Glad Tidings of Great Joy

It is amazing that Christmas often turns into a moralistic affair. What I mean is that Christians often don't really receive it! We are inspired by it. We are motivated by it. We try hard to do good because of it, volunteering at this or that charity, giving, feeling, hoping that humanity will be inspired to be better because of it. But who really merely sits passively and receives it?

In the end, Christmas isn't about Jesus inspiring us to be our better selves, stirring in us the better angels of our nature. Christmas is about an act of the Triune God to send the second person of the Trinity into the world, robed in the frailty of humanity, divested of the privileges associated with His deity, in order to do one thing! He came on a mission that only He could fulfill. He came to die at our hands, for us, to redeem us, to be for us what we could not be! Jesus' mission was not to join us in some commune of equals, each taking up his place in some great moral cause for the improvement of humanity. Jesus does not save by leading. Jesus leads by saving.

Christian, please this Christmas take the right posture! You are not first to be inspired to do better next year because of Jesus. You are first to sit stupefied that the God of the universe would give you so extravagant a gift. Raise your empty beggarly hands to heaven and receive, for that is all you bring to this great day; this day that fractured open the universe at the entrance of the divine into the human world.

And what exactly is the gift that God has given you? In the great Triune counsel, the plan has always been that The Father would present before you His perfect Son. And the Son would add to himself a human nature so that in His great condescension and vulnerability He could be the human being in whom God could be well pleased. Note well that He is not pleased with any other human being! Jesus was righteous and good and kind and true and everything good that you are not! More than that God has declared that the goodness of this only good man He will give to you, as though it were your own, when you simply receive Him by faith. More than that The Father declared, and Jesus agreed, that Jesus would go to a miserable wooden cross to bear upon himself the punishments that you deserve for your many sins.

Where are you in this grand equation? You are a helpless, empty, shattered soul that gives precisely nothing to God. And yet He has not given you simply enough to raise yourself up and start to be good again. He has not supported you or come along side of you or given you therapy until you are strong again. He has made the dead person alive! He has already given you everything! He has made you whole, gloriously perfecting you in the foreign righteousness of the Incarnate Son! If you will set aside the foolish project of thinking that you can do it with His help and instead accept that He has done it for you, in spite of you, because you can do nothing, then everything the resplendent Son is will be counted as yours.

Glad tidings of great joy indeed!

"Love me as I am!"

It is fashionable to complain about narcissism these days, and the irony is not lost on me that the narcissist is probably the person most likely to complain about perceived narcissism in others, and probably because it is an affront to his own ego.

I'm keenly aware of this problem because my life, like yours, has slammed up against these people in various ways. This modern, moribund cultural narcissism is curiously asserted as a bold declaration of individual identity, and yet it is impotent in the extreme. You have heard them say it! And if you have said it, then it is likely you are as narcissistic as any. Here is the motto of the modern narcissist: "This is who I am! You will have to love me as I am!"

This motto of narcissism is everywhere because there is a truth in it. Each individual is distinct and should be recognized and appreciated as such. The problem is that some people want to help you recognize their individuality. They are not happy with your apparent obliviousness to them. And in their relentless efforts to be seen, heard, clicked, they lose what makes them unique and begin to dissolve into the mass of narcissists clamoring for attention.

There is a more sinister dimension to the motto of the narcissist. Many who proclaim it do so because they have no intention of changing for anyone else in the human race, including those closest to them. An alcoholic might parrot the motto because the several broken relationships in her life are not her fault. It is obviously to be blamed on the pathetic souls who couldn't accept her as she is. It was a defect in their ability to love. The entire universe must alter itself to an equilibrium around her as she is, and not demand the slightest alteration from her.

This kind of thinking can be fatal in a teenager. Imagine a young person, who by definition is unfinished, demanding that the universe accept her as she is. She is supposed to be in process. Those who love her most will lovingly coach her in her process of becoming. If she boldly asserts that she is finished, that others will have to accept her as she is, then she will clearly forgo the opportunity to develop during the years when becoming ought to be the project of every person. Plato once remarked that the young must be taught to feel liking and disgust for those things that really are likable and disgusting. But an undeveloped narcissist will thunder through life never questioning that what she presently thinks is likable and disgusting makes those things likable and disgusting.

Teenagers are encouraged towards narcissism by todays various pop culture anthems. "You are perfect!" "You are beautiful!" "They are haters!" "Be who you are!" "Follow your heart!" "Proclaim your truth!" You, YOU, YOU!! You are the center of the universe. The only problem with them is that they don't see you! They don't like your instagram page enough. They don't give you a voice. They don't listen to YOU! 

Leave these teenagers to develop along these lines, and you will end up with an adult that is perfected in his or her narcissism. They will light the world on fire, destroy lives, dance upon graves, and then have the audacity to think you mad when you complain about their behavior. They will call you judgmental when you think them selfish. They will act audaciously, impetuously, irreverently, and then think you hateful when you fail to suspend all judgment in your praise of their "originality." Have you ever noticed how every narcissist thinks they are so unique? In my experience they are clones in the most fundamental ways.

