A Christmas podcast instead

Finding no new Christmas albums whose recording artists didn't induce a yawn, I decided to download Harry Belafonte's Christmas (a reissue of his 1958 To Wish You a Merry Christmas) from Freegal, but even that disappointed. The performances were so anodyne that I wondered whether someone else had secretly recorded "Day-O" in his place. I'm now reduced to hoping that some record company executive will rediscover Simon and Garfunkel's version of "Go Tell It on the Mountain" from Wednesday Morning 3 A.M. and convince them to reunite for a whole Christmas album. Hey, it worked for Bob Dylan and Christmas in the Heart.

Being as I listen to my podcasts in sequential order and I'm living about 4 weeks in the past (which means no, I still haven't heard the final installment of Serial), I decided to sort out the holiday-themed episodes for this week's listening. The Truth is sort of an old-fashioned radio drama show, except all the sound elements reflect a distinctly modern sensibility. NPR's All Things Considered commissioned them to produce a story to air on Christmas day, and they came up with the truly wonderful "Naughty or Nice." You can wait to hear it on the radio on December 25, or you can download it today. Every minute brought me a delighted smile, and, needless to say, it drives home the true meaning of Christmas.

Which is presents.

The end is nigh (Yuletide edition)

Look, I get the idea of Christmas pajamas, and kind of almost like it. Mrs. Curmudgeon and I gift the curmudgelings a fresh set each Christmas Eve evening, and they've come to look forward to the tradition to the extent that Thing 1 just asked whether he'd be getting pajamas this year. (Or maybe that was dread in his voice. Hard to say.) 

Of course, said pajamas are purchased from the heavily-discounted Christmas-remainder bins at Target sometime in early January, so part of the fun is seeing whether I guessed their sizes correctly from a year out. For those with a different sense of fun and more disposable income, retailers offer pajamas at full price, and there's even Pajamagram, which offers by-Christmas-Eve-guaranteed delivery and pajama sets for the whole family, including cats and dogs.

Including cats and dogs.

When future archaeologists dig up these pictures, they will nod ruefully to themselves and categorize the evidence under "Signs of the Inevitable End."

The devil in green eyeshades

I have recently read two nonfiction Christian books which attempt to persuade the reader to adopt the authors’ positions, and, as is the case with so many of these books, one can’t imagine them persuading anyone but the already persuaded because their arguments are so poorly presented. It’s not that they are entirely without merit; rather, they fail to anticipate objections or consider how their rhetorical style might negatively impress their readers. Odds are very good that you’ve read such a book yourself.

This has reminded me of the great value of a good editor. I note, from their acknowledgement pages, that both these books received any amount of editorial comment from any number of readers during their manuscript stages. Thus, I should clarify that by “good editor” I mean “an editor who doesn’t much care for the author’s position or, for that matter, the author himself.”

Writers are a vain lot: they love and dote on every precious phrase over which they’ve long toiled. They need a hostile editor, one willing, no, eager to say “That makes no sense, and the fact you wrote it suggests that you yourself are utterly lacking in sense.” Writers need to see the holes in their arguments so they can be filled, to be told their style is precious and off-putting so they will write clearly and winsomely, and to be told when they've written a run-on sentence. Writers (and here I grudgingly include myself) need editors with standards so high they can’t be met by anything not directly inspired by the Holy Spirit. Writers need editors who will make them WORK, and then work harder still.

In a now-old Doonesbury strip, Garry Trudeau had a journalist call editors “devils in green eyeshades.” Indeed, and now that self-publishing has become eye-poppingly inexpensive, we need more of them.

Mind your own business

A year (or so) ago now, Doug Phillips, founder and sole proprietor of Vision Forum “Ministries” confirmed the worst suspicions of those of us who found him and his work, well, icky, when it was revealed he had seduced the family’s late-teenage nanny. Yup, ick.

Mrs. Curmudgeon follows these things more closely than I, and forwarded to me a comment she ran across on one of the many blogs devoted to supporting survivors of the emotional and spiritual abuse so often attendant upon the home-everything movement/fringe:

I find it mind boggling that we are being told that the local church, not the Internet, is the place to handle a man’s repentance. These parachurch ministries and gurus use all media available to promote themselves and their causes. Then, when one crashes and burns morally, suddenly they run to the local church to hide. If the “local church” was so important, why did Doug spend almost 2 decades building a ministry outside of it? These men welcome any and all non-local church promotion of themselves…until they are exposed as frauds. Then suddenly they are devout believers in the “local church.” It’s ludicrous. You can’t have it both ways, boys.

This, in turn, puts me in mind of one of my favorite New Testament passages: “But we urge you, brothers, to …aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one” (1 Thessalonians 4:10-12). What strikes me, not only about Doug Phillips, but about all the men associated with the “Family-Integrated Church,” is how much they mind the affairs of everyone, everywhere. They are full of advice as to how to run one’s family and/or Church. They seem to aspire to live loudly and publicly so they can be admired and followed.

I recognize I tread a fine line here: after all, I am writing this on a blog which no one asked me to write, in the (admittedly vain) hope it will be read by more than a few dozen people. What man (by which I mean “adult male person”) doesn’t aspire for just a little recognition in this cold, heartless world?

Of course, much the same could be said of the Apostle Paul, whose just-quoted advice was written to a Church in a town where he had stayed only briefly (Acts 17). But I think there’s a profound difference between busy-bodies and Paul (and, I hope, me). Busy-bodies say, “I’ve figured it all out, and if you do what I have done, you can be as successful as me.” Paul said, “I’ve got it all figured out: Jesus.”

