Interstellar and the Incarnation

(Warning: Minor spoilers ahead.)

2014: A Space Odyssey

When Interstellar came out last November, the hoopla surrounding it was matched only by the film itself. It was, in a word, spectacular. It was a true space epic on par with 2001: A Space Odyssey in its scope and profundity, and it arguably outdid 2001 with its more humane depiction of mankind's future (i.e., no disturbing acid-trip tran- scendence into who-knows- whatzit). Add to it moments of thrills and suspense, plus outstanding special effects that afforded scientifically accurate space phenomena, and it is as I said: spectacular.

It is not unfair to say the film espouses humanism, but it's not entirely fair either. True, there is a great deal of emphasis on humanity's ability to save ourselves with our pluck, ingenuity, and (above all) science and technology, but there is something more than these that the film acknowledges, something outside of science and technology and pure reason but not wholly outside of us: love.

Kickin' it old school.

This is a new kind of hu- manism. Old school human- ism (from the Enlightenment to Modernism) saw Reason as the supreme attribute of humanity, and thus its advancement was our pri- mary motive power: we are built to know, so let us unlock and understand and manipulate and control the very fabric of existence. Love, being primarily emotional, was unreasonable, and therefore of limited use outside of coercion and manipulation. (See The Abolition of Man.) Such an older humanism is present in Interstellar, mainly embodied in Matt Damon's character, the interestingly named Dr. Mann, who talks a big game about his duty to preserve the human species at all cost. Such costs included betraying his own teammates (killing one of them) and nearly wrecking the entire interstellar mission in a foolhardy move that only killed himself and jeopardized everyone else. All the while, he excuses himself as doing what is necessary, and how one day the human race will recognize him as a hero.

Dr. Mann: the failure of the old.

He's an interesting character, mainly because you know he doesn't believe a word of what he's saying. The brilliance in Matt Damon's performance is the anguish and struggle you see come over Dr. Mann as he does his nefarious deeds in his well-meaning attempt to save humanity. There's more that could be said about him, but the movie makes the basic point quite clear: Dr. Mann's way is not the right way. His attempts to be purely detached from his decisions fail miserably (in more ways than one), and Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) rightly dubs him a "coward," someone who uses rational justification as a smokescreen for giving up hope.

But what exactly drives Cooper and the others? The answer is love. Love is their motive power. Not some abstract "love" for the human race, but specific, concrete love. Cooper goes on the mission because saving the earth means saving his daughter. Amelia (Anne Hathaway) is trying to reach a fellow explorer trapped on a distant planet because she loves him, even though getting to him is not an option, and the scene where she argues for going there anyway ends up with her admitting that she's wants to go there simply out of love, but what's wrong with that? Maybe love is something scientifically understandable, some force or power or substance in the universe existing dimensionally in ways we don't yet understand but know it's real because we experience it nonetheless.

Cooper and Amelia: the near miss of the new.

That scene is fascinating to watch, because as Amelia goes on, her argument breaks down and sounds utterly absurd, and the movie lets it sound absurd because it is utterly absurd to try and scientifically quantify love. It is (as she puts it) "transcendent," something existing beyond the scope of pure scientific inquiry, and yet it is knowable because we just know. Our experience and intuition rise to defy (and convince) our reason. It was this sequence, listening to Amelia speak of love this way, that made me later realize how amazingly, frustratingly close to the truth this movie got.

Listen again to what was being said: Love is a transcendent something existing and acting within our universe and yet is greater than it, filling it, and driving us in our deepest being to move beyond ourselves towards something other than ourselves. That sounds suspiciously like God.

Think about the basic plot: Cooper agrees to go on an interstellar journey across space and time to save humanity from an inevitable doom, and he does this all out of love. That sounds suspiciously similar to the Gospel.

Somewhere in time....

And think of the climax: When Cooper is swept up into a tesseract of Time, he attempts to communicate with his daughter out of frantic, desperate love for her by interacting with the physical world from his transcendent position. During this scene, he at times literally had his finger on the Incarnation: his transcendence touched the very dust.

This is not a Christian movie. Christopher Nolan was not deliberately trying to symbolize the Gospel or Incarnation. I believe that it just happened that way, because the Gospel and the Incarnation are true (not just factually and historically but also ontologically and ultimately), and you can't talk about "love" in any serious or profound way without them. It just isn't possible. (It's vital to note that the very strength of the "love" in this film is made possible because we see it incarnated in Cooper's relationship with his daughter. In this way, it avoids becoming merely sappy and sentimental.) This is the film's true power and what makes it so moving: not just its incredible composition as a work of art but also that it was so incredibly close to the truth. It brushed up against it multiple times, literally (as I said) placing its finger on it.

