You like vaudeville don't you? Base populist!

What's that you smell? Maybe your cologne's wearing off.

You're right. Why didn't I see it earlier?

So, now what?

Problems must be solved. If those of us here on the fringes are doing our best to address them, must we be also constantly answering for the sins of the past? Can we never be allowed to solve them by ministering to those who live in the present-warts and all?

The closest I ever came to vaudeville was my association with fundamentalism. And no my cologne has not worn off, I don't wear cologne. It is a kindness I extend to my "fragrance-sensitive" friends.

What now?

I’m not sure how to answer you without further clarification. The problems I speak of are not as minor as warts. Calling them warts when they are tumors is a big mistake.

If this is indeed a matter of culture, which I think it is (though ill-conceived by the two proponents we began with) then it is not a question of “answering the sins of the past”. It is more a question of living with the consequences of the sins of the past. That’s a different problem entirely. Which is one reason I have such a short fuse when it comes to this argle-bargle about culture: it misses the point.

St. Augustine cites a couplet by Horace [Epistles, 1.2.69] when he says: “Children must read the greatest and best of all poets in order to impress their tender minds so deeply that he [Virgil] may never be easily forgotten…”

The liquors that new vessel first contains
Behind them leave a taste that long remains.

City of God, Book I, Chapter III

I do not seek to berate the man who put the foul stuff in the vessel in the first place, I seek to address the problems that have resulted.

Let’s assume we can ignore the embarrassments of the past…just for the sake of the argument. Let’s assume they are all forgotten. If you believe culture does what St. Augustine says it does, then we still are living in the aftermath. And that does not appear to me to be living with warts.

But if I have missed your point, feel free to correct me.

So you would argue deserting the believers who comprise the churches in Fundamentalism is the only option?

Any chance we can correspond privately?
pastor@fbcskowhegan.org

It seems the vessels have very limited uses now. Is the solution to break the vessels and somehow get new ones? I'd like to know if there's a way to get new ones. Or just break the vessels?

Would the problem of a fundamentalist becoming cultured (which I shall use as shorthand for "cultivating and being cultivated by the best things in life") be comparable to the paradox of learning in Plato's Meno? For if the fundamentalist is truly un-cultured, he has no starting point; he cannot begin to see what the best things are or what the worthless things are which he pursues. He has not yet learned to smell himself.

On the other hand, once he begins to smell himself, will he not be in the most awkward position of all? For he will know that something is horribly and embarrassingly wrong, but he will not be able to put his finger on it. He will go through a purgatory of fumbling and offering wrong answers to questions and being corrected by the few who are cultured (as Meno was with Socrates) before he finally begins to understand and flourish.

In short, dissidens, are you not a bit harsh on the tiny minority of fundamentalists who are beginning to talk about meaning and culture again? For many of them, could it not be part of the necessary and painful process of real cultivation?

Moreover, if the truly cultured persons all stop associating with fundamentalists (which may or may not be the same as "leaving fundamentalism"), what will the Menos do? Are they not of all men most miserable?

1. To Pastor Linscott: absolutely not. I think that fundamentalism has already abandoned believers. Whatever I think is right, I do NOT think abandonment is an option. If the NT tells us anything, it is that shepherds do not abandon sheep. And yes, we can talk. If I can find a wedge of time, I will e-mail you before the end of the day.

2. To Joel: I believe my answer to the question is the same as Eliot’s: if you want proper vessels you must go to the quarry, gather the clay, build the pottery wheels, and train people to throw them. Then you will have your vessels. The answer I CERTAINLY offer is this: break nothing! Ever. If culture teaches us anything, it is the cost of building: a cultured man, knowing the value of created things, does not destroy, (except possibly for those things he himself built, and even then with a view to building something better). Destruction is the fitting work of barbarians, and we have enough of those to meet any labor shortage.

Erondil:

Your first paragraph is exactly right, and that is the situation we are in. One of the things culture gives us is, as Augustine would say, a sense of ordinate and inordinate loves. Culture chooses for us what is worth pursuing precisely because we are not yet in a position to know.

I think you are also correct in your second paragraph; I see us as street preachers in the Wasteland. It may not be an enviable calling, but it is better than the alternative.

Am I a bit harsh? Hmmmmm. Was Jesus a bit harsh when he cleansed the Temple?

I don’t mean to be facetious, it’s a real question to consider in this context. The zeal of his father’s house ate him up. I suspect (well, in the case of Jesus there’s no suspicion about it) Jesus had the right sense of proportion about the thing, and the bystanders were too blasé: they were the ones lacking a sense of proportion.

I perhaps AM too harsh, but how would I find out? By asking people who since the 1920s have been so manifestly indifferent to permanent things? I am open to correction on this, but I am suspicious of those who want to be my teachers.

If I speak with some heat, let me explain why: by providence I have the perfect example. There is here a local church, a kind of do-it-yourself reformed Baptist led by a pastor with a basket-weaving terminal degree. He has a smattering of knowledge gathered from many disciplines, he himself has no discipline. He is very impressed with his own intellect and leads a church that caters to the sort of appetite I hope we all fear. Yesterday and today they held an Inkling Conference. The first lecture was “Trousered Apes, Urban Blockheads, Men Without Chests: Lewis’s Philosophy of Education in ‘The Abolition of Man’”. It turned out to be nothing more than a book report, as well it might, because it was obvious that few in the room had read it. A lot of academic ambience, but nothing of substance for anyone who actually read the book. More would have been accomplished if a Sunday School class or an adult training union had read and discussed it.

