Worship of the State

This coming Tuesday is Independence Day here in the United States. This, in turn, means that churchgoers this Sunday will be greeted with a myriad of patriotic symbols that don’t normally show up on Sunday morning. Many are used to the American flag being always in front of them during their worship services. But this Sunday, that flag will be saluted, or even carried down the center aisle in a procession, even in churches that don’t normally have processions. Patriotic songs will be sung where hymns usually go. Extra prayers will be said for politicians as well as for our troops deployed throughout the world. Most sermons will carry an American theme. In some churches, those sermons will be of the “let’s get God back in America again” variety, complete with the standard talk about legalized abortion and absence of prayer in schools. In some churches, the sermon will be a vague sentiment about what a great country we live in.

And in all of this, very few people will stop and ask why they are doing all those things. It is the Sunday before "The Fourth", after all, and this is what you do.

But why? Why is this assumed to be standard practice? I think the reason, as I mentioned in a previous post, is the victory of statism over society. We live in a country where the state wants to own everything, and we gladly oblige. They own our children. They tell us where and when to send our children to school, what they are to be taught, what they are to do while they are there, and what import this has upon their lives. They own our property. If they want a piece of it to build a superhighway, they tell us they are going to buy it or else take it. “Our” land, apparently, is only on loan from the government. They own our other possessions as well. They tax the money we make, then what we spend it on, and what we leave to our children when we die, if they have left us anything to leave to our children.

And we respond to all this by, every once in a while, giving them the one hour on Sunday morning that God has called His own. Now it is clear that the government wants that hour every Sunday. Whenever a church becomes incorporated in the United States, it gives over the rights to what it says and does on Sunday morning to the state, though thankfully the state has yet to assert its “right”. But the church is not an adjunct of the state. The church, as presented in Scripture, is a whole separate institution. It is instituted by God, with its own laws and its own leaders. The leaders of the state have no authority in the church.

When the Church of Jesus Christ comes together on Sunday morning, it is for one reason alone – to worship the Triune God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. It isn’t to lift up the State as the great saviour of mankind (which it is not).

I recognize that the chances that what I’m writing here will be read by someone in a church somewhere who makes decisions on what goes on on Sunday mornings is very slim. Nonetheless, to those of you who do read this, I encourage you to think through the question and consider it carefully. Pray for your congregation and its leaders. Pray that the pressures of the state will decrease against the church. Don’t be afraid to talk with your church leaders about the matter. And seek to live your own life, insofar as you legitimately can, free from the tyranny of the state.

For a further consideration of the subject of flags and the church, this article written from a Canadian Reformed perspective is well worth reading.

Talking out loud about slips of the tongue

Verbal slips. Everybody has them. We add a letter here, or subtract a letter there. Sometimes we use a word in a sentence in a way that makes no sense, showing that we really don’t know what the word means (“Inconceivable!” – for those who have ears to hear…). Sometimes we trip all over a sentence like an outstretched leg. Sometimes we get riled up and invert a phrase – like my preacher friend who, while talking to me in preacher-mode, told me of something being like “ducks off a water’s back”.

We also have verbal slips that are unique to our region and culture. Here in the South we have a practice I like to call “syllable conservation”. We try to remove all the extra syllables in a word, because speaking is hard work. If you’re really good, you can say a whole sentence with only one or two syllables.

We slip, and our friends all have a good laugh at our expense. At least, we hope they’re our friends.

Maybe I’m easily amused, but nothing gets me rolling on the floor like a good verbal slip. If done right, they can provide hours or even days of entertainment.

I thought I’d post the occasional verbal slip whenever I run across a new one. For now, here are a couple of ones from colloquial speech that I’ve found being used in regular discourse more commonly as of late. I would classify these as more strange than funny, but you can be the judge.

Talking out loud. The phrase was originally “thinking out loud”. I can’t swear to it, but I’m pretty sure I first heard the phrase “talking out loud” being used by a stand-up comedian who was imitating someone, shall we say, less-than-intelligent. Somehow this got picked up such that it is more common to hear someone say, “Oh, I’m just talking out loud”. Which is a bit bizarre to say anyway. All talking is out loud, isn’t it?

