Tonight I stood before God in a service I did not create. I didn’t sit with my other friends and make up the work of the Church as I went. The Church was not emerging tonight, it was standing on a firm foundation. They did not have to hear my words, for Cranmer had written timeless words to express my thoughts. Wounded from the battles of the evil times we live in, I stood on the rock that is Christ. The Church was not listening to my authentic experience, polluted by sin, instead pure and holy She taught me the value of her experience.

My culture may be post-foundationalist, but my Church and God are not. We had not stolen religious practices we dimly understood from reading some internet web postings. We are not experimenting with our souls, we are finding healing. There was such rest and joy and liberty. Liberty it turns out is not finding a trendy outfit and having dialogue. Liberty comes in worship where we are unified by a mighty theology greater than we are or the spirit of our age. This is but one time after all and tonight was timeless. Thank God I was not authentic to myself, but Christ in me, the hope of glory, was authentic to Himself.

Tonight with my wife and children, all Christian words those, we stood and obeyed Christ. Do this, He said, in remembrance of me. Memory that is more than even total recall, but is real. As so many who came before from Peter to Chrysostom to Luther to C.S. Lewis, we allowed total and utter grace to cleanse us. I lost this time. I lost myself. United with Christians all over the world who stood in their places, we obeyed the Maundy, the command. Love burned in me. How can I express this? We are an ironic age and I long to use the words of a passionate lover to say what I felt for the Churches one foundation, Jesus Christ, our Lord. He does not conform to me! What a comfort! He does not need me, but He wants me. He can take my hardest question, allow me a time for dialectic, but then in the corporate worship of the Church silence my heart and draw me to himself. Me. Selfish me.

And then I thought how I have failed in love. It pierced me to think of all the students who see only the bluster and the arrogance. God help me. Let me be willing to show how nothing I am and how great You are. May I be passionate for holiness and as opposed to my own sin as I am to that of others. May I stand without condemnation to go and sin no more. Then we said the old words, written by a Reformer and blessed by Antioch:

‘We do not presume to come to this, Thy table, trusting in our own righteousness but in Thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs from under Thy table. But Thou art the same Lord whose nature is always to have mercy. Grant us, therefore, gracious Lord so to eat the flesh of Thy dear Son Jesus Christ and to drink His blood, that we may evermore dwell in Him and He in us.’

God let’s us approach Him, it is not longer me. And the “we” does not just include our sick post-modern time or the earlier degenerate modern times. The “we” includes the church of all the ages saying creeds, immovable rocks, that they still stand on with us. The great hosts of heaven were joined to our little parish in this Southern California of strip malls.

God allows all of us freely to know Him and become part of Him. The humble act of eating simple food is transformed. And I am not made nothing, but transformed. This loss of the time in which I live has made me (oddly enough) timeless and so authentic. At last, I am free of the tyranny of now. I am no longer alone, because I am not trying to create or imagine or dream. Jesus is Lord. Jesus Christ is Lord. He is Holy. He is a God of War and the Prince of Peace, but it will be peace on His terms. We must bend the knee. Eternally, not because it is trendy or because it has always been done, but because it is His command that every knee bow. I have not come to a community, but to a monarchy with one King.

Before us, glowing in the light, we saw mosaics. Some say the Church is a mosaic, where doctrines, practices, and ideas can be replaced without destruction. But the church is the frame, form, and pattern of the mosaic. Each living member becomes a piece of the mosaic, but in Scripture there is an absolute foundation for truth, goodness, and beauty. The Church may see more clearly, but it never changes what is has seen. Gradually God’s revelation in the person of Jesus Christ becomes plain to Her. The Holy Gospel in four precious books sits unchanging for me to read. “Take and read.” I do not have to be afraid of anything, not the spirit of the age or my own sinfulness, because my own times and my own self are so small and so loved. The Great King is also my heavenly Daddy who will hold me.