In the end, brushing up was all it managed to do. Since the film contained no concept at all of Christ or God (either for or against), it couldn't make the final step to connect it all together. Just as old school humanism emptied Reason of any higher meaning and thus left it bankrupt whenever it came up short (as it did in the 20th century), so Love in the new humanism points to nothing beyond itself and thus must ultimately remain mysterious and unknowable, a transcendent something that we experience but don't really understand. We experience it, but are ultimately shut out from it. It is there, but it is silent.

Thus, the film feels like a near, near miss.

But, good grief, what a spectacular near miss.

Seriously: you need to see it.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2015

 

The Heart of Worship (isn't us)

Leave yourself at the door.

"You have turned my mourning into dancing. You have removed my sackcloth and girded me with gladness, to this end: that my glory may sing praise to You and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks unto You forever." Ps. 30:11-12

It is the goodness of God in all its facets that drives our worship and nothing else. We do not worship out of fear, either of His power or His wrath, His great strength or His great fury. We do not worship out of duty, following the formalities and commands of maxims and generations. And we do not worship a mercenary goodness, one we must continually purchase or be cut off. Other gods have demanded worship out of fear, duty, or bribery, but our God is not shallow like them. He is greater than they, and our worship is substanced with greater things, i.e., true love and joy coming in response to eternal, fundamental Goodness that comes without a price (Is. 55:1-3).

Gasp! Not about me?

This is a radical notion of worship, not only because it smashes the legalistic and pagan view of worship by fear or duty or bribery, but also because it smashes the sentimentalist view that worship is centered on us: our sincerity, our emotions, our needs. Such things do play a part, but only as fruit plays a part in a tree. They are not the center, just as we are not the center. Worship is not a subjective experience. It is our subjective response to our subjective experience of the objective reality that is God and His goodness towards us. Our emotional fervor, in any degree, is not the point of worship but rather a natural effect of the real point: the contemplation and comprehension (however slight) of God and His goodness. Without that objective center to fixate our subjective minds and hearts, worship becomes an empty, narcissistic affair, a chorus of clanging gongs and crashing cymbals.

Common sense. And physics.

It is objective reality that creates worship. It is truth that creates wonder and awe. I cannot stress this point enough. Our generation has bought the lie that wonder comes from ignorance, and thus objective, absolute truth must be doubted into oblivion. It is a tragic, evil thing because we are left twisting in the wind without waypoint or guide, and eventually our wonder will dissolve into confusion, frustration, and despair. Only fixed truth creates wonder. Only objective reality creates worship. It is the strong anchor point that allows a kite to fly. It is a strong, gripping root system that allows a tree to grow so tall and flourish so brightly. That is common sense, a common sense we abandon the instant we talk about the most important thing: God.

The road to modern "worship."

My generation has been deceived. We think we worship in the dark because it is dark, but that is a lie. We worship in the light because it is light. There may be blindness in both cases (for you may be blinded by an excess of light as well as an absence), but in the case of light we are blinded by something. In the dark we are blinded by nothing. That difference, so simple and obvious, makes all the difference in the world, both in worship itself and life in general. Is there really something there to which you respond? Or is it just you, alone in the dark, with no way of knowing what's really out there? Your answer will literally shape your world, either into a world of glorious light creating awe and worship, or a world of smothering dark creating doubt and fear, and breeding unbelief.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013

Further Up, Further In (Homily 55)

What hath God wrought?

"I have trusted in Thy mercy. My heart shall rejoice in Thy salvation. I will sing unto the Lord, because He has dealt bountifully with me." Ps. 13:5-6

The foundations of the past are hope and strength for today; light and guidance come from what has already been established. "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path" (Ps. 119:105), a word written long before I was born and spoken long before the foundations of the earth were laid. In fact, the Christian life is all about foundations, about seeing them laid thick and solid. It is all about God setting precedent, of watching Him build His case in your life like a man builds a tower, or better yet, a cathedral. Watch each brick be laid and ornamentation carved, and slowly but surely the monstrous edifice takes shape before your eyes, and what was once an amorphous rubble becomes a sublime work of art.

"I support which candidate?"

It is all art with God. All beauty. All true beauty and beautiful truth. It is not about machinery or efficiency. God is not reducible to a system. We are not here to deduce and define some divine algebra. We are not here to "figure it out," not because there is nothing to figure out but because the figure is too great for us, a figure shaped in the Person of God. We do not comprehend Him; we stand in awe, in overwhelming humility and wonder. We stand still and know that He is God and that we will never reach the end of Him. We can never reduce Him to our myriad manias, to our legalistic claptrap or liberal corrosion, to our efforts to explain or obscure Him. Thank God that He is greater than all our rabid reductionism, or innate and insane desire to make everything smaller than us.

