A Living Text

Once again John Edwards is caught red-handed cheating on his wife who is dying of cancer and the press is not covering it. What a joke. Thankfully we have the internet, but there are so many older people out there who only get their news from the networks and so have no clue of what is going on. That is the last holdout of the propaganda machine on the left.

Edwards is a lowlife. Shallow, phony, narcissistic and an adulterer. Thank goodness he never made it.

In Acts 15 the Jerusalem Council criticizes early Christians who taught with no commission from the Church: 

…we have heard that some persons from us have troubled you with words, unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instructions.

We can infer from this that to teach and preach authoritatively in those days, you needed instructions from the Church. Further, as Paul and Timothy visited churches in various cities, they “…delivered to them for observance the decisions which had been reached by the apostles and elders who were at Jerusalem.” The Church had authority, what she decided was promulgated to the churches throughout the world, with the inference that it was to be obeyed. 

These facts should have implications for the Church today. Her authority cannot be grasped by the self-appointed, and her decisions must have force on the individual, so long as they do not contradict the already revealed will of God.

Sir Richard Burton penned this description of how a pious Muslim drinks water, which illustrates the larger picture of how Islam permeates all of life and is not a ‘private in your mind’ religion:

Look, for instance, at that Indian Muslim drinking a glass of water. With [the English] the operation is simple enough, but his performance includes no fewer than five novelties. In the first place he clutches his tumbler as though it were the throat of a foe; secondly, he ejaculates, “In the name of Allah the Compassionate, the Merciful!” before wetting his lips; thirdly he imbibes the contents, swallowing them, not sipping them, as he ought to do, and ending with a satisfied grunt; fourthly, before setting down the cup, he sighs forth, “Praise be to Allah” - of which you will understand the full meaning in the Desert; and, fifthly, he replies, “May Allah make it pleasant to thee!” in answer to his friend’s polite “Pleasurably and health!” Also he is careful to avoid the irreligious action of drinking the pure element in a standing position.”

Why Sacraments are not Signs

 ”Popular conceptions of “sign” and “symbol” are erroneous in a number of respects, but in this essay I discuss only one error, namely, the tendency to treat signs rationalistically, purely as a means of communicating ideas from one mind to another mind.”

“On these assumptions, sacraments do nothing but provoke pious thoughts. From a biblical perspective, then, to call sacraments “signs” brings out several different dimensions:

a) as signs, sacraments do communicate, they mean something, bring something to mind, are intended to teach;

b) but also as signs sacraments are actions performed at God’s command by the church; and

c) as signs sacraments are mighty acts of God for the redemption of His people and the world.”

Why Sacraments are not Means of Grace

 Though the phrase “means of grace” has a long history, it is unhelpful in trying to understand the sacraments with precision. “Is the claim that ‘water is a means for washing’ better than ‘water washes’?“

“Talking about the sacraments as “means” tends to mechanize them, turning the sacraments into machines that deliver grace. [...] Shortly after the apostolic period, theologians began to treat grace as a kind of “created thing,”  “force,” or “energy” communicated through the sacraments. Ultimately, this model rests on a mistaken doctrine of God, for there is no impersonal force in God, nor is there any “energy” that mediates between God and creation.”

“…we should simply say that the sacraments are among the benefits that Christ has graciously given to us. Sacraments are not means of grace, but themselves graces, gifts of a gracious God.”

Several years ago someone wrote me and said this:

I also read the book Thirsting—- and read Becoming orthodox as well. My
personal opinion as a still Evangelical Protestant pastor is that Thirsting,
a well written book was over the top with regard to a converts tendancy
toward idealism. I would find that book as not a great place to start with
my devout protestants friends. At the same time knowing it has some
extremely valid points for seekers to consider.

I have been in deep Orthodox study for the last 3 years, attending many
orthodox services, talking with priests and Bishops and the laity and have
discovered many of the same issues that protestant churches struggle with.
It is not so much the system of either of the two paradigms but in living
out the faith on a daily basis. To live as a truly devout or pious person is
a rarity in the entire Christian world.

I have come to appreciate how similar our faith really is when it is
centered on the Holy Trinity and continual metanoia.

