Good stuff
Anthony Esolen has a bit on Education and Reverence that is really good. And dissidens always has good stuff, but you especially don't want to miss this one on beauty.

Web Watch Archives
8.31 Beauty is not Skin Deep Remonstrans "Whether one has had the sensation or not, there is a real connection between what is beautiful and what is good; there is a real difference between a person who has lived his...

Yes. But the cross is aesthetically offensive. And the cross is the most forcible expression of holiness we have. It's not just the quantity, but the quality of beauty that goes way beyond the surface.

Beauty? Er...ahh....is this a Platonic, universal, aesthetic hiding up there in the world of the forms? Or. has the one particular beauty --or several manifestations of it for that matter--been finally rediscovered by dissidens, who now most certainly will show and tell the rest of us who are apparently bereft?

Will we finally get information --the kind that is, of course, communicatted by language and NOT culturally determined, since there is no such thing as culturally determined meaning--about the One "Beauty" which will cause him finally to renounce his dualism and take Aristotle's advice to get "his head out of the clouds" and share with the rest of us who are frantically searching in the maze of particulars for beauty's essence here in the time-space continum? Can you follow sentences with more than, say, 12 words?

Where is it? What does it look or sound like, Dissidens? Fourth Baptist, perhaps? BJ, some Compact Disc, some NPR radio station, some music hall, some art gallery? Is it in some other place: perhaps another place worship known only to you and your culturally, gnostic followers?

Tell us, dissidens, where we can go and apply our Cartesian, mirror-minded, cognitive apparatuses to this revelation of an ideal, concrete, beauty that "properly" (according to diss.) reflects what God wants us to feel in our guts, our souls. We don't want to be "flat-souled." We want to feel properly, not feel like rocks do when they dream!

Are there other cultural moguls, pontificators like yourself, near Florida that will be a little closer drive for us? Perhaps with technology we could have some of it pumped down here, or is that like trying to pump sun shine through a pipeline? I dunno?

Maybe that is the problem: THE "down here." I mean, after all it is "down," and we southerners really have not been punished enough since the mid-nineteenth century. Of course, everybody knows we are a bunch of redneck bumpkins, dunces, not to be taken seriously, stupid and all the rest of the social, cultural, and intellectual perjoratives in the roster of human language with meaning.

Even the Logos became Flesh so that people could see what He looked like. Isn't it a reasonable thing to ask for dissidens to tell us what Beauty looks, sounds, or feels like, or where we might rush to find it?

All truth is culturally derived (hermeneutics), and all Gott-sprach is analogical. Let's see you escape either dissidens. Now who has laid the cunning trap? hummmm? You cannot escape the triad of Self, Situation, and the Norming norm of all reality, God Himself. Go ahead and try it. Dissidens is in a quandry, nana-nana-boo-boo:)

Maybe it is time to laugh and dance (of course in an Aristotelian way).

p.s. diss., watch the Matrix. It might give you a few ideas of how to escape the black hole of guilt which hobgoblin arguments nearly have drowned you. Ahhhh, Christian Liberty is a wonderful thing: know it, find it, learn from it, live it!

Capdoc:

In a previous article (http://remonstrans.net/index.php/2005/08/25/somewhat_misunderstandable#comments)
DGus commented that:

"Within this blog's critique of Christian culture, there are insights aplenty from which that culture could indeed benefit, and which in many instances it sorely needs. But these insights are offered not as fraternal correction but as an indictment and judgment. As such, they are uncharitable, unhelpful, unhopeful, and fundamentally incorrect."

I was wondering if you shared DGus’ opinion that Christian culture could benefit from many insights offered here, that in many instances it sorely needs it and that the primary contention is the tone and presentation of those ideas? Or, are you of the opinion that Christian culture is healthy?

Thanks for your consideration.

Dear Remonres,

What is the meaning or significance of your pseudonym? Is it a Latin word?

I am not a cultural critic. I am of the opinion that ever serious minded xrn will more or less adopt one of the following stances:
1. Xrnty against culture,
2. Above culture,
3. Transformer of culture,
4. Xrn and Culture in paradox, or
5. Xrnty of culture.

