Giving and forgiving: the heart of Christianity

A book that's been rocking my world is Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace by the Croatian theologian Miroslav Volf.

Volf has spent his life grappling with giving and forgiveness. As a Croation Volf's been personally touched by the centuries-old ethnic conflicts and blood feuds that dominate the history of that part of the world. This book arises from that reflection and is a lot less intimidating for the average reader than the book he's most known for: Exclusion and Embrace.

Free of Charge is four things according to the author: an invitation to the Christian faith as seen through the lens of giving and forgiving, an interpretation of the apostle Paul, a reading of Martin Luther, and a spiritual exercise (for the author and those that would read). Volf is a Luther scholar and the German reformer's influence is all over this book. Since it's Reformation Day here's Volf's assessment of Luther.

Luther, I think, got the substance of the Christian faith roughly right -- or rather, the Luther who discovered the Christian faith afresh did, not the Luther concerned with preserving reformation by earthly powers. And Luther, in my judgment, also got the apostle Paul basically right. This view is not popular today, but popularity isn't an index of truthfulness (Kindle location 3801)

Volf quotes liberally from Luther's writings including the famous last point of The 1518 Heidelberg Disputation distinguishing God's love from human love: "The love of God does not find, but creates, that which is pleasing to it. The love of man comes into being through that which is pleasing to it."

Beginning by describing the triune God who is perfect giver and forgiver Volf works out the implications for us by answering the questions how should we give and forgive, and how can we give and forgive? Profound is an overused word, but it applies here. Free of Charge is theological reflection of the highest order. I can't recommend it too highly. I'll end with a thought from the book.

If on the bottom line of our lives lies the principle that we should get what we deserve, whether good or ill, forgiveness will sit uncomfortably with us. To forgive is to give people more than their due, it's to release them from the debt they have incurred, and that's bound to mess up the books.

For a Christian, however, a bottom-line principle can never be that we should get what we deserve. Our very existence is God's gift. Our redemption from the snares of sin is God's gift. Both are undeserved, and neither could have been deserved. From start to finish, we are always given free of charge and given more than our due. It is therefore only fitting that we give others more than their due -- give them gifts that satisfy their needs or delight their senses and imagination, and give them the gift of forgiveness that frees them from guilt and the obligation to pay for their misdeeds. (Kindle location 3253) 

An average weekend

The Weekend Gun Report for October 11-13 makes for grim reading. But so did last weekend's report, and the one before that and the one before that. . .

Over 9,000 Americans have died from intentional, accidental or self-inflicted gunshots since the Newtown massacre. The cost of freedom. I guess.

Hearing God in the mass media age

The following is a quote from Wheaton College professor Read Mercer Schuchardt, from a chapel talk "God Does Not Post to YouTube."

When the college chaplain invited me to speak on the theme of “Embracing God’s Will”, I immediately accepted — in fact, I embraced it as God’s will. And my next thought was, ‘Wow, that’s a really short message’ – but these are accelerated times we’re living in, so you are dismissed.

But before you go, I’d like to also talk about the weird habit you have of preemptively leaving the building before you’ve even entered it. I’m talking about mentally checking out just as you physically settle in. I’m talking about being pre-emptively distracted before you’ve focused in on what might be boring. About why it’s so much fun to talk to your pseudo-friends while texting your real friends to make plans for lunch, but not so much fun to just sit there and like, watch your real friends chew their food, which usually results in texting your pseudo-friends to make plans for dinner. I’m talking about being overmediated and consequently disembodied. I wish to speak to you about the incompatibility between the incarnate church and discarnate man.

In fact, since you’re already dismissed, I’d like you to actually be free to sit down, get comfortable and really pay attention, since we now have all this extra time. In other words, instead of being physically present but mentally absent, I want you to consider yourself physically absent so that you can be mentally present. In public speaking, this is called an attention-grabber. But here’s the problem: when everything competes for your attention, nothing actually has the power to grab it.

When everything grabs your attention, it grabs it in, by my rough estimate, 15-20 second bursts of attention minimum, and at maximum it lasts 3 minutes, roughly the length of a music video.