God has revealed Himself, not that we may "figure" Him "out," but that we may begin to know Him (John 17:3), not as a principle or some cosmic machinery, but as a person, as a friend would a friend or a lover a lover. To this end He is building His presence into your life, brick by brick, moment by moment, until He is the most real thing you know, the one true thing, the Fact above all other facts. The point of Christian living, of the life of faith, is to know that God is real: vividly, intimately, personally real. Anyone who says otherwise is selling something: an ideology, a gimmick, or another reductionism. They cannot give you God, the reality of God spreading over and through every inch of your life like waves to the sand of the shore.

Nope. Still haven't arrived.

Like a good marriage, God is known over time, not grasped in an instant. You must never fall into the snare that says, "I have arrived" when it comes to your relationship with God, that you have discovered all there is to know about Him and now the adventure is over. That can only lead to boredom and despair (and perhaps an abandoning of God for something more "exciting"). The truth is that we never arrive, even throughout eternity, not because there is nothing to arrive at, but because God is incomprehensible, beyond our full comprehension, which means it will take all eternity to know Him fully, and therein lies hope and peace and joy.

Further up. Further in.

Hope because even if we cannot see far ahead, we can see for miles behind us, and all of God's bountiful goodness and love trumps our doubts. Peace because all things are working together for our good (Rom. 8:28), working towards are knowing of God, until we finally see what life was meant for: all knowing, all intimacy, all a drawing further up and in to divine love. And joy because identity and purpose and meaning are found at last, not by an arbitrary fiat of our own but by the God who created us for Himself. So see your life for the divine art that it is. Look and see God building His presence into your days, becoming more and more real. See all that you've been through, even the hard and horrible (II Cor. 4:16-18), as the foundations of a yet greater structure, one that will stretch on into eternity, deeper and deeper into the heart of God.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013

"...like a tree..." (Notes to a Vagabond Generation)

"Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly.... [rather] his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on His law he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by a river.... The ungodly are not so but are like the chaff, which the wind drives away." Ps. 1:1-6

The bogeyman of my generation.

All the counsels of the ungodly wither. They are without substance, for the counsel of God alone is all-substance. This is another one of those radical, rebellious notions that offend the finer sensibilities of my vagabond generation. We prefer to "keep our options open," avoid ruts, and escape "comfort zones." We fear stagnation; we fear petrification. We fear consistency and coherence, and what is more stagnant and consistent than a tree? It spends its whole life in one spot, gripping tighter to its beloved safe zone. It will never know the freedom and personal growth of the uprooted life. Of course, an uprooted tree no longer grows at all, but that is hardly the point to us. Carpe diem is the point, and we shall seize it even with our dying breath.

"Viva la freedom!"

All our romanticized idealism over "freedom" or "liberation" or "openness" does not change the hard, common sense fact that an uprooted tree is still a dead tree. You can replant it with each uprooting, but the continual upheaval will be enough to kill it eventually. Trees are meant to stay put, to take root where they are. The stability of its location, the consistency of its nourishment, the coherence of the operation of its parts---all this "stagnation" is its strength, its very life. If that is stagnation, then perhaps we should all be a little more "stagnate."

"All the earth and sky are mine."

It is not stagnation, however, and that is the single greatest error made by my generation: we equate stability and consistency with stagnation and death rather than life and strength. God certainly sees it as life and strength. That is why He uses the image of a tree in this psalm, and it is a perfect image. A tree is a paradox. It never moves, and yet it's always moving. It remains where it is planted, yet it consistently grows further upwards and downwards, gripping the earth tighter and tighter with a myriad of brown fingers coiling from a great knotted fist, and stretching into the sky higher and higher with a multitude of branches unfolding like outstretched hands holding a rich supply of leaves and seeds and fruits and flowers. It grows simultaneously more entrenched and more outrageous, outrageous because it is entrenched.

Dante visits "the liberated."

That same tree-paradox is the life of those who build them- selves on the true, substantive counsel of God. The more they entrench themselves in the truth, the more substance they gain, and the more outrageous and lavish and wondrous their life grows. Our vagabond generation does not understand this. We prefer to hobo it from one patch of ground to the next (in order to superficially "experience its culture" or whatever), and in the end our rootlessness leaves us tossed about by every wave of doctrine or thought or fashion. Like chaff on the wind, we are unceasingly restless and aimless, never finding home.

