Man of Sorrows

"Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all." Ps. 34:19

"I'm having my best life now."

Our God is a man of sorrows. He has been acquainted with grief and affliction (Is. 53:3-4), and He has promised the same to those who follow Him (Matt. 10:16-25; John 15:18-20). I find an odd comfort in this. Our God has made a plan for pain. He does not ignore it or downplay it or frown upon those who experience it. He experienced it, deliberately (Phil. 2:8; Heb. 12:2-3), and has sanctified it into an avenue of glory (II Cor. 4:16-18). This does not suddenly candy-coat it. This does not mean that all who suffer should "buck up" and smile more. Pain is still pain. Affliction is still affliction, and suffering is still suffering. It all still hurts and wears you out. The difference is that it isn't meaningless anymore; nothing is meaningless anymore. All has been infused with purpose, and thus infused with hope: not just that you'll get through it all but also that it is all leading somewhere good (Rom. 8:18, 28-30).

"Just BeliEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEve!"

This is what makes "prosperity" teachings or any other syrupy Christianity so laughable and damnable. Laughable because they so blatantly contradict common sense about the fundamental tragedy in existence, and damnable because they attempt to undo the deeper comedy that God has done. He gave pain a purpose, but they would undo that purpose in our minds, returning suffering to a sign of disfavor and failure. They have displaced hope with despair, for who can truly say they are living their best life now? Who can truly say they have claimed all that they've named? Who can say that their afflictions have all ended because they had just enough faith (as if faith were a cure for suffering rather than the strength and succor to endure it)?

The world does not need another rabid optimism to spread childish lies; rather, it needs something stronger, something more robust, something adult. It needs something that can face all the rugged realities of life without flinching or excusing or dismissing. In short, it needs a God who is acquainted with grief to take pity on our frail frames (Ps. 103:13-14) and provide a purpose for pain.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013

The Stained-Glass God (as told by an orthodox rebel)

"Thy Maker is thy husband.... [He] has called you as a woman forsaken and brokenhearted, as a wife wooed in her youth but later abandoned.... Behold, I have created the smith who blows the coals in the fire and brings forth a weapon for his work; I have created the devastator to destroy. [Therefore,] no weapon formed against you shall prosper...." Is. 54:5-6, 16-17

Our God is a God of sovereign-love: all-powerful, righteous zeal and passion for His beloved. He is the husband that husbands ought to be, the substance to the many shadows of many men.

We do not understand this, and in our attempts to grapple with who God really is we often give in to our terrible simplifications. For some, God is nothing else but sovereignty, nothing but all-power. This is the error of hyper-Calvinists (and many legalistic sects). God is nothing to them but power: He saves because He is in charge, and He damns because He is in charge. If we don't like it, then tough. Who are you, oh man, to question this God? You are an irrelevant wisp on the wind, and to Him you mean less than nothing. In truth, it is a reverential position to take, but it is also a loveless, lifeless affair. God is the cosmic administrative taskmaster, and we are no more than the cogs and pawns of His perfect system. It is the way of Allah and not of Jehovah.

For others, however, God is nothing but love, nothing but all-passion and all-affection. This is the error of religious liberals and progressive-types. God is nothing to them but raw emotion, a omnipotent sentimentalism that cares little for truth or clarity. All that matters to Him are our feelings and that He meets them all and hurts none. Thus, all "hard" doctrines must be rubbed out completely or be so blurred in revision that it is the same thing as being rubbed out completely. All so we can be assured that "love wins," even against itself. In truth, it is a sympathetic position to take, yet it is an enterprise doomed to failure. God's love means absolutely nothing except what He has said about it, and too often we confuse and conflate the "love of God" with our own shallow sense of tolerance. It is a house of cards that will never survive the thousand natural shocks of life.

