This is the prayer liturgy I put together that we will be praying for All Saints in worship today. May grace and peace be yours in fullest measure this Lord’s Day.
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As those who believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting, let us pray for God’s family and the world in which we live…
God our Life, we thank you that, because Jesus died and rose again, all God’s people are assured of being with Christ himself in a glorious restful existence until the day of resurrection when all is renewed, when heaven and earth at last become one, and we are given new bodies to live and love, celebrate and serve in God’s new creation.
May we live in faith, trusting in the One who gave us life, both now and forever. May we live in hope, looking forward to the life of the age to come. May we live in love, laying down our lives that others may live also.
God our Shepherd, walk with us through the valley of death’s dark shadow. Put your arms around us, dry our tears, reassure us that you are with us to sustain us, and may we hear your reassuring promise that nothing – not even death itself – can ever separate us from your love.
May we live in faith, trusting in the One who gave us life, both now and forever. May we live in hope, looking forward to the life of the age to come. May we live in love, laying down our lives that others may live also.
At this time, we invite you to come forward and light a candle for a loved one who has died. Light as many as you wish. As you place the candle in the sand, speak their name aloud, so that we all may pray silently for them and you.
Trusting in your great and precious promises, we pray for these, your saints.
May the faithful departed, through God’s mercy, rest in peace and rise in glory.
God our Faithful Friend, walk with us as we continue our journey through this life. May we trust in your presence, know the power and fruit of the Holy Spirit in our lives, bear one another’s burdens, rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. Today, we especially pray for…
May we live in faith, trusting in the One who gave us life, both now and forever. May we live in hope, looking forward to the life of the age to come. May we live in love, laying down our lives that others may live also.
All these things we pray, that your name might be honored, your Kingdom come, and your will be done on earth as in heaven.
Welcome to our first brunch of November 2018. We’re past Halloween and Reformation Day. Many of us celebrate All Saints this Sunday. The season is getting darker, but we’ll get a bit more light soon on how politics here in the U.S. will trend going forward. We’ll honor our U.S. military veterans this month as the UK commemorates Remembrance Day with poppies. And then Thanksgiving, the end of this current Church Year cycle, and on into Advent. Thanks for joining us as we enter this auspicious month.
“It’s Satan’s Holiday, Dr. Rearick,” affirmed one of my students. “Didn’t you know?”
Well, no, I didn’t know. And I am reluctant to give up what was one of the highlights of my childhood calendar to the Great Impostor and Chief of Liars for no reason except that some of his servants claim it as his.
I have always considered Halloween a day to celebrate the imagination, to become for a short time something wonderful and strange, smelling of grease paint, to taste sweets that are permissible only once a year. How wonderful to be with other children dressed up as what they might grow up to be, what they wished they could be, or even what they secretly feared. All of us, dreams and nightmares, were brought together on equal footing, going from door to door to be given treats and admired for our creativity. How delightful to go to parties with doughnuts, apples, brown cider, and pumpkin cakes—and to hear spine-tingling ghost stories and feel our hearts skip a beat when the teller grabbed for us.
…If we give up All Hallows Eve, we lose the delight of God’s gift of imagination and we condemn the rest of society to a darker Halloween because our laughter will not be there to make the devil run.
The doctor who treated the synagogue shooter…
One of the heroes who emerged during the tragedy at Tree of Life Synagogue was Jeff Cohen, president of Allegheny General Hospital. Dr. Cohen, who is Jewish, led the medical team who tended to Robert Bowers after he was shot multiple times by police taking him into custody on Saturday.
Despite the fact that Bowers was still shouting “I just want to kill Jews!” as he was wheeled into the emergency room, Dr. Cohen responded by saying, “My job isn’t to judge him … my job is to care for him.”
Dr Cohen also praised other Jewish workers at the Allegheny General Hospital, where the gunman was treated.
“Many of the people who attended to him were Jewish. And they’re heroes,” he said.
Protecting the wilderness…
We talk about the wilderness as a metaphor a lot here on Internet Monk. It is one of the most poignant and effective images in scripture, one which people throughout human history have evoked when describing certain life experiences.
Now, let’s talk about the real wilderness areas on this planet. The first map of Earth’s intact ecosystems show that just five nations are responsible for most of them.
Researchers from the University of Queensland (UQ) and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) have for the first time produced a global map that sets out which countries are responsible for nature that is devoid of heavy industrial activity.
It comes ahead of the conference of parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Egypt in November where signatory nations are working towards a plan for the protection of biodiversity beyond 2020.
Conservationists are calling for a mandated target for wilderness conservation that will preserve the planet’s vulnerable ecosystems.
The UQ and WCS study, published in the journal Nature, identifies Australia, the US, Brazil, Russia and Canada as the five countries that hold the vast majority of the world’s remaining wilderness.
…The researchers say that the planet’s remaining wilderness can be protected “only if it is recognised within international policy frameworks”.
They’re calling for an international target that protects 100% of all remaining intact ecosystems.
“It’s achievable to have a target of 100%,” Watson said. “All nations need to do is stop industry from going into those places.”
He said the five countries responsible for most of the world’s remaining wilderness had to provide leadership and could act to protect these areas through legislation or by offering incentives to businesses that do not erode nature.
John Robinson, the executive vice-president for global conservation at WCS, said wilderness would only be secured globally “if these nations take a leadership role”.
Parkinson’s Disease may start in your gut…
As a hospice chaplain, I meet people suffering from all kinds of terminal diseases and conditions. Of all the conditions, one I would rather not ever have to deal with is Parkinson’s Disease, a progressive nervous system disorder. If any of you have cared for loved ones or neighbors with a severe form of Parkinson’s, you know how devastating it can be for patient and caregivers.
It has long been thought that Parkinson’s, a brain disease in which certain neurons gradually break down or die, is linked somehow to problems in the gastrointenstinal system. Now scientists have found some intriguing new information.
