The Church and State

With October 7th being pastors and politics day, where pastors are encouraged to preach about which candidate they want elected.  All of this is done defying the nature of the separation of church and state, which lends itself to churches not being taxed. I admire the bravado of any church that refuses to be financially motivated by the state; churches being motivated by governmental finances remind me more of Judas Iscariot than anything.

That being said, the whole issue forces me to have thoughts on the relationship between the church and state. As someone in love with orthodoxy, I think it’s worthwhile to point out this isn’t a new debate it’s an old debate and at that, it’s a debate Christian theologians settled centuries ago.

The first instance of Christianity relating to the state was Christ. There were political affiliations in His day but there isn’t any indication He joined one of them. In fact, He refused to become political when asked with one of His most famous powerful pithy quotes “Render unto Caesar’s that which is Caesar’s and render unto God that which is God’s” (Mark 12:17).

Paul, in Romans 2:14-16, talks about Pagan ethics, pointing out they understand right and wrong without having law revealed to them, it’s written on their hearts and they can discern it with reason.

These two passages led Christians to make a distinction of God’s laws. On one hand we have natural law, which can be known by anyone through plain reason. And secondly, revealed law, which can only be known through God’s special revelation. Taking communion/Eucharist/Lord’s supper would be an example of something that we’re unlikely to figure out for ourselves, we need God to tell us that this is something we ought to do. Of course, there is overlap amongst the two (for example both tell us that murder is wrong). What’s worth noting is that both laws come from God.

Augustine and Aquinas argued that the state is the magistrate of natural law and the church is the magistrate of divine law. State law can’t tell us we ought to take communion, and church law can’t tell us the speed limit.

The discussion at hand is what is the proper place for laws and dictates. Augustine and Aquinas go onto argue that an unjust law is no law at all; namely because the purpose of a law is to bring about justice (according to natural law) and a law that goes against this couldn’t possibly be considered a law – just like a light that fails to illuminate isn’t a light or a fire that doesn’t burn isn’t a fire. So too is an unjust state dictate not a law; nor is a church that isn’t fixed on God a church.

This theory on what is a proper place for church and state laws is essentially the foundation for the distinction between the church and state. A church that tries to make a state dictate isn’t doing what a church is supposed to do, and a state that makes religious claims isn’t doing what a state is supposed to do. My central concern is that the church, in becoming fixed on temporal authorities, loses the vision to point people to the eternal realm and the state, when it becomes religious loses sight of natural law and becomes unjust.

Christianity had spread to China long before the enlightenment period. Unfortunately, Christianity there became intertwined with state politics under the Tang dynasty. When the Tang dynasty fell so too did the church in China. The church, which was supposed to have its focus on eternity instead focused on the temporal only to become a fleeting thing itself.

No one said it better than C.S. Lewis, when divine law tells us to feed the hungry it doesn’t give us lessons in cookery. We are supposed to help the poor but the Bible doesn’t tell us how this is accomplished. If my leftist friends want to alleviate poverty with social programs, there’s nothing Christianity has to offer that says this is wrong. If my conservative friends think poverty is best alleviated with a strong economy, there’s nothing the Christian left can say as Christians that is meaningful. I love political discussions; I hate political discussions done under the banner of Christ.

On October 7th, I’ll be as interested in someone telling me how I should vote as I am interested in my cat’s ideas about theoretical physics. I can tell she’s sincerely interested in strings, but I don’t see why I’d invite her to lecture me on the subject.

Prayer in secret.

I think Christians need to have a serious discussion about this verse: And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. (Mt. 6:5-7)

Joseph Butler once preached these famous words: "The epistles of the New Testament have all of them a particular reference to the condition and usages of the Christian world at the time they were written. Therefore, as they cannot be thoroughly understood, unless that condition and those usages are known and attended to; so, further, though they be known, yet, if they be discontinued or changed, exhortations, precepts, and illustrations of things, which refer to such circumstances now ceased or altered, cannot at this time be urged in that manner, and with that force, which they were to the primitive Christians."