These are Niehbur's categories, not mine. Whether it is healthy may not be the right question. Culture is what it tis under the providence of God.

I opt for # 3 above. I don't think the Gospel is merely for the populating of heaven or just the "saving of souls." The Gospel, Christ's work of redemption and His Kingdom promise to one day renew ALL creation. Now, consider this:

The Gospel is being preached, and the Kingdom is advancing.
The Gospel will be God's means of renewing the whole cosmos.
Therefore, there is more to the Gospel than PERSONAL salvation.

Part of God's historical-redemptive project is the redeeming of culture. So, yes, I think all culture needs it, regardless of its "highness," Xrnty is part of the all; therefore, Xrnty needs it too. BUT, Bach nor Baroque, nor Bachman Turner Overdrive are the answer; The Gospel is.

I wonder, dissidens, if perhaps Ps 45:2 is in line with what you say in the main post? It seems that the blessing follows on the basis of (therefore) fairness and grace. Tozer has me considering the Psalm. How do you understand this verse?

Hmmm.

I'm not sure I'm following you; I take the psalm to be an enumeration of his excellencies: beauty, grace, strength, glory, truth, righteousness, etc. He being the sum of all perfections.

My point has more to do with the necessary connection between truth and beauty. Since this is a real connection (not just a culturally defined preference we associate with truth) we will not find one without the other, whether we look at the king, his subjects, or the subjects' admiration of the king.

Correct me if I've misunderstood you.

Great essay, Dissidens. I get the same feeling every time I listen to St. Matthew's Passion and a number of other works.

Given the current barbarism, er, "Christian Liberty," at what point might we be justfied in simply moving to Montana and barring the door? (Or maybe just in moving onto the top of a pole?)

Well, I've already made that decision. I'm out.

I sympathize with others of similar sentiment who find themselves bound to their circumstances, and I don’t fault them. (One reason I am not a fundamentalist is my inability to separate and then make as a condition of fellowship the demand that others follow suit.) This is a decision for every conscience, and I think conscience matters.

But human nature is odd. Many people will look at the world and see the evil.... They see the Congress as a pack of rascals, but their senator is good. The education system is rotten, but their school district is the exception. The legal profession is bad, but their lawyer is good. I saw a bumper sticker yesterday: “I am thankful for our Catholic priests.”

I think the time is coming for people to judge for themselves the gravity of our situation. For me that time has slipped into the past.

If I was created for worship, if indeed my whole race was created for fellowship and worship, I cannot see these issues as secondary until we get to Heaven. Now is the time our obedience matters most; in Heaven it will be easy: we will not be fighting the world, the flesh and the devil; now is when we show with our worship what God means to a yet unglorified man.

Rem:

I am simply following the tone of the leading intellectual on the stage of this blog. Oops, stage is a poor choice of metaphor. Let's say leading intellectual on the LCD of this blog, or on the server or wherever the blog is. Where is it, anyway?

Ask dissidens to reply to your question. He prolly can answer for himself and me. After all, my words are meaningless, and therefore, carry no certain tone.

I'm wondering about the "therefore". He is blessed because of his beauty. Beauty carries that much with it. Is this along the lines of what you say at the end?

Yah, I think that is legitimate.

Diss:

What do you mean by "I'm out?" You have said you still go to church on Sunday, so that can't be what you mean.

This is not a "gotcha" question. I'm genuinely curious to know in what practical way you are "out."

Nono, I don’t take that as a “gotcha question”; that’s a fair inquiry.

Answering the question in a “practical” way is not easy, but I’ll try to give a sense of my own perception of “in” and “out”. None of this can be construed as advice for anyone, which will be obvious.

