Advent Homily: Born a King (as preached by an orthodox rebel)

"Behold, a King shall reign in righteousness...and the work of righteousness shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness [shall be] quietness and security forever." Is. 32:1, 17

The child in the manger is a memorable and adorable emblem of Christmastide and time, but we must not lose the substance of a greater image. The Christian Faith is fundamentally monarchical in its vision, and the child in the manger is our king. He is a special king, of course. He has condescended to His people in ways that are unthinkable, submitting to every limitation we have, taking upon is trinitarian Person the burden and fragility of flesh. A unique tale indeed: the prince became a pauper so that all paupers might become "princes [ruling] in judgment" (vs. 1). Our king is no ordinary king.

Even so, He is still a king. Much more than a king, but no less than one either. You owe Him your allegiance and life, a life He bought and paid for with His own life and blood. The blood is a mystery, but the allegiance is an offense. In our highly fragmented, postmodern, democratic West, where every man and woman is a king and kingdom unto and locked up into themselves, dutiful allegiance to another (especially as authoritarian a figure as a king!) is anathema. The whole thing reeks of hegemonic oppression or discursive tyranny of panoptic meta-narratives or some other nonsense bloated on non-words. We don't like kings because we are all anarchists at heart, regicidal maniacs in our very being.

The proof of our anarchy is in the pudding of Calvary. When the King of kings made Himself a man, we found Him amusing for a while but did not hesitate to slaughter Him when it was convenient for us. Alas, it would be our undoing, for His death led to His resurrection, which in turn legitimized His throne forever, a throne of grace and seat of mercy, pouring forth love like the sun does its shining. It was truly a beautiful defeat on our part, and if you embrace that defeat, swearing fealty to the once and future and forever King, then you shall be a partaker of His Kingdom, a Kingdom of love and joy and dance and song. Amen.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2012

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

The Non-Transcendence Problem (A Philosophy of Potatoes, Part II)

My approach to philosophy (that consummate bogeyman) is to simplify things. I am not saying that I dumb things down so that their true meaning is lost. What I do mean is that I strive to cut through all the jargon and blather and find the most fundamental expression of an idea or issue. Personal experience has taught me that any philosophic position (no matter how monstrously opaque) can be boiled down by certain degrees to a single, simple statement that sums up what is really being said. Furthermore, personal experience has also taught me that once that single, simple statement has been reached, the rest of the jargon and blather (of both the original position and even its derivatives) takes on a sudden clarity. Thus, I've found the practice of simplifying things to be highly practical for reasons in addition to making philosophy less terrifying than it already is.

An example of this came to me recently while reading through Roger Scruton's Modern Philosophy. Despite its dull and formidable sounding name, the book reveals Scruton's penchant for making philosophic concepts (as best as can be) digestible for the man or woman on the street as well as acceptable to the academic. What I've learned so far has been exciting as well as enlightening, and I feel lead to share my recent discoveries.

Modern philosophy begins with Descartes, who (besides saying, "I think, therefore I am") created what has been the most perplexing issue for modern philosophy. It is an issue of epistemology (i.e., how we can have true knowledge), and it is rather disturbing. He postulated two scenarios that utterly questioned our ability to know anything at all. The first can be called "Descartes dream," i.e., the world that we know and see and feel is all an illusion created by our own minds, similar to a dream. An idea somewhat echoed recently in Inception, reality (the "waking" world) is beyond us, and we are so effectively wrapped up in the dream of our own making that we can never even know that the real world exists. If this scenario is true, then how can we ever have true knowledge?

The second scenario is even more disturbing. It is called "Descartes demon," i.e., the world that we know and see and feel is all an illusion created by a "demon" who whispers it in our ear and weaves it in our mind. Similar to The Matrix, this scenario is troubling to many because (unlike the "dream") there is no reality outside of the illusion except for the "demon". Thus, there is nothing to "wake up" to.

You may ask why someone would postulate such a scenario and scare the rest of us to death. The answer is that he is trying to figure out how we can have true knowledge, i.e., how can we breach the dream, defeat the demon, and arrive at truth. Modern philosophy can be seen as continual attempts to do just that.

