Monastaries often get an undeserved bad reputation. Chaucer may have something to do with it or the fact that our culture cannot imagine real community and giving things up.

If you believe, as I do, that the culture is in real trouble, then monasticism looks more appealing. There are forms of monasticism that allow for marriage and family life. Most monastaries are cultural centers and not isolated from society. Those communities that are isolated provide service through prayer. All encourage the life of the spirit over the life of the flesh. What is not to like?

Well, some things. . . as a brief review of the history of monasticism shows.

Monasticism was one of the most important innovations of Church history. It passed through several stages and was shaped by a number of remarkable personalities. In the West, it is safe to say that Christendom owes much of the its culture, philosophy, and historical memory to the labor of monks. In the East monasticism, ultimately helped shape the very liturgy of the church.

The early Church was a persecuted Church. Cut off from the protection of the Jewish exemption from emperor worship, the first Christians were the frequent targets of a hostile government. This shaped their demands and expectations regarding the Christian life. Living in the light of the martyrs’ divine sacrifice, the early Church developed high standards for personal conduct and holiness. With any decline in persecution, and the sudden influx converts that would inevitably follow, the Church would notice a decline in the personal holiness of her members. What could be done about this?

Monasticism was one answer to that question. The end of martyrdom and the sanction of the state only increased the demand for some way in which the supremely dedicated Christian could show their love of Christ and His Church. Walker also suggests (125) that liturgical formalism demanded a way for individuals to express their devolution more freely.

These secular rationalizations for monasticism may have some merit, but they over look the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church. Monasticism did much to evangelize the world, preserve culture and order in decaying lands, and renew the Church whenever nominalism threatened her. It is clear that the growth of monasticism was an important part of the providential work of God to bring His Creation back into right relationship with His Divine Nature.

Christian monasticism finds its origins in Egypt. This in itself is not surprising. The very climate of Egypt is ideal for inspiring the life of contemplation. Saint Anthony (@250) gave up all his worldly wealth, lived as a hermit, and battled his sinful flesh and many demons. This move to the desert was a natural one by the time of Anthony. Christians had always admired the ideal of celibacy, poverty, and the contemplative life. Origen, the great Alexandrine teacher, was a strict ascetic. (Walker, 125)

The strong Platonic element to the Alexandrine way of thinking may also have encouraged the monastic life. Platonism, or at least neo-Platonism, places a great value on philosophy and the life of the mind while placing little worth in the body or its needs. In Phaedo, Plato compares the body to a tomb. The life of the guardian and the philosopher king of Republic also is in many ways similar to that of the monk. This Platonic influence can be overdone, but it is too plain to be purely coincidence.

Most important, of course, is the fact that the monastic ideas are the ideals of the New Testament. John the Baptist is a forerunner not only of Christ, but of one type of Christian monastic. Jesus, Himself pure and celibate, had much to say about the misuse of personal wealth and the life of poverty. (See Matt. 19:21) Paul gave his blessing to the life of the celibate and was, perhaps, the model for the later missionary monk. In short, whatever reasons there were for its appearance, monasticism was a natural, evolutionary step for the Christian faith.

Monasticism early on divided between those like Saint Anthony who pursued a more or less solitary life as a hermit and those that lived with others in community. Saint Pachomius established the first monastic community from 315 to 320. He worked hard to secure a life where the common life under the rule of an abbot would create an ideal Christian community. He opened the monastic life to women and tried to avoid some of the spiritual problems found in some of the more extreme hermits.

Simeon Stylites (died 459) was one example of such a rigorous hermit. He lived on top of a pillar for thirty years. Such men are, perhaps, easy to ridicule in a naturalistic age, but one should be careful about doing so. Often such “holy folly” as that of Simeon can be a window for many folk to the deeper things of God. It also serves as a rebuke to secularism and to nominalism in the Church. These men, by their very “folly,” set an example of the absolute holiness of God and His total demands on the life of a Christian.

The common life of monasticism continued to develop in the East until it reached a point that would prove seminal for all later advances. Saint Basil in Asia Minor began to develop an orderly and much improved common life (360-379). The Rule of Saint Basil, which is either his or one of his many followers, stressed the common life. Good deeds and religious activity were tightly regulated and encouraged. Such monastic were widely seen as friends of the poor and oppressed.

In the West of the Empire, the situation was less stable. Athanasius brought the monastic movement to the West, but it long lacked organization. Martin of Tours brought the movement to France by 362. Still many in the West opposed monasticism. Unlike the East, monastic in the West were not always of the best character. Much later Chaucer would give a splendid example of this in his Monks and Reeves Tale in Canterbury Tales. Much of Western monasticism became centered on various reform movements to solve these problems. In one move in this direction, Eusebius of Italy, who died in 371, required all of his clergy be monastic. This helped guide the wild excesses of a lay monastic movement, but it did not solve the problem in the end.

The first and greatest of these reform movements was that of Benedict of Nursia (480-547). Disgusted with the evils of Rome, he left to become a hermit and eventually founded the great monastic community of Monte Cassino. His Rule was one of the most important documents of the Christian Middle Ages. In it, Saint Benedict created (in the words of Walker, 1270, a “garrison of Christ’s soldiers.”

Benedict’s rule was very strict, it was after all an antidote to laxness. It was also very fair, by the standards of the time. Though the abbot had ultimate power in the community, all the monks had a say in many of the decisions. The monasteries were built around the ideal of constant worship. Saint Benedict also stressed hard work and intellectual activity. In a day when the fall of Rome in the West meant that literature was dying, Benedictine monasteries became centers of learning and culture. They were an ordered garden in a Western Europe that was rapidly becoming a wasteland. Western civilization was largely preserved and recreated within the walls of that secret garden.

Further to the West, there existed the Celtic monastic. Learned, artistic, and free of the control of Rome, they made far away lands like Ireland cultural centers. Before being absorbed by the Latin church, they created a Christian culture that is only now being discovered. By the time of Charlemagne, the rule of Benedict was nearly universal in Western Europe.

