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Moving Day: New Blog Address

noreply@blogger.com (Joel) — Mon, 30 Sep 2013 12:00:00 +0000

The day has finally come. My frustrations with the Blogger (Google) platform have come to a head. It's been a good run, until lately. I am making the switch to WordPress, and you can find my new blog at:

jvpearce.wordpress.com

Please update your bookmarks, subscriptions, and marketing materials to reflect this change. This post will be the last under the blogspot.com site, so please visit my WordPress blog for all future posts. Comments, navigation, design, and other functions should be fully functional at the new site, so please comment away. Maybe someday in the future I'll secure my own website address (like such as jvpearce.com or tokenlines.com). But that day is not today.

Robert Farrar Capon, 1925-2013

noreply@blogger.com (Joel) — Fri, 06 Sep 2013 18:59:00 +0000

One of my favorite authors died yesterday, Robert Farrar Capon. Capon was an Episcopal priest, amateur chef, and author. Capon had the Lewis-ian gift of writing with power, wit, and insight. Namely, he was the author of The Supper of the Lamb, a winsome (in the fullest sense of the word), poetic, graceful book of culinary-themed reflections on grace, hospitality, friendship, feasting, and food.

I've quoted Capon several times on this blog (wine and contemplation and delight), and point you now to a brief reflection on Capon's life. Another excellent Capon quotation included in that link is quoted here as well:

"The Reformation was a time when men went blind, staggering drunk because they had discovered, in the dusty basement of late medievalism, a whole cellar full of fifteen-hundred-year-old, two-hundred proof Grace – bottle after bottle of pure distilate of Scripture, one sip of which would convince anyone that God saves us single-handedly. The word of the Gospel – after all those centuries of trying to lift yourself into heaven by worrying about the perfection of your bootstraps – suddenly turned out to be a flat announcement that the saved were home before they started…Grace has to be drunk straight: no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale; neither goodness, nor badness, not the flowers that bloom in the spring of super spirituality could be allowed to enter into the case."

-From Between Noon & Three: Romance, Law & the Outrage of Grace

Stopped Heartbeats and Sulking about Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Joel) — Tue, 03 Sep 2013 12:00:00 +0000

Another excerpt from N.D. Wilson's Death By Living:

"My wife and I tend to overgift to our kids at Christmas. We laugh and feel foolish when a kid is so distracted with one toy that we must force them into opening the next, or when something grand goes completely unnoticed in a corner. How consumerist, right? How crassly American.

"How like God.

"We are all that overwhelmed kid, not even noticing our heartbeats, not even noticing our breathing, not even noticing that our fingertips can feel and pick things up, that pie smells like pie and that our hangnails heal and that honey-crisp apples are real and that dogs wag their tails and that awe perpetually awaits us in the sky. The real yearning, the solomonic state of mind, is caused by too much gift, by too many things to love in too short a time. Because the more we are given, the more we feel the loss as we are all made poor and sent back to our dust.

"Oh, but we notice heartbeats when they stop. And we beg for more. If we are capable of sulking about Christmas while still around the tree half-buried in shiny paper (and we are), then of course we are capable of weeping when Christmas appears to be over. The ungrateful always farm bitterness in their hearts. Those with faith (yet another gift) rejoice even at the end and after. They wipe tears, more profoundly feeling the full wealth of lives given when those same lives are lost."

-N.D. Wilson in Death By Living (Thomas Nelson, 2013), pp.108-109

Minor Chords and the Smell of Carpet Glue

noreply@blogger.com (Joel) — Thu, 29 Aug 2013 15:30:00 +0000

Author Nate Wilson's followup to one of my top books of 2009 is Death By Living (Thomas Nelson, 2013). If Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl presented a way of viewing life and creation, Death By Living presents a way of living one's life in light of our impending death. It's creative, interesting, and funny, while being more intimately personal and biographical than Notes.

"This world is all incarnation. Words made flesh. Words. God has seen and God has said. His imagination is bone-shaking and soul-shivering, and He has never groped for words to capture (and be) those things. He imagined galaxies and clogged drains and sharks and harmonies and emotions and running and villains and foes and fungus and that heavy marriage of airs that we call water that can skip rocks and light and wind, that can quench and freeze and baptize. He imagined and felt the ache of a mother's love and the mortal yearning caused by the thrust of time and the speed of a falcon and the fear of a hare and minor chords and the smell of carpet glue. And none of these things were any good as ideas. They became words. Sounds mouthed by the Infinite. Rhythms, verbally enfleshed and shaped by the divine. They were spoken."

-N.D. Wilson in Death By Living (Thomas Nelson, 2013), pp. 20-21

Using Psalms of Lament Today

noreply@blogger.com (Joel) — Thu, 22 Aug 2013 12:00:00 +0000

I hadn't heard Gordon Wenham's name until I picked up his book The Psalter Reclaimed: Praying and Praising with the Psalms (Crossway, 2013). I'm not liable to forget his name easily after reading this excellent book. The first several chapters are especially good as they lay out the history of psalm singing and theological and practical reasons why we should incorporate them more heavily into our personal, family, and corporate worship. Chapter one is a fascinating discussion of speech-act theory and how the psalms change us as we sing and pray them.

In chapter two, titled "Praying the Psalms," Wenham describes each general type of psalm (praise, lament, penitential, messianic) and how they can be used by us today. His discussion of the psalms of lament is especially helpful, given the difficult nature of these psalms. Laments are psalms "in which the writer prays that God will deliver him from some crisis: sometimes his enemies, sometimes defeat in battle, sometimes a life-threatening illness" (pp. 43-44). Note that there is a full chapter later in the book dealing with the imprecatory psalms.

Wenham notes that the most frequent type of psalm in the collection of 150 is not psalms of praise, as we might think (or wish). The laments actually are the most frequently appearing type of psalm. But how are we as Christians in the 21st century to use these dark, sometimes violent, psalms? I'd like to share Wenham's outline of his answer to this question. I recommend reading the book to learn more.

