Last week's news included two contrasting articles touching matters of faith. Links follow, but be forewarned: Remonstrans is not responsible for injuries from any whiplash that you experience as you juxtapose these stories.

The first is an article by a man who learned about tithing several years ago when he was trying to follow all the rules in the Bible. He determined to tithe that year by giving a tenth of his income to the needy. He has not tithed every year since then but continues to make tithing a goal. The noteworthy point is that this man is an agnostic. Though apparently of Jewish descent (according to his web site), he questions whether God exists. Would that he would come to know the God behind the rules in the Bible, the one of whom the Shema speaks, and to love that God with all his heart and soul and might.

The second is an article about a priest in the United Kingdom who has endorsed shoplifting. To vulnerable persons in need, he is quoted as saying, "My advice, as a Christian priest, is to shoplift." (We kid you not. Read for yourself.) Recognizing that the Bible says, "Thou shalt not steal" (Exo. 20:15), he says, "My advice does not contradict the Bible's eighth commandment because God’s love for the poor and despised outweighs the property rights of the rich."

The priest continues, "Let my words not be misrepresented as a simplistic call for people to shoplift. The observation that shoplifting is the best option that some people are left with is a grim indictment of who we are." Not only do we dispute his premise, we note that the "grim indictment" strikes closer to home than he recognizes. Isaiah spoke of words such as these when he said, "Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!" (Isa. 5:20).

I saw the article about the priest just a few minutes after reading the article about tithing, and I was struck, not only by the contrast, but also by the irony. On one hand we have a man who calls himself an agnostic who, albeit imperfectly, is seeking to follow some Biblical rules. On the other we have a man who calls himself a Christian priest who is counseling persons to flout some Biblical rules.

Yet this article is not intended to laud the agnostic or scorn the priest. Reflect for a moment. On what basis has the priest pushed the commandment aside? He has put together some ideas of his own (relating to the relative property rights of the "rich")  to justify a course that seems right to him, and on that basis, he has effectively nullified the clear statement of Scripture. He calls it consistent with God's Word, yet saying this does not make it so (proof by assertion is no proof at all). This type of problem is not new, of course. Jesus addressed something quite similar when he spoke to the Pharisees in His day:

[B]y this you invalidated the word of God for the sake of your tradition. You hypocrites, rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you: 'This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far away from me. But in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.'" (Mat. 15:6b-9).

It is easy to say that the priest is wrong, which he is. Yet dare we fail to consider whether we are doing similar things? Are we not also prone to make up our own ideas? Let me mention just one example that is a major issue in many congregations that label themselves Christian churches of fundamental or evangelical persuasion: music. The God who said, "Thou shalt not steal" also led Moses to say, "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might." (Deu. 6:4-5). Considering this, it is evident that Jehovah alone is God, that only He deserves worship, and that proper worship is about Him and Him only. Think about the arguments that you have heard in the "worship wars" in our day. How much revolves around what appeals to those who may attend the services? Yet such arguments presume that worship is about us. This makes no more sense than the priest's notions of why shoplifting from large national chains to meet needs is not really stealing after all. Both involve man focusing on his own ideas.

Please do not view this only in the music context, however. Many other examples could be given. Too often, if we would reflect and be honest with ourselves, we are making things up and substituting ideas that we have created for those God has given. When we do that, we have swallowed Satan’s big lie, "Ye shall be as gods." May God deliver us from such evil.

All my heart this night rejoices,
As I hear, far and near, sweetest angel voices;
"Christ is born," their choirs are singing,
Till the air, everywhere, now their joy is ringing.

Forth today the Conqueror goeth,
Who the foe, sin and woe, death and hell, o'erthroweth.
God is man, man to deliver;
His dear Son now is one with our blood forever.

Shall we still dread God's displeasure,
Who, to save, freely gave His most cherished Treasure?
To redeem us, He hath given
His own Son from the throne of His might in Heaven.

Should He who Himself imparted
Aught withhold from the fold, leave us broken hearted?
Should the Son of God not love us,
Who, to cheer sufferers here, left His throne above us?

If our blessèd Lord and Maker
Hated men, would He then be of flesh partaker?
If He in our woe delighted,
Would He bear all the care of our race benighted?

He becomes the Lamb that taketh
Sin away and for aye full atonement maketh.
For our life His own He tenders
And our race, by His grace, meet for glory renders.

For it dawns, the promised morrow
Of His birth, Who the earth rescues from her sorrow.
God to wear our form descendeth;
Of His grace to our race here His Son He sendeth.

Hark! a voice from yonder manger,
Soft and sweet, doth entreat, "Flee from woe and danger;
Brethren, come; from all that grieves you
You are freed; all you need I will surely give you."

Come, then, let us hasten yonder;
Here let all, great and small, kneel in awe and wonder,
Love Him Who with love is yearning;
Hail the star that from far bright with hope is burning.

