J. Gresham Machen, on Statist Education

J. Gresham Machen, in 1926, on the Federal control of education:

"The better it works the worse it suits me; and if these people had their way - if everything could be reduced to a dead level, if everybody could be made like everybody else, if everybody came to agree with everybody else because nobody would be doing any thinking at all for himself, if all could be reduced to this harmony - do you think that the world would be a good place under those circumstances? No, my friends. It would be a drab, miserable world, with creature comforts in it and nothing else, with men reduced to the level of the beasts, with all the higher elements of human life destroyed.

Thus I am in favor of efficiency if it is directed to a good end; but I am not in favor of efficiency if it is directed to something that is bad.

As a matter of fact, Federal departments are not efficient, but probably the most inefficient things on the face of this planet. But if they were the most efficient agencies that history has ever seen, I should, in this field of education, be dead opposed to them. Efficiency in a good cause is good; but I am opposed to Federal efficiency in this sphere because the result of it is a thing that I regard as bad - namely, slavery. And I am not inclined to do what a great many people do today; I am not inclined to write "freedom" in quotation marks as though it were a sort of joke. I believe, on the contrary, that it is something that is very real....

...Let us be perfectly clear about one thing - if liberty is not maintained with regard to education, there is no use trying to maintain it in any other sphere. If you give the bureaucrats the children, you might just as well give them everything else."

The Puritans, on "Melancholy"

The Puritans, on dealing with what they termed "melancholy":

"They recognised that some men needed to spend most of their prayer time in praise and thanksgiving and recollections of God's mercies, and that a minimum of time should be spent in confession and expressions of penitence. They recognised too that some Christians should not be over-encouraged to spend much time in solitary prayer and meditations. Rather, they should seek the company of cheerful Christians, for, said they, 'There is no mirth like the mirth of believers.' They should pray in the company of cheerful saints, and they should converse with men of strongest faith that have this heavenly mirth and can speak experimentally of the joy of the Holy Ghost. These things, said the Puritans, would be great help in lifting a man out of melancholy and depression and establishing him on the pathway of normal and peaceful Christian experience. They recognised that while every man must examine himself, yet there are those who need to observe restraint even in this excellent practice. 'Spend more time in doing your duty than in trying your estate' is the Puritan advice to the unduly introspective Christian." -- G. A. Hemming, "The Puritans' Dealings with Troubled Souls"

On the Importance of Christianity to Politics

The point is that right political experience cannot develop in people unless passions and reason are oriented by a solid basis of collective virtues: by faith and honor and thirst for justice. The point is that without the evangelical instinct and the spiritual potential of a living Christianity, political judgment and political experience are ill-protected against temptations born of selfishness and fear; without courage, compassion for mankind, and the spirit of sacrifice, the advance toward a historical ideal of generosity and fraternity is not conceivable. -- Jacques Maritain

The Priest, the Creator

So why were the offerings, the ritual sacrifices in the Old Testament that God ordained, so elaborate? At least part of the answer is that God intended them to point back to the original act of Creation. The Tabernacle and the Temple were the world in miniature. As the priest was to separate the portions of the animal and put them in their respective places, so God divided land from sea from heavens. The priest acted the part of God, creating and ordering the world. And as the sacrifices atoned for sin, so those people represented by the animals were ritually made a new creation.

Thomas Watson on the Lord's Supper as an Effectual Means of Grace

The Lord's Supper works for good. It is an emblem of the marriage-supper of the Lamb (Rev. 19:9), and an earnest of that communion we shall have with Christ in glory. It is a feast of fat things; it gives us bread from heaven, such as preserves life, and prevents death. It has glorious effects in the hearts of the godly. It quickens their affections, strengthens their graces, mortifies their corruptions, revives their hopes, and increases their joy. -- Thomas Watson, All Things For Good, p. 20