I agree. The context of Biblical literature affects its current application. The context of the passage in Matthew is that some people loved to be seen praying. If this is still the case today, then the verse still applies, does it not?

Who's Leading Your Church?

There are several reasons why I'm not part of an institutional Church. A major one is this: I don't think a non-denominational 30 something carpenter, who's single, called an alcoholic, a glutton, seen visiting with prostitutes, and calls leaders of other denominations rotting corpses and snakes, will ever be allowed to be the head of a Church in North America.

Man in God’s Image or God in Man’s Image?

“You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do”. – Anne Lamott (thanks Sarmo).

Browsing through the history of atheistic ideas one finds the notion that they claim God is made in man’s image, playing on the Genesis proposition that man is made in God’s image. I think this dual approach to man and divinity is an important distinction, which even the great philosopher and theologian Immanuel Kant picked up on and provided us with a wonderful thought.

Peter Kreeft tells us that you can tell a lot about a child based on how he or she organizes things. Suppose you give a child a baseball bat, a baseball, a basketball, and a basketball net and instruct the child to put the items away into two boxes. The structuralist child will put the two balls in one box and the two accoutrements in the other box. The functionalist child will put the baseball items in one box and the basketball items in the other box.

C.S. Lewis had a thought experiment in the Abolition of Man. Do this same operation via categorizing the concepts of magic, religion, science, and technology. The knee-jerk reaction is to group religion and magic together under one category and science and technology in the other category. There is certainly something to this distinction, pertaining to experimental and verifiable thought. But Lewis saw a deeper distinction. He placed religion and science in one category and magic and technology in the other category. Why?

Science and religion have it in common, if they are done properly, that they demand the individual conform to some external truth, whereas magic and technology have the external realm conform to the individual’s inner animalistic passions. Magic and technology gained prominence roughly at the same time, during the renaissance (magic wasn’t nearly as popular in medieval times as is popularly believed); and they both, whether for good or for worse, had nature conform to our animalistic desires. Technology, man’s conquest over nature, becomes nature’s conquest over man, we lose that which makes us distinct from the animals – this is the abolition of man.

Of course, science isn’t immune to the scientist projecting his or her own cultural, philosophical, or economic biases into research. Yet science, properly practiced, does not permit this projection. This is the whole point, if it is done properly, the practitioner conforms to the external.

The same can be said of religion. Religion poorly practiced has the external conform to our own inner desires. When we begin to project God in our own way, and not conform to his way, we lose sight of proper religion.

Kant saw this distinction, of creating God in man’s image and divided religion up into two categories, religion of worship and religion of magic. Religion of worship has the individual conform to the external demands of virtue. Religion of magic has God conform to us. Praise, communion, baptism, even certain interpretations of grace, if they are merely strategies to have God accept us and not have us accept Him, they are religions of magic, idolatry in its most devious; the form that most closely resembles truth. All of these acts have to be carried out as transforming the individual, not transforming God. God doesn’t change, but humans do, this principle applies in our salvation as well.

God in man’s image is spoiled religion. I have no quarrel with an atheist who wishes to chastise spoiled religion.

The Justice of Atonement

That Christ died is quite different question from why Christ died. A short while ago, a friend of mine mentioned how unjust she thought substitutionary atonement is. How is it that an individual can pass their sins off onto someone else, and He should take our guilt without flying in the face of justice? I never recovered from her question. I thought to myself, there must be some hidden answer; doesn’t the whole of Christianity depend on this moral substitution?

Paul uses an illustration of marriage to explain Christ’s death. When one spouse is married, under law, to another, as long as they both live they are bound to one another. When one dies, so too does the binding. Being bound by God’s law is a reality that ends with the death of God. I would never put forward that God’s mercy could rob His justice, and so His death was necessary. I just also don’t put forward that Christ took my sins; He fulfilled the law by subjecting Himself to death. This is what He meant when He did not come to abolish the law but instead to fulfill it. This is how He took away our sin, by fulfilling law.

