I have a dirt collection. It is an inexpensive hobby and virtually no attention is paid to it. It is known and others do my collecting for me. My dirt ( in eighth cup quantities) must be from important and mostly unexpected/quirky places that you should not expect to see above the door of a private library in Moscow, Idaho.
I have
1. a bit of Edinburgh
2. a bit of Ireland
3. a bit of the "grassy knoll"
4. a bit of the Garden of Eden
5. a bit of the Isle of the Lotus Eaters
6. a bit of the Acropolis
7. a bit of the top of the tumulus at Marathon
Those that are not of mine own collection have a blessing recorded on the bottle to the person responsible. For example the Isle of the Lotus Eaters is labeled, followed by"Bless Katie Botkin".
If you wish to have your name immortalized in Sharpie marker on the side of a single serving jam jar, send me your dirt with its particulars. Be warned that I am the final arbiter of its importance. Someone might wonder why I would be disinterested in dirt from Gettysburg and very interested in dirt from Glen Livet. These are mysteries of mine own mind and some of you understand. You can always check before you risk arrest in a second or third world country. Is your soul prepared to be enshrined? Let us hope so.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Taking Stock
As promised, the Oracle is back in Zion having visited, with good effects, the lesser tribes of Philistia. He speaks, pregnant with nicotine induced visions, of his successful retirement from the Board of the Society for Classical Learning. Had a good conference nonetheless and some schools spoke of asking the Oracle to their own towns for a visit. That, dear friends, is the point of this post. The SCL was pretty much my only foray into the greater world outside Moscow and was the only place the work we do at the Big Haus could be known more broadly. We still wish to build our ministry into something known enough to make it a destination for those who seek. Were I to offer myself on the mercenary altar of "guest lecturer", what have I said in the past that you would say is so beneficial that I should make some seminar package of it?
On which aspects of the Christian life has the Big Haus some authority?
I received a very excited response to the lecture on Gentlemen and Ladies. Couple that with the Mojo Oracles and the Tao of Eve and we might have something.
History lectures? Which parts would gain an interest (of which I have some knowledge, of course)?
Literature?
Philosophy?
How about materials that my graphics capabilities could produce?
If you have any suggestions, as someone who has heard a talk somewhere or just knows of a large need in this world, we would gladly accept those in the comment section.
If you think that the world would be a better place if I stayed in Moscow and kept my thoughts to myself, please also communicate. We would be kept from folly.
On which aspects of the Christian life has the Big Haus some authority?
I received a very excited response to the lecture on Gentlemen and Ladies. Couple that with the Mojo Oracles and the Tao of Eve and we might have something.
History lectures? Which parts would gain an interest (of which I have some knowledge, of course)?
Literature?
Philosophy?
How about materials that my graphics capabilities could produce?
If you have any suggestions, as someone who has heard a talk somewhere or just knows of a large need in this world, we would gladly accept those in the comment section.
If you think that the world would be a better place if I stayed in Moscow and kept my thoughts to myself, please also communicate. We would be kept from folly.
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
The Once and Future Blogger
I am going to be thinking a lot this week. Vast reaches of space and non-existent time shall compass my thinkings. I'll spout off in sundry places and, mayhap, I shall be applauded. Some will talk back, fervently hoping that what I say be false. It shan't be but it shan't be here that I do this dark thing. For one long week I, thinking and spouting, shall be elsewhere. North Carolina shall envelop me in its humid embrace. I shall speak of the nobility that rested in the person of The Black Prince, Edward, Prince of Wales. I shall foist my recently developed (on this blog) philosophies of the gentleman and the lady. I shall reprimand the Christian school movement with the correctives of C.S. Lewis' views on artificially produced culture. I shall visit old friends in their mountain home and shall there unload the remainder of my mind. Then I'll come back. Maybe I shall have lost all my readership, as they visit this place and finding nothing new day after day, consign my tardiness to the flame. The saints among them will feel the same temptation but will turn to their main squeeze and say, "He is gone awhile. Let us be patient." The squeeze will turn aside to hide the shed tear that steals down a rose mantled cheek and murmur the word "Avalon".