This World is Your Home

We are establishing the colonies of heaven here, now. When we die, we get the privilege of visiting the heavenly motherland, which is quite different than moving there permanently. After this brief visit, the Lord will bring us all back here for the final and great transformation of the colonists (and the colonies). In short, our time in heaven is the intermediate state. It is not the case that our time here is the intermediate state. There is an old folk song that says, "This world is not my home, I'm just passing through." This captures the mistake almost perfectly. But as the saints gather in heaven - which is the real intermediate state - the growing question is, "When do we get to go back home?" And so this means that heaven is the place that we are just "passing through." ~ Douglas Wilson, "Heaven Misplaced", pg. 24

John Donne on Catholicity

The church is Catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does belongs to all. When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that head which is my head too, and ingrafted into that body whereof I am a member. And when she buries a man, that action concerns me: all mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God's hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again, for that library where every book shall lie open to one another....No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main....any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. ~ John Donne

Wisdom from Thomas Brooks

Two by the Puritan Thomas Brooks, from his work Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices:

Remember, it is not hasty reading, but serious meditation upon holy and heavenly truths, that make them prove sweet and profitable to the soul. It is not the bee's touching of the flower that gathers honey, but her abiding for a time upon the flower that draws out the sweet. It is not he that reads most, but he that meditates most, that will prove the choicest, sweetest, wisest and strongest Christian. (pg. 21-22)

It was a sweet saying of Jerome, 'Let a man grieve for his sin, and then joy for his grief.' That sorrow for sin that keeps the soul from looking towards the mercy-seat, and that keep Christ and the soul asunder, or that shall render the soul unfit for the communion of saints, is a sinful sorrow. (pgs. 25-26)

J. I. Packer on the Puritans and Sanctification

Here's a great little video at Desiring God with J. I. Packer discussing the benefit of studying the Puritans, particularly their writings on sanctification. Dr. Packer's work, and his pointing back to the teaching of the Puritans, was especially beneficial in directing me away from myself and toward the work of Christ for not only my sanctification, but also my justification, thereby freeing me from much confusion and guilt placed in me by my Fundamentalist upbringing. If only Evangelicals were to spend time reading the Puritans, rather than wasting their time with every new, hip book to come off the presses. If this were to happen more, I am convinced that the godliness of the church in America would vastly improve. Not a reality today, but a matter for prayer, no doubt.

There's No Such Thing As "Non-Denominationalism"

A Facebook comment, that I thought summed up the issue nicely:

In reality, every little church that isn't part of a larger group is still a "denomination" of the larger church. And when they don't join with other churches formally, they're still part of the larger church. Plus, when they don't join a larger body, they just remain a denomination unto themselves. This is especially true with the big independent megachurches. You have twenty elders, eight pastors, three services, and a huge staff. You can call yourself "nondenominational", but you really aren't. You just have all your denomination worshiping in the same place every week. And beyond this, while a church may call itself "nondenominational", they'll never be able to disconnect themselves from the larger church tradition. They got their doctrine and practice from somewhere, and they had some sort of influences that led them to become what they are. Of course, most of them are Independent Baptist, though they refuse the title. But when these churches refuse the title, what's actually going on is a failure to engage in honesty in advertising. Rather than being up front in using the name of the church to let people know what doctrine they hold to, they hide it to look like just another generic "church" - though no such animal really exists, unless you are so vacuous in your beliefs that you don't really teach much at all. Why not just be up front in your name, and let people know where you stand? And if you don't teach deep enough doctrine that it merits noting your distinctives by your name, why bother being a church at all? What the heck are you doing each week?

In the School of Mediocrity

One of my most memorable moments growing up in the government indoctrination mills (also known as the public school system) came when I was in the second grade. One weekend at home, while the family was hanging around in the house, my father decided to teach me how to sign my name in cursive. The schools taught cursive in the third grade, but I was eager to learn. One wouldn't have suspected, though, that my father teaching me something would be frowned upon by the schools. Being the show-off that I was, I made the mistake of signing my next test in class in cursive, and when I got it back the next day, I found I had received points off for displaying my new-found talent. I couldn't understand. It wasn't for answering a question wrong. And I thought the schools encouraged learning. My father was furious, and made it known to the teacher at the next PTA meeting. I was too young to understand all of the conversation, but the teacher's response was clear enough to me: "we will teach him cursive when we decide he's ready." Of course, when I would be ready, according to them, would be when everybody else would be ready. Never mind the fact that I had just demonstrated readiness. After that, my father settled down on the issue. I don't know if he accepted the teacher's argument, or simply resigned himself to the fact that it was pointless to fight the system. Knowing him, I suspect the latter.

