The Enigma Variations is one of the most enjoyable set of variations that classical music can boast. What makes them particularly interesting is that Elgar wrote a variation for each of his friends, making the reconstruction of their personalities a fun exercise for any music novice. Join the party, then, and meet the guests. And say thanks to your guide Wikipedia, as it will come in handy along the way.

The Theme: You swear you have heard this before, somewhere. And then it hits you: the opening of The Matrix, the first notes of the film before the techno kicks in. You try to forget it, but this haunting melody will follow you the rest of the night.

Caroline Alice Elgar: The first person you meet is (appropriately) Mrs. Elgar. A pleasant lady, Mrs. Elgar is easy going but has a passionately romantic side that comes out if you stick around long enough. Of course, it is quickly submitted to a powerful gentility is befitting this eminently graceful women.

Hew David Steuart-Powell: A pianist friend of Elgar’s, Steuart-Powell apparently never sits still. Always fidgeting, always nervous, he isn’t able to converse long, nor stay on one topic for longer than a moment. You listen politely before he flits along to the next conversation. (more…)

Blogging to have you take them away, that is, and give me money.  I’m unemployed, and so spending my times organizing my life and discarding books that I no longer need.  If only I could make a full-time job of it!

Hence, I invite you to peruse my Amazon.com store and my Half.com store.  If you find anything of interest, feel free to email me at matthew dot l dot anderson at biola dot edu with an offer and I will arrange the sale accordingly.  That special is for Mere Orthodoxy readers only, of course, as all offers are subject to a quiz about the main themes in last year’s blogging.  Enjoy!

In the first essay, I attempted to summarize John Webster’s essay where he locates evangelical ecclesiology under the perfection of God. His moves, of course, raise questions about the nature of the visibility of the Church, as it is the visibility of the Church that evangelicals have often struggled to incorporate into their dogmatic systems.

The danger Webster faces in emphasizing that Christ and the Church are united through “spiritual bond,” rather than “essential indwelling” is that he is “spiritualizing” the Church in such a way that it has no bearing on here and now. Webster points out that nothing he has written rejects the visibility of the Church. However, it is not enough to assert its visibility–we must ask what kind of visibility the Church has? While the Church is a human assembly and engaged in human activities, it is the Church only when it is animated by the Holy Spirit in these activities. “The Holy Spirit is the Church’s God….The reality out of which the church emerges, and in which alone it stands, is: You he made alive.” The visibility of the Church, then, is a special visibility–a “spiritual visibility.” One more: “The church becomes what it is as the Spirit animates the forms so that they indicate the presence of God.”

As Webster has still not clarified exactly what that visibility looks like, he turns to that question next. He returns to the doctrine of election as the grounding of the Church, arguing that it cannot take its forms from social or ethical or cultural theory–they must be grounded theologically, that is, in the calling of God to man. The Church’s function is to attest to the “prevenient perfection of the triune God.” That is, like John the Baptist, the church must point beyond itself to God. It does this through the proclomation of the Word and the celebration of the sacraments. Yet Webster is careful here–Word and sacraments “are not “realizations” of Jesus Christ’s work, for in the Holy Spirit he is self-realizing.” They are visible acts that “let God act.”

From this point, Webster passes on articulating a theology of the sacraments (due to space considerations). Like ecclesiology, he eschews minimalist interpretations of the sacramental events. Instead, he focuses on the ministry of the Word in ecclesiastical communities. Webster contends that it is in the canon of Scripture that we hear Jesus Christ, the one who is alive and who proclaims his own identity to the Church. Jesus has not handed over his office of self-communication to a book–rather, the book is that in which He communicates himself. In one of my favorite lines in the book, Webster writes: “For this reason, Scripture is a transcendent moment in the life of the church. Scripture is not the church’s book, something internal to the community’s discursive practices; what the church hears in Scripture is not its own voice…Consecrated by God for the purpose of Christ’s self-manifestation, Holy Scripture is alwyas intrusive, in a deep sense alien to the life of the church.”

Interpretation of Scripture, then, “is not clarification or completion, but recognition, assent to the inherent clarity and adequacy of the prophetic and apostolic witness which bears to us the voice of the church’s Lord.” The job of the interpreter is to proclaim, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” This makes the primary act of the Church hearing the Word of God–it is only after hearing the Word of God that the Church is summoned to speech.

Such are Webster’s two essays. I have attempted here to explain them, if only for my own benefit and ability to remember and summarize some of the most profound, most stirring, and most uplifting theology I have read in some years. Critical opinions are forthcoming. In the meantime, I wish to invite readers to respond with comments and questions, as my own thoughts are only in their early stages.

It was an honor and a privilege to listen to former House Majority leader Tom DeLay opine on all things political. Delay was candid in his assessment of the sucesses and failures of the Republican party the last few years, and in the need for better cross-issue organization among Conservatives. It was an especially enjoyable conversation for me, as I listened from the happy confines of Disneyland, on a gorgeous sunny day. It was tough–really.

