A Living Text

Writing in Touchstone, Russell D. Moore has a piercing and I think accurate assessment of our current fad for ancient/future worship that seems to be just the latest wave to hit us. He says in part:

At the end of the day, the “Ancient/Future” Evangelicalism is a natural extension of American Evangelicalism’s besetting sins of faddishness and consumerism. That’s the reason it is fanned (as so many Evangelical winds of doctrine are) by publishing houses. This project comes to us just as Evangelicalism is in the throes of an infatuation with the so-called emerging church, which is also fueled by publishing houses (the sellers of youth ministry curricula) and which is also enamored simultaneously with postmodern cynicism, egalitarianism, doctrinal flexibility, and ancient-seeming worship.

The emerging worshipers and the ancient futurists want to borrow some of the trappings of a time when Christianity was countercultural (dark rooms and candles simulating catacombs, for instance) while embracing primary aspects of contemporary cultural libertarianism (including feminism and pluralism).

I’ve quoted the definition of the good life here before; it is: “happiness,” or the good life, which is to be attained in a community of family and friends who can satisfy one another’s material and social needs, behave justly toward one another, and, according to their capacity, contemplate the Good.

I am reading Till We Have Built Jerusalem by Phillip Bess, a professor of architecture at Notre Dame. He writes:

Ethics and politics in this tradition are related to each other, and the subject matter of each is the good life for human beings - which itself is related intrinsically to life in a city (polis). The good life for any individual human being is the life of moral and intellectual excellence lived in communities - a “community” being any group of persons who pursues a common end. The ultimate human community is the city, Aristotle’s community of communities, the foremost purpose of which is the best life for its citizens.

I tend to agree with the ideals of New Urbanism, but the drawback that I see personally is affordability. Moving into a city like D.C., or living in the planned New Urban community tends to cost a lot more than going to the cheap outer rim suburbs. If I could afford to live in a neighborhood setting, I would. I really long for that kind of community, and I’m tired of the suburbs with the buffer of land all around you and not knowing anyone or anything around you.

Some of Bess’ essays are online here.

Writing in Touchstone, James Kushiner outlines a basis of beliefs that all Christian traditionalists should agree on:

 Our commitment to the Great Tradition has also meant that we oppose modern innovations accepted by some in misguided efforts to be pastorally sensitive, culturally relevant, or biblically “prophetic.” These innovations include “Christian feminism” and sexual egalitarianism, the abortions and contraceptive cultures, the revision of orthodox trinitarianism, the assertion of biblical skepticism, and the market-drive repackaging of Christianity.

S.M. Hutchens says that:

…the egalitarianism that justifies women’s ordination is false anthropology that infects through its inevitable corruption of Christology, every Christian doctrine.

I’ve watched Paula White on TV for sometime now. One of my hobbies is watching stations like TBN and offering a constant verbal criticism of what the people on-screen are saying or doing. Paula White is particularly entertaining. She is able to talk without breathing for long stretches at a time. She is a “pastor.” Never mind that females have not been pastors in the church for oh, about 1,900 years until now. We know better these days.

There is an entire wing of the ‘church’ in America that bears no resemblance to anything Christian that ever came before it. No liturgy, no creeds, no sacraments, just blather from self-help types who talk only about sowing seeds and endlessly fleece huge flocks of apparent dupes who seem to want to be rich and prosperous like the female pastors they emulate. I don’t get why people would possibly give money to people like Paula White, Ken Copeland or whoever the latest scam artist is, but I guess there’s one born every minute as the saying goes.

These prosperity gospel types are adept at being slaves to whatever the inane pop culture of the moment is turning out for the masses. When I was growing up it was easy to see Jim Baker, Tilton, Tammy Faye and Jan Crouch as absurd leftover from a bygone era. They had silly hairstyles that identified them immediately as religious hucksters and women who were stuck in a timewarp. But these days the modern conmen and women are more schooled in hip ways. I see several young conmen with soul patches, goatees, and hip glasses. They talk hip language and import the same prosperity gospel (prospgosp) concepts from the past, in a context that is more “RELEVANT” to today. They are morphing to milk money from the new generations. And it appears to be working:

As the church gained members and revenue, the pastors changed. Paula built her international television ministry and became a life coach on “The Tyra Banks Show.” Randy talked of performing nuptials for Kid Rock and Pamela Anderson in Michigan (they filed for divorce a month later). He boasted that he wasn’t like “religious” people, posing in 2005 for a cover story in Makes and Models magazine, a publication devoted to exotic cars, motorcycles and scantily clad models. He has tattoos, collects guns and enjoys wine.

At a Sunday service in April, he introduced his former personal trainer - an attractive ex-porn star turned Christian - from the pulpit.