God is not "Power or Passion". He is not "Truth or Love," "Doctrine or Compassion," "Holiness or Authenticity," or any other of our false dichotomies. He is both/and and not either/or: both power and passion, truth and love, doctrine and compassion, holiness and authenticity, the "Maker" and the "husband". He is all good things, without division or confusion. It is we who divide and confuse, because we are confused and divided---in ourselves and with each other. This should be no surprise. We are our own worst enemy, our own great and constant failure, which is why it is so paramount we move past ourselves, past everybody else, past all agendas and plans and man-made movements and draw close to the God of sovereign-love, whose simplicity answers all our insanities, whose infinite diversity fractures our rigid systems into a glorious stained-glass window, and whose all-encompassing absolutism consumes our discrepancies like the sea swallows the rain.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013

My Almost Atheism (the confession of an orthodox rebel)

"He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. [...] Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief." Is. 53:3-10

I have seen a trend in mainstream Christianity, in all denominations and traditions. It has (perhaps) been an ever-present shadow to the substance of orthodoxy, but our modern realities of media and celebrity have made it more acute. It is in books, podcasts, T.V. and radio programs, blog posts, and even a few movies now and again. It is the siren song of our generation, and I call it "Syrup Christianity," an overly sweet, congealing parody of the traditional Faith. It is a "Christianity" of uncritical optimism, whose marshmallow God of warm fuzzies and easy explanations always makes sure that his real children are tolerating each other and having their "best life now." Yes, Osteen is a popular variant of this strain, but he is hardly alone. There are many others.

There's the "happy church" variety (whether Catholic or charismatic or fundamentalist) where every sermon or homily and every congregant or parishioner has been greased with fake smiles and forced exuberance because everything should be right if you're "right with God." There's also the "comfy doctrine" variety, where either serious reformed types tell you that Calvinism gives us no grounds for tears or anguish (for surely Calvin was not a man of sorrows) or serious radical types tell you that "love wins" in an unqualified, hazy way (for surely our versions of Hell and damnation are the scary concoctions of old curmudgeons).

Then there's the "culture of simplicity" where every Lifeway special or Cloud Ten production shills its cartoonish versions of light and dark, where the good is of the conservative Southern Baptist variety and the evil is some kind of New-Age atheism (and always a real jerk). And there's the "politics of triumphalism," where on the Right an American theocracy is trumpeted with jingoistic fervor, and on the Left the Kingdom of God can only be brought about by a socialist progressive agenda; in either case, legislation and activism are our only salvation.

I have rejected those answers, rejected them because they are all, at bottom, the same thing: "Syrup Christianity". They are all of the faith of easy answers and the eternal sunshine of spotless minds. Theirs is that world called "Perfect" that Walgreens always warned us about. Sorrow, fear, doubt, darkness, despair, death, loss, the insidiousness of evil, and fighting long defeats: these things mean nothing to them, nothing but irritations to be ignored, misrepresentations to be cleared up, or sins to be repented of. It is the religion of Job's friends, and with all due respect to its many adherents, I say a plague on all your houses. I want nothing to do with any of you. You are so unlike Jesus.

I have no patience for any system (either "secular" or "sacred") of life or thinking that makes no room for darkness and evil, real darkness and real evil. I am never more frustrated than when staring into the eyes of bald-faced optimism, with its naive temperament and clueless disposition. Do I believe that all shall be well? Of course: you can't be a Christian and believe otherwise. What I do not believe is that the road to redemption will run smooth or straight from our end, that things are somehow going to get better and better. It is all a lie. "Evil-doers shall wax worse and worse," and the Kingdom of God comes, not with rainbows and rays of summer, but with fire and thunder, and the violence of violent men, and blood pouring from the winepress of God's wrath. Christ will come indeed, but in righteousness to "judge and make war." All weapons will be beat into plowshares, but not until the final slaughter, of which Canaan was but a type and shadow. Apocalypse is our final eucatastrophe.