Theological Reasons for the Laments
1. The lament psalms are some of the most quoted in the New Testament. Psalm 22 and 69 are the top two most frequently quoted psalms in all of the New Testament.
2. Jesus prayed these lament psalms. If Christ was praying through the psalter on the cross, as Wenham argues earlier, He would have sung about a dozen laments by the time he reached Psalm 22.
3. The book of Revelation includes one of the prayers of the dead martyrs in heaven that is based on the lament psalms (see Revelation 6:9-10, based on Psalm 94:3, 79:10, and 119:84).
4. The early church prayed these psalms.

Practical Reasons for the Laments
1. Not everyone who comes to church is full of joy and happiness. "Sufferers may pray the laments with hope that they will be able to say not only, 'How long, O Lord?" but also, 'I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me.'"
2. By praying these psalms those who have no problems and difficulties in their lives can learn to sympathize with those in trouble and pray for those who are suffering or persecuted.

Laments Versus Violence
Wenham asks, "Should a Christian really say, for example, these words: 'Break the arm of the wicked and evildoer; call his wickedness to account till you find none?'"
1. It is surely better to pray to God to punish the wicked than to do it yourself. Praying the laments breaks the circle of violence instead of perpetuating it.
2. These prayers to God to judge the wicked are an expression of hope in God's justice. None of us wants to see the wicked get away with it. Human justice is very imperfect...By calling on God to intervene, the psalmist or the one praying the psalms is affirming that God is the utterly fair and all-knowing judge. To those suffering, such laments are a message of hope: God will not let the wicked get away with it forever.
3. These psalms do more...If we care about the suffering of our fellow Christians, we should pray these psalms.

A Psalm for Every Occasion

noreply@blogger.com (Joel) — Mon, 19 Aug 2013 12:00:00 +0000

"Athanasius, the great African theologian...wrote a marvelous letter about the Psalms...The gist of the letter is that the Psalms are the best part of the Bible, and we should use them for our prayers whatever our situation may be because there is a psalm that suits our every need. Here are a few sentences from this wonderful letter:

'Whatever your particular need or trouble, from this same book you can select a form of words to fit it, so that you do not merely hear and then pass on, but learn the way to remedy your ill. The Psalms show you how to set about repenting and with what words your penitence may be expressed. The Psalms not only exhort us to be thankful, they also provide us with fitting words to say. We are told, too, by other writers that all who would live godly in Christ must suffer persecution; and here again the Psalms supply words with which both those who flee persecution and those who suffer under it may suitably address themselves to God, and it does the same for those who have been rescued from it. We are bidden elsewhere in the Bible also to bless the Lord and to acknowledge Him: here in the Psalms we are shown the way to do it, and with what sort of words His majesty may meetly be confessed. In fact, under all the circumstances of life, we shall find that these divine songs suit ourselves and meet our own souls' needs at every turn.'"

-Athanasius of Hippo, from the appendix to On the Incarnation titled "On the Interpretation of the Psalms," quoted by Gordan Wenham in The Psalter Reclaimed: Praying and Praising with the Psalms (Crossway, 2013), p. 39

Interest or the Lack of It

noreply@blogger.com (Joel) — Mon, 05 Aug 2013 12:03:00 +0000

"One conclusion I have reached after a year here in my cell is that the only emotion people feel nowadays is interest or the lack of it. Curiosity and interest and boredom have replaced the so-called emotions we used to read about in novels or see registered on actors' faces. Even the horrors of the age translate into interest. Did you ever watch anybody pick up a newspaper and read the headline PLANE CRASH KILLS THREE HUNDRED? How horrible! says the reader. But look at him when he hands you the paper. Is he horrified? No, he is interested. When was the last time you saw anybody horrified?"

-Lancelot Andrewes Lamar in Walker Percy's Lancelot (Picador, 1999/1977), pp. 21-22

Christianity is a Paradoxical Religion

noreply@blogger.com (Joel) — Mon, 29 Jul 2013 12:00:00 +0000

Related to my previous post, here's another excerpt from Bad Religion.

"Christianity is a paradoxical religion because the Jew of Nazareth is a paradoxical character. No figure in history or fiction contains as many multitudes as the New Testament's Jesus. He's a celibate ascetic who enjoys dining with publicans and changing water into wine at weddings. He's an apocalyptic prophet one moment, a wise ethicist the next. He's a fierce critic of Jewish religious law who insists that he's actually fulfilling rather than subverting it. He preaches a reversal of every social hierarchy while deliberately avoiding explicitly political claims. He promises to set parents against children and then disallows divorce; he consorts with prostitutes while denouncing even lustful thoughts. He makes wild claims about his own relationship to God, and perhaps his own divinity, without displaying any of the usual signs of megalomania or madness. He can be egalitarian and hierarchical, gentle and impatient, extraordinarily charitable and extraordinarily judgmental. He sets impossible standards and then forgives the worst of sinners. He blesses the peacemakers and then promises that he's brought not peace but the sword...

"The boast of Christian orthodoxy, as codified by the councils of the early Church and expounded in the Creeds, has always been its fidelity to the whole of Jesus. Its dogmas and definitions seek to encompass the seeming contradictions in the gospel narratives rather than evading them...

"The goal of the great heresies, on the other hand, has often been to extract from the tensions of the gospel narratives a more consistent, streamlined, and noncontradictory Jesus."

-Ross Douthat in Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics (Free Press, 2012), pp. 152-153 [emphasis his]

Scandalously Comprehensive Love and Judgment

noreply@blogger.com (Joel) — Tue, 23 Jul 2013 12:00:00 +0000

Ross Douthat's book Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics (2012) examines post World War II American Christianity and its lamentable decline. In the chapter on the 1960s and '70s hemorrhaging of mainline denominations ("accommodationists"), he explains some of their major faults. Interestingly, similar words could be written about much of today's Christianity as well, as much of it is repackaged liberalism marketed as new and revolutionary. There is, after all, nothing new under the sun.

