a little theological reflection

All right, I'm gonna stick my neck out here and offer a little of what I've been reading again this morning. By way of explanation the thoughts in the following paragraph were part of a spiritual search I was on a number of years ago. As a teen I began reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Karl Barth's name kept popping up. When my wife and I moved to Chicago I had more study time on my hands and I began mining our huge library downtown of its Bonhoeffer collection. One day I stumbled on this book After Fundamentalism by Bernard Ramm and it was like finding a key to the prison of so many of my doubts about what I believed, the chief issue being Apologetics. My spiritual awakening took place in the late 1980s and at the time Apologetics and Evangelism were joined at the hip. I may be wrong but I suspect that the vast majority of Evangelicals are still so situated. But when I read Hume, Voltaire and Neitzche, and took their positions seriously, I realized that Apologetics so situated with Evangelism just doesn't work. Its an obfuscation of the Enlightenment. Ramm calls it obscurantism. Now this is not to try to shatter Thomas Aquinas or the classic arguments for God's existence. Its simply to say that to think that reason forms the basis for Evangelism is to not see the big picture. America has nearly 230 years of experience with Evangelicalism. To say that Christianity is the only reasonable choice is to claim that all rational arguments in opposition are denying the obvious. To me that is not a conversation starter. Well my lead-in is now longer than the quote:

"One of Barth's basic presuppositions with reference to the truth of the Christian faith is that if something external to the Word of God is necessary to establish the Word of God as true, then it is greater than the Word of God. He states this in many ways and in many contexts. Or, one could say that it is a very weak Word of God that needs external supports. Barth's maxim is that what establishes is greater than what is established. But there can be nothing greater than the Word of God. Therefore the Word of God establishes itself. If the lion needs gophers and rabbits to announce his kingship, then the lion is no longer king of the beasts. Barth takes as axiomatic that it would be very strange if Christian could believe the faith only if there were external assurances for it. If Christianity is tested for truth, then the test is greater than Christianity."
[from Bernard Ramm, After Fundamentalism: The Future of Evangelicalism, Harper & Row, 1983., pg. 61.]

To me Lee Strobel is the case in point here. His maxim (with his books The Case for Christ, The Case for a Creator, and his TV show on Pax ) all claim to want to dialogue with Mainstream America. Instead what he does is misrepresent all opposing views, tell the reader or viewer what he believes they want to hear (his opinion) and then draw a straight line from his point of view to Jesus. His testimony is that of having been a liberal radical atheist who wanted to attack Christ to becoming a far right wing conservative because of the facts. I surmise there's more to his story. This is the essence of Apologetics and Evangelism gone wrong. To me what is really being said is: "If Christianity can't be made to suit an agenda (mine) then it can't be true." I say that any real survey of worldwide Christianity shows that Jesus is much too colorful and influential for different reasons than to be fit into any one person's box.

Ok, with all of that said, there are many good and honest folks involved in Apologetics and Evangelism. And Karl Barth's deemphasis of Apologetics was quite honestly his own form of bias due to his background.  Political conservatives coopting the Apologetic conversation form no final reason to completely disregard a place for Apologetics. CS Lewis is a great example of a Lay apologist as is Josef Pieper. Various contemporary Christian philosophers all do a good job. But I think even these would shy away from claiming an epistemology (how we come to faith) that is all encompassing.

Choosing Not to Cuss

On Choosing not to Cuss:

Does it really offend you Holy Spirit when four letter words fall off my
lips? Why? Is it because you're so easily offended and moralistic? Is it
because you're too good for me? Does the music I listen to offend you
because it is not Praise? Is your favorite station WMBI? Are you
offended by all the rest? Holy Spirit are you too holy for all of us
here in Chicago? Is Benny Hinn really your kind of man? Why are you not
offended by his greeting every morning? ("Good Morning, Holy Spirit" was
an old book by him.)

These questions reveal a bit of bitterness in me, its true. Why this
rash of interrogation? Because I've been wrestling lately with the
question of profanity. I don't cuss because it doesn't suit me. But
profanity reveals a deep anger and bitterness in me that is very close
to my heart. That's scary to be sure. But how else can the fear and the
rage be pronounced? Its how my neighbors express themselves and I find
it tempting. Less sinful than smoking or drinking or whoring to be sure.
Its only tempting deep inside me.

Holy Spirit I know you're not too dainty for my world. Not too quaint,
not too small. I offend you because you love me. My faith I fear is
quaint, dainty, small, maybe even handicapped. You are strong and bold.
You cut through all the crap to the real me. You are no doubt offended
not by the language but by the force inherent in the ribold rejection of
your Ways. The language reveals the bitterness. And so, as I do every
day. I surrender my emotions Father God, Jesus Lover of my soul, Sweet
Holy Spirit. I am broken. You are the cure. Have your way with me. I
choose not to cuss. I surrender. Because you are strong. I am the weak
one. Cussing is a false armor for my conceit. A false armor for the fear
and rage. It makes me sound big, creates a front which does not suit me.
Christ be between me and all others this day. Between me and the words I
speak. Christ you are the only Significance.

gonna tell stories

I'm burning a disc of my favorites from "Down to the Promised Land," an
old compilation of artists on Blood Shot Records here in Chicago.

