Autumn at Westminster

Clive Staples Lewis

It’s hard to believe (especially when it was 107 degrees inside my car yesterday!), but autumn is just around the corner. Cooler weather? Eventually. New opportunities at Westminster? Very soon!

First, we begin a new Sunday morning series on August 10: “Galatians: A Letter to the Land of the Free.” We inhabit a world full of fantasies of freedom. We expend tremendous amounts of energy, time, and money feeding these fantasies. Our pursuits of power, prestige, sensual experience, and leisure know no bounds. False notions of freedom shape our family priorities, our careers, and our political movements.

Eugene Peterson puts it plainly: “Living in the land of the free has not made us free; we are a nation of addicts and complainers.” We need the letter to the Galatians. The Apostle Paul offers a very different “declaration of independence.” It is summarized in Verse 2:16: We know that “a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus.”

Second, we begin a new Sunday evening series on September 7: “Meet C.S. Lewis: A Man for All Christians.” This series offers a broad introduction to the life and writings of one of the most influential Christian writers of the twentieth-century. Don’t miss this opportunity to invite friends and family members from the community.

Series themes and titles include, “Smuggler and Translator: The Readable Righteousness of C.S. Lewis,” “We Are Far Too Easily Pleased,” “Learning in War-Time,” “Spiritual Warfare,” “Are You Old Enough for Fairy Tales?” and “Pain Observed.”

Third, on October 19, WPC will host its first annual “Stewardship Sunday.” On Sunday morning Dr. James Baird will challenge us with a biblical perspective on the meaning of stewardship. On Sunday evening he will give us an account of the founding and formation of the Presbyterian Church in America. Jim knows—he was there! Jim is the former Senior Minster of the First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Mississippi and one of the men helped establish the PCA.

Fourth, on Sunday evening, October 26, the "Hallelujah Hoedown" hits. As always, don’t miss it.

Fifth, on Thursday evening, November 6, we invite men from the church and community to WPC for our "Men's Steak Supper." We will announce the speaker soon. This is another excellent opportunity to bring friends and family members for an evening of outstanding food and fellowship.

"Galatians: A Letter to the Land of the Free"

“For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1, ESV).

We inhabit a world full of fantasies of freedom. We expend tremendous amounts of energy, time, and money feeding these fantasies. Our pursuits of power, prestige, sensual experience, and leisure know no bounds. False notions of freedom shape our family priorities, our careers, and our political movements.

We strive for the experiences of freedom and fulfillment; but, inevitability, our daily lives tell a different story. It is the story of disappointment, loss, boredom, frustration, and anxiety. Eugene Peterson puts it plainly: “Living in the land of the free has not made us free; we are a nation of addicts and complainers.”

We need the letter to the Galatians. This letter is a Magna Carta of Christian liberty and a “Trumpet-call to Christian Freedom” (F.F. Bruce). The Apostle Paul offers a very different “declaration of independence.” It is summarized in Verse 2:16: We know that “a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus.”

On Sunday morning, August 10, we begin a new sermon series: “Galatians: A Letter to the Land of the Free.”

Series Outline

1:1-5 Free to Live

1:6-12 Free to Curse

1:13-24 Free to Change

2:1-10 Free to Resist

2:11-16 Free to Confront

2:17-21 Freely Justified

3:1-14 Abraham’s Freedom

3:15-27 Faith, Failure, and Forgiveness

3:28-4:11 Slaves or Heirs?

4:12-31 Free to Trust

5:1-12 Free to Stand

5:13-21 Free to Love

5:22-6:5 The Fruit of Freedom

6:6-10 Free to Give

6:11-18 Free to Die

Upcoming Events at WPC

Take note and mark your calendar!

August 10

New Sunday morning preaching series begins: "Galatians: A Letter to the Land of the Free."

September 7

New Sunday evening series on the life and writings of C.S. Lewis begins.

October 19

"Stewardship Sunday." Dr. Jim Baird preaching morning and evening.