There are the Realists, those old-fashioned followers of Plato, who assert that truth/reality is in another realm beyond us that we can reach through our reasoning powers. If you want to know what is true justice or true love (or whatever else), then spend your time contemplating the idea of justice or love, devoid of the distracting particulars of this realm.

The problem, however, is that our reasoning powers (being a part of us) seems incapable of rising above "this realm" in order to get to "that realm" of truth/reality. In the end, the demon laughs in the face of our futile reason.

Then there are the Idealists, those inscrutable followers of Kant, who assert that if we would objectively analyze thought itself, then we could discover which kinds of arguments and modes of thinking are the best for arriving at truth/reality.

The problem, however, is that we must use thinking in order to do this, and how exactly does one use thinking to transcend thinking in order to study thinking? Our very apparatus of flight is the very anchor that weighs us down.

Then there are the Phenomenologist, those mystical followers of Husserl, who assert that if we would only objectively study consciousness itself (i.e., the act of perceiving and attaching meaning), then we would unlock the secrets to truth/reality.

The problem, however, is that we must use consciousness in order to do this, and how exactly does one objectively study consciousness with their own consciousness? It is like the wings of Icarus: the closer we get to the sun, the more the wax melts away.

Finally, there are the Nominalists, those dastardly followers of Nietzsche (and his bastard philosophic children of the 20th century), who assent to the reality of the "demon" but choose to localize it in societal institutions (family, religion, tradition, custom, government, etc.) and internalize it in the self. Life is an illusion controlled by others, and the only thing to do is to wrest control from them and give it to ourselves, so that we may make our "real" self according to our own liking and in our own image.

The problem, however, is twofold: (1) We cannot (for whatever reason) function in an illusion, even one of our own making. We yearn for truth/reality, for "the real". (2) We know (though perhaps we lack the words to express it) that Nominalism is simply not true; there are realities that are real and truths that are true in spite of either us or our institutions. We will not submit to becoming the demon, nor will we admit that he is all that there is "outside".

Every single one of these rebuttals to the demon and the dream all hit the same problem (except for Nominalism, which simply accepts the demon/dream). I call it the "non-transcendence problem," and it goes something like this: (1) We know (in some way) that truth/reality exists. (2) We know (in some way) that truth/reality is beyond us. (3) We know (in some way) that we are incapable of reaching it. All of our attempts (and there have been some fantastic and terrifying attempts) to breach the glass ceiling between us and truth/reality seems to fail, and thus we are left here on our silent plant, haunted by inklings and vague apparitions that point us to a place that we can never reach. What, then, do we do?

There are typically two responses to this. First is the nihilistic surrender to life without truth/reality, a position that few take seriously. The other is far more common, and it is the position of heroic existentialism, with its rather pretentious slogan, "Have the courage to be." As odd as that sounds, most people fall into that category. They admit (perhaps subconsciously) that truth/reality is beyond them, but they are still going to strive to approximate it as best as they can. By a lifelong series of efforts, they will be as moral, factual, and authentic as they can (though without truth/reality to measure themselves by, they will never truly know how moral, factual, and authentic they are). This is the default mindset of the average secular person, even if they have never thought about it or found adequate words to express it.

I would like to posit (if I may) a third, wholly different response to the demon/dream, far more radical and essentially Christian in its essence. It goes something like this: (1) We know that truth/reality exists. (2) We know that it is beyond us. (3) We know that we cannot reach it. (4) If we cannot go to it, then our only hope is if it comes to us. The Christian Faith has a term for when truth/reality "comes to us"; it is called incarnation:

"In the beginning was the Word [logos: truth, reality; the primal voice that speaks all else into existence]...and the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us" (John 1:1, 14).

In one simple, solely Christian phrase, the solution is found and declared: "the Word became flesh," truth/reality has come down to us. This is what theologian Oswald Chambers called the "personality of truth" (131). If truth/reality is merely a coalition of abstract maxims (profound yet dead), then it is all on us to reach them, which cannot be done. However, if truth/reality is a person, with their own powers of activity and volition, then they can reach back to us; and according to the Christian Faith, He has.

"God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spoke in times past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in this last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He hath appointed Heir of all things, and by whom He also made the worlds" (Heb. 1:1-2).

Bibliography/References:

Scruton, Roger. Modern Philosophy: An Introduction and Survey. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1994.