I am not morbid, and though I carry about a healthy does of pessimism, I am not a pessimist. What I am is someone who takes evil seriously, seriously enough to want real answers for it and solutions to it beyond childish dismissals or excuses. You cannot explain it away, nor is it reducible to soundbites about homosexuals or capitalism. Evil is real, evil hurts, and evil finds a way in. We are called to hate it ("abhor" it), not ignore it. God certainly hates it. As a man, He wept in anguish at death, met corruption with an almost reckless violence, and always carried a note of contempt in His words to not only the Pharisees and Sadducees but even the devil himself in the wilderness. I ask you: is your God big enough to hate evil? Hate it enough to do something about it? Mine is. He has to be.

My stake in this is neither political or even philosophical. Rather, it is deeply personal. For fifteen years, I lived in the same house as a chronically ill person. My mother's diabetes had somehow spawned a mysterious neuropathy that doctors have yet to explain adequately. All they know is this: it is eating away at her nerves, leaving her hands and feet in a paradoxical state of ever-increasing agony and ever-growing numbness. For fifteen years I watched this evil work its malice upon her. For fifteen years, I have seen the tragedy and the horror of the Fall. I've seen her lose everything she loved: teaching, playing the piano, hosting parties, seeing friends, attending church. All was swallowed into the void, and now all she can do is sit, sit, sit, sit, sit. And I do not like it, not one little bit.

How can you dwell in the presence of such suffering and walk away with easy answers about evil? I couldn't. I prayed for her healing everyday, but it never came. She only got worse. I prayed she'd be healthy enough for family events so she could get out and enjoy herself, but she often didn't (and still doesn't). God seemed to abandon her to this fate, and no smirking sentimentalism from the prophets of progress could come close to touching such a thing. In truth, I took them all to be one massive, monstrous joke; or worse, an insult straight at my mother and my heart. The religion of Job's friends is an affront to all Jobs, including my own.

Yet there is one more thing I must say about my Job: she has kept the faith, neither has she charged God foolish with her lips. I can remember, years ago, driving her to one of her numerous doctors. Her foot was in danger of collapse (again) and it needed to be set right. On the way home, I expressed to her my thoughts about her condition. I ended by saying that if anything could make me an atheist (I feared), it would be if she died without ever being healed. She listened to me patiently, sipping on a drink from Sonic, and when I finished she told me that she too had her moments of dark despair and doubt about God's purpose for all this. But she concluded with these words: "God has a plan. Even for pain. Don't let my pain shake your faith. It doesn't shake mine."

From that moment, I knew I could never be an atheist. There could never be an argument good enough, and I defy any skeptic to try. I have found a Faith that faces pain, that can face pain. Without fear, without a blink or flinch or shake. And that is the Faith I want. That is the Faith I love. Not the syrupy "faith" of Modern American Christendom, all pathetic smiles and perfect (or nebulous) explanations, but a Faith whose God has a place and plan for evil and pain. The Faith acquainted with grief and sorrow. The Faith of my mother. The Faith of Jesus, who was stricken, smitten, and afflicted, enduring the cross and its shame, who humbled Himself even unto death. My Jesus knows death, knows pain, knows darkness. He did not deny the dark but walked right into it, screaming up and out into its night like a flare burning blood red, and the darkness could not overcome Him. It has overcome all else except this thing, this one true thing, this new thing, this God-man who heals with His stripes, and was pleased to be bruised, crushed, and put to grief.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013

Unnecessary Divorces (an orthodox rebel responds to Frank Schaeffer)

I've mentioned before how there is a great swath of young Christians who feel the need to rebel against the perceived dead formalism of past generations and subsequently create a more vibrate, living Christian Faith. As I've listened to the "conversation" of these well-intended souls, I stumbled across this article by Frank Schaeffer (the son of Christian luminary Francis Schaeffer). I suggest you read it carefully, because he says some interesting things.

Now, I am glad that Mr. Schaeffer feels the loss of connection between modern Christianity and its ancient Faith and practice. I too think that a return to the liturgy, and the fundamental communion that it brings, would do a great amount of good in every Christian circle. It is a great shame that most modern, American Christians have been severed from their past, which (as I've demonstrated elsewhere) is full of a much wisdom and beauty.