Just to demonstrate how weird I am, I'm also peering at "Myth and
Christianity" a paperback copy dated 1958, by Karl Jaspers and Rudolf
Bultmann. I collect these kind of books and surround my writing space
with them.

Now I forgot what I was gonna say. Somebody just called me and I can't
return to what I was gonna right about. I hate it when that happens.
Thanks a lot Michael. Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Oh yeah:

I'm in a place of limbo in my life right now. But I've always been in
limbo and that's what I want to write about. I'm 31 at this writing. I'm
ten years married with three little kids. I've got work that really
interests me and friends (and a lover in my wife) like I've never had in
my life. That's a lot to be thankful for and as good a place to
recollect as any. Edward Siad wrote a book called "Out of Place" during
a time in his life when he thought he'd be dying soon. The book is
wonderfully mundane to me in many ways. As a professor of English and
Comparative Lit at Columbia University and as perhaps this generation's
most well know and vocal American Palestinian or Palestinian Expatriate
you'd think his memoir would surround his political coming of age. But
in a beautiful way he just told the truth about his boring childhood.
Well I'm not near as interesting as Edward Said to so many people. But
someday I'm gonna lasso my story (lasso?, yes country music does that!)
and tell it.

It'll be full of crazy stories about a guy a knew trying to kill a roach
that crawled into his ear with a Qtip.

Another about a guy taking a big swig of piss that had mysteriously
found its way into the refrigerator. Now that's a story. I can imagine
my six year old girl's reaction to that one. I'd never live that down.

Calling my dad out off of a construction site to tell him if he's gonna
vent on my wife-to-be he's gotta go through me. Then telling him he is
downright evil.

Picking up a sledge hammer and smashing a watermelon off of my friend's
head because I think he's acting too stupid. Getting angry at him the
same way my dad did at me that month previous.

The shock of learning the following week that that friend died in a car
accident. The shame of never being able to say sorry.

Lots of stories. Too little time to tell them now.

Been readin' lately

Well Alright I've been book tagged by Blue Christian Jon and now with an obnoxious glare I'm going to admit to what I've been reading lately. Now I read for different reasons. Some books like The Man Called Cash by Steve Turner I read for sheer pleasure. Then I walk around boring everybody with my knowledge of the odd doings of a personal hero and legend but nevertheless old and now dead guy, Johnny Cash. If I were my son I'd think I was strange, but that's another story.

I recently prided myself in finishing On Love from Faith, Hope, Love by Josef Pieper. It makes up more than half the book. Faith and Hope take up like 40 pages each but Love must be closer to 140 pages. I counted the other night but now I can't remember. Anyway, there's reading and then there's READING and Pieper makes you feel every page. If you don't know Josef Pieper I'll just say he's a classically trained Thomist whom I really enjoy. I began with his book Abuse of Language, Abuse of Power which a Catholic friend gave me years ago. Well it was so timely and well put that I asked Jon about Pieper's book on Eros that he'd mentioned was so good. [The first self-proclaimed Thomist I encountered scared me to death. I was studying in the St. Louis public library on Locust and this Aquinas student just kept bringing photocopies of books and laying them beside me telling me to read. And I kept going from floor to floor trying to hide until he'd find me and say "check this out" until I finally said "I'm not interested please stop!" But I digress. ] Pieper's fresh introduction to Aquinas and Classical thought makes me want more and more. Though I'm full for a while with On Love thank you very much. I ordered Pieper's The Four Cardinal Virtues to sell at the Fest on the advice of a trusted friend here. I've got to buy a copy of Faith Hope and Love soon so I can mark up my copy of On Love and use it in some memoirs someday. There's a lot of clarification of what Love is and isn't that I've never seen hashed out anywhere else. I did read Lewis' The Four Loves and Pieper quotes him a lot. But Pieper quotes all the important writers, philosophers, theologians, and pundits of love from the 20th century and then sits back and profoundly lets it all make sense, or sometimes make questions. Either way I really had fun. There should be a quote somewhere about how some folks like me can't really understand things unless they're explained in little forty page philosopho-speaks by guys with German names. Then after sheepishly agreeing with whoever gave the quote I'd swear never to be like that in real life.