October 26

"Hallelujah Hoedown" on Sunday evening.

November 6

"Men's Steak Supper." This is a community-wide event. Bring friends.

How Do You Read?

I am frequently asked questions with a familiar ring: "what should a Christian think about Harry Potter?" "Should a Christian read fiction?" "Why does C.S. Lewis populate Narnia with Naiads, Dryads, Witches, and Dufflepuds?" My usual response? "Whoa, wait, back up! Your first question should be, 'As a Christian, how can I become a more discerning reader?'"

I want to highly recommend The Christian Imagination: The Practice of Faith in Literature and Writing, edited by Leland Ryken. In the preface Ryken writes, "I know of know other book that brings together this much information about Christianity and literature." I agree. I certainly don't support all the conclusions of all the contributors, but the book has much to teach us about cultivating discernment as we read and enjoy good books.

For example, here's a taste from one essay, T.S. Eliot's, "Religion and Literature."

Reading priorities

"And there never was a time, I believe, when the reading public was so large, or so helplessly exposed to the influences of its own time. There never was a time, I believe when those who read at all, read so many more books by living authors than books by dead authors; there never was a time so completely parochial, so shut off from the past. There may be too many publishers; there are certainly too many books published; and the journals ever incite the reader to 'keep up' with what is being published."

You are what you read

"The author of a work of imagination is trying to affect us wholly, as human beings, whether he knows it or not; and we are affected by it, as human beings, whether we intend to be or not. I suppose that everything we eat has some other effect upon us than merely the pleasure of taste and mastication; it affects us during the process of assimilation and digestion; and I believe that exactly the same is true of anything we read."

No insignificant reading

“But I incline to come to the alarming conclusion that it is just the literature that we read for 'amusement,' or 'purely for pleasure' that may have the greatest and least suspected influence upon us. It is the literature which we read with the least effort that can have the easiest and most insidious influence upon us. Hence it is that the influence of popular novelists, and of popular plays of contemporary life, requires to be scrutinized most closely. And it is chiefly contemporary literature that the majority of people ever read in this attitude of 'purely for pleasure,' of pure passivity.”

Christian standards for reading

"The two forms of self-consciousness, knowing what we are and what we ought to be, must go together. It is our business, as readers of literature, to know what we like. It is our business, as Christians, as well as readers of literature, to know what we ought to like. It is our business as honest men, not to assume that whatever we like is what we ought to like. And the last thing I would wish for would be the existence of two literatures, one for Christian consumption and the other for the pagan world. What I believe to be incumbent upon all Christians is the duty of maintaining consciously certain standards and criteria of criticism over and above those applied by the rest of the world; and that by these criteria and standards everything that we read must be tested. We must remember that the greater part of our current reading matter is written for us by people who have no real belief in a supernatural order, though some of it may be written by people with individual notions of supernatural order which are not ours. And the greater part of our reading matter is coming to be written by people who not only have no such belief, but are even ignorant of the fact that there are still people in the world so 'backward' or so 'eccentric' as to continue to believe. So long as we are conscious of the gulf fixed between ourselves and the greater part of contemporary literature, we are more or less protected from being harmed by it, and are in a position to extract from it what good it has to offer us."

Lewis Letters (2)

I continue to read through The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume III: Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy 1950-1963, ed. Walter Hooper (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2007). The three HarperCollins volumes contain over 3500 pages of letters.

Lewis's literary output was astounding. During the period that the Volume III letters were written he conducted daily tutorials with students, gave lectures, and finished writing English Literature in the Sixteenth Century Excluding Drama, for which he read the complete works of around 200 authors, including, according to Walter Hooper, the entire works of Thomas More, Martin Luther, John Calvin, and William Tyndale.

He also produced Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life, Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold, Reflections on the Psalms, A Grief Observed, Studies in Words, The Four Loves, and An Experiment in Criticism. He wrote the seven Narnian Chronicles for fun in his "spare time."

