A Window upon Heaven

I have been asked what is the difference between the veneration of images and idol worship, and I am going to try and give some kind of explanation. First, though, I am going to yield the field on this: often, there is no practical difference.

Yes, I admit: some (okay, let’s make that “a lot”) of ordinary Catholics do treat religious images with more than veneration, they treat them as almost having magical powers (or indeed, sometimes there’s no “almost” about it).  Processions on feast days, in times of danger or natural disaster, important days like Holy Week in Seville or pilgrimage to the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe or the torchlight processions in Lourdes – aren’t these excessive, at best, and superstitious at worst?  Half-digested paganism lingering on in what is supposed to be a Christian tradition, but really encouraging the worst of folk religion under the guise of piety?  Lack of understanding, so that people treat these as idols in the most literal sense, pinning money on to statues so that we can see the basic motives at work – religion as commercial transaction, where in the spirit of peasant pragmatism favours are bought and sold – what has this to do with the Gospel?  Wouldn’t it be better, safer and more conducive to establishing a genuine relationship with God to do away with all these kinds of things and concentrate on the word as revealed in the Bible, and the Word as revealed in the Son?  To turn the eyes of the people from images and pictures and statues and things made by human hands out of the human imagination to the eternal Reality which surpasses any invention of mortals?  After all, this kind of populist mania about weeping and bleeding images is every bit as scandalous and unedifying as the reports from 2005 of Hindu idols in North Indian temples drinking milk offerings, and can be put down to hysteria, hoax and fraud the same way that rationalists and skeptics debunked those “miracles”.  If you wouldn’t convert to Hinduism on account of that kind of event, why on earth would a Christian version be any more convincing?

All those things and worse being admitted, let us consider the case for the defence.  Firstly a lot of these accretions are cultural and are indulged in not from any kind of great religious fervour but more from a mix of national and patriotic pride and following on the customs and traditions of your native place.  For example the serenade to the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe is just as much a secular showbiz performance as it is a religious event, and I imagine many Mexican pop singers and entertainers take the gig for the same reasons that American pop singers and entertainers take the gig to sing the National Anthem at the Superbowl; who is going to turn down exposure like that, particularly if a refusal can be seen as offensive to public sentiment or declining an honour?  Many of the immigrant festivals in North America have morphed from celebrating a saint’s day to becoming a celebration of native culture, customs and traditions from the ‘old home’ and a great excuse to have an outdoor party of food, music and company, with a procession or church service tacked on.  And not just in America: the “patterns” (or saint’s day devotions) in Ireland have become more about local history and less about a mainly religious event; they’ve become more like fairs or festivals, the best example of such being St. Patrick’s Day which has been turned into the “St. Patrick’s Week Festival” in Dublin, advertised as “a distinct celebration of Irish culture” and you would look long and hard, with no success in the end, to find any notices about Mass or prayer as one of the constituent events of the calendar.

Continue reading “A Window upon Heaven”

Creation Wars: Remix

I wonder if, at times, the Lord would like to rethink the creation story. I wonder if he wants a chance to rewrite how the whole thing began.

“Look,” says the LORD God, “it went like this. It was kind of boring to just sit around and stare at nothing. So in the year 4004 B.C. (I still have the date circled on my calendar) I had this idea. There was this big button on my desk—it was red, if you want to know—and I pushed it. From the time I released the button until every galaxy, every star, every black hole, every planet, every moon existed only twenty-two minutes elapsed. I know it was twenty-two minutes because I cut out all the commercials. I selected an obscure planet in an obscure galaxy and began to tinker with some things that moved on their own. I started off with fish and birds, and once I had those down, I moved on to mammals. Insects were a big mistake, but there you have it. Finally I made my masterpiece: a human. I made it—him, to be specific—from dirt, not from any other living thing, like monkeys. Then I made another, this one prettier. Their names were Adam and Eve. Once I was done I looked at my watch and, what do you know?, exactly, to the second, six days had passed. Six twenty-four hour days. I thought, ‘This calls for a celebration.’ So I took the next day off and played golf. I won. I always do.”

Wouldn’t that have made things so clear? Then we would have no question about how old the earth is or how long it took God to make things or how humans came to be. And God, being God, certainly could have inspired the writer of Genesis to tell the story in a very specific way, giving all the details we need to never again question how the universe began.

Only God didn’t do it like that, did he? And thus we have the never-ending Creation Wars. More fun than a barrel of monkeys. Or dirt. Whatever.