Blessèd Savior, let me find Thee!
Keep Thou me close to Thee, cast me not behind Thee!
Life of life, my heart Thou stillest,
Calm I rest on Thy breast, all this void Thou fillest.

Thee, dear Lord, with heed I'll cherish;
Live to Thee and with Thee, dying, shall not perish;
But shall dwell with Thee for ever,
Far on high, in the joy that can alter never.

---Paul Gerhardt

I sing the birth was born tonight,
the Author both of life and light:
the angels so did sound it;
and like the ravished shepherds said,
who saw the light and were afraid,
yet searched, and true they found it.

The Son of God, the eternal King,
that did us all salvation bring,
and freed the world from danger,
he whom the whole world could not take,
the Lord which heaven and earth did make,
was now laid in a manger.

The Father's wisdom willed it so,
the Son's obedience knew no "No,"
both wills were in one stature;
and, as that wisdom hath decreed,
the Word was now made flesh indeed,
and took on him our nature.

What comfort by him do we win,
who made himself the price of sin,
to make us heirs of glory!
To see this Babe, all innocence,
a martyr born in our defense--
can man forget this story?

---Ben Jonson

Emergents tried their level best to be appropriate for Halloween, and here Dave Hayward labors mightily to ensure jolliness at Christmastime. (Dave is not sure if he is Emergent in any official sense, so I think of him as more of a free agent emergent. What follows is the sort of thing that justifies bringing couches into the church. This is why we should listen to more heretics.)

This theological reverie "means a great deal" to him. It may not mean much to anyone else, but he judged it worth his writing down:

The bible itself testifies to the self-emptying of God, the "kenosis", the sacrifice of his own transcendence (read Philippians 2). In a radical movement, God unfolds himself into the world which he loves. The incarnational event, the Christ story, not only reveals and relates this love of God, but actually demonstrates it as God entering into the world and the life of humanity. No longer, then, is God remotely enthroned on high, separated from his creation. Now, he is invested completely, compassionately incarnated into the actual life and history of humanity. The post-crucifixion God is no longer God the Father, for God the Father emptied himself, nor God the Son, for the Son, having completed the incarnational work, proclaimed, "It is finished!" The post-resurrection God then is the Spirit. Where we are gathered in love, there is God, but as Spirit. It is within the time and space of the cosmos, history, our human interactions, the God has condescended to live and move and have his being. It is within the affairs of people where God dwells, where God is found, where God is loved, and where God is served.

Just take a moment to let that sink in. If you've been to seminary, you might want to allow more than a moment.

Vahrael thought my response was offered in a "flipant mannor" and was too harsh for a world that would take more interest in theologification if only...if only it weren't for scrooges like me.

John is worried no one will take me seriously. At first I was afraid that that possibility might throw me into a deep depression so I went looking for some pharmaceutical countermeasures. Between my study and the medicine cabinet I found a plate of warm pfeffernusse, and by the time I'd licked all the crumbs from the plate, I'd forgotten all about John's worries.

Tiggy doesn't really cotton to patriarchal theology because of her view of fatherhood. She's given this serious thought and she expresses her view here with such tenderness and sympathy. It makes me think of the Virgin Mother, who probably had just the sort of father we know existed through "most of history".

In many ways fathers are better now than in the rest of history, but it's only recently that fathers have begun to behave in the ways you talk about. For most of history, fathers have despised female children and wanted sons. They have seen daughters as a burden and as only having value for breeding purposes or in higher circles for forging political alliances. You have to look at this historically - what we see now is only the tip of the iceberg.

Fathers dont' show respect by - not listening, humiliating, being scornful, not taking seriously, being dismissive, perceiving a daughter as a xexual t hreat, dominating through physical abuse and aggression.

Hmmm. And that's just the tip, a tiny fraction of the whole, and why it probably was not such a good idea for God to have revealed himself to us as a father.

In addition, Tiggy suspects "we are all preincarnate".

I don't think humans can really deal with stuff about time, given what we know of time from physics. I had enough trouble getting my head round ‘Back to the Future'. John [that would be John the Beloved Disciple] seems to be suggesting something archetypal.

"Archetypal".

Yes, I think so. Now that I reflect, archetypal is just the right word here.

Definitely archetypal.

For those of you who've been hovering around Santa's Punchbowl for too long, may I remind you that an archetype is "the original pattern or model from which all things of the same kind are copied or on which they are based; a model or first form". So I think we all know where John was going with that.

_______________

Observe the contempt for Revelation. In spite of their desire for community, register the disregard for the larger community of faith beginning with its Apostles and Fathers. Relish the irony of David Hayward (who can't maintain a local community of faith there in Rothesay) cutting himself off from the real community of faith which traces back to Abraham.

Note the expectation that everyone will accept this theological hairball with respect and theological engagement.