To be honest, I’ve struggled with Christ’s death for the law little while, this is the best I’ve come up with. Let me know if I'm wrong.

Are Pro-Lifers Even People?

My knee-jerk reaction is to say of course, but gauging from public discourse lately, it appears as if we are not to be treated the way everyone else is treated under ordinary etiquette.

I’ve heard sermons preached against us, calling our character into question. Unprovoked insults are hurled at us on the internet. We’re called “anti-choice zealots”, “misogynists”, and “sickening douchebags” (which has been propping up a lot lately on my facebook, I don’t know why).

We’re none of those things. We’re ordinary people. We work in offices next to you. We’re doctors and nurses, businessmen and engineers, we’re tradesmen and teachers, and we’re men and women. We’re husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, we’re sons and daughters. We’re conservatives and liberals, capitalists and socialists; we’re Christians and atheists, and a whole host of other beliefs. We come in many varieties, such as the sane and the insane, just like those outside the pro-life movement. The only thing that brings us together is that we hold to the belief that the unborn should be treated as people, not choices.

Is believing that so wicked so as to pretend as if we aren’t deserving of ordinary decent respect? Is it so immoral that we don’t buy into what mainstream culture tells us to believe?

We know abortion is a tough decision with long-lasting emotional consequences; this isn’t new information to us. The thing about pro-lifers being people, is that some of us get into difficult situations as well. We come in all backgrounds. Pro-lifers have to face the same miseries and receive the same good fortunes as everyone else. We are rich and we are poor. We are loved and we are lonely. We are rape victims. We’re well-connected and we’re without support. We have disabled children.

Pro-life philosophy is a defensible position. I’m asking for nothing more than to be treated the way you treat everyone else who holds to a belief you disagree with. I don’t think this is too much. I don’t think someone holding polar opposite views from me could logically deduce that I’m too evil. I’ve studied logic, if I assume the negation of my view; I don’t arrive at the conclusion that pro-lifers are wicked. Maybe I’ve missed something; if not, it would be nice to be treated as if I’m not evil.

Music, art, passion, reason, Job, Christianity, and the Romantic Era

Plotinus argues that the good musician will let his passion affect the strings, but the passion cannot affect the immaterial principle of melody. The melodic principle should govern the strings and their sound waves, and how the passions play itself out. Good music falls under this rational structure, rather than superseding the rational structure. He is here arguing for the dictation of the immaterial soul, or the part of us the uses abstract reason, over the rule of material body with its flood of passions. A choral in harmony can occasionally stand out and raise its own voice, but it only remains beautiful if the performers are well-governed and don't all try to raise their voices; the allusion being that discordant passions are a recipe for disaster, even a passion for humanity, which atheists falsely claim is the foundation for morality.

What of the Nietzschean who claims passionate music is better than rational music? Atonal jazz is wonderful music, music that gives greater importance to passion than the rational structure is above the serene music of the baroque era, where passion and emotion had to be fitted into a structure, unlike the music of the Romantic era, which unleashed passion and emotion. Music emphasizing desire over reason is more beautiful, and therefore more musical, and therefore more true to itself, than other blander forms of music.

There is far more going on here than music. The entire culture shifted in the Romantic era. Goethe helped to usher in an era that didn't allow stories to be governed by rigid reason, but instead wrote to champion desire. Philosophy was leaving works governed by strict logical principles and abandoned the desire for a proper systematic approach, under the likes of Aquinas (the medieval) and Kant (the enlightenment). Even theology has a shift, which is played out in Christian practice of the next 150 years.

Orthodox Christianity is dictated by truth propositions, what we believe or put our faith in is fundamental and good works flow from that. The darling of the Romantic era, Kierkegaard, is less concerned with truth questions and more concerned with relationships. Job's friends give Job theological propositions that are true, insofar as they can be found elsewhere in scripture, and they are set against the true hero of the story, Job, who has lousy truth propositions even to the point of arguing with God, but at least he spoke to God and not about God like Job's friends.