That said, to the recap: (more…)

Joe Kauffman, spokesman for the Terror-Free Oil Initiative, has decided to take a popular water cooler issue head-on by announcing the grand opening of the world’s first Terror-Free gas station.  Opening in the first part of February in Omaha, Nebraska, Heartland consumers will have the opportunity to let their actions speak as loud as their words.

This news story reminds me of the efforts of various grocers, retailers, and coffeeshop owners to harness their ideals to business.  Attempts to pass the price of fair-trade coffee beans, organic produce, and non-sweatshop produced clothing on to the consumer have enjoyed some measure of success, although the love of money can still turn the most idealistic person into a cheap hypocrite.

The success of Kaufmann’s endeavor will depend on two things, both of which have little to do with armchair philosophizing or political affiliation.  Rather, it will come down to marketing strategy and accessibility. (more…)

I wrote the following article for a Christmas newsletter for homeschool students participating in Torrey Academy, the program I teach in. Though it was written with the yuletide season in mind and for the particular plight of homeschoolers, I think any reader will find its themes universally applicable!

Perhaps one of the most impossible tasks presenting itself to an enterprising homeschooled teenager is to love home. There is an old proverb—accurate as a statement of reality, poor as a piece of advice—that runs, “Familiarity breeds contempt.” What, I may ask, is more familiar than family? Yes, it is quite natural for young men and women to feel as if they live in a crowded subway with people perpetually pressing in around them. The 16 year-old, who has been homeschooled for 10 years, might even feel as if the literal walls of the house were closing in about them, imperceptibly but inevitably.

The danger of this feeling is that we might become like the pessimist described by G.K. Chesterton in Orthodoxy, who chastises his home not out of love, but for the sake of chastisement. The pessimist takes grim pleasure in pointing out the flaws in his environment, which is a slippery slope; he soon finds himself looking for flaws to feast on in gnawing dissatisfaction. This path leads to cold disillusionment. (more…)

As discussions about the nature of evangelicalism have been prevalent around Mere Orthodoxy in the last few years (see here, here, and here), I turned to The Community of the Word with more than an academic interest. As I am continuing to wrestle theologically, culturally, and personally with what it means to be an evangelical, I was excited to hear several theologians address and correct some of the imbalances in the prevailing “thin” evangelical ecclesiology.

While many of the essays are worth reading, it was John Webster’s contribution that makes this volume worth owning. In two related essays, Webster attempts to articulate an evangelical ecclesiology that avoids two separate pitfalls. On the one hand, traditional evangelicals have accounted for the gospel in such a way that it rendered visible, ecclesiological structures extrinsic to it. Writes Webster, “Much modern Protestant theology and church life has been vitiated by the dualist assumption that the church’s social form is simple externality and so indifferent, merely the apparatus for the proclamation of the Word or the occasion for faith conceived as internal spiritual event.” Such a reductionist approach to the Church is ultimately a function of a misunderstanding of the Gospel. But on the other hand, Webster is at pains to correct the error without resorting to making ecclesiology “first theology.” As he puts it, “The ecclesiological minimalism of much modern Protestantism cannot be corrected by an inflation of ecclesiology so that it becomes the doctrinal substratum of all Christian teaching.” Why not? Because “gospel and church exist in a strict and irreversible order, one in which the gospel precedes and the church follows.” The attempt to save ecclesiology by making it first theology threatens to “disrupt the asymmetry betwen gospel and church.”

Such is Webster’s project. He proceeds along two lines. In his first essay, he locates ecclesiology dogmatically under the perfection of God. In the second, he argues that modern emphases on the visibility of the Church run the risk of not having the proper perspective on the Church’s invisibility.

Webster’s attempt to ground ecclesiology in the perfection of God is fascinating. In what resembles (though Webster does not suggest this) the medieval notion of the “plentitude of being,” Webster argues that the perfection of God makes it “internally necessary”–that is, necessary because of his ontological status–that God give being as a gift to others outside Himself. Webster goes to great lengths to separate himself from the ‘communion ecclesiologies’ of Robert Jenson and Henri de Lubac. Such ecclesiologies collapse the distinction between Creator and Creature, especially with respect to Christ. What grounds ecclesiology is not an identification of Christ with his Church, but the movement of God toward His creatures: “You will be my people.” Election is at the core of ecclesiology, only it is election unto fellowship rather than participation. In Calvin’s language, we are tied together with Christ through “spiritual bond” rather than “essential indwelling.”

Webster is focused, then, or preserving the dissimilarity between God and Man, a dissimilarity that can get lost in modern ecclesiologies. This position, of course, leaves him open to relegating the visbility of the Church to secondary status within the economy of salvation–a charge leveled at popular evangelical ecclesiologies. Where does this leave the Church visible? More on that to follow.

We blogged about it a lot at Mere O when it happened.  Offered some pretty strong opinions, too, especially about the response by the people at New Life.  Ted Olsen at Christianity Today posted this recap of the followup by New Life.  there is much to be encouraged about.  It seems the church has entered a period of soul searching and made steps to improve accountability and oversight for its leaders.