And all the while, we who are rootless cast a pitying eye to those who have been planted in God's truth, assuming that their immobility will be their destruction; but that assumption will be our destruction, for immobility can be a proof of life just as much as of death. Proof that the tree has been planted by a river. Why should it move? Why would it move? "To whom shall we go?" said Peter to Jesus. "You have the words of life" (John 6:68). By His words we are fed, and by His words we sink deep into infinite earth and stretch high into infinite sky. Again, why would we move? We have found the source of life.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013

The Word is Alive (and Non-Negotiable)

"To the law and to the testimony. If they speak not according to this word, then it is because they have no light in them." Is. 8:20

Q: What rule has God given to direct us [on] how we may glorify and enjoy Him?

A: The word of God, which is contained in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, is the only rule to direct us [on] how we may glorify and enjoy Him.

(Question 2, Westminster Shorter Catechism)

For the Christian, the Bible is more than just "relevant"; not less than, but certainly more. It is "alive" (Heb. 4:12), i.e., "God-breathed" (II Tim. 3:16) and thus presenced by the Spirit of God, the same Spirit who leads to the truth (John 14:26; 15:26; 16:13) and searches and reveals the "deep things" of God (I Cor. 2:10). Divine origin is nothing new: many religions claim to have received truth from God (or the gods, or the divine essence). But divine inspiration---in that the word is alive with God's Spirit, who still speaks through it to us and thus securing its authority for all time---that is a unique invention in the history of religion. It could have only been introduced (or discovered) by a religion with incarnation at its center. The Word was made text as well as flesh (Heb. 1:1-2). This is why the Confession says the Bible trumps or supersedes all other authorities: its divine origin and inspiration.

I can see my house from up here.

It trumps and supersedes all the traditions of men, even the most wise or most holy. This does not mean that the whole body of human writing is of no use to us. On the contrary, all things are ours for the taking (Phil. 4:8), and many things can be beneficial, but nothing carries the weight of authority like the Bible. The buck stops with it. It is the rubric by which all other wisdom rises or falls. Thus, wisdom and traditions of the world, from Plato and Aristotle to Descartes and Schopenhauer to even Nietzsche and Foucault, are all ours for the taking and leaving. They own nothing in us (I Cor. 6:12). Likewise, the wisdom and traditions of the Church, from Augustin and Anselm and Aquinas to Pascal and Edwards and Spurgeon to Lewis and Schaeffer, are also ours for the taking or leaving. Let them all come, but let them all rise or fall on this one foundation: the living truth of God.

I think I need some pants.

This living truth also trumps and supersedes human reason. Again, this does not mean that reason is useless or invalid, only that it does not have the final say. It can never have the final say anyway. As finite creatures, living in our unique yet limited capacity as subjective beings on one small speck in the universe, our understanding is necessarily limited, which takes true humility to see, for we all from time to time slip into the notion that we have it all figured out. "We know in part," says Paul (I Cor. 13:9), a profound statement for two reasons: (1) it asserts that we can "know," that we can have true knowledge, that understanding is not futile nor epistemology an empty exercise; (2) it asserts that our knowledge has limits, limits that only God can and will fill (I Cor. 13:10, 12). In one simple statement, we find rebuke to both the skeptic and the egoist. We find reason defended and put in its place, viz., beneath the authority of God's revelation.

Lastly, the living word and revelation of God trumps and supersedes what was once called "the light within," a Quaker term that meant the self-guidance of the "divine spark" within us, guidance without reference to any outside authority. This idea is still very attractive. You often hear the call to "follow your heart" or "listen to your guts" or some such thing. It is not all wrong. Like human reason, instinct and common sense have a place; but also like reason, that place is limited. Even more so, for our "heart" is deceptive (Jer. 17:9; Matt. 15:18-20) and deceived (II Cor. 4:3-4). To trust our hearts with reference to nothing else is to court disaster, for it is inadequate to know the truth, including the truths that only God can reveal (I Cor. 2:9-10).

Hey! Don't you tell me what to do!

"Follow your heart" has its religious versions as well, mainly in charismatic circles and in more liberal versions of Christianity, both of which refer to it as "a movement of the Holy Spirit." Liberal Christian- ity is especially egregious in this error, wielding the "Holy Spirit" like a bludgeon against even the Bible itself. Charismatic movements may use the "Holy Spirit" to justify absurd prophecies or raucous church meetings, but liberal Christian types (e.g., Rob Bell) use it to justify the complete eradication of doctrinal clarity and (by extension) the complete reversal of certain biblical positions. All this stems from ripping "the Spirit" away from any authoritative mooring other than your own whims, which is what "follow your heart" is really all about. It is an ennobling of our own self-centeredness, another means to justify our own ends.

