The Gospel

God readies us to see His beauty.
He has freed us from all unnecessary fear.
He wants of us to do good in honor of His mercy
so others too may hear the word of truth
through which He makes known to all His love most dear:

This word of truth living and active is the Gospel,

the good news

that announces

what God has done

for us sinners and for our salvation

by sending His Son into the world,

in fulfillment of the Scriptures.

This Gospel judges the thoughts and intentions of our hearts,

it is the good news

that declares

what God commands

of us sinners to receive salvation from His Son,

according to the Scriptures that cannot be broken.

Search the Scriptures!

They testify to Jesus,
who was delivered up because of our transgressions,
and raised from the dead to the justification of life for all.

Let us together daily examine these Scriptures.

They alone disclose the witness

that God has borne concerning His Son.

And the witness is this,

that God has given us eternal life,

and this life is in His Son.

The Scriptures alone give us the wisdom

that leads to salvation through faith in the perfecter of faith,

Jesus Christ our Lord.

This wisdom is the Gospel,

the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.

In this Gospel the righteousness of God is revealed by faith to faith.

This is the great mystery of godliness:

God was revealed in the flesh,

vindicated by the Spirit,

beheld by angels,

proclaimed among the nations,

and believed on in the world before being taken up in glory.

We hold fast to this word we have heard preached,

knowing even if we are faithless He remains faithful,

confessing,

He who has redeemed us to God by His blood

cannot deny Himself.

Thus we believe in Him believing,

as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

Published in: on June 27, 2009 at 10:03 am Comments (2)

Our Great Words

We pine for a plurality of theories yet desire they give us together the sum total of truth.
We make the Bible an adult toy for our own pleasure,
denying the end therein brings the climatic optimum for sin.
Roland Barthes told us,
“The birth of the reader must be
at the cost of the death of the Author
to give writing its future.”[1]
This cannot be undone,
nor can the consequence of this be contained.
Who will stop writing?
The pen is mightier than the sword, we say.
Joining us, others say,
the ink of the scholar is holier than the blood of the martyr.
Who then among us
burns with a Fahrenheit 451-plus fever high enough to lead us,
and be the first to put away ink and pen?
The “Destruktion” of deconstruction
defies our deadened will lording over our dull reason.
From rafts of passion we chart history as a churning sea,
a single text that throws up pieces of rhetoric we collect as written debris.
We pronounce logic a product of convenience.
We tell the truth in the present tense with passing interest.
The Word of Righteousness is for the mature,
who have their powers of spiritual discernment trained
by constant practice to distinguish good from evil; whereas
we carry out the act of reading as an exercise for increasing
our miraculous powers of seeing change in all things.
In the name of ending violence
we virtuosi of vitteas cubed[2] track down to make inquiry of,
violate and lynch a text heard harboring heresies of heteronomous authority.
We rip off of it what we say are irreconcilably undecidable differences,
which we alone find woven into the fabric of the text’s metaphorical garb.
We descend without end into a never before gleaned
array of forbidden or hypocritical hidden meanings,
pronouncing Milton burned with lust for Satan and
the Marquis de Sade wrote to the glory of God.
We give even God a new name, naming the majestic name, “I am not.”
We have become loud-mouthed boasters,
swaggering braggarts with tongues of brawn.
We seek in secret to enfeeble our listeners so
to make the case in public that we alone are strong.
High flown and over blown,
our great words
grant nothing,
acknowledge nothing,
mean nothing,
except we alone deserve to be heard.
__________________________
Notes
[1] Roland Barthes, “The Death of the Author,” in Image-Music-Text (1977).
[2] Fit x Fit x Fit: Sections of a poem, ballad, or song suitable to circumstances of our own description, spasmodic utterances spoken when possessed by a seizure caused by a loss of healthy consciousness.

Published in: on June 10, 2009 at 8:32 am Comments (1)

Do You Read? How Does it Read to You? (Let the Reader Understand)

Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near. (The Revelation to John 1:3)

For we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth. (2 Corinthians 13:8)

We pine for a plurality of theories and desire they together give us the sum total of truth! We make the Bible an adult toy for our own pleasure, denying that the end therein brings the climatic optimum for sin. Roland Barthes told us, “The birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author to give writing its future.”[i] This cannot be undone, nor can the consequences of this be contained. Who will stop writing? The pen is mightier than the sword, we say. Joining us, others say, the ink of the scholar is holier than the blood of the martyr. Who then among us burns with a Fahrenheit 451-plus fever high enough to lead us, and be the first to put away ink and pen? The “Destruktionof deconstruction defies our deadened will lording over our dull reason. We chart history as a churning sea, a single text upon which floats and drifts the debris of meaning we collect as rhetoric. We pronounce logic a product of convenience. We tell the truth in the present tense of passing interest. Whereas the Word of Righteousness is for the mature, who have their powers of spiritual discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil; we have turned the art of reading into an exercise for increasing our miraculous powers of imagination for the changing of all things except ourselves. We remain the same yesterday and today and forever, and for every yawning moment ever. In the name of ending violence we virtuosi of vitteas (cubed) track down to make inquiry of, violate and lynch a text heard harboring heresies of heteronomous authority. We rip off of it what we say are irreconcilably undecidable differences that we declare are woven into the fabric of the text’s rhetorical garb. We descend without end into a never before gleaned array of forbidden or hypocritical hidden meanings, pronouncing Milton burned with lust for Satan and the Marquis de Sade wrote to the glory of God, giving even God a new name, the name, “I am not.” We have become loud-mouthed boasters, swaggering braggarts with tongues of brawn who seek in secret to enfeeble our listeners so to make the case in public that we alone are strong. High flown and over blown, our great words grant nothing, acknowledge nothing, mean nothing, except we alone deserve to be heard.

As the children of God born of God wanting to get beyond this, to use our right to read for building up and not tearing down, we must listen to the speech of the Word of God (Hebrews 4:12-13). Yet we lack both the consciousness and the canon to conjure the collective will to do so. Those among us who pray to Mary nonetheless do not know how, with wonder, to ponder the things of the Lord in their heart. Those among us who know Jesus loves us because the Bible tells us so cannot, like Mary His disciple, sit at His feet to listen to the Lord’s word. We know the Logos through theories, which have replaced the Scriptures as the authority, source and content of our rule of faith. We weave our webs like spiders, which cannot clothe or house us, nor can they capture the truth for which we hunger. Still, we spin and spin. We read theories about texts written about theories of truth to write theories about how to read and write about the truth. Our texts have taken on a life of their own; they conspire against us, bearing witness to our betrayal of attention. Entertainment once meant the provision for the support of persons in service, now it is a means by which we amuse ourselves or occupy our interests, without risking serious consequences.[ii] No matter our intent we have embarked upon a treasonous route. We are stirring up resistance to unreserved allegiance owed to our sovereign Lord. By way of our plurality of theories about the Truth, about the Logos, about our God and Savior Jesus Christ, we have delivered the dangerous Biblical world of life over to our imagination (instead of imaging ourselves into it), turning it into a harmless parlor game. We parse God to be a rule that operates as a parameter in a narcissist Christianity of our own making. We cannot help ourselves; we are compulsive-obsessive over our suspicion of theories, yet we depend upon theories in our incessant creating and criticizing of theories. There is no philosophy, no social science, no literary leading out or cultural studies, no humanities; and therefore, no Biblical understanding or edification: there is only the one discussion about theory, which of course means theories and theories about theories, each an advocacy rite initiating the catechist into an esoteric, ceremonial means to analyze, judge, skepticate[iii] and correct the words we hear. The experts at this craft adeptly practice a bricolage kind of improvisation; committing the text to a heterogeneous repertoire ransacked from the latest flotsam put on display in the waiting rooms attached to those concierge cosmetic-surgeons that boast the best genealogies of knowledge and things. “The current sophisticated critic would be unlikely to pick one master to illuminate the work at hand – he would mix and match as the occasion required. But to enact a reading means to submit one text to the terms of another; to allow one text to interrogate another – then often to try, sentence, and summarily execute it.”[iv] No legation or speculation settles down long enough for us to stand upon it with confidence as our firm foundation (Seal? Stand? Foundation? Firm? God?). Even the pope has awakened to realize that with the whole world, he too has become protestant! With or without the triple tiara, we cannot see theory outside of Heidegger’s gaze. “Metaphysics cannot be overcome but only verwunden – accepted, distorted, and continued in ironic directions that are known to be provisional.”[v] Never has the hand of the world delved this deeply into the wound in Jesus’ side. Mentality has replaced faith. In ways with which we are not fully aware we have traded doctrine for theory in our quest for assurance and rest. All of us suffer this switch, although, in our attempts to define what theory is, we are forced to accept that “there is no real consensus as to its content or even meaning.”[vi] So we have regressed, now we are unable to even ask, “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?”

