The Narrow Road by Brother Andrew contains an amazing story about how he trusted God while being dirt poor. God not only came through miraculously every time, but Andrew learned that he didn’t have to plead, beg, and beat his chest before God in order for God to provide – with Sonship comes the right to maintain your dignity as you trust God to meet your needs, and trusting God does not mean that you must be willing to wander the earth like a beggar. God is more powerful than that. Brother Andrew called this the “Game of the Royal Way”. It has been a very influential concept that has balanced my Christian walk since I first read it in high school. May the Lord give me such faith whenever I am in a place of seemingly insurmountable need.
Author: Ben Taylor
How children, and we, know God
I had a delightful conversation with Beth yesterday reflecting on her experiences at Rainbow Riders Childcare Center, where she currently works, and the idea of whether we would send our children to a Christian preschool or school. Our sense is that many of today’s Christian preschools are kind of propaganda machines. We agreed that we value teaching our children about God, but we think that an overemphasis on the story of Noah, our weekly memory verse, and a simplistic message of salvation can make children “get saved” when they really have no clue what they are doing, they are just being herded blindly into demonstrations of Christianity by teachers too eager to “get them saved young.” The better way is to follow Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s parents and instill critical thinking, asking them to question why. If you do this in a context where Christian practices such as liturgy are observed, and which the children are made a part of, eventually children will ask questions like, “Why do we eat the bread and wine?” And then parents will genuinely answer their questions. This puts an exploration of the sacred mysteries of faith on the same ground as any learning a child does: it’s best done when there is a level of self direction and autonomy by the child. Beth’s Reggio Emelia method supports this, and it makes sense. Now don’t get me wrong, we’re in favor of explicitly teaching the Bible and Christian doctrine. But just in a gradual way that treats doctrines as holy and recognizes that the ability of a child to participate in Christianity grows with their ability to comprehend abstract thought.
At that point I had a thought worth remembering:
As a father, regardless of how much I try to make my children understand the abstract ideas of their Heavenly Father, I am the concept of God they will understand.
Children understand things symbolically and incarnationally. They can have some ideas about Jesus and God, but at a young age he will be in the same category as Santa Clause to them. Beth was saying how her children made up some wild extrapolations about Santa Claus. One said, “Santa Clause lives in the cold, so if he comes out of the cold, he will die!” Child logic is not very trustworthy. Don’t give them guns and knives, and don’t give them complex conceptual structures. I think this goes for telling them about God too.
In fact, really, all of us humans can only really know things through incarnation. I saw this the other day, speaking to my colleague. She said, “I explained everything about an opinion essay to my students, in excruciating detail. Then we went to write one and my students didn’t have a clue.” My response was, “I find that my students don’t have a clue what I’m talking about until they actually do it, or at least look at a good example.” ESL students need concrete examples and models, and they need to participate personally in something, before the intellectual understanding really comes through. Intellectual understanding rarely produces real comprehension by itself.
It occurred to me: This is why Jesus came! He is the incarnation of God to us. He knew that, without him, all of God’s revelations would eventually produce distorted constructs in our minds. We would go about saying, “God can’t leave heaven because he’ll melt,” or things like that. So he took on flesh and dwelt among us, the image of the unseen God.
It puts an immense pressure on me as a future father. Lord, help me not only teach, but BE a right image of you.
And it creates a beautiful sense of awe at the Christian faith, which, more than any other religion, understands the needs of the humans, the incredible mix of spirit and flesh, angel and animal, that we are. Thank you Lord for coming incarnate so that we might know you.
Ecumenism and mystery
Embracing the true mysteries of Christianity is the only way to fulfill Jesus’ prayer that we would be one as he is one with the father, for that union is itself one of paradox.
Ecumenism does not call us to water down doctrinal truth but rather to co-participate in mysteries that are truer than any doctrine that attempts to encapsulate them.
In this way ecumenism can correct the ways that western enlightenment-influenced theology overcorrected when it focused the essence of Christianity into right statements and precise doctrinal systems.
An honest consideration of the Word reveals that it is not the scriptures, but He about whom they testify. Language itself is a sign pointing to Him, and the more true our doctrine, the more we will understand that it does not exist of or for itself, but rather we will look along its arrow at the Living Truth.