This is what makes the Bible so offensive to many today: it is an authoritative mooring set outside and even against our own whims. It does offer wondrous possibilities, but it also demands compliance on every level. What it has revealed is the touchstone for any and every thing else, including itself. We can distinguish between "the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error" by what has been written by the prophets and apostles (I John 4:5-6). We can know who and what has or has not "light" because of the "law and the testimony" already delivered (Is. 8:20). It is a fixed point, as fixed as God Himself, for it is His word, presenced with His immutable presence and filled to bursting with His everlasting truth.

Just follow your heaAAAAAAAAAaaaaaa...!!!

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013

"...the philosophy of Light" (ramblings and parables from orthodox rebels)

Recently I flipped through an essay by Roger Scruton called "How I Became a Conservative," where he charts his course to philosophical conservatism from the Student Riots of 1968's Paris to his professorship in the 1980s. He mentioned how during the Student Riots, a friend of his (one of the rioters) justified the mayhem with a book by Michel Foucault called The Order of Things. Scruton had few kind words for the book, but one thing he did say stuck with me: "The book is not a work of philosophy but an exercise in rhetoric. Its goal is subversion, not truth...." 

That last remark in particular wedged itself into my mind. As a member of the postmodern "millennial" generation, I have found myself flummoxed by the strange audacities committed in our name. Rampant relativism, the near deification of doubt and skepticism, and a narcissistic insistence on a conformity to our own "authenticity," i.e., if something doesn't speak to or "resonate" with us then we have no ears for it and that's that. A lot of books have been written in defense of these atrocities, many of them religious in content, all of them mystical in tone.

It is that mystical quality that often astounded me. When I would read the "history" of Foucault or the "theology" of Rob Bell, I found a singular consistency: what they said was gibberish, but it was artful gibberish, and very often infused with a romantic flair or delivery. Some of Foucault's best chapters are his last ones, where he drops all pretense to scholarship and simply slips into the artist that he is, weaving an intoxicating and provocatively put pack of lies. Bell is even better, being an artist from start to finish. His books are more a product of creativity than serious study. Anyone with a critical eye can see through all the ornamentation to the real substance of the work, which is either terrifying (Foucault) or damnable (Bell). In either case, it is utter nonsense in fancy garb.

Yet they gain traction, and it is because of the fancy garb. There is something to be said for the power of beauty: it has a moral force. As such, its abuse is incredibly dangerous. It can turn a man's heart faster than any syllogism. I speak as an artist myself: in the grand scheme of any debate, rhetoric often trumps logic. That is the meaning behind Scruton's statement. It's not what you say but how you say it, and if you speak it well then you can bombard people with any number of things, hiding your true meaning and purposes behind a flurry of colorful lights, like a fireworks display obscuring an incoming storm.

The exact purpose of all this rhetoric is indeed "subversion," and the goal of subversion is the destruction of every "truth" that has apparently imprisoned us. Such a task can sound very noble, especially if you dress it up with terms like "tyranny" and "liberty," "oppression" and "authenticity". It can even speak of "truth" in a sense, i.e., all of the "truths" we've been given are just the oppressive constructs of dead, white, European men. We must tear down those constructs so that we can get to the real essence of things (if there even is such an essence). One could very well argue (and I'm sure that some have) that subversion is all about "truth": the destruction of its counterfeits and the discovery of its true form or nature.

"White is only the beginning."

Calling "subversion" the search for truth through destruction reminds me of The Fellowship of the Ring where Gandalf recounts his ill-fated meeting with Saruman. Gandalf discovers that Saruman has rejected his title of "the White" and has instead become "Saruman of Many Colors". Gandalf retorts that he "liked white better." Saruman sneers at this: "White! It serves as a beginning. White cloth may be dyed. The white page can be overwritten, and the white light can be broken." Gandalf's reply is another statement that has stuck with me: "In which case it is no longer white, and he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom."

Tolkien was referencing a medieval theory of light. Medieval Christianity viewed light as the perfect physical image for God, being not only pure and clarifying but also an absolute unity of multiples. Such logic is fundamentally trinitarian, as is all of Christianity. Every inch of Christian thought and act and artistry revolves around this central notion of separates being one while remaining separates (neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance). The Trinity is the highest expression of this (three in one). There is also the Incarnation (God and Man) as well as Atonement (God and man). The Church fits the bill (one body, many members), as does the Bible (66 books of different genres written at different times and places in different contexts, yet all unified around a singular theme). The Liturgy is built upon many separate elements coming together to form a singular worship, while the sense and structure of stained-glass windows and the cathedrals they adorn give vivid concrete testimony to the amassing together of many into one (without losing the many).

Out of many, One.

