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Bumpkin Apostates

07/21/05

Permalink 05:52:04 pm, by dissidens Email , 552 words, 4321 views   English (US)
Categories: Old Main

Bumpkin Apostates

We’ve posted Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut [7/5/05], Outward and Inward Morality [7/10/05], and Rules to be Observed in Singing of Psalms [7/13/05] as typically good examples of Christian art, sermon and devotion.

Contrasted with this tradition and habit of mind is a contemporary Christianity which is trite, petty, thoughtless, sectarian, insular.

Neo-evangelicalism has pretty much abandoned any hope of a return to orthodoxy: it seeks to church the unchurched (whatever that means this week); and as secular culture drifts further to sea, those pretending to “do church” will be forced to more and more desperate extremes to reach them. You’ll hear scattered complaints but nothing above the din of Rock N Roll Worship Circus.

(Last week a celebrity pastor introduced his music minister to the church, and in his closing comments suggested that they enjoy a “wide range of worship styles” and that if you didn’t like the style this week, come back next week. In what other period of church history could that have been said? In what other period of church history would that have been tolerated?)

Fundamentalism likewise repudiated the past in favor of its in-house cultural neologisms—which drive more and more desperate people to those stylistically-challenged churches. Now some bumpkins are pretending to claim culture as their hope for repristinating orthodoxy. While the attempt has been amusing, it has not been helpful. Look through Majesty Hymns to find something that approximates Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut, listen to WCTS and its mindless twaddle for something of value. I know: we shall hear yet again their protests of separatism, but we are not fooled. They are worldly. Their music is worldly. Their forms [sic] are stolen from early television and old-time radio. And their pathetic entertainments were pop-culture rip-offs 50 years ago. If they’d had culture, they would have known it then; now they shall be forced to confront the sheer anachronism of it. They have a genuine affection for the ugly and the superficial, whether in their art, their preaching, or their devotion.

What drove them from Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut to I Asked the Lord to Comfort Me When Things Weren’t Going My Way or Jesus Is Coming Again? What drove them from Johannes Eckhart to Billy Sunday? What elevation of spirit did I miss? Explain to me how this is not a deformity of religious sentiment.

Neo-evangelicals are worldly and fundamentalists are nostalgically worldly.

Why is this? Why, when it is clearly within their power to change, do they still pump out this bilge? The same can be said for scores of other outlets: bbnradio.org, rejoice.org . . .

Modern man hates culture as the external and artificial constraint it places on his loves. The Evangelical is a modern man. The Fundamentalist is a modern man. Neither of the two houses of evangelicalism has distinguished itself as a patron of beauty, goodness or truth; it’s a simple fact of cultural history. Both look at culture as a gospel-tool, not the fashioning of a pious spirit. Neither believes in a transcendent reality by which all loves are tested. Among them you do not find the bond of spiritual community; among them you would be hard-pressed to find a real spiritual song, or a real sermon, or a real devotional guide.

Why is this?

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1 Trackback from: Unknowing [Visitor]
Dissidens Strikes Again!
This is good. This is true: They [fundamentalists] have a genuine affection for the ugly and the superficial, whether in their art, their preaching, or their devotion.
PermalinkPermalink 07/21/05 @ 19:17
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2 Comment from: Todd Mitchell [Visitor]
Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut just arrived via InterLibrary Loan. Words fail me.
PermalinkPermalink 07/21/05 @ 21:38
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3 Comment from: dissidens [Member] Email
Amazing, isn't it?

That such treasures have been kept from us?
PermalinkPermalink 07/22/05 @ 03:38
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4 Comment from: capdoctor [Visitor]
dissidens,

If I recall, a fellow who identified himself as dissuasio (: asked for you both to define and to opine a bit on your philosophy of art. He wanted you also to locate your thoughts as closely as possible within the Western tradition, which has defined art--best I can tell-- in at least the following ways:

1. Imitation
2. Pleasure
3. Play
4. Escape
5. Insight
6. Empathy
7. Quality of Experience
8. Communication
9. Expression

I think he, furthermore, questioned weather or not you are conscripting ancient, Mediterranean, *religious* categories of thought to define and critique certain contemporary phenomena (I'll leave that general or call it say, "bumpkinness" or artificial "noise").

What do you mean by "culture," “art” "music," "beauty" etc.? Is this discussion also not largely a matter of "definition"?

Dissuasio also wanted--if I recall correctly-- to know whether a rigorous, biblical theology was up to the task of providing the essential mechanisms and framework for the necessary preconditions, univocal terms, categories (what have you) for discussion, let alone formulating a project that might steer us in a direction of full well "knowing" that our ideas of culture, art, beauty, music indeed comply with the triune God's expectations.

Further, how does the incarnation impact these kinds of discussions? Does that event leave any room for whatever does not qualify as "fine" art, both for culture and for the true Church.