Literacy, the Bible interpreted into the familial languages of the world and the Universal Charter of Human Rights make everybody a protestant now. Amphibolics all. We cannot stop. We don’t know how. “Within the logic of the secular protestantism of which pluralism is the product, the interpretive authority once ascribed to the hieratic author has devolved upon the individual reader.”[vii] There is no end in sight to the growth in the holdings that fill the library of works written by the priesthood of believers! The beloved’s prophecy is being fulfilled. Never mind the many other things which Jesus did and the many other signs which He performed in the presence of the disciples. The few that have been written that we might have life by believing in His name suffice for inciting us to devote ourselves to filling up the world with our books! “In a society whose chief, perhaps only, shared assumption is that a plurality of assumptions, cultural and educational, must be tolerated, it is inevitable that means replace ends, which are seen as all relative anyway. Technique becomes the measure of all things, including reading, which is now reified into ’schools’ of interpretation — feminist, marxist, structuralist, [critical realist] etc. — ‘approaches’ or ‘methodologies’ that seek to justify, indeed ‘authorize’, their own special interests by interpreting the texts they take up in the only terms that command anything like wide cultural prestige, the specialist jargons of the presumed technical expertise.”[viii] These specialists kid themselves if they think we will listen to them. Who are these alien sojourners with their strange ways of speaking, why should they act as judges over us? “Why should we place our trust in the certainty of metaphysical evidence rather than in the interpretation of the divine Word, given by the community of believers and freely by each individual believer, which changes in accordance with the becoming of history?”[ix] So this is our “new problem,” which is really “an old one in disguise, namely that of the communal faith required to maintain any dogmatism.”[x] From whence continues orthodoxy of any stripe – vox ex cathedra of the Magisterium, decree enforced by an ad hoc goyish politicus consensus or the confession of the soul’s conscience to another before God?

Each saint endures the agony of being justified by faith alone in Christ suspended between a dictatorial ruler over Christian truth and demotic participation in its unending reexamination. This is the case whether we are clergy of whatever body or a man or woman pronounced by them as laicized. Democratic doctrinalists want the fellowship of journeymen-and-woman in the faith to facilitate our imbibing the abiding standard of teaching through discussion. They want us to learn from them how we can come to reach agreement by way of questioning and examining everything orthodox, as if nothing is sure or secure unless confessed to be open to ongoing change. Come together missional Christians, join hands and enter into the growing, generative friendship circle that generates things “like books, events, websites, blogs and cohorts.”[xi] Be part of our summoning Jesus “(much like Barney, who grows from a stuffed animal into a man-sized dinosaur when summoned by his young friends).”[xii] Our philo-erotic prowess both entertains and instructs, thus, “We expect our friendship to generate new ideas, connections, opportunities, and works of beauty.”[xiii] Evoke with us, our charms call us forth, letting us become one through evolutionary emergence. What we create with confidence we hold fast to until we change ourselves again, “Because we firmly hold that living in reconciled friendship trumps traditional orthodoxies – indeed, orthodoxy requires reconciliation as a prerequisite.”[xiv] Help us foster “church innovation and growth through strategies, programs, tools and resources that are consistent with our far-reaching mission: to identify, connect and help high-capacity leaders multiply their impact[xv] for the kinetic purpose of “converting the latent energy in American Christianity into active energy.”[xvi]

As friends living beyond Bonhoeffer’s temptation of cheap grace “as a doctrine, a principle, a system,” we live in the trampoline fun world of cheap obedience. We make little of revealed Law, and less of divine holiness. We learn our lessons for doing kingdom work from Locke or Burke or Marx, or Rawls or Alinsky, or whoever is next packaged for us. We follow in the way of a Barney-Jesus, who “teaches fairly innocuous but positive values.” Barney-Jesus “expresses unconditional love and support for [H]is child friends, and teaches social skills and nonviolence.”[xvii] “We don’t really think about what [Christ Jesus, the apostles and prophets] are going to like and dislike….It’s really about empowering the child.”[xviii] Barney-Jesus brings a “group of equals” together for “the common purpose of learning and having fun.” In this way He teaches His “community values” to the children so they may “evolve into their empowered future.”[xix] The Barney-Jesus is raised out of the surrounding medium of North American disposable income and casual decadence inflated by a college education. The children of the chaotic Christianity of post-modernity, with its metropolitan chic, ever metastasizing doctrinal flexibility, have a close affinity with “the free-market capitalists and pagan spiritualist, who promote a more evolutionary relationship to magic, value, and nature.”[xx] They distinguish themselves by how they choose to circulate their techniques, merely advertising and soliciting members into their fraternity by working a different set of magazines on the rack of life. They are comfortable joining a “community, a movement of people who have been living, exploring, discussing, sharing, and experiencing new understandings of Christian faith.”[xxi] What manner of facilitating friends should characterize Barney-Jesus leaders? People of high capacity who demonstrate a superior ability, aptitude or power to do something…What? They must be able to introduce something new to bring about change in the way we follow Jesus…How? They must have the power to produce change in our lives or to move our feelings so we might be more open to change…to what end? That they might be able to identify, explore and develop new areas of innovation and share these results with others because as “innovation spreads, the Church better fulfills its mission to serve, to love and to expand the Kingdom of God.”[xxii]

Some of us join in the jumping and singing and holding of hands to form the Barney-Jesus circle of friendship with an old-fashioned sense of dread over if this way of life transforms the soul crucified with Christ unto godliness. Knowing that discipline “is the moral education obtained by the enforcement of obedience through supervision and control,” [xxiii] we want to be taught and chastened by someone with authority over us to whom we ought to submit. We want to be set free from the powers that conspire to hold us captive to any kind of hegemonic essentialism apart from that which lets us become slaves of righteousness.

But too, in this we do not want to go too far. All auctoritas in service to one potestas makes us nervous.[xxiv] Our conscience is uneasy about entering into what the nineteenth-century apologist for the Roman Catholic Church, William G. Ward, called the “magic circle” of authority in which a person replaces personal responsibility with submitting to the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church. “Within the magic circle which it (the Magisterium) protects, we are saved from the pain of doubt, from the necessity of disputation, and are called upon but to learn and to believe.”[xxv] Ward warned safety “against the evil influences of surrounding free thought” could be gained only in “intellectual captivity,” by taking refuge in the “one solid and inexpugnable fortress of truth,” which is “the Catholic Church built on the Rock of Peter.”[xxvi] To flourish we must free ourselves of a free intellect. “Independence of intellect just like independence of will is not man’s healthy state but his disease and calamity. Not in intellectual independence but in intellectual captivity is true intellectual liberty and perfection.”[xxvii] God help us (and He does), we desire nothing else than to subject ourselves to apostolic authority with its power to destroy all speculation and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God. We want nothing more than our every thought being taken captive to the obedience of Christ. We yearn to complete our obedience so that all disobedience may be properly punished in an orderly manner, in accordance with the testimony of Jesus, which is the Spirit of prophecy.

In the sight of God however, remembering the stricter judgment to which .~ am subject, .~ deny that it is the task of the teaching office (Magisterium) of the Roman Catholic Church or of any other particular religious body to “preserve God’s people from deviations and defections and to guarantee them the objective possibility of professing the true faith without error.”[xxviii] .~ reject that when “the Church through its supreme Magisterium proposes a doctrine for belief as being divinely revealed, and as the teaching of Christ, the definitions must be adhered to with the obedience of faith,”[xxix] because this “infallibility extends as far as the deposit of divine Revelation itself.”[xxx] .~ refuse trying to learn what is pleasing to my Lord by confessing, “Both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honored with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence.”[xxxi] With God as my witness, .~ renounce the claim that the “task of interpreting the Word of God authentically has been entrusted solely to the Magisterium of the Church, that is, to the Pope and to the bishops in communion with him.”[xxxii] .~ refuse to “receive with docility” the insistence that the “Church’s Magisterium exercises the authority it holds from Christ to the fullest extent when it defines dogmas, that is, when it proposes truths contained in divine Revelation or having a necessary connection with them, in a form obliging the Christian people to an irrevocable adherence of faith.”[xxxiii] To those who can do this, may there be peace between us in spite of my dissent. It is not my duty to observe the teaching office of the Roman Catholic Church in matters of doctrine and discipline with docility in charity. Nor do .~ acknowledge that the power of this teaching body or any other extends over the precepts of natural law as if even in this vast sphere my obedience of faith is necessary for salvation. To do so would require me to enter the magic circle with William G. Ward, to join him in saying, “We therefore see over how large a field of secular science the church’s authority extends. She has the power…of infallibly pronouncing propositions to be erroneous if they tend by legitimate consequence to a denial of any religious doctrine which she teaches. But secular science contains a vast number of such propositions…therefore [over all of them], the church has power to pronounce an infallible judgment.”[xxxiv] .~ recoil from this step back from literacy. It would be the beginning of the end of reading, the return of the hieratic author and make – if allowed at all – writing for the rest of us unnecessary.

Volkes Stimme, Gottes Stimme. The Holy Spirit nourishes us with sound doctrine miraculously arrived at through the fallibilities of consensus in dialectic with an equally fallible heteronomous authority (whether the Magisterium of Roman Catholicism or a surrogate). The Lord of Liberty performs this miracle to discriminate between the indwelt and outsiders and thus turns the compass for drawing the arc of the circle of fellowship that we should be eager to maintain in the bond of peace. As busy as we are finding, forming, and reaching our own reputations, intentions and judgments, how do we have time to select a chosen opinion between teaching that promotes the healthy growth and governance of the church and destructive opinions caused by false teachers, who eagerly seek us because they want to shut us out in order that we may seek them? Given our personal engagement in the Gospel along with those who suffer owing to their defense and confirmation of it, we know we should conduct ourselves in a manner worthy of the Gospel by having nothing to do with those who desire nothing more than to disturb us and distort the Gospel. But how do we determine this? We want to be mature in our faith. We want to be teachers. We want to align ourselves with those who never deliberately deny revealed truth or accept error to be true. We want to be sheep led to slaughter and not followers of ravenous wolves. We want to answer Jesus by saying, “Yes, we can read.” We want to be able to confidently declare how the text reads to us. We want to be able to examine Scripture to determine the things we ought to believe and to be equipped for every good work. But Lord how can we understand what we are reading? How could we unless someone guides us? Lord, we do not know who to invite to come up and sit with us, who can, beginning with the Scripture, preach Jesus to us.