For the last thing they do is strip the alter. The soldiers arrest Jesus. Our little church hears the words of the Psalmist. “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” God who is so glorious and unchanging has allowed Himself to be stripped and laid bare. He is not worthy of honor. He is a criminal in the hands of Roman law. God help humanity, that we would do that to You. Yet somehow this is the most comforting thing of all. He has seen us at our worst as we beat Him and mock Him and make Him suffer. Still He love us. Jesus Christ knows all and still loves us. He loves his foes. The religious people who would miss him in legalism or the emergent churches of His day who said that Rome had changed everything so that Scripture itself would change. Pharisees and Sadduccees. He saw them, rebuked and damned them, and still loved them. And Zealots like me, burning to reform and harming in their foolish, messianic zeal, trying to bring the Kingdom to Earth. He rejected the cause, but loved Simon the Zealot who became simply Simon, the Apostle.

The glory of it all is beyond hope of communication. I do not reject the new and trendy, the liberal and up to date, because I am afraid, but because I am in love. I am in love with the unchanging God in Three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. I am a single cell in the pure bride that is His Church of all ages who did not create herself and who is His to govern, Hers to obey. I am obedient in order to be happy. For my greatest happiness, happiness really experienced, is in the holiness, sound doctrine, and passionate experience He is allowing me to find. I have invented nothing, can create nothing. I can only taste and see that the Lord is Good on this Maundy Thursday, the day of commands.

Notes from a Truth Seeker: “In the face of all that risk, and pain, and bravery, all of the religious answers I held seemed at best, pansy-assed and at worst deeply painful. “

Well, this church is sensitive. Arius was a swell guy too.

So has anyone noticed the narcissim of this group? Convenient sensitivity to everyone. Unless you are a traditional Christian. Heresy is o.k. Colonizing other people’s religious traditions is o.k. (Look icons! Let’s try those! No, wait! Let’s chant!) Breaking Biblical commandments is o.k. What is not o.k. is being an authentic Christian. The emergent church movement is neither.

HughHewitt.com: “Beinart: ‘I thought ben Veniste was terrible. I thought ben Veniste really made a fool of himself….Ben Veniste is the most partisan Democrat on the Commission, and I frankly wish he wasn’t on the Commission.’”

Thanks to Hewitt for getting this admission. Why do the Democrats push for these confrontations? They beg for them and then don’t even hire someone to tell them how not to look like mob enforcers on television. Where did Ben Veniste get that suit? Why do Democrats always hector the witness? Are we on the same side of this war?

Rice? She was simply masterful. She looked poised, was smart, and took no guff. I think the Democrats should demand she comes back.

I reject post-modern thought. At least I think I do. Whenever I read something about post-modernism, figure out what it means, compare it to the Bible and the Fathers, people tell me that post-modernism has moved on. Mostly they point out again and again that modernism is not Christian and we must see what good can come from the post-modern critique of Christianity. As far is it goes, modernism seems a more natural child of Christianity than post-moderism.

However, this is not really my fight. I rather like the Middle Ages. Luther appeals to me. I love the Church Fathers and accept the Seven Ecumenical Councils. Am I a modernist? I think not. So it seems fair to say that there is a third camp: the paleo-Orthodox. I am not for the modern or the post-modern, because none of them are for the Fathers.

Confessions is such a contrast to the modern testimony book that it serves as an inditement of our culture. It is centered in Christ and His grace, not the story of the author. It is theological and not chatty. It is well read and not a speech in print. Finally, is honest and emotional without descending into rant and cant.

Joy is the key to Augustine’s Christianity. He is often viewed as “hating the body” or “hating pleasure.” To the contrary, like all great mystics, he experiences such great pleasures in Christ that he is frustrated with anything less. He cannot understand why anyone would want to mess with sin when holiness is such a joy.

That is a radical concept. Many Christians want to do away with rules. They are not holy and are not progressing in holiness. They avoid legalism by becoming libertines. I call these “F-word” Christians, because much of their witness seems to involved telling people that their Christianity allows them to say the “F-word.” Wearing black, they relate to the culture and suck a few unwary souls into their rebellion against their parents. Another group of Christians react to the lack of holiness in our time with legalism. Though smaller, these Christians try to make a rule for everything. My daughter calls them Calico Christians. This is because their web sites often feature modest, though ugly, clothes that seem to be made only of calico and denim. They are joyless, though their quest for holiness can seem refreshing compared to the much larger F-word Christian groups. If they achieved holiness it would be good, but they do not and manage to create the next generation of recruits for F-word Christians. In fact, both groups need each other.

