Lament.

Weep, weep for those
Who do the work of the Lord
with a high look
And a proud heart.
Their voice is lifted up
In the streets, and their cry is heard.
The bruised reed they break
By their great strength, and the smoking flax
They trample.

Weep not for the quenched
(For their God will hear their cry
And the Lord will come to save them)
But weep, weep for the quenchers

For when the Day of the Lord
Is come, and the vales sing
And the hills clap their hands
And the light shines
Then their eyes shall be opened
On a waste place,
Smouldering,
The smoke of the flax bitter
In their nostrils,
Their feet pierced
By broken reed-stems…
Wood, hay, and stubble,
And no grass springing,
And all the birds flown.

Weep, weep for those
Who have made a desert
In the name of the Lord.

–Evangeline Paterson.

Francis A. Schaeffer, A Christian View of the Church, The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer: A Christian Worldview, vol. 4 (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1982), p.205.

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“The Consistory is for fornicators, and I am no fornicator,” replied the Purse-Maker and former Anabaptist Jane Pignier to a direct question from Consistory member John Calvin in December, 1544 (1). Perhaps she was not, but the Consistory took note of her frequent association with Benoite Jacon, wife of Pierre Amyaux, who admitted adultery to the Consistory exactly one week previous. Benoite claimed that givine charity to one’s Christian brothers included “living with all men and that they are all her husbands,” and that she received by direct revelation from the Holy Spirit himself that fornication is not wrong.(2) When the Consistory summoned Jane Pignier, formerly imprisoned and subsequently banished from Geneva for Anabaptism, to inquire whether she now intends to “live according to the consent and union of the church of Geneva,” they could not pass up the opportunity to question her relationship with the promiscuous Madame Benoite Jacon. Such was their mandate.

The Consistory was the most important institution in Geneva for preservign the family. Prior to the Reformation in Geneva, the lifestyle of merchants resulted in an organized guild of prostitutes whose solicitation, though supervised by the city government, was encouraged.(3) Though Geneva was in decline, its prosperity was largely due to four annual trade fairs which brought merchants from as far away as Northern Italy.(4) Though these visiting merchants fueled the prostitution industry in Geneva, eventually some Saxon merchants began bringing Lutheran pamphlets and other literature which stirred feeling of Reformation and tilled the Genevan soil even before the arrival of William Farel from Bern. With the arrival of the Reformation in Geneva, the only approved lifestyle was the nuclear family: husband, wife, children, and some domestic servants if they could be afforded. Men and women were both strongly encouraged to marry once of appropriate age.(5)

The Consistory oversaw a vast array of cases. In the early years, however, it was primarily concerned with religious practices.(6) It was not until after the Reformation had gained a solid footing in Geneva that the Consistory turned its fullest attention to other matters. Among those important matters was their fervent desire to uphold the institutions of marriage and family. In its attempt to preserve the family and bring reconciliation between husband and wife, reconciliation which was often forced on the couple, the Consistory worked diligently and occasionally used the harshest means at is disposal to emphasize the importance of the family. The Consistory, however, had no power to punish beyond that of excommunication, so it often referred unrepentant cases to the city courts for trial and sentencing if blatant immorality was judged by the Consistory to be the cause of the rift. The Consistory, however, saw its purpose as corrective, not punitive. If punishment was needed, the Council took jurisdiction.(7)

All issues of a sexual nature were particularly important to the Consistory becuase they were all viewed as threats to the family. Fornication, homosexuality, and adultery were especially threatening.(8) Sexual offenses which threatened the institutions of marriage and family were treated quite harshly, sometimes even punished by death.(9) In spite of these harsh responses, the motive was to preserve and nurture the family. In cases where children were involved, the Consistory showed surprising care and compassion for the children, and also for unwed mothers.

[footnotes to follow]

More to come…

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I once had the privilege of taking a seminar with Hughes Oliphant Old, and of all that he has written this is my favorite paraphraph. Consider it this week’s Lord’s Day meditation.

