Ontogeny and Phylogeny

"Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day."

Any of you who had to take biology may have had to memorize the phrase, "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny," a pedantic mouthful which asserted that any individual organism repeated in its early development all the evolutionary stages of its species. In other words, a human fetus went from zygote to ichthyoid through reptilian to mammalian characteristics. As far as I know, the theory has been discredited among biologists. But I am fascinated with it because it is a good way to grasp the nature of God, sin, light, darkness, redemption, eschatology, and the nature of our world. It means that in order to comprehend those things, we must, in a fit of ontogenetic egocentrism, begin with ourselves.

So, here I go, wandering out on very thin ice, trying to describe Christian experience as generically as possible. It seems to me that every Christian finds within himself the light of Christ, in small or large measure. How that light gets there--through baptism, through adult conversion, through a hidden work of the Holy Spirit (already we are on the cusp of division)--the light is there, and it is instantly met by the darkness in us, and inner contention and warfare ensue. In fact, it increases as the Christian grows in wisdom and awareness, and joins himself more and more in battle for the side of light. We can call it gradual justification, sanctification, or divinization (I can hear the ice cracking), but we all know the battle.

It is also true, as we age, that we are not going to reach 100% victory in the struggle against flesh and sin before we die. Only a cataclysm can end the war. We call it death. Whether or not the victory that results from that cataclysm is instantaneous or progressive (a tip of the hat to purgatory) is beyond my purpose here. I am trying to describe what all Christians experience in common: new birth, conflict of light and darkness, a final cataclysm, and a fulfillment of God's promised salvation somewhere on the other side.

While "flesh" and "spirit" and not exact parallels to "body" and "soul" in the Scriptures, it is obvious in the Bible that the body must die before a future resurrection is possible. How are we to treat it in the meantime? Should it be cleaned and fed and kept in as much health as possible? Of course. Carrying the broken image of God, it is still to be nurtured and treated with respect until it is raised a "spiritual" body. My point here is not to probe the next world, but to suggest that we have a responsibility even to that which is passing away.

Back to our analogy from biology: The world began almost at once in darkness. Genesis describes cultures outside the gates of Eden founded on pride and power. God curtailed both by the curse of inarticulate speech. And in a hidden way He began to raise up a line of light (Melchizedek, Abraham, Jethro, Moses, etc) that culminated in the Light of Bethlehem. Since then the light has continued to grow, but the "darkness did not comprehend it." The phylogenic struggle is between the light, flickering at times and at other times flaring up, and the darkness that surrounds and attempts to cover it. The struggle can only end in the cataclysm of the final judgment.

Does this mean that those who bear the light have a right to curse those in darkness? No more than the Christian can mistreat or ignore his own mortal body. Those in the light carry a responsibility to relieve pain and oppression. In fact, "responsibility" is too negative a word. Joy or Delight would do better. They were on the face of Jesus in the midst of the ten lepers.

So much for the parallel of the individual Christian's life and the time span of the world. There remains one more question. How does this apply to the church? I really see no apparent difference. The church is full of light; in fact, carries the whole light of the world within herself. And the church, at least in her members, also walks in the body of flesh. This is most manifested in her divisions. The same arguments persist, and the same arguments are repeated. I have read several books lately that are updates of older and more profound works, repeating old arguments as if they were newborn, written for an audience which prefers shorter chapters with simpler words. Sometimes I think there has been no progress for 500 years, or 1000, if we are counting from the Great Schism.

To be fair, it is impossible to hear the Story and not interpret it. Even the four Gospel writers had different agendas for different audiences. But just as they are willing to read all four Gospels, the people of God need to literally hear another side of the Story. I also need to point out that the light of the church exists most intimately in local congregations, in personal witness and care, rather than in institutional methods. There is light shining in small places, and it seems to be spreading.

But I wonder, if we follow the ontogenetic pattern, if a cataclysm might break the power of division. I remember hearing a story once--perhaps apocryphal but full of truth--of a group of clergy of different traditions arrested and detained for torture and execution in a hostile (communist?) state. The common cell brought them closer together. One (assumed Protestant) suggested that they take Communion together. The high churchmen were horrified. "We can only say the mass over the relics of a saint or martyr!" The response: "Brothers, we are all martyrs here." They petitioned the guards for bread and wine. May we do so with less harsh motivation.

(PS: Some good reads. GK Chesterton's Life of Thomas Aquinas, Peter Leithart's Athananius, John Flavel's The Fountain of Life--a Puritan study of the atonement, and Keith Mathison's Given for You--a study of Calvin's doctrine of the Eucharist)

The Scapegoat

(From a series of devotionals I'm doing where I work)

"...Aaron shall lay both is hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel.... The goat shall bear all their iniquities on itself into a remote area, and he shall let the goat go free in the wilderness." -Leviticus 16:21, 22

"Most merciful God, who art of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, and hast promised forgiveness to all those who confess and forsake their sins; we come before thee in a humble sense of our unworthiness, acknowledging our manifold transgressions of thy righteous laws." -Book of Common Prayer

After the First World War, Germany was a defeated country, humiliated by the allies, and suffering economically from inflation and the loss of men for the labor force. The nation began to look for someone other than itself to blame. Hitler played into this need by pointing to the Jews as the source of all the ills Germany had experienced. This blaming of an innocent party for perceived wrongs is called "scapegoating." A scapegoat is someone who is made to bear the blame for the actions of others.

The term actually goes back to an Old Testament ritual practiced on the Day of Atonement. The High Priest took two goats, one which was sacrificed, and its blood taken into the Temple to cover the sins of the people; the other symbolically took the sins of Israel upon itself and was taken into the wilderness and released. The first goat was a "propitiation." It took upon itself the penalty for sin (death), and as its blood was placed over the ark, the wrath of God was appeased. The second goat was an "expiation," a term that meant to take sin away out of the presence of God.

The Bible describes Jesus as our scapegoat. Jesus takes away our sins "as far as the east is from the west" (Psalm 103:12), an infinite distance. That means that through Him nothing can hinder us from the presence of God, and we "can come boldly before the throne of grace" (Hebrews 10:19). God, according to Isaiah, puts all our sins "behind His back" (38:17), and promises to not even remember them anymore (Isaiah 43:25).

But in spite of these promises, Christians lapse into regarding their relationship to God by their own performance, and often live under the shadow of a haunting guilt or fear that God is not fully reconciled to them. I ask myself a question when I am in those moods: Just how valuable is the blood of Christ to God the Father? The only answer is: "of infinite worth." That means that God does not reluctantly forgive us, but does so joyously, with a determination to bring us into deeper and deeper communication with Himself.