To start with, and at a very fundamental level, we all have a “home”: a psychic or emotional or intellectual hearth. We recognize as companions those in our experience who share our loves and revulsions. We allow ourselves to be shaped by the consensus of that group. When we are in doubt about something, the scales tend to tip in one (predictable) direction in deference to this consensus. We engage in activities we would not be disposed to do on our own. We allow people in that group to impose on us in a way we would not tolerate from outsiders. When an offense might be detected, we have grounds to react in one way as opposed to another. We might extend certain familiarities with people in this group which could raise suspicions outside the group. There are thousands of ways this dynamic finds expression.

Todd juxtaposed barbarity and religious insensibility, and I think that that is a fair characterization. The people who were my home have trashed it. It is no longer the home it was. I don’t feel obligated to follow their “consensus” in this. I no longer feel obligations to them, I no longer feel compelled to treat them as companions or colleagues or friends. (I’m speaking of a class here, not individuals.)

When I say I’m “out” I mean that I would be no more at home in a BJ church than I would in a pool hall. I know that sounds outrageous, but I am trying to convey a sense of the profound disconnect here. Jesus himself was maligned for hanging out with publicans and sinners as opposed to the Pharisees--whom he deliberately offended. It’s not to say that BJ is the same as a pool hall except insofar as I would be a stranger in both places. (Clearly the pool hall is much less offensive.) The relations I spoke of in the third paragraph would not exist in one place any more than the other; the reasons might be different, but the basic idea is identical: these are not my people.

The disparity between what these philistines do and what I believe is so great that the relationships that once existed no longer do, no longer can. How this change might manifest itself could be miniscule or it could be overwhelming; it depends on so many variables.

When I call these people apostates, I am not trying to exaggerate or enlist sympathy or get retribution on them. I mean it as literally as it is possible to mean the word apostate. (I am using the term in exactly the way it is used in Acts 15:38.) They have fallen away, they have abandoned a tradition, a sensibility, a way of making prudent judgments that used to exist, and they have done it at a very profound level. They have found a way to divorce God from beauty, they have found a way to trash worship for everyone. They have found a way to introduce trite rubbish into church as worship of a holy God. And they know it. But all they do is make noises as though they are “seized of the problem and have taken it on board”. They worsen the problem by continuing the policy under a different set of hayseed justifications.

But they have made their idol and they will not change.

I gather that the frustration that Todd was expressing is so deep as to provoke the sort of realignment I describe. The tradition they renounced, the sensibility they have debased, and the judgments they have abandoned remain the obligation of the saint.

I can’t be more serious about this: I can play Nineball with just anyone, I cannot worship with just anyone. God forbids it. The very nature of worship precludes it.

Dissidens: Your post that opened this thread makes a very good point (and makes it well) about the relation of truth and beauty. However, the wheels have simply fallen off in this latest comment (#17):

"The relations I spoke of [about those who share a "home"] ... would not exist in one place [a "BJ church"] any more than the other [a pool hall]; the reasons might be different, but the basic idea is identical: these are not my people.... When I call these people apostates, I am not trying to exaggerate ....I mean it as literally as it is possible to mean the word apostate.... They have fallen away, they have abandoned a tradition.... The tradition they renounced, the sensibility they have debased, and the judgments they have abandoned remain the obligation of the saint." (I assume that a "BJ Church" is one pastored by a BJU graduate and within the orbit of BJU's influence and "culture".)

You thereby elevate your esthetic and "cultural" judgments to a stratospheric level. Jesus condemned those who taught the traditions of men as if they were the laws of God, and this post of yours does precisely that. Since you are a Christian, the people at this "BJ Church" are indeed "your people", defective though they may be--and they are obliged to regard you as "their people" notwithstanding your defects. This is the duty we bear to every Christian in the catholic church, no matter how alien or disordered we think their culture is. Like you, I would not prefer to attend such a church; but I would and do certainly regard them as my brethren. (And by the way, they have much to teach us.) You are confusing the Holy Tradition, which is indeed the saint's and the church's obligation to safeguard and perpetuate, with a particular slice of Western culture. It's a fine slice, but it's not the faith once delivered.

These posts reflect a total loss of perspective and proportion.

