"His desire is toward me..."

The church has historically thought of the Song of Songs as an allegory of Christ and his church, or of Christ and the individual soul. More recent commentators, who feel that the allegorical approach is a cover up for the church's embarrassment about all things sexual, exalt the Song as a story of two lovers, no more, no less. Delitzsch strikes a middle ground: the Song is a love story, but because all love stories are reflections of The Love Story, it can be considered a type of the greater. So far I hold with Delitzsch.

Interpretive issues aside, no Christian who repeatedly reads the Song can escape finding himself in the narrative. In this entry I want to look especially at the three confessions made by the Shulamite--confessions that are the result of the actions of her lover.

The first confession is "My beloved is mine, and I am his." It follows two opposite experiences: first, disenchantment with serving in the vineyards for her brothers (religious experience defined by someone else--legalism),and, second, the giddy awareness of being in love. She is feeling both the relief of being loved, but also the fear of going back to what she came out of. Note the order of the confession: "he is mine" is spoken first. The relationship depends on her capacity to hold on. She is tenacious out of desperation and fear. While that is a mark of a new Christian fresh from the bondage of the world, it will eventually block maturity.

Her lover does not deal with this fear by consolation. Rather, he creates situations in which she must choose between her fear and her desire for him. She prefers the safety of their country home. But he comes and calls her away--and at least one time mentions the dreaded vineyards. When she disobeys, he withdraws his presence. In two instances he does this, and both times her love for him overcomes her reticence to follow. In one case she is abused by the "watchmen on the walls," the keepers of the status quo who do not believe it is proper for a young lady to demonstrate too much exuberance about her lover.

It is impossible to read these passages and not think of the "dark night of the soul" or the kataphatic/apophatic tension I mentioned in "Boxes," March 6. Most of us spend a long time in this phase. Notice the confession at the end of this process: "I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine." It is the reverse of the first. It is spoken by one who has learned the joy of obedience.

But it is not the last word. The third confession is "I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me." The very words create a yearning in the heart, so close and packed with meaning, and yet so far away--causing one to stretch to hear it. This confession is not brought about by withdrawal and discipline. It is preceded by some of the most intense love poetry in any language. It is spoken out of intimacy; it is purely relational. It does not come from external experience, but from direct knowledge of the character of a person.

It is a statement of absolute rest, not lethargy; peace, not timidity; trust, not fatalism. She loves him because she knows the depth and security of his love. She returns to the vineyard, not out of obligation, but because it is where he is. May God bring us all to such a place before we die.

(Picture: 12th Century cover of a manuscript of the Song)

A Sevier Cynicism

The Sevier County Commission has the 10 Commandments posted on its wall, and opens its meetings with the Lord's Prayer. Recently the Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU) have raised objections and will probably take legal action. The County Mayor has dug in and will keep the Commandments on the wall and will continue the Prayer until forced to change. The next Commission meeting will be packed with church folks and some folks from the other side, and we will have, no doubt, another American Circus, with a lot of smoke and very little clarity.

I wish I could hide somewhere and wait this one out, but my job throws me into contact every day with local government folks who are choosing sides, and want to know what I think. So I want to offer my own muddle of perceptions and presuppositions, so when someone asks me what I think, I can refer them to this blog. Most of them won't take the trouble to click this and that, so I can continue to shrug the whole thing off, knowing that my opinions are available to anyone willing to take the trouble. Here are some pretty traditional thoughts, which may or may not be inter-related or even worthy.

1) Speaking culturally, religion is the over-arching worldview that holds a culture together. That can include anything from Christianity to humanism to syncretism. There is no such thing as neutrality by that definition, because neutrality is itself a religious concept. If the American religion is syncretistic humanism, then the Christian either has to tip his hat to a higher power than Christ, perceive Christ as the archetypal syncretistic humanist, or be recalcitrant. Anyone who wants to touch this, have at it.

2) I can see that the Lord's Prayer is uniquely Christian, though the need to forgive and have daily bread are common to all men. But what's the issue with the 10 Commandments? The three great monotheistic religions of the world base their moralities on them. And I can't imagine a Buddhist or Confucian having issues with them. CS Lewis included them in what he called the Tao--the basic values common to all cultures. They are culturally fairly syncretistic. Or is the AU suggesting that blasphemy, murder, adultery, theft, and lying are valid moral options? OK. Cheap shot.