The international team of scientists reviewed two datasets, including a large registry from Sweden, and found that removal of the appendix was associated with a decreased risk of developing Parkinson’s disease. They also found that the human appendix contains clumps of a protein called alpha-synuclein in a form associated with the disease. There’s more work to be done, and the authors are not advocating that people preemptively remove their appendixes, but they hope that the research could provide a pathway towards treatment.
“There’s potential for [gastrointestinal]-tract based therapies that could block the formation and spread of alpha-synuclein clumps as future, early, and preventative treatments for Parkinson’s disease,” professor Viviane Labrie from the Center for Neurodegenerative Science at the Van Andel Research Institute in Michigan said in a press teleconference.
…The team…analyzed surgical human appendix samples and found that they contained alpha-synuclein proteins—including shortened and mis-folded alpha-synucleins like the ones found in Lewy bodies.
Perhaps, and according to experimental evidence, “it can travel up the nerve that connects the G.I. tract to the brain,” says Labrie. “And if it were to enter the brain, it can seed and spread from there and have neurotoxic effects that could eventually lead to Parkinson’s disease.”
…John Woulfe, a scientist from the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute’s Neuroscience Program, said: “This research is important because it provides some support for the idea that Parkinson’s disease may be initiated outside of the brain and, specifically, in the appendix.” He said he found the study results convincing.
BOSTON, MA – OCTOBER 31: The Boston Red Sox ride in duck boats on Tremont Street past Park Street Church during the Boston Red Sox Victory Parade on October 31, 2018 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)NEW YORK, NY – OCTOBER 31: People in costumes participate in the annual Village Halloween parade on Sixth Avenue on October 31, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)LONG BEACH, CA – OCTOBER 28: A dog dressed in a Mardi Gras costume seen at the Haute Dog Howl’oween Parade 2018 on October 28, 2018 in Long Beach, California. (Photo by Chelsea Guglielmino/Getty Images)PISA, ITALY – OCTOBER 30: Students of Scuola Normale Superiore and Sant’Anna School in action during the traditional battle of the water balloons against students of Scuola Normale Superiore on October 30, 2018 in Pisa, Italy. The Universities of Normale di Pisa and Scuola Sant’Anna di Pisa engage in an annual water balloon battle in the centre of Pisa. The balloons are launched by elaborate machines designed and built by the students themselves. Around 300 students took part in the event and over 32,000 water balloons were used. These two universities of excellence among the most prestigious in Italy and in the world since 2017 are federate. (Photo by Laura Lezza/Getty Images)Relatives gather around some of the graves illuminated by candles during All Saints Day at the cemetery in Vilnius, Lithuania, Thursday, Nov. 1, 2018. Candles illuminated tombstones in graveyards across Europe as people communed with the souls of the dead on Thursday, observing one of the most sacred days in the Catholic calendar.(AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis)
Midterm Election Crafts…
Just in time for this Tuesday (don’t forget to vote!!!) — According to an article in the New York Times, Etsy, the online craft store, has in recent years become a clearinghouse for homemade political paraphernalia. Here are some of the current election items available.
Beto O’Rourke Votive Candle ($12.99)Ted Cruz Acrylic Painting ($15.00)Trump Christmas Tree Ornament ($5.00)Tim Kaine with an Octopus on his head ($25.00)
This last one is my personal favorite. Here is the background:
Jonathan Crow, a programmer in Silicon Valley, started drawing all the vice presidents with octopuses on their heads when he was laid off in 2013. He thought the goofiness of the animal was a good match for the goofiness of the role, which he described as “the ultimate dead-end job.”
Expecting that Mrs. Clinton would win the presidency, Mr. Crow planned to release this portrait of her running mate on election night. Of course, it was not to be. Still, Mr. Crow said, he has sold 11 of the prints since, to “people who wanted to live in an alternate universe where he became vice president.”
Jon Pareles’s review in the New York Times says, ‘The passage of time, tenacious love, a life on the road and inevitable mortality suffuse “She Remembers Everything,” Rosanne Cash’s new album. “From this point on there’s nothing certain/except there’s not many miles to go,” she sings in one of the album’s most upbeat songs, the country-rocker “Not Many Miles to Go.” And in “Everyone But Me,” a solemn piano hymn, she counsels, “Our strange and beautiful lies/Fade and turn to dust.” Cash is 63, and she is neither pretending otherwise nor regretting where she stands right now.’
My mind has been all over the place this week. Rather than focus on any one thing that I have been thinking about, I thought I would briefly recount a number of ideas that have been percolating in my brain. Feel free to pick on whichever ones catch your fancy.
1. Hey, a new picture of me from two weeks ago (for those who have no idea what I look like). As to why that is relevant, well I have lost 25 pounds over the last three months, which has made hikes like this a little easier to do. The best part is, I can walk here from home in about an hour. For further relevance, see points 5 & 7 below.
We are on the verge – within 10 years – of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity.
I think next January/February/March I will be taking a statistical look at his predictions. For those who don’t know how I got started writing at Internet Monk, it was as a result of responding to and supporting Michael’s posts. So my ten year anniversary is coming up soon too!
3. My mother, the computer whiz, at age 77 organized a digital scrapbooking conference this past weekend. It was a small conference but attendees came from across Canada and the United States. One lady had to leave early. Her synagogue had just been attacked in Pittsburgh. Our family is no stranger to terrorism, have felt the effect of it in Africa on a number of occasions. What was normal for us in Africa, now seems to be becoming the new normal in North America.
4. I never really “grokked” Eugene Peterson. There, I said it. Maybe because I was always more of a Martha than a Mary. Before throwing the daggers though, read the next point.
