Away in a Feed Box

Another article on Bible translations.

A must read

Man, is this significant.

Read this :

Cultural materialism and objectivism: If one examines cultural materialism, one is faced with a choice: either accept premodern semanticist theory or conclude that art is fundamentally impossible. Cultural socialism implies that consciousness serves to reinforce the status quo. It could be said that several sublimations concerning the role of the writer as participant may be revealed.

Wow.

Click here.

Faith vs. senses

We must also disregard all the senses when contemplating the works of God, and only cling to his words, so that our eyes and our senses may not offend us.

Luther, Sermon on the Sunday after Christmas, Lenker, vol. 1, p. 259.

Luther speaks this way often,. it is one way he extols faith. to cling to the words of God addessed to us, that is faith. We have nothing else in the end in Luther's view, only promises. To walk by sight, to "use" your senses in spiritual matters is immediately to depart form faith. Senses and faith are in conflict. Your body says you are dying when faith says you will live even though you die. Faith says you are holy though your conscience knows you are not. The church appears uselss and divided but is, according to the promise, the spotless bride.

To cling to the word addressed to you is the only stance we have available. Note how it is here that externality is so prominent for Luther. Faith clings to a promise that is spoken to it. That promsie, to be "by faith", must be external. This external-ness equals living by faith.

The firstborn ... rendered bloody

A fascinating article on Christ's circumcision.

A quote:

A third constant in Patristic writings is the Circumcision of Christ conceived as continuous with his work of redemption. Since the debt incurred by the sin of Adam cannot be met by Adam's insolvent progeny and since Christ's blood pays the ransom his Circumcision becomes, as it were, a first installment, a down payment on behalf of mankind. It is because Christ was circumcised that the Christian no longer needs circumcision. In the words of St. Ambrose: "Since the price has been paid for all after Christ . . . suffered, there is no longer need for the blood of each individual to be shed by circumcision.


Another:


By circumcision he showed himself to be truly incarnate in human flesh. Whereat Manichaeus, Apollinarius, and Valentinus poured forth heresies, Manichaeus ascribing to Christ a fantastic body, Apollinarius a divine, Valentinus a celestial; which clearly excludes the natural pain in the circumcised flesh of the Lord. But surely, if blood was flowing, there was pain, aggravated in the infant flesh. Truly therefore the human flesh of Christ has been most fully demonstrated by his circumcision.

A final one:

O Basilideans, who deny that Jesus suffered . . . look upon the circumcised boy, hardly come into the light. . . .O Apellites, who say that Jesus was an illusory man, hear the voice of the crying boy, and believe now that he suffered an inflicted wound. O iniquitous Sedechians, look . . . on Jesus the firstborn of Mary, who is rendered bloody today. . . . Look upon the boy of eight days brought here today to be circumcised. O Valentinians, O Alexandrians, O Manichaeans . . and all you heretics and proclaimers of false doctrine - spew out now the old dudgeon [fermentum] . . . and consider the clemency of the boy Jesus who, in need of milk and the nurse, afflicted his most holy and pure flesh with the pain of circumcision.

Theology from Woody Hayes

My brother in law is a total OSU freak. He got me a VHS tape for Christmas: a BBC documentary on Woody Hayes from 1976. Incredible. Woody was a very interesting person. Very focused on helping kids succeed academically and athletically and off the field, he was very humble. But during practice? He used more cuss words than you can imagine.

Anyway, I ran across this quote from Woody which made me laugh:

“There's nothing that cleanses your soul like getting the hell kicked out of you.”

Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas.

Kosherland, Catholic-opoly, Pray-With-Me-Mantis ...

... Race to the Kabah, (players advance by learning the meaning of the 99 names of Allah), Holy Huggables, Missionary Conquest (awards extra points to players who are martyred by stoning as they try to establish missions in the Middle East).

All real games and toys.

Don't you love religious marketing?

Smart Growth?

I live in a small NC town. Not a suburb, not urban, not rural. But I always enjoy clear thinking on any issue that is crowded with group-think or a new ideology.

Smart growth and new urban planning is one such issue and this article provides some needed clarity.

A taste: (then read it all here.)

