skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Not only is tomorrow our tenth wedding anniversary (woo-hoo!), but it’s also John Calvin’s 500th birthday, kicking off a plethora of celebratory conferences the reformed evangelical world-over (to the indifference of the vast majority of the earth’s population no doubt!).Rather coincidentally, I’ve just re-read the opening of Calvin’s Institutes for a SALT article, discussing the interconnected nature of our identity with that of our Creator. So for your edification, here’s the first paragraph of Calvin’s majestic work, in all its elegance:Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But, while joined by many bonds, which one precedes and brings forth the other is not easy to discern. In the first place, no one can look upon himself without immediately turning his thoughts to the contemplation of God, in whom he “lives and moves” [Acts 17:28]. For, quite clearly, the mighty gifts with which we are endowed are hardly from ourselves; indeed, our very being is nothing but subsistence in the one God. Then, by these benefits shed like dew from heaven upon us, we are led as by rivulets to the spring itself. [1]
Read on!_____
[1] Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1.1.1. (Trans. Ford Lewis Battles; Westminster John Knox Press, 1960), pp 35-36.
After a brief post-church discussion today on N.T. Wright and the New Perspective(/s on Paul), I went digging for a *simple* comparison with the “old” Reformed position. Lo and behold I have just discovered one such summary produced by Christianity Today, contrasting Wright’s understanding of justification with that of John Piper. You can download the whole article as a PDF. It’s still not easy to distinguish the two unless you know what you’re looking for, but the paragraphs on how justification works spell out the differences most clearly:John Piper > By faith we are united with Christ Jesus so that in union with him, his perfect righteousness and punishment are counted as ours (imputed to us). In this way, perfection is provided, sin is forgiven, wrath is removed, and God is totally for us. Thus, Christ alone is the basis of our justification, and the faith that unites us to him is the means or instrument of our justification. Trusting in Christ as Savior, Lord, and Supreme Treasure of our lives produces the fruit of love, or it is dead.In other words: justification primarily speaks about our relationship with God (the vertical), i.e. a statement about how you get in to God’s family: the declaration that those in Christ (by faith in his atoning death and resurrection) are in a right relationship with God.N.T. Wright > God himself, in the person of Jesus Christ (the faithful Israelite), has come, allowing the continuation of his plan to rescue human beings, and, through them, the world. The Messiah represents his people, standing in for them, taking upon himself the death that they deserved. God justifies (declares righteous) all those who are “in Christ,” so that the vindication of Jesus upon his resurrection becomes the vindication of all those who trust in him. Justification refers to God’s declaration of who is the covenant (this worldwide family of Abraham through whom God’s purposes can now be extended into the wider world) and is made on the basis of faith in Jesus Christ alone, not the “works of the Law” (i.e., badges of ethnic identity that once kept Jews and Gentiles apart).In other words: justification primarily speaks about our relationship with each other (the horizontal), i.e. a statement that you are in God’s family: the declaration that those in Christ, both Jew and Gentile, are now included together in God’s people on the basis of faith and not the Jewish law.
Is this a fair summary? Or a gross over-simplification?
Paul Grimmond’s Sola Panel post yesterday on Pathetic Preaching reminded me of Jonathan Edwards' great quote about the necessary relationship between the affections and preaching:
I should think myself in the way of my duty, to raise the affections of my hearers as high as possibly I can, provided that they are affected with nothing but truth, and with affections that are not disagreeable to the nature of the subject. I know it has long been fashionable to despise a very earnest and pathetical way of preaching; and they only have been valued as preachers, who have shown the greatest extent of learning, strength of reason, and correctness of method and language. But I humbly conceive it has been for want of understanding or duly considering human nature, that such preaching has been thought to have the greatest tendency to answer the ends of preaching; and the experience of the present and past ages abundantly confirms the same.
The aim of preaching, surely, is to see the whole inner person transformed by the Spirit-empowered word of God: not just to convict the mind, but as well to stir the affections of the heart, and move the will to action for the glory of Jesus.
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a short article for the SALT ID issue tentatively entitled: freaks & cliques: identity, acceptance and the grace of God, with two very basic points:- unwelcoming cliques: forming in-crowds and excluding others within Christian communities undercuts the very character and work of God in graciously saving a people for himself, and therefore does violence to our identity as his people.
- welcoming freaks: the key corporate marker of Christian communities is grace: i.e. our welcoming and care of each other (in all our freakiness) is shaped by the very grace God has lavished upon us in Jesus (our homeless, despised, forsaken substitute): “Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.” (Rom 15:7).