The monastic movement went, therefore, through three early phases. First, it was born as the reaction of individual Christians to the evil world that was around them. This early movement centered in the individual and extreme ascetic practices. Second, some monastic became more communal. Finally, this life was organized by spiritually gifted figures like Basil and Benedict.

The monk or nun, for all their imperfections became a model for the lay Christian to follow. This was not without its disadvantages. Too often the Church came to rely on the rigors of the monks, the renewal that would seemingly always flow out of the monasteries. (As would be the in the case, for example, with Saint Francis in the West and the Fathers of Mount Athos in the East.) As Walker points out, the monastic themselves often simply retreated from the world, allowing the good works in the community so stressed by Basil to fall into decay. In the West monasteries became (oddly) centers for indulgence and high living. Too few common folk raised a cry in England, for example, when Henry VIII seized the property of the monasteries of England. This suggest that the life of service had died out in those monasteries.

For all the dangers and problems that beset the movement, however, it is difficult to think of the church surviving the rigors of the fall of the Western Empire, Islam, secularism, Communism, and the other evils she has endured without the special strength of the Christian monastic. Is it time for another revival of intentional Christian community? Is there any reason that all the historical divisions of Christianity cannot embrace this idea?

How should a Christian relate to philosophy? Earlier, I tried to show that Christianity must account for philosophy, Athens. On the other hand, it cannot redue divine revelation to human intellectual activity. There is nothing new in this idea. It was the path the church followed to discover some of the basic truths of the faith and to work out the doctrines contained in the Word of God.

The church was dominated in its early development by two great rival schools: Alexandria and Antioch. The Western Church, confronted on all sides with the collapse of the Roman Empire, did not reach a level of comparable theological sophistication.

The West did, however, escape the difficult theological controversies that plagued much of the Eastern world. The bishop of Rome was often able to use such controversy to further his own claims to Church position. In the great struggle between the two schools, it was ultimately (and thankfully) Antioch that was to triumph with the Council of Chalcedon in 451. At the same time, many of the ideas and concepts of Alexandria prevailed. The cross-fertilization between the schools was beneficial. Particularly early on in their dispute, first Antioch and then Alexandria would become, through their chief spokesmen, the voice of Christian orthodoxy. As the Holy Spirit guided His people, theology developed in the context of this passionate debate.

The great school of Alexandria was one of the wonders of the Ancient World. By the time of the Early Church, the secular philosophic community in Alexandria had eclipsed even Athens as the leader in the marketplace of ideas. The Christian community in Alexandria was deeply impacted by this atmosphere. The Church had an on-going school of theology by at least the year 185 under Pantaenus. In general, when compared to the school of Antioch, the Egyptian school was more heavily influenced by Plato and by the neo-Platonism that was born in Alexandria. Antioch was more critical of philosophy without being anti-intellectual. When the Antioch did embrace a philosophical point of view, it tended toward the Aristotelian.

Not surprisingly, Alexandria embraced philosophy whole heartedly. Athens was the handmaiden of Jerusalem. The greatest Alexandrine philosopher, Origen (@182), developed the first great, systematic integration of Christian thought with the best of secular knowledge. As student of Clement of Alexandria, the father of a Christian Gnosticism, Origen used his massive knowledge of the Bible and ascetic discipline to compose works like the Hexapla and De Principiis . These relied on an allegorical method of understanding Sacred Scripture.

This allegorical method would eventually form a point of contrast with the school of Antioch. As developed by Origen (it was later enriched in the Medieval West with even more elaborate exegetical levels), this exegetical methodology found three levels of meaning in the Bible. There was an “obvious” sense, a moral sense, and a deeper spiritual or allegorical sense which was “the shadow of good things to come.” These levels of meaning matched both the parts of the Platonic psychology found first in Plato’s Timaeus and Republic and the epistemological development charted by Diotima in Plato’s Symposium. The reader of the Bible could, therefore, enrich his fleshly soul, his emotional soul, or his rational soul in the pursuit of religious knowledge. An advantage of such a reading is that it comported well with the fully proper Eastern tendency to view salvation as a process of being made like God in all man’s inward parts.

This methodology also was in line with the Christian gnosticism of Clement. Epistemological growth was achieved by religious knowledge. Origen thus developed a view that was on the surface mystical (with his allegories), but was in fact highly rationalistic. Allegory became the hall mark of the school of Alexandria. Origen’s teachings were eventually found heretical, but his example of the attempt to integrate philosophy and theology proved beneficial, both in how such a project might be done and how it should not be done.

All of these spectacular philosophic developments came with a theological price tag. Origen himself tended to denigrate the value and person of the Holy Spirit. The neo-Platonic tendency, reinforced by the Christians of Alexandria, to push the flesh and the soul apart tended to a theological lack of emphasis on the actual life of the human Jesus Christ. The Christ of history almost vanished in some of the discussions in Alexandria. On the other hand, in the later controversies with the heretic Nestorius, who tended to conflate the divine and human nature, the strong position of Alexandria helped keep the church from error. Cyril, bishop of Alexandria (412-444), helped safe guard Christ as fully human and fully divine.

The great rival to Alexandria, Antioch, was late in developing and got off to an inauspicious start. As some church historians note, an early and heretical brush with the Gnostic heresy made Antioch much more leery of philosophy. There was a deep respect for tradition and an early development of a strong Church structure in Antioch. All this, of course, is in strong contrast to Alexandria. Political and economic rivalries between the great city of Egypt and the great city of Syria did not aid the situation.

The history of the school at Antioch may be divided into two phases. The first, following its founding by Lucian around 260, was marked by the controversy of the Church with Arius. Antioch was often found perilously close to the heretical side in the dialogue. Arius had been trained by Lucian, whose other great student Eusebius of Nicomedia also displayed Arian leanings or at the very least sympathies.