Only later in life did I come to realize that this is the nature of the Statist/Collectivist mindset, quite common in "progressive" cities like Greensboro. Mediocrity is celebrated, and excellence discouraged. No child - that is, every child - left behind. And this is true, no matter what they tell you to the contrary. You can't have independent thinkers - such people are harder to manipulate and control. And people who excel simply make the others feel bad. Are there well-meaning teachers? Absolutely. But it remains a fact that the purpose of the government school system is to control the masses, for the benefit of those in power. If this weren't the case, then the government would encourage, rather than putting obstacles in the way of, successful private Christian and home schools.

The great irony is to now hear that schools have largely stopped teaching cursive. If a child today were to do as I did, would they penalize the child for excelling? Do they discourage parents from teaching a child too young how to text? I can't help but wonder. Either way, I still know my father was in the right. And his moment of frustration continues to serve for me as an example of how to view those who would use the State to violate freedom.

Worship and Generational Segregation

This is a great article on keeping children in the worship service with the adults. Here's the thing: don't adult minds wander during a sermon anyway? Do people pay perfect attention to the words of the songs as the sing them? Do they think carefully through every word of each prayer that's prayed? In each case, no. The idea that removing children will remove distraction is a myth. There will always be distractions, even from within the worshipper's own head.

One other thing that the article doesn't mention that would benefit children in worship is an ordered liturgy. It's something that most kids can participate in, or at least follow as they are learning it. And while most people think small children aren't learning anything in worship, I would greatly disagree. They are learning there, just as they are learning everywhere they are - through sight and sound and smell, even though they may not comprehend the words being said.

People will say, "you aren't a parent. You don't understand." I know that. But single people are distracted by children as well. And I say keep them in the worship service.

Naomi Wolf on Creeping Totalitarianism

We in America are used to a democratic social contract in which there is agreement about the rules of the game: When Congress demands an answer, for instance, the president does not simply refuse to pick up the phone. So we keep being startled when the steps of the democratic interplay are ignored: "He can't do that!" It's time to notice that they are playing a different game altogether....

What has happened in the past is that at a certain point in a weakening democracy, would-be dictators pretend that everything is as it should be but simply stop responding to the will of the people and the representatives. While the nation is trying to grapple with this interim period, then such leaders deploy sudden unexpected changes that assertively upend Parliamentary protocols and expectations.

At this point, the speed of these moves itself is disorienting: It takes people some time to figure out what has happened. (In a very moving scene, Italian legislators were still frantically trying to engage in standard political negotiations with Mussolini - even as he simply waited for them to realize that the time for negotiating was over.) That psychological hangover - that delay in "getting it" - is a very dangerous time. This is the moment when action is most necessary, and this is the moment when the window is closing.

In Italy and Germany, legislators kept believing that they were still engaged in the negotiated dance of democracy - even as the militaristic march of dictatorship had already begun.

At a point in both Mussolini's and Hitler's takeovers, citizens witnessed a stunning series of quickly escalating pronunciamentos or faits accomplis. After each leader made his bids for power beyond what the Italian Parliament and the German Reichstag allowed him, each abruptly started to claim all kinds of new rights that were extraparliamentary: the right unilaterally to go to war, to annex territory, to veto existing laws, or to overrule the judiciary.

"I am not a dictator," said Hitler in 1936. "I have only simplified democracy."