5. Eugene Peterson did not like “big church”. One of the things that I have appreciated about the megachurch that I attend is it finally allows me to “be” rather than “do”. I have one small responsibility once every three weeks, and for the first time in a long time I come home from church refreshed rather than drained. It may be time to revisit his “Contemplative Pastor”. This may make its way into a future post.
6. Being having some fun with genealogical research for the last while. I have been helping others find their families too. Ten years ago I realized that my great-grandmother was black. She was described as mulatto in a ship’s passenger list. Two weeks ago I had DNA results come in. Nope. I was wrong. A little more research and I found out that my Great-great-great-great grandfather was Italian and that was where the black hair and dark skin came from in the family. Having made that connection, I have found all kinds of new relatives.
7. Not coaching sports this year for the first time in nearly 20 years. Again, like number 5, really nice to have the break. I think that my daughter, who has won 16 national or provincial cycling titles, is also really appreciating not competing this year.
8. Leafs and Raptors baby! If you have to ask what that means we can’t be friends.
9. Dropped off of Facebook for a while. I hate what it has become. Can’t we just filter out posts mentioning Trump, whether from the left or the right?
10. The Toronto Blue Jays got a new manager this week. Charlie “Innings” Montoya. How long before someone writes:
My name is “Innings” Montoya. You killed that foul ball. Prepare to RBI.
There I just did. And if you need to ask about the quote? We can’t be friends.
We are reviewing the book, “Quantum Physics and Theology: An Unexpected Kinship” by John Polkinghorne. Today we will look at Chapter 5- Cousins and wrap up the review of the book. Polkinghorne starts the chapter by comparing two explanations that biologists in comparative anatomy appeal when they discover homologies between different forms of animal life.
Anomalacaris
One is the classic Darwinian thinking that attributes the similarities to common origin, a primitive common ancestor from which the two contemporary species later diverged. The second is the idea of convergent evolution—that the evolutionary process may be more constrained by a limited number of basic structures that are both evolutionarily advantageous and readily biologically available. For example, eyes have developed several times independently but still manifest homologies in their basic structure i.e. camera eyes in mammals and cephalopods. Simon Conway Morris has written extensively on this convergent aspect of evolution; there is a deep substructure of universal principles shaping fruitful possibilities.
John asks if one could explain the cousinly relationships between the rational procedures of science and theology in ways analogous to these biological approaches. The appeal to common ancestry would correspond to the thesis that modern science owes religion a debt of gratitude since the latter historically provided the intellectual matrix that brought the former to birth. The doctrine of creation the Abrahamic faiths profess encourages the expectation that there will be a deep order in the world expressive of the Mind and Purpose of its Creator. Since the world is God’s creation, it is fitting duty for religious people to study it. Those early scientists like to say that God has written two books; the Book of Scripture and the Book of Nature, and ultimately there could not be any contradiction between the two.
John notes the critical parting of the ways between these two forms of insight into reality began in the middle of the eighteenth century when later generations of scientists became so flushed with the apparent success of the mechanical argument that they began to make the triumphalist claim of the sufficiency of the scientific method on its own to yield all knowledge that was worth knowing or even possible to know.
The second kind of explanation offered for biological homologies appeals to the notion of deep underlying forms, whose universal patterns enable and shape the paths of fruitful development. The theological counterpart to this idea would be the doctrine of the Logos, the divine Word which is the fundamental source of the rational order of creation. The Logos doctrine also speaks of the Word as enlightening everything (John 1:9), an insight that can be appealed to for theological endorsement of the concept of critical realism. John says:
These claims imply that the cousinly relationships that exist between different forms of creaturely truth-seeking endeavor derive ultimately from the fact that the universe was created as true cosmos. It is an integrated world, whose deep intelligibility and consistency is a manifestation of the divine Word that lets be the whole of created reality (cf. Genesis 1 ‘And God said, Let there be…’). This in turn implies that religious people who are seeking to serve the God of truth should welcome all truth from whatever source it may come, without fear or reserve. Included in this open embrace must certainly be the truths of science. In the case of the scientists, the same insight implies that if they want to pursue the search for understanding through and through—a quest that it is most natural for them to embark on—they will have to go beyond the limits of science itself in the search for the widest and deepest context of intelligibility. I think that this further quest, if openly pursued, will take the enquirer in the direction of religious belief. It is a search for the Logos. In consequence, I believe that ultimately the cousinly relationships that we have investigated in this book find their most profound understanding in terms of that true Theory of Everything which is trinitarian theology.
It is no surprise that one such as John Polkinghorne would write a book like this. He is both an accomplished quantum physicist and a noted Anglican theologian; why wouldn’t he combine the two? Polkinghorne is the author of five books on physics, and 26 on the relationship between science and religion. In the Wikipedia page, Polkinghorne said in an interview that he believes his move from science to religion has given him binocular vision, though he understands that it has aroused the kind of suspicion “that might follow the claim to be a vegetarian butcher.” He describes his position as critical realism and believes that science and religion address aspects of the same reality. It is a consistent theme of his work that when he “turned his collar around” he did not stop seeking truth.
Polkinghorne is liable to criticism and he certainly has his detractors. In the Amazon reviews for this book he generated 20% of comments as 1 or 2 stars. Some examples :
1) There is no kinship between falsifiable theory and nonfalsifiable wordplay. Total babble. Quantum mechanics is verifiable by experiment; religion is just a bunch of words. The author has churned out the same drivel over and over in many books.
2) This book is worthless. Full of platitudes and Christian apologetics, the theology of Christianity, offered as counterparts to the intellectual challenges of quantum physics. But nowhere does he mention what effects QED has on the mind trying to understand it. So he simply says that both theology and QED require a lot of effort to understand and involve the same kind of perseverance. Nowhere does he show any homology between the constructs of reality in QED and in Christian theology. Without homology there is nothing comparable here. Full of self-importance, he’s an establishment windbag. He’s written a half dozen or more books of the same ilk that he references as if together they constitute a commanding intellectual achievement, but in the final analysis he leaves no trace of any substance whatever. There’s no real mind here. A theoretical physicist and an Anglican priest, all in one? He’s a charlatan in both guises.