In any case, the less philosophical school at Antioch adopted a tradition of historical and grammatical study of Scripture which remained its distinguishing feature until the end. It adopted a simpler approach to both the text and doctrine. It was strongly humanistic in the classical sense and placed a heavy theological emphasis on the Christ of history. This logical and analytic approach to the text and the theology was far different from the neo-Platonic tradition of Alexandria. When it went astray, it was therefore in a more Aristotelian direction (though this can be over emphasized).

The school was reformed in the same philosophical and theological basis, though on a more orthodox basis, after Nicaea. Diodorus (@394) was the teacher of three pivotal figures in Church history: John Chrysostom, Theodore of Morsuestia, and Nestorius. In the case of the first two Church leaders, the reputation and position of Antioch would eventually be enhanced by their steadfast defense of Christian orthodoxy. Particularly John Chrysostom would become a major figure in Eastern thought, with his resolute defense of the church against any Imperial attempt to water down the standards of the church. Such positive developments for Antioch would be clear only later. At first the practice of some in the circle of Antioch, including Nestorius, to confuse the natures of Christ led to further theological humiliation for Antioch. It appeared that the school of Alexandria would at last triumph. Alexandria over played her hand, however. Her reach, both politically and theologically, went far beyond her grasp and both Rome and Constantinople reacted firmly.

It became clear that if Alexandria, under Cyril and later Dioscurus, was not conflating the divine and human nature like Nestorius, it was very close to subsuming the human into the divine like the heretic Apollinarius. Pope Leo of Rome would eventually side with Antioch and defend the orthodox vision Christ’s two natures that would be enshrined in the creed of Chalcedon. Bishop John of Antioch who was instrumental in pushing the compromise early on secured for the Antiochian methodology a fixed place in Christian orthodoxy.

The battle between Antioch and Alexandria was healthy for the Church. Though each school often over-emphasized one particular truth, the clash between the two eventually revealed the truth. For Christianity to have gone all the way with Alexandria, would have been to run the risk of becoming just another Roman Gnostic or mystery religion. If Antioch had been allowed her way unchecked, the fully divine nature of Christ would have been weakened. Christianity might have become yet another cultus around a divine man, like that of Hercules. Antioch also preserved more sensible ways of reading and interacting with the Word of God. The traditional Christian can, therefore, see the hand of God at work in the imperfections of human intellectual struggle to safe guard the Faith. Such a struggle is messy, and one wishes it could be avoided, but it is a real part of theological and intellectual development.

World Magazine Blog: Not a vegetable

Why look!

Doctors can be wrong. People declared “vegetables” (what does this even mean?) can recover.

We know that sometimes people who want to live can hear doctors discussing their death. We know what it feels like to die this way.

How?

This woman, Kate Adamson, was thought dead and now lives.

FOXNews.com - Politics - House Delivering Subpoenas in Schiavo Case: “At the White House, President Bush left little doubt where he stands.

‘The case of Terri Schiavo raises complex issues,’ he said in a statement. ‘Yet in instances like this one, where there are serious questions and substantial doubts, our society, our laws and our courts should have a presumption in favor of life. Those who live at the mercy of others deserve our special care and concern.’

His brother, Gov. Jeb Bush, long has supported the parents’ efforts and urged lawmakers to act before it was too late.

Schiavo suffered severe brain damage in 1990 when her heart stopped because of a chemical imbalance, and court-appointed doctors say she is in a persistent vegetative state. Her husband, Michael Schiavo, says she told him she would not want to be kept alive artificially. Her parents dispute that, and say she could get better.

The court found that it was Terri Schiavo’s wish not to kept alive in her current state and issued an order to remove the feeding tube Friday. Michael Schiavo’s attorney, George Felos, wouldn’t comment on when and how the removal will take place or whether Michael Schiavo would visit his wife before it happened.

Doctors have said it could take a week or two for Terri Schiavo to die once the tube that delivers water and nutrients is removed.”

Why will it take so long for Terri to die?

She is not dying naturally. She is not being kept alive artificially. Her basic body functions work. If you were to be locked in a room and deprived of all food and water, then you too would die, eventually. Terri Schiavo is being killed because she cannot swallow and because we cannot imagine that we would wish to live in her state.

Who would?

Everyone has had the experience of thinking “If I had to go through that, I would just die.” And then we go through it, or walk with a friend who goes through it, and we learn the grace that is available in such situations. We experience the deep peace that comes in dark places. We grow.

We cannot know what Terri Schiavo knows. What is given to a soul in such a hard place? She does not seem angry or in pain. Her life expectancy is longer than my own. Why must Terri die? What harm to her life?

On the outside looking in, her life seems hard and dull. From the vantage point of a child of God, she may, for all we know, have slipped back to the peaceful Eden of the womb. She is in the hands of God, fed and loved by once again by her mother. Only this time the judicial branch of the State of Florida will not let her mother feed her. This time it will step between those who love her and starve her.

What should a mother do in such a situation? I know what mine would do. She would do anything short of further violence to save me. What if Terri’s mom walks to the hospital ready to feed her baby? Who will arrest her?

Will the executive branch in Florida act to keep a mother from saving the life of her baby girl?

If they do, what jury, which in a state like Florida will be chock full of believers, will convict her?

The first of these new Christian culture events went very well.

Unbiased reports at:

Tim Carroll
Caleb Winn
Brant deBow.

FOXNews.com - Politics - Michael Schiavo Blasts Jeb Bush

Comments below in italics:

Michael Schiavo Blasts Jeb Bush
Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Judge Extends Stay in Schiavo Case
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The husband of a brain-damaged woman accused Gov. Jeb Bush (search) and state legislators of pandering to voters by trying to pass legislation preventing the removal of her feeding tube.

This horrifying pandering used to be called being responsive to the will of the people.