3) Gary North once did a tongue-in-cheek piece on how a group of Presbyterians could steal a Baptist church building. The Presbyterians could find a little Baptist congregation, join the church in numbers, call a congregational meeting, vote to join the local Presbytery, and deliver the congregation to the Stated Clerk, building and all. His point was that democracy cuts its own throat. Being sweet to everybody doesn’t mean everybody is sweet. Treating everyone democratically means opening the door to a lot of undemocratic folk. See Europe.

4) Calvin believed in separation of church and state. The Founding Fathers believed in separation of church and state. I believe in separation of church and state. It is a principle in the Constitution. No argument. When the mantra is quoted today it really means separation of a transcendent God and state, a whole different animal. Without the Commandments, or the Tao, or some higher absolute, the state fills the void and becomes answerable to nothing beyond itself. All humanistic societies, from Rome to modern China, are statist to the core. America has been lusting after statism since (forgive me) 1865. Whatever. None of this is new--even boring in its repetitiveness.

5) I have a prophecy about this coming meeting. The AU will have cogent, pre-planned arguments backed by the power of law. They will look, well, cool. The church will be angry and frustrated, have no cogent argument, and have no power but that of a discredited tradition. It will back down and grumble for a few more years. I just don’t think I can stand it. I hope I’m wrong.

Boxes

Let us, then, go to him outside the camp....

I believe it was CS Lewis who called God the great iconoclast. He was not speaking of the destruction of natural or sacramental symbols of God in the earth, but of our propensity to shape God in our own minds based on what we are taught, or even on our own experience of him. Inevitably our inner concept is smaller than the Person himself, and as we grow as Christians, our concept has to break in order for God to carry us to a new and broader understanding of him and of ourselves in relation to him. The fathers spoke of this process as the kataphatic/apophatic tension. We are much simpler—we use the term “think (or live) outside the box.”

That’s a wide topic, one that affects all age groups. I want to apply this to the group I know the best: older people. I am grieved at how people in their sixties plus not only live in unperceived boxes but have developed “life boxes”—what I like to call “baptized neuroses.” Timid, fearful folks are “peacemakers,” lifelong control freaks are “prophetic,” etc. I know too many of my peers who are stuck in some box, and can’t see their position. I am angry at the lack of growth in people that by now should be models of Christian experience. But of course I am really angry because I’ve struggled with my own box and the fear of dying in it.

My box is shared by a lot of Christian men my age: “th’Ministry.” It was a standard joke in Seminary that we all wanted to become “a world famous, humble country preacher.” Funny, yes, but true. That’s exactly what I wanted—to be like the pastors I revered as a child.

Evangelicals can revile the Roman hierarchy all they want, but there is no group that separates the “religious” from the “secular” more than they. To be a pastor or missionary is the apex of God’s approval. To fail in either is to be out from under that approval. With all our mantras about varieties of gifts, and blossoming where you’re planted, we still know there’s “something wrong” with the guy who used to be in th’Ministry. The evangelical world is full of a whole class of men who in their own minds bear the stigma of being less than something.

Of course, I just described a box. Younger people have the advantage of larger boxes to help them out of their smaller ones. We call it vision. A vision for a greater project, a different and more challenging ministry, makes it easier to leave the old one behind. But the older guy isn’t quite so visionary. I am not going to be an apostle to East Tennessee or take Sevier County for Jesus. There are younger men who can beat their heads against those dreams.

So, are the old guys left out where vision is concerned? In a way, yes. The vision for projects dies. But it is replaced by a Person. When I drove away from my last pastorate, my mind was full of anger, resignation, self-recrimination, and fear. But my heart was full of such an exhilarating freedom that I was afraid I was lapsing into licentious paganism. It took an effort to look solemn and not burst out laughing. I kept thinking of B’rer Rabbit: “Please don’t throw me into the briar patch….” Somehow I knew, along with the author of Hebrews, that there was something exciting out there--outside the camp.

Older guys finally have the opportunity to throw themselves on the breast of Jesus and let it all go—th’Ministry, the failures, the visions, the projects, the BOX—and come to Christ without encumbrance. And out of that comes life. Nature reveals God again. Love can flow because there’s nothing to lose. A man ceases to do things for God and simply walks with him. Funny. That’s what I was looking for in the first place.