Historically, thought influenced by Plato places reason over desire. If I see a cupcake, my desires will tell me one thing and my reason will tell me quite another, especially if I'm trying to lose weight or train for some sporting event. Where there is conflict, let reason have reign, according to Platonic philosophy. Listening to our desires over reason brings us a moment of pleasure, but a month of despair.

So what's to be said of atonal jazz, or even music that is less concerned with the rational structure? Why would Plotinus value Mozart, the baroque musician, over Beethoven, who transitioned us into the Romantic movement in music? Beethoven is the moment of pleasure, where the music industry wound up because of the rejection of rationalism is the month of despair. Popular songs now are singing about fellatio, while high, and this is called music, and even worse, this is called poetry, and the unforgivable sin, some even call this modern music philosophy. This isn't a slippery slope, this is the rejection of reason.

Art today is art for art's sake, the desire is more important than anything we recognize as reason. Today we have Piss Christ - a figurine of Jesus submerged into a jar of urine - and call that art. Art before the Romantic era was John Milton. G.K. Chesterton points out in Heresies, the true value of Milton here in that he's better than these modern artists in every way. After reading Milton's Paradise Lost, no one can forget the arguments Satan made, against God's ill treatment of him. The Satan character, for a brief moment becomes sympathetic, and even persuasive. Christians reading the book are discombobulated. Not only did Milton surpass these Piss Christ artists in his piety and worship of God, he even surpassed them in his defiance of God, he even understood evil better than they do.

One cupcake is harmless, even enjoyable. Beethoven is enjoyable. Thousands of cupcakes over a period of time will leave you disfigured. Maybe one cupcake is reasonable and can be fit within the rational life. Leaving reason is unreasonable.

Why Reading Genesis Literally is a Liberal Position and Allegory is Conservative

“It is a wretched slavery which takes the figurative expressions of scripture in a literal sense...we must beware of taking a figurative expression literally. For the saying of the Apostle applies in this case too: “The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life” (2 Cor. 3:6). For when what is said figuratively is taken as if it were said literally, it is understood in a carnal manner. And nothing is more fittingly called the death of the soul than when that in it which raises it above the brutes, the intelligence namely, is put in subjection to the flesh by a blind adherence to the letter...Now it is surely a miserable slavery of the soul to take signs for things, and to be unable to lift the eye of the mind above what is corporeal and created, that it may drink in eternal light”. -Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, Book III, Ch. 5.

Definitions are hard to come by. I was having a discussion with a friend recently on the nature of a liberal Christian, and she laid out several earmarks of liberalism in the Church; thinking she defined the issue well enough, she left satisfied. I did not.

A liberal to me is someone who accepts their own ideas as opposed to conservatives who accept wisdom from the past. A conservative Christian believes Peter, James, and John have more authority to speak on Christ, because they knew the guy, so as to have Apostolic writings dictate truth to the reader; while a liberal Christian applies their own ideas and dictates truth to the texts, and selects what is true and what is false. Consciously or unconsciously, most Christians strike me as being a mix of the two approaches.

One of the earmarks of a liberal Christian that I was presented with was that liberal Christians tend towards allegorizing certain scriptures while conservatives tend towards literalism. Given the empty accusations literalists make against my view, namely that we fail to read certain passages of scripture literally because we don’t want to, that is we have our own ideas that conflict with scriptural truth and we prefer our own ideas, I can see why they think we tend towards allegory. I want to invert this accusation.

In ancient times, prior to the development of philosophy, there wasn’t a solid distinction between the real and the unreal (Edith Hamilton, Mythology, p 13). They often told stories for the purpose of conveying some higher truth; they taught in parables. It was common place to quote from these stories to get some moral or theological truth. Story-telling was their Zeitgeist, and this was at a time when Genesis was being composed. The hermeneutical blunder of successive generation was to interpret by the letter and not the spirit, the error was to read things at face value and not reflect on the actual message.

