Truth
Also, many Communists have interpreted the dialectic as giving them freedom to lie and propagandize with little concern for “truth.” Their ethics are not based on absolute norms, but are historically conditioned. Marxists feel free to do whatever is necessary to advance the Communist society—the society in which justice will prevail. What is true at one stage of the dialectical process or from one perspective in the dialectical conflict is not necessarily true at another stage or from another perspective. Marxists do not entirely reject the concept of objective “truth,” but they define and apply the term in a way that differs drastically from its definition and application in Christian morality. For a Marxist, lying can be permissible—even necessary.
(Stephen B. Clark, Man and Woman in Christ, 516)
The Law That Marries All Things (Wendell Berry)
1.
The cloud is free only
to go with the wind.The rain is free
only in falling.The water is free only
in its gathering together,in its downward courses,
in its rising into air.2.
In law is rest
if you love the law,
if you enter, singing, into it
as water in its descent.3.
Or song is truest law,
and you must enter singing;
it has no other entrance.It is the great chorus
of parts. The only outlawry
is in division.4.
Whatever is singing
is found, awaiting the return
of whatever is lost.5.
Meet us in the air
over the water,
sing the swallows.Meet me, meet me,
Wendell Berry, Selected Poems of Wendell Berry, 136–137, originally from The Wheel
the redbird sings,
here here here here.
Gift
By Brooks Haxton. Source: The Atlantic. Hat Tip: John Barach
All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags;
and we all do fade as a leaf —ISAIAH 64:6After my mother’s father died,
Brooks Haxton, They Lift Their Wings to Cry
she gave me his morocco Bible.
I took it from her hand, and saw
the gold was worn away, the binding
scuffed and ragged, split below the spine,
and inside, smudges where her father’s
right hand gripped the bottom corner
page by page, an old man waiting, not quite
reading the words he had known by heart
for sixty years: our parents in the garden,
naked, free from shame; the bitterness of labor;
blood in the ground, still calling for God’s
curse. His thumbprints faded after the flood,
to darken again where God bids Moses smite
the rock, and then again in Psalms, in Matthew
every page. And where Paul speaks of things
God hath prepared, things promised them who wait,
things not yet entered into the loving heart,
below the margin of the verse, the paper
is translucent with the oil and dark
still with the dirt of his right hand.
Humility
“Humility does not think much or little of itself; it does not think of itself at all.”
Charlotte Mason, “The Eternal Child,” via John Barach
Therefore it does not say “I am humbled.” Rather, it says “thank you.”
Resurrection
Love is a refreshment and almost a kind of resurrection.
—Peter Leithart, commenting on imagery in the Song of Songs, including patterns of seven that hint at new creation, and kisses that evoke, among other things, the breath of life.
Second Person
“That Second Voice, you know: he had me sent here; he said you had asked to see me. I owe it to you.”
“No. You owe it to the Second Voice,” said Niggle. “We both do.”
(J. R. R. Tolkien, “Leaf by Niggle,” The Tolkien Reader, 116)
Exceedingly valuable
There is an alternate approach to men’s and women’s roles today, an approach articulated in the following remarks of Margaret Mead. In the course of a discussion of the relationship between biological male-female differences and social roles, Mead asks the question, Must a society fashion distinct social roles for men and women?