As we say here in Texas about the type, “He’s all hat and no horse.”

This morning there was an obvious effort to look cultivated: they had an “orchestra” made up of a string quartet, an electric piano, a flute, a clarinet, a trumpet and a trombone. None of the instrumentalists was competent on his instrument, and the ensemble playing made clear that this was an ad hoc performance. And what (always) annoys me most: the least competent musicians were the adults. It could not have been clearer that playing an instrument was child’s activity, and that once it’s been determined that one can’t make a career in performance, the instrument goes back in the case and one stops embarrassing himself in public.

I think this attitude would have enraged King David. The notion that a church can worship without competent musicians is a disgrace. I should like to think that before we get too uppity about culture, we at least can play a hymn that less resembles the sounds of a cattle drive.

“Culture” is not schtick, it is not a ministry motif.

I really do fear this. In my opinion, neo-evangelicalism never had a chance at serious ministry, but it surely shot itself in the ear with its bogus attempt at intellectual and cultural self-respect. This is really, really serious business. I would prefer we all pretend to be brain surgeons and start bringing scalpels to church. I think everyone would be much safer.

Regarding the derisive comment, "the smell of the farm still in their clothing," are you suggesting that farming is antithetical to the kind of culture you suggest? Or that a farmer is incapable of comprehending what you want? Is a culture worth preserving one that mocks farming?

Let's be careful. The argument is too important to blow with an elitist prejudice against farmers.

Todd:

I think an attentive reading will show that I did not even use the word farmer. I said “rustic”, a word with several definitions, including “an awkward and coarse person” or an “unsophisticated rural person”. I am not talking about an occupation, I am talking about people who set themselves up as authorities when in fact they themselves are coarse and unsophisticated.

We have all heard from the preacher who practices the elitism you decry when he says, “I’m jes an ole countra boy dat bleeves de babble.” It is precisely that sort of contempt for culture and learning that I speak of.

I have a different thought...
Do we believe that American culture is all that great? Do we appreciate its love for comfort and ease, overemphasis on personal rights and materialism? If so, how does American culture affect us? Does it perhaps spoil us? If it does, then how is that different from the influence that fundamentalism culture has upon us?
In other words, if we replace the terms "fundamentalist culture" with "American culture," does that mean that we need to leave American culture? Or is it possible for a person to be within a culture that he does not necessarily endorse completely, but yet has no better alternative, and thus, he is less "affected" by the culture because of his personal distance?

I'm on your side more than you know, NW. I just don't want folks to get confused by a metaphor that takes a swipe at rural culture. The culture worth preserving is orthogonal to rural and urban cultures.

I would gladly trade an airliner full of urbanite elites for a burrow full of hobbits.

The problem is more serious when it comes to the influence the fundamentalist has upon Christian society, and of course society at large. More serious, is anyone who claims the name of Christ, as they have a higher responsibility to direct others toward Jesus Christ. Christian culture and American culture are closely related. Of course, it is the Christians who should be changing the culture of the U.S. and that is hardly possible if fundamentalism has reduced itself to a copy of everything that is superficial in American society.

Are you thinking of some Acts 17.16-17, Joe?

Joe,
If you are saying that American culture can be changed, then you are conceding my point: then it must be possible to change fundamentalism as well.

Joel
Sure, although I think these verses you refer to are more giving us what was happening as far as Paul's evangilism and his apologetic methods. But certainly we know that as the gospel spread it certainly changed the culture as far as it's preception of idols.

Neoclassical:

Well, I think we would be in general agreement on most of your points, but I also think we need to be careful that we do not lose something significant by using the word “culture” in two different senses. We speak loosely of the NASCAR culture or the hip-hop culture or the urban culture or fundamentalist culture, which is ok if we don’t abuse our thinking by doing so.

The sort of culture we have been talking about is more than an “environment” where the young might pick up bad habits or bad attitudes. Those are real things, but they are not the same thing.

There is a distinction here between culture proper (or high culture) and pop culture. Elton John cannot substitute for Schubert. I think everyone should read Abraham Kaplan, “The Aesthetics of the Popular Arts”, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Spring ’66, [vol 24.3, I think].

He does two things, he distinguishes and explains the effectiveness of real art and the inferiority of popular art, and then he goes on to suggest that for some people, pop arts will have to do the job. I think he is correct on his first point and wishful in his second.

His first distinction, though, will go a long way to explain what it is I despise about American evangelical culture since the Civil War. I do not think a man can offer worthy worship a) when “perception is replaced by mere recognition”, b) when he is sentimental, c) when he is self-pitying, d) and when he merely recites “a tissue of falsehoods”; four of at least twelve characteristics of pop art according to Kaplan.

Read it. It’s probably not the sort of thing you will be able to use to persuade those already committed to pop culture, especially in church, but it will at least clarify your thinking.

I hate talking about culture. We sound like we are so far "above" it. We are such fluffy little "analysts." Is that not your point, Diss? That we really are not?

You are not too harsh, Dissidens. Awaken us, please. Please bring us to our senses. Bring me to my senses.

