Beating Lust with John Chrysostom and Gospel Simplicity

I've long admired the work that Austin is doing over at the Gospel Simplicity YouTube channel.  Here is a nice video drawing from St. John Chrysostom (and others) in addressing lust.  This is always a timely topic in our days when so many are being completely overcome by the deadly sin of Lust.

Gavin Ortlund on the Wesleyan/Methodist Revival

Gavin Ortlund is, without a doubt, my favorite Reformed Baptist clergyman YouTuber.  I really appreciate his charitable approach, intellectual rigor, and defenses both of Christian belief in general, and classical Protestantism as well.

I'm looking forward to the day when he sees the light on bishops and infant baptism.  

Here is a video that Ortlund did celebrating the early Methodist revival movement within the Anglican Church led by John and Charles Wesley.  It's a good video, especially in looking at the conditions in England before this 'awakening' and some of the lessons we might apply today.  

Since today is "Aldersgate day" - May 24th, when John Wesley had his "heart-warming" experience of assurance from the Holy Spirit that really sparked the revival - I commend it to you.  Today is a good day to remember just how much influence a Spirit-filled renewal can have on the whole of a society - and today is a good day to pray for another one.  

The Annunciation set to glorious music

Many churches traditionally read the Annunciation of the Angel Gabriel to Mary, the Mother of our Lord, on the 4th Sunday of Advent.

Quotes from the Annunciation in Luke's Gospel and also from John chapter 1 ("the Word became Flesh") are interspersed with the Ave Maria ("Hail Mary") in a traditional Roman Catholic devotion called the Angelus.  In addition to the "Hail Mary"s, these are the Biblical verses and the prayer that are recited in this Devotion in remembrance of Christ's Incarnation: 

The angel declared unto Mary, (Lk. 1:28)
And she conceived of the Holy Spirit.

"Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord
Let it be to me according to your word." (Lk. 1:38)

The Word was made flesh
And dwelt among us. (John 1:14)

The Angelus ends with a prayer that is also found in the Anglican Common Prayer book (at the end of the Mid-day Prayer liturgy):

Pour your grace into our hearts, O Lord, that we who have known the incarnation of your Son Jesus Christ, announced by an angel to the Virgin Mary, may by his Cross and passion be brought to the glory of his resurrection; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.  (2019 Book of Common Prayer, p. 38)

Franz Biebl's musical setting of the Angelus is one of the most beautiful works of art that I know, and the amazing choral ensemble, Voces8, has (along with "The Ringmasters") put out a new recording of it just this month, which has already enriched my life. 

Thomas Cranmer: Reformer, Saint, Martyr

 

Are churches confusing "Relevant" and "Trendy"?

 

Review of "A Daybook of Prayer"

 

CS Lewis on Ethics

There are lots of people these days who advocate for casting off tradition - including Christianity - as part of the wicked "patriarchy" in order to establish "social justice."  

I have long held that this whole movement is incoherent - it begins with basic assumptions that are part of traditional (and Christian) morality, and then uses them in its assault upon Christianity and Tradition.  But no new grounding for the moral claims is offered.

CS Lewis points out the basic problems with "new moralities" that actually borrow some aspects of the classic, inherited, morality in order to attack classic and inherited tradition.  It is a self-contradiction.

 

Courage: When you Pass Through Fire

 Here is part three of my sermon series on Courage: 

Important Books: The Great Divorce

 Here are my thoughts on this masterpiece from C.S. Lewis, one of my all-time favorite works on Christian spirituality.

Important Book: The Imitation of Christ

 My thoughts (posted originally a few months back) on this beloved devotional classic.

NT Wright - The Challenge of Jesus and other good books

Here are my reflections on some of the first books I discovered from this guy called NT Wright.

 

Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

My reflections on one of the Great Ones:

Thank God the Christians ended slavery

 I find it interesting that, at least in some circles, Western Civilization has been so thoroughly dismissed and derided for having accepted the sin of slavery, while at the same time every other civilization in world history which practiced slavery (basically all of them) is given a 'free pass' and also the role of West - and of Christianity in particular - in fighting to end slavery goes largely un-mentioned.

