Into Thy Calm (a fragmentary liturgy)

 
[folio begins]

...seek the Lord while He may be found.

Call upon Him while He is near.

Let the wicked forsake his ways,

And the unrighteous man his thoughts.

Let him return to the Lord, that He may have compassion on him,

And to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.

For My thoughts are not your thoughts,

Neither are your ways My ways, declares the Lord.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

So are My ways higher than your ways,

And My thoughts than your thoughts.

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven

And do not return there but water the earth

Making it bring forth and sprout,

Giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,

So shall My word be that goes out from My mouth:

It shall not return to me empty-handed,

But it shall accomplish that which I purpose

And shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

For you shall go out in joy

And be lead forth in peace.

The mountains and the hills before you

Shall break forth into singing,

And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands...

[folio breaks off]

 

[manuscript begins]

...so if I had one chance to tell you something, then I would tell you that it is all true. Everything. Everything that God has purposed. It is all true, all real, all happening and going to happen. Even the wildest, craziest promise is going to happen. You will go through the dark night and walk into the sun of a far, green country. You will walk into it with joy, led forth with peace, and all the mountains and hills and trees will break forth into singing, and everything sad will be made untrue, and everything wicked will be unmade, and we shall all be remade and are being remade in every moment and every inch of our lives. You who are the children of God: right where you are, wherever you are sitting are standing, you are caught up into the whirlwind of God's will, a wind blowing in one unstoppable direction, towards an end that will be the beginning of all your deepest desires and the resurrection of all good things in a splendor so thick and sweet that your soul will drown in light inaccessible, joy indescribable, and peace passing beyond the smallness of your thoughts and dreams and...

[manuscript breaks off]

[manuscript begins]

...by now the thing must have passed together out of the region of sight as we understand it. For he says that the whole solid figure of these enamored and inter-inanimated circlings was suddenly revealed as the mere superficies of a far vaster pattern in four dimensions, and that figure was the boundary of yet others in other worlds: till suddenly---as the movement grew yet swifter, the interweaving yet more ecstatic, the relevance of all to all yet more intense, as dimension was added to dimension and that part of him which could reason and remember was dropped farther and farther behind that part of him which saw---even this, at the zenith of complexity, complexity itself was eaten up and faded, as a thin white cloud fades into the hard blue burning of the sky, and a simplicity beyond all comprehension, ancient and young as spring, illimitable, pellucid, drew him with cords of infinite desire into its own stillness. He went up into such a quietness, a privacy, and a freshness that at the very moment when he stood farthest from our ordinary mode of being he had the sense of stripping off encumbrances and awakening from trance and coming to himself. With a gesture of relaxation, he looked about him...

[manuscript breaks off]

Selah. Amen. Again...

-Jon Vowell, et. al. (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

Boil to Rags, Part 5: Behold the Man (a devotional series by an orthodox rebel)

(See the first post in the series here.)

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son...." John 3:16

What can God give to man? What haven't the gods given to us already? Favor and apathy. Blessings and wrath. All arbitrary, all done before, and all very wearisome. By the noonday life of the Roman Empire, the world had grown weary of playing favorites with the gods. Their wills had grown old like the gods. They had altars aplenty. They had hedged every imaginable divine bet that they could find. So what of this one God? What could that Incomprehensible Dance give to comprehensible man? What could that Majestic Infinite give to the fallen finite? What was there to give that could outdo and outstrip all the false deities of the human mind and heart? Nothing less than Himself, for all that He gives is Himself, for there is nothing greater that can be given.