However, just like every other so-called "progressive" Christian, Mr. Schaeffer can't seem to shake off one misguided mantra: solid theological content is ultimately irrelevant (because it is divisive); what really matters is just the ceremony itself and a sense of "[m]ystery and open-mindedness when it comes to theological content: uncertainty is good" (emphasis mine). The substance is unimportant. What is important is the show: grasp the rites and rituals with an iron grasp, but let things like doctrine and truth be fluid and in flux. This is the same old foolish idea that monkey-wrenches the whole operation.

As I've said before, I'm all for a return to humility in our doctrine. We need to recognize that God is so much bigger than our systems that we make for Him. It is a dangerous mistake to put God in a box, but it is an equally dangerous mistake to think that He has no sharp, distinct lines at all, lines that He Himself laid down for us, revealed to us in Scripture. True, He does not reveal all (for there are not enough books in the world to capture it all), but He has revealed some, and that some is fixed and immoveable. It cannot be erased without disastrous consequence.

Think about it: what is the liturgy without doctrine? What is all our Christian ceremony without those nasty creeds codified from the Scriptures (that nasty closed canon)? What does the Eucharist even mean without the hard doctrines of the Incarnation and the Resurrection, without the fixed, substantive idea that Christ was "conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary," etc.? What does worship mean without the hard doctrines of God's Holiness and Incomprehensible nature, without the idea of "God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth"? What does community and communion mean without the hard doctrine of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, without the idea that we "believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints," etc.?

I will tell you what they all mean: nothing. They mean absolutely nothing anymore, because they have no substance. The beliefs, the hard, doctrinal truths that we believe, are the substance. Lose them, and the whole thing evaporates, leaving behind the husk of dead formalism, the very thing that many in Mr. Schaeffer's camp are trying to escape. What they need to realize is that there is nothing without belief in solid, revealed truth, the truth of God's word, simultaneously simplified and expounded in creeds and dogmas and doctrines. There is no liturgy or community or worship or even Christianity itself without the certainty that certain things are true.

I will never understand the unnecessary divorces that we commit in the name of Christ. The old fundamentalists and evangelicals divorced Truth and Life, fell on the side of Truth, and received an impotent religiosity. But "progressive" Christians (from emergents to anarchists) are no better, for they too have divorced Truth from Life, but instead fell on the side of Life, and what have they gotten for it? An anti-formalism and fundamental skepticism that can find no place to rest, no identity to call its own, and not even the Faith they love so dearly can survive the corrosive chaos. The saddest thing about modern, American Christianity is how from generation to generation we always take a part of the picture rather than the whole, and the result is always worse than where we began.

Here is one true dogma, and I state it defiantly in the face of all modern Christian simplifiers, from radical fundys to radical pomos: it is not Truth or Life but rather Truth and Life: Certainty and Beauty, Light and Love, infinite solid ground beneath our feet and an infinite sky over our heads. They hold each other in a fierce and fiery paradox, and by their presence the whole edifice of the Christian Faith rises and rest stable and secure. But lose either of those elements, and you don't have Christianity anymore. In fact, you have nothing at all.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013

Doubt Your Doubts (an orthodox rebel responds to David Dark)

In my previous post, I mentioned how there is a movement amongst many young Christians to break out of what they perceive to be the confining and dead systems that defined the Christianity of their parents' generation. Sometimes that's a good thing, leading you out of a cramped or shallow mock-Christianity and into the real fellowship of the real God and real Christ. Other times, however, and more often than not, it becomes an excuse to dissolve every central doctrine of the Faith and erect your own private edifice instead. Rebellion is a good thing when it leads to the truth, but a horrible evil when it becomes a cloak for your own will.

If you're wondering where this kind of thinking came from, rebellion's as old as Adam. If you want to know where the current kind of thinking amongst most young Christians came from, then go do some research (this is a blog, not an encyclopedia). However, if you want a starting point for understanding this kind of thinking, then I recommend reading this article (and maybe even the book advertized in it). Author David Dark, aside from having the coolest name ever, lays down what he believes to be the foundation for a true Christian faith: the sacred duty of doubting.

