Since at least the time of Nietzsche, a major objection to Christian faith has been that it is bad for the human spirit generally, and the imagination in particular. It produces people with tiny souls, content to monger prooftexts, take everything on authority, stay on the surface of life, and investigate nothing. Pat answers satisfy our lethargic minds and trite nostrums guide our moral lives, while “Christian art” (if the term itself is not indeed oxymoronic) is considered wildly successful if it rises to the level of bare mediocrity.

So goes the critique, and it’s got some bite. But Daniel Amos’ 2001 CD, Mr. Buechner’s Dream, is a standing refutation of the notion that faith kills art. This sprawling CD (actually a double-CD set) doesn’t refute the Nietzschean suspicion simply by being swell art and therefore a bit of evidence to the contrary –though as the mature product of an accomplished group of Christian musicians it is certainly that. No single CD will turn that tide; in fact a generation or two of Rembrandts and Bachs would barely suffice to that end.

Instead, what Terry Taylor and his band offer here is the fruit of a quarter-century’s personal struggle with questions of art and faith. In the unpromising arena of Contemporary Christian Music, the band Daniel Amos has been fighting this battle across a career that spans more than two dozen major releases (if you count all the solo projects, side bands, and whatnot). Taylor has been turning this problem over and over in his head, asking himself and his listeners about the way Christian faith shapes art.
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I guess if it weren’t for a road trip, I might have missed this altogether: Doug TenNapel’s Catscratch is the theme of the current Happy Meals at McDonald’s!

Splee!

TenNapel is the mad genius whose singular Turlock brain virus has infected video games, animated cartoons, and graphic novels in recent years. For anyone who’s followed his work through its various permutations, it’s a surreal experience to stop for the mandatory Happy Meal fuel-up during a long drive with kids, and find TenNapel creatures staring at you from the toy display. These are quirky little toys. A nation tugs its chin and says “huh?”

“Imagine it… a world where bacon could walk straight into your mouth.” Surely the advent of Catscratch Happy Meal toys brings us one step closer to that world.

In the latest issue of in The Wesleyan Theological Journal , Wesleyan theologian Don Thorsen carries out a nice little exploration of biblical authority and theological method. The article, “Sola Scriptura and the Wesleyan Quadrilateral” (WTJ 41:2 (Fall 2006), pp. 7-27), clears up a lot of confusion. Both Sola Scriptura and the Quadrilateral are widely misconstrued, and need to be rescued from that darkling plain where ignorant armies clash by night. Here’s a good question: have these two principles suffered more abuse at the hands of their thoughtless detractors or their clueless defenders?

In case you are not among those who labor under misconceptions of either of these principles, let me sketch the state of play that Thorsen presupposes. In one corner is a version of Sola Scriptura which is so totalitarian that it cannot even admit any relative authorities or interpretive norms to function near it. In the other corner is a version of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral so flimsy and merely procedural that it sounds like nothing more than limp recommendation to take everything into account and let every voice be heard. Described this way, the two principles are set up in advance to clash with each other at the first ding of the bell. No surprise that they seem contradictory, since described this way the two principles are transparently nothing more than projections of conservative and liberal theological postures at their cartooniest.
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“There are souls too in the world which have the gift of finding joy everywhere, and of leaving it behind them when they go. Joy gushes from under their fingers like jets of light. There is something in their very presence, in their mere silent company, from which joy cannot be extricated and laid aside. Their influence is an inevitable gladdening of the heart. It seems as if a shadow of God’s own gift had passed upon them. They give light without meaning to shine; and coy hearts, like the bashful insects, come forth and almost lay aside their sad natures. Somehow, too, the joy all turns to God. Without speaking of him, it preaches him. Its odor is as the odor of his presence. It leaves tranquility behind, and not unfrequently sweet tears of prayer. All things grow silently Christian under its reign. It brightens, ripens, softens, transfigures like the sunlight, the most improbable things which come within its sphere. A single gifted heart like this is the apostle of its neighborhood. … To live with them is to dwell in a perpetual sunset of unboisterous mirth and placid gayety.

- - Frederick W. Faber (1814-1863), Bethlehem, p. 350.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts,

I have been invited to attend a “Superbowl Party” this coming Sunday afternoon. Although the invitation was rather circumspect regarding details, I am given to understand that the event being celebrated involves a televised competition between two sports collectives, possibly from different countries, or perhaps different regions of the same country. Although the teams will be attempting to defeat each other in the contest, it seems that partygoers are permitted to cheer for whichever of the two teams they prefer, and even to denigrate the opposing team, the presence of that team’s supporters in the room notwithstanding. You can imagine the festive spirit, I am sure!

I believe I will know how to behave at the party in general, as I am a shrewd observer of social customs and have considerable facility in blending in to a variety of settings. My only worry, and the reason I am writing to you, is that it seems customary for each guest to make a variety of exclamations and comments as the game (or the commercials, which also are apparently quite diverting, except for the long one at half-time) progresses. It is in this department that I feel underprepared, and disinclined to rely on my native wit for extemporaneous remarks.

Could you please suggest to me some comments which would be appropriate to utter at various times during the game? At best, I would like to add to the day’s fun, but at least I hope to avoid giving offense or seeming like a stuffed shirt who doesn’t know how to “mix it up with the guys.”

Signed,

Gridiron Gridlock
California

p.s. I do not approach the contest entirely unarmed, having spent idle hours composing the following:

“Man, both teams need this game.”

“That’ll move the chains!”

“Ha ha! This game is already OVER!!! Forget about it!”

“The Colts look like a young college team on tape. I mean that as a compliment. ”

“Nothing smells like football.”

“These guys put the ‘ouch! ow!’ in ‘touchdown!’”

“This must be the early Chicago deep-passing attack pundits were worried about.”