In our evangelistic zeal we are looking for programs that will attract people. We think we have to put honey on the lip of the bitter cup of salvation. It is the story of the wedding of Cana all over again, but with this difference. At the crucial moment when the wine failed, we took matters into our own hands and used those five stone jars to mix up a batch of Kool-Aid instead. It seemed like a good solution in terms of our American culture. Unfortunately, all too soon the guests discovered the fraud. Alas! What are we to do now? How can we possibly minister to those who thirst for the real thing? There is but one thing to do, as Mary, the mother of Jesus understood so very well. You remember how the story goes. After presenting the problem to Jesus, Mary turned to the servants and said to them, “Do whatever he tells you” (John 2:5). The servants did just that, and the water was turned to wine, wine rich and mellow beyond anything they had tasted before. [Hughes Oliphant Old, Worship Reformed According to Scripture, p176]

This Lord’s Day refrain from turning the church into a culturally relevant Kool-Aid stand and watch as God creates and forms his people through the unadulterated Gospel.

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Wyman Richardson over at Communio Sanctorum recently posted Calvin Miller’s poem “My Easy Christ Has Left the Church” from Miller’s The Unfinished Soul.

I’m not sure what I think of it. Some of the indictments ring true, but to say that Christ has left the church? Read it for yourself: 

My easy Christ has left the church.
Who can say why?
Maybe it’s because His video-logged apostles all
read diet-books, travel agency brochures
and Christian fiction thrillers
on how the world should end
But none read books on what the starving ignorant
should do until it does.
He left the church so disappointed that Americans
could all spell “user friendly”
but none of them could spell “Gethsemane”

Can we say for sure he’s quit?
Oh yes, it’s definite, I’m afraid:
He’s canceled his pledge card.
I passed him on the way out of the recreation building
near the incinerator where we burn
the leftover religious quarterlies
and the stained paper doilies
from our Valentine banquets.
“Quo Vadis, Domine?” I asked him.
“Somewhere else,” he said.

My easy Christ has left the church,
walking out of town past seminaries where
student scholars could all parse the ancient verbs
but few of them were sure why they had learned the art.
He shook his head counfounded that many
had studied all his ancient words
without much caring why he said them.
He seemed confused that so many
studied to be smart, but so few prayed to be holy.

Some say he left the church
because the part-time missionaries were mostly tourists
on short-term camera safaris,
photographing destitution to show the
pictures to their missionary clubs back home.
I cannot say what all his motives were.
I only know I saw him rummaging through dumpsters
in Djakarta looking for a scrap of bread
that he could multiply.
“Quo vadis, Domine?” I asked him.
“Somewhere else,” he said.

He’s gone – the melancholy Messiah’s gone.
I saw him passing by the beltway mega-temple
circled by its multi-acred asphalt lawn,
blanketed with imports and huge fat vehicles
nourished on the hydrocarbons of distant oil fields
where the poor dry rice on public roads
and die without a requiem, in unmarked graves.

Is it certain he is gone?

It is.

We saw him in the slums of Recife,
telling stories of old fools
who kept on building bigger barns,
oddly idealistic tales of widows with small coins
who outgave the richer deacons of the church.

I saw him sitting alone in a fast-food franchise
drinking only bottled water and sorting through
a stack of world-hunger posters.
He couldn’t stay long.
He was on his way to sell his
old books on Calvin and
Arminius to buy a bag of rice for Bangledesh.

My easy Christ has left the church.
I remember now where I last saw him.
He was sitting in one of those new
square, crossless mega-churches
singing 2x choruses and playing bongos
amid the music stands and amplifiers
with anonymous Larrie and Sherrie.
He turned to them in church and said
“I am He! Follow me!”
But they told him not to be so confrontational
and reminded him that they
had only come for the music and the drama,
and frankly were offended that he would dare
to talk to them out loud in church.
After all, they were only seekers, with a right to privacy.

I followed him out through the seven-acre vestibule,
where he passed the tape-duplicating machine
where people could buy the “how to” sermons
of the world’s most famous lecturers.

He left the church and threaded his way
across the crowded parking lot,
laying down those whips and cords
he’d once used to cleanse the temple,
and looked as though he wanted to make
key-scrapes on Lexi and huge white Audis
and family buses filled with infant seats.

He stooped and shed a tear after
and wrote “Ichabod” in the sand.
In a sudden moment I was face to face with him.
“Quo vadis, Domine?” I asked him.
“Somewhere else,” he said.

My easy Christ has left the church,
abandoning his all-star role in Easter pageants
to live incognito in a patchwork culture,
weeping for all those people who
cannot afford the pageant tickets.

