The Craw

On Symbolism

Symbols have meaning. The lack of symbols have meaning as well.

I recently finished Dave Shiflett's book, "Exodus: Why Americans are fleeing liberal churches for conservative Christianity" and it sparked a train of thought. In the book Shiflett quotes the nearly worn-out statistics on contemporary Christianity put out by the Barna Research Group. The by now well known statistics show how supposed conservative Christians reject cardinal doctrines by wide margins: the Virgin Birth, the reality of a personal Satan, the Resurrection, etc. It seems to me that the one common theme that runs through these rejections is a rejection of the real and/or physical for abstract metaphysical categories. For example, many believe there is no being called Satan only a "principle" of evil. This seems to have some bearing on sacramental/liturgical issues.

I'm sure many out there in conservative Christian circles have had the experience of seeing or being the facilitator of erasing or coloring out any representation of Jesus in Sunday school materials on the grounds of having no images. It seems that at the root of these perhaps good intentions is a desire to protect the transcendence of God but this is also indicative of a creeping reduction of all things into abstract categories. Wine is removed from the communion table and replaced with grape juice because "it's not the actual substance that matters, its the principle."  Church buildings become formless hulks because "it's not the building that's important but the principle that the church is the people." Vestments, paraments, and the placement of the pulpit and the communion table all become irrelevant or are rejected outright because we are to focus on...the God who is above all of this but who in practicality is to remain unimagined in our conscience. This seems to fly in the face of the biblical presentation of God who comes to his people in physical symbols: pillars of fire/smoke, an incredibly detailed religious cultus and ultimately in flesh. It seems to me that an all-encompassing reaction against this is a sure road to nominalism rather than a barrier against it.

The charge is often made that a high view of the sacraments and of liturgy will lead to nominalism but is this really the cause? Detractors will point to the fact that liberal churches find resonance in liturgy and symbolism and it is remarked that liberals dumped everything and all they had left were the symbols. The question I ask in response is this, "Are the symbols the only thing left because they are weak or are they left because they were so powerfully enduring?"

A faraway land

My family and I decided to take a break from the all the hubbub: school, denominational controversy, life. So we went to a far-away land inhabited by paid fairies and pixies. A land of $12 burritos and $5 churros. A land of immense opportunities to drain your life savings in one small gift shop. D-Land.

Actually, it is nice to be in Cali. I'd almost forgotten about marine layers. Marine layers (for you hinterlanders) is a cloud cover that comes in from the sea and burns off by mid-morning to reveal brilliant blue skies but it keeps the entire day cooler. Right now I am looking out of a window in Huntington Beach at a cloudless sky. It is about 75 degrees and there is a nice cool breeze blowing. I need to get used to this again. As we used to say in complaint, "Oh man, another boring blue sky day!"

Slackersville

I have been reading Donald Miller's "Blue Like Jazz." Like many books that are coming out of the emerging church movement it has some things that are good and some things that aren't. The refreshing part of the book is it's almost whimsical honesty. Miller bursts raucously out of the phony ghetto in which a large number of evangelicals live their lives. He also demonstrates (in an anecdotal manner) how the world has changed under the feet of the western church. People are not coming to the ancient faith because of tight little systematical polemics. They are coming in because they see Christ demonstrated in the lives of his people. Love on steroids for the Gen X. I recommend the book to one and all though the soft and pasty might find Miller's book a little too rough. It reads like the slacker version of Augustine's "Confessions."

Three Famines

I recently preached on Matthew 2:13-23 wherein Christ is forced to flee Bethlehem to Egypt because of the murderous plans of Herod, "the King of the Jews." Historically God's people fled to Egypt from the Promised Land during famines. The ones that immediately come to mind are from Genesis. The first is from Genesis 12 where Abram flees to Egypt "because the famine was severe." Next, in Genesis 33 there was a famine that was "severe in all the world" so Jacob sends his sons down to buy grain, unwittingly, from Joseph. Both of these constitute severe physical famines but the famine in the time of Christ was different.

In Matthew 2:14 Joseph, being warned in a dream, takes his family down to Egypt to escape Herod. Baby Jesus and his family are forced to leave Bet-Lechem which means "House of Bread." "Lechem" could simply mean "food" as is evidenced by Christ's use of daily "artos" or bread in the Greek in the Lord's Prayer (Mt. 6:11) to generically mean food. So Christ leaves the "House of Food" in an apparent time of plenty to go down to Egypt. Why? Because in an ironic twist there is a famine in the land, a famine of spiritual blindness. A famine of blindness so profound that the Herod "the king of the Jews" seeks to knowingly kill the Messiah most likely through the hands of Christ's fellow countrymen. The new Pharaoh, Herod, drives the Messiah from the Promised Land.

Storm 2005

Some student cars, smashed by the storm. Could Thor do this?!

The Great Storm of 2005

On Saturday afternoon a huge thunderstorm blew through campus. Lightning strikes occurred and trees were down everywhere. I even saw a roof on a building that looked like it had been hit by a missile (apparently a lightning strike). Power was off for more than 24 hours so my food in the fridge went bad. I'm also in mourning as my desktop is dead and is not responding (I'm writing this on my laptop). Another reason to not make St. Louis a permanent home!

High brow, low brow, or no brow?

I just finished reading Danzinger and Gillingham's "1215: The year of Magna Carta." We often think of the high Middle Ages as an austere era of grand architecture and the early flowering of Renaissance literature. But great entertainments abounded and could be quite rewarding. The authors of the aforementioned book write: "Entertainment of a bawdy kind was popular. Roland le Petour (the Farter) was rewarded with an estate in Suffolk in return for entertaining the royal court at Christmas by 'leaping, whistling and farting before the king.'" (Danzinger and Gillingham,"1215: The year of the Magna Carta", [NY,NY: Touchstone, 2003.] 16). Ah, the good olde days.

Another One?

This article posits that the Pool of Siloam, long dismissed by liberal scholars, has been found. Interesting times.

A Bass

Last night I caught this bass. Nothing metaphorical here. Its just a nice 1.5 lbs. largemouth bass. I was taking study break while studying Hebrew and drove to a park down the road to fish. I released the lad afterward.

The end of the line

In this interesting article, we see that people are now moving out of the church itself in order to engage in "church." This would seem to be the logical conclusion of the long enlightenment project in the church. The church begins a persecuted sect that meets "underground," blossoms to glory in the post-Constantinian era, and reaches dizzying heights in the Medieval period. Then needed reforms are applied during the Reformation (including the Roman Catholic Church) and the church begins to "simplify." Liturgy is slowly washed away, architecture is reduced to its lowest common denominator, and the body itself is viewed as a "gathering" rather than the mystical body of Christ. The final stepping stone is the mega-church. Though large, it is devoid of anything "churchy." Cavernous and nebulous, it could easily be transformed into a Home Depot or Costco overnight. So where does one go after that trend fades? Deep into the cavernous reaches of me.

What does this long march tell us? I believe it tells us it is time to rethink our thinking. How much of our thinking is long chains of propositions going back into the brain of Aristotle? The church is the evermore glorious bride of Christ. This is manifested in both the invisible and visible church. We need to think more in the oriental mold in which the scriptures were produced and the world in which they went to (and still go to). If do not we will eventually rule out the relevancy and need for "the church of me" and then where do you go?

"He who does not want the church for his mother cannot have God for his father."  St. Cyprian