For the Christian, existence (from the foundations of ontos to the spectacles of quarks and quasars) has always been a fragmented whole, a great and glorious tapestry of many threads of many colors(!) woven into a singular image. Reality, truth: these things have always been a work of art, not a didactic platitude. Truth cannot be summarized in a statement; that is why it was summarized in a person (John 14:6). The swirling complexities of reality are captured by the irresistible gravity of an incomprehensible center that is God. But that capture does nothing to diminish the complexities, anymore than gravity diminishes the stars. On the contrary, it is their capture that gives us the beauty of the night sky, with its constant constellations and expansive milky way. From the foundations of trinitarian doctrine, you arrive at a philosophy of light, which says that it is neither unity nor diversity, neither solidification nor fragmentation, but rather the whole spectrum working in unison, in perfect, sublime harmony and holism.

Not that I see it, but that I see all else.

It is this "both/and" trinitarian logic that has been missed by the radicals of yesterday and today. They fear solidification at every turn, so they tear it down. To them, the light is nothing to them but blinding, so they break it that they might better see. But then it is not light at all, just disparate colors scattered about without direction or clarity. And in such a catastrophe, one of two things typically happens. Either they revel (or despair) in the prismatic chaos they have created, or they try to contain the madness by reducing everything to one of the disparate colors. Thus, everything becomes a reductionism: it all boils down to economics, or genetics, or sex, or race, or class, or truth-to-power, or pacifism, or Republicanism, or patriotism, or doubt, or whatever else comes and goes in fashion. Whatever way they go, they have broken the whole, and have left the path of wisdom.

I end this random ramble with a parable, told by G.K. Chesterton in the first chapter of his book Heretics. It is not his best book, but it is relevant here. Each chapter has Chesterton dealing a deathblow to a different kind of reductionism, for subversion (rhetorical or otherwise) has been in vogue for a long time now, which is why today we are practically drowning in it:

Suppose that a great commotion arises in the street about something, let us say a lamp-post, which many influential persons desire to pull down. A grey-clad monk, who is the spirit of the Middle Ages, is approached upon the matter, and begins to say, in the arid manner of the Schoolmen, "Let us first of all consider, my brethren, the value of Light. If Light be in itself good---" At this point he is somewhat excusably knocked down. All the people make a rush for the lamp-post, the lamp-post is down in ten minutes, and they go about congratulating each other on their unmedieval practicality.

But as things go on they do not work out so easily. Some people pulled the lamp-post down because they wanted an electric light; some because they wanted old iron; some because they wanted darkness, because their deeds were evil. Some thought it not enough of a lamp-post, and some too much; some acted because they wanted to smash municipal machinery, and some because they wanted to smash something. And there is war in the night, no man knowing whom he strikes.

So, gradually and inevitably, today, tomorrow, or the next day, there comes back the conviction that the monk was right after all, and that all depends on what is the philosophy of Light. Only what we may have discussed under the gas-lamp, we now must discuss in the dark.

-Jon Vowell, et. al. (c) 2013

 

Love (Isaiah's Doxology, Part IV)

"He has clothed me...He has covered me...like a bridegroom...like a bride...." Is. 61:10-11

Love is the key. (Get it?)

Isaiah's metaphor for our new identity and function point us to something in addition to that purpose and function: our purpose and function are not simply a matter of duty. Remember, he could have used any metaphor he wanted. His word choices prove that: "decks" means "to meditate" and carries the image of church service as well as a wedding, and "jewels" means any prearranged thing, even the garb and tools of a worker going to work. Yet he did not use those images, images of duty and work. He chose instead the images of a bride and groom, images of love.

You missed a spot.

Now, it is true that a bride and groom have a duty to give, both in the wedding and in the marriage. But that exception only proves the rule: we expect them to fulfill their duty because we assume that they love each other and will gladly give their best to each other. If they failed or deliberately faltered in their duty towards each other, we would feel a sense of disappointment. However, if they did their duty only out of duty and nothing more, then we would feel the same thing. We would feel as if something had been missed, left out. The situation suggested and called for more than mere dutifulness or efficiency. It called for love, a much deeper and solid thing. Love is the only sure foundation for dutiful action, because it alone can keep the fires burning for years to come.

As we adore...

Just as a bride and groom have an identity and function out of love, so too do those whom God has redeemed. Their purpose and function is done out of love, because it came from love. It was Love that redeemed totally and absolutely (John 3:16; Rom. 5:6-11; I John 4:7-10). He wrapped His people in salvation and righteousness just like a groom is decked out for his bride (and vice versa). The groom decks himself (or is decked) out of love for the bride, and because of that love he is decked in his finest, in all that makes the bride happy. Likewise the bride adorns (or is adorned) out of love for the groom, and because of that love she adorns herself with beauty, with all that makes the groom happy. Every action belongs to love. It is a mutual reception of joy, each giving to and receiving from each other out of love for each other. That is the image Isaiah is going for, that God is going for through him. God has decked His people out in the best that He has: a salvation and righteousness all-encompassing and overwhelming. And as He has given His best out of love, so too His people give back their best out of love. To do it for any lesser or other reason would be a corruption of the whole relationship.