Augustine presents the alternative. The rules of holiness are guides to a relationship with Jesus. What do I mean? Augustine wants you to love Jesus and do what he is doing. (Not what would Jesus do, but what is Jesus doing. . . ) His is a gospel of grace. No work can save or sanctify. Christ must save or nothing shall. He begins to change His disciple into His image. F-word Christians often use this language so it scares the Calico. Augustine has a Biblical answer. Because relationships can be deceiving, the god you worship may not be the God you should worship, God has given us signs of holiness in the Bible. The holy man gives to the poor. He often fasts and prays. He reads God’s word with a hungry heart. He is modest and chaste.

Augustine glories in virtue, not in the absence of vice. He sees that vice is tortured virtue. . . so he wants far less to get rid of vice than to heal it. If the law points to our sin, grace heals it. This is not so we can go on sinning, but so we can quit. Amazing grace!

As always (insert yawn here) American Christianity is in the grip of new weak minded heretics who are urging us to “change” or perish. Here is a great quote from an “emerging church” web site:

“There is no doubt that the western world is in the midst of a significant cultural shift that is having an impact on every part of our society and the lives of the every person (whether they know/like it or not). This shift from a modern worldview to the postmodern worldview is also profoundly affecting the church. The news is that Christendom finished sometime in the early 20th century… and the modernist debate between the ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ wings of the church is no longer an issue in the emerging church.”

Here is a prediction: whenever we are told that conservative/liberal no longer apply the result will look a lot like failed liberalism in new clothes. I bet we get women priests. . . and attacks on the historicity of the Bible. Only now liberals will not have to argue, just sigh and shrug that we are hopelessly out of it. The internet, post-modernism, tattoos, Janet Jackson, or something mean that the young can no longer understand the old. If you don’t buy the “change” then you “don’t get it” or are trapped in modernity, the past, patriarchy, or some other hopeless folly. Where will joy be? No place. It will be new programs, new paradigms, new and improved graphics.

The hopeless folly is that each one of these movements is always a second Reformation. As usual the old church will as always outlast the emerging church movement. This generation will burn out on the new and drift toward the old. . . or move on to the left. Augustine is the perfect book to read. Traditional churches can still relate to the church described by Augustine. Orthodoxy (Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox) have not changed much from his time. On the other hand, the trendy was with Augustine in his own day. They seemed to be winning everywhere. Augustine was a “stuck in the past.” One can imagine a seminar in the modern style called: “Your Bishop Augustine: Stuck in a Roman Paradigm” and “Rethinking Heresy: is Augustine’s Orthodoxy Biblical or Platonic?” in his day. Sociologists would have reported to the Bishop that his demographic group was dying. (They were right. It died out.) Augustine survived them all by being dated, holy, and faithful. He told the emerging church to go away and was quite crusty about it. Thank God.

I really like being a traditional Christian. I don’t have to keep up. . . just love Jesus.

Politically folks need to relax. Imagine going to sleep months before the Democrat primaries. John Kerry is the front runner. After months of sleep, you wake up. John Kerry is the nominee. Big surprise. Of course, you missed Howard Dean and his yell, endless Hillary! will run threads on Free Republic, and the whole Edwards (?) boomlet. Basically, nothing much happened. One of the two plausible candidates won. Everyone else went home. It reminds me of 1988, Robertson and Dole best Bush in Iowa! Robertson wins Washington caucus! Dole snips at Bush! Bush wins like everyone thought he would.

The conventional wisdom (at the start of a race) is usually right. Bush is presiding over a prosperous economy and people don’t change presidents in the middle of a war. He will win and win going away. The daily up dates from Iraq are sad, but distracting. Iraq is being pacified. Doesn’t anyone remember that a few months ago we intercepted an Al Queda memo outlining the very strategy now unfolding in Iraq? News flash: we will kill these terrorists like we killed the others. It is just a matter of time.

