Posted on 12/10/2004 8:46:18 PM PST by RochesterFan
How can we love what we do not understand?
What do you read first when the newspaper arrives? I dive for the sports pages—an involuntary reflex action left over from a youth spent with visions of Pittsburgh Pirates and Steelers dancing in my head. The child within me still suffers more anxiety over league standings than the Falkland Islands. Old reading habits die hard. It is the same with Christian magazines and periodicals. When I first began reading Christianity Today, two columns hooked me quickly. One was "Eutychus and His Kin," the other, "Current Religious Thought." I still go first to "Current Religious Thought," for I know 1 will encounter some vignettes of intellectual insight to nourish my too-empty head.
We live in what may be the most anti-intellectual period in the history of Western civilization. We are not necessarily antiacademic, antitechnological, or antiscientific. The accent is against the intellect itself. Secular culture has embraced a kind of impressionism that threatens to turn all our brains into mush, and the evangelical world has followed suit, developing an allergy to all things intellectual.
The kind of debate waged between Luther and Erasmus or Edwards and Chubb would be unacceptable today. Their reasoning was too acute, their polemics too acerbic, their critiques too rapier-like for our modern comfort zones. Debates, if they are held today, are won by charm and a benign smile rather than by lucid argument. Satire is almost extinct, the verbal gladiators who used it having perished with the fathers. To be sure, William Buckley persists, but he is an anachronism, a refurbished antique whose style is so uncommon that some mistake him for something new.
How I pine for the days of yore when Ad Leitch responded to Tillich's recasting of traditional categories of divine transcendence from "up-there" to "down-there" on the depth dimension of the Ground of Being. Does anyone remember Leitch's article in the early sixties about the impact Tillich's theology would have on church architecture? He said that instead of steeples pointing heavenward we would have to have our church services while assembled in a cavernous open pit. Our search for the Ground of Being would occur not while singing "Rise Up, O Men of God," but rather ''Go Down, Moses."
Kierkegaard, after evaluating the state of the church in nineteenth-century Europe, wrote, "My complaint is not that this age is wicked, but that it is paltry: It lacks passion." The Dane should be alive today. Passion we have —it is reason that is in eclipse. Christianity is an intellectual faith. This does not mean that it flirts with intellectualism or restricts sainthood to an elite group of gnostic eggheads. But though the Word of God is not limited to intellectuals, its content is addressed to the mind. There is a primacy of the intellect in the Christian life as well as a primacy of the heart.
How can that be? To speak of the primacy of both mind and heart sounds like a neo-orthodox creed, a dabbling in dialectics. How can two distinct things have primacy at the same rime without resorting to contradiction? Must there not be one ultimate primacy, or at least a primus inter pares? We can, I think, have two primacies if they hold their primacy in different relations. The primacy of the intellect is with respect to order. The primacy of the heart is with respect to importance.
We know that the disposition of the heart toward Christ is of supreme importance. If our doctrine is correct, our intellectual understanding of theology impeccable, it is to no avail if our heart is "far from him." If the head is right and the heart is wrong, we perish. On the other hand, if the head is confused, the understanding muddled, and the doctrine fuzzy, there is still hope for us if our hearts beat with a passion for God. Better the empty head than the empty heart.
Why then bother with religious thought, or speak at all of the primacy of the mind? Precisely for the sake of the heart. How can we love what we do not understand? How can we worship an unknown God? If the character of God remains an enigma to us, all our singing, praying, and religious zeal becomes a useless passion, a beating of the air. Religion degenerates to superstition and liturgy becomes a form of magical incantation.
There is a content to the Christian faith. That content is directed, by way of order, to the mind. The New Testament calls us to be childlike, but not with respect to understanding. It is the plea of the apostolic heart that we not be ignorant in our heads. God has made us with a harmony of heart and head, of thought and action, j God the Holy Spirit superintended a Book that is to be read, whose verbal content is to be so understood and digested that our hearts may burn within us. As the ankle bone is connected to the knee bone, so there is a marvelous circuitry fashioned by God that flashes back and forth from head to heart. The more we know him the more we are able to love him. The more we love him the more we seek to know him. To be central in our hearts he must be foremost in our minds. Religious thought is the prerequisite to religious affection and obedient action.
