Entries from July 2008 ↓

So, what do you think about the proposals to to lower the national speed limit to 55 m.p.h. as a way to save gasoline and thus lower prices?

The Russian Orthodox church is calling on the Russian government to denounce communism. OK, it’s a little late, but good on them.

In studying the different theological positions relating Christianity and culture, I find the Orthodox church to be something of a puzzle. It doesn’t seem to fit any of the major categories (culture above the church; church above culture; church separated from the culture; culture and church as distinct kingdoms under God). I asked an orthodox acquaintance who told me that the position of his church is to have monks who withdraw from the culture in order to pray for the culture. That’s a good answer, but it re-enforced my impression that the Christianity of the East is rather passive before the world, submitting to whatever regime it finds itself in but keeping alive an entirely separate spiritual existence. That means Christianity has not been as influential in the cultures of the East (though how could it have been given its domination by Islam and absolutist Czars). At its worse, though, the church sometimes collaborates with those regimes, giving spiritual sanction to the excesses of the Czars and even allowing itself to be infiltrated and used by the Soviets. I do salute the Orthodox Christians who have undergone persecution and martyrdom of their faith, including, arguably, members of the Russian royal family whose remains were discovered recently and confirmed last week.

The Western church, in contrast, both in its Catholic and its Protestant varieties, has always been activist and culture-shaping Even the separatist groups have defined themselves over and against the prevailing culture. This too has sometimes been to a fault.

I know some of you readers are Orthodox or Orthophiles (is that a word? if not, we need to coin it). I’d be glad to learn if this is a correct understanding or if I am missing something.

(I recall that I asked this before on this blog, but I still have questions.)

Here is what I was referring to in my coffee post: Calvin’s doctrine of vocation tends to emphasize working for the glory of God. That CAN result in doing things in isolation, a perfectionism that can be seen as “doing something for God,” possibly degenerating into a kind of work righteousness (as opposed to “works righteousness”). It CAN degenerate into scorn and ill-treatment of those human beings who are actually around us, resenting family members or customers for getting in the way of our work.

Luther, on the other hand, emphasized that vocation does not presume to serve God; rather, it serves our neighbor. Actually, God Himself serves our neighbor through our hands when we work in our callings. Thus, the focus in vocation must always be on the neighbor whom we are to love and serve.

Of course, we are to both glorify God and serve our neighbors, not playing these off against each other. The way God commands us to glorify Him is precisely to love and serve our neighbors, so these are not really in opposition. And, as was said, loving and serving our neighbor should include giving him the very best we can, and not just fulfilling him his possibly unworthy desires.

Right, we don’t know whether or not the barista in question is a Christian whose obsession with excellence was motivated by a desire to glorify God. I have, however, known Christians who pursued their work out of a religious motive but without regard of their neighbors. Also, there is no reason why Luther’s emphasis could not be shared by someone of some other theology, though his notion that God usually works through means–and ordinary, physical means at that–might not be accepted by hyperspiritual theologies.

More thoughts on coffee and on the bigger issues of vocation and striving for excellence. Consider this article on really, really good coffee houses:

Lana Labermeier, who opened Big Bear Cafe in the Bloomingdale neighborhood of Northwest Washington in June 2007, shares Gwathmey’s attention to detail. Tables and couches at this cozy neighborhood spot are filled night and day with computer-toting regulars who come for the coffee, take up residence because of the Wi-Fi and stay for the day, enjoying the artfully prepared, if simple, hot and cold sandwiches.

Labermeier, 27, who also buys beans from Counter Culture, exudes a laid-back friendliness, but her standards regarding coffee and all things culinary are unbending. She doesn’t stock artificial sweeteners, for example, and finds sugar unnecessary. “Our milk is sweet, and our coffee isn’t bitter, so give it a try without sugar,” she says.

She offers only whole milk; no skinny lattes in her cafe. She is also adamant that the biggest brewed coffee she serves is 16 ounces. She won’t serve 20-ounce coffees, for reasons that she preferred not to discuss for fear that they would make her sound “snobby.”

“A beautiful coffee ought to be savored,” she said.

Customers do not always appreciate such purism. At Arlington’s Murky Coffee, another Counter Culture outlet with a fanatical commitment to quality, a brouhaha erupted last week after a barista refused a customer’s request for a triple espresso served over ice, saying ice would undermine the integrity of the drink. The fight escalated, epithets were uttered, and customer Jeff Simmermon wrote about the dust-up on his blog ( http://www.andiamnotlying.com), which got 100,000 hits in less than a week; owner Nicholas Cho wrote about this tempest in a coffee cup on Murky’s Web site, too.

Purism might make some customers angry, but it can pay off in the cup.

You perhaps heard of the brouhaha–make that brewhaha–that erupted in the blogosphere over that customer who ranted and raved on his blog about how that barista refused his request for ice in his espresso. Let us consider this issue and these examples of purists in their coffee-making in light of the doctrine of vocation.