One last thought. How did the Jews know that God accepted the blood of the propitiation and the life of the expiation? Because the High Priest came out the Temple alive at the end of the ceremony! How do we know God accepted the sacrifice of Christ for us? Because He came out of the tomb alive! The resurrection was God's way of validating the completed sacrifice.

The Story

I grew up in a neighborhood in a southern city, back when houses faced the street, and streets had sidewalks, and people sat on their front porches and talked to each other. In that neighborhood, there were neighborhood churches, and Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Catholics, and Episcopalians could all walk to church from their homes, sometimes passing each other on the way. The only folks who had to drive were the Orthodox, whose church had to serve several neighborhoods.

My parents' preference was the Presbyterian church three blocks down the street. And there, along with the folks in the other churches, I heard the story. It sunk deeply into my child's heart, and as far back as I can remember I believed it. Still do. This time of year I can once again smell the evergreens and candles of the Christmas Season and the story read and acted and sung and professed in the Word. I think after all these years that the high point of faith for me was walking the aisle at the annual pageant, stumbling over my father's bathrobe and scratching at a false beard, bearing gifts (or was it a staff?), and knowing without doubt that Mary Jane Whats-her-name's baby doll in the manger was God's gift to me. Simple story: God became man, died for my sins, and opened his arms to me his child. And when on Christmas Sunday the pastor in his black robe held up a piece of cracker and said "This is my body," I had no idea of the historic minefield I would later discover there. At the time I reached out and took Jesus as he offered himself as a gift to me.

Later I discovered that there were doctrines about the story, and I learned that doctrine arises because man is a thoughtful creature, and in order to interpret what the story means, must ponder and muse and separate the essential from the lesser. Doctrine is a necessary, but in some ways, neutral, thing. At its worst it can divide us, and at its best keep us from believing the wrong story. But it is always a finite thing because the minds that contemplate the story will always only see a part; the story itself and the God of the story are infinite in content and in time. We have not yet adequately explored it.

One thing is for certain: while doctrine can offer protection and direction, it can never offer life. Life comes through the Wisdom of God, and Wisdom comes to us through the story. The best doctrine can say is, "Christianity is relational," a definition that loses its punch simply because it is a definition. Doctrine gives us fine definitions; story makes martyrs. But the story does an even greater wonder: it transforms the common drudgery of life into communion with heaven. Doctrine is like a candle lighting the way for a man; the story is a bright burning sun in the heart of a child.

Christ's Active Obedience

(From a series of devotionals I'm doing at work--a synopsis of Jerry Bridges' The Gospel for Real Life)

"Can any of you prove me guilty of sin?" -John 8:46

"Jesus not only desired to do God's will, He also delighted in doing it." -Jerry Bridges

Before discussing Christ's active obedience for us, we need to first look at a couple of theological concepts that explain why it is important.

First is the concept of "federalism." This means simply that the leader of a group stands for the whole group, and the group's destiny is wrapped up in the decisions of the leader. For instance, while it was true that the Colonial Army defeated the British Army at Yorktown, we usually say, "Cornwallis surrendered to Washington." We might say that all the men on both sides were "in" their leaders.

Biblically, our relationship to Adam is federal. In his fall, we fell, and in his sin, sin indwelt each of us. Likewise, Christ is the federal head of all who have faith in Him. When He lived a perfect life, and when He paid the penalty for sin, all Christians were in Him, and are counted as righteous before God as He is.

The other concept is the "principle of exchange," also known as union with Christ. This is stated clearly in 2 Corinthians 5:21: "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." God reckons our sin onto Christ, who bears it, and reckons us as righteous as our federal head is. This exchange is both legal and vital. "Legal" means that God accepts the exchange outside us--we might say it's a "done deal." "Vital" means that God by His Holy Spirit actually begins a gradual change in us because of the finished work of Christ.

Jesus was always obedient to His Father, and that obedience is "credited" to His followers as if they were as obedient. Theologians describe two types of obedience: active, and passive. Christ's active obedience consisted in how He lived His life; His passive obedience consisted in submitting to what was done to Him, particularly in his crucifixion and death. This can also be seen from the standpoint of the Jewish Law, which gave both precepts and penalties for breaking them. Jesus lived perfectly by the precepts of God's Law, and also bore the penalty exacted for disobedience.

We focus almost entirely on Christ's passive obedience, and often forget that His daily life was lived on our behalf. Christ grew up in a family. There is no indication that he related to them in anger, or jealousy, or selfishness. In His adult life He challenged His contemporaries to find any blemish in Him.

Jesus faced temptations that would destroy any one of us. In the wilderness Satan tempted Him to side-step the will of God. He used the same tactics he used on Adam and Eve in the beginning. He appealed to the "lust of the flesh," (hunger), the "lust of the eye," (coveting), and the "pride of life" (exalting Himself above the Father). Jesus never reacted in anger to the injustice and suffering in His trial and death. He forgave those who crucified Him.

If Jesus was our federal Head and Substitute, then God credits us with His life of perfect obedience. He also places His life within us, and His life is our life, and all our attempts to live for Him, without Him, are useless.

Manchester's Last Paragraphs

William Manchester's The Death of a President came out in 1967, the product of one man's research of the Kennedy assassination. It is more personal and emotional than, say, the Report of the Warren Commission. The last two paragraphs of the book have come back to my memory time and again over the years. At the risk of being terribly maudlin, I place them here for anybody who remembers, and for those who don't.

"Unknown to her, the clothes Mrs. Kennedy wore into the bright midday glare of Dallas lie in an attic not far from 3017 N. Street. In Bethesda that night those closest to her had vowed that from the moment she shed them she should never see them again. She hasn't. Yet they are still there, in one of two long brown paper cartons thrust between roof rafters. The first is marked 'September 12, 1953,' the date of her marriage; it contains her wedding gown. The block-printed label on the other is 'Worn by Jackie, November 22, 1963." Inside, neatly arranged, are the pink wool suit, the black shift, the low-heeled shoes, and wrapped in a white towel, the stockings. Were the box to be opened by an intruder from some land so remote that the name, the date, and photographs of the ensemble had not been published and republished until they had been graven upon his memory, he might conclude that these were merely stylish garments which had passed out of fashion and which, because they had been associated with some pleasant occasion, had not been discarded.

