Fallor Ergo Sum

Hoarder Theology

So I got on the Hoarders bus pretty late; I watched the first episode yesterday (the A&E series first aired in 2009). If you're unaware, hoarding is considered a mental illness, where people are compelled to keep almost everything they have, worthless or not. The result is human beings living in houses that resemble nothing so much as landfills.

The premise of the show is the hoarders face a reckoning: either clean up, or lose their houses, lose their children, get evicted. A crew is available to help them clean up.

My first reaction was visceral: I was watching mentally-ill people live out their worst nightmare. I felt almost as sickened by that thought as by what some of them were hoarding: rotten produce, dirty laundry, used paper towels. 

I also couldn't help but relate it to sin, especially the secret kind that lives in our hearts.

Sin, like hoarding, is mental illness.

Sin, like hoarding, involves holding on to worthless things.

Sin, like hoarding, isolates us. 

Sin, like hoarding, requires drastic measures.

More to come...

Pastors and Elders are Ambulance Drivers

I just got finished reading Eugene Peterson's excellent book, Under the Unpredictable Plant: a Study in Vocational Holiness.There is much to consider in this short volume, but two principles struck home especially: 1) pastors, elders, and church leaders are susceptible to the temptation to demand Christ's glory for themselves, trying to be the Messiah instead of pointing people to him, and 2) we must choose our metaphors with great care, because we look through them in order to understand the world.

So I wrote this short story about ten years ago called "An Ambulance Driver, a Weather Girl, and an Ugly Couch." Subconsciously I was probably thinking about Hemingway and his work as an ambulance driver in WWII. The main character of my story was, as you've guessed by now, an ambulance driver, and also a messed up, ADD, single twenty-something who drank too much and struggled with control issues (was the main character a poorly-drawn portrait of my 23-year-old self? Most likely.) 

When I say control issues, I mean that he would make a mark on his living room wall for every patient he lost on the way to the ER. He took responsibility for their deaths. He was a weird kind of perfectionist. It was part of his problem. And it became a sort of contest between him and God. He was wrestling, I guess, with his hyper-Calvinism--was he rushing the patient to the God who heals, or the God who wills everything to pass, including death?

Anyway. I never published it, except on a blog, but when I was thinking about metaphors for ministry, this odd metaphor was the first to show back up. Because if the church is a hospital, and God is the healer (let's work with that side for now), what is the pastor or elder, but an ambulance driver? 

Think about it. Ambulance drivers may be paramedics, so they have some medical training. They can do a small amount of healing. But they are rushing the patients to the more qualified healer: the doctor. They try to make the patients comfortable, but there is a sense of urgency. And when the doctor arrives, the ambulance driver steps aside.

Now, replace every instance of the words "ambulance driver" in the previous sentence with "pastor," and every instance of the word "doctor" with "Jesus."

The thing I like about this metaphor is that it keeps the emphasis on the right thing, I think. Are ambulance drivers important? Absolutely. But less essential than the doctor. 

And what is required to be an ambulance driver? Not much. In fact, anyone with a driver's license can get someone to the doctor.

But who knows? Maybe the ambulance driver knows a quicker way to get there. 

Half-hearted

There is nothing especially good or bad about my life. Let me explain. I don’t mean I do not enjoy blessings, like a loving wife, a sturdy house, dependable car, good church, fulfilling employment…I do. I do not mean that I do not endure hardship from time to time. I simply mean that, on balance, my life is bland.

I’m neither spectacularly sinful nor improbably righteous. I don’t do drugs or have affairs or torture my dogs. I pay the mortgage and do my work and try to be a nice guy. The problem is that it seems that this is as high as my aspirations go.

I used to smirk when the students would replay the old harangue about apathy. Stop being apathetic! Do something! Help children in Africa! Plant trees in South America! It seemed so perennial that I had trouble taking it seriously. It seemed as though they periodically shook themselves awake from their Facebook stalking and noticed their lives slipping away.

Which is exactly what I’m doing.

I spend most of my time at home playing Wii or watching television. There is nothing wrong with Wii or television, but I’m beginning to suspect that my life’s goal may be to work hard enough and advance high enough so I can spend even more time playing Wii or watching television. Not exactly an inspiring story.

Story. I just finished reading A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing my Own Life by Don Miller. It’s all about a couple of filmmakers who show up at his house wanting to make a movie out of his bestselling memoir, Blue Like Jazz. Miller agrees, and this becomes an excuse for the rest of the book to talk about the mechanics of story, and how we inhabit our own stories, and how we can block God (the Writer) from making them more interesting.

How are they made more interesting? Hardship. As Miller writes, but joy costs pain. The beautiful stories involve risk and pain. Now, Miller is not a theologian—he’s a writer who loves God—and there are a few eyebrow-raising sentences in this book, but as usual, his words cut deep and expose truth. Is my story hard? No. Is it risky? No. Does it involve joy? Not really.

I wept last night as I realized that I needed to repent…not only of my daily missteps (which are legion), but of my boring life. I have anesthetized myself with comfort and television. I work hard, but only to get more comfortable. I play it safe. I avoid risk. And as a result, I am, as C.S. Lewis wrote, a half-hearted creature.