Dissidens,
I have read Kaplan's article some time ago. I have also Read Christianity and Culture by Eliot. I know what you are saying about pop culture, but I think there are some elements about American culture outside of pop culture that seem to be antithetical to Christianity.
What about the abuse of "fighting for one's own rights"? or the idea that "America can do whatever it sets itself out to do"? I think that since American culture did originate primarily out of Protestantism, much of it is favorable towards Christianity, but that does not mean that it is invulnerable to depravity.
Having said that, I'm not sure how you are classifying fundamentalism culture, then. Are you saying that it is an anti-culture (in Eliot's model)? If so, then I can see what you are saying, and perhaps your argument makes more sense. Could you elaborate on your definition of fundamentalist culture and how exactly we are in it?

There is no doubt that American culture is depraved. Every culture that exists is depraved because it has depraved people in it: depraved people making things out of the stuff they find in their heart.

“Fundamentalist culture”: I was using it in the secondary sense that someone else mentioned earlier in the thread. Three examples:

1. When there was a strong counter-culture which made Jesus out to be some sort of Holy Land Che Guevara, fund’ism went anti-counter-culture. Now that there is something of a populist reaction to the political consequences of the ‘60s (like Clinton), fund’ism is now pro-anti-counter-culture. It is this lack of gravitas, this jittery reactionism to every passing passion that does us no good. Fundamentalists are no more “fixed” than their peers. It would be nice to have a solid, stable view of life.

2. Go to any church office and ask to borrow the bulletins for the last year and write down the names of the songs they sang. Identify their Top 40, and if you are any good at statistics, weight the count in favor of the ones repeated most often. Then take a look at the theology in them. Not just the systematic theology, the practical theology. (As Sardonis once said, “Count how many of our songs begin with the word ‘I’”.) Notice how central is our comfort and our sense of worth and well-being. Compare it to what King David said was worth mentioning about his God. There is your real theology; you might as well go to the pastor’s study and toss his books in the dumpster. All of that is merely religious lecture; what people really believe is what they sing to God.

Think carefully about that: these are the people who refuse to sing SOME songs they deem unsound. It’ll make you shiver. I had a recent exchange elsewhere and heard a music man say that while he preferred Bernard of Clairvaux over Fanny Crosby, he felt he was less intelligible: “Though the doctrine of Clairvaux’s hymns is certainly good, and you or I may be able to sing and appreciate him will full intelligibility the (sad) truth is that the archaic language does hinder the average worshiping from intelligible singing.”

Archaic language?! Clairvaux?

3. Consider the position of fundamentalism on the theater. Here is something that was verboten for centuries. Notice how fundamentalism has it in a firm embrace. How can this be? Is Broadway and Hollywood more compatible with NT Christianity than Sophocles? Shakespeare? Miller?

These things are a disgrace.

Dissidens,

Since you quoted me, I feel that I must defend my comments concerning Clairvaux. I was certainly not justifying the inability to intelligently appreciate Clairvaux, nor was I saying that given the choice between Clairvaux or Crosby that I would choose Crosby. Quite the opposite. That was the point of my post. If those two options were the only available, I would choose Clairvaux any day.

I was simply making the observation that today's worshipers do have a difficult time with the language of someone like Clairvaux because we simply don't talk like that anymore. It is often difficult to understnad a full statement. I don't say this with any pleasure, it is simply an observation.

And since I am called to help the people in our church (many young converts) worship their God through song, I do see a responsibility to choose that which they can use intelligently. This is why I was calling for new hymns to be written that have the depth of Clairvaux with updated language. This is no different than the burden of Watts.

Dissidens, less. These things are a disgrace. But they are much wider than fundamentalism.

Didn't you say yourself (something to the effect) that culture is more integral to us than something we can just spread over top? It arises out of what we already are, what we already appreciate, and primarily out of what we already worship. That being so, don't you think that culture is really the wrong end of the stick to grab and beat us with? Shouldn't we start with the doctrine of God? It's only when we don't understand how God can be glorified by Socrates, that we ban "pagan" plays. It's a faulty view of God, more than a faulty view of Socrates. Anything you do the wrong way round is going to result at best in a veneer. I think fundamentalism can be worth saving. But only when it goes back to the basics, the doctrines of the Old and New Testaments. (After all, though Paul quoted the pagans, he didn't make that a requirement any more than circumsion.) And that is what some people are aiming for. Do you think this is not worth supporting? Because it is out of doctrinal reform that our culture will naturally arise. An honestly abased rural before a Magnificient God has more reality than whatever suburbanite who has put on Sophocles, out of an idea that this is how to be respectable. The honest rural could actually enjoy Sophocles, whereas the suburbanite keeps getting in his own way: enjoying himself, enjoying Sophocles. Isn't that at least as real a threat to culture?

I didn't realise the other discussion had ended, and left you some questions I had over there, that haven't been quite answered by reading through this thread...

Dissidens,
I do not wish to press the point beyond what is necessary, but I'm still having difficulty understanding what you mean by "using the term culture in a secondary sense" when speaking of fundamentalist culture. Do you mean that it is "culture" in the same sense of "pop culture"? You examples seem to lead that way.

Well, kamelda, I fear we don’t agree on much. Mr. Garlock has been laying down the law for a long time; he set himself up as a judge. Now he foists on us this abomination in the form of a hymnbook. Look at what is in it and look at what’s in other hymnbooks. I rest my case.

Just because I disapprove of his work doesn’t mean I “carve him out of Christ’s body” any more than disqualifying someone as a willing but incapable Sunday School teacher means excommunication. And that Mr. Garlock and his institution should be defended against schismatics is rich.

But the point most relevant to these exchanges of the past few days: No, I do not agree that we “begin with the doctrine of God” and let culture be secondary. I suggest that God himself does not agree with you.