...so too we adore.

This is where all the "relational" language comes from in Christianity. Having a "relationship" with God may be an overused and abused idea, but it is still the closest to the truth. We were made to love God, saved to love God, and we can only love Him the same way we come to love anyone else: we must begin to know Him. Such knowledge is only possible through His self-disclosed revelations: Nature (Ps. 19:1-4; Rom. 1:19-20) and Natural Law (Rom. 2:12-15), as well as His word (II Tim. 3:16; Heb. 4:12) and Word (Heb. 1:1-4). We must learn who He is and what He loves. We must learn to listen to Him, talk to Him, and spend time with Him. If we are to love God, then we must know God, and if we are to know God, then we must immerse ourselves in His revelations. Spend your time amongst Nature and its beauty. Spend your time studying virtue and truth. Above all, spend your time in His word, learning from His Spirit (I Cor. 2:6-12) and His Son. From that soil your knowledge will grow, and from that your love will grow, and from that and that alone will your activity grow, for truth is the foundation of love, and love is the foundation of life.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013

Deliberate (Isaiah's Doxology, Part III)

"He has clothed me...He has covered me...as a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels." Is. 61:10-11

The source of Isaiah's joy is not just that God's deliverance is absolute and total but also that it is neither arbitrary nor random. This is the meaning behind the next set of metaphors. Isaiah says that God has completely covered His people in deliverance and justification just like "a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments" and "a bride adorns herself with her jewels." The Hebrew words here are very interesting. "Decks" does mean "to dress," but it has specific religious connotations. The word literally means "to meditate," and thus is often used to mean "to dress as a priest for a religious service." The image is of purpose and function: you do not dress this way for just any reason or any day. There is a specific reason: it's your wedding day, or it's your turn to fulfill the priestly office. This is why the word means "to meditate": you do not meditate on the air or nothingness or anything that you want. Rather, you become focused, amassing all of your concentration on one thing. There is a purpose and function to what you're doing. Likewise, there is a purpose and function to God's deliverance and justification.

It's a Jared.

A bride adorns herself with "jewels," which in Hebrew means "something prepared or prearranged." The idea is not just of jewels but jewelry, i.e., not separate gemstones placed anywhere in any which way, but rather arranged in a pattern that matches and sequences color and size and shape into a single item whose parts enhance the whole. It is rich with purpose. Finding a lone jewel on the ground somewhere suggest no purpose, but finding them prearranged into jewelry does. There is a purpose and function; the thing is meant for a specific reason. In fact, the Hebrew word for "jewels" literally means any prepared or prearranged thing---the armor and weapons of a soldier or the luggage and bags of a traveler. The idea is the same: the prearrangement is all part of a larger plan and purpose (whether to make the bride more beautiful, the soldier more dangerous, or the traveler more prepared). So too is the deliverance and justification of God's people.

"That was deliberate!"

God does not cloth His people in salvation and righteousness, does not envelope them and hide them in deliverance and justification, just because. Redemption is not random. The Messiah did not set captives free on a whim, abandoning them right after the rescue. It is all deliberate, with a two-fold reason given at the beginning of the chapter: (1) "that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified," and (2) "they shall build the wastes of old, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities" (vs. 3-4). Herein is the double-barreled purpose for those who belong to God: that God would be glorified in their redemption and that they would continue the work started by the Messiah. The first speaks to their identity and ultimate purpose. The second speaks to their activity and immediate purpose. Both are interconnected, one leading to the other.

The identity of one who belongs to God is one who has been swallowed up in deliverance and justification. Where once they were captives to sin, they now belong to God, and the transaction itself is glorious to God who wrought it. Now, our identity is the foundation of our activity. Who we are determines what we do. This is why identity is so vital to people (especially today when identity is a nebulous beast at best). Until we know who we are, our meaning is lost to us: we don't know why we're here or what we're meant to do. For most people, the best they can do is make a half-educated, half-guessed approximation and hope for the best. The identity of God's people, however, is not a guess on their part but a calling on His (Rom. 8:28-30). They are "called" the "trees" and "planting" of God, called to be absolutely God's---planted, watered, tended.

This identity is not something we make for ourselves. It is something we are made by God, and there is the ground for glorifying God: we are the work of His hands, not our own. Any strength we have, any good we do, any purpose we find all comes from the life we've been given by Him. That is our ultimate purpose, viz., to let all that we do be an act if worship to the one who made us His own. Worship is to be our life, because we are God's and God is ours.