Michael Schiavo (search) leveled the accusations Tuesday in an interview for ABC’s “Nightline” after state House and Senate committees endorsed bills aimed at preventing removal of Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube. A judge has scheduled the removal for Friday.

Next Schiavo will accuse the legislature of legislating. How dare they transgress the proper role of the judicial branch?

Schiavo, who wants his wife’s feeding tube removed, said Bush stepped into his personal life and used the case “to win votes, just like the legislators are doing right now. … What kind of government is this?”

It is a republic. Winning votes is not a bad thing, unless you are a Democrat presidential nominee or Mr. Schiavo.

“It’s really incomprehensible … for a governor to come into this without any education on the subject and push his personal views,” he said during the interview, not far from the Tampa Bay-area hospice where his wife is cared for.

Mr. Schiavo, evidently having recently earned a degree in philosophy and ethics, prophetically knows just how much reading Mr. Bush has done on the issue. This amazing insight is matched only by his magical ability to know his wife wishes Mr. Schiavo to kill her.

Bush’s office did not return telephone calls seeking comment late Tuesday.

In a further shocking development, the Bush administration refused to respond when Violet Smyth, age seven, said that the governor was a “stinky pants.”

Terri Schiavo, 41, has been at the center of a long and bitter court battle between her husband and her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, who do not want their daughter’s feeding tube removed.

Court-appointed doctors say Terry Schiavo is in a persistent vegetative state. She did not leave any written instructions, but Michael Schiavo contends she told him that she would not want to be kept alive artificially.

Court-appointed doctors should now define the term “persistent vegetative state.” What vegetable has Mrs. Schiavo become? Does the court know that Mrs. Schiavo has no soul? What court ruled that the soul does not exist?

The Schindlers dispute that, and deny their daughter is in a vegetative state.

In a display of logic later ruled “inapppropriate” by the court, the Schindlers persisted in the notion that their daughter was human and alive.

The House bill would block doctors from denying food or water to someone in a persistent vegetative state, but would make exceptions for patients who left specific instructions.

The Senate version would block the denial of food and water only in cases where family members disagreed on whether to maintain feeding. Then the patient would be kept alive unless he or she had expressed different wishes in writing.

Both bills were expected to go before the full House and Senate on Thursday.

This is the second time the Legislature has tried to keep Terry Schiavo alive. In 2003, lawmakers passed a bill that allowed Bush to order doctors to restore Schiavo’s feeding tube. That law was struck down by the Florida Supreme Court.

Keep Florida in Western Civilization! Save Terri!

Athens and Jerusalem Break Apart

For centuries, these two cities, Athens and Jerusalem, provided the boundaries for intellectual and cultural growth. They formed one new kingdom. Tensions between the rationalism of Athens and the faith of Jerusalem always existed, but each recognized the contributions made by the other. Eventually, however, the citizens of both cities grew restless. A product of classical Christian civilization was the birth of modern science. Athens became drunk with the success of science. Secular, scientific answers seemed to make religious truth and boundaries not only unnecessary, but stifling. Athens began to pull away from Jerusalem. In the process, what was best in the old Greek and Roman tradition was also discarded. The moderation and humility so prized by the ancients was forgotten. Science would answer all questions and solve all problems. The old Christian, classical civilization began to crumble. The result was the nihilism we are experiencing today.

Others have noted the decline of this Christian , classical culture. The sort of societies that produced C.S. Lewis, Aquinas, or a John Chrysostom no longer exist in a dominant form anywhere. Some Christians have foolishly taken joy in the destruction. Oddly enough these people are found on both the left and the right in Christendom.

Some Christians have moved to Athens while keeping a summer home in Jerusalem. The rationalism of Athens, by now reduced mainly to Science, dictates the nature of reality. Jerusalem provides these accommodating Christians with personal peace. Religion is a vacation from the harsh realities of a neo-Darwinian world in which only matter is real. Some shadowy divine providence is allowed to be unseen behind it all. Jerusalem is allowed this marginal existence, if it promises never to interfere with Science. Statements like “God created the heavens and the earth.” are reduced to spiritual truths with no physical content. Christian colleges are often dominated with this spirit. Religion is kept firmly in line. Faculty are petrified that the old place will look a bit dated and tawdry if their Athenian friends were allowed to visit. Like many vacation homes, Jerusalem is filled with yesterday’s furniture. No one lives there, they just spend the weekends and holidays hanging around.

Other Christians have condemned Athens and left it to burn. Classical Christian culture is not mourned. They have locked themselves into Jerusalem and are not coming out until the war is over. Armed with Bible verses, they glare over the walls and leave the rest of the world to fend for itself. It does. They then complain that the Truth is ignored. The ghetto or fortress of contemporary Christian culture, with its separate institutions and media, is a prime example of this form of impotence.

I once gave a talk about the sinful hatred many Christians have for the life of the mind. One older person came to me after the talk and said that this hatred was a sign of revival! Religion should be, in her view, about feeling and never about thinking. Thinking, she thought, leads to doubting. Doubting is simply the first step towards an apostate Athens. Such faithful Christian folk try to reduce themselves to repeating the Truth. But it turns out, even the most pious citizen of Jerusalem cannot do it. They try to avoid reasoning at all, only to end up reasoning about the Faith badly. Any attempt to understand the very Words of revelation requires reason. Most people live for years after their conversion, minds fully functioning. They have questions. They try not to reason about them, so they simply reason without training, usually very badly. Why are there over twenty thousand Christian denominations, with more popping up every day? Trapped within the walls, an inbred Jerusalem becomes a bit crazy.

There is another way. Many Christians still find much value in the old crumbled civilizations that came before their time. They see Athens and Jerusalem, not as two cities, but as two districts in one city: the City of God. There are signs that this view is growing. Sales of collections of classical tales have reached best seller lists in the Christian community. Christian day schools and a few colleges have seized on the classical model with some success. This look back must not, of course, be reactionary. The classical and Christian interaction did not produce one culture, but many. It seems perfectly capable of doing so again, if allowed the chance to do so.

