early literature
was designed for no other purpose than to keep the kids out of the woods.
Lord Pearson, a member of the British House of Lords,
recently had surgery for varicose veins, and while under an
anesthetic during that surgery he had a vision of God. The
“Things to be done” Volume 17/4
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PICTURA
Rebel Factory: A Play in One Act
Douglas Jones
The Personality Director walks around frenetically. The Director’s
Friend sits and listens.
Personality Director: I said rut. A rut. I’m in some sort of
rut. Have been for weeks.
Director Friend: Weeks? You say this every year.
Personality Director: Yeah. No. Really? Yeah, you’re right. I
just get stuck.
Director Friend: : Year? Every decade around this time. No,
century. Every century you tell me this.
Personality Director: I just need a rest. Then I’ll find a new
path. I’ll be creative again.
Director Friend: You can’t be that bad. Show me.
Personality Director: Show you? Now?
Director Friend: Call in your next. I saw someone in
reception.
Personality Director: Good. Yeah. You can give me tips.
Tell me where I’m flat.
Personality Director goes to intercom and calls.
Personality Director: Pat, send in Sid Martin.
Director Friend: We all go through this. Just relax.
Sid Martin enters, walks very stiffly, bit nerdish, bumping into things.
The other two watch a bit perplexed but don’t speak. Sid finally finds a
central chair by himself.
Sid: (deadpan, a bit dim) I want to be a rebel.
Personality Director: That’s my job, Sid. Glad you could
make it.
Sid: I want to be a rebel.
Personality Director: I’ve qualified three-hundred thousand
people this past year to be rebels. What makes you think you
have the stuff ?
Sid: (nervous but not angry) You, you can help me. They
said so. I want to be a rebel.
Personality Director: Okay, Sid. Don’t get angry. You want
our advice program. Right? You want me to prep you?
Sid: Yes, sir. A rebel. Yes. I want to be.
Personality Director: Rebels don’t say “yes sir.” Show me
your best stuff.
Sid: What?
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“Things to be believed” Volume 17/4
Personality Director: Show me what you can do?
Sid: That’s why I’m here. I don’t know how.
Personality Director: You must have something I can work
with, though. Give me something to start.
Sid: Okay. (Sid stands) Uh, um, okay, paint it black! Paint
it black! I hate my mother. I hate WalMart! I hate—
Personality Director: Sit down, sit down. That’s enough.
You’re about a class-Q4 rebel, right now.
Sid: Oh no, uh, man. I’m higher than that.
Personality Director: Sorry Sid. You’re Q4. Quoting
Rolling Stones lyrics. Hating mommy and WalMart is so college
freshman. You need to be fresh. You need to be a new creative
rebel.
Sid: Yeah, that’s me. Creative.
Personality Director: I’ll need about twenty sessions with
you. (Sid nodding) Okay, let’s get started. Something new, right?
A fresh rebel?
Sid keeps nodding, and Personality Director paces, thinking.
Personality Director: Can you handle profundity, Sid? Can
you absorb something really deep? (Sid nods) Think of this
then. Don’t pass it around or I’ll sue your pants off. Lesson one.
Think of this: (profound tone, slowly) whatever someone
mainstream does, you do the opposite.
Sid: (sincerely impressed) Wow, you are good. I never
thought of that.
Personality Director: Whatever someone mainstream does,
you do the opposite.
Sid: Say it again.
Personality Director: No, Sid. That’s plenty. Let’s see you
apply it now. Show us how it might work in real life.
Sid: Um, uh, if everyone wears colors, I’ll wear black.
Personality Director: Good job. You’re quick.
Sid: Um, if everyone has short hair, I’ll wear mine long.
Personality Director: Yes, yes!
Sid: If, if everyone loves WalMart, I’ll hate it.
Personality Director: Okay, wonderful. WalMart again.
Whew. That’s plenty for today. Let’s not exhaust ourselves.
Sid: If, everyone, if everyone—
Personality Director: That’s enough, Sid. Let’s not lose the
moment. Good work. But the session’s over. You learn quickly.
Sid rises and Personality Director walks him toward door.
Sid: So next time I get a new lesson? A new rule?
Personality Director: (nervous, doubting) Yeah, well,
something like that. More like practice. We’ll keep practicing
this lesson.
Sid: But you said I got it.
Personality Director: But that’s a pretty good rule, no? You
said “wow” yourself ?
Sid: But you said I got it.
Personality Director: (pushing Sid out door) Bye now. See
you next week same time.
Sid exits. Personality Director looks immediately to Director Friend
for some feedback.
Director Friend: Man, you’re really, really bad at this, aren’t
you?
Personality Director: I knew it! I knew it! I can’t help it.
Director Friend: You need a break.
Personality Director: I try to make my lips say something
different, but the same thing keeps coming out.
