Free Republic

On the March 25th/April 7th the Russian Orthodox Church celebrates the 25th anniversary of the mysterious and sorrowful departure from this life of the Holy Patriarch Tikhon. He was elected to the patriarchal throne, which had remained vacant about 200 years, amidst the tumult and horrors of the October Revolution. These were already symbolic of the conditions under which he had to exercise his difficult duties and responsibilities as head of the Russian Orthodox Church. They were also a forecast of the fate of our Church under the new rulers, implacable and fanatical enemies of every religion in general and...

For well over a century now, the idea that something about modernity will ultimately cause religion to wither away has been practically axiomatic among modern, sophisticated Westerners.1 Known in philosophy as Friedrich Nietzsche’s famous story of the madman who runs into the marketplace declaring that “Gott ist tot,” and in sociology as the “secularization thesis,” it is an idea that many urbane men and women no longer even think to question, so self-evident does it appear.2 As people become more educated and more prosperous, the secularist story line goes, they find themselves both more skeptical of religion’s premises and less...

I. Peer Pressure: The Unacknowledged Legislation of Theology Some things we never outgrow: a passion for deep-dish pizza, a quiet love for the mountains of Colorado, and our boyhood addiction to baseball. Unlike these things, however, some of the things that remain with us are not so unremittingly pleasant or beneficial. (Not that being a Phillies fan has been unremittingly pleasant or done me much good.) Peer pressure, for example, is not merely an adolescent phenomenon. Few of us, if any, ever outgrow it. Theologians and their students, pastors and their congregations, all are subject to its subtle, but relentless,...

Reality is resilient.Ignore it, reshape it, mistreat it as we may, it bounces back. After many decades of abuse at the hands of its socialist reformers, the world of hard economic fact and of unchanging human nature has again raised its head to assert that true wealth resides not in measurable, divisible, allegedly manageable lumps of dead matter, and not in the state-controlled means of production, but in the creativity and genius of the human mind freely doing what it was designed to do: “replenish the earth and subdue it” (Gen. 1:28).We humans have tackled the task of replenishing and...

In the 1960s, the modern musical community produced an extraordinary musical group, The Beatles. There was nothing like it before in history, and nothing has materialized like it since; nothing even close. In the 1960s, the modern musical community produced an extraordinary musical group, The Beatles. There was nothing like it before in history, and nothing has materialized like it since; nothing even close. The shuttle crew late last year awoke to the Beatles tune “Good Day Sunshine”. This event triggered thinking again on the Beatles phenomenon. There are still many fans today of the music and history of The...

Darryl wrote: “I like Caleb’s point about love as a social ethic. It sounds far more Christian to me than talk of power, might, the state, legislation, and kingship. But if I didn’t know Caleb better, I’d also think it borders on Hallmarkian abstraction. That is, it sounds like “love will find a way.” I understand that Caleb, with his powers of legal reasoning and attachment to the Kansas prairie is much more situated than that. But I would like to hear him bring his idealism down to reality. Without a specific code, how is such a vague appeal to...

How do we think about disasters? On 9/11, disaster struck in the form of plane hijackings, loss of lives, the collapse of the World Trade Center Towers, and the damage to the Pentagon. A few years later, a tsunami struck in southern Asia. Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans. Some Christians thought that one or more of these disasters were judgments from God. Let me call them the doom-sayers. Other Christians quickly rose and criticized the thought. Let me call them the comforters. This disagreement among Christians raises the question as to how we will interpret the next disaster that strikes....

Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime, from the sowing of the seed at Athens, 2,460 years ago, until the ripened harvest was gathered by men of our race. It is the delicate fruit of a mature civilization; and scarcely a century has passed since nations, that knew the meaning of the term, resolved to be free. In every age its progress has been beset by its natural enemies, by ignorance and superstition, by lust of conquest and by love of ease, by the strong man’s craving for power, and...

I doubt that theology,(1) as God sees it, entails unresolvable paradox.(2) That is another way of saying that any theology that sees it or includes it is mistaken. If God does not see theological endeavor as innately or irremediably paradoxical, that is because it is not. Paradox is not a phenomenon natural to theology. Theological paradox is a mirage. When we see it — or think we do — we may be assured that somewhere along the theological path we have taken at least one wrong turn. Things theological begin to look like things paradoxical only because we have led...

“Credo . . .” From its first word, the Apostles’ Creed is personal. By employing the word “I,” it drives home with clarity the fact that the faith of which it speaks is to be professed by each one of us, singly and individually. Though others share it with us, the faith we profess in the Apostles’ Creed is expected to be our own. When we recite the Apostles’ Creed, we speak for ourselves and not for anyone else. When we say the creed in worship, we speak along with others, but not for them. All who profess the creed...

