Genius update

Thank you, iTunes 8 Genius button, for reintroducing me to "I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You" by Black Kids and "Radio Nowhere" by Bruce Springsteen. Pop gems which we are obligated to pass on to our children and their children after them (although I still can understand only about every third word in a given Springsteen song).

Genius is much more taken with Van Morrison than I have ever been, though.

"Remnant" in Isaiah 36:4

In Isaiah 36:4, Hezekiah asks the prophet Isaiah to pray for the "remnant that is left." Contextually, this may refer to Jerusalem, which appears to be one of the few places left in Judah which has not fallen to the Assyrian invader. This seems unlikely, however, because in this military campaign Jerusalem is the real lynchpin. Assyria's victories will only be confirmed and secured when Judah's capital is also taken. Moreover, Hezekiah is not only interested in preserving Jerusalem, but in regaining and keeping all of Judah.

In the Bible as a whole, "remnant" is most often used to refer either to those Jews who returned to Palestine after the terms of the Babylonian Exile were lifted, or to those Jews who remained out among the nations but maintained their faith in the God of Israel. Either way, "remnant" connotes those few left behind after the bulk of the people has been removed. The northern kingdom of Israel (Samaria), composed of ten tribes, had been exiled in another Assyrian invasion some ten years earlier. Thus, Hezekiah sees Israel and Judah, although two nations, as a single people under God; although Judah had remained politically intact, it was in truth only a remnant (two tribes) of the whole people of God (twelve tribes).

That is, Judah is part of a covenant community broader than itself. This recognition is striking because Israel's religion was debased; leaving aside the various centers of pagan idol worship, even the worship of the Lord himself had been corrupted by taking place elsewhere than Jerusalem and through golden calves. Hezekiah's reign was marked by a restoration of the worship God had prescribed for his people in the Scriptures, but the reformer king nonetheless recognizes his erring brethren as brethren. Here, then, we learn we should consider ourselves united to other Christians outside the narrow confines of our particular denominations and traditions.

At the same time, "remnant" indicates that the Church's very future is at stake. If Judah, itself a mere remnant, falls, there is nothing left of God's people. From our vantage point in history, we know God will preserve yet a smaller remnant through the Babylonian Exile which Judah will eventually suffer, but of course Hezekiah couldn't foresee that possibility. When he describes Judah as a remnant, he confesses their situation is desperate; divine intervention is their only hope.

In Romans 9, Paul uses Hosea's prophecies to demonstrate that the Lord has used the remnant of Israel to turn the Church into an innumberable host. Despite her present vast numbers (when reckoned ecumenically), the Church's only hope continues to be divine intervention: in this life, but most especially through the arrival of the new heavens and earth in glory.

Thus says

The use of the phrase "thus says" in Isaiah 36:1-37:7 reveals the actual nature of the struggle recounted there. At first blush, it seems we have a contest between the Assyrian Emperor and the comparatively weak King Hezekiah, waged through speeches, delivered on their behalf, by spokesmen. But when Isaiah says "Thus says the Lord" (Isaiah 37:7), we realize the contest is in fact between the Assyrian Emperor and Yahweh, the Lord God of Israel and Creation. With that declaration, the true nature of the struggle becomes evident, and its outcome certain.

Download iTunes 8

I have more than 3000 songs in my iTunes library. While around 300 of those are spoken word tracks (lectures, Mars Hill Audio Journal, and such), that's still a lot of songs to remember and make sure I take time to appreciate. (And yes, I realize many of you hep young cats out there have a vastly larger collection of mp3s. But it's big for a guy who still has hundreds of cassette tapes in his basement.) This is why I love the "Genius" feature of iTunes version 8.

Select a given track, click on the Genius sidebar button, and iTunes will suggest other tracks you might like to buy from the iTunes store. This is not why I love iTunes 8. I love iTunes 8 because when I click on the other Genius button, it automatically generates a playlist from my library on the basis on the original track. Since the songs all come from my library, I know they're good (because, of course, I have impeccable taste). But I had forgotten they were in there, and so I have the added thrill of hearing really good songs I haven't heard in a long time.

I really should buy some Apple stock. Better yet, Apple should just give me some shares for this unsolicited plug.

So this is what I got

when I finally got to a Barnes & Noble to cash in the birthday gift card from my brother- and sister-in-law. A good album which features the great "Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On)," a perfect example of the break-up song.

Persuasive, as opposed to accessible, arguments

You may neither know nor care that writers such as John Rawls have argued that only universally "accessible" arguments should be employed when formulating public policy. In practice, this means that religious arguments, because they depend upon a prior acceptance of suprarational propositions which are not held by all citizens (i.e., not all Americans believe/practice the same religion), are ruled out of order. The Presbyterian Curmudgeon does care, however, and this is his blog. Not only does he care, but he finds these sorts of propositions destructive of the great experiment that is American liberal democracy.