So if you’re still reading this, a piece of unsolicited advice: don’t read the blog, buy the books, or go to the conferences of the man who tells you he and his friends are the models for the Christian life. Instead, look for the one who tells you your only hope is being raised up to meet Jesus (1 Thessalonians 4:13-17).

Christmastime is beer (2014)

I have to admit that I've become a little fussy with regard to winter warmers. Since the species tends toward malt, caramel, and chocolate notes, and I tend to prefer hop, citrus, and pine accents, even some of my old favorite Christmas beers no longer appeal. Nonetheless, as I just had a glass of Full Sail's "Wreck the Halls" at the Falling Rock Taphouse, I'm reminded that the Christmas brewing season is wide enough to embrace even an bitters-loving curmudgeon. In addition to "Wreck the Halls," I'm looking forward to Pyramid's "Snow Cap," New Belgium's "Accumulation" (still the archetypal white IPA), and the 2014 Sierra Nevada "Celebration Ale."

Christmastime is still beer!

Putting the lie to regeneration myths (sequel to “An open letter to pastors & adoptive parents”)

Pastors and adoptive parents share another experience and learned wisdom which didn’t easily lend itself to the exhortations I gave both groups in “An open letter to pastors & adoptive parents.” They both understand the popular myth attendant on regeneration is precisely that: a myth.

By that, I don’t mean regeneration is a myth. Jesus said we must be born again (John 3:16), and Paul taught that Christians are new creations in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:16-17). This is a work of the Holy Spirit, a new birth by which we obtain the faculty to repent and believe on the Cross of Christ for salvation. Unfortunately, many wrongly deduce from this Biblical truth the faulty conclusion that regeneration fixes people. This is as wrong as an Alaskan summer day is long.

Saved people are sinners. Hooo boy are they sinners. Ask your pastor. You got your socially acceptable sins and your socially unacceptable sins, but everybody’s got a raft of them. Sermons help, and sometimes dramatic pastoral interventions help. But as I like to say, the work of the Christian ministry is the long, slow, tedious task of helping the average Christian to not go to hell over the course of their average 70 to 80-year lifespan. Put them in the grave with the hope of the resurrection, and you’ve done well.

Likewise parenting, and especially adoptive parenting. Kids don’t get fixed. There’s no therapy or intervention or dramatic confrontation that does the trick. It’s more or less the same thing, day in, day out, with little noticeable change or improvement. Lord willing, you wake up one morning and, sometime after the coffee has kicked in, you might notice that the kid isn’t quite as twitchy or annoying as you’d gotten used to him being. But there is always, always, much room for improvement.

The regenerational myth is hardwired into American culture. We believe in the quick fix as an article of religious faith, a creed which is recited by every happily-ending romantic comedy. But it’s not true, and it’s okay to say that. In fact, we need to say that so we can accept the callings God has placed on pastors and parents alike to imitate our Lord’s long-suffering grace and mercy to us.

An open letter to pastors & adoptive parents

I found this blog post on Mrs. Curmudgeon’s Facebook wall, and I appreciated how the author spoke frankly of the challenges peculiar to parenting adoptive children and gladly put those in the context of God’s grace to sinful parents and children. As I read, it seemed to me there are some fairly obvious similarities between pastoral ministry and parenting adoptive children.

Pastors and adoptive parents both bear absolutely no responsibility for the development of the people under their care until they come under their care, and in neither case does that make any difference for their responsibility thenceforth. If the previous pastor turned a blind eye to drunkenness and fornication, the new pastor still has to deal with those sins graciously and forthrightly, just as he can take no credit for the elders his predecessor so carefully trained. An adoptive parent can’t boast in his child’s winning smile, but still has to comfort her through screaming fits night after night. You don’t dance with those who brought you: you dance with those the Lord has brought to you.

Hence, both must operate entirely on the basis of God’s grace through the Cross of Christ. You can’t make a sinner be a good person, whether said sinner is your child or your congregant. You can only pray and try your best to forgive, be generous and open-hearted, and then confess your failure to minister to your child or congregant to a Savior whom you know to be merciful to both pastors and parents. Otherwise, not only will you break, you will break many bent reeds.

Parenting and pastoring, then, are both extremely long-term propositions. I’ve been in my call for fifteen years now, and in all honesty, some of the spiritual progress I’ve been privileged to see can only be measured in decades. (If any in my congregation are reading this, rest assured I’m not talking about you personally. You’ve been growing like a spiritual weed. Okay, maybe that’s not the most flattering metaphor.) Likewise parenting. I like to tell people, and need to tell myself more often, that we’re not raising children, but adults. Whether our children are a constant challenge or joy at this very moment, we won’t know how they’ve turned out until we need them to take care of us in our old age. Parenting and pastoring alike: not a race, not even a marathon; instead, a garden which must be cultivated, pruned, watered and covered year after year, season after season until the Lord calls us to lay all our labors down.

And so two twinned challenges. Parents, but especially adoptive parents, should most understand the challenges and joys of pastoral ministry; pray for and encourage your pastor accordingly. Pastors, more than any other in the average congregation, should most understand the challenges and joys of adoptive parenting, and should consider adopting children.

How an atheist became pro-life

I don't know who first said (or wrote) "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention," but that would be a nice summary of Nat Hentoff's still-ongoing journalistic career. As memories of the American Republic and its Constitution recede ever further into the past, a great number of his columns on cato.org end with something very much like, "I keep repeating: Is this still America? And if not, who on earth are we?" And for this, he is to be ceaselessly praised.

