Another argument for books

As a people, the citizens of the great state of Colorado are united in their confidence in the superiority of Coloradan beer to that of the not-quite-as-great state of Oregon. Sadly, our unity is sorely tested when the craft beer scene of Denver is pitted against that of the All-America city of Aurora. 

(Just how "All-America" is Aurora? Mayor Steve Hogan, an Eagle Scout, personally answered an e-mail I sent to him through the city's website and then gave my Cub Scout den a tour of City Hall. That's how All-America Aurora is. 

But I digress.)

The breweries of both Aurora and Denver multiply at a dizzying pace, and even a dedicated IPA man such as my humble self is torn between Dry Dock's Hop Abomination, Station 26's Juicy Banger, and Comrade Brewing's Superpower. I have also been known to wax rhapsodic about Copper Kettle's Helles Lager. Living in Aurora and working in Denver, I have, like so many others, had my loyalties sorely tested.

That is, until the Aurora Public Library upped Aurora's beer game.

In 2016, the Library system offered a truly amazing deal. Visit four Aurora breweries, get an Aurora Library pint glass. Visit seven, and get a 64 oz. growler. As you will not be surprised to observe, I ended up with two pint glasses and the growler, which is even more impressive given the number of times I forgot to bring my "passport" when stopping by one of the participating taprooms.

In your face, Denver. And I won't even deign to mention how far in the dust this leaves Portland and its lumberjack-bearded hipsters. The Presbyterian Curmudgeon is too classy for that.

A reasonably merry Christmas album

You've got to give She & Him credit for effort. In their eight years of collaboration, Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward have released two Christmas albums, which makes that particular genre a full one-third of their output to date. As with their previous yuletide outing, however, the duo is, at best, adequate on Christmas Party. The arrangements are overly spare, which is odd given that one of the things that made their Volumes 1 & 2 so enchanting were lush soundscapes. Particularly objectionable are Deschanel's vocals on "A Marshmallow World:" she rushes through the lyrics as though trying for a new land speed record, and stomps on the line "What if spring is late?" until it's nothing but a lifeless corpse.

Far more satisfying is Jane Lynch's A Swingin' Little Christmas! featuring (deep breath now) Kate Flannery and Tim Davis with the Tony Guerrero Quintet (to which I was directed by Bullseye's annual holiday special). It's really more of a band than a solo effort, and the better for it. They've got a sense of humor, verve, and class (maybe in that order, maybe not). It may not be the Christmas album for the ages, but it's the best I've heard this year.

Speaking of Christmas albums for the ages, at the top of the heap remains A Charlie Brown Christmas from the Vince Guaraldi Trio. Nonetheless, I wish we could all admit that its children's choir rendition of "Christmastime Is Here" is as creepy as creepy gets.

I need to remember what I cannot comprehend

Books 11-13 of Augustine's Confessions are a meditation on the nature of time and God's work of Creation, and are often left out of modern editions. In the preface to his 1983 translation, E.M. Blaiklock writes,

Book Ten seemed to provide a natural conclusion satisfying to a modern reader. ...The mystical ponderings of the last three books are... quite detachable, and it is even a little difficult to probe the writer's purpose in placing them thus. They seem laboured [sic] in their striving for linkage, and are rather the utterance of the Bishop of Hippo than of the embattled man striving Godwards. We have taken leave to omit them.

Still, Maria Boulding did not omit them in her 1997 translation, and so our congregation's reading group, being fastidious completists, chose her edition of the Confessions from the Vintage Spiritual Classics series. We've been working through those mystical ponderings, and I think I can respectfully disagree with Blaiklock. Throughout the autobiographical Books 1-10, Augustine (prefiguring Proust's Remembrance of Things Past) wrestles with the nature of memory and time before, and as created by, God. A Scripturally-saturated mind such as Augustine's would naturally end up with the days of creation and the text of Genesis 1-2.

Reading between Blaiklock's lines, he seems to be saying that Books 11-13 make rather tough sledding, and with that I can heartily agree. Nonetheless, I recognized myself in this sentence from Book 12.