If we want to do real justice to the historical facts, we should be celebrating the role of Christianity - Evangelical Christianity in particular - in fighting to drive this evil from our common life.  Matthew Everhard is one of the Presbyterian/Reformed YouTubers that I follow, and in this video he does exactly that: 

Ravi Zacharias on John Wesley

Some of you may have heard just a couple weeks ago that the great evangelical Christian teacher Ravi Zacharias passed away.  Zacharias was a world-renowned and brilliant apologist and defender of the Christian faith.  He made it his life's mission to demonstrate to the world that the Christian faith was true.  Here is a video of Zacharias talking about one of my patron saints, John Wesley.

Thanks be to God for the work and ministry of both of these truly great men.

Does Protestantism contribute to Western Civilization?

St Paul's (Anglican) Cathedral, London

I follow a few Roman Catholic bloggers, thinkers, and video bloggers.  As fellow Christians we have a great many shared interests morally, spiritually, politically, and culturally: we proclaim the same Risen Christ, read the same New Testament, recite the same Creeds, worship on the same Holy Days (and even sing some of the same hymns), advocate for the same moral values.  Despite the fact that we have some different understandings of the church, spiritual authority, and how our relationship to God 'works', we nevertheless share a great deal of common interest and concern.
In fact, I would say that Roman Catholics more than either Evangelical or Historic Protestants are really on the forefront of thinking through how to revitalize and preserve Western Civilization.

This is a good thing because (despite the naysayers in some quarters of our culture), while every civilization has its evils (including the West), nevertheless Western Civilization has done more to promote goodness, freedom, truth, reason and mercy than any other human movement in History, and I'm very proud to be a product and heir of it.

Western Civilization is inescapably bound up with Christianity, so much so that Winston Churchill quite happily called it "Christian Civilization".  Inspired by the Christian message, the artistic and spiritual achievements of Western Civilization are simply staggering.

But what I've noticed is that you'll sometimes hear Roman Catholic thinkers say something along the lines of "When I say Western or Christian civilization, I am essentially talking about Roman Catholic Civilization, because the two are the same thing..."  Indeed, a few would even point to the iconoclastic tendencies of some forms of Protestantism (i.e. Puritanism), to argue that Protestantism as a whole has been a corrosive influence on Western Civilization, rather than really a contributor to it.

But clearly it is a mistake to equate Western Civilization with the Roman Catholic Church or its members' contributions.  For one thing, a major contributor to Western Civilization is without doubt the pre-Christian Grecco-Roman heritage.  The art, architecture, literature, philosophy, and legal traditions of Athens and Rome are absolutely essential to Western Civilization, and yet none of these were originally created by Roman Catholics.  Yet what would Western Civilization be without Homer or Plato or Aristotle or Virgil or Cicero?

Even if we narrow the discussion to Christendom and explicitly Christian achievements, we still find that there are major contributions to Western Civilization coming from non-Roman Catholic sources.  For example, if Greece is part of Western Civilization (and it obviously is), then that means that the cultural achievements born out of Eastern Orthodox Churches need to be considered right along side those of the Roman Catholic Church.  And it is certain that the contributions to Christian Civilization coming from Eastern Orthodox creators such as Rachmaninoff or Dostoevsky are substantial.

There can be absolutely no doubt that Protestants also have also made major positive contributions to Western, Christian Civilization as a whole.  A few examples:

Music:
I once heard the (Roman Catholic) Philosopher Peter Kreeft say that one reason he believed in the existence of God was simply the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.  I agree.
And Bach was a Protestant; he composed major spiritual works such as the St. Matthew Passion.
Beethoven was Roman Catholic, to be sure...but Handel was Protestant.  Palestrina was Catholic, but Mendelssohn was Protestant.  So were Paul Manz, and Hubert Parry and John Rutter and Henry Purcell.

Sacred Architecture:
Catholics are quite right to celebrate the great medieval and Renaissance churches...but what of the very iconic and significant contributions to sacred architecture made by men such as Sir Christopher Wren or Richard Upjohn?  The Gothic revival itself was born in Protestant England.