"If the trespasser looked closer, however he would be momentarily baffled. The momento of a happy time would be cleaned before storing. Obviously this costume has not been. There are ugly splotches along the front and hem of the skirt. The handbag's leather and the inside of each shoe are caked dark red. And the stockings are quite odd. Once the same substance streaked them in mad scribbly patterns, but time and the sheerness of the fabric have altered it. The rusty clots have flaked off; they lie tiny brittle grains on the nap of the towel. Examining them closely, the intruder would see his error. This clothing, he would perceive, had not been kept out of sentiment. He would realize that it had been worn by a slender young woman who had met with some dreadful accident. He might ponder whether she had survived. He might even wonder who had been to blame."

The S Word (3)

(Continued series from devotional at work)

"Judge not, that ye be not judged...." -Matthew 7:1

"I ain't taking no man's bleeding charity." -CS Lewis

Before closing out this study of the S Word, let’s look at some common objections raised when people are told they are sinners:

First: “You’re judging me.” Unfortunately, this is too often true, and people who respond this way are in good company. Nothing made Jesus more angry than the judgmental attitude of the Pharisees toward the poor and dispossessed. Judging says more about the judger’s knowledge of the gospel that the judgee’s. The judger is assuming that he has superior knowledge, and stands on a higher ground than the judgee, both of which are contrary to the gospel. True believers are such because they have an overwhelming sense of their own fallenness, and a humble thanks for the work God has done to free them. Paul, who understood grace better than most of us, called himself “the chief of sinners.” He was not being super-pious. He really believed that. The more light he had, the more he saw his own darkness. Therefore when a Christian talks about human sin, he is talking “up,” not “down,” because he perceives himself in worse shape than his hearer. He is more like a sick man telling another victim where to find a cure. Of course, there are a lot of folks who resent being told they are sick at all, which leads us to:

Second, "Well, I ain't no axe murderer!" I don't know why axe murderers get such bad press, but they're right up there with Adolf Hitler. Anyway, the idea here is that compared to a lot of unsavory folks, I'm not so bad. God supposedly has a moral scale, and I always stay just under the "wrath" meter. I am not comparing myself to God, but to others. And therein is the problem. God's standard of judgment is His own pure and holy character, and that standard is revealed in the Law, particularly the Ten Commandments. There's not time here, but there's no way I can look at any of the Commandments and claim innocence. And just in case I could, Jesus comes along and says that sin is not just a matter of action, but of attitude. One conclusion: “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

Third, “It can’t be that bad, because Jesus loves everybody.” This is known in theological circles as the Gooey Galilean theory. It forgets the horrifying images of Christ in the book of Revelation and Jesus’ prophecies of the fall of Jerusalem. But more than that, it misses a central tenet of Western jurisprudence which is based on Hebrew law: “the punishment must fit the crime.” If Jesus died in my place, in fact, became my Substitute, then I deserved what He bore. And He bore unspeakable pain, rejection, loneliness, and ultimately severance from the Presence of God Himself. The more we look at the Atonement, the more we see the horror of human rebellion against God and our own real standing with Him.

In conclusion, consider that our antagonism to the doctrine of sin is itself an evidence of our sinful nature. God calls us to quit arguing and agree that He is right. Interestingly, the word “confess” means just that: it is a combination of the Latin word for “with” and the word for “say.” Its Greek counterpart is “homo-logeo,” literally, “to say the same thing.” To confess means to say about ourselves what God already says about us.

Next: Christ’s Active Obedience for us.

The S Word (2)

"Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth." -Revelation 5: 9;10

"'Safe,' said Mr. Beaver; '...who said anything about safe? Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you.'" -CS Lewis

Why is the way we look at our own sin important? It obviously affects the way we look at our own need, and an understanding of it has eternal consequences. But there is another result of the way we consider our own sin that is seldom realized: it conditions the way we think about Jesus, and the way we think about Jesus conditions the way we live. Let me illustrate:

During the First Great Awakening (1730's and 40's), evangelists and pastors preached sin with the intention that their hearers would be desperate for a Savior. Their meetings were often protracted for weeks, and they did not rush people into a decision at the "altar." Their goal was for their hearers to see their own depravity to such an extent that they cried out to God/Christ to come to them, regenerate them, and lift the burden of guilt off their shoulders. The important thing to note is that they believed in an ACTIVE Christ who came to the repentant sinner with love and release.

The preachers of the day, in fact, taught the impossibility of salvation through any human effort--that salvation was totally a work of God, and that man had to assume the position of a humble supplicant, begging for help. In fact, I read that Whitefield once preached a sermon in a field, telling people it was impossible for them to be converted, but that God could do the impossible! People began to cry out, and some fainted, and God moved in power on individuals, as if He had taken Whitefield's dare.

The fruit of this strong emphasis on human depravity and the power of God to save ACTIVELY brought forth Christians who were strong in faith, more centered on the ability of Christ than on their own. They weathered adversity because they believed that God was sovereignly in control of their lives, and because of their initial experience, clung to Christ as their only hope. So many people were converted during that Awakening that American culture was changed for decades.

The Second Great Awakening (@1790 through 1840) began with a similar approach, but went through a radical shift about half way through. The total inability to come to God was downplayed, and conversion became more a matter of choice or rational decision. Instead of being active, Christ became increasingly PASSIVE. Christ had done all He do to save men, and now He waited helplessly for man to decide to receive Him. In a subtle way He became a pitiful figure, knocking at the door of the human heart and hoping that His sacrifice would be accepted--out in the cold and unappreciated (is that the King of Glory?!). Sermons became weepy instead of terrifying. Because conversion was a matter of choice, immediate decisions were demanded, and people assured that because they had made such a choice, they were truly converted. The time that earlier preachers allowed for the Holy Spirit to work conviction in individuals was telescoped into a few minutes.

This does not mean that true conversions did not take place. But the method led to a new set of consequences. The greatest was the question, "If my conversion depended on my action, and my faith, and my decision, how do I know I believed enough, acted enough, chose strongly enough?" That question did not trouble earlier converts who believed in an active Christ, because the work was all His, not the convert's.

Another consequence was one's attitude to suffering, temptation, and struggle. The believers of the First Awakening knew that the victorious Christ was working through them to change them, and that His plan for change was perfect. They also knew that He was ruthless. They were not as tempted to let faith waiver. The tendency in the second case was to view those things as proofs of God's displeasure--or as I heard one Christian quoted lately, "I know God loves me, but I don't think He likes me a whole lot." That is so contrary to the all-sufficiency of God's love that is revealed in the ACTIVE gospel!

And that's why taking sin seriously conditions how we view Christ. An extreme view of sin creates an extreme view of Christ! Next time: some objections to the doctrine of sin...

