To esteem or to sin

C.S. Lewis in The Abolition of Man comments that:

"Until quite modern times all teachers and even all men believed the universe to be such that certain emotional reactions on our part could be either congruous or incongruous to it--believed, in fact, that objects did not merely receive, but could merit, our approval or disapproval, our reverence or our contempt."

Lewis here is fighting the tendency to regard all emotions as subjective by modern thinkers. If I see a waterfall as big as Niagara cascading down a cliff with a thundrous roar that makes my own thoughts seem unable to voice their praise to its majesty, any thing I say about the cataract by modern esteem is labeled as subjective. There is no objective reaction to a merely "materialistic" waterfall. It is merely the process of gravity working on water, albeit on a larger scale. The "thing in itself", i.e. the naked physics of waterfalls, do not have anything to do with emotional responses in the creatures, those are provided only by the creature.

Lewis' view is that a waterfall that impressive "merits" our esteem. To not be moved by the roaring conduit of water is to sin against being human. It is a mark of sanity to be moved by what is moving, to love what is lovely, and to hate what is abhorrent. The "thing in itself" is not naked physics, but a panorama of God's creative glory on display. It has a being bigger than mere physics can expound, and for a person to not see the glory of God dancing on the water as it cascades over the spillway is to blind our eyes to what is our rightful response: worship not of waterfalls, but of God.

I think, though Lewis would disagree with many of their implications, this view is in complete accordance with the Puritans. They believed certain things merited the utmost love just by their own "being-ness". They believed Christianity was a religion of heightened affections over the glory of God revealed in nature and in Scripture, and to fail to let one's affections be raised by it would be tantamount to blasphemy, or profaning the glory of God by holding it as trifling and flimsy.

"For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived...For although they [men] knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened."

To not properly love what is lovely ruins mankind on many levels. Henry Scougal says, "love must needs be miserable, and full of trouble and disquietude, when there is not worth and excellency enough in the object to answer the vastness of its capacity."

To illustrate, if I refuse to pin my awe on that massive waterfall, and instead try to be fascinated by a mud puddle, I make for myself a level of misery as great as the waterfall is above the mud puddle. For whatever lesser object I set my approval on, I transgress against my created nature to behold that which is great. I don't choose whether or not to "esteem" the waterfall, I respond to its being by either praising or sinning. I do not grant God a measure of worship, I either worship with all my heart or sin with the level of my heart that does not rise up in praise.

Not where the wheeling systems darken,
And our benumbed conceiving soars!—
The drift of pinions, would we hearken,
Beats at our own clay-shuttered doors.

The angels keep their ancient places;—
Turn but a stone, and start a wing!
‘Tis ye, ‘tis your estrangèd faces,
That miss the many-splendoured thing.

Francis Thompson "The Kingdom of God"

The dead lay still in the cold earth

I am reading C.S. Lewis' "Ransom Trilogy", which are stories that encapsulate the writings in his book The Abolition of Man. He deals here with the de-humanization of Western culture by modernization.
We have become even more dehumanized since he was alive, having continued this trend. And we see it everywhere. Abortion is a procedure that doesn't even take into account in its description its implication for human life. We talk about disasters and famines in respect to their geo-political ramifications and in numbers. We don't believe anything unless there is a statistic behind it. We have become moral adding machines...and moral is about to fall off the title.
Lewis believes the problem with this tendency to dehumanize and scientifically explain or justify all of our experiences is the abolition of what makes us human. He believes emotion and sympathy are too vital to the human soul to always be validated by our rational side. This is not how we learn or live, merely calculating and weighing all things objectively as they fit towards everything else.
He gives an example of military units. Many units have a flag, or a standard, or an emblem that they use to promote a sense of identity and pride. During the heat of battle, Lewis knew that all the rational information in the world would not keep a soldier in the trenches during hours of bombing. (He fought in WWI). What kept soldiers there, fighting, was not rational; it was something far deeper and more simple. "Don't let the flag fall boys, forward! forward!" No scientist can explain why an emblem could stir such fortitude and emotion in the human soul to endure the savage nature of war for a mere flag, but it worked.
No equation can explain how emotion and inanimate objects bleed together and we feel love for a simple spot of ground just because our dead loved ones lay there for a while. But it is utterly human to experience these illogical draining of ration and intellect and emotion and passion into one another's tanks. Pure, cold, hard logic; humanity cannot stomach it. It has produced the vile dictatorships of the 20th century, it has neutered our poetry into a study of semantic domains and linguistic influences rather than just experience the image for what it is worth.
I'm afraid our culture does not even know how to live without someone pounding us over the head with our own soulish nakedness. We deconstruct our literature, we shackle our businesses with rate of returns, and we sacrifice our marriages for efficiency. Morality is the chief victim of this exchange. We no longer even know why good is better, we go by pragmatism.
Despite all of my criticism, I am all slice and no stitch tonight. I will have to think on this more until I even can think of how we could possibly change it on a societal level. We are too entertainment sodden. It starves a boys soul to be brought up on a Wii rather than on Lord of the Rings. A boy needs dragons to kill in his imagination, not a button to press to defeat pixels. I am unsure our music can even carry themes strong enough to change culture anymore, it is produced to maximize profit rather than to be prophetic. I think we are done for. We've burned the very lifeboats culture had built in to save us.