Consider a few other interesting characteristics of the modern narcissist:

1. The "Narcissistic Cycle:"

It usually looks something like this: The narcissist initiates some hurtful, insensitive, damaging behavior (objectively, not based on the hurt person's perceptions). The narcissist is confronted for this, which is perceived as a rejection. The narcissist then feels hurt, but only briefly as his or her pride works on this pain, fomenting it quickly into rage against all that would dare to reject him or her. The gap between pain and rage is minuscule, which leaves no time for the narcissist to approach anything like a self-critical phase. There will be no humility, no contrition, no correction, no meaningful apology.

2. Extension:

Note that the depth of the "extension" of the narcissist is shallow at best. Things don't ever extend far beyond their own minds. In their often outrageous or selfish behavior they are expressing themselves, and they are wronged when others are anything other than perfectly celebratory of their utterly scintillating and unremitting commentary on the world. It never occurs to the modern narcissist that others think he has nothing of interest to say. It could be that people who have read Shakespeare or Nietzsche or the Bible or Lewis find him boring in the extreme, and yet it is the narcissist who complains ceaselessly of the world's inability to hold his interest.

3. Acceptance of behavior:

Narcissists often think that any rejection of their conduct arises from hatred of them as people. Of course they also think that they are perfectly accepting of all people in all of their idiosyncrasies.  They are the pattern of love that others should follow.

One way to test this is to propose the "proximity test." It really is a simple question. What do we mean by "loving others as they are?" Does that mean I can have a safe distance from certain people? Does it mean that I have to accept their lifestyle choices such that I could live with them under the same roof? Would they want to live with me? Does it mean that I have to marry someone like them in order to validate their existence? To put it plainly, I think all narcissists should be free from the judgmentalism of others, as they desire. My interpretation of "loving them as they are" will be to leave them alone in their narcissism. I certainly don't plan to live with one!

4. Unhappiness:

Another curious aspect of the psychology of narcissism is that they seem to wish their unhappiness upon everyone else. If they think that someone slighted them, or snubbed them, or said something hurtful to them, they demand that you join them in their suffering. When their narcissism in the end leaves them alone and miserable, they can't imagine that anyone could possibly move on from them and be happy. In truth, many people become happy by distance from the narcissists in their lives, or at least their happiness is permitted the space to grow. In hell there will be endless vexed narcissists staring across the chasm at the laughter of those in heaven and wondering how anyone can laugh without their presence, and more why the residents of heaven laugh while those in hell are miserable. The narcissists of hell will reason that their own warped and frustrated and sinewed and inward-bent psychology should be extended to all; that everyone should be exactly as they are forever.

In fact hell will be the perfect place for narcissists. They will be allowed to be exactly as they are forever. And it will be hell for precisely that reason above all. There will be no more judgment from God or others unlike them; that is, there will be no more righteous judgment. In its place, they will be judged by their fellow narcissists forever. That is another reason it will be hell!

Finally, the narcissist is utterly impervious to critique. It is the world that has the problem. To the extent that anyone should venture into anything other than praise of them, that is the extent to which the critic has a problem. You will never stump a narcissist. You may get an apology from them, but it will be self-serving. There is nothing wrong with them. They are perfect exactly as they are! If any narcissist should chance to read this little piece, they will immediately see only the defects of others in it, or more likely the defects of the author.

A Lament on Politics

Awhile back I wrote an article on a controversial topic and linked it to my Facebook page. I've done this from time to time, and often the dialogue produced by it is enriching. Of late, I've noticed that it has devolved. It is at a point that I think I'll follow the pattern of some of my favorite blog writers and not comment on comments.

A few years ago, I wrote an article detailing a Christian position on the question of gay marriage. I was told I'm xenophobic, homophobic, unchristian, etc. I wrote an article on feminism a few years back and was told that I should be shipped off to a gulag. Once I was lectured smugly that what I had written was "below me." My most recent article was on the issue of "white privilege," and I was told I wasn't compassionate, again, and that I only wrote it because of my white privilege. It went something like this:

Me: "I don't think the concept of white privilege is meaningful."

Commenter: "Well, you only think that way because of your privilege."

Me: "Oh, thank you."

One comment suggested that it was a waste of time trying to argue with a middle aged white man like me, because I could never understand. All entirely helpful and bridge building kinds of comments.

In fairness, there are those who thoughtfully interact, which is interesting and fun, and part of the reason I even write a blog.

Dealing with this is easy enough. I can just refrain from responding to those who are leveling personal attacks. But the deeper concern for me is that thoughtful dialogue has become impossible with certain types of people. It is all emotional eruptions and virtue signaling and zero engagement with the argument.

The problem here, especially as I have studied history of late, is a deep lack of moral unity. Our culture is infatuated with diversity, and the pendulum swing in that direction is destroying any meaningful dialogue over issues of an ethical nature.

Recently I read the fascinating biography of John Adams by David McCullough, in which he details the correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams towards the end of their lives. The two men were great friends, even though there were significant disagreements, and even animosity in prior days, between the two men. What will become readily apparent is that what united the two men was far more substantial than what divided them. At the heart of this unity was a deep appreciation for truth and lives shaped by classical and Christian literature, which also meant lives shaped by classical virtues. In short, these men were bound by a similar worldview, even though Jefferson did much to tinker with the Christian worldview. But I think much of the revisionism that seeks to put Jefferson in the camp of deism is perhaps overblown. Towards the end of his life, Jefferson, in writing on the problem of slavery, made one of his most remarkable claims. He said, "I tremble for my nation when I think that God is just, and His justice cannot sleep forever." That is not the sentiment of a deist.