The S Word (1)

(This is part of a series of devotionals I'm sharing where I work)

"...for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God..." -Romans 3:23

"I tell you naught for your comfort, Yea, naught for your desire, Save that the sky grows darker yet, And the sea rises higher." -GK Chesterton

Last time we began to speak of God's plan to save man in Christ. But before describing the good news, it is necessary to consider the bad news: human sin.

Genesis tells us that man was originally placed in the garden without moral prohibitions. That is because man was a being without sin, in perfect fellowship with God, and in that fellowship, was obedient. That does not mean that man was perfect in his understanding and relationships, but that there was no assertion yet of himself against God and his order.

God gave man a test of obedience, one negative law, one "you shall not." Man failed this test. In the process he declared himself independent of God as the source of life, and set himself up as a self-contained god apart from the relationship that would keep him alive. I think of the old sponge divers who wore heavy suits and helmets attached by a hose to an air pump on the surface. The fall of man is as if a diver decided to be independent, cut his hose, and wander off on his own.

There were consequences of this disobedience. First, there was banishment from the presence of God, and resentment and distrust of God by man. After all, the fall occurred because Satan questioned God's goodness and motives for creating man to begin with. Second, the whole of Adam's descendents fell into rebellion with him. Theologians call this "federalism"--the idea that the leader of a group represents it, and his destiny is its destiny. We don't like this theory because we value independence far more than God does. Remember that federalism works in a positive way too: Christ represents a new race, and that race is declared righteous because their Head is.

The third consequence is what I call "primary" sin. That is the innate selfishness and rebellion against outside authority (especially God's) that is in all of us. Theologians call it "original sin." It is the opposite of love for God, it does not desire to see His beauty, and does not hold obedience as a joy, but a burden. It desires the small dark places of the heart rather than the light of perfect love and truth.

The Fourth is "secondary" sin--all the fruits of selfishness, hatred, bitterness, abuse, and perversion that leads to war, destruction of innocence, prisons, laws, and probation offices. It also includes religious sins: pride, self-righteousness, the inability to see another point of view, sectarianism, judgmental arrogance, and a critical spirit.

As much as we like to think of God as a tolerant grandfather who winks at sin, God's response to sin is anger (Psalm 7:11). It is important to understand that God never waivers in His justice. If He ignored His own laws the universe would fall apart. Every sin deserves retribution. Expecting God to "grade on a curve" is fruitless. Our only hope is that God finds a way to meet the demands of His own justice. More on why it is important how we view sin next time....

The Story Behind the Story (2)

"Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said. . . 'Behold, I have come to do your will, O God.'" -Hebrews 10: 5, 7.

"Theologians speak of another kind of covenant that is not between God and man, but is among the members of the Trinity. This covenant they call the 'covenant of redemption.' It is a covenant among the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in which the Son agreed to become a man, be our representative, obey the demands of the covenant of works on our behalf, and pay the penalty for sin which we deserved." -Wayne Grudem

In the first segment of The Story Behind the Story, we ended with a look at Satan's motives and looked ahead to the fall of man.

God's response to man's rebellion against His will and purposes is anger--what the Bible calls wrath. We tend to equate wrath with outburst of anger or rage, but the wrath of God is an ongoing attitude towards those who will not recognize His sovereignty over them. The fact that we don't like this attribute of God is a pretty good evidence of the rebellion of our own hearts. When you think about it, God certainly has a right to set down the laws of His creation and enforce them if necessary.

But the wrath of God is the result of something deeper than just a challenge to His authority. Consider where God's love is principally centered: in the Person of His Son. If Satan could not attack the Son's majesty, he could twist and distort the image. When God looks at fallen man, he sees the most beautiful image in the universe broken, marred, and perverted. Satan's successful attack on man struck not just at the sovereignty of God, but at His very heart. Satan's temptation pulled man down to a level that deserved God's wrath; and yet the image remained, though marred. God had originally intended this creature to be part of a drama to be enacted before the whole creation. So what is God to do? Justice demands a penalty; love demands a solution that will not circumvent justice.

Somewhere in pre-history, or to be more accurate, somewhere outside time and space, the Trinity held a conference and agreed upon what theologians call the covenant of redemption. The Father made a plan, the Son agreed to carry it out, and the Holy Spirit agreed to apply it both in the Son and in believers. The Son agreed to become a second Adam. As Adam stood for all his descendants when he succumbed to rebellion, so the Son would become representative man, and do for them what they could not do for themselves: live a perfect life and bear the penalty of God's justice. The Trinity basically planned an invasion.

This plan was so unforeseen, so unbelievable, so audacious, so opposite to human thought, that even the most religious men of Jesus' day couldn't see it--though a calloused Roman soldier was moved by it on the spot. The plan was simply backwards. That's why when men hear of it, they are called to "repent," a word that does not mean to feel sorry or be remorseful, but to "change your mind"--flip your mind around to accept what is the foolhardy daring of God.

Next: The S-word.

The Story Behind the Story (I)

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.", -John 1:1

"Galadriel! Galadriel! Clear is the water of your well; White is the star in your white hand; Unmarred, unstained is leaf and land In Dwimordene, in Lorien More fair than thoughts of mortal men." -JRR Tolkien

I shared this obscure poem from Lord of the Rings because Tolkien peppers his trilogy with references to an older, brighter, and higher world that lies behind the trials of Middle Earth. In fact, he later wrote a book called The Silmarillion, to tell the story behind the story.

The Bible does the same thing. Throughout its long story of redemption, there are glimpses of a reality that transcends history. Its first words, "In the beginning...", implies that there was something there before there was a beginning. There was, simply, God: infinite in glory, beauty, otherness, purity, justice, and above all things, love. Such love begets loveliness, or an object of love, a beloved, the eternal Son. Because the Father has always loved, there has always been the Son. Both God the Father and God the Son are mutually committed to one another, and the fulfillment of each is to see the other exalted. The love between the two is so intense that (according to St Augustine) love itself takes on personhood, and proceeds from both as the Holy Spirit. This is a transcendent mystery and can only be expressed symbolically.

Notice that God has never existed alone. He has always been a community. That means he did not create man or the universe out of need, but out of joy and exuberance. It also means that God intended man to live in community ("it is not good for the man to be alone..."). God hates heresy in the fallen world because it breaks the community of the church. He hates adultery because it breaks the community of marriage. He hates selfishness because it breaks the communities of men, and even breaks a man's unity with himself.