And then recall the words of St. Peter—who was at one time perceived to be connected with a certain community of faith—"These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever."

Before the Happy Holidays get here and we meet in the streets and malls for our seasonal riots of self-indulgence, before our keen spiritual perceptions become dulled with a thousand movies about Camden Town and Mount Crumpit, we might reflect on recent events.

It is obvious to both church-attenders and church-abstainers that there is something seriously wrong with pulpit and altar.

We can't help observing that when a gang of religious celebrities ostentatiously signs a declaration on life, marriage and religious liberty, religion is not in the bloom of its youth. That there should follow a raging debate about how some came to sign it and others did not, we might wonder if religion is worth our notice. From what I've learned, this statement reveals a significant disagreement over the meaning of the Gospel!

Isn't that inspiring? I think we can put to rest any looming threat from "organized religion".

I love it when Fundamentalists tell us they are serious and then continue marketing the same insipid, meaningless, irritating rituals their children have rejected and which we'd be humiliated to bring our friends to watch. Do serious people trivialize their god like this?

Almost as much, I love it when an Evangelical grand poobah steps out of the movement's baronial publishing houses to express concern over the superficialities he's discovered on the internet.

Some day—and it won't be today—it may occur to believers that if churchmen make a statement on life, marriage and religious liberty and it only succeeds in revealing their misperceptions of the Gospel, we'll have rounded a scenic bend.

If the Evangelical church cannot identify the Gospel it was given, can it be trusted to carry it to the world? If it persists in its mawkish self-indulgence and trinket-mongering, does it even have a message of repentance worth bringing to us? And if it has no call to repentance, why should people listen to anything it says? Because it claims "a 2,000-year tradition of proclaiming God's word, seeking justice in our societies, resisting tyranny, and reaching out with compassion to the poor, oppressed and suffering"?

Instead we get "devotion to human dignity"? How Dickensian.

Please! I can't speak for every last soul on the earth, but just speaking for myself I don't care to hear what these people have to say about dignity.

When the Son of Man cometh, will he find devotion to human dignity on the earth?

Roger Scruton is a writer, a philosopher and, shockingly, a blogger.

I'm not sure if Scruton's writing meets the high standards of Evangelicalism or Dr. Packer with respect to things that have staying power, but you may have come across some of his thinking in bookstores that are not Christian. I can't think of a single Christian bookstore that carries Scruton's works, but there could be one.

It isn't impossible; I just can't imagine an evangelical walking into his local religious bookstore and asking for something by Scruton when he could buy a Happy Birthday, Jesus mug or some littabit creepy representation of a spirit being with cleavage. (Landscape Sleeps Winter Angel Figurine)

Some of his books I've already recommended, but any on this list would be worth a careful read.

An Intelligent Person's Guide to Modern Culture
An Intelligent Person's Guide to Philosophy
Beauty
Culture Counts: Faith and Feeling in a World Besieged
Gentle Regrets: Thoughts from a Life
The Aesthetics of Music
The Meaning of Conservatism
Understanding Music

Almost a year ago now Scruton addressed a change that he suspects is irreversible. I am certain it is irreversible in the church unless God decides to reverse it—and I don't expect him to do that if we aren't willing for it to be reversed. (And we do seem to be fighting Him on the whole singing of psalms, hymns and spiritual songs idea.)

On the disappearance of public music-making:

Music is going the way of meals, drinks and sex, all of which are ceasing to be occasions for bonding and becoming sources of solitary addiction instead. Humanity is being divided in two by its own inventions. On the one side are the IT-savvy nerds, who do not relate to each other directly, but have mastered all the ways of achieving satisfaction from digital substitutes. On the other side are the savages, as Aldous Huxley might have called them, who sit down to meals with their families, and who drink and sing madrigals with their friends like Samuel Pepys. And the two classes are increasingly estranged from each other, since the moments in which they might have united, as people unite through singing, no longer exist.

And if this is true, where does this leave public worship? How does worship among estranged people work, exactly?

I'm amazed at the amount of time people spend on the internet. I'm not against technology, but all tools should be used to their best advantage. We should be spending our time on things that have staying power, instead of on the latest thought of the latest blogger-and then moving on quickly to the next blogger. That makes us more superficial, not more thoughtful.

---J. I. Packer

Does he have a point?

No, sadly, he does not have a point. If he had stopped with "We should be spending our time on things that have staying power..." he would not only have had a point, he would have offered us some very helpful and timely advice.

What we have here, I'm afraid, is an opinion on the order of the 4-year old who delivers himself of his judgment on spinach by throwing his spoon to the floor. I'd be inclined to give Dr. Packer a more patient hearing if I knew him regularly to tell people "we should spend our time on permanent things instead of reading the vapid opinions of church functionaries in the official organs of their religious institutions" or "we should be spending our time with those Samuel Davies called ‘the venerable dead' rather than wading through the swill and swagger of Christianity Today, Christian Century, Eternity, Leadership Journal, and World Magazine."

