The promise of true community

"Jesus says, 'When you enter into a relationship with me I will weave you into a human community deeper and more beautiful than you can imagine.' To be saved by Jesus means not just to have your individual sins forgiven -- it does mean that but it means more -- it means to be woven into a new human community -- a true human community that God is creating."

Tim Keller, The Community of Jesus

72 years ago today

World War II begins -- from Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas:

Back in March [1939], when Hitler had marched on Prague, Neville Chamberlain set down his teacup and took notice. It was then, exchanging one of his carrots for a stick, he vowed that Britain would defend Poland if Hitler attacked it. That time had come. But Hitler couldn't simply attack. He must first make it look like self-defense. So on August 22, he told his generals, "I shall give a propagandist reason for starting the war; never mind whether it is plausible or not. The victor will not be asked afterward whether he told the truth."

The plan was for the SS, dressed in Polish uniforms, to attack a German radio station on the Polish border. To make the whole thing authentic, they would need German "casualties." They decided to use concentration camp inmates, whom they vilely referred to as Konserve (canned goods). These victims of Germany would be dressed as German soldiers. In the end only one man was murdered for this purpose, via lethal injection, and afterward shot several times to give the appearance that he had been killed by Polish soldiers. The deliberate murder of a human being for the purposes of deceiving the world seems a perfectly fitting inaugural act for what was to follow. This took place on schedule, August 31.

In "retaliation," German troops marched into Poland at dawn on September 1. Göring's Luftwaffe rained hell from the skies, deliberately killing civilians. Civilians were murdered more carefully on the ground. It was a coldly deliberate act of terror by intentional mass murder, never before seen in modern times, and it was the Poles' first bitter taste of the Nazi ruthlessness they would come to know so well. The outside world would not hear details for some time. It knew only that German forces were cutting through Poland like the proverbial hot knife through butter as Panzer divisions neatly erased thirty and forty miles of Poland per day.

But Hitler gave a speech to the Reichstag, casting himself in the role of aggrieved victim. "You know the endless attempts I made for a peaceful clarification and understanding of the problems of Austria," he said, "and later of the problem of the Sudetenland, Bohemia and Moravia. It was all in vain." Poland had refused his gracious offers of peace and with a callousness not to be borne. The Poles rewarded his good faith with violence! "I am wrongly judged if my love of peace and patience are mistaken for weakness or even cowardice. . . . I have therefore resolved to speak to Poland in the same language that Poland for months past has used toward us." The long-suffering and peace-loving Führer could take it no more: "This night for the first time Polish regular soldiers fired on our own territory. Since 5:45 A.M. we have been returning the fire, and from now on bombs will be met with bombs." Admiral Canaris, the head of the Abwehr, had long dreaded this hour. He was overcome with emotion at the implications of it all. Hans Bernd Gisevius, a diplomat whom Canaris had recruited to work with him in the Resistance, was at OKW headquarters that day. They ran into each other in a back stairway, and Canaris drew Gisevius aside. "This means the end of Germany," he said. (pp. 347-8)

Two days later Britain and France declared war on Germany. Canaris would later be executed (alongside Dietrich Bonhoeffer) for his leadership of the plots against Hitler.

BTW this excellent biography is just out in paperback.

The one and only Terence Stamp

John Hurt isn't bad either. . .


The Hit (dir. Stephen Frears, 1984)

Review here.

Where we find salvation (Bonhoeffer)

Here in a nutshell Dietrich Bonhoeffer explains why the Christian community gives itself to the reading of the Scriptures as a living whole.

It is not in our life that God's help and presence must still be proved, but rather God's presence and help have been demonstrated for us in the life of Jesus Christ. It is in fact more important for us to know what God did to Israel, to His Son Jesus Christ, than to seek what God intends for us today. The fact that Jesus Christ died is more important than the fact that I shall die, and the fact that Jesus Christ rose from the dead is the sole ground of my hope that I, too, shall be raised on the Last Day. Our salvation is "external to ourselves." I find no salvation in my life history, but only in the history of Jesus Christ. Only he who allows himself to be found in Jesus Christ, in his incarnation, his Cross, and his resurrection, is with God and God with him.

The Bible is many things, but first and foremost it's the record of God's mighty work of salvation culminating in Christ. In Bonhoeffer's words it is "the holy history of God on earth." It's there we learn to believe that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is our God too, and that the Father of Jesus Christ is also our Father.


Quote from Life Together, p. 54

Another prince brought to naught

He brings princes to naught
and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing.
- Isaiah 40:23 (NIV)



Photo via The Big Picture

The difference between skepticism and doubt

Jamie Smith:

But there is also an important difference between emergent skeptics and catholic doubters: The new kind of skeptics want the faith to be cut down to the size of their doubt, to conform to their suspicions. Doubt is taken to be sufficient warrant for jettisoning what occasions our disbelief and discomfort, cutting a scandalizing God down to the size of our believing. For the new doubters, if I can't believe it, it can't be true. If orthodoxy is unbelievable, then let's come up with a rendition we can believe in.