Cui bono? Who benefits from this shortened attention span? Your banker benefits, because you’re not paying attention closely enough to your electronic deposits and withdrawals. Your politicians benefit, because a people easily distracted are easily dissuaded from their own opinions, and perhaps their own convictions. Your media entertainment consumer complex benefits, because it’s so easy for advertisers to create desires you didn’t have to make you buy products you don’t need with money you haven’t earned to impress people you can’t stand. Your churches churn and turnover members and leaders like a laundromat, because with 23,000 Protestant denominations to choose from, the primary reason for switching churches is musical worship style, or in other words, how you feel about the 3-minute song you’ve just heard.

So really, everyone benefits except you. . .

If that grabbed your attention click here to read the whole thing.

Confounding them like Jesus did

In Center Church pastor Tim Keller writes about missional churches that confound the traditional categories of "conservative" or "liberal", "fundamentalist" or "progressive" -- churches that are harder for outsiders to write off because they don't fit with some preconceived notion or bias. Keller describes one mark of this kind of church:

A missional church will be more deeply and practically committed to deeds of compassion and social justice than traditional fundamentalist churches and more deeply and practically committed to evangelism and conversion than traditional liberal churches.

 I thought of this in relation to the latest round of media coverage concerning Pope Francis' interview with America magazine. The coverage follows the pattern seen a few weeks ago in reaction to the Pope's off-the-cuff remarks on homosexuality, particularly his comment "Who am I to judge?". The pattern goes as follows. The Pope says something about hot-button issue x, y or z that sounds like he's changing church teaching. Media jumps to the conclusion that he's a liberal like them. Then other interpreters jump in to point out that he isn't saying anything different than what the church has always said, just saying it in a more winsome and effective way.

Writing at the First Things blog here's Matthew Schmitz arguing for the latter.

The Pope’s approach is one familiar to any reader of the gospels. Pharisees try to discredit the gospel by trapping its teacher; the teacher refuses the terms of their question and raises the spiritual stakes. The point here is not to compromise on or back away from truth, but rather to reject its caricature. This is good practical guidance. If it’s what he meant in his broader remarks, then those remarks offer wise advice well worth taking.

Perhaps Francis is an example of a church leader committed to busting up the traditional categories like Jesus did -- neither liberal or conservative but confronting dogmas of both the right and the left with the subversive claims of the gospel.  If so, he's an example that Evangelical Protestants would be wise to emulate.

Fidelity

I once heard John Piper say that in forty-some years of marriage he had never been attracted to a woman other than his wife. I remember thinking that Pastor John was either lying or was a most unusual man. Holding him in high esteem I choose to think the latter.

Nevertheless, I think Wendell Berry's writings on marriage and sexuality (recent comments on same-sex marriage excepted) present a more realistic and profound picture of marital fidelity. For in the context of deep rich community advocated by Berry the probability exists of attraction between men and women rubbing elbows in the warp and woof of life together. In a society that worships the values of personal autonomy and self-fulfillment this might be a recipe for disintegration, but in Berry's vision the virtue of fidelity protects the sacred particularity of marriage and the generality of the community. If none of that makes sense read on.

The following is a slightly condensed quote from pp. 122-3 of The Unsettling of America (Sierra Club Books, 1977).

At the root of culture must be the realization that uncontrolled energy is disorderly—that in nature all energies move in forms; that, therefore, in a human order energies must be given forms. It must have been plain at the beginning, as cultural degeneracy has made it plain again and again, that one can be indiscriminately sexual but not indiscriminately responsible, and that irresponsible sexuality would undermine any possibility of culture since it implies a hierarchy based purely upon brute strength, cunning, regardlessness of value and of consequence. Fidelity can thus be seen as the necessary discipline of sexuality, the practical definition of sexual responsibility, or the definition of the moral limits within which such responsibility can be conceived and enacted. The forsaking of all others is a keeping of faith, not just with the chosen one, but with the ones forsaken. The marriage vow unites not just a woman and a man with each other; it unites each of them with the community in a vow of sexual responsibility toward all others. The whole community is married, realizes its essential unity, in each of its marriages.

Another use of fidelity is to preserve the possibility of devotion against the distractions of novelty. What marriage offers—and what fidelity is meant to protect—is the possibility of moments when what we have chosen and what we desire are the same. Such a convergence obviously cannot be continuous. No relationship can continue very long at its highest emotional pitch. But fidelity prepares us for the return of these moments, which give us the highest joy we can know: that of union, communion, atonement (in the root sense of at-one-ment). . .

