A eulogy

I’m writing this for my children.

Children can’t preserve the memories of their parents because they don’t know their parents as people, but as their parents. What they can do is preserve their own memories of their parents, and what I can do is steward my memory of my father. It’s my memory: my sisters and my mother and his brother and his sister have theirs, but mine is for me and my children. They won’t have any more memories of him for their own, not now, so perhaps by passing on mine I can give them some account of who he was and why, for better or worse, I am the father they will remember.

My dad once told me he was an affable and well-liked child, and that seems about right. It certainly would account for the affable and well-liked man I knew. By whatever accident of heritage and up-bringing, I am neither: I am, rather, angry, and my difficult disposition has led me to reflect rather more on the nature of anger than perhaps the affable and well-liked are wont to do. In his excellent Christianity and Liberalism, J. Gresham Machen wisely observed, “The really important things are the things about which men will fight.” When my dad got angry, it was about something important, whether he articulated it or not.

He retired from the State Department (the second time) in the late 1990s, right about the time the Republican Party officially gave up on any kind of philosophy of government in favor of a naked commitment to win elections by hook or by exploiting the resentments of a frightened populace. Not content with the somewhat dubious claim that government is the problem, they began suggesting government workers are the problem, somehow posing a threat to the American people. Leaving aside the fairly obvious fact that the greatest threat facing the American people is the American people, this widely-spread assertion wounded my father, who had spent his entire adult life to that point in government service. In other words, it got him mad, and when he got mad it showed all of us what was important to my father.

My dad believed, without irony, in duty. He entered the Foreign Service because the work interested him, and because he wanted to serve his country. As did many of his generation, he volunteered for the Army to avoid the draft, and did his service at the Presidio, wearing mufti, driving a sports car, and visiting San Francisco jazz clubs at night. Thus, I have a hard time imagining him as anything other than a diffident soldier, but he was serious about national service, serious enough to take his oath as an officer of the United States government in absolute sincerity. He spent his entire working life in government service because government service is necessary and important. He volunteered, and he did his duty.

So if you want to understand my father, you need to understand that his job, for a man like him, was not simply a job, but really and truly service to his country. I don’t know if that’s how he would have stated the matter, but that’s the way he was, not only with regard to his job, but with regard to everything, including Church and home. My father could never comprehend the notion that people should only do what they feel like doing, no matter how many times his children tried to persuade him of it. For my dad, you do what you’re supposed to do, with only just as much complaining as the situation warrants and no more. Life is defined by duty, and one does one’s duty.

I was a pretty emotional kid, and I think I would have liked a father who could have connected with me emotionally, although I rather doubt anyone could have successfully connected with me back then. God knows my dad tried, and he tried mostly because he had to, and he mostly failed. But what I remember isn’t his failure to be whatever it was I wanted when I was a child. I’ve mellowed with age, and the truth is, I don’t understand any more why I was the way I was. What I remember is that my dad was there. He was always there. It wasn’t the parenting “quality time” which was faddishly in vogue sometime during my teen years, but it was certainly time. He volunteered for my Boy Scout troop when that was an extremely ill-advised proposition. He came to all my school plays. He even slept in my freshman dorm room one time so he could see me as Touchstone in As You Like It. More importantly, he was there every night when I went to bed, and, later, when I came home late at night. When things got hard and my wife was pregnant with our first child and we had to sell our house, I called him and I didn’t ask him to help. I told him I needed him to help me get the house fixed up and he told me when he could come out to Denver, which is what I knew he would do. My dad was there.

My dad was an affable and likable child. “Affable,” which I didn’t think people even know is a word any more, is the adjective which most often appears in the e-mails and cards I received in the weeks after Thanksgiving. It was easy for me to get along with my dad, at least after I went to college and the stakes were lowered in our relationship. I miss him. I can’t be affable, but he never wanted me to be affable. What he wanted, and what he told me explicitly only once, was for me to do what I have to do. He was, I think, glad I ended up a pastor, although he never said so in so many words. He didn’t ask me to do my grandmother’s memorial service: someone had to, and it had to be me because I couldn’t imagine doing otherwise. I read the prayers over his body because that is what his son, who is a pastor, was duty-bound to do. That’s what I learned from my dad: you do what you have to do, your feelings on the matter be damned. 

My father was an affable man, but there was something there I could never reach. I am not an affable man, and I am that much more a difficult husband and father. My children may never reach me, so I hope they never need to. What I hope they remember is that I was there.  I hope they will be there for their children, because that is what Kingsburys do: we are there; we do our duty. What I ultimately hope my children remember is that I was there because my dad was there. He was always there.