On reading or hearing the scriptural words some people think of God in the guise of a man, or as some huge being possessed of immense power, who arrived at a sudden new decision to make heaven and earth outside himself, as though located at a distance from him, and made them like two vast solid structures, above and below, within which everything would be contained.

Unintentionally, I create mental images while reading Genesis 1-2, and those images render the events in terms which I can understand. Augustine chastises my hubris by reminding me that what I imagine is almost certainly not exactly what occurred.

I would be the first to argue that the Genesis 1-2 account of Creation is a straightforward historical narrative and is written to be as comprehensible as possible to the average reader or hearer. Nonetheless, I need to remember it records much I simply cannot comprehend, such as the existence of light without prior physical source, or an earth without form and void (once one realizes that a jumbled mass has a form, even if a chaotic one, and is certainly not void), or the relationship of the divine decrees to the simplicity of God's person. As chapter 1 of the Westminster Confession of Faith states, the Scriptures are clear, but sometimes they speak clearly of things which are incomprehensible to us poor creatures.

Augustine's mystical ponderings may be labored and overlong, but they form useful instruction in intellectual humility.

A Canticle for Leibowitz

A Canticle for Leibowitz is Walter Miller's 1960 retelling of Western history through the lens of the monastic movement, but set in the American West after an apocalyptic nuclear war in the late 20th century. I read it after my Hindu neighbor insisted on loaning me his copy after we got into a discussion of comic books and science fiction during a Diwali party his family was hosting; such is ordinary life for a conservative presbyterian pastor these days.

As the Wikipedia notes, Canticle is widely recognized as a literary masterpiece, even being the stuff of dissertations and such. It's categorized as science fiction (since it spans the 27th to the 38th centuries), but as I note above, it's not really science fiction so much as an attempt to dramatize the role of the Church and persons religious in the development of the West during the first two millennia of Christendom. Much of the plot, such as it is, of Canticle's three sections focuses on the preservation of books and, later, development of the learning contained therein. But if that were all Canticle is, it would be little more than a presaging of Thomas Cahill's lamentably oversimplified How the Irish Saved Civilization.

Instead, Miller shows how the Church laid the foundation for Western civilization by insisting on the doctrine of the imago dei, man made in the image of God. In Canticle's first section, "Fiat Homo," the Church insists that those grotesquely mutated by nuclear fallout nonetheless are fully human and must be treated as such. In its second section, "Fiat Lux," an all-too unpleasantly human abbot boldly declares abominable a secular philosopher's suggestion that the men of their day are some kind of lesser, man-created beings precisely because that would make them something other than a reflection of God himself. While the third section, "Fiat Voluntas Lux," builds to another nuclear war, its centerpiece conflict is a debate between an abbot and a government official over euthanasia for the those in horrible suffering. According to Miller, mankind perennially and perversely denies his own humanity by refusing to value actual human beings and their lives; the Church and her members must bear witness against this dehumanization and insist that learning be founded on a Christian humanism.

As Miller tells the tale, it seems the Church is always on the losing side of the argument, but nonetheless her humanistic values work their way into civilization's warp and woof. I think he's right, and it's a fact worth remembering in these dark days for the citizens of the former American Republic. The Great State of Colorado, in which I consider it a privilege to live, just ratified a measure allowing for "assisted suicide" (one of the currently favored euphemisms for "euthanasia"). Our nation's misbegotten electoral college has permitted election to the office of President a man who aggressively dehumanizes all, individually and collectively, with the temerity to displease him. Humanism itself has fallen upon such hard times that the very notion is associated primarily with aggressive secularity, not the imago dei, and Christians shut down at its very mention. From my vantage point, all signs are that we have lost the argument.

In these dark days, A Canticle for Leibowitz helpfully reminds us that the Church's simple duty is to bear witness to the truth of God's Word, which against all common sense teaches us that man is made in the image of God to such an extent that God himself could become a man. Church history teaches us that we will lose many, many arguments, but because of God's grace and Spirit the Church will continue to bear humanity through the ashes of the destruction mankind repetitively and continually wreaks upon himself.

Regarding the clownpocalypse

So yesterday there was this news story regarding Ronald McDonald's decision to forego public appearances for a while lest he inadvertently traumatize youngsters sensitized to the ongoing "creepy clown" epidemic. Then I read in this morning's paper how several Colorado school districts are banning clown costumes this Halloween. 

