Half-hearted creatures

I knew some Orthodox podcasters who seemed to have a real fondness for Hank Hanegraaff, “The Bible Answer Man” — with whom I was otherwise completely unfamiliar until Tuesday. He must have risen to prominence after I ceased “day jobs” I could do while listening to Christian talk radio, which is roughly 45 years ago. (J. Vernon McGee’s Through the Bible radio I do remember — fondly!)

Well, here’s Hank, and I can find nothing to disagree with on this particular question:

The first minute or so, on Theosis, is quite sound and affirming, yet Theosis is the Orthodox doctrine that most troubled my late father between my conversion and his death. It sounded to him, from his frame of reference, like Mormonism’s “As man now is, so God once was; as God now is, so man shall be” (or something like that — they’re backpedalling hard from that these days). I’m glad that we’re not saved by right soteriology, because Evangelicalism has almost totally lost it.

But this part is just amazing:

If you look at Orthodox in general, I think that you find that it is well within the pale of orthodoxy — with kind of a play on words in a sense — but it is certainly compatible with the essentials of the historic Christian faith … absolutely!

Orthodoxy is fantastic in that it uses earthly, perceptible realities to point to spiritual verities, so it’s constantly pointing you to the worship of God through prayer, praise, the proclamation of the word; through the sacraments, the Liturgy pointing to the Eucharist … It’s the early church. That was the Church up until the split in 1054 between East and West, and essentially what the Church was teaching up until the time of the Reformation and even afterwards.

(H/T Journey to Orthodoxy) He’s right on the mark.

While I have no disagreement, I do have one pointed observation.

I know it is meant as approval to say that Orthodoxy is “compatible with the essentials of the historic Christian faith,” and I have already taken it as so intended. But it reflects a half-heartedness that is a meta-theme of what’s wrong with the Evangelicalism from which I came.

If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

We are far too easily pleased if we settle for “the essentials of the historic Christian faith” — roughly translating as “What’s the minimum I must believe to go to Heaven?” I remain Orthodox, after having been drawn to it for other reasons, in substantial part because I want “the fullness.“

I’m talking about the fullness to which great Praise Bands and exciting, edgy sermons and dynamite “youth programs” and even difficult-to-master doctrine (my special favorite in my Calvinist days) are irrelevant. They’re not even elementary principles from which we need to go on.

I’d tell you if I could, but I don’t have the words to “tell”

earthly, perceptible realities to point to spiritual verities … constantly pointing you to the worship of God through prayer, praise, the proclamation of the word; through the sacraments, the Liturgy pointing to the Eucharist ….

Why would you settle for less? Come and see.

* * * * *

Part of the fullness is feasts like Annunciation, which more historic Christianity celebrates today.

“Annunciation.” The announcement, if you will, by a certain Angel, named Gabriel, to a certain young Jewish virgin, named Mary, precisely nine months before a certain favorite holiday which needs no introduction.

Chaste Mary’s earth-changing answer (in Latin familiar to those who haven’t overdone the STEM stuff) was:

Maria dixit: Ecce ancilla Domini;
fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum

(Franz Biebl, Ave Maria)

Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And having come in, the angel said to her, “Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!”

But when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and considered what manner of greeting this was.Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.”

Then Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I do not know a man?”

And the angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God. Now indeed, Elizabeth your relative has also conceived a son in her old age; and this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren. For with God nothing will be impossible.”

Then Mary said, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.

Luke 1: 26-38, ending with the Ecce ancilla Domini.

I wish I could claim this ravishing verse for Orthodoxy, but — alas! — it is from one formed spiritually as a High Anglican back when Anglicanism and Orthodoxy seemed close to reunion:

Annunciation

Gabriel

Mary, in the dream of love
Playing as all children play,
For unsuspecting children may
Expressing comic make-believe
The wish that later they will know
Is tragic and impossible;
Hear, child, what I am sent to tell:
Love wills your dream to happen, so
Love’s will on earth may be, through you,
No longer a pretend but true.

Mary

What dancing joy would whirl
My ignorance away?
Light blazes out of the stone,
The taciturn water
Bursts into music,
And warm wings throb within
The motionless rose:
What sudden rush of power
Commands me to command?

Gabriel

When Eve, in love with her own will,
Denied the will of Love and fell,
She turned the flesh Love knew so well
To knowledge of her love until
Both love and knowledge were of sin:
What her negation wounded, may
Your affirmation heal to-day;
Love’s will requires your own, that in
The flesh whose love you do not know,
Love’s knowledge into flesh may grow.