"Genuine mysticism ultimately depends on genuine belief, and it often seems that all of these efforts were just so much 'play' with little connection to actual conviction...The old foundations of Christianity were being undercut by the social revolutions of their era. Yet they had failed to identify any new foundation that could inspire real piety, real allegiance, real belief.

"Here their emulation of Jesus proved fatally incomplete. In their quest to be inclusive and tolerant and up-to-date, the accommodationists imitated his scandalously comprehensive love, while ignoring his scandalously comprehensive judgments. They used his friendship with prostitutes as an excuse to ignore his explicit condemnations of fornication and divorce. They turned his disdain for religious authorities of his day and his fondness for tax collectors and Roman soldiers into a thin excuse for privileging the secular realm over the sacred. While recognizing his willingness to dine with outcasts and converse with nonbelievers, they deemphasized the crucial fact that he had done so in order to heal them and convert them - ridding the leper of his sickness, telling the Samaritans that soon they would worship in spirit and truth, urging the woman taken in adultery to go, and from now on sin no more.

"Given the climate of the 1960s and '70s, these choices were understandable. But the more the accommodationists emptied Christianity of anything that might offend the sensibilities of a changing country, the more they lost any sense that what they were engaged in really mattered, or was really, truly true."

-Ross Douthat in Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics (Free Press, 2012), p 108 [emphasis his]

Christian Values No Mere Means to an End

noreply@blogger.com (Joel) — Thu, 18 Jul 2013 12:00:00 +0000

"Christian values cannot be accepted as a superior utilitarianism, just as a means to an end. The biblical message is truth and it demands a commitment to truth. It means that everything is not the result of the impersonal plus time plus chance, but that there is an infinite-personal God who is the Creator of the universe, the space-time continuum. We should not forget that this was what the founders of modern science built upon. It means the acceptance of Christ as Savior and Lord, and it means living under God's revelation. Here there are morals, values, and meaning, including meaning for people, which are not just a result of statistical averages. This is neither a utilitarianism, nor a leap away from reason; it is the truth that gives a unity to all of knowledge and all of life. This second alternative means that individuals come to the place where they have this base, and they influence the consensus. Such Christians do not need to be a majority in order for this influence on society to occur."

-Francis Schaeffer in How Should We Then Live? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture (Crossway, 2005, L'abri 50th Anniversary Edition), p. 252

Love Ditties and Wanton Songs

noreply@blogger.com (Joel) — Mon, 08 Jul 2013 12:00:00 +0000

"I wish that the young men might have something to rid them of their love ditties and wanton songs and might instead of these learn wholesome things and thus yield willingly to the good; also, because I am not of the opinion that all the arts shall be crushed to earth and perish through the Gospel, as some bigoted persons pretend, but would willingly see them all, and especially music, servants of Him who gave and created them."

-Martin Luther, from the preface to the Wittenberg Gesangbuch hymnal; quoted in Francis Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture (Crossway, 2005 ed.), p. 90

2Q13 Book Briefs

noreply@blogger.com (Joel) — Tue, 02 Jul 2013 12:00:00 +0000

These are the books I read from April through June this year. My next list of books is live here. I just switched from a seasonal list to a quarterly list, though my reading habits and desires continue to be greatly influenced by the rhythms of the seasons. I am also working through Carson's commentary on John and The Valley of Vision this year.

The Atonement - Loraine Boettner (1941); Kindle // Read in the weeks leading up to Resurrection Sunday. Short but encouraging exposition on the centrality and magnitude of the death of Christ.

Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics - Ross Douthat (2012); Print // Read for an informal book discussion with guys from church. Interesting journalistic sociological/historical look at the demise of orthodoxy in the 20th century and the importance of its resurgence.

Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation - James K.A. Smith (2009); Print // The most thought provoking book I've read in a while. False dichotomies aside, it's an interesting work on worship, our most basic motivators, and cultural liturgies. Smith argues that our doctrine and belief should flow from our worship and practice, and not vice versa.

Mr. Penumbra's 24-hour Bookstore - Robin Sloan (2012); Print // Really fun summer read. Mysteries of a secret society for bibliophiles founded by one of the first book printers pursued by young technophile designer types. Nerdy and technical at times, in a charming, fun sort of way (if that's possible).

Poetry as a Means of Grace - Charles Osgood (1940); Print // The first chapter alone is worth the print-on-demand fee of this out-of-print gem. Praises the merits of reading poetry and adopting a poetic giant into one's life. Originally written for pastors, but beneficial for laity as well.

A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World - Paul Miller (2009); Kindle // More casual and informal than I expected, though that's not a bad thing. Helpful in cultivating a more aware, consistent, and relationship-oriented prayer life. Chapters on helplessness and praying without ceasing were especially good.

Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us - Michael Moss (2013); Print // This book made me never want to buy anything processed ever again - organic or not. Journalism at its best: this is not an alarmist work but a well researched and well written expose. Brief summary here.

The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry - Wendell Berry (1999); Print // Like Berry's fiction, themes of nature, place, marriage, death, and land saturate his poetry. Down to earth, understandable, yet profound. Favorites include: The Broken Ground, Marriage, and We Who Prayed and Wept.

Poetry as a Means of Grace

noreply@blogger.com (Joel) — Mon, 24 Jun 2013 12:00:00 +0000

Over the years, I have enjoyed taken reading recommendations from Dr. T. David Gordon's top ten books list, and also highly value his recommendations within his books and essays. One such book that came from one of his Why Johnny Can't... books is Charles Osgood's little out-of-print gem Poetry as a Means of Grace.