“Rearrange M-I-A-M-I and you get ‘I maim.’”

“if Chicago goes to a three-receiver package on passing downs, keep your eye on the nickel slot DB.”

“He doesn’t have an Elway arm, but he is smart, very athletic and has moxie.”

“It seems clear that my team is going to dominate yours.”

NOOOOOOO!!! The giant robot lurches into the city and our best defenses cannot stop him. FLEE, TINY HUMANS!!! If this be doomsday, when stalks the robotic juggernaut! He was designed by a demolition contractor who thoughtlessly programmed him with the command, “Destroy the next building.” Obedient to the letter of the law, he sets out to destroy the next building, and the next, and the next… I HEAR AND OBEY. DESTROY NEXT BUILDING! But there is always a next building! His tiny twin antennae are receiving new commands, but it is impossible to override the prime directive. He is hardwired for mayhem! Death is his algorithm! Go-to smash if tank then pull building down onto it!!! The brave human defenders send out their new triple-barrel tank, and one sharpshooter takes cover behind it, but none can stop DESTRUCTOR, THE WINSOME SMILING SMASHBOT!!!

Jaroslav Pelikan (1923-2006) wrote a book in 1959 called The Riddle of Roman Catholicism (Abingdon: 1959). While parts of it are dated, it’s also a wise and patient Lutheran interaction with the phenomenon that is the Roman Catholic Church. In chapter 16, “The Challenge of Roman Catholicism,” Pelikan muses about what American Protestantism can learn from the Roman church, and among the other items on his list (comprehensive world view, inclusive appeal, urban ministry, sacramental worship), he includes “a living tradition.”

If you know Pelikan you know that for his entire career he was in tradition like a fish in water, so it’s hard to imagine that he would be so short-sighted as to take up the lament that his American Lutheran church was somehow magically disconnected from tradition. There it sits, objectively just as traditioned as any church. But what Pelikan wants Protestants to learn from Roman Catholics is how to present themselves in such a way that they express that living tradition clearly.

In describing this, he hits on a term which I found instructive: “Devices for symbolizing the living tradition.” He asks, “Can Protestantism find devices for symbolizing and carrying the living tradition of the Christian past that are truly meaningful to the general church public?” (p. 234)

By “devices,” I don’t think Pelikan is just talking about gimmicks. He pokes fun for a bit at ham-fisted attempts to symbolize tradition, like “Russian Orthodox chants in a Baptist church or the introduction of ‘the daily sacrifice of the masss’ in a Methodist church,” which he views as “exoticism, not living tradition.” But he is aware that human ingenuity needs to seek out some cultural mechanisms for making tradition visible, because tradition is one of those odd things that goes invisible if you neglect it.
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In the year 381, the second ecumenical council (also known as the First Council of Constantinople, or Constantinople I, to distinguish it from two later councils in the same city), met to make decisions on Christian doctrine and order.

The main thing the fathers of the first Council of Constantinople would want us to say about their work is that they re-affirmed the Council of Nicaea. That’s what they came together to do, and it was something that needed doing. Although the anti-Arian cause had prevailed decisively in the first ecumenical council in 325, the middle decades of the fourth century saw the imperial church dominated by Arianism and various forms of semi-Arianism. By 381, however, the Nicene or Athanasian party had regained control, and this council convened by emperor Theodosius I made its first order of business to re-assert the creed from the Council of Nicaea.

The biggest change they made to the creed from Nicaea was to extend the article about the Holy Spirit: In 325 the bishops had merely noted, “and [we believe] in the Holy Spirit.” But in 381 they added the wonderful language calling the Spirit “the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets.”
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Cleverly concealed within the hard structure of the turtle’s shell, dual miniature turbofan jet engines roar to life, sure to give him a competitive advantage when that cocky rabbit comes boasting of his superior landspeed. Pictured here with a satisfied smile at the moment of blast-off, the turtle flattens himelf out aerodynamically by tucking his head down and reaching out his legs fore and aft. His forelegs are poised in readiness for the moment when he’ll need to provide a tiny nudge of vertical thrust to keep himself on course. That will be about three-quarters of a mile down the trail, of course, but this turtle is all about planning ahead. Red and yellow flame swirls in long looping lines with a bit of black smoke in the blast behind him.

Behind him, a small red scribble with little loops coming off it.
Yes.
The rabbit.

The first ecumenical council was Nicaea, in the year 325. As all the later councils are at pains to attest, the Council of Nicaea is the most important of all the councils.

The heresy which provoked this epochal council was Arianism, the teaching that the pre-existent Logos who took on flesh in the incarnation was not God, but a great and exalted creature. Since he was the Son of God, Arius argued, he must have come into existence from non-existence, and prior to that he must not have existed. The Arian Christ is certainly a supernatural being, but just as certainly he is not actually divine.

Arianism was rejected by the 318 bishops gathered at Nicaea under emperor Constantine. Because Arius and his supporters were capable of making most scriptural language agree with their doctrine, the orthodox party pressed the extra-biblical term “homoousios” into service, meaning by it that the Son of God is of the same (homo) substance (ousia) as God the Father, or consubstantial with him. The goal of the Nicene theologians (both the bishops present and the rising generation which included the great Athanasius of Alexandria) was to assert the complete deity of Jesus Christ in a clear and unequivocal way, which they did by placing this term into the creed which was produced at this council, calling Christ “the Son of God, begotten from the Father, only begotten, that is, from the substance of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one substance (homoousios) with the Father…”

Lying behind this undertaking was a vision of what salvation entails: personal reconciliation with God and participation in God’s own life. With that view of soteriology in place, the implicit soteriological axiom driving Nicaea and the entire conciliar theological tradition downstream from it is: God alone can save.