We have here two different questions: Are we dealing not with a must that we dare not flout because it is rooted so deep in our biological mammalian nature that to flout it means individual and social disease? Or with a must that, although not so deeply rooted, still is so very socially convenient and so well tried that it would be uneconomical to flout it—a must which says, for example, that it is easier to get children born and bred if we stylize the behavior of the sexes very differently, teaching them to walk and dress and act in contrasting ways and to specialize in different kinds of work? But there is still the third possibility. Are not sex differences exceedingly valuable, one of the resources of our human nature that every society has used but no society has as yet begun to use to the full? (Emphasis added)
(Stephen B. Clark, Man and Woman in Christ, 445)
Differentiation
Some people respond skeptically to these assertions [that all societies include some ways of expressing gender differences between men and women] because they have a vague notion that some societies have been “matriarchal”—that is, the governing authorities have been women. However, anthropologists unanimously dismiss matriarchy as a characteristic of any known society, present or past. As stated by Rosaldo, “The issues involved here are complex, but the evidence of contemporary anthropology gives scant support to an argument for matriarchy.” There are two main reasons for the persistent confusion about matriarchy. First, some primitive tribes have myths which tell of a time in their ancient past when women ruled. Anthropologists now generally regard these myths as justifications for some current aspect of the tribal life, such as male authority, and not as historically reliable tradition. Myths about Amazonian warrior women are also considered unhistorical by anthropologists. Secondly, anthropologists once used the term “matriarchy” to describe societies which are today called matrilineal or matrifocal. Matrilineal societies are those which trace lineage through the mother and not the father. Matrifocal societies are those in which the female role receives special attention and honor. Modern anthropologists no longer use the term “matriarchal” to describe these societies precisely because it implies that the women of the society actually govern the overall life of the group. In fact, men are the overall governing authorities in both matrilineal and matrifocal societies. Thus, the idea that matriarchal societies did or do exist is a popular misunderstanding, and a notion that modern anthropologists reject. (Stephen B. Clark, Man and Woman in Christ, 415)
Baptism
. . . of a different kind. Some friends and I have been discussing baptism in or with the Spirit: Pentecostalism vs. charismatic vs. third wave. My view is essentially third wave, as follows.
It’s an interesting academic and biblical theological question to ask what is meant by baptism in the Spirit. But the more crucial question is how we think of our relationship to the Spirit, and how we pray. Should I pray for (1) something that I don’t have; or (2) much, much more of what I do have? Depending on which prayer is “right”, the “wrong” prayer involves some kind of important confusion about either the Spirit’s absence or presence in our lives.
The doctrine of regeneration is an important part of this. It’s interesting to me how the meaning of the term has shifted from the time of the reformation to the present day. For some background and reflections, refer to the following posts:
We can say, then, that regeneration is the continual life-giving procession of the Spirit from Father and Son to us; this is part of our union with Jesus and of his promise to be with us always. From an individual perspective, baptism in the Spirit is therefore the one beginning of or entry into that stream (what we now call regeneration), and filling with the Spirit is an opening of the flood gates. The Spirit is not divided; there is no second stream of the Spirit other than this continual regeneration, no power and joy vs. sanctification (as Martyn Lloyd–Jones would have it). There may be varying sources of the stream, however: direct, through the word, through one another. So our prayer is: more, more!
The reason our experience is different from that of first–century believers is that we don’t set foot in the old covenants first. Contrary to Martyn Lloyd–Jones, there is much in Acts that is unique to the first century, including people’s receiving water baptism who had been saved for many years; going to the Jew first and then to the Gentile; and Nazirite vows.
There is also a corporate meaning of the baptism with the Spirit; the first–century formation of the church out of the ashes of Israel (a la Ezekiel’s bones; a corporate resurrection). This corporate sense points to why we no longer experience or expect tongues of flame today—that was the Spirit’s first setting fire to the altar when the new temple–body is first filled with God’s presence, as happens with every new covenant. As with all altar fires, the Spirit’s fire is now continually present in the temple of God’s church and people.
Tradition
At the end of 1 Timothy, Timothy is exhorted to “guard what has been entrusted to you,” or perhaps, “guard what has been deposited with you.” This exhortation calls to mind the image of one person depositing a large sum of money or some other valuable item with another for safekeeping. The scriptural writers and the Christian writers who followed them saw the Christian truths and way of life as a great treasure, one that had been entrusted to their care and that was to be handed over intact to the next generation. . . . The modern mind tends to view “tradition” very differently—as something left–over, unexamined, something which probably needs to be updated or discarded. It is “just tradition.” By contrast the first Christians viewed tradition as the careful handing on of their great treasure—the life in Christ and the teachings which made that life possible. They could not be truly faithful to Christ unless they could hand on what had been handed on to them. They could not really be faithful to Christ unless they could maintain and uphold that with which they had been charged (see 1 Tm 1:18; 6:14; 2 Tm 2:2, 4:1–5). (Stephen B. Clark, Man and Woman in Christ, 281)
I gotta have my orange juice. 