Unfortunately, Smart Growth and New Urbanism are based on faulty foundations. Those of us who grew up crammed into row houses in dirty East Coast cities (in my case, Philadelphia) scratch our heads at the otherworldly arguments and analyses these ideologues make. When we moved to the suburbs, we found: a) less political corruption; b) better schools; c) more open space; d) friendlier neighbors; e) a more free-flowing transportation system; f) cleaner air; g) less crime, etc. The suburbs might not offer the nightlife, restaurants, architectural splendor and cultural pleasures of the city, but they hardly are the fonts of despair the Smart Growthers claim.

Titillating pics ...

... at least for book lovers.

Ignazhden

I learned something. Yesterday was Ignazhden. St. Ignatius of Antioch day in Bulgaria. I think it is the traditional day of his martyrdom, though the West celebrates his day on February 1. Related to Christmas. Interesting traditions.

Orthodox Christians in Bulgaria mark Wednesday Ignazhden, the day of St. Ignatius, which inaugurates all the Christmas and New Year festivities. It was from this day to Christmas Eve that Virgin Mary's labours continued.


HT: Fathers of the Church.

I lift my name on high

LOL!

Contemporary "me" worship on Youtube.

HT: Bloghardt.

The Perfect Christmas

Every year I have these expectations. This year will be the best Christmas yet for me as a pastor and preacher. With excitement, I picture myself with sitting undisturbed in my study translating all the pericopes (Advent I to Christmas Day) from the Greek (the OT in the LXX, mind you!), carefully choosing hymns and meditating on the propers for the seasons and festival days.

I think this year I will savor all the hymns and carols in their profundity, listening to the best recordings, to deepen my appreciation and understanding and wonder of the Incarnation and Nativity.

I will read many sermons of the Fathers and Luther, I will translate a goodly number of the wonderful Christmas hymns in Latin, explore new angles and aspects and implications of the birth of God from a virgin.

I will allow time for all of it to sink in and ferment and brew and then I will craft sermons of depth and meaning for Dec. 24 and 25.

But, of course, it never happens.

People die and funerals must be performed.

Parishioners refuse to hold off their personal crises to a more convenient time.

Computers crash sending their "owners" (more like co-dependent addicts) into emotional and workplace tailspins.

Cars malfunction.

Family stuff accelerates. Presents must be purchased, endless errands run.

I play video games and noodle on the Internet instead of reading one more Luther sermon from the Lenker volumes. All of a sudden, the latest news from the NFL seems more important than the gradual for the Nativity of our Lord.

But the calendar keeps running and sermons are written, however hurriedly, and the liturgy is prepared for and, ready or not, the herald angels sing and Christ is born this happy morning. And, it is here and gone.

The perfect Christmas never comes. The perfect sermon is never written. But yet there is still nativity, still Word made flesh, still the hymns are sung and we sing with the angels, still the new birth at Bethlehem, the new birth for the body of Christ, still joy to the world. Still the manger shines forth, the word preached, the sacrament received and we go home to face Epiphany.

Maybe some day I will get that perfect Christmas. Probably not. But yet Christ is born and we run towards that perfect manger scene yet to be revealed where angels sing and saints gather and the wolf dwells with the lamb, the calf and the young lion. All in the presence of the little Child, the Word made flesh.

God bending down

This is a classic statement of patristic themes of the Incarnation.

Therefore the Word of God, Himself God,the Son of God who "in the beginning was with God," through whom "all things were made" and "without" whom "was nothing made," with the purpose of delivering man from eternal death, became man: so bending Himself to take on Him our humility without decrease in His own majesty, that remaining what He was and assuming what He was not, He might unite the true form of a slave to that form in which He is equal to God the Father, and join both natures together by such a compact that the lower should not be swallowed up in its exaltation nor the higher impaired by its new associate.

Without detriment therefore to the properties of either substance which then came together in one person, majesty took on humility, strength weakness, eternity mortality: and for the paying off of the debt, belonging to our condition, inviolable nature was united with possible nature, and true God and true man were combined to form one Lord, SO that, as suited the needs of our case, one and the same Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, could both die with the one and rise again with the other.

From Sermon XXI: On the Feast of the Nativity I
By Pope St. Leo I (AD 390-461)

Me and math

I must, on occasion, check the math homework of my 7th grader. Out of my league. Here is a pretty accurate version of how I process math:



Socrates: Here is a square with sides of length 2 and area equal to 4. If we double the area, to 8 units, what will the length of a side be?

Boy: Umm, 4?

Socrates: Does 4 x 4 = 8?