However, I want to further draw out some practical steps for removing cliques and engendering a culture of acceptance in Christian groups. Here’s a few off the top of my head:- Pray before each small group or public meeting that God will use you to welcome newcomers and befriend those on the fringe rather than merely catch up with your mates.
- Let all your relationships be shaped by God’s grace rather self-centred, worldly standards, both in who you relate to and how you relate to them.
- Don’t judge others on matters of Christian freedom and conscience rather than biblical truth, e.g. fashion, taste in music and movies, singing with raised hands etc.
- Seek to demolish any unnecessary barriers in your groups or public meetings that draw a distinction between insiders and the outsiders, e.g. alienating jargon / acronyms or unexplained rituals. ...
Any other suggestions? Fire away ...
photo by ariaphotography
Five reasons why this might be the most thrilling film of 2009:- Source: Adapted from the haunting, Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Cormac McCarthy about a father and son trekking across a cannibal-infested, post-apocalyptic landscape to find the sea and hopefully life. If this is half as good a story as his previous adaptation, No Country For Old Men, this will be a superb outing.
- Director: John Hillcoat is one of the most underrated, yet most atmospheric directors of our age. He virtually personified the Australian landscape as a character in The Proposition in a way that Baz Luhrman could never dream of doing in his lacklustre Australia.
- Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Charlize Theron, Robert Duvall & Guy Pearce. Forget LOTR, watch The End of Violence and Eastern Promises, if you want to see the potential of Viggo. Gravitas and pathos, in a single glance!
- Music: Nick Cave. "The musical prince of darkness". Soundtrack to The Proposition. Say no more.
- Genre: Post-apocalyptic, road movie. Heart of Darkness meets 28 Days Later meets Deliverance?!
Due for worldwide release on October 16, 2009. Bring it on.
We finally watched The Wrestler after Doug’s emphatic recommendation. Let me say up front this is a brilliantly acted, directed, and scripted film, but is nonetheless thoroughly depressing! It’s basically the story of a washed up wrestler, Randy the Ram (Mickey Rouke), weighing up his failing career against the possibility of a relationship with stripper Cassidy (Marisa Tomei) and reconciliation with his daughter, Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood). Along the way he has to tackle some pretty huge midlife crises: the dilemmas of youth vs aging, success vs failure, ambition vs self-delusion, desire vs despair, relationships vs loneliness, family vs fame etc.The acting is very strong; Rouke particularly was incredible and should’ve bagged the Oscar. The direction by Aronofsky is stellar, guiding the story with stark, spare honesty (note: the sharp cuts between the wrestling and the post-match licking of wounds), rather than the usual earnest, melodramatic pulling of heartstrings. The dialogue is real and raw, with the most intriguing interaction between Randy and Cassidy about the Ram’s war wounds, comparing him to the Jesus of The Passion of the Christ: “Jesus just takes it. He’s a tough dude. He’s a sacrificial lamb.”All up, The Wrestler is the sad story of many people, seen through the sad story of one dysfunctional wrestler. Tragically, true love, redemption and reconciliation allude him, leaving him with nothing but the empty, spectacle of wrestling itself:
“You know in this life you can lose everything you love, everything that loves you. Now I don't hear as good as I used to and I forget stuff and I aint as pretty as I used to be but god damn it I'm still standing here and I'm The Ram. As times goes by, they say "he's washed up", "he's finished", "he's a loser", "he's all through". You know what? The only one that's going to tell me when I'm through doing my thing is you people here. You're my family."
Watch it only if you’re feeling emotionally robust, because it will knock the wind out of you like a body slam from the top ropes!
The three plenary talks from the apprentice conference are now up on the AFES website:
1) God's Heart & Emotions - Archie Poulos
2) Our Heart & Emotions - Archie Poulos
3) A Heart for God & His People - Richard Chin
Enjoy!
Below are some resources - articles, books and talks - that I found helpful in preparing the material for the apprentice conference. Consider this just a starter list. Any further suggestions, welcome!
- D. G. Benner, ‘Emotions’, Evangelical Dictionary of Theology (Baker, 1984).
- Brian S. Borgman, Feelings and faith: cultivating godly emotions in the Christian life (Crossway, 2009), first few chapters at crossway.org.
- O.R Brandon, ‘Heart’, EDT (Baker, 1984).