Chambers, Oswald. Biblical Ethics / The Moral Foundations of Life / The Philosophy of Sin. Grand Rapids, MI: Discovery House, 1998.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2011

Why Liberalism and Postmodernism Will Always Fail (as expalined by an Original Orthodox Rebel)

The following is from p. 148 of G.K. Cheserton's Orthodoxy.

Orthodoxy is not only (as is often urged) the only safe guardian of morality and order, but is also the only logical guardian of liberty, innovation, and advance.

If we wish to pull down the prosperous oppressor, we cannot do it with the new doctrine of human perfection; we can do it with the old doctrine of Original Sin. If we want to uproot inherent cruelties or lift up lost populations, we cannot do it with the scientific theory that matter precedes mind; we can do it with the supernatural theory that mind precedes matter. If we wish specially to awaken people to social vigilance and tireless pursuit of practice, we cannot help it much by insisting on the Immanent God and the Inner Light, for these are at best reasons for contentment; we can help it much by insisting on the transcendent God and the flying and escaping gleam, for that means divine discontentment. If we wish particularly to assert the idea of a generous balance against that of a dreadful autocracy, we shall instinctively be Trinitarian rather than Unitarian. If we desire...civilization to be a raid and a rescue, we shall insist rather that souls are in real peril than that their peril is ultimately unreal. And if we wish to exalt the outcast and the crucified, we shall rather wish to think that a veritable God was crucified, rather than a mere sage or hero.

An Open Letter to the Emergent Church (as written by an orthodox rebel)

NOTE: Before reading this post, and especially before commenting on it, please read the following definition. Anyone commenting to the effect that I should have contacted someone directly with this letter will have their comment deleted. They obviously did not understand the nature or purpose of this medium of communication.

For the sake of hair-splitters, allow me to make a distinction: by "emergent church," I am not referring to the mere attempt by recent Christians to engage the post-modern culture. Rather, I am referring to the movement that, in trying to engage post-modernism, compromised with post-modernism and became its derivative religious wing.

Dear Emergent Church,

I'm sure that this letter is already obsolete, seeing as how I have heard multiple times that your "movement" is on its way out, revealing itself to be exactly what most sensible people figured it to be: a temporary, fleeting fad and fever, yet another awkward and shameful attempt by Christianity to ape the culture. Thus, as you are unceremoniously passed kicking and screaming out of our system, allow me to add my own voice to the congested and convoluted infinite regression that you call a "conversation". You may ignore my thoughts as you please, but at least your slobbering love-affair with pointless, aimless "dialogue" will guarantee me getting a hearing.

I just want to ask you one question. You believe in Jesus (of a sort). You call Him (on occasion) our "savior". Savior from what, exactly?

From white, European males? From fundamentalists and Republicans? From hellfire preachers and hateful cranks? From unfavorable environments of poverty, politics, and oppression? Is Jesus no more to you than another left-wing activist? Another guru Gandhi, lover of abstract humanity and hater of actual men and women? Teaching us a love with no logic? Revealing a mystery that conceals no truth?

Is this what He has come to save us from: half of all the good things in the world by a gluttonous bloating of the other half? Has he brought us a simpering morality and vacuous social activism in order to save us from honor? Valor? The fight and the battle? The glory and the pride? The beauty and the ecstasy and the unutterable violence of unshakable conviction and creed, definable and categorical to the last non-negotiable degree? Has he come to save us from fairy-tales? From the old stories that said that the princess didn't need a vote or voice but rather a rescue and the knight's armor soaked in the blood of the blatant beast? Is that what your so-called "savior" has come to save us from? From rescue? From riding on the thunderclouds of redemption? Or is it actually true that Jesus came to save us from Sin? Sin that eats at the soul like a cancer? Sin that kills absolutely? The bedrock of all bedlam and horror in the world? Of all tyranny and tragedy?

Why do you give us a God who loves without hate? Who forgives without precedent? Whose heart is made of candy? What pasty, vanilla dullness have you foisted upon us? What is this gross banality that you call divinity? Where is the jealous, wrathful lover? Where is the smitter of Canaan, the plunderer of the treasures of Jericho? Where is the warrior king who chases his ravished and ravishing beloved across a wilderness and wasteland of bones and blood, dragons and demons? Where is the winepress of the wrath of God? What is this God you have given me whose love is not strong enough to hate? True love hates: it must hate all that imperils and spoils the beloved. You have given me your God of sugar, and the slightest rain of horror and great darkness has washed him away. I ask you, where is the Rock of our salvation? The shelter in a time of storm and the great grinder upon which we all must be broken?