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Having Happy Ideas
To be right, in the "correct" sense, is such a warm feeling. It is a happiness. Why is it that so many people who have a "correct" stance on something can't seem to be happy until they that disagree can be brought to agreement? These thought fascists can be watched plunging into greater and greater despair while they with whom they converse resist them. Being "right" doesn't make them happy.
In my mind this is evidential. I suggest that this need to convince is rooted in their lack of security about whether they are, in fact, right. They know that they will feel more "right" if more people get on board with the idea. I have been asked, on telling someone of one of my more bizarre views, if anyone else agrees with me. Truth, thankfully, is not democratic. Vox Populi is not Vox Dei. Contrary to Romans 14:1, the compulsive who welcomes what he conceives to be the weaker brother for nothing but disputes over opinions is running a political campaign trying to gain by acclaim what his ideas did not have by merit. If he doesn't get enough votes, he loses.
Imagine if numbers or a movement was the arbiter of where you should feel the most ideologically safe. The broad way, where many went in, would lead to life and the narrow way, which few found, would lead to destruction. No, we should measure our ideas on epistemological grounds that do not include assent of our hearers. In fact, one of the reasons your insecure viewpoints fail you in those moments is that you had not bothered to convince yourself with proofs and so you had no proofs to offer. Perhaps if your ideas had merit in that they brought you a good and a happiness in just being believed by you, the very meritorious existence would convince the Philistines as they came into your life. It suggests this principle for wives of non-believing husbands. They will be "won without a word when they see the behavior of their wives."
As it says later in Romans 14, (regarding why you don't impose your views on the brethren but conversely be ready to pull your views out of the way for love) "The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God; happy is he who has no reason to judge himself for what he approves. But he who has doubts is condemned, if he eats, because he does not act from faith; for whatever does not proceed from faith is sin."
Remember Proverbs 9:12
"If you are wise, you are wise for yourself"
In my mind this is evidential. I suggest that this need to convince is rooted in their lack of security about whether they are, in fact, right. They know that they will feel more "right" if more people get on board with the idea. I have been asked, on telling someone of one of my more bizarre views, if anyone else agrees with me. Truth, thankfully, is not democratic. Vox Populi is not Vox Dei. Contrary to Romans 14:1, the compulsive who welcomes what he conceives to be the weaker brother for nothing but disputes over opinions is running a political campaign trying to gain by acclaim what his ideas did not have by merit. If he doesn't get enough votes, he loses.
Imagine if numbers or a movement was the arbiter of where you should feel the most ideologically safe. The broad way, where many went in, would lead to life and the narrow way, which few found, would lead to destruction. No, we should measure our ideas on epistemological grounds that do not include assent of our hearers. In fact, one of the reasons your insecure viewpoints fail you in those moments is that you had not bothered to convince yourself with proofs and so you had no proofs to offer. Perhaps if your ideas had merit in that they brought you a good and a happiness in just being believed by you, the very meritorious existence would convince the Philistines as they came into your life. It suggests this principle for wives of non-believing husbands. They will be "won without a word when they see the behavior of their wives."
As it says later in Romans 14, (regarding why you don't impose your views on the brethren but conversely be ready to pull your views out of the way for love) "The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God; happy is he who has no reason to judge himself for what he approves. But he who has doubts is condemned, if he eats, because he does not act from faith; for whatever does not proceed from faith is sin."
Remember Proverbs 9:12
"If you are wise, you are wise for yourself"
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Believing He is Merciful
Prayer is not mere obedience. The very word "prayer" has to do with requests being made. When we take our anxieties before the Living God we are beseeching the ruler of all to make a change in what might beset us, (the actual, intended future of the various forces and wills involved) if we had not prayed. We are asking for His mercy.
Philippians 4:6 Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
The anxiety that the chaos of life contributes is given to God for His remedy and our faith is in His willingness to answer the prayers of the righteous.
James 5:16 The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects.
The assumption in the James passage (and it argues that Elijah's prayer was powerful to effect the weather and that he was just like us) is that prayer effects, causes, prompts Our God, not merely participating in what He was already effectually doing. It is the prayer that has great power. By it, Moses turned God's wrath over the disobedient Israelites to mercy. By prayer, Hezekiah turned aside God's decree of his immediate death (by the word of Isaiah the prophet) to add fifteen more years of life.