Written primarily for pastors, but also appropriate for laity, this book argues for the necessity of the discipline of reading literature - and poetry specifically - as a means to enriching one's life, learning about the world, and developing a deeper sense of beauty and truth. He also touches on the danger of separating "sacred" and "secular" art and of valuing sacred at the expense of secular. This has application not just to literature and poetry, but to music as well.

The first chapter lays out the arguments, and encourages the reader to "adopt" a timeless and transcendent (note: not transcendentalist) poet. Subsequent chapters give examples of poets that fit the bill (Dante and Milton, for example). I have not adopted a poet just yet, but I have unofficially "adopted" authors like Percy (fiction) and Postman (non-fiction) and have goals to read everything written by them.

The book is available on Amazon thanks to the print-on-demand capabilities of the University of Michigan Library. Here are two excellent excerpts from the first chapter:

"Literature serves its best ends, and keeps itself procreative by ministering pleasurably to the spiritual needs in any generation to which it may survive. Instead of leveling sacred literature down to its own plane, profane or secular literature dignifies itself to higher ends, as Virgil is dignified and illuminated by his service to Dante. And as Virgil might not enter Paradise, so secular literature cannot equal Holy Writ in power or authority or efficacy as a means of grace. Yet it may illustrate, reinforce, verify, and illuminate Holy Writ, and warp the world into the range and field of its magnetic influence. It may serve us as the sycamore tree served Zacchaeus, to gain a clearer sight of the Incarnate Truth." (pp 7-8)

"Literature helps us to see as important what is really important, though the world call it a trifle, and to see trifles as trifles, though the world call them important; like Lazarus in Browning's Epistle of Karshish, who returned from death to live on, newly aware of 'The spiritual life around the earthly life.'

"Thus literature, especially great poetry, extends the range of vision, intellectual, moral, spiritual; it expands the compass of our sympathy; it sharpens our discernment; it corrects our appraisal of all things. Such powers we recognize in all the great priests of sacred history. And if we could consult them, I fancy most of them would bear witness that no secular agency had been more efficacious than literature in giving them that authoritative ease among men and ideas, that spiritual and social sophistication which characterizes them all." (p. 19)

-Charles G. Osgood in Poetry as a Means of Grace (University of Michigan Library, 1940)

Earthy, Material, Mundane Worship

noreply@blogger.com (Joel) — Thu, 23 May 2013 12:00:00 +0000

Here's another quotation from Smith's book on worship, cultural liturgies, and desire. It speaks to the earthiness of worship and God's ultimate affirmation of earthiness through Christ's incarnation and resurrection.

"One of the first things that should strike us about Christian worship is how earthy, material, and mundane it is...Right here in Christian worship we have a sort of microcosm of creation - the 'world in a wafer.' And behind and under and in all of this is a core conviction, an implicit understanding that God inhabits all this earthy stuff, that we meet God in the material realities of water and wine, that God embraces our embodiment, embraces us in our embodiment. So before we articulate the conceptual affirmation of the goodness of creation (Gen. 1:31) that is integral to a Christian worldview, an understanding of this is enacted and performed by the church's worship. That God would meet us in the mundane and earthy is a performance of God's affirmation of creation and materiality as a good to be enjoyed and as a gift to be received, rather than a regrettable and lamentable condition from which we can hope to escape. The goodness of creation as a belief and even ontological claim makes sense for us because we first experience the blessing, sanctification, and riches of the material world in the joy and pleasure of Christian worship. There is a performative sanctioning of embodiment that is implicit in Christian worship, invoking the ultimate performance sanctioning of the body in the incarnation - which itself recalls the love of God that gave birth to the material creation - its reaffirmation in the resurrection of Jesus, and looks forward to the resurrection of the body as an eschatological and eternal affirmation of the goodness of creation."

-James K.A. Smith in Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation (Baker Academic, 2009), pp. 139-140

Credit: Jimmey LeBlanc

Capitulation to the Gospel of Consumption

noreply@blogger.com (Joel) — Mon, 20 May 2013 12:00:00 +0000

A friend I well respect recommended James K.A. Smith's Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation as a thought-provoking book on worship, our most basic motivators, and cultural liturgies. Smith's thesis is that we are not fundamentally thinking creatures, but desiring creatures. That is, our primary motivation does not come from a top-down model (head informing heart, knowledge preceding desire), but from a bottom-up model, with the heart or gut informing and motivating the mind. Thus, to Smith, emphasizing worldview and doctrinal training rather than focusing on worship and practice is backwards and hopelessly rational. Smith argues that our doctrine and belief should flow from our worship and practice, and not vice versa. One ironic example of this is that amid Reformed circles' criticism of neo-Gnosticism, we often employ a "bobble-head Christianity" whose focus is all on the head at the expense of fully realizing our embodied existence while neglecting the importance of the body's role in forming belief and practice.

I'm not sure I'm convinced of his premise just yet, for one reason or another. One reason is that the premise was fully founded on philosophy and anthropology (weighing heavily on existentialists) rather than also using Scripture. There are false dichotomies present and I have had a nagging feeling that I have been reading a veiled postmodern anti-intellectualist book (though he claims he is not advocating for such). I don't necessarily disagree with the premise, I was just hoping for a little more to convince me. When it comes down to it, I don't think the relationship between head/heart is an either/or but a synergistic both/and relationship. That said, I'm enjoying the book as a thought provoking and engaging read. His analysis of cultural/secular liturgies like the mall, sporting events, and the university is excellent, as is his discussion of the importance of having thoughtful, well-rounded corporate worship practices.