Visual Arts:
I'll freely admit that most of the greatest visual artists, especially those working with Biblical and Spiritual themes were Roman Catholics, such as Michelangelo and Raphael.  But surely the contributions of a Protestant like Rembrandt are nothing to sneer at either?

Literature:
Catholics are quite right to rejoice in the majesty of Dante's Divine Comedy.  But what of Milton's Paradise Lost?  What of Bunyan?  For that matter, what of Shakespeare, whose work is shot through with spiritual themes?  All Protestant.

Many younger Roman Catholics that I know are glad to count Tolkien and Chesterton among their number.  And well they should be, for these are simply outstanding authors.  But let us not forget that C.S. Lewis, George MacDonald, Dorothy Sayers, T.S. Elliot, and Charles Williams were all Protestants.

Of course, for English-speakers the King James Version of the Bible is itself an extremely important contribution to our literary tradition.

Ideas and Learning:
In terms of the "big ideas" that shaped Western Civilization, the Protestant affirmation of 'the priesthood of all believers' meant that each believer was equal in the community of faith, which led to the birth of modern notions of equality and the belief that every citizen should have a say in government (i.e. 'one-man-one-vote' style democracy).  This is why the Pilgrims on the Mayflower all got together and voted on a written constitution for how their colony would be run, which has had a tremendous impact on the emergence of our American Republic.  The Protestant insistence that everyone should read the Bible for himself led to the development of universal education and widespread literacy.

Institutions of higher learning such as Harvard, Princeton, and Yale and many others besides, which have come to have tremendous cultural influence, were originally created for the stated purpose of spreading Protestant Christianity.  This is barely even to begin to scratch the surface of the influence of Protestantism on Western thought and ideas over the course of these last 500 years.

Certainly, I do not aim to downplay the absolutely essential and glorious contributions of Roman Catholics to our Civilization; they are profound.  Nor am I suggesting that we should be content to enjoy or celebrate the contributions of only our own particular branch of Christianity.  The truth I want to highlight is that members of all three major branches of Christianity - Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant - have made significant contributions to our Christian Civilization, and we should celebrate and share together all of them as gifts to us all from the Lord whom we all profess.

For the reasons noted in my previous post, I have come to believe that it is Secularism (not Protestantism) which is incapable of making significant contributions to our civilization, because it has no great Beauty with a capitol 'B' or Truth with a capitol 'T' that has the power to captivate men's minds and inspire their creativity for centuries on end, as the Lord of the Bible has indeed done for Western Civilization.

Alpha Males, Beta Males, "toxic masculinity," and real Manhood

Or, we might call this post "A Good Masculinity is hard to find..."

A few months ago I was talking to a young, nominally Catholic, man who has a son, a toddler.  We were talking about what it means to be parents, and I made a comment along the lines of "And now you must teach him how to be a man."  To which my acquaintance replied, "As soon as I figure out whatever that means..."

There seems to be a great deal of confusion in our culture about what indeed does it mean to be a man.  It seems that lots of people (including lots of women) are more comfortable referring to the men they know as "guys" rather than as "men."  It is almost as if we aren't quite sure whether they really are men yet.  

I suspect that, in fact, an uncertainty about "whether I'm really a man" actually lies behind some crime and domestic abuse, as men try to prove (to themselves) that they are strong and worthy of respect/fear and that this somehow makes them "real men."

Why this confusion?  How have we lost the vision of what it means to be a man, and how to get there?

Part of this results from the decline of a common culture thanks in part to multiculturalism (which is ultimately "anti-culturalism" if you think about it - no culture is permitted to be THE culture, so no cultural practices or ideals can ever be normative and universal), and partly this results from the (related) rise of individualism and informalism (and those two are connected).  The confluence of these shifts have left us bereft a common set of rites of passage for boys across our culture, intended to instill in them certain virtues and character traits, as part of the pathway into manhood.

Added to all that (or perhaps because of it) we've got the phenomenon of "prolonged adolescence" and we have to wonder if the 30-year-olds who still live with their parents and cannot provide for themselves really are "men" yet.  Being able to provide for and protect one's self and, indeed, one's wife and children has traditionally been one of the marks of manhood that still lingers in our cultural imagination (and for good reason).