I've been skipping around through The Secular City by Harvey Cox. The chapter on sex was very good for the most part. Boy that sounds weird. Just picked up The Technological Society by Jacques Ellul two days ago and I'm heading into chapter two. Its one of those books I just start nibbling into thinking "there's no way I'm really gonna finish this." And then I just keep reading and reading cuz its good.

The book that has become my life lately is titled (today):
From Tannenbaums to Handel's Messiah: A Chicago Christmas by Jim Benes (to be released in the fall of 2005). If you've seen Chicago Christmas, this is the revised and expanded version. I told Jim a few months back while peering over the stacks of papers and photos that filled the 4x10' table "Man, I feel like I'm entrusted with your life's work." To which he replied "Oh please, its just a hobby gone awry." I laughed. Then I hung up and cried over the work to be done.

books I'm not reading: The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren, The Case for a Creator by Lee Strobel, The Left Behind Series by Lahaye and Jenkins, Your Best Life Now by Joel Osteen.

That's what you get for book-tagging me.

Here's the List of Books I'm bringing down to Cornerstone Festival this year. In addition to money for CDs and Tshirts please bring money for lots of good books! By buying these books and used books you'll be supporting the good work of this good-little-nonprofit-that-could. Shameless merchandising. Shameless. I'm shameless. Cuz I still wouldn't mind working here next year. One foot in front of the other.

Asterisks are next to books you get 15% off for if you say you are attending that seminar.

Speaker Books, Course Related Material, Generally Good Reading

A Long Obedience in the Same Direction - Petersen, Eugene
Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on - Miller, Donald
*Bravehearts: Unlocking the Courage to Lo - Hersh, Sharon A.
Breaking Free: Understanding Sexual Addiction and the healing power of Jesus - Willingham, Russell
*Death Comes for the Archbishop - Cather, Willa
*Denial of Death - Becker, Ernest
Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Spoke in the Wheel - Wind, Renate
Field Guide to Narnia - Duriez, Colin
Four Cardinal Virtues - Pieper, Josef
Four Loves - Lewis, C. S.
*Generous Orthodoxy: Why I Am a Missional etc. - McLaren, Brian D.
God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It - Wallis, Jim
Gospel According to America: A Meditatio - Dark, David
Into the Region of Awe - Downing, David C.
*Last Word and the Word After That: A Tal - McLaren, Brian D.
Life You Save May Be Your Own: An Americ - Elie, Paul
Long Loneliness - Day, Dorothy
Mere Christianity (HarperCollins) - Lewis, C. S.
*Mom, I Hate My Life!: Becoming Your Daug - Hersh, Sharon A.
Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose - O'Connor, Flannery
*New Kind of Christian: A Tale of Two Fri - McLaren, Brian D.
*Pensees (Revised) - Pascal, Blaise
*Propaganda - Ellul, Jacques
Real Sex: The Naked Truth about Chastity - Winner, Lauren F.
*Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of H - Nouwen, Henri J. M.
Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience: W - Sider, Ronald J.
Screwtape Letters - Lewis, C. S.
Searching for God Knows What - Miller, Donald
*Story We Find Ourselves in: Further Adve - McLaren, Brian D.
Subversive Orthodoxy: Outlaws, Revolutio - Inchausti, Robert
Under the Overpass: A Journey of Faith o - Yankoski, Mike
*Anarchy and Christianity - Ellul, Jacques
Christian Wisdom of the Jedi Masters - Staub, Dick
Girl Meets God: On the Path to a Spiritu - Winner, Lauren F.
I Loved a Girl: A Private Correspondence - Trobisch, Walter
Living Like Jesus: Eleven Essentials for - Sider, Ronald J.
*Singleness of Heart: Restoring the Divid - Williams, Clifford
Subversion of Christianity - Ellul, Jacques
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe- CS Lewis
Three by Flannery O'Connor: Wise Blood/T - O'Connor, Flannery
Tolkien Reader - Tolkien, J. R. R.
*Works of Love - Kierkegaard, Soren
*Life of the Mind: A Christian Perspectiv - Williams, Clifford
*Purity of Heart: Is to Will One Thing - Kierkegaard, Soren
Signposts in a Strange Land: Essays - Percy, Walker