Yet the article also underscores the deeper problem of such accountability programs:  without genuine relationships between deacons and pastors, they will inevitably fail.  Accountability demands men who are committed to being vulnerable, honest, and forthright about their struggles–to being Christians–with each other.  As an elder at a nearby church who also lost a leader to sexual sin put it, “Where did I fall short in making myself so unapproachable that he couldn’t come to me?”  As too often happens in life, we are only able to honestly confront our inadequacies after they have been exposed through outright “failure.”  Such honest assessments and awareness are needed before the fact, not after.  The danger for New Life now is to outsource such honesty into mandatory “accountability groups” and “counseling retreats.”  Unless they change their hearts, they will only labor in vain.  Lord, have mercy on New Life Church and on all of us who would seek to do your work.

From the Christian Science Monitor comes this report that “subjective well being” is quickly becoming the measuring rod for British policy.  Of course, that’s just a high-falutin way of measuring whether governments are succeeding in enabling individuals to find the happiness that all those political philosophers say is their true end.  Of course, empirically measuring “happiness” can be pretty difficult without first understanding what happiness is, but that might entail understanding what a human is.  Might as well simply revive the “Ministry of Silly Walks.”

My brother has been kicking around existentialism in relation to Children of Men. He writes, “Watching the film, I came to realize that most people evade the true force of “the absurd” because we know life goes on for others, even when we’re gone.” The description could not be more fitting for Little Miss Sunshine, a quirky, sometimes offensive, and downright intriguing and excellent film.

The film is relentless in placing the family it follows in difficult, awkward, and bitter situations. And the directors do not blink, allowing the camera to soak up every strange glance, awkward silence, and farcical situation. (more…)

In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. do yourself and your countrymen a favor by watching the video of what many consider the second greatest speech in American history. After all, “We cannot walk alone.”

Christian Smith, who has made a living correcting mistaken notions about the lives of evangelicals, recently reprimanded evangelicals for their inappropriate use of statistics.  Drawing from the extreme and bogus “only 4% of young Christians will remain Christian” stat, Smith laments the reactive and alarmist attitude that evangelicals–and their non-profit ministries–thrive on.

His challenge to use statistics responsibly is certainly appropriate.  Yet he descends into the sort of polarizing, alarmist rhetoric that he so eschews in those he criticizes.  (more…)

Last night, Joe Carter argued that we have obligations now to people we will meet in the future, such as our spouses.  I pointed out (in the comments) that this would entail that we have obligations now to people in the past as well, a point that Joe agreed with (raising the inevitable question of whether that man ever sleeps–who responds to blog posts at 1:22 am?). 

In the latest issue of Touchstone Magazine, smart guy Russell Moore points out that Christians need a more developed position on burial.  Moore wants to recognize and account for the traditional approach to the dead, which Moore recounts: 

Stephen Prothero’s landmark study, Purified by Fire: A History of Cremation in America, demonstrates that cremation flourished before Christianity and withered away when the Church spread through Europe and beyond. Prothero argues that cremation was virtually unknown in early America, its proponents limited to anti-Christian “freethinkers” who saw in the act of cremation a defiant rejection of the resurrection of the body.

Moore is evenhanded in his approach, wanting merely to start a conversation about “what it means to grieve as Christians.”  Yet the issues of burial and cremation pose difficult challenges to our notions of life and death.  Moore writes,

For Christians, burial is not the disposal of a thing. It is caring for a person. In burial, we’re reminded that the body is not a shell, a husk tossed aside by the “real” person, the soul within. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (2 Cor. 5:6–8; Phil. 1:23), but the body that remains still belongs to someone, someone we love, someone who will reclaim it one day.

Moore notes several Biblical passages where bodies in the grave are identified as the people: Lazarus is still Lazarus in the grave.  Such a position suggests a close identification between body and soul, and yet an endurance of the person beyond the body’s death: Lazarus is still Lazarus in the grave.  It is then not surprising that a cremation would flourish in a culture that does not acknowledge the existence of persons apart from their physiological makeup.  As Moore writes:

Burial is a fitting earthly end to the life of a faithful Christian, a Christian who has been “buried with Christ in baptism” and is waiting to be raised with him in glory (Rom. 6:4). A Christian burial does not mean that we are “in denial” about the decomposition of bodies—that is part of the Edenic curse (Gen. 3:19). It does mean that this decomposition is not what, in this act of worship, we proclaim as the ultimate truth about the one to whom we’ve said goodbye.

It seems, then, one of our obligations to specific people in the past might be the proper honoring of their bodies.  If nothing else, it is an affirmation of the dignity of the physical aspect of the human existence, without surrendering to the notion that it is the only aspect of human existence.  And it is a reminder of our obligations to the past by reminding those who are gone are still with us, albeit in some limited way.  Death is real, but not final.  It changes our relationship with the world, but it does not end it.  Rather than actively engaging with the world, in death we are put in a position of waiting–we sleep, only to be awaken–for the resurrection of the body.