At the risk of posting something out of context and without the dozens of pages leading up to this point, here's a passage I enjoyed on the evangelical church's inadequate response to the "liturgies" of consumerism:

"Unfortunately, the Christian response to the liturgies of consumerism is often woefully inadequate, even a sort of parody of the mall. Rather than properly countering the liturgy of consumption, the church ends up mimicking it, merely substituting Christian commodities - "Jesufied" versions of worldly products, which are acquired, accumulated, and disposed of to make room for the new and the novel. This happens, I think, mainly because we fail to see the practices of consumption as liturgies. Typical Christian analysis of the situation, including the critique of materialism (where that still happens), tends to focus on what is being purchased, rather than calling into question the gospel of consumption - the sense that acquisition brings happiness and fulfillment. So instead, the evangelical community simply replays the gospel of consumption but with "Jesus" stuff (a quick visit to any local Christian bookstore - more likely now described as a "gift shop" - will confirm this point). We even end up reconfiguring "church" by this strange "other" gospel where God can be reduced to a commodity. The wisdom of historical liturgy offers a very different sort of response."

-James K.A. Smith in Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation (Baker Academic, 2009), p. 103

An application of this capitulation to consumerism in the church is music. Pop music is the soundtrack of consumerism with its transience; emphasis on charts, sales, and celebrity; domination of the new and novel at the expense of quality and depth; manipulation of emotions but with shallow lyrics and music, and radical individualism. It's no different with Christian pop music, which has infiltrated the church by way of celebrities and radio. In the church, the adoption of church-pop music that is essentially sub-par mimicry of secular pop music further adds to the commodification of Christianity and consumerism in the church. After hearing some of this church-pop after being removed from it for several years, it is jarring how much of it is poorly mimicked pop music that employs formulaic manipulation with rising choruses and catchy riffs that mask shallow lyrics and poor musicianship. Because of the nature of pop music (and popular culture in general), churches that have adopted this music style are left with trying to keep up with the latest trends and catchy hooks of church-pop under the guise of being "relevant," or find themselves unable to keep up and stuck in 1994. But as Gordon notes (or maybe it was Myers?), church-pop is actually not relevant because if the unchurched or young were looking for good pop music (oxymoron?), they would do better to look outside church-pop.

The Perfect Bible?

noreply@blogger.com (Joel) — Mon, 13 May 2013 12:00:00 +0000

Nope, this isn't a post about inerrancy. Sorry to dash your hopes against the rocks. But book lovers and design geeks, chins up! This is a post about book design and typography: heavy nerd alert.

Crossway recently released a new edition of the English Standard Version Bible (my favorite translation): the ESV Single Column Legacy Bible. Does the world really need another edition of the Bible, you might be asking? Great question. In Crossway's case, they didn't create an unneeded new edition just to pad sales. That is, this Bible doesn't fall into the category of the ridiculousness that is the study Bible market, for example: Teen Study Bible, Boys Study Bible, Veggie Tales Bible, Girls Life Application Glittery Grape Butterfly Study Bible (not kidding). And we wonder why narcissism is a problem. I think it is safe to assume that Luther did not have the current Bible market in mind when he translated the scriptures into the common tongue.

But I digress. This Bible edition is beautiful. Stunning. Eminently readable. An aesthetic appeal to match the beauty of God's Word. The layout was based on the Renaissance-era "canons of page construction," or as Crossway describes it, the "Renaissance ideal of a perfect page." These ideals are based on a 2:3 ratio of the text area to page size. Here's an example page provided by Crossway:

Renaissance thinkers viewed these proportions as the perfect layout and impossible to improve upon. If the above example seems underwhelming, I assure you that it does not compare to reading this Bible in person. You can check out more pictures and details here.

Also contributing to the readability and beautiful design of this Bible is the text itself. The typeface is clean, crisp, readable, and not distracting, especially in the single column format. Section headings have been moved to the margins, and there are no distracting and microscopic cross references. Crossway has also employed line matching in this edition, in which each line of text matches the lines on the other side of the page exactly. This drastically decreases bleed-through and improves readability even more. The layout of the Psalms and other poetry in particular is fantastic.

The quality of this edition is also of a very high caliber, and the attention to detail is evident. The paper is thicker, more opaque, and whiter than the typical Bible paper, and the printing and binding are superb. For you typeface and design nerds, here are the specs:

     Font: Lexicon, 9 pt / 10.75 pt leading
     Paper: 36 gsm Thincoat Plus
     Printed in Italy

All these features help this edition read and feel more like a book than a Bible, which makes this the most readable Bible I've ever laid eyes on. It is also not much heavier or larger than a thinline Bible, so it's fairly portable, too. A concordance and color maps are included in the back of the book. I look forward to giving it heavy use, while using my Reformation Study Bible for more in-depth study.

Some drawbacks include the hefty price tag ($170 retail for the top grain leather edition, $49.99 for tru-tone), lack of cross references, and no explanation of the edition's design within the book itself.

No, Crossway did not pay me or ask me to write this review. I'm that excited about this edition. Thanks to my in-laws for the great birthday gift!

Desire Like Dynamite

noreply@blogger.com (Joel) — Mon, 06 May 2013 12:00:00 +0000

As I get older, the more cognizant I am becoming of my shortcomings. Keeping up with the blog, for one. Writing music reviews, for two. I've tried my hand over the years at writing album reviews, but I find they are more difficult to write than book reviews. That said, this post isn't so much a review as it is a recommendation for Sandra McCracken's new album Desire Like Dynamite.

We saw McCracken live a couple weeks ago at a small venue in downtown Lancaster. It was just her and her acoustic guitar, playing a flexible setlist and taking requests. She introduced each song with a story about its meaning or background. There was even a receiving line after the show, where she chatted with fans as they left. We found her to be warm, humble, and likeable; we went home feeling like we had known her for a long time. She played several songs from her new album while mixing in old favorites. Overall, a very enjoyable evening out.

This simple acoustic show was different than the sound of her new album, which features a fuller sound than her previous records. But even though there are more layered sounds on this album, McCracken's voice features prominently, with its stripped down, unflashy, folk sound. It's a stellar album that has been garnering rave reviews.