God did not plop Jesus down in Mesopotamia with a simple message of redemption. What God intends for us to know required the pain and suffering and obedience of an awful lot of people in order that we might know God as he wishes to be known. And as Tozer said so well, “We must know him as he is in order to worship him as we ought.”

I believe that is precisely the issue here. God called Abram, build a nation, delivered it, gave it a Law, gave it a history, a social, religious and political structure, indeed an entire culture, and finally a Messiah. Our redemption is tied up in history and prophecy, in promises to a man, a family and a nation. To trim it to fit the appetites of a rich, lazy, self-absorbed audience is idolatry.

“I’m so happy, and here’s the reason why: Jesus took my burdens all away.” Great. Just great. How come David gets to worship in a way that pleases God and I don’t?

Neo, do you think the difference between the "fundamentalist culture" and the "American culture" is that the fundamentalist one arises more directly from us? If dissidens is right that our culture arises from ourselves, of course our immediate sub-culture ("secondary culture?") is going to be a more accurate expression of us, and conversely a more powerful influence on us, than the broader "culture" that is so far removed from us as to constitute a mere environment.

Does American culture really arise from me? I don't remember myself insisting on my American rights lately. However, I do remember saying something that smelled distinctly like wet religious hay the other day...

Erondil,
Culture does not arise from individuals, but of groups as a whole. Also, generally, you are largely unaware of your culture until you are exposed to a different one. I would almost guarantee that if you went into a country that did not appreciate your rights, you would have a strong feeling that you are being wronged (and rightly so, though I think that this can be and has been abused).
I am not sure that the fundamentalist culture arises from us more than the American culture, because I don't think the two are equivalent. I'm still trying to figure out exactly how they are different.
Also, Erondil's comment made me consider pursuing this question (which is related to the Meno question): does your awareness of culture affect the extent of its influence upon you? For example, if I know certain things in American culture are antithetical to Christianity, I will try to renew my mind with Scripture particularly in that area so that I'm not "sucked in" to that philosophy. Can this also be true of fundamentalist culture? If so, to what extent?

Question:
How does today's culture help us overcome our sinful natures?

so you're saying, God can change the general secular culture (through Christians), but He can't change Christians. They're stuck with whatever secondary culture arises out of their hymnal (the word of God is evidently not quick enough to get the draw on the "Hymns of Faith"...) In short, God can do nothing, now that Frank Garlock produced a hymnal...

How did God build up the culture of Israel anyway? He revealed Himself to them; He set them apart for Him. Obviously the commandments are part of that: Be ye holy-- but why? For I am Holy. That is the whole crux of the Jewish culture. Without that, we have no Jewish culture.

I wasn't defending Garlock actually. If you'll read what I said, I asked you if you were going to make an orthopraxy out of the derision of Garlock. I was defending people who think it's all right to sing that Jesus took their burden all away, as perhaps still being within the pale of the Body of Christ, and so deserving not only our rebuke, but also our charity. I was asking if you were going to separate from such people (not assuming that you had), and pointing out that if you were, you would indeed be something of a schismatic. Which yes, would be quite rich.

If you refuse to have fellowship with someone, you are effectively carving them out of the body of Christ. That is the whole point of the disciplinary passages. Perhaps I've mistaken your remarks about Monkey fundamentalists who really ought not come to the table at all, your helpless laughter over fellow believers who talk about meaning etc, (obviously no one has a right to talk about meaning unless they have been talking about meaning for a long time already), your unwillingness to give the benefit of the doubt to fundamentalists in general and in particular, and your complete resignation to the failure of this part of Christ's church, so that when they ask for a rope because they've realised they're going under, you push them under again, so resigned are you that you would like to speed up the process... But is this your idea of fellowship? You seem both discontented with evangelicalism for its compromises, and unwilling to support any attempt at reform within fundamentalism, with which you are also discontented. Are you pessimistic about the whole church? Chesterton. Hatred must be in a context of love, or it will never produce anything. Why are you going to point out failures, if you have no hope of there being changed? It's the scoffers, not the reformers, who sit on the sidelines and mock. To answer your question, perhaps that is why you can't help laughing. Because you're on the sidelines inflicting paper cuts on the gladiators. You don't really take it all that seriously, or you'd get a real sword and take sides...?

Dissidens, thinking about the quote this morning (from Tozer) I think actually that there must be some glitch, if you really believe that. Because so do I. But how do we know more about God? Through His revelation of Himself, which is doctrinal: to say that God is holy is doctrine. To say that consequently we ought to be holy is also doctrine. To say that a hymn that denegrates the holiness of God is not pleasing to Him is applied doctrine. Everything comes out of our basic commitments to the kind of God we worship (even unbelievers worship something). If God's goodness is reduced to goodnaturedness, you wind up with Frank Garlock's hymns. If beauty is reduced altogether as an irrelevancy, you wind up with coullottes. But I have seen people start out with Frank Garlock's hymns, and come to understand through the study of doctrine that God is not goodnatured, but "terribly good", and realise that Frank Garlock's hymns are not an adequate expression of this. They have even bought new hymnals, thus redefining their secondary culture. I think the same thing will happen if Fundamentalism as a whole gets a grasp on doctrines they have substituted for practices, for traditions. If you disagree with this-- why? If you don't, I'm sorry for characterizing your position as one of God who has been thwarted by Garlock, and I think we agree on more than you allow.