A metaphor instigates us into seeking to replace it with another metaphor. A metaphor convinces us to stand up against an opposing metaphor. Metaphor, metaphor nothing more. A metaphor motivates and animates us to resist and replace another metaphor, nothing more, and nothing more. Trading time for territory, we withdraw back into the womb of mystery — and this all in the name of theory! “The very ambition of theory to oversee — the root meaning of the term — the operations of readers and texts with technical rigour would issue, if fulfilled, in a metadiscourse coherent perhaps in itself but for all practical and public purposes unintelligible and without influence within the wider culture. Within Anglo-American culture, just such a destiny has already overtaken philosophy, the discipline with which many theorists now seek closer ties. The dream of systematic transcendence would thus beget its own trivialization.”[xxxv] Spendthrifts that we are, we squander the scarce resources of the church – time, wealth and skills of life – we beget authors instead of entrusting the things we have heard to faithful listeners. We achieve a mediocre equivalence: the making of trivia synonymous with relevance, forgetting “the fact that the church is a living unity that forms institutions, groups and mentalities – often of completely opposing kinds! – without however, being identical with any of them.”[xxxvi] How hard it is for us to understand that “the church is, prior to any qualities of a social group or of social cooperation, not only a unity, but too a unique phenomenon.”[xxxvii] By faith alone in Christ we submit to the teaching of the Scriptures that delivers the entreaty we are to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which we have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing forbearance to one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. We have come to the Celtic crossroad. The best we can do today is wave banners over our heads that bear images of the Bible, beneath which we try together to decipher the Scriptures, struggling as hard as we may to remain literate until, exhausted, we cannot write another word, devoting ourselves instead in times of truce and in times of war to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation and teaching; being sober in all things, doing the work of evangelists, fulfilling our ministries.

Postscript

For the Sake of the Gospel, the Good of the Church and to the Glory of God,

.~ Condemn the Orthodox Church’s Condemnation of my evangelical Faith

by mike mcduffee

. ~ trust that as God continues to bestow His merciful favor upon me . ~ shall remain by cleansed conscience, Biblical conviction and public confession an evangelical Christian. Let me clarify what that means by directing my statement of faith to a specific truth claim the Orthodox Church makes. .~ reject the assertion that to live in Christ outside the Orthodox Church means to live beyond the scope of the Holy Spirit’s reach of power to enable me to “live according to the commandments of the Beatitudes.”[xxxviii] .~ believe God extends His grace to my evangelical brothers and sisters in Christ outside the Orthodox Church sufficient for them to live the fullness of the Christian life, and that therefore, the grace to do so is not exclusively concealed within the Orthodox Church. . ~ do not believe that God has designated the Holy Orthodox Church to be the sole repository of the divinely revealed Truth in all its fullness and fidelity to apostolic Tradition. .~ have personally and conscientiously denounced this ungrounded exclusive claim imposed upon me and my brothers and sisters in Christ in the past, I do so now, and, .~ trust the Lord will give me the strength to continue to do so in the future, both in private and in public. My evangelical confession of faith in Christ is not based upon any teaching that .~ have been born into, raised under or inherited, as if it is a delinquent norm of a deficient culture. . ~ heard the Gospel preached from the Bible in the language of my home and heart. God kindly allowed me to repent of my sin unto trusting in Jesus for the salvation of my soul, which He bought with my Savior’s blood. . ~ now live for Him who is able to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for us.

Because . ~ trust Jesus to keep me from being carried away by varied and strange teachings; and because . ~ confess it is good for my heart to be strengthened by grace, .~ cannot in good conscience believe, teach or bear witness to the claim that water baptism administered by the Orthodox Church – or any other church – is the “way in which a person is actually united to Christ.”[xxxix] Therefore, .~ cannot hold to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience such that . ~ should confess to another, “The experience of salvation is initiated in the waters of baptism.”[xl] Hearing the word of the Gospel and believing, and believing my heart has been cleansed by faith, .~ believe God knows the heart and has given me the Holy Spirit, who dwells in me. Therefore, before God, the church and the world, .~ reject the claim that the love .~ may live by faith in the Son of God strengthened by evangelical instruction grounded in the Scriptures makes me a son of damnation.

In accordance with my reading of the Holy Scriptures before God my Savior, . ~ consciously and persistently hold fast to this evangelical confession of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. About the matter of salvation, .~ rest in Christ with all peace and joy, believing in both the perspicuity of the Scriptures and the sanctifying power of God. With my conscience so governed while in submission to the evangelical elders that oversee the local assembly of saints among whom .~ am counted, . ~ am convinced my position is not one of error, nor is it an ignorant opinion. Rather, my faith in Christ is apprehended by reason and conscience as God has given me my allotment of faith. May He be merciful to me and allow me to grow in grace and godliness. .~ am convinced .~ have no need to either convert from or repent of this evangelical confession of faith in Christ that leads to the fullness of salvation, which is in Him and with it eternal glory. .~ judge it to be loveless and arrogant to pronounce that my evangelical confession of faith so held demonstrates my opposition to the truth, making me blind and leading me to commit spiritual suicide, and this because .~ like myself to the devil, “who believes in God and dreads Him, yet hates, blasphemes, and opposes Him.”[xli] May the Lord have mercy on those who condemn me. By God’s kindness as God grants, upon their repentance unto revealing their earnestness for apostolic ministry in His sight, might we build up one another to better maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

With or without this reconciliation, which is good for the church and gives glory to God, .~ look to my Lord, Founder and Perfecter of our faith, with eyes of faith to persevere by God’s grace in our faith of equal standing with the apostles, which, according to the Scriptures, was once for all delivered to the saints; rejoicing over the wonderful truth that the divine power of God and of Jesus our Lord has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence, by which He has granted to us His precious and very great promises, so that through them we may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.


Notes

[i] Roland Barthes, “The Death of the Author,” in Image-Music-Text, tr. by Stephen Heath (N.Y.: Hill and Wang, 1977), p. 148.

[ii] http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50076197?single=1&query_type=word&queryword=entertainment&first=1&max_to_show=10.

[iii] To be skeptical. On faith .~ preempt the proper way of introducing the word skepticate, .~ realize it should first be spoken in hope that it be picked up for further circulation, but the end is near.

[iv] Mark Edmundson, “Against Readings,” The Chronicle Review (April 24, 2009), p. B8. Professor Edmundson voices a beautiful call to befriend the text .~ read by “framing a reading that the author would approve,” treating the author’s words “with care and caution and with due respect” unto the end “to develop a vision of what the world is and how to live that rises from the author’s work and that, ultimately, the author, were he present in the room, would endorse (B9).” Sympathetically he references Susan Sontag: “In a once-famous essay, ‘Against Interpretation,’ Susan Sontag denounced interpretation and called for an ‘erotics of art’. She wanted immersion in the text, pleasure, the drowning of self-consciousness. She sought ecstatic immediacy (B10).” For which .~ will be judged, .~ believe this erotic art of befriending the Bible suffices as the cognate partner to the prayer, “.~ pray Thee, if .~ have found favor in Thy sight, let me know Thy ways, that .~ may know Thee, so that .~ may find favor in Thy sight.” Again however, to the matter at hand, Professor Edmundson can do no more than begin his muse by wishing “that for one year, two, three, or five, we would give up readings (B7).”

[v] Quoted by Gianni Vattimo, After Christianity, tr. by Luca D’Isanto (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985), p. 119.

[vi] David Macey, “Theory,” Dictionary of Critical Theory (London, England: Penquin Books, 2001), p. 379.

[vii] Howard Felperin, Beyond Deconstruction, the Uses and Abuses of Literary Theory (Oxford University Press, 1985), p. 202.

[viii] Howard Felperin, Beyond Deconstruction, p. 203.

[ix] Gianni Vattimo, After Christianity, p. 121.

[x] Howard Felperin, Beyond Deconstruction, p. 207.

[xi] Emergent Village, A Node in the Web of the Emerging Church, “About Emergent Village,” read from http://www.emergentvillage.com/about/., on 4/15/08.

[xii] Douglas Rushkoff, Playing the Future, How Kids’ Culture Can Teach Us to Thrive in an Age of Chaos (New York: HarperCollinsPublishers, 1996), p. 76.

[xiii] Emergent Village, A Node in the Web of the Emerging Church, “About Emergent Village,” read from http://www.emergentvillage.com/about/., on 4/15/08.

[xiv] Emergent Village, A Node in the Web of the Emerging Church, “About Emergent Village,” read from http://www.emergentvillage.com/about/., on 4/15/08.

[xv] Leadership Network, “Our Mission,” read from http://www.leadnet.org/about_OurMission.asp., 5/27/09.

[xvi] ACTIVEenergy.net, “The Official Website of Bob Buford,” founder of Leadership Network, read from http://www.activeenergy.net/templates/cusactiveenergy/details.asp?id=29646&PID=207602.

[xvii] Douglas Rushkoff, Playing the Future, How Kids’ Culture Can Teach Us to Thrive in an Age of Chaos (New York: HarperCollinsPublishers, 1996), pp. 116-117. Rushkoff applies these descriptors to Barney, the PBS TV purple dinosaur who plays with children.

[xviii] Douglas Rushkoff, Playing the Future, p. 117. Rushkoff quotes Barney creator Sheryl Leach.

[xix] Douglas Rushkoff, Playing the Future, p. 118.

[xx] Douglas Rushkoff, Playing the Future, p. 116.

[xxi] Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2005), p. 014.

[xxii] “Our Mission,” Leadership Network, http://www.leadnet.org/about_OurMission.asp. In the same way that Communists love the Revolution and not Marx.

[xxiii] V. R. Edman, “Discipline,” in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, ed. by Walter A. Elwell (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1984), p. 320.