Lord, what would it look like to live toward the ending of the story, to live into shalom? What would a life of risk and adventure entail? And who will deliver us from this body of death? 

Blogging Calvin, Book I, Ch. 1-8

I won't break this down book by book, as there is little here that I have not already studied in seminary. I will say that I've been struck, in reading the Institutes, by a few things:

1. In Book I, Chapter I, Calvin tackles the knowledge of God and knowledge of ourselves, and I doubt that Descarte would recognize it. The first book is called "The Knowledge of the Creator," and the first chapter is entitled "The Knowledge of God and That of Ourselves are Connected. How They Are Interrelated." The title of book one bears this footnote:

The Latin for knowledge is here cognitio, while in the title of ch. i following it is notitia. The words are used interchangeably by Calvin, and both are by him here translated into French (1541) as cognoissance. Knowledge, whatever the word employed, is for Calvin never "mere" or "simple" or purely objective knowledge...Probably "existential apprehension" is the nearest equivalent in contemporary parlance (Battles translation).

Calvin, in other words, is far closer (in my mind) to a postmodern epistemology than a modern one. Not that Calvin is simply a postmodernist. He was obviously convicted of the truth of the gospel (see item 3). He seems to recognize that knowing is not a simple apprehension of reality by the mind, because the mind is deceived and clouded by sin. Knowing is both an intellectual and a spiritual act. And it is not disinterested, not "objective." Of course, Calvin is a lot more optimistic about our ability to apprehend truth than the average (secular) postmodernist.

2. Calvin is sometimes a lovely writer, even devotional. There are passages of breathtaking lyrical beauty, like this one:

With what clear manifestations his might draws us to contemplate him! Unless perchance it be unknown to us in whose power it lies to sustain this infinite mass of heaven and earth by His Word: by his nod alone sometimes to shake heaven with thunderbolts, to burn everything with lightnings, to kindle the air with flashes; sometimes to disturb it with various sorts of storms, and then at his pleasure to clear them away in a moment; to compel the sea, which by its height seems to threaten the earth with continual destruction, to hang as if in mid-air; sometimes to arouse it in a dreadful way with the tumultuous force of winds; sometimes, with waves quieted, to make it calm again! Belonging to this theme are the praises of God's power...(V.VI)

3. Calvin is also capable of being a dismissive crank. Right before the lovely passage I just quoted, he calls an opponent (Lucretious) a "filthy dog." He refers to individuals and crowds, elsewhere, as "wranglers," "rascals," "ignorant and stupid." You can scarcely read five pages without Calvin taking verbal aim at someone. I think that this must have been a shepherding impulse: an anger against what might deceive the flock, what was clearly untrue--but it's also distracting, and not really an argument. At times, Calvin is so dismissive of an opponent's argument that he barely replies, and so some important themes are dealt with in a way that is surprisingly unsystematic. 

Nevertheless, the work yields benefits, and if you are not researching a particular subject (Holmes and I are looking for stronger arguments about canon formation), it so far seems to live up to its importance in Reformed thought.  If his rebuttals are sometimes lacking, his articulation of doctrine is rigorous and consistent. 

More as I read.

Why Are Dreams Self-Evident?

Ryan Seacrest asks the young singer: "Why do you want to be on American Idol?"

He answers: "I've wanted to be a performer as long as I can remember. Since I was a kid, I've wanted to see my name in lights."

And our breath catches in our throats, and our hearts beat faster. It's his dream. And we're helping him fulfill it.

I find it fascinating that dreams are one of the few things that seem so self-evident in American culture, that no one dares question them. I had a lot of dreams as a kid. One dream was to be a scientist. I didn't really want to do careful, measured experiments. I wanted to mix stuff in test tubes and blow stuff up. I realized later that I had no interest in actual science. I wanted to be creative. I just didn't have the language for it.

If someone saw that truth in me, and then encouraged me to apply for a science scholarship at Cornell anyway, would they be a benefactor or an enabler?

Why are we so sure that when some one has a dream, that it is the right one? How many could-be doctors in underdeveloped countries have wasted their potential as medical directors of insurance companies? How many could-be green entrepreneurs have wasted their potential in Fortune 500's?  How many could-be music teachers in the inner city have thrown themselves into useless bids for stardom? 

I'm not saying it's wrong to work in business. It isn't. And some are called to work in business, in government, in finance, and (yes), even to be popular performing artists. But for goodness sake, let's stop genuflecting before these dreams before we discover the heart behind them.

I remember an album we heard ad nauseum as kids: it was called Antshillvania. In the third track, a young ant, Antony, wants to be famous. He sings: I'm gonna be rich, I'm gonna be famous, I'm gonna be dashing, I'm gonna be free. I'm gonna be wise, I'm gonna be noble, I'm gonna have power, I'm gonna be wonderful, beautiful, marvelous me! All the world will gather to my feet, seeking for my wisdom, hoping for my favor. All the world will wait upon my words. All the world will be in love with me.

We were not meant to admire him.

Why do we admire them now?

T-Shirt Theology

Stolen from White Horse Inn blog:

 

 I would add "with the help of the Spirit" right after "platform." 