Brighton 27J has also decided to ban clown costumes. “We believe it is the best way to avoid perpetuating any clown fear or paranoia in our schools,” superintendent Dr. Chris Fielder wrote in a letter to parents in the district.

Right. Because how better to tamp down paranoia over creepy clowns than by FORBIDDING SMALL  CHILDREN TO WEAR CLOWN COSTUMES FOR HALLOWEEN?

Good call, educators.

And now, Batman

I'm trying to remember 1989 and the excitement generated by Tim Burton's Batman. The character had more or less been permanently redefined by Frank Miller's unmatched (even by himself, when he tried with The Dark Knight Strikes Again) The Dark Knight Returns, and that masterpiece, along with Alan Moore's nightmare-inducing The Killing Joke, had seized my imagination. (In my not-so-humble opinion, these three works continue to stand the test of time, and I find myself regularly re-reading the two graphic novels.) Given my age and that late-eighties explosion of high-powered artistic genius focused on an archetypal character, it would have been nearly impossible not to have become obsessed with Batman.

But as I said, I'm trying to remember what it was to be 19 years old and seeing Batman on its opening weekend, and I'm trying to remember because he no longer means nearly as much to me. I think that's because Batman is an extremely difficult tightrope to walk. Push the darkness even a little too hard, and the result is pointless nihilism. Back up an inch too much, and he's just a clever dude figuring stuff out while being in super-good shape. You don't have to be Tim Burton or Alan Moore or Frank Miller to get it right: Jeph Loeb and Keith Giffen nailed it in The Long Halloween and Justice League International, respectively; Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale turned in admirable work with their own Dark Knight trilogy. While it may be difficult, it's not impossible.

For me, then, there's something more going on in my turn away from Batman, and that's my turn toward Superman and Captain America. My ongoing Superman obsession can perhaps be understood by an explanation of what makes the Zack Snyder/Henry Cavil "Superman" of Man of Steel and Batman v Superman so abysmal. By the second of those films, it became obvious that their Superman has no existential reason to fight for the good other than the possession of superpowers and not being bad. Meanwhile, his elevation of Lois Lane above the rest of humanity makes him just as self-centered as Lex Luthor. Contrariwise, the archetypal Superman's greatest power is his innate decency. Like Captain America, he is a Boy Scout and an American in the best possible sense of both terms: someone who lives in service of an ideal, and therefore of humanity.

In adolescence, I thought I had come to terms with the world's darkness, and so embraced the Batman who dwells in the liminal penumbras of shadow. With age, I've realized the best response to the darkness is a turn toward the light.

Learning from the priests & Levites

The priests and Levites who come to John the Baptist in John 1:19-28 are not interrogators, but inquirers. As servants of the Temple, they are experts in Biblical worship, and in John's practice of baptism, they recognize a new ritual. Notice that they don't challenge baptism's propriety or John's right to perform it; in fact, they seem to implicitly grant it. Instead, they want to understand what this ritual reveals about John's identity.

John the Baptist could be Elijah, who they thought would inaugurate the eschatological Day of the Lord (Malachi 4:5-6). He could be the Christ, who would defeat the enemies of God and his people and establish a reign of eternal peace (Psalms 2 & 45). He could be the Prophet like Moses who will bring a new, perfect and final Law (Deuteronomy 18:15-18). In other words, John the Baptist appears to be a, if not the, subject of prophecy who will inaugurate the eschaton precisely because he has introduced an new ritual which signifies citizenship in a kingdom and entrance into a new age.

Of course, John is merely the herald of that figure. But as he does not challenge the priests' & Levites' assumptions, he effectively affirms them. By so doing, he lets us know that we all could learn a lot from the liturgical expertise of the priests and Levites.

Because America

I visited Graceland when I was 19 years old, and that experience was so monumental, so mind-blowing, that I no longer felt the need to make pilgrimage anywhere else. (It took another 15 years and the careful study of Peter Guralnick's hefty two-volume Elvis Presley biography before I was able to let go of my obsession with the magnetic charms of the King.) Honestly, once you've gazed upon the Jungle Room, all the antiquities of the Ancient Near East have nothing to offer.

