Karl Barth and Donald Trump

Mere Orthodoxy has a nice post about Karl Barth’s warning to contemporary evangelicalism. The short of it is the church looses its voice when it tries to do theology driven by contemporary culture. You can find it here.

How does Barth avoid this trap? Like this:

[The church] must never forget what it has to proclaim, that the history of Israel and the history of mankind have attained their goal and in end in Jesus Christ, and that this goal and this end are now the prius for every human life. It has to take seriously the fact that the time in which we live post Christum is the final time, the time when the pendulum is swinging for the last time, and there is no more room, for the rise and perpetuation of independent human kingdoms alongside and in competition with the kingdom of God which has come, but all such kingdoms can only prove fleeting shadows. This being so, how can it try to found such a kingdom in the name of Jesus Christ? How can it try to present and preserve itself as such? This attempt can be made only in misunderstanding and error. It can only lead to shipwreck.

Church Dogmatics, III.2.47.4

This was published in 1948. Barth certainly had plenty he could say about the rise of nationalism and the church’s temptation toward it. As Calvin devoted multiple chapters and pages to the errors of the Roman church of his day; Barth could have devoted chapters to the errors of the German church’s capitulation to Nazism. And like Calvin’s chapters on Rome, Barth’s chapters on Nazism would have been the least useful to following generations.

Instead, Barth totally undresses the folly in one paragraph. And he does so in a way that speaks directly to American Christians in 2022. Once again, many in the church are playing the whore for a charismatic leader. Once again, it can only lead to shipwreck.

Thankful for Covid

I am thankful for the dark Covid scourge of 2020. I am thankful that Covid has revealed the heart of man in all its fear and pride; hypocrisy and anger; skepticism and gullibility; loneliness and lust.

We have rejected God’s law so it is only good and right that He use other means to accomplish this work.