At this stage, shock follows shock so quickly that the civil society institutions start to reel. At this point, in weaker democracies than ours, the police forces and the army are negotiated with. In any late shift, the final stage is the establishment of government by emergency decree or actual martial law and the leader's assertion - usually using the law to defend this assertion - that he is above the law, or that he is the law: the decider. -- Naomi Wolf, "The End of America", pp. 144- 145, published 2007

Daniel and Synagogue Worship

Another response I wrote on someone else's page, in which I pat myself on the back for ideas I stole from someone else. The question was: did Daniel participate in synagogue worship while in exile?:

There is actually no absolute proof that synagogues in full were developed during the Exile, though that’s the prevailing theory. Weekly local meetings were ordained by God much earlier (Lev. 23:3), which presumably would have been led by the Levites who dwelt everywhere throughout the land of Israel. Daniel was acting in the manner of Israel’s daily Temple worship that would have occurred were the Temple in repair and Israel back in the land. As Solomon had prayed in his prayer at the consecration of the Temple (1 Kings 8:46-50), Daniel was looking toward Israel, a ”condition” for God to hear the prayer of Israel and restore her to the land. He was acting on behalf of Israel, as their representative. And wrapped up with this, he was imitating the practice of Temple worship in his private (hardly private when sitting in a public place in front of an open window) worship. His private worship was shaped by Israel’s public, corporate worship.

While the synagogues may have been allowed to function in Babylon, I must say I have my doubts. I imagine a situation of small gatherings of believers at best, maybe not functioning fully the way a synagogue would have. At least, Daniel was carrying on his own worship as a part of the larger whole, longing for and looking to Israel’s promised return to the land and her worship.

On Boycotting Businesses that Support Evil

A friend sent me an email asking me about businesses that openly support evil, and whether or not Christians should patronize them. Below is the response I wrote to her.

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I think it's difficult to make hard, fast standards about this. In the New Testament, we see the believers in the young church having to deal with idolatry dominating in the marketplace, and that affecting where they would buy there food, and even whether or not they were able to get a job and make a living. But that was clearly stated idolatry. The food and wine were literally offered to idols in acts of worship before being sold in the market. And in order to be part of the local guilds, you had to offer incense to Caesar as a god, and maybe even to some local pagan deity in addition.

The question in my mind then is how far we go in applying this. Do I not shop with a certain retailer because they sell a cd by a band that is clearly Satanic? Do I not buy clothes from a certain business because they sell clothes that are too revealing for women to be wearing? I think one guideline is that once the money has been exchanged between myself and the business for whatever I purchase, I am no longer responsible for what they do with it. It may be going to an employee supporting her family, or it may be going to some pro-homosexual organization. It's impossible to trace anyway, and with everything operating on credit in the world economy anyway, the "money" I give them is hardly money.

Romans 14 and 1 Cor. 10 apply in places. So if Starbuck's were to clearly say, "for every purchase of a beverage, a dollar goes toward pro-choice activists," then I would have to withhold my money. But that normally isn't the situation. You're purchasing a product, not supporting wickedness. That isn't to say there isn't a place for boycotts; that's a perfectly legitimate thing to do. But it's all about the greater good. If I were a parent responsible to buy diapers at the cheapest price, and Target was the cheapest, that's where I would go. My first responsibility is to my family, and I can't neglect their good for the larger good of society. Our responsibilities in life have a hierarchy to them - what and who are nearest to me, who are under my specific care and headship, who will God specifically hold me accountable for in the day of judgment? That doesn't mean it's always easy to make those determinations. But I pray for the Lord's guidance in all things, and make the best decisions I can, trusting in His forgiveness when I make a wrong move, which I will inevitably make sometimes.

"Christian Romanticism" is a Myth

We often fail in our duties before God because we take too Romantic a view of the Christian life. Love, joy, obedience, worship - we behave as if these are things that normally attack us when we aren't looking. No doubt this is part of the reason marriages and friendships so often fail these days. But the reality of the matter is that the Christian life is one of deliberate intention. We reduce Christian virtue to emotion. But while all of salvation is a work of the Spirit, the way we achieve fruit is by the doing of it. If we lack joy, it is because we aren't actively rejoicing in God. If we are hung up in negative emotions, one of the first places to look is to one's life of thanksgiving, to examine onesself to see if we are living a life of expressing gratitude to God for His innumerable blessings towards us. Nothing could be more unbiblical than sitting around passively and waiting for "Christian" emotions to wash over you.