Can prayer move mountains?

This is a preview of what I am going to speak on this upcoming week at my friend's BCM service. When Jesus says in Matt 21:21 that if we have faith we can move mountains, we can't make a blanket statement across all of our prayer requests and say, "If I have faith it will happen." As a kid I had my heart crushed several times because certain prayer requests weren't answered although I believed beyond a shadow of a doubt that God would answer them. I didn't receive swords, pet dragons, a brother, or anything of the sort despite my impeccable record for having faith as small as a mustard seed.
We have to take verse 21 and see the context of chapter 21 in Jesus' ministry. Jesus entered Jerusalem triumphantly in verses 1-11. In verses 12-17 he cleanses the temple of the money-changers and the salesmen proclaiming that it is a house of prayer, not of thieves. In verses 18-22 he curses a fig tree and teaches on prayer as a kind of afterthought (this afterthought is my main text). From verses 23 and onward to the end, most crucial to understanding what is going on, we see Jesus and the religious leaders arguing over who has the authority to do what. Jesus pronounces a parable on them that builds until verse 43 with the statement "the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits."
That statement is the most important for understanding the passage on prayer, because we see the teaching on prayer hanging on the end of an incident where Jesus curses a fig tree because there is no fruit. In the scheme of chapter 21, the fig tree becomes an enacted parable where Jesus, seeing the fruitlessness of Israel symbolized in the fruitlessness of the fig tree, curses it as a sign that Israel will soon be cursed and withered, and as he teaches later the "vineyard" or Kingdom of God will be given to another nation.
So the teaching on prayer is right on the heels of this enacted parable. The context of chapter 21 is that Israel is rejecting Jesus' authority, and thereby showing the root of the fruitlessness; rebellion to God. This rebellion will not thwart the kingdom, because it will be given to another nation who will bear fruit unto God. So no sane person in this context would think God is teaching me how to ask and believe in order to get a big mansion or a nice car. This isn't a teaching on "Santa" God.
What it means for the church is that if there is a mountain between you and the fulfillment of Jesus' mission on earth (to bring all nations into Him), then that mountain will be traversed or moved for the sake of Christ. If a mountain of opposition comes against your mission to spread the name of Christ throughout the world, God's inexhaustible power will meet and defeat that mountain in order that Christ's name will be spread.
It doesn't mean I can get what I want from God for no reason except that I asked in faith, it means my requests must be in line with Gospel ends in order for it to apply.
An army is in my way? No big deal, God moves mountains. I don't speak the language? No big deal, God can teach it if I need it now or He can allow me to learn it. A stubborn, fruitless church has possession of all the money to send out missionaries and they are sitting on it? No big deal, God can shake it out of them.

A taste of Christ

The only reasonable ammunition against sin is a clear and strong perception of the glories of Christ through His word and His Spirit. One who is held firmly by this excellence, perceived and enjoyed, will not darken the palette of his or her mind with the lesser pleasures of the flesh as long as the strong and clear fragrance of Christ is present. The temptation to sin many times will not even gravitate the desires of such a person, being mortified to an extent that the pursuits of the world may call, but like water off a ducks back they will roll right off the mind of such a person. If this perception can be maintained through discipline and regular spiritual exercises, the battle against sin is won. The battle is lost when we smudge the glory of Christ on the mirror of our mind with things that do not reflect Him properly. It never happens quickly, but slowly inch by inch the flesh takes back as the affections cool for Christ.
A Christian never runs straight to a "big" sin from this mindset; it is always a little negligence that pulls us away from Christ. Like Peter, we notice the waves, and then we begin to sink. Pride comes before the downfall. The affections cool before sin ensares. Here's where I'm pulling from:

"But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death."

James 1:14-15

There are three steps to any sin given in these verses: First we have a desire. Then we are tempted and lured by it. Then we sin.

So here's what I'm thinking, If we fight the battle against sin in the desire phase...we can win more easily. There is nothing to lure us and entice us, there is nothing to tempt us. A man living in a house full of half-naked posters of women is not able to purify his desires. His desires have gasoline poured on them at every occasion. Desire must be guarded, and purified. It usually accomadates what it spends the most time around. What you plant in the mind, blooms in the heart. Guard the heart, for it is the wellspring of life.

Death and Dying and the Grace to bear it

Every new encounter in life leads to new possibilities and new forks that appear in well-worn paths. Like a new spring on an old field, life continues to march on as death undoes all we love.