What offensive mystery is this? The incomprehensible becoming comprehensible. The infinite becoming finite. The Word becoming flesh. Many gods have made worlds, and many more have made men and walked amongst them, but only one has dared to play the man. Many gods scheme and plot and plan as though they were playing a game with mankind, but only one chose to play the game Himself and keep all the rules. He was born in blood and filth like us, raised by imperfect parents, lived in poverty under the heel of tyrants, and watched the dead formalism and religious hypocrisy of His people's faith. He tasted the bitterest cup that humanity has to offer: of sorrow and pain and death. Yes, the incomprehensible has comprehended death as intimately as we all will one day. Life more abundant was swallowed by the grave so that he might swallow it up in return. Let the world say what they will about this God, but let their lips be silent on this one point: we have not a High Priest who is untouched by our infirmities. God knows our frame and pities our frame because He made and has been our frame.

Yet this is only half of the gift, only part of what has been given. For though the Almighty God has played the man in every way, yet He has done what we cannot. In older times, holy men wrought miracles of all kinds by the power of God, even raising the dead. But none of these men could ever end death. When faced with that awful darkness, the last enemy before whom even Satan himself will succumb, all men have fallen. All men, save one. One who was like us and yet not like us. He was man, and He was God. And when Death killed the man, it found the God, and against that unrelenting Light and Life and Love pouring forth with ravenous splendor and strength, what else could Death do but die?

-Jon Vowell (c) 2012

Homily 31: The Unsearchable Goodness of God (as preached by an orthodox rebel)

"...many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah...but unto none of them was Elijah sent, except unto Zarephath, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them were cleansed, except Naaman the Syrian." Luke 4:25-27

In the immediate sense, Jesus is predicting His rejection by His own people (Luke 4:24). This was also referred to by John in his gospel (John 1:11), as well as Paul in his epistle to the Romans (Rom. 11:25-32) where he states that Israel's rejection of Christ meant that the gospel has come to the gentiles, whose salvation will subsequently lead back to the salvation of Israel. Jesus' audience understood what he was saying: the blessing that he recited from Isaiah (Luke 4:18-19) was not necessarily meant for them. Thus, they tried to kill Him out of anger (Luke 4:28-29).

In a general sense, we see here that God does not abide by our preconceived notions or modes of thought. In fact, God's design is typically to upset our established notion of things, to step into our individual synagogues and overturn our private assumptions until we stop thinking in our terms and start thinking in His. This is always a struggle, perhaps even the struggle of the Christian life: to never reach a point where you have God "settled out" in your mind, where you think you know exactly how He is going to deal with you and others. Such ignorance and arrogance are always upset by God so that he may restore us to the correct posture towards Him: "O the depths of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!" (Rom. 11:33).

God is not random, nor is He unknowable. He has revealed Himself and His ways unto us, both by his word and by His Son (Heb. 1:1-2). In addition, He abides by principles and reason. The key is that it is His principles and His reason, which are perfect and divine and thus ultimately beyond us. The things which He has revealed are ours and our children's forever, but that which He has not revealed belong to Him (Deut. 29:29). Thus, we are creatures who "know in part" (I Cor. 13:9). For example, we know that God is good in all things in regard to His children (Rom. 8:28), but we cannot say exactly how that goodness will manifest itself in our day-to-day lives. For a season, God's goodness may even look like hate or indifference, but it is not. It is goodness, always goodness. Goodness unsearchable and past finding out, the half of which cannot be fancied this side of the golden shore. In that mystery, we rest and find hope.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2011

Homily 25: Unnecessary Divorces: The Errors of both Fundamentalism and the Emergent Church (as preached by an orthodox rebel)

"You are wrong because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God." Matt.22:29

"On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets." Matt. 22:40

Christianity, in coming from and leading to God, is the holistic religion. Everything finds its place within its framework and context. Why, then, do we continually find the need to break it up and apart? Why do we always tear asunder what God has joined together? Many errors crop up in the Church, but what is worse than the errors themselves is the hysteria they create that drives people to opposite yet equal errors. Thinking we've found the center, we've merely found another extreme. Such a circus can be see even to this day.