The marvelously titled "Not Only Did Obama Lose (Hooray Constitution), but so Did Abortion," is not simply a celebration of the recent election results; in it, Hentoff explains how he came to "the most controversial position he has ever taken" (and the one which, the cynical amongst us are wont to suspect, was the real reason he was laid off by The now-disgraced Village Voice). He read some books on prenatal biology, and came to the inescapable conclusion that a fetus is a human person.

I bring this up (again) because I know what reasonable people think about people like me. To save time, I've begun explaining to those outside our ecclesiastical circles that "We're not the nice presbyterians; we're the reactionary, knuckle-dragging kind." (Yes, I literally say that. With a smile, though.) That's why I feel compelled to point out that our crazy views on the beginning of human life do not orginate in an irrational leap of faith, but rather in observation and an application of the scientific method. Indeed, the true irrationality is to suppress all reason and conclude, contrary to all evidence, that a person is not a person simply because said person is in the womb.

In other words: if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention.

A visit from the happy lion

If you don't closely follow news from Europe, you may not know that the greater Parisian metropolitan area is all in a terrified frenzy over reports of a "big cat" on the loose. That reaction is quite unfortunate: we who spend every evening reading classic children's literature know there is no reason for concern.

Continuing education

As is the case for many others, one of the most important lessons I took away from graduate school is that I am not cut out for any higher educational endeavors. Nonetheless, on a recent trip to Berlin, Pa Curmudgeon found an educational institution which makes me wish I had taken a semester abroad.

On politics and liberty

Once again, a couple recommendations curated from the First Things website.

Peter Leithart offers a welcome reminder of the necessarily public, and therefore political, nature of the ministry of Word and sacrament in "Pastors Don't Need to Enter Politics–They're Already in It."

In the October issue of First Things, Yuval Levin observed that freedom from constraint is an impoverished political ideal because what every republic (and especially the American one) needs is a mature citizenry able to exercise its liberty responsibly. "Taking the Long Way" argues that libertarianism corrodes a free society if it does not allow room for the institutions which inculcate that social and spiritual maturity. I am reminded of James Madison's words in Memorial and Remonstrance:

Before any man can be considered as a member of Civil Society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governor of the Universe:  And if a member of Civil Society, who enters into any subordinate Association, must always do it with a reservation of his duty to the general authority;  much more must every man who becomes a member of any particuar Civil Society, do it with a saving of his allegiance to the Universal Sovereign.

A brief moment of clarity

Last night, a conversation with Mrs. Curmudgeon and Theatre Companion about election results led to a discussion of how difficult it is to remember what political parties "red" and "blue" signify in current media coverage. I suddenly heard myself saying, "Referring to the two major parties by color rather than by name or political philosophy makes it seem as though there's no substantive distinction between them. …Oh."

The sacred, the secular, & the beautiful (2)

But if the sacred/secular distinction is eliminated from how we judge our lives, then it must also be eliminated from our worldview. All the earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it (Psalm 24:1); our task is to render all we find to his service. Our quiet manual labor fulfills the dominion mandate given to man in Genesis 1:28. We rule by using things: not only plants and animals, but everything. This must include culture.

How do we do this? We take hold of pagan creations and use them to glorify God. Musical instruments were invented by Jubal, from the ungodly line of Cain (Genesis 3:21). Therefore, they properly belong to paganism. But Christians are commanded to seize Jubal’s harp and flute and use them to praise the Lord (Psalm 150:3-5). All things belong to the Lord; Christians act as his repo men.

This process is fairly simple to grasp when discussing seemingly neutral technology, like musical instruments. It becomes a touch more tricky when dealing with the cultural artifacts produced by that technology, such as music itself. Can Christians really use grunge rock and jazz, or ought we to stick with classical music and hymns?

Well, as the founder of the Salvation Army asked, “Why should the devil have all the good music?” As we approach our culture and world, our question should not be “Is this (music, book, scientific theory, historical argument) safe? Will we be contaminated by it?”, but rather “Can this be used for God’s glory? If so, how?”

We can only answer that question by knowing God’s Word, the Bible. There the Lord describes for us the world in its relationship to him. The Bible is the standard by which we ought to measure all we see. When we hold the artifacts of our culture up to its light, we can discern what is true from what is false. Its framework will enable us to determine what we should flee from, and what we may render to the Lord’s service. From Scripture we learn that God is the Beginning and End, that all purpose and truth rest only in him. Anything else is false and idolatrous. 

Because of his mercy and love for his people, and his desire to provide a good world for them to live in, God has not deprived all pagans of truth and beauty. We live as foreigners in a land which rightfully belongs to us, and its occupiers would ruin all its good fruit if the Lord did not restrain them. Thus, the creations which come from their bent hearts oftentimes have in them the ring of truth and the unmistakable presence of beauty. Shakespeare could be a foul-mouthed, obscene blasphemer, as his comedies demonstrate. He was also capable of writing more eloquently than most of the love between a man and a woman, as his poem The Phoenix and the Turtle proves.

One difficulty in exercising dominion, rendering all the earth to the Lord’s service, is that there are no mechanical rules for doing so. It’s hard, dirty work. If we say all dead Greek and Latin pagans are worthy and all modern pagans funded by the NEA are fit only for the dustbin of history, we’ve missed the point. We must instead pick up the cultural artifacts of the world, examine them in the light of Scripture, discard that which is foul, and delight in that which is beautiful. In the process, we can turn the pagan’s idolatrous cultural artifact into a testimony of God’s character.