We will know that there is more to truth than doctrine, and in this light we will be free to engage with others inside the fold with more generosity, and indeed we will also be able to relate to God more rightly, with a sense of his grandeur. Does it not glorify a father when he has a special relationship with each of many children, so that each knows some different things about him, but all know him truly and intimately?
Consider a child who believes he is the sole possessor of true knowledge about his father and cannot accept that his sibling knows something that he does not. This child knows less about his father that he pretends, for he has equated his father with his knowledge of his father, thereby reducing him to a concept under his control. He will be like Cain. By his disdain for his brother he reveals that he does not know their father and does not truly respect him as a greater, deeper, and realer person.
Far better is the child who remains in childlike awe and dependence upon the father, walking in a way of simple obedience, by all means judging between truth and seditious error and decrying an intruder into the house, but yet humble towards the brothers in all the other rooms in the house, those younger and older, having at the same time a confidence about his own personal knowledge of the father, and a right estimation of his importance, perspective, and intellect in the great household.
The answer rising up in some hearts at that statement is, “Yes, but we cannot compromise on the essentials of the faith! Things like soli scriptura are not simply parts of truth, they are bottom-line non-negotiables, and to put them on the table for discussion is to flirt with apostasy.”
There are certainly essentials. However, do we believe that “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy”? As All Sons and Daughters say in their lyric, “To know you is to love you, and to know so little else.” Are we willing to approach our faith with the humility that comes from a reverent embrace of mystery? Are we willing to admit that our doctrine does not comprise all truth, knowing that this does not invalidate our doctrine, but rather exalts truth beyond the realm of human logic. Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!
Two colliding narratives, and the only true story
Recently I have encountered two colliding narratives of the Christian life.
One is the War Zone narrative, that we are people who are fighting the lethargy, wealth-padded complacency, and provincial pettiness fueled by the American dream. God is fighting to free hearts from the tangles of empty, misguided “typical” life, which is really no life at all, and release them into an adventure of serving him with reckless abandon. In cutting of the ties that so easily entangle, we can life life to the fullest and seize the day like the Dead Poets’ Society, Bob Goff (Donald Miller’s friend), and The Jeskes. This harmonizes with stories like The Lord of the Rings, where small-town hobbits are forever changed by induction into the bigger world at war. The greater world of God suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. At the heart of the War Zone reality is the truth that we know God through sacrifice.
The other is the Green Pasture narrative, that we are people fighting the futile ambition, self-industrialization, and hubris fueled by the American dream. God is fighting to debunk the illusion that one can improve himself by effort, which in the church looks like striving for “personal growth” and “doing ministry”. He wants us to focus on him, not what we can do for him or what can be done for the Church (he will tell us if he wants us to do something, and he will handle the propagation of his church). We are, fundamentally, children, and our Christian life is to be in awe at his immense mystery and beauty. Cease striving and know that I am God. We must embrace the beauty and mystery of God in the everyday things, and through this, embrace God. Like in About Time, and Jayber Crow and The Incredibles and It’s a Wonderful Life, God calls us to be like Mary, not Martha. We are to abide in him, the well-spring of living water that quenches every thirst, the shepherd who makes us lie down in green pastures. At the heart of the Green Pasture reality is the truth that we know God through pleasure.
The troubling thing about these two narratives is that they are both quite true and yet apparently in opposition. If it’s war time you shouldn’t sit on your laurels. But if it’s green pasture you shouldn’t go running about taking matters into your own hands. The warriors accuse the sheep of laziness and ridicule them for their half-heartedness in their sermons. The sheep think the warriors are nuts and yet perhaps they do not take hold of certain deeper realities of Christianity because they can in fact only be won by suffering and relinquishing. The only way out is to conclude that either can be true, or both true to different degrees, in any person’s life at any given time. God deals with us individually, knowing the thoughts and motivations of our hearts. Luke is called beyond Tatooine, but the lost pets in Homeward Bound just want to get back to normal. It seems that in life, leaving home and returning home are constantly swinging back and forth as the active elements of the plot God is weaving for us. The two will always be in balance, in tension, in flux.