Boy: Okay, maybe it's 3.

Socrates: Does 3 x 3 = 8?

Boy: I give up.

Socrates: Observe this line from corner to corner, which the erudite among us call a diagonal. If we erect a new square on the diagonal, note that one-half of the original square makes up one-fourth of the new square, and so the total area of the new square must be double that of the original square. Therefore the length of the diagonal is the length we were seeking, is it not?

Boy: Whatever.



From this article in the American Scientist with another hat tip to : Arts and Letters Daily.

Please allow me to introduce myself ...

A review of several books on Satan here. Entertaining and the article is tempting me to buy yet more books to stick on the various stacks that accuse me of not reading them. HT: Arts and Letters Daily.

Arts and Letters Daily

I can't remember who first pointed me toward Arts and Letters Daily but it is a wonderful site. From the Chronicle of Higher Education. Too much to read really. Well worth a place on your blog list.

Rastaman Vibrations

Seems a historian names Lawrence with an interest in the OSU Buckeyes and an obsession with history has just started a blog: Rastaman Vibrations. Alot of you will know who is the "rastaman" behind it. I am sure it will be worth putting on your reading list.

The Good Book Business

I am not naive or easily impressed by greed or consumerism in today's Christian circles. But this article in the New Yorker really floored me. It is an article about the marketing of Bibles. You should really read it. One wonders how the people gobbling this stuff up really handle and digest the Scriptures. If it is presented as a teen girl magazine, do they read it as such? Does reading God's word as if it were a gossip column affect our understanding of it? I would think so.

Here is a list distilled from the article of the some of the "Bibles" being marketed today:


“The Family Foundations Study Bible,”

“The Grace for the Moment Daily Bible,”

“Revolve,” a New Testament that looked indistinguishable from a glossy girls’ magazine.

(The 2007 edition features cover lines like “Guys Speak Their Minds” and “Do U Rush to Crush?” Inside, the Gospels are surrounded by quizzes, photos of beaming teen-agers, and sidebars offering Bible-themed beauty secrets:

Have you ever had a white stain appear underneath the arms of your favorite dark blouse? Don’t freak out. You can quickly give deodorant spots the boot. Just grab a spare toothbrush, dampen with a little water and liquid soap, and gently scrub until the stain fades away. As you wash away the stain, praise God for cleansing us from all the wrong things we have done. (1 John 1:9))


"Refuel,” for boys

“Blossom,” for tweens

“Real,” for the “vibrant urban crowd” (it comes bundled with a CD of Christian rap)

“Divine Health,” which has notes by the author of the best-selling diet book “What Would Jesus Eat?”

“The Outdoor Bible,” printed on indestructible plastic sheets that fold up like maps,

“The Story,” which features selections from the Bible arranged in chronological order, like a novel.

"Men of Integrity” Bible

“Woman, Thou Art Loosed!” Bible.

"The Super Heroes Bible: The Quest for Good Over Evil”

“Psalty’s Kids Bible,” featuring “Psalty, the famous singing songbook.”

The “Soul Surfer Bible” has notes by Bethany Hamilton, who lost an arm to a shark in 2003.

“2:52 Boys Bible: The Ultimate Manual” promises “gross and gory Bible stuff.”

“Rainbow Study Bible,” each verse is color-coded by theme.

“The Promise Bible” prints every one of God’s promises in boldface.

ME : THIS I CANNOT BELEIVE ------>

“The Personal Promise Bible” is custom-printed with the owner’s name (“The LORD is Daniel’s shepherd”), home town (“Woe to you, Brooklyn! Woe to you, New York!”), and spouse’s name (“Gina’s two breasts are like two fawns”).

“The Bible Experience,” (audio) featuring just about every black actor in Hollywood, from Denzel Washington to Garrett Morris, and starring Blair Underwood as Jesus and Samuel L. Jackson as God.

The Mother of God: despised, insignificant, unnoticed, disregarded,

Luther:

Imagine how she was despised at the inns and stopping places on the way, although worthy to ride in state in a chariot of gold. There were, no doubt, many wives and daughters of prominent men at that time, who lived in fine apartments and great splendor, while the mother of God takes a journey in mid-winter under most trying circumstances. What distinctions there are in the world! It was more than a day's journey from Nazareth in Galilee to Bethlehem in the land of Judea. They had to journey either by or through Jerusalem, for Bethlehem is south of Jerusalem while Nazareth is north.