3)The author clearly wants very badly to believe and to bring the kind of certainty and rigor to the examination of Christianity that exists in science and quantum physics in particular. And he fails badly to pull it off…..as he should you realize upon reflection that the effort was truly doomed from the beginning. Not that the author does not give it the “old college try”. It is rather that what he is trying to do simply cannot be done. As a result, his attempt not only fails but ends up doing more damage to his case than had he simply kept the lid on his pen and not tried at all.
Well, there you go, then. There is a point to this criticism. Quantum physics moved forward on the basis of empirical justification. The results of the experiments ultimately verified the speculations of the theorists. Theology does not have the same counterpart. There is no empirical verification of a theological doctrine, except perhaps the fruit test. Does the theological doctrine under consideration lead to good fruits? Does it promote faith, hope, and love and inspire greater devotion to God and encourage Christians to walk in His ways? Does Premillennial Dispensation inspire good fruits or does it lead to passivity in the care for this world since “it’s all gonna burn”? Does the Eternal Submission of the Son and its corollary, Complementarianism lead to better, or worse, relationships between men and women? How about Replacement Theology and its deadly fruit of Jewish persecution down through the years, as Chaplain Mike talked about yesterday. Surely that’s some bad fruit. Is that empirical evidence of true theology?
I liked the book, and I liked Polkinghorne’s attempt. Not perfect, but still though provoking. And I learned something about quantum physics, which was cool. So give me some feedback in the comments today about what subjects or books you might to see me review and blog about.
UPDATE: Added a paragraph below, showing how Luther’s hymn “A Mighty Fortress” applies to this subject.
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Luther’s Deadly Doctrine
I had made up my mind to write no more either about the Jews or against them. But since I learned that those miserable and accursed people do not cease to lure to themselves even us, that is, the Christians, I have published this little book, so that I might be found among those who opposed such poisonous activities of the Jews and who warned the Christians to be on their guard against them. I would not have believed that a Christian could be duped by the Jews into taking their exile and wretchedness upon himself. However, the devil is the god of the world, and wherever God’s word is absent he has an easy task, not only with the weak but also with the strong. May God help us. Amen.
Last Saturday, eleven people who went to pray on Shabbat at Tree of Life synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh were gunned down in the worst antisemitic attack against Jews in American history. We know the motive was antisemitic because Robert Bowers, the accused shooter, left a trail of white nationalist, anti-Jewish vitriol on social media.
On Tuesday, Terry Gross of NPR’s Fresh Air, interviewed Eli Sasso, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter who is the author of a book about the white nationalist movement called Rising Out of Hatred: The Awakening of a Former White Nationalist. It tells the story of Derek Black, son of Don Black, who founded the largest white nationalist website, Stormfront. Derek began following in his father’s footsteps, but ultimately renounced white nationalism. Before he did, he and his father helped create and disseminate the language and talking points contemporary white nationalists use in advancing their views.
One of those phrases is “white genocide,” by which they promote a conspiracy theory that immigrants are fomenting a “race war” designed to make the white race subservient and ultimately destroy it. And they think “the Jews” are playing a prominent role in encouraging this.
Yeah. I mean, in the horrific sort of hierarchy of white nationalist beliefs, they really consider Jews their primary enemy. What white nationalist believe, although it’s ridiculous and awful and scientifically inaccurate to say, is that people of color and immigrants are by and large inferior to white. And left on their own, they would not be able to challenge the white race. But white nationalists believe that Jews are, while not white, very smart and sort of scheming and also are trying to propagate a scheme of multiculturalism which will weaken the white race.
So they believe that Jews have used immigrants, people of color and pushed for greater immigration, pushed for things like now this caravan to change the demographics of America so that ultimately white people will become a minority. And then white nationalist believe Jews will have even more power than they do now in the country.
That’s why they identify Jews as their No. 1 enemy. And it’s why throughout the history of the white nationalist movement we’ve seen more attacks on synagogues and more bombing threats on Jewish schools than we have almost any other demographic group.
Robert Bowers’s attack on the synagogue worshipers was prompted specifically by white nationalist paranoia about the so-called “caravan” of migrants now in Mexico, moving toward our southern border — or “invaders” who are “assaulting” America, as they would say. His last post on the social media platform Gab was about HIAS, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, a nonprofit that assists refugees. Right before the attack, Bowers tweeted: “HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics. I’m going in.”
All this highlights that there is an undercurrent of antisemitism in our country that has been emboldened in recent years and disseminated through technology now available to create communities online that can strengthen and refine messages of conspiracy and hatred. But antisemitism has a long and varied history, and we who are Christians, particularly those of us who practice our faith in traditions that grew out of European Christendom and the Reformation must realize that antipathy toward the Jewish people has been a theme running through our religious story as well.
In this Reformation season, a tragedy like that in Pittsburgh reminds us of our forbears’ shortcomings in this regard. Martin Luther himself is a notorious example. His 1543 tract The Jews and Their Lies is an infamous example of public defamation against the Jewish people. His call to burn their synagogues and books calls to mind for modern readers the terrorizing of the Jews in Germany on Krystalnacht in November 1938. Indeed, the Nazis displayed Luther’s inflammatory words at rallies as they agitated the German people against their Jewish neighbors. And this week we saw a similar kind of racially motivated anti-Jewish hatred explode in a deadly shooting spree in our own country.
There are many differences in the type of antisemitic views Luther held vs. what white nationalists say today, but both hatreds are grounded in conspiratorial fears of a culture that thinks it is under attack.