Added to all of that, some are now questioning the value of Manhood itself.
Just today I saw an ad/commercial on YouTube urging us to "evolve the definition" of masculinity.  This is part of the Left's** reaction against what the good folks on the Left** call "toxic masculinity" - the domineering, aggressive, and (often sexually) abusive sorts of men who have come to flourish in some quarters of a culture that has largely thrown off Christian morality and the classical virtues, a culture that celebrates the individual's desires and (especially) a "free-for-all" sexual ethic where "nothing is taboo" any longer.
It should come as no surprise to anyone who has a Biblical understanding of human nature that throwing off sexual restraints would result in a rise of sexual predation.  And so it has.

The Bible teaches that sad the history of men attempting to dominate women (essentially, what is now being called 'toxic masculinity') is actually a consequence of Original Sin, of the Fall of Mankind from our original state of grace (see Genesis 3).  Christianity teaches that this problem is not simply widespread, it is actually universal - we are all tainted by sin - and that the only solution is the renewal of each hardened heart by the grace offered freely to us by Jesus Christ.  This grace we receive by faith in Him, by inviting him to be Lord over our lives, by reception of the Sacraments, and by a life of prayer and devotion.

The Left is - unsurprisingly - rushing to throw out the baby of masculinity with the bathwater of sexual abuse, assuming that THE problem is strong and assertive men.  The "Alpha male" must be rooted out of our culture and replaced by the "Beta male," because it is assumed he will be much nicer to women.
But, as I've said, we don't have a problem with sexual predators because our men are too manly, but rather because they are immoral, because they lack virtue, because our society has thrown off all restraints when it comes to sex.  The truth is that the 'Beta male' will also harm women, though probably in different ways.

Also unsurprisingly, the solution offered by the Left will fail, precisely because it doesn't fully appreciate human nature and culture.  Alpha males, strong and assertive men, aren't going away, and no amount of PSAs on YouTube will change that (just ask yourself whether such PSA's will ever gain the passionate viewership of, say, the SuperBowl).  That vigorous Masculinity is here to stay is a good thing, for in a dangerous world we need brave and strong men to maintain to protect lives and the peace of communities.

A couple of weeks ago I heard an NPR interviewer speaking with a former Navy Seal about a book the Veteran had written about raising kids who are courageous and aggressive problem solvers.  Toward the end of the interview, the NPR interviewer made the comment, "Some of my colleagues did not even want me to interview you today, fearing that your book is promoting a 'toxic masculinity'; how do you answer that charge?"
I chuckled to myself and thought "If a foreign nation invades our country and starts killing people in the streets (as has indeed happened before), or if terrorists invade your office building or commuter train, you folks at NPR are going to wish you had a lot more men around who were aggressive problem solvers."

But the good folks on the Left are certainly correct on this point: Alpha males certainly can be abusive, dominating, rash, insensitive to the needs of others, and all the rest.  Masculinity can and often does turn 'toxic'.  From the Christian point of view this is no surprise precisely because every one of us is fallen and corrupted by the power of sin.  The problem is not masculinity itself, the problem is that masculinity (just like femininity, actually - though this post if focused upon masculinity) has been infected and corrupted by sin.
There must be restraints for all of us against immorality, there must be social pressures that push us toward good behavior.  Above all there must be ideals to strive after, there must be a vision of Manhood that directs our energies and passions toward the Good and away from sin.

And the Bible and the Christian tradition gives us precisely this vision.

What does it look like to be a man of God in a fallen and corrupted (and often dangerous world)?  In the Bible we are offered the ideal the "Warrior Poet", the sage-soldier, the man who is at the same time ferocious and stern in battle to defend his family, community, and his faith - but also sensitive, tender-hearted towards his loved ones, spiritual, and artistic.

In Scripture this ideal is seen in King David.  He was both the warrior who could slay the giant Goliath but also the poet who could write so many of the Psalms that stand as some of the most beloved Poetry in human history.  He was an artist, a musician, a sensitive soul who openly wept and danced in public, but also a "man's man", a leader of armies whose strength, courage, and bearing inspired other men to follow him.