To forsake all others does not mean—because it cannot mean—to ignore or neglect all others, to hide or be hidden from all others, or to desire or love no others. To live in marriage is a responsible way to live in sexuality, as to live in a household is a responsible way to live in the world. One cannot enact or fulfill one's love for womankind or mankind, or even for all the women or men to whom one is attracted. If one is to have the power and delight of one's sexuality, then the generality of instinct must be resolved in a responsible relationship to a particular person. Similarly, one cannot live in the world; that is, one cannot become, in the easy, generalizing sense with which the phrase is commonly used, a "world citizen." There can be no such thing as a "global village." No matter how much one may love the world as a whole, one can live fully in it only by living responsibly in some small part of it. Where we live and who we live there with define the terms of our relationship to the world and to humanity. We thus come again to the paradox that one can become whole only by the responsible embrace of one's partiality.

Good words on worship

The Presbyterian church where I serve as an elder is in the middle of a spirited conversation on worship. Issues include how long the service should be, what style of music to have, and how often we celebrate Holy Communion. Emotions often run high when discussing worship, and they should, for it's the most important thing a Christian participates in. Worship is our eternal destiny!

Here are two excellent articles I've come across recently that address two essential aspects of biblical worship -- singing and the sacraments.

From Baptist minister Brian Hedges "Growing Your Appetite for the Lord's Supper"

and

Here is N.T. Wright's call to "Save the Best Worship Songs".

What are the best worship songs? You'll have to read it to find out.

A prophetic word from inside Syria

Like many I'm skeptical of the wisdom of taking military action against what is undoubtedly a barbaric regime in Syria. For one thing, if Assad fell, would his successors be any better? Secondly, all the talk of a "limited response" -- and our so-called ability to carry out "surgical strikes" -- tries to obscure the fact that limbs will be blown off and innocents will perish with the guilty. War isn't a video game, though our technology can make it seem so. And for what it's worth, I'd have the same skepticism if the President's name was Bush, McCain or Romney. I'm amused by the "against anything Obama does folks" who are suddenly born again non-interventionists.

As our leaders consult and posture for the TV cameras I hope they take the time to consider these words of a letter from the Trappist nuns of Azeir, Syria dated August 29, 2013.



We look at the people around us, our day workers who are all here as if suspended, stunned: “They’ve decided to attack us.” Today we went to Tartous…we felt the anger, the helplessness, the inability to formulate a sense to all this: the people trying their best to work and to live normally. You see the farmers watering their land, parents buying notebooks for the schools that are about to begin, unknowing children asking for a toy or an ice cream…you see the poor, so many of them, trying to scrape together a few coins. The streets are full of the “inner” refugees of Syria, who have come from all over to the only area left that is still relatively liveable…. You see the beauty of these hills, the smile on people’s faces, the good-natured gaze of a boy who is about to join the army and gives us the two or three peanuts he has in his pocket as a token of “togetherness”…. And then you remember that they have decided to bomb us tomorrow. … Just like that. Because “it’s time to do something,” as it is worded in the statements of the important men, who will be sipping their tea tomorrow as they watch TV to see how effective their humanitarian intervention will be….

Will they make us breathe the toxic gases of the depots they hit, tomorrow, so as to punish us for the gases we have already breathed in?

The people are straining their eyes and ears in front of the television: all they’re waiting for is a word from Obama!

A word from Obama? Will the Nobel Peace Prize winner drop his sentence of war onto us? Despite all justice, all common sense, all mercy, all humility, all wisdom?

The Pope has spoken up, patriarchs and bishops have spoken up, numberless witnesses have spoken up, analysts and people of experience have spoken up, even the opponents of the regime have spoken up…. Yet here we all are, waiting for just one word from the great Obama? And if it weren’t him, it would be someone else. It isn’t he who is “the great one,” it is the Evil One who these days is really acting up.

The problem is that it has become too easy to pass lies off as noble gestures, to pass ruthless self-interest off as a search for justice, to pass the need to appear [strong] and to wield power off as a “moral responsibility not to look away…”

And despite all our globalizations and sources of information, it seems nothing can be verified. It seems that there is no such thing as a minimal scrap of truth … That is, they don’t want there to be any truth; while actually a truth does exist, and anyone honest would be able to find it, if they truly sought it out together, if they weren’t prevented by those who are in the service of other interests.

There is something wrong, and it is something very serious…because the consequences will be wrought on the lives of an entire population…it is in the blood that fills our streets, our eyes, our hearts.