[xxiv] .~ use these terms conceding the following definitions: “Potestas carries nuances of ‘power’ in the sense of jurisdictional authority or efficacious ability to perform a function, carry out an office, make a decision, etc. Auctoritas refers to the authority of counsel, wisdom, learning, advice, influence, support, etc.” See James T. Bretzke, S.J., Consecrated Phrases, A Latin Theological Dictionary (Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1998, 2003), p. 108.

[xxv] Quoted in Paul Johnson, A History of Christianity (New York: A Touchstone Book, Simon & Schuster, 1976), p. 380.

[xxvi] William G. Ward, “Essay on the Church’s Doctrinal Authority,” quoted by Wilfrid Philip Ward in William George Ward and the Catholic Revival (Macmillan, 1893), p. 132.

[xxvii]Willliam G. Ward, quoted by Wilfrid Philip Ward in William George Ward and the Catholic Revival, p. 133.

[xxviii] Catechism of the Catholic Church (Liguori, MO: Liguori Publications, 1994), p. 235.

[xxix] Catechism of the Catholic Church, pp. 235-236.

[xxx] Catechism of the Catholic Church, p. 27.

[xxxi] Catechism of the Catholic Church, p. 26.

[xxxii] Catechism of the Catholic Church, p. 30.

[xxxiii] Catechism of the Catholic Church, p. 27.

[xxxiv] Quoted in Paul Johnson, A History of Christianity (New York: A Touchstone Book, Simon & Schuster, 1976), p. 380.

[xxxv] Howard Felperin, Beyond Deconstruction, the Uses and Abuses of Literary Theory (Oxford University Press, 1985), p. 2.

[xxxvi] Wolfgang Ullman, “Eine ökumenische Soziologie der Kirche, Zum Neudruck von Rosenstock-Wittig, Das Alter der Kirche, Bd. I-III, 1927-1928,” neu Herausgegeben von Fritz Herrenbrück und Michael Gormann-Thelen, Band III (Münster: Verlag Münster, 1998), p. 355.

[xxxvii] Ibid.

[xxxviii] Archimandite (Metropolitan) Philaret (d. 1985), from Orthodox Life, vol. 34, no. 6 (Nov-Dec, 1984), pp. 33-36, read from http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/metphil_heterdox.aspx.

[xxxix] “The Orthodox Church,” distributed by the Holy Trinity Orthodox Mission, 466 Foothill Blvd, Box 397, La Canada, Canada, 91011, read from http://www.orthodox.cn/catechesis/amileant/catechism_en.htm.

[xl] Ibid.

[xli] Philaret, Orthodox Life

Published in: on May 31, 2009 at 5:06 pm Comments (2)

What Hope for me?

And if after having seen our Lord transfigured,
and the resurrected Lord ascending to heaven, and then
falling as though dead at the feet of our Lord glorified

– whose eyes burn like a flame of fire,
and whose voice speaks like the roar of many waters,
and from whose mouth is drawn a sharp two-edged sword,
and whose face glows incandescent like the sun shining in full strength –

the beloved Apostle nonetheless,
lacked the power of discernment needed
to distinguish good from evil,
enough to avoid worshipping an angel
(twice),
behaving like one disqualified,
then what hope for me?
Who shields me from being deceived?
Who delivers me from the worst kind of lie?
Who frees me from my own futility?
Who keeps me from becoming a fool,
exchanging the glory of the immortal God
for images resembling mortal man
and Summer Tanagers, and opossums and Northern Black Racers,
exchanging the truth about God for a lie
and worshipping and serving the creature
rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever?
Who forgives me for bending my knee to the idol greed?
Who breaks me from my consuming, dishonorable passions contrary to nature,
from all that comes to me easy of the earthly, unspiritual and demonic?
Who transforms this debased mind that drives me to do what ought not be done?
Who will empty me of all manner of unrighteousness,
envy, murder, strife, and maliciousness?
Who will prevent me, the evildoer, from still doing evil?
Who cleanses me of being filthy, a gossip, slanderer, hater of God,
a lover of self, ungrateful, unholy, and boastful,
an inventor of evil disobedient to my parents, who now are dead?
Who saves me; the foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless
approver of whoever practices these things?
Oh Father in heaven,
my one hope is in your Son,
Jesus Christ our Lord,
in whose name .~ trust for the forgiveness of my sin.
.~ believe this is the one hope that does not put us to shame,
because your love has been poured into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit whom you have given to us.
Your Holy Spirit speaks to us deep in our hearts
and tells us that we are your children with whom
you share your treasure –
for everything you give your Son,
Jesus Christ our Lord, is ours too.
Let me so live Lord,
Dying for the glory and the suffering
and the patient endurance you are willing to share.

Published in: on May 22, 2009 at 6:38 pm Comments (1)

What have .~ done?

What do .~ do in darkness of which
.~ would be ashamed if
proclaimed in public,
the very things .~ do,
for which the wrath of God
comes upon the sons of disobedience?
Who in public will sing to me,
“Awake, O sleeper,
and arise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you”?

[And not tell me, as a chirping passerinus peritus, "Some commentators have suggested that here Paul cites an expository paraphrase of Scripture, like a targum on a text such as Isaiah 60:1 or perhaps Daniel 12:2.  Others think that Paul cites an early Christian prophecy or song, composed by either Paul or another prophet (cf. 1 Cor. 14:37).  Either suggestion is possible, or a compbination of the two (a prophecy or song based on biblical texts); in any case the quotation was no doubt familiar to both Paul and the letter's first hearers."[1]

And you, dear brother or sister in Christ,
are you so different?
Should not .~ sing to you in public?
Once we gathered
in private households, and then in buildings
the state permitted and provided, now
we must sing and pray and prophesy
one by one in public, decently,
that all may learn and be encouraged,
and so the charge that torments our soul,
becoming light, might fall silent.

______________________________________

[1]Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary, New Testament (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1993), p. 550.  Song is a wonderful means by which children of light may expose the most resistant strains of unfruitful works of darkness holed up in one another, transforming them through illumination into fruit of light found in all that is good and right and true.  The evangelical saint who most effectively edifies the Body of Christ gives voice to the Gospel, especially in public.  Gospel songs “have tremendous impact not only on those who sing but also on those who listen.”  Thus, the Scriptures instruct us not only to sing hymns of praise to God (Acts 16:25), but also to direct our singing of Gospel songs to our listeners, both those in Christ and outsiders (Ephesians 5:14) .  See Walter L. Liefeld, The IVP New Testament Commentary Series, Ephesians (Downers Grove, Illinois, USA; Leicester, England: InterVarsity Press, 1997), p. 131.

Published in: on May 15, 2009 at 7:26 pm Leave a Comment

What is “evangelical” about Evangelicalism?

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. (James 1:27, The Holy Bible, “English Standard Version”)

“An individual receives the benefit of Christ’s substitutionary death by faith as the result of responding to the message of the gospel. Salvation is the free gift of God’s grace through faith alone, therefore not dependent upon church membership, intermediaries, sacraments, or works of righteousness to attain or sustain it.” (Footnote #3, Elaborating the 1928 Doctrinal Statement of Moody Bible Institute, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.)

“For our part, as Evangelicals and Catholics together, we refuse to despair of the power of the public witness and persuasion in the service of every member of the human community, for whom Christ came ‘that they may have life and have it abundantly.’” (Last sentence of “That They May Have Life,” A Statement of Evangelicals and Catholics Together, October 2006)

How should we be “evangelical” Christians? In his letter to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and deacons parenthetically included, the apostle to the nations said he thanked God in his every prayer for them because of their partnership in the gospel from the first day until the now then of his writing. Beyond sharing in the preaching of the gospel this partnership means the saints were to be partakers of God’s grace in both the gospel’s defense and its confirmation, remaining confident that the word of God can neither be bound nor broken. The apostle Paul reminded the saints they should behave as citizens of heaven in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, and with this remembering, that we await a Savior who comes for us from heaven. This Savior will transform our lowly body to be like His glorious body, and this by the power that enables Him even to subject all things to Himself. Finally, the apostle urged the saints at Philippi, and thus too those who are today saints everywhere, to ignite the wonderful joy that can only spring to life in the hearts of others by hearing how saints met along the way are still walking in the truth. Therefore saints, stand firm in one Spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, without being frightened by anything unleashed by your many opponents.

By law, our Lord acknowledged,[1] it has been written that the testimony of two men is admissibly valid, so that the mouth of two or three witnesses may confirm every fact –every word – to be true. In the spirit of this divine warrant, may we first take to heart the word of warning spoken by the Magus of the North, who as a Preacher in the Wilderness cautioned in 1784:

Dogmatic faith and ecclesiastical law belong only to the public institutions of education and administration and as such are subject to the arbitrary will of the authorities, an external discipline that is sometimes coarse and sometimes refined, depending on the elements and the degrees of the prevailing aesthetic. These visible, public, and common institutions are neither religion nor wisdom that descend from above, but are earthly, sensual, devilish in accordance with the influence of foreign cardinals or foreign ciceroni, poetic father-confessors or prosaic paunchy priests and in accordance with the variable system of statistical weights and balances, or armed tolerance and neutrality –churches and schools have often, like the monsters and creatures of the state and reason, contemptibly sold themselves to the state and to reason, and betrayed them just as contemptibly. Philosophy and politics have needed the sword of superstition and the shield of unbelief for all their joint deceits and violent actions, and as much through their love as through their hate they have mistreated dogmatic faith more grievously than Amnon did the sister of his brother Absalom — .