Take the film Titanic. I think we can say with a fair degree of confidence that James Cameron was not setting out to make a Christian movie: the celebration of premarital sex which is at the narrative’s center proves otherwise. However, we learn from it some very true things about both God and man. Towards the film’s beginning, a character looks at the Titanic and exclaims, “Not even God could sink this ship!” This, at least, is historically accurate: when the grand vessel set sail, many said precisely that. And grand she was. Cameron does us a great service by showing the breathtaking scale and majesty of the Titanic. The massive turbines of the engine room, creating and harnessing enormous power, are astounding. The gifted craftsmanship behind its lavishly decorated interiors is inspiring. All this was the creation of man. Man truly is great, and Titanic shows us this. But for all man’s greatness, he is powerless before God’s creation. When the Titanic struck an iceberg, she was doomed. Hubris, the fall brought on by arrogance, proved to be the Titanic’s undoing, and this magnificent testimony to mankind’s creative power sits at the bottom of the ocean.

This is a story we have heard before. As at the Tower of Babel, as at the Fall, man tried to supplant God, to take his place as rightful Lord of all. In so doing, man was destroyed. Man is great, but the Lord is far greater. But how do we find this testimony in a movie designed to reap massive profits at the mall? Because we have eyes to see. Because we know who man truly is and what his fate will be. Because we have read the Bible, we understand how all things testify to the glory of the Lord. As we see the world Biblically, we will see how all things find their meaning in their Creator. As we quietly live our lives in his service, we take dominion over the world, rendering it beautiful to the Lord, making its song of praise increasingly audible.

The Sacred, the Secular, & the Beautiful (1)

We are oftentimes burdened by the sheer mundanity of daily life. Work and chores conspire to clutter up every available moment. Laundry and the daily commute distract our minds during morning devotions, assuming they can be squeezed in amidst tending to the needs of our children. Surely our lives are dull and vacant of the delights which could be ours if only we would put all our dreary responsibilities aside for intensive Bible study and meditation. We long to spend our lives in undisturbed contemplation of God’s glory.

Clearly, then, sacred labor must be superior to secular employment. Pastors, seminarians, Christian writers and counselors spend their entire days in the study of Scripture, examining the holy things of the Lord. They are not concerned with workplace politics or fussy toddlers. Instead, all their time around others is spent in sweet Christian fellowship. Surely their spiritual lives are rich and profound. They are the ones doing great things for the Lord, whose names will go down as heroes of the faith. The Lord is doubtlessly more pleased with their sacred work than with the drab results of our secular toil.

Perhaps we ought to keep in mind Paul’s exhortation in 1 Thessalonians 4:11: “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you.” (NIV) In 4:1, Paul described the purpose of his instruction to the Thessalonians as “how to live in order to please God,” and then reminded them that this centers on living peacefully, doing useful work.

How disappointing. We think we ought to live eventful lives which will make exciting biographies for pious children to read on Sabbath-day afternoons. We want to be bold for Jesus, taking on the entire world single-handedly, loudly proclaiming our faith from street corners. The Lord, on the other hand, wants us to hush up and get a job. Where are the fastings, the hair shirts, the martyrdoms? Not, apparently, very high up on God’s priority list. Instead, he is pleased when we do productive (particularly manual) labor, work that is by definition “secular:” mundane, worldly. But if manual labor is pleasing to God, it must be sacred and holy. Therefore, if the sacred and secular spheres of life are so easily joined, there must be no real difference. The sacred/secular distinction is invalid, and in fact nonexistent.

 The implications of this truth have profound consequences for how we understand our lives and our work. All of life is sacred labor. We glorify God by doing the tasks he has appointed for us, whether in the home, the field, the factory, the office, or the pulpit. Holiness is not measured on a sliding scale: everything we do (including changing diapers!) is consecrated to the Lord. Pay attention to what Paul says: God is pleased with your dull, drab lives. In his eyes, they are bright-hued and rich with faithful vigor.

(Image taken from Tanamachi Studio; feel free to buy the Presbyterian Curmudgeon a print.)

Calvin the presbyterian (Calvin's Institutes, Battles edition: p. 1179, vol. 2)

In his discussion of the power of the Church to make laws (or rules of conduct and worship) for Christians, John Calvin writes,

This is the power now to be discussed, whether the church may lawfully bind consciences by its laws. In this discussion we are… only concerned with how God is to be duly worshiped according to the rule laid down by him, and how the spiritual freedom which looks to God may remain unimpaired for us. (Institutes IV.X.1)

A few years ago there was a bit of a controversy in my presbytery over worship practices, and I was surprised when a fellow minister stated that the regulative principle of worship (God is to be worshiped only as he has commanded in Scripture) is rooted in the holiness of God. While God’s holiness is certainly germane to the question, our regulations for worship are grounded in another doctrinal area entirely, as the above quote from Calvin shows. For Calvin, liturgical practice is an exercise of Church power, which in turn is constrained by Christian liberty (that is, the freedom the individual believer has received through Christ). A discussion of any one of these subjects has necessary implications for the others.

Due perhaps to historical contingencies on the British Isles, presbyterianism is the branch of the Reformed tradition which has most fully laid hold of Calvin’s insight, as is demonstrated by these selections from the Westminster Confession of Faith.

The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man's salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men. (WCF 1.6, “Of Holy Scripture”)

God alone is Lord of the conscience, and has left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men, which are, in any thing, contrary to His Word; or beside it, if matters of faith, or worship. (WCF 20.2, “Of Christian Liberty:” the clearest articulation of the regulative principle of worship in the Westminster Standards)

But the acceptable way of worshipping the true God is instituted by Himself, and so limited by His own revealed will, that He may not be worshipped according to the imaginations and devices of men, or the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representation, or any other way not prescribed in the holy Scripture. (WCF 21.1, “Of Religious Worship”) 

It belongs to synods and councils, ministerially to determine controversies of faith, and cases of conscience; to set down rules and directions for the better ordering of the public worship of God, and government of his Church; to receive complaints in cases of maladministration, and authoritatively to determine the same; which decrees and determinations, if consonant to the Word of God, are to be received with reverence and submission; not only for their agreement with the Word, but also for the power whereby they are made, as being an ordinance of God appointed thereunto in His Word. (WCF 31.2, “Of Synods and Councils”)

With respect to my Dutch brethren, I continue to believe presbyterianism, over against the continental reformed tradition, has best captured the peculiar genius of Calvinsim.