Now both Athens and Jerusalem are dying, because each needs the other to thrive. Our modern Athens has confined its rationalism to a materialistic science that prevents its thinkers from going beyond the natural to find the Truth. Science can do useful things, but by itself it cannot find Truth and it knows little or nothing about Goodness and Beauty. Because science cannot deal with Truth, Beauty and Goodness, it must call the very existence of such things into question. Athens, the rational mind, does not by itself have the resources it needs to deal with the most important things. The ancient Greeks knew this, which was why so many of them were eager to embrace Christianity. We are learning the same lesson again, the hard way. The fashionable philosophy we call post-modernism is merely the tired realization that rationalism without faith ends up destroying its own foundations.
Jerusalem is sick as well. Her inbred residents, who cannot even do the sort of classical theology that produced their own creeds, sit in their ghetto talking only to themselves. Her ruling class is often composed of absentee land lords. They live in Athens and only show up to collect their tithes. These rulers reject the creeds, since Athens has rejected both the religion and t he classical thought behind them, but cannot substitute much of anything in their place. So the Church is treated to the spectacle of evangelicals who believe the Bible contains errors and Anglican Bishops who do not believe in God.

Secular and Christian culture have no modern or post-modern answers. Real accommodation between Jerusalem and a scientific or post-modern Athens is impossible. Some contemporary theologians try to dialogue with post-modernity, but this is impossible without denying their Christian heritage. The Creeds are written in an elegant and precise Greek. They make bold assertions about God and reality. The early Christians could do this, because they believed their ideas were simply true. Move very far from those ideas as the main stream Church has understood them and basic orthodoxy, and Christian identity, comes into question. To be truly Christian, after all, was to believe some things and not believe others. That very idea, however, makes conversation with those who would deny such logical categories in religious discourse impossible. The rationalists believe the doctrines are false. The post-modernists think that all doctrines have only an inner or personal truth. Athens cannot hear what Jerusalem has to say.

Like a married couple that after fifty years of marriage comes to look alike, the very shape of theological discourse has a Greek tone. Jerusalem cannot praise the nature of even the Holy Trinity without echoing the language of pagan philosophers. Athens has discovered that she cannot go it alone either. Science without God, intellect without theology, is rapidly becoming anti-knowledge. If you cannot know Truth, then even small truths can be called into question. Athens and Jerusalem cannot live apart.

Athens and Jerusalem cannot stay separated without grave damage to both. In the providence of God, the Church was born into a Greek, Roman, and Jewish world. From the mix came classical Christian civilizations that changed the world. Any hope of reviving such a classical and Christian culture must begin by understanding what it is. What are the roots? Once every educated person was familiar with both the Greek and Christian foundational ideas . That is no longer the case. Study of the ancients is vital for any new beginning to classical civilization.

Knowledge of ancient Athens is vital for Christians. Some will see it as the starting place for the flowering of new classical Christian civilizations. It is a chance to see what human reason, unscarred by an irrational desire to rid itself of Christianity, looks like. As Christians move toward the classical model, they must also be aware of the mistakes and dangers along the path. We cannot just reclaim the Academy. We have to remake it. Modern Athens is not what it once was.
The tradition of Ancient Athens has been harmed by modernity every bit as much as that of Jerusalem. Naturalism, science without limits, would have mostly been scorned as limiting or undercutting human freedom and knowledge in ancient Athens. The irony is that secular intellectuals have no more time for the old books and writers than the most anti-intellectual Christians. It is easy to graduate from most colleges in the United States with an advanced degree without having read a single classical author.

As humans have remodeled and destroyed ancient Athens, they have also sacked Jerusalem. It was after all a man who was a foe to both classical and Christian ideas, sitting by a lake in Switzerland, who developed the ideological formula that has captured the times. He knew that the modern human was interested in personal peace, often at any cost. He understood that contemporary people were driven by economic desires. He believed that the promise of a place to call mine would be an adequate substitute for religion. It was a philosophy that could have democratic, capitalistic, totalitarian, or socialistic implementation. It was still the siren call of modernity. Lenin summed up the spirit of the age in the revolutionary call for, “Peace, Bread, and Land.”

Classical and Christian thinkers did not agree. Such persons believed that goodness was often better than peace bought at the price of a toleration of moral evil. They believed that the quest for truth was more important than personal affluence. Whether in monastic community or in compassionate capitalism, it was the truth, not wealth, that would set humans free. Finally, classical and Christian humanists believed things, even important things, could not satisfy if there were not beautiful. Mere consumption or production was not enough. There were standards of beauty to which every civilization should aspire. Classical Christian civilizations answered modernity with a cry for, “the Good, the True, and the Beautiful.”
These were not abstract ideas for the Christian. Whatever else the relationship was understood to be, these ideas were rooted in the very nature of Jesus Christ. God, a personal God, was Good. He spoke the Truth. He created a divine hierarchy that was Beautiful. Humans could know God and so know the Good, the True, and the Beautiful.

The generation of Nicholas II turned away from the “Good, the True, and the Beautiful” and embraced “Peace, Bread, and Land.” They bought at best a violent peace, a destruction of the value of humankind, and polluting of the land. Perhaps, the time has come when, disillusioned by the failure to find real happiness in modernity, humanity will turn again to the old formula. If so, Christians need to understand how that formula came to be. The alternative is to be backed against some metaphysical basement wall and die asking, “What?”

markdroberts.com: “But at this point some of my readers are no doubt thinking: ‘Come on, Mark. Get a hold of yourself! Isn’t this whole inclusive language thing just a matter of selling out to political correctness? And isn’t the whole shift in language that you keep talking about a result of an anti-Christian feminist agenda? Wouldn’t you be better off as a preacher and teacher if you opposed such social pressures and stuck with a clear, simple, traditional translation of the Bible?’”