- Peter Brain, Going the Distance: How to stay fit for a lifetime of ministry (Matthias Media, 2004), especially chapter 5 on depression and 6 on anger.
- Jonathan Edwards, The Religious Affections (Banner of Truth, 1997) or at ccel.org.
- Matthew Elliot, Faithful Feelings: Emotion in the New Testament (IVP, 2005).
- Richard Gibson, "Desiring God - rethinking the emotions", 6 talks given at Mitchelton Presbyterian Church (October 18 & 19, 2003).
- John Piper, Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian hedonist (IVP, 2003); When I Don't Desire God: How to Fight for Joy (Crossway Books, 2004); desiringgod.org resources.
- Archie Poulos, ‘Worldly passions, holy affections: How to cultivate a discerning mind’, The Briefing #366, March 2009 (Matthias Media); ‘Building passion for God’, sydneyanglicans.net, 5 March 2009.
- Brian Rosner (ed.), The Consolations of Theology (Eerdmans, 2008).
- B. B. Warfield, ‘The Emotional Life of Our Lord’, the-highway.com.
In the same Esquire piece (“Who’s afraid of the dark?”, 03.09), there’s a perceptive quote about the nature of horror films:
“Scary movies serve the same function in the 20th and 21st centuries that fairy tales served the children of an earlier age – to make our broadest and vaguest terrors into something concrete and therefore confrontable.”
Marche then goes on to show very briefly how each generation’s fears are expressed and challenged in the cinema:
1950s = nuclear threat / radioactive mutation > Godzilla, The Blob, Them!
1970s = mindless consumerism > Dawn of the Dead
1990s = genetic manipulation > Species
2000s = knowing, without understanding > Knowing, The Box
I don’t know if you can easily assign horror sub-genres to each generation (zombies, vampires and aliens never get old!), but I do think there is something to this idea. Horror films offer a packaged catharsis for our existential anxieties, momentarily supplying resolution to the chaos of our lives.
So I wonder if the freaky apocalyptic literature of the Bible (e.g. Daniel, Zechariah and Revelation) aims to do the same thing, but obviously in a much more profound way, i.e. visualizing our deepest fears, as well giving us a vision of their eschatological resolution in the sovereign plans of God?
photo by cayusa
Esquire magazine includes in every issue a sharp, though easily digestible, little piece entitled “1000 words on culture”, capturing some zeitgeisty element of contemporary western culture. I caught up with a few issues at the library yesterday (with the boy), but the piece on fear stood out, “Who’s afraid of the dark?” (03.09). It’s a short and insightful diagnosis of the extreme anxiety that marks our present era. The author, Stephen Marche, summarises the crisis this way:“We’re not entering a Great Depression so much as a Great Incomprehension: We just have no idea what’s happening and no clue how bad things are going to get. Therefore we fear. Our spiritual condition of the moment, in our intellectual confusion, our down-spiraling economy, our various wars against we don’t know who, is a fearful lack of understanding: Something is out there. We know it must be logical, but that’s all we know.”
And his Socratic conclusion:“Maybe we need to lose our fear of the unknown and show a little humility about the limitations of knowledge. Because if nothing else, that might point us to the fragility and glory of the world we live in.”
Now there’s something biblical in this reflection about our need for epistemic humility, i.e. “the secret things belong to God” (Deut 29:29) and our "dim" view of reality this side of Jesus’ return (1 Cor 13:12) etc, but surely the Bible goes further. Though our knowledge is indeed limited and provisional, we still have true revelation entrusted to us from God and so still have sufficient insight not only into the world, but into the very God who created it and has promised to renew it. Therefore, though our world is rocked by global financial crises, pandemics and celebrity deaths, our hope in the kingdom of God cannot be shaken (Heb 12:28). And that points us away from the fragility of ourselves and to the glory of God.photo by cayusa
Admittedly, I’ve never been a big fan of Michael Jackson, but there is something quite weird about a world without him in it. In fact, I can never remember a time when he wasn’t a big part of the cultural landscape (for good or ill). So his death is tragic and even shocking because the world has shifted as result. As John Donne aptly put it: “Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind." (Meditation XVII)This morning, John Piper soberly captured this truth, namely how both Jackson and Fawcett’s deaths are but a drop in the ocean of mortality that grips us all:@JohnPiper: Farrah Fawcett (62), Michael Jackson (50) and 150,000 others: "A flower of the field; the wind passes, and it is gone."