It is extremely ironic that, even among these comments, the fundamentalist is implicitly criticized because he "separate[s] and then make[s] as a condition of fellowship the demand that others follow suit." The critique is a valid one--but it also effectively applies to the viewpoint expressed here. All Gospel-preaching, Bible-believing American evangelicals and fundamentalists are declared to be "apostates" and are treated as being not your brethren. Is the saving grace supposed to be that you don't demand that others do so in order to remain in your fellowship? Well just how big is that undemanding fellowship? We know it excludes not just the evangelical-fundamentalists but also the Moravians, the Anglicans, the Roman Catholics, and every other specific group that has been nominated here as a valid church. Is there anybody in that tiny circle of fellowship but you and your poor wife? Say it ain't so.

If you really meant what you said, then this would be the sin of schism. One can almost always assume that you are overstating your point, so I hope it isn't really so. But can I remind you that the children are listening?

It is also extremely ironic that this post criticizes the supposed idolatry of the supposed cultural apostates, since idolatry is the very condition implicated in the elevation of "culture" (your brand) to be the defining characteristic of true religion. Again, I have to hope you're just letting off steam, but you should be more careful. This is serious.

Diss, You said
"When I call these people apostates, I am not trying to exaggerate or enlist sympathy or get retribution on them. I mean it as literally as it is possible to mean the word apostate. (I am using the term in exactly the way it is used in Acts 15:38.) They have fallen away, they have abandoned a tradition, a sensibility, a way of making prudent judgments that used to exist, and they have done it at a very profound level. They have found a way to divorce God from beauty, they have found a way to trash worship for everyone. They have found a way to introduce trite rubbish into church as worship of a holy God. And they know it. But all they do is make noises as though they are “seized of the problem and have taken it on board”. They worsen the problem by continuing the policy under a different set of hayseed justifications."

This is a serious accusation, sir. You are accusing probably most of the people who read this of being involved in apostate churches. And just because you are incognito, does not give you the right to make accusations as stinging and damaging as this. You, sir, are evidencing an egotistical mania that is usually reserved for men like Hitler and Stalin. Who, may I ask, on this entire globe, would you approve as promoting real worship, if anyone?

Are you the modern day Elijah, "I alone am left." If so, that is quite a high opinion of oneself.

Forgive me for my harsh tone, but it is purposeful.

Well, your tone does not trouble me; your misapprehension of the facts does. Perhaps you take too seriously the miseducated waifs and apologists of degeneracy we keep on Remonstrans for illustrative purposes.

I have repeatedly said, and I will now say again: It is not for me to approve, or set standards, for others’ worship, and I have not done so. If I ever set the standards for worship they would be too low, for I too am a fallen creature. Your beef is not with me, it is with a perfect God.

What I have done is remind everyone that a) the standard as set out in scripture remains the standard, and it is a high one, viz., all of God’s perfections, but most critical: his holiness b) that that standard was more closely approximated in the past—and I give examples of what I mean, and c) the current practice—which I never attributed to everyone—has been to substitute modern and worldly gratifications for true worship.

This accusation is hardly mine, only the devotedly unread could suggest that it is. What I am saying is not only not peculiar to me, there are books and writings we have cited; there are sermons on the web.

Please try to oppose these ideas with more credible accusations.

For the record, I know there are some who are appreciative of the distinction I am making here. And I will name one if it shuts up the eager-beaver hecklers who want to suggest that these ideas are unique to me: Tenth Pres. in Philadelphia, whose worship has impressed and gratified me for, what?, 35 years now, has expressed similar views.

Read them. http://www.tenth.org/

I do make a serious accusation and I do not repent of it: the vapid religious exercises being practiced in certain circles are not just a disgrace to the truth, they are a profanity. Read the early chapters of Isaiah.

Believe me, if I thought I were Elijah, I would have called down fire a long time ago. Please deal with the situation that exists. Trying to make me feel bad by accusing me of being the Lone Ranger or Hitler is not only childish, it is ineffective.

Yes, there are many of us who appreciate the distinction you are making here, diss. Please don't stop.