Going Out and Coming In

I recently saw a rerun of A Nun's Story, in which Audrey Hepburn plays Sister Luke, an accomplished nurse who serves in the hospital of her Order in the pre-World War I Congo. There she develops not only medical, but listening and caring skills that endear her to her patients. As war approaches in Europe, she returns to the mother house in Belgium and continues nursing. There she experiences growing conflict with her Mother Superior, primarily because she habitually skips Vespers because she is ministering to patients. In the final confrontation, Mother Superior reminds her, “You are a nun first, and a nurse second.” The implicit response to this statement is, “why should there be a difference?” and is really the theme of the movie. She leaves the Order to go back to the Congo.

There is no question that a Christian who serves God in the world will burn out if he does not operate from a center. Jesus withdrew from the crowds to pray. I read somewhere that Mother Teresa found it necessary to have the Eucharist served to her daily. But the time of separation and the time of service--what the Old Testament calls "going out and coming in"--is the devout rhythm of the Christian life, not an inner struggle between two priorities. Each grows out of the other.

The church as I have known her errs in the direction of the convent. During one of my pastorates I became involved with the local rescue mission. That meant that occasionally some unkempt folks showed up at our services. One of our parishioners allegedly asked another, “What bridge did he find them under?” He was concerned that everything be neat and clean and in its proper place. He had become a nun first. But lest I condemn him unjustly, I have to ask how much I, as his pastor, helped contribute to his attitude. I like neat and clean and orderly, and was never fully comfortable with those folks on the back row.

When I was sixty years old I left the institutional ministry, and discovered an alarming thing. I no longer had a title that allowed me to talk about God publicly because I was a “preacher.” I was suddenly just a naked Christian-in-the-world. It was depressing to find out, once titles and collars were gone, how little of the faith there was in me. I pouted for several years at what I perceived as a loss, and the stripping away of a veil. I had become a nun first, and God put me into a crucible.

I have gradually learned (very, very late) some basic truths out of this experience: 1) God is more concerned with a man’s character than his ministry. 2) Often, God sows older people into the world. 3) God loves the world. 4) John 15:5 is true. His life flowing through us brings permanent change. 5) That life is not some kind of cold power; it is the gift of the heart of God who is in love with the world. From God it reaches down. When it passes through us, it reach up to our fellows. 6) There is no difference between a man in Christ, the place where God places him, his everyday contact with other human beings, and a man’s ministry. Christ in man, and man in Christ, is ministry. The nun is a nurse, and the nurse is a nun.

Repentance

(The Assistant Pastor at our church preached on repentance last week. Not sure which of these thoughts are mine and which are his, so I'll plagiarize right in front of everybody. Thanks, Mark.)

Last week I heard a sermon on Mark 1:15: “Repent and believe the gospel.” It stirred some basic truths in me, and it was good to hear them again.

First, to “believe” means that there is something outside myself that calls for my response. That means that the gospel has a separate identity from me, and is not something that comes into existence by my experience of it. The gospel in some sense leaves man out of the equation--though man receives its fruit, the gospel is really a covenant among the Persons of the Trinity that reconciles man to God. The Trinity acts upon its own counsels, and man’s response is to believe or reject. I find that a great comfort when I feel that I’ve failed as a Christian.

Second, is this easy believism or a legal fiction? No, because Jesus precedes the command to believe with the command to repent. The root meaning of repent is “change.” Therefore a command to repent presupposes that a man can change, or, better, that the gospel can change him. A man who is not changed by the gospel has failed to believe it. Belief brings change. The gospel is about the love of Christ. Love brings change. Christ call us to a beauty that only the imagination can reach. Beauty brings change. Repentance, therefore, grows out of the struggle and yearning to enter the future where Christ is.

Repentance breaks boxes--boxes not only of sin and addiction, but the boxes of self-interpretation that keep us from believing we can be more. Repentance is freedom.

(Picture: El Greco, The Trinity)

Renewals and Emergence

Institutions state, “They know where I stand.”
Movements say, “Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?”
-Henry Strunk

Renewals are both a reaction and a rediscovery. They are a reaction to deadness and lack of spiritual fervor, and the rediscovery of a forgotten emphasis: salvation, holiness, the Holy Spirit, tongues, healing, etc. Renewals also produce fruit or side effects, or what (until I come up with a better term) I will call attitudes.

One common attitude of a fresh renewal is eclecticism (See Let’em Eat Cake, 12/11/09). Renewals see themselves as the focal point of unity for the church, and are accepting of different forms of religious expression. The other attitude is inclusivism (See More Thoughts on Renewals,01/31/10). Inclusivism refers to the renewal’s treatment of unbelievers or seekers. Although past renewals have not analyzed it this way, inclusivism reverses the traditional steps of believe, behave, belong; to belong, behave, believe. I saw this work in the early days of the Charismatic movement. Young people came to our meetings and were immediately accepted. Peer pressure and teaching conditioned behavior, and belief was the result. I don’t remember that we ever compromised biblical morality in the process. The presence of God and the love of their fellows changed minds and lives. There was a power at work.