As to the body of Christ: I find everywhere in Scripture that Christ is extremely loyal to it; and I don't believe we have any room to be at all disloyal. I guess I don't understand your skepticism of those who are eager to reclaim themselves for what they ought to be. If they are going about it all wrong, then it's right to tell them-- but not to discourage them to leave off because they'll never get it right. They are a significant part of the institution which the gates of hell shall not prevail against. And they have served to preserve some good ideas, as well as many bad ones. Now they want to jettison the bad ones, and get some more good ones. And if ideas have consequences, surely the jettisoning of bad ideas, and the commitment to and acquisition of good ones will change their secondary culture?

kamelda, you said, "I guess I don't understand your skepticism of those who are eager to reclaim themselves for what they ought to be."
May I ask what form this "reclaiming" has taken, or will take?

I think the reclaiming is still looking form. Dissidens raised the question in his blog of there being such a wide gulf in opinions about different things within fundamentalism, that it will be very for the fundamentalists to emerge with any sort of cohesive reform. But surely the appeal has to finally be to Scripture, to tell us what is beauty, what is good, what is true. I hope that the reclaiming will the take the form of a commitment to the essential doctrines of Scripture as the basis of unity, and to doctrine worked out as the basis of each individual's practice. A good paper on this is here:
http://www.sharperiron.org/showthread.php?t=563
Essential doctrine is really the only thing that we are going to be able to agree on, because it is the only thing for which we have a final appeal. I think the culture is still going to be very fragmented; but I think it will be more examined; and hopefully the examination will contribute in a large way to a secondary culture that is pleasing to God. Once we commit ourselves to doctrine instead of traditions (what do you think about beauty, what do I think about beauty-- even that is tradition: ultimately the real issue is what do know about God, that constitutes our whole paradigm for beauty: balance, order, purity, etc.), we are in a whole new ballgame.

I was sent here by one of my seminary profs. And several of the guys writing herein are doing what I think needs done in fundamentalism. Dissidens, you have posted at their blog "Unknowing." They tend to take themselves very lightly, and I don't think that Joel really sees how weighty his thoughts are compared to most fundamentalists. I ma not disparaging my friends at Sharperiron, but much of what is said there is simply drivel. Whenever Ryan comes there, he gets frustrated, I can smell it in his posts. I have tried interacting with a few people there on serious topics, and the discussion ends up being a waste of time. I do think that there is the possibility that fundamentalism will have a future that is real, but it will take the rest of our lives to even see that glimmer. SO let me encourage Joel and friends, take heart, there is light at the end of the tunnel, at least I think its light.

And I love you Bob!

But if you say stuff like that around dissidens, isn't it likely to provoke the sort of reaction that you get when you put a tree into one of those machines that convert wood into mulch?

Maybe I don't know Dissidens as well as you. My comments may be mulched, but at least the people who should hear them will hear them, and they are adult enough to know how to digest the mulch.

Kamelda,

Suppose somebody told you "Irifil is prixilious." Suppose you knew this statement to be true and completely without error. Now what do you know?

You know nothing--that is, unless you know what (or who) an irifil is, and what it means to be prixilious. But how do you know what these things are? Is it not by experiencing irifils and prixilious things? Or if you cannot experience them directly, is it not by listening to what other people say about them, receiving their opinions and forming your own judgments based on how others understand and respond to these words?

This is the problem with going to the Scriptures alone for answers to questions about meaning and beauty. When the Scriptures say that God is beautiful, they are saying that Irifil is prixilious. You cannot understand what this means unless you have some prior knowledge of the ideas being referred to. You cannot get this prior understanding from the Scriptures themselves, for that would be circular. Quite the contrary is the case...you cannot help but read your prior understanding of the ideas into the text. The prior understanding itself comes from your experience and that which you have inherited from other people...in short, the culture.

This is where the great danger lies. If what you think a thing means is really NOT what it means (i.e., if your culture has trained you to think beauty is found in a garbage dump as well as a rose), your entire understanding of doctrine is affected. You can unwittingly turn a whole doctrine on its head. What David meant by "worship God in the beauty of holiness" turns out to be 180 degrees opposed to what you mean by it. And that even when you quote the verse verbatim.

The great question now is...if the Scriptures are not going to tell us what beauty is, and if we have reason to suspect that our culture has gravely erred in its own definition, how are we going to correct ourselves?

Kamelda,

Suppose somebody told you "Irifil is prixilious." Suppose you knew this statement to be true and completely without error. Now what do you know?

You know nothing--that is, unless you know what (or who) an irifil is, and what it means to be prixilious. But how do you know what these things are? Is it not by experiencing irifils and prixilious things? Or if you cannot experience them directly, is it not by listening to what other people say about them, receiving their opinions and forming your own judgments based on how others understand and respond to these words?

This is the problem with going to the Scriptures alone for answers to questions about meaning and beauty. When the Scriptures say that God is beautiful, they are saying that Irifil is prixilious. You cannot understand what this means unless you have some prior knowledge of the ideas being referred to. You cannot get this prior understanding from the Scriptures themselves, for that would be circular. Quite the contrary is the case...you cannot help but read your prior understanding of the ideas into the text. The prior understanding itself comes from your experience and that which you have inherited from other people...in short, the culture.