He studied the arts of war, but also the arts of love and worship, even as he also applied himself to the study of the Holy Scriptures of God.  David was faithful, responsible, dutiful, ready to defend and provide for his family and his community.  He was a man.
Interestingly enough when Michelangelo set out to sculpt an "ideal man", he produced his famous David.

David was an able fighter, who slew many of his enemies in battle - but he also showed mercy to his enemies, like King Saul when David had the chance to kill him in the cave.  And, while standard procedure in those violent days was to wipe out all family members of a potential rival king so as to secure one's own claim to the throne, David after he became king, allowed Saul's lame grandson Mephibosheth to feast at David's own table - and act of kindness and generosity unheard of in those days.

In all these ways David really was "a man after God's own heart."  For God is also the artistic Creative who is at the same time the jealous defender of his own people, as Pharaoh discovered when he tried to keep them enslaved.

Even when David failed (colossally) to live up to his own ideals, even as a sinner he becomes an instructive example for manhood, since all men also sin.  When David fell into disastrous sin, he heard the prophetic word of correction and actually heeded it: he did not equivocate or deny wrongdoing, he repented - even publicly.  He left a public record of his prayer of repentance for us as well.  In his penitence we see not only his sinfulness, but also piety and humility and honesty on display.

The virtues of King David help us see what manhood is all about.  Indeed "virtue" is derived from the Latin word for "man."  To be most truly manly is to be virtuous.  In the New Testament we see the virtues of David and many more virtues lifted up: generosity, charity, humility, chastity, simplicity, courage in the face of danger, resolve & grit in the face of suffering, honesty, temperance, self-control, and so on.  We see the virtues taught to us in the Beatitudes of Matthew chapter 5 and in the Fruit of the Spirit of Galatians chapter 5 and in the great 'theological virtues' of 1 Corinthians 13: Faith, Hope, and Love.  Psalm 1 describes a virtuous man (in much the same way that Proverbs 31 describes a virtuous woman).  In all these passages, the Bible says,  "Here is what it means to truly be a man as God intended."

All of these virtues are perfectly and completely embodied in the Life of Christ himself, the truest man that ever lived (which is the double-meaning behind Pontius Pilate's words in John 19:5).  We seek, in our own imperfect ways, to live them out and embody them in our own varying circumstances and vocations.

As the teaching of the Bible helped shape the cultures of Europe, the same ideal - the ideal of the Warrior-Poet, the Strong-Sensitive, also came to be celebrated in Christendom as Chivalry.  In Medieval Christian literature these virtues were embodied by King Arthur (the model of a wise and Christian king), and, most especially, by Sir Lancelot, the ideal knight.

Here is a great video (which is actually an essay by C.S. Lewis accompanied by illustrations) about the Medieval concept of Chivalry and how it is a corrective both to a 'toxic masculinity' that is all about strength and dominance, but without sensitivity and mercy on the one hand, and a "beta" masculinity on the other hand that is all sensitivity, but never strong or stern when the situation calls for it.
Lewis, of course, was (like Tolkien or Winston Churchill and so many others in those days) himself a poet and artist who also served as a soldier and fought to defend his homeland.  They were chivalrous; they were men (not 'guys'); they were warrior-poets.

May God look with mercy on our broken and confused society and grant us godly and virtuous men.

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**Terms like "Left" and "Right", "Liberal" and "Conservative" are short-hand expressions to refer to groups that share certain overlapping beliefs or perspectives.  As such I recognize that the terms are necessarily un-nuanced and problematic, since very few individuals will perfectly fit the "mold."  No doubt plenty of people will be happy to refer to me as a member of the "Religious Right" - I don't identify myself as such, but it is an understandable short-hand, since a great many of my views, theological and political will align with what is usually understood by that term; though I strongly maintain that some views and attitudes will also be quite different than what is usually implied by "Religious Right."  No doubt the same works both ways.

As I use the term "Left" in this piece, I have in mind the editors and reporters working for institutions like NPR and the New York Times, other media figures such as the Ladies on "The View," as well as academic figures like those I personally took courses from in college who seemed determined to find misogyny under every rock and behind every tree (or at least, behind every etymology).  Even my conflating such actual individuals under the heading of "the Left" will be inadequate to actually take on board their various differences and uniqueness-es, but such is the nature of any short-hand terminology.   