The deeper point here is that Jefferson and Adams operated in their linguistic brilliance with a whole substructure of language and references and truths that were grounded in the same worldview. It seems to me obvious that this is the reason the two men could put aside their differences in the end and be truly unified. In fact, it is this unifying worldview that made it possible for them to put into perspective the relative position of their differences.

What is it that unifies political adversaries today? The only thing that seems to unify them is disunity itself, and demand to be heard. We live in an ever developing postmodern hell where intensity and passion are the only tools in winning political debates. What we lack is any unifying substructure of value, grounded in deep philosophical truths, that both sides share. If you doubt this, simply ask each side what they mean by a definition of human life, or gender, or freedom, or authority, or rights. You will be dazzled by how nothing in the conversation will stand still.

Retirement

I am retiring from teaching after 21ish years in Christian schooling. In this small piece, I want to express my gratitude and say a bit about burn-out.

Christian schools are special places, or can be, and God has multiplied my joy by giving me the great honor of serving in several great schools. I want to list them here as part of my good-bye:

1. Pantego Christian Academy, Arlington, Texas: My first year of teaching and coaching in a Christian school. I was paid a whopping 16,000 a year in 1995. I think you can probably tell that this salary was still a bit low, even for 1995. We lived well in a cockroach infested apartment (Texas sized cockroaches!).
2. First Baptist Academy, Dallas, Texas: Gave me a massive raise (sarcasm font) to teach Bible on the 13th floor of a high-rise building in downtown Dallas. Coached with a great man named Andy Griffin, who taught me much about Texas football and I loved it! I also learned from the parents that Texas football is more important than most of the petty things in peoples lives, like Church.
3. Valley Christian High School, San Jose, California: God gave me seven great years teaching Church history, Christian Apologetics, and Old Testament History in this impressively affluent school. God has given me many good and gracious friends from this fulfilling period in my career, and the chance to see how so many Christians move from faith in God to faith in liberal politics as savior.
4. Bakersfield Christian High School, Bakersfield, California: The best place I've ever worked! Never in my life have I experienced such a beautiful confluence and deep compatibility of the environment, the people, the work, and my gifting being fitted to the work and the culture. This place was home for eleven years and will always be home in my heart! I will probably miss the place, the people, the experience, always!
5. Veritas Academy, Austin, Texas: A marvelous Christian classical school dedicated to producing young people of wisdom and virtue, and the place where God has shown me that He has called me out of the profession.

To any with whom I've had the honor of working I thank you! To any students I've been privileged to teach I say thank you as well! It is the dynamic interaction outside the classroom with colleagues and inside the classroom with students that I always cherished, and will remember with utmost fondness for the balance of my life.

The teaching profession is one in which burn-out can occur unexpectedly. I never thought it would happen to me, especially after a year long sabbatical from the arduous work of everyday teaching.

It is perplexing to me that all I felt in my last days was stress! It came from multiple angles, including parents, administration, students, and from my own personal struggles. I just stopped feeling joy in the profession, which sounds rather touchy-feely, but when the pay is so low one must find motivation in other directions. I also felt insignificant in the work I was doing. The school and parents made it fairly clear that I was lucky to have the position and I could be easily replaced. No doubt that is true, but as it turns out I was able to replace Christian schooling as a source of employment as well.

I am also weary of what I call the "stress to pay" ratio in Christian schooling. Schools have this tendency to expect miracles from their teachers because the parents are paying so much money. And parents expect teachers to teach and parent with their constant coaching. And why is it that every child now has some form of learning "difficulty" or "challenge" requiring various accommodations? The end result is that parents and administrators are freed to provide an endless stream of "feedback" on the teacher's effectiveness, but the teacher is afforded the opportunity to give zero feedback of either the administration or the parents. Even students are often provided with opportunities to "evaluate" the teacher while the teacher's evaluations of the students are diminished or "re-evaluated" through the retesting and "PLC" process, which is the newest fad in education (and involves affording time to students to revisit lessons and retest until they pass). Failing a student is now a statement only of the teacher's failure, and is costly when paying parents decide to leave the "failing" private school.

Remember that all of these complications and changes and heightened expectations for teachers have come with obvious commensurate massive increases in salary.

I'm clearly having trouble with the sarcasm font I uploaded to my computer, but the truth is that most Christian school teachers are paid far below their public school counterparts. Ah, but they are assured that it is a "ministry," and they will be paid in heaven. I only want to point out that there comes a time when the stress demands cause the teacher to reach a breaking point. I have reached just such a breaking point. The "stress to pay" ratio is not in the favor of Christian schools anymore.

I know it looks as though I feel some bitterness as I leave the profession, but I promise I don't. It is simply time to exit. The work has been another of God's extravagant acts of mercy towards me, and I will always cherish it as such. But I also wanted to toss a few rather blunt, and hopefully humorous, comments about the difficulties of the profession that can build to burn-out in it.

I would love to think that this is a great loss to Christian schools, but my experience has shown that it most assuredly is not! Schools are quite capable of finding the wonderful Christian people they need, particularly among the young, whose life stresses are minimal and whose energy and optimism are high. I hope many of them, incredible young people that I know, will last longer in the work than I did.