As a consequence, all voices of culture that are broadcasting one narrative or the other are suspect, and it becomes very difficult for anyone to say anything about the Christian life. All personal narratives about “what God did in my life” are stripped of their prescriptive authority. It becomes very difficult for me to tell someone based on my story whether they need to be more ambitious and get off the couch, or that they are working too hard and need to just trust. How do I know whether their rest or effort is motivated by faith, though mine was not? Motivational speakers, missionaries, authors, pastors, and spiritual pundits ought to beware of saying what everyone needs more of or less of in our culture today, or even publicly relating “testimonies” about how God did amazing things when I threw away my CDs and started helping at the soup kitchen (so you can too, and don’t forget we’re commanded to). In a sense, the post-modern mantra shows some truth: “What’s true for me is true for me, and what’s true for you is true for you.”
How can universal prophecy and truth survive if everything is individualized, if metanarratives are demoted to mere narratives? What image of the Christian life binds us together in one reality, and by what authority does it do so? What is left when all the clamoring talkers of Christianity have been cleared out? There is a metanarrative that speaks with divine power and mystery beyond words. Through the scriptures and sacraments of the holy Church, Christ’s Body and Voice preserved through the ages, we experience the true narrative, the historical Gospel, narrated by the patriarchs. When all other narratives have lost the power of metanarrative, one Voice remains imbued with universal authority by God and speaks with all the force of divine mystery, enacting spiritual realities that transcend words, and creating in the Christian the balance between War and Pasture, like the balance between cold Yin and hot Yang, which is tended in the soul by none but the Spirit of the Living God. It behooves us, therefore, to inquire of the Church as to the narrative she received from the apostles and gave also to us. Amidst many who claim to speak for God, we must go back to scripture, to the teachings of the early church, and to the sacraments of the church. There we will partake (not merely hear, for it is more like bread than sound) and will know the only true story.
Vicarious aid, or, On World Vision’s recent decision and the response
For some odd reason, despite myself, and despite (or perhaps because of) the tense, divisive potential energy of the issue, I get most stirred about current events that relate back to (gay) marriage. And there are a lot of them. It’s like watching a great historical shift take place, one event at a time. The last big one was Duck Dynasty, and now we have World Vision. When I am old, I will probably see it all from a distance and remember it as one big shift.
On March 24, World Vision decided to allow the hiring of gay people. After their evangelical constituency dropped support of some 2,000 children within 48 hours, they changed the policy back. Here is a take on the whole goings on. It is quite biased and polemic, but I chose it because it sums up the feelings of many people regarding the issue, including many members of the Church, including some people in my church.
There is some real, honest angst against the evangelical bloc in these young Christians’ hearts, for good reason: they can’t understand why you would make a little child suffer, make them a victim it the culture war you are waging against the gay agenda. They can’t understand why you would pull your support from “the least of these” because you find it more important to protest a gay person joining in your support of those poor children.
I affirm wholeheartedly that the sympathy towards those poor children is justified. They are indeed victims and their well-being must be prized above all. Yet, I will admit, before World Vision recanted, I was seriously considering pulling my support and giving it to another humanitarian organization. (N.B. I do not sponsor a child directly, I support general funds at World Vision.) I was probably going to do it. How on earth could I do such a thing? The question, the heart-cry of my generation, demands an answer. Indeed, were they not crying out, my own heart would demand answer: it is a matter of resolving the cognitive dissonance in my own mind and aligning my heart and mind on the subject. So let me undertake here to explain to myself and my generation the truth that I hope and believe is not in opposition to love, but that mingles with it necessarily to create that divine balance we are called to speak.
As I do so, by the way, I would like to point out that I have moved away from association with evangelicalism, for some reasons that bear at least external resemblance to those listed by Rachel Held Evans, and for some quite different ones. Therefore I would ask not be considered as a spokesperson for evangelicalism here, and to be given freedom from association with the good deal of baggage that the evangelical bloc brings to this issue. Listen to me as a millenial follower of Jesus who is struggling to make sense and harmony of his life- and ego-shattering teachings.