“We’re cutting edge,” he told the Tribune that month. “We do things a little bit differently than what a typical ministry would do.”

and:

Michael Chitwood, whose financial services company devised their compensation package, said he recalled they have taken an annual salary as high as $1.5 million collectively, though most years it’s closer to $600,000.

They were approved to take up to $3 million collectively, said the president of Chitwood & Chitwood of Tennessee.

Perhaps the most complex part of their divorce, being handled by Holland & Knight law firm, will be dividing up the assets, debts and business interests.

The couple’s home on Bayshore Boulevard has an assessed value of $2.22 million. They have a land trust that includes two Tampa houses with assessed values of $144,800 and $257,835. The New York condo is valued at about $3.5 million.

That’s what it’s about, hanging out with B list celebrities and having serious cash to roll with. Sounds sort of like the American dream right? America has totally remade the Church into its own image: democratic, money loving, celebrity worshiping. It’s a joke and so many people have sickened of it, and yet the crowds still flock to hear clowns like Osteen who have nothing to say to the soul, only nice chitchat about success. Perhaps it should not be surprising given that the average American lives a life bombarded by media and rarely if ever stops to think about anything meaningful. If we do stop, say on 9/11, we are told by our President to get back to shopping to keep the economy going.

So, Paula is getting divorced (divorce number 2). In the ancient church, right up until about 1960, divorce was a scandal. In the modern church, it’s just a fact of life that we really don’t even think much about. Kind of an ‘oh well’ like quitting a job or selling a car. And this isn’t just the laity, we are talking about ‘pastors’ like Paula and Randy. Their ‘ministry’ will go on. Anyone who questions if it is ok for twice divorced women and men to be ‘pastoring’ will be called a ‘legalist’ who is ‘judging’ these anointed ones.

Let’s be clear: ministries like “Without Walls” have as much resemblance to what used to be the Church as does that other classically American religion - Mormonism, which is to say a faint one. All previous doctrine and discipline is thrown out the window for whatever the teacher of the moment thinks the Bible says - or that God directly tells them. For Mormons, this meant a rejection of previous church doctrine and discipline. They took wine out of communion, made the eucharist an ‘ordinance,’ rejected infant baptism and the Councils and Creeds of the Church, they also rejected the teaching of the church for centuries on marriage (among other things).

The prospgosp folks have remade the church into a money making racket, built on false revelations, false doctrines, no church discipline and whatever else they dream up. It’s disgusting, but it’s popular.

Check out their McDonald’s.

I am an architectural snob - I believe it does matter. If I drive down a street full of car dealerships, strip malls, fast food joints, and zillions of signs all over the place it makes me sick. If I drive down a tree lined avenue where buildings have permanence and will not be falling apart in 10 years, I feel good. Beauty matters, God created a beautiful creation, not a heap of junk. Our modern wasteland of awful architecture (ask yourself how malls are holding up after only a few decades) degrades our everyday life.

iTunes singles of the week have led me to some good bands or at least songs recently. This week was another one. So check these bands and songs out:

Fields - Song for the Fields

A Fine Frenzy - You Picked Me

The Kooks - Ooh La (not on myspace right now)

The Guggenheim Grotto - Philosophia

Brandi Carlisle - The Story

and of course our favorite bands while you’re at it:

The Shore | Eisley | the Colour | Mad Richard

When, in the fourth and fifth centuries, after the last persecutions, converts flooded into the Church, they tended to transfer to the martyrs some of the reverence they had given and the attributes and powers which they had ascribed to the gods of paganism. The relics of martyrs were cherished, their tombs became the goals of pious pilgrimages, and they were appealed to in prayer to intercede with God on behalf of their votaries. They were believed to work miracles and were esteemed as healers of disease, guardians of cities, and patrons of trades.

The Virgin Mary was early viewed with great respect, but in the fourth and fifth centuries the importance accorded her rapidly mounted and her cult increased. As we have seen, she was acclaimed as the “Mother of God.” In Ephesus something of the worship paid to Diana may have been transferred to the Virgin Mary and she is said to have taken possession of the Sicilian sanctuaries of Ceres and Venus.

Here and there sites sacred to pagan divinities were appropriated by Christians and were still regarded as hallowed, but by Christian saints rather than by the gods. In at least one place the temple of a non-Christian god was transformed into a Christian church and the latter was devoted to that god thinly disguised by prefixing the title “Saint” before his name.

from A History of Christianity, Volume I, Beginnings to 1500 by Kenneth Scott Latourette

Discussing Jeremiah 15:1 which says “Then the Lord said to me, “Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my heart would not turn toward this people. Send them out of my sight, and let them go!” Calvin says:

But extremely ridiculous are the Papists, who apply this passage to dead saints: Moses and Samuel, they say, were dead, when God declared what is here said; it is then true that they prayed. The inference is worthy of such teachers, which is as good as the braying of an ass. There is here a supposition made, as though God did say, “If Moses and Samuel were now alive and interceded for them, I would yet remain implacable.” But Ezekiel mentions Daniel, who was then living, and he names also Job. We hence see that he makes no distinction between the dead and the living. Therefore the Papists are extremely foolish and stupid when they thus idly prate that the dead pray for the living, on the ground of what is here said of Moses and Samuel. It is not then worthwhile to refute this ignorant assertion, as it vanishes almost of itself: a brief warning, lest ally one should be deluded by such a cavil, is sufficient.