Despite my enduring dedication to Abraham Lincoln, that disinterest applies to Civil War sites as well. Maybe coming of age in Virginia, where you can't turn around without running into a battlefield marker, has something to do with that. However, I now have a reason, nay, a need, to journey to Gettysburg: the Civil Wars Tails at the Homestead Diorama Museum.

I know other nations have their fair share of quirky, obsessive personalities, but I am absolutely confident that none of them have a pair of sisters who create exquisitely detailed and perfectly scaled dioramas of Civil War battles in which all the combatants (wearing accurate uniforms) are cats. Cats.

Because America, people. Because America.

Youth ministry is its own reward

Yes, that is a pair of rubber-ducky underpants, discovered by a ministerial colleague between two boys' cabins, being immolated on the campfire just prior to the nightly preaching of the Word.

I love, love, love Bible camp. I think we should put this picture on all our advertising.

[UPDATE: View a video of the immolation here.]

Father Curmudgeon's Day

Thing 2 decided to make a play for "favorite curmudgeling" by suggesting a beer tasting for Father's Day this year. Mrs. Curmudgeon did the bulk of the legwork and preparation, of course, pairing each selection with cheeses and sausages (yum). Credit where credit is due: Thing 2 did put together a video presentation on the history of beer. The kid has potential.

That puts me in mind of a Father's Day project he did back in first grade, for which, for reasons I don't entirely understand, he was asked to describe the paterfamilias. Even several years later, his description remains accurate (although I have put on a few pounds since).

duh

According to the latest entry in the category "studies made necessary by the profound conviction that anything which makes people happy must be bad," coffee probably doesn't cause cancer. I've long know this. In fact, because colorful fruits are antioxidants, and because coffee is made from colorful beans, it's full of antioxidants. I can science too, people.

While we're on the subject, I love, love, love my pod coffeemaker, the most useful office supply in my study. Don't give anyone else this tip, but if you go to Starbucks the day after Christmas, you can get the Christmas blend coffee pods for half-price. Whilst doing this back in December, a store manager gave me, for free, a couple boxes of Thanksgiving blend pods. According to my daily afternoon coffee consumption rate, I calculate I'm set until August.

Coffee. Life is good.

Administrative & Substantial

The most eagerly anticipated item on the docket of the 83rd General Assembly of the OPC was the report of a special committee to study republication. “Republication” is the suggestion that, in some sense, the covenant God made with Israel at Sinai (Exodus) repeats the conditions of the covenant God made with Adam in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2). (Yes, OPC officers tend to have their attention piqued by somewhat unusual things.) 

As the attentive reader might guess, everything hangs on that “in some sense.” Through a close reading of Westminster Confession of Faith 7.5-6, the committee suggested that various views on the matter be classified as either “substantial” or “administrative.” “Substantial” would mean that the Sinaitic covenant, in its essential terms, promised reward in return for obedience. (Usually, Israel holding on to the Promised Land of Canaan as reward for keeping the Mosaic Law in its fullness.) “Administrative” would mean that the Sinaitic covenant had elements which illustrate and point back to the Covenant of Works with Adam while simultaneously pointing forward to Jesus Christ’s work which fulfilled the Covenant of Works, but for that very reason is, in its essential term, an administration of the Covenant of Grace by which God’s people are saved from their sins.

As a long-time student of covenant theology, I find these categories helpful for classifying the various views propounded on the subject of republication. However, they are relatively new, and so will have to be widely taught before they can be relied upon as a tool when preparing candidates for ministry. This suspicion of mine was confirmed when I heard the same from a more senior and august member of the Assembly than I at the supper break.

I recommend the report, although some basic familiarity with the republication “discussion” and, more importantly, the Confessional doctrine of the covenants will help. Also, an ability to wade through novel and creatively hyphenated theological terminology.

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.

Clyde is my sensei

More Clyde at http://candorville.com.