In the second half of Matthew 22, Jesus is questioned first by the Sadducees. The Sadducees were the Jewish skeptics, the post-modernists of their day. Post-modernism, of course, is nothing new. It is merely the old skepticism rehashed, recycled, repackaged, and regurgitated. The Sadducees were ancient pomos. If you don't believe it, then just look at the question that they posed to Jesus (Matt. 22:24-28). It is philosophically tangled. It is ironic. It is subversive. The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection, and thus their question is deconstructive: it is trying to expose tensions in the resurrection narrative that will reveal it to be artificial. Jesus responds by throwing down a radical notion of his own (Matt. 22:30) that effectively subverts their subversion, and then He quotes the Pentateuch at them (Matt. 22:31-32), the only part of the Old Testament that they liked (similar to how modern day pomos like the gospels but not the rest of the New Testament).

Before Jesus answered the Sadducees, however, his initial response laid down His primary position, His starting place for the whole issue. He exalted both the principles of God ("the Scriptures") and the practices of God ("power of God"). He starts his response by asserting that He holds these two things together. There are many people today (both skeptical and credulous) who will not abide such a union. Some want the principles only, becoming scrupulous scholars and dogmatic doctrinaires. They have systematized the whole with impeccable perfection. God, however, is merely an abstract concept to them, as remote as the furthest star. Despite their tremendous elucidation, one wonders if they truly believe all of their humbug. Meanwhile, others want only the practices, to see angels and demons behind every bush, and fire fall from heaven everyday. They dismiss doctrine as mere shackles, and thus confuse every odd occurrence as having massive spiritual import. Despite their fiery credulousness, one wonders if they even know what they're talking about. The resulting spirituality of the former is a stifling deadness and petrification. The resulting spirituality of the latter is religious insanity and chaos. Both have divorced what Jesus never divorced.

The Pharisees catch wind of the unholy smackdown that Jesus laid upon the Sadducees, and they decide to throw their own hat into the ring. Of course, the Pharisees were the stuffy fundamentalists of their day, again a very old and very common occurrence. The stagnant conservative and the anarchistic progressive are as old as the hills. The Pharisees, being good solid fundamentalists, asked Jesus a very straightforward, simple, yet profoundly doctrinal question (Matt. 22:36). Jesus, in return, provided a very straightforward, simple, yet profoundly doctrinal response (Matt. 22:37-40). Per His usual tactic when dealing with the Pharisees, He attacks their brand of religionism by stating what they already know (vs. 37-38) but then tacking on what they have missed (vs. 39). The Pharisees had "loving God" down pat (or so they thought), but as Jesus pointed out many times before and after this incident, their love towards people was non-existent. Like the Sadducees, in answering their question He also rebuked them.

Also like the Sadducees, Jesus lays down in His answer a twin set of ideas that He holds together in tandem that the Pharisees wanted to separate. He summarized the entirety of their precious "Law and the Prophets" under two commands: love God and then love people. Again, there are many (both credulous and skeptical) who will not abide such a union. For some, the only true command is to love God, to develop the private spirituality of the devotional and the closet. Other people are merely distractions, having no real value in and of themselves other than being teaching tools to learn more about God. They become means to an individual end, no more and no less. Meanwhile, for others, the only true command is to love people, to develop the public spirituality of missional friendship. "Quiet Time" and other devotional trappings are merely stumblingblocks to religious work and activity in the community. Even church becomes a distraction, having no real value in and of itself other than being a convention center to gather more people. The resulting spirituality of the former is an isolated occultism that grows weary of others. The resulting spirituality of the latter is an endless guilt-induced sense of doing that also grows weary of others. Again, they have divorced what Jesus never divorced.

All of these silly, unnecessary divorces that we see back then and still today are fundamentally anti-incarnational. In some way or another, they deny "the Word made flesh". For some, "the Word" in its uncreated exaltation is everything: doctrinal discovery followed by a spiritual introspection that never learns to work itself out "through the fingertips." For others, "the flesh" in its rugged reality is everything: continual immersion and outward activity that has no greater foundation than our own emotional sentimentalism. Both ways are incomplete, and thus are wrong. Both ways have partial truth, and thus are dangerous. Each can bash the others weakness from their own strong point. The former can bash the latter for their "worldliness" and scriptural compromise, while the latter can bash the former for their "insensitivity" and lack of concern for the Kingdom of God. Both positions are right in pointing out the others error. In other words, both positions are right, thus both positions are wrong.