Dissidens: From its website that you cited, as well as its reputation, Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia is indeed an exemplary church. And the website has an excellent article on the subject of worship by the late Rev. Dr. James Boice--

http://www.tenth.org/articles/WhatIsWorship.pdf

--that does resonate with criticisms of degraded contemporary Christian worship that you make here. Readers can judge for themselves the similarities and differences of Dr. Boice's critique and your own, about which I have surely said enough for this thread.

It's good (and somewhat reassuring) that you are willing to identify yourself with this PCA church. It's a shame if there's no equivalent church in your own area. If there were, would you attend it? or would its Calvinistic doctrine be too off-putting?

There are two points on which I wish I could engage the Dr. Boice. (Maybe you can "channel" for him, so to speak?)

1. He rightly emphasizes the necessity of worshiping "in spirit" as opposed to merely in body (by one's presence, by participation in external ritual, etc.). He quotes Barclay saying, "True and genuine
worship is not to come to a certain place; it is not to go through a certain ritual or liturgy; it is not even to bring certain gifts. True worship is when the spirit, the immortal and invisible part of man, speaks to and meets with God, who is immortal and invisible." I think no one could dispute that as a description of an ideal. But conscientious and self-critical Christians will realize that on many a Sunday morning they fall short--whether from distraction, or discouragement, or the effects of confessed but besetting sin. Boice sees the routines of worship as potential aids to worship, so I infer that he would encourage the Christian to persist in the routines, even when feelings or "spirit" lag. But (I want to ask) when worship at the desired plane just doesn't seem to "work", and when one obediently and submissively--but in dryness or even in depression--goes through the motions (singing the hymns, reciting the creed, kneeling for prayer and saying his part), do we say that worship did not happen? Or do we say that it DID happen, albeit in a non-ideal way? I'd vote for the latter.

2. Boice says that we should worship "on the basis of the biblical revelation", and in that connection he cites both Luther and Calvin. Of course, as Boice even hints, these two had very different means of employing that principle: To oversimplify, Calvin cast out from customary Christian worship everything that the Bible did not affirmatively command, whereas Luther retained everything that the Bible did not forbid. As a result, Lutheran worship is much more traditional (and catholic", we would say), whereas Calvinist-Presbyterian worship is reinvented (and always subject to re-reinvention by successive "Biblical" critiques). Calvin (Boice rightly observes) made the Bible (and the preaching of it) the literal center of worship, whereas Luther retained the centrality of the Eucharist (and the Real Presence of Jesus in it). My question is: Doesn't the Calvinist principle (i.e., discard that which is not Biblically enjoined, and reinvent according to our own reading of the Bible) jettison the very thing that the ills of contemporary worship show us that we urgently need?--i.e., we need the (lower-case c) catholic tradition of the Church to mediate to us the truth of the Bible, including Biblical worship. No?

Dissidens,

Well said! Yet, I must admit, however, that the tone of your polemic, the hurtful sarcasm, the biting criticisms, the ad hominem attacks (and I can quote examples of them all) are very difficult to interpret via this medium, especially when we can't hear the tone or register of your comments. Inflections do matter, and we can't always decipher them clearly. If your tone and/or your rhetorical choices were intended to wake us up and cause us to think, then well done! Shock does work; think of the likes of Howard Stern (though I don't classify you with him).

It seemed that you sometimes intended to belittle people who either (a) did not see things your way or (b) thought you always gave convincing philosophical-theological-practical-historical reasons or (c) accounted for your views in a consistent and non-arbitrary way. Why then do you communicate in the manner you do? If merely for shock value, fine; just say so. If, on the other hand, you really think most of the rest of us are indeed less informed, albeit ignorant (and to some extent we are), then how is that helpful? It seems that you are able to dish out the gall with the best of 'em on the one hand, but when the shoe is on the other foot, it seems really to chap your back side.

Thank you for your honesty, and keep up the good work. There may be some who are striving to understand just how to cultivate true, religious affections for God. There are people who find solidarity with your thoughts, but they may also think that culture tilts in other directions from this side of the world.