I'm not sure what you'll think of that article, but it absolutely frustrates me, for two reasons.

The first is because I actually agree with its surface assertions. God has not called us into a holy bubble. There is a place for mystery as well as a deep sense of the "incomprehensible" (as some church fathers put it) in God and His activities. There is no reason to simply discount something outside of our preconceived parameters (e.g., if Nietzsche says something legitimately true, then it is true regardless). As I've argued multiple times before, God regularly smashes our preconceived notions and parameters to pieces so that we may draw closer to the real Him. The foundation of all Christian thinking and living is humility, i.e., the recognition of my smallness before God's bigness. On these points, I am in agreement utterly and without question or qualification.

However...

The second reason that it frustrates me is because of what's underneath all of those agreeable assertions. I cannot help put sense that they are simply a veneer hiding something, something that not even Mr. Dark may see. But I do see it, because I've seen and heard it plenty of times before: he attempts to convince us that doubt is not a "dirty word" by making "certainty" into a dirty word.

Yes, absolute certainty can be "corrosive" (as he says), but does Mr. Dark really not see that absolute skepticism is equally corrosive? If you claim to know everything, doubting nothing, then you cannot have community (except with those who agree exactly as you do). But if you "question everything," doubting all, then you cannot have community either, for community requires something around which we can unify. Much to Mr. Dark's chagrin, you cannot unify around doubt. It is impossible, because doubt is fundamentally fragmentary: it holds to nothing but its questions, and to question is to pull apart, to dissect the whole, to deconstruct the structure until it spills its secrets. In short, doubt can never build. It only destroys.

Sometimes such destruction is necessary. Take the Socratic Method, for example. The whole thing is based on questioning and questioning, on leaving no interrogative stone unturned. Yet the point of such questioning (and this is key) was to arrive at, or at least approximate, some kind of answer that would satisfy. It was destruction that was a precursor to construction. It was going somewhere, somewhere real and solid, somewhere that could be reached and not endlessly deferred. I find it odd that Mr. Dark would quote Chesterton to back up his claims, the same Chesterton who believed in "drawing the line somewhere," and who said, "I open my mind for the same reason that I open my mouth: to close it again on something solid."

Of course, the Bible is full of people who had "doubts and honest questions." Just look at the Psalms, right? But then again, really look at the Psalms. Every time God's goodness is questioned or His sovereignty doubted, it was always reasserted by the end. Every time honest doubt was expressed, there was always a return to the sacred certainty that God is who He says He is. That is real solid ground and not just a bubble. But if you elevate questioning to a "sacred duty," then there can be no solid ground, because there is no answer that ought not to be questioned and questioned and questioned and questioned and questioned and questioned and questioned....

If I could meet Mr. Dark, I would actually like to ask him a question:

"To where is your so-called sacred questioning leading us? Where can it go if it doesn't want an answer? Isn't endless questioning without desiring an answer merely babble? Isn't journeying without seeking a destination merely being lost? Are you not opening a void before us, one that can never be filled, not even with the infinite substance of God? You say you want to lead us closer to God, but how can that be possible when all there is is questioning? What's to keep God Himself from dissolving in your acidic doubts? Shall we doubt that He is love? That He is holy? That He came in the flesh? That He is even there at all? Why shouldn't we? After all, the only sacred thing is questioning, which means that the only sacred thing is that nothing is sacred."

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013

Fatal Flaws (an orthodox rebel considers anarchism)

First, watch this video. It's a bit long (approx. 30 minutes), but you need to watch all of it if you're to do it any justice. Fair enough? Okay, here you go:

Now, I'm pretty sure that some of you are feeling the need to beat those kids senseless with an orthodoxy ugly stick. I would ask that you relax and consider something: these kids do have good intentions. Seriously. I don't doubt their sincerity at all. In fact, I greatly sympathize with their desire for real community. As I've said and argued many times before, community is at the heart of Christianity (right up to the trinitarian nature of God), and yet it is something that is sadly lacking from the Church today, at least the Church in the west, which has been diluted and mutated by a mega-church, culture-aping mentality for decades now. If you do not desire real community, then I question your understanding of the Christian Faith, for it is all community, esp. you with Christ and Christ with God (John 14:20).