Best all around,
cd

p.s. As I also recall, that post suddenly disappeared from remonstrans.com and was never answered. Perhaps the .net will tolerate it a bit better:)

p.s.s. Does bleak keep company with mild skeptics?
PermalinkPermalink 07/22/05 @ 04:28
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5 Comment from: dissidens [Member] Email
Yes, dissuasio, I know.

Your prose doesn't change as easily as your nick.
PermalinkPermalink 07/22/05 @ 05:08
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6 Comment from: Todd Mitchell [Visitor]
I'll take a swing at the question, "Why is this?" I don't expect to knock it out of the park, but I hope to at least connect with the ball.

I know a girl who accidentally stabbed herself with a fork while eating pork chops. Now she doesn't like pork chops because of this association. How happy she is, says she, that she didn't stab herself while eating steak! Otherwise her favorite food would have been permanently debased.

The fundamentalist movement has tightly woven the threads of orthodox thinking with heretical affections since its birth out of pop culture (Finney, et al). We hungered for steak; we thought stabbing ourselves while eating it was normal.

The more orthodox the thinking, the more heinous the associated heteropathy. Bad songs with good words (whether in the lyrics or in the pulpit) are like stabbing yourself with a fork while eating steak. If someone is compelled to use a crummy song, he should at least have the decency to use crummy words. But decency is no more; the insidious work is done.

It seems most of American "Christianity" is so steeped in pop culture that they cannot imagine a God without associating him with the latest low. Stabbing themselves has become normal table manners.

"What do you mean?" they say confusedly with their mouths full of steak, as they jab away spasmodically with their forks into their scarred, bleeding hands, a pitying look in their eyes.
PermalinkPermalink 07/22/05 @ 11:29
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7 Comment from: DGus [Visitor]
That metaphor doesn't do it for me.
PermalinkPermalink 07/22/05 @ 14:55
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8 Comment from: Todd Mitchell [Visitor]
It is very difficult to imagine as painful and injurious that which seems to feel so good.
PermalinkPermalink 07/22/05 @ 16:07
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9 Comment from: DGus [Visitor]
No, it isn't. I simply find your metaphor distracting and unhelpful.
PermalinkPermalink 07/22/05 @ 16:29
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10 Comment from: dissidens [Member] Email
Hmmmm.

"The fundamentalist movement has tightly woven the threads of orthodox thinking with heretical affections since its birth out of pop culture..."

I was under the impression that that was not possible. How does one have orthodox thoughts and heterodox affections? And if fundamentalists can do that, why can't other evangelicals?

What has all this pompous pulpit-pounding been about?


P.S. I think Marsden is right: Fundamentalism was not born out of pop culture.
PermalinkPermalink 07/22/05 @ 17:46
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11 Comment from: todd mitchell [Member] Email · http://withtearsoppressed.blogspot.com/
Good point. I do not want to reinforce this false dichotomy. What I have in mind is an inconsistency between propositional teaching and affective teaching. Teaching orthodox propositions that are at odds with a studied heteropathy, which of course subverts the teaching.

Would you indulge me, please, and refresh my memory on Marsden? I'd re-read him but I'm swamped (I shouldn't even be here right now!).
PermalinkPermalink 07/22/05 @ 21:50
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12 Comment from: dissidens [Member] Email
I merely refer to the great social upheavals of the time like Bolshevism, Darwinism and their attacks on the Western tradition remarked by men like H. L. Mencken, Walter Lippmann, and Joseph Wood Krutch.

Fundamentalism and American Culture, George M. Marsden, OUP, 1980
PermalinkPermalink 07/23/05 @ 05:57
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13 Comment from: todd mitchell [Member] Email · http://withtearsoppressed.blogspot.com/
Thanks for the reminder. What I mean by born "out of pop culture" is simply that Fundamentalist methods have always mimicked pop culture -- no surprise given the commitment to innovation in reviving America that had become a mark of piety by the 1920s.
PermalinkPermalink 07/23/05 @ 07:01
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14 Comment from: dissidens [Member] Email
Well, there's no doubt it came to do that.

I've often wondered what American Christianity would have looked like if it had had principled leaders.
PermalinkPermalink 07/23/05 @ 07:47
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15 Comment from: Unk [Visitor]
Is the point with the Marsden part that fundamentalism was another social upheaval that also contributed to the attack on western civilization?
PermalinkPermalink 07/23/05 @ 11:37
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16 Comment from: jcmhs78@yahoo.com [Visitor]
Part of Marsden's point is that Fundies, like other Evangelicals, relied too much on Newton, Bacon, Descartes: i.e., autonomous, human reason. From about the mid-1800s on, they shamelessly bought into the Enlightenment project: hook, line and sinker! Time may have been better spent on Jesus, Paul, Augustine, Calvin and faith.

GM's essay on Evangelicalism and the collaspe of the academy in the collection of essays, *Faith and Rationality,* is indeed worth a grown man's time (or woman's too). The crusty old Princetonians were not much better off either (e.g. Hodge, Warfield).