I happen to admire these artists of coffee who keep the integrity of their work and the quality of their product instead of selling out to commercialism and consumerism. On the other hand, I think this may provide for a good example of the difference between the Reformed approach to vocation and the Lutheran approach. Does one make coffee (or do whatever it is you do) to the glory of God [the Reformed view]? Or to love and serve your neighbor [the Lutheran view]? Do you see the difference that is going to make?

The notable Christian thinker Peter Leithhart has written an essay entitled Why Evangelicals Can’t Write on the difficulty evangelicals seem to have in writing good fiction. It all comes down, according to Leithart, to the colloquy at Marburg where Zwingli rejected Luther’s affirmation of the Real Presence of Christ in the Sacrament. Leithart, who is Reformed and not Lutheran, sees Zwingli’s split between reality and meaning as having huge consequences for the Protestant imagination. You need to read the whole essay, but here is an excerpt:

Blame it on Marburg. More precisely: Blame it on Zwingli. A Zwinglian poetics leaves us with three choices: Either a flat mimetic realism that gives literary expression to “the real” without attempting to penetrate beyond the surface; or a flat didacticism that ignores the real in its haste to get to the point; or an allegorism that forges arbitrary links between the real and the symbolic, and in the end swallows up the real in its meaning. (Mr. By-Ends, Mr. Worldly-Wiseman, Faithful, and Hopeful are mere symbols, silhouettes of characters rather than characters.) Although, to give Bunyan his due, he was here following a typical (and very Catholic) medieval pattern in literature, while adding the astounding innovation of homely and realistic dialog. Nevertheless, the cardboard charactizations strike us the way they do for a reason.

In a Zwinglian poetics, things cannot be both themselves and also—simultaneously, without ceasing to be what they are, for the very reason they are what they are—something else. Zwinglian will not permit something to be both real and symbolic, to be both wholly itself and yet, because of what it is, to disclose something more than itself. Zwinglian poetics does not permit Southern customs to be Southern customs and yet, precisely because they are Southern customs, to be haunted by Christ.

The renewal of literature, like the renewal of the world, begins in worship. The renewal of literature, like the renewal of the world, begins from the pulpit, to be sure. But the pulpit will renew literature only when it is nestled where it should be nestled, between the font and the table.

Leithhart contrasts this split of the imagination with Roman Catholic and Anglican authors who do have a sense of the sacramental.

A Zwinglian could counter, OK, so where are all of the great writers on the other side of Marburg, the Lutheran authors? Well, we would have to go to Germany and, especially, Scandinavia, where I suspect there are some good ones. Bo Giertz. Hans Christian Andersen? Most of us English speakers are oblivious to authors in different languages. Our own Lars Walker, who is a good novelist himself, might alert us to some. In English, Walter Wangerin is a fine writer, and his work has far more of the tangible universe than many other contemporary Christian authors from other traditions.

HT: Scott Stiegemeyer, who offers some of his own insights on the subject.

I do not understand the contention that “doctrine divides.” In what sense is a church body whose members believe different things unified? It seems to me that doctrine is precisely what can unify different people and personalities into one community. Otherwise, what do you have? When the unity is based on people, what you end up with is homogeneity of personality, socio-economic class, age demographic, and superficial affinities. You end up with people that you “like”; but what is the virtue in that? What about being unified with people you don’t like or who are different from you? The Bible’s model in 1 Corinthians is that the church should be diverse in all of these worldly ways but unified in a common faith in Christ.

The Anglican tradition allowed for diversity–or vagueness–of belief, as long as everyone followed the same form of worship, namely, the liturgy of the Book of Common Prayer. Thus, worship became the basis for unity. That hasn’t worked all that well, but what about when the congregation is not agreed on how to worship, or, as is often the case today, features several different styles, with members choosing which one to go to. So how is that unity?

It seems to me that a congregation that splits because of disagreements is going from disunity to unity. The dissensions within the congregation keep it from being unified. But when the members form two congregations, each enjoys a greater amount of unity than was experienced before.

All true Christians already ARE unified in Christ. This is a spiritual reality, not something that needs to be worked for, but already in existence, to be appreciated now and fully known in eternity. We are all members of the Church Universal. Why isn’t that enough? We don’t HAVE to belong to the same particular congregations. Efforts to incarnate the Church Universal in an earthly institution do not seem to work very well in this fallen world. In the meantime, we can appreciate our spiritual unity with all of our fellow Christians–as well as the different kinds of unity we share with our fellow citizens and our fellow human beings–while benefiting from the special unity that can exist when diverse individuals have the same bond of a common belief in their churches.

Just some of my thoughts on that “basis of picking a church” post.

Richard Cohen asks why people get tattoos (which 40% of 26-40 year olds have) and, after showing how styles and commitments keep changing, poses a theory and an application:

I asked a college professor what she thought of tattoos, and she said that for young people, they represent permanence in an ever-changing world. But how is that possible? Anyone old enough and smart enough to get into college knows that only impermanence is permanent. Everything changes — including, sweetie, that tight tummy with its “look at me!” tattoo. Time will turn it into false advertising.