My grandfather passed away nearly three weeks ago. The family had been expecting it, anticipating it at times, and dreading it at others. He had a long, slow bout with an illness that made the past 26 years of his life (on the day I was born he was in surgery) move at a pace that almost would drive him into despair at times. He stayed around for many more years than any doctor expected him to with his heart working at an alarmingly low rate. In the end, the weakening of this heart, and the progress of cancer allowed my grandfather to go home sooner than we wanted, but thankfully later than we expected.

In his last days he was on large amounts of pain medication and he drifted in and out of lucidity. Synapses would fire during an ordinary conversation and he would end up talking about an event or experience years ago that he remembered. Watching the numbing of his mind was a trial, yet in his clear moments my family saw a man face death without flinching and rejoice that he would soon be in his new home.

On Thursday, October 11 2007 I walked over to my grandmother's house to say bye before running out for the afternoon and walked in on one of the greatest moments I have ever witnessed. There lay my grandfather, lips blue, eyes closed, face proud and unstrained by death. He was still warm. My grandmother cried on his neck, assuring herself that he was no longer suffering, no longer in pain, at home with Jesus and his mother and father. She left the room and this gave me opportunity to be alone with a shell; a dignified shell looking like a statue. No longer contorted, restless, and asleep in an induced medicinal haze, but his body was relaxed and calm and proud. Proud to have encased a man for 80 years who lived such. Proud to cool and decompose and lie until that day when it will be reanimated incorruptible. All I could say to this shell, to this man now at home, was "Thank You."

I am grateful for many things in life that have aided me, and there are other things I wish I could have done without. But in a convoluted sense, here hurt meets grace and leaves me nothing but thankful. I am thankful for a father that left me, so that I could learn from my grandfather something I would never have learned from my father had he been there: something taught to me by a man with a weak heart for as long as I'd known him. I cannot define it with words but I see it in every field, on every tree; it is something that has seeped into my bones. I have learned how to live from watching a man die. Death is a great teacher of things eternal, through grace. I have seen Christ conquer yet again, and turn the agony of loss into the prize of gain. I am thankful, just thankful. Hurt? Yes. Despairing? No. We rejoice for the memories of my grandfather and await that Day, when he will work to the glory of God again. From now on, a grave in the defunct farming community of Union, Florida has a special place in my heart. There lies the reminder of human weakness, and through grace the reminder of godly strength. There Christ has redeemed a soul, and will one day redeem a body, and has already through my grandfather's life and death redeemed something in me.

Titus and Elders

I have a Bible-reading plan that my Associate Pastor fondly refers to as the A.D.D. Bible-reading plan. Most of our church is going straight through the Bible, about 4 chapters a day. The plan I'm on gives you a gospel reading, an epistle reading, a history reading, and a prophet/wisdom reading. You are in four different places each day. Needless to say, some people's brains could not take this kind of randomness, mine thrives off of it, I can actually remember what I read.

Anyhow, the book of Titus deals with an interesting issue in the leadership of the church, eldership.

Titus was left in Crete to appoint elders in every church, who could lead and teach by example and doctrine. The reason was this: "There are many (church members) who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party. They must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach...Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith."

Now this is said to Titus in context of elders (1:5-9 is on elders, 1:10-16 on dealing with false teachers). The reason given for elders is found in 1:9, "He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it." Meaning, what Paul was just talking about above, about rebuking people who upset the faith of many, will be done by elders in the body. Working with churches where I live, we see a lot of unspiritual people ruining congregations by their own manipulations and designs, and a lot of churches are torn apart because the deacons allow this to go on right under their noses. At the church I attend, the elders have silenced enough useless criticism to preserve a greater deal of unity than I have witnessed in a church before. Spiritual men leading the church is the greatest defense against divisive people that there is.

Now if SBC churches would just realize it is their heritage and go back to it, we'd have maybe that illusive "revival" we are always chasing after...

Need everywhere

My job allows me to travel quite a bit. I was traveling last weekend through a very interesting region. It is the southern region of a presently volatile country, there is a lot of internal squabbling going on right now, though it has yet to turn widely violent. I was driving down the road, headed to a very rural area to attend a church where the pastor recently has come under persecution for its orthodox beliefs by local religious authorities.
Along the rural, agricultural farmland the winding road took me by several fertilizer polluted holding ponds. Many of the local residents, wearing old clothes and looking quite haggard, were trying to catch fish out of those ponds. Poor housing, some in ruins with clothes still hanging out in the weather, dotted the landscape. In the cemeteries, many graves were adorned with the flags of the last rebel seperatist group to claim the area, still holding loyalty to that group rather than the present government. The area has been under intense drought over the past decade, worsening year by year, and many farmers have been driven out of business by bad weather, and government intervention. There are a lot of places in this world that need the Gospel.