Yet what use are words anymore? All has been destroyed: a nation destroyed, generations of young people exterminated, children growing up wielding weapons, women winding up alone and targeted by various types of violence…families, traditions, homes, religious buildings, monuments that tell and preserve history and therefore the roots of a people…all destroyed. …

As Christians we can at least offer all this up to the mercy of God, unite it to the blood of Christ, which carries out the redemption of the world in all those who suffer.

They are trying to kill hope, but we must hold on to it with all our might.

To those who truly have a heart for Syria (for mankind, for truth…) we ask for prayer…abounding, heartfelt, courageous prayer.


Read more here.

A new film from Werner Herzog "From One Second To The Next"

The German filmmaker Werner Herzog has fashioned some of the most fascinatingly bizarre movies in history. From a documentary about a man who lives with grizzly bears in the Alaskan wilderness to the epic German New Wave picture about Spanish conquistadors searching for El Dorado he's become synonymous with art house strangeness.

Now Herzog has turned to a more quotidian subject -- the perils of texting behind the wheel. Not only that this project is funded by some of the biggest corporations in America. But don't let that stop you from watching. I confess I've been guilty of texting while driving, but after watching these stories. . . never again.

Terrence Malick's Beatific Vision cont'd

Last night I finally had a chance to watch Malick's latest movie To the Wonder (2012). If you're not a fan of Malick's fragmentary non-narrative style then this isn't for you. If you didn't like The Tree of Life (2011) you will hate this. Actually the two films form a pair. As if to make this explicit Malick includes a brief bit of footage from the earlier picture in To the Wonder, so brief that I missed it but it said so in the credits! Theological and philosophical ideas that were hinted at in The Tree of Life are explored more directly here. I don't have time to do a proper review -- and honestly one can only form first impressions on the initial viewing of any Malick film -- but this is nothing less than a continuation of the beatific vision that shows up in one form or another in all of his work, but especially so in the final pages of The Tree of Life.

Yet here that vision takes on an earthiness, a this-worldness, as explored via the character of Father Quintana (played by Javier Bardem), a priest walking through the valley of the shadow of doubt, yearning for a glimpse of heaven in the midst of the suffering and failure he witnesses all around him. Malick allows us to see that -- paradoxically perhaps -- the God that remains hidden to Father Quintana is strikingly evident in his life as he serves his community through word, deed and sacrament. God in Christ is at work in this world, heaven is invading earth, and this is happening through weak and doubting people like this priest.

To the Wonder is Malick's most ecstatic utterance so far, as exemplified by this montage accompanied by Javier Bardem's voiceover prayer. It's one you may recognize.

     

A further note on prayer (Gregory of Nyssa)

Gregory of Nyssa was one of the 4th century Cappadocian Fathers -- so called because they came from the region of Asia Minor called Cappadocia (present-day Turkey). Gregory's writings on prayer feature prominently in Worshiping With the Church Fathers. In the last post on this book I shared the Fathers' insight that the practice of prayer propels a movement from self-deception to self-awareness.

A large part of our self-deception is a misjudgment of what's really important. Even Christians can become practical atheists, leaving God out of our daily work and plans.


 Gregory described it like this. . .

For the craftsman considers that the Divine assistance is quite useless for the work he has in mind. Therefore he leaves prayer aside and places all his hopes in his hands, without remembering Him who has given him his hands. In the same way someone who carefully composes a speech does not think of Him who has given him speech. . . . everyone devotes all his energy to the work he has in hand, forgetting completely the work of prayer because he thinks that the time he gives to God is lost to the work he has purposed to do.

Thus, it comes about that life is so full of sin. . . . Everyone keeps forgetting God, and people do not count prayer among the good things worth pursuing. Covetousness enters together with trade; but covetousness is idolatry.

Gregory diagnoses this busy forgetfulness as a "spiritual sickness" because it leaves Christians vulnerable to the schemes of the evil one. If this was a danger in his day how much more so in a society characterized by the urgent imperatives of the moment. Rightly ordered reality -- which is what worship is (thank you for reminding me of that Pastor Dan!) -- reorders our priorities. Instead of forgetting God we begin to practice a constant awareness of him.

For when the consciousness of God is firmly established in the heart, the devices of the devil remain sterile.

Quotes by Gregory of Nyssa from pp. 146-7 of Christopher A. Hall, Worshiping With the Church Fathers (InterVarsity, 2009)