Understand this: I despise you as a philosophy and an idea and am absolutely against you for this very reason: you give us a pathetic God. A God without teeth, whose love is watered-down to mere pity, and whose truths wouldn't offend a fly. You remove His righteous and unmovable judgements and instead give Him a weak-kneed moralism born and bred of political manias and secular sentiments, an evangel contrived and constructed by white-guilt for the sole purpose of satiating that white-guilt. Tell me, you almighty doctrinaires and dogmatists of relevancy: is there no room in your narrow-minded and bigoted box of boiled-to-rags religion for God to be God? To be exactly who He, and He alone, said He was? Who Christ said He was? A God of mercy and justice? Grace and truth? Love and holiness? Love and wrath? Wrathful love and loving wrath?

No, there is no room. No room in your paltry little inn and shack for such a God. There never was. You are no better than the post-modern wasteland that you supposedly "engage". Like them, you have stolen God from us, replacing Him with a whitewashed picketer and hipster. A hollow substitute, like a rotted tree.

Take away from me your scarecrow deity. Repent and seek after the living God of Israel, whom you have forsaken for your vain delusions. You have abandoned God in order to have your aimless adventures. I say to you, Come, and find your adventures in God.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2011

Creative Fantasy vs. the "Morbid Delusion" of Post-modernism (as explained by an orthodox rebel and an Original Orthodox Rebel)

Post-modernism, in its denial of any ability to know truth, likes to languish in the ironic, absurd, and downright ludicrous. This can sometimes produce fun things (e.g., some absurdist plays can be quite humorous, and post-modern architecture is cool to look at), but more often it produces vacuous, insane, and perverse creations that leave the mind and soul empty and reeling (e.g., David Lynch's Eraserhead is exactly as he described it: "a dream of dark and terrible things"). Regardless of the result, the premise is always the same: art cannot take us to truth.

In general, post-modernists insist that art is to have no relation to truth of any kind, except for the "truth" of the artist. It is their perspective that is on display, and they may represent it however they choose (even if it is in a manner that completely destroys any real communication of that perspective). They claim that this is the true freedom inherent in art, i.e., the freedom to transgress beyond all limitations and boundaries, from absolute truths to even the canvas itself.

A counter-position to the post-modern notion of "art unlimited by truth" is here articulated by J.R.R. Tolkien in his famous essay "On Fairy-Stories". In one section (quoted below), Tolkien counters the claim (held by the modernists of his day as well as the post-modernists of ours) that the genre of "Fantasy" necessarily implies a lack of or even antagonism towards "Reason". Instead, he postulates a radical alternative: when reason fails, fantasy perishes; for fantasy is based upon a certain kind of deviation from the truth, but that deviation is not possible unless you first know what the truth is. 

An example is needed. A pilot cannot "deviate" from his "flightpath" without (1) there being a flightpath (2) that he can reference and (3) is fixed. If the flightpath is inaccessible knowledge for the pilot (either by accident or ignorance), or if it is not fixed but is changing to a different direction every second, then the concept of "deviation" disappears. Any direction chosen could as well as be a flightpath as well as a deviation. Thus, a fixed referent is necessary even for defying it, for sin is dead without the law (Rom. 7:8). Unknown and unknowable truths produce no rebellions, for the rebels could never know what they were rebelling against.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2011

(The following excerpt can be found on pp. 144-45 of The Monsters and The Critics: And Other Essays.)

Fantasy is a natural human activity. It certainly does not destroy or even insult Reason; and it does not either blunt the appetite for, nor obscure the perception of, scientific verity. On the contrary. The keener and the clearer is the reason, the better fantasy will it make. If men were ever in a state in which they did not want to know or could not perceive truth (facts or evidence), then Fantasy would languish until they were cured. If they ever get into that state (it would not seem at all impossible), Fantasy will perish, and become Morbid Delusion.