Our Vows

I wanted to provide a place where I could share these vows easily with my girls and friends, as well as a place to easily find them to remember the solemn promises we have made to each other and to the kids.

Here are the vows we wrote for each other:

6/16/18

To each other:

I promise to exalt you above all others. 

I will fight against the forces that would tear us apart, and cultivate our union deliberately and passionately. 

I offer you my imperfect life and promise to pray for God’s sustaining grace to love you well.

I promise to receive you as an invitation to worship the giver of all good things, and to treasure you as the best of the good things He has given. 

I will share my happiness with you as well as my sorrows as we turn our gaze to The Lord in all things. 

By God’s grace, I promise to discipline my mind and spirit towards a chosen habitual love, even when I struggle to feel love.

Knowing our days in this life are numbered, I will not waste the privilege of being in love with you. 

Amy to girls: 

Trinity, Charity, and Felicity, I promise to hold you close to my heart, to accept you as God’s treasured girls, and to love you as His gift to me. I will rejoice when you rejoice, and mourn when you mourn, and experience this grace-filled journey with you. 

Bo to girls: 

My girls, I love you and have loved our life together. Today as we invite Amy into our family, I promise to keep you close, protect you, and provide spiritual guidance for you. I will look to God, together with Amy, to provide a home rich with love and joy for each of you. 

Salaries for Teachers in Christian Schools

Now to him who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. Romans 4:4

I begin with a question: Should Christian teachers be grateful for their salaries?

It is an interesting question. Change the setting for a moment. Should a computer engineer be grateful for his salary at Apple?

We are tempted to say, "Of course, a job is not something that is owed to anyone." And surely that must be right, to a degree.

Let's look at this from another angle. The entire economic system in which we are situated is organized according to performance and reward. The engine of this thing runs on goods and services and value attributed to each. It most certainly doesn't run on gifts freely given.

Now the question becomes a bit more refined: Given that Christians schools are wholehearted participants in the capitalistic exchange of goods and services for a particular price, should Christian teachers be grateful for their salaries in the Christian school?

There is a troubling conflict in my mind on this question. On the one hand, I see this from the perspective of the Christian worldview, which insists that we are fallen creatures deserving of nothing and yet given everything in Jesus Christ, and even given more than that in this fallen world. No one deserves a job, nor the many creature comforts it affords us. That is the whole truth of the matter, and so yes, everyone should be resoundingly grateful for any good that comes his or her way in this world, including a job, regardless of what it happens to pay.

But now what if a totally secular employer got wind that my worldview constrains me to such a view. Would he be just in immediately reducing my salary on the grounds that I should be grateful for anything I'm given? He refuses to accept my worldview, refuses the gospel, and imposes upon me a different criterion of value, but then conveniently wants to use my worldview only to the extent that he can extract more capital from me without paying for it. Such a thing seems disingenuous, to say the least. Further it is unjust, because my employer would only accept my worldview to the extent that it enriches him in his worldview. It is sort of like the business full of cheaters taking advantage of the honest Christian employee. They advance, in a purely material sense, because they are unscrupulous, while the Christian languishes in the cheaters system because he won't cheat.

Christian schools can do the same thing. I have complained of this elsewhere, but it is unconscionable for Christian administrators and Christian boards to extract extra labor from people, or pay them a low salary, in the name of "ministry." They know full well that Christian schooling is delivered by them as a commodity and not a ministry, and yet they use the language of ministry wherever it is convenient for their purposes. Then they turn around and use the language of business and utmost marketable professionalism when discussing the quality of the product. They want the best trained and best performing teachers, but then tell them to make sacrifices when they can't offer salaries that are commensurate with the market's assessment of value, or when they unashamedly want to stretch their dollars.

Clarity comes when we consider the Romans passage cited above. Salvation is such an extravagant gift, and we are such unworthy beings, that truly it can only be received by faith on its own terms as a gift, and that gift can only be received if we are already recipients of common grace (the forbearance of God that permits evil people to live and enjoy the good in His world). Is the Christian school offering such gifts? They are more specifically operating under the larger umbrella of common grace to offer a certain amount of money in exchange for a certain amount of contracted work. In short, what they pay is merely owed to as a just obligation. It is a simple matter of justice that an employee should be paid a fair wage for his work. What is fair? That is without a doubt a more complex question, but the principle of value exchanged for value remains the controlling paradigm for this transaction. When I moved to Texas, I was stunned by the low salaries afforded to teachers in the state in general, but salaries were lower still among Christian schools. Frankly I left the Christian teaching profession partly because the Christian schools in my market paid a miserable salary for the work they demanded.

Now if all of this is true, then the "thanks" I receive for my work is my paycheck; and the thanks I give to my employer is my work. I cannot expect more than that, and they should not require it. If I go beyond the call of duty, and work beyond the expectations of my contract, then surely thanks would then be in order.

Now regardless of where I work as a Christian, I am reminded daily that I am a corrupt sinner, lavishly given the grace of God, and my gratitude therefore is to Him for His unwarranted generosity and bewildering forbearance. In short, God is generous in all things I do; my employer is not generous in paying me for my work. Gratitude is a response to generosity. Gratitude is the not a debt owed to those providing what they ought to provide.

