5/24/10

Happy Aldersgate Day!

This day we remember what might be called John Wesley's "Pentecost experience." While listening to Luther's preface to Romans being read at a Bible study group (meeting at Aldersgate St. in London), Wesley suddenly felt his heart "strangely warmed" and had a new conviction and assurance that Jesus had died for him, for his own sins. It became personal for him.

Though he was already a priest in the Church of England Wesley's ministry took on a new fire after this day by the grace of the Holy Spirit working in him. Since we Methodists are often in the habit of talking about "grace" and "Wesley's theology of grace" I thought I might include a description of the meaning of "grace" from Wesley's sermon, "The Witness of our own Spirit":

By the 'grace of God' is sometimes to be understood that free love, that unmerited mercy by which I a sinner, through the merits of Christ, am now reconciled to God. But in this place (2 Cor. 1:12) it rather means that power of God the Holy Ghost, which 'worketh in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure.' (see Phil. 2:13) As soon as ever the grace of God in the former sense, his pardoning love, is manifested to our souls, the grace of God in the latter sense, the power of his Spirit, takes place therein. (section 15)

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5/16/10

Renewing deep connections

One of the wonderful websites that you will find linked on Gloria Deo's right-side bar is The Front Porch Republic. Like many of the sites I recommend, I don't check in on this one nearly often enough, but they often have fascinating articles and commentaries, generally encouraging the renewal of genuine community - and with it a more genuine politics in American life.

They have had articles celebrating the "new urbanism" that we see in many American cities - including my own city, Lafayette - in which new developments (or renewed downtown areas) include homes, grocers, coffee shops, all close together to promote walking (instead of driving) and more interaction with one's immediate neighbors. I think this is a very important and positive move towards helping isolated Americans find a more real community.

I see two other potential trends that I also believe are very healthy.
Last year Americans moved less. They stayed more. It is difficult for an individual or a family to become rooted in any community if their job frequently causes them to move to a new place. There were less movies primarily because of the poor economy, and as commerce picks up again (assuming it does) then presumably so will mobility. But hopefully the experience of staying longer in one place will convince more people of its value. Hopefully as technologies are better utilized by companies, the physical location of any given employee will become more flexible, allowing people to stay longer in a community they connect with.

The other trend I see (even in my own family, but also in television ads) is that more people are attempting to grow more of their own food - even if it is only a couple of vegetables in a flower-bed garden. There is a growing desire not to have over-processed and artificial food for health reasons, but also for reasons of environmental protection (why burn fossil fuels bringing me a tomato from California when I can grow my own) and social justice (why buy food produced by pseudo-slave labor in the Far East when I can grow my own).

There is, I believe, another positive reason to support this last trend: renewed connection to the land. For most of human history, our ancestors have felt a deep connection to the land that sustained them. This shaped they way they thought of their world, even the nature of language itself. For most of us that connection has been obliterated by a reliance on the artificial. Reforging that connection will, I believe, have many great benefits - even on a spiritual level for Westerners.

I got to thinking about all this recently thanks to this cool quote from J.R.R. Tolkien:

"[Family life must have been different] in the days when a family had fed on the produce of the same few miles of country for six generations, and that perhaps was why they saw nymphs in the fountains and dryads in the wood - they were not mistaken for there was in a sense real (not metaphorical) connections between them and the countryside. What had been earth and air and later corn, and later still bread, really was in them. We of course who live on a standardized international diet...are artificial beings and have no connection (save in sentiment) with any place on earth. We are synthetic men, uprooted. The strength of the hills is not ours."

- J.R.R. Tolkien, from an unpublished letter to Arthur Greeves, June 22, 1930.

The 'strength of the hills' may not be ours again for sometime, but the strength of the soil pot or the back-yard garden is a nice place to start.

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5/11/10

2081: Everyone is finally equal



I've not yet seen this film, but it looks really intriguing. The tyranny of absolute egalitarianism; when good intentions bring the world to hell. 'Equality' is an easy thing for us to rally around; it is one of our most sacred values in the US (and Europe), but might it - could it - come into conflict with 'Liberty'? Has it already?

When I was in college one of my political science professors suggested at that American culture never has, and never can, produce a Shakespeare or a Bach precisely because our commitment to egalitarianism nullifies the sort of greatness that was more valued in their more hierarchical societies. I don't know if that is true or not. But worth pondering nonetheless.

