The true paschal lamb speaks joyfully to those who will eat him, and the First-Born announced the Pascha in the dining room to his disciples.
Our Savior invited himself to his immolation and bloodshedding. His lifegiving bread was nutritious and well prepared, and his sheaf of ears came home full. The matter of his body was permeated with the yeast of his divinity. His mercy welled up and his love overflowed, so that he might become food for his own.
He took the "heap of wheat" away from Zion and gave it to the Church in holiness. He had prepared a new banquet, and now he invited his companions to it and called them to come. A feast he prepared for his Bride, to allay her hunger.
Our Lord slew his own body, and (only) then did mortals slay it. He pressed it out into the cup of salvation and then did the People also press it out on the cross. As priest he offered himself ahead of time, so that strangers might not exercise the priestly office. . . .
CYRILLONAS, First Homily on the Pascha
taken from Easter in the Early Church
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Easter is the true beginning of time
It means) that for us too the sacrifice of the true paschal lamb is a beginning of eternal life—
for the year is a symbol of eternity inasmuch as it keeps turning and coming around on itself, never coming to an end and stopping'—
and that Christ, offered as a sacrifice for us, is the "father of the age to come" (Isa 9:5), who makes our whole previous life obsolete and gives us the beginning of another one "through the bath of" the "regeneration" (Titus 3:5) according to the "pattern of' his own death and resurrection" (cf. Rom 6:5).`
Wherefore everyone who knows the Pascha sacrificed for him should consider as the beginning of his life the moment when Christ has been sacrificed for him. And he has been sacrificed for him when he recognizes the grace and becomes aware that he is alive because of that sacrifice. And knowing this, he should strive to possess the principle of the new life and never turn back to the old, to the end of which he has already come. For he says: "we who have died to sin, how shall we still live in it?" (Rom 6:2).
PSEUDO-CHRYSOSTOM, Homilies on the Holy Pascha 1, 6-7
taken from Easter in the Early Church
for the year is a symbol of eternity inasmuch as it keeps turning and coming around on itself, never coming to an end and stopping'—
and that Christ, offered as a sacrifice for us, is the "father of the age to come" (Isa 9:5), who makes our whole previous life obsolete and gives us the beginning of another one "through the bath of" the "regeneration" (Titus 3:5) according to the "pattern of' his own death and resurrection" (cf. Rom 6:5).`
Wherefore everyone who knows the Pascha sacrificed for him should consider as the beginning of his life the moment when Christ has been sacrificed for him. And he has been sacrificed for him when he recognizes the grace and becomes aware that he is alive because of that sacrifice. And knowing this, he should strive to possess the principle of the new life and never turn back to the old, to the end of which he has already come. For he says: "we who have died to sin, how shall we still live in it?" (Rom 6:2).
PSEUDO-CHRYSOSTOM, Homilies on the Holy Pascha 1, 6-7
taken from Easter in the Early Church
Chilly ... emptiness of a place without a history
I know few things more odious than the chilly, draughty, emptiness of a place without a history.
Vernon Lee (1856-1935)
Vernon Lee (1856-1935)
That we should overcome in Christ at the same hour that we were overwhelmed in Adam
And now the day of His crucifixion, was the day of Adam's transgression. God created Adam on the sixth day; and on that day he transgressed. On that day too Jesus became obedient and endured His sufferings at the sixth hour, when Adam tasted of the fruit; that we should overcome in Christ at the same hour that we were overwhelmed in Adam. The Tree of Life in the Garden, is the Tree of the Cross. There was a woman, through whom sin came into the world; here is a virgin who heard Him say: "Behold thy mother." On that day Adam put forth his hand for evil; and Jesus spread His holy arms for our good. Adam drew near to the tree; and Jesus laid His hands and His feet on the Tree to which they were fastened with nails. Adam tasted of the fruit through lust; and Jesus tasted of vinegar mingled with bitter gall. Adam heard this sentence: The earth shall bring forth to thee thorns and thistles. Our Jesus of His own will was crowned with the thorns of Adam. Adam brought down a curse upon himself; but Jesus who is blessed by them that are condemned, was hanged on the Tree as one accursed.
Severian of Gabala, Homily on the sufferings and death of our Lord.
More on Severian.
Monday, March 29, 2010
The Lord's prayer is our daily baptism
Augustine to those about to be baptized:
Behold, you are about to come to the sacred font; you will be washed in
baptism; you will be renewed in the saving laver of regeneration;
when you rise from these waters, you will be without
sin. All the sins which in the past haunted you will be wiped
out. Your sins will be like the Egyptians following the Israelites,
pursuing only up to the Red Sea. What does up to
the Red Sea' mean? Up to the font consecrated by the cross
and blood of Christ. For, because that font is red, it reddens.
Do you not see how the member of Christ becomes red?
Question the eyes of faith. If you see the cross, see the blood,
too. If you see what hangs on the cross, see what drips down
from it. The side of Christ was pierced with a lance and
our purchase price flowed forth.
Therefore, baptism is signified by the sign of Christ, that is,
by the water in which you are immersed and through which you pass,
as it were, in the Red Sea. Your sins are your enemies. They follow
you, but only to the Red Sea. When you have entered [the
water], you will escape; they will be destroyed, just as the
Egyptians were engulfed by the waters while the Israelites
escaped on dry land. And why does Scripture say: 'There
was not one of them left'?
Because, whether you have committed many or few, great or small sins, even the smallest of them has not remained. But, since we are destined to live
in this world where no one lives without sin, on that account
the remission of sin depends, not solely on the washing in
holy baptism, but also on the Lord's daily prayer which you
will receive after eight days. In that prayer you will find,
as it were, your daily baptism, so that you may give thanks
to God who has given to His Church this gift which we
acknowledge in the Creed.
Sermon 213, FOTC, Vol. 38.
Behold, you are about to come to the sacred font; you will be washed in
baptism; you will be renewed in the saving laver of regeneration;
when you rise from these waters, you will be without
sin. All the sins which in the past haunted you will be wiped
out. Your sins will be like the Egyptians following the Israelites,
pursuing only up to the Red Sea. What does up to
the Red Sea' mean? Up to the font consecrated by the cross
and blood of Christ. For, because that font is red, it reddens.
Do you not see how the member of Christ becomes red?
Question the eyes of faith. If you see the cross, see the blood,
too. If you see what hangs on the cross, see what drips down
from it. The side of Christ was pierced with a lance and
our purchase price flowed forth.
Therefore, baptism is signified by the sign of Christ, that is,
by the water in which you are immersed and through which you pass,
as it were, in the Red Sea. Your sins are your enemies. They follow
you, but only to the Red Sea. When you have entered [the
water], you will escape; they will be destroyed, just as the
Egyptians were engulfed by the waters while the Israelites
escaped on dry land. And why does Scripture say: 'There
was not one of them left'?
Because, whether you have committed many or few, great or small sins, even the smallest of them has not remained. But, since we are destined to live
in this world where no one lives without sin, on that account
the remission of sin depends, not solely on the washing in
holy baptism, but also on the Lord's daily prayer which you
will receive after eight days. In that prayer you will find,
as it were, your daily baptism, so that you may give thanks
to God who has given to His Church this gift which we
acknowledge in the Creed.
Sermon 213, FOTC, Vol. 38.
Elvis had one, so did Hank
A mighty big car. My dream car.
It is a 1974 Pontiac Bonneville. I keep telling my kids and wife that this is the car I want. I don't want a hybrid, I want this. I want to ooze down the street to go to the post office and to the Texaco for a Coca Cola. I want my sweetie to be able to sit next to me with my arm around her. I want the am radio on.