II Kings 20:1-6 In those days Hezeki'ah became sick and was at the point of death. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him, and said to him, "Thus says the LORD, `Set your house in order; for you shall die, you shall not recover.'" Then Hezeki'ah turned his face to the wall, and prayed to the LORD, saying, "Remember now, O LORD, I beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in faithfulness and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in thy sight." And Hezeki'ah wept bitterly. And before Isaiah had gone out of the middle court, the word of the LORD came to him: "Turn back, and say to Hezeki'ah the prince of my people, Thus says the LORD, the God of David your father: I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; behold, I will heal you; on the third day you shall go up to the house of the LORD. And I will add fifteen years to your life. I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria, and I will defend this city for my own sake and for my servant David's sake."
And the prayers of the citizens of Nineveh turned God away from the promised destruction in forty days because Our God is "a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and repentest of evil. " Jonah 4:2
God will do what He wills but it is His will to respond to our prayer.
Psalm 34:15 The eyes of the LORD are toward the righteous, and his ears toward their cry. Peter quotes this as well (I Peter 3:12) to give us hope in difficult times.
An ignorance of God's responsive mercy sometimes keeps us from praying with faith. Even C.S. Lewis struggles with the question (without coming up with an answer) in his essay "The Problem of Petitionary Prayer". It is basically framed up in our minds as, "If God knows what I need before I ask Him, why then do I pray?" That which is accomplished by our prayers is granting God the knowledge, not of my needs, but of my faith in His willingness to respond. The "faith" in His mercy without this "work" is dead. There can be no response without the stimulus. There can be no answer from God without our question. He knows with certainty that we don't believe in His mercies when we don't petition Him. He can't respond without our cry because response had to hear something. The actuality of wanting Him to move comes into existence when our prayers bring before Him our wants and desires. He is happy to move heaven and earth for the prayer of faith. It is then that we have what the rest of the Philippians 4 passage promises; "And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
And all God's children said "Amen!"
Philippians 4:6 Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
The anxiety that the chaos of life contributes is given to God for His remedy and our faith is in His willingness to answer the prayers of the righteous.
James 5:16 The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects.
The assumption in the James passage (and it argues that Elijah's prayer was powerful to effect the weather and that he was just like us) is that prayer effects, causes, prompts Our God, not merely participating in what He was already effectually doing. It is the prayer that has great power. By it, Moses turned God's wrath over the disobedient Israelites to mercy. By prayer, Hezekiah turned aside God's decree of his immediate death (by the word of Isaiah the prophet) to add fifteen more years of life.
II Kings 20:1-6 In those days Hezeki'ah became sick and was at the point of death. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him, and said to him, "Thus says the LORD, `Set your house in order; for you shall die, you shall not recover.'" Then Hezeki'ah turned his face to the wall, and prayed to the LORD, saying, "Remember now, O LORD, I beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in faithfulness and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in thy sight." And Hezeki'ah wept bitterly. And before Isaiah had gone out of the middle court, the word of the LORD came to him: "Turn back, and say to Hezeki'ah the prince of my people, Thus says the LORD, the God of David your father: I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; behold, I will heal you; on the third day you shall go up to the house of the LORD. And I will add fifteen years to your life. I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria, and I will defend this city for my own sake and for my servant David's sake."
And the prayers of the citizens of Nineveh turned God away from the promised destruction in forty days because Our God is "a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and repentest of evil. " Jonah 4:2
God will do what He wills but it is His will to respond to our prayer.
Psalm 34:15 The eyes of the LORD are toward the righteous, and his ears toward their cry. Peter quotes this as well (I Peter 3:12) to give us hope in difficult times.