Salvation and Perfection

Have you had the experience of discovering something that you already knew, but because it was phrased in a new way, suddenly the truth of it impressed itself upon your mind?  

I've had that experience in recent months.  In part it came from a conversation I had with someone about John Wesley's conception of salvation as being saved from sin in the fullest sense: not only from the guilt of sins past (which we call "justification" or pardon), but also from actually continuing to commit sins, that is, being saved from the rut of committing the same sins over and over (this spiritual healing of our sin-sick souls, we call "sanctification").  John Wesley freely spoke of the goal of Sanctification as "Christian Perfection" or "perfection in love", by which he meant nothing other than becoming like Jesus Christ in our Love of God and Love of neighbor (see Matt. 5:48).  

It means bearing the image of God, just like Him who is the perfect image of God (Col. 1:15); which is our primal vocation (Gen. 1:26-27).  So Christian perfection means the righting of something that went wrong in God's ordered creation, it means standing back up that which had fallen.

In connection with this, I've not been able to shake Jesus' words from John 5:6 lately, where he asks a man who has been crippled a very long time, "Do you want to be healed?"  I preached on this text a few weeks ago, and it has stuck with me.  On the occasions when I am conscious of being tempted, I find that those words seem to float to the top of my mind.  Do you want to be healed?  Do you want to be made well in your soul and in your desires?

The temptation among Evangelicals and other Christians as well, is to focus being saved entirely on being forgiven and set right with God and set free from guilt and judgement.  This is the vitally important starting point that cannot be neglected, and there is joy in heaven whenever anyone experiences that justifying grace of God.

Yet Jesus is not through with us at that point.  He wants to not only save us from the effects of sin, but he wants to save us from sinning.  He wants us to be healed.  

"Saved" is bigger than is often assumed, it seems to me.

Rev. George MacDonald

I've recently run across a quote from the saintly and, frankly, at times idiosyncratic and unorthodox 19th Century Scottish Preacher, George MacDonald (who was much beloved by C.S. Lewis) along similar lines:

I can well imagine an honest youth, educated in Christian forms, thus reasoning with himself - ..."the Lord said, 'If you would be perfect, go, sell that you have.'  I cannot be perfect; it is hopeless; and he does not expect it." - It would be more honest if he said, "I do not want to be perfect; I am content to be saved." Such as he do not care for being perfect as their Father in heaven is perfect, but for being what they call saved.  They little think that without perfection there is no salvation - that perfection is salvation: they are one. 

MacDonald is concerned that we use the comforting message of saving grace as an excuse not to obey, not to be faithful, not to carry the cross and follow Christ.  Splitting apart Justification/Forgiveness and Sanctification/Soul-Healing from one another may be precisely what gives rise to what Bonhoeffer, in The Cost of Discipleship, called "Cheap Grace."  It happens when I'm content to be saved by grace and accepted by a loving God, but am not willing to be challenged by grace to go on to perfection (Heb. 6:1).  

But, as John Wesley might say, Jesus wants to save you from sin...and from sinning.

Back in print: Upper Room Spiritual Classics

In The United Methodist Church we teach that a proper approach to interpreting Scripture makes use of other Scripture, and of Tradition, Reason, and Experience.

While everyone has some access to spiritual experience and (at least in principle) to logical reasoning, it seems to me that of all these elements "Tradition" is the element with which people are often largely unfamiliar.  While regular church-goers likely know the seasons of the liturgical year, at least one or two of the ancient creeds, and probably some of the more popular hymns from the last 150 years or so, it is likely that there are centuries and centuries worth of hymns, writings, ecumenical councils, saints and their stories that our folks are simply unfamiliar with, but which form the bulk of the Holy Church's tradition.

This leaves the average United Methodist Christian without some important tools for clearly hearing and discerning the voice of God, and that is a deficit we pastors and spiritual teachers should be eager to remedy.

How does one get to know the Tradition?

Read, read, and read some more! 

There are lots of good one-volume anthologies and devotion books that draw upon writers from across the Christian tradition, or focus upon the early Church.