Mark Roberts continues his thoughtful series on the revisions to the NIV. I am unpersuaded by him on many counts.

However, I think he has missed the simplest argument against his budding position (for the revised NIV).

Here is a short informal argument:

1. Ancient Greek has a patriarchal bias in grammar.
2. Traditional English had a patriarchal bias in grammar.
3. This patriarchal bias is offensive to some moderns to the point that they argue that modern language usage should be revised.
4. This patriarchal bias was not offensive to the Holy Spirit and/or the human writers of the Bible. They did not modify their use of ancient Greek (which they could have done) to change it.
5. It is possible in English to reflect the underlying patriarchal bias of the original Greek in English.
6. Translations should reflect the meaning of the original as much as possible.
7. This bias is arguably part of the meaning of the text.
8. The revised NIV needless hides this patriarchal bias. It fails to offend in a way that this ancient book would offend a modern reader committed to proposition 3.

Put simply: ancient Greek treated male pronouns as if they could be used universally. This practice has been under fire in an organized way for the last thirty years by persons opposed to it on ideological grounds. The writers of the Bible either never thought of these arguments (under the power of the Holy Spirit), thought them unimportant (because they did not change the language), or thought patriarchy was good and normative (much more likely given the content of Scripture and the cultural context.)

Modern translations that soften this truth do a “bait and switch” on a seeker not justified by the demands of modern English (English does have a “patriarchal mode.”) They pretend that there is no issue for a feminist with a religion founded on a very traditional text. They fail to build a wall where the text itself would build a wall for the modern feminist reader if he were reading the original Greek text. Since it is possible to reflect this wall and style, which all good readers of English must learn to understand other historical documents that were originally written in English, even translators who do not like patriarchal English should use it in their translations or risk being perceived as having put their own bias overtly in the translation for inadequate reasons.

HOSTAGE BECOMES A BEACON OF HOPE IN ATLANTA

The story of Atlanta suspected killer, Brian Nichols, age 33, is an interesting commentary on our day. Nichols was a jailed defendant in a rape trial who had overpowered a guard while being escorted to the courtroom. Later he took Ashely Smith, a young woman, hostage for 7 hours. During their sometimes tense time together, Smith told Nichols, “You need hope for (your) life.” And Nichols responded that he was already dead, “Look at me, look at my eyes, I’m already dead.”

Now in an interesting but relevant twist on that concept, God’s word tells us we are already dead too, do you remember? Paul writes to the people who lived in Colossae, and tells them in Colossians chapter three verses 3 to 5 this fascinating thing about their condition. . . and ours. . .

Your old life is dead. Your new life, which is your real life–even though invisible to spectators–is with Christ in God. He is your life. When Christ (your real life, remember) shows up again on this earth, you’ll show up, too–the real you, the glorious you. Meanwhile, be content with obscurity, like Christ.

And that means killing off everything connected with that way of death, doing whatever you feel like whenever you feel like it, and grabbing whatever attracts your fancy. That’s a life shaped by things and feelings instead of by God.

Brian Nichols, fresh from jail, on a murderous rampage, said he felt dead. What about you? Is the side of you that wants to choose a sinful life, DEAD? God says it is, so why don’t you live like it is. As a mater of fact, Paul also told followers of Christ in Rome a few things on “dying to self”, listen to what he has to say. . .

God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that.

The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it. And now what the law code asked for but we couldn’t deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.

Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them–living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life.

Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won’t know what we’re talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells–even though you still experience all the limitations of sin–you yourself experience life on God’s terms. It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he’ll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s!

Brian Nichols, a hostage taker in Atlanta, needed to be delivered from that “dead life”, he needed the hope of a relationship with Jesus Christ. How about you? Need a “hope infusion”? Brian heard about hope in Jesus Christ in a rather un-conventional way, but you get to hear about it right now on this page at this moment. God ordained that you would hear the news just as much as he ordained that Brian would through his hostage Ashely Smith who moved from being a hostage victim to being a giver of hope. Do you need hope? We all do, it’s a part of the human condition and the only place to find this hope is in Jesus Christ.

Why not turn your life over to Jesus Christ right now? He will give you the hope He promises for those who follow Him.

Maybe you are already a follower of Jesus and what you need is to stop trying so hard. In his classic book, The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a young Lutheran pastor who became a martyr at the young age of 39 while working to defeat Hitler, writes these words, “Fellowship with Jesus and obedience to his commandment come first, and all else follows.” He goes on to give us hope and reminds us that we cannot do this on our own. “. . .we have here either a crushing burden, which holds out no hope. . . or else it is the quintessence of the gospel, which brings the promise of freedom and perfect joy. Jesus does not tell us what we ought to do but cannot; He tells us what God has given us and promises to still give.”

Another writer and pastor, Andrew Murray, who lived in South Africa in the 1800’s wrote this in his work Absolute Surrender. “Can a man fail with his heart full of delight in God’s law and with his will determined to do what is right? Yes! That is what Romans 7 teaches. There is something lacking. Not only must I delight in the law of God, but I need divine omnipotence (power) to work in me. The reason for the weakness of your Christian life is that you try to work it out on your own, only allowing God to help you when you are desperate.”

Are you tired of just asking for help from God when you’re desperate? God wants to give you so much more! He is wanting to wait on you and to be in fellowship with you. The table is set, isn’t it time you took Him up on His invitation?