Conversely, in our culture, we don’t value poetry in the way ancients did. Everything must be scientific or historical, considered factual, in order to have any value for us. Our way of thinking diverges from their way of thinking. Our ideas about stories differ from their ideas.

When I read Genesis, I see strong indications of the event being poetic and not history. Hebrew poetry is often characterized by parallelism, and the events in Genesis are a giant parallel. On the first three days God first separates light from darkness, the sea from the sky, and then the land from the water. On the next three days God creates the magistrates of those domains, the sun and the moon and the stars, then the creates of the sky and creatures of the sea, and finally the land animals and men and women. Day four five and six correspond exactly to day one two and three, exactly as if a Jewish poet composed the story. Surrounded by polytheistic cultures who worshiped the sun, the moon, the stars, the birds, the land animals as gods, a Jewish writer tells us these things aren't gods, they are created by the one true God. There’s a message in the story.

Our modern mind doesn’t permit us to allegorize, but an ancient mind wouldn’t have even asked the question. When I study ancient thought and look at the relevant scriptures the passages in Genesis scream of the events being poetic rather than historic. When I don’t apply my own cultural presupposition, that everything valuable must be factual, and I let the ancients speak to me, I come away thinking it’s allegory. That is to say, when I approach the texts conservatively and not arrogantly, believing my subconscious idea of literalism is the correct way of thinking, I come away appreciating poetry, loving poetry, and being instructed by poetry.

The thrust of all of this is that the imposition of literalism onto an Ancient Near-Eastern writing, which was developed in a culture that doesn’t share our culture’s devaluation of poetic stories, is a liberal thing to do.

A Proper Religion

A proper religion must properly speak to human nature, and in Socratic fashion we should study human nature, if for no other reason than to ensure that we get the biggest questions of all right, the question of everything and the question of the direction of our entire lives. The question of the subject and the object.

In examining human nature an obvious observation we make is that we have desires. Buddhism tells us to silence our desires, in their third noble truth. There is merit to this. Suppose I see a cookie while I'm trying to lose weight; my desire tells me one thing and my reason tells me the opposite; when reason and desire are at war, and I listen to my desire, I receive a moment of pleasure but a month of despair. Buddhism gets it right when they cast suspicion on the person being led by desire.

Whenever we listen to desire, it only serves to increase our desire. This must be one of the most basic things of the human condition. If I get a new house, soon I wish I had a bigger house, if I get a new car, a year later I want a nicer car, when I get a promotion, I soon thereafter want another promotion, if I get a raise, that's quickly not enough for me. I desire, and subsequently acquire, only to desire something greater. Thus, we're in an endless process of desire and acquire then desire and acquire yet again, only to desire and acquire even further. I want to argue that this process doesn't end, until we desire, and subsequently acquire, that which is infinitely great; God. Buddhists argue we must cease desiring altogether.

I think there are two criticisms of the Buddhist answer to our human condition, one is logical, and the other is passionate. Like the two strands of philosophy, the analytics who study logic and science, and the continentals who study desire and context.

First, Mr. Spock's logical criticism. How can you perpetually eliminate the desires without desiring to do so? How can you follow the 8-fold path without craving to follow it? It strikes Western philosophers as a self-contradiction, to want to have a life of not wanting, and as a self-contradiction it's impossible.

Second, Dr. McCoy's emotional criticism. Suppose you do manage to eliminate passions, you no longer are empty, but you're certainly not filled. You no longer hate, but you no longer love either. You no longer feel unsatisfied passion, but you also don't feel satisfied passion. You no longer feel the emptiness of not having, but you don't feel the joy of the chase. This criticism of Buddhism boils down to, it's simply not a religion that is desirable.