Suffering

“I will indeed pray for you; I did so already, but will do so more. You have made a great sacrifice for conscience’ sake. Such things, we may be sure enrich one: but God knows it doesn’t feel like it at the time. It did not, even for Our Lord Himself, in Gethsemane. I always try to remember what [George] MacDonald said, ‘The Son of God died not that we might not suffer but that our sufferings might become like His.’” 15 November 1956, p. 806.

Tho’ horrified by your sufferings, I am overjoyed at the blessed change in your attitude about death. This is a bigger stride forward than perhaps you yourself know. For you were rather badly wrong on the subject. . . . As far as weakness allows I hope, now that you know you are forgiven, you will spend most of your remaining strength in forgiving. Lay all the old resentments down at the wounded feet of Christ. I have had dozens of blood transfusions in the last two years and know only too well the horrid—and long—moments during which they are poking about to find the vein. And then you think they’ve really got in at last and it turns out that they haven’t. (Is there an allegory here? The approaches of Grace often hurt because the spiritual vein in us hides itself from the celestial surgeon?). But oh, I do pity you for waking up and finding yourself still on the wrong side of the door! How awful it must have been for Lazarus who had actually died, got it all over, and then was brought back—to go through it all, I suppose, a few years later. I think he, not St. Stephen, ought really to be celebrated as the first martyr.” 25 June 1963, pp. 1431-1432.

“Keep clear of Psychical Researchers.” 31 December 1953, p. 399.

Struggling with Doctrine

“The Bible itself gives us one short prayer which is suitable for all who are struggling with the beliefs and doctrines. It is: ‘Lord I believe, help Thou my unbelief.’ Would something of this sort be any good?: Almighty God, who art the father of lights and who hast promised by the thy dear Son that all who do thy will shall know thy doctrine: give me grace so to live that by daily obedience I daily increase in faith and in the understanding of thy Holy Word, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” 18 March 1952, p. 172.

Hell-Fire Preaching

“I had no idea your parsons preached Hell-fire; indeed I thought the ordinary presentation of Christianity with you was quite as milk-and-watery as with us, if not more so. We could do with a bit more Hell fire over here.” 22 March 1952, p. 172.

The Holy Spirit

“Accept these sensations with thankfulness as birthday cards from God, but remember that they are only greetings, not the real gift. I mean, the sensations are not the real thing. The real thing is the gift of the Holy Spirit which can’t usually be—perhaps not ever—experienced as a sensation or emotion. . . . It will be there when you can’t feel it. May even be most operative when you can feel it least.” 15 May 1952, p. 191.

“Westerners preached Christ with our lips, with our actions we brought the slavery of Mammon. We are more guilty than the infidels: for to those that know the will of God and do it not, the greater the punishment. Now the only refuge lies of contrition and prayer. Long have we erred. In reading the history of Europe, its destructive succession of wars, of avarice, of fratricidal persecutions of Christians by Christians, of luxury, of gluttony, of pride, who could detect any but the rarest traces of the Holy Spirit?” 7 January 1953, p. 278.

Pilgrim’s Regress, Lewis’s First “Christian” Book

“I don’t wonder that you get fogged in Pilgrim’s Regress. It was my first religious book and I didn’t then know how to make things easy. I was not even trying to very much, because those days I never dreamed I would become a ‘popular’ author and hoped for no readers outside a small ‘highbrow’ circle.” 19 January 1953, pp. 282-283.

American Politics

“I have always thought of how the greatest of all dangers to your country is the fear that politics were not in the hands of your best types and that this, in the long run, might prove ruinous.” 26 January 1953, p. 286.

Joseph Stalin

“The Russian . . . grabs things here and grabs thing there when he finds them unguarded. I think there’s a real chance that by rearmament and resistance at minor points we just might prevent it coming to a real show-down. But heaven knows I am as ill qualified as anyone in the world to have an opinion. At any rate both your country and mine have twice in our lifetime tried the recipe of appeasing an aggressor and it didn’t work on either occasion: so that it seems sense to try the other this time.” 3 April 1952, pp. 178-179.