And a last thought here: If an employer fails to pay a fair wage or an employee fails to work fairly, then in each case the failure is a failure in the area of justice and not relationships or gratitude or something else. An unjust employee should be simply fired. And an unjust employer should lose employees. 

Modern Worship in One Song

This is not something I relish attacking, but I was listening to this song on the radio the other day and decided I would write a critique. My purpose is not to discourage any who love the song, but only to pause to examine a few possible issues with modern worship music as expressed by this song. Here is the full set of lyrics: 

What is this love that won't relent
That's calling out with heaven's breath
Who is reaching wide to save our souls?
Only you, oh oh oh oh oh oh

What is this grace that makes no sense
That we could never recompense
Who gives us all a second chance?
Only you, only you, only you

There is no one like our god
There is no one like our god
There is no other god who can save
There is no one like our god

Who hung the stars upon the night
And showed the sun how bright to shine
Who shaped the world within his hands?
Only you, oh oh oh oh oh oh

oh oh oh
Who set the sky upon the hills
And told the waters to be still
Who spoke to form the universe
Only you, only you, only you

There is no one like our god
There is no one like our god
There is no other god who can save
There is no one like our god, no
There is no one like our god
There is no other god who can save
There is no one like our god

No height or depth can stand between us
No power on earth or all creation
No life or death can separate us from your love
No height or depth can stand between us
No power on earth or all creation
No life or death can separate us from your love

There is no one like our god
There is no one like our god
There is no other god who can save
There is no one like our god, no
There is no one like our god
There is no other god who can save
There is no one like our god, no oh oh
There is no one like our god

There is no other god who can save
There is no one like our god

Here are a few points of analysis: 

1. The repeated phrase "there is no one like our God" leads one to ask the why question. Why is there no one like our (The Christian) God? And the answer, according to the various lyrics, is plain. He is a mighty creator and loves us so much that He gives us grace. What is grace? It is the offer of a second chance. That is why God is like none other! 

As to the praise of God's creative power I find little fault, but that is not the heart of the song. It is trying to celebrate the "grace that makes no sense," and then goes on to make sense of that grace by suggesting that it is love for all and second chances for all. So, the grace of God is reduced to colloquial "do over" language. More than that, we are told that only God gives "do overs." Can one speak of the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus on behalf of undeserving sinners as a "do over?" Perhaps, but to do so surely cheapens the idea that the grace of God makes Him like none other. Parents give "do overs." Governments give "do overs." Getting a second chance at a career or a relationship or a task is common. 

Perhaps I'm being too hard on the writer, but to suggest that my accumulated sins being placed upon the shoulders of my willing savior, in order that the guilt and punishments would go to him and not to me, is something like God saying, "Ah, don't worry, I'm going to give you another chance to get it right," is just silly, even offensive to the true meaning of the gospel. But it feels good! It feels good to people for them to think that God looks the other way and lets us have another go at it. It is something that we can control. In fact, a "second chance" is the reacquisition of control after having lost it. The true gospel is a gift to those that never had control and never will! The true gospel really is all about the fact that God cannot give second chances to sinful people, and that is why they required something foreign--namely, one who is truly righteous. Any second chance we are given is only because one got it right the first time and it is in His righteousness alone that we stand! In other words, because our sin is so serious, He was given no second chance on the cross!

My issue with the second chance language is that it is deeply misleading without a real theology of the incarnation and the cross, both of which are utterly absent from this song that hopes to celebrate the doctrine of salvation. Curiously, the language of second chance salvation is far more consistent with Islam, if one wants to evaluate the logic of its theology against the logic of Christianity. So, Muslims would love this song! You have power and second chances as a basis for worship. Perfect Muslim God to celebrate. 

2. The deeper point is that the song is simple, to the point of being childish both lyrically and musically. It is a blatant appeal to emotion with it's stunningly voluminous repetition and with its lack of any theological depth. It's emphasis upon love and the use of the passage, again repeated, that "nothing will separate us from God's love," emphasizes this preoccupation with emotional experience. But again, the reason we are to feel so drawn to God's love, the reason His love is unique in the world, is because we get do overs. 

3. It should also be noted that many at the forefront of the evangelical worship movement are the first to complain about "rote liturgical repetition" in older forms of worship. And yet in this song, as well as in many others, we encounter the most droning and theological dull repetition. And it would be nice if these kinds of lyrics were rare, but it seems to be everywhere. The same kinds of songs are repeated constantly. How many times are we going to hear Oceans by Hillsong in evangelical churches constantly boasting of spontaneity and variety and rebellion against the liturgical? I'm not necessarily against them choosing to be liturgical, but surely it makes little sense to complain about others repeating the Nicene Creed while you repeat Oceans 87 times a year. 

4. Finally, a word about the triumph of general pietism (emotion driven religion). Most of the academic pietists I encountered were my Fuller seminary professors. They loved to point out to people in theological studies that the purpose of studying theology was not knowledge but affection and action. To study with an end to study was to be an unfaithful witness. To seek knowledge of God for its own sake was to embrace the life of the pharisee. Of course, that wasn't phariseeism! Phariseeism was precisely not studying God as an end but as a means to different ends than the pietist's ends. 

Note well that these same professors had little criticism (none that I recall) for the pietist. Think of the average worshipper, singing the song above during a worship service, crying and feeling and then acting on his faith. Why is it assumed that he is far nearer to heaven than an unemotional theologian and requires little instruction or criticism? 