One great resource available to you comes from the Upper Room ministries, affiliated with our Church's Board of Discipleship: The Upper Room Spiritual Classics Series.

The Spiritual Classics Series is now back in print, in new editions, and I heartily recommend them to any Christian (not only Methodists), who would like to discover the treasure trove of spiritual teachers, friends, and guides that can speak to you from the long life of the Spirit-filled Christian Church.  

 The Spiritual Classics series offers small anthologies of short selections drawing from writers like St. Augustine or the Desert Fathers and Mothers in the Early Church down to Thomas a'Kempis the great Medieval spiritual writer, or John Wesley the early Methodist revival leader or even more recent writers like Evelyn Underhill.  Readers can "sit at the feet" of great saints like John of the Cross, Julian of Norwich, and William Law among others.

The Benedict Option?

A few years ago, some of my friends told me that I was a "Crunchy-Con."  I had no idea what they meant and they explained that I was one of those socially conservative, nature-loving, environmentally friendly, peace-loving, gun-rights and green-energy-supporting, big-government and big-business-skeptical, thoughtfully traditionalist Christians that a new book had labelled "Crunchy-Con".  I was clearly a conservative in many ways, they told me, but I also clearly did not fit the standard mold of the Republican party (in those days dominated by free-market worshiping "Neo-Cons").

The book was written by Rod Dreher, in whom I have taken an interest recently because he has roots in the church I now pastor, though Mr. Dreher has transitioned over to Eastern Orthodoxy.

My friends introduced the idea of "Crunchy Con" to me back in 2006.  Another book that I encountered around the same time was MacIntyre's influential book called After Virtue, that proposed that our culture, having lost sight of the value of the classical virtues in favor of an individualistic self-indulgence that we mistakenly call "happiness", was no longer capable of moral reasoning in any cohesive and broadly accepted way.  MacIntyre heralds the dawn of a new "dark age" for the Western nations, and hopes to see a new Saint Benedict appear to keep the lamp of faith and learning and virtue burning through the dark night, just as happened in the monasteries after the collapse of the Roman Empire in the 5th century.

Below is a video of Rod Dreher talking about this same idea, what he calls - following MacIntyre - "The Benedict Option" (which is also the title of Dreher's newest book).

This idea of a new dark-age, or a neo-barbarism as some have called it, has weighed on my mind for several years now.  It is a very dark topic (no pun intended), and not one that I enjoy thinking about, and yet I haven't quite been able shake the sense - the haunting feeling - that it may just be true.

As much as I hate to admit it (for I really don't want to sound like one of those "alarmists" who seem to rank only a step or two above "conspiracy theorists"), I must say that, after the cultural upheavals of the last couple of years (Dreher mentions the all-out assault on the very idea of preserving religious liberty for conservatives in Indiana; I might add to that almost every aspect of the 2016 election cycle as exemplary of cultural upheaval) I find myself more and more convinced that American culture and American civilization are in steep intellectual, moral, and spiritual decline.

What would James Madison, the principle author of the Bill of Rights who put "Free exercise of Religion" as the very first thing on the list (before free speech; before the right to bear arms) think of faithful Christian bakers being sued out of business, even prosecuted under the law, for refusing to participate in a gay wedding?  What would he think about a Fire Chief in a major US city being fired for writing a book about his faith in which he affirmed his belief in traditional Christian sexual morals?  What would he think about the online campaign to get Chip and Joanna Gaines and their hit TV show "Fixer-Upper" thrown off the air not even for anything that they have said but simply because the Gaines dare to attend a church whose pastor affirms the traditional Christian definition of marriage that Jesus himself gives in Matthew 19?

On the other end of the political spectrum, what would the noble George Washington think of a vulgar, reckless, "reality TV" star, who once graced the cover of Playboy magazine, ascending to the high and solemn office of President of the United States?  What would he think of such a man, who throws temper tantrums on twitter, having access to the nuclear codes?

Not too much, I expect.

As an aside, that one man should have authority to launch our nuclear weapons without any legal checks and balances is itself an affront to our constitutional heritage - a compromise of our political values, a deal we made with the devil, for the sake of winning the Cold War.  That is something Congress should address.