Lewis was from Northern Ireland

“I have many calls upon my time, and my own Ireland generally lures me to it when I can take a holiday.” 29 April 1952, p. 185.

Narnia

“What Aslan meant when he said he had died is, in one sense, plain enough. Read the earlier book in the series called The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, and you will find the full story how he was killed by the White Witch and come to life again. When you have read that, I think you will probably see that there is deeper meaning behind it. The whole Narnian story is about Christ.” 5 March 1961, p. 1244.

Ordination Exams

“In both [England and America] an essential part of the ordination exam ought to be a passage from some recognized theological work set for translation into vulgar English—just like doing Latin prose. Failure on this exam should mean failure on the whole exam. It is absolutely disgraceful that we expect missionaries to the Bantus to learn Bantu but never ask whether our missionaries to the Americans or English can speak American or English. Any fool can write learned language. The vernacular is the real test. If you can’t turn your faith into it, then either you don’t understand it or you don’t believe it.” Published in The Christian Century, 31 December 1958, pp. 1006-1007.

Lewis Letters

I've waited for years. Finally, Volume III of the Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis has been published. Volume I (1057 pages) and Volume II (1132 pages) are treasures. Volume III (1810 pages) doesn’t disappoint.

For all of his popularity, C.S. Lewis must be read carefully. Reformed folk will, and should, disagree with Lewis on some doctrinal points. But Lewis has much to teach us.

In this book Lewis interacts with Cornelius Van Vil's statements regarding his orthodoxy; responds to an invitation from Winston Churchill; corresponds with a Belhaven College graduate; and expresses his desire to visit New England, the Rockies, and Yellowstone Park.

Below are a few selections from The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume III: Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy 1950-1963, ed. Walter Hooper (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2007).

The Church

“For the church is not a human society of people united by their natural affinities but the Body of Christ in which all members however different (and He rejoices in their differences & by no means wishes to iron them out) must share a common life, complementing and helping and receiving one another precisely in their differences. . . .If people like you and me find much that we don’t naturally like in the public & corporate side of Christianity all the better for us: it will teach us humility and charity.” 12 July 1950, p. 68-69.

God’s Sovereignty

“Unless He wanted you, you would not be wanting Him.” 13 June 1951, p. 127.

“But I think you are already in the meshes of the net! The Holy Spirit is after you. I doubt if you’ll get away!” 23 Dec. 1950, p. 76.

Theological Liberals

“I really think that in our days it is the ‘undogmatic’ & ‘liberal’ people who call themselves Christians that are the most arrogant & intolerant.” 23 May 1951, p. 112.

Apologetics

“I do not think there is demonstrative proof (like Euclid) of Christianity, nor of the existence of matter, nor of the good will & honesty of my best & oldest friends. . . . As to why God doesn’t make it demonstratively clear: are we sure that He is even interested in the kind of Theism which would be a compelled logical assent to conclusive argument?” 23 Dec. 1950, p. 75.

Materialists

“You say the materialist universe is ‘ugly.’ I wonder how you discerned that? If you are really a product of a materialist universe, how is it that you don’t feel at home there? Do fish complain of the sea for being wet? . . . Notice how we are perpetually surprised by time. (‘How times flies! Fancy John being grown up and married? I can hardly believe it!’) In heaven’s name, why? Unless, indeed, there is something in us which is not temporal.” 23 Dec. 1950, p. 76.

Roman Catholicism

“The question for me (naturally) is not ‘Why should I not be a Roman Catholic?’ but ‘Why should I?’ . . . By the time I had really explained my objection to certain doctrines which differentiate you from us (and also in my opinion from the Apostolic and even the Medieval Church), you would like me less.” March 1951, p. 106.

Politics

“It becomes more and more evident every day that we are certain to have a Labour government in a few months time, which I suppose means back to the old scheme of austerity for everyone and extravagance for the government. Worse still, we expect them to get in with a majority which will take at least ten years to break down. So it looks like Warren and I had seen our last Conservative government.” 16 Nov. 1963, p. 1480.