This is where the great danger lies. If what you think a thing means is really NOT what it means (i.e., if your culture has trained you to think beauty is found in a garbage dump as well as a rose), your entire understanding of doctrine is affected. You can unwittingly turn a whole doctrine on its head. What David meant by "worship God in the beauty of holiness" turns out to be 180 degrees opposed to what you mean by it. And that even when you quote the verse verbatim.

The great question now is...if the Scriptures are not going to tell us what beauty is, and if we have reason to suspect that our culture has gravely erred in its own definition, how are we going to correct ourselves?

My apologies. The computer froze, so I clicked the "post" button twice.

no problem erondil..personally, I think your comment deserved a double post.

Well, I think the time has come to pick up some of our toys and put them in the right place or we will never ever see them again.

I do think culture is important; I think it is one of the most important things we have. It is because I think it is so important that we should not play with it so carelessly. Our culture has made us what we are, it has defined the world we live in, it has told us what is true and what is right (and for religious people it has told us what we owe God); we did not come up with this out of our own heads. And because that is true, we can’t “remake” everything ex nihilo to suit whatever impulses we had since the last time we looked at our watch.

Culture, in its highest sense, “names” the world around us, prioritizes and assigns value to the things in it (love, satisfaction, duty, resignation, pleasure, joy, death, honor…). It does this by means of a “discussion”. That discussion came in the form of epics, sonatas, plays, paintings, statues and dances. When Beethoven spoke to us about pastoral life, we listened, recognized and accepted that that’s the way things were. When Rembrandt told us what it was like to be a burgher, we looked at it, said, “How true!” and knew it to be how life was. Other people wrote about our life and we said, “What! Are you crazy?” Whether you were fortunate enough to learn the names, dates and schools of thought or whether you weren’t, culture still made the world you live in. You may not have read a word of Plato but he still lords it over you.

Culture in its secondary sense generally means something more like “shared interests” or “commonly held prejudices”. So you have hip-hop culture or fundamentalist culture. It does not have the great discussion that includes the considered opinion of many men over a period of time. It is therefore prone to error, political intrigue and shortsightedness. It is more like a group of kids giggling in the back of the room. I still think that Abraham Kaplan does as good a job as any in a short, accessible way to explain real differences. With serious culture there is perception of a real thing that is shared between poet and reader, and there is a significant difference between perception and glib recognition. Please do read Kaplan.

So if these things are true, fundamentalism (and evangelicalism as a whole) is in a bad way; when we sit down to worship or say some significant things about God and his creation, what do we do? perceive a reality or merely rehearse a prejudice? I plunk down in front of you King David’s Psalms, the Moravian Hymnbook and Majesty Hymns; which speaks most truly about God, man, righteousness, hope, consolation, suffering, service, love, fellowship…?

I don’t think there is a question in anyone’s mind. We’ve been ripped off, and we are not happy. What we were given, like a birthright, was the work of our elders, the product of long and painful religious experience, the results of centuries of thought, trial and sacrifice. We threw it all away. And like Esau we will not get it back though we seek it with tears.

Some of you think this gladdens me, or that I am insufficiently optimistic or insufficiently supportive of ill-considered attempts to fix things. It does not gladden me, but I am not going to pretend with you that zeal or passion will solve our problem.

Fundamentalism, like so many other movements, is dead. Its institutions have outlived it, and its leaders are mere custodians of the tumbledown remains. Things have gotten so bad that we now are beginning to grasp the gravity of the situation, and we suppose that it is heroic or somehow noble to stand on the parapets and spit into the wind.

We say that culture is important and like bobble-head dolls we nod. In the real world what happens? We choose Fanny over Bernard. Folks, you want better culture, don’t go listen to some academic read a paper about the meaning of a book, buy The Great Divorce and read it!

Stop singing the drivel you’ve been singing for 20 years and still need a hymnal for. There’s your culture! Stop with the frou-frou speculation.

“I asked the Lord to comfort me when things weren’t going my way.”

Yah! The mighty One of Israel is gonna come give me solace because it rained on the day I wanted to have a picnic.

Start informing your worship with some thought. Sing some hymns that were true 300 years ago. But I warn you, you will not like it. I have done it. Literally. In a church with a real address and everything. You know what will happen? People will complain; they will want to “go back to the old favorites”.

If you don’t like my gloomy outlook, if you will not accept Matthew Arnold’s gloomy outlook, if you reject T.S. Eliot’s gloomy outlook, come up with one of your own. Come tell me about it. You know where I am.

Erondil,

But Scripture does tell us about the beauty of holiness, by telling us more about God's holiness. We do not learn that He is holy in a void: we are given the whole history of His holiness in His dealings with Isreal: we are given the whole layout of redemption, of how seriously He takes sin: we are given the cross, which was not at all by aesthetic standards "beautiful", yet this is one of the most powerful expressions of the beauty of holiness. Revelation is our starting point, really, for everything that we know at all. Otherwise we are stuck with knowing everything only subjectively through our perceptions, and having no verfication at all.

I agree that when we come to Scripture, we all come with pre-conceived ideas of our own, that have been worked into us by culture, primary or secondary or whatever. But I think that Scripture has the power to break through all of these. Only we have to read it as more than an ineffectual expression of its own ideas. (I'm not saying you were saying that: but I guess I don't understand what you are saying? Is scripture insufficient to define its own terms?) God revealed Himself to the Israelites, gave them the ten Commandments as a working out of His own holiness (and incidentally we have those too), and then worked those commandments out into every area of their lives. We have come into our majority now, and God has left us in the quandry of being adults and having to work these things out for ourselves. But I have to cry Sola Scriptura when it comes to discerning the culture, as well. Because God is the reference point for everything; and Scripture is His revelation of Himself to mankind. We even learn in Scripture that what we experience in the natural revelation is a declaration of His beauty and glory (which I suppose, would tie in with your experience? But it is still something that ultimately traces back to our doctrine, to the revelation of God in Scripture.)