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So. I believe that my intended withdrawal of my funds from World Vision is not in opposition to my care and concern for those poor children. In fact, I believe deeply that it is because I hold a very great concern for them that I intended to withdraw my funds. Follow me:
First premise: True aid is always personal. The aid is devoid of its deepest meaning in absence of the personal context through which it is delivered. That’s why aid to Africa is often abused–give a man food impersonally, and he’ll stash it and steal his neighbor’s. Teach a man generosity by example, and he will, with God’s help, become a generous man. To truly aid someone, I must give them myself, not my money or my food.
So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us. (1 Thess 2:8)
Jesus did not send a message, but came to us Himself. Perhaps he knew that we needed his aid, not “aid” in abstract. As Marshall McLuhan said, “the medium is the message.” The people are the aid.
Second premise: In big aid organizations like World Vision the sponsors are not the ones personally giving the aid. Let’s face it: the connection that a sponsor in America has with that child in Bangladesh is vicarious, ephemeral, and superficial. Sure, you wrote them a note and they drew you a picture. But they think of you sort of like Santa Claus, not like a father or mother. Have you ever hugged them, or picked them up, or heard their voice? Have you really experienced their situation, met their caregiver, seen their school, walked between their house and the well that World Vision built to get water? Sponsoring a child through World Vision cannot be said to be truly aiding them, but rather to be sponsoring someone else to aid them. In large organizations like World Vision, the American sponsors have outsourced charity (in the old sense, meaning love) and been left with mere charity (in the new sense, meaning money). Even if true charity is done with our money, it is not we who do it in the fullest sense. I think that’s why World Vision lets you sponsor a child and get pictures of them, etc.– we want to feel a semblance of the personal connection we know must be there. Am I saying that sponsoring a child is bad? By no means! It just shouldn’t be confused with charity in the fullest sense. It’s good, but it only a part of the good that ought to be given, because the real ministry, the ultimate consummation of the aid, comes through the actual hands and feet that lovingly deliver that food and water, or teach in that dirt-floored one-room elementary school. For better or worse, we are doing only half of the ministry, and trusting those people we are paying to do the other half.
Third premise: The aid that we are called to give is aid in the name of Jesus. Aid apart from the name of Jesus is good, but it is less good, because aid in the name of Jesus has the ability not only to fill bellies or give people education, but to change the whole person–to bring not only water for the throat but the wellspring of living water, which, if you drink it, you will never thirst again. When I say “aid in the name of Jesus” I don’t mean aid from an organization that is branded as Christian, or is a politically or culturally “Christian” organization. I don’t mean sending children to Christian schools, per se. What I mean is that the Holy Spirit of Jesus, indwelling the body of a believer, ministers the food or water or health checkup to the child. In other words, there is something holy and importantly different when an anointed peasant-priest of God pours the cup of water, then looks into the eyes of that child and says, “God loves you, little girl.” It is almost an illocutionary act that changes reality, like when the pastor says, “I pronounce you husband and wife.” Bob Hitching said in a blog post on April 2 that he “would put serving the poor in the list of sacraments.” Therefore, it is crucial that the person giving the aid be a true believer.
Now, if you are giving aid yourself, that is pretty straightforward. You must have faith in God to be present with his sacramental power in your acts of love. However, if you are just supporting an aid organization, the situation is a bit different. You must have reason to trust the people you are giving money to, that they are true believers. That would be best done by personally knowing the people you are giving money to. We support our friends who are going to Africa because we trust them, because they are our friends and we know their hearts. However, let’s make the practical assumption that I cannot always personally know the people I am supporting or giving aid money to, i.e. I am giving to a big organization. This is the least desirable, perhaps, but necessary at times. In this case, I must vet that organization thoroughly and be super-cautious! What is their fiscal process like? What is their leadership climate? What is the heart of their employees? What are the conditions in the poor region I am funding? I think giving aid to an organization, if I must, demands, rightly, very high expectations for their alignment with the Church and my convictions. The aid is quintessentially the people (premise 1), and the people are those looking the kids in the eye as much as me who buys the food (premise 2), and true aid must be done in the name of Jesus by his holy servants (premise 3). Therefore, if I don’t trust people to be those holy servants, I shouldn’t support the organization. Truly caring about those children — caring about the whole child, body and soul — means that I must find trustworthy personal conduits of the holy spirit to deliver my aid.