“My brother tells me gloomily that it is an absolute certainty that we shall have a Labour government within a few months, with all the regimentation, austerity, and meddling which they so enjoy.” 16 Nov. 1963, p. 1481.

Education

“Can it be good, from the age of 10 to the age of 23, to be always preparing for an exam, and always knowing that your whole worldly future depends on it: and not only knowing it, but perpetually reminded of it by your parents and masters? Is this the way to breed a nation of people in psychological, moral, and spiritual health?” 12 March 1950, p. 17.

“My idea is that unless one has to qualify oneself for a job (which you haven’t) the only sensible reason for studying anything is that one has a strong curiosity about it. And if one can’t help studying it. I don’t see any point in attending lectures etc. with some general notion of ‘self-improvement.’ . . . I never see why we should do anything unless it is either a duty of a pleasure! . . . I think one usually learns more from a book than from a lecture.” 7 March 1951, p. 96

Reading

“St. Augustine’s Confessions will give you the record of an earlier adult convert, with many very great devotional passages intermixed. Do you like poetry? George Herbert at his best is extremely nutritious. I don’t mention the Bible because I take that for granted. A modern translation is for the most purposes far more useful than the Authorized Version.” 9 May 1961, p. 1265.

Feelings

“Don’t bother much about your feelings. When they are humble, loving, brave, give thanks for them: when they are conceited, selfish, cowardly, ask for them to be altered.” 13 June 1951, p. 127.

Men and Women

“I had not thought of it before but it might be, as you say, that the decay of serious male friendship has results unfavorable to male religion. One can’t be sure, though, because, if more women than men respond to religion, after all more women than men seem to respond to everything. Aren’t they much more easily stirred up than we in all directions? Isn’t it always easier to get female members for anything you are getting up?” 6 May 1950, p. 20.

Forgiveness

“I think that if God forgives us we must forgive ourselves. Otherwise it is almost like setting up ourselves as a higher tribunal than him.” 19 April 1951, p. 109.

Suffering

“Here is one of the fruits of unhappiness: that it forces us to think of life as something to go through. And out at the other end. If only we could steadfastly do that while we are happy, I suppose we should need no misfortunes.” 5 March 1951, p. 93.

Evolution

“What inclines me now to think that you are right in regarding it [evolution] the central and radical lie in the whole web of falsehood that now governs our lives, is not so much your arguments against it as the fanatical and twisted attitudes of its defenders.” 13 September 1951, p. 138.

American Poet Robert Frost

“He is one of the few living poets for whom I feel something like reverence.” 23 May 1957, p. 855.

Letter to a Young Girl

“Many thanks for your kind letter, and it was very good of you to write and tell me that you like my books; and what a very good letter you write for your age! If you continue to love Jesus, nothing much can go wrong with you, and I hope you may always do so. I’m so thankful that you realized to [the] ‘hidden story’ in the Narnian books. It is odd, children nearly always do, grown ups hardly ever. I’m afraid the Narnian series has come to an end, and am sorry to tell you that you can expect no more.” 26 Oct. 1963, p. 1474.

SI on Sunday

Several years ago, Rick Reilly, of Sports Illustrated fame, wrote an article for his regular S.I. column, “The Life of Reilly,” entitled, “Let Us Pray Play.” Did you see it? This is certainly not the way I would articulate the issue, but the fact that anyone from S.I. would even consider the Sunday-sports problem is surprising. With football on its way, this is an appropriate moment to look back on his perspective.

Another Easter Sunday in the Cathedral. Hushed voices. Amens. People holding hands and praying. At the end, all of them rising as one and screaming, "My God, it's a miracle!"

Church?

No. Augusta National. It was Phil Mickelson's win at the Masters.

Sports has nearly swallowed Sunday whole. Every pro sport plays on Sunday. The big day in pro golf and tennis is Sunday. College football started playing bowl games on Sunday. Here's March Madness: 10 NCAA tournament games were played on Sunday. Now more and more youth sports teams are playing on Sunday, when the fields are easier to get and parents are available to drive.