The Bible states that man was made in the image of God. There's much theological debate over what the image means: the capacity to reason, to feel emotion, to imagine, to be spiritual. I lean towards Paul's statement in Colossians that Jesus is the image of God (1:15). In other words, Jesus was the model that God used for man when he created him. Men and women were meant to be little reflections of the Son; through their gifts, through their creativity, through their service and sharing with their Elder Brother, the Son was to be shown off to the universe. And likewise, as they turned with the Son to the Father, His glory would be increased.

As the story behind the story progresses, the Tempter enters. There is some indication that Satan hated the Son, and wanted His role as King of heaven. Since he could not dethrone Him, he turned all his energy and malice on destroying the created image. Satan succeeded in convincing man that God had a hidden agenda and couldn't be trusted. As a result, man chose autonomy, set himself up as his own god, exalted disobedience as a noble thing, and in turning away from life, fell into the cycle of selfishness and death.

Next time, the beginning of the solution.

Why Did the Hebrews Speak Hebrew?

"An object is an act outside its time element." -Eugen Rosenstock-Huessey

Two experiences led to this question:

1) I studied biblical Hebrew in the 1960's under Ludwig Dewitz, a German Jew who converted to Christianity between the world wars, and escaped from the Nazis with nothing but the shirt on his back. He was a scholar of ancient Middle Eastern languages, and a man of God. He taught like an old European school master: he made us stand at our desks and parse Hebrew verbs--if we faltered he would mutter something in Yiddish and would throw erasers at us. It was terribly humiliating, especially since we considered ourselves graduate students, and beyond such behavior. I learned through sheer terror. But I loved the man, and I can still wake up in the night going qatal,qatalah,qataltah, qatalt, etc. I can't say that I mastered the language, but I can at least find my way around with a lexicon and a word study book.

2) I recently re-read Rosenstock's The Origin of Speech, a book which I read about 5 years ago, and which was so far outside the box of western rationalism that it deserved another look. In summary, Rosenstock believed that language, not thought, was the key to understanding man and his cultures. He also believed that our western emphasis on the indicative mood, the mood of reason and reflection, did not accurately describe the reality of human life. Instead, he began with the imperative, followed by the subjunctive, followed by the narrative, and finally, by the indicative.

To put this more simply: we are all born with immediate imperatives that determine our lives ("eat your cereal," "go to bed," "avenge your father," "renounce the devil and all his works," etc.). Most of our lives are lived in the subjunctive of possibility--will we fulfill our imperatives, or fail? After we achieve our imperatives, we "tell the tale," we relive our success and failures and write the story. Finally, as old men, we analyze the whole experience, and only at the end of our lives, enter the indicative. When life begins in the indicative, all of life is cold and abstract, because the indicative freezes it into something motionless; hence, "an object is an act outside its time element."

All story follows this pattern. But story is closer to reality than abstract analysis. Reality is story! I've used this before, but consider the Lord of the Rings: The Ring must be destroyed (imperative). The bulk of the trilogy is a quest--some fail, some succeed, but the quest reaches its end (subjunctive). The men write poems and histories, and the elves sing songs. The main characters pass into the West (narrative). Sam finishes the manuscript and writes a conclusion (indicative). Isn't this a description of all our lives?

Rosenstock also describes our stories lived out in "cups of time." An imperative gives us meaning and forces us into the future. Its fulfillment ends that cup of time. "Honey, take out the garbage," only is completed with "the garbage has been taken out." Otherwise the cup is not closed, and tension remains. When cups are not closed, an unfulfilled moment is created, and it must be relived til sealed. When Lee's command, "Get those people off that hill," was met later with "Sir, I have no division!" a cup of time was created that is still literally reenacted at Gettysburg every year. We never rest til cups are sealed.

So, back to my original question. Why did the Hebrews speak Hebrew? Every language explains the way its speakers perceive reality. Consider the almost non-existent use of the subjunctive in English (as compared to ancient Latin and Greek, which both had complete subjunctive conjugations). We only see it in the phrase, "if I were you...." All other instances of the subjunctive are expressed by helping words: "if," "maybe," "perhaps," "except." But the fact that we no longer have a mood to express probability in our language reveals how much we revere abstraction, and life itself becomes a "happening" or an "event," robbed of time. The present is an abstraction in the indicative; it is a force moving into the future in the subjunctive.

Biblical Hebrew was outside the western box. It contained seven binyanim, roughly what we would call moods. Six of these were either active or passive voices. To use English equivalents: an indicative, active and passive; an intensive, active and passive; a causative, active and passive; and a reflexive, which by nature can have only one voice. If the reflexive is placed in the middle, three actives on the left, and three passives on the right, an outline of Hebrew moods resembles a menorah, which modern Hebrew teachers use as a visual aid to understand the structure of the language.

Old Covenant Hebrew thought grew out of their language, and their language affected ideation, and if we believe in Biblical inspiration, their view of God and His world, and God’s view of reality should “leak out” through the structure of the Old Covenant language. The amazing thing is how difficult it is to find any discussion of this fact. I dug out my old Hebrew grammar book and read the introduction. It told me about the author, and why he chose to use his very systematic approach to learning the grammar, and how it had helped countless students to meander the binyanim conjugations, but not once did he tell me why the Hebrews spoke Hebrew--a perfect example of the tyranny of the indicative, a lot of hows and whats and no whys.

Let me illustrate with something I think I understand. Hebrew has no subjunctive mood. At least, it had no conjugation that required the long vowel sounds of the Greek and Latin subjunctives. I say, “no subjunctive,” until one considers the Hebrew tense system. There is no present tense in biblical Hebrew. That function is taken by the participle, and sometimes by the infinitive, when necessary. (I read somewhere that modern Hebrew uses the participle with helping pronouns to express the present.)

Biblical Hebrew had two tenses: complete, and incomplete. An action was either finished, or was on the way to completion. The only way that can be expressed in English is with the past or the future tenses. Complete, incomplete. Done, or not done, or partially done. We rest in a finished work, or strive to complete it. I said in the last paragraph that Hebrew had no subjunctive; but here it is, hidden in the cup of time created by the beginning of an action and its fulfillment. The whole tense system creates a subjunctive mood. And because it is subjunctive, it is also eschatological. The whole language sucks us into the future towards a fulfillment. “And it shall be in that day” draws us towards “and it came to pass.” I find this an incredibly beautiful expression of struggle and life lived with a hoped-for goal in mind, so different from our present tense indicative obsessed with scientific definition (“the human being is made up of 70% water”). Why didn’t the text book author tell me this? Because he is western scholar whose job it is to turn a living language into a frozen object.