Early on in his career, Luther had some sympathetic things to say about the Jewish people with regard to their resistance to the Roman Catholic church. But Luther grew ever more passionate over the years about the success of the Reformation, and when few Jewish people converted to Protestant faith as he had expected, he began viewing them as enemies of Christ and the gospel.
Luther’s views grew out of his eschatology. Luther was convinced that the Last Days were upon the world. Luther thought that the Jewish people would have a great change of heart about Christ in the chaos of those days. However, when they didn’t, he grouped them with the Pope, the Turks, and the Anabaptists as those who were stubbornly fighting against God’s ultimate intervention in history. In this stark light, the reformer was alarmed because he believed the true faith was under seige. This was war and no time for forbearance. So, to guard the gospel, Luther wrote about the Jews along with God’s other “enemies” using as much hostile, scatological venom as he could muster.
At the root, what I think Luther should be criticized for was his apocalyptic mania.
Luther’s measure of time was calibrated with yardsticks other than those of modernity and enlightenment, progress and tolerance. Knowing that the renewal of the Church could be expected to come only from God and only at the end of time, he would have had no trouble enduring curbs on the Evangelical movement. According to Luther’s prediction, the Devil would not “tolerate” the rediscovery of the Gospel; he would rebel with all his might, and muster all his forces against it. God’s Reformation would be preceded by a counterreformation, and the Devil’s progress would mark the Last Days. For where God is at work — in man and in human history — the Devil, the spirit of negation, is never far away.
To understand Luther, we must read the history of his life from an unconventional perspective. It is history “sub specie aeternitatis,” in the light of eternity; not in the mild glow of constant progress toward Heaven, but in the shadow of the chaos of the Last Days and the imminence of eternity.” [emphasis mine]
So, you can see that Luther and today’s American white nationalists do have something in common: an apocalyptic worldview that heightens the intensity of every aspect of life by placing it unequivocally in terms of God vs. the Devil, truth vs. lies, absolute purity vs. absolute evil, total darkness vs. eternal light, heaven vs. hell.
You might want to think about that the next time you sing “And tho’ this world with devils fill’d should threaten to undo us/We will not fear for God has will’d his truth to triumph thro’ us…” The “devils” in Luther’s great hymn were not abstractions, but real people he considered deadly enemies of the gospel in the Last Day.
Standing between God and the Devil, Luther would take no prisoners in protecting the true faith. Apparently, neither will some white nationalists.
This is the zero sum game writ large.
And it is deadly as hell.
We weep with our Jewish brothers and sisters this week.
Note from CM: Here’s another post from Michael Spencer today on the Reformation, while I work on a piece for tomorrow that is timely — about the antisemitism in Europe during the Reformation, and Martin Luther’s complex and ultimately abhorrent perspective on the Jewish people.
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Tuesday with Michael Spencer Letting Some of the Air Out of the Reformation Day Balloon (from 2007)
It’s fairly obvious that, at least among some Christians, “Reformation Day” is a new holiday to be celebrated with all the enthusiasm we once reserved for actual holidays. (Lutherans: Party on. You’ve earned it.) I’m waiting for the photos of the “Dress Like a Reformer” party at a reformed church near you.
I’ll admit to having donned the Luther costume and done the Reformation Day lecture for the students at our school on a number of occasions, and I don’t regret having done so. Most of what I said was true. Well….some of it.
In the past year, I’ve read a lot about the reformation and even more about Luther. I’m currently finishing off McGrath’s Christianity’s Dangerous Idea– a popular history of Protestantism that’s right up to speed- and I’m almost done with Richard Marius’s Luther: The Christian Between God and Death, one of the most profitable biographies of Luther I’ve ever read and I read at least one every couple of years.
My reading on Luther and the Reformation has changed my mind about a lot of things. I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, but here’s the short list.
I no longer believe the Reformation, as it’s commonly described by Protestants, is the distinct event we’ve made it out to be.
I no longer believe Luther ever intended to slay the Catholic Church and establish the wonder of contemporary Protestantism.
I am becoming increasingly sure that many things in the typical Reformation story are probably mythological, or most nearly so.
I’m especially convinced that a lot of the typical “Luther story” is probably historically inaccurate. Not necessarily untrue, but plenty of mythology in the mix.
I am very sure that the humanist and Catholic contribution to the reform of Christianity has been considerably obscured in the creation of a Protestant mythology.
I do not believe true Christianity was restored or rediscovered in the Reformation.
I’m convinced that it didn’t take long for Protestantism to accumulate enough problems of its own to justify another reformation or two.
I believe that a lot of Protestants say sola scriptura when they mean solo scriptura or nuda scriptura or something I don’t believe at all.
I now believe that tradition is a very good word.
I believe the Reformation was very secular, political and, eventually, quite violent. To act as if it was mostly a spiritual revival movement is naive.
I believe we ought to grieve the division of Christianity and the continuing division of Protestantism.
I no longer believe the theology of the Reformers was the pinnacle of evangelicalism or is the standard by which Biblical truth itself is judged.
I can see huge omissions from the work of the reformers, such as a theology of cross-cultural missions and much more.
I believe it is embarrassing to turn the Reformers into icons. Calvin on a t-shirt should win an award for irony.
I am a Protestant and I always will be, but I no longer take the kind of juvenile pride in Protestantism I did in the past. Much is good, and much has not been good. We have no right to stand superior to any other Christians.
I want to understand how Catholic and EO Christians understand Protestantism, and I want to do so with a sense of humility.
I don’t believe in ecumenism at any cost, but I can no longer imagine being a Christian without a commitment to ecumenism on some level.
There are many sins associated with Protestantism that I need to admit and repent of.