Next, might we listen to the brilliant, baroque-styled observation of fellow Protestant confessor of Christ, German scholar and ecumenist, Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, who wrote the passage that follows in 1927:[2]

“How does one then securely fasten the evangelical position? This safeguarding of the evangelical confession cannot be guaranteed by any kind of Protestant system of ecclesiastical law because the evangelical faith neither should be nor can be constructed in written form as a codified judicial system. This is so because the evangelical faith remains evangelical only if it remains unwritten, as that living source, as that surprising source that bubbles up new every day. Evangelical faith…is nothing but the ongoing outworking and immortalizing of a single instant, a mere moment in the history of Christian revelation. This is but that very moment when the resurrected Lord asks His disciple three times, “Lovest thou Me?”
“So understood, the evangelical faith is not an ascertainable culture of life manifested as a constantly safeguarded or protected recurrence. Evangelical faith is instead, an inclination of the heart of the free and solitary Christian life. The living, verbally announced gospel is the power, which the church of Christ carries. The evangelical way of being Christian[3] is the eternal recurrence of the genesis of early Christianity in the soul of each single person. Accordingly, evangelical faith is indifferent toward every external state of the life of community, which of necessity becomes a matter of usefulness or piety. The evangelical Christian now no longer recognizes any codified judicial life of Christians in this world. Nor does the evangelical Christian recognize any kind of protective association for defense against the world.[4] The evangelical Christian does not recognize any law regarding the education of children or the administration of sacraments. In all of these matters the evangelical Christian yields the field[5] to his [Roman Catholic or Greek/Slavic Orthodox fellow confessors in Christ].
“The evangelical Christian experience of the church does not quarrel with the entire sphere of recurring things that repeat themselves and for that have become a concrete and ascertainable order of these very things. The evangelical does not generate dispute over these things because he or she does not even step into this area of operation.[6] The evangelical sphere of life is only the internal one of the universal priesthood of believers found grounded in the first-century church. To the evangelical – as a Christian and as one seeking salvation mind you – established church order remains a matter of indifference. In the midst of the Christian world and church the evangelical revives only one definite, ever eternal current; the evangelical guards the immediacy of the sacred source of faith; and, the evangelical forces the eternal surprise of Christianity in upon the many hierarchical levels and ranks of church order that make up calcified Christendom.”

I only add the following to what Hamann said above and Rosenstock-Huessy here confesses. The Gospel is the good news that announces what God has done for us sinners and for our salvation by sending His Son into the world; it declares what God commands of us sinners to receive salvation from His Son according to the Scriptures. Preaching this Gospel is the one way by which God saves lost sinners through His church. Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word, the word of the Kingdom, the word of Christ (Matthew 13:19, 23; Mark 4:14, 20; Romans 10:17). The word of God and the heart of man are brought together and rightly set as one (John 17:20-21) through hearing with faith. By hearing with faith we receive, accept and welcome the word of God. We confess we are members of the body of Christ because we heard the word of truth, the Gospel of our salvation, and believed in Christ. So believing, we confess we have been sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of God’s glory (Ephesians 1:13). It is by hearing with faith that we receive the Spirit (Galatians 3:2-3). Through the Spirit then, by faith, we are waiting together for the hope of righteousness (Galatians 5:5). The chief apostle at the first church council confirmed this teaching of justification and fellowship based upon faith from hearing the Gospel (Acts 15:6-9, 12). Jesus declared this teaching when He converted the apostle to the nations (Acts 26:15-18), who taught this truth until his closing days (2 Timothy 3:14-15). God creates and matures Christians by the power of His word and not by the effects of sacraments He commands the church to perform as a reminder of this. Personal repentance from sin unto believing in Christ as one’s first love comes through hearing the good news that the God who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, is for us, and He will give us all things with His Son! How then shall we call upon Him in whom we have not believed? And how shall we believe in Him whom we have not heard? And how shall we hear without a preacher? But having the same spirit, according to what is written, “I believe, therefore I spoke,” we also believe, therefore also we speak. From whatever apostolic trajectory of speech, Jesus has struck the chords of repentance and conviction in us. He directs the Spirit to arrange in us the workmanship the Father’s love has wrought for us. The Father qualifies us for the transformation He desires be carried out — beginning and ending in faith — through following the standard and pattern of teaching to which our listening heart has been committed, thus giving our breath and voice and service to the church so the church continues to speak oracles of God and serve by God’s strength through each of us according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. He who has ears to hear, let him hear (Matthew 11:15; 13:9, 43; Mark 4:9, 23; Luke 8:8; 14:35; Revelation 13:9). Indeed, he who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches (Revelation 2:7, 11, 17, 29; 3:6, 13, 22; 13), for it is the Spirit and the bride who say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost (Revelation 22:17).

Remember your baptism saints. Our Lord has baptized us with the Holy Spirit. He will baptize us too with fire (Matthew 3:11), for He has said, “Everyone will be salted with fire (Mark 9:49).”  Let us help one another to be careful how we build together upon the apostolic foundation, reminding one another that the work of each of us will become evident; for the day of our Lord Jesus Christ will show it, because it is to be revealed with fire; and the fire itself will test the quality of our work. If our work, which we have built upon this foundation, remains, we shall receive a reward. If our work is burned up, then we shall suffer loss even while being saved, yet so as through fire (1 Corinthians 3:11-15). It is the Spirit who gives life; the words of our Lord are spirit and are life (John 5:63). Trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord (Ephesians 5:10), let us try then to learn together how not to exceed what is written, in order that we might not become arrogant in behalf of one against the other (1 Corinthians 4:6). For our Lord whom God has sent speaks the words of God; for He gives the Spirit without measure (John 3:34). Having begun with the Spirit let us encourage one another to be perfected by the Spirit (Galatians 3:3) remembering, the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set us free from the law of sin and of death to live according to the Spirit (Romans 8:2-4).

Submit to them fellow evangelical Christians, but do not attempt to compete with them. You should neither convert to the Pope and his purgatory nor to any claimant to the Christian imperial throne, who claims to wield in waiting its heavenly sword on earth. I plead with you, do not be either deceived or distracted saints, if you give up your allegiance to the evangelical faith in Christ rooted in the one household of the many churches of old Catholicism built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, then in this world you will subject your heart, your conscience, your faith and your children either to that kind of sanctification which counts the purgatorium flames of justification in lengths of millions of years, or to an order of symphony[7] between the sacerdotium and the imperium struck by one called the Overseer of the External – episkopos ton ektos.[8] You will either request indulgences from the plenary Comptroller of the beatific vision or be subject to insubordination per the authority of the Protectorate of cosmic harmony between heaven and earth, administered by an Avenger who brings wrath upon those who practice evil.

For the sake of the Gospel we remain evangelical Christians, therefore, we reserve on the ground of conscience as a divine mandate the act of disobedience as a witness of kindness before our governing authorities and as a service of edification for our spiritual leaders. That is, in obedience to God we will not shirk our responsibility to preach the Gospel without distortion in public (Acts 2:47; 5:12-16; 27-32, 42; 6:8, 12; 8:1-6, 25, 39-40). It is our heartfelt desire to be subject to the governing authorities and to pay to them the taxes, revenue, respect and honor owed. We want to obey our spiritual leaders and submit to them, imitating their faith. Nevertheless, we refuse to comply with the command of any state authority or church ruling body that requires of us to either censure or distort the Gospel. On this one life-giving point we seek only the approval of God. Over preserving the integrity of the Gospel and about determining when and where we preach the Gospel, we seek to please God alone. Therefore we acknowledge, by the scales of any state order or religious association, whether claiming to be Christian or not, whenever we are weighed by the world’s standards of peace and security (John 14:27) we are always found to be a most dangerous people because we believe, confess, teach and bear witness to the truth that it is the Son who has made us a free people to go into all the world and proclaim the Gospel to the whole creation.

Evangelical Christians, we are the most dangerous of people because we are the most public of people. We are the children born of the universal principle of vitality upon which the life of the church depends. We preach the Gospel to all; translating the Scriptures into the language of our listeners so they might diligently examine God’s word themselves to see if what we have said is worthy of God’s approval and merits their believing. What more than the Gospel according to the Scriptures translated in the vernacular of our listeners belongs to and concerns the whole of all peoples? What freely offers greater benefit to all more than the Gospel according to the Scriptures translated in the vernacular of our listeners? What more than the Gospel according to the Scriptures translated in the vernacular of our listeners should be open to the scrutiny of all? What message should be more openly declared than the Gospel according to the Scriptures translated in the vernacular of our listeners? What could be more selfish and hurtful than to speak only in secret the Gospel according to the Scriptures translated in the vernacular of our listeners, keeping it a private oracle away from the people? What message is more deserving of publicity than the Gospel according to the Scriptures translated in the vernacular of our listeners?

Open protest is a people’s primary political right. It protects their governing rulers from becoming overwhelmed by the temptations of corruption. The first principle of scientific discourse is published criticism of established knowledge, for only this practice allows for continuous revision of what is taken for granted to expand our horizon of understanding. In and out of season, and with or without permission, the evangelical Christian’s foremost freedom is preaching the good news that announces what God has done for us sinners and for our salvation by delivering up His Son for our transgressions, having Him declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead. Therefore, in public we declare to all that God commands everyone to repent of sin unto believing in His Son to receive salvation, according to the Scriptures translated into the vernacular of our listeners. Public preaching gives us the vital hermeneutic we need to strengthen the pastoral ministry and to nourish our pious colleges. It alone exercises public speech warranted by divine mandate, regardless of whether or not any human court recognizes this commission as a human right. Preaching publicly the Gospel alone indicts all sin — personal and political — in public, even as our Savior made Himself propitiation for the sins of the whole world in public. Only the preaching of the Gospel in public incites persecution to excite the saints to aspire upwards to the highest state of prayer that strengthens all so all might speak the word of God with boldness (Acts 4:23-31).   Precious too is the truth that the evangelical saint who most effectively edifies the Body of Christ gives voice to the Gospel, especially in public.  The public preaching of the Gospel exposes what .~ do in the darkness, of which .~ become ashamed when proclaimed in public, the very things for which the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.   Vulnerability offers the greatest opportunity for transparency.  There is no better way to be healed of my hypocrisy and to hone my hatred for the dishonesty it hides in me than by hearing and speaking the Gospel in public.