The Evangelist shows how, when they arrived at Bethlehem, they were the most insignificant and despised, so that they had to make way for others until they were obliged to take refuge in a stable, to share with the cattle, lodging, table, bedchamber and bed, while many a wicked man sat at the head in the hotels and was honored as lord. No one noticed or was conscious of what God was doing in that stable. He lets the large houses and costly apartments remain empty, lets their inhabitants eat, drink and be merry; but this comfort and treasure are hidden from them. O what a dark night this was for Bethlehem, that was not conscious of that glorious light! See how God shows that he utterly disregards what the world is, has or desires; and furthermore, that the world shows how little it knows or notices what God is, has and does.

See, this is the first picture with which Christ puts the world to shame and exposes all it does and knows. It shows that the world's greatest wisdom is foolishness, her best actions are wrong and her greatest treasures are misfortunes. What had Bethlehem when it did not have Christ? What have they now who at that time had enough? What do Joseph and Mary lack now, although at that time they had no room to sleep comfortably?

Luther’s Church Postil, Christmas Day sermon, Complete sermons of Martin Luther, vol. 1, p. 138-139

Pioneer PureVision Las Vegas Bowl ????

For those of us who remember when the Rose Bowl was for the Big Ten and Pac Ten and there was something called a Southwestern Conference whose champion went to the Cotton Bowl every year ....

Here is a Chicago Trib quiz asking which TWO of these are not bowl games this season?

a. Papajohns.com Bowl

b. Pioneer PureVision Las Vegas Bowl

c. Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl

d. Meineke Car Care Bowl

e. Vitalis Sun Bowl

f. Gaylord Hotels Music City Bowl

g. R&L Carriers New Orleans Bowl

h. KFC Famous Bowl

i. Chick-fil-A Bowl

j. San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl

God in a box

Tom Chryst has a nice post about God in a box over at preachr blog

He bestowing, I receiving

More Chrysostom on the Nativity. He manifests here the patristic tendency to emphasize the paradoxical aspect of the Nativity. God ... made ... flesh. A puzzle, indeed, but one, as Chrysostom shows, is a salvific puzzle, a doxological mystery.


What shall I say! And how shall I describe this Birth to you? For this wonder fills me with astonishment.

The Ancient of days has become an infant.

He Who sits upon the sublime and heavenly Throne, now lies in a manger.

And He Who cannot be touched, Who is simple, without complexity, and incorporeal, now lies subject to the hands of men.

He Who has broken the bonds of sinners, is now bound by an infants' bands.

(These last three sentences are an insert from St Cyril of Alexandria.)

But He has decreed that ignominy shall become honour, infamy be clothed with glory, and total humiliation the measure of His Goodness. For this He assumed my body, that I may become capable of His Word; taking my flesh, He gives me His Spirit; and so He bestowing and I receiving, He prepares for me the treasure of Life. He takes my flesh, to sanctify me; He gives me His Spirit, that He may save me.

Sunday Sermons, vol. 1, 113.

The cloak of its own creator

Chrysostom on the birth of Christ from the Virgin. He puts so much together so nicely here. Creation, incarnation, virign birth, anthropolgy, salvation.




And in what manner was the Almighty with her; Who in a little while came forth from her ? He was as the craftsman, who coming to some suitable material, fashions to himself a beautiful vessel; so Christ, finding the holy body and soul of the Virgin, builds for Himself a living temple, and as He had willed, formed there a man from the Virgin; and, putting Him on, this day came forth; unashamed of the lowliness of our nature. For it was to Him no lowering to put on what He Himself had made.

Let that handiwork be forever glorified, which became the cloak of its own Creator. For as in the first creation of flesh, man could not be made before the clay had come into His hand, so neither could this corruptible body be glorified, until it had first become the garment of its Maker.

Sunday Sermons of the Great Fathers, Vol. 1., p. 112.

All who believe "give birth" to Jesus

Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. Luke 1:42


Ambrose:

But you also are blessed who have heard and who have believed: for every soul that believes, conceives and brings forth the Word of God and confesses His works.

Sunday Sermons of the Great Fathers. vol. 4, p. 415.

Petersen on sermons

Petersen. From the latest Gottesdienst:

Since the theme is always the same, the task in listening to a sermon is not so much to discern what the sermon means as to experience the sermon. It is not the sermon's goal to explain that God loves you or even to explain how God loves you. The sermon may well do both those things.