Slip of the tongue. The phrase I always heard growing up was “slip of the lip”. You know, “slip” and “lip” rhyme and all that. Then the heavy metal group Whitesnake came out with an album in the late 80’s entitled “Slip of the Tongue”, and it was all downhill from there. This was intended to be a clever play on the phrase “slip of the lip” with additional connotations. Those heavy metal guys are so funny. I hardly hear the former phrase anymore, finding rather that it has been substituted with “slip of the tongue”. It’s rather disturbing that a heavy metal group can have such influence on the English language.

Is anybody else hearing these, or am I just hanging out with the wrong people? Tell me in the comments section. Also, have you heard any other verbal slips? If you have I’d like to hear them, so feel free to put them in the comments section as well.

Can Evangelicals Still Recognize Sin?

In his nationally syndicated column today, Cal Thomas reported on some of the appalling things that took place at the Episcopal Church U.S.A’s General Convention last week. He reported on how the new bishop, Katherine Schori, does not believe that homosexuality is a sin. He goes on to criticize the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, as well as decisions made at the recent General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. His criticisms revolved basically around the attempts of mainline liberal denominations to be “relevant” to the culture.

I should go ahead and confess up front that this is the sort of thing that gets to me. So what you are about to read is the cranky side of me – though I hope that won’t cause you to stop reading.

Now I don’t know anything about Cal Thomas personally. I don’t know that I’ve ever read anything by him before, though I’ve heard his 60-second radio spot on a few occasions. He might spend as much time criticizing Evangelicals as he does mainliners, for all I know. And he himself might be a member in good standing at a solid church from an Evangelical or classical Reformation tradition. But Thomas represents to me a segment of Evangelical personalities who spend all their time shooting at “those liberals over there” rather than dealing with the problems in their own Evangelical churches.

What in the world makes us think that mainliners would listen to us is beyond me. I know there are true believers in the mainline churches, though my experience (for what it’s worth) suggests to me that they are few and far between. While there are, as I understand it, congregations in the mainline churches that are solid, the liberals generally run the show. People in the ECUSA began to wake up when a homosexual bishop was elected three years ago, but they were well over a hundred years too late. The mainline churches began abandoning Scripture before the turn of the twentieth century. People like Schori don’t care about Scripture, and they don’t give a flip about the true and living God, no matter what kind of illusion to the contrary they attempt to maintain. As far as the ignorance of the laity goes, there is a sense in which you can hardly blame them. Without orthodox leadership to guide them in understanding and applying Scripture, they were left to some degree helpless. Now, I say “to some degree” because I don’t think they can be completely absolved of responsibility. They had Bibles and didn’t read or study them. Their churches had libraries that were established and filled with books back when their ministers actually believed the truth, and they didn’t read those books in an attempt to know Scripture better. In some cases, they didn’t raise a fuss when a new minister came to town preaching what they knew to be heresy. For all these things they are to be blamed.

But I also don’t know why mainliners should listen to us. While Evangelicals are at least far more orthodox on paper than the mainliners, we are just as guilty as the mainliners in doing anything it takes to be “relevant” to the culture without much question about the rightness of it. Once again, this is just my experience speaking. But having been in several churches the past few years, and interacted with numerous Christians outside the church as well, this is what I have encountered:

1. A vast ignorance of the Scriptures, not a whole lot of recognition of this as a problem, nor much attempt to correct it.

2. An ignorance of systematic theology. People might memorize Bible verses, but they don’t have a clue how those verses fit into the scheme of Scripture or their lives. What verses they do memorize have moral import, which is good, but they are divorced from the dogmatic or doctrinal portions of Scripture.

3. An ignorance of church history. Statism has been very successful. People know George Washington, Martin Luther King, or John F. Kennedy, but they can’t tell you who started their denomination or church, nor do they see that it matters.

4. An ignorance of the historic liturgical and devotional practices of the church. Churches devise their own worship services based on blind adherence to tradition or blind adherence to whatever is current and hip. Likewise, if the laity spend any time in private worship, they fail to take advantage of the historic devotional practices of the church in guiding them in this.

5. And with all the focus on “practical issues” in sermons (which means lack of doctrinal content), people still manage to live at a level morally that often differs little from the pagans around them.