At the concert, we learned a lot of the album's back story. McCracken explained how she is the daughter of a biology teacher, which gave her a deep-rooted appreciation for nature. She also related how she has come to view much of the environmental rhetoric as cliched and shallow. So she wrote a deeper, more complex album that conveys her sadness for the lack of care for creation, as well as ultimate trust in God. One of her goals was to provide a more robust vocabulary of sadness (inspired by McEntyre's Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies), which is reflected in the overall tone of the album being that of lament.

Lament themes are evident, but not in an overpowering or preachy way. Instead, they are thoughtful, passionate, and artful, much like two of her main influences for this album: Wendell Berry and the Psalms. Berry's influence is hard to miss, especially on the songs Redbird, Gridlock, In the Garden, and the title track. The title track was inspired by the closing of Berry's novel Jayber Crow:

I dreamed I heard the sound of the last great god bird singing
Lying in the trees I could hear the ax machines that were ringing
This is like a fable to be told, but I'd rather put it down
Will we choose the noise of our desire or the hope that makes no sound?

That said, this album is not just about the environment, nor is it a protest album. There are also prevalent notes of forgiveness, parenting and children, and longing. You may recognize McCracken's name from her work on the Indelible Grace projects over the years, so it should not be surprising that there are biblical themes present. Biblical, but not in a way that these songs would ever be played on K-Love. In fact, several of the songs have psalm-like qualities: themes of waiting, light, lament, hope, and restoration. Glimmers of hope undergird the lament on the album, giving the lament a reason and a direction. My favorite song on the album is probably Hourglass, which is a subtle example of this hope underneath lament:

We're tangled in the cords
Of every new invention we are begging to ignore
And I saw our home
For the first one was gone, every good thing was restored
And the sea was no more.

The album fittingly closes with In the Garden, not to be confused with the awful "hymn" of the same name. Imagery of gardens and the seasons is juxtaposed with longing for the consummation of all things and hope in the resurrection:

The winter branches, gray the landscape
Like snow, in silence we are found
Disconnected bones, dust and ashes
We will be raised, one body from the ground

Red the rose, the years like vapor
The king, the table, and the feast
We are waiting for the consummation
Until the sword is thrown into the sea.

I highly recommend this album; it is (buzzword alert!) thoughtful, honest, sincere, poetic, and *gasp* authentic. Some closing ramblings: her songwriting shows artistry and maturity, comparisons to Sara Groves on a couple songs are not far-fetched, Matthew Perryman Jones and Derek Webb make cameo appearances, and the song Sweet Amelia was written for her friends' adoption. You can get a sampler of the album below via Noise Trade, or purchase the album here. Tour dates can be found here.

As Plain As It Is Possible For Words To Make It

noreply@blogger.com (Joel) — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 12:00:00 +0000

I admire the late Loraine Boettner for many things: he was a clear-thinking theologian and teacher, an author of many helpful books (including books on the Reformed faith and post-millennialism), he was a devoted churchman and member of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and he worked for the Library of Congress. This excerpt from his helpful short book The Atonement is worth quoting at length.

"Thus the death of Christ emerges as the central truth in the Christian doctrine of redemption. It is the link which holds together all of the other distinctive doctrines. The mark of His blood is upon them and signifies their ownership, as the scarlet thread running through every cord and rope of the British navy signifies that it is the property of the crown. It hardly seems possible that, with this central truth written so plainly and so repeatedly across the pages of Scripture, any honest or serious minded persons could arise, as do the Unitarians and Modernists, and declare that the essence of Christianity consists in our following the example of Christ in lives of social service, or that the chief purpose of the Church is to build a new social order in this world. It is very evident, of course, that in our daily lives we are to follow the example of Christ as closely as possible. And in due course of time a new social order, based on justice and improved living conditions, will gradually arise as Christian principles are applied first to the lives of individuals and through them to the life of the community. In many limited social groups we already see the effects of this uplifting process. But Christ's expiatory death is no more an object for our imitation than is the creation of the world. For in His death he took man's place and rendered to divine justice a satisfaction which man himself was utterly unable to render. That Christianity is not primarily a social movement, but a redemptive religion, setting forth a way of escape from sin, is as plain as it is possible for words to make it."

-Lorraine Boettner in The Atonement (1941), from chapter two

Open Fifths and Glory

noreply@blogger.com (Joel) — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 12:00:00 +0000

"The fact that the church has largely abandoned the singing of psalms means that the church has abandoned a songbook that is thoroughly masculine in its lyrics. The writer of most of the psalms was a warrior, and he knew how to fight the Lord’s enemies in song. With regard to the music of our psalms and hymns, we must return to a world of vigorous singing, vibrant anthems, more songs where the tenor carries the melody, open fifths, and glory. Our problem is not that such songs do not exist; our problem is that we have forgotten them. And in forgetting them, we are forgetting our boys. Men need to model such singing for their sons."

-Doug Wilson in Future Men (Canon Press, 2001), p.100

No Exemptions for Teenage Boys

noreply@blogger.com (Joel) — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 12:00:00 +0000

"As they grow up, young men are to be prepared for the spiritual warfare that awaits them. They have to learn their responsibilities as part of the kingdom. 'Both young men and maidens; old men and children. Let them praise the name of the Lord, for his name alone is exalted; his glory is above the earth and heaven' (Ps. 148:12-13).

"The first thing to note is that the kingdom of God is not divided. The members of various subgroups are certainly distinguished from each other, and they are treated differently with regard to their social relations. But the basic responsibility of all - men and women, young men and young women, boys and girls, remains the same - to worship the Lord. Our tendency is to say things like, 'Oh, well at his age you can't really expect this.' But this is radically unbiblical. Everything that breathes has an obligation to praise the Lord; no exemptions have been granted for teenage boys. The Bible knows nothing of a normal alienation between generations.