He picked up an old junk cross,
lugging it into the bookstore
after the great religious rally,
and stood dumfounded
among the towering stacks of books
on how to grow a church.
“Are you conservative or liberal,” I asked him.
But he only mumbled, “Oh Jerusalem…”
and said the oddest thing about a hen
gathering her vicious, selfish chicks under her wings.
He left the room as I yelled out after him,
“Lord, is it true you’ve quit the church?
Quo vadis, Domine?”
“Somewhere else,” he said.

Your thoughts?

 

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I recently read (but didn’t understand) much of Jeremy Begbie’s Theology, Music and Time. I have many questions and comments to make about this book, but you really don’t need to be subjected to that. Begbie (BLOKE #1) is Vice Principal of Ridley Hall, Cambridge University, where he teaches systematic theology. He is also an ordained Anglican minister and a member of the Doctrine Commission for the Church of England. And a musician.

He addresses many musical features such as rhythm, meter, resolution, repetition and improvisation and attempts to show how these aspects of music can inform theology. He specifically addresses creation, salvation, eschatology, time and eternity, eucharist, election and ecclesiology. He makes some quite interesting points, several of which he reiterates in the conclusion.

One paragraph in particular really set my thinking on a strange trajectory which ended with a re-reading of ‘Ainulindale‘ in Tolkien’s Silmarillion. Begbie writes:

The second matter concerns the danger of deifying the dynamic patterns of creation and culture. At an early stage in writing, I considered calling this book ‘The Sound of God’. I quickly grew dissatisfied with that title. For if the creaturely rationality of music is to be given due weight, it is more accurate to speak of music, at its best, as the sound of the created order praising God, in its contingency, finitude and non-divinity. (This, as we have seen, was the heart of Barth’s theological appropriation of Mozart.) To say this is not to question either the reality or the created goodness of the world, or its power to glorify God; precisely the opposite, it is an attempt to ‘allow room’ for created reality to perform its true vocation in praising the Creator, refusing to assimilate what is properly creaturely to the divine. –p277.

He is, of course, right. Especially given his additional remarks on the impact of the fall on music in general. If music can help form theology by helping to form the theologian, as Begbie argues, then it can indeed occupy a substantive (and heretofore largely ignored) place in the dialogue of theology.

Enter the Oxford don, J. R. R. Tolkien (BLOKE #2).

One of the most beautiful pieces of English prose I have ever read is Tolkien’s Aunulindale — the creation myth in the fictional world of his “Middle Earth.” The Silmarillion is less well known than his Lord of the Rings trilogy (plus The Hobbit, which was even better), but the Silmarillion is the creation story of how the world in which Bilbo, Frodo and the gang came to be. It is a beautiful analogy of the Biblical creation story and the subsequent Fall (but don’t press the analogy too far — it is, after all, fiction). Tolkien tells of the Ainur (the Holy Ones), the music which Iluvatar (God) creates for them to perform for his good pleasure, and the discord that Melkor (Satan) creates by interjecting his own melody. Tolkien writes:

And it came to pass that Iluvatar called together all the Ainur and declared to them a mighty theme, unfolding to them things greater and more wonderful than he had yet revealed; and the glory of its beginning and the spendour of its end amazed the Ainur, so that they bowed before Iluvatar and were silent.

Then Iluvatar said to them: ‘Of the theme that I have declared to you, I will now that ye make in harmony together a Great Music. And since I have kindled you with the Flame Imperishable, ye shall show forth your powers in adorning this theme, each with his own thoughts and devices, if he will. But I will sit and hearken, and be glad that through you great beauty has been wakened into song.’

Then the voices of the Ainur, like unto harps and lutes, and pipes and trumpets, and viols and organs, and like unto countless choirs singing with words, began to fashion the theme of Iluvatar to a great music; and a sound arose of endless interchanging melodies woven in harmony that passed beyond hearing into the depths and into the heights, and the places of the dwelling of Iluvatar were filled to overflowing, and the music and the echo of the music went out into the Void, and it was not void…

But now Iluvatar sat and hearkened, and for a great while it seemed good to him, for in the music there were no flaws. But as the theme progressed, it came into the heart of Melkor [interpretation:Satan] to interweave matters of his own imagining that were not in accord with the theme of Iluvatar; for he sought therein to increase the power and glory of the part assigned to himself…

Some of these thoughts he now wove into his music, and , and straighway discord arose about him, and many that sang high him grew despondent, and their thought was disturbed and their music faltered; but some began to attune their music to his rather than to the thought which they had at first. Then the discord of Melkor spread ever wider…

Then Iluvatar spoke, and he said: ‘Mighty are the Ainur, and mightiest among them in Melkor; but that he may know, and all the Ainur, that I am Iluvatar, those things that ye have sung, I will show them forth, that ye may see what ye have done. And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined.’