Mary

My flesh in terror and fire
Rejoices that the Word
Who utters the world out of nothing,
As a pledge of His word to love her
Against her will, and to turn
Her desperate longing for love,
Should ask to wear me,
From now to their wedding day,
For an engagement ring.

Gabriel

Since Adam, being free to choose,
Chose to imagine he was free
To choose his own necessity,
Lost in his freedom, Man pursues
The shadow of his images:
To-day the Unknown seeks the known;
What I am willed to ask, your own
Will has to answer; child, it lies
Within your power of choosing to
Conceive the Child who chooses you.

(W.H. Auden, For the Time Being, A Christmas Oratorio, this portion of which is apt today)

I said “earth-changing answer.” Look at this again at those last four lines.

* * * * *

“It pays to increase your word power,” Readers Digest used to say. Today’s word it “typology.”

“When these days are over it shall be, on the eighth day and thereafter, that the priests shall offer your burnt offerings and your peace offerings on the altar; and I will accept you,” says the Lord God.

Then He brought me back to the outer gate of the sanctuary which faces toward the east, but it was shut. And the Lord said to me, “This gate shall be shut; it shall not be opened, and no man shall enter by it, because the Lord God of Israel has entered by it; therefore it shall be shut. As for the prince, because he is the prince, he may sit in it to eat bread before the Lord; he shall enter by way of the vestibule of the gateway, and go out the same way.”

Also He brought me by way of the north gate to the front of the temple; so I looked, and behold, the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord; and I fell on my face.

Ezekiel 43:27-44:4 (emphasis added), the 4th reading for Vespers of the Prefeast of Annunciation)

Glory to God for all things, as Fr. Stephen says.

* * * * *

In the history of Middle Earth

this is the day Sauron was defeated and Barad-dûr thrown down. Now I have not investigated the matter in any detail, but I think it is unlikely to be mere coincidence that Tolkien chose this major feast day – one of the four great medieval Quarter Days – as the day in which good triumphs over evil in The Lord of the Rings. I can only conclude that he saw in the Incarnation of God’s only Son a similar triumph of good over evil.

That Tolkien fella was pretty shrewd.

* * * * *

The very least important news I’ll share today is that it’s Sir Elton John’s birthday. Believe me: I would not have know had Amazon not emailed me that he is taking over Song of the Day, an Alexa skill, for a week or so.

I suppose it’s too much to ask Amazon to take notice of the incarnation of God in the flesh since it can’t be monetized (in the usual Amazonian ways, anyway).

* * * * *

“Liberal education is concerned with the souls of men, and therefore has little or no use for machines … [it] consists in learning to listen to still and small voices and therefore in becoming deaf to loudspeakers.” (Leo Strauss)

Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.

Wednesday 11/30/16

The King’s Banquet
Francis and The Dubia
What use is “middle ages”?
How convenient!
France’s wart

Continue reading “Wednesday 11/30/16” →

Tuesday 11/29/16

How lovely to be Your guest
More, more, more!
Provincial Brooklynite rants against provincials
Foreign reactions to Trump
Obamacare
Recount’s Silver Lining
The Trumpista Monster Responds

Continue reading “Tuesday 11/29/16” →

Sunday 11/20/16

Can we simply gain our souls?
The consumerist narrative
Constantly moving happiness machines
The experience of veneration

Continue reading “Sunday 11/20/16” →

Reformation day dissent

By the time of the Protestant Reformation, Rome had been in schism from the rest of the Church for roughly 500 year, and I have no desire to defend, for instance, the indulgences against which Luther railed and which the Greek/Eastern Church has never known.

But against some of the Reformers’ premises, doctrines, repudiations, and liturgical practices, we stand together (I think) opposed.

The Reformation rejected many of the ideas of Medieval Christianity and set in place new models that would become the foundation of the modern world. One of those was to redefine how human beings were to be understood. Essentially, their simplified model was to see us as intellect and will. There were various shades of agreement and disagreement about whether intellect or will was the more important, but no one doubted that human beings were to be approached on the ground of information and decision-making. Church architecture in short measure began to reflect this new understanding. Altars were de-emphasized, often replaced by a simple table. The pulpit became a primary focus, sometimes being moved to the center of attention. Though sacraments remained important (at first), they were deeply suppressed in favor of “the word.” The Scriptures were emphasized but in a new manner. They were the treasure-trove of all information. Believers were to be instructed constantly and urged towards right choices. Christianity quickly morphed into a society of religious morality. This arrangement and understanding are so commonplace today that many readers will wonder that it has ever been anything else.

