Presenting & Fundamental Causes

A special committee to advise a presbytery presented its report to the 83rd General Assembly of the OPC today. Said presbytery has been embroiled in conflicts for about the last decade, give or take a few years. The committee suggested those conflicts had a presenting cause (disagreement over a theological issue), but the more fundamental cause was a “a systemic failure to pastorally and effectively address concerns.”

In a floor speech, I suggested the committee members write up a case study so other presbyteries might learn how they can better address concerns within their own bodies. I may be cynical, but it seems to me many of our presbyteries may already share the “more fundamental cause,” and will similarly become embroiled in conflict should nearly any presenting cause emerge.

Peter Shaffer

I feel mildly insincere proclaiming my great admiration for a playwright’s work when I’ve really only carefully studied two of his works. But as both those works are undisputed masterpieces, I think it only right to note Peter Shaffer’s death last week by discussing Equus and Amadeus.

I can’t remember whether I saw the film or read the play (I believe in my college freshman English class) first, but I do know that the reading was when I was struck by the struggle of Amadeus’ lead character, Salieri. In exchange for musical gifting, Salieri had offered God piety and devotion, and so felt betrayed when the “obscene child” Mozart manifested an effortless genius which Salieri could never hope to attain. Salieri’s plot to avenge himself against God by destroying Mozart demonstrated a zealous adherence to the principle of justification by works seen only by the Pharisees and the counter-reformation’s inquisitors. That Shaffer could draw an entirely human portrait of such a man was itself a demonstration of apparently effortless genius.

Equus preceded Amadeus. Again, I can’t remember when I first encountered it, although I know it was during my university days when I was particularly preoccupied with how questions of theology and faith are worked out in the arts. In Equus, the only way a boy crippled by guilt and shame can think to save himself is by attacking a god of his own creation. In both Equus and Amadeus, the lead character locates the source of his turmoil not in himself or in his sin, but in the God who is his ultimate judge.

Shaffer’s characters toil beneath the gaze of a pitiless God, with no whisper of hope that he might have delivered himself over for the forgiveness of some. Nonetheless, Shaffer understood that humanity is, fundamentally, homo adorans. Our lives are measured, then, not by our accomplishments, but by our service and worship to the God who is.

Overture 1

This morning the 83rd General Assembly of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church approved Overture 1, from the Presbytery of Central Pennsylvania. It asks the Committee on Christian Education to consider preparing a “modern English study version” of the Westminster Shorter Catechism. One might note there are already widely available modern English renditions of the Catechism; the grounds for the overture argued that because these are under copyright, the congregations of the OPC need another version which may be used for free.

As the case was presented by the presbytery, as I read the grounds, and as I heard the speeches in favor, it seemed to me the driving rationales for the action were two:

1. the English used in the Shorter Catechism is older and can be difficult for many Americans today;
2. it can be even more challenging for non-native English speakers, who are making up an increasingly large constituency in many OPC congregations.

I’m sympathetic to both those concerns, but I’m not persuaded another modern English version will address them. To the first, elders and pastors should be teaching the Catechism in their Churches, both in group settings (such as catechetical sermons) and in individual discipleship. As they explain the concepts in the Catechism, they will necessarily make the language more transparent. In other words, the better answer to the first problem is pedagogy.

With regard to the second, the Westminster Standards have been translated into many tongues. (I first memorized the Shorter Catechism in Spanish.) Rather than ask a new convert to learn the Catechism in the strange language which is English, provide the catechumen with a copy in his or her native tongue. The catechizer can work from the English, and even use catechesis to help the catechumen improve his or her English. But as the Scriptural doctrines in the Shorter Catechism are the truths precious to the believer’s heart, they may be best learned in one’s mother tongue.

A strange sign of the times

I've always been a touch mystified by fervor over the Olympic Games. Yes, all those athletes competing at the highest levels are very impressive, but if you don't watch swim meets on something like a regular basis, why would you get worked up by them on a quadrennial schedule? Moreover, given how massive sports infrastructure projects almost never lead to long-term benefits for hosting municipalities, I have to agree with Frank Deford that bidding to host the Olympics "is like bidding to host an epidemic."