Occupy the streets of gold

When I went off to university, I got involved with United Campuses to Prevent Nuclear War, which title pretty much explains the organization's purpose and constituency. Lest anyone think this will be a rueful look back at youthful folly, rest assured I continue to believe the policy of Mutually Assured Destruction to be about as sane as its acronym suggests. Moreover, our nation's determination to go into massive debt in order to finance weapon systems designed to devastate civilian populations is, in my humble estimation, a self-evident abomination. I very much enjoyed being a part of UCam, as it was known, for its clarity of purpose and for the sober strategies (such as education and lobbying legislators) it employed.

Then 1989 happened, and shortly thereafter the first President Bush grounded the bombers which, the more mature reader might recall, had to that point always been up in the air. With that, all the urgency left the movement. The national organization simply disappeared (which was a more than a little disorienting), and, a little while later, so did our campus chapter.

I focused my attention on homelessness and poverty, but struggled to understand how either of those issues could be addressed by direct political action. In conjunction with my social sciences degree program, I began exploring how my activism could (or, more fundamentally, whether it should) be integrated with my Christian faith.

I still ran into my UCam friends around campus, and began noticing something strange. They had all the anger and passion of our anti-nuclear campaigning, but it seemed to lack any focus. A few turned their attention to the university itself, trying to persuade the student body that the administration was up to something nefarious. (This was James Madison University in the early nineties: the administration’s most nefarious scheme was to fence off the quad to reseed the dirt trails beaten down by too many students cutting across the grass.) The activist community, such as it was, turned in, and on, itself. I remember a self-published “literary journal” in which an “Open Letter to a White Male Activist” asserted that caucasian men, no matter what their actions, could escape or exculpate the stigma and guilt of being representatives of the oppressor class. It occurred to me that this might not be the best approach to recruiting volunteers to the cause.

But of course, that was precisely the problem: what cause? My friends were activists who believed, as a matter of principle, that the world’s ills could be solved by political action and they were thus obliged to take action. However, they struggled to define what those ills were, precisely, and what political action would be able to address them. They knew there is something wrong, terribly wrong, with the world as it is, but were unable to say what exactly that is.

In the meantime, I got permission to sit in a class for graduating sociology majors so I could write a research paper on Christian political activism. In the process, I realized that what is fundamentally wrong with this world is sin, and that while political action might redress some of sin’s symptoms and effects, it can never cure sin. Only Jesus and the Spirit-empowered Gospel of the Cross can do that. I didn’t know it then, but that minor epiphany was what set me on the path which would eventually lead to the ministry of Word and sacrament.

All this came to mind when the “Occupy Wall Street” movement erupted a couple years ago. Say what one will about the efficacy of public protest, I agree with rest of my white middle-aged male compatriots that the “Occupy” movement’s great and fatal weakness was its inability to articulate what, precisely, its goals were and/or how those goals might be accomplished. It seemed instead to be saying litttle more than “Something is wrong, very wrong, with our society.”

And there I agree with the Occupy movement and my undergraduate activist friends. Something is terribly, terribly wrong with America and the world today. However, it’s what’s been wrong with every society and the world itself since the shortly after the beginning of human history: sin. People sin, and world is under the curse because of sin. No amount of political action can fix that. I’m thankful God has provided a solution through the Gospel, and look forward to its final implementation when our Lord returns for us in glory.

In praise of MillerCoors

Even I have expressed cynicism about the way the AC Golden brewery is less than forthcoming about being simply another room in the massive Coors facility in Golden, Colorado, but I have enjoyed its Colorado Native lager since it first appeared here in the Centennial State. Not only has AC Golden backed up that lager's name by making it available only in Colorado, they've made good use of that MolsonMillerCoors money by paying Coloradan hops growers three times the market rate to ensure a local crop.

Three times.

It would appear that even a ginormous, soulless corporation whose founder had the misfortune to be named "Adolph" can love Colorado enough to not only not buy the cheapest ingredients (which would come from Washington state), but to pay triple in order to, for all intents and purposes, create a local supply chain.

Coors. I won't drink the beer with that name, but I'll raise a glass of Colorado Native to the corporation.

Lunch ladies are heroes

For 30 years now, TED talks have been enabling educated white people to think they have deep insight into the world. As an educated white person who thinks he has deep insight into the world, I like TED talks, and, precisely because I am their target audience, I have come to despise the smug preening of so many of them. Nonetheless, I subscribe to the TED podcast because every once in a while I hear one which touches on our common humanity rather than our overweening self-confidence. Jarrett Krosoczka's paean to lunch ladies is a lovely reminder that, whatever else one might say about the public schools, very many of their employees are decent human beings who genuinely are working for what they perceive to be the good of children. More: it's a reminder that what makes America great is a fundamental sense of decency which is grounded in a recognition of the value of human beings as such.

A running time of under 5 minutes, and I was weeping halfway through; if you have a heart, so will you.

False & illuminating

The First Things website just posted Richard J. Mouw's "My Favorite Heretic," in which he recommends reading those hostile to our faith precisely because their false beliefs help illuminate the content of the faith. It's a lovely bit of writing, clearly the result of a life spent in reflection on sympathetic reading of every writer one reads. 