Director Friend: Couldn’t you take a creativity class or
something?
Personality Director: (not listening) I told the same thing
to Voltaire and Byron and the Doors and Madonna.
Director Friend: Start over. Act as if this was your first day
on the job.
Personality Director: Just be the opposite, I say. That’s the
only lesson I have. They pay me millions. No rebel ever
challenges me. They just suck it up.
Director Friend: What about getting a substitute? Just for
a decade or so.
Personality Director: No. They’ll never let me back. The
next person will have real creativity, and I’ll be out. I don’t trust
anyone.
Director Friend: Get the next appointment in here.
Personality Director: No way. Okay. No, I’ll do the same
thing, I’m sure.
Director Friend: (grabs his friend by shoulders) Listen to
me. Don’t talk that way. You are not a loser.
Personality Director: What do I say then, if you’re so
smart?
Director Friend: Let’s see, let’s see. Think. Think. It’s not
just being opposite. Being a rebel is about . . . about . . . freedom,
fighting oppression, fight mediocrity!
Personality Director: That’s great. Yes, I can work with that.
I can do it. (goes to intercom) Pat, send in Britney Anderson.
Personality Director paces, thinking.
Director Friend: And being a rebel is about throwing off
the weight of tradition.
Britney Anderson enters confidently.
Britney: Hi, I’m Britney. Shall I sit here?
Personality Director: Please, yes. I’ve read your file. Very
interesting. You appear to be a L-8 level rebel.
Britney: To get right to it, I’m suffocated by life around
me. I want to break out. I need to be more rebellious. I’m too
tame. Everything is too neat and clean. I want to do something
crazy and new.
Personality Director: (realization) I think I can help you.
I’ve helped reshape history.
Britney: That’s what I’ve heard.
Personality Director: Britney, listen carefully. You need,
you need (slowly) to rage against the machine.
Britney: You mean, like, just do the opposite?
Personality Director: No! No, that’s not what I mean.
Listen carefully. You need to turn the box inside out. Inversions.
Britney: Uh . . . do the opposite?
Personality Director: No, no, you’re not listening. You can
kill the revolutionary, but you can’t kill the revolution. Keep on
rockin’ in the free world.
Britney: Oh, yeah, I get it. Do the opposite.
Personality Director: (to Director Friend ) See. Do you see
this? I can’t do this. No matter what I say.
Britney: What’s wrong?
Director Friend: (to Personality Director) Wait. Come
here. (he whispers in Personality Director’s ear)
Personality Director: (to Director Friend) Okay, good. Yes,
that makes sense. (to Britney) Well, Britney, I’d like you to think
about this: I want you to stop wanting to be a parasite on others.
Don’t live by tearing others down. I want you to be truly
creative. I want you to construct something beautiful, so
beautiful it will take people’s breath away.
Britney: Oooh, yes, like pierce my eyebrow? Most people
“Things to be done” Volume 17/4
31
FOOTNOTES
In Order of Appearance
don’t do that, so I would be doing the opposite.
Personality Director: (to Director Friend) Is it me? Is it
really me?
Director Friend: It’s like a curse. Kinda creepy. No matter
what you say.
Personality Director: (to Britney) Okay, try this. Britney,
what time is it?
Britney: What time is it NOT? (proud)
Director Friend: (to Personality Director) Wow, you’re
hopeless. You’re actually Titanic hopeless. Frog crossing a freeway
hopeless. You need to find a new line of work.
Presbyterion:
1. C. S. Lewis, English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1954), 44.
2. Francis A. Sullivan, From Apostles to Bishops, (Mahwah: Paulist Press,
2001), 221–222.
Ex Libris:
1. Marilynne Robinson, Gilead, (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux,
2004), 137.
2. Ibid, 8.
3. Ibid, 10.
4. Ibid, 246.
Personality Director: Like what? What could I do? I’ve
only got this one skill.
Director Friend: Don’t give in. Let’s think.
Personality Director: I think I’ve got it.
Britney: Me too. I know what you could do.
Personality Director: Uniforms.
Britney: Yes, uniforms! Manufacture uniforms.
Director Friend: Perfect. Yes! Uniforms for rebels. Go on
man. Get out of here. You’ve got it.
Personality Director: Why didn’t I think of this before?
Millions of nonconformists need uniforms. Rebel fashion.
Maybe something hip and urban. It’s never been done.
A Little Help For Our Friends:
Metro Atlanta CREC mission church of Christ Church, Moscow,
Idaho. Committed to historic Reformed liturgy, Covenant
Renewal Worship, Psalm and Hymn Singing, Weekly Communion,
and regular fellowship meals. E-mail contact:
Atlanta.CRECMissionChurch@gmail.com
First Orthodox Presbyterian Church in San Francisco (Charles
McIlhenny, pastor) is currently looking for a full-time pastor for a
mission work they began several years ago. If you itch for the
frontlines, contact Deacon David Gregg, Providence Orthodox
Presbyterian Chapel. Phone: (925)960-1154.