Surely it is the case that neither is acceptable. One should not be a pietist, and one should not be a pharisee. But I wonder which error is the more common in church worship today? When was the last time you heard a worship band accused of preying upon the theological patience of the audience because the lyrics made too high a cognitive demand? When was the last time you were called upon in Church to worship God with your mind? 

Someday

On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2 Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. 3 When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” 4 And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” 5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”6 Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.[a] 7 Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim.8 And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” So they took it. 9 When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom 10 and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” 11 This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.12 After this he went down to Capernaum, with his mother and his brothers[b] and his disciples, and they stayed there for a few days.

I am to be married soon, to a woman who makes this passage come alive to me! Why did God give me such a remarkable woman? The answer is the same as the answer to the why question provoked by this passage. The quick answer is that God is the author of pleasure, a feasting God, a God who loves love, and loves to give good gifts to undeserving people! And there may be no other reason for what transpires at this wedding, or mine!

Jesus scolds his mother about the impracticality of the requested miracle. As I see it, Jesus makes it clear that the time is not right for His public ministry to begin. There is no ministry benefit to such a miracle, and so the question is clear: Why does Jesus do it? Was he guilted into it by his mother? My theory is that Jesus did it simply because it increased the pleasure of this great celebration of marriage. He did it to miraculously magnify the merriment, to enlarge the dimensions of the feast to supernatural proportions. 

Wine is an important biblical symbol of pleasure and community. During the passover seder, Jews consume four glasses of wine. The imagery of abundance everywhere in Scripture includes wine as a central instrument of the pleasure associated with abundance. But there is no more central passage on both the symbolism of wine and its role in pleasure than John 2. Here Jesus supplies the wine, no doubt the finest ever made upon the earth, and here He does it for the sake of love and pleasure and for no other reason! One could perhaps say that He does it to magnify His glory, but that glory is not separated from pleasure here. In other words, He is glorious in this context because there is no greater vintner on the planet and no greater founder of the feast! He must be exalted as the author of pleasure! 

"You have reserved the best wine until now." It is so unassuming a line that one is tempted to ignore it as irrelevant, but it is profound to me in these days beyond my ability to express it. Anyone who has been wine tasting knows what the master of the feast is saying here. When one goes wine tasting, one notices the subtleties and elegant complexities of the wines being tasted, until the third or fourth winery. After awhile, one's senses are dulled by the wine and can no longer appreciate the subtle artfulness of the wines served at the end. People know this at dinner parties and will bring out the worst wines if people choose to keep drinking to the point of revelry. 

And here is Jesus, supplying a wine that stuns the master of the feast. He wants to know why a wine of this quality and depth is given to buzzed people at the end of the feast. Think of the last wedding you went to, where some wines of decent quality were perhaps served for a few hours, then imagine that the master of the feast brings out cases of Chateau Petrus (a wine that goes on auction for $4000 a bottle) for the remaining guests at 10 o'clock. Surely Jesus' wine was at least as good as the best of Bordeaux! It was probably so good that even in a stupor the guests were shocked by it's power into silence and moved to appreciate its beauty. They probably had tasted nothing like it, and the taste of all other wine was cheapened by its singular excellence. 

Why has he saved the best for last? Because that is what God does! He saves the best for last! This first miracle is a foretaste of things to come, especially the telos (end/purpose) of Jesus' ministry, which is to lead sinful people to the great wedding feast of the lamb, where our work of bold penultimate wreckage of the world is answered at last. This beautiful story is yet another in the collection of stories that God tells of His final word! Indeed the whole universe languishes in misery, broken because of the enervating effects of human sin, but God will see to His glory in the end! And this story tells us that included in His glory is the fact that He is the author of all joy and pleasure and feasting, pleasures we hold now with trembling hands in the knowledge they cannot last. But God's answer to this is that all the pleasures of earth are mere shadows of things to come for His people. They exist to train us to love what we ought to love, and to cast our eyes ahead in hope to the source of all good. 

The theme of my wedding to the incomparable Amy Dobson is a word that early became important to us. That word is "Someday." What we mean by it is that one can trust that God will save the best for last, and that He will give peace and patience while we await His timing. Misery will never be an end for God's people. It may be a winnowing, a pruning, but it will always be temporary. Perhaps it is simplest just to say that I waited a long time for my fiancé. I say this because my noble, lovely and true fiancé is the Wine of Cana for me. She is the best that God has reserved until now for me! Just as the attendees of the feast of Cana didn't possess the rational equipment or imagination to think wine could be so good, nor could they anticipate God's timing in providing it, so I didn't possess the rational equipment to visualize a woman of such complexity, beauty, intelligence, and spiritual depth. Behind the appearance of a gentle woman of soft words, modest dress, and kind eyes is a universe of  soaring, exultant attributes at the extremities of human expression. She is a luminous masterwork that God saved and lavishly gave to this miserable sinner at the age of forty-seven. 

God indeed has reserved the best wine until now!

Night to Shine, A Philosophical Reflection

Recently I experienced something truly extraordinary. I attended one of the Tim Tebow Night to Shine events. This truly inspired and inspiring event took place at Austin Ridge Bible Church, led by my brilliant and talented fiancé, Amy Dobson. Here were 220 young men and women with special needs treated like cherished and honored members of the human family. They were cared for with an abundance of considered Christian compassion for several hours, down to hair and make-up and limo rides, and their parents were treated to a beautiful dinner. And it was done not to boast in doing it, but simply to communicate care to people who are often overlooked.