This all comes up because Richard John Nehaus (the original blogger, as described by Andrew Sullivan in a rare moment of insight), in the October 2008 issue of First Things (the original blogger, as described by Andrew Sullivan in a rare moment of insight), passes on these observations by Judge Michael W. McConnell of the Tenth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in "Secular Reason and the Miguided Attempt to Exclude Religious Argument from Democratic Deliberation": "Once it is recognized that every worldview is held by some and disputed by others, there is no sound reason to block one family of worldviews–religions–from the public square. Arguments are not more or less 'accessible' in the way Rawls posits. They are more or less persuasive, depending on what listeners make of their underlying premises. Democracy is best served by allowing every citizen an equal right to argue for collective public ends with the most persuasive arguments they can muster without prior limitations based on the epistemic, methodological, or ideological premises of their arguments. Then we allow other citizens to accept or reject those arguements, based on their own opinions. That is liberal democracy. That is free government."

Yeah. What he said.

From vain hope to false hope

In his commentary on Isaiah 36, John Calvin moves from the devastatingly clever speech of the Rabshakeh to make a general observation on the strategies used by Satan to discourage and confuse Christians. The evil one will persuade us to forsake a vain hope (ex. Egyptian military intervention, a large retirement savings account) in order to direct us to a false hope (ex. Assyrian generosity, government intervention in the financial system). God, however, calls us to forsake both vain and false hopes in order to direct us to the only true hope: his grace to sinners through the Cross of Christ.

Come to Zion

In Isaiah 35, the prophet offers a vision of the glory of God's people as a counterpoint to the final judgment of the Lord's enemies, described in Isaiah 34. Although Isaiah frequently uses "Zion" to describe the eschatological community of God's people, he doesn't explicitly employ that term until the very end of the chapter, in verse 10. In terms of literary structuring, Zion may be reserved to the end because that city is our eschatological goal.

Genesis 11 as interpreted by Acts 17

The other day, I was struck by this statement of Paul’s in his address to the Areopagus: “He made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the surface of the earth, having determined appointed seasons, and the boundaries of their dwellings, that they should seek the Lord, if perhaps they might reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.” (Acts 17:26-27) That is, the Lord placed each nation in its particular place, within its particular borders, for the purpose (amongst others, no doubt) of encouraging them to seek him out.

The Lord did this back in Genesis 11. There we read of how all mankind spoke one language and lived in one place. In their vanity, they worked together to build a tower up to the sky so that they might make a permanent name for themselves. The Lord chose to frustrate their vanity and reserve the heavens for himself. “Therefore the name of it was called Babel, because Yahweh confused the language of all the earth, there. From there, Yahweh scattered them abroad on the surface of all the earth.” (Genesis 11:9)

I had seen Babel as punishment, but Paul sees it as grace. The Lord prevented mankind from competing with him, from trying to contest his ownership of the heavens. He took away their common language and flattened their tower by spreading them over the face of the earth. The Lord took away their vanity and pride so that they would stop trying to take over the heavens. He humbled them so they might become humble. In their humility, they might realize they were not the Lord’s competitors, but his creatures. Perhaps they would realize they were sinners whose only hope before this clearly Almighty God would be to appeal to his mercy. Perhaps they would stop gazing covetously at the heavens and look for an almighty and merciful Lord around themselves. After all, he is not far from each one of us.

A prooftext for God’s omnipresence, surely. But also a reminder that God did not reserve the heavens for himself. Instead, he left the heavens to dwell not far from us, to dwell with and amongst us, to suffer and die for us, and in his good time and good pleasure to raise us up with him so that, just as he ascended back up to the heavens after his crucifixion and resurrection, we might rise up to greet him, and dwell with him, in the glorious heavens to come.

And still, he is not far from each one of us.

Farewell to the double-space

I had read that, in this post-typewriter era, one is no longer to place two spaces after periods, semicolons, and colons. This has something to do with the right-hand justification done automatically by word-processing programs; apparently, this makes double-spacing unnecessary, although I’ve never understood why. At a glance, it’s obvious to all but the most text-messaging-addled amongst us that a single space after sentences does not allow time for reflection, or even room to breathe.

Nonetheless, I’ve joined the ranks of the single-spacers. Recently, a magazine asked me to expand a previously written piece, and since their style sheet requires submissions be single-spaced, I spent an inordinate amount of time peering intently at my computer screen looking for the superfluous space in my essay. (Believe me, no matter how cleverly you set the parameters, no global change will convert every double-space into a single.) Since I don’t wish to repeat that experience, I’ve turned my back on the training drilled into me in my high school typing class and (almost successfully) converted myself into a single-spacer.

I can’t help feel, though, that I have given up some inessential but elegant adornment, something which kept us at a remove from the barbarians. Paper napkins may do the job just as well as cloth, but unless one is at a picnic, why? What is gained, and what is lost, by this economy?

I write this, dear reader, not because I expect you to care about the double-space, but so you might understand how a curmudgeon is made. Again and again, they take away from us some thing, some rule, trivial in itself but which gave order to our chaotic lives. This is why we curmudgeons end up sitting in our corners, muttering to ourselves except for the moments when we arise, grasp you by the lapels, and tell you about the way things used to be.

Some sympathy, and just a bit of indulgence, please.