But the sermon's goal is to love you. Christian sermons are the Word of God. They are not merely based upon, or thoughts about, the Word of God. They are the actual Word of God. For our Lord promises, "He who hears you hears Me." The Word of God is performative. It does what it says. It is not unlike a judge saying to a couple, "I pronounce you man and wife." He is not telling them that tl1ey will become man and wife, or how they can become man and wife, he is making them man and wife by what he says.

Sermons are even more like Holy Absolution. In Holy Absolution the called and ordained preacher says, "I forgive you," and the penitent is forgiven. Sermons are not persuasive or informative speeches, they are the Word of God to and for the people. Thus they are performative. They do what they say. Sermons are not nor are they meant to be about love; they are love. Those who hear the sermon are loved by the sermon. The sermon loves the people because in the sermon the Word of God takes on flesh and the Incarnate Lord speaks and loves. The Word becomes words and dwells among them. To believe in Jesus Christ is to be loved by Him. This believing, and his being loved, cometh by hearing. The Word of God loves the hearer by telling him the truth in order to put the hearer to death and raise him up again.

Reformed theologians and whacked out rock stars

This is hilarious. Check out what John Bunyan and David Crosby

B.B. Warfield and Jerry Garcia

and John Calvin and Cat Steven

have in common.

It is all here.

A talking cow?

A proposal for Billy Graham's burial:

The building, designed in part by consultants who used to work for the Walt Disney Co., is not a library, she says, but a large barn and silo -- a reminder of Billy Graham's early childhood on a dairy farm near Charlotte. Once it's completed in the spring, visitors will pass through a 40-foot-high glass entry cut in the shape of a cross and be greeted by a mechanical talking cow. They will follow a path of straw through rooms full of multimedia exhibits. At the end of the tour, they will be pointed toward a stone walk, also in the shape of a cross, that leads to a garden where the bodies of Billy and Ruth Graham could lie.

Throughout the tour, there will be several opportunities for people to put their names on a mailing list.

Proposed by his son Franklin. Bad.

Wandrey blog

My friend and fellow Catawba County, NC pastor, Bryce Wandrey, has a blog. He is exploring theology. You can help him find his way here.

But can it connect to the Internet?

Here is the biggest Swiss army knife ever. 85 devices. A review here.

A Christmas of breaking things

Joseph Bottum has a funny little piece on Christmas losses.

Harvard says no to God

God almost made it into Harvard years after being expelled. Maybe He can try again next year.

The dashing young man in the flying trapeze

Here is a new one from teh Miami Herald: Acrobat church.

One young man climbs 20 feet in the air and performs a graceful trapeze act. Another does somersaults across the stage.

But this is no three-ring circus. It's a church.

Christ present in faith

The Finnish School of Luther research Maanermaa's book, Christ Present in Faith is very important. It has been awhile since I read the book but I think the importance lies in this: a fresh appreciation of the divinization motif in Luther and the importance of the indwelling of Christ in the believer.

There is one thing that must be remembered when considering this, however. For Luther, as Maanermaa makes clear, the indwelling of Christ and the divinization of the believer is "by faith". This is the other side of the coin which makes Luther unique. Faith is always a grasping, a reaching for something outside itself. Faith must trust in something. It reaches for Christ. Faith is empty of itself, the cloud in which Christ is present. It receives Christ, and always is this act of receiving faith never outgrows itself,. Christ is always present in the Christian and is always so by faith.

So even when Luther is stressing divinization and indwelling even so there is an externality, an extrinsic quality to it. Christ present in faith means the believer is divinized by the Christ who is grasped by faith. Christ is always other (an object of faith) to the Christian even when he is indwelling him.

Here is something I dislike:

... a reactionary disdain for that which one has inherited, be it in religion or country or family or region.

I think this is a peculiarly modern, Western malady sometimes known as "liberalism" though I am not hung up the label.

It is a disease I have been afflicted with and still am tempted by, though less and less with more age.

One sees it in some Americans who can see no good "American" thing whether Wal Mart or foreign policy. One can see it in the young people who go to college and come home convinced their parents live in a backwater oppressive hole. One can see it in those who grow up in a denomination or tradition and come to despise that tradition and leave it or spend their energy trying to change it, modernize it.