Those who claim to be Christians and those who claim to be "Christ-followers" or "emerging" (or whatever) both need to reexamine what their Master taught. It is not a choice between God's principles or God's practices, not love God or love people, neither is it half and half. The true "Christ-like" life knows the principles of God and thus believes in the practices of God. The true "Christ-like" life passionately and unapologetically loves God and thus passionately and unapologetically loves people. There is no severance or neglect. Both sides of the coin are intimately connected and burning at full capacity. It is the true incarnational life, "the Word" made "flesh". May we from henceforth strive to cease from divorcing the two.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2011

Homily 13: On the Righteous and Awakening (as preached by an orthodox rebel)

"Unto the upright there arises light in the darkness...." Ps. 112:4a

The righteous life is not a matter of smug piety and self-satisfaction; rather, it is a matter of seeing things as they are. The whole world lies in darkness, and fallen humanity stumbles about. The redeemed of the Lord are simply those whom light has shined upon, and now they can see. Their walk is now marked with flashes of realization and awakening. Reality becomes clearer and clearer. At long last, what's truly important can be clung to, what's non-essential can be held loosely, and what's evil can be properly abhorred. Where once we could only make half-guesses and hope for the best, now we receive true knowledge. Where once we were blind, now we see.

This clarity is not absolute and instantaneous. Reality is not comprehended in an instant nor in entirety. How can it be? God is Reality, the most real, and He is beyond absolute comprehension (Rom. 11:33). The righteous life does not mean an end to mystery. What it does mean is that "there arises light in the darkness," momentary yet momentous illuminations that give us the clarity that we desperately need at that moment. For now, we know in part; one day, we will know in full (I Cor. 13:9-12). Until then, let us praise the God who lights our night with His presence and truth, the God who is "gracious and full of compassion and righteousness" (Ps. 112:4b).

-Jon Vowell (c) 2010

A Philosophy of Potatoes (the musings of an orthodox rebel)

"Beware of the man whose god is in the skies." -George Bernard Shaw

Philosophies of the world and worldly philosophies drive me insane. Whether it be the narrow-minded bigotry of scientism or the epistemological bottomless pit of post-modernism, I find them all equally vacuous and (perhaps what is worse) ugly. Of course, there is something awry about a philosophy that is aesthetically neutral (i.e., dull), but there is something incredibly insidious about any philosophy whose aesthetic principles create and encourage an outrageous and offensive ugliness to inflict upon others. Surrealism, with its "art," is a good example of this. When any philosophy makes horror and insanity the standards of aesthetic perfection, you can be sure that it is a divinity of hell.

This is not to discount the equally sinister quality inherent in a philosophy being vacuous. Any philosophy that (while perhaps logically coherent) finds no anchor points in the practical world of existential experience is worse than dead: it is a lie. A philosophy (being an ultimate view of things) is meant to be as practical as potatoes. It is not meant to be isolated abstract reasoning, but rather beliefs about the actual world that affect how you behave in and relate to that actual world. Any philosophy that exists in an isolated, abstracted bubble is deadly; it is of the worst kind of spiritualism (both eastern and western) that views the actual world as (at best) a distraction or (at worst) a cheat. If taken seriously, it creates the hell of solipsism, i.e., the hell of the isolated self. Of course, no one takes such philosophies seriously in the real world. That is the point: they are vacuous and therefore useless.