Review of "October Baby"

For those who continue to be exercised about my three-year old review of "Jonathan Sperry", here is Dr. Peter Leithart's review of the recent film "October Baby", and his commentary on Christian films more generally:

http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2012/04/messages-at-the-movies/peter-j-leithart

On the Importance of Church Buildings

Church buildings testify that, while this life is brief for each of us, the Church remains forever, as she is united to her ever-reigning King Jesus. All dominion belongs to Him, and He rules on earth, even as He rules in heaven. To then allow a pagan culture to force us into our homes to worship, out of sight where we may not convict the consciences of others by our devotion to Christ, is to implicitly affirm the pagan lie that Jesus isn't Lord. True religion is not private and individual, but is public and corporate. It is said that the person you really are is what you are when no one is looking. But it is equally true that if you will not be devoted to Christ for all the world to see, then you will never be devoted to Him when no one is around.

Christian Sports Celebrities, or Heroes of the Faith?

First Tim Tebow, then Jeremy Lin, and now Bubba Watson. We are apparently saving the world one sport at a time - and said saving is strangely most celebrated by those who believe this world can't be saved, but is getting worse all the time. Yet as I look back through church history, I see little mention of sports figures being the ones most significant in advancing the cause of the church. So here's a challenge: tell me the sports the above three figures are associated with. Now, can you tell me who Martin Luther was, what the major ideas were that he advanced, and what movement he was associated with - and do it without looking it up? My suspicion is that many who have been in the church for a long time, maybe even all their lives, can do the former, but not the latter. And I would suggest that this shows that our priorities are a bit off balance.

Contemporary Ritualism

One of my first significant steps out of the Plymouth Brethren, Bible Church background of my youth was a visit to an Evangelical Covenant church when I was living in New Hampshire. A co-worker attended there, and asked me to go with her one Sunday, in order to sing and play guitar on a couple of numbers during the service. It was a bit foreign to me, particularly due to the carefully laid-out order of worship. In a later conversation with the chaplain of the ministry I was working at, the chaplain asked me what I thought of the service. "It was okay," I said, "except for the liturgy." "Everybody has a liturgy, even the Plymouth Brethren," he said. Looking at his watch and pretending he was in a Brethren worship service, he said, "Brother Bob should be standing up in three, two, one, and there he goes," referring to a man standing to lead the congregation, presumably spontaneously led by the Holy Spirit. I realized how right he was. Though the attempt is to be spontaneous, that can only be achieved to a degree. God made man to be a creature of habit, of ritual, of liturgy. This is a good thing, and we naturally look to create order in every aspect of life. Even the free-form approach of the Brethren has a certain structure - at a certain time the meeting begins, it ends at a certain time, the bread and the cup are distributed at a certain point, and so on. If spontaneity were a sign of genuine worship, why can't this order also be counted as "stifling the Spirit"? The truth is that, far from a Biblical notion of true worship, this spontaneity finds its roots in Revivalism and 19th century Romanticism, and not Scripture. God is a God of order, and to assert that structure is somehow unspiritual is contrary to the Bible. Yet the idea continues to be propagated in contemporary circles. A contemporary church can cry out against rituals and yet have a specific order of worship every Sunday. Every contemporary church, if it really is a church, observes the Christian rituals of baptism, the Lord's Supper, and preaching. If they are Christian, they pray, and most often end their prayers with the liturgical "in Jesus' name, Amen." They pray before their meals, and have their "quiet time" regularly. And praise God that they do. Order is discipline, and shows reverence to God and to those around us. One can cling to cliches like a security blanket and decry the "ritualism" of "all those traditional churches", or "all those denominations" out there, as if they were the only ones that could fall into the error of cold, sterile worship. I would suggest that more careful thought on the matter is in order. It may very well be that those cliches are the worst form of ritualism of all.