Well I’ll be!

A package arrived in the mail a couple of days ago from my buddy Darrell Paulk, Pastor of Hayneville Baptist Church in Hayneville, AL.  I open it up and what do I see?  Glad you asked.  I see five old copies of Christianity Today dating from 1961, 1963, and 1967.  They are, in a word, awesome.  I mean, at this very moment I’m looking at the cover of the May 22, 1961, issue and what three names do I see?  Francis Schaeffer, Herman Ridderbos, and Harold John Ockenga!  Not too shabby!  (The name Ridderbos makes me feel as if I’ll break at in whelps.  It’s an old, painful seminary war story involving a little paperback by Ridderbos that I thought would be a piece of cake…but I digress.)

So I open said issue up and what do I see on p.16 but a letter from an Edward A. Johnson, the then Director of Alumni Relations at Carthage College, taking Carl F.H. Henry, the then Editor of Christianity Today, to task (no small thing to do, by the way) for some criticisms that Henry had made of something said by a Dr. Hazleton.  In the context of Johnson’s protest to Henry, he says this:

“Sometimes a Faulkner or a Camus actually comes closer to basic religious truth, with or without Christ, than some of our preachers who piddle around Sunday after Sunday with pious moralisms and hackneyed, soporific platitudes…The works of men such as Faulkner of Camus are apraeparatio evangelica, a ‘preparation for the Gospel,’ serving to call to mind certain religious truths for men who would never come near either Bible or church.”

To which I say:  precisely, absolutely!  It is not to exalt a man like Faulkner: a man, by the way, who desperately needed, but apparently did not come to, Christ.  Nor is it to denigrate modern preaching (in 1961 or now).  It is simply but one more bullet-point in the growing list of why secular writing can play a role in introducing certain truths of which the secular writer himself likely did not grasp the full import.

For instance, there have been times in reading Faulkner when I thought, “How is it that this man seems to understand the gospel more than lots of folks who claim to have embraced the gospel?”  (I often say that of a man like Umberto Eco, too.)

It’s an interesting thought…just as much so in 1961 as today.

Think about it.

And thanks, Darrell Paulk: a good friend with a keen eye for very cool stuff!

Over the last few days I’ve been able to watch Steven Soderbergh’s film, “Che,” starring Benicio Del Toro in the titular role (it’s at Blockbuster in a 2-dvd set).  I am of the generation that knows Che Guevara primarily through the famous t-shirt image which is usually worn by folks whom you gather don’t really know much about him.  He remains a kind of darling of the left just as he is scorned by many on the right.  He was a Latin American (Argentine) revolutionary and Communist, most famous for the role he played as Fidel Castro’s Lieutenant in the Cuban revolution.  Che’s cult status was sealed by his charismatic personality and, ultimately, his execution.

As a movie, the film is fantastic.  It focuses primarily on Che’s activities in Cuba under Castro and his failed attempt at bringing revolution to Bolivia.  Benicio Del Toro looks eerily like Che and does an astounding job depicting the controversial figure.  I note as well that he served as one of the producers of the film.  The scenery is stunning and convincing and the combat scenes have an understated quality that somehow make them seem more real.  Furthermore, the depictions of Che’s mindset and rationales as well as of his interactions with the men he led in guerrilla warfare evoke sentiments of sympathy from the viewer.

Again, as a movie, it’s a pretty stunning, if overly-long, biopic.  There are moments of jarring emotional poignancy and I daresay the movie causes a certain measure of introspection on the grand questions of life:  human nature, justice, sin, virtue.

But history is a tricky thing, no?  I believe it’s safe to say that the film glosses over Che’s less endearing traits, and it certainly glosses over (even while referencing) those executed at Che’s hand.  The executions are mentioned, and even powerfully so by a young Bolivian soldier who mentions to Che that he, Che, had executed his uncle, but overall such notions are lost in a sea of appreciation for Che.  Del Toro dedicated one of the awards he won for the film to Che himself, and it is safe to assume that the film is a hagiographic appreciation of a man who had blood on his hands.

Most tragically, I suspect that young folks who watch the film may come to believe that Communism is a compassionate movement of kind-hearted men who merely want “peasants” to be able to read and write and enjoy liberty and equality.  History, of course, offers us all the shocking evidence to the contrary.

Che was a fascinating character, and it ought not be assumed that he did not believe in the cause he sought to advance (or that he was some demonic monster), but, in the end, Guevara contributed to a system that has brutalized untold millions of human beings.

At the end of the movie, a young soldier asks Che if he believes in God.  “I believe in mankind,” Che responds.  It is a powerful, honest, and terrifying moment, for the track record of Communism indeed reveals just what calumnies mankind is capable of.