That said, I was struck by a BBC article on a team of Olympic athletes, composed entirely of refugees from various conflicts, which is to compete in the Rio 2016 games. In some sense, I suppose it's a heart-warming and inspirational story. Nonetheless, it strikes me as a shocking indictment of the current age of horrors visited on too-large swaths of this sad world.

1x

While I now listen to almost all my podcasts at twice normal speed, a couple employ such carefully constructed soundscapes that their meaning would be obscured, and their impact radically diminished, if their playback were sped up.

One, of course, is Nate DiMeo's The Memory Palace, a faithful celebration of the human beings who populate history books. Every episode is, honestly and truly, beautiful. DiMeo has begun listing credits at the end of the show, but his original practice was to simply let music fade out each story, giving the listener a moment to reflect on the human experience he has just heard. You can't rush The Memory Palace. You have to give heed to every beat, every carefully constructed sentence, and then think. And think.

The only other, at least so far, is The Truth, an anthology of radio drama for the podcast age. In this case, the story is not simply content, but a construct built of sound, pacing, and style. Rush it, and you won't get it.

I'm not sure what would get me to slow down to 0.5 speed. A pharmaceutical advertisement?

On boycotting

In "Why I Won't Boycott Target," Russell E. Saltzman, a blogger for the First Things website, thoughtfully reflects on who is most adversely affected, and who benefits, from boycotts of large corporations. It's a helpful reminder that our politics should be guided as much by a consideration of the needs of our fellow Church members as the desire to make a statement.

OPC FG XXXI, 5

As you are no doubt aware, chapter XXXI, 5 of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church's Form of Government clearly states that local congregations, and not presbyteries nor the General Assembly, have control over their own local properties. It's there because, as I hope you're aware, when the congregations which would become the OPC seceded from the old Presbyterian Church U.S.A. (often because their pastors had come under Church discipline for not affirming theological liberalism), the national denomination asserted ownership of their buildings and property. Often these congregations were sued in the civil courts; shockingly, the local congregation won control of their property only once, even though in every case the properties had been bought and paid for by the local members, not the national denomination.

This sad history is playing itself out again as the "mainline" denominations take another decisive step away from the historic Christian faith. (In the twentieth century, they denied essential Christian doctrine; in the twenty-first, essential Christian ethics. Since the Church has historically been defined first by doctrine and second by ethics, one wonders what of "Christian" is left to these "churches.") As homosexual marriage and ordination are institutionalized, another wave of congregations is seceding and is losing their properties. This week's Research on Religion podcast focuses on a law review article by Michael McConnell and Luke Goodrich, "On Resolving Church Property Disputes," which suggests ways in which civil courts can take a genuinely neutral approach to litigants in these cases. OPC history is not mentioned, but the Form of Government of our sister Church, the Presbyterian Church in America, does get a shout-out.

Of course, the very fact national denominations are taking local congregations to the civil courts is a manifest sign of their failure as Churches (1 Corinthians 6:1-8). This grasping after the things of this world is also what makes me laugh through my tears whenever a liberal protestant postures her or his communion as being much nicer than my own

hide-bound, reactionary fellowship.

2X

No, that's not my pant size.

For a moment, I thought it a little too early in the development of the medium to call this the "Golden Age of Podcasting," but then I remembered the first Golden Age of Television came pretty early on in the development of that medium, too. When a thing is new, there are few to no rules to constrain its growth and direction, and though there are many, many regretful clunkers, there are also wonders too countless to number. Marty, anyone?

I think it was Christmas 2013 when I actually finished listening to all the podcasts in my queue, but then EconTalk did a joint episode with Research on Religion, and I never got caught up again. I try and try and try to resist the temptation to subscribe to another, but Imaginary Worlds was too tempting to pass up. In an ordinary week, I have roughly 30-45 minutes a day (between working out and doing the dishes) to listen to podcasts, with maybe 2-4 more hours during Saturday chores. When you're adding up 6-8 hours of new audio every week, you quickly get into a listening hole. I go through my podcasts in chronological order, so I was about six weeks and and 36 hours behind when I listened to the 500th episode of EconTalk.