William F. Kingsbury was a man and a person much larger than my memory can encompass. I can’t do justice to your memories of him, and now I realize I can’t do justice to mine. All I can say is this: I learned from him all I really need to know, all I really need to do, to be a father and a husband. I am what I am by God’s grace through Christ’s Cross, and I am the man I am because of my father.

I miss him.

Why T. David Can't Write (for a Popular Audience)

an unusually hostile review of T. David Gordon’s Why Johnny Can’t Sing Hymns: How Pop Culture Rewrote the Hymnal (Phillipsburg: P&R, 2010), with advice on its appropriate use for pastors and sessions

T. David Gordon has helped me better understand the Christian duty of charity. In “Introductory Considerations,” (endnote 1) he writes “it is also our duty to employ charity in discussing ‘polemical’ theology, or controversial theology” (p. 40). Amen, and after reading Why Johnny Can’t Sing Hymns, I have developed a corollary to this rule: we shouldn’t make it difficult for others to employ charity toward us. Sadly, Gordon violates my corollary, and I am genuinely saddened because I largely agree with his approach to, and conclusions regarding, the music used in Christian worship.

I have never directly participated in “worship wars,” but at my age (endnote 2) I have had much opportunity to observe controversies over the music used in congregational worship. Since my college years, I’ve not liked to ask, “What kind of music may we sing?” The better question is “What kind of music should we sing?” That is, while the Scriptures do not explicitly prohibit or endorse particular genres of music, some are (vastly) better than others for congregational singing, and should be considered on musical and aesthetic merit. This is the refreshingly novel media-ecological perspective (“Preface,” pp. 9-18) Gordon employs in Why Johnny Can’t Sing Hymns, and likely why it has been so warmly received by pastors and professors alike. With that in mind, I recommended our session use it in our congregation’s home study groups. This was a mistake.

A mistake not because our members are wedded to the contemporary worship style Gordon decries (we use only the Trinity Hymnal and Psalter in our services) or are suspicious of aesthetic considerations. Instead, his writing style (endnote 3) erects barriers between him and his readers which unnecessarily prejudice them against his conclusions. I led one group discussion, and found about half the time was taken up with complaints about how Gordon presented his arguments before I was able to steer the conversation to their substance, with which most of the participants (grudgingly) agreed. (endnote 4)

Gordon is prone to overstatement, as in his evaluation of the guitar as an accompaniment for congregational singing. “[G]uitar-playing just doesn’t sound serious; it sounds like casual amusement” (p. 61). “The guitar is nearly hopeless for accompanying a chorus…. [T]he choice of a guitar as an accompanying instrument rules out [‘A Mighty Fortress Is Our God’] (endnote 5), as it does… ‘For All the Saints’” (p. 100). Then on page 132, in footnote 3 he praises the relatively recent hymns of Stuart Townend, which he notes “employ guitar.” If the guitar is “nearly hopeless” for accompanying Christian worship, how can a hymn which relies on it be commendable? When an author is unable to keep up a rhetorical stance, he invites the suspicion it is not entirely sincere.

Gordon also confuses his deductions with demonstrated conclusions. In his discussion of “commercial forces” (endnote 6) as a contributor to American culture’s present contemporaneity, he asserts that Gillette no longer manufactures the 1906 safety razor (or its replacement blades) which he prefers because the corporation wishes to keep the average consumer ignorant so that said consumer will purchase new models (p. 107). Mind you, he offers no documentation in support of this theory. With little effort, I can construct alternatives which account for the facts equally well: the 1906 model had too small a market share to make its continued production profitable for Gillette’s purposes; or Gillette actually believes its current razors are superior to its previous products. Of course, these theories do not fit Gordon’s predetermined conclusion, nor do they have the added advantage of showing him to be a man of cultivated old-world tastes.

Which in turn brings us to Gordon’s fastidiousness, in which he appears to take a peculiar exhibitionistic pride. As a new pastor, he determined “about 500” of the 700 hymns in his congregation’s hymnal “were not appropriate” “to corporate Christian worship” (p. 22). Denominational hymnal-revision committees are not to be trusted because they sometimes include popular “stinkers” to ensure their hymnals get used (p. 163). Gordon doesn’t “believe recently occurring events are worthy of [his] attention” (p. 113). Few in our congregation are as well-educated as T. David Gordon, but they know when an author is putting on airs.