We must have passion—indeed hearts on fire for the things of God. But that passion must resist with intensity the anti-intellectual spirit of the world. The entrance of that spirit into the house of God is like a Trojan horse, concealing within its belly the troops of the enemy who would beguile us with contentless religion, thoughtless action, and vacuous zeal—fire without; light. Its only legacy will be a tomb for a forgotten deity inscribed with the; epitaph, "To an Unknown God."
An old article by R. C. Sproul that seems particularly relevant today.
"If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas." -- George Bernard Shaw.
Here's to fruit salad.
Thankyou for posting this fine article.
i am amazed at the amount of believers who are content to be "daily bread" christians.
GODSPEED!
It is a shame that the rapier wit, and the lively debate is no longer tolerated. Now it's called "divisive" and people get warnings and suspensions, simply for saying something that a listener can't handle, due to their too-thin skin. Now, if one doesn't like what another says, instead of either ignoring it, or answering it with a rational and reasoned response, they seek to suppress those who don't agree with them, all the while accusing their opponent of that very same attitude. That is not debate, it is not even discussion. It is suppression of opposition as a means of establishing "truth", which automatically makes "truth" a relative concept, rather than the absolute that genuine Truth MUST be.
Absolute Truth will expose some to being wrong, and holding to wrong beliefs. There is nothing wrong with that, nor is it a sin to be found to be wrong. The sin is in choosing to remain wrong. Those so exposed must make a decision: change their beliefs to line up with the Truth, or continue in their delusion. What the exposition of Absolute Truth does is to banish ignorance of the Truth, no matter what decision the hearer ultimately makes about the Truth. They can no longer plead ignorance. It is one thing to be ignorant of the Truth, quite another to know the Truth and seek to suppress it.
I didn't get a chance yesterday to thank you for your wonderful, encouraging post, now cemented for eternity on the locked thread. 8~)
Your church looked beautiful in the snow.
You continue to be one of the best debaters on the forum, nbf.
Thanks for your sharp logic and even-tempered fellowship.
Bump
And just what, pray tell, is wrong with "daily bread"?
Your post smacks of spritutual arrogance.
So sorry that you Feel that way.
Daily Bread is nothing more than "spiritual CRISCO®...It doesn't really hurt you, but it has no taste.
</i> forgot to close the html tag, that's better!
They're not designed to be theological treatises, but small daily readings for Christians to start their day off with. And they are, as best as I remember, not having used them much, sufficient to that task.
The person using them daily is certianly better off than the person who is not using anything at all. We'd all benefit from such a discipline.
Your post and alpha's post are indictive of the Achilles heel of the Reformed faith - the smug arrogance derived from having figured it all out. That is a big reason why the Reformed faith is struggling to survive.
As opposed to sinful presumption that leads you to believe that you can judge anyone's heart intentions, particularly those you've never laid eyes on? However, if you're asking opinion on the subject...~yes, i believe so~...It is not a particularly difficult matter to find devotional readings more weighty. The scriptures themselves serve in that role.
They're not designed to be theological treatises, but small daily readings for Christians to start their day off with. And they are, as best as I remember, not having used them much, sufficient to that task.
Actually, that's rather the point of the article. What they are, or were intended to be was never at issue.
The person using them daily is certianly better off than the person who is not using anything at all. We'd all benefit from such a discipline.
As mentioned above, the scriptures are adequate. PROPOSITION:
If one does not read the scriptures that claim to be sufficient for all things (paraphrase of II Timothy 3:17), THEN that one will not be interested in, such materials, AND without the scriptures, such material is unfruitful.
Your post and alpha's post are indictive of the Achilles heel of the Reformed faith - the smug arrogance derived from having figured it all out. That is a big reason why the Reformed faith is struggling to survive.