Continue reading “Creation Wars: Remix”

I Am Hoi Polloi

Here’s the Monday routine now.

I wake up a little after 2 a.m. I stumble to the bathroom where a hot shower washes some of the numbness away. Returning to the bedroom, I dress in the dark, then lean over and kiss my slumbering wife goodbye.

Down the stairs to the kitchen I go, making sure I have all my books, my computer, my tickets, and various other items I might need. It’s dark and still when I go out the back door onto the deck and down the steps to the car. Wallet? Check. Tickets? Check. Fanny pack? Check.

I drive through MacDonalds and get a Diet Coke, then swing toward the strangely deserted highway. Normally, my trip toward Indianapolis would be a tense dance in a crowded room, as I along with other cars and trucks jockey for position on the interstate. At this time of day, however, my car is one of only a few. I arrive downtown almost before I know it and pull into the empty all-day parking lot. I put my bills in an envelope, mark my information on it, tear off the receipt and put it on the dashboard, and drop my fee in the pay box. I remind myself to stay aware of my surroundings. Empty downtown parking lots in the wee hours are not my native territory.

Gathering my things, I walk the block to the bus station. A few men are sitting in the all-night White Castle. I’m thinking they are probably cabbies. I see other drivers standing on the street corners and a few more sitting in their cars conversing. Waiting time. Entering the bus station, I step across the form of a man sleeping just inside the door, taking shelter from the cold. A few people, awake, are working on their computers or talking on their phones. Most are just sitting on benches, glassy-eyed, wrapped in coats or blankets, like creatures from the netherworld. I’m sure I look the same.

A TV blares. A baby cries. I can hear the muffled sound of rap music in the headphones of the fellow next to me. Together, we wait.

Continue reading “I Am Hoi Polloi”

Yet Another “Wake Up!” Call

What’s so uncool about cool churches?
Unintended Consequences: How the “relevant” church and segregating youth is killing Christianity.
by Matt Marino, September 23, 2012

*  *  *

Matt Marino is an Episcopal priest, the Director of Youth and Young Adults for the Diocese of Arizona, who recently did ministry as a hospice chaplain. He has worked a lot with youth, spending 17 years on Young Life staff. Matt wrote a post on his blog The Gospel Side, sounding yet another (well written) alarm about the decline of the church in the U.S.

He says:

The church may look healthy on the outside, but it has swallowed the fatal pills. The evidence is stacking up: the church is dying and, for the most part, we are refusing the diagnosis.

Here is some of the evidence that gets Marino’s attention:

  • 20-30 year olds attend church at 1/2 the rate of their parents and ¼ the rate of their grandparents.
  • 61% of churched high school students graduate and never go back! (Time Magazine, 2009) Even worse: 78%  to 88% of those in youth programs today will leave church, most to never return. (Lifeway, 2010)

We look at our youth group now and we feel good. But the youth group of today is the church of tomorrow, and study after study after study suggests that what we are building for the future is…

…empty churches.

Why is this happening? Here are Marino’s suggestions (I have shaped some of these statements to add my own take on them):

  • We emphasize decisions not discipleship.
  • We have embraced the concept of “market-driven” youth ministry, giving people what they prefer (a road that has no end).
  • We bought into the idea that youth should be segregated from the family and the rest of the church.
  • We believe that big = effective, and we believe that more programs attended = stronger disciples.
  • We’ve created the perfect Christian bubble (that is bound to burst eventually), then we invite people into our Christian subculture, where professionals are responsible to Christianize them.
  • We imitated our culture’s most successful gathering places in an effort to be “relevant,” forgetting that none of those are places of transformation.
  • We’ve embrace attractional models over missional ones, filling the church and giving us “Sunday experiences” that bear little relation to real life.

In short, Matt Marino reiterates important principles:

  • Methods are not neutral and cannot be separated from the message.
  • Methods become the message.
  • The method-formed message shapes those who receive it into its image.

____________

UPDATE: In conjunction with this post today, readers might want to look at yesterday’s post by Pete Enns: Outgrowing Evangelicalism, in which a Christian musician describes how, as he grew up, evangelicalism didn’t grow with him.

Luther on Holy Days

I am reading lots o’ Luther these days for my seminary class, so I will probably inflict a fair amount of it on you, our dear Internet Monk readers.

Today, I am reflecting on one of Luther’s later works, On the Councils and the Church, in which the Reformer writes about the role of church councils and the teachings of the Church Fathers in reforming the Church.