Set this spirit lifting and deeply humanizing event against the efforts of many in our culture to devalue anyone that is broken in any respect. How many doctors counsel aborting children with birth defects because of the cost to their parents, and indeed to the taxpayer? How many neglect or reject those among us who even push us to the point of boredom? How many of us have little time for our elderly? We are a culture of critics, and our criticism is almost exclusively leveled against those we perceive to be below us. And yet our Lord was clear, “whatever you have done to the least of these brothers of mine you have done unto me.” It is an axiomatic statement. No Christian, touched by the gospel of grace, can be dismissive of the least of these! At the heart of this grand display of compassion is an idea: that these people, regardless of IQ or levels of dependency, are resplendent spiritual beings, bearing upon them the stamp of the image of the author of all life. That is why we have every responsibility to see that they are born, loved, and honored!

Tonight reminded me of a lesson from Dr. Pyne at Dallas Theological Seminary. Dr. Pyne had a child with special needs. He said that the image of God is not a collection of attributes, such as autonomous will or moral agency or intelligence; it is a uniqueness, a holiness, to human creation! It was really a profound point. You will not find some line of demarcation between animal attributes and human attributes. It is a qualitative spiritual unity and not a quantitative set of attributes at nominal and definitive levels. One cannot, according to any Christian understanding, arbitrarily set the IQ level of what counts as being human. One cannot arbitrarily set the level of independence, or even moral reasoning. Being human is something more fundamental, indeed more simple, than the infinite variability of attributes. If indeed one is to erect a set of measurements, then we have two important questions that emerge. First, why that set? And second, on whose authority are we to accept that set? In the end, something like respecting a person with disabilities comes down to philosophy, yet again. We are right back to first principles. What is the ontology (the reality) of the human person? In other words, what does it mean to be human? And second, on whose authority, or on what basis, do we define "human" as we do?

These men and women are Image-bearers, meaning simply that they were born by human parents into the human family, which God established to be animated by the neshmah, the spiritual dynamism that separates mankind from the animal world and makes us a special expression of the Triune God. That is the Christian basis for treating these people with the utmost dignity.

But our culture, to the extent that it is beguiled by secular thought, is materialistic and nominalistic, and as such they reject the notion of the Image of God. Most people do not seem to be aware that they reason in a secular manner, but their normal reasoning betrays their first principles. For example, the typical person speaks of "quality of life," meaning that if one were to lose one's ability to do various functions, then life would no longer be worth living. It is not a carefully worked out maxim, but once the principle is granted, then one can easily see it applied to people with various birth defects. What is their quality of life, and how do they affect the quality of life of those saddled with the burden of caring for them?

Those who are most consistent with secular reasoning on the point are people like Princeton ethicist Peter Singer. He makes it clear that the newborn human baby is not functionally different than most lower mammals. It demonstrates no special--see if you recognize this term now--attributes that would distinguish it from a goat or a yak. It is just a totally dependent biochemical organism. As such, it can be killed at the whims of those who deem it below some arbitrary set of defining attributes. The only thing puzzling about this claim (besides the fact that it is appalling) is that other godless people find it appalling. It is perfectly consistent with an atheistic worldview.

There are plenty of intellectuals thinking in this way, and it is horrifying to see so many reasoning consistently according to a materialistic worldview. For example, a recent article in the Journal of Medical ethics by lead scientist Julian Savulescu argued that, “The moral status of an infant is equivalent to that of a fetus in the sense that both lack those properties that justify the attribution of a right to life to an individual.” There it is, that important word, "properties." But why stop at infancy? Why not look at those who suffer brain trauma later in life and see if their "properties" are up to Dr. Savulescu's capricious and wholly subjective assessment of value? What about many of our elderly? 

The core problem we face today is that we delve into ethical questions and ethical positions prior to clearly stating the epistemological and metaphysical assumptions from which these positions arise. We have a culture that loves to make philosophical pronouncements without doing the hard work of thinking philosophically! 

Here is a wonderful test: Anytime a fellow traveller insists that you care about some ethical matter, like Peter Singer's position, always begin with the core philosophical considerations. Ask them if human consciousness is incidental to the universe or not. Ask them if it is transitory. If it is, then ethical considerations are clearly meaningless. Ask them if moral authority is obligatory or universal or subjective or relative. It makes a universe of difference if morality is nothing more than a set of linguistic epiphenomena created by animals capable of enshrining their passions in language! If we are just animals adrift in a vacuous black ocean, then we, and our language, are no more dignified than bioluminescent algae, both making some bold and random display, which means in the end precisely nothing!

But the Christians gathered on February 9th to celebrate these fellow human beings believed deeply that there is a God who created humankind in His image. God didn't make these people broken, but rather is the God who has shown compassion on our deeply broken race. The God of the Christian faith is not remote or indifferent to human suffering, but instead has joined us in our suffering, suffered as none of us could suffer to restore us to God, and continues to minister to us in this broken world. He is the God who is near in our suffering, and makes our suffering finite through the death and resurrection of Jesus. That is the hope of the guests at Night to Shine, but it is also the hope of the rest of us, because we all are broken in sin, in desperate need of a savior. Indeed we all have special needs, and that is why we should care as we have been cared for!

d

Falling In Love

One runs the risk of causing others to involuntarily gag when talking on such a topic, but I promise to try to make this of general interest.