Allow me to comment on one final example: on page 100, he relates how the congregation he pastored sang without accompaniment for six to nine months not because accompaniment was unavailable, but because what he (or, possibly, the congregation) considered appropriate accompaniment was unavailable. In sharing this anecdote, he offers no concession to the reality faced by many Churches whose members don’t sing very well, and lack musically gifted people who can teach them to sing or facilitate their singing with the best possible accompaniment. That is to say, the average Christian whose congregation is doing its level-but-in-all-honesty-mediocre best, as aesthetically unimpressive as that may be, to sing praises to their Savior each Lord’s Day almost cannot help but be irritated by page 100 of Why Johnny Can’t Sing Hymns.

And therein lies the tragic irony of an author who understands the relationship between messages and meta-messages (endnote 7) (pp. 65-66), but has written a book whose message is obscured by the average reader’s impulse to kill the messenger. I invoke tragedy seriously: T. David Gordon offers a much-needed reorientation to the now decades-long controversy over worship music which could help further the discussion along productive lines. Every chapter of this book offers insights which should help any Christian better understand how and why he sings to his Lord, but Gordon appears unable to present these in a manner irenic or helpful to a popular audience.

In retrospect, our session probably erred when we distributed Why Johnny Can’t Sing Hymns to our congregation, although I am confident in our members’ Christian maturity and ability to profit even from poorly presented arguments. To others, I recommend you read and study this book in session, perhaps along with your congregation’s musicians, and then determine how best to convey its insights to your members. For example, the pastor could give some lectures which distill this book’s arguments and perspectives. Odds are very good you will do a better job at applying charity to polemical theology than does T. David Gordon.

1) Fully a quarter of this book is taken up by a “Preface,” “Acknowledgements,” an “Introduction,” and “Introductory Considerations.” Seriously?

2) Forty-four but still boyishly handsome, thanks for asking.

3) One is tempted to say “his personality,” but that might not be entirely charitable.

4) The experience of our other church officers who led discussions was similar.

5)  See also p. 99. A factually incorrect assertion, incidentally: I witnessed it done at our presbytery’s Bible camp last summer. The guitar may not be the best accompaniment for this hymn, but it is competent.

6) Gordon invokes “commercial forces” in much the same way your paranoid uncle brings up “the Trilateral Commission.”

7) Speaking of which, I’m obviously fond of using the footnote to insert clever comments. Others, however, find Gordon’s similar practice off-putting. Also, he has a tendency to put some substantive information in his footnotes, which can be missed by those not trained to read them.

Calvin on why you disagree with me (Calvin's Institutes, Battles edition: p. 1285, vol. 2)

If you set out to convince anyone by words to do something, you will think of all the arguments by which he may be drawn to your opinion and more or less constrained to obey your advice. But you have accomplished nothing unless he in turn has a keen and sharp judgment by which to weigh the validity of your arguments; unless also he is of a teachable disposition and ready to listen to teaching; unless, finally, he conceives such an opinion of your faith and prudence as may predispose him to adopt your opinion. For there are very many stubborn heads which you can never bend by reasoning.

The War over Christmas: after action report

It's the day after Epiphany. I took down the Christmas decorations in my study, and so now is a good time for a reflection on the 2014 edition of the War over Christmas. Once again, the Facebook was replete with aggressive posts from otherwise quite pleasant Christians stating their intention to forcefully wish "Merry Christmas," with all vim and vigor, on any who might dare say "Happy Holidays" to them, no matter the circumstances. Despite the evident fears of many that Christmas would be abolished by presidential executive action (which I do not share), Advent and Christmastide progressed unhindered. Thanks to Redbox, the curmudgelings were even able to see A Charlie Brown Christmas for the first time.

Also for the first time that I can remember, all the "War on Christmas" rhetoric actually began getting to me. I began to fear that saying "Merry Christmas" to a store clerk would be taken as a deliberate assault in the culture wars, and so chose to continue with the monosyllabic grunts I use year-round whenever leaving the house. Thus it was Mrs. Curmudgeon who, at the check-out at the local purveyor of bargain-priced organic produce, accidentally let slip a "Merry Christmas" and saw the clerk visibly flinch. Christmas is surviving the War on Christmas just fine, but civility is definitely a casualty.

I'd call it ironic if I weren't fond of irony, so let's call it sad instead. The Church has historically celebrated Christmas so we might have twelve days to focus on the remarkable fact of the Incarnation. At any time of year, we should marvel that the infinite God became a finite man, and the Creator thereby honored and affirmed his own image as it is found in all his human creatures. How sad that Christians choose to dispense with civility, a basic expression of our Fifth Commandment duty to honor our fellow image-bearers (Shorter Catechism #54), at precisely the season when our Lord's model of goodwill should be foremost in our minds and conduct.