It’s worth reading the quoted verse of Psalm 103 with a bit more context, to see not only the pathos of the human condition, but also the enduring hope for those in trust in the Lord:
[13] As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.
[14] For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.
[15] As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field;
[16] for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more.
[17] But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children's children,
[18] to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments.
[19] The Lord has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all.
[20] Bless the Lord, O you his angels, you mighty ones who do his word, obeying the voice of his word!
[21] Bless the Lord, all his hosts, his ministers, who do his will!
[22] Bless the Lord, all his works, in all places of his dominion. Bless the Lord, O my soul!
My follow up question to the SALT cover one is, ‘What type of layout best helps people engage with the subject matter of an article?’ Do graphics help or distract? And to what degree does visual imagery draw you into or away from the text?The two basic approaches are below:1) minimal graphics > a simple, clean layout with lots of text, some white space, the occasional pull-quote and at most one small graphic per article. E.g. The Monthly magazine.
2) layered graphics > a more complex, textured layout, with side-bars, pull-quotes and multiple graphics (graphs, maps etc.) explaining and illustrating the text of the article. E.g. Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, Esquire.
- Which one works best for you?
- Which one do you think would work best for SALT? Why?- Which magazines, in your opinion, strike the right balance between text and graphics?
I’m still trying to work out how to package the identity issue of SALT with a suitably arresting cover. Here’s the two concept designs I’ve come up with so far:*1) The avatar cover > (left) the cover becomes a visual contents page with one personal icon for each article; vibe: funky, fun and (a bit manga-pop) fruity.
2) The identikit cover > (right) the covers bears a composite face comprised of seven facial slivers from different individuals; vibe: more serious, sombre and sinister.
So which of these two concepts do you think is personally more appealing, i.e. which cover would more likely lure you into the magazine itself?_____
*Note: these images are merely concept thumbnails, not proper cover drafts by any stretch of the imagination!
God through Jesus and by the Spirit is recreating us in his own image. Just as our depravity was total, in that it effected every part of us, so too is God’s work of sanctification. He renews not only our intellect and will, but our emotions as well (Rom 12:1-2; Phil 2:13; Eph 5:1-2). God’s love is poured into our hearts through the gift of the Spirit (Rom 5:5), so that we may know God in Jesus and call him Father (2 Cor 4:6; Gal 4:6), and so we can now delight in the goodness of God, love him wholeheartedly and repent of our sin with great sorrow.
Spiritually empowered then, we can now choose to love God, rather than money, pleasure or evil (2 Tim 3:2-5). We can be angry, yet not sin in our anger (Eph 4:26). We can have “godly grief” that leads to salvation, rather than “worldly grief” that leads to death (2 Cor 7:10). We can be “divinely jealous”, not about ourselves, but for God and the fate of his people (2 Cor 11:2). Likewise our anxiety can be turned upward to God in prayer (Phil 4:6), and outward to the encouragement of others (1 Cor 12:25), not merely toward ourselves.
All the emotional expressions that displeased God in our fallen state, can now in our spiritual sanctification ultimately bring him glory.[1]
[1] ‘Emotion’, EDT, 352
Jesus is the perfect emotional being. As God in the flesh, he felt sadness, grief, anger, love, compassion and joy.[1] He abided in love for his Father and for his disciples (Jn 14:31; 15:12). At the temple “zeal consumed” him (Jn 2:17), at the tomb “Jesus wept” (Jn 11:35), in the garden his “soul was very sorrowful, even to the point of death” (Mt 26:38). Yet he was without sin (Heb 4:15; 7:26). As B.B. Warfield put it, “It belongs to the truth of our Lord’s humanity, that he was subject to all sinless human emotions.” [2]
So it is in this perfect life, death and resurrection that Jesus redeems us from sin and transforms our whole selves, so we can love and enjoy him, not only with the breadth of our minds and wills, but in the depth of our hearts as well. At the cross we see the extraordinary meeting of God’s emotions: his righteous wrath and gracious love (Rom 5:8-9; 1 Jn 4:10).
As such, Jesus not only shows us something of the perfect emotional life of God, but something of the sanctified emotional life God intends his human creatures to live as well: “As God, Jesus shows us the emotions of the creator. As man, he set an example for the emotions of the Christian.” [3]
[1] e.g. Mt 23; 26:38-39; Mk 1:41; 3:1-5; Lk 19:41-42; Jn 2:14-22; 11:35; 14:31.
[2] ‘The Emotional Life of Our Lord’
[3] Faithful Feelings, 249.