An ignorance of God's responsive mercy sometimes keeps us from praying with faith. Even C.S. Lewis struggles with the question (without coming up with an answer) in his essay "The Problem of Petitionary Prayer". It is basically framed up in our minds as, "If God knows what I need before I ask Him, why then do I pray?" That which is accomplished by our prayers is granting God the knowledge, not of my needs, but of my faith in His willingness to respond. The "faith" in His mercy without this "work" is dead. There can be no response without the stimulus. There can be no answer from God without our question. He knows with certainty that we don't believe in His mercies when we don't petition Him. He can't respond without our cry because response had to hear something. The actuality of wanting Him to move comes into existence when our prayers bring before Him our wants and desires. He is happy to move heaven and earth for the prayer of faith. It is then that we have what the rest of the Philippians 4 passage promises; "And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
And all God's children said "Amen!"
Monday, June 12, 2006
Does this sound like a Riddle to you?
How well you will.
How much you must.
The height you heed.
Till Death and dust.
amen
How much you must.
The height you heed.
Till Death and dust.
amen
Sunday, June 11, 2006
Nectar
I will with wine toast the Muse and, gifted,
Wait to pass her past opaqued veil.
Another glass, with loud libation lifted,
Shall bend the ear to hear her whisp’red hail.
Two glasses, deep with drink, attunes the soul
For goddess speech and loosened man’s response.
A steady hand records her soft control
Of warmer blood with what that breath announce.
by Evan Wilson
Wait to pass her past opaqued veil.
Another glass, with loud libation lifted,
Shall bend the ear to hear her whisp’red hail.
Two glasses, deep with drink, attunes the soul
For goddess speech and loosened man’s response.
A steady hand records her soft control
Of warmer blood with what that breath announce.
by Evan Wilson
Thursday, June 08, 2006
The Gravity of Damocles
Forever hangs on mortal ears
And heard, suspends all hope and peace.
The threat that marks a moment drops
Mem'ries into the Past of Now.
This, hung on slender, fragile thread—
Time snapping with tomorrow's weight,
Piling tonnage of What Will, is
The falling flight from Life To Come.
by Evan Wilson
And heard, suspends all hope and peace.
The threat that marks a moment drops
Mem'ries into the Past of Now.
This, hung on slender, fragile thread—
Time snapping with tomorrow's weight,
Piling tonnage of What Will, is
The falling flight from Life To Come.
by Evan Wilson
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Old Coot
Last night I went downtown. My wife was singing backup to another musician for whose gifts it is well worth going downtown. I crossed the street, slightly delayed by an encounter with a foursome (2 of each and they were speaking of golf). We chatted. Breaking away before the stench of flirtation between them overcame me, I, as I said, crossed the street. More accurately, I "almost" crossed the street. I believe I had enough thrust and lift to clear it entire. I had even accelerated to avoid being run down by a truck and that should have accounted for any demands the opposite curb made in what should have been a purely Newtonian moment. But there before me, between me and whither I went, was a motorcycle. Hard tail, glide front end, Sportster tank, black engine, bicycle seat, wine red. If I had reached the curb I would have tripped over it.
Let us recap for the reader our writer, shall we?
I'm fifty-one.
I used to ride (Triumph 650).
It was in the mid-seventies.
I can't afford a mid-life crisis.
The old coot moment descended over mine eyes like a veil. What that means is that stories are recounted to bikers half your age, of bygone days with a tone that conveys that as surely as you covet theirs, they should covet yours.
They were polite but they could not shake the vision that stood before them in the street. A man's memory of himself coasting to a stop against the gracious but non negotiable curb in North Idaho. Something in the fuel line.
Let us recap for the reader our writer, shall we?
I'm fifty-one.
I used to ride (Triumph 650).
It was in the mid-seventies.
I can't afford a mid-life crisis.
The old coot moment descended over mine eyes like a veil. What that means is that stories are recounted to bikers half your age, of bygone days with a tone that conveys that as surely as you covet theirs, they should covet yours.
They were polite but they could not shake the vision that stood before them in the street. A man's memory of himself coasting to a stop against the gracious but non negotiable curb in North Idaho. Something in the fuel line.