Thus, we should thank our "lucky stars" for the likes of Cornelius Van Til and others of WTS ilk, that is those from the early part of the 20th century onward. But, most fundies have little use for a robust Reformed and covenantal outlook; that doesn't quite fuel their empirical pessimisms, thus, leaves them with Paul wondering why things are the way they are. Trouble is, Paul had a sufficient answer and most Fundies don't.
PermalinkPermalink 07/23/05 @ 12:11
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17 Comment from: dissidens [Member] Email
Well, that was not my point. I’m thinking it’s not Marsden’s either.

Fundamentalism went bonkers so soon after it became a self-aware movement that critics might be forgiven for thinking that it was “pop culture” and daffy from the start. I don’t think that’s quite fair: it was from literate periodicals and from the academy that the first alarms were heard about the meaning of Modernism. There was a real enemy, Modernism was never a boogeyman, but careless terminology has a way of obfuscating the facts. This is a point Marsden makes about Sandeen’s work. I think he is exactly right.

Fundamentalism was excellent as an idea, it was abysmal in its practice; brilliant in conception but disastrous in execution.

This brilliant concept was soon co-opted by opportunistic pulpiteers, predatory evangelists and doctrinal carpetbaggers; this is not an acceptable response to heterodoxy.

This inability to retain any sort of coherence forever crippled the movement. Indeed the entire evangelical endeavor was laid waste. Read the magazines, the convention resolutions and the blogs today to see how coherent fundamentalism is. Neo-evangelicals have at least dropped the pretense. They still have unity as their seventh statement of faith, but we all know that by “unity” they really mean “indifference”.

I had a pastor ask me if I considered myself an Evangelical. I looked him straight in the eye and after less than three seconds he dropped his gaze as though I’d just shown him some glossy 8X12s of him with someone else’s wife in a hotel room. “Yah, that term doesn’t mean a whole lot anymore.”

So the direct answer to your question, I think Marsden wouldn’t have said that fundamentalism was merely another contributing upheaval. (Although he might say that today.)

As for me, I think that American Evangelicalism was like a lot of very fine dust suspended in a bag: apparently harmless until a flame is introduced to it.

The current disgrace was not imposed on Fundamentalism by Modernists. Modernism didn’t force mere "militant separatists" to give up meaningful art, sermon and devotion.
PermalinkPermalink 07/23/05 @ 18:53
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18 Comment from: todd mitchell [Member] Email · http://withtearsoppressed.blogspot.com/
Are you saying that meaningful art, sermon, and devotion was given up after the Liberal-Christian (Modernist-Fundamentalist) crisis? Wasn't it already doomed?
PermalinkPermalink 07/24/05 @ 05:40
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19 Comment from: dissidens [Member] Email
Oh, by no means! Several preconditions had already been met before Modernism ever came along; there were several watersheds we can speculate about. The tricky bit is identifying those watersheds. We humans can only do that in retrospect and we have only one known permutation to work from.

I have no doubt (no doubt reasonable to the non-omniscient) that we had already erred, and I believe there is no such thing as a non-fatal error of doctrine. I also have little doubt that the practical result is a product of defective leadership.

I love the account of King David, probably chatting idly around a campfire outside Bethlehem as soldiers repaired their gear, expressing a desire for some water from a particular well. One can imagine that eyes met in the darkness and three guys slipped out quietly and told the sentry to expect their return, and back they came with the water. David recognized the significance of what had happened and poured out the water as an offering to God. (Incidentally, who wouldn’t follow such a Poet-King?)

The point is David knew the value of a thing. He knew what was holy and what was common.

Fundamentalists never knew that. How else could they tolerate what they do?
PermalinkPermalink 07/24/05 @ 10:44
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20 Comment from: DGus [Visitor]
'I had a pastor ask me if I considered myself an Evangelical. I looked him straight in the eye and after less than three seconds he dropped his gaze as though I’d just shown him some glossy 8X12s of him with someone else’s wife in a hotel room. “Yah, that term doesn’t mean a whole lot anymore.”'

Possible meaning: The question was founded on such self-evident fallacies, and my gaze was so penetrating, and the silence so convicting, that the questioner was ashamed of his stupid question, and his mumbled comment was a submission and retreat.

Alternative meaning: Staring at someone for three seconds instead of answering a question is such odd behavior, and possibly even apparently hostile, so that the questioner attempts a polite, self-deprecating conclusion to the weird exchange so he can get away.

Of course I'm voting with the first meaning.
PermalinkPermalink 07/24/05 @ 11:10
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21 Comment from: dissidens [Member] Email
Oh, absolutely. Staring at someone for three whole seconds is indeed odd behavior.

And hostile.

More imaginative explanations for events you never witnessed, DGus? Is that as much fun as it looks?
PermalinkPermalink 07/24/05 @ 11:55
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