To the colonnades saints (Acts 3:11), and to the market places (Acts 17:17)! Together, in these open places, let us preach the strange Gospel of Jesus and the resurrection. No matter who challenges us, regardless before whom we are to make the confession, let us be willing to demonstrate just how radical we truly are by being ready to declare, “We must obey God rather than men.” For to us too God has given the Holy Spirit to obey Him (Acts 5:29, 32). We are evangelical Christians, therefore, as those who reside as aliens scattered among the nations we are the public keepers of honorable speech. We sing hymns of praise to the one majestic God in public. We pray in public. We preach the Gospel of God according to the Scriptures translated into the vernacular of our listeners in public. Among a people, the evangelical Christian is the most public of persons. Each of us should look upon the other as a pioneer striking out to build a new temporary shelter for refugees and outcasts whom God has taken away from following the course of this world to follow Jesus. Seeking fellowship by faith in Christ alone, we work together to build new outposts of the New Creation, the mystery of perfect desire God hides in His heart, which to His glory He has prepared to reveal to all in the hour the Father has fixed by His own authority.

Let us learn to beg like Martin Luther, who spoke as an evangelical Christian in his last will and testament, pleading, “Lastly, I beg everybody, though in this deed or testimonial I make no use of legal forms and words (wherefore I have had good cause), that I may have leave to be that person which I really am, namely a public person known both in heaven and on earth and in hell, and having so much of respect and authority that more trust and belief may be put in me than in a notary.”[9] Evangelical Christians! You are bearers of the Gospel according to the Scriptures translated into the vernacular of your listeners. God charges you to be a public person and a dangerous person; therefore we should be the trustworthiest of people. We take this charge directly from Him who bought us by the precious blood of the Son to be His possession as the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints. God alone awards us this standing. No man or woman, no religion of the world, no state or even the overseers of the church issues this commission to us. Justification by faith alone in Christ means immediate obedience to Christ alone, our only Lord and Master, who alone holds absolute authority over us (Matthew 28:18; John 17:1-3). Submission to this authority pleases the Father, is given by the Spirit and caused the Son of Man to marvel (Matthew 8:10).

We should not be children in our thinking. While remaining infants in evil, may we be mature in our thinking. Today we are witnessing fanatical efforts to reassert the power of Islamic law over international relations.[10] This should teach us that the old things, the ever-recurring things that attend to the affairs of this world, do not go away. Instead, they perennially try to re-form, returning active again and again in their efforts to re-con-figure themselves to contemporary conditions. Nothing set free by the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus tries to go back. New wine is poured into fresh wineskins so both are preserved. The abundant life He has given us lives forward unto the last thing when all shall be summed up in Christ. Behold, now is the acceptable time when He listens and helps, behold, now is the day of salvation even as He has instructed us declaring, “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.’”

Completed Protestants remain Protestants to refuse aligning themselves with any kind of re-forming of the church,[11] whether it be in accordance with ecclesia vivit lege romana – the church lives under Roman Law, or as subject to any usurping Erastian claim of cujus regio, ejus religio – religion follows the sovereign. The church empowers all cultures and sanctions none, whether Hebraic, Hellenist, Roman, Slavic or Arabic. Our hermeneutic is not preserved solely by preaching from the safety of the pulpit protected by the state’s police or by diligently examining the Scriptures together in our pious colleges exempt by state law from taxation or censure. The state does not protect the evangelical Christian, it has not the authority to either establish or prohibit evangelical teaching or ministry. The evangelical Christian declares God’s love in the same arena in which God demonstrated His love for us sinners. The evangelical refuses to yield the public arena, knowing that holding true to the right meaning of the sacred writings ultimately comes from their public reading directly before God’s throne beneath the canopy of His creation. What did our Lord teach us?

“A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a slave above his master. It is enough for the disciple that he becomes as his teacher, and the slave as his master. If they have called the head of the house Beelzebul, how much more the members of his household! Therefore do not fear them, for there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, and hidden that will not be known. What I tell you in the darkness, speak in the light; and what you hear whispered in your ear, proclaim upon the housetops. And do not fear those who kill the body, but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell (Matthew 10:24-28).”

North American evangelical apologists today are heady over the secular world’s realization that cultural values matter more than social-economics or political ideology. This increases the persuasiveness of their argument that all culture is grounded in religion. However, for purposes of prayer, what we need to be sober-minded about is the fact that legislators and executors of political, temporal law dictate the social conditions under which religious institutions function. Christ set us free for freedom. The Holy Spirit gives us the power to exercise this gift of freedom in the living relationship we enjoy with Jesus through faith. As activists of this freedom, we are to stand firm, and not submit ourselves again to any yoke of slavery. In the sight of our God dear saints, let us try to learn how to live accordingly. Our political, social compliance is contingent upon our obedience to the perfect law of liberty. If obeying the lesser law of state authority requires of us disobedience to this higher law, then our allegiance to the Lord compels us to disobey the state.

Whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. Without sin, as your conscience allows, practice and observe whatever those who take up the seat of Moses tell you, yet without subjecting your confession of the Gospel to censure, saying with Peter and John, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to give heed to you rather than to God, you be the judge; for we cannot stop speaking what we have seen and heard (Acts 4:19-20).” Protestari saints! Evangelical Christians move forward in life affirming the Gospel. Led by its third witness, the Lord of Liberty, proclaim to the whole of creation the good news that announces both what God has done for us sinners and for our salvation through His Son and what God commands of us sinners to receive salvation from His Son according to the Scriptures. Even as we know the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, we know too that the righteousness of God is revealed in the Gospel from faith to faith as the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. Therefore, we too declare we are not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.

Live true saints to the heavenly calling you have heard. You received the Spirit by the hearing of faith in the Gospel of God concerning His Son. God provided you with the Spirit by the hearing of faith in His Gospel concerning His Son. Live accordingly. Having united the Good News we have heard with faith in our Savior, let us be diligent to enter God’s rest so we may discipline ourselves for the purpose of godliness, which is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. As those who look not at the temporal things which are seen but at the eternal things which are not seen, our confidence toward God is that He hears us if we ask anything according to His will. With fear and trembling then let us be sober-minded for purposes of prayer, resting in the beginning of our assurance that He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

Read the Bible backwards from where you stand, which is ever closer to the youngest day (66/22).  With maximal deference of soul deftly design a method of reading the Scriptures that displays a minimal dependence upon knowledge gained by studies completed outside of the Scriptures, especially when reading the Revelation to John, which, as the capstone for all Scripture, gives us the right adjustment of our focal point in its meeting our Lord’s eternal gaze, letting our eyes of faith see the clearest image of the Bible’s content.  Celebrate the truly catholic imagination of the seven churches with their seven angels, whom God sent out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation. Before God, in His sight and presence, read and hear read aloud the Scriptures believing what is written as literally as you are able from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith; as if reading a letter written by God himself in which He conveys prosaic details of His everyday life using words in their ordinary meaning, with an occasional flair for the figurative to reinforce His common understanding of things. Remember this passkey to all things, to the kingdom, to knowledge and to death and hell that turns the bolt of life to unlock its one truth: God has chosen the things that are not, that He might nullify the things that are. Loyal to your standing above, seek to see with eyes of faith the face of God in this world as much as your sanity permits. Listen to hear God whisper His word into the treasure house of your imagination. Faith in the Scriptures inspired by God anchors our past to the trustworthiness of God so we may hold to and walk the truth in love. Faith in the Scriptures inspired by God convinces us to place our future in the promises of God, so that with perseverance we may wait eagerly for Him to make good on His word. We should realize what this means, that right now, in this very moment, while turning reflection over to God’s steadfastness taught from the Scriptures and while hoping in His goodness owing to what is written in them, the Christian imagination is the one faculty on earth able to trace the survey stakes the Lord has laid out by the measure of His golden reed in readiness for the descending of the holy city, New Jerusalem, to come down out of heaven that He may be among us. Only the Christian imagination has the capacity to be subject to the full after effects of divine artistry displayed in creation and history, seeing everything as the testimony of Jesus, as adoration and celebration, as the Spirit of prophecy and the promise of consummation. The sanctified Christian imagination sets faith and word together to survey with hope the one landscape on earth ours alone for the seeing, where the timely beauty of all things unfolds for our pleasure before the vista of eternity, which He has set in the hearts of all. The Christian imagination is God’s smithy. His word is like fire and like a hammer. He heats our fantasies and fears to smelt off any impurities and to make them yielding. While still malleable He pierces them with His word as far as the division of soul and spirit. Like a hammer in His hand beneath His craftsman’s eye, His word by blows of instruction, rebuke, correction, and discipline gives new shape to our frailties and deformities. He then douses our old devices of unsightliness and spitefulness into the river of the water of life, clear as crystal, pulling them forth to emerge as glorious instruments fit to satisfy His divine desires. Nothing is hidden, except to be revealed; nor has anything been secret, but that it should come to light. We have the mind of Christ! Live to learn to see all things this way. Concern yourselves less with being consistent Christians, live as you are — in His presence as continuous Christians! Live before God before you live for Him. In your imagination try to see all things into that moment when He appears, when we shall be like Him, because at that moment we shall see Him just as He is, and only in this unapproachable light are all things truly seen. Fastening this hope of transformation on Him is the best way to always give thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father. Being purified so, just as God the Son is pure, best equips us to be subject to one another in the fear of Christ with that humility of mind which was also in Christ Jesus.