Meanwhile, Bush and his base are firmly together, but many stories will announce they are cracking up. Some religious right leader never before noticed will get ten minutes of fame by saying he is “disappointed in Bush.” Kerry will pick someone for Vice President that will amaze the media. Stories will be written on how this “Fresh Face” compares to the “tired and scandal ridden” Cheney. Bush will win the debate, but the press will worship every snore proceeding from the Kerry sneer known as a face. Finally, Bush will carry 40 states while polls call it “too close to call” within two weeks of the final.

In the end, Zogby will notice a “surge” to Bush based on “event x” (which will soon be forgotten) and the polls will come out about right.

In short, nothing is going on that will actually change the dynamics of the race. Is America going to elect a man who calls a killer a legitimate voice? No way.

FOXNews.com - Top Stories - At Least 12 Marines Killed as Iraq Fighting Rages

With the Fathers we pray:

O Holy Master, Almighty Father and Pre-Eternal God, Who alone made and directs all things; Who rise up quickly against the evil of the impious ones; Who, by Providence, teach Thy people preservation of Justice and the obliteration of the sword on earth; Who condescend to raise up military columns to help the people: O God, Who commanded the Forerunner John to say to the soldiers coming to him in the desert, ‘Do not intimidate anyone… and be content with your wages’:

We entreat Thee with compunction, that Thou gavest Thy child David the power to defeat Goliath, and as Thou didst condescend, through Judas Maccabeus, to seize victory from the arrogant pagans who would not call on Thy Name; so too, grant protection in righteousness and truth to these Thy servants against the enemies rising against them, and by Thy heavenly loving-kindness, strength and might for the preservation of faith and truth.

Condescend, out of Thy mercy, O Master, to grant them the fear of Thee, together with humility, obedience and good endurance; that they kill no one unrighteously, but rather preserve all righteousness and truth; that they may fear Thee and honor Justice; that they run in friendship to those who are scattered, extending thy love to those near them, serving the elderly with justice; and that their ranks fulfill all things righteously;

For thou art our God, and to Thee do we ascribe glory; to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.

(http://www.beliefnet.com/prayeroftheday/prayer_one.asp?pid=1864)

And specifically for this situation we pray:

Holy Triune God bless our soldiers, our sons and brothers, bringing justice and help to the people of Iraq. Bring confusion and sudden destruction to their foes, especially the terrorist al-Sadr. With our fathers before us, we acknowledge our own sins and wickedness, but ask for your forgiveness and blessing. May this great cause not be harmed by our vice, but delivered by Your virtue. God save our noble and courageous President George Bush, defend the right, and God bless America. Through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

MormonsSuck.com: The truth about the Mormon cult!

There must be a group more widely and unfairly attacked than Mormons, but I have not found it. I think Mormonism false, do not think it Christian, but am tired of bad Christian assaults on Mormons. They don’t work, they are not charitable, and most of them are full of falsehoods. Mormons are not stupid, do many good works, and are often co-workers in the culture wars. It has been my pleasure to meet many top flight Mormon scholars.

I pray that Mormons would stop being Mormons and join my church, but I don’t have to call a website “mormons suck” to make my points. I am glad to say Biola University is leading the way to better dialogue. No one is giving up their convictions, but we are trying to express those convictions responsibly. See The New Mormon Challenge for a literary example of this better way.

I am not a Catholic, so perhaps I am missing something. It is common for politicians and others to claim to be Catholic, but to deny the teachings of the Church in doctrine and morals. Now in a free country these persons have a right to start their own Church, but why should they steal, like religious pirates, someone elses. Let Catholics be Catholics and move along. It isn’t the endowments they want is it? Or the prestige? Maybe it is the great Vatican art?