Here is a song which describes this situation:
"Elvis had one; so did Hank
they don't look like money they look like the bank
Thats a mighty big car"
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Six songs about being sixteen
Others? There has to be more I haven't thought of.
1. Sixteen Blue by the Replacements
2. Sixteen in July by the Avett Brothers
3. Sixteen and Pretty by The Math and Physics Club
4. Only Sixteen by Sam Cooke
5. Sweet Little Sixteen by Chuck Berry
6. Happy Birthday Sweet Little Sixteen by Paul Anka.
1. Sixteen Blue by the Replacements
2. Sixteen in July by the Avett Brothers
3. Sixteen and Pretty by The Math and Physics Club
4. Only Sixteen by Sam Cooke
5. Sweet Little Sixteen by Chuck Berry
6. Happy Birthday Sweet Little Sixteen by Paul Anka.
Up with People !
Remember that group? There is now a documentary chronicling the group.
Here is an article on the documentary.
Here is an article on the documentary.
Planet War
From the bloody civil wars in Africa to the rag-tag insurgences in Southeast Asia, 33 conflicts are raging around the world today, and it’s often innocent civilians who suffer the most.
This is a photo slide show on conflicts around the globe. An eye opener for us normally closed-in-on-ourselves- Americans. The photos are well done and tell the story well.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
The Tournament of Novels: Literature's March Madnesss
This looks like fun:
Did you miss out on the NCAA Basketball tournament because you were reading Middlemarch? Have you ever argued with friends about the merits of Pale Fire versus Gravity’s Rainbow? Then this tournament is for you.
Sixty-four novels compete in a six round competition to determine the Greatest Novel of All Time. Each round of voting, one round per day for the next six weekdays, will begin at 9:00 am and end at midnight.
Choose your favorites from the selection below. Be sure to check back every day to see the updated brackets and vote in the next round.
Click here to vote.
Did you miss out on the NCAA Basketball tournament because you were reading Middlemarch? Have you ever argued with friends about the merits of Pale Fire versus Gravity’s Rainbow? Then this tournament is for you.
Sixty-four novels compete in a six round competition to determine the Greatest Novel of All Time. Each round of voting, one round per day for the next six weekdays, will begin at 9:00 am and end at midnight.
Choose your favorites from the selection below. Be sure to check back every day to see the updated brackets and vote in the next round.
Click here to vote.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Some day I'll have to write a book against artful preachers
Not me ... Martin Luther said it:
We preach publicly for the sake of the plain
people. Christ could have taught in a profound way but he
wished to deliver his message with the utmost simplicity in order
that the common people might hear and understand. Good
God, there are sixteen-year-old girls, women, old men, and
farmers in church and they don't understand lofty matters!
If one can present fitting and familiar comparisons, as Link
can do in masterful fashion, the people will understand and
remember. Accordingly he's the best preacher who can teach
in a plain, childlike, popular and simple way. I prefer to preach
in an easy and comprehensible fashion, but when it comes to
academic disputations watch me in the university; there I'll make
it sharp enough for anybody and will reply, no matter how
complicated he wants to be. Some day I'll have to write a book
against artful preachers.
Martin Luther, from John Pless, Martin Luther: Preacher of the Cross, CONCORDIA
THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY, Volume 51. Numbers 2-3, APRIL-JULY 1987.
We preach publicly for the sake of the plain
people. Christ could have taught in a profound way but he
wished to deliver his message with the utmost simplicity in order
that the common people might hear and understand. Good
God, there are sixteen-year-old girls, women, old men, and
farmers in church and they don't understand lofty matters!
If one can present fitting and familiar comparisons, as Link
can do in masterful fashion, the people will understand and
remember. Accordingly he's the best preacher who can teach
in a plain, childlike, popular and simple way. I prefer to preach
in an easy and comprehensible fashion, but when it comes to
academic disputations watch me in the university; there I'll make
it sharp enough for anybody and will reply, no matter how
complicated he wants to be. Some day I'll have to write a book
against artful preachers.
Martin Luther, from John Pless, Martin Luther: Preacher of the Cross, CONCORDIA
THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY, Volume 51. Numbers 2-3, APRIL-JULY 1987.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Shameless self promotion #3 : Book review at Popmatters
Popmatters is running a book review of mine today. The book is Jetpack Dreams by Mac Montandon. You can read the review here.
Shameless self promotion #2: Issues Etc interview
I was on the radio program Issues Etc. yesterday with Rev. Todd Wilken discussing my essay in Touchstone. I always enjoy being on. You can listen here.
Shameless self promotion #1 : Touchstone article
The current issue of Touchstone magazinee is carrying an essay of mine, entitled: God Sideways: How Jesus Comes amid Distractions.
The essay is not available online just yet which means you should subscribe ... here. It is a good deal and a good magazine. Well worth it.
Touchstone does offer a lot of good articles from past issues ( including a few of my own) in their archive ... here.
Here is the first paragraph and the last paragraph from the essay:
The gospel of Jesus Christ came to me wrapped up in my father’s aftershave, Bach preludes, and clip-on ties. I glimpsed the God of the Scriptures while wedged in the pew next to my older sister and my father. My memories of church are not those of fine theological distinctions, or the inspirational rhetoric of the sermon or the beautiful rhythm of the church year. Rather, I remember the feeling I got walking into church and hearing the pipe organ play that otherworldly music. I did not know that I was hearing Bach preludes; I just knew that church sounded like that. The gospel smelled a certain way to me, like my father’s aftershave and his musty suits marinated in cigarette smoke; it smelled like the closed-in, stained-glass smell of the sanctuary.
...
Getting God sideways is how the church works. The straight-ahead message of the gospel slips out of the preacher’s mouth in his idiosyncratic style and travels through the static of the group, through a thousand competing thoughts and sounds, and is received by a listener who understands it in his own limited way, and yet Christ is proclaimed. Christ has given himself over to sinners, not only to be crucified but also to be shared. In the flawed assembly, Christ is present. Sideways, hidden, but present, God among his people.
Monday, March 22, 2010
In the open wounds of Christ, we seek the secret of God's heart
Whenever I meditate upon the suffering of my Lord, I cannot but venture a great deal in respect to the love of God and His forbearance toward my sins. He bends His head to kiss me; He extends His arms to embrace me ; He opens His hands to bestow gifts upon me; He opens His side that I may behold His heart glowing with love for me; He is lifted up from the earth that He may draw all men unto Himself (John xii. 32);
His wounds are livid with grief, yet gleaming with love ; and in those open wounds we must seek for the secret of His heart. Truly with Him is plenteous redemption (Ps. cxxx. 7); for not a drop only, but streams of blood flowed from five parts of His body. As a bunch of grapes, cast into a press, is crushed by the weight placed upon it, and on all sides pours forth its juice, so the flesh of Christ, crushed by the weight of divine wrath and the severity of our sins, pours out on all sides its precious life-blood.
Johann Gerhard, Sacred meditations.
Healthcare :a Republican Waterloo?
I don't do a lot of politics here but here is an intereting take on the healthcare bill just passed. Written by David Frum, a conservative, he focuses on what he sees as Republican failures in the process:
Some bits:
This time, when we went for all the marbles, we ended with none.
Could a deal have been reached? Who knows? But we do know that the gap between this plan and traditional Republican ideas is not very big. The Obama plan has a broad family resemblance to Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts plan. It builds on ideas developed at the Heritage Foundation in the early 1990s that formed the basis for Republican counter-proposals to Clintoncare in 1993-1994.