Certainly it seems to me that we here in the United States have a sort of 'ingrained' anti-elitism that can, in practice, lead to a dumbing-down of every aspect of our culture. Classical music and opera is bad because it is too 'elite.' The men of every sit-com I've ever seen run in terror when the women try to drag them along to a play. Anyways, I feel a rant coming on...so I'll stop here. But consider the question - do we risk destroying great things, even the human spirit itself, in the pursuit of 'equalization'?

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5/5/10

Reforming Communion (continued...)

For everyone who was interested in the conversation (a couple posts back) about reforming the United Methodist Church's popular practices of Holy Communion (indeed to bring actual practice more in line with our official teachings), Andrew Thompson has written a stongly worded follow-up article over at his blog, responding to some of the flak he has taken for suggesting that we should actually allow clear theology to dictate our practices - even if they become less popular for that reason.

Andrew is one of my favorite young United Methodist theologians (now getting his doctorate at Duke Divinity School) whom I've had the pleasure to read for a few years now (and even meet in real life one time). He is an excellent blogger who is passionate about a Christian faith that is thoughtful, Biblical, and Wesleyan. I look forward to his shaking up the Church's doctrinal thinking for many years.

Here are some quotes from his article, defending a practice of Holy Communion that he calls "a disciplined table" as opposed to an utterly "open table":

...It is my critique of that un-Scriptural, un-historical, un-ecumenical quasi-doctrine that so many Methodists just love: the "Open Table" practice of inviting anyone in earshot to receive the Lord's Supper with a "y'all come!" enthusiasm. The Open Table ethos as many pastors and congregations practice it today presents the Eucharist as a meal where anyone is welcome - Christians, non-Christians, confessed adherents of other religions, unbelievers, agnostics, and atheists.That such an approach to the sacrament of our Lord's body and blood is an utter novelty in the history of the Christian Church, without any biblical foundation or support in Wesleyan theology or widespread support in the church catholic, does not seem to factor into the consideration of those who consider it to be amongst the fundamental marks of Methodism...

...Whenever I write a column or put up a blog post on this issue, I inevitably take a lot of flack. Sometimes people act as if there is a deep arrogance at work in even engaging the issue of participation in Holy Communion, as if exercising a holy discipline over the sacrament were the equivalent of making a value judgment the intrinsic worth of persons. And sometimes people will act aghast that the Church would ever make a statement suggesting a standard of ministry or discipleship in anyway, because we are all supposed to bow at the altar of "inclusivism" - a concept that apparently means we never say 'no' to anyone, at anytime, for any reason.

As I've said before the words of the Communion liturgy themselves clearly rule out what I've called the "utterly open table" - yet this seems to escape the attention of those who shrink back from any notion that God might require anything of us even as we come to recieve his gift in the holy sacrament.

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5/1/10

Thank you, President Obama

Today I read some exerpts from a recent Obama speech that I would like to share with readers (here is the source).

I've been an interested observer of American politics for some years now, and what I see and hear too often tempts me to cynicism. All too rare are genuine thoughtfulness or wisdom, and so I like to highlight it whenever I find it.

In his remarks, the president certainly allows us to see some of his ideological commitments, which are often quite different from my own (I certainly do not believe that we suffer from "too little government"). Nevertheless, it seems he really does endeavor to rise above the partisan name-calling and slogan-repitition that currently deafens our political "discourse" to invite us to think more clearly and dialogue more earnestly, as our nation desperately needs to do. So thank you Mr. Obama:

"What troubles me is when I hear people say that all of government is inherently bad," Obama said after receiving an honorary doctor of laws degree. "When our government is spoken of as some menacing, threatening foreign entity, it ignores the fact that in our democracy, government is us."

Government, he said, is the roads we drive on and the speed limits that keep us safe. It's the men and women in the military, the inspectors in our mines, the pioneering researchers in public universities.

The financial meltdown dramatically showed the dangers of too little government, he said, "when a lack of accountability on Wall Street nearly led to the collapse of our entire economy."
But Obama was direct in urging both sides in the political debate to tone it down. "Throwing around phrases like 'socialists' and 'Soviet-style takeover,' 'fascists' and 'right-wing nut' — that may grab headlines," he said. But it also "closes the door to the possibility of compromise. It undermines democratic deliberation," he said.

"At its worst, it can send signals to the most extreme elements of our society that perhaps violence is a justifiable response."

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