The last piece of the puzzle is whether an organization that allows gay people to work there (whether “on the ground” or in administration is irrelevant) can be trusted to deliver true aid as true believers. I won’t go into this, but suffice it to say that I believe it cannot.
I don’t think Christians are in the either-or situation that people threaten them with, because there are no shortage of trustworthy ways to give aid (myself and vicariously), so I don’t have to choose between helping the poor at all and choosing ways to help that are in line with my beliefs.
These thoughts also open up further questions about whether I should devote more of my resources to serving personally instead of supporting through (any) organization. Hm. At least, they seem to resolve the issue with World Vision.
“Caught in the Middle” by Wendell Berry
In this essay, Wendell Berry cogently discusses abortion and gay marriage, with plenty of rhetoric thrown in that is skeptical of government and industrialization. I’m not sure if I agree with him, especially on gay marriage, but he makes some challenging points.
Two doubts
A friend asked me last week, “What is the viewpoint of Christianity on people who believe in Jesus as their savior, but they have doubt about it?” Here is my reply:
I had to think about your question for a few minutes. I think there are two ways to doubt, and I think the Christian view depends on which way the person doubts. To illustrate my opinion about the two ways to doubt, read Matthew 14:22-32, the story of Jesus walking on the water.
Peter shows two kinds of faith. The first faith says, “Jesus is really who he says he is.” Jesus says, “It’s me, not a ghost,” and Peter believes him and tests him. He doesn’t just test him by saying, “Okay, what did we eat for breakfast yesterday?”, he tests him by asking God to do something for him that only God could do. In this case, Peter believed that Jesus, who had the power of God, could make him walk on water. A ghost couldn’t do that. I feel like there is a comparison between this and the faith that says, “God, if you are really who you say you are in the Bible, save me,” and then makes an action of the heart to “step out of the boat” in trust.
There’s another kind of faith. Peter looked at the waves and then began to sink, because he doubted. What did he doubt? I don’t think he was doubting whether it was really Jesus at that point. He was doubting whether he could really walk on water. (I don’t blame him—it would be freaky.) He lacked faith in himself. Was he really able to do this? By our analogy, this is the doubt that asks, “Am I really able to receive God’s salvation? Do I believe enough? Am I good enough?” Lots of Christians sometimes think, “Am I really saved?”
But this kind of doubt doesn’t mean that a person “might be” a Christian, because, like Timothy Keller tweeted the other day, “It is the object of our faith, not the quality of our faith, that saves us.” That’s a beautiful mystery about Christianity—it’s not on you. You don’t even have to “believe well enough.” Peter cried out to Jesus and Jesus grabbed him and kept him from drowning. God is merciful on one who believes and doubts, but calls to God to help their doubt. I think the other good example of this is in Mark 9:14-29, the story of the boy with the unclean spirit. Personally, I have often felt like that father who cried, “I believe, help my unbelief!” (verse 24).
So every person has to look at their own heart. If they have the kind of doubt that says, “Umm…..I don’t think you are really real,” and stays in the boat, then do they really believe? But if they have stepped out of the boat and truly called out to Jesus in their heart, then they should have no fear about their doubt—God has got them by the hand.
The essential issue
I just reread a series of posts I made over a year ago about gay rights in an attempt to plumb the depths of the Christian stance. It’s always interesting to read yourself from a long while back. Very insightful to read things I wouldn’t otherwise remember saying or thinking. (It also makes me think that I would have to clean this blog before I run for political office, heh.) I suppose I agree with much of what I said then: I still don’t believe gays should be allowed to marry, or that a gay lifestyle is okay. However, I do think that my perspective on how I should approach the issue of gay rights has changed significantly.