Barack Obama badly wanted Republican votes for his plan. Could we have leveraged his desire to align the plan more closely with conservative views? To finance it without redistributive taxes on productive enterprise – without weighing so heavily on small business – without expanding Medicaid? Too late now. They are all the law.
...
I’ve been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our overheated talk is doing to us. Yes it mobilizes supporters – but by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead. The real leaders are on TV and radio, and they have very different imperatives from people in government. Talk radio thrives on confrontation and recrimination. When Rush Limbaugh said that he wanted President Obama to fail, he was intelligently explaining his own interests. What he omitted to say – but what is equally true – is that he also wants Republicans to fail. If Republicans succeed – if they govern successfully in office and negotiate attractive compromises out of office – Rush’s listeners get less angry. And if they are less angry, they listen to the radio less, and hear fewer ads for Sleepnumber beds.
So today’s defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will now be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on television and radio. For them, it’s mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, it’s Waterloo all right: ours.
Some bits:
This time, when we went for all the marbles, we ended with none.
Could a deal have been reached? Who knows? But we do know that the gap between this plan and traditional Republican ideas is not very big. The Obama plan has a broad family resemblance to Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts plan. It builds on ideas developed at the Heritage Foundation in the early 1990s that formed the basis for Republican counter-proposals to Clintoncare in 1993-1994.
Barack Obama badly wanted Republican votes for his plan. Could we have leveraged his desire to align the plan more closely with conservative views? To finance it without redistributive taxes on productive enterprise – without weighing so heavily on small business – without expanding Medicaid? Too late now. They are all the law.
...
I’ve been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our overheated talk is doing to us. Yes it mobilizes supporters – but by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead. The real leaders are on TV and radio, and they have very different imperatives from people in government. Talk radio thrives on confrontation and recrimination. When Rush Limbaugh said that he wanted President Obama to fail, he was intelligently explaining his own interests. What he omitted to say – but what is equally true – is that he also wants Republicans to fail. If Republicans succeed – if they govern successfully in office and negotiate attractive compromises out of office – Rush’s listeners get less angry. And if they are less angry, they listen to the radio less, and hear fewer ads for Sleepnumber beds.
So today’s defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will now be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on television and radio. For them, it’s mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, it’s Waterloo all right: ours.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Do not preach an imaginary but the true mercy
If you are a preacher of mercy, do not preach an imaginary but
the true mercy. If the mercy is true, you must therefore bear the
true, not an imaginary sin. God does not save those who are only
imaginary sinners. Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong, but let
your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the
victor over sin, death, and the world. We will commit sins while we
are here, for this life is not a place where justice resides. We,
however, says Peter (2. Peter 3:13) are looking forward to a new
heaven and a new earth where justice will reign. It suffices that
through God's glory we have recognized the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. No sin can separate us from Him, even if we were to kill or commit adultery thousands of times each day. Do you think such an exalted Lamb paid merely a small price with a meager sacrifice for our sins? Pray hard for you are quite a sinner.
Luther, Letter to Melanchthon, 1521.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
God, madman or something worse
Here is well known bit of writing from C.S. Lewis on claims about Jesus.
People often say about Him: "I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God." That is the one thing we must not say.
A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic--on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg--or else he would be the Devil of Hell.
You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
C. S. Lewis (1898 - 1963), from _Mere_Christianity_
People often say about Him: "I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God." That is the one thing we must not say.
A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic--on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg--or else he would be the Devil of Hell.
You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
C. S. Lewis (1898 - 1963), from _Mere_Christianity_
Thursday, March 18, 2010
The top 20 most annoying book reviewer cliches and how to use them all in one meaningless review
Here are eleven of them. You can read the rest here.
1. Gripping
2. Poignant: if anything at all sad happens in the book, it will be described as poignant
3. Compelling
4. Nuanced: in reviewerspeak, this means, "The writing in the book is really great. I just can't come up with the specific words to explain why."
5. Lyrical: see definition of nuanced, above.
6. Tour de force
7. Readable
8. Haunting
9. Deceptively simple: as in, "deceptively simple prose"
10. Rollicking: a favorite for reviewers when writing about comedy/adventure books
11. Fully realized
1. Gripping
2. Poignant: if anything at all sad happens in the book, it will be described as poignant
3. Compelling
4. Nuanced: in reviewerspeak, this means, "The writing in the book is really great. I just can't come up with the specific words to explain why."
5. Lyrical: see definition of nuanced, above.
6. Tour de force
7. Readable
8. Haunting
9. Deceptively simple: as in, "deceptively simple prose"
10. Rollicking: a favorite for reviewers when writing about comedy/adventure books
11. Fully realized
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Can the pope be fired?
Slate says: no.
Apparently, he cant be prosecuted for anything either.
The Vatican is fending off accusations that Pope Benedict XVI helped cover up sexual child abuse in the Catholic Church when he was archbishop of Munich and Freising in the 1970s and '80s. If more evidence turns up against Pope Benedict, can the church fire him?
No. The Code of Canon Law has no provision that allows a pope's removal from office— for any reason, even poor health or psychological trauma. That's because, according to church law, there is no higher authority than the pope: He "possesses supreme, full, immediate, and universal ordinary power in the Church, which he is always able to exercise freely." A pope may resign, but his resignation must be "made freely," and he doesn't have to tender his resignation to any particular authority. (The last pope to resign was Gregory XII, who did so in 1415 to end the battle for the papacy known as the Western schism.)
As for other Catholic authorities: Bishops can be removed by the Congregation of Bishops, although there's no formal process. And pastors can be removed by bishops for just about any reason, including "infirmity of mind or body," "loss of a good reputation," or "grave neglect" of parochial duties.
Can the pope face prosecution under secular law? No. The pope is immune from prosecution under the local laws of the Vatican. It's also a principle of customary international law that heads of state enjoy immunity from prosecution. That includes the pope, who is both the head of the church and the head of Vatican City. When three plaintiffs sued the pope in Texas court in 2005 for allegedly helping cover up their molestation by a priest in Houston, the U.S. Justice Department urged the court to dismiss the suit on grounds that the pope enjoys immunity as head of state of the Holy See and that such a lawsuit would be "incompatible with the United States' foreign policy interests." It's possible that once a head of state leaves office, he can become liable for crimes committed before he took office, since sovereign immunity applies to leaders only while they're head of state or to acts performed as a head of state. However, the pope almost never retires, so he's unlikely ever to face prosecution.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
We in turn permit ourselves to be eaten and drunk
Now this is the fruit, that even as we have eaten and drunk the body and blood of Christ the Lord, we in turn permit ourselves to be eaten and drunk, and say the same words to our neighbor, Take, eat and drink; and this by no means in jest, but in all seriousness, meaning to offer yourself with all your life, even as Christ did with all that he had, in the sacramental words. As if to say, Here am I myself, given for you, and this treasure do I give to you; what I have you shall have; when you are in want, then will I also be in want; here, take my righteousness, life, and salvation, that neither sin, nor death, nor hell, nor any sorrow may overcome you; as long as I am righteous and alive, so long shall you also be righteous and alive.
These are the words he speaks to us; these we must take, and repeat them to our neighbor, not by the mouth alone, but by our actions, saying, Behold, my dear brother, I have received my Lord; he is mine, and I have more than enough and great abundance. Now you take what I have, it shall be yours, and I place it at your disposal. Is it necessary for me to die for you, I will even do that. The goal placed before us in the Lord's Supper is that the attainment of such conduct toward our neighbor may appear in us.