Peace again, dissidens!

I know this is almost extinct by now, but my computer access is limited.

I guess you know that our Lord was also an apostate. I'm using the term exactly as it is used in Luke 22:41. We are all apostates, in so far as we are obedient to 2 Timothy 2:19. Paul was proved to be wrong about John Mark, who was never an apostate as per common theological usage-- what he fell away from was not the worship of God in the sense you are talking about, but a very rigorous missionary work. I was hoping you don't base your inability to worship with other believers on that reference to apostacy.

I wouldn't go to a worship service at BJ if I could help it; and I would have a hard time worshipping in the beauty of holiness if I did. God is worshipped by individuals, though; and I have always assumed that the struggle to worship anywhere (since that is what I am made for) was an indicator of ugliness in me as well.

I was wondering what you do with the distinction Paul made, about the more excellent way: you seem to have cut away all that superlative content and inherent paradox in your definition of high and low culture. If that is unclear, you can see my blog for today ("Head and Shoulders Knees and Toes") for a sense of what I am trying to say. I don't know how to exposit a mystery.

The supposed humanizing influence of high culture is flatly contradicted by the Nazis. These men could debauch themselves in the most heinous inhumanity all day long; then retire to spend the rest of the evening enjoying the life-changing music of Schubert. They had denied beauty, because they had denied God. This ought to teach us the folly of talking about the life changing power of any composer or aesthetic tradition-- of looking to culture for the offices of Christ. The symbols cannot save us, and we emasculate beauty with such inordinate desires.

If beauty is to be more than skin deep, then we must stop talking about superficialities such as how culture will make us holy. Culture will not. It never has done. High culture has produced many of our greatest villains, and passed by many of our greatest saints-- which suggests the presence of an even higher culture. It also suggests that where beauty has affected anything, it is because the symbols stand for Someone; and that Someone was present.

You did have some high beauty about you when you were punkish: you had humility. I think I understand the sense in which you say that they are not your people. But they are God's. If you never balance the equation, you will ldead us all to arrogance, in the face of beauty. Because when we are dealing with His people, we are dealing a far greater and more mysterious beauty than the music of Bach. His people are being redeemed, all the way from sin. And in the face of that, we are all worms.

No! I had absolutely no idea that Jesus was apostate!

I’m shocked.

Yes. I fear the BJites are in good company... Chilling.

Kamelda,
If I understand your post, and I think I do, it is not culture, but Christ that is the focus of renewing the man or woman. This is the weakness I see in many cultural elitists. They become enamored with their cultural pursuits and Christ is rarely the end in sight. Rather it is their own enlightenment and enchantment with the elusive "beauty" that drives them. So, I think I agree. It will not make a person better.
Bob

Bob, my points are several; but you are right about the main thrust. Besides this, my points are that
1) Dissidens is right to call us to account for the way in which we worship God. This is the most important thing we do with our life; and Dissidens is right that we have corrupted God's worship and put ourselves at the center of everything.
2) If you read Dissidens carefully you will find that what he says worth getting upset about is very little; it only sounds like it is so much because of the irresponsible and imprecise way in which he employs terms and phrases. Witness the usage of apostate based on one verse of Scripture. Meanwhile, despite numerous verses of Scripture citing the longsuffering of God as a most manifested aspect of His glory-- presumably not excluded from the beauty of holiness, in which we are to worship-- and a pointed rebuke to those who wished to call down fire in the New Testament, Dissidens could wish to call down fire on those whom God is suffering long with. This is enough to make one wonder if he knows what spirit he is of.
3) He confuses a return to true worship with his own autobiography. We are told that these people are not Dissidens people, as a kind of summation. But this fact is not nearly so material as the one he fails to mention-- that they are God's people. Surely if God is to be central to all our thought, it is His associations that matter, not ours.
4) I disagree with his ideas of worship and beauty and culture as not going either deep enough or high enough. But I am still thinking about that.

Oh,dear! Our shallowness has been found out.

:-)

How superficial of you to say so.

this is very good
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