For creative Fantasy is founded upon the hard recognition that things are so in the world as it appears under the sun; on a recognition of fact, but not a slavery to it. So upon logic was founded the nonsense that displays itself in the tales and rhymes of Lewis Carroll. If men really could not distinguish between frogs and men, fairy-stories about frog-kings would not have arisen.

Fantasy can, of course, be carried to excess. It can be ill done. It can be put to evil uses. It may even delude the minds out of which it came. But of what human thing in this fallen world is that not true? Men have conceived not only of elves, but they have imagined gods, and worshiped them, even worshiped those most deformed by their authors' own evil. But they have made false gods out of other materials: their notions, their banners, their monies; even their science and their social and economic theories have demanded human sacrifice. Abusus non tollit usum [Latin: "Abuse does not take away use."]. Fantasy remains a human right: we make in our measure and in our derivative mode, because we are made; and not only made, but made in the image and likeness of a Maker.

The Suicidal Mania of Post-Modernism (as prophesied by an Original Orthodox Rebel)

I have discussed post-modernism before, usually in contrast to both Christianity and common sense. In short, it is a lunatic subjectivism and skepticism whose corrosive epistemology eats away at everything, including itself in the end. Its exact elucidation is usually limited to the asylum of certain academic circles, but its fruits have permeated everywhere, from politics to Saturday morning cartoons.

That post-modernism is a self-destructive insanity was not an original idea of my own, nor did I get it from the popular tomes of Moreland and Zacharias (or any other popular figure in modern evangelical apologetics). Its maniacal idiocies were first made clear to me upon reading Chesterton's book Orthodoxy, which he wrote in 1908, a little over a hundred years ago. Then he was dealing with post-modernism's grand-sires (e.g., Nietzsche), and from their thoughts (or lack thereof) he could foresee the inevitable result, which he called "the suicide of thought," the title of one of the chapters in Orthodoxy.

The following excerpts (from pp. 42-43, 46-47, & 48 of the above-mentioned chapter) demonstrate (1) exactly what this rabid skepticism is, (2) what it entails, and (3) that it is nothing new. For my own part, my sentiments can be summed up in the last four sentences of the second paragraph and the very last sentences of the entire excerpt.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2011

[We] may say that the most characteristic current philosophies have not only a touch of mania, but [also] a touch of suicidal mania. The mere questioner has knocked his head against the limits of human thought and cracked it. This is what makes so futile the warnings of the orthodox [i.e., conservatives] and the boasts of the advanced [i.e., progressives] about the dangerous boyhood of free thought. What we are looking at is not the boyhood of free thought; it is the old age and ultimate dissolution of free thought.

It is vain for bishops and pious bigwigs to discuss what dreadful things will happen if wild skepticism runs its course. It has run its course. It is vain for eloquent atheists to talk of the great truths that will be revealed if once we see free thought begin. We have seen it end. It has no more questions to ask; it has questioned itself.  You cannot call up any wilder vision than a city in which men ask themselves if they have any selves. You cannot fancy a more skeptical world than that in which men doubt if there is a world. [...] Free thought has exhausted its own freedom. It is weary of its own success. [...] We have no more questions left to ask. We have looked for questions in the darkest corners and on the wildest peaks. We have found all the questions that can be found. It is time we gave up looking for questions and began looking for answers.

[...]

The [old revolutionary] could tell you not only the system he would rebel against, but (what was more important) the system he would not rebel against, the system he would trust. But the new rebel is a skeptic, and will not entirely trust anything. He has no loyalty; therefore he can never be really a revolutionist. And the fact that he doubts everything really gets in his way when he wants to denounce anything. For all denunciation implies a moral doctrine of some kind; and the modern revolutionist doubts not only the institution he denounces, but [also] the doctrine by which he denounces it.

Thus he writes one book complaining that imperial oppression insults the purity of women, and then writes another book (about the sex problem) in which he insults it himself. He curses the Sultan because Christian girls lose their virginity, then curses Mrs. Grundy [i.e., an old pop culture term for prudery] because they keep it. As a politician, he will cry out that war is a waste of life, and then, as a philosopher, that all life is a waste of time. A Russian pessimist [i.e., an anarchist] will denounce a policeman for killing a peasant, and then prove by the highest philosophical principles that the peasant ought to have killed himself. [...] In short, the modern revolutionist, being an infinite skeptic, is always engaged in undermining his own mines. In his book on politics he attacks men for trampling on morality; in his book on ethics he attacks morality for trampling on men. Therefore the modern man in revolt has become practically useless for all purposes of revolt. By rebelling against everything he has lost his right to rebel against anything.