Personality Director runs off stage elated. Director Friend takes seat
where Personality Director sat.
Director Friend: Well, now, that was fun. It feels good to
help people. Now, let’s get back to you, Britney.
Britney: So, are you taking his—
Director Friend: I’ve always wanted his job. I used to
approve neurotic, intellectual, New Yorker types. Talk about a
glut.
Britney: I’m suffocated by life around me. I want to break
out. I’m too tame.
Director Friend: Well, now, let me think. How about —
hear me out now — are you adventurous? How about just doing
the opposite?
Britney: Wow, you are good.
__________
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“Things to be believed” Volume 17/4
Fred’s Word Study
While not unknown to English-speaking people,
the word diaspora is Greek, meaning “scattering” or
“dispersion.” It originally was used to describe the
scattering of the Jews to countries outside of Palestine
after the Babylonian captivity. When Jesus told the Jews
they would seek him but not find him, they asked each
other, “Does he intend to go to the diaspora among the
Greeks?” (John 6:35). Diaspora is also used to describe
the scattering of Christians: “There arose in that day a
great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and
all were diesparesan throughout the regions of Judea
and Samaria except the apostles” (Acts 8:1). “The ones
who were diasparentes because of the tribulation over
Stephen went about as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus
and Antioch speaking the word to no one but Jews
only” (Acts 11:19). “James, a bondservant of God and
of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes in the
diaspora: Greetings” (James 1:1).
MEANDER
Mundane Texts
Douglas Wilson
Grapes the Size of Softballs
The apostle Paul resolved to know nothing but Christ and
Him crucified (1 Cor. 1: 22–24). I grew up in a tradition
that interpreted this as requiring a simple gospel message
every Sunday. So every seven days, the faithful saints
gathered, and heard a message explaining to them how
they could become Christians. And then an invitation to go
forward was given. Needless to say, the sermons traveled
in a well-worn groove. If preaching Christ, or preaching
the gospel, means a proclamation of how to become a
Christian, and that is all it means, there are only so many
ways to do this.
Early in my ministry I determined that it was necessary to preach from the entire Bible, and not just from
John 3:16 and its close cousins. This meant preaching
through Zechariah, and Deuteronomy, and Proverbs, and
so on. And yet, the apostolic comment was still there. The
Bible talks about a large number of things, and if the
preacher addresses them all, then how is he preaching
“Christ and him crucified”? Some challenging examples
would be the prohibition of co-signing a note in Proverbs
(Prov. 11:15), dealing with running discharge in Leviticus
(Lev. 15:13), and trying to figure out what the heck a
parbar is (1 Chron. 26:18).
Some within the Reformed tradition have tried to
solve this problem by making every text into a launching
pad, from which we may eventually get to Christ. This is
described as “preaching Christ.” Not every town in the
United States is New York, but I can start from any town
in the U.S. and get to New York. But what this does is turn
every text into a pretext. However well-intentioned it is,
this attempt to get to Christ from everywhere overlooks a
key element of how Christ comes to us in Scripture. We
don’t need to get to Christ from any point in Scripture; He
is everywhere already. Christ is the end of the law, to
everyone who believes. The faithful preacher does not see
Christ from the law, there in the distance. Faith sees Christ
in the law.
Faith sees Christ in every scriptural truth, in every
passage, in every story, in every proverb, in every law—
taken as such. Christ is near us, in our mouths, and in our
hearts. This means, not to put too fine a point on it, that
when confronted with a text that is as practical as mashed
potatoes—like the ones in Proverbs about rotating your
tires or changing your oil every three thousand miles—we
should not start with such a text, and work the message
around to the point where we see Christ as the “tires” that
will take us to heaven when we die. Christ is far greater
than our personal salvation. Christ is Lord of heaven and
earth, and everything in between. Such a text should
confront us with the fact that we do not yet see Christ in
the most mundane of our duties. But Jesus is Lord, and He
is Lord of all. The mundane texts are not Mount Pisgah
from which we view the promised land. Every mundane
text, treated honestly for what it is, is another square foot
in the promised land. And even in the law, in the proverbs,
in the stories, the grapes of Eschol are the size of softballs.
An Honor to Walk Away
We learn from Proverbs that it is an honor for a man to
cease from strife (Prov. 20:3). This is one of many
examples in Scripture that show how the wisdom of God is
180 degrees out from the wisdom of man. In how many
fruitless quarrels have participants refused to back down
from the strife because they are too proud to do so? In
other words, they believe that honor dictates that they
remain in the strife, and that to bow out of it would
constitute dishonor. But the Bible teaches us the very
reverse of this. To cease from strife is an honor, and
consequently should be honored by us.