Well, this certainly deserves comment. Once again, Presumption is not in short supply in this comment.
***The presumption that the Reformed Faith is struggling to survive...***
I think it particularly laughable when people do suggest that the Reformed Faith, inseparable with God's own Reformation of the Church, is struggling. Certainly, there would have been those critics that would have suggested that Spiritual Israel was struggling to survive during the dark times of National Israel's history. Yet, we do know that God reserved for himself those who would not bow the knee to Baal.
The Father has not cast away His people and He certainly won't cast away His truth for the ways of Easy Believerism & man centered religion, even if He is sometimes pleased to leave the majority of His people wallowing in ignorance of the truth for a time.
I'm certain that all will enter Paradise with the same attitude that they have when they are on their knees. That is where man is most humbled and closest to God. And I know what you Calvinists love to say about every man on his knees praying.
For my own part, I was first introduced to the doctrines of Grace, when I quit listening to men and started to read the Scriptures for myself. I quickly learned that the bread of the pulpit was a poor substitute for the manna of Heaven. For the Reformed Faith to struggle is to openly suggest that God's own Word is struggling.
I do realize that a great many Arminians do actually suggest exactly that when they declare that God's will is frustrated and the Word which proceeds from His mouth is frustrated & returns from the purpose for which it is sent void. They will eventually discover the better way on their knees or eventually in Paradise.
In the service of the Lord,
Christian.
Go back and read post 5, until you get it.
Fair enough. I'll concede that I shouldn't be attributing motives. But based on your words, criticizing works which, in my experience have been solid, if basic, and certainly Scripturally based, well, what conclusion am I supposed to draw?
The presumption that an Achilles heel of the Reformed Faith exists. If the Reformed Faith is true, then it is folly to speak of an Achilles heel.
Not necessarily. The truth or falsity of the Reformed faith stands independant of whether there is a weakness on the part of her members. It is my fear that there is a tendancy that undercuts what is, indeed, true. If I projected from my own struggles and experiences, then I apologize.
The presumption that the Reformed Faith is struggling to survive: In my particular area, the Reformed Faith continues to grow and thrive, in spite of heavy resistance from the Pietistic Moralists, works salvationalists, and secularists. This true in many regions of the Country and the World. Perhaps in the "burned over district" (an historical designation, not an observation) your presumption may appear to be the case, but not elsewhere.
The modernists, for the most part, won. You are right - this is the "Burned-over" district. Finney worked his wonders here. But, as I look around here, there are three conservative Presbyterian churches and 20 or more liberal ones. Why have the conservatives been marginalized? The liberals are declining. The conservative churches are thriving, but of limited influence. Is there an equal and opposite error? That's my question. I could be dead wrong; but what if I'm right?
I think you're forgetting Who's in charge....If you believe the Reformed doctrines, then you should believe that it is all proceeding exactly according to His Plan and Purpose. Numbers aren't the measure. As one great preacher put it (I forget who right at the moment), one man standing with God is a majority, or words to that effect.
Generally your faith appears more mature than this, Jude. You evidence the frustration and anxiety of someone who does not believe in the Doctrines of Grace.
I understand your fears, but you needn't worry.
"These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." -- John 16:33.
Say, shouldn't you guys be out smashing wayside crosses, burning heretics and executing Mary Queen of Scots? Look out, someone in your neighborhood just recited an Ave Maria!!!
Jude I know some that is the extent of their study .To tell the truth I am a bit ashamed they are found in our church
the smug arrogance derived from having figured it all out. That is a big reason why the Reformed faith is struggling to survive.
WoW is that harsh !!! (and uncalled for)
My sons church has a couple thousand attending on 3 campuses and many many small groups and bible studies.
IMO when the faith and discipline of a Reform church compromise to "fit " or meet "seeker friendly" needs , they will fail every time, because you can not out Arminian and Arminian compromise .
So the question is, is it more beneficial to put pap in your spirit than nothing? I think we could argue it is not better than nothing
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