What one inherits, if it is faulty, cannot trump the truth. Yet what one has been given by those who have gone before you, where you have been placed by God, deserves your respect and, if not your allegiance, your gratitude.

Fasting and the fathers ... very briefly

Petersen has posted some thoughts on fasting. Fasting is becoming popular among many evangelicals these days. For various reasons. Lutherans do not reject fasting but do not make a law of it, either. Very Lutheran, that, like it or not.

The early church fathers had their own reasons for fasting. Some (not nearly all, I know!) of the theological connections :

The practice was tied in many patristic minds to the first ancient sin: eating the fruit. To fast was to participate in the reversal of that transgression. It was eschatalogical and Christological. Christ in the desert did not eat and thus withstood the temptation of Adam who fell through gluttony. The fasts of the church were nothing other than a participation in Christ: to fast with Him and through Him.

It was also an aspect of the new life of the baptized, an avoidance of sin. To fast from food was a physical reminder of the denial of self, the death of the Old Adam.
Fasting was also a means to fight temptation, to devote oneself ever more to the Word of God and prayer. Fasting also served as a means of support for the poor. As Christ did not fast for his own benefit but for us, in our place so Christians fasted in order to sacrifice themselves and the food they avoided for the poor.

Thus Leo the Great:


Fasting hath ever been the bread of strength. From abstinence proceed pure thoughts, reasonable desires, and healthy counsels. By voluntary mortifications the flesh dieth to lust, and the soul is renewed in might. But since fasting is not the only mean whereby we get health for our souls, let us add to our fasting works of mercy. Let us spend in good deeds what we take from indulgence. Let our fast become the banquet of the poor.

"I'm fed up with bad church music"

I found this Facebook group called I'm fed up with bad church music
. Pretty good name for a group, huh? I think it is group of RC organists. Some pretty funny stuff on the front page:


This group may be for you...

If you are of the opinion that Here I Am, Lord, On Eagle's Wings, and Be Not Afraid are NOT the most beautiful church songs ever written.

You actually kind of like the idea of singing some chant and hymns. Gasp!

If you would much rather here a pipe organ than a piano, or worse yet, a cheap electric keyboard at church.

If you're dismayed that more than half of the music in the new hymnals consists of folk songs and romanticized pop songs.

If praise and worship music makes you cringe.

If you think that "Polka Masses," "LifeTeen Masses," "Hip Hop Masses" are just really bad taste,

If you're fed up with cantors drowning out the congregation.

If you want to play the chord of death when people cut early during the last hymn.

If you want to play the chord of death when people won't sing the last hymn.

If you want to play the chord of death because people won't sing ANYTHING.

If you think it's a shame that most people regard music written in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, as standard church music, or sometimes even as "classics."

Food for beasts ...

Christ becomes, even for us who have become beasts by reason of sin.

More Cyril of Alexandria :

2:7. And she laid him in the manger.

He found man reduced to the level of the beasts: therefore is He placed like fodder in a manger, that we, having left off our bestial life, might mount up to that degree of intelligence which befits man's nature; and whereas we were brutish in soul, by now approaching the manger, even His own table, we find no longer fodder, but the bread from heaven, which is the body of life.

Why The Virgin Birth?

That we might be born again of the same Holy Spirit.

Cyril of Alexandria:

The sacred Evangelist says that Mary was betrothed to Joseph, to shew that the conception had taken place upon her betrothal solely, and that the birth of the Emanuel was miraculous, and not in accordance with the laws of nature. For the holy Virgin did not bear from the immission of man's seed.

And what was the reason of this?

Christ, Who is the first-fruits of all, the second Adam according to the Scriptures, was born of the Spirit, that he might transmit the grace (of the spiritual birth) to us also: for we too were intended, no longer to bear the name of sons of men, but of God rather, having obtained the new birth of the Spirit in Christ first, that he might be "foremost among all," as the most wise Paul declares.


Cyril, On Luke

Post Modern Weather

I hate this now omnipresent meteorological statistic: wind chill.

It is not a measure of objective data: it is supposed to tell you how cold you will "feel". Weather as subjective experience. Climate as emotion.

Bah ... I'll tell you how I feel : I feel like throwing my mercury thermometer at the television every time some smiling, attractive weather person tells me how cold the wind chill is. Give me precise, rationalistic measurements not namby, pamby ... ooooh, it is gonna be cold out there ... it will feel like its 389 degrees below zero.