Now I want to look at a couple of other binyanim, with much less certainty about their meaning. I must admit at this point that I know nothing about modern Hebrew, or about parallel thought forms in other Middle Eastern languages. For all I know, Arabic, Urdu, and Farsi manifest the same concepts of time. That would draw us into a study of the Islamic mind, and, wow, do I digress.

Biblical Hebrew possessed what we called the piel/pual conjugation, or, in English, the intensive form. It basically shortened vowel sounds, which connects it indirectly to the imperative, which is the shortest form of the verb in most languages. That's because the imperative is both command and warning. The intensive forms are translated in English with "very," "exceedingly," "continually." In some cases they simply intensify a verb: "break" put into the intensive form became "smash." In other cases time is involved: "weep" put into the intensive form did not mean to "weep loudly;" it meant rather to "weep continually."

That's all interesting, but the question still remains: why would a culture find a need to create a whole complex conjugation around a concept that we simply express with "very?" I've read that the Hebrews were realists, earthy, and not given to abstract meditation or reflection. I'm not sure about that. The author of Ecclesiastes wore himself out with reflection, and concluded that man should eat and drink and enjoy his labor--a carpe diem theme. It wasn't so much that the Hebrews didn't reflect; they reflected intensely, almost violently ("whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might"). In fact, "live to the hilt" describes the mood of much of the narratives in the Old Testament. The intensity of their lives grew out of faith in an intense God. They, at least the godly ones, would be far too intense, pushy, physical, and emotionally raw to get along in our church culture, which says a lot about how frivolous our western approach to God can be.

Lastly, Hebrew also possessed the hiphil/hophal conjugation. It was causative. Normally translated "he/she caused thus and thus to happen," it also could form a new concept. For instance, the causative of the verb to "go" meant "send:" to cause to go was of course to send. Combined with its person and gender and an accusative pronominal suffix, an English phrase like "she caused him to fall" could be condensed into one word--quite a feat of grammatical acrobatics to English speakers. At any rate, why did the Old Covenant people find it necessary to form an entire verb system around the idea of causation?

The first use of the causative is in Gen. 1:4: “And God divided the light from the darkness.” The verb in the indicative is “separated,” and in the causative becomes “and God caused the light to be separated from the darkness,” or simply, “divided.” I don’t want to make too much of the fact God is the subject in the first use of the causative; I suppose it could have been Adam, or Eve, or the devil. Nevertheless, there is a hint that all causation goes back to God as the Creator. Could it be that the Hebrew language manifests a belief in final purpose, an eschaton growing out of God’s predestination and providential care of history? Hence, a conjugation based on causation.

All this is pure speculation, and poor at that, because I’m out here on my own. I am back again to the question, “Why did the Hebrews speak Hebrew?” It amazes me that I suffered erasers and Yiddish deprecations of my mental ability, strange lists of sounds, many years of struggling with large lexicons and word books because I felt I owed my congregations the honesty of sound exegesis (and remember, I did all this backwards), and no one has ever told me WHY the Hebrews used the patterns of word and thought that I simply memorized. It brought me no closer to the interior mind of the Old Testament saints, and consequently, the heart of God. Is there anybody out there that has come across a book, a website, an insight, etc, or am I stuck with the tyranny of the indicative?

Extremes (2)

(Am doing "devotionals" at my job on ba

sic Protestant doctrine. Thought I'd blog them as well.)

"See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil." -Deuteronomy 30:15

"Christianity got over the difficulty of combining furious opposites, by keeping them both, and keeping them both furious." -GK Chesterton

Last week I suggested that American Christianity has weakened itself by blunting its sharp edges and turning a religion of remarkable extremes into a comfortable world-view with hazy definitions. Consider the following common biblical dichotomies that are so extreme they are opposites:

Heaven--hell, Life--death, Light--darkness, Freedom--bondage, Holiness--depravity, Grace--wrath

Consider, also, that God Himself is an extreme paradox. The fathers described Him as "Three Persons in One Essence." Was God one God? Absolutely. Was God three Persons? Absolutely. Was God three Gods? No. Was God one God with three personal manifestations? No. Do the members of the Trinity add up to one God? No. Each one is fully God, not a third of God. Chesterton was right. The church believed that God was one, and God was three, and believed both furiously; or we might say, extremely.

This God, in turn, reveals extremes in His attributes. He is absolutely just and unbending in His insistence that no law in His universe, moral or physical, can be broken without serious consequences. His reaction to lawlessness is anger. He is also loving, and carries out an incredible program to meet the demands of His own justice, called simply, the cross.

The person of Jesus is a combination of extremes. He claimed to be God. He did miracles like God. He forgave sins like God. The high priest of His own religion was so appalled by this claim that he sought and achieved His death. Yet a hardened Roman executioner called Him God, solely on the basis of watching the way He died.

He also referred to Himself as the Son of Man. He was born in a hovel. He ate and drank with the poor and the marginalized. He went to weddings and parties. He was hungry and thirsty. He grew tired. He bled and knew pain. He cried over the death of a good friend. He understood temptation--the worst being to use His divine power to circumvent the plan of God--and overcame it. The church Fathers stated it philosophically: "(Christ is) perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood, truly God and truly man, of a rational soul and body; consubstantial with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial with us according to the Manhood..." (Creed of Chalcedon). And, again as Chesterton reminded is, the church believed that confession furiously, extremely.

Lastly, think about inner, subjective Christian experience. My pastor likes to sum up the Christian life with two phrases: "You are more evil than you know, and you are more loved than you know." Christians understand the tension of these extremes. Love and grace are like lights that shine on the darkness within. The more we experience them, the more we comprehend our own depravity. And the knowledge of depravity drives us to grace and love.

The cycle goes deeper and deeper, or if you prefer, higher and higher. Christians never stop changing. And one thing becomes obvious: Christianity is not a comfortable cup of latte, or the warm fuzzies we get at the church picnic. It's extreme, and like all extremes, it stretches us. To quote CS Lewis: "Love's as hard as nails." Next: The Story Behind the Story

Extremes (Introduction)

I've recently begun a devotional at work on basic Christianity. As long as I'm writing, thought I'd blog it too.

"See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil." -Deuteronomy 30:15

"Christianity got over the difficulty of combining furious opposites, by keeping them both, and keeping them both furious." -GK Chesterton

EXTREMES (introduction)

One of the great challenges to the church today is the drastic cultural shift of the last 50 years, especially in the way the individual sees himself. My father's generation valued faithfulness and loyalty; that's why churches of that era had cemeteries. One generation expected to be in the same church as their parents, and be buried next to them. Today's generation, however, no longer shares those values, but is more committed to personal fulfillment. This is not necessarily a bad value, and it forces the church to shift to questions of fulfillment if she is to speak with clarity. But no one today is going to be buried next to Grandpa. He was a Christian, his son was an upwardly mobile agnostic, and his daughter in turn is a committed wiccan.