Cornerstone Press Titles

Growing With My Garden: Thoughts on Tending the Soil and the Soul - Rolland Hein
Hammers & Nails: The Life and Music of Mark Heard - Matthew Dickerson
C.S. Lewis: Mere Christian - Kathryn Lindskoog
The Harmony Within: The Spiritual Vision of George MacDonald - Rolland Hein
Christian Mythmakers, 2nd Edition- Rolland Hein
Flannery O'Connor: A Proper Scaring - Jill Peláez Baumgaertner
Finding The Landlord: A Guidebook to C.S. Lewis's Pilgrim's Regress - Kathryn Lindskoog
Wind of the Journey: Poems - Irina Ratushinskaya
*The Responsibility of the Christian Musician - Glenn Kaiser
More Like the Master: A Christian Musician's Reader - Kaiser, Card, Peacock, et al
Selah: A Guide to Music in the Bible - Donald Thiessen
The Double Vision of Star Trek: Half-Humans, Evil Twins, and Science Fiction - Mike Hertenstein
Selling Satan: The Evangelical Media and the Mike Warnke Scandal - Mike Hertenstein and Jon Trott
Orphan Girl: The Memoir of a Chicago Bag Lady - Marie James, as told to Jane Hertenstein
Home is Where We Live: Life at a Shelter Through a Young Girl's Eyes
Organic Faith: A Call to Authentic Christianity - Ron Mitchell
Dinosaur Journal: Making Sense of a Young Son's Death - Curtiss Mortimer
My Son, My Brother, My Friend: A Novel Letters - Dale C. Willard
Beyond Belief: Cartoon Confessions of Faith - Roger Judd

The Sacrosanct Mind

Jon Trott needs to link to my blog  from his blog right now!!! bluechristian.blogspot.com


It occured to me this morning lying in bed that of the things I value most in life, my mind is the greatest. Now if you asked me whether I considered myself a truly smart person, an intellectual or an artist, I would be embarrassed to reply "Yes." But I do spend most of my valuable time in mental exercise. I love reading five or six books at a time. With this activity comes the very real threat of information overload and very little control over what goes through my mind. An athlete these days spends a considerable amount of time suiting up and/or toning up so as to protect him/herself from injury. In the mental realm as a believer in Christ I have the Word of God to protect my mind. Now all of this sounds very basic, even fundamentalist. This idea was drilled into me from childhood. But this morning when the thought of "Take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ" came to me, I realized that somehow I value any thought for my ability to think it, for my freedom to think it, and don't see a need to take  it captive. Captive sounds like such a militant dominating kind of thing. Thoughts are just thoughts right? I mean thoughts are harmless, they come and go. Why would I need to take them captive?

Here are the verses in question:

2 Cor. 10:2  (NASB)
2  I ask that when I am present I may not be bold with the confidence with which I propose to be courageous against some, who regard us as if we walked according to the flesh.
3  For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh,
4  for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.
5  We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ,
6  and we are ready to punish all disobedience, whenever your obedience is complete.

The Dictionary of New Testament Theology Vol. 3 (p. 591) says Paul uses the word  for captive, aichmalotizo, in reference to the ongoing battle that is the Christian experience.

Reflecting on his Christian expereince, Paul writes: "For I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members" (Rom. 7:22f.;--doulos;--I Am, art. ego eimi, NT2 (c)). On the other hand, his concept of the new life as an exclusive union with the Lord allows him to use aichmalotizo of the service of Christ: "We lead every thought into captivity to make them subject to Christ" (2 Cor. 10:5; cf. 2:11; 3:14; 4:4).

In this way taking thoughts captive to Christ is pitted against having thoughts captive to sin. (Dylan) You Gotta Serve Somebody. Now the humbling reality is that either way, I am not the one in Authority. I remember reading Ralph Waldo Emerson in college and being stunned by the sheer audacity of his Self Reliance:

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world. I remember an answer which when quite young I was prompted to make to a valued adviser who was wont to importune me with the dear old doctrines of the church. On my saying, "What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within?" my friend suggested,---"But these impulses may be from below, not from above." I replied, "They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the Devil's child, I will live then from the Devil." No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution; the only wrong what is against it. A man is to carry himself in the presence of all opposition as if every thing were titular and ephemeral but he.  [Concise Anthology of American Literature, Third Edition, pg. 591.]

Now all of this smacks to me of the same pretensious blow-hardedness (if that's a word) that I encountered the other day from a loud fan behind me at the White Sox game. It was the bottom of the ninth and the Sox were down a few runs. The manager kept in the starting pitcher. This fan went nuts! It was like his pants were on fire. All the insults he and his friend had shouted at the opposing pitcher were now aimed at the Sox manager. A few fans got up to leave and he started insulting them! "What kind of Sox fans are you!" In this fans mind the whole world around him was his to command because of the Season tickets he purchased before the season. Maybe he lives that way. (No wonder he was unmarried!)
At any rate, whether its Emerson's assumed license to command because of learning (or  in existence), or this fan's right to command because of his loud voice and tradition of being a fan, neither men have any real control, either of themselves or the world around them. And they witness to me of my own pretentious love affair with my mind. I've heard it called mental masturbation. Not a pretty picture.

A Closing Prayer

Dear God for today (because that's all I have) I surrender control of my will to yours. "I offer myself to you--to build with me and to do with me as You will. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Your will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Your Power, Your Love, and Your Way of life. May I do Your will always!"(The Third Step Prayer, Alcoholics Anonymous, pg. 63)