The following passage interested me because it shows Luther’s pragmatic side when it comes to matters like observing the Church Year. He is no iconoclast, wishing to forbid all ceremony and keeping of special days. He sees value in the Church unifying around various celebrations. On the other hand, he is clear that such matters “are not to be lords over Christians” and that they take on second-order importance to Christ and the Gospel.

We therefore have and must have the power and the freedom to observe Easter when we choose; and even if we made Friday into Sunday, or vice versa, it would still be right, as long as it were done unanimously by the rulers and the Christians (as I said before). Moses is dead and buried by Christ, and days or seasons are not to be lords over Christians, but rather Christians are lords over days and seasons, free to fix them as they will or as seems convenient to them. For Christ made all things free when he abolished Moses. However, we will let things remain as they now are, since no peril, error, sin, or heresy is involved, and we are averse to changing anything needlessly or at our own personal whim, out of consideration for others who observe Easter at the same time we do. We know we shall attain salvation without Easter and Pentecost, without Friday and Sunday, and we know that we cannot be damned — as St. Paul teaches us — because of Easter, Pentecost, Sunday, or Friday.

– Luther’s Works, Vol. 41: Church and Ministry III

 

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For another article on this work of Luther, see “Luther on the Marks of the Church.”

God’s OS and the Church’s GUI

Today I’d like to riff on the primary illustration the pastor used in his sermon at the church I attended yesterday. The NT/Gospel texts for the day were:

  • James 3:13 – 4:3, 7-8a — where James decries the “envy and selfish ambition” leading to conflicts in the church, and commends to them the “wisdom from above” that “is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits…”
  • Mark 9:30-37 — in which Jesus again predicts his Passion, and then confronts the disciples for seeking to be first, setting a child in their midst and saying, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”

He started his sermon by speaking of the new Apple iPhone 5, released earlier this week. Then he reviewed the history of Apple Computer, talking about when Steve Jobs toured Xerox and saw them doing work on a graphical user interface for computers (GUI). They were just experimenting, and chose not to pursue the idea, but Jobs “stole” the concept and went on to produce the Macintosh. The rest is history, and computer users all over the world today access their machines via icons and buttons rather than text and code.

The GUI is what you see when you look at the screen. It is also the means by which you relate to the computer — it is an interface. Now this is obviously the important part for those who work with computers. This is what’s on the surface, and it is this interface which enables us to do various tasks like word processing, spreadsheets, reports, graphic design, and so on.

However, the GUI is not the most fundamental part of the computer. Apart from the hardware itself, the heart of the computer is its Operating System (OS). Apple has its operating system OSX, Microsoft has Windows, some people use one called Linux. The OS is the “brain” of the computer. It consists of a collection of basic software that provides resources and services for the programs that run on the computer. Think of it as the control room that supports the programs and keeps them doing what they’re supposed to do.

Yesterday’s texts, I believe, reveal the fundamental OS of our Christian faith, and also show us the kind of GUI it is designed to run and what that interface should look like to the world.

Continue reading “God’s OS and the Church’s GUI”

Psunday Psalms: God, with Whom We Wrestle and Prevail

King David, Chagall

Psunday Psalms
Devotional Thoughts on the Psalms

* * *

O Lord, do not punish me in anger,
do not chastise me in fury.
Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I languish;
heal me, O Lord, for my bones shake with terror.
My whole being is stricken with terror,
while you, Lord — O how long!
O Lord, turn! Rescue me!
Deliver me as befits Your faithfulness.
For there is no praise of You among the dead;
in Sheol, who can acclaim You!

– Psalm 6:1-6, Tanakh (JPS)

* * *

Psalm 6 has been called the Psalm of the Sick. The psalmist uses imagery of deep and painful physical distress to describe his desperate situation. It is also the first of seven psalms the Church has called, “Penitential” (Pss. 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, 143). These have served as special sources for prayer and reflection during the Lenten season. Though the singer cries out for God’s mercy and speaks of God’s anger and chastisement, in this case the context is suffering, not personal sin. And the focus on physical infirmity may simply be a metaphorical way of expressing the stress he is under because of his “foes,” who appear in the second half of the psalm as the source of his troubles.

What intrigues me in Psalm 6 is the psalmist’s view of God.