Still, their choice of anarchism as a solution is...interesting. To be sure, it is not unheard of. There is a whole swath of young Christianity today that is in rebellion of (what they perceive to be) the dead formalism of their parents, regardless of when or where they came from (whether it be fundamentalism's contradictory quirks, evangelicalism's white-washed tombs, or reformed theology's ironic gracelessness). They want a less stuffy and stuffed Christian Faith, one that has elbowroom, one that has room for mysteries and beauty and surprises, for a God of mystery, beauty, and surprises. Again, I sympathize with such a desire, but anarchism (or as they have defined...er, not defined it) will not satisfy that desire. I fear their noble enterprise is doomed to failure because it is based on at least three false premises.

The first is that authority (of any kind or level) necessarily equals oppression. While it is certainly true that authority can be oppressive (and who would argue otherwise?), it is not necessarily true that it is de facto oppressive. For example: if you were lost in the woods, would a map be necessarily oppressive because it serves as an authoritative representation of the land? Of course not. On the contrary, you would thank God for the map. Authority can be a good thing (when it leads us in the right direction).

The second is that Christianity is reducible to anarchism. I would very easily grant the possibility that Christianity has room for anarchistic veins or movements. As the young lady in the video explained, there have been such things in the history of the church, and I cannot say that those people were not true Christians simply because they didn't believe in hierarchy or authority. However, for her or anyone else to claim that Christianity (in its truest form) is merely anarchism in disguise is simply being naive. Again, I will grant that Christianity is not less than anarchism, but I will not grant that it is not greater than it. It is a tapestry of many threads, a coat of many colors, and its paradoxical children are all a part of its beauty. The young lady referenced the Franciscans (incorrectly, I might add) as an example of true, anarchical Christianity. I cannot help but wonder why she failed to mention how St. Francis was summoned before the pope and the institutionalized church (a summons that he obeyed) so they could hear him explain his work, and how they approved of and validated that work. I also wonder why she failed to mention other monastic orders contemporary with St. Francis, like the Dominicans (of whom St. Thomas Aquinas was a member). They were certainly hierarchical (even militantly so). Would she say that there were no true Christians amongst their ranks?

The last one is that civilization is the root of all evil. Of all the false premises, this one is the worst because it is (to be frank) the dumbest. Ask yourself: who exactly built civilization? Humans. And who is typically in charge of all our civilizations? Humans. So where does the evil really lie? With humanity. We are all of us (king and anarchist alike) sinners. Sin taints everything that we do, whether it be building empires or starting communes. Yet it seems that these sincere young souls really believe that if you remove the authoritative trapping of civilization (with its evil police and stuff), then you will effectively be free from evil, from sin. It is the same fatal naivete of all utopists: all systems are fallible, except our system. What room is there for Christianity and its notion of grace in such a mindset? It is removed. We will not fail if we just stick to the program.

I would actually love to take this video point by point (i.e., the young man's internalized self-hate because of his inherent "white imperialism," the young lady's constant fumbling with calling God a "he" or "she"), but I will not inflict you with a barrage of my own verbiage. Instead, I would just end with this question, I question I would like to ask all so-called "Christian Anarchists": if authorities (bosses, kings, capitalists, the police, etc.) are all necessarily evil because they are all necessarily oppressive power structures, then what about God? Is He an authority? Our authority? If so, how is that even possible in the anarchist framework? If not, then what is He?