"Some perspectives come close to the Christian vision precisely because they are, in another sense, so far away from it."

We can learn something about our God from every book, even from those who urge us to reject our Lord. In the end, there's no other reason to read.

The Power of the Church (Calvin's Institutes, Battles edition: pp. 1149-1166, vol. 2)

I just finished Book 4, chapter 8 of the Institutes, where Calvin discourses on what I've come to consider the particular genius of presbyterian government and practice, and which is succintly expressed in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church's Form of Government: "All church power is only ministerial and declarative, for the Holy Scriptures are the only infallible rule of faith and practice" (OPC FG III, 3). It warms the cockles of my presbyterian heart, and makes me so long to apply Scripture to Church affairs that I almost look forward to participating in presbytery deliberations.

Almost.

Nat's revenge

Since my teen years, when his column "Sweet Land of Liberty" was still widely syndicated, First Amendment and jazz scholar Nat Hentoff has been my personal Jiminy Cricket, my secular conscience always reminding me that I must read the text of the United States Constitution rather than think it follows my sometime fickle inclinations. As the newspaper industry has undergone massive contractions over the last decade, the unthinkable occurred and The Village Voice laid him off. Nonetheless, he keeps writing for the Cato Institute and continues to stir up outrage over the practical suspension of the rule of law in these United States.

I've been reading newspapers as long as I've been reading, and insisted we subscribe to The Denver Post here at the Curmudgeon household. However, Mrs. Curmudgeon has been questioning the value gained for the expense, and I was shocked to learn the monthly difference between a print subscription and a digital subscription (which includes a subscription to The Washington Post and Time magazine) is about $17. In about 10 months after switching to digital, we'll have saved enough to pay for the used iPad we're now using to read the news"paper."

Just as we were making the switch, Nat Hentoff published "How Much Digital Reading Stays inside You?," in which he cited some recent research to tout the superiority of print reading over digital forms of delivery. I can't argue with him: even though I own a Kindle, I write out all my exegetical notes for sermon preparation with a pencil and read hard copies of all my commentaries. Even though I already owned a digital collection of John Calvin's complete works, I bought a printed set when I found it on sale. I know full well that we were meant to read words printed on paper, and Nat Hentoff reminded me that I had once again betrayed the cause.

Or at least I tried to. Mrs. Curmudgeon and I have called Honduras, where The Denver Post's call center is located, countless times. We've been assured our subscription has been switched over to digital-only and we will not be charged for the print edition. Nonetheless, every morning it's there at the end of my driveway, a reminder of all that is true and good in this fallen world, a solidified phantasm of the more genteel ways under which I came of age. Nat Hentoff would be pleased: I just can't get rid of the actual, physical newspaper.

And so in tribute to Nat, I read the printed comics section first. But then I turn on the iPad, because I have to admit I prefer The Washington Post app's countless supply of comic strips, even though I know I will never be able to light my grill with it, wadded up or not.

The root of protestant division

I've been reading Book 4, chapter 7 of The Institutes of the Christian Religion, in which John Calvin offers a brief history of the Roman bishop's claim to sovereignty over the universal Church. Perhaps that has led me to reflect on Church history in general, and the Great Schism in particular.

With many more thoughtful Roman Catholics, I regret that one effect of the Protestant Reformation was a division of the visible Church into various distinct, and often competing, branches. However, I cannot agree with the solution to that division proposed by many of the same Roman Catholics (particularly those with the zeal of recent conversion to the cause): namely, reunification with the Roman Catholic Church. These tend to paint division as a protestant disease, one which can easily be cured by submission to the pontiff in Rome.

This strikes me as a rather convenient failure to remember Church history, and in particular the division between East and West which passed its point of no return in 1054 A.D. This Wikipedia article is a reasonably fair and accurate summary, and helps us see this separation is no more or less substantive than the separations between Protestant traditions: disagreements over worship styles, forms of Church government, and rather technical theological points. The Great Schism is the Church's move away from her original constitution as a visibly universal Church to her modern existence as a fragmented body whose parts are more concerned to preserve their particular attributes and strengths than to submit themselves to the concerns of either the other parts or the whole.

In other words, protestant division is not alien to Roman Catholicism, but intrinsic to the post-1054 character of Rome (and Eastern Orthodoxy, for that matter). Peculiarly, Roman Catholicism continues to recommend as a cure for division precisely that which led to the Great Schism: universal submission to the papacy. For Protestantism, this is anathema, while for Eastern Orthodoxy it is primarily distasteful. Why, then, does Rome continue to insist on it? To this Protestant, it seems Rome would prefer division to surrendering its false claims of supremacy.

Schism is the great sinful legacy of the Protestant Reformation, and I agree with our Roman Catholic critics that Protestantism is unnecessarily divided against itself. But to the extent that is so, we are merely following a tradition inherited from our time sojourning in Rome after 1054. The root of Protestant division is in the Church's Roman Catholic history, and today's Roman bishop would have far more credibility when he makes ecumenical pronouncements if he were actively seeking to root it out.

The New Noncomformist Conscience

Over at the First Things website, Helen Andrews examines the recent trend of "shame campaigns" against those who do not hold to the recently established establishment line on homosexual marriage by offering a brief history of similar efforts in Great Britain in the 19th century, along with a helpful discussion of why they defeat the Church's Gospel agenda but may very well be the essence of "cultural progressivism." Recommended.