Part of my Reformation Day will be spent contemplating what it means to say “One Lord; One Faith; One Baptism; One Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church.” Having a party celebrating the division of Christianity doesn’t really strike me as a something I want to do
Note from CM: We get back to some posts about the Reformation, which were interrupted by tributes to Eugene Peterson last week. Today, Michael Spencer reminds us of one of contemporary evangelicalism’s genuine flaws — its inability to grasp accurate and complex views of history. Case in point: their simplistic view of Martin Luther.
• • •
Monday with Michael Spencer In which he explains how evangelicals don’t really get Luther
[C]ompared to most Protestants, Luther was highly Catholic, right down to his view of Mary. Take a Southern Baptist to any traditional Lutheran service and ask what’s different in this service and the mass down the street. Though the differences are substantial to the informed observer, to the unaware, a Lutheran service appears very much a version of a Roman Catholic mass. (I would assume a lot of evangelicals would say the Lutherans know little about Luther and have gone back to Rome.)
Luther’s very catholic theology of the sacraments would be offensive to most evangelicals, and his historic opposition (and endorsed violence) to the Anabaptists would surprise many who cite him as the defender of the great Protestant principles. How many who wear Luther t-shirts understand Luther’s view of infant faith, baptism and the real presence?
Luther’s connection to the broad Roman Catholic tradition was for stronger than his connection to the Biblical radicalism of the radical reformers. Similarly, many who cite Luther seem completely unaware of his rejection of the Calvinistic reformation’s view of the sacraments and the resulting split between Calvin, Zwingli and Luther. A staunch Lutheran will bristle at the notion that Luther is part of the “Reformed” movement or that today’s evangelicals are using the name of the Augsburg Evangelicalism. And they should bristle at this abduction of the “parts” of Luther that evangelicals want to use.
What we see is Luther used, not understood. Parts of the Luther story are bought, repainted and utilized for the purposes of the evangelical. Luther’s boldness and courage are attributes that evangelical theologians want to import into their own ministries, so they do so while ignoring much of the Luther legacy that goes in an entirely different direction. The real Luther is too complex for most of those who use him as an icon.
I applaud the endorsement of reading historical biography among contemporary evangelicals, but I would suggest that many of the biographies point to highly altered versions of the personality being examined. In many instances, these selective biographies would be found highly distorted by scholars.
A fair biography will place a personality in his/her time, will use all the information available to draw an accurate picture, and then relate the person to the contemporary situation without turning them into a representative of any movement. In other words, Luther can be seen as a significant person in Christianity, but his disapproval of most of what goes on in contemporary churches won’t be lost. (Sorry Baptists, but he’d probably have you killed.)
A good example of this kind of biography is Jonathan Edwards: A Life, by George Marsden. Edwards’ psychological quirks and failures of maturity and pastoral competence are all there, but Edwards survives as a person we can admire. What won’t survive is the use of Edwards as an endorser of everything going on among today’s Calvinists.
Before closing this post, let me suggest two very different books on Luther. Richard Marius has written Martin Luther: The Christian between God and Death. It is a rip-roaring good read that diagnoses Luther as the distorted personality at the root of everything wrong with western civilization, particular in its ideas about God, hell and truth. Marius’s Luther is the ruination of a reasonable, tolerant classical world. He will say things virtually no evangelical could possibly say, but that need to be said. I recommend the book.
On the other end of the scale is a very reasonable, modest, moderate, dependable biography: Martin Luther: A Life, by Martin Marty. When all the biographies are sorted out, Marty has his hand on the most likely picture of Luther: flawed, great, spiritual, troubled, trapped in his world, still influencing ours.
They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’ Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me!’ Jesus stood still and said, ‘Call him here.’ And they called the blind man, saying to him, ‘Take heart; get up, he is calling you.’ So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. Then Jesus said to him, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ The blind man said to him, ‘My teacher, let me see again.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go; your faith has made you well.’ Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.
• Mark 10:46-52
I decided to preach on the Gospel that would normally be used on this day rather than the Reformation Day Gospel, which is always from John, chapter 8, because I think this passage speaks powerfully to the kinds of issues that Martin Luther faced during the Reformation and the issues that arise as perennial problems within the church.
The story is simple. Jesus and the disciples are leaving Jericho, along with a large crowd. Along the roadside sat a blind beggar. Someone told him Jesus was passing by, and this beggar began shouting out for Jesus to pay attention to him, to have mercy on him, to heal him. The disciples and others in the crowd found this annoying and told him to quiet down. But he persisted until Jesus gave him an audience. Jesus asked him what he wanted, and the man requested that he restore his sight. In response, Jesus healed him, the man began to see again, and he joined the crowds that were following Jesus.
It struck me, as I read this, that there are two kinds of blindness revealed in this story. The first, of course, is the physical blindness of Bartimaeus, the blind beggar. If you or a loved one or friend has ever had to deal with this infirmity, you know how devastating it can be. My grandfather went blind from diabetes, and he never did recover from the emotional toll of having to deal with that from the prime of his life until the day he died.
But there is a second blindness in this story that is even more serious and deadly. It is the spiritual and emotional blindness of the religious people all around this blind man who ignored him, who passed him by every day as he begged by the roadside, who marginalized him and didn’t think he was worthy of Jesus’ attention when he called out for him. These are the very people that we are called to care for, to honor, to help, to welcome, and to serve. And yet he sat day by day, virtually unseen and unnoticed, consigned to a life of begging others to survive.
This, in my view, is an apt metaphor for the state of the church in the days of Martin Luther 500 years ago. The common people, the people who needed the support of the church, the ones for whom the church was called to care, were being abandoned by that church.