Greg Leith

Greg is part of the leadership team at Biola University where he is responsible to work with and minister to marketplace leaders. Prior to joining the team at Biola, Greg was an executive with The ServiceMaster Company in various leadership capacities for 20 years throughout North America. He transitioned to a non-profit role in 198 where he served as the Vice President of Arrow Leadership, and then as the Director of Leadership Development for Christian Management Association. He is the father of five children who keep him aware of what’s really important in life. Greg and his wife Shelley have been married for 25 years. Shelley is a staff member at The Purpose Driven Movement in the publishing arena. Together, they speak to couples on marriage and family issues at the Family Life Marriage conferences www.familylifecanada.org , a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ.
You may contact him at greg.leith@biola.edu

FOXNews.com - Politics - Calif. Marriage Law Found Unconstitutional: “‘It appears that no rational purpose exists for limiting marriage in this state to opposite-sex partners,’ Kramer wrote.”

A judge has ruled that the Christian tradition is not rational. He has ruled the Jewish and Islamic traditional irrational. He has enthroned a hatred of purpose (teleology) by fiat. He has made secuarlism of the most woeful Western European sort the law of this state.

He has overturned the will of the vast majority of California voters. This cannot stand.

Hugh Hewitt is writing on immigration, suggesting it has the power to wreck the Republican Party. I agree and think that it is like the Irish question in the nineteenth and twentieth century for British politicians. Someone will have to deal with it and do the obvious things (Hugh suggests some), but it is not clear that this person will and his party will not be punished regardless. I believe a majority of Americans hate all the options, irrational but there you are.

I tend to be (slightly) pro-immigration for simple demographic reasons. Does anyone believe our population level can be sustained without some large-scale immigration? Do we really want to become Japan or a dying Italy?

I am curious to know what Hugh would think of this problem.

Private Virtues Are Not Enough

The basement room was crowded. Children were shoved up against the wall with the few faithful servants who had followed them into exile. The father and mother requested a chair for their son, who was seriously ill. Just a few years ago, their family had been the wealthiest and most powerful in the world. They were now reduced to asking for small favors from their jailers. The new order had reduced them to mere citizens. Stripped of everything, they still waited for their beloved people to rise up and save them. It was a vain hope. They had been abandoned by their allies, forgotten, subjects of the first modern smear campaign, living anachronisms that a few revolutionaries still considered dangerous.

Booted men, servants of Lenin, came into the room. They read a brief proclamation in the new language of the age: political , bureaucratic, double speak. Then the first communists butchered his children, his servants, his wife, and the last Roman Caesar. What brought Nicholas II, heir to the 300 year old throne of the House of Romanov to this end? At least partly, it was his inability to comprehend or even wish to comprehend the changing world around him. He was pre-modern. The New Age was modern and rushing rapidly towards post-modernity and nihilism. His last word summed up his failure. He said, “What?” Even at the end, he could not comprehend what was happening to his family, to Russia, and to the world.

Nicholas Romanov was a superior parent and a loving husband. His family life was the sort that most people can only look at and envy. What went wrong? His spectacular public failure proves that private virtue is not enough. Public incompetence is dangerous, even in the presence of private saintliness. Of course, most modern people are not personal rulers of the world’s largest Empire. We do not face firing squads for making wrong public choices or for having beliefs not deemed “fit” for the modern age. All humans, however, have some role to play in creating the future culture. A failure to understand the changes that are taking place may not lead to the fall of a kingdom, but it can often lead to the loss of friends, family, and colleagues to the Kingdom of God. How can a person act as a responsible citizen in a democracy if he or she does not understand the spirit of the times?

A Father’s Advice

When I was a little boy, my father walked my brother and me home from church. Dad was and is a fine preacher, but it was his honesty and wisdom that made us respect him. We knew that when he talked to us, he meant what he said. It would also be something worth hearing. I will never forget that walk, where he pointed out that the world was changing. When he was little, Christian morality and religious beliefs could almost be taken for granted. In the mid-seventies, Dan and I were not able to take such things as givens. The gap would be even wider for our children.

Dad saw that secular culture was moving away from what we believed at an ever faster rate. He explained why that was happening in simple terms. He helped us make sense of our times. Whenever my own life has drifted, or the rapid moral and cultural decay of the times seemed overwhelming, my father’s words would come back to me. He gave Daniel and me a sense of history and of where Christianity fit into that history. Instead of being confused or impotent in the face of culture change, my father was a man of action. He was like the Biblical men of Issachar, “who understood the times and knew what Israel needed to do.”

What did Dad see? He saw that naturalism, which teaches that nature is “all there is,” leads in the end to nihilism and despair. Humans, cut off from any divine source for truth, can no longer answer the most basic questions: “What is good?” “What is true?” “What is beautiful?” Modern people wanted to know everything, and now they find that they know almost nothing except how to manipulate matter through technology. This decline, which has been a long time coming, has finally struck the very roots of culture.

Crosswalk.com - Albert Mohler’s Weblog: “Verhagen and Sauer pose the central question of their policy with clarity: ‘The question under consideration now is whether deliberate life-ending procedures are also acceptable for newborns and infants, despite the fact that these patients cannot express their own will. Or must infants with disorders associated with severe and sustained suffering be kept alive when their suffering cannot be adequately reduced?’”

Excellent article by one of the web’s best theologian bloggers.

The central question before the Netherlands is this: are babies only bodies, computers made out of mea, or Is there a soul connected to the body?

If there is a soul, then suffering may not be meaningless. It might have a purpose. We are in no position to judge the amount of suffering or its purpose in a newborn. We did not give the newborn life and so cannot take it away. The divine purpose for the life of the newborn is unknown.

Of course, modern doctors, practicing philosophy without credentials, think they know the answers to these questions. They have given answers different from those of the founders of the Dutch nation. They have given answers that until one hundred years ago must Western people would have found monstrous.

The Netherlands has reduced humanity, and human suffering, to a calculation. In doing so they threaten to reduce all of us to ciphers in the hands of experts who will determine who is worthy of life and who merits death.

Do I trust the doctors? No. I do not. I trust no institution, not even the Church, to give out death to the unspeaking innocent. It is a power not person or groups should have.

The future of interaction with ideas is here!

You have the chance to promote and attend the proto-type event Speaker’s Corner.