Food for thought.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013

A Lover and a Fighter (as explained by an orthodox rebel and Vegeta)

"For it is the day of the Lord's vengeance, and the year of recompenses...and He shall stretch out upon [His enemies] the line of confusion and the stones of emptiness." Is. 34:8-11

Our God is a fighting God. This does not sit well with a modern Western audience, who have done everything in their power to castrate God into inconsequence. They cut out His wrath and holiness like they're tumors, and then they water down His love to such a level that even the most syrupy sentimentalist would find it banal. This so-called "love," this abominable "love" that they assign to God is so lethargic, so apathetic, so utterly pointless and pathetic that it does nothing at all: neither punishes nor saves from sin, neither fights for or against anyone or thing, and neither blesses nor curses or involves itself in any of the affairs of mankind (except to allow the occasional tsunami or mass shooting). Theirs is a god of all fluff and puff, a marshmallow in the clouds, a Santa Claus so doped up on Prozac that it is unconscious of everything, including itself.

This marshmallow god is as true a creation of the secular world as the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Likewise, it is also foreign to the God of the Bible. There we find the Fighter, the Warrior, the Father, the Lover. Just listen to the wording of Isaiah: The indignation of the Lord is upon all nations, and His fury upon all their armies. He has utterly destroyed them; He has delivered them to the slaughter. Their slain shall be cast out, and their stench shall come up out of their carcasses, and the mountains shall be melted with their blood...and the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch and the dust thereof into brimstone, and the land thereof shall become burning pitch (Is. 34:2-3, 9). That sounds less like Santa Claus and more like Vegeta. Our God has a Lover's heart beating with Warrior's blood. He has spilt much blood in the name of His beloved, including His own (Acts 20:28; Rom. 5:9-10).

Yet this Fighting-Lover God has enough power in His wrath to humble even the likes of Vegeta. The proof is found in the strange wording of verse 11: "He shall stretch out upon [His enemies] the line of confusion and the stones of emptiness." Now, "line" and "stones" refer to the measuring rod and plumb lines used in ancient (and even modern) architecture, and they are a common image in biblical prophecy (such as in Ezekiel and Revelation). "Confusion" and "emptiness," however, are even more interesting. In Hebrew, they mean "formless" and "void," respectively, and they are the exact same words used in Genesis 1:2 to describe the world in its uncreated state. Thus, the image that seemed so strange should now be terrifyingly clear: the Fighting-Lover God will not simply destroy his enemies; He will uncreate them. Literally (in Hebrew), He will use the means of building ("line" and "stones") to unbuild them, to make them without form and void, the formless void of precreation. The annihilation will be absolute. This is the power and terror of our God, the one true God, for the Warrior Lover is also the Mighty Maker. Only He can make, and only He can and will unmake.

"I'm gonna need a bigger Flash."

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013

The Evils of Freedom (as explained by an original orthodox rebel)

"The earth is also defiled under the inhabitants thereof, because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinances, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore, the curse has devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate." Is. 24:5-6

"Rules are made to be broken," or so goes the cliche. It is inaccurate, of course. For starters, no one actually believes it. What we actually believe is that the rules of others are meant to be broken, but you'd better not touch mine! We all have our private codifications that are untouchable, unquestionable, and binding for everyone. Thus, we are all hypocrites in our rebellions, for we are only rebels to others. No one is a rebel to themselves.

This hypocrisy is a particular mark of our own age. Every day and in every way we are encouraged further towards some vague notion of freedom: freedom to express ourselves, to find ourselves, to be ourselves and be true to ourselves. The result is that there is freedom of expression but no freedom of correction. You may express yourself as you please, but no one has the right to suggest that your expression (and your "self'") may be unwholesome or even destructive to you and others. Such suggestions are oppressive, mean-spirited, and the way of the bigot, or so we are told by those who are apparently free to correct us.