Regarding the authorship of Psalms 74 & 79

Psalms 74 and 79 are attributed to Asaph, which is a wee bit awkward given their subject matter. Both of these psalms reflect on the devastation suffered by Judah prior to the Babylonian Exile, with particular attention paid to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 587 B.C. However, Asaph the musician was a contemporary of King David (1 Chronicles 6:39 & 9:15), and so died long before those events.

One solution to this problem would be to assert the titles of Psalms were added long after they were composed by the scribes who compiled the Psalter, and ought not be taken as part of inspired Scripture. However, this theory assumes those scribes knew less about Biblical history than I do, an assumption which I think unlikely (i.e., wouldn't they also have noticed Asaph couldn't have written on these subjects?). Furthermore, the particular view of canonicity to which I subscribe holds that everything in the Bible is there because God wants it there, even if it was added by a later scribe. In other words, I don't believe we can say the Psalter is mostly inspired, but with some uninspired bits floating around.

I do believe there were some scribes who did editorial work on most, if not all, of the Old Testament, and, even if they are anonymous, they are its authors along with all the prophets whose names we use as book titles. Because of Psalm 78, I think they might have done some revising of Psalms 74 and 79.

Psalm 78 is a sketch of Israel's history from the Exodus to the reign of David. It builds toward the Philistine capture of the Ark of the Covenant as a sign of God's wrath toward and rejection of Israel, and as such paints the events recorded in 1 Samuel 4 in extreme, apocalyptic terms: sword, fire, widowhood. There is nothing in Psalm 78 which would put it later than Asaph's lifetime, and thus we have no reason to reject his authorship of it. I suggest Psalms 74 and 79 were also written by Asaph as theological and spiritual reflections on the Ark's capture, but later generations of scribes found them such appropriate expressions of the destruction of the Babylonian Exile that they rewrote those Psalms to more directly address that experience. In other words, Asaph wrote original versions of Psalms 74 and 79 which were later edited and revised by others.

This theory may be supported by the parallels between Psalm 79:6-7 and Jeremiah 10:25, which are very nearly identical. An editor who rewrote Psalm 79:1-4 to fit 587 B.C. may have thought Jeremiah's plea that the Lord judge the nations rather than Judah would fit very well after Psalm 79:5's question, "How long, O Lord?"

Of course, there's no way to prove a theory of this sort, and even if I'm right, there's also no way to know what portions of Psalms 74 and 79 were original to Asaph and what came from his editors. As with all of Scripture, however, we can rest assured that the Psalms we have are the ones the Lord inspired for the upbuilding of his Church.

Because political parties matter

Although he doesn't mention political parties in his insightful commentary piece "How to Survive Demonization," Peter Spiliakos tells us why they should be rebuilt in principle, and why conservatives must rebuild them in practice. Two quotes:

 It is very difficult—and perhaps impossible—for any candidate-centered strategy to build an enduring connection with the right-leaning but left-voting electorate. Campaigns are too short, and the relationship built during those campaigns will prove too tenuous.

The right’s problem with right-leaning Democratic voters is not weak candidates. The problem is weak relationships, and the challenge is building these relationships so that America is ready to listen to the right conservative with the right agenda. 

Instead of selecting candidates who further their agendas, the Republican and Democratic parties have surrendered control of their agendas to charismatic individuals who are able to win primary elections. Unfortunately, while an individual may have a compelling vision, only a group of individuals working cooperatively (such as a Church council or a political party) can craft an agenda for an even larger group of individuals (such as a Church or a nation). Sadly, conservatives have let a myopic focus on winning the election immediately before them prevent them from pursuing strategies which might allow them to reliably win elections year after succeeding year.

Regarding "Regarding 'A Critic of Contemporary Christian Music Reviews the OPC Psalter-Hymnal'"

A postscript to my recent post, Regarding "A Critic of Contemporary Christian Music Reviews the OPC Psalter-Hymnal," in which I mentioned the song "Shine, Jesus, Shine:" at our presbytery's recent Bible camp, a college student said she'd never heard of it, and someone else described it to her as "an old song."

Proof positive that the debate over worship music has passed my generation by.

Regarding "A Critic of Contemporary Christian Music Reviews the OPC Psalter-Hymnal"

Given my inclination to advocate for singing Psalms in worship, several persons have asked why I ran B. Censorious's "A Critic of Contemporary Christian Music Reviews the OPC Psalter-Hymnal." Simply put, I thought it a fine example of the "criticizing worsip music" genre of which reformed writers of the last several decades seem so fond, and further thought it would be a shame were I the only one to enjoy it.

When I first began reading works of this genre a couple decades ago, it occurred to me that many of the criticisms leveled against whatever kind of worship song the writer did not like (whether classic hymns or contemporary worship music) were presented as though they were careful theological conclusions despite the writer failing to give Scriptural backing for his arguments, and I wondered whether these were actually expressions of aesthetic and personal preference. It further seemed to me that the Psalms themselves could be faulted along the same lines that, say, "Shine, Jesus, Shine" is so widely criticized. In that light, Mr. Censorious's review article represents the natural conclusion of a reflexive urge to condemn uninspired worship songs.

I do believe there are any number of reasons to reject songs of any vintage as inappropriate for Christian worship. At the same time, I believe those who are quick to reject songs ought to be sure none of their reasons for so doing could not equally well be applied to the Psalter.

A generational vision from Psalm 78:2-4

I will open my mouth in a parable;
I will utter dark sayings from of old, 
  things that we have heard and known,
that our fathers have told us. 
  We will not hide them from their children,
but tell to the coming generation
the glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might,
and the wonders that he has done. (Psalm 78:2-4)

Asaph calls us to pass on the traditions received from "our fathers," by which he means not only his own personal ancestors, but all the previous generations of Israel (a general Old Testament assumption, but particularly the case in Psalm 78). Interestingly, the traditions are to be passed on to "their children" rather than "our children." In other words, "the coming generation" should be considered the children of our ancestors in the Church: our children do not belong to us so much as they belong to the Church, and we are primarily conduits who connect all the children in the Church to all the saints who have gone before them.