What that life of worship looks like leads us to the activity of those who belong to God: praise is to be the permanent pulse of their existence. But there is more to praise than singing and music. It is not less than that, but it is more. The way they worship is to continue on the work of the Messiah, the work of redemption, the "ministry of reconciliation" begun by Him (II Cor. 5:18-19). It is what Jesus meant when He called His own "salt" and "light" (Matt. 5:13-16): they savor and preserve all things with goodness and beauty and truth, and bear bright witness to God's goodness and beauty and truth. Men will see their works and glorify their Father who is in heaven.

"It's simple, really."

This is the place of "good works" in the Christian Faith, and it is the solution to James' paradox (James 2:14-26). To say that "faith without works is dead" is to assume that activity springs from identity, and if your identity is one who belongs to God then your activity will necessarily be good works that glorify Him before men. If there is no activity, then there is no identity. If there are no works in any shape or form, then your faith is not real, i.e., it is "dead". Paul is saying the exact same thing when talks of the "fruits if the Spirit" (Gal. 5:16-25): if we belong to God, if we are now the people of the living God (II Cor. 6:16) wherein His Spirit dwells (I Cor. 6:19-20), then there will necessarily be certain results, certain quantifiable ways of worship. If there are none, then you do not belong to God. It is that simple, that practical.

Only star-gazers change the world.

Everybody seems to miss the practical side of our doctrines, which is not how it should be. Christianity is practical mysticism, i.e., its divine realities are meant to be practical realities. Its word is to be made flesh. To belong to God, to be wrapped up safe and snug inside of His deliverance and justification, is not to become some airy abstraction. On the contrary, it has purpose and function, identity and activity, just as a bride and groom prepare for their wedding day, or as a priest prepares for his duties. You would not see a groom in his glory, dressed in his finest and surrounded by his "best men," and accuse him of impractical abstractionism. You would not look upon the bride in her beauty, in shining white and sparkling jewels arranged in perfect accentuation, and dismiss her as a hopeless day-dreamer whose actions have no function. You would not (though some might dare) consider a priest, dressed in his robes and rushing towards the church with bible and books in hand and glasses tilted down his nose, and say that his garb and gestures served no purpose. There is a purpose, whether you like it or not.

It is the same with those who belong to God, who have been buried deep into salvation and righteousness. They have been bought with a price and decked out for a purpose so that they might glorify God in their body and in their spirit, which our God's.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013

In Defense of Everything Else (an introduction)

Every one has an eschatological vision. Every one has some idea of where things are headed, where it will all end up.

Naive optimists can only see an inevitable forward progression: yes, there will be occasional failures (sometimes major ones), but they are only bumps on the road to utopia. Every cloud has a silver-lining, people are fundamentally good, and all things work out in the end if you just believe. They extol patience and indefatigableness as the highest virtues: never give up and never surrender. Sunshine is their favorite thing, Rainbow sherbet is their favorite dessert, and their favorite season is Spring, when all things bloom in their season.

Meanwhile, naive pessimists can only see an inevitable downward spiral: yes, there will be moments of true success (sometimes enough to deceive even the elect), but they are nonetheless an accident, for all things are fundamentally rotten, and their natural "progression" is down and out. Cynicism and survival are their virtues: don't be taken in and don't be stepped on. Rainy Day and Darkest Night are their favorite colors, and their favorite season is Winter, where everything freezes and dies...just like the universe one day.

Still, others live in a hazy mid-point between these two extremes. They're never quite sure where the world is headed: some days they're an optimist and on others they're a pessimist. They hope everything will turn out all right, but they fear it will not. I think it's safe to say that this is the eschatological vision of the majority of men and women: uncertainty mixed with flashes of hope and despair.

Now, the Christian has an eschatological vision as well, and it has neither the naivete of pure optimism or pure pessimism, nor the insecurity of points in between. Rather, its vision encompasses all the strongest and most searing points of both optimism and pessimism, fusing them together in an amalgam so fantastic it could only be the truth, for truth is never the one thing or the other but all things true and good working together. There is a reason all points on the scale have their attractions: it is because they are all right (and thus, are all wrong). All truly "good" ideas from the world are simply Christian ideas divorced from other Christian ideas, and these amputations run rampant with good intentions, bowling over everything that does not fit into their reductionism. Likewise, all eschatological visions of the world simply contain Christian ideas divorced from the bulk of Christian thought, for Christianity is not a reductionism. It is the religion of the God who is True.

The Christian eschatological vision has three main elements: (1) the inevitable corruption, (2) the divine intervention, and (3) the unstoppable redemption. We shall consider this elements in order and consider their practical applications.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013