25. Of course, it is true, we will not become so perfect that one places his soul and body, goods and honor at the disposal of the other. We still live in the flesh, and this is so deeply rooted in us that we are unable to furnish this symbol and evidence as perfectly as we should. On account of these our shortcomings Christ has instituted the Lord's Supper for our training, that here we may obtain what we lack. For what will you do when you miss in yourself what we have described? You must even come and tell him, Behold, this is what I need. Thou dost give thyself to me so richly and abundantly, but I am unable to do likewise toward my neighbor; this I lament before thee, and I pray thee, let me grow rich and strong enough to accomplish it. Though it is impossible for us to reach such perfection, we are nevertheless to sigh for it, and not to despair when we fall short, only so the desire to obtain it continue in our hearts.
Martin Luther, Sermon on the Lord's Supper.
These are the words he speaks to us; these we must take, and repeat them to our neighbor, not by the mouth alone, but by our actions, saying, Behold, my dear brother, I have received my Lord; he is mine, and I have more than enough and great abundance. Now you take what I have, it shall be yours, and I place it at your disposal. Is it necessary for me to die for you, I will even do that. The goal placed before us in the Lord's Supper is that the attainment of such conduct toward our neighbor may appear in us.
25. Of course, it is true, we will not become so perfect that one places his soul and body, goods and honor at the disposal of the other. We still live in the flesh, and this is so deeply rooted in us that we are unable to furnish this symbol and evidence as perfectly as we should. On account of these our shortcomings Christ has instituted the Lord's Supper for our training, that here we may obtain what we lack. For what will you do when you miss in yourself what we have described? You must even come and tell him, Behold, this is what I need. Thou dost give thyself to me so richly and abundantly, but I am unable to do likewise toward my neighbor; this I lament before thee, and I pray thee, let me grow rich and strong enough to accomplish it. Though it is impossible for us to reach such perfection, we are nevertheless to sigh for it, and not to despair when we fall short, only so the desire to obtain it continue in our hearts.
Martin Luther, Sermon on the Lord's Supper.
Luther's take on faith, the Word and baptism
Mark Tranvik, in Lutheran Quarterly, on Luther's take on faith, the Word and baptism:
The God who created the world through his Word is also able to create faith in those receiving the sacrament. In a sermon from 1537, Luther makes this connection between the creative and sacramental Word:
How does this (creation) happen? Through the words ‘‘Let it come into being.’’
Through this word everything was created and conceived. Even humanity was created by this word. If you or I were to speak thusly nothing would happen. But when God says, ‘‘Let it come into being,’’ the world is full of people, children and animals . . . Thus you can reason: If God is able by the word to create heaven and earth and fill the world, that is, everything we see with our eyes, why is it not possible to take water and baptize, saying ‘‘In the name . . .’’ and so be washed from all sins in body and soul?
Read the whole article here.
The God who created the world through his Word is also able to create faith in those receiving the sacrament. In a sermon from 1537, Luther makes this connection between the creative and sacramental Word:
How does this (creation) happen? Through the words ‘‘Let it come into being.’’
Through this word everything was created and conceived. Even humanity was created by this word. If you or I were to speak thusly nothing would happen. But when God says, ‘‘Let it come into being,’’ the world is full of people, children and animals . . . Thus you can reason: If God is able by the word to create heaven and earth and fill the world, that is, everything we see with our eyes, why is it not possible to take water and baptize, saying ‘‘In the name . . .’’ and so be washed from all sins in body and soul?
Read the whole article here.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Dr. Lawrence Rast has a blog
He is the academic dean at Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne. He is a professor of Historical Theology specializing in American Lutheranism. He is posting some interesting stuff.
Check it out here.
Check it out here.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Sermons that survive by the grace of God
Here is an essay of mine on preaching that ran in Touchstone about two years ago ( March 2008.
Sounding symbols: sermons that survive by the grace of God.
Who, among the X-Box children and Fox News parents in our pews, can be expected to sit still for twenty minutes to watch and listen to someone . . . just stand there . . . and talk . . . about God? So many other ways to “share the Gospel” seem better suited than the sermon to reach the visually minded, relationship-oriented citizens of the digital age. We have no expectation that they will be able to profit from a rhetorical discipline already ancient by the time of Augustine and Chrysostom.
“Shock and awe” Jesus campaigns which assault every sense organ with overwhelming data are the order of the day. The experts on “sharing the Gospel” advise emotional appeals, humor, entertainment, practicality. Denominational headquarters peddle such things. Large churches routinely replace the sermon with skits and small churches scurry to keep up by turning the preacher into a performer.
Yet in countless churches this coming Sunday, near the middle of the service someone will stand up to talk, soberly, even didactically and exegetically, about and for God.
TALKING FOR GOD
But one never knows exactly what is going to be said. If the sermon is losing its grip on the imagination of the church, it is not because “experts” and technology forced us to it. It is because preachers are not preaching well.
Preachers are often the first to lose faith in the sermon as a tool of the church’s mission. Some lose faith because they are bored. They are bored with the Bible, with the church, and therefore with having to climb into the pulpit week after week. Their sermons devolve into semi-religious talks on subjects ranging from funny anecdotes, the news, the weather, some email the preacher received, to the goodness of human nature or the importance of doing good.
Some preachers feel the “outdatedness” of the sermon acutely and so drag in videos clips or power point or object lessons to grab the people’s attention. Others turn the sermon into a time of personality fulfillment. The congregation is berated, the latest push from denomination headquarters is hyped, the next great program is employed to revitalize the parish. The ego of the preacher is pumped up by fishing for laughs or sympathy.
Many preachers will do almost anything to lessen the dreadful weight attached to speaking God’s word from the pulpit, to subtract from and get out from actually preaching the Gospel, what someone once called “the power of God for salvation.” They string together a generic batch of religious words to get to Monday as quickly as possible.
The people sit in the pews, impassively mostly, laughing on cue, squirming now and then, daydreaming, and whiloe a dutiful few compliment the preacher on the sermon week after week. But they must share the blame for the evisceration of the spoken word in the church.
Attention spans shrink almost weekly, demands grow louder for changes, and people like preacher get bored. The TV and internet, high speed and high definition all of it, do not prime us well to simply listen. Our ears are very itchy and mere words do not scratch deep.
OUR VERBAL DEITY
Yet pastors still preach and people still listen. This cannot be due to simple inertia or traditionalism. The sermon, the spoken word, is at once basic and, potentially at least, transcendent. Speaking is at once the most human and most divine form of communication.
The God we meet in the Bible is the most verbal of deities. Once he enters the stage in Genesis chapter one, he hardly stops speaking until the end is glimpsed by St. John many chapters later.
“Let there be light” addressed to the dark Easter vigil nave of the universe began a series of homilies that ordered the cosmos. His conversations with Abraham have a familiar ring to them as if the two were old friends. The Lord speaks to Moses at the burning Bush, on Sinai, and throughout the wilderness. The frail voice of the prophets was Yahweh’s trumpet, much to the chagrin of the so often wicked kings who tuned their ears to the idolatrous babble of other gods.
The second person of the Trinity himself is a sermon, the Word of God, the Logos. John says the Son is a word spoken to the world by the Father. God’s sermon took flesh and off he went, preaching the kingdom, healing with his voice, calling forth the dead and crying out in anguish in his dying moments.
The apostles display a crazy compulsion to speak out from Pentecost onwards even if prison or death awaited them. Paul explains: faith comes by hearing. Salvation requires ears to hear and a word to be received, a divine word delivered by human mouths.
Which brings us back to preaching. If speech is a most divine mode of communication it is also a very human one. Speech is what we use to complain, communicate with strangers on the phone, tell our families we love them, call the dog in from the yard.