The permanence of the moment — the conviction that now is forever — explains what has happened to the American economy. We are, as a people, deeply in debt. We are, as a nation, deeply in debt. The average American household owes more than its yearly income. We save almost nothing (0.4 percent of disposable income) and spend almost everything (99.6 percent of disposable income) in the hope that tomorrow will be a lot like today. We bought homes we could not afford and took out mortgages we could not pay and whipped out the plastic on everything else. Debts would be due in the future, but, with any luck, the future would remain in the future.

Is that it, that tattoos reflect “the permanence of the moment,” or the attempt to make the moment permanent? I suspect that among the readers here, some of you fall within the tattooed 40%. I am curious about what the attraction is to having your body all carved up with needles to make a picture on your body. I’m not criticizing you. I’d just like to know the meaning of tattoos.

Anne Applebaum writes about the textbooks that Saudi Arabia uses and sends free to Islamic schools around the world. Here is a multiple choice question from a textbook on Islam and jurisprudence:

Q. “Is belief true in the following instances:

(a) A man prays but hates those who are virtuous.

(b) A man professes that there is no deity other than God but loves the unbelievers.

(c) A man worships God alone, loves the believers, and hates the unbelievers.”

The correct answer, of course, is (c): According to the Wahhabi imams who wrote this textbook, it isn’t enough to simply worship God or just to love other believers; it is important to hate unbelievers, too. By the same token, (b) is wrong as well: Even a man who worships God cannot be said to have “true belief” if he also loves unbelievers.

“Unbelievers,” in this context, are Christians and Jews. In fact, any child who attends Saudi schools until ninth grade will eventually be taught outright that “Jews and Christians are enemies of believers.” They will also be taught that Jews conspire to “gain sole control over the world,” that the Christian crusades never ended, and that on Judgment Day “the rocks or the trees” will call out to Muslims to kill Jews.

This, by the way, is from the new edition that was revised to downplay Muslim extremism.

See Presumed Presidential Nominees McCain and Obama to Make First Joint Campaign Appearance on August 16 at Saddleback Church. Note too about the “interfaith” gathering. What do you think the megachurch version of Christian political activism will be?

Charles Krauthammer has written a devastating column about Brack Obama’s pretensions. An excerpt:

Obama is a three-year senator without a single important legislative achievement to his name, a former Illinois state senator who voted “present” nearly 130 times. As president of the Harvard Law Review, as law professor and as legislator, has he ever produced a single notable piece of scholarship? Written a single memorable article? His most memorable work is a biography of his favorite subject: himself.

It is a subject upon which he can dilate effortlessly. In his victory speech upon winning the nomination, Obama declared it a great turning point in history — “generations from now we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment” — when, among other wonders, “the rise of the oceans began to slow.” As economist Irwin Stelzer noted in his London Daily Telegraph column, “Moses made the waters recede, but he had help.” Obama apparently works alone.

Obama may think he’s King Canute, but the good king ordered the tides to halt precisely to refute sycophantic aides who suggested that he had such power. Obama has no such modesty.

After all, in the words of his own slogan, “we are the ones we’ve been waiting for,” which, translating the royal “we,” means: “I am the one we’ve been waiting for.” Amazingly, he had a quasi-presidential seal with its own Latin inscription affixed to his podium, until general ridicule — it was pointed out that he was not yet president — induced him to take it down. . . .

His wife assures us that President Obama will be a stern taskmaster: “Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism … that you come out of your isolation. … Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.”

For the first few months of the campaign, the question about Obama was: Who is he? The question now is: Who does he think he is?

From Claudia Roden’s “Coffee: A Connoisseur’s Companion” by way of John Baruch:

In Italy it was the priests who appealed to Pope Clement VIII to have the use of coffee forbidden among Christians.  Satan, they said, had forbidden his followers, the infidel Moslems, the use of wine because it was used in the Holy Communion, and given them instead his “hellish black brew.”  It seems the Pope liked the drink, for his reply was: “Why, this Satan’s drink is so delicious that it would be a pity to let the infidels have exclusive use of it.  We shall cheat Satan by baptizing it.”  Thus coffee was declared a truly Christian beverage by a farsighted Pope (p. 14).

HT: In Light of the Gospel

This weekend I talked with someone whom I think highly of who told me all of the different churches he has been a member of. At various times, depending on where he has lived, he has attended Presbyterian, Anglican, Bible, Evangelical Covenant, Campbellite, Christian Missionary Alliance, non-denominational, and house churches.

Whereas for me (even before I became a Lutheran), the criteria for which church I joined had to do with what it believed. For him–and I suspect there are a great many like him, possibly a majority of evangelicals–the criteria has to do with the people in the different congregations, the kind of “fellowship” they experience and whether they like the pastor. Theology is something held by the individual, with these different churches being more or less OK with whatever the individual member believes, within a few parameters, so that these churches today assert few theological distinctives for themselves.

According to the Lutheran mindset, the heart of a church body, the basis of fellowship, and the definition of unity must be its confession. Whereas for much of American Christianity, fellowship and unity are the heart of a church body, which allows for diverse confessions.