Dissidens, if you are going to define Scripture as part of culture, then I can agree with what you are saying about culture. But scripture is something else too: it transcends culture: it has the power to change individuals, and through them, cultures. We do not, in any sense, recreate our culture out of nothing. We recreate it on the Word of God, and on the hammering out of the doctrines of the Word so that we have much more defined terms and creeds coming from the Puritans than from the early church. We have the whole of redemptive history to build out of. And we have the whole of whatever things are true, honest, lovely, of good report, etc., to build out of as well. But we are never going to know what these things are, unless we start with the revelation of what truth and all the rest actually is.

No, we never have back what we throw away. But somehow, remarkably, God does restore the years that the locusts have eaten. He is in the business of reviving us again, in the midst of the years. Fundamentalism may collapse. But it is worth fighting for anything, that realizes it is all wrong, and needs to be put right. Repentance is worth fighting for. It is the starting point of the kind of reality in culture that you are talking about, the reality between poet and reader: it starts between us and God. Fundamentalism is starting to repent. And that is a fundamentalism worth saving.

I won't be able to keep up with this thread anymore until next week (I only have e-access once or twice a week), so I won't be able to reply to any replies. However, there's very little more I can say, except that I don't think that Scripture is insufficient, I think when it uses “pirixl” or whatever it also defines it in other propositions and illustrations; certainly language has been built up out of culture, but God addressed us in very direct language that we can understand; and then went on to illustrate and define His use of such language. In other words, Scripture tells us what it means by “God,” and even someone who grew up hearing “God” only about Apollo would see that this is a fundamentally different God. Scripture illustrates its use of the word “Righteousness” in so much language (ie, caring for fatherless and widows, visiting the iniquity of fathers upon children, and etc) that anyone who had only ever heard the term “righteous” applied to Hitler would see that this kind of “righteousness” is completely other. In other words, Scripture ought to define even our use of the word “righteous,” and not our use of the word, Scripture. The fact that we let it happen the other way round is not proof that it either has to or ought to continue that way. We have been making God in our own image, and that is why we are in this mess.

I believe that Scripture is sufficient for doctrine, reproof and all the rest of it-- for furnishing us for every good work. It is sufficient to explain its own propositions. It is sufficient to enable us to discern our culture. It is sufficient to enable us to change it, so that it pleases God. There isn't much more to be said. It is no more Scripture plus Roman Catholic tradition, than Scripture but cultural tradition. It might sound less rustic to say otherwise. But the plain rustic fact is often rustic: what the apostles preached was foolishness to the Greeks. If we can't appeal to Scripture to settle the dispute, that is when we are of all men most miserable. Because it just your taste against vaudeville. And how do you know that what you like is more beautiful? Everything you appeal to, is ultimately valuated on your own scale. Revelation is the only way we can valuate our own scale, by the absolute.

Kamelda, your insistence upon Sola Scriptura for all matters seems very noble and appealing. I for one am willing to give it a try. I would therefore like you or anyone else on this blog to give me a definition of "beauty" that incorporates nothing but Scripture. (And I am afraid I must insist very strongly on this last qualification.) I will then try to critique it and see if it holds up.

Fundamentalism is quickly unraveling.

I don't sing the songs in my church that are untrue or that display inordinate affections towards God. I am exposing myself as much as possible, to C. S. Lewis, Eliot, Barzun, Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Teresa of Avila, Donne, and all the rest. I strive to protect my personal time with God in prayer and adoration. I refuse to participate in fundamentalist's "pop cultural excesses" and in programs that compromise God's truth. I have much to learn and much more to do, but what else can I do?
I don't know that I completely disagree with you, Dissidens, in your pessimistic view of the future of Christianity; I see it, but what can I do? What should I do?
Dissidens, are you somehow outside of your criticism? Do you consider yourself as someone who is outside of our compromise? At times you speak to us as someone looking at us from the outside, from a high point, but others, as one of us in the same struggle. Where are you in this whole discussion? If you are outside, how did you get there? How do you distance yourself from compromise?

Well, I’m not sure what to say: first there are errors of fact. I do not have a pessimistic view of Christianity; I have a pessimistic view of current evangelicalism. Those are two different things. We began this blog by recommending a hefty slug of Christianity to any misguided reader.

Your phrasing of the question makes me wonder if you appreciate the desperate nature of the situation. It is because I do accept the teachings of Christianity that the problems carry the weight they do. If I had a pessimistic view of Christianity, I wouldn’t bother going to church week after week only to be bored and insulted.

Neo-evangelicalism doesn’t even recognize the truth. This is not a disgruntled expatriate talking, that charge has been made by an evangelical (Wells) and published by a major evangelical house (Eerdmans). Indeed there is an entire shelf filled with books lamenting the inability of neo-evangelicalism to remain faithful to any orthodox teaching, including something as basic as divine omniscience.

