Blog Archives for April and March 2005
April 30, 2005
Words Speak Loud of Actions
We've all heard the axiom that "actions speak louder than words." But
there is, nevertheless, great power in words particularly as they tell of the
mighty actions of God. Poets and hymnists of ages past spoke of the magnalia
dei, the mighty acts of God, as the centerpiece of their faith in God.
Creeds and confessions recount the notable lighting strikes of God's activity
upon mankind and his world: Creation itself, the flood, the calling of Abraham
and a people for God, the calling out of a nation, the giving of His law, the
birth of His firstborn, Jesus, and his subsequent death, resurrection, and
exaltation to heaven, the beginning of His church, the return of Christ to earth
and the establishment of the Kingdom of God and God's rule over earth. Those are
just the high points of God's mighty acts and the last one is not yet realized.
The annual 8-day Passover festival ends today. It was one of the early commemorations of Yahweh's mighty acts when in space/time he intervened in human affairs in dramatic fashion. He crushed the then most powerful nation in the world and loosed a slave people, gave them nationhood under his hand, and led them into their own land--long ago promised to their forefather Abraham. The words describing the magnalia dei became powerful in their own way in keeping the new nation God-centered and trusting is his complete ability to care for them. Here is how is was confessed and sung over three millennia ago as worshippers offered the firstfruits of their harvest to God..
"My father was a wandering Aramean, and he went down into Egypt with a few people and lived there and became a great nation, powerful and numerous. But the Egyptians mistreated us and made us suffer, putting us to hard labor. Then we cried out to the Lord, the God of our fathers, and the Lord heard our voice and saw our misery, toil and oppression. So the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and with great terror and with miraculous signs and wonders. He brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey: and now I bring the firstfruits of the soil that you, O Lord, have given me." (Deut 26:5-10)
The people identified God by his actions. His deeds spoke loudly and they were put into words and story. Israelites understood who God was in light of what he had done. Is it any different for God-fearers nowadays? The list of Yahweh's mighty deeds has grown much longer since Israel was delivered from Egypt--most spectacularly in the Christ event--but the lesson derived is the same. God is interested in his creation. He sees what is going on and hears the cries of his people. He will intervene to answer our cries and carry out his plan for mankind whether by discrete action or by a world-shaking intervention. A benefit of celebrating the annual festivals of Israel is that many of God's mightiest actions are enshrined in their story. We know God by what he has done and we forget God when we forget his magnalia dei. --Ken Westby
April 27, 2005
Jabar plays a similar role during sabbatical years in Israel. For one year out of every seven, he is technically the owner of all the farmland in Israel.
These "riches" exist only on paper, but it occurs to me that Jabar must possess something more valuable than material wealth. For Israel's Jewish authorities to place such trust in him, he must be a man of solid reputation. As we read in Proverbs 22:1, "A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favour rather than silver and gold." --Doug Ward
The UN is Not Our Friend!
To Stretch or Not to Stretch
In general, recent history shows that totalitarian states choose and
democracies react. A review of the initiating actors in WWI, WWII, Korea, Viet
Nam, and the Gulf War seems to confirm that. The Iraq war was a departure from
that pattern. It signals a new policy of "preemptive war." Does that new policy
make good sense? Is America "overstretching"?
A sense of history is necessary for decision-makers of the world's sole remaining superpower. Some advise our leaders against military overstretch citing as example the fall of Rome. Edward Gibbon in his work The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire suggests one factor was Rome's progressive debilitation and demise occasioned by the exorbitant costs of disciplining distant provinces. Of course, Gibbon lists other reasons for the collapse including internal moral decay. Others, such as Oxford University's Niall Ferguson, exhort the USA to project its power to face down and subdue aggressors that threaten peace--especially in our age of mass-destruction weapons and long-range missiles.
Ferguson advises the USA to actively increase the ranks of democratic nations since representative governments rarely, if ever, attack nations of like government. It seems apparent that his school of thought has become administration policy. Is it good policy? Given the chess board of geopolitical power politics, I believe it is. This side of the Kingdom of God, nations must act in their own self interest. Some nations have concern for their citizens, believe in the rule of just law, and promote freedom, including freedom of religion. They are the "good" nations. Then there are tyrannies which mirror the self-serving ego of the grand leader or elite party of control. These nations care little about freedom--in fact are threatened by it--and hold their citizens under foot by force. These are "evil" nations. This summary may seem simplistic and I acknowledge there are gradations of "good" and "evil" nations, but I'm looking at those powerful nations which actively promote freedom as opposed to those which actively threaten freedom. The latter list would include such nations as Iran, N Korea, Syria, China, and maybe we should put Russia back on that list. The "good" list of nations must have the courage to confront the "evil" list lest our world descend into an abyss of darkness.
Can the U.S. afford to "stretch" is power. Ferguson offers the example of Britain in the mid-1930s when it failed to expand its army to face down the growing Nazi menace. Spending for the military was opposed as unaffordable. Yet it was affordable if Britons had borne military costs in the same proportion of their national economy that their forebears had carried during the previous two centuries. Rod Paschall notes in The Quarterly Journal of Military History (Vol 1, No 1), "In light of subsequent events, the savings London achieved in the years immediately preceding World War II were indeed history's most penny-wise and pound- foolish policy choice."