It's that kind of stuff that has really torqued off Pope John Paul II lately. In March he decried the fact that Sundays are losing their "fundamental meaning" to "such things as entertainment and sport." It's not as if he's antijock. The pope was a goalkeeper, skier and kayaker in his day. Hey, he just blessed New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady's right arm. He's just hacked at the way sport is crowding God right off the list of Sunday passions.

The first people he might want to crack down on are the Christians themselves. Think he knows that the Santa Clarita (Calif.) YMCA has youth hoops on Sundays? Think the pope would be down on Notre Dame if he knew its softball team will play more games on Sundays in May than on any other day of the week?

He's not the only one who's chapped about sports becoming this country's main religion. Priests and pastors across the country have noticed something lately: God is competing more and more with Sunday sports -- and losing. Especially with youth sports.

"It's only happened the last two years," says Rich Cizik of the National Association of Evangelicals. "Coaches never used to schedule games on Sunday."

Says the Reverend Julie Yarborough of Summit (N.J.) Christ Church, "You see kids coming to Sunday school late and their parents coming early to get them for games -- if they come at all. Sports is really eating into our time."

Her colleague at Christ Church, the Reverend Charles Rush, knew there was a problem the other day when his 12-year-old acolyte lit the candles at the front of the church wearing his soccer cleats.

I'll tell you exactly what's going on here: the upping of American youth sports.

For some reason overcaffeinated parents feel they have to keep up with the Joneses. They used to do it with their cars. Now they do it with their kids. Upping means putting little Justin into not one soccer league but three, not one soccer camp but four.

Upping also means playing up, forcing a kid to play one or even two levels above his age group, so that little Benjamin, age eight, can sit on the 10-year-olds' bench, play three minutes a game and whiff in his only at bat. But, hey, he is playing up!

And upping means moving up. The local team isn't high-profile, so little Amber has to switch to an elite team, usually in another town. That means extended drives to and from practice plus traveling three or four or six hours to play in tony invitational tournaments on weekends. This way parents from far-flung towns can flaunt the status symbol of spending beautiful warm weekends in a freezing ice rink watching 14 mind- and butt-numbing hockey games.

"I admit, we're guilty from time to time," John Burrill, head of the Massachusetts Youth Soccer Association, says of playing on Sundays. "We don't feel particularly good about it, but with today's busy schedules Sunday is the only time some of us have to do these things. And if you're going to travel two states away, it doesn't make sense to not play Sunday, too."

Well, religion bosses have decided that they're not going to take it anymore. Spiritual leaders in Summit got together recently and appealed for sports leagues to stop scheduling games before noon on Sunday. A meeting between them and area youth coaches is set for May. We'll see who kneels first.

Don't bet on coaches doing the right thing. If they could, they'd have your kids running stairs on Christmas morning. What has to happen is the parents have to start saying no. Not to their kids -- to their kids' coaches. "I told my boy's coach he wouldn't be playing on Sundays," says Cizik, "and he looked shocked. I said, 'You act like nobody's ever said that to you before.' And he said, 'Honestly? They haven't.'"

I'm with the holy men. Not that I'm the Reverend Lovejoy, but I just feel sorry for these kids who get nothing but organized sports crammed down their gullets 24/7. My Lord, even God took a day off.

Kids might weep with joy to get a day off from sports. If they don't spend it at church, maybe they'll spend it getting to know their siblings' names again. Or swing in a hammock without a coach screaming, "Get your hips into it, Samantha!"

Hey, you do what you want. Just remember, when little Shaniqua has two free throws to win or lose a game on some Sunday morning, good luck finding somebody who'll answer your prayers.

Splendor in the Ordinary

It's Monday. It's Monday after a holiday weekend. Back to the grind. At times like this it can be easy to lose perspective. Don't miss God's daily, simple blessings. I have randomly listed some of my favorite "keep perspective" quotations.

