WORLD March 27, 2004: Lion on a leash: “In America, where Protestant sects proliferate wildly on every corner, the church seems far too contemptuous of tradition, yet our experiment in disestablishment has preserved the most ‘religious’ people of all the developed nations.”

World Magazine is the best written and most important news weekly in America. However, this seems like a pretty bad argument. It seems an example of assuming that a prior thing caused a later thing. . . without any argument showing a connection.

The Church of England has declined because it has given in, at last, to liberalism. A unified church can “go bad” more easily, because there is a single target to attack. That does not justify or make more commendable the splintered state of the American church. . . though nearly anything is preferable to the apostasy of the Church of England.

I would suggest that return to traditional beliefs on both sides of the Pond is the cure. . . since it was back sliding from those beliefs that caused the problem.

James S. Robbins on Iraq on National Review Online: “The question is not whether his death is a tragedy, because of course it is, as are all the casualties that are the inevitable product of conflict.”

I agree with the point of this fine article, but is death a tragedy for those who died well? I think not. It is sad, horribly sad, for those left behind. But for the dead man, there is the hopeful journey into the undiscovered country. And that need not be sad at all.

Today’s class was on Dorothy Sayers. Ably led by Miss Silvers, we delved into the relationship between Revelation and reason. Some of my thoughts from this class. I think the world to be a reasonable place, but it may not all be open to our reason. Some problems are just too hard for some beings. It is the error of mediocre men to imagine that many of them can equal one man of genius. But two million Homer Simpsons will not have a better idea than one Aquinas. Some problems are too difficult for all but rare men. In the same way, there are some truths the cosmos was designed to teach us. God made man to walk in relationship with Himself. The cosmos was designed to aid that walk. It is a support system for the religious life. It can point to God, but it cannot show us God. Man was meant to know God by walking with Him in the cool of the evening.

So there are great truths, such as the Trinity, that are reasonable, but cannot first be known by human reason. After you see vulgar, you wonder why you did not think of it. . . or why someone did not think of it sooner. Inventions like the wheel cannot be forgotten, the moment seen they transform. They are so obviously “right.” In the same way, once God revealed a description of His nature, it could not be forgotten. It changed everything. People hit themselves on the head and said, “Oh. Now I get it.” Trinitarian imagery appeared to them everywhere. It was obvious.

So revelation from God in His written Word is not unreasonable. To the contrary, once seen it is almost impossible to avoid. Greeks, even Greeks who rejected Christian thought, were entranced by Christian ideas. They invented their own trinity. Revelation aids reason. It can never stand against it.

In the name of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen

Today we reflect on the Annunciation. Mary becomes the Mother of God. Gabriel, the Strength of God, comes to make this world morphing announcement to Mary. Why does God send an angel? Couldn’t the Divine have done the job better himself? Of course. God excels at everything. He is like that kid in high school who gets 1600 on the SAT, stars in five sports, and is good looking. Only more so. Infinintely more so. So why send Gabriel?

God delights in allowing his creatures to do things. He does not need creatures, but he chooses to use them. It delights Him. Angels like to give messages and so God sends them on their designated tasks. Every creature fills some niche in God’s great plan. There are no blank spaces in creation, every slot has been filled. Each being has something for which he has been especially made and God let’s each being fill that position. So God let Gabriel make the biggest announcement in history to date, because he delighted in seeing Gabriel do what he was designed to do. God help us. We too can serve as God’s voice and messenger in the world, not because He needs us, but because we can.

MousePlanet Mailbag

My letters to Mouse Planet. We need to protest any “softness” on Soviet tyranny. Soviets should be treated like Nazis: beyond the pale of civil society.

FOXNews.com - Politics - Senate Passes Unborn Victims Bill: “‘They want to make this bill about a woman’s right. What on earth does this have to do with a woman’s right to choose? Nothing,’ said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. “

Boxer has informed us of a strange new fact: women’s rights are exhausted by the right to choose. Choose what? Abortion of course. Abortion has become the great holy cause of the left. They live to kill the fetus. Any attempt to allow women to punish men who kill babies that women want moves all too close to the sacred soul of abortion. Any other right, duty, or obligation must be sacrificed for the Right to Choose. Feminism dances the masque of the red death. They have become fevered in their dance as their goddess, herself drunk with the wine of the blood of innocents, forces them to take more and more extreme positions. Pity the poor feminist.

St. John Chrysostom: HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN: “Wherefore a wise man has said, ‘Pride is the beginning of sin’ (Ecclus. x. 13): that is, its root, its source, its mother. By this the first created was banished from that happy abode: by this the devil who deceived him had fallen from that height of dignity; from which that accursed one, knowing that the nature of the sin was sufficient to cast down even from heaven itself, came this way when he labored to bring down Adam from such high honor. For having puffed him up with the promise that he should be as a God, so he broke him down, and cast him down into the very gulfs of hell. Because nothing so alienates men from the lovingkindness of God, and gives them over to the fire of the pit, as the tyranny of pride.”

HughHewitt.com
Hugh’s take on this is quite brilliant. Sadly, I doubt most voters are following the details of the case. Headlines will win and those are not good for Bush. People will be left with the impression that Bush did not act and so Americans died. To counter this false impression, it become imperative that Osama die soon.

An Anti-Semitic Left Hook: (”Left- and right-wing extremists are � ideological soul mates.”) The left hides anti-Semite beliefs behind ideological masks. These hypocrites must be exposed. Why? When allowed to fester, we know anti-Semitism leads to murder. Polite chit-chat with people whose beliefs can lead directly to death is not possible. Anti-Zionism as a major organizing part of person’s life and ideology is a danger sign. So is a double standard about Israel or about terrorism in the Arab world. As a member of a church that is mostly Arab, I have no problem saying that there is no defense, excuse, or justification for terrorism or suicide bombings. Intentional targeting of civilians is wicked. This is not hard to say. . . I cannot trust anyone who cannot say it without qualification.