There is an ongoing debate whether we should spend more on social programs or spend more on military strength. The American appeaser party says we can't afford to project our power, we should rely on diplomacy and the UN, and spend our national treasure on ourselves. They are the British politicians of the 1930s. Jesus gave us a principle that might apply to power politics in the real world in which we live. "How can anyone enter a strong man's house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man? Then he can rob his house" (Mt 12:29). In the parable Jesus is the one who overpowers the strongman (Satan) and liberates his "possessions." --Ken Westby
April 26, 2005
April 25, 2005
An Angry God and the Fires of Hell
The famous Calvinist, Jonathan Edwards, was the most powerful preacher in
the religious fervor of the Great Awakening in 18th century New England. One of
his most effective and best known sermons was "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry
God." There is noting like the fear of fiery torture to drive people to save
their skins. In his sermon, preached at Enfield, Connecticut on July 8, 1741, he
compared a sinner to a spider, hanging by a slender thread over the fiery pit of
hell. His text for the sermon was Deuteronomy 32:35 which reads in the King
James Version (the one he used) "To me belongeth vengeance, and recompense;
their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand,
and the things that shall come upon them make haste."
Hellfire preaching isn't as popular today as it once was although the doctrine of eternal punishment in hell persists. It is based upon the assumption of an immortal soul that must continue to exist somewhere. To this non-biblical assumption is added the doctrine of an ever-burning hell--another non-biblical assumption. Together they stand in opposition to an eternal life in the clouds of heaven--another non-biblical assumption. But of the two ultimate destinations to park one's immortal soul one would likely choose the latter. To make sure of that choice the job of the preacher was to make hell as real and hot as possible, and make God so angry against sinners that he is content to see them forever fry in agony without the mercy of death. Never mind that none of the above is taught in Scripture, it has become accepted Christian theology. If you heard one of Edwards' sermons you might run, not walk, to the alter to avoid hell and the wrath of an angry God. Here are a few paragraphs from Edwards' July 8, 1741 sermon.
"O sinner, consider the fearful danger you are in: it is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath that you are held over in the hands of that God whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you as against many of the damned in hell; you hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it and burn it asunder.
"It would be dreadful to suffer this fierceness and wrath of Almighty God one moment; but you must suffer it to all eternity: there will be no end to this exquisite, horrible misery: when you look forward, you shall see along forever a boundless duration before you, which will swallow up your thoughts, and amaze your soul; and you will absolutely despair of ever having any deliverance, any end, any mitigation, and rest at all; you will know certainly that you must wear out long ages, millions of millions of ages in wrestling and conflicting with the almighty, merciless vengeance; and then when you have so done, when so many ages have actually been spent by you in this manner, you will know that all is but a point to what remains, so that your punishment will indeed be infinite.
"Oh, who can express what the state of a soul in such circumstances is! All that we can possibly say about it gives but a very feeble, faint representation of it; it is inexpressible and inconceivable: for 'who knows the power of God's anger!'"
Inconceivable indeed! What a ghastly portrayal of God whose character is summarized by one word, LOVE (1Jn 4:16). God's wrath against the recalcitrant wicked at its most severe is simply death, not eternal torture. And God will display great patience toward turning the wicked from his ways. It is not the fire of hell that should drive people Godward, but the desire to know a loving God who is full of kindness, justice and righteousness (Jer 9:24). Edwards' would have done a greater service to Christianity by preaching about a God like the apostle Paul described with "the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance"--not the fires of an imagined hell. --Ken Westby
April 22, 2005
April 21, 2005
April 20, 2005
Choosing A Pope Is More Civilized Today
There is now a torrent of speculation from the conspiracy crowd that this is
the next-to-the-last pope, the last being the great False Prophet of the Book of
Revelation. Some quote the ancient prophecies of mystics as predicting this
specific pope and his chosen name of Benedict. These prophecies, like those of
famed Nostradamus, are rather plastic and are easy molded by interpreters to fit
just about any event--much like reading tea leaves to get tomorrow's weather
report. Take all such speculations with a few pounds of salt.
Prior to Pope Nicholas II in 1059, popes were usually picked by emperors and kings who were more interested in political needs than spiritual qualifications. Nicholas II convened a synod to revolutionize the papal election process. Future popes would hence forth be elected solely by the cardinals, with strong preference for a Roman candidate. It was an incendiary move and the German monarchy led by empress Agnes attacked Nicholas by backing the election of a rival pontiff, but she failed to get sufficient military support. From then to now, the cardinals have chosen popes. The office of cardinal was created in the eighth century.