“He has made earthly blessings for our benefit, and not for our harm.”

John Calvin

To Christ: “This is the happy life—to rejoice in you and to you and because of you.”

Augustine

“If you marry the spirit of the age, you’ll soon be a widow.”

G.K. Chesterton

“That man is richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.” “Simplify, simplify, simplify.”

Henry David Thoreau

“Too many people spend money they haven't earned, to buy things they don't want, to impress people they don't like.”

Will Rogers

“I may not be a smart man, but I know what love is.”

Forrest Gump

“Friendship is the greatest of worldly goods. Certainly to me it is the chief happiness of life. If I had to give a piece of advice to a young man about a place to live, I think I should say, ‘Sacrifice almost everything to live where you can be near your friends.’”

C.S. Lewis

“So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.”

Wendell Berry

“There is no more lovely, friendly and charming relationship, communion or company than a good marriage.”

Martin Luther

“We love the things we love for what they are.”

Robert Frost

“Before, I used to be uncommonly terrified with thunder, and to be struck with terror when I saw a thunderstorm rising; but now, on the contrary, it rejoiced me. I felt God, so to speak, at the first appearance of a thunderstorm.”

Jonathan Edwards

Deep within Mordor, Sam and Frodo feel doomed. Hope is all but lost. Yet amidst such apparent hopelessness, Samwise Gamgee—the peasant hobbit who, despite his humble origins, has gradually emerged as a figure of great moral and spiritual insight—beholds a single star shimmering above the dark clouds of Mordor: “The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.... Now, for a moment, his own fate, and even his master's, ceased to trouble him. He crawled back into the brambles and laid himself by Frodo's side, and putting away all fear he cast himself into a deep and untroubled sleep.”

J.R.R. Tolkien

Things that cancer cannot do:

It cannot cripple love
It cannot shatter hope
It cannot corrode faith
It cannot destroy peace
It cannot kill friendship
It cannot suppress memories
It cannot silence courage
It cannot invade the soul
It cannot conquer the spirit
It cannot steal eternal life

Anonymous

“Keep deception and lies far from me,
Give me neither poverty nor riches;
Feed me with the food that is my portion.”

Proverbs 30:8

Love Your Country--Enough to Criticize It

Happy Fourth of July! Have a wonderful weekend with your friends and family.

I love my country. You should too. My son serves America in a U.S. Army Airborne Combat Brigade stationed in Italy. Some of my fondest childhood memories coincide with the fireworks, family, and food that punctuated the annual Fourth of July celebrations in the Midwest. God has blessed America in manifold ways.

Many years ago, a church history professor, for whom I have great respect, handed me a copy of The Search for Christian America, authored by Mark A. Noll, Nathan O. Hatch, and George M. Marsden. I have been recommending the book ever since. I commend it to you.

Noll, Hatch, and Marsden maintain that Christians should be the best of citizens, but they are at pains to emphasize that Christians in America have often embraced mistaken notions about the founders, documents, and events that formed the nation. These three fine Christian scholars offer a sober counter-balance to our, at times, uncritical acceptance of certain interpretations of our history. You may disagree with them, but you must come to terms with their arguments.

I offer several excerpts:

We feel that a careful study of the facts of history shows that early America does not deserve to be considered uniquely, distinctly or even predominately Christian, if we mean by the word “Christian” a state of society reflecting the ideals presented in Scripture. There is no lost golden age to which American Christians may return. In addition, a careful study of history will also show that evangelicals themselves were often partly to blame for the spread of secularism in contemporary American life (17).

In making our case, we do not want to contend that Christian values have been absent from American history. . . . Their presence, we agree, justifies a picture of the United States as a singularly religious country (18).