The response from these non-Catholic/Catholics is usually that they love the Church and have grown up in it. However, it seems the Church is not something you can just claim by birth. . . as if you were Prince Charles waiting to be King. It seems basic that being born to a Catholic parent no more makes you a Catholic, if you deny the faith, then being born Norwegian makes you a patriot if you happen to be Quisling. The argument from culture is very weak. . . since it seems likely the ideas that helped produce the culture. If not, the brave non-Catholic/Catholic could leave the Church in peace and go start his own “cultural Catholicism”. . . unless it is the money and the prestige of the original group he wants. . . or perhaps the votes.

The only other argument I have ever read is that the Church is not just the pope, the leaders, or the “officials.” That seems dubious Catholic theology to me, but I am no Catholic so perhaps this isn’t the self-serving nonsense it seems. (It reminds me of Lenin proclaiming himself the Majority when he knew himself to be the minority.) If so, then who is the Church? The majority of the faithful? What makes the faithful? It cannot be people who go to Mass every week, since these folk don’t even claim to represent those folk. It turns out that they are unelected representatives of the vast number of Catholics who never go to mass. These “Catholics” will all evidently sweep back into the Church if the words of their self-appointed leaders is heard. The Anglican experience does not make me overly sanguine about the results and the whole notion seems absurd in any case. Who made these people the voice of the “bad Catholics?” Why should a Church listen to the people who aren’t really interested. . . and not to those who are? Why don’t these people if they are the REAL CHURCH, just leave the “false” institutional church they despise and start their own Real Catholic Church. They can marry priests and ordain women and have Clown Mass all they want then. All would be well. It looks like they just are institutional trouble makers who want to raise hell for everyone else. We are supposed to hear their “pain” with the Church, but they look to mostly be a pain in the rear for the faithful. Ah, well. I am not a Catholic and do not understand these things.

Conclusion: People should stop calling Kerry a Catholic, until he starts acting like one. It would seem to (ignorant) me that he has excommunicated himself by his support for the culture of death. When was his last confession?

Of course, I should not be hypocritical here. Christian colleges are infected with people who believe exactly the sort of things the Founders believed wicked. They go on claiming to be “good” so that they can keep their jobs or can take over schools they view as being “reactionary” bastions. They are not half the men the Founders were so they don’t have the courage, charisma, or wit to start their own schools. So they teach endless classes earning cheap popularity by opening minds to “new ideas” which are really old heiresses dressed up in modern guise. So this sort of error is everywhere. I just don’t see it as very reasonable.

I have spent the evening thinking about “ex” folk. I have been reading “ex-Mormon”, “ex-Christian”, and “ex-conservative” sites. I picked these topics because they have extensive enough text to give a feel for the movements. I felt two things when reading these sites, I think.

My first reaction was pity. Most of them had in common a plaintive defensive of their actions. Many had entered into a mirror image world of being against what they were once supported. These worlds were smaller with their own intercine conflicts. Private vocabularies flourish. Some had moved on to more mainstream skepticism or liberalism. Could this person have been reached if someone had been nicer to them?

The testimony was the standard filler on the sites. Each told how they felt liberated from a stale past. Doubts led to tougher questions which led to leaving the group. This leave taking was painful. The posts were frequently profane, rarely witty, and hardly ever funny. I wished that someone had been nicer to them, given them better answers, related to them. Then I saw that usually there was such a professor or minister in their lives. In their story there would be leftist Professor/Pastor X to whom the tribute, “Really, Dr. X admitted much of (our group’s beliefs) were bunk and was open and honest. Maybe if everyone were like Professor/Pastor X I would still be (our group’s belief system.)” And I saw that Professor/Pastor X was generally a hypocrite serving as a half-way house to unbelief. He glories in his role as the “one good Mormon/Christian/conservative.” It was all self-serving nonsense. Professor X should be fired from his Christian college. . . and Pastor X excommunicated. They help no one but themselves as they continue to draw dishonest pay checks from organizations they secretly despise.

Many of the sites seemed trapped at whatever age the “big event” of leaving took place. Students who dropped out of religious colleges were most often like this. They claim to despise their former school, but end up thinking and writing about it more than the happy alum. BYU has the largest group of these students literate enough to write on-line. They are most often self-revealing. You are pretty sure that there are fair number of plagiarist and drop outs in their midst. Many still write as if they were students or young adults, even though their class had graduated.