Speaking is the most human thing we can do. Lowly and normal and profound all at the same time. We can email or string video images together on You Tube but speech makes us human. Despite the circus claims of scientists and charlatans, animals such as chimps or dolphins cannot talk. Only humans, made in the image of the Triune God, the God who speaks, do that.
Which means there is hope for the sermon. If the Word became flesh, if God created with His voice, if humans are at their most human when talking, the sermon can never fully wither away. For we crave such face to face talk. The more we retreat to lonely computer stations and darkened dens, the more empty we feel. Our ears are hungry.
The human voice, aligned to the truth of ancient, Biblical, credal patterns of speech, is not an outdated mode of some sort of generic “communication,” it is itself a Christian message. To talk Christ, to proclaim, to “evangelize” in the original sense of the word, is itself a radical Christian message.
When a pastor steps into the pulpit and addresses people with his voice, he is not simply imparting information that might be imparted in multiple other ways, he is showing people how to be human and how to be Christian.
RESTORATIVE WORDS
The church, in holding onto the sermon, is not engaging in blind preservation and refusing to change in response to the new realities of the digital age. She is holding onto a bit of what it means to be made in the image of God, to truly be a person. We were made to speak and to listen. The Gospel is not bare information, it is a living proclamation that, in its declaration and reception, restores us to our true humanity.
Preachers have filled with the world with their chatter. And the people of God listened, they opened their ears, and they responded. How? By speech, by saying “amen,” by singing, praying, chanting. Their God spoke to them and they spoke back. The Holy Trinity, that most verbal of deities, raised his voice and his children, made in his image, raised their own.
In this divine-human conversation, we are strangely fulfilled. We are not information receptacles, downloading bits of “God” data along with all the other material we process. We are creatures called into being by the voice of a living God.
The sermon is not just one media stream among others. It is a central way of being who we are, of being a hearer, and of knowing our Creator and Savior as He wants to be known: as a speaker.
So the sermon survives by the grace of God, despite preachers and hearers themselves. The experience of hearing even great sermons remains a mundane and often trying event. Even at the best of times, our minds wander, the preacher fumbles, the babies cry. It does not feel extraordinary, we are not transported to the heights of spiritual awareness. It just feels normal. It is part of our routine.
And perhaps that is as it should be. For at our most typical and average, hidden in human speech and hearing is God himself, imparting his wise foolishness into our stubborn ears. The powerful voice of creation, the incarnate call of Jesus, pushes its way into our ears, and miraculously we hear.
Sounding symbols: sermons that survive by the grace of God.
Who, among the X-Box children and Fox News parents in our pews, can be expected to sit still for twenty minutes to watch and listen to someone . . . just stand there . . . and talk . . . about God? So many other ways to “share the Gospel” seem better suited than the sermon to reach the visually minded, relationship-oriented citizens of the digital age. We have no expectation that they will be able to profit from a rhetorical discipline already ancient by the time of Augustine and Chrysostom.
“Shock and awe” Jesus campaigns which assault every sense organ with overwhelming data are the order of the day. The experts on “sharing the Gospel” advise emotional appeals, humor, entertainment, practicality. Denominational headquarters peddle such things. Large churches routinely replace the sermon with skits and small churches scurry to keep up by turning the preacher into a performer.
Yet in countless churches this coming Sunday, near the middle of the service someone will stand up to talk, soberly, even didactically and exegetically, about and for God.
TALKING FOR GOD
But one never knows exactly what is going to be said. If the sermon is losing its grip on the imagination of the church, it is not because “experts” and technology forced us to it. It is because preachers are not preaching well.
Preachers are often the first to lose faith in the sermon as a tool of the church’s mission. Some lose faith because they are bored. They are bored with the Bible, with the church, and therefore with having to climb into the pulpit week after week. Their sermons devolve into semi-religious talks on subjects ranging from funny anecdotes, the news, the weather, some email the preacher received, to the goodness of human nature or the importance of doing good.
Some preachers feel the “outdatedness” of the sermon acutely and so drag in videos clips or power point or object lessons to grab the people’s attention. Others turn the sermon into a time of personality fulfillment. The congregation is berated, the latest push from denomination headquarters is hyped, the next great program is employed to revitalize the parish. The ego of the preacher is pumped up by fishing for laughs or sympathy.
Many preachers will do almost anything to lessen the dreadful weight attached to speaking God’s word from the pulpit, to subtract from and get out from actually preaching the Gospel, what someone once called “the power of God for salvation.” They string together a generic batch of religious words to get to Monday as quickly as possible.
The people sit in the pews, impassively mostly, laughing on cue, squirming now and then, daydreaming, and whiloe a dutiful few compliment the preacher on the sermon week after week. But they must share the blame for the evisceration of the spoken word in the church.
Attention spans shrink almost weekly, demands grow louder for changes, and people like preacher get bored. The TV and internet, high speed and high definition all of it, do not prime us well to simply listen. Our ears are very itchy and mere words do not scratch deep.
OUR VERBAL DEITY
Yet pastors still preach and people still listen. This cannot be due to simple inertia or traditionalism. The sermon, the spoken word, is at once basic and, potentially at least, transcendent. Speaking is at once the most human and most divine form of communication.
The God we meet in the Bible is the most verbal of deities. Once he enters the stage in Genesis chapter one, he hardly stops speaking until the end is glimpsed by St. John many chapters later.
“Let there be light” addressed to the dark Easter vigil nave of the universe began a series of homilies that ordered the cosmos. His conversations with Abraham have a familiar ring to them as if the two were old friends. The Lord speaks to Moses at the burning Bush, on Sinai, and throughout the wilderness. The frail voice of the prophets was Yahweh’s trumpet, much to the chagrin of the so often wicked kings who tuned their ears to the idolatrous babble of other gods.
The second person of the Trinity himself is a sermon, the Word of God, the Logos. John says the Son is a word spoken to the world by the Father. God’s sermon took flesh and off he went, preaching the kingdom, healing with his voice, calling forth the dead and crying out in anguish in his dying moments.
The apostles display a crazy compulsion to speak out from Pentecost onwards even if prison or death awaited them. Paul explains: faith comes by hearing. Salvation requires ears to hear and a word to be received, a divine word delivered by human mouths.
Which brings us back to preaching. If speech is a most divine mode of communication it is also a very human one. Speech is what we use to complain, communicate with strangers on the phone, tell our families we love them, call the dog in from the yard.
Speaking is the most human thing we can do. Lowly and normal and profound all at the same time. We can email or string video images together on You Tube but speech makes us human. Despite the circus claims of scientists and charlatans, animals such as chimps or dolphins cannot talk. Only humans, made in the image of the Triune God, the God who speaks, do that.
Which means there is hope for the sermon. If the Word became flesh, if God created with His voice, if humans are at their most human when talking, the sermon can never fully wither away. For we crave such face to face talk. The more we retreat to lonely computer stations and darkened dens, the more empty we feel. Our ears are hungry.
The human voice, aligned to the truth of ancient, Biblical, credal patterns of speech, is not an outdated mode of some sort of generic “communication,” it is itself a Christian message. To talk Christ, to proclaim, to “evangelize” in the original sense of the word, is itself a radical Christian message.
When a pastor steps into the pulpit and addresses people with his voice, he is not simply imparting information that might be imparted in multiple other ways, he is showing people how to be human and how to be Christian.
RESTORATIVE WORDS
The church, in holding onto the sermon, is not engaging in blind preservation and refusing to change in response to the new realities of the digital age. She is holding onto a bit of what it means to be made in the image of God, to truly be a person. We were made to speak and to listen. The Gospel is not bare information, it is a living proclamation that, in its declaration and reception, restores us to our true humanity.