One example of these things shows up in Thomas’s article itself. He takes after Schori for her stance on homosexuality, but he totally ignores the clear teaching in Scripture that a woman shouldn’t have the office of a bishop to begin with (I Timothy 2-3). This could be because Evangelicals themselves are growing more and more egalitarian, and he wants to focus on a problem that everybody agrees about. But God’s Word couldn’t be clearer on a subject than it is on this one, and no amount of attempting to ignore it or explain it away is going to work.

When it comes down to it, whether it be the problems in the mainline or among the Evangelicals, we all have our own problems to deal with. I am suggesting, though, that until we Evangelicals begin to work out our own problems, all the shouting that we do at mainliners will continue to be ignored. And rightly so.

Church the way you want it

Book Study Quote #4

Adolf Hitler was inspired in part by the philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche and Arthur Schopenhauer. Both are associated with the philosophical school known as Nihilism. O’Connor, in a letter to A. dated 28 August 55, stated that “if you live today you breathe in nihilism,” that is, she saw it as the overwhelming philosophical outlook of her time. With this in mind, we will continue with a quote from Nietzsche. Take particular note of the evolutionary theme. See if you can parallel this with any dialogue or character(s) from O’Connor’s story. The quote is from Thus Spake Zarathustra, translated by Thomas Common, revised by H. James Birx, published 1993 by Prometheus Books, pp. 35-37.

When Nietzsche speaks of the “superearthly”, he is referring to anything spiritual or heavenly. He does not believe in anything superearthly – there is no God, no soul, no heaven. When he speaks of these things ceasing to exist, he is referring to the death of the idea of them in the consciousness of mankind.

I teach you the overman. Humankind is something that is to be surpassed. What have you done to surpass humankind?

All beings until now have created something beyond themselves: and you want to be the ebb of that great tide, and would rather go back to the beast than surpass humankind?

What is the ape to our species? A laughing stock, a thing of shame. And just the same shall our species be to the overman: a laughing stock, a thing of shame.

You have made your way from the worm to man, and much within you is still worm. Once you were apes, and even yet man is more of an ape than any of the apes.

Even the wisest among you is only a disharmony and hybrid of plant and phantom. But do I bid you become phantoms or plants?

Lo, I teach you the overman!

The overman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: The overman shall be the meaning of the earth!

I conjure you, my brothers, remain true to the earth, and believe not those who speak to you of superearthly hopes! Poisoners are they, whether they know it or not.

Despisers of life are they, decaying ones and poisoned ones themselves, of whom the earth is weary: so away with them!

Once blasphemy against God was the greatest blasphemy; but God died, and with that also those blasphemers. To blaspheme the earth is now the most dreadful sin, and to rate the heart of the unknowable higher than the meaning of the earth!

Once the soul looked contemptuously on the body, and then that contempt was the supreme thing: - the soul wished the body meager, ghastly, and famished. Then it thought to escape from the body and the earth.

Oh, that soul was itself meager, ghastly, and famished; and cruelty was the delight of that soul!

But you, also my brothers tell me: What does your body say about your soul? Is your soul not poverty and pollution and wretched self-complacency?

Surely, a polluted stream is humankind. One must be a sea, to receive a polluted stream without becoming impure.

Lo, I teach you the overman: he is that sea; in him can your great contempt be submerged.

Book Study Quote #3

Our third quote is taken from the same edition of Mein Kampf as below. This time the quote is taken from pp. xix-xxi of the Introduction, which was written by Abraham Foxman.

Hitler’s contribution to the history of ideas can be found in his clear and forceful articulation of numerous theories already in circulation during the early twentieth century rather than in any original thoughts of his own. Many of the ideological themes of Mein Kampf were embraced to varying degrees by groups in Germany, Europe, and even the United States before Hitler wove them together to form the foundations of National Socialism…

The glue that Hitler used to hold these disparate themes together was an extreme form of race-oriented social Darwinism, but even this idea was not limited to the German fringes. The modern “science” of race had evolved with the Enlightenment, when the Aristotelian distinctions between the “cultured” and the “barbaric” races were revived, this time using terms like “civilized” and “primitive.” By positing that certain races were inherently “primitive,” white men of the Enlightenment were able to justify both their continued toleration of black slavery and their imperialist designs on places such as Africa. Differences between races were scientifically “proven” with techniques such as anthropometry (the collection and study of precise measurements of the human body); the races were then ranked on some arbitrary scale, with modern European man always holding the highest spot.