J.I. and his ilk have not given to my generation a very compelling example of a serious world of letters. Had they done that, bloggers would not have an audience.

You won't sell many rhinestones to people who already have diamonds.

Sorry, Dr. Packer, but it must be asked: have you been in a Christian bookstore in the last 20 years? Have you read the books your own publishers have marketed? Have you taken a fair sampling of the magazine that now quotes you?

Blogging is not the problem. The problem is much, much larger than that.

Let us be serious for just a moment, shall we? If you leave us a world full of Dan Rathers, don't be amazed to find bloggers; amazement is unbecoming.

There is not a place for us to look in this wide world where we don't see falsehood, hypocrisy, idolatry, and pretense. There is hardly a show, a commercial, an advertisement, a church ad, a magazine article, a religious publication, or weather report that isn't superficial about race, gender [sic], religion, beauty, happiness, piety or truth. In fact, yours is the generation above all others that has "branded" the truth. Why should you dare to be amazed that there is a reaction to this state of confusion?

My own advice is to see blogging for what it is: a necessary, an inevitable, and even a reasonable reaction to the shambles that was left us. Could blogging be done better? Of course it could; and I wish it were. We follow some blogs that are travesties of reason and crimes against language. But let's recognize blogging for what it is; when blogging is done right, it is a conversation where there was none. And I'll put some blog conversations I have seen up with anything found in the Letters Section of most magazines, certainly the religious magazines that have made your name well known.

Imagine a blogosphere populated with men like Swift, Pope, Milton, Herbert, Eliot, Chesterton, Muggeridge, Charles Williams, Barfield.... The fault is not with the blogging, the fault is the deformed and flabby Evangelicalism you left us. The real problem is a superficial Christianity.

Blogging is very much the unflattering consequence of your negligence toward "things that have staying power".

I enjoyed myself immensely over the Thanksgiving holiday. The only way it could possibly have been better is if the Food & Drinks Committee had thought to pack a 55-gallon drum of eggnog.

Sociologists have long known that when you put eight fun-loving, games-playing adults in one cabin and when it's known that there will be no permanent record of what was said to whom and about what, people tend to unclench, as it were.

So the drive home was a bit worrying for me. I could feel some of my neck and shoulder muscles re-clenching. What in the last few days could the emergent church have announced that might compare with the happiness I'd enjoyed in Homer?

So Monday morning I sifted through the usual emerging internet dumpsters and learned some things that sparked a hope.

First of all, Doug Pagitt's run for public office in Minnesota has hit a snag. To hear Doug tell it, Governor Timothy James Pawlenty ripped him off for the funds necessary for his run for Senate District 41. All expressions of gratitude should be sent to:

Office of the Governor
130 State Capitol
75 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
St. Paul, MN 55155

Steve Knight, "Kingdom Journalist", is out of a job, so he's had more time to do some blue sky thinking—which I thought is just what he's been doing all along. He's not as happy as he once was: Kingdom Journalism is "...not quite as accessible conceptually as I'd like it to be for a broader range of people". He's now inclined to devote himself in a more intentional way to telling stories and throwing parties. Maybe he can become a Kingdom Party Planner; that should broaden his support.

No news is good news, Steve.

EmergentVillage announces no plans for any Frisbee Smackdowns or Barbecues of People. There are no plans for doing theology on a single lawn, but there is a "Call for Voices" here. "...social object theory states that worthwhile social interactions tend to center around an object, described by social media theorist Jyri Engeström as ‘the reason people connect with each particular other and not something else.'"

So there's the on-going search for worthwhile social interactions among emergents.

If any of you have "Kingdom-stories that are meaningful social objects at a local level" (and even if you're not sure your Kingdom-stories are meaningful social objects at a local level), please contact Amy at amymoffit42@gmail.com. She would love to help you with that.

Last night I listened to this. Tripp Fuller and James F. McGrath chatter about conceptually inaccessible things and tell us why they don't believe the Bible. There's nothing new here, there's nothing interesting here, there's nothing coherent here. I don't necessarily suggest that you listen to all 64:28 minutes; I just listened to the whole thing to test my stamina. Three days and three nights in a cabin with Double Twelve Color Dot Dominoes can make you soft.

The emerging "communities of disbelief" continue their search for meaning and their struggle for existence. It has been about a decade and we still don't detect anything emerging. We recall the bright, promising days of Trucker Frank and Marie, but things move very slowly with emergents; glaciers go by in a blur. It takes forever to get out a print artifact, they still search for their Kingdom-stories, and leaders continue rebranding themselves.

Yes, it's sad and pathetic, but it's sad and pathetic in a comical sort of way.

That's my Kingdom-story and I'm sticking to it.