A great movie.  A very poor history lesson.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s writings are among those that I return to again and again.  I do not always agree with him, but I almost never read him without benefit.

In a couple of weeks I’ll be preaching revival services at my brother David’s church on the theme, “Christ and His Church.”  This theme brought to mind a comment I saw attributed to Bonhoeffer.  I’ve just located it in vol.10 of Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works.  It’s from a sermon he preached on July 29, 1928, while serving as a pastor in Barcelona.

I think Bonhoeffer is correct here, both in his observation and the urgency of his appeal to reconsider the meaning of “church.”  Check it out.

“There is a word that evokes tremendous feelings of love and bliss among Catholics who hear it, a word that stirs in them the most profound depths of religious feeling ranging from the awe and dread of judgment to the bliss of God’s presence, but a word that assuredly also evokes feelings of home for them, feelings of the sort only a child feels in gratitude, reverence, and self-surrendering love toward its mother, the feelings that come over us when after a long time away we once again enter our parents’ home, our own childhood home.  And there is also a word that to Protestants has the sound of something infinitely banal, something more or less indifferent and superfluous, a word that does not make a person’s heart beat faster, a word often associated with boredom, a word that in any event does not lend wings to our religious feelings – and yet a word that will seal our fate if we are unable to find in this word a new, or rather the original meaning.  Woe to us if this word – the word “church” – does not soon acquire significance for us again, indeed if it does not become a matter with which our very lives are concerned.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Barcelona, Berlin, New York 1928-1931.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, vol.10, Clifford J. Green, ed. (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2008), 505.

A friend has asked me why I read and review secular books.  It’s a fair enough question and one that I think warrants an answer.

Maybe it’s best if I just present my answer in the form of bullet points:

• I think it is a question of balance. Falling into culture with no discernment and safeguards is dangerous. We should think on things that are above. On the other hand, retreating into the Christian ghetto is dangerous as well.
• I think we need a more holistic view of Christian culture. At present, we have a stunted understanding, in my opinion.
• I do not think that all aspects of non-Christian culture are inherently wicked. Think of great art from non-Christian painters, great literature from non-Christian writers, great music from non-Christian musicians, and great films from non-Christian directors and actors.
• I daresay that non-Christians can often shine the limited light they do have in ways that are powerful, poignant, and constructive. I see it as the light of “general revelation” shining through cultural forms.
• In Acts 17:28, Paul quotes, in his sermon to the Athenians, some words from pagan Greek poetry. That reveals (a) familiarity with literature and (b) likely appreciation for aspects of it as well.
• I do not believe that taking pleasure in art that is not explicitly Christian is wrong. “All truth is God’s truth,” as they all saying goes.
• I sometimes think we are quick to call somebody a “non-Christian” because they do not explicitly present Christian verities in a propositional format. I’ll grant that Cormac McCarthy’s Child of God is not a book we should linger over (thus, my review to that effect), but McCarthy’s The Road is, in my opinion, a profound Christian statement. I think we should celebrate Christian truths told in popular works.

Just a few thoughts. There is, again, a danger in reading secular works, but there is a joy in it as well…a joy we need not be ashamed of as Christians.

Abortion is, hands down, the most emotionally-charged and contentious issue in the public square today, and semantics is at the very heart of the debate.  The intent of the semantics game is usually to obscure or obfuscate.  I was reminded of this fact this morning when I read an article entitled “Boxer compares denying women abortion coverage to denying men Viagra.”

It’s an astounding headline, and one that reveals a great deal.

Sen. Barbara Boxer was reacting, the article informs us, to “an amendment offered by Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., that would greatly restrict abortion services for women buying individual insurance through a new health care insurance exchange.”

This is what Boxer said:

“Why are women being singled out here? It’s so unfair.  We don’t tell men that if they want to … buy insurance coverage through their pharmaceutical plan for Viagra that they can’t do it.”

Now, Boxer’s views on abortion are, in my opinion, lamentable and ethically bankrupt, but are nontheless par for the course for her.  What is interesting here, though, is how the pro-choice side of the abortion debate seems to have successfully (a) couched the issue of abortion singularly in terms of “women’s health” and (b) therefore drawn analogies between abortion rights and any medical option a man may want as if the issues are qualitatively the same simply by virtue of their both being medical options.

But this is a profoundly deceptive if extremely effective non sequitur.

Certainly clear-thinking people on both sides can agree that the primary argument of those who oppose abortion is that life is being exterminated in the womb.  In other words, it is precisely at the point where pro-choice advocates seek to reduce the debate to an issue of “women’s health” that they are being most disingenuous.  Should not charity dictate that the central argument of the opposing view be articulated with fairness, even if disagreed with?  Doing so would not demand that pro-choice people agree, it would simply insure that the debate be held on the right field of play.