Persevere under trial to receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. Remain committed men and women every day, even now, who are ever eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Our Lord prayed for all who obtain a faith of equal standing with the apostles by hearing and believing the preaching of the apostolic word. As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” He has prayed for you saints. With the certain expectancy of hope in the God of surprise look to the coming of the unending day when He answers that prayer and fulfills the desire of the Son, when we shall be one even as the Father and the Son are one, that we may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that the Father sent the Son and that the Father has loved us even as He has loved the Son, whom He loved before the foundation of the world.
____________________________________________________________________

Endnotes:
[1] Incidentally, this biblical warrant is the primary reason why we reject the Koran, without regard to its erroneous teachings about our Lord and Savior, the Anointed One sent by God. Muhammad claimed he received revelation from the angelic messenger Gabriel while at the same time declaring the two testaments of Scripture to be corrupt. By his own testimony then he claims that he alone bears witness to the truth. The Word of Life made no such vain claim (John 5:31-32, 39). The apostle to the nations instructed the church not to receive an accusation against an elder except on the basis of two or three witnesses (1 Timothy 5:19), how much more is this called for when the accusation is leveled against apostles and prophets? Thus, Muhammad’s is not a godly witness; therefore whoever desires to be godly must reject it. O how severe the punishment he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace (Hebrews 10:29). It is indeed a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Hebrews 10:31)! Woe to that governing authority or religious leader who decrees that the evangelical Christian is forbidden to openly Evangel aloud! (See Umdat al-Salik 011.5) This is especially the case since God Himself abides by this judicial standard (Revelations 11:3).
[2] Eugen Rosenstock, “Die Epochen des Kirchenrechts,” in Das Alter der Kirche, by Eugen Rosenstock and Joseph Wittig, Band II (Münster: Agenda Verlag, 1998, originally 1927), pp. 36-38. Rosenstock’s remarks rely upon the scholarship of Protestant church historian Rudolf Sohm, “Das altkatholische Kirchenrecht und das Dekret Gratians,” in Festschrift der Leipziger Juristenfakultät für Adolf Wach (Duncker & Humblot, 1918). The same mcduffee responsible for this translation with its embellishment yields to the discipline of its correction. However, I have written what I am compelled to speak owing I trust, only because of what I have been permitted to believe. What do we have that we have not been given? We read, translate and speak by the way we were taught to listen. All the ferocity of fake fangs snapping and the banal rubber talons raking at my soul cannot distract me, I hear them still who so spoke. The Johann Georg Hamann passage, on the other hand, is taken from Golgotha and Sheblimini! — Calvary and at the right hand of the Father — trans. and ed. by Kenneth Haynes in Johann Georg Hamann, Writings on Philosophy and Language (Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 194.
[3] Rosenstock contrasts Christentum with Christenheit. We distinguish the two in English as Christendom and Christianity. I translate here the word “Christendom” as “way of being Christian” because Rosenstock used the term Christendom to refer to the vital, eternal heart of our relationship with Jesus Christ.
[4] For example, one group calling itself American Vision, states as its mission, “Restoring America’s Biblical Foundation – From Genesis to Revelation.” For non-Christian activists a fine undertaking, but one for which Christians should take caution. Gary DeMar is the intellectual leader of this group. See website: http://www.americanvision.org/aboutus.asp. This is not to be confused with Vision America led by Dr. Rick Scarborough. This group announces their “mission is to inform, encourage and mobilize pastors and their congregations to be proactive in restoring Judeo-Christian values to the moral and civic framework in their communities, states, and our nation.” See website: http://www.visionamerica.us/site/PageServer?pagename=WhoWeAreLanding. Their name is Legion for there are many, but see too The Christian Anti-Defamation Commission (CADC). In its mission statement CADC declares it “is a not-for-profit 501(c) (3) Education Corporation whose purpose it is to become the first-in-mind champion of Christian religious liberty, domestically and internationally, and a national clearing house and first line of response to anti-Christian defamation, bigotry, and discrimination.” Read from http://www.christianadc.org/pages/page.asp?page_id=23063. Our Lord promises they will be very busy (John 15:18-27). Should our apostolic witness work to restore America’s diluted foundation of iron mixed with clay? Should it defend against the defamation of Christ in any way other than to preach the Gospel without compromise, minister kindness without prejudice, endure the suffering of injustice with praise and hymn, and hold fast to the blessed hope without bitterness, free of despair and standing firm against falling away from the faith?
[5] Rosenstock writes, “dem katholischen Bruder.” My heart, my conscience and my faith dictate to me that this statement embraces only my brothers and sisters in the Roman Catholic Church whom the Holy Spirit has immersed into the body of Christ, thus not Christian identity based upon administration of water baptism in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Beyond this, our global moment imposes upon us a broader scope by which to exercise protocol in acknowledging the members of the legislative assembly of Christian leaders. Therefore, I expanded his statement to include the Greek/Slavic Orthodox Church as co-legislators of Christian life. Recently however, as the House of Islam’s global leadership ceremonial greeting to “Leaders of Christian Churches, everywhere…” indicates, this assembly is quite large. It includes, mentioning only a few, His Beatitude Theodoros II, Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and all Africa, His Beatitude Ignatius IV, Patriarch of Antioch and All the East, His Beatitude Alexy II, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia. These leaders had authority to enter into concordats with corresponding rulers of state. As evangelical Christians we do not have such authority. Circumstances might well offer opportunity for these leaders to exercise their authority as rulers of state, therefore decreeing laws over matters of truth and morals. Should we as evangelical Christians gain political power, we should use it to protect the organs of faith: speech, conscience, and reason. For the entire list see The Official Website of a Common Word at http://www.acommonword.com/.
[6] By Rosenstock’s remark Paul’s teaching to the church in Corinth springs to mind: 1 Corinthians 7:17, “Only, as the Lord has assigned to each one, as God has called each, in this manner let him walk. And thus I direct in all the churches.” Or is God concerned only about marriage and not how one walks in the truth?
[7] Justinian I, Novella 6 (A.D. 535).
[8] Eusebius of Caesarea, d. 340.
[9] Quoted by Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, Out of Revolution, Autobiography of Western Man (Norwich, VT: Argo Books, 1969), p. 390.
[10] The Secretary General of the Organization of The Islamic Conference, in a statement released 12/10/07 said, “Respect of Human Rights through effective protection and promotion of equality, civil liberties and social justice is a milestone in the OIC Ten Year Plan of Action. In this regard, the OIC General Secretariat is considering the establishment of independent permanent body to promote Human Rights in the Member States in accordance with the provisions of the OIC Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam and to elaborate an OIC Charter on Human Rights.” Read from http://www.oic-oci.org/oicnew/topic_print.asp?t_id=708. The Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, adopted and issued at the Nineteenth Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers in Cairo on 5 August 1990, includes the following sobering statements: Article 16. Everyone shall have the right to enjoy the fruits of his scientific, literary, artistic or technical production and the right to protect the moral and material interests stemming there from, provided that such production is not contrary to the principles of Shari’ah.Article 22. a) Everyone shall have the right to express his opinion freely in such manner as would not be contrary to the principles of the Shari’ah.
(b) Everyone shall have the right to advocate what is right, and propagate what is good, and warn against what is wrong and evil according to the norms of Islamic Shari’ah.
(c) Information is a vital necessity to society. It may not be exploited or misused in such a way as may violate sanctities and the dignity of Prophets, undermine moral and ethical values or disintegrate, corrupt or harm society or weaken its faith.
(d) It is not permitted to arouse nationalistic or doctrinal hatred or to do anything that may be an incitement to any form of racial discrimination. Article 23. (a) Authority is a trust; and abuse or malicious exploitation thereof is absolutely prohibited, so that fundamental human rights may be guaranteed.
(b) Everyone shall have the right to participate, directly or indirectly in the administration of his country’s public affairs. He shall also have the right to assume public office in accordance with the provisions of Shari’ah. Article 24. All the rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration are subject to the Islamic Shari’ah. Article 25. The Islamic Shari’ah is the only source of reference for the explanation or clarification to any of the articles of this Declaration.
[11] Doctrinally, this stand is initially given voice in the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, ratified effective December 15, 1791: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Such an order of society guarantees the church the greatest opportunity to lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted and proclaimed by the United Nations makes this evangelical doctrine an article of international rights: “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.” Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights read from http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html. It is for the upholding of this principle that we should make supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings for all the people, for kings and all who are in high positions (1 Timothy 2:1-2).

Postscript

With embarrassment tempered by the fatigue that comes from living the life God alone gives us, .~ admit a student introduced me to Alister McGrath’s reading of the Reformation titled, Christianity’s Dangerous Idea (New York, N.Y.: HarperOne, 2007), only after .~ wrote this testimony to justification, sanctification and fellowship by faith alone in Christ. The most dangerous “idea” [the matter we examine by studying the Scriptures as it appears to us before being fully revealed] of Christianity is to realize that God’s gift of eternal life is synonymous with His command to live this life to its fullest [thus realizing this same matter changes us as God desires, even as we examine it through studying the Scriptures]. We can choose to change in a variety of ways, but only while we are being changed in ways about which we remain unaware and the nature of which will forever remain beyond our understanding (Romans 11:33-36). This is the marvel and the humility of being in Christ. Hearing our Lord ask, “How does it read to you?” nails us all as one upon the one cross of agony that each of us must then bear alone. Cannot you see me crucified with Christ? Cannot you see me taking up my cross to follow Him? As .~ stoop down to help you carry yours, will you lift me up to help me carry mine? As you stoop down to help me carry mine, will .~ lift you up to help you carry yours? What is the most dangerous idea of Christianity if not this, doing the impossible without knowing it except by faith in Christ according to the Scriptures translated into the vernacular of our believing, justified hearts? Evangelical Christians of all churches, denominations, communities of faith and sects, unite! In Christ alone we alone have the right to preach evil to life and the privilege to love evil to death!