Preachers have filled with the world with their chatter. And the people of God listened, they opened their ears, and they responded. How? By speech, by saying “amen,” by singing, praying, chanting. Their God spoke to them and they spoke back. The Holy Trinity, that most verbal of deities, raised his voice and his children, made in his image, raised their own.
In this divine-human conversation, we are strangely fulfilled. We are not information receptacles, downloading bits of “God” data along with all the other material we process. We are creatures called into being by the voice of a living God.
The sermon is not just one media stream among others. It is a central way of being who we are, of being a hearer, and of knowing our Creator and Savior as He wants to be known: as a speaker.
So the sermon survives by the grace of God, despite preachers and hearers themselves. The experience of hearing even great sermons remains a mundane and often trying event. Even at the best of times, our minds wander, the preacher fumbles, the babies cry. It does not feel extraordinary, we are not transported to the heights of spiritual awareness. It just feels normal. It is part of our routine.
And perhaps that is as it should be. For at our most typical and average, hidden in human speech and hearing is God himself, imparting his wise foolishness into our stubborn ears. The powerful voice of creation, the incarnate call of Jesus, pushes its way into our ears, and miraculously we hear.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Bob Dylan Overdose
Oh my goodness ... seriously ... more ink ( or screen I guess) on Robert Zimmerman than one could possibly want.
Expecting Rain is an aggregator of material on the web concerning a certain Mr. Dylan.
Wow.
Here is a cut and paste of the home page as of now (just three days worth):
Friday, March 12, 2010 at 0640 CET
1 - Last night's Bob Dylan in Osaka setlist and reviews
Expect tonight's setlist around noon EST due to the time difference (Bob Links)
And US orders for the Apple iPad can be placed from 830 EST today.
2 - Bob Dylan Irish Tour History - (Indie Limerick) from moon j.
3 - Suzanne Vega Interview: SXSW 2010 "There's a million things to learn from Bob Dylan" - (spinner) from Scott Miller, Carol Bertolotti
4 - Dylan, Mandela part of new MA English course at Jamia - (Hindustan Times) from Jess Hansen, moon j.
5 - Before Charlie Sexton, Willie Nelson's son was considered for Bob Dylan's band. Lukas - (examiner) from HwyCDRrev, Jess Hansen
6 - B.J. Rolfzen: A legacy of words and dreams - (MinnPost) from Scott Miller
7 - BJ Rolfzen. Peace May He Know - (Gardener is Gone) from Scott Miller
8 - Norwegian: Hedrer heltene med festival Alf og Bob - (Nordstrands Blad) from Magne Karlstad
9 - Of All This Repetition - (Gardener Is Gone) from Scott Miller
10 - When Dylan Was A-Changin' (Rockin' The White House, part 7) - (Like the Dew) from monet
11 - Important Dylan "Radio Concert" 48 years ago - (Thin Wild Mercury Music) from moon j.
12 - The Bobolators: Bob Dylan as Jewish Poet - (ncarnatus est) from moon j.
13 - Busy Being Born Again: Bob Dylan's Christian Philosophy - (Return to Rome) from moon j.
14 - In Archive and Exhibit, the Dead Live On - (NY Times) from Ed Grazda, HwyCDRrev, Scott Miller
15 - Pink Floyd win EMI court ruling over online sales - (BBC News) from Scott Miller
16 - Patches & Gretchen serves up Sugar Head Pie - (MPR) from Patches and Gretchen
17 - The Secrets Behind the Rolling Stones' "Exile on Main Street" Reissue - (Rolling Stone) from Scott Miller
18 - Guthrie's focus is on music and family - (Tampa Bay Online) from Jess Hansen
19 - 'Beatles Deeper Undercover' belongs on every serious Beatle fan's bookshelf - (examiner) from Jess Hansen
20 - Video: Dylan's back pages - 1987 George Gershwin tribute "Soon" - (examiner) from HwyCDRrev
21 - Video: Bob Dylan - Cold Irons Bound "Masked and Anonymous" version - (Muddy Water) from Will Brennan
22 - Listen: No Cover: Danny Kalb Trio - (WNYC Culture) from Jess Hansen
23 - Mukul Deora's Bob Dylan Special on Pirate Radio! - (MTV Iggy) from moon j.
Thursday, March 11, 2010 at 0630 CET
1 - Bob Dylan to play Thomond Park on July 4 - (Limerick Leader) from moon j.
2 - Dylan's back pages - Cynthia Gooding 'Folksinger's Choice' interview, March 11, 1962 - (examiner) from HwyCDRrev
3 - Parenthood, "Man Versus Possum": The Bob Dylan of autism - (What's Alan Watching?) from Scott Miller
4 - Occasional Photos No. 141 Michael Gray at the grave of Blind Willie McTell - (Bob Dylan Encyclopedia) from Scott Miller
5 - Jack White interview: the great white hope of rock'n'roll - (Telegraph) from Carol Bertolotti, Scott Miller, moon j.
6 - Larry's 'Ride' with the Beatles - (Philadelphia Daily News) from Scott Miller
7 - Mind and Matter Paul Williams, Beloved Stranger - (The New Yorker) from J. Lewis
8 - Duluth Dinkytown? - (Statesman) from Jess Hansen
9 - Bob Dylan - Hurricane World Of John Hammond, 1975 - (All Music site) from M. C. Kuenen
10 - Listen: 1967 Jerry Garcia interview Klingan 7 mars 2010 Lennart Wretlind - (SR P2) from Michael Bällstav
11 - Louisiana Hayride rolls into town - (BCLocalNews) from Jess Hansen 0800
12 - Paul McCartney Turns Up at Son's Club Gig - (spinner) from Jess Hansen, Scott Miller
13 - Wanda Jackson, produced by Jack White, covers 'Thunder On The Mountain' at Dylan's request - (examiner) from HwyCDRrev
14 - Videos: Guitar Heroine: Sister Rosetta Tharpe - (Jukebox Heroines) from moon j.
15 - Living With Music: A Playlist by Michael Moorcock Incl. Dylan - (NY Times) from Scott Miller
16 - Cartoon: Times They Aren't A-Changin' - (AmanoDoodles) by Keith Amano 0900
17 - Tonight's Bob Dylan in Osaka setlist and reviews (Bob Links) 1800
18 - Dylan Ireland ticket pre-sale -Bob Links has password, official website does not - (examiner) from HwyCDRrev
Wednesday, March 10, 2010 at 0640 CET
1 - Bob Dylan to headline UK Hop Farm festival? - (Stereoboard) from Scott Miller
2 - NCBI ROFL: And the March "No s**t, Sherlock" award goes to... - (Discover) from moon j.
3 - Bob Dylan: Self Portrait - (Then Play Long) from moon j.
4 - Bob Dylan Folk Rogue (1964-1965) - (Midnighth Cafe) from moon j.
5 - Bob Dylan: Messiah or Escape Artist? Many missed this on Feb 25 - (Jewish Review of Books) from moon j., Antonio Terni, Gary Baughn, J. Winkel
6 - You Write One Post on Bob Dylan... - (JakeParillo.com) from Scott Miller
7 - 'Wilburys' event attracts headliners - (The Hollywood Reporter) from Jess Hansen, Jose Iujvidin
8 - Hey, Hey, etc...Why I Love the Monkees - (PopMatters) from Scott Miller
9 - Valleys of Neptune: like being there, in the studio, with Jimi Hendrix - (Telegraph) from Scott Miller
10 - In the Wind: The Folk Music Collection - (Asbestospoisoning) from moon j.