A note on the language used - ‘trumperies’ meant “Showy but worthless finery; bric-a-brac,” or “Nonsense; rubbish,” or “Deception; trickery; fraud.” Calvin reviewing the same section of Jeremiah accuses the Roman Church of claiming to uphold the Fathers but rejecting whatever they want to from the same Fathers; he also says that the church was corrupted by those who brought in their own superstitions:

We ought to take particular notice of this passage; for the majority of men at this day set up their own fictions against God’s word. The Papists indeed pretend antiquity; they say that they have been taught by their ancestors; and at the same time they plead councils and the ordinances of the fathers: but yet there is not one of them, who is not addicted to his own figments, and who does not take the liberty, nay, an unbridled license, to reject whatever he pleases. Moreover, if the origin of the whole Papal worship be considered, it will appear, that those who first devised so many strange superstitions, were only impelled by audacity and presumption, in order that they might trample under foot the word of God. Hence it is, that all things are become corrupt; for they brought in all the strange figments of their own brains. And we see that the Papists at this day are so perversely fixed in their own errors, that they prefer themselves and their own trumperies to God. And the same is the case also with all heretics. What then is to be done? Obedience, as I have said, is to be held as the basis of all true religion. If, then, on the other hand, we wish to render our worship approved by God, let us learn to cast aside whatever is our own, so that his authority may prevail over all our reasons.

A note to readers: At times Calvin uses really pejorative terms, and I am not endorsing his use of this tactic. I am trying to discover the heart of his criticisms of Rome, in his own words. Understand, I am not endorsing his use of terms like ‘Papist.’

Commenting on Jeremiah 7:21-24, Calvin says: They under the Papacy think that God is duly and in the best manner worshipped, when they accumulate many pompous exhibitions of ceremonies; nor can they be persuaded that all this is altogether frivolous. How so? Because they think of God according to their own fancies and disposition. And yet all the Papal ceremonies are the inventions of men: for they derive no authority either from the Law or from the Gospel. And since God has so severely reprobated ceremonies, which yet he had appointed for a purpose which was overlooked, what can be thought at this day of the foolish inventions of men, when there is the some impiety in the people as was formerly in the Jews? For when the Papists perform their trumperies, when the monks and the sacrificing priests fill the churches with their noises, when they practice their childish mummeries, and when they delight themselves with music and incense, they think that God is satisfied, however full of obscenities and filthiness their whole life may be: they are hardened in that false confidence, by which the Jews were inebriated. We ought, therefore, with special care, to notice this doctrine, — that God so approves of spiritual worship, that he esteems all other things as nothing; that is, when unconnected with sincerity of heart.
[...]
That we may now more fully comprehend this doctrine, we must remember this principle — that the basis of true religion is obedience. For unless God shines on us with his word, there is no religion, but only hypocrisy and superstition; as the case is with heathens, who, though they busy themselves much and with great diligence, yet loose all their labor, and uselessly weary themselves, for God has not shewn to them the right way. In short, true religion may always be distinguished from superstition by this mark — If the truth of God guides us, then our religion is true; but if any one follows his own reason, or is led by the opinion and consent of men, he forms for himself superstition; and nothing that he does will please God.
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This one passage is sufficient to put an end to all the contentions which are now in the world. For if the Papists admitted that obedience is of more account with God than all sacrifices, (1 Samuel 15:22,) we might easily agree. They might afterwards debate every article of faith; but there would be in the main an agreement between us, were they to submit simply and unreservedly to the word of God. But we see how pertinaciously they insist on this point — that we are not to stand on God’s word, nor acquiesce in it, because there is in it nothing certain. Hence they regard the doctrine of the Fathers, and what they call the perpetual consent of the Catholic Church, as of more value than the Law and the Prophets and the Gospel. They dare not indeed to contend on this ground; and so far they act wisely: for if the disputes between us are capable of being removed, as I have said, by God’s word, we could easily overcome them. But while they, fostering their own blindness, strive to extinguish the light, and willfully envelop themselves in darkness, let us follow what God’s Spirit shews to us here, — that the main part of true and right worship and service is to hear God speaking, and to regard obedience of more account than all offerings and sacrifices, according to the passage we have quoted from 1 Samuel 15:22.