On one hand, the church should be excited about the modern concern with fulfillment. The gospel of Christ claims to be the ultimate definition of who man is and how his most basic needs are met. On the other hand, a quest for fulfillment means that all possibilities are open, and the world, including the church, is now a huge shopping mall of competing ideas.

The church is huffing and puffing to catch up in the competition. I read a Catholic author recently who argued that the great fault of Protestantism was the infinite splitting and division that occurred after the Reformation. His call was to come back to Mother Church with her infallible tradition and teaching office. What he failed to see was that in American culture the Roman Church is just another voice. There is no way around the fact that the American church is a potpourri of choices, and churches set forth their wares in the open market, hoping to hook someone's personal quest for meaning.

It's not unusual for visitors at my home church to declare at the door that they're "church shopping" (I hate the term). That means they are trying to find a particular combination of teaching and practice that make them feel "fulfilled." I picture myself with a half opened overcoat with watches hanging on the inside: "How about this little number here--slightly used, with a Methodist face, and matching hands that glow in the dark with Pentecostal fervor." Or how about an evangelical Starbucks: "I'd like a large cup of grace and love, with a dash of good works (so I can feel OK about myself), a hint of just enough suffering to look humble, but leave off the heavy doctrine--it gives me a headache." Don't shake my world. Just fulfill me.

I saw a spot on the news recently in which baseball fans were questioning the practice of walking a talented batter. It means that the best seldom get to perform, and the less talented play the game. The fans don't see as many great plays. Excellence takes a back seat to winning.

I wonder if that's not a metaphor for the church. At her best, the church is full of extremes: martyrs, heretics, councils that settled life and death issues, renewals, revivals, reformations, and saints. Her doctrine breeds sheer terror and joyous ecstasy. What can be more extreme than the notion that God became man? Nothing mediocre there! Yet I fear that the church in our culture has settled for a cup of latte, or to stick with the metaphor, "Ball four; take your base." I personally think the church needs to forgo selling a product, and return to confessing her extremes. More next time. . . .

Evangelicals on the Road to Somewhere Else

A Review of Journeys of Faith: Evangelicalism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Catholicism, and Anglicanism. Robert L. Plummer, General Editor

This was a fun book to read, and definitely had a different format than most books that explore defections from evangelicalism to the "high" churches. In the section on Orthodoxy, for instance, the convert presented his case, which was answered by an evangelical, which was in turn rebutted by the convert. This pattern was repeated in the sections on Catholicism and Anglicanism. And just to reverse the trend, there was a section by a Catholic turned Protestant, with a rebuttal and a rebuttal of the rebuttal.

I can't say that any of the doctrinal issues have changed. The Catholic blames all the divisions of western Christendom on the Reformation, with a hint that secular humanism is also an offspring of the events of the 16th Century. The Orthodox sets out to prove that the West is in error because it is, well, western; and describes an intellectual and emotional conversion to a whole different way of perceiving reality--which explains why all the Orthodox that I've known or read happen to be brilliant thinkers capable of such a feat. The Anglican writer describes a renewed love for history and for liturgy. This may come as a shock, but he quotes CS Lewis, and speaks of his influence on his worldview, along with GK Chesterton. This sounds vaguely familiar.

So, what's going on here?

1) Psychological analysis. I am about to say something totally bizarre, and I hope humorous; but I am saying it from experience, not as an outsider. Raised a Presbyterian, I became deeply involved in the charismatic movement of the 1960’s and 70’s. In the 1980’s I began to burn out and look for historic continuity and consistency in the Christian faith. Without going into all the details, I emerged a few years later in a small, conservative Anglican communion similar to the one described in Plummer’s book. In a short time I went from anti-institutional spontaneity to wearing a collar and making the sign of the cross. It was a breath of fresh air to not have to do one better every service, but sink into the beauty and objectivity of the prayer book. I began to understand why my early heroes like Chesterton, Lewis, and Tolkien drew so much life from the Christian Liturgy. I felt cozy and secure.

I was struck while reading Journeys of Faith how common this experience is. Every writer had been where I was and described the need for “something more” in ways that resonated with me. Interestingly, all had been in some form of ministry for roughly 20 years, which would make most of them fortyish when they began a new quest. I have a subtle feeling that there is a need for radical change and a wider view and a deeper sense of security for men at that age. OK, laugh if you want. Much of the ecclesiastical shifts around that age bear a striking resemblance to a male mid-life crisis. That may lie behind some of the defections that evangelical churches have experienced since the 1960’s. Thank you, BF Skinner.

2) Ecclesiological strictures. My experience was different from the men in Plummer’s book in one sense: I did not stay in my new-found haven. I am one of the few men who has actually outlived his mid-life crisis. While I loved Anglicanism, it (at least at the local level) did not love me. I found myself at 60 out of a church, out of a denomination, and out of a collar. Anne and I let gravity take its course, and we ended up in a charismatic church with Presbyterian (Reformed) theology. This descent into the far past was expounded several decades ago by St. Dorothia of Kansas when she said “There’s no place like home.”

So why are people abandoning evangelicalism? I was going at this point to suggest that it’s because evangelicalism is not charismatic enough, and not Calvinistic enough. In other words, its not like me. Then I lapsed into some sort of euphoric state that only an old guy (I turn 70 this month) can have, and began to see boxes--little boxes, and big boxes, and men shouting “My box is bigger (and better) than your box,” and I was afraid I was in some Freudian nightmare. I thought of the fact that there is more than one Christian where I work, and maybe that’s where my church is--out there, where God had to drive the Jerusalem church because it wouldn’t leave the city, and that seed grows better when it is scattered than when it is gathered, and really, who gives a rat’s behind who wins the True Church Award?

Sorry to lose it there. I’m totally off the point (maybe there’s such a thing as stream of consciousness blogging). But there’s something afoot in the land.

John Flavel's The Fountain of Life

I just finished reading John Flavel's The Fountain of Life. Flavel was an English Presbyterian who lived through the Civil Wars of the early 1600's, and who, like most Presbyterians, would be classified as a Puritan. He preached faithfully, even when his ministry was curtailed by the Act of Uniformity of 1662.

I like the Puritans, in spite of the caricature of them as constipated, legalistic, sexually repressed, witch burning men in black with buckles on their shoes, who killed the Indians they with whom they ate Thanksgiving dinner. There has to be something appealing about a movement (on both sides of the Atlantic) that arouses so much hostility and misrepresentation both then and now.