In praise of legislative inefficiency

In response to complaints by President Clinton over the U.S. Congress's reluctance to swiftly enact this or that agenda, Bob Dole once said, "One man's gridlock is another man's checks and balances." The peculiar genius of the American federal system of legislation (laws must be passed by two  separate legislative houses [and generally, each law must first be vetted by at least one committee in each of said legislative houses], then approved by the president) is its inefficiency: it's blastedly difficult to get much of anything over all those hurdles. This is a perverse, but remarkably brilliant, defense against bad laws.

Another, more noble view is that all those mechanisms allow for legislative wisdom to be applied through a process of careful deliberation. At the First Things website, M. Anthony Mills uses a profile of Nebraska senator Benjamin Sasse to discuss the political utility, and genuine conservatism, of legislative deliberation.

The Republic may be restored yet.

Pastors at large

With you, the title "pastor-at-large" makes me want to ask, "Does this Genevan robe make me look fat?"

When I recently visited the Presbyterian Church in America's Rocky Mountain Presbytery, its committee on Officers & Churches brought a proposal to call a “Pastor At Large,” modeled on the practice of other PCA presbyteries, who would “be a pastor to pastors.” The proposal was postponed to their next stated meeting for perfection, but the sentiment on the floor seemed to be strongly in favor. If I heard correctly, the Rocky Mountain Presbytery has sixty teaching elders, and several speakers said they felt the spiritual care they receive needs much improvement.

I suspect that sentiment would be echoed in many presbyteries of the PCA and OPC, other than in those in which the sentiment would be "What spiritual care?" Even the most casual observer of presbyterian conflicts will note that many pastors seem to have, to put the point gently, "issues." Many presbyters will object, and with good reason, that it costs money to call and support a pastor-at-large (also called a "presbyter-at-large"). Fair enough. How much money do Church splits cost? How much money is permanently lost to a presbytery and denomination when a congregaton dissolves or withdraws?

Spiritual care is not a luxury. It's a necessity.

Love Hopes All Things

(The below was delivered to the Rocky Mountain Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church of America at its stated meeting in the building of Skyview Presbyterian Church on January 28, 2016, at which I represented the OPC's Presbytery of the Dakotas as a fraternal delegate.)

“Love hopes all things,” Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 13:7. When love is directed toward God, that hope is obviously eschatological: love hopes that one day we will see our Lord face to face and know fully even as we have been fully known (1 Corinthians 13:12). But what is that hope when love is directed toward other persons? How about when love is directed toward the most unlovely of persons, other presbyters?

In that case as well, our hope must be eschatological. We may be quick to grant the salvation and piety of presbyterian brothers with whom we disagree, but slow to recognize that they may also act against their baser instincts and, with us, strive for the good of the Church and the souls of fellow believers. That slowness and distrust, of course, is cynicism, and whatever aid cynicism may be in surviving the cruelties of a fallen world, it is hope’s opposite. Cynicism bears nothing, believes nothing, hopes nothing, endures nothing. Cynicism presumes more than it can ever know while hope rests in the Lord’s perfect knowledge, as we read in Psalm 131.

O Lord, my heart is not lifted up;

my eyes are not raised too high;

I do not occupy myself with things

too great and too marvelous for me. 

But I have calmed and quieted my soul,

like a weaned child with its mother;

like a weaned child is my soul within me. 

O Israel, hope in the Lord

from this time forth and forevermore. 

Love is not arrogant. Love does not know the hearts and minds, the innermost thoughts, of others. Love knows the heart is a mystery and so hopes that, even in a presbytery, common cause can be made with one’s brothers. Cynicism is arrogant: it knows the future and thus the futility of reaching out to those who have repeatedly proven their recalcitrance. Love knows the limits of its knowledge, and so hopes that presbyterians can work together.

Hope is always eschatological because it believes that the Christian love which will be manifest at the end may be realized now.

Such hope has been manifested in the OPC’s Presbytery of the Dakotas. At our September meeting, we erected two special committees. One is working to provide counsel to the Churches as to how to survive and prosper in the legal environments of the five states within our Regional Church after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision. This has been a marvelous opportunity to bear each other’s burdens and receive counsel made more wise by collaboration. The other committee is proposing a revised set of bylaws which, Lord willing, will help institute a more presbyterian practice in a Regional Church still struggling with independency, fundamentalism, and congregationalism, even nearly 80 years after our denomination’s founding.