Racial theories became increasingly radical as they incorporated aspects of Darwinism, which swept the Western world in the mid- to late 1800s. Applied to race, the ideas of evolution and “survival of the fittest” turned the history of humanity, as well as the contemporary world, into a story of racial conflict. When coupled with nationalism, racial (social) Darwinism led to the development of national archetypes; thus educated people at the end of the nineteenth century could seriously claim that the distinctive cultural characteristics of the English, French, Americans, and Germans were biological. Eugenics movements with the goal of improving national or racial “stock” through selective breeding (which later became inextricably linked with the Nazi regime in popular perception) arose in England, Scandinavia, and the United States.

Book Study Quote #2

Our second quote is taken from the Translator’s Note of Mein Kampf, written by Adolf Hitler, translated by Ralph Manheim, Mariner Books 1999, pg. X. Once again, I do not endorse Hitler’s beliefs. This is simply to be considered in relation to O’Connor’s story. The application of this quote may be less than clear, but I'll explain it later. Speaking of Hitler’s writing style, Manheim says the following:

His style is without color and movement. Images are rare, and when they do appear, they tend to be purely verbal and impossible to visualize, like the ‘cornerstone for the end of German domination in the monarchy’, or forcing ‘the less strong and less healthy back into the womb of the eternal unknown.’ The mixed metaphor is almost a specialty of modern German journalism, but Hitler, with his eyes closed to the visual world, was an expert in his own right.

The Jocularity of Dr. Eugene

Once a month I pay a visit to my chiropractor, Dr. Eugene. It is always an enjoyable visit, not in the least because the good doctor is so darn funny. [Insert joke about the doctor who keeps you in stitches here.] He was raised Russian Orthodox and has spent part of his adult life among Presbyterians. I am a Presbyterian attending an Anglican church. So between the two of us, we have a lot to joke about.

The following dialogue is cobbled together from our conversation during today’s visit. I always take a book of theology in with me to read while waiting. And he always begins the conversation with something like, “One of these days you’re going to come in here with a trashy romance novel,” or “One of these days you’re going to come in here with a John Grisham novel.” Today was no different.

Dr. Eugene: One of these days you’re going to come in here with a book by Jack [John Shelby] Spong. You know, you really should start your own church. That way, you can pick your own confession, your own vestments, your own architecture, your own doctrine…. You know, I think I’ll do that. I’ll send letters out to all my supporters…

Me: You ought to send prayer cloths out with the letters.

Dr. Eugene: I was thinking more like drinking glasses. I could sign each one individually.

Me: Just don’t send out shot glasses. Your Southern supporters wouldn’t take to that too well.

Dr. Eugene: Really? Shot glasses were what I had in mind. I could say, “One shot of spirit juice in each glass.”

Me: Enough Holy Spirit to make it through the day, huh? What you should do is market it for about a month. Once you’ve field-tested it and proved it marketable, I bet Benny Hinn would pay a boatload of money for the rights to it.

Dr. Eugene: Probably so. I could make you a Vicar. You would be Deputy Vicar of East Greensboro, or something like that. Or a Bishop. You’d get to wear a big pointy hat. You could get into movies for free. All you’d have to do is flash your bishop’s badge, and they’d let you in.

Me: I’ll be waiting for my call. Greensboro wouldn’t know what to do with a bunch of guys running around wearing vestments.

Dr. Eugene: You’d have to wear the vestments all the time, too.

Me: Even in July?

Dr. Eugene: The hat would be air-conditioned.

Book Study Quote #1

I have been in a book study group where we have been discussing the story The Displaced Person, written by Flannery O’Connor. Flannery O’Connor was a devout Roman Catholic writer who lived from 1925 to 1964. She mainly made her home in Georgia, and her Southerness is distinct in her writings. If you haven’t read her writings, I would highly recommend them as being well worth your time.