As guests in a lodging place

Reading Luther, especially his sermons, is like getting on a horse with no reins. You do not know where you will end up. Begin reading a sermon on the Nativity and you get four or five pages on the value for life of the two kingdoms doctrine implicit in the Bethlehem story.

This is quite an analogy Luther uses of being a guest at an inn. As Christians we do not tell the innkeeper how to run the house; we do not seek to run this world's affairs. Interesting, no?



True it is that Christians live their lives here upon earth, eat and drink in this world, just as Christ, their King, also ate and drank and shared life here. But Christians do this as pilgrims and strangers, as guests in a lodging place, as Christ also did.

In an inn the master of the house sees to it that there is food, drink, bread, meat, wine, beer; the guest is not in charge of that. He does not instruct the landlord how to run the house. He does not tell the manager how to go about buying food stuffs; rather, he asks the innkeeper whether there is bread and meat for him that he might eat, since he is weary from travel.

So also, Christ has not come to earth in order to seize power from Caesar Augustus and teach him how to rule. But he uses the worldly realm and the manger, until he has fulfilled the mission for which he had been sent.

Complete Sermons, Vol. 5, House Postils, Christmas Day, p. 102-103.

The first seven tunes ...

... in my shuffle MP3 player mode ....

I think Juhl did this a awhile back.

Anyway here is what is emanating from my digital music playing device....


Lucinda Williams and John Prine : "Darling, Lets Turn Back the Years" (a Hank cover)

REM : "Talk About the Passion"

Aztec Camera : "Lost Outside the Tunnel" (They put out one great album in the early/mid 80's)

Me First and the Gimme Gimmes : "Delta Dawn"

The Undertones: "Get Over You"

Pete Townsend : "Behind Blue Eyes" (demo)(hey, when is someone gonna write a decent bio of this guy... what a story .. I don't think a good book on him exists)

LaVern Baker : "Soul on Fire" (Atlantic R and B)

Bizarre Headlines alert ....

... "VP Cheney's Gay Daughter is pregnant".


followed a couple of headlines down by ...


"Virgin Mary Tree Stump to be Preserved"


As David Letterman used to say, be careful out there, kids. It is a strange world. I did not read the Cheney story, or the Mary tree article I think the headlines tell me all I need to know.

A Defense of South Park

I have never watched the show but South Park has never attracted me. It seems a rude, obscenity filled half hour that epitomizes all that is wrong with our culture.

Maybe I was wrong.

Here is an article that defends the show on the basis that it is a coherent worked out defense of libertarianism that skewers all sides of cultural discourse but mostly those which seek to restrict freedom of personal expression, especially political correctness. The left, it seems, comes in for more roasting than the right on this count according to the article. The author defends the show's obscenity and profanity with an appeal to Socrates and his fart metaphors.

I am not sure I am convinced mainly because I have not seen the show and do not get Comedy Central to check it out. But it is a well argued article.

Hat tip to : Arts and Letters Daily.

Defend then the honour of God within you

St. Gregory the Great on the Nativity, and the honor incumbent upon humanity, apparent even to the angels, since God has taken on our flesh.

Homily 8, PL 76, taken from the Sunday Sermons of the Great Fathers, Vol. 1.



The Angel announces that a King is born, and the choirs of angels unite their voice with his, and rejoicing all together they sing: Glory be to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will.

Before the Redeemer was born in the flesh, there was discord between us and the angels, from whose brightness and holy perfection we stood afar, in punishment first of original sin, and then because of our daily offences. Because through sin we had become strangers to God, the angels as God's subjects cut us off from their fellowship. But since we have now acknowledged our King, the angels receive us as fellow citizens. Because the King of heaven has taken unto Himself the flesh of our earth, the angels from their heavenly heights no longer look down upon our infirmity. Now they are at peace with us, putting away the remembrance of the ancient discord; now they honour us as friends, whom before they beheld weak and despised below them.

Hence was it that both Lot and Josue adored the angels (Gen. xix I; Jos. v. 15), and "were not forbidden to adore". But when John, in his Apocalypse, wished to adore the angel, this same angel forbade him to adore, saying: See thou do it not, for I am thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren (Apoc. xxii. 9). What is the significance of this, that before the coming of the Redeemer angels were adored by men, and the angels were silent; and after, they turned away from being adored; unless that our nature which they before despised, they see now is raised above themselves, and fear exceedingly to see it prostrated before them ? Nor dared they now look down on that as beneath them, which they venerate as far above them, in the King of Heaven. Nor do they refuse to accept us as equals, who now adore God made man.