Essentially my feeling on the matter is that it’s not worth writing about anymore. Looking back at my posts, considering everything, I just don’t think it’s what I want to focus on. This doesn’t mean I’m changing my position; it just means that, as a believer, I need to play defense on this issue, or deal with it on a need-to-talk basis. This fascinating interview with Rosaria Champagne Butterfield drove home how much overlooking the issue is really the key to dealing with it. If someone brings up the topic, looking for a fight, I’ve got to be like Jesus and hold them off with evasive answers that point to the deeper issues. Often Jesus refused to fall into the traps of the Pharisees and Sadducees when they laid out a controversial catch-22 and held a mic eagerly in his face. He transcended the issues. Taxes to Caesar. Marriage in the afterlife. What authority he did his ministry under. He was a master at bypassing nonessential issues to get to essential ones, and I should have the same approach.
The essential issue that I should focus on as a Christian isn’t homosexuality vs. heterosexuality–in fact it’s not sexuality at all.
Reading St. Augustine’s confessions this year reminded me that sexuality is something to be entirely submitted to the Lord. His conversion experience brought a commitment to total continence and lifelong celibacy. Wow. That’s not something you hardly ever see, at least with express intention, in the evangelical church. Yet it was widely practiced and regarded as superior in the 395 AD church. Is the heart of the married believer any different? No. Being married this past year (since June 2012), I have learned that even in marriage God calls us to lay sexuality on the altar. Whether one partner thinks sex is god or the other thinks it’s gross, or worse if they both err in the same direction, it takes the grace of God to realize that sex is a gift from him, and to have the willpower to stamp it “GOD’S” and let go of our “rights” in the matter.
Reading Out of a Far Country by Christopher Yuan made the final connection between this and the gay issue. He came out as gay and lived that way for several years, getting involved in drugs and drug dealing too. When he did come to faith, it was through brokenness, in prison, through the prayers of his mother. It wasn’t an intellectual decision: he reports his conversion as happening first, then it sort of occurred to him that he should give up drugs, and lastly, his heart already awash with the holy spirit, it dawned on him that his lifestyle was also under God’s say. Yuan never says that he doesn’t feel gay impulses anymore or that he has heterosexual feelings. He isn’t “happily married now with five kids.” Although I haven’t read him further to check, it seems his natural sexual orientation hasn’t changed much. But the most powerful thing that he said in the final chapter was, “I realized God doesn’t call us to heterosexuality. He calls us to holy sexuality.”
Augustine and Yuan brought me to a new understanding of Jesus’ words in Matthew 19:10-12:
The disciples said to him, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.” But he said to them, “Not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it.”
Before I had eschewed the application of this passage to sexual orientation because I had heard it very poorly done by alleged Christians who used it as license for homosexual lifestyle. But that’s not the spirit. Eunuchs don’t have sex. The point is that people abstain from a sexually active lifestyle for various reasons. Perhaps Augustine is one who “made himself a eunuch for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.” Perhaps Yuan is one who has “been so from birth.” (Here I think it unnecessary to split hairs between nature and nurture. My doctor friend Paul assured me that there is no “gay gene” and actually laughed at me for asking. The point being that the feelings or orientation is not expressly willed. And we must agree that this is often the case with those who encounter sexual impulses.)
This passage, together with that confounding one in 1 Corinthians 7 in which Paul recommends celibacy to marriage, seem to make it clear that sexual activity should not control the Christian, or even be assumed as a right or taken for granted. It is granted only to those “to whom it is given”. Christianity doesn’t elevate those who are married (in fact, perhaps the opposite). God ordains marriage as a holy institution between a man and a woman, but there is nothing about marriage or even the orientation capacity to enter it that is of substance in the eternal kingdom. You are not less or more based on your marriage status or sexual orientation, as long as that sexuality is submitted to him and sanctified by him.
The issue with gay rights is the gay agenda, not the people, because the agenda is an ideology that elevates the right to a lifestyle over the message of Christ, that we must lose our life to find it again in him. Sexuality is a smokescreen. It just happens to be a huge part of how humans are wired, and thus a litmus to the heart, but like every single fiber of our heart and every synapse of our mind, it must be buried with Christ in death, until it is raised with him. What part of us will we withhold from God? We will always withhold when his spirit has not overcome us, and we will never withhold when it has.