Monday, June 05, 2006
They That Visit
I notice a large sum of visitors coming from a site called Pooh's Think. They had been sent over to wonder if I was , in truth, a metaphor for a self obsessed culture. Welcome to you all. I am sure you are a fun bunch. Feel free to come again. I may need to clarify something however. I am described at the top of my blog as a number of things one of which is a "Pooh Bear Tory". If you visit from Pooh's Think you may take this description in the context of your own blog world experience. Disabuse yourself of that notion. I was named a "pooh bear tory" by Freddy "the beadle and prophet pro tem" Banks in recognition of my excessively tranquil and phlegmatic support of things that Tories support. God Save the Queen!
If you are a friend or enemy of Pooh over at Think, be aware I am his friend. He has eaten my salt. He may think I am a heretic but he is kind to me. I always like that. I will affirm that while he has the "thinky" part down, I am not sure that he has (and I speak as one with authority) the Pooh part sufficiently practiced.
If you are a friend or enemy of Pooh over at Think, be aware I am his friend. He has eaten my salt. He may think I am a heretic but he is kind to me. I always like that. I will affirm that while he has the "thinky" part down, I am not sure that he has (and I speak as one with authority) the Pooh part sufficiently practiced.
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
In Which Chagrin is Expressed
Heavens to Betsy! Talk about the Scriptures.... one comment. Talk about philosophy.... four comments. Post a picture... no comment. Talk about yourself... FIFTEEN DANG COMMENTS!
Is this blog a metaphor for our culture?
Is the most desired realm of mind to be found in those cloying, faux personalities of MySpace?
Maybe the peasant class has always been horizon- impaired and our culture has given them both money and the technology to speak peasant pleasantries to the world.
"Hey!" sez you, "Wasn't it you talkin' 'bout yerself?"
"Yep," sez I, "I was bein' a metaphor."
"I don't think you even know what a metaphor is!" you cry.
The Oracle ponders the vast halls through which his voice will echo.
"Correct again, but I was bein' one anyway."
Is this blog a metaphor for our culture?
Is the most desired realm of mind to be found in those cloying, faux personalities of MySpace?
Maybe the peasant class has always been horizon- impaired and our culture has given them both money and the technology to speak peasant pleasantries to the world.
"Hey!" sez you, "Wasn't it you talkin' 'bout yerself?"
"Yep," sez I, "I was bein' a metaphor."
"I don't think you even know what a metaphor is!" you cry.
The Oracle ponders the vast halls through which his voice will echo.
"Correct again, but I was bein' one anyway."
Monday, May 29, 2006
My Frame of Mind
Everyone, by now, knows that I, The Oracle, am a Futilitarian (© Evan Wilson). They suspect I am also too fond of hierarchical models of the cosmos and believe, not only in monarchy as a preferred form of rule, but in the Divine Right of Kings. That explanation of life(futility) and control of its insults(monarchical government) cries out for a salvation which is only in the Lord Jesus Christ. We Christians cannot speak of our frame of mind without pointing to the God who made it, reframed it, and stands athwart all things as that which our minds contemplate and adore.
Christianity makes me the same as other Christians but some things make me a discrete player in the vision of all others. For the sake of a broad belief in my mental continuity, I give you the list, not including the above, that shaped my adult life. These were written circa 1984 on a scrap of index card measuring perhaps 1.5 inches by 3 inches and pinned to the end of a bookshelf in a Chrsitian bookstore. I was asked what they were and I said, near as I remember, "These fell words, words of portent and dark omen, words of a numinous dread and terrible sublimity, these words, they are my five philosophic bases of life."
He (the annals suggest that t'was Mark Knecht) unto whom I spoke asketh, "Why five?"
I saith "Less than five is shallow and tests the line between man and beast. More is just unwieldy, says less for saying more, and evinces a lack of clarifying thought."
He nodded and murmured, "I gotta get me some of those."
The five words of the Oracle:
1. Imperialism
2. Stoicism
3. Order
4. Realism
5. Northernness
Twenty-two years later I ask you, have I lived it? Have these concepts grown logically into what I am? Do you need any defined?
Christianity makes me the same as other Christians but some things make me a discrete player in the vision of all others. For the sake of a broad belief in my mental continuity, I give you the list, not including the above, that shaped my adult life. These were written circa 1984 on a scrap of index card measuring perhaps 1.5 inches by 3 inches and pinned to the end of a bookshelf in a Chrsitian bookstore. I was asked what they were and I said, near as I remember, "These fell words, words of portent and dark omen, words of a numinous dread and terrible sublimity, these words, they are my five philosophic bases of life."