Let us then be careful, dearest Brethren, that no uncleanness shall defile us, who, in the divine foreknowledge, are destined to be the subjects of God's heavenly Kingdom, and the equal of His angels. Let us prove Our worthiness by the manner of our lives. Let no sensuality soil us, no evil purpose come to accuse us; let malice not devour your hearts, nor pride exalt it, nor the desire of worldly gain blow it about in every direction, nor anger inflame it. For men are called to be as Gods. Defend then the honour of God within you, O-Man, against these vices, since it was because of you that God became man, who liveth and reigneth for ever. Amen.

Kristof versus militant atheism

NYT's Kristof takes on militant atheists like Richard Dawkins.

Liberal "Walls"

Mark Tooley writes in the American Spectator of an ELCA conference in Berlin and how it illustrates the moral ridiculousness of much liberal Protestantism.

One paragraph:

So much for moral nuance. But liberal theology, even more so than the "fundamentalism" that it supposedly rejects, insists on seeing the world through its own limited symbols of justice and injustice. The West, of which the U.S. and Israel are arch symbols, is by definition oppressive. All Third World people are by definition oppressed by the West. Hence, Israeli and U.S. security barriers are, for church liberals, morally indistinguishable from Berlin's old machine-gun lined Communist prison wall.

Exorcised or Exercised?

"This story incorrectly stated that James Dobson, founder and chairman of Focus on the Family, believes people who don't practice what they preach should undergo an exorcism. His quote, in a TV interview about reaction to the firing of evangelical leader Ted Haggard for 'sexual immorality,' was: 'Everybody gets exercised (worked up about it) when something like this happens, and for good reason.'"
—A correction to a November 23 Rocky Mountain News article on Dobson and Haggard, which had the subhead "Dobson: Haggard not a hypocrite, just in need of exorcism."

HT: CT.

Keeping Satan in Christmas

That is one part of an excellent column in the most recent Touchstone. Written by Wilfred McClay, the column reflects on the need for acknowledging the darkness in order to see the light of the Nativity. All based on Christmas carols.

Must reading.

Limits of Tolerance

Andrew Greeley's comments illustrate that liberalism is a creed which is no more tolerant than any other, less so, in fact.

Some challenges...

... of being a pastor.

to preach sermons that mean something to the people that hear them
while also passing along the Biblical and confessional truth.

to be a likable "nice person" whose personality does not hinder the work of the Gospel while at the same time not pandering or looking for constant approval and standing up for what is right.

being "contemporary" and ancient at the same time.

preaching the Gospel with no eye to good works and yet not ignoring the fact that the Gospel is not permission for sin.

remembering that the people you serve are sheep and need not understand or appreciate the depth of theology you may (or may not have!) imbibed at seminary.

preaching sermons that take into account the real lived experience and thought world of the people you are preaching to so that the sermons are an intersection of real theology and real people ... that is true theology that addresses life ..not skimping on the depth of theology or the reality of what the people in the pew feel and know. In a certain sense people do not change. Sinners today are like sinners in the 3rd century or the 17th. Yet they are different and speak and live in different ways. If not there is no such thing as history or narrative a thing which even the Bible itself disproves. Abraham lived in a different way than Paul though both trusted in the same Savior.

Who are you?

The Pew Internet & American Life Project has done a study about bloggers and who they are.

Religious issues : 2 percent.

Here is one paragraph:

Most bloggers say they cover a lot of different topics, but when asked to choose one main topic,

37 percent of bloggers cite “my life and experiences” as a primary topic of their blog.

Politics and government ran a very distant second with 11 percent of bloggers citing those issues of public life as the main subject of their blog.

Entertainment-related topics were the next most popular blog-type, with 7 percent of bloggers,

followed by sports (6 percent),

general news and current events (5 percent),

business (5 percent), technology (4 percent),

religion, spirituality or faith (2 percent),

a specific hobby or a health problem or illness (each comprising 1 percent of bloggers).

Other topics mentioned include opinions, volunteering, education, photography, causes and passions, and organizations.