So my second response was simply disgust at how facile most “leaving” stories are. That is why I read Mormon exit stories. . . since I am not a Mormon and could not just pretend that all the testimonies were the result of the ignoring the truth. However, there too it seemed most of the stories pointed to some pretty seriously messed up lives, selfishness anyone but the writer could see, and half-baked philosophy. (The “science led me out of the faith” posts were particularly bad. They read like the worst nineteenth century village-atheist-rationalist tracts.) Anti-Mormon sites were the worst. They were disturbing in their rage which seem disproportionate to their own description of Mormon “crimes.” Prom dresses at Mormon schools that were not “revealing” seemed to draw an odd amount of rage from adults. I can appreciate parody, but there was too much of it and it was just not very funny.

Yet disgust seems uncharitable, self-serving, and not good philosophy. My friends who are skeptics think all Christians a bit dim for being Christian. I cannot just be like these skeptics. . . only in reverse. Why do people leave their groups for such bad reasons? How do the groups fail them? Am I setting my own students up for such a fall? Am I equally facile, easy on myself, as a person who retained faith? My faith was saved at great cost. Christianity was hateful to me, but seemed true. But perhaps too an on looker my own justifications for faith are equally lame. Over confidence and self-righteousness are ugly things. And many of my feelings smack of both.

It was then I realized the problem with the sites and with my thinking to this point. The sites were too limited, too filtered. The web gives us a feeling of total revelation of a person, but it does not. I am after all aware that you are reading this as I write it. I too am engaged in creating an image. There is just no way to tell from my limited research. My thinking was in terms of movements and groups and not of individuals. My guess is that each individual had a complex mosaic of reasons for doing what they did. . . most unknown to themselves.

Can I confidently ask my readers to think my own views true? I can ask. My best reason has led me to very traditional forms of Christianity. It has caused me to strongly reject the liberalism, feminism, and paganism that so strongly appealed to me as a young adult. These reasons are open to public scrutiny. I can still leave. I would still leave if reason and best feeling led in that direction. And that seems a difference from most. The “leavers” seemed utterly sure that going back was not an option. They had closed a door. However, faith lived requires constant seeking. . . constant searching for understanding. The older I get the more sure of Jesus Christ I become: is that ossification or growth? It seems growth to me. My thoughts seem better, more rigorous on topics such as Plato. . . why believe I have stopped thinking about religion?

One thing seems certain. . . weak kneed “half-way” house Christianity of the ECUSA sort is the least attractive option to me. The path of Professor X who is a minimalist Christian who has more in common with his secular buddies than with the average layman with whom he deigns to share a pew is plainly wrong. Better a fundamentalist to that. Better a man of real faith who has doubts to a man with doubts and no real faith who confuses his doubts with the faith.

So it seems to me.

St. John Chrysostom: HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN: “For while yet that blessed Body hung upon the tree, the sun turned away his rays, the whole earth was troubled and became dark, the graves were opened, the ground quaked, and an innumerable multitude of dead leaped forth, and went into the city. And while the stones of His tomb were fastened upon the vault, and the sells yet upon them, the Dead arose, the Crucified, the nail-pierced One, and having filled His eleven disciples with His mighty power, He sent them to men throughout all the world, to be the common healers of all their kind to correct their way of living, to spread through every part of the earth the knowledge of their heavenly doctrines, to break down the tyranny of devils, to teach those great and ineffable blessings, to bring to us the glad tidings of the soul’s immortality, and the eternal life of the body, and rewards which are beyond conception, and shall never have an end. “

This is the standard of Christian scholarship. Here is rhetoric tied to sound theology to produce Christian men. My politics, my philosophy, my interest in the arts, must all be as filthy rags to the Gospel. The Gospel contains hope. God help me live up to this standard.