One more post before I shove off for a while. I wanted to say something clearly positive about the Reformed tradition, and about my own beloved Covenanters in particular, lest I should be taken for cad and ingrate. I do think many of these protestant particularisms, like the Covenanters, served as powerful bulwarks in the lives of ordinary Americans against the worst derailments and pathologies of modernity. I wrote the following back on the “Reactionary Radical” blog which I herewith repeat (we were picking for the reactionary radical hall of fame):For my second pick, with unapologetic regional chauvinism, I will...

IN SEPTEMBER 1862, Union troops were soundly defeated by Confederate forces led by Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee at Manassas Junction, Virginia. The North called it the Second Battle of Bull Run. President Abraham Lincoln's somber mood afterward was recorded in a diary entry by Attorney General Edward Bates, who wrote that Lincoln "seemed wrung by the bitterest anguish--said he felt almost ready to hang himself." Soon afterward Lincoln wrote out a private musing on a small piece of lined paper. He sought to discern the will of God among the cacophony of voices all around him after news...

Been thinking about philosophy.Note well that I've not been philosophizing, or otherwise philosophically reflecting on anything in any way. No, I've just been thinking about philosophy as such.You see, try as I might, I can't get away from it. More in a moment.My virtual friend Joel Hunter has taken me to task more than once for my admittedly impressionistic readings of Heidegger and the lot. Thinking on it all, I've been forced to one conclusion. He's right, in a way, you see, because I just don't like Heidegger and the lot. What does this mean? That I can't read more...

"The Crucifixion is the fountainhead of all my values," Rosenstock-Huessy writes, "the great divide whence flow the processes most real in my inner life, and my primary response to our tradition is one of gratitude to the source of my own frame of reference in everyday life." He immediately goes on to add that "our chronology of B.C. and A.D. makes sense to me. Something new came into being then, not a man as part of the world but The Man who gives meaning to the world, to heaven and hell, bodies and spirits." A bride who receives her husband's...

In the institution of the Last Supper, our Lord warned Peter about the spiritual peril he was in. He said, "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you." The Lord went on to say that He had prayed for Peter, that after his return from failure, he would strengthen his brethren. We live in a perilous world. The Lord in His grace warns us, as He warned Cain - sin is crouching at the door, and this sin is hungry and would devour us. At the point of every crisis, at every temptation, we must understand the situation as...

Indeed, the believer, when he sees sacraments with his own eyes, does not halt at the physical sight of them, but by those steps (which I have indicated by analogy) rises up in devout contemplation to those lofty mysteries which lie hidden in sacraments [1]. One might profitably approach Calvin's work on the Eucharist as contemplation rather than simple exposition. I use this distinction because, although one does find a good deal of theological and scriptural exposition in his treatments of the doctrine (a hallmark of Renaissance humanist and Reformation theological approaches) [2], Calvin's approach to the Eucharistic also has...

Beowulf reflects the tensions between the Christian culture spreading throughout Northern Europe and the pagan cultures into which it came into conflict. The poem has its place within this clash of civilizations in the first 500 years AD. It is a product of the history of missions. The Germanic presence in Northern Europe posed a significant challenge to Christian missionaries, writers, and poets, and this challenge had several dimensions to this challenge, which are well described by Peter Brown at the end of his Rise of Western Christendom. On the one hand, there was the intellectual challenge. Christianity originally arose...

We now see a progression of thought in the Beatitudes. We began with the man who was poor in spirit, who was in mourning over his own sin. The Bible teaches that when a man is humbled, then God will lift him up. We see that here. God has shown mercy, and the recipients are enabled to extend mercy. "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy" (Matt. 5:7). What is the future of the merciless? The importance of this question can be seen in a terrifying curse from the Psalms. "Set a wicked man over him, and let...

Imagine driving up to Canada and stopping at a restaurant to get a bite to eat. While you're sitting at the table, an enthusiastic young man comes over to you and says in an excited voice, "Are you an American?" You reply, "Yes, I am." "Wonderful! I have so little fellowship up here with fellow Americans." "Have you lived in Canada a long time?" you ask. "Oh yes, all my life. I was born here." "Oh... So your parents were Americans?" "No, sadly my parents remained Canadian all their lives." "Then how did you become an American?" "Well, one day...

Today, you are entering into the covenant of Christian marriage. David, you're swearing in God's name that you will love Alisha as Jesus loves the church and gave Himself for her. You are promising with an oath to give your life for her sake. Alisha, you are swearing in the name of God to submit to David joyfully, and in love and fear, obeying him as the church submits to Christ and obeys Him. You are becoming one flesh, and you are called to work out that unity in your daily life as husband and wife. David, you are called...