But it is a fact that renewals consistently reverse these attitudes within 20 or 30 years. Disillusionment over failed unity and persecution create an esoteric mind-set, and the need to define who “belongs” breeds exclusivism. This is a consistent pattern.

Eclecticism and inclusivism in renewals have always been treated as afterthoughts, something to be examined by Christian historians years after the fact. But something different is happening in the emergent movement. These two attitudes are not on the shelf. They are in the forefront of emergent literature. They are being self-consciously studied and examined. That is something new. The movement, for all its haziness and dangers, is defining itself by those two concepts, something I don’t believe any previous renewal has done.

If emergence can pull this off—really define eclecticism and inclusivism, and find ways to sustain them, then we are on the verge of a Reformation that could last beyond the normal life span of renewals. A whole new way of thinking could come forth. This is already manifested in the emergent description of their detractors as “necessary ballast” in the church—a case of including one’s potential adversaries in a greater scheme.

If, however, the gathering reaction to emergent attitudes begins to “get under the skin” of the movement, it will wear out in the next fifty years and become another persecuted True Church. Even worse, it could find ways to enforce eclectic and inclusive attitudes—a tragic paradox. Personally, I’m more hopeful than that.

Consistency

"...the current of materialism which is farthest to the left, and is hence the most consistent, always proves to be stronger, more attractive, and victorious. Humanism which has lost its Christian heritage cannot prevail in the competition."

I recently reread Solzhenitsyn’s Harvard Address of 1978. It was a watershed evaluation of the decadence of Western culture seen through Russian eyes, and was not well received by the American liberal intelligentsia. Let me summarize two major emphases in the address. 1) Secular humanism has become the basic philosophy of both Western democracies and Eastern Soviet Communism. In the West it manifests itself as crass materialism and decadent freedom. In the East it expresses itself economically and politically. The secular humanism of both cultures represents a rejection of God, that is, a higher power that makes man significant apart from the state. 2) Communism is the most perfect and consistent expression of secular humanism, its culmination. In any culture war, the most consistent world-view will win. Therefore, says Solzhenitsyn, the West should fear Communism. The West simply does not have the courage to withstand Communist intensity, especially since the American intelligentsia is intrigued with it. The West cannot fight Communism because she is carrying the same disease.

So what happened? We have not feared the Soviet system since the Reagan era. Did consistency win? If we listen to the Western Press, plain old American democracy, freedom, and capitalism conquered the Communist beast. The lust for pepsi, pornography, Wrangler jeans, and toilet paper without a queue overcame the quest for the workers’ paradise; proof that in a contest among the seven deadly sins, greed will consistently trump envy. That’s the Western take on it. But as a romantic, I prefer to believe that the poetic Christian soul of Mother Russia could not be crushed, and remained more consistent in itself than its persecutors. I’m opting for that unless I get more data.

Of course we face a more direct and brutal consistency now. It is not secular, or humanistic, but intensely religious, giving divine sanction to an utterly simple directive. It does not require subtle exegesis to understand "death to the great Satan." Can our secular society out-consistent that? I have heard men in authority declare that the great enemy of our freedoms is fundamentalism (any fundamentalism, including the Christian variety). Their reason for this is interesting: "Any man who is willing to die for something is willing to kill for it." A huge assumption, given that Christians have generally preferred martyrdom to murder. That statement says much more about the speakers than about the object of their dislike. How can such a pusillanimous attitude stand in the face of a man who will joyfully blow himself into heaven with an igniter button? Even if we take Solzhenitsyn's much fairer version (any man who is willing to die for something will defend himself), where is the will in secular humanism against such consistency?

The fact is that secular man has no place in his understanding for such commitment. It is not the shahid that frightens him as much as the passion behind him. Again, where is there anything on this earth that can be more consistent than that?

Such consistency can be found only within the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. She understands passion without murder, commitment that opens arms to the world rather than closing against it. She knows that God's enemies are not necessarily hers; she knows that her death is for the life of the world (Schmemann). She has always outlived the ruthless and been there for exhausted cultures who were trying to remember who they were. It is time for the church to evaluate her own consistency.