I thought I would put some quotes relevant to our book study here on the blog. If you aren’t in our book study, this will probably be like walking into the middle of a conversation. On the other hand, I’m putting these here because I think they have an interest that extends beyond our study. The quotes will vary – some will be from O’Connor, while others will be from sundry other sources. I don’t necessarily agree with everything I’ll be quoting, so don’t take these as examples of what I believe.

The first is from O’Connor herself, taken from one of many letters written to a person who in her Collected Works is simply called “A.” It was dated 9 August 55. The "St. Thomas" referred to is St. Thomas Aquinas; the "Summa" is his work Summa Theologica.

I don’t have the kind of mind that can carry such beyond the actual reading, i. e., total non-retention has kept my education from being a burden to me. So I couldn’t make any judgment on the Summa, except to say this: I read it for about twenty minutes every night before I go to bed. If my mother were to come in during this process and say, “Turn off that light. It’s late,” I with lifted finger and broad bland beatific expression, would reply, “On the contrary, I answer that the light, being external and limitless, cannot be turned off. Shut your eyes,” or some such thing. In any case, I feel I can personally guarantee that St. Thomas loved God because for the life of me I cannot help loving St. Thomas. His brothers didn’t want him to waste himself being a Dominican and so locked him up in a tower and introduced a prostitute into his apartment; her he ran out with a red-hot poker. It would be fashionable today to be in sympathy with the woman, but I am in sympathy with St. Thomas.

Anne Bradstreet

Today is celebrated as Fathers' Day here in the US. I don't really have a poem that is appropriate to the day. But I ran across the following a few months back and liked it, and since I can't find any other excuse to put it on here, Fathers' Day will have to do. You might think of it in the context of a wife rejoicing with her husband in the blessings God has given him, which would include not only his children, but her as well. It was written by Anne Bradstreet, and is entitled To my Dear and Loving Husband. It might seem a little strange to some for a guy to put this on his blog, but that's okay. I like it anyway.

If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were lov'd by wife, then thee;
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me ye women if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor aught but love from thee, give recompense.
Thy love is such I can no way repay,
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love lets so persever
That, when we live no more, we may live ever.

We Play Everything

One of our local radio stations has as its tag line, "We Play Everything". So I called up the DJ and asked if he wanted to play backgammon. He cursed at me and hung up the phone.

His Mansion Anniversary

It just occurred to me a couple of minutes ago that ten years ago today I arrived at His Mansion Ministries, where I served as an intern until April 1998. By God's providence, I received Stan Farmer's latest newsletter in my email today as well. Stan was one of the founders of His Mansion and still serves there. I will tell more later about His Mansion, Lord willing. Until then, here is the His Mansion Ministries website. Here also is an alumni website set up by my old work crew buddy Steve Garufi. It contains some photos from during the time I was there.

Sunday Sickness

For most of us, if we are sick on Sunday morning, we abandon any hopes of worship and curl up in front of our favorite movie. Some will watch one of the preachers on TV, and after that curl up in front of their favorite movie. I’m assuming the movie thing to be common, if you haven’t noticed. If you’re very sick, there’s little else you can do, after all.

I think it’s good for a person to strive to honor the Lord’s Day even when under the weather. Not to say that it’s wrong to watch a movie at some point – this isn’t a post on the Sabbath in general, though I might give some thoughts on that later. But it is the Sabbath we are talking about, which the Lord has given for our blessing, and we should strive to honor it.

It is easy for us to assume that everything’s a wash if we can’t “go to church”. But one’s relationship with Christ isn’t so bound with the church and her ministry that one can’t continue in fellowship with Christ when Providence prevents our joining with others in public worship. We need to recover in our lives the reality that Communion with God and the Communion of the Saints extend beyond the one hour we spend together on Sunday morning. It also extends in worship beyond whether or not we are physically in the presence of one another. This isn’t to be used as an excuse for not attending public worship, though. Our Lord set up the church, her worship, and her leaders, as being essential to our salvation, and we don’t have the freedom to disregard it according to whatever suits us. Nonetheless, there are occasions (and for some people, the better part of a lifetime) when we are hindered from participating in these things in the way that God generally intended them to be. In those situations, we need to actively pursue the worship of God in whatever other ways that we legitimately can. This is especially true on Sunday.