[...]

[In sum], thinking in isolation and with pride ends in being an idiot. Every man who will not have softening of the heart must at last have softening of the brain.

   

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

The Philosophical Fringe (a cultural engagement by an orthodox rebel)

The TV series Fringe is definitely the new X-files (except it's not as dark, and its lead character doesn't have the personality of a plank of wood). Since I'm more of a movie/animation man, I don't really watch it. My family does, however, and thus my DVR queue is plagued with various episodes of Abrams' and Carter's love child, robbing my of the pure aesthetic delights found in Whose Line is it Anyway? and Teen Titans. But I digress.

The current season has the main character, Olivia Dunham, trapped and confused in a parallel version of Earth. Due to a series of unfortunate and convoluted events, Olivia and her parallel self have switched universes: her alternative self works reconnaissance for her parallel universe boss while Olivia has been brainwashed into thinking that she is her parallel self and goes about living her (that is, the alternative her) life. Got it?

Of course, our stalwart (and rather lovely) hero can't stay trapped forever. Her old self keeps trying to break through, making her do little things that her alternative self wouldn't do. On top of that, her old life keeps visiting her in the form of hallucinations shaped like her friend (and new love interest) Peter Bishop. If your keyboard isn't soaked with the drool of intrigue by now, then that means that you still have a soul.

During one of her hallucinations, Peter tries to tell Olivia that she is not a part of this world and that she knows it. Olivia gives the typical denial response of "You're not real." To which, the quick-witted hallucination replies, "Reality is a matter of perception." That, apparently, is his metaphysical slam dunk, because Olivia has nothing to say back. End scene. End episode. I wonder what's gonna happen now, kids.

I really wish that Peter hadn't said what he said, because he didn't mean it. How do I know? Because if he meant what he said, then he wasn't making any sense. What he said was, "Reality is a matter of perception." What he meant was, "Reality is a matter of fact. Illusion is a matter of perception."

You see, Peter is trying to convince Olivia that what she thinks is real is not so; it goes against the facts, facts that are true and immutable. Her current "reality," however, is not based on the facts. It is based merely on her perception, which has been twisted and distorted, and thus is producing illusion. He is trying to get her to wake up from the illusion and back to reality.

Think about it: If Peter really meant what he said, then Olivia is doomed. If reality is only a matter of "perception," then reality is merely a matter of the mind perceiving it, which is to say that reality is only a matter of the individual mind. The source of reality (the logos, if you will) is your own mind. This kind of reasoning is called solipsism, and it is extremely dangerous. If reality is merely a matter of your own personal perception, then you are never in touch with reality (i.e., the facts); you are only in touch with your perception of it.

Furthermore, if you are only in touch with your perception of it, then you can never get outside of your perception to view actual reality and measure it against your perception to see if your perception stacks up to it. Thus, there is no way for you to know if your perception is the truth, i.e., if it conforms to the facts. You could very well be trapped (forever, I might add) in a world of self-created illusion. That is why it would spell doom for Olivia. There would be no escaping her perception, because she cannot escape her own mind.

Mere nitpicking, you say? Hardly. Peter Bishop is advocating reality over illusion. He is (in a sense) a visual demonstration of a solution to solipsism: if you are totally trapped away from reality, then the only hope for you is if reality comes to you. There are all kinds of philosophically Christian considerations in such a solution (viz., the Incarnation), as well as all kinds of virtuous thoughts (viz., reality is good and reality is attainable).

All of those thoughts and considerations, however, are lost under a pile of slip-shod writing. "Reality is a matter of perception" positively reeks of  post-modern sentimentalism and sloganeering. It communicates nothing of the hardy and proper philosophy that Peter is actually trying to convey. That is what annoys me. Something true and good was being presented, but it was lost. Its communication failed. In its place was an extremely noxious notion that exalts illusion to primacy and banishes reality to the fringe.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2010