Letting it Settle in

So Barack Obama won.  He won pretty handily if you count the electoral votes (303-206).  The popular vote was a little closer (61 to 58 million), and some of the contested State votes that gave him the electoral advantage were very close.  Even so, take a moment to compare this to the 2008 election.   Back then Obama got almost 70 million votes and McCain about 60 million.  11 million less people voted this time around.  And what is a more surprising, Romney got 2 million less votes than McCain did back in 2008.

Okay. So three days after the election, what do I think about all of this?  First, whatever the numbers may be, I will be amazed if President Obama is able to do much of anything this term.  He's not a leader.  He's a campaigner.  He's been campaigning for the last 5 years.  He's got professionals that advise him well.  He knows what people want.  He's got a knack for appealing to certain kinds of people, which as this election has shown, turns out to be the majority of the voting public.  But he hasn't done anything in the past four years worthy of the name "leadership."  He's "led from behind" on every issue, even the big ones like the stimulus and Obama care.  He's not a leader.  He's a campaigner.

Job's lament

Job's curse-lament begins, "After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth.  And Job said, 'Let the day perish on which I was born. . .'" (Job 3:1-3).  Not every commentator thinks that this is Job's finest moment.  Some even think that these sentiments are sinful and self-absorbed.  Divorced from the context of the story of Job this dark little poem might indeed be condemned as narcissistic. But I'm convinced it calls for a careful appraisal.  After all, remember that Job is wisdom literature.  And the words of the wise are not usually superficial.  They are "dark sayings" and "riddles" to be thoughtfully deciphered (Prov. 1:6).

Job was a ruler, a chief elder or probably even a king (Job 29:7; 31:21).  His "friends" are not simply chums, they are his "advisors," his "cabinet," if you will (2 Sam. 16:16).  The calamity that befalls him in the first chapters of the book have repercussions for the entire community, which is why his "friends" spend so much time trying to advise him how to respond well.  Job loses his sons and daughters, his health, the respect of his people, his standing in the community, his wife, his friends, and more.  But what is worse, Job loses the experience of the love and favor of God, his heavenly Father. The long arguments and further laments of Job as book progresses make it pretty clear that this last deprivation that is the most confusing and horrific to Job.

Before I talk about the content of the lament, the first thing we ought to note is how remarkable it is that in the context of Job’s abject misery he bothers to carefully compose, to artistically fashion this curse-lament. It is a complex, artistic poem with a very sophisticated heptamerous literary structure based on Genesis chapter one.  There's a lesson here about the value of art and beauty, even—or especially—in the midst of human suffering.  I am reminded of C. S. Lewis's sermon on the value of Learning in War-Time.

Continued in Part II

Piety & Theology

Augustine’s piety was rooted and grounded in theology.  For Augustine, masculine piety is inseparably connected with theologizing.  The separation of theology from worship, which has proved so disastrous to modern thought, was unknown to him.  The separation of theology from piety was unthinkable. Theology and devotion were fused aspects of a single faith.  

. . . no one will love what he has no prospect of making his own by understanding; faith without the hope of understanding would be no more than compliance to authority (Brown, Augustine of Hippo. 279).  

No separation of faith and reason.  No opposition.  Certainly no warning, ever, against the dangers of theology. 

The thoroughly modern, and I should say, thoroughly erroneous antithesis between love and logic, feeling and reason, heart and head, practical and doctrinal, etc. had not meaning for him.  Augustine writes no separate treatise concerning the theology of piety or devotion, simply because all of his works, from Contra Academicas to The City of God must be understood as such.  And I might add, they all should be read devotionally.  

Augustine’s devotion is theologically stimulated and regulated just as his theologizing is devotionally sustained and controlled.  Thus the authenticity of a man’s piety is properly tested by the clarity and profundity of his theology and conversely the genuineness of his theology is properly tested by the intensity of his devotion.