"The blessings which flow from such faithful worship are not limited to those who are older. 'The Lord their God will save them in that day, as the flock of his people. For they shall be like the jewels of a crown, lifted like a banner over his land - for how great is its goodness and how great its beauty! Grain shall make the young men thrive, and new wine the young women' (Zech. 9:16-17). When God is blessing a people, all are included in his bounty."

-Doug Wilson in Future Men (Canon Press, 2001), p. 43

Winter Book Briefs

noreply@blogger.com (Joel) — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 12:00:00 +0000

Here are the books I finished this winter. My next list of books is live here. I just switched from a seasonal list to a quarterly list, since it is awkward to carry over winter books from 2012 to this list. I am also continuing to read Carson's commentary on John (enlightenly excellent), The Valley of Vision (robustly encouraging), and The Book of Common Prayer (devotionally fun).

The Book of Sorrows - Walter Wangerin (1985) // Print. The haunting, beautiful, rich sequel to The Book of the Dun Cow. Both are highly recommended for their incredible prose, their profound allusions, and their rewarding reading. A book that demands reflection after each chapter, and has stayed with me long after I finished.

The Death of Ivan Ilyich - Leo Tolstoy (1886) Print. Technically a short story, and a great one. Recounts the realization of the title character that his materialistic, selfish life has been a sham. Powerful and emotional.

The Early Stories, 1953-1975 - John Updike (2004) Print. Updike is a master of English, though his plots and characters are average. Many stories present a quest for truth in spite of the spiritual malaise of the 20th century, especially by exploring the meaningfulness of love, family, and place. His autobiographical Olinger Stories were enjoyable because of the descriptions of Reading, where I’ve worked for three years.

Future Men: Raising Boys to Fight Giants - Doug Wilson (2001) Print. Really well done. Two points especially stood out: that Christian boys should be intentionally raised with an appreciation for the sovereignty of God and an ultimately optimistic worldview. Also, the excellent chapter on dragons was apparently inspired by a friend's senior thesis. Has anyone read the new 2011 edition?

Given for You: Reclaiming Calvin's Doctrine of the Lord's Supper - Keith Mathison (2002) Print. A thorough treatment of the true Calvinistic/Reformed doctrine of the Lord's Supper, which has fallen into a shallow Zwinglian memorialist view among the Reformed. His discussion of the continuity of Passover was most helpful. Historical and practical, though I would have liked to see more practical issues discussed (e.g. a discussion of bread in the sacrament, not just wine). Unfortunately, it reads more like a seminary paper than a mainstream book.

Heaven Misplaced: Christ's Kingdom on Earth - Doug Wilson (2008) Print. Presents a wide-angle view of Christ's continuing reign and the ultimately optimistic, seemingly unbelievable promises and purposes of God. Turns much of the poor prophetic exegesis and obsessive headline-reading that is so pervasive in contemporary Christianity on its head. Concise and provoking, in true Wilson style.

Heaven on Earth - Thomas Brooks (1667) Kindle. A somewhat misleading title, as this is a book on assurance, not eschatology. Pastoral, thorough, and thoughtful if a bit stuffy and repetitive.

Home Coffee Roasting: Romance and Revival - Kenneth Davids (2003) Print. The "bible" on home roasting; a must read for anyone interested in taking up this romantic hobby. In the two months that I've been roasting, I've consulted it dozens of times.

Singing and Making Music: Issues in Church Music Today - Paul S. Jones (2006) Print. More a collection of topical essays than a book-length treatment of worship. Most were very helpful and carefully written, especially those on the role of instrumental music in worship, the form of musical aesthetics, and the role of musicians. Chapters on picking an organ and mini-biographies on Stravinsky and Brahms seemed oddly out of place, though.

What is the Mission of the Church? Making Sense of Social Justice, Shalom, and the Great Commission - Kevin DeYoung & Greg Gilbert (2011) Audio. Pretty good, though its repetitiveness was only accentuated as an audiobook. Probably wouldn't convince a staunch missional/emergent/pomo Christian, but helpful in interacting with their main ideas.

Proper Worship Takes Work, Thought, Preparation, and Action

noreply@blogger.com (Joel) — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 12:00:00 +0000

"Thought is missing more and more in worship today. Apparently we are more concerned about our emotional connection and what we are 'getting' out of the worship experience than in being cognitively engaged or spiritually awakened. This mindset is one of the primary reasons that hymns have fallen out of popularity and use in many churches. It is because they require thought; and as a people, we do not want to think. Not many years ago I read a short article by a seminary professor in a prominent Christian periodical. He wrote something along the lines of, 'Let's stop being enslaved to the present rationalistic, intellect-centered approach to church that characterizes much of evangelicalism.' Well, he got his wish. Today most evangelicals come to church to be refreshed, not to work or to think.

"Yet proper worship does take work. It also takes thought, preparation, and action. If we understood that our singing is not for ourselves or directed principally to each other, but to and for God, that understanding would make a difference in how we engage in it. If we were more conscious of the fact that when we sing we are praising God and praying to him, that we are in the presence of the King of Glory, we would realize how important it is to know what we are singing."

-Paul S. Jones in Singing and Making Music: Issues in Church Music Today (P&R, 2006), p. 43

Prohibition & Temperance: Grape Juice in Communion Since the 1800s

noreply@blogger.com (Joel) — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 13:00:00 +0000

I happen to disagree with Keith Mathison on one point in the quotation below. The Grand Failed Experiment called Prohibition does not have only one lasting "success," it has two. The first is described below. The second is that Pennsylvania still has antiquated and ridiculous laws related to state-run stores, liquor licenses, and a monopoly held by distributors and their unions. Besides this minor disagreement, I think Mathison lays out irrefutable arguments for using wine in the Lord's Supper in his book Given for You.