Of course, proverbs are general truths and we should
not absolutize them. We are grateful that Athanasius did
not bow out of the stife created by Arius, and that Paul
was a godly apostle who stood up to the vacillations of
Peter. At the same time, what we need to do with this
scriptural teaching is apply it where God intended for it to
be applied. In how many marital quarrels between a
Christian husband and wife are we dealing with an
Athanasius/Arius situation? Not very many.
Calling It
Recently finished an interesting read by Garrison Keillor
called The Book of Guys. In that book, one remark he made
in passing is worth quoting. “Liberals like Curt were kind
and loving to strangers, at least theoretically, and full of
warm feeling for abstract entities such as The Poor and
The Oppressed and The Minority, but liberals are hard as
nails on their loved ones, preaching at them and holding
them to impossible standards, perpetually shocked and
disappointed by the flawed humanity of their flesh and
blood. Liberals love a crowd, from a distance, and they
treat their families like s***.”
“Things to be done” Volume 17/4
33
COUNTERPOINT
Peter Jennings
Interviewed by Aaron Rench
Before the death of Mr. Peter Jennings, C/A’s Aaron Rench
met with him and began an interview that they were to
continue by correspondence. This is that unfinished interview.
C/A: You have commented about the specials you’ve
done and how they show your pervasive interest in religion.
Do you think that modern journalism generally captures that
aspect of life?
PJ: No. I think I’ve said this before so there’s nothing
original. I think that anybody who is as interested in religion as
I am, who tries to cover it as I have at ABC for a long time (I
have background in the Muslim world, have seen Christianity
at work) will come to realize how religion, faith, spirituality,
intersect with our lives in just so many ways. I remember
watching television the first day I came back from overseas
and some guy scored a goal, and before I knew it, he was on
his knees thanking someone. And I realized right away that
here’s a story that we need to be covering more. I can’t
understand why, to be honest, religion is a very uncomfortable
subject for people in the newsroom. Again, I realize I will
offend somebody. I will offend some people, but it is my, in
part, deeply philosophical, deeply spiritual conviction. Those
of us in journalism like facts, or what we describe as facts.
They’re very easy. So, no, I don’t think we do a very good job
of it. I’m very happy that my company has supported me in
doing as much as we have. It’s pretty unusual for a reporter to
get three hours of primetime to do Jesus and Paul, and we
had a fabulous reaction to it with very good ratings. It’s very
encouraging, proving again to me that religion is deeply
interesting to people.
C/A: You also have said that the story of the Gospels is a
wonderful, terrific, fascinating story. Why do you think that?
PJ: That’s a good question. Well, I suppose that I’ve
come to one conclusion after having lived in a region, in some
respects, having seen Christianity at its roots and having seen
the power of Christianity and other religions at work for many
years. Again, I realize I’m going to insult some people who do
not believe that one should interpret the New Testament, but
it’s stunning to me that during the first century, there were
many religious sects, many people who believed that they
were the second coming, and only one survived. Very often
history tells us, that in the first century when the leader of the
sect disappeared, was executed, or killed, or something, the
sect also entirely disappeared. And when Jesus was executed—according to the Bible—in Jerusalem and disappeared, one would have thought the movement would have
disappeared. But then it reemerges and 200 years later it’s the
34
“Things to be believed” Volume 17/4
official religion of the Roman Empire. I find that an absolutely
staggering story. And when I ask scholars and historians their
view of the resurrection, many people answer the question
simply believing in the reality of the resurrection, other people
believe in it metaphorically, other people believe it’s an actual
process. But I remember one historian saying to me, “something must have happened.” And for me that simply added to
the notion of this as, to use the cliché, one of the greatest
stories ever told. Does that answer your question?
C/A: Yes, sir.
PJ: What I refer to as the intersection of religion in daily
life—I mean, I was doing stories on prison wings for
Christians, Islam and the military, and we just did one story
after the other for several years there about things people
never expected, religion in that particular context. That’s what
I mean by “It’s a great story.” You don’t have to be a seeker
or a follower, or anything else. I think any good reporter can
cover religion and find it exciting, though I’ve had a hard time
finding reporters to do it.
C/A: Do you think that the tone of modern journalism
paints the world as a deadly serious place, or as a more playful
place?
PJ: The world is both. I think that a lot of people in the
country have missed this sort of nation of people out there to
whom religion is so important. I think the Passion of the
Christ—which I assume you’ve seen?
C/A: I haven’t. But I want to.
PJ: Well, you should. It’s an extraordinary experience.
But the nature of the popularity of the Passion of the Christ has
just revealed one more time this deep interest that people
have in the subject, particularly the Passion.
C/A: Thank you very much.
We like money.
Viewers like you make us
possible. Reach out and touch
our hearts, but gently. John
Robbins broke them.
Let the healing begin.
Subscribe or Donate to C/A
online.
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