The previous century, the 900s AD, was an era of "the bad popes." It began in January 897 with a bizarre council in Rome known as "the Synod of the Corpse." Rival Roman factions fought over the papal office with few holds bared in the quest for power and enrichment. Pope Steven VII took it to a new level when he took revenge on predecessor pope, Formosus (891-896). Pope Steven exhumed the nine-month-old corpse, who had been championed by a rival faction, put him in magnificent robes and propped him up on the throne for a mock trial.
Pope Steven accused the very silent Formosus of accepting the papal office while still a bishop of another diocese. Steven yelled accusations at the corpse and even appointed a cleric to defend Formosus--who wisely remained as silent as his client.
"The corpse was convicted. The three fingers of benediction were chopped from his right hand, and the corpse was hurled into the Tiber River. (Some kindly fishermen retrieved and reburied it.) But Formosus's supporters strangled Pope Steven that autumn, and in half a dozen years, five more popes rapidly followed each other--four of them dying amidst the lethal squabbling. The next in line, Sergius III, backed by the Roman senator Theophylact of Tusculum, lasted from 904 to 911. Theophylact's powerful clan controlled the region at the mouth of the Tiber, and his beautiful wife, Theodora, and their daughter, Marozia, would take papal scandal down to new levels of degradation. Marozia began by becoming, while still in her early teens, Pope Sergius's lover" (The Christians--Their First Two Thousand Years, Vol 6, 2004).
The dark century of "bad popes" was awash in mob violence, poisonings, stranglings, graft and sexual excess. Pope Nicholas' reform in the Eleventh century for choosing popes began a slow process of civilizing the transferal of power. The selection of Benedict XVI is a far cry from the 900s AD.
Of course, the whole business of popes is foreign to the New Testament record, and the notion that Peter was the first pope is a tradition based upon myth. The early church of the Apostles and the Primitive Church they founded knew nothing of popes or centralized authority. That all came centuries later and with that power came centuries of corruption and intrigue. We can rejoice that the Roman Catholic Church is not the Church of centuries past. Protestants, however, should avoid gloating over the seamy history of the RCC, their closets are also packed high with skeletons. The human condition is not entirely suspended by religion. --Ken Westby
Liberals Don't Like Me
Liberals always have something nasty to say about conservative columnist and
author Ann Coulter. Well, she has a few words to say about them. (submitted by
Ken Ryland)
"They're terrible people, liberals. They believe -- this can really summarize
it all -- these are people who believe you can deliver a baby entirely except
for the head, puncture the skull, suck the brains out and pronounce that a
constitutional right has just been exercised. That really says it all. You don't
want such people to like you!" --Ann Coulter
April 19, 2005
Pope Benedict XVI
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is the new Pope. I am not a Catholic and I have no
involvement with the church, yet I found myself cheering at his choice by the
College of Cardinals. Why cheer? Simply because he has been a strong opponent of
moral relativism including holding fast against abortion, pre-marital sex,
divorce, homosexuality, ordination of women and standing for many traditional
moral positions. At a time when Europe is becoming increasingly secular--and
even anti-Christian--having a German Pope may hold back the slide into total
hedonism. Time will tell, but I have reason to be hopeful. --Ken Westby
Stone Age Math
Yesterday I received an email from my nephew Alex. Alex, who is in the fifth
grade, explained that he was looking for information about “math in the stone
age” for an assignment at school. He had tried several search engines and
hadn’t found anything.
He wondered if I had any suggestions.
At first I was at a loss. Did people do much mathematics during the stone age? I remember there was a lot of bowling on The Flintstones, so they must have been able to count to 300. But Fred and Barney weren’t exactly Albert Einstone.
Then I remembered a book called The Universal History of Numbers that Brian Knowles had reviewed for this website a few years ago. If any book had the information Alex was looking for, this would probably be it.
Sometimes research on the stone age requires “stone age methods.” When search engines fail, head for the public library. Alex found this book and another promising one at his local library.
The moral of this story? If you don’t want to be left in the stone age, visit the ACD website frequently. --Dr. Doug Ward [Dr Ward is a professor of Mathematics at Miami University in Ohio]
April 18, 2005
Christ our Passover is Sacrificed for Us, Therefore Let Us Keep the Feast.
The Jewish Passover is the core metaphor of salvation in both Judaism and
Christianity. In the liturgy of the Eucharist in historic Christian churches,
there is a continuing awareness of the fulfillment of the Jewish Passover. In
many denominations, every week during the celebration of the Eucharist, the
following words are intoned by the celebrant, “Christ our Passover is sacrificed
for us”. According to protocol, the response from the assembled congregation is,
“Therefore let us keep the feast.” This is a recurring reminder of the hope of
deliverance from bondage to the world.
Modern secularism has created for Christians a cultural captivity with harsh metaphorical similarities to the plight of Hebrew slaves in Egypt. Secular culture, both high and low, actively opposes the Judeo-Christian heritage of Western Civilization. “Values”, currently being substituted for Biblical moral principles, enslave us to economies that turn many of our best efforts against us. We work day by day in environments that grind humanity between a rock of financial necessity and the hard edge of competition measured only by success in the market. And, in the midst of cultural decadence, the benefits of a free market often do not include excellence or human dignity.