"The history of the temperance movement and Prohibition is fascinating, but it is beyond the scope of this work to trace it in any detail. Suffice it to say that the temperance movement was a moral, political, and cultural failure. The movement failed culturally because it shared one of the flawed presuppositions of Christian liberalism. It placed the responsibility for sin in an external object rather than in the human heart. Getting rid of alcohol did not and could not get rid of sin and evil in the heart of man. The movement failed morally because it allowed itself to be deceived into setting up a higher standard of righteousness than the word of God. By prohibiting what God allowed, the movement fell into self-righteous legalism. The movement's only lasting 'success' is found in those churches that used its logic as the basis for replacing wine with grape juice in the Lord's Supper."

-Keith Mathison in Given for You: Reclaiming Calvin's Doctrine of the Lord's Supper (P&R, 2002), p. 305

Remembering and the Lord's Supper

noreply@blogger.com (Joel) — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 13:00:00 +0000

Keith Mathison's Given for You is an excellent, careful treatment of the true Calvinistic/Reformed doctrine of the Lord's Supper, which has fallen into a Zwinglian memorialist view among the Reformed for the last couple centuries. Mathison shows how Calvin's complex, beautiful, scriptural view of the Lord's Supper fell on hard times among the Reformed starting with the Puritans and continuing through the Princeton giants. He is painstakingly thorough and historical, though unfortunately this makes it read more like a long seminary paper than a mainstream book. His treatment of Calvin, Scripture, and Passover in the context of refuting the memorialist view is particularly helpful, with a page quoted at length here:

"Just as some have taken the words 'This is my body' to an ill-conceived extreme, others have taken the words 'Do this in remembrance of me' to the opposite extreme. Both extremes are erroneous. The words 'Do this in remembrance of me' do not refer to a purely subjective mental recollection. Understood within the Passover context, this phrase points to the idea that the congregation becomes contemporary with Christ's act of redemption. As Thiselton explains, 'If we press the analogy with the 'remembrance' of the Passover in the Haggadah, making contemporary is achieved primarily by projecting the reality of the 'world' of the Passover and drawing participants of later generations into it.' The fact that 'remembrance' is not merely mental recollection is clearly demonstrated by comparing the use of the word in other contexts.

"'To remember God's mighty acts' or 'to remember the poor' is not simply to call them to mind but to assign to them an active role within one's 'world.' 'To remember' God is to engage in worship, trust, and obedience, just as 'to forget' God is to turn one's back on him. Failure to remember is not absent-mindedness but unfaithfulness to the covenant and disobedience. 'Remembering' the gospel tradition or 'remembering' Christian leaders transforms attitude and action. To 'remember' the poor is to relieve their needs."

Those who reduce the Lord's Supper to an act of mental recollection are imposing modern modes of thought on the text of Scripture. Those who reduce the Supper to an act of subjective mental recollection do so with no exegetical warrant. By doing this, they divest the sacrament of most of its true value, importance, and meaning, thereby leaving little more than an empty shell."

-Keith Mathison in Given for You: Reclaiming Calvin's Doctrine of the Lord's Supper (P&R, 2002), p. 232 [Mathison quoting Thiselton in the middle]

Paths Worn Smooth in the Raw Terrain of Our Hearts

noreply@blogger.com (Joel) — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 13:00:00 +0000

I'm learning that John Updike was and is a polarizing writer. Most people seem to either love him or hate him. As with most things, I find myself squarely in the middle of those two extremes. He truly had a mastery of the English language that surpassed many other authors of his era. He was a true language artist. Some common critiques of Updike's fiction are that his plots are too formulaic, his characters too flat, and his descriptions too flowery. Others claim that he was elitist: a white upper class male writing from the comforts of his Harvard office for his audience of upper middle class white New Yorker subscribers. Many think he was too "popular" and wrote mainly just to collect a check. Fair enough. I have found Updike's short stories to be mostly enjoyable; they coalesce around his down-to-earth characters searching for truth while struggling with the spiritual malaise of modern times. Themes of love, family, place, and memory dominate. Updike's autobiographical Olinger Stories were even more enjoyable for me because of his descriptions of the Reading, PA area, where we lived for a year and where I’ve worked for three years.

Here's an excerpt from one of his short stories, "Packed Dirt, Churchgoing, a Dying Cat, a Traded Car." It is one of my favorites. This excerpt comes near the beginning, right as the character is completing a meditation on his love for the human propensity for wearing paths in dirt.

"This small modification, this modest work of human erosion, seemed precious to me not only because it recalled, in the slope and set of the dirt, a part of the path that long ago had led down from my parents' back yard to the high-school softball field. It seemed precious because it had been achieved accidentally, and had about it that repose of grace which is beyond willing. We in America have from the beginning been cleaning and baring the earth, attacking, reforming the immensity of nature we were given. We have explored, on behalf of all mankind, this paradox: the more matter is outwardly mastered, the more it overwhelms us in our hearts. Evidence - gaping right-of-ways, acres mercilessly scraped, bleeding mountains of muddy fill - surrounds us of a war that is incapable of ceasing, and it is good to know that now there are enough of us to exert a counter-force. If craters were to appear in our landscape tomorrow, the next day there would be usable paths threading down the blasted sides. As our sense of God's forested legacy to us dwindles, there grows, in these worn, rubbed, and patted patches, a sense of human legacy - like those feet of statues of saints which have lost their toes to centuries of kisses...

"There was a time when I wondered why more people did not go to church. Taken purely as a human recreation, what could be more delightful, more unexpected than to enter a venerable and lavishly scaled building kept warm and clean for use one or two hours a week and to sit and stand in unison and sing and recite creeds and petitions that are like paths worn smooth in the raw terrain of our hearts?"

-John Updike in "Packed Dirt, Churchgoing, a Dying Cat, a Traded Car," within Early Stories, 1953-1975 (Random House, 2004), p. 103; Originally published in The New Yorker, December 16, 1961, p. 59