He (the annals suggest that t'was Mark Knecht) unto whom I spoke asketh, "Why five?"
I saith "Less than five is shallow and tests the line between man and beast. More is just unwieldy, says less for saying more, and evinces a lack of clarifying thought."
He nodded and murmured, "I gotta get me some of those."
The five words of the Oracle:
1. Imperialism
2. Stoicism
3. Order
4. Realism
5. Northernness
Twenty-two years later I ask you, have I lived it? Have these concepts grown logically into what I am? Do you need any defined?
Friday, May 26, 2006
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Where Our Hearts Are
Jesus speaking to his disciples in Matthew 28:
"18 And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age."
This is the Great Commission. Evangelicals the world over view this as their marching orders. I have a number of problems with that. It is not necessarily a command to Christians worldwide for all time. We all are aware that it was a command to the disciples. Why would it or would it not be a command to the rest of us? One device used to make it expansive is that within the command it suggests that the disciples "teach all that was commanded" and this command was one of those things. Slam dunk some would think. St. James, the Lord's brother, introduces a speed bump. If we all have to teach all that is commanded how can he say "Let not many of you become teachers."? St. Paul also "I permit no woman to teach or have authority over men; she is to keep silent." Half the Christian population is forbidden to teach the other half and if James is to be believed, very few of the other half should be teaching anyway. St. Paul asks in I Corinthians 12, "Are all teachers?" as a rhetorical question defending the varied gifts of the body of Christ.
Admittedly, the Great Commission is primarily used for evangelical motivation. This "teaching to observe" sophistry is just a defense to bring the command aspect back to our witnessing. The narrow application is not just present in my narrower application. The evangelicals do the same. They only want a witnessing command. They don't really want, nor do they apply, the "everyone teaching everyone else the whole council of God". They don't even obey the "baptize" portion of the command. Everyone should witness, they claim, because of the Great Commission. No, everyone should not baptize or teach. The command proves powerless to get various parachurch groups or individuals to take up the task as much present in the command as the "make disciples". Why is it that the evangelicals so inconsistently want a command to witness?
The "why" is present in the arena suggested in the title to this post. When ever I have said that the Great Commission was to the Apostles alone the singular response has been, "Why would anyone witness?" Even if I was wrong about my interpretation, this response is unnerving. Why indeed? Perhaps love? Perhaps the overwhelming wonder of the Gospel? Perhaps thanksgiving? The absence of a good reason to witness in the hearts of the Christians minus a command, suggests to me that the Judaizers have taken over the church. The church lives by Law not Grace. So much so that the saving message of Jesus Christ cannot find a way to our tongues without a rule of which we must constantly be reminded. And it must be defended as a command. In another example of becoming slaves again to the external demands of the law, how many pastors would be willing to wait, regarding their church's giving, until the hearts of the congregation became loving and generous? The shortest distance between getting paid and not, is the Law. So the tithe law is preached even in the most antinomian churches.
So who is really saved, changed by the power of the Living God? Who is living by Faith and bearing fruit given by the Spirit? Remove the Law and see. Would you witness if you didn't "have to"? What would you give if you were convinced that the Gentile church was not under the tithe law?
How willing are you to see your actual spiritual state or that of your church? Law hides the state of the heart. Would you or your company of Christians still want the lost to come to know Jesus Christ if the Great Commission had never been recorded?
"18 And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age."
This is the Great Commission. Evangelicals the world over view this as their marching orders. I have a number of problems with that. It is not necessarily a command to Christians worldwide for all time. We all are aware that it was a command to the disciples. Why would it or would it not be a command to the rest of us? One device used to make it expansive is that within the command it suggests that the disciples "teach all that was commanded" and this command was one of those things. Slam dunk some would think. St. James, the Lord's brother, introduces a speed bump. If we all have to teach all that is commanded how can he say "Let not many of you become teachers."? St. Paul also "I permit no woman to teach or have authority over men; she is to keep silent." Half the Christian population is forbidden to teach the other half and if James is to be believed, very few of the other half should be teaching anyway. St. Paul asks in I Corinthians 12, "Are all teachers?" as a rhetorical question defending the varied gifts of the body of Christ.