Thus the essential issue worth chasing, the issue to which all issues return, is an issue of the heart, the love struggle between man and God, the Gospel. In short, I have decided to make my life’s voice more about the gospel and less about issues like gay rights. Of course there is a place for engagement with culture and for articulating the Christian response to things. Yet I am encouraged by the memory that we and our kingdom are not of this world, and that the way to make social change is to champion this one simple message, Christ crucified, and let it wreak havoc on every other sphere.
Socrates and the living word that has a soul
From Socrates’ Phaedrus:
Soc. I cannot help feeling, Phaedrus, that writing is unfortunately like painting; for the creations of the painter have the attitude of life, and yet if you ask them a question they preserve a solemn silence. And the same may be said of speeches. You would imagine that they had intelligence, but if you want to know anything and put a question to one of them, the speaker always gives one unvarying answer. And when they have been once written down they are tumbled about anywhere among those who may or may not understand them, and know not to whom they should reply, to whom not: and, if they are maltreated or abused, they have no parent to protect them; and they cannot protect or defend themselves.
Phaedr. That again is most true.
Soc. Is there not another kind of word or speech far better than this, and having far greater power-a son of the same family, but lawfully begotten?
Phaedr. Whom do you mean, and what is his origin?
Soc. I mean an intelligent word graven in the soul of the learner, which can defend itself, and knows when to speak and when to be silent.
Phaedr. You mean the living word of knowledge which has a soul, and of which written word is properly no more than an image?
Soc. Yes, of course that is what I mean. And now may I be allowed to ask you a question: Would a husbandman, who is a man of sense, take the seeds, which he values and which he wishes to bear fruit, and in sober seriousness plant them during the heat of summer, in some garden of Adonis, that he may rejoice when he sees them in eight days appearing in beauty? at least he would do so, if at all, only for the sake of amusement and pastime. But when he is in earnest he sows in fitting soil, and practises husbandry, and is satisfied if in eight months the seeds which he has sown arrive at perfection?
Phaedr. Yes, Socrates, that will be his way when he is in earnest; he will do the other, as you say, only in play.
Soc. And can we suppose that he who knows the just and good and honourable has less understanding, than the husbandman, about his own seeds?
Phaedr. Certainly not.
Soc. Then he will not seriously incline to “write” his thoughts “in water” with pen and ink, sowing words which can neither speak for themselves nor teach the truth adequately to others?
Phaedr. No, that is not likely.
Soc. No, that is not likely-in the garden of letters he will sow and plant, but only for the sake of recreation and amusement; he will write them down as memorials to be treasured against the forgetfulness of old age, by himself, or by any other old man who is treading the same path. He will rejoice in beholding their tender growth; and while others are refreshing their souls with banqueting and the like, this will be the pastime in which his days are spent.
Phaedr. A pastime, Socrates, as noble as the other is ignoble, the pastime of a man who can be amused by serious talk, and can discourse merrily about justice and the like.
Soc. True, Phaedrus. But nobler far is the serious pursuit of the dialectician, who, finding a congenial soul, by the help of science sows and plants therein words which are able to help themselves and him who planted them, and are not unfruitful, but have in them a seed which others brought up in different soils render immortal, making the possessors of it happy to the utmost extent of human happiness.
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True words live in souls. There is a living word of knowledge, a reality which language points to, that exists in the mind. Words outside souls, on paper or in oration, are but the images or symbols of the reality. St. John calls Jesus “The Word” because the message Jesus communicated to us was not merely spoken or written words but living word, that is, his soul. The True Word was Jesus himself, and his words were the images of him. “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me” (John 5:39). God sent no mere word in ink, nor did he plant his message in the pulp of papyrus, but rather in the soil of living hearts. “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts” (Jeremiah 31:33). He gave more than a divine message or a holy book that “preserves a solemn silence”—he put his Voice into the hearts of his people to be the continual, living fountain of knowledge. Rhema beneath logos. This gift preserves the logos, and protects the texts passed down through history. “He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you” (John 14:26). It is no less than the texts, yet it is much more, for “He will guide you into all the truth” (John 16:13). The Lord, a wise farmer, came and tilled our uncongenial souls, making them suitable soil for his word, and wrote in them “an intelligent word graven in the soul of the learner”, the Holy Spirit that enlivens the Body of Christ and makes us “happy to the utmost extent of human happiness.” The Word lives on the pages of the holy book, but more so, he lives in the souls of the Church. Praise be to God, who, being affectionately desirous of us, did not share with us a proclamation of redemption having “the attitude of life”, but appeared to us as the “living word of knowledge which has a soul,” “being found in the likeness of a man” (Philippians 2:7), and by his death setting up more than a school of scholars—a living and breathing spiritual dynasty that “shall stand forever,” (Daniel 2:44), in whose hearts burns the living knowledge of divine truth.