Fundamentalists again seem to be justifying themselves by reasserting their commitment to separatism. This is balloon juice. There was separatism before fundamentalism, there was (and is) separatism outside fundamentalism, and there will be separatism among the godly after fundamentalism has blown away. Indeed fundamentalism has failed to separate on some key issues that would stun our forebears. According to this argument I might be encouraged to join the Amish and spare myself the hypocrisy, idolatry and factionalism. Fundamentalists are famous for passing sanctimonious resolutions [http://www.itib.org/resolutions/11-music.html] and then indulging in the most undignified stagecraft. I know this because I once sat under the ministry of one of the committee members.

And I fail to see how any compromise you may attribute to me is relevant. Let’s say I burn down orphanages for fun. What does that change? If it appears that I am speaking from a “high position”, it may be nothing more than the fact that my position is derived from an understanding of traditional Christianity rather than the twisted wreckage that exists today.

I’m really not sure any answer I offer can by understood. How a movement can so easily separate itself from Billy Graham and Jerry Falwell and yet embrace liturgical idolatry, corrupt leadership and divisiveness is beyond my powers to defend. Fundamentalists cannot even abide fundamentalists. I’m going to go way out on a limb here and say that this is not the sort of separation the Apostles encouraged.

How do I distance myself from compromise? I simply stop doing those things that are compromising and separate from those who either fail to understand or refuse to admit wrongdoing.

Feel free to correct me, but the only dilemma I see exists in the minds of those committed to certain fundamentalist institutions.

I believe you--and others--have some sense of what constitutes worthy worship and what is in keeping with the dignity of God (or even the dignity of the worshiper). Ask yourself, or better yet, ask your superiors, “Why do our worship leaders continue to lead us in songs we must refrain from singing? What merit do they have that justifies such indifference?”

Orthodoxy, orthopraxy, orthopathy, these three, but the greatest of these is...which?

I agree with dissidens that the irony of our days is profound. These three parts of the Christian life should not be capable of division. But they have been divided for us. Do we long for sober worship amid works of piety and reverence? Let us go to the conservative Anglicans and Catholics. But we cannot go there because they are not orthodox.

Do we wish for orthodoxy? Let us go to the fundamentalists. But some say we cannot go there either because they are not orthopath or orthoprax. What are we to do?

Does anyone really suggest that we flee to the caves like Elijah and complain until we are answered?

This is something new. Someone saying something piercing about fundamentalists and yet he lives. Dissidens, your comments are very indicting and yet they are almost empty of anything but scorn. I don't know the answer, but I do know that Athanasius stood contra mundum, and if that is where you, sir dissidens, must go, as well as NeoClassical, then there you must go.

What can I say? The movement invites scorn: bereft of culture (and even civility) it now presumes to instruct us. And the movement’s cheerleaders for 85 years have done nothing but avert their eyes, leaving simple believers stranded between heterodoxy and buffoonery.

From the fable of the old man, the boy and the donkey I have learned that I will not please everyone. That’s just a cross I will have to bear.

Have you heard of my good friend, Elijah? Now there was some scorn!

Dissidens,
You said, "If I had a pessimistic view of Christianity, I wouldn’t bother going to church week after week only to be bored and insulted."
When I read this (and your other comments about music in your church), it leads me to conclude that you are not satisfied with the church you are in. This is why I asked you if you were like one of us, or if you were outside of your criticism.
I assume that your church is not a fundamentalist church, so then my question would be, what kind of church is it? Is it better than a fundamentalist church? Why are you there, if you are not satisfied with the worship there, if you really want to be consistent?
Because a sound church is difficult to find, I assumed that you were pessimistic about the future of Christianity.
I agree that we cannot give up on Christianity; we do not have the option of not gathering with other believers, but where is Christianity today? Where is the true church?
I see fundamentalism as one manifestation of Christianity, though I do see glaring problems with it. I do think that the situation is deseperate, and that is why I am asking, what should I do? It is not that I'm infatuated with fundamentalism, or that I do not see its glaring weaknesses. My problem is that I don't see any other place outside of fundamentalism that is better. Maybe that is just a lack of knowledge on my part, so that is why I am asking you to point me to the churches that worship God in a true way, like Erondil said, a church that is not only sound in affections, but also in doctrine and practice.

Bring on the scorn, dissidens. Machen suffered such reproaches. You are in a distinguished company.

I'm curious to hear your answer to erondil's question.

Neoclassical:

Hmmm. Perhaps I read your word compromise as fundamentalists generally use the term. I apologize. For the sake of this discussion let me contrast it with the word trade-off. I try not to hold positions that compromise what I believe to be true, but I readily admit that in the reality that exists today there is a trade-off. Most certainly. My choice is not between Elvis and Mozart; the only option I have is Elvis and Elton John. In that sense I readily agree with you: there certainly is an onerous trade-off.

When the SS stands at my door and demands to know if I’m harboring any Jews, I will lie. But I’d like to think that that is not to compromise my belief that lying is always wrong. I rest in the hope that my high priest will wink as God winked at David’s eating the shewbread.

The bind that this puts our conscience in is, in my judgment, intolerable. We should not have to choose between slightly different, culturally nuanced idolatries. And I certainly reject the notion that this constitutes separation.

So, I do not have a real choice in where I go to sing (or play) to God, the differences are superficial. Inconsequential, even.

In the real world there are also other complicating considerations; the church exists to do more than sing, it exists to instruct. Once again fundamentalism refuses to concern itself with its shortcomings in the pulpit. I would never defend my choice based on liturgy alone; that would make the church some sort of glee club. As it happened (in my situation), the preacher has a background in Salvation Army and strict