About ten years after Luther nailed his theses on the Wittenberg door, he and his colleagues visited the congregations in their region to assess their spiritual health. What Luther saw horrified him. He wrote, “Mercy! Dear God, what great misery I beheld! The common person, especially in the villages, has no knowledge whatever of Christian doctrine. And unfortunately, many pastors are completely unable and unqualified to teach… Yet, everyone says they are Christians, have been baptized, and receive the holy Sacraments, even though they cannot even recite the Lord’s Prayer or the Creed or the Ten Commandments. They live like dumb brutes and irrational hogs…”
Then Luther addressed the leaders of the church: “O bishops! What answer will you ever give to Christ for having so shamefully neglected the people and never for a moment fulfilled your office?” Not only had the church failed in its duty to teach the people, but it was actively manipulating and using them for its own enrichment. One of the great evidences of this, which Luther called for debate upon in his original act of nailing the 95 Theses on the church door, was in the use of indulgences to promise people eternal spiritual blessings if only they would give their money to the church for its projects.
And so the common people in Luther’s day, suffering from much spiritual blindness, were being neglected, marginalized, and abused by the blind leadership of the church. This deplorable spiritual blindness of the people and the failure of the church to care for them and to nourish them in the gospel, which Luther saw firsthand in 1528, led him to write his Small Catechism, which I consider to be his most important and impactful work.
The Reformation was a pastoral necessity. The ordinary Christian people were like sheep without a shepherd, like wanderers in the wilderness, like lost people stumbling around in the dark, like blind folks being led by the blind.
The answer Martin Luther found to this terrible state of affairs was the same answer we see in our text from Mark today. Through the gospel, Luther called attention to Jesus. Through his preaching and his writings, he brought Jesus and his saving, healing grace to the marginalized and neglected people of Germany. Jesus stopped there in Luther’s day just as he stopped on that day long ago in Jericho, and asked, “What do you want me to do for you?” And Luther and the people cried out, “Lord, we want to see again! We want to be set free from our spiritual blindness! We want to begin to truly follow you again!”
This remains our calling today, my friends here at St. George. All around us every day are people who are struggling in spiritual blindness. They are hungry and thirsty for meaning in life. They feel that God has abandoned them. They are crying out in a variety of ways for someone to hear them, for someone to give them the dignity of paying attention to them.
Unfortunately , there remain Christian people, churches, ministers, and entire church institutions who are deaf to their cries, blind to their needs, and more concerned to use them for their own ends rather than bringing them to Jesus.
Let’s not be the people who ignore them, push them to the side of the road, and tell them they don’t matter. We who are walking with Jesus have the opportunity to bring them to him so that they can find the healing and help they need.
We who sing, “I once was lost but now I’m found, was blind but now I see” must not allow ourselves to be blind to those around us, those who are being left out, those out sitting by the side of the road.
May the Reformation always lead us not only to have the light, but also to hold it out for others in darkness.
End of October, beginning of November. Halloween. Reformation Sunday. All Saints. Time to change the clocks. The midterm elections. Let’s get some calories for stamina, eh? Thanks for joining us for Brunch today.
Coming in early November…
My second book, Show Me the Path: Cultivating a Life of Discernment, will be released in early November. Here’s a description:
From the Publisher: Sometimes the chaos and questioning of everyday life can be overwhelming. In his customary warm style and down-to-earth perspective, chaplain Mike Mercer here offers a solution: to approach these issues in a spirit of discernment, reflecting the psalmist’s words, “Show me your path.” The book applies a faith perspective to making choices and finding one’s way, using practical examples and stories. In addition, questions for reflection make this a good choice for parish prayer groups and book clubs.
This book is being published by Twenty Third Publications. Follow the link and you can download a sample and pre-order. Thank you for your support!
It’s crazy campaign ad time…
We’re getting close to the 2018 midterm elections, and televisions all across America are playing non-stop cringe-worthy ads trying to get people to vote for (and more importantly, against) candidates on all levels of government.
Here are a few of the worst and most curious. We begin with one from my own state, where Democrat Senator Joe Donnelly is fighting to keep his Senate seat against his challenger, Mike Braun. Donnelly’s ad really makes me laugh — here he portrays himself as more of a true conservative Republican than his Trump-supporting Republican challenger! Then, what’s really funny is that he apparently stole his ad’s style from the TV program “Veep.”
Here is Stephen Colbert introducing a truly excruciating example:
Here’s a candidate on the left telling the right to “Take that!” shamelessly using kids and an element of surprise that is certainly not designed to win any of his opponent’s voters.
Finally, here’s a medley made up from excerpts of the most memorably forgettable ads of these midterms:
Which leads me to ask a question or two. I myself cannot imagine that I would ever, ever be swayed to vote one way or another by any campaign ad. Would you? What does it say about our level of civic awareness and just general human thoughtfulness that political ads seem to be so successful? If they’re not, why do candidates and political action committees spend so daggone much money on them?
Martin Wiedmann holds part of a printed copy of his father’s work, which is open to the Genesis creation narrative, at the Museum of the Bible in Washington. Behind him are paintings from a different series by his father, Willy Wiedmann, on the Twelve Apostles. RNS photo by Menachem Wecker
Halloween is a modern secular holiday designed to let kids have fun without getting into too much trouble and also to sell a bunch of candy and movie memorabilia to adults.
Here are the top five states in which people listened to the largest proportion of Halloween playlists over the past 10 days:
1. Utah
2. West Virginia
3. Ohio
4. Pennsylvania
5. Arkansas
And here are the states where Halloween music was most popular 10 days before the holiday in 2017:
1. Utah
2. Ohio
3. New Hampshire
4. West Virginia
5. Pennsylvania
Who knew Utah was so Halloween crazy?
I was also interested to learn that the town where I went to high school, Downers Grove, Illinois, is in second place for listening to Halloween music on the day itself, while my birthplace, Oak Park, Illinois, comes in fourth.
And what are the songs people are listening to on their Halloween playlists? Here are the top ten:
1. “Thriller,” by Michael Jackson
2. “Monster Mash,” by Bobby “Boris” Pickett
3. “Ghostbusters,” by Ray Parker, Jr.