Psalm 119:81-88 Kaph A Prayer

When is this going to end Lord? When will you intervene on my behalf? If I am to keep your truth, I need your help. You are my only hope Lord. I have not forgotten you nor forsaken your word. But a trap waits for every step I take. The arrogant seek my humiliation.

~~~

A short prayer because this octave is one of lament. Many of the Psalms argue against my thesis, but I think those in deep distress don’t usually have time to compose poetic prayers of artistry. But I don’t want anyone to feel they are not getting the full value of their subscription: so a few extra notes.

Note how every verse alternates between condition and request.

Note the several couplets: longing soul and eyes (1,2); not forgetting or forsaking (83, 87); persecute me (84, 87); and “do not live” (85) with “give me life” (88). So every verse has a connection with one other verse, but it is not a rigid connection. That is to say, all of the requests do not match other requests; or conditions match other conditions. There is not chiasmus or inclusion. It is the art of the Psalms- the pattern is there, but it is not firm. It is a regular irregularity.

Psalm 119:25-32 Daleth A prayer

When my soul is dry and dying; when I am weak from weeping- according to your word give strength, give life. You know my ways and you know that when they are mine they are false. So teach me. Teach me your law and statutes. Make me understand your way, choose your way, run in your way. O Lord I cling to your truth. Make me love it.

Psalm 119:17-24 Gimel A prayer

You have spoken wondrous things. Reveal your revelation to me. Open my eyes to the glory of your truth and do not hide it from me. Not the sight of a quick glance, or unexpected epiphany; but the vision of longing and meditation. I seek it. Not as something to be found and lost again. You will show me when I love- may I love what you show.

Psalm 119:9-16 Beth A prayer

O Lord it is you I seek. For you my heart longs. Fix my eyes on the ways of you word. Sin distracts me and leads me astray- I wander from your ways. Your word fills up my heart and runs through my mind until my lips are your mouth.

Psalm 119:1-8 Aleph A prayer

O Lord keep me diligent, steadfast, and fixed in your ways. Keep my heart, for out of it flows all of life. Keep my eye,s for they are the window of my soul and it light. Honor me with your presence- all your words lead to you.

Sex and beauty

For the unbegotten and incorporeal beauty, that knows neither beginning nor decay, but is unchangeable and ageless and without need, He who abides in Himself and is Light itself in secret and unapproachable places, embracing all things in the orbit of His power, creating and arranging them—He it is who made the soul in the image of His likeness. This is why it is endowed with reason and immortality; for, fashioned…in the image of the Only-Begotten, it has an unsurpassed loveliness.

St. Methodius. The Symposium: A Treatise on Chastity

While this quote comes from A Treatise on Chastity¸ I am going to end up in quite a different place.

God is beautiful. Splendor and majesty are before him; strength and beauty are in his sanctuary. Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth. One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple. Your eyes will behold the king in his beauty.

The Lord is beautiful. In his perfection of beauty he created. The Master Artificer fashioned man and woman in his image and likeness- in beauty. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Creation flows from the Beautiful One. Supreme in loveliness, God is not a narcissist. Beauty is not closed off or opaque. Beauty is open. Beauty creates. Beauty gives life.

Sex is beautiful. Sex is beautiful because man and woman-as mankind-are made in God’s image: the beautiful One who creates and gives life. The command to be fruitful and multiply is a command to be like God.

Now perhaps I tread close to the wrong-headed teaching that the only virtue of sex is procreation. As if rabbits are the holiest of all God’s creatures. That is not where I am going, but I understand how the church got there.

Beauty is ordered. If sex is beautiful, it is ordered. It is ordered by the command given to a husband and wife. One man and one woman.

Homosexuality is sinful. It is not sinful because it is gross, or weird, or abominable. It is abominable because it is not beautiful; it is not creative. It is anti-God. Homosexuality is fundamentally selfish in that it is inherently non-creative. Beauty gives life. Homosexuality is impotent.

Sex with a man and his wife is beautiful. Two people, fundamentally different yet essentially the same, submit to the will of the Creator and are open to an intruder into their love. Not content with the love and compassion shared between them, a man and a woman do something beautiful. A man and a woman join together and bring into their love a third.

In the splendor of beauty God creates. God creates a man and a woman in his beautiful image and ordains they create. In unsurpassed beauty, God’s creation images him in creating.

Meditation on a ruptured Achilles: thoughts of the temporarily disabled.

On February 19th I ruptured my Achilles tendon playing basketball. Six days later I had surgery to “sew” it back together. About six days from now, I might be out of my walking boot and back into shoes. Having a ruptured Achilles has slowed me down. I’ve gone from a walking boot, to hard splint, back to a walking boot. It has given me an opportunity to briefly walk in the shoes, or shoe, of the disabled.

People are inconsiderate. Inconsiderate is the best word I can think of. People are not rude to me, they are just inconsiderate. People think of themselves and their situation and not the other person.

Don’t get me wrong, some people are more than inconsiderate. Like my boss who asked me the very day I had my hard splint off and went back into a walking boot if I could go back to regular work-duty now.

Most people are just inconsiderate. Most people mean no malice. They do not seem to think poorly of me, or look down on me, or try to trip me, they just do not think of me as needing anything out of the ordinary. People are not rude, at least not intentionally; they just do not care about those in need.

Maybe it is just me. Maybe I should have missed more work. Maybe I shouldn’t be so introverted and stoic. Maybe people do care for those who are truly disabled. Maybe abled people do look out for those missing limbs and not for those whose ailment is obviously temporary. I don’t know.

But I hope this temporary injury makes me more considerate. I hope I become more compassionate. Especially toward those who are suffering.

 

The waters of judgement and restoration

I change up my Bible reading every year- do something different to try to break up the monotony. Every 3 or 4 years I will read 10 chapters a day- which takes me through the OT twice in a year and the New Testament almost 4 times. It is good because you are always reading something different, even when you are reading chapters you have already read that year. It is bad because it is 10 chapters spread out over all the Bible…and the mind can wander.

To combat the wandering I look for particular themes. I am always looking for Trinitarian passages; Day of the Lord passages; and in Proverbs I am looking for verses that talk about wine. I am also looking for connections between passages that I would not otherwise see. Today was a fruitful day for such a connection: water. Following are the passages I read today that spoke about water. It is quite the story of sin, judgment, repentance, and restoration.

Be appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the LORD, for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water. (Jeremiah 2:12-13)

The woman Folly is loud; she is seductive and knows nothing. She sits at the door of her house; she takes a seat on the highest places of the town, calling to those who pass by, who are going straight on their way, “Whoever is simple, let him turn in here!” And to him who lacks sense she says, “Stolen water is sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.” But he does not know that the dead are there, that her guests are in the depths of Sheol. (Proverbs 9:13-18)

The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried, and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish.  (Luke 16:22-25)

 “Come, let us return to the LORD; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him. Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.” (Hosea 6:1-3)

God settles the solitary in a home; he leads out the prisoners to prosperity, but the rebellious dwell in a parched land. O God, when you went out before your people, when you marched through the wilderness, Selah the earth quaked, the heavens poured down rain, before God, the One of Sinai, before God, the God of Israel. Rain in abundance, O God, you shed abroad; you restored your inheritance as it languished; your flock found a dwelling in it; in your goodness, O God, you provided for the needy.

Your procession is seen, O God, the procession of my God, my King, into the sanctuary— the singers in front, the musicians last, between them virgins playing tambourines: “Bless God in the great congregation, the LORD, O you who are of Israel’s fountain!” (Psalm 68:6-10, 24-26)