Universal: Peter Pan

See this in a dollar theater if you still can. If not, this is a DVD worth buying. The cast is excellent. The writing is crisp. My six year old was excited and my thirteen year old enthralled. In the same movie, my wife and I laughed out loud and squeezed hands in a particularly tender spot. The mom and dad love each other in this film! Hook is a dead on villain and the children are all believable.

The film is shot with an emphasis on beauty and not on photo realism. It looks like a children’s book.

A few quibbles:

Wendy has been turned into a “fighter.” Come one folks. It is a period piece. Allow old fashioned girls to be old fashioned. Peter has a glaring American accent, which frequently mushes up the very British script in amusing ways. Making Peter an American is a faux-deep “idea” that gets in the way of the story. Finally, the “growing up and sex” sub-plot is hammered home again and again. Like old movies which left text on the screen for so long that one wonders about the IQ of the intended audience, this movie reminds us again and again of “the point.” Sigh. Show don’t tell, folks.

Still, this is superior family viewing. It shows that Hollywood can make films as good as any in the “golden age.”

John 9- Jesus heals a “man born blind.

The Greeks wrote that the blind could see better in the spiritual world, because they were not distracted by the physical. They made their great sages and prophets blind (Homer, Tiresias). To see the world where the gods lived, one had to ignore the physical world. Homer would not have wanted to be healed, because it would have deprived him of his great gift of poetry.

Christianity tells a different story. Jesus heals the man born blind. Then Christ says He has come into the world so the “blind can see.” The healed man asks Jesus to tell him of the Son of Man. He has learned to rely on his “hearing.” Jesus Christ tells him to look and see. The man born blind is not just healed in his physical eyes, the miracle of the incarnation allows this miracle to become a spiritual moment as well. He “beholds” Christ’s glory, “full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14) God wants us to see and makes us whole to do it. We need not stay blind in order to see!

This reminds me of a key idea at the end of Job. Job has complained about God. What he has heard about God does not fit his experience. He complains bitterly. God does not tell Job more. . . since that “hearing” cannot trump Job’s experience. When Job sees God, it overwhelms him. He knows: that God, that God I see, must be good and just. He is not just overawed, he “gets it.” The details are unimportant. If you know God is good, know it in a way you cannot doubt, because you have experienced Him, then you cannot help but trust.

Christians begin with a religious experience. This experience is rational and passionate at the same time. We see God. In growing, we must not forget that to be “born again” and transformed by the Spirit is our life goal and mission. We do not need more hearing, I think, but more seeing.

God show us yourself.

Satan begins by saying he would rather rule in hell than serve in heaven. Soon he realizes his error, but by then it is too late. He reaches for heaven, falls to hell, and ends up serving the divine purpose in any case. Most of us would not make that choice because we fantasize that we can rule here on earth while avoiding hell. We hope our more modest ambition will protect. Treason is still treason. Having dealt with the major rebel, Satan, God turns to mankind in judgement. In trying to rule earth on our own, we fall to hell with Satan. God will have no competition.

Satan begins by saying he would rather rule in hell than serve in heaven. Soon he realizes his error, but by then it is too late. He reaches for heaven, falls to hell, and ends up serving the divine purpose in any case. Most of us would not make that choice because we fantasize that we can rule here on earth while avoiding hell. We hope our more modest ambition will protect. Treason is still treason. Having dealt with the major rebel, Satan, God turns to mankind in judgment. In trying to rule earth on our own, we fall to hell with Satan. God will have no competition.

Biblical scholars sometimes resort to the argument that a “language of appearance” can allow for the cosmology and history of the Bible to be false while still not destroying inerrancy. The Bible can assert in Genesis that the flood came from an ocean above the earth through windows, because the human author was working within his pre-scientific world view. His ideas were literally false, but true to him. God is able to embed theological truth into this account.

I think there are three reasons to doubt that this is coherent. First, extra-textual evidence cannot tell us the opinions of brilliant writers like Moses or Plato. Such men create their own vocabularies and defy the assumptions of their age. Background information about the period can suggest ideas about a work, but only the work can interpret itself. Going into a work “knowing” what the writer believed about the world constrains our reading of the text. Second, the notion that God would reveal theological truth to a writer, while leaving cosmological “error” unchecked seems implausible. Why? Is it unimimportant to be wrong about such things? Finally, the Biblical writers frequently make certain details of their accounts more plausible. One example of this occurs when Moses changes the shape of the ark from the pagan cube to a more boat shaped object. Why do this if these details do not matter?

The “language of appearance” applied too broadly is just a polite way of saying “wrong.”

Today I got to do a concluding class on Milton’s Paradise Lost. While trying to understand the work, we began to discuss Milton’s view of men and women. Milton says that women are inferior to men in intellect and morals. It reminded me of why so many people become feminists. Misogyny breeds feminism. Like all opposites, these two world views are mirror images of each other. Both deny truth in order to assert ideology. Men and women are different, they compliment each other. Feminism either denies this or does not deal with the consequences well. People who loath women often hide behind patriarchy. They fail to recognize that both men and women are created in the image of God. People are equal. They are equal at the most basic level. Of course, all this is obvious. The difficulty is living it.

One thing I know. To work with my students is such a pleasure. The class today was an exceptional group. They are well read and eager to learn. How could life get better than working with hard ideas with bright minds?