A number of years ago now, I was struck by an elder in my presbytery who frequently said that we need "a generational vision," by which he meant, at least as far as I could tell, that Christians should order their lives and practice so that our descendants will maintain the faith. I agree with that proposition, so far as it goes, but if it only goes so far as one's own children and their children, it seems to me remarkably deficient. Asaph's generational vision moves not only forward in time, but backwards as well, to all who have come before us. A Biblical generational vision encompasses every prior generation of faithful Church members and all the children of the Church today and tomorrow.

Have I mentioned the Memory Palace?

The Memory Palace is a kind-of monthly podcast of varying length in which Nate DiMeo tells a story from American history. Each is elegant and evocative and a profound reminder that the people who lived in the past were people, and though their lives are now complete, they were utterly contingent and surprising as they were lived. The current episode, "We've Forgotten James Powell," is a brief survey of race riots in the 20th century and the persons whose mistreatment provided their impetus. DiMeo says, "We remember the fire, but we forget the match."

I wept. So should you.

D.G. Myers on Cancer, Dying, and Living

In a recent Econtalk podcast, host Russ Roberts interviewed the literary critic D.G. Myers, who is dying from cancer and has been writing on the subject. They begin with a lovely discussion of the reality of death and dying, deconstruct some popular euphemisms for being afflicted with disease, and then turn to literature and the field of creative writing in the universities before concluding with the Deuteronomic imperative to choose life.

Recommended.

A Critic of Contemporary Christian Music Reviews the OPC Psalter-Hymnal

(The Presbyterian Curmudgeon is proud to present a guest post by his slightly less well-known cousin, B. Censorious.)

Now that the Committee on Christian Education has made available for public comment its proposed Psalter-Hymnal, I find I can no longer stay my pen from its consideration. However, and perhaps to the surprise of some, I shall not review the musical arrangements of the Psalms, and this because to do so would be to distract from the more foundational question which should concern any who would undertake to press a Psalter into the unsuspecting hands of a worshiping congregation. That is, are the Psalms appropriate for Christian worship?

The answer, of course, is no. The reasons for said answer are perhaps innumerable, but I shall here undertake to enumerate at least a few.

Firstly, one finds no intelligent reflection on the fullness of Trinitarian revelation made known in the New Testament in the Psalter, let alone any mention of our Savior’s name. No doubt some will protest that the Lord’s “Anointed” is mentioned in Psalm 2, but really? Why such reluctance? Why the resort to vague euphemism, and why only the one reference? Are the psalmists embarrassed by basic Christian doctrine, or are they perhaps ignorant of it? And while one hates to cast aspersions, one must wonder if something more than ignorance of orthodoxy is at work here; perhaps one finds a latter-day resurgence of Arianism in texts like Psalm 110?

No doubt the partisan adherents of this new Psalter will protest that we read error where, at worst, there is mere omission. Sadly, this is the least of the Psalms’ faults. Too many of them emphasize, if not adulate, the Law while utterly neglecting the Gospel, as exemplified right at the beginning in Psalm 1. (I shall not mention the giddy excesses of Psalm 119 in this regard.) One wonders whether the uninvited push for Psalm-singing is not intended to make  neonomian endeavors such as “Evangelicals and Catholics Together” more palatable to the reformed community.

While the occasional Psalm does make mention of the broader Church and the worshiping community, these welcome respites are buried in a virtual tide of individualism and man-centeredness. Consider the barrage of Psalms 3 through 7, in which David goes on as if the Lord of the universe were preoccupied with nothing more than petty slights to this man’s reputation. Hardly better is the schizophrenic moodiness of the “Yahweh-is-my-boyfriend” genre, exemplified by Psalms 40 and 42. Then when the needs of the community are finally considered, as in Psalm 137, the immature psalmist concludes with an unchristian call for a violent vengeance which includes infanticide. Are these songs really the best the OPC can do?

Sadly, no review of the Psalms would be complete without a consideration of their (for lack of a better term) literary merit. One thinks immediately of Psalm 136 with its droning, mantra-like repetitiveness, which has surely (if unwittingly) been influenced by Eastern religion. A less obvious, but equally troubling, repetition of theme can be found throughout the Psalter, as, for example, in Psalms 146-150. Really, do Psalms 147-150 say anything substantial which has not already been said in Psalm 146? Given the relatively small number of songs the editors could include in the Psalter, one wonders why they did not exert themselves to gather a more comprehensive range of subject matter. 

Still worse is the Psalms’ use of imagery. Take Psalm 110, in which David lurches from one image and location to another so rapidly as to induce whiplash, concluding with a metaphor unrelated to anything which has gone before and utterly inscrutable in itself. Equally confusing is Psalm 32, in which David appears to be addressing God until verse 8, at which point the reader has no way of knowing whether the speaker is still David or has become God or someone else still, let alone who is being addressed. While one does not wish to condescend, this is what one might expect when the serious work of writing sacred poetry is left to a man trained in animal husbandry and combat rather than one with a sound seminary education.

All these problems, we should note, belong to the Psalms as originally written. The Committee on Christian Education assures us the proposed Psalter-Hymnal uses only the most accurate translations and the best available musical settings, but one cannot make a silk purse from a sow’s ear. We must have songs for worship services, but surely there are better places to find them than in the Bible.