As a philosopher (which is just another way of saying, "As a human being"), I find that I cannot keep pace with the ridiculous academic gymnastics that passes for modern scholarship these days. I do believe that the lunacies of such men as Foucault and Derrida (and perhaps we could even add Nietzsche and Schopenhauer) are dying out, but it is a slow and messy death; like most empty doctrines, they die hard. Their cheerleaders (those faithful few) will continue to sing their praises while the disillusioned will look elsewhere. I am thankful that I was disillusioned with nonsense long before I every read the philosophers of nonsense, for as a Christian I am always incredulous towards madmen. There is something cowardly and lazy about any philosophy that gives in to despair or ignorance, cowardly and lazy in this way: they are completely impractical and thus of no use to living, breathing men and women of the actual world.

I do not understand how someone can live in the actual world (under the burning blue sky, walking on the tangled green grass) and buy into either extreme notion that human inquiry can figure out everything (the lunacy of scientism) or nothing (the lunacy of post-modernism). Real existence (with actual existential data) cries out in anger at such nonsense, and no philosophy summed up real existence better than the Christian philosophy when its much marginalized philosopher St. Paul said, "For we know in part and prophesy in part" (I. Cor. 13:9). Immediately with that statement we are confronted with two facts: we have knowledge, but it is incomplete. We can know but only partly. Here we avoid the pitfalls of both arrogance and despair; here we are confronted by both the joy that we can know and the humility that we are not all-knowing. We are given truth and mystery, reason and romance, security and adventure. Here, then, is a practical philosophy, probably the only practical philosophy left to men and women.

The Christian philosophy is practical on this point (and all points, if we had time to discuss them) because it speaks to the realities of real people: their desires and circumstances. If we seriously thought about it, we could only conclude that everyone wants to know something, but no one wants to know everything. We want to move forward with both confidence and excitement, with limitless open sky over our heads and limitless solid ground beneath our feet, a paradox only possible if we "know in part." Take away that truth, and mankind loses something precious. If we know everything, then there is no excitement; life and existence are a bore, a tale already told and memorized without the possibility of alteration or the freedom of the unexpected. It is a paralysis of predetermination: there is no movement because there is nowhere left to go. If, however, we know nothing, then there is no confidence; life and existence are a terror, a swirling shadow of meaningless and menacing variables that stalk in the perpetual night. It is a paralysis of chaos: there is no movement because there is no direction. Both of these philosophies of men are untenable and intolerable. They do not satisfy holistically; they leave something out, something of real existence, something whose absence brings the whole edifice crashing to the ground.

Perhaps it is the height of irony (and tragedy) that the majority of worldly philosophies are just no earthly good. They either give a man too much or too little, and in either case they take everything from him. Christianity (with its core doctrine of Incarnation) gives God to men, which is to say that it gives us everything, including the practical necessity of knowing "in part."

-Jon Vowell (c) 2010

Mysteries and the Mountain

"In the Lord I put my trust. How say ye to my soul, 'Flee as a bird to your mountain.... If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?'" Psalm 11:1, 3

Life can often feel like a constant fleeing to many incorrect things. We live in a whirlwind of uncertainties: neither tomorrow nor the next five minutes are accessible to our complete control. A secular world is a constant culture of fear; life itself is in some degree an immediate threat. The mysterious is an essential part of existence; and whether or not it is attached to something dreadful, it always creates fear.

In a world where uncertainties swirl like flies, a sure foundation is necessary for survival and sanity. Not everyone thinks so, however. There are some who believe that mystery and uncertainty somehow negate any foundation at all (as if we could know instability without first knowing stability). How they can make such a leap in logic is uncertain, but the point here is that they reflect an attitude of the world that comes in various shapes and colors but still as one fundamental assumption: "Flee...to your [own] mountain."

In the fumbling and terrifying dark, every man and woman seeks a light, a clarity and certainty, even if that certainty is to claim that there is no light to seek. The child of God knows its foundation: the infinite-personal God: "In the Lord I put my trust." It is, therefore, nonsense to "flee...to your [own] mountain." What mountain? There is no other rock, save our God. If we flee from that, what are we to do? Either go back or drown, for all other ground is merely sinking sand.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2010