Denominational Police States

I spent the last few days at A Conversation on Denominational Renewal, which thankfully met in St. Louis. The conference was well attended, about 300 or more people. The audience was mostly PCA ministers and elders, but because it was held in St. Louis there were a good many Covenant Seminary Students and a few professors.

I'm not going to summarize the conference. All I will say is that it was quite stimulating and helpful. When they post the mp3s of the lectures on their website, you need to listen to them. I'll try to alert everyone when they are posted.

I'd like for us to discuss on part of Jeremy Jones's lecture on Wednesday morning. The title was "On Renewing Theology." I think it was one of the most challenging lectures of the lot.

Jeremy addressed problems with the way we tend to conceive of and do theology in the Reformed world, especially the PCA. Early on he talked about "The Ecclesial Culture of Reformed Sectarianism." He lamented that fact that so many Reformed ecclesial cultures end up as little more than "denominational police states." How does this happen?

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Os Guinness on Frank Schaeffer's Crazy for God

Fathers and Sons
On Francis Schaeffer, Frank Schaeffer, and Crazy for God.
by Os Guinness

If asked what is the deepest relationship imaginable, many people would say it is between lovers, or between husbands and wives. The case can be made, however, that from a Christian perspective, no relationship is more mysterious and more wonderful, yet sometimes more troubling, than that of fathers and sons. The depth and wonder begin with all we know of the relationship of God the Father and God the Son, while the troubled aspects stem from the Fall. Consider Absalom's rebellion against King David in the Old Testament, Edmund Gosse's exposure of his father Philip, the Oedipal drive in the writings of Sigmund Freud—and now Frank Schaeffer's Crazy for God, a memoir that is his personal apologia at the expense of his famous father, Francis Schaeffer, who was the founder and leader of the worldwide network of L'Abri communities.

Frank Schaeffer unquestionably adored his father, just as his father passionately adored him. Having lived in their home for more than three years, I have countless memories of this, including the sight of the two of them wrestling on the floor of the living room of their chalet, and ending with a fierce hug. Yet no critic or enemy of Francis Schaeffer has done more damage to his life's work than his son Frank—a result that one might not be able to infer from many reviews of the memoir, including that which appeared in the previous issue of Books & Culture.

The problem is not so much that Frank exposes and trumpets his parents' flaws and frailties, or that he skewers them with his characteristic mockery. It is more than that. For all his softening, the portrait he paints amounts to a death-dealing charge of hypocrisy and insincerity at the very heart of their life and work. In Frank's own words, his parents were "crazy for God." Their call to the ministry "actually drove them crazy," so that "religion was actually the source of their tragedy." His dad was under "the crushing belief that God had 'called' him to save the world." Because of this, his parents were "happiest when farthest away from their missionary work." Back at their calling, they were "professional proselytizers," their teaching was "indoctrination," and it was unclear whether people came to faith or were "brainwashed" and "under the spell" of his parents. Frank's own arguments in their support, he now says, were a kind of "circus trick."

Commenting on the time when Francis Schaeffer went through his watershed crisis of doubt in 1951, which he claimed was pivotal to his faith and work, Frank says it was never resolved with any integrity: "Somehow he convinced himself to still believe." His father's "stunted" theological convictions "he held on to more as emotional baggage … than for any intellectual reason." Really? "Left to himself, Dad never talked about theology or God … . God and the Bible were work." And he was different when away from L'Abri altogether: "Dad never said grace over meals. It was as if Dad and I had a secret agreement that away from L'Abri, we were secular people."

And so it goes. With such a son, who needs enemies?

Read the whole review at CT

Is This You in the Morning?

In Situ Art - This is Cool

Is Obama Eloquent? Peggy Noonan says: No.

Barack Obama's biggest draw is not his eloquence. When you watch an Obama speech, you lean forward and listen and think, That's good. He's compelling, I like the way he speaks. And afterward all the commentators call him "impossibly eloquent" and say "he gave me thrills and chills." But, in fact, when you go on the Internet and get a transcript of the speech and print it out and read it--that is, when you remove Mr. Obama from the words and take them on their own--you see the speech wasn't all that interesting, and was in fact high-class boilerplate. (This was not true of John F. Kennedy's speeches, for instance, which could be read seriously as part of the literature of modern American politics, or Martin Luther King's work, which was powerful absent his voice.)

Mr. Obama is magnetic, interacts with the audience, leads a refrain: "Yes, we can." It's good, and compared with Hillary Clinton and John McCain, neither of whom seems really to enjoy giving speeches, it comes across as better than it is. But is it eloquence? No. Eloquence is deep thought expressed in clear words. With Mr. Obama the deep thought part is missing. What is present are sentiments.

Read the rest of the essay.

Lightbox

Photographic equipment is very expensive. Even accessories not made by Nikon or Canon can be ridiculous. It's always nice to find ways to build your own stuff. It's not quite as elegant, but if it works and you can make quality images with it, who cares about what it looks like?


I followed the advice of a fellow Nikonian and looked at the Strobist's blog. He has a very simple way to make a lightbox. Too simple. I feel like an idiot for not thinking of this myself.

So here's an image I took in this baby yesterday.

Too cool. Anyone know what kind of skeleton this is? Frog?

Been There?

From here.

Camera of the Year

Popular Photography just named the new Nikon D300 their "camera of the year." Cool.

I haven't been able to capture many images with mine yet. The weather's been bad and I'm a wimp when it comes to taking pictures in the cold. I like to take my time in setting up shots. When it's cold I feel rushed and not relaxed. I don't do this for a living. I do it for fun. The images I've captured so far, however, make me really, really like this camera.

The Religion of the State

Jonah Goldberg's new book Liberal Fascism reminds me of all the great stuff I read in the 1980's by Rushdoony. He was at his best when he was critiquing the pretensions of the modern messianic state. Goldberg's perspective complements Rushdoony's and is desperately needed in 21st century America. Here's a nice summary of his thesis (pp. 22-23):

Today's liberalism doesn't seek to conquer the world by force of arms. It is not a nationalistic and genocidal project. To the contrary, it is an ideology of good intentions. But we all know where even the best of intentions can take us. I have not written a book about how all liberals are Nazis or fascists. Rather, I have tried to write a book warning that even the best of us are susceptible to the totalitarian temptation.

This includes some self-described conservatives. Compassionate conservatism, in many respects, is a form of Progressivism, a descendent of Christian socialism. Much of George W. Bush's rhetoric about leaving no children behind and how "when somebody hurts, government has to move" bespeaks a vision of the state that is indeed totalitarian in its aspirations and not particularly conservative in the American sense. Once again, it is a nice totalitarianism, motivated no doubt by sincere Christian love (thankfully tempered by poor implementation); but love, too, can be smothering. . . .

Finally, since we must have a working definition of fascism, here is mine: Fascism is a religion of the state. It assumes the organic unity of the body politic and longs for a national leader attuned to the will of the people. It is totalitarian in that if views everything as political and holds that any action by the state is justified to achieve the common good. It takes responsibility for all aspects of life, including our health and well-being, and seeks to impose uniformity of thought and action, whether by force of through regulation and social pressure. Everything, including the economy and religion, must be aligned with its objectives. Any rival identity is part of the "problem" and therefore defined as the enemy. I will argue that contemporary liberalism embodies all of these aspects of fascism.

Where Did these Smart Phones Come From?

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