I am sure that my relative ignorance of the academic study of music and its relation to theology and philosophy has led me to oversimplify this issue, but it seems to me that music is more unique and objectively substantive than theologians are usually willing to admit. Its mathematical complexity, its ability to convey emotion, its clear analogical relationship to creation ex nihilo by God, and, of course, the biblical presence of music before and after the eschatological realization of the kingdom of God all argue for more attention from theologians — especially from conservative, Reformed evangelical theologians.

We are quick to enter the discussion when it comes to music and worship style. We are quick to condemn the abuse of music’s ability to evoke emotional responses. We are quick to condemn the use of specific musical styles in corporate worship. And indeed we should continue to be vocal in these discussions. But implicit in these responses is the recognition that music must have a proper place in church life, and therefore in ecclesiology proper. If ecclesiology, then theology.

Begbie is right that music can help inform theology by helping to form the theologian. I’m sure Begbie goes astray at many points. But I’m also sure that we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bath water.

So the result of all this is that I am longing all the more for the day when I join the real Ainur in an even more glorious melody in which God finds perfect pleasure and in which I find perfect satisfaction. A more glorious song that is not tainted by sin and the Fall. A more glorious orchestration of God in which my redemption is not only complete, but realized — and I finally see that God has made something beautiful of my life.

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And then, to complicate things even further, I read Carl Zimmer’s article on musical hallucinosis, the brain disorder that causes people to literally hear music all the time. Great. Musical hallucinations. I’ve been walking around for two weaks with the jingle from a 1980s television ad campaign stuck in my head — “What would you do for a Klondike Bar?” I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the Great Music which Tolkien imagined.

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This is my first attempt at hymnwriting. Please be kind.

To the tune of “Angels from the Realms of Glory.”

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Righteous Savior, holy splendor,
pre-incarnate Deity;
Pure and holy, pre-existent,
molder of Eternity.

Chorus:
He is Risen! He is Risen! Jesus Christ, alive today!

God embodied human nature,
Glory to humility;
As His blood was shed for our sins
on a cross at Calvary.

Graced to me for Thy good pleasure
(Is is true? How can it be?);
Nought have I in mortal measure
but depraved ability.

Come unto the grave to see Him,
Thank Him for the life He gave.
Come like Peter, run to see Him
and behold the empty grave!

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Cynthia Nielsen over at Per Caritatem always has something insightful to say, be it on history, philosophy, music or art, and her posts are frequently an horizon-broadening experience.

This brief post on Benson’s The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue contains:

I wholeheartedly agree with Benson’s take on jazz as “premeditatedspontaneity.” That is, contrary to the common and even “romantic” view of jazz improvisation as a kind of musical ex nihilo creative act, Benson argues that jazz improvisers actual heavily rely on musical ideas worked out in advance which, as it turns out, enables them to be spontaneous.

Now, I am not a musician. The reason for this is that I have not prepared to be a musician. I have not studied it, rehearsed it, or disciplined myself to understand the logic behind it. I do, however, admire musicians who know their craft well enough to musically reason their way through a set they have not previously encountered.

Hopefully the parallels with the craft of theology are obvious. Those who are able to theologically find their way through a previously unencountered set of philosophical (or even practical) suppositions — call it “theological spontaneity” — have probably already studied, rehearsed, and disciplined themselves to understand the formal aspects of theology.

The ability to spontaneously theologize within a formal system while retaining a biblical, systematic, and even historical consistency does not come without study, rehearsal, and discipline. I like this analogy.

Of course, anybody can (and does) theologize. The ability to do so consistently from within an established perimeter is altogether different. Pastors all over the world tackled theodicy after 9/11, but how many did so in a way consistent with a particular systematization like, say, the Reformed recognition of the complete sovereignty of God and without damaging the divine character as biblically revealed and creedally codified?