Admittedly, the Great Commission is primarily used for evangelical motivation. This "teaching to observe" sophistry is just a defense to bring the command aspect back to our witnessing. The narrow application is not just present in my narrower application. The evangelicals do the same. They only want a witnessing command. They don't really want, nor do they apply, the "everyone teaching everyone else the whole council of God". They don't even obey the "baptize" portion of the command. Everyone should witness, they claim, because of the Great Commission. No, everyone should not baptize or teach. The command proves powerless to get various parachurch groups or individuals to take up the task as much present in the command as the "make disciples". Why is it that the evangelicals so inconsistently want a command to witness?
The "why" is present in the arena suggested in the title to this post. When ever I have said that the Great Commission was to the Apostles alone the singular response has been, "Why would anyone witness?" Even if I was wrong about my interpretation, this response is unnerving. Why indeed? Perhaps love? Perhaps the overwhelming wonder of the Gospel? Perhaps thanksgiving? The absence of a good reason to witness in the hearts of the Christians minus a command, suggests to me that the Judaizers have taken over the church. The church lives by Law not Grace. So much so that the saving message of Jesus Christ cannot find a way to our tongues without a rule of which we must constantly be reminded. And it must be defended as a command. In another example of becoming slaves again to the external demands of the law, how many pastors would be willing to wait, regarding their church's giving, until the hearts of the congregation became loving and generous? The shortest distance between getting paid and not, is the Law. So the tithe law is preached even in the most antinomian churches.
So who is really saved, changed by the power of the Living God? Who is living by Faith and bearing fruit given by the Spirit? Remove the Law and see. Would you witness if you didn't "have to"? What would you give if you were convinced that the Gentile church was not under the tithe law?
How willing are you to see your actual spiritual state or that of your church? Law hides the state of the heart. Would you or your company of Christians still want the lost to come to know Jesus Christ if the Great Commission had never been recorded?
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
De Futilitate
I have met Futility. Futility and I go way back. The insults it brings to any hope of an earthbound Utopia are an inescapable offense, so Futility an I have come to an agreement. I will glory in the enjoyment of the moment and glory in the hereafter. It will slowly tear me to pieces, kill me and feed me to the worms. That should work out fine.
If I should ever write a book about this agreement, it will deal with the governing arrangements natural to the admission of a world beset by the pleasant and the unpleasant. It will build a case for the admission of Futility and the subsequent creation of a man's identity. Our wills are expressed, since the Fall, by the manifest need to arrange our way through this problem. We, in it, discover the "who" of what we are by feeling both chaos and order. We note the parts of both, (including movement, memory and anticipation) by which we hope (anticipated gratification) and fear (anticipated pain). Feeling is a good reason for Intentions. The presence of the "felt" provides meaningful impetus to cling to, move to the pleasant. We are introduced by it to value the exercise of our will. We must be exercising the will to comfort our flesh, our souls, and the Other, (that which we don't feel but wish to control for its effect on our feeling).
Who are you? How great are you? Your Identity and your Dignity are defined by the success and range of your fiefdom.
"Oh Death, where is thy sting? Oh Death, where is thy victory?
If I should ever write a book about this agreement, it will deal with the governing arrangements natural to the admission of a world beset by the pleasant and the unpleasant. It will build a case for the admission of Futility and the subsequent creation of a man's identity. Our wills are expressed, since the Fall, by the manifest need to arrange our way through this problem. We, in it, discover the "who" of what we are by feeling both chaos and order. We note the parts of both, (including movement, memory and anticipation) by which we hope (anticipated gratification) and fear (anticipated pain). Feeling is a good reason for Intentions. The presence of the "felt" provides meaningful impetus to cling to, move to the pleasant. We are introduced by it to value the exercise of our will. We must be exercising the will to comfort our flesh, our souls, and the Other, (that which we don't feel but wish to control for its effect on our feeling).