Unfortunately, when qualifications are made, the hypocrisy only gets worse, viz., becomes confused and confusing. "You may do as you please as long as you don't hurt anyone." If I may do as I please, then why can I not hurt anyone? Will you now plead for absolutist morality to bolster your relativism, like flying buttresses for a fortress of air? The whole thing is ridiculous because it is groundless by its own logic. If I am free (and encouraged!) to be myself, and "my self" just happens to be a violent monstrosity (or simply has a proclivity for deception and manipulation or any other less spectacular cruelty), then who are you to limit my freedom with your narrow-minded notions of social contract? Am I free or not free? Or am I free in one way but not in another? Which? Why? How? Exceptions can prove a rule, but in this case exceptions only complicate the rule into oblivion. It is no wonder that common folk (being fed their daily indoctrination of freedom through their iPods, streamed videos, and game systems) don't really think on these things: a moment's scrutiny would send the whole house of cards tumbling into the wind.

At this point, some of my readers may be annoyed with me. "Look, we don't know why we draw the line here and not there, okay? Are we not free to draw lines as we please? And is it so bad that we are more tolerant of someone's fashion sense than their murdering someone? It's just common sense." It is a fair frustration to have, and like any sane person I don't want to be a bother, except with things that are bothersome. And here is what I see as bothersome: the so-called "freedom" that is the foundation for all of this hypocrisy and confusion. We have an unhealthy love of freedom. We have poisoned our own well, and what once may have been a virtue is now most certainly a vice.

If you think this is about politics (about candidate "X" or legislation "Y"), it's not. This is a moral issue, not a political one. Politically, you may be a liberal or conservative or points in between. Morally, however, we are all libertines. We all inherently distrust rules and authority and the order they bring. We instinctively consider them to be oppressive and suffocating, and consequently the one and only desire is to be as free as possible. But it is a destructive desire, for this one, radical reason: order is the only grounds for all good things, including freedom.

That is "common sense," for those of you who are flabbergasted at the moment, so allow me to repeat myself: there is nothing good without order. There is no freedom without laws (like "the right to bear arms") to keep you safe from tyrants and robbers alike. There is no possibility of peace without the confines of civilization and all its "oppressive" accoutrements: a police force, traffic laws, court systems, and common civility and custom. There is not even the possibility of fun, for without rules (hard, binding rules) there is no game, not even Calvinball. And if you think you can disprove all of this, then you have already failed, for there is no argumentation at all without the cold bigotry of the laws of logic.

All of our modern ruin (from social decadence and political corruption to school shootings and abortion on demand) can be traced to a confusion of terms. We equate "order" for tyranny and then mistake anarchy for "freedom". Our slobbering lover-affair with limitlessness has taken its toll (and many lives). We have forgotten old wisdom, the wisdom of balance and moderation, of the simple notion of the "point between extremes"; for order, truly beneficent and wholesome order, is the point between extremes, the extremes of tyranny and anarchy. The extremes of law gone mad and freedom gone mad. It is a truth as old as Plato, as old as the Bible: when the good king rules, all is well; when the bad king rules, or when no man rules, the city of oppression will fall, and the city of confusion will break down. Then all joy will be darkened, and the mirth of the land will be gone (Is. 24:10-11). Peace and prosperity is found in order alone, in the beauty, the κοσμος, of a thing rightly put together, for only when every bone has found its socket can the whole man stand.

We must not be deceived: democracy is not divine. God is not a democrat, and although Christianity (and God) values every individual person as a unique creation, it cannot be called a democratic institution. If it is anything, it is monarchical, in service to the King and Lord of Heaven and Earth. It still believes in freedom, but as a means and not an end. Freedom is to be the road to a greater glory: telling the story of God and living in His righteousness, for the Christian does not live for themselves but for their Beloved Belover.

It is love that is the key, for love is the foundational principle for true beneficent order. For love of the people, the king rules rightly. For the love of existence, God made all things. For the love of our "selves," He submitted Himself to the limitations of flesh and blood and the political claptrap of men, because God is not a democrat. He is a lover. He is Love, and from His Love springs the order of all things, and without His Love there is no order. No freedom. No peace. No-thing, except the dark with its weeping and gnashing of teeth, for in the darkness outside the kingdom there is only the wasteland, where all hope is abandoned, and all joy and mirth fade forever away into puffs of smoke and ash.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2012