Real theologians, like real jazz musicians, are impressive in their ability to navigate changing circumstances. But neither achieve that ability apart from serious study and rehearsal.

A fun analogy. But tell me, where does the analogy break down?

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The Tridentine response to the traditional Protestant understanding of justification by faith was firm and certain, as evidenced by the 1547 Decree on Justification, and left no room for further dialogue such as had occurred in previous years at Worms (November, 1540) and Regensburg (April-May, 1541). The firmly anti-Protestant codification of justification at Trent does not, however, offer an accurate picture of the various positions held by Catholic theologians, even a few of those at the Council of Trent, who were open to forms of justification sola fide. It is tempting to read into pre-Trent time a post-Trent position. Prior to Trent, however, the doctrine of justification had not received much codifying treatment, and so many Roman Catholics prior to Trent were apparently free to hold views of justification which were largely in line with the Lutheran position.

Protestants who held to a doctrine of justification sola fide were accused by Catholics of the “Trent persuasion” of developing a fictitious concept of justification, of “suggesting that the believer lives in a sort of Walter Mitty world in which he is treated as righteous when he actually nothing of the sort.” The same accusation could have been leveled against some from among their own Catholic ranks, especially against many in the Italian spirituali movement. In fact, the Catholic Reformation was largely stimulated by such thinkers prior to Trent. Similarly, the Counter-Reformation was seemingly not just in response to the Protestants, but also in response to some of Catholicism’s very own curia who held quasi-Lutheran views of justification.

As evidence of this reform movement within Roman Catholicism prior to the Council of Trent, this post will focus on the Consilium de Emendanda Ecclesia of 1537. This report on church reform was issued by a reform commission which was appointed by Pope Paul III during the previous year, and is a “surprising attack on the venality and other abuses associated with the curial system.” The commission was presided over by the Venetian diplomat Cardinal Gasparo Contarini, who would also later be appointed papal legate to the Diet of Regensburg in 1541.

Interestingly, other signers of this document include Cardinal Reginald Pole, who would later become Archbishop of Canterbury under the Tudor Queen Mary, and Gian Peitro Carafa who would later become Pope Paul IV in 1555. The signers of this document include many whose names are now synonymous with the spirituali movement. In would seem, then, that even though the spirituali largely held to justification sola fide, that when these theological “Walter Mittys” were given the opportunity to address the Pontiff on issues of reform they voiced their desire for the matters of institutional reform for which the non-spirituali Catholic reformers were calling.

(more…)

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It would appear that I am out of step with contemporary scholarship. So much of what is being written today focuses on where Catholicism and Protestantism find agreement, such as this recent agreement reached by the Roman Catholic Church, the Lutheran World Federation, and the World Methodist Council. Benedict even appraised it as “full visible unity.”

Meanwhile, I am digging into the Sixteenth Century disputory history between the English Catholic Richard Smyth, Thomas Cranmer and the Italian Reformer Peter Martyr Vermigli during his time at Oxford. Smyth had a bone to pick with PMV — Cranmer removed him from his Oxford lectureship to make room for PMV to come to England and help further the Reformed cause in England. PMV was happy to oblige.

I am presently wading through three homilies on justification by Cranmer and will shortly write a comparison with the locus on justification by PMV. PMV really goes to town on Smyth in his justification locus, so more investigation is needed there as well.

For all that is being done today to bury the hatchets, I find that history is much more interesting when we unearth them. In the name of scholarship, of course.

A quite helpful book along these lines is Anthony N. S. Lane’s Justification by Faith in Roman Catholic – Protestant Dialogue (London: T&T Clark, 2002). Interesting biographies of Catholic spirituali prior to Trent include Elizabeth Gleason’s Gasparo Contarini: Venice, Rome, and Reform (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993) and Thomas Mayer’s Reginald Pole: Prince and Prophet (Cambridge University Press, 2000), although the latter concludes that the secrecy of Pole and the rest of the spirituali is because they were really just gay.
Any insights?

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“If there be enough in God to satisfy God, surely there must needs be enough in God to satisfy the souls of His people.” — Thomas Brooks (1608-1680), in An Ark for All God’s Noahs

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