There are many ways of doing this, but here are just a couple of suggestions specific to Sunday. For one, there is private worship. Those of us who grew up in Fundamentalism with its insistence upon a legalistic observance of a “Daily Quiet Time” will grow a little nervous at the mention of this. But we shouldn’t allow our freedom from legalism to keep us from freely worshipping God in private. I will not let the legalists control me, nor will I let my freedom give opportunity to my fleshly tendency toward selfishness and laziness. I draw from many traditions of the church for private worship, but try to spend time familiarizing myself sufficiently with a tradition before using their resources so as not to overly complicate things. In other words, don’t be afraid to draw from different prayerbooks or service books, but don’t complicate things to the point that you’re just playing around and not worshipping. Or you can pray straight through a liturgy, like the Morning Prayer service from the Book of Common Prayer. If all this is a bit bizarre to you, then just pray, and read and meditate on the Scriptures. Pray through a Psalm or two. Pray the Lord’s Prayer. Read an entry from a good daily devotional, like C. H. Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening. There are many things you can do. I would recommend not turning it into a study time, though. Leave the Strong’s Concordance on the shelf. Worship isn’t about downloading more information into your brain, though there might be an aspect of learning to it.

Another thing you can do on a Sunday morning is to watch a worship service online. I’m sure there are others besides this, but I watch the liturgy of one of the Greek Orthodox churches online. Here is the link to the website of the Greek Orthodox Diocese of America, and here is the link directly to the page showing the different live worship services you can watch. It isn’t the same as being with other believers and worshipping with them. And the service is partially in Greek, so you won’t understand everything unless you speak Greek. But half or more of it is in English, so you can watch the liturgical action of the service and still receive the blessing that only hearing the Word (as opposed to reading) can provide. This is also a good way of exposing oneself to the Eastern Christian tradition which, while I have disagreements with elements of it, I think has much that can only help us as we reflect upon it and compare it with Scripture and our own traditions.

All of this is by way of suggestion. If you have a fever, stay in bed and try to break it, for crying out loud. Listen to a CD of hymns, maybe. Whatever you do, do what you can reasonably do. Don’t give up, but don’t beat yourself up over your circumstances, either. God alone is sovereign.

The Silence of God

The following is one of my favorite Andrew Peterson songs. I was glad to hear that Michael Card recently recorded a version of it for his latest project. You should hear the song, but if you haven't, you can at least appreciate the lyrics.

The Silence of God

It's enough to drive a man crazy; it'll break a man's faith
It's enough to make him wonder if he's ever been sane
When he's bleating for comfort from Thy staff and Thy rod
And the heaven's only answer is the silence of God

It'll shake a man's timbers when he loses his heart
When he has to remember what broke him apart
This yoke may be easy, but this burden is not
When the crying fields are frozen by the silence of God

And if a man has got to listen to the voices of the mob
Who are reeling in the throes of all the happiness they've got
When they tell you all their troubles have been nailed up to that cross
Then what about the times when even followers get lost?
'Cause we all get lost sometimes...

There's a statue of Jesus on a monastery knoll
In the hills of Kentucky, all quiet and cold
And He's kneeling in the garden, as silent as a Stone
All His friends are sleeping and He's weeping all alone

And the man of all sorrows, he never forgot
What sorrow is carried by the hearts that he bought
So when the questions dissolve into the silence of God
The aching may remain, but the breaking does not
The aching may remain, but the breaking does not
In the holy, lonesome echo of the silence of God

Blog Changes

I just wanted to point out that I've added a links section to my sidebar, as well as a section of links to my favorite blogs. I will add more as I have opportunity. I hope you will find them beneficial, as I have.

The Future of America

From a recent conversation with a newly hired co-worker:


ME: So you’re going to [names local state-supported university]?

CO-WORKER: Uh-huh.

ME: What’s your major?

CO-WORKER: Communications.

ME: What year are you in?

CO-WORKER: My third year.

ME: So what are you planning on doing after you graduate?

CO-WORKER: [Shrugs shoulders.]

ME: I mean, what kind of job can you get with a communications degree?

CO-WORKER: [Deer in headlights. Shakes head.]

ME: [Changes subject.]