There is nothing else like it. The web is good, but face to face is better.

One of the joys of doing the Hewitt show is the email! I will not pass on the nice email (though it made my day) or the one email that said I was manifestly more foolish and senile than Robert Byrd! (You have to love the internet!)

Here was a thoughtful caller with whom I did not complete a discussion. I append his email unedited, but with identifying features removed so zealots do not bother him:

I am a Christian state trial court judge in x. I called on
Thurs, waited for 45 minutes, finally got on, and my phone pooped out!

Dr. John Mark did an excellent job, and obviously raised a lot
of interest in the Terry Schaivo issue.

I was sorry to drop off the line, because I had much more to
say. I hope you will pass this on to Dr. Reynolds for any comments he
might have.

I agree with much of Dr. Reynold’s (and I am sure your)
position. The culture of death IS on the march, and the absence, in that
death community, of the gift of faith prevents their view of eternity,
and causes them to concentrate on this earthly life as their only
heaven.

I am called upon at least monthly to face a “Terry Schaivo”
decision, as are literally hundreds of both elected and appointed state
trial court judges across our nation. I stand for election every six
years. By conviction, conscience and much prayer and pastoral advice, I
have arrived at the same position as Dr. Reynolds. Removal of artificial
life support is biblically supportable, but removal of nutrition and
hydration is not. Each case is viewed as it comes, but that general
principle applies as a default.

Dr. Reynolds view of the judiciary, though, is not supportable.
As I said on the program, man has NEEDED judges ever since the fall, to
make the most difficult decisions which confront him. To my knowledge,
NO biblical pattern describes any other selection process than
appointment, as opposed to election. Every historic Christian confession
is in accord, at least with the need for civil magistrates. Judges have
never been experts in all things, and frankly were not Biblically
designed as such. Judges are, and always have been, society’s means of
dealing with insoluble problems.

Dr. Reynolds asked me if there were any questions judges should
not be allowed to decide. My answer is that judges do not decide which
cases confront them. Others BRING us cases, and our task is to decide
them. I am not allowed to say ” Nope, not this one, this is God’s call.”
ALL my cases are God’s call, and some judges realize that more than
others.

There are good judges, bad judges and a few that recognize that
their power is granted by He who grants life and breath and all things,
including appointment and election.

I also can’t believe that Dr. Reynolds would believe that Terry
or anyone else will die even one minute sooner than He has decreed. Yes,
the pain of her family is good instruction, as is the Pope’s and
eventually mine, and yes, God rejoices in the death of His saints, and
yes, it is better to be in the house of mourning than the house of joy,
because that is where eternality confronts unbelievers. But His
appointed time, affected by a husband, parent or judge, will still be
perfect.

Only a few things truly evolve, but the law is one of them. The
liberal/conservative; strict constructionist/ activist; culture of
life/culture of death is best viewed as a pendulum, slowly and
occasionally, as it passes, accurately reflecting the culture of the
moment.

I hate abortion and I hate divorce, and I hate the current
secular bent of the culture, but I (and many others) are called to sit
in the gate, interpose justice as we are able, and attempt to serve our
Lord in the capacity to which He has called us.

The Constitution is not wrong because we see many things we
disagree with. The decision making process is not inappropriate because
many civil magistrates don’t confess Christ. The election or appointment
of judges is not better or worse because we disagree with decisions that
are made. What IS wrong is unbelief, and what is wrong is fear. We MUST
continue to put Christ on display in all that we do, and however
imperfectly we show His love and justice, we must not, as we seek to
change the culture, use the same tools that temporal man would use to
deny eternity. To demonize the judiciary is not greatly different than
the death culture’s demonization of people of faith. Until the perfect
comes, we must be builders of the imperfect, using the patterns He, our
Logos, has given us.

I am deeply grateful for your work, and for Dr. Reynolds’.

Judge X

Here is a judge that would have my vote. I am not sure that we disagree very much. If he thinks I don’t respect judges or the judicial branch, then he misunderstood me. Why some of my best friends are judges!

I do not intend to demonize the judicial branch per se, but the demonic judges who misuse their power to do evil. Sadly, I think that in many places there are many, many bad judges. Of course in some cases good judges are called to interpret very bad laws so that the problem is the legislature not the good judge. That is not the case in the Terri Schiavo problem. The executive and legislative branches have made it clear that they wish Schiavo to live.

I believe that this one judge in Florida (who is elected) represents a problem for the judicial branch. He taints the whole by his actions.

I think there are some issues beyond the scope of the civil magistrate. Judges should not have the power to kill innocent human life. Unelected bad judges on higher courts have given them that power. I am glad that some judges do not use it.

I believe there are issues of jurisdiction here. Do judges have jurisdiction over every possible question a citizen might wish to bring to them?

My point is not that the judicial branch (which should remain independent) is bad, but that such decisions are beyond their sphere of authority. If we must determine when life begins and ends (and there are some difficult ethical calls) that authority should be left to the lawmakers who are most directly accountable to the people.

Granted this will still leave the job of interpretation of these laws to judges (as it should), but that is a much more limited role than that of a judge who can find a right to kill unborn babies in the Constitution.

Bad laws make for hard decisions, I am sure. Leglislatures should clarify bad or unclear laws when it makes the job of a judge hard.

Some judges (like our thoughtful writer above) are elected, as I pointed out on the show. However, the broad scope of what can be taken to court and the powers of the courts, have been decided by the Supreme Court of the United States or by the highest courts in the respective states. These men are much less representative of the culture of the state than the legislatures. When they legislate from the bench, they reduce the respect I have for this vital part of our government. Our writer does not do this. The judge in the Schiavo case did.

This should infuriate every citizen.

If we had more judges on the bench like the one who wrote me, there would be fewer horrors like the Terri Schiavo case. The voters of Florida should note this when going to the polls for the judges they can elect. They should also remember the power to appoint judges when they vote for the chief executive.