I would rather be exposed to a deeper faith by those who are living it out
each day then in all the books that have been written recently regarding
conversion. When somebody says come and see one really wants to see a
profound difference, true spirituality. Those who have as Saint Seraphim of
Sarov said, aquired the Holy Spirit-Inner Peace. There are so few on either
side of the schism that exemplify that today.

Edward Rice writes of the Aga Khan during Richard Burton’s day, in 1835. 

“The country was in turmoil at the time. Popular expressions of dissatisfaction with Qajar rule were rampant, and wandering ascetics preached an otherworldly doctrine that God was immanent in all things and that imams, the elect of God, were personifications of the divine attributes.”

Is there anything more touchy-feely liberal than a bunch of groups “listening” to each other at Lambeth? Suppose this was the Arian crisis and the church of that day had just stopped to listen to each other rather than being nasty and mean with those troublesome doctrines. What would the results have been? Certainly we don’t have to fight over everything, but when the church cannot fight over basic principles, it has become the anti-church.

Baptism is not only a sign of profession, and mark of difference, whereby Christian men are discerned from others that be not christened, but it is also a sign of Regeneration or New-Birth, whereby, as by an instrument, they that receive Baptism rightly are grafted into the Church; the promises of the forgiveness of sin, and of our adoption to be the sons of God by the Holy Ghost, are visibly signed and sealed; Faith is confirmed, and Grace increased by virtue of prayer unto God.  The Baptism of young Children is in any wise to be retained in the Church, as most agreeable with the institution of Christ.
- 39 Articles XXVI

Baptism and the “Real Me”

Leithart argues from Rom 6.3,5 and 6.11 that we are changed by baptism. He says that Catholic/Protestant disagreements on the issue assume the same “view of personal identity”. Protestants believe that the “real me” “is a soul tightly and hermetically sealed within my body” he continues “Behind both ‘Catholic’ and ‘Protestant’ views of baptism is the notion that the ‘real me,’ what makes me uniquely me, is some internal ghostly me that remains unaffected by what happens outside and is unchanged by what happens to my body.” He says both views “seek to locate some eternal, unchangeable, autonomous “me” deep within.”
He cites Scriptural evidence that the soul is right along with the body in being hungry, thirsty, etc. [Ps 107.9, I Sam 30.12, Prov 22.15, Ps 42.1, 9-10]
“There is always more to a human being than appears on the surface, but being human is always “being in the world” because it is always “being a body.” What makes me uniquely me includes what happens to my body.”

Even though all of Virginia is technically part of Dixie, it is not the case on the ground. Yankees like me have overrun northern Virginia from Culpepper to Great Falls. The greater D.C. area is part of a vast complex that extends far north to Boston and New York, with small breaks. But the exurb where we live is on the very fringe of the true Old Dominion and the Yankee-occupied north.

I can tell where I am by the radio stations I pick up. When we drive into the city on I-95 and get sufficiently north - right around Woodbridge - I can pick up jazz stations from inside the city. I love listening to them and they bring to mind the brownstones and eateries of the city, the mall and the gleaming buildings of Pentagon City, the lush suburbs of northern Virginia and Maryland now straining under the housing crisis.

But when I drive south again from the city or my job, I soon enter the immense swaths of southern pine, oak and assorted forest. The Rappahannock divides Northern Virginia from the rest of the state, as it held General Grant’s armies from obtaining Richmond all those years ago. Heading south I see swamps and stagnant pools of water, along with all the Runs that feed our greater rivers. Off in the distance the Blue Ridge mark the horizon, and I know I am close to home when I can hear WWED, Bluegrass FM, again. 

The other day, just as I crossed the River, I heard a song about “those devils dressed in blue…burning Georgia down.” Some of the songs sound like they are really from the inner regions of the Deep South, with roots back in the Scottish Highlands. The voices would never make it singing anything but Bluegrass, but somehow it works. My daughter and I like a song called “Can We Find Forgiveness?” I used to hear it all the time but I haven’t lately. It answers, “Not without a witness.” I don’t think you can listen online, which is too bad. But if you are passing through central Virginia, inhale the southern air, enjoy the sun and the high clouds that great you, and turn on Bluegrass FM. You’ll know where you are.