On the terms “Merry Christmas” and “Happy Holidays”
A lot of people in Christian circles, including me until two weeks ago, grumble about the fact that the term “Christmas” is disappearing from signs, ads, and cultural vernacular, being replaced with vague terms like “the holidays”. However, I recently had a thought that stopped my grumblings: We should appreciate it when people outside the Church replace “Christmas” with “holidays”. Let me explain.
The Christmas season is a Christian holy time remembered by those who follow Christ and honor his birth. However, as an American cultural entity it has increasingly been reduced to a generic holiday—reindeer, Santa, snowmen, snowflakes, Christmas cookies, mistletoe, sleigh bells jingling, Christmas trees, presents. If you’re lucky, some angels and shiny stars that vaguely resemble something from the Bible story. But when someone who is not a Christian celebrates this stuff, he is ripping off the holy, turning the temple of God into a den of “happy feelings”. I went to one of those drive-through Christmas lights shows with my in-laws last week, and there was a big lights display saying “Celebrate our Differences!” with Hanukah, Kwanza, and Christmas icons. Celebrating our differences is not celebrating Christmas. How many times do you see those signs that spell out “Peace on Earth” in ornate typography preceded by the words “Glory to God in the Highest”, which is part of the original quote? In separation, do they not become words of “‘peace, peace’, when there is no peace”? My point is that the secular version of Christmas isn’t of value to the kingdom of God, because generic tidings of comfort and joy do nothing but bolster man’s faith in his own goodness—it is THE tidings of comfort and joy, the message of which the Church is the steward, communicated in full, that are holy. Outside of that message, the aura of Christmas is a distraction at best.
You would rightly ask, doesn’t a cultural celebration of Christmas help weak or “cultural” Christians to get closer to God? Isn’t it better to have a culture where you can occasionally see nativities amidst the holiday gunk? Yes, but the celebration is good to the extent that it comes from the church, not from the culture. Let nativities be put in the front yards of Christians who are often afraid to be seen as Christians, as a step of faith aided and energized by the special gravity of the holy season, rather than as a way to be “traditional” or because it makes the rest of their Christmas lights feel somehow more righteous. And for the family whose minivan sees the nativity while driving around to look at Christmas lights, it is of spiritual value only inasmuch as Dad or Mom explains its real meaning and lifts it up as ultimate. To misunderstand the nativity, or to explain it only partially, lumping it in as just another icon of the “season of good will” alongside warm-hearted Scrooges and Grinches and miracles on 34th Street, is to put a muzzle on the power of the nativity and the good news that it means. And we should not expect our “culture” to fully understand the message of the Incarnation nor preach it rightly—that is the job of the Church.
So let “Merry Christmas” be said by those who really mean it, and as for those who hesitate to say it, preferring “Happy Holidays”—those who do not identify with Christianity, or who lay claim to it in sentiment yet deny its power and render it neither exclusivity nor authority—let them be welcome to refer to their generic celebration of human virtue or family ties in generic terms. In fact, I regard it as a sign of respect for Christmas that people are no longer willing to refer to the generic celebration by that name. We who believe in the true meaning of Christmas must observe it in a sacred way that brings its full weight to our hearts and the hearts of those who watch us observe it, so that it will be made evidently more than and distinct from a winter break or time off or a time to see relatives or to give gifts and charity—as the holy day of the birth of Christ our Lord.
Ben Taylor 