Who are you? How great are you? Your Identity and your Dignity are defined by the success and range of your fiefdom.
"Oh Death, where is thy sting? Oh Death, where is thy victory?
Thursday, May 18, 2006
A Poem
The Divine Comedy
I, with poem, divine the comic wonder
And divide the smile from the laughing fit.
Is the grin more the good when we sunder
From Guffaw? The sanctity of the wit
Shan’t grant the bliss of witless slapstick hit
That canonized St. Jack-A-Knapes, buffoon,
One of the Ancient Order of the Twit.
The liturgy we’ll sing is of lampoon
Which turns ironic phrase in pleasant jest.
We now bow our tonsured heads to snicker
As it descends, the chortling mystic rest,
On we few that get the joke. The thicker
Heads beside us, with bovine face bemused,
Are confused by mild humour with alarm.
While worship of the funny and amused
Can speak the gentlemanly art of charm
To lightly flush our ladies blush with grace,
The peasants choose to riot at the farce.
The great unwashed, the vulgar, set a pace
Of pratfalls, landing laughing on their arse.
I, with poem, divine the comic wonder
And divide the smile from the laughing fit.
Is the grin more the good when we sunder
From Guffaw? The sanctity of the wit
Shan’t grant the bliss of witless slapstick hit
That canonized St. Jack-A-Knapes, buffoon,
One of the Ancient Order of the Twit.
The liturgy we’ll sing is of lampoon
Which turns ironic phrase in pleasant jest.
We now bow our tonsured heads to snicker
As it descends, the chortling mystic rest,
On we few that get the joke. The thicker
Heads beside us, with bovine face bemused,
Are confused by mild humour with alarm.
While worship of the funny and amused
Can speak the gentlemanly art of charm
To lightly flush our ladies blush with grace,
The peasants choose to riot at the farce.
The great unwashed, the vulgar, set a pace
Of pratfalls, landing laughing on their arse.
by Evan Wilson
Thanksgiving
I have a bed.
I lay there a couple of nights ago and it flashed by my brain. I had to seize on it almost peripherally to have the time to examine this grateful spasm of the often ignored.
Think of the countless other places a man might be given to sleep.
I have been given a bed.
Thank God, for all good endowments come down from the Father of Lights!
Unlike Jacob, in history or hymn, "my rest [is not] a stone."
I sleep nightly on a pancake stack of padded bliss with a fluffy pillow wrapped 'bout my head.
I have a bed.
Do you have one?
I lay there a couple of nights ago and it flashed by my brain. I had to seize on it almost peripherally to have the time to examine this grateful spasm of the often ignored.
Think of the countless other places a man might be given to sleep.
I have been given a bed.
Thank God, for all good endowments come down from the Father of Lights!
Unlike Jacob, in history or hymn, "my rest [is not] a stone."
I sleep nightly on a pancake stack of padded bliss with a fluffy pillow wrapped 'bout my head.
I have a bed.
Do you have one?
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
How Shall I Then Speak?
They look at you with the expression of those that have heard everything you said. They listened but, alas, said nothing. One tries to assess whether their mood was positive and thrilled that such illumination has been granted unto man or negative to the point of wondering what was wrong with Heaven if the ground didn't open up and swallow you whole. That assessment is left to whatever facial tics the mute hearer is willing to permit a travel permit across their face. Perhaps if you sneak up on them, and pronounce fell and dark curses on that which they hold sacred.
Something like:
"Soccer is for euroweenie wussies. You could train horses to play it. It was introduced to The U.S. of A. to give a sport opportunity to the boys who couldn't play other, more real sports. "
or
"I think the Bush family should be given imperial control over the nation."
or
"Calvinism is being married to girl for whose "good looks" an argument has to be made."
Maybe that will gain more than a raise eyebrow.
Something like:
"Soccer is for euroweenie wussies. You could train horses to play it. It was introduced to The U.S. of A. to give a sport opportunity to the boys who couldn't play other, more real sports. "
or
"I think the Bush family should be given imperial control over the nation."
or
"Calvinism is being married to girl for whose "good looks" an argument has to be made."
Maybe that will gain more than a raise eyebrow.
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