Salus extra ecclesiam non est

When Augustine was contemplating becoming a Christian Simplicianus, Ambrose's tudor and assistant, told him a story about Victorinus.  Victorinus was a Roman rhetorician and translator of neo-Platonic philosophical works. He had begun to read the Scriptures and study the Christian faith, encouraged by Simplicianus.  Simplicianus told Augustine that Victorinus once came to him in private saying, "I should like you to know that I am now a Christian."  Simplicianus replied, "That I will not believe, and I shall not count you as a Christian until I see you in the church of Christ."  That was wise advice from Simplicianus to Augustine, the young man for whom contemplation was everything.

The Latin in the title to this post means "There is no salvation outside of the church."  Typically, we add "ordinarily" to that slogan just to be sure that everyone understands that there are extraordinary situations where people do trust Jesus but are not able to join with a local congregation. The point is, however, that becoming a Christian is not simply something that happens in one's head.

Back to Blood

The first chapters of Tom Wolfe's new novel Back to Blood are terrific.  Classic Wolfean social commentary. The spoof on the "green" car is hilarious.  But the book is not for the faint of heart; it's pretty raw, as are most of Wolfe's novels.

Whom Should We Thank?

Rodney Stark comes out swinging right from the bell in "The Victory of Reason," his fiercely polemical account of the rise of capitalism. Stark, the author of "The Rise of Christianity" and "One True God: Historical Consequences of Monotheism," is sick and tired of reading that religion impeded scientific progress and stunted human freedom. To those who say that capitalism and democracy developed only after secular-minded thinkers turned the light of reason on the obscurantism of the Dark Ages, he has a one-word answer: nonsense.

 "The success of the West, including the rise of science, rested entirely on religious foundations, and the people who brought it about were devout Christians," he argues in this provocative, exasperating and occasionally baffling exercise in revisionism. Capitalism, and the scientific revolution that powered it, did not emerge in spite of religion but because of it.

Read the rest of the NYT article here.

The Trinity Institute

This morning I return from Birmingham after having two days of meetings for the Trinity Institute for Biblical and Culture Studies. This was the first meeting of the board of directors. We accomplished a lot, but there's still a ton of work to be done. I'm typing this on my iPad, so I'm not going to take the time now to add a lot of links. I'll do that when I get home. Look for more on the Trinity Institute in the coming months. Peter Leithart will be the President and resident scholar. We will be offering all kinds of educational opportunities designed to promote our distinctive understanding and practice of Christian liturgy and life.

The Gardener & his Beloved - An Easter Meditation

The Da Vinci Code Be Damned: A Typological Reading of Mary Magdalene

or The Gardener & His Beloved

Song of Solomon 3:1-5, 5:1-6:3 & John 20:1-18

A famous painting depicting this dramatic scene with Mary and Jesus outside of the garden tomb can be seen on a fresco in a chapel in Padua, Italy. It was painted by Giotto di Bondone in the early 14th century. Jesus is striding from the tomb with a victor’s flag in his left hand. But with his right hand is held out, keeping Mary from coming close. This part of the fresco has been called Noli me tangere (“Do not hold me”).

But there are problems with Giotto di Bondone’s interpretation of this biblical story. He depicts the resurrected Christ as aloof, cold, as one who is onward and upward, leaving for higher concerns, one who cannot be held back by this woman. “Do not hold me” seems to mean “I’ve got more important things to do.” And Mary drops to her knees in tears longing for her beloved.

Read the entire meditation here.

Resurrection Presbyterian Church's Particularization Service

On Sunday, March 6, 2011, Resurrection Presbyterian Church as "particularized" at a worship service conducted by a commission of Missouri Presbytery. Over 300 people showed their support for Resurrection's ministry by attending the service. Pastor Chris Smith was installed as the Pastor. Elders and deacons were ordained and installed. The officers and members of Resurrection were prayed for, charged, and blessed by ministers and elders from Missouri presbytery, the broader PCA, and the Lutheran church!

Maybe best of all, after the service we were all treated to an amazing feast, the highlight of which was roast pork cooked by the guys at Iron Barley. The members of Resurrection worked hard to make this a great night. Thank you!

You can see more images from the service here.

Jeffrey's First IDPA Match

My 17-year-old son Jeffrey shot his first match this past Sunday at the Benchrest club in Wright City, MO. The scores are in and he came in 15th out of 50 shooters. And 5th out of 30 SSP (stock service pistol) shooters. Pretty good for his first match.