However, liturgy itself was never meant to convey information in such a manner. It has a very different understanding of what it is to be human, what it means to worship, and what it means to liturgize in the Church …

Christianity, prior to the Reformation, was largely acquired as a set of practices. Things that seem rather innocuous (or even superstitious) to the intellectualized/choosing practices of modernity are actually the stuff that constituted, formed and shaped the Christian life. The pattern of feasts and fasts, the rituals of prayer, the preparation for and receiving of communion, all of these, far too complex and layered to be described in a short article, formed a web of nurture that linked the whole of culture into a way of life that produced Christian discipleship. Those who argue that it did not do a good enough job, have nothing to which they can point as an improvement. Instruction and choice have not made better Christians – indeed, they have been a primary element in the progressive secularization of Western civilization.

…

We are not an audience in the Liturgy. We are not gathering information in order to make a decision. We are in the Liturgy to live, breathe, and give thanks, in the presence of God. There is often a quiet movement within an Orthodox congregation. Candles are lit and tended. Icons are venerated. Members cross themselves at certain words, but are just as likely to be seen doing so for some reason known only to them and God. It is a place of prayer, and not just the prayers sung by the priest and choir.

The struggle for a Christian in the modern world is to renounce the life of the audience ….

(Fr. Stephen Freeman)

Lex orandi, lex credendi; the law of prayer is the law of belief; you are how you pray and worship.

The Reformers’ errant anthropology and resultant worship and even architectural novelties produced a materially different religion than that of the first 1500 years of the Christian era.

* * * * *

“In learning as in traveling and, of course, in lovemaking, all the charm lies in not coming too quickly to the point, but in meandering around for a while.” (Eva Brann)

Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.

Wednesday 10/26/16

“Highest and Best”
A sickly sub-pagan state
Liberal ultramontanism
BLM
More than a little ironic
Religious Right: theological liberals
Jack Chick, RIP

Continue reading “Wednesday 10/26/16” →

The Big Picture: A Suggestion

In my search for a silver lining in this Presidential Campaign, I have found precisely one: it’s not boring.

Rod Dreher commends an article five months ago in Politico as “what I still think is the most insightful essay describing what’s happening, and what is going to happen, in US politics after this year.” It doesn’t immediately explain the turmoil of the election, but it’s evocative:

What we’re seeing is a “reassembling of new Democratic and Republican coalitions [which] is nearly finished.”
“Today’s Republican Party is predominantly a Midwestern, white, working-class party with its geographic epicenter in the South and interior West. Today’s Democratic Party is a coalition of relatively upscale whites with racial and ethnic minorities, concentrated in an archipelago of densely populated blue cities.”
“In both parties, there’s a gap between the inherited orthodoxy of a decade or two ago and the real interests of today’s electoral coalition. And in both parties, that gap between voters and policies is being closed in favor of the voters — a slight transition in the case of Hillary Clinton, but a dramatic one in the case of Donald Trump.”
“[C]ountry-and-western Republicans have gradually replaced country-club Republicans.” but the GOP platform and budget still reflect the priorities of the latter.
“Social issues spurred a partisan realignment by changing who considered themselves Democrats and Republicans. Over decades, socially conservative working-class whites migrated from the Democratic Party to join the Republican Party, especially in the South. Socially moderate Republicans, especially on the East Coast, shifted to the Democratic coalition. Now, there’s little disagreement within each party on social issues. Liberal Republicans are as rare as Reagan Democrats.”
“The rise of populist nationalism on the right is paralleled by the rise of multicultural globalism on the center-left.” Much of the Republican establishment is aligned with the center-left on globalism.
In the next two decades:
- “The Republicans will be a party of mostly working-class whites, based in the South and West and suburbs and exurbs everywhere.”
- “The Democrats … will be even more of an alliance of upscale, progressive whites with blacks and Latinos, based in large and diverse cities.”
The two parties’ coming ideologies are deeply at odds.

I believe I’ve written before that 1972 was a turning point for the Democrats: turning away from blue collar labor unions and toward teachers, intellectuals, and sexual revolutionaries.

It had not occurred to me that, the Supreme Court having decided all key social issues in the progressives’ favor, the Republican coalition would collapse because the platform social issue positions would be so clearly pandering blather.

Were I a Democrat mucky-muck, I wouldn’t be too confident about keeping blacks and latinos in coalition with yuppies. Maybe their common urbanity will suffice, maybe not.

I do know that if I were a Republican, I’d be fighting like crazy to retain the Electoral College, which, by adding Congress and Senatorial seats to determine a state’s electors, gives the numerous red flyover states a bit more say in Presidential selection, consistent with our bicameral legislative system. Direct election of the President will tilt things toward the populous blue states, mostly coastal.

This is all the law and the prophets (for today). The rest is commentary.