This Impossible Stone

"And no one can move this impossible stone..." --a Southern gospel song I heard this afternoon

Jesus rolled a giant stone away, walked out of the tomb, and walked again among the living: the hope of mankind.

I am the impossible stone that Jesus moved.

Why Theology Matters

As I have stated before, when I left seminary I went through a period of deep disenchantment with theology. In retrospect I believe I was reacting more against the "cemetery" years of seminary. I was tired of proof-texts and semantic ranges and expositional rain, but that doesn't mean that any of these things were bad in themselves. I was just tired. I wanted God, unmediated by theology. But I had been surrounded by good theology. It wasn't until I had a chance to hear some really bad theology that I began to understand how important it is.

What is theology?

Theology is the study of God. Christian theology is the study of the Christian God, primarily made available through His word, the Bible. Good theologians carefully search the scriptures and support their views with exegetical evidence. Theology is an academic discipline, not a guessing game. I make this point because these days, it is increasingly hip to make outlandish assertions about God, Jesus, the Bible, and Christianity based on nothing more than hunches or a desire to subvert the status quo. And while I've never thought of myself as the resident crank (I have, after all told my share of tall tales), when it comes to the Triune God, I've come to expect more than cute ideas. I'll discuss some of these cute ideas later.

Why does it matter?

It matters because truth matters. I prefer a well-read atheist to a indifferent Christian most days. Atheists, while occasionally very thick, at least (typically) argue well. They expect and provide evidence. They recognize logical fallacies. And, in their own way, they are interested in the truth of the matter, even if their truth (in my mind) is pretty bankrupt.

I used to think non-denominational churches were noble, trying to erase differences between Christians. Nowadays, when I see one, I think, "they either have very little theological structure and will probably degenerate into socio-political liberalism or collapse, or they actually are a particular kind of church, like an Arminian Dispensational Baptist one, in disguise." We cannot help but adopt a theology when we are talking about God and the church.

The question is: upon what will it rely?

Doubting my Motives

First time I've had five minutes to post in...well, weeks.

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I just got finished reading a short book called A Student's Guide to Liberal Learning by James V. Schall, SJ. It's an excellent little book, full of short, digestible insights like these:

• Just because someone is smart does not mean he is wise. Much of the serious disorder in the world can usually be traced back to some intellectual...
• Reasons for the difficulty of learning (include) the baffling multiplicity of useless questions and arguments...
• Thus, practically speaking, we encounter the greatest minds among those no longer alive, and the way we encounter such minds is to read their books carefully--which today often means taking a commonsense approach on those contemporary theories that tell us we can find no truth in a text.

Schall quotes the philosopher Etienne Gilson in the preface: there are things and I can know them. Schall's weighty project in this short essay is to re-establish a commonsense link between theory and the world of things. He argues against reading all of the great books (this is a recipe for confusion), but passionately for finding the great books that make sense of our human experience, and reading them over and over again.

Learning is valuable only insofar as it helps us to function more fully in the world. By this I do not mean (nor, I hazard, does Schall) that everything should be weighed on the scales of production and instrumental rationality. What I mean is that theorists and intellectuals who seek only to disassemble what is known and to unshackle our beliefs from our actions are not to be trusted.

Schall's most fascinating paraphrase is that of Chesterton: humility is displaced; it is thought to be located in the intellect where it does not belong, whereas it is a virtue of the will, an awareness of our own tendencies to pride. We should not doubt our minds but our motives. The condition of not knowing should not lead us to a further skepticism but a more intense search for truth.

The Occamist in me likes this, but the Calvinist is wary. Francis Schaeffer argued that the beginning of the end for Western Rationalism was Aquinas, someone Schall (a Roman Catholic) affectionately references in the book. Aquinas believed very much in the continued rationality of man, even after the Fall. His moral compass failed, but not his mind. But for Schaeffer and many others, this is insufficient to explain the pervasive nature of sin.

Even Solomon seemed to agree that sin affects the mind: see my post Insane Hearts.

What then? Do we doubt our minds? Our motives? Perhaps both?

Doubtful Faith/Faithful Doubt

Faith does not subsist in simple polar opposition to doubt but remains imbedded in doubt all the way down; it coexists with doubt, which is why it is faith and not some kind of privileged access to a higher knowledge, as if a believer is somebody hardwired to God on high and authorized to speak on God's behalf. A faith insulated from doubt fuels fanaticism and high-handed triumphalism and is in love with itself and its own power. Such faith soundproofs the walls of the intramural boy's club called "the Church," the big visible one on top with all the bureacrats and vestments. Faith is faith, and not a sword with which to slay the enemies of God (usually a cover for describing one's own enemies!), if and only if it is haunted by an equally inescapable anxiety that perhaps our words and prayers are just so much cosmic noise that will soon enough dissipate into entropic emptiness, menaced by an uneasiness that perhaps our works of mercy are just the stirring of so much cosmic dust on the surface of a little ball in an obscure corner of the universe, soon to be forgotten. (John D. Caputo, What Would Jesus Deconstruct?)

This is the most honest and thought-provoking thing I've read in a while.