11 - About The Accident - (Paul Williams Website and Support Fund) from moon j.
12 - Video: Nina Simone, "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" w/Marilyn - (Boing Boing) from JW Harding, Carol Bertolotti, moon j.
13 - Bob Dylan 37: World Gone Wrong - (Everybody's Dummy) by Ward Whipple 1500
14 - When I Paint My Masterpiece-- Literally Painting of Dylan and The Band - (Rick Danko) from John Freedman
15 - Record industry hits back at 'myth' - (Tonight) from Jess Hansen
16 - Sir Kenneth Dover presented Bob Dylan with an honorary degree at St. Andrews in 2004 - (Telegraph) from Justin Lim
17 - Video: Nico - I'm Not Sayin' (1965) A Gordon Lightfoot song - (YouTube) from Scott Miller 1700
18 - Willie Nelson announces UK gigs and ticket details - (NME) from monet
19 - Bob Dylan Thomond Park Stadium Limerick City Sun 4 Jul 2010, 14:00 - (ticketmaster) from Ronan Hynds
20 - Only a couple of hours left to take part in the next Dylan Pool at The Neverending Pool. from Thomas Vandierendonck 1900
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
We Need A Whole Lot More Jesus And A Lot Less Rock And Roll
Here is a great little blog post filled with mp3 versions of this song by Wayne Raney.
Here is the orignal version.
And here are the lyrics :
by Wayne Raney
Well you can read it in the morning papers
Hear it on the radio
Crime is sweeping the nation
This world is about to go
We need a good old case of salvation
To put the love of God in our souls
We need a whole lot more of Jesus
And a lot less rock and roll
We need more old time camp meetings
And a lot more prayers of faith
Prayers that will move a mountain
Save our souls from the burning waste
We need a good old case of salvation
To put the love of God in our souls
We need a whole lot more of Jesus
And a lot less rock and roll
We need more old fashioned preachers
Pouring out their hearts in prayer
When you're in their presence
Well you know that the Lord is there
We need a nationwide revival
To put the love of God in our souls
We need a whole lot more of Jesus
And a lot less rock and roll
We need a whole lot more of Jesus
And a lot less rock and roll
It was we who were washed
The descent of the Spirit upon him in the Jordan was a descent upon us, because of our body which He carried. This did not take place for the advancement of the Word but for our sanctification, so that we may share in his anointing and so that it may be said of us, "Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you?" (1 Cor 3:16).
For when the Lord was washed in the Jordan, it was we who were washed in him and by him. And when he received the Spirit, it was we who were made recipients of the Spirit by him.
Athanasius, Against the Arians, 1.47, translated by Khaled Anatolios
The Bobolators: Bob Dylan as Jewish Poet
Here is an interesting review of a book on Bob Dylan that tries to make his Jewishness the center of his art.
Some bits:
I’m not exaggerating the cult-like devotion of those whom I’ve come to call “the Bobolators” (after Shakespeare’s “Bardolators”). Although there are many brilliant commentators who are able to separate the wheat from the chaff, there are others for whom there is no chaff, those for whom his every word and line in every lyric, no matter how casual or trivial, seems to be a burning bush of signification that speaks with numinous authority in a blaze of encrypted poetry.
...
Perhaps the biggest stretch of the book is Rogovoy’s rationalization of Dylan’s Jesus period. Talk about taking the Christ out of Christmas. Consider when he comes to what he calls “Dylan’s most direct statement of Christian belief,” on the album Slow Train Coming. “The official published lyric of ‘When You Gonna Wake Up’ has him singing, ‘There’s a Man upon a cross and He’s been crucified / Do You have any idea why or for who He died?’”
“But,” Rogovoy tells us, as if he has discovered a loophole, “on the recording Dylan actually sings, ‘There’s a man on the cross and he’s been crucified for you / Believe in his power that’s all you gotta do.” Either way it’s a pretty straightforward declaration that the crucifixion is the path to salvation. But wait! Rogovoy seeks to obfuscate Dylan’s rare if unappealing didacticism: “The line seems tacked on to the end of the song; nothing that comes before prepares a listener for this statement of faith; there is no case being made that leads up to this as the logical (or illogical) conclusion; it’s practically a non sequitur as it appears in the song.”
You can almost see him sweat. But it’s simply not true that nothing prepares the listener or that it’s a non sequitur. It’s more like a culmination that Rogovoy can’t abide. He denies Dylan the right, misguided or not, to be the person he was then, because it challenges the ironclad rigidity of Rogovoy’s thesis. This transparent sophistry (“tacked on” could be another person’s “triumphant conclusion”) allows Rogovoy to avoid confonting Dylan’s soul-searching.
Some bits:
I’m not exaggerating the cult-like devotion of those whom I’ve come to call “the Bobolators” (after Shakespeare’s “Bardolators”). Although there are many brilliant commentators who are able to separate the wheat from the chaff, there are others for whom there is no chaff, those for whom his every word and line in every lyric, no matter how casual or trivial, seems to be a burning bush of signification that speaks with numinous authority in a blaze of encrypted poetry.
...
Perhaps the biggest stretch of the book is Rogovoy’s rationalization of Dylan’s Jesus period. Talk about taking the Christ out of Christmas. Consider when he comes to what he calls “Dylan’s most direct statement of Christian belief,” on the album Slow Train Coming. “The official published lyric of ‘When You Gonna Wake Up’ has him singing, ‘There’s a Man upon a cross and He’s been crucified / Do You have any idea why or for who He died?’”
“But,” Rogovoy tells us, as if he has discovered a loophole, “on the recording Dylan actually sings, ‘There’s a man on the cross and he’s been crucified for you / Believe in his power that’s all you gotta do.” Either way it’s a pretty straightforward declaration that the crucifixion is the path to salvation. But wait! Rogovoy seeks to obfuscate Dylan’s rare if unappealing didacticism: “The line seems tacked on to the end of the song; nothing that comes before prepares a listener for this statement of faith; there is no case being made that leads up to this as the logical (or illogical) conclusion; it’s practically a non sequitur as it appears in the song.”
You can almost see him sweat. But it’s simply not true that nothing prepares the listener or that it’s a non sequitur. It’s more like a culmination that Rogovoy can’t abide. He denies Dylan the right, misguided or not, to be the person he was then, because it challenges the ironclad rigidity of Rogovoy’s thesis. This transparent sophistry (“tacked on” could be another person’s “triumphant conclusion”) allows Rogovoy to avoid confonting Dylan’s soul-searching.
Diarrhea-maker ... Liar . . . Doctor Mockery . . . Brother Soft-Life
“diarrhea-makers,” “straw doctors,” “scrotum-like doctors,” and “donkey fart doctors of theology" ... Liar . . . Doctor Mockery . . . Brother Soft-Life . . . the godless flesh at Wittenberg . . . Malicious black raven . . . Father pussyfoot . . . poor flatterer . . . godless one . . . over-learned scoundrel . . . arch-scoundrel . . . new pope . . . Hellhound . . . clever snake . . . sly fox . . . arch-heathen . . . arch-devil . . . crook . . . rapid, burning fox . . . ambassador of the devil . . . .
Not every one loved Martin Luther, not by a long shot. Thomas Muntzer disliked him intensely as this list of insults he hurled at the good Doctor shows.
Thanks to Christopher Benson.
Not every one loved Martin Luther, not by a long shot. Thomas Muntzer disliked him intensely as this list of insults he hurled at the good Doctor shows.
Thanks to Christopher Benson.