The proper religion is the synthesis, Captain Kirk, who must end this war of love and reason from his top officers. This is the view of desiring the infinitely great. Stealing a thought from C.S. Lewis, passion, most clearly seen in that beautiful sea of poetry found pre-Christian Pagan mythology, meets reason, championed in post-Christian scientific rationalism. Everything Lewis loved, prior to his conversion, was contrary to what he believed was literally true. The problem with the beautiful sea of poetry is that there is a such a thing as reason, which we must follow. The difficulty with the glib, bland, brutal, uncaring nature of scientific rationalism is that it is empty, it speaks of atoms randomly clashing together, but there really is beauty in life, there is value beyond our own subjective valueless valuations; there is such a thing as objective purpose, my human nature speaks of “oughts” and “ought nots” beyond my own invented “oughts”, these seem every bit a part of our human nature as desire does. We need a philosophy that champions logic, or dare say the Logos (that divine mind often translated as Word), that isn't afraid to stand up to our passions, but we also need a philosophy that gives us love, and meaning with purpose. God, if He is God, must be both Logos and love. A proper religion is the religion of the Logos, who is love.

John wrote truly in his gospel and his letter:

“In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God” -John 1:1

“God is love” -1 John 4:16

Why I, and other Christians, left Church

It seems first that we ought to defend the right to congregate in the name of Christ, and pursue our religious tradition, in our own way, rather than in the way that seems most fitting to our cultural surroundings.

Wesleyan theologian Keith Drury writes about Christian doctrine, “Some things are written in pencil... somethings are written in ink...and some things are written in blood”.

Richard Hooker points out in his essay, Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie, that ecclesiastical governance is of secondary importance.

Some Christians implicitly find their holiness in keeping the traditions, either Protestant or Catholic, that they grew up with. Some Christians find their holiness in moving away from the traditions they grew up with. Few would admit to this nonsensical practice, but it seems common enough in the Church, and has since the time of Hooker.

I submit that Church organization and structure is a secondary issue, written in ink, never to be a primary emphasis of anyone's walk with God. We are not sinning by pursuing Christ outside of Church walls.

The second question is a corollary, why would one wish to pursue Christ elsewhere? The answer is obvious, because I no longer find Him in Church. Some of us in the movement have found the contrary, we find ourselves distanced from Christ at Church.

There is no shortage of reasons put forward as to why we find ourselves entrapped at Church, rather than enabled at Church to pursue a deeper relationship with Christ. The most common thread in all of the arguments that I have detected is that the Church has fallen in love with itself.

Some advance this via examining Church finances, to determine where the majority of the money goes, arguing that the Church has become a place of merchandise (John 2). Other advance this by examining where invitations go, do we invite people to Christ or invite them to Church? Others advance this by the mere praise of the Church that goes on.

Kierkegaard writes, “Under the guise of worshipping and adoring God, they worship and adore their own invention” (p 92 – Practice in Christianity)

The jump from reverent worship to idolatry under the guise of worshipping God is a subtle jump, but it's an important jump. It isn't the enormous jump between the chasm separating Heaven and Hell, but it is enough to discombobulate a Christian, and leave him or her confused, desperately searching for more.

Consider this passage from the Old Covenant writings in 2 Kings 18:1-4

In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Hezekiah son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign. He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years. His mother's name was Abijah daughter of Zechariah. He did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, just as his father David had done. He removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it. (It was called Nehushtan.)

King Hezekiah had to smash the bronze symbol Moses had made because it became a source of idolatry. What was previously used for piety, a symbol for pointing people to Yahweh, became a symbol that merited its own praise. The people extolled the symbol, not the thing the symbol was pointing towards.

So many of us have been left with the feeling that the Churches we grew up, that were once symbols used to praise God, have become themselves the praised thing. Pastors are praised, congregations are praised, even praise bands are paradoxically praised – we have trouble going to a Church that asks God to share the throne of praise.

We all have our particular quarrels with particular Churches. Some church preach proper doctrine and correct thought, while producing the poorest thinkers and worst doctrinaires. Other Churches preach love and acceptance, that aren't loving or accepting unless you embrace their way of thinking; they readily dismiss you until you embrace their brand of love. But in truth, we're just looking for a Church that thinks of Christ more than it thinks of itself, and love others more than it loves itself.