But for catholic doubters, God is not subject to my doubts. Rather, like the movements of a lament psalm, all of the scandalizing, unbelievable aspects of an inscrutable God are the target of my doubts--but the catholic doubter would never dream that this is occasion for revising the faith, cutting it down to the measure of what I can live with. It's not a matter of coming up with a Gospel I can live with; it's a matter of learning to live with all of the scandal of the Gospel--and that can take a lifetime. Graham Greene's "whiskey priest" doesn't for a moment think that the church should revise its doctrine and standards in order to make him feel comfortable about his fornication--even if he might lament what seems to be a denial of some feature of his humanness. All of his doubts and suspicion and resistance are not skeptical gambits that set him off in search of a liberal Christianity he can live with; they are, instead, features of a life of sanctification, or lack thereof. And no one is surprised by that. The prayer of the doubter is not, "Lord I believe, conform to the measure of my unbelief," but rather: "Lord I believe, help thou my unbelief."

There's so much I could say about this, since it speaks to several of the big issues facing the Western church today. But I'll just encourage you to read the whole piece.

Cake and candles

This evening we had a little birthday celebration for my lovely mom. Samuel helped his "Jammah" do the honors.







And the lemon coconut cake from TooJay's was delish!

The problem with worshiping images (J.I. Packer)

Good stuff from chapter 4 of Knowing God. . .

Historically, Christians have differed as to whether the second commandment forbids the uses of pictures of Jesus for purposes of teaching and instruction (in Sunday-school classes, for instance), and the question is not an easy one to settle; but there is no room for doubting that the commandment obliges us to dissociate our worship, both in public and in private, from all pictures and statues of Christ, no less than from pictures and statues of his Father. (p. 45)

To illustrate: Aaron made a golden calf (that is, a bull-image). It was meant as a visible symbol of Jehovah, the mighty God who had brought Israel out of Egypt. No doubt the image was thought to honor him, as being a fitting symbol of his great strength. But it is not hard to see that such a symbol in fact insults him, for what idea of his moral character, his righteousness, goodness and patience could one gather from looking at a statue of him as a bull? Thus Aaron's image hid Jehovah's glory.

In a similar way, the pathos of the crucifix obscures the glory of Christ, for it hides the fact of his deity, his victory on the cross, and his present kingdom. It displays his human weakness, but it conceals his divine strength; it depicts the reality of his pain, but keeps out of our sight the reality of his joy and his power. In both these cases, the symbol is unworthy most of all because of what it fails to display. And so are all other visible representations of deity. (p. 46)

These examples show how images will falsify the truth of God in the minds of men. Psychologically, it is certain that if you habitually focus your thoughts on an image or picture of the One to whom you are going to pray, you will come to think of him, and pray to him, as the image represents him. Thus you will in some sense "bow down" and "worship" your image; and to the extent to which the image fails to tell the truth about God, to that extent you will fail to worship God in truth. That is why God forbids you and me to make use of images and pictures in our worship. (p. 47)

Packer goes on to warn that even if we wouldn't think of bowing down to a bull, or praying before a crucifix, it's still possible to fashion a false likeness of God in the form of mental images. "I like to think of God as [fill in the blank]." How can we be sure we are worshiping God in truth? Packer points his readers to the Son -- "the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature" (Hebrews 1:3). It's in Jesus Christ that we find the final truth about God. By centering on him the false images we are prone to manufacture -- whether with our hands or with our minds -- are replaced by true ones.

This is one of those books I want to read over and over.

Galvin's prayer for justice

The incomparable Paul Newman with dialogue by David Mamet. . .


The Verdict (dir. Sidney Lumet, 1982)

Light and Days of Heaven

Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven (1978) is one of a handful of touchstone films for me. I would guess I've watched it at least ten times -- first on DVD and now on Criterion blu-ray. The DVD transfer was quite good, but it's no surprise that 1080p HD brings out another dimension. One of the things it does is allow the grain of the film to be seen, which is especially important for a film shot as naturalistically as this one was.

Most of Days of Heaven was shot out of doors against the majestic skies and wheat fields of Alberta, Canada (standing in for the Texas panhandle). Often, Malick and crew would wait for the "magic hour" just before dusk to shoot. More often than not they managed to catch lightning in a bottle and it's no accident that Days is among the most visually beautiful movies of all time.

Here's an interesting clip with John Bailey talking about the use of light. Back then he was a camera operator working under the aegis of esteemed Spanish DP Néstor Almendros. Bailey would go on to have a distinguished career in his own right. His memories of working on the film are accompanied by some of those beautiful images.