The first thing to note about falling in love is that it shows us that we are not purely rational beings. That is not to say that one should allow one's heart to override one's mind, but it is equally true that one's mind should not quash the heart either. And in truth, when the mind and heart are working together in the matter of love, the heart's portion is greater, not less. In other words, if the heart's infatuation makes sense, then its infatuation is magnified. What is one to do when one finds another in whom resides every sublime quality that could exist in a woman? How can the heart resist a woman that the mind has assessed to be luminous in every meaningful way? Philippians sums up the list with "noble, lovely, and true." Is it appropriate for the mind to release its authoritarian hold for a season so that it may be trained by the heart; trained not merely to assess what is good, but to abandon all in pursuit of what is good?

The second thing to notice about falling in love is the investment. One really does feel that one could lay down one's life for the beloved, without the slightest hesitation. There is almost an instinctive self-sacrifice when one really falls in love. It comes out in pre-meditated service, the sacrifice of sleep, attentiveness to the needs of the other. One wants to give away time and treasure for the sake of the beloved, and the simple reason is that the lines that separate begin to blur. It is hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.

The third thing to notice about falling in love is that it is oddly painful. In my recent experience--and I truly had forgotten this, perhaps had never really experienced it before--the feeling of being in love is almost like some thrill ride or risk taking adventure. It feels like you are dying a little while also feeling so alive, so energized, so heightened to everything. You are operating on the margins of yourself, the extremities. The pain comes from the risk involved. Lewis once said, "why love when losing hearts so much?" Indeed that thought must come to all lovers in the intensity of the season.

A fourth thing is something profound to me and perhaps not to any readers. The great problem with promiscuity, or the generic lust for variety, prized by so many men in our sexually indulgent culture is that they never really learn to see a woman. They only learn to see the traits they want to see in every woman. They look for one or a few fungible parts in all woman. They come to see the same color in great numbers of women. They are one dimensional; or more to the point, they make all women one dimensional. But falling in love as I have in these days has taught me to see the infinite colors in one woman. Just the other day, the light at dusk caught her features as I've never seen them before. The day before that she wore a sweater that accentuated the subtle green at the interior rim of her eyes. Recently I noticed a kind of elegant glide to her walk. She is always changing. She really is a thousand incarnations, limitless in the various manifestations of her glorious beauty! It occurs to me that men who seek out multiple women have never really seen one as I see this one extraordinary woman!

Another comment about beauty: The other day I was in a winery and saw a group of young women come through on a Bachelorette party. They were all dressed the same, showing every attribute with bold--and in some cases unwarranted--confidence and crass neglect of their subtler qualities. It occurred to me that many men are attracted to a blatant hedonistic display of flesh, but I was simply put off by the whole tottering, drunk, preening, nails-clicking-against-phone-screens, selfie-taking, college-educated-stripper routine! Their beauty was propped-up, artificial, and superficially sophisticated. It was all tight, short, plunging, made-up, faked-up, flattering, giggling clonery. They all apparently sent a text to each other about the false eyelashes.

But the woman I've fallen in love with is truly beautiful, in the most thoroughly authentic sense. And yes, I am speaking about the physical alone here, not the cheap slogan that she is "beautiful inside," which she is. She is more beautiful physically than all because what is seen is who she is, from her simple make-up, which is just enough to accentuate naturally beautiful features, to her healthy and flawless skin, which she only displays modestly, in the subtlest hints. She is fashionable, but restrained. She is fit, but not a show off. There is mystery in her various fashions and displays of her body. She possesses the brightest eyes and smile, and radiates an energy that elicits a chivalrous response. Men can see that she is lovely, perhaps among the loveliest creatures they have ever seen, but also that she is so pure in her beauty that they cannot offend against her beauty. Men react to the women in the winery with cat-calls and gawking. Men react to my girl with hushed reverence. That is the difference between the false beauty of the age and the beauty of an authentic beauty.

And finally, I must comment that falling in love has taught me about the powerful vulnerability of an intimate kiss. It really is peculiar, but sex can be merely animalistic, driven by one or both partner's need for pleasure. A kiss never seems to be about mere pleasure. You can know that intimacy has gone out of a relationship not when a couple stops having sex, but when they no longer kiss meaningfully. The souls of two people touch when they kiss, especially in a passionate way. Of course, the great travesty about sex is when two people turn it into something less than it should be. It is still a great sin, and in fact is seen as a sin when acted upon prior to marriage where an intimate kiss is not. My point is limited in this regard. I'm only suggesting that it is easier to make sex about pleasure alone, thereby corrupting it, than it is to corrupt an intimate kiss. It is a strange thing that an intimate kiss is less risky in the sense of making one vulnerable to sin, but more risky in the sense of opening one's heart to the beloved. Think of it thus: Who is more wounded emotionally at a break-up? The couple who never intimately kissed, had some fun having sex a few times, then parted ways; or the couple who kissed deeply and intimately a few times, never had sex, and then broke up? Does it not seem obvious the the latter would suffer more at the break-up than the former?