The Puritans were all great writers, verbose by modern standards. There are no contemporary writers who dig as deeply into their own hearts to find grounds for repentance (see John Bunyan's Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners), or who were as joyous and emotional in their experience of Christ's love for them and their love for Christ (see Jonathan Edwards' Religious Affections).

The fact is that the Puritans loved Christ, and wrote about Christ, and searched their souls to make sure they were bound to Christ. Flavel wrote:

"He (Christ) is bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, a garment to the naked, healing to the wounded; and whatever a soul can desire is found in him....Take away Christ, and where is the loveliness of any enjoyment? The best creature-comfort apart from Christ is but a broken cistern. It cannot hold one drop of true comfort. It is with the creature--the sweetest and loveliest creature--as with a beautiful image in a mirror: turn away the face and where is the image? Riches, honors, and comfortable relations are sweet when the face of Christ smiles upon us through them; but without him, what empty trifles are they all?"

The Fountain of Life is a detailed exposition of Christ's atoning work, beginning with the cost of our salvation in the heart of the eternal Trinity, moving through the incarnation, the humility and suffering of Christ through his lifetime, and ending with His passion, resurrection, ascension, session, and final triumph. Flavel unpacks the absolute all-sufficiency, all-pervasiveness, all-completed work of Christ on our behalf, a work approved and accepted by the Father, and confirmed by the coming of the Holy Spirit upon vessels that were previously unclean.

Flavel makes no apology for the doctrine of the Substitutionary Atonement. Of course, The Fountain of Life is not a doctrinal apologetic at all. It is aimed at lost sinners and believers who are seeking assurance of the love of God. But the doctrine of Christ's suffering and dying in our place pervades the book.

Flavel makes two assumptions:

1) Man is fallen beyond repair, and unless God takes the initiative, is under the wrath of God and an eternal curse. Flavel: "Man, by the apostasy, is become a most disordered and rebellious creature, opposing his maker, as the First Cause, by self-dependence; as the Chief Good, by self-love; as the highest Lord, by self-will; and as the Last End, by self-seeking. Thus he is quite disordered, and all his actions are irregular. But by regeneration the disordered soul is set right; this great change being, as the Scripture expresses it, the renovation of the soul after the image of God...."

2) God Himself supplies the antidote in Christ, who as God and representative Man bears the curse that rests upon our sin, bears the whole load, and in the process declares us free. His ascension and session are the Father's proof that the sacrifice is sufficient. Flavel: "O what a melting consideration is this! that out of his agony comes our victory; out of his condemnation, our justification; out of his pain, our ease; out of his stripes, our healing; out of his gall and vinegar, our honey; out of his curse, our blessing; out of his crown of thorns, our crown of glory; out of his death, our life: if he could not be released, it was that you might. If Pilate gave sentence against him, it was that the great God might never give sentence against you. If he yielded that it should be with Christ as they required, it was that it might be with our souls as well as we can desire. And therefore, thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift."

I realize that the doctrine of penal substitution is rejected in some parts of the church, accepted by others but not seen as all-sufficient, and is a bit of an embarrassment even among Protestants. Personally, I find it a great comfort and a joy beyond anything hoped for. I also believe we should move closer to the Puritans in the church's proclamation of the gospel in an age that resents God's right to be God. Let me close with Flavel's conclusion:

But now reader, let me tell thee, that if ever God send forth these two grim sergeants, his law, and thine own conscience, to arrest thee for thy sins, if thou find thyself dragged away by them towards that prison from whence none return, that are once clapt up therein, and that in this unspeakable distress Jesus Christ manifest himself to thy soul, and open thy heart to receive him, and become thy surety with God, pay all thy debts, and cancel all thy obligations, thou wilt love him at another rate than others do; his blood will run deeper in thine eyes than it does in the shallow apprehensions of the world; he will be altogether lovely, and thou wilt account all things but dung and dross in comparison of the excellency of Jesus Christ thy Lord."

Spring Update

For some reason I feel guilty when I don't blog on a regular basis--maybe because I picture the hundreds of disappointed friends who found I had nothing to say this week. This is definitely a neurotic fantasy that needs correction. Anyway, for you real people out there, here is an update.

Anne and I are both increasingly involved in the ministry of Trinity Chapel in Knoxville, and since we are both still working, our time gets spread thin. Trinity has been a safe place for us over the last ten years, a place of growth and healing, a place to readjust, and more than anything, a place to see the fulfillment of the vision for church that has evolved in us during our years in the ecclesiastical jungle. Trinity is establishing a sound doctrinal base in Reformation theology while continuing to adhere to its charismatic roots. (Can you believe a group of charismatics coming together to study Grudem's Systematics?) Trinity also has past roots in the inner city, and is taking a renewed look at what it means to be a community, and its responsibility to the city at large. Any of you who know me realize that being part of this combination is like throwing a pig in the mud!

I also need to mention that Trinity Chapel has been attracting old and beat up ex-ministry somethings during the past years. I've never seen a group of Christians with as much experience and gifting under one roof, coupled with a leadership that has the vision to revitalize them.

Anne has been teaching a women's study on Thursday mornings, using the inductive approach she learned in Inter-Varsity. It's good to see her productive and working change in others' lives.

I've done some teaching at our Wednesday night services, and am about to begin a Sunday AM class on the life qualities listed in 2 Peter 1:5-7. It's been good to get on the floor with my books, whom I consider to be old friends, dust and all. I love exegesis. (I have some videos on the church's website: http://www.trinitydownloads.com/262.php.) We've also begun leading a house church, with our friends the Marleys, in north Knoxville. Right now we're building a core group and getting used to each other.

It seems odd that, though we live (and I work) in Sevier County and enjoy the entertainment and beauty here, we've never had a deeply rooted ministry here. I don't know whether that's for spiritual, psychological, or cultural reasons. At any rate, most of our friends, church relationships, shopping, and Anne's work, are in Knox County. I'm glad we bought a house near I-40!

We're heading to Hilton Head next weekend to celebrate Anne's mother's 100th birthday. She's had some physical set-backs lately, but is still mentally sharp, and definitely the most positive, optimistic person I know. We're expecting @50 family members, plus her friends at the Seabrook. Beth is coming down from Charlotte, and David is flying in from Los Angeles (traveling is hard on Channon's health--we'll miss her).

We're working on a late spring vacation on the Island, and thinking about a trip to California in the fall. Otherwise, life goes on. Blessings, everybody!