Hannah Lise Modest Apparel for Women & Girls

I love the free market. It is easy enough to by cynical about such groups. . . but have you ever tried to dress growing girls? My girls want to wear dresses, but don’t care for the MTV look. Groups like this provide an option.

MSNBC -

One overlooks J.F. Kerry’s quirky emulation of J.F. Kennedy at their peril. My belief is that any man who would take the time to emulate his idol’s handwriting (how weird is that) may imitate him in more than script.

I have already predicted that the constant outdoor sports Kennedy-Kerry connection suggests that Kerry has something to hide in his health history. I have since discovered that he has not released his full health history. Why? He has been needing a great deal of down time and rest of late. Why?

It seems a matter of time before someone gets Kerry in a ” bimbo eruption.” We know he has been a party-guy. We know he is a Kennedy-clone. When will the first story break?

Finally, I predict he will pick a Southern rival for the ticket, just like Kennedy. Who? He will energize the ticket with an African American from the South. He needs to wake up that vote and gain immunity from the gay-marriage issue in the black community. The man? Harold Ford Junior.

What can be done with Christian colleges? Parents need to learn to ask hard questions about their school of choice. You are paying for a Christian, Christ-centered, education. What does the school mean by this? Some of my favorite questions:

1. Do all your teachers believe the great saints of the Old Testament were historical persons? Was Adam? Was Eve? Was Noah?
2. Could all of your teachers assent to the Nicean Creed?
3. Do you hire non-Christians? If so, are they in tenure track positions?
4. What is the climate for traditionalists on your campus? If I oppose women in the priesthood will I be in a tiny minority?
5. Are all your faculty pro-life? Are any pro-choice? (Ask both questions.)
6. Is there an objective truth? Is it knowable? Do we know some of it?
7. Is there a hell? Is anyone in it? What sort of folk go?
8. Am I my brain? Do souls exist?
9. What is sin?

These are just a few questions. . . and not the most important. There are the sort that will tease out the spirit of our age. Beware weasel words. How hard would these questions have been for Luther, Aquinas, or Chrysostom? How hard should they be for a real Christian college? If you are a traditional Christian: beware! In my experience, many Christian colleges don’t like you, want to move your child away from your positions, and do want your money for second rate educational goods.

Dante continues to change me. Today the theme for me was the process of being “disillusioned.” The worst thing about being a professor and trying to be open to students is seeing the look in their eyes when they realize how fallible you really are. Of course, this should not be a bad thing. Who thinks they are perfect? But perhaps this is the point. We as teachers are disillusioned, caused to lose our illusions of goodness, when we see ourselves in their eyes.

Dante spends the Inferno and most of the Purgatorio convincing you of one thing: he loves Beatrice. Then at the very top of Mount Purgatory, Beatrice rebukes him for his false love. He is exposed. Dante has never loved Beatrice, but has been a fraud from beginning to end. His great virtue, his poetry, has come close to damning him. He must give it all up.

No wonder he must drink from the River of Forgetfulness! He must forget the false self, his illusions. Only then can he come to himself. God’s grace redeems him and no good work of his own lasts his journey. Heaven is always reaching down, Dante can never reach up. It is all condensension from beginning to end. Beatrice has not come because Dante loves her, but despite his failure to love her. She is good, redeemed, and he is bad. She pities him and so helps him. She has grace on him, though of course her grace is just a piece of the greater grace of God. It is all God’s grace.

This notion: that God loves us. . . that he takes away what we think are our virtues and our pleasures is hard enough. But then God gives back to us pleasures without end. . . treats! What a hard thing! We think we are giving up so much only to discover that we give up illusions and receive the very thing about which we fantasized. So it is in marriage. We seek a grand passion, still I can feel its tug, and then with great pain we give it up, only to discover in the love of a real woman the great passion we always sought. We fantasize about Beatrice, lose her, then see her as she is. She is not the girl of my dreams, our illusions are shattered. She is a saint. She is real. And so we must change, give up our sin. Yet then she shows us Paradise. We get the very thing we had written about, and believed lost to Christ.

God shows us Himself, which should be enough, but then in some super-abundance of love and grace, He gives us treats.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.