The author of this psalm believed in the sovereignty of God, but it is a sovereignty unlike that often taught, particularly in Calvinist theology. Yes, God is presented as the One who holds the course of the world in his hands, who is ultimately in control of both the good and evil that comes to our lives. As James L. Mays says in his commentary,

At the very beginning the affliction is interpreted as God’s action in wrath to punish, and at the same time God is held to be the one who ‘heals all your diseases’ (Psalm 103:3). The entire span of sickness and health is understood in relation to the Lord. Life and death of a person are in God’s hands. No other cause is contemplated, and no other relief is sought.

– Psalms: Interpretation Commentary

On the other hand, note that this same sovereign God is the One to whom the psalmist cries, “O Lord, turn!” This is the same word the Hebrew prophets used when calling Israel to repentance. In other words, this suffering soul is asking God to reconsider, to change course, to repent of his anger and fury, to instead grant mercy and deliverance.

The sovereign God is not the impassive, impassable God. It is possible — and right! — to appeal to him, to plead our case before him, to let him hear “the sound of [our] weeping” (v. 8), and by so doing, to move him to pity and action.

Jacob Wrestling with the Angel, Chagall

The Book of Psalms (indeed, the entire OT) portrays our relationship with God as a vigorous conversation, filled with debating, arguing, pleading, complaining, bargaining, and expressing all the honest thoughts and feelings we have in our hearts — negative, positive, and everything in between.

Part of the mystery of God’s greatness is that he welcomes these robust wrangling sessions and, if the psalmist is right, responds and changes his actions toward us.

This is not Allah of Islam, the sovereign authority before whom his followers simply submit. This is YHWH, the God of Jacob, who wrestles with us and with whom we may prevail.

iMonk Classic: To Know We’re Not Alone

Classic iMonk Post
by Michael Spencer
 From Sept. 2004

It was 1973, a year before my high school graduation. I was sixteen, a young preacher-boy at a revival meeting at a church in our community. I remember the tiny church being packed, but I don’t remember anything about the service, or the sermon or the preacher.

I do remember something that happened at the conclusion of the service. Something that has stayed with me all these years and haunts me.

I see the face of a preacher, looking at me, looking out across the room, to see if he is alone, or if there is someone who understands what it’s like to be human. Is there anyone else hurting like this? Is there anyone else this broken?

His face comes back to me across the years, and as I think about my own brokenness, failures, and the desire for common humanity that drives me to nail my thoughts to the door of the world, I wonder if he wasn’t showing me the face of every man and woman I’ve ever met.

You see, the invitation concluded, and that preacher began talking. His words were nervous, not the sure and confident tones of the sermon, but the halting, breaking, fearful tones of the guilty confession. He wasn’t in preacher-speak. He was speaking differently. Humanly. It bothered me.

In my church, our pastor seemed super-human. He was God’s man. A Spirit-filled man. He was different than all of us. He spoke differently. He dressed in suits all the time, even on hot summer days when he was doing yard work. He knelt behind the pulpit when he prayed, even though it was a very large church. He cried and shouted in the pulpit. He declared the Word of the Lord, and pled with sinners to come to Jesus. He was an embodiment of heaven’s man on earth.

He was not like the rest of us, and we knew it.

Continue reading “iMonk Classic: To Know We’re Not Alone”

Saturday Ramblings 9.22.12

Greetings, fellow iMonks. I’m getting up off of my sick bed to see what a mess has been made while I was gone. But it’s not too bad. You all pick up rather nicely after yourselves. And I see the substitute teacher (aka Synonymous Rambler) actually made you do some classwork. Impressive. And you all played nicely too. Well done! But I do have a heaping plate of leftovers to get to, so shall we buckle up and ramble?

First of all, thanks to all who have donated to InternetMonk over the last two weeks. It doesn’t matter to me how much you give, but that you give at all tells me you are thankful for what you read here and for the opportunity to be able to join in the discussion when you want. I cannot tell you how much your giving touches me. Thank you all in a very big way.

As the violence in the Middle East continues to boil over, Brian McLaren opines that the best path is that of showing the Gospel through love. Should this not be what is shared throughout Western Christendom at this time? Oh, sorry. I didn’t know we were all still supposed to be protesting an advertisement for Dr. Pepper. I guess my fever has gotten my priorities all confused.

A judge in Illinois ruled that just because you call your frat house a monastery doesn’t mean it is one for zoning purposes. Who knew? What about calling our iMonastery a frat house? Does that count?

Continue reading “Saturday Ramblings 9.22.12”