Mike Munger mentioned that he listens to his podcasts on 1.5x speed. This had never before occurred to me. I was afraid everyone would sound like a chipmunk, but iTunes uses some sort of audio scrubbing software which doesn't alter the tone or timbre of anyone's voice; it just sounds like they're talking fast. I quickly adjusted to 1.5x, and then took the leap to 2x. As of today, my queue has gone down to only 27 hours, and I'm only 2 and a half weeks behind. At this pace, I am finally beginning to hope I can begin listening to podcasts the week they come out.

Sadly, my iPhone doesn't offer a 2.5x setting.

The Amazing Spider-Man

If you care a bit more than you should about these things, you've almost certainly seen the trailer for Captain America: Civil War in which Spider-Man shows up at the very end. (An aside: perhaps the actual movie will be about the Captain and his close personal allies, but the trailers make it look much more like the next Avengers installment. I go to a Captain America movie to see Captain America. And maybe the Falcon.) This has Thing 1 giddy with excitement, but me not so much.

Back when I was an avid comics reader, my favorite Spider-Man period was when Jim Owsley was editing those titles for Marvel during the 1980s. Thereafter, it seemed to me that Marvel was exploiting the character's popularity for cash value, putting him through countless wrenching changes and cross-overs for little reason other than boosting sales. That said, I thought the Sam Raimi/Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movies were fun, but by the third installment began suffering the same bloat which afflicted the first run of Batman movies after Tim Burton and Michael Keaton left the series. 

And then came The Amazing Spider-Man.

If you know any comic book history at all, you know the stories about how the Stan Lee-, Jack Kirby- and Steve Ditko-led Marvel Comics of the 1960s up-ended the industry. Spider-Man, we read, was revolutionary for having a secret identity which was not only as well-developed as his costumed role, but which was a nebbishy high-school student. We read about the excitement he generated among readers, offering a hero whom they could not only idolize, but to whom they could intimately relate (because you see, children, back in our day all comic book readers were irredeemable doofuses). I read about that Spider-Man, but I didn't experience him other than in the occasional anthology. The Spider-Man of my youth had aged, was in his late twenties, and even married Mary-Jane Watson. All of which was fine, but didn't exactly carry on the legendary magic of Stan Lee's 1960s Spider-Man.

I got that, finally, when Andrew Garfield took on the character in 2012. His portrayal, and the way the two films set his universe, finally landed me in the sheer joy of an adolescent climbing walls and the pathos of a teenager losing the man who had raised him while finding his first serious girlfriend. The Amazing Spider-Man movies gave me the opportunity to experience Stan Lee's original vision. Unlike any number of other recent superhero movies (looking at you, Man of Steel and the X-Men franchise), those films had an emotional heft which has stuck with me.

As much I've enjoyed the Marvel cinematic universe thus far, and the Avengers in particular, I'm not interested in seeing Spider-Man join it. To me, he's always been at his best when he is alone, struggling (and often failing) to figure out his place in the world . At the same time, I don't really object to him snatching away Captain America's shield, either. It's just too bad that moment had to come at the expense of ending Andrew Garfield's take on Spider-Man, the only one in which I've been interested for years.

The word of the day is "nicodemously"

I learned it this morning from Zimbabwean author Pettina Gappah when she was interviewed on NPR's Morning Edition. She was explaining "Zimglish" (backup word of the day):

I'll give you one example: Because we love our Bible — we consider ourselves a very strong Christian country — so we have a lot of phrases that we take from the Bible that we think are English words. So for example Nicodemus, is a man, a Pharisee who went to Jesus at night and said, "How can a man be born again?" So to do something "nicodemously" is to do something secretly, under cover of the darkness. So you have politicians condemning the "Nicodemus machinations of the government" and you think ... What? It's my absolutely favorite Zimglish word of all time.