One set of questions has to do with how much Christian action is required to make a whole society Christian. Another way of stating the same issue is to pose it negatively—how much evil can a society display before we disqualify it as a Christian society? These kinds of questions are pertinent for all of early American history. When we look at the Puritans of the 1600s, do we emphasize only their sincere desire to establish Christian colonies, and their manifest desire to live by the rule of Scripture? Or do we focus rather on the stealing of Indian lands, and their habit of displacing and murdering these Indians wherever it was convenient? Roger Williams, one of the Puritans himself, asked these very questions and came to much the same conclusion as we have more than 300 years later. Again, do we place more emphasis on the Massachusetts Puritans’ desire to worship God freely in the new world or their persecution (and, in four cases, execution) of Quakers who also wished to be free to worship God in Massachusetts? (19).

Fourth of July and "The Greatest Generation"

On July 4, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt challenged the nation to vigilance in war-time. He called for Americans to continue working through the Independence Day Holiday. The War and Navy Departments, the Post Office, and the State Department all put in a regular day's work. Roosevelt set the example for the nation by scheduling a full day of work at the White House. Many businesses and corporations in the private sector remained opened. The few ceremonies held that day were mostly military-related exercises. In Philadelphia at the base of the Liberty Bell, 200 young men were inducted into the armed forces while in New York citizens there hear over 400 air raid sirens wail at noon. There was a marked absence of fireworks that night due to blackouts in all cities and towns. Roosevelt said:

For 166 years this Fourth Day of July has been a symbol to the people of our country of the democratic freedom which our citizens claim as their precious birthright. On this grim anniversary its meaning has spread over the entire globe--focusing the attention of the world upon the modern freedoms for which all the United Nations are now engaged in deadly war.

On the desert sands of Africa, along the thousands of miles of battle lines in Russia, in New Zealand and Australia, and the islands of the Pacific, in war-torn China and all over the seven seas, free men are fighting desperately--and dying--to preserve the liberties and the decencies of modern civilization. And in the overrun and occupied nations of the world, this day is filled with added significance, coming at a time when freedom and religion have been attacked and trampled upon by tyrannies unequaled in human history.

Never since it first was created in Philadelphia, has this anniversary come in times so dangerous to everything for which it stands. We celebrate it this year, not in the fireworks of make-believe but in the death-dealing reality of tanks and planes and guns and ships. We celebrate it also by running without interruption the assembly lines which turn out these weapons to be shipped to all the embattled points of the globe. Not to waste one hour, not to stop one shot, not to hold back one blow--that is the way to mark our great national holiday in this year of 1942.

To the weary, hungry, unequipped Army of the American Revolution, the Fourth of July was a tonic of hope and inspiration. So is it now. The tough, grim men who fight for freedom in this dark hour take heart in its message--the assurance of the right to liberty under God--for all peoples and races and groups and nations, everywhere in the world.

Who Was Elias Boudinot?

My wife, Cindy, took this photograph from the inside of a colonial era Presbyterian Church in New England

Elias Boudinot is an unfamiliar figure to most Americans. Born in Philadelphia in 1740, Boudinot served as a delegate from New Jersey to the Continental Congress from 1777 to 1778 and again from 1781 to 1784. In 1783, as president of the Continental Congress, he signed the Treaty of Paris and was for a time President of the United States in Congress Assembled. After the Constitution was ratified, he served as a U.S. Representative from 1789 to 1795. He was later appointed Director of the United States Mint.

Boudinot was also a committed Presbyterian. In an address to the Oration Society of Cincinnati on July 4, 1793, he emphasized God's sovereignty over all men and all events:

“The late revolution, my respected audience, in which we this day rejoice, is big with events, that are daily unfolding themselves, and pressing in thick succession, to the astonishment of a wondering world. It has been marked with the certain characteristics of a Divine over-ruling hand, in that it was brought and perfected against all human reasoning, and apparently against all human hope. . . . Divine Providence, throughout the government of his world, appears to have impressed many great events with the undoubted evidence of his own almighty arm. He putteth down kingdoms, and He setteth up whom he pleaseth, and it has been literally verified in us, that ‘no king prevaileth by the power of his own strength’” (The Founders on Religion, edited and introduced by James H. Hutson).