Published in: on May 14, 2009 at 10:54 pm Leave a Comment

Driving me Crazy

thoughts quicken
inexplicably their unsafe pace
gaps increase
between where .~ light to listen and where .~
end up hearing
the speaker’s episodic piece
like an army of converted grackles
racing thoughts convulsively brake
to keep from crashing into the wall
.~ had taken to be a glass shield
put there for my protection
the lurch forward drains introspection
the combustible inquisition overheats
leaking anxiety all over what people .~ meet
panic spills mix with bits of understanding
.~ try collecting to avoid another collision
without choice or rule .~ engage a shift
either .~ admit my not driving very well
my understanding or turn myself over to the thoughts
that made my understanding misbegotten
each lap tightens the route to isolated desperation
the less .~ am able to hear others speak
the fewer around me extend their greeting
or venture a warning
agitated .~ read more awakened
.~ wish .~ could
count myself among the last men
but stripped of debrouillard standing
.~ have not time to blink being different
going voluntarily into the madhouse
carried by the unity of all things in Him
who falls upon us in the rain and sunshine
making us one with all motion and time passing
listening to His cantata that comes from beneath
and above and from across the width of the whole
inspired by God’s power and by God’s love composed

Published in: on May 8, 2009 at 5:39 pm Leave a Comment

How Shall We Remember?

Care not for the psychology of it,
of how it’s done or how we do it,
this mystery work made of memory.
Grief, and rage, and fear, and lust, and wish, and want,
and silence, and sirens and speeches rush to teach our lesser selves,
as we study the Scriptures to learn what is to be remembered.
What shall we recite that we might evoke right memory?
What memories give us our identity?
What memories shape the fit that now sets how we sit in the present?
What shall we remember so to act in accordance with the gifts of grace and truth?
What remembrance of enslavement?
What remembrance of deliverance?
What remembrance of community?
What memories shape our obedience until He comes?
We remember who the Lord God is and what He has done for Israel.
We ask Him to remember His mercy and His steadfast love,
remembering,
He has helped His servant Israel in remembrance of His mercy
to confirm the promises given to the fathers
that they should be saved from their enemies
and from the hand of all who hate them,
that they,
being delivered from the hand of their enemies,
might serve Him without fear,
in holiness and righteousness before Him all their days.
For the sunrise has dawned from on high
giving light to those of us who sat in darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.
How shall we remember these things after the Holocaust?
In this we have no choice,
for us, today in 2009, to hold fast to the hope set before us,
the sure and steadfast hope that is the anchor of our souls,
the hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain,
where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf,
means we must,
together,
pass through the history,
the memory,
the industry of the death camps and crematoria,
in remembrance of the Holocaust.

Published in: on April 25, 2009 at 6:56 pm Leave a Comment

Moderns Believe

 Moderns believe

whosoever believes

in God through faith

in Christ

for a transformed life beyond

the conditioned reality mapped by modern explorers,

a land they condemn as abandoned,

that they report has features only they have discovered— phenomena natural, temporal and historicist —

is in need of receiving emergency intensive care. 

Without professional pedagogic intervention, or proper psychochemically prescribed talk-therapy, the social competency of those in Christ must be questioned.  

The Christian challenges the beliefs of other faiths.

The Christian’s speech disrespects, degrades, abuses, insults, defames and blasphemes the decency of all religious doctrines disavowed by the alleged living oracles of God.

The Christian outrages the religious feelings of others they deem dead, doomed forever because of their many sins.

The Christian distributes seditious publications that incite communal tensions.

The Christian puts at risk the perfect global union, justice, tranquility, common defense, general welfare and the rights of liberty for ourselves and for our posterity.

The Christian is a danger to her- or himself as well as to others, a threat to public policy, public security and public health.[1] 

The Christian must be identified, monitored and registered as an offender of the flourishing life, as a perpetrator of hate crimes against humanity. 

The Christian is a potentially violent, narrow-minded non-conformist subservient to an invisible, omnific, omnipotent, omniscient, omnihumilis, omnipresent apparition (three Persons of one divine Nature), who among whom as the Word became a Jew born of a virgin, lived on earth among us, was crucified for our sins, as stated in the Scriptures, was buried, and was raised from the dead on the third day, as the Scriptures said, then ascended into heaven to be given the place of honor at the right hand of the one true, majestic God until the appointed day on which he will judge the world in righteousness, and so on and so forth go the predilections of this formulaic lullaby full of half-baked and bizarre minutiae. 

The Christian confesses, “If anyone does not love the Lord, that person is cursed.”

The Christian declares, “Deceivers do not believe that Jesus Christ came to earth in a real body.”

The Christian teaches, “God has testified that he has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son, therefore, those who don’t believe this are actually calling God a liar because they don’t believe what God has testified about his Son.”

The Christian pronounces, “Satan is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God.”

The Christian scorns the method of our going out and shuns wearing our wreaths paying tribute to giving in.

The Christian, the mild irritant that galls us all, rings the bell against the enslaving darkness enthroned as Scimatar’s supremacist law, a dhimmi-leper’s lunge contrary to protocol.

The Christian refuses homage to the pet gods and goddesses of our own making, whom we have entrusted to our own safe keeping, we, who in service to Dullness, throw up this pharmacopeial-phantasmagorical,[2] vade mecum[3] circus[4] upon a phallicomphalos[5] acropolis,[6]

“where each science lifts its modern type,”[7]

as if,

from wherever we wish,

our bone fires might,

appease the ancient wyvern[8] that stalks our souls tonight.    

 

 


 [1] See The Washington Post article run Easter Sunday, April 12, 2009:  “The Free World Bars Free Speech,” by Jonathan Turley on p. B03. 

[2] Characterized as compliant to the authoritative regiment of drugs in accordance with the standards established under law for their production and distribution for rightly receiving the latest state of society’s magic lantern show consisting of various optical illusions in which objects rapidly change size, blend into one another as if real, although the whole wide-screen, wrap-around sound scene is nothing more than marketed simulacra of terror and desire.

[3] Carried about as a contagion for constant use, reference and participation.  

[4] An increment of performance used by actuaries assigned to statistically calculate life expectations.

[5] Esurient, symbolic nature of either envious or vain worship of generative power located, as if by a designer taken to flights of ironic delight, at the center of the world.

[6] The one-dimensional, parthenogenetic-patriotic-parnassian-military-industrial-university-parimutuel complex.

[7] Alexander Pope, The Dunciad, Book the Third, 195.

[8] The dragon imagined as having forelegs only, with wings and a barbed tail. Created as the light bearer to announce the Lord is gracious to the angels, this unholy personal being spoke in the third voice to first insinuate God deserves condemnation.  As the medicator of sin he is the enemy of man and woman who seeks to destroy our healthy sense of wanting to be ugliphobic and hypocriphobic.  Publicly disarmed, as the ruler of the kingdom of the air he is the face of irony before the only-begotten Paradox. 

 

Published in: on April 10, 2009 at 9:36 pm Leave a Comment

The Sleepless Myth

My winter bedroom window is such a liar.  Like a child’s favorite scary story told over and over, O for the lazy death of summer!  Dragged by a busywork stare from nowhere, I hear Midwest freight trains holding wake, heavy groaning for blessed vacancy passing empty clatter for patron weight. I watch my distant breathing leaving, residue rings of misgiving receding, reaching the horizon hiding, a concave conscience behind nine clouds of silence, the stringless violin, someone, they said was me, was told was my life. 

The Other outside me moves as darkness, watches me walk on manna, wading the warm waters off Savannah, a white strip of a Marine drunk on Southern Comfort. Where did we see the Holocaust memorial boxcar?  Who let go to rust the 12 comma 3 metres of track, cropped front and back to fit a family shot?  Yad Vashem scheduled the next stop, set to attract Lenten terrorists/taqiyya tourists caught, curios in hand, standing in line at the souvenir shop.  Experience the disappearance!  Take the once-in-a-lifetime Disney ride designed for safely converting loads of disinterested flesh into mounds of concessionary rest, the perpetual motion machine conatus interruptis, the veiled universe beyond birth, or test, curse or caress.

There nothing is the weather, spanning measures of no matter, every cancelled situation idle theater between two neighbors

 

– substance and subjectivity –

– put under and under stand –

– exotica and erotica –

– prison and freedom –

– given and decision –

– madness and wisdom –

 

trading would be words aborted without censure over a fence closing in on forever with belted trench coat and felt fedora, drawing nearer the present, approaching from around the corner, slipping down the darkened walkway, stepping up onto the porch, entering the house, climbing the stairs, slowly opening the door, turning into my room, coming closer and closer, pulling back my covers, then, with the invisible lips of a hurt lover, the cue line I have never answered. 

“Tell it again, please, just one more time.” 

Refusing, in disobedience I recite, “This is the form of the content at the beginning, and this content remains the foundation. In God’s creating the world, no new principle makes an appearance, nor is something evil established, something other that would be autonomous or independent.” 

To which deceived, I fell asleep.

 

 

 

 

Published in: on March 1, 2009 at 6:08 pm Leave a Comment