If there is a word that comes to mind to describe both the motivations of those on the left and on the right that word is fear.  And fear makes it hard for us to be charitable to one another.  On the other hand, perfect love casts out fear.
Part of the fear stems from the fact that all levels of the government, through the endless proliferation of laws and regulations, presume to dictate more and more of the most intimate parts of our lives: what should I do when I get sick?  Who can I marry or consider "family"?  What sorts of religious or political convictions can I express?  The government grasps for the power to answer these questions; I know of no philosophical or constitutional reason why that grasping should be accepted as legitimate.
As long as it is possible that people whose views are hostile to one's own values might come to power in such a system (as is always possible in our elected system), it is only natural for people to feel continuously under threat.  That is why our politics keep getting uglier.  Social media has, I think, exacerbated this sense of fear because it is no longer only the polished professional politicians whom we all hear as the voice of "the other side" but also the more thoughtless and rancorous voices shrieking across the web.

At the end of the 2016 election cycle, when more and more people seem to agree that our political system is broken - so enthralled to the interests of political parties and big donors and special interest groups that it is no longer responsive to the will of the people or the traditions of our American heritage; at a time when our culture seems locked into conflict, confusion, and turmoil, one wonders what to do.

It is at such a moment that what might be called  "The Benedict Option" looks more and more appealing to me.  What would it look like to do in our times the sorts of things Benedict did and monks have been doing since ancient days?  Build deep social connections right on your local level; meet your neighbors; spend less time online.  Pray and worship with your family and your neighbors - regularly and frequently in a local church.  Read the Bible, hold the grand Scriptural Story before you, and continually celebrate your faith in Christ.  Practice the Spiritual Disciplines.  Get back to the earth - grow some of your own food.  Work toward a more self-sufficient and sustainable community.  Get involved with children and youth in your community.  Read the classics and the great books of Western culture.  Share these spiritual and cultural riches with  your children and the children in your community.  Endure hardships - perhaps even persecutions - with a joyful spirit, and welcome others (even strangers) with open arms as if they were Christ himself.  Look out for the needs of the weak, the unborn and the aged, the orphan and the widow, the poor and the minority, the foreigner and the refugee.  Seek to be people of confident, gracious, self-giving love in a world of grasping fear.

The are the sort of things that went on in monasteries (and still do in many places), but as general principles and practices they need not be confined to monastic communities alone.

Another book I read in seminary, The Celtic Way of Evangelism, suggests that, far from being an anti-evangelical retreat from the world, the cultivation of intentionally Christian and (for that reason) intentionally welcoming and open-armed communities on the local level will be the key to relationship-based evangelism in a Post-modern world that is starving for 'rootedness' and deep community.

John Wesley Video

This coming Tuesday (May 24th) is Aldersgate Day, when Methodists (and Anglicans too) recall how the power of the Holy Spirit descended upon John Wesley at a Bible study at Aldersgate street in 1738.  Wesley is often considered the "father of Methodism."  His experience at Aldersgate has been interpreted in different ways - as his first genuine conversion to faith in Christ (though he was already a pastor at the time) or as his "baptism in the Holy Ghost," or simply as a special outpouring to prepare him for mission.

In any case it is clear from Wesley's own account that he left that Bible study with a new sense of assurance about his salvation and his relationship with Christ and also that he left that Bible study with a new fire for the mission of God.  Here is his own account of that night:

In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.

I began to pray with all my might for those who had in a more especial manner despitefully used me and persecuted me. I then testified openly to all there what I now first felt in my heart... 

I have seen several films about the Wesley brothers and the revival that they helped lead.  A few years ago the feature-length film called Wesley was released.  I must say that it suffered from low production value (like many "Christian films") and in my view the story pacing was rather slow and felt bogged down by too many details.  Actually I think the animated short film The John Wesley Story was actually more interesting to watch, even though it was clearly aimed at younger audiences (I used it in a recent confirmation class).

I recently saw this video posted on Facebook, which is a very short documentary about John Wesley's impact on society and history.  It looks like it may be cut from a longer film, because it feels a bit dis-jointed at places; yet it does have some really nice visuals that are well-done.  Enjoy!