4. “(Don’t Fear) the Reaper,” by Blue Öyster Cult
5. “Highway to Hell,” by AC/DC
6. “This Is Halloween,” by the Citizens of Halloween
7. “Werewolves of London,” by Warren Zevon
8. “Somebody’s Watching Me,” by Rockwell
9. “A Nightmare on My Street,” by D.J. Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince
10. “Black Magic Woman,” by Santana
Collide, Newhaven, East Sussex, England by Edd Allen – Winner, Fujifilm Print Prize, Landscape Photographer of the Year 2018Land’s End, Cornwall, England by Josef FitzGerald-Patrick – Young Landscape Photographer of the Year 2018Buttermere Bloom, The Lake District, Cumbria, England by Stuart McGlennon – The Sunday Times Magazine Award Winner, Landscape Photographer of the Year 2018Fisherman, Porth Nanven, Cornwall, England by Mick Blakey – Winner, Living the view, Landscape Photographer of the Year 2018
We’ve looked at a lot of ridiculous stuff today. How about we end with something sublime? Here is Thomanchor Leipzig singing Luther’s great hymn of the Reformation, Ein Feste Burg ist unser Gott, accompanied by organist Ullrich Böhme.
May Reformation Sunday, no matter what your faith tradition, find you exulting in the grace and love of God.
“Tell me more about this Christianity of yours, I’m terribly interested.”
There is no urgent concern for converting people in the New Testament. Did you get that down? There is also no urgent concern for the numerical growth of churches by the efforts of members to convert others. There are no burgeoning church programs. There are no plans to train everyone to door knock and sell Jesus. There is an urgent concern for doctrinal and personal Christ-likeness. There is a concern for leadership, integrity, honesty and obedience to Christ in our personal lives. The idea that we are here to “win souls” and not to know and show God is bogus. – Michael Spencer, “Wretched Urgency“
One of the hallmarks of Evangelicalism is what Michael Spencer called “Wretched Urgency”. If you haven’t had a chance to read this brilliant piece by Michael, then please, stop reading this, click on the link, and see why so many of us have found a home at Internet Monk. It will also help provide context to what am going to write here.
Before I continue, let me return to why I am writing this series. This site was created for those who are in the “Post-Evangelical Wilderness”. Many of the visitors and commentators are those who have been somehow burned by Evangelical churches, and so have found themselves wandering, without a church to call home. Some have eventually found homes in other traditions, some have returned to their evangelical routes, but with a better sense of what to stay clear of, still others have a foot in multiple traditions, gleaning the best that they can from others, many are still wandering. I am in process of trying to exit this wilderness, and put down some more permanent roots. This series is my attempt to convey some of my thoughts about my journey.
“Wretched Urgency” had been a big part of my evangelical life. I won’t bore you with the details of how I had been complicit in it, or how I had been turned off of it. Let’s just say that Michael’s post written many years ago really resonated with me, and I could identify with much of what he had written.
A sermon at church a couple of weeks ago, really caught my attention. It was based on one of the biblical passages that are quoted so often in Evangelical circles. According to the book of Acts, these are the last words that Jesus spoke on earth.
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. – Acts 1:8
What the Pastor then said was so different from anything I had heard before. It also gives a glimpse of one of the reasons why my current church is so different from others that I have been involved in before. I am paraphrasing here, but it is close to the sense of what he actually said:
Notice that we are called to be witnesses. What is a witness? Let me first tell you what a witness isn’t. A witness is not the prosecuting attorney. He or she does not have to build the case for the prosecution. A witness is not the defence attorney. He does not have to build the case for the defence. (As a Canadian he would have spelled defence with a “c”.) A witness is not the judge or jury. He does not have to decide the case. The job of a witness is simply to tell what he has seen. If you are asked, “Well what about this?” It is perfectly fine to say “I don’t know about that, I am just here to tell you about what I do know.”
There are those in Christianity who have special training. They have studied and learned how to construct cases for the defence.
They have been trained in apologetics. Some of you may be interested in that area, and want to learn more about that. There is nothing wrong with that and I encourage it. But for the rest of us, we are called to witnesses. To speak what we know of Jesus when called upon. And if we don’t have all the answers… There is nothing wrong with that.
To hear that on a Sunday morning felt so… freeing. There was no “wretched urgency”. Just be who you are.
There was also an emphasis on listening to people. That is, if we are more concerned about hearing what the other person has to say, and learning from them, there will be less of an inclination on our part to make them “agenda items.”
In 2014, as I found myself slipping into the wilderness, I wrote the post “Items on the List” In it I quoted Lynn, a commentator at the time on Internet Monk:
Human beings are not business deals. How we live our lives in this world and how we love will speak volumes more than the feeble, faulty words that fall from our tongues.
Finding a church that does not emphasize “wretched urgency”, is one of the reasons that I may be finally exiting the wilderness.
. It tells the story of Derek Black, son of Don Black, who founded the largest white nationalist website, Stormfront. Derek began following in his father’s footsteps, but ultimately renounced white nationalism. Before he did, he and his father helped create and disseminate the language and talking points contemporary white nationalists use in advancing their views.
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, by George Marsden. Edwards’ psychological quirks and failures of maturity and pastoral competence are all there, but Edwards survives as a person we can admire. What won’t survive is the use of Edwards as an endorser of everything going on among today’s Calvinists.
. It is a rip-roaring good read that diagnoses Luther as the distorted personality at the root of everything wrong with western civilization, particular in its ideas about God, hell and truth. Marius’s Luther is the ruination of a reasonable, tolerant classical world. He will say things virtually no evangelical could possibly say, but that need to be said. I recommend the book.
, by Martin Marty. When all the biographies are sorted out, Marty has his hand on the most likely picture of Luther: flawed, great, spiritual, troubled, trapped in his world, still influencing ours.
The Internet Monk Archives 