For instance, I oppose abortion on the grounds that abortion is the taking of innocent life.  So, on that basis, when I read Boxer’s statement, I have thoughts like this:

• Why do you say women are being “singled out” when the issue of abortion involves and affects both men and women?
• Why do you say women are being “singled out” when pro-life advocates are arguing that countless baby girls not be killed?
• Why are you singling out the unborn?
• Why are you denying the unborn the legal right of protection?
• Sen. Boxer, how do you feel about the unborn baby girls being killed in the womb?
• By “women” you cannot mean the untold numbers of women who vehemently oppose abortion, so could you be more specific in expressing which women you think are being singled out?
• Deep down, do you really see a moral (or any other) equivalence between taking Viagra and having an abortion?

The article goes on to quote Boxer as saying, “”What have women done to deserve this?”

To which I say, “My question exactly!”

If only I was making this up.

I noticed the following classified ad today in the latest Christianity Today.

“SENIOR PASTOR – First Congregational, a non-denominational 500 active member church, seeks a senior pastor who is evangelical, homiletically superior, and a visionary with a servant’s heart.” [emphasis mine]

Which raises a few questions, like…

1.  To what?

2.  If he thinks he is, do you really want him?

3.  If he’s convinced he’s not, will he respond to this ad?

4.  If he thinks he may be but is afraid he’ll be struck by lightning for suggesting so, should he respond…or does it just means he thinks God is a bit more superior?

5.  Does saying, “Well, I don’t think I am, but my friends all tell me…” count as superiority, or humility, or confusion?

6.  Is this the missing beatitude?

and, lastly

7.  TO WHAT?!

I received an email last week reminding me that I had once, some time back, posted an English chant of The Athanasian Creed (I think at the old blog address).  I looked for it but could not find it.  Then the person emailed me again saying he had found it.  As I listen to it again I am once more reminded of the simply beauty, theological depth, and unifying power of the ancient creeds.  So I thought I’d provide the link to the .mp3.  Get in a quiet place and have a listen for a great devotional moment!

Once again, the 17th century English Baptists were encouraged in The Orthodox Creed (1678) to study, know, and recite the Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian Creed.  I think they might would be pleased with this.

.mp3 of The Athanasian Creed

Or visit the website here.

I’ve recently had an opportunity to scan a picture of the 1901 Sumter (S.C.) baseball team.  My Great Grandaddy, Wade Hampton “Hamp” Richardson, was the pitcher.

People often ask me if I’m related to Bobby Richardson, the N.Y. Yankee great.  I am.  My Great Grandaddy was Bobby’s uncle.  Wade Hampton’s brother, Robert Richardson, was Bobby’s Dad.  So Bobby and my grandad are first cousins which makes Bobby my 3rd cousin.  We had Bobby come preach at our church a few years ago and I asked him if he had any memories of his Uncle Hamp, my Great Grandaddy.  Regrettably, he did not.

Regardless, there seems to have been some baseball talent in my family…but it all stopped with Bobby!

Anyway, I love this picture.  My Great Grandad is on the back row of the group photo, second from the right.  He’s number 13.  My Grandaddy wrote in the book that his dad (“Papa”) was the pitcher and, to quote my Grandaddy, “A mighty good pitcher he was!”

Update: I’ve reworked the definition in light of some helpful feedback.

The New Testament offers numerous descriptions of the nature of the gospel, of its implications and its importance, and of its effects on and in and among the people of God and the world.  I’ve recently finished working through every New Testament reference to “the gospel” and have been looking closely at these various descriptions.

There are a number of good summary definitions of “the gospel” out there, and, insofar as they harmonize with the witness of Scripture, they are good.  It is helpful, though, to summarize “the gospel” yourself, if only because it challenges us to think through our own assumptions about the gospel and to hold them up to the judgment of Scripture.

So, after having just finished this study, I’ve been trying to hammer out a definition of “the gospel” that does justice to the New Testament picture.  I’d love your thoughts, suggestions, and feedback, as well as any summaries of “the gospel” that you have come up with.

I more than realize that it is not for us to define the gospel.  It is of God.  He has defined it.  But we must proclaim it, and this involves being able to say what it is without quoting verbatim the many, many NT references to it. 

Here’s my best shot at it.  Share yours.

“The gospel is the eternal good news that through the person, death, resurrection, and promised return of Jesus Christ, sin, death, and hell have been defeated and all who come to Christ in repentance and faith receive salvation, eternal life, hope, the blessings of God, strength for right living, and a place in the body and ongoing mission of Christ on earth, the church, through the ministry of the Holy Spirit.”