Tuesday, March 09, 2010
Monday, March 08, 2010
In every revolution, the first thing you change is the flag
This is an insightful article on the motivations of traditional Roman Catholics.
Some bits:
"You can't bring back the Habsburgs by hanging their banners in your apartment (trust me, I've tried), and we cannot undo the catastrophic "renewal" launched in the name of the Second Vatican Council (often in plain defiance of its documents) by clicking our heels and reciting, "There's no place like Rome" -- even in ecclesiastical Latin. Some confrontation between the Church and late Western modernity was inevitable, and if it hadn't happened at the Council, it would have occurred some other way. The Eastern churches didn't vandalize their liturgy; have they been spared the ravages of secularization? Not according to my Greek Orthodox friends, who show up for the last ten minutes of liturgy each week to pick up blessed bread and join their friends for baklava and gossip. The liturgy is miraculous, but it doesn't work like magic."
Of course, there's something to be said for a liturgy whose very nature resists and defeats abuses. The Ordinary Form can be extraordinarily reverent when said by a holy priest. I've been to such liturgies hundreds of times, and I'm grateful for every one. On the other hand, the new liturgy, with all its Build-a-Bear options, is terribly easy to abuse. The old Mass reminds me of what they used to say about the Catholic Church and the U.S. Navy: "It's a machine built by geniuses so it can be operated safely by idiots." The old liturgy was crafted by saints, and can be said by schlubs without risk of sacrilege. The new rite was patched together by bureaucrats, and should only be safely celebrated by the saintly.
Inessential things have power, which is why we bother with them in the first place. In every revolution, the first thing you change is the flag.
Some bits:
"You can't bring back the Habsburgs by hanging their banners in your apartment (trust me, I've tried), and we cannot undo the catastrophic "renewal" launched in the name of the Second Vatican Council (often in plain defiance of its documents) by clicking our heels and reciting, "There's no place like Rome" -- even in ecclesiastical Latin. Some confrontation between the Church and late Western modernity was inevitable, and if it hadn't happened at the Council, it would have occurred some other way. The Eastern churches didn't vandalize their liturgy; have they been spared the ravages of secularization? Not according to my Greek Orthodox friends, who show up for the last ten minutes of liturgy each week to pick up blessed bread and join their friends for baklava and gossip. The liturgy is miraculous, but it doesn't work like magic."
Of course, there's something to be said for a liturgy whose very nature resists and defeats abuses. The Ordinary Form can be extraordinarily reverent when said by a holy priest. I've been to such liturgies hundreds of times, and I'm grateful for every one. On the other hand, the new liturgy, with all its Build-a-Bear options, is terribly easy to abuse. The old Mass reminds me of what they used to say about the Catholic Church and the U.S. Navy: "It's a machine built by geniuses so it can be operated safely by idiots." The old liturgy was crafted by saints, and can be said by schlubs without risk of sacrilege. The new rite was patched together by bureaucrats, and should only be safely celebrated by the saintly.
Inessential things have power, which is why we bother with them in the first place. In every revolution, the first thing you change is the flag.
Stanley Hauerwas on leadership
This is an interesting interview with Stanley Hauerwas on leadreship.
Some bits:
The Holy Spirit’s task is always to point to Jesus. I want to be careful about using the word “vibrant” as an indication of the work of the Holy Spirit. Vibrant institutions can also be extraordinarily demonic.
When I go to morning prayer, I want to do the same thing every morning: I want to read the psalms. I don’t know if you want to call that “antiquarian.” Obviously, the church’s liturgy has been a history of constant innovation. Innovation should occur in a way that we recognize continuities through time.
It was a bad innovation when the revivalistic structure overtook the church’s primary liturgical form in a way that charismatic preachers replaced the centrality of Eucharist. We’ve suffered from that.
The primary title of a pope is “servant of servants.” It’s a little hard to remember that when you’re carried around on a chair!
Some bits:
The Holy Spirit’s task is always to point to Jesus. I want to be careful about using the word “vibrant” as an indication of the work of the Holy Spirit. Vibrant institutions can also be extraordinarily demonic.
When I go to morning prayer, I want to do the same thing every morning: I want to read the psalms. I don’t know if you want to call that “antiquarian.” Obviously, the church’s liturgy has been a history of constant innovation. Innovation should occur in a way that we recognize continuities through time.
It was a bad innovation when the revivalistic structure overtook the church’s primary liturgical form in a way that charismatic preachers replaced the centrality of Eucharist. We’ve suffered from that.
The primary title of a pope is “servant of servants.” It’s a little hard to remember that when you’re carried around on a chair!
Thursday, March 04, 2010
I have a new book review at PopMatters
A review of the book, Daring Young Men: The Heroism and Triumph of The Berlin Airlift-June 1948-May 1949 by Richard Reeves.
You can read the review here.
Wednesday, March 03, 2010
What do pretzels, Filet-O-Fish and Welch's grape juice have in common?
All inspired by spiritual concerns:( from Mental Floss)
Pretzel Logic: One widely accepted account says pretzels were developed in 610 C.E. by an Italian monk. He baked the confections for children as an incentive to memorize scripture. In fact, the shape of the treats reflects this, since the criss-crossed bits are supposed to depict the folded arms of pious children in prayer.
Turning Water Into Welch’s In 1869, Christian dentist and prude extraordinaire Dr. Thomas Welch invented “unfermented wine.” As the good Doc saw it, drinking in alcohol in church was a bit of a contradiction, so he brewed up a batch of the unfermented stuff to wash down Eucharist. Local pastors weren’t interested, though, and a dejected Thomas was sent back to his teeth pulling. Six years later, his son began marketing the beverage—this time as Welch’s Grape Juice.C
od is Good, Cod is Great: The Filet-O-Fish StoryIn the early 1960s, a McDonald’s in Cincinnati was beginning to notice a pattern: Friday sales were always low. The reason? The city’s large Catholic population couldn’t eat meat on Fridays. Taking a little initiative, franchise owner Lou Groen asked chairman Ray Kroc if he could expand his menu. He eventually gave in, though, and sponsored some research. The McDonald’s team came back with a cod sandwich. But because Kroc hated the word “cod” (probably from drinking spoonfuls of cod-liver oil as a kid), it was marketed as Filet-O-Fish, and became a permanent addition to the menu in 1963.
Pretzel Logic: One widely accepted account says pretzels were developed in 610 C.E. by an Italian monk. He baked the confections for children as an incentive to memorize scripture. In fact, the shape of the treats reflects this, since the criss-crossed bits are supposed to depict the folded arms of pious children in prayer.
Turning Water Into Welch’s In 1869, Christian dentist and prude extraordinaire Dr. Thomas Welch invented “unfermented wine.” As the good Doc saw it, drinking in alcohol in church was a bit of a contradiction, so he brewed up a batch of the unfermented stuff to wash down Eucharist. Local pastors weren’t interested, though, and a dejected Thomas was sent back to his teeth pulling. Six years later, his son began marketing the beverage—this time as Welch’s Grape Juice.C
od is Good, Cod is Great: The Filet-O-Fish StoryIn the early 1960s, a McDonald’s in Cincinnati was beginning to notice a pattern: Friday sales were always low. The reason? The city’s large Catholic population couldn’t eat meat on Fridays. Taking a little initiative, franchise owner Lou Groen asked chairman Ray Kroc if he could expand his menu. He eventually gave in, though, and sponsored some research. The McDonald’s team came back with a cod sandwich. But because Kroc hated the word “cod” (probably from drinking spoonfuls of cod-liver oil as a kid), it was marketed as Filet-O-Fish, and became a permanent addition to the menu in 1963.
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