In light of our presbytery’s many failings, especially in its failure to discharge commonplace presbyterian duties to the Churches under its supervision, I feel compelled to take this opportunity to apologize on behalf of my brothers who use the PCA as whipping boy and bête noir. Rather than seek to reform ourselves according to Biblical principle, we congratulate ourselves for not being as bad as a PCA in which we imagine liturgical aberration and theological innovation more prevalent than the Trinity Hymnal. We have been censorious and uncharitable, and for this I offer my most sincere apologies.

With that apology I offer another hope, perhaps the most audacious hope which presbyterian love can hold. I hope your Churches will regard each other as sisters, and your elders look to elders in other Churches as brothers. I hope we will soon see a new day of interdenominational cooperation, but first must come intra-denominational charity, coordination, and cooperation. Brothers, hold regular pulpit exchanges and joint worship services. Encourage the deacons of the various Churches to cooperate in shared mercy ministries. On behalf of my own session, I issue a standing invitation for a pulpit exchange to all your sessions, as a first step to the inevitable: a joining of the OPC and PCA. Furthermore, I invite you to send your young people to our summer Bible camp, a very successful ecumenical venture between our Presbytery of the Dakotas and the PCA’s Siouxlands Presbytery within our overlapping jurisdictions in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

Love hopes all things, but love need not be naïve. Things changed for us reactionary social conservatives last summer, and you surely are wondering when a presidential administration (or its philosophically similar successor) which sued a Lutheran school over its employment practices will begin using the full force of the law to make things uncomfortable for Churches without “evolved” views on human sexuality. Our congregations, like most of yours, are small. Most of ours, as do most of yours, get by on the thinnest of financial margins. What congregations in our Regional Churches could survive a lawsuit over a refusal to marry a same- sex couple? A former member of your presbytery, Phil Strong, who is now in my presbytery, remarked to me last summer that “doing Church” the way the PCA and OPC have for years now is a luxury we may no longer be able to afford. We need to bear one another’s burdens: we must either fight together, or hang separately.

Love hopes all things. It even hopes presbyterians will learn to love one another in word and deed before the last day, when hope will pass away, along with faith, and love will abide forever.

How to read Scripture in worship

Most men arrive at seminary with little to no training in public speaking, and for the most part the seminaries which confessional presbyterian preachers attend offer little to no training in the basic mechanisms of public speaking. (Frankly, I find this shocking, and so should you. I'm even more shocked by indifference to this sad state of affairs.)

As a lapsed Lutheran (currently Roman Catholic), Russell Saltzman probably hasn't visited many confessional presbyterian seminaries, but he does all their students and alumni a service with "Everything I Know About Being a Lector I Learned in Third Grade," over at the First Things website. He writes for Roman Catholic lectors, but presbyterian pastors (or rather, their congregations), would profit greatly from a careful study and implementation of his advice.

(In other First Things-related news, yesterday I finished reading the January 2016 issue before the February issue was delivered, thereby catching me up to the present moment. This has never happened before.)

Christmastide is beer

It being the 12th day of Christmas already, I had better get to the winter warmers I've newly discovered and enjoyed this yuletide season. Interestingly, none have a specifically Christmas theme, perhaps becaues all lean toward hoppy and pale rather than the stoutness most frequently associated with a belly like a bowlful of jelly.

Hitachino Nest Celebration Ale is a lovely white ale, very hop-forward, and the first from a Japanese brewer over which I've actually gotten excited.

Brrr, from Widmer Brothers, is a hoppy red ale. The hops and malts nicely balance each other; the mellowness I associate with reds gives it a nice finish.

Elysian Brewing Company's BiFrost is smooth, slightly sweet, and with just a hint of hop bitterness. Intriguing.

Finally, it turns out Left Hand's Polestar Pilsner isn't a seasonal. I'm glad to learn it's available year-round, but I'm including it here because I have just encountered it during my annual Christmastide ale exploration. It's got the crispness and hoppy finish for which I love pilsners. This may become my go-to session beer.

The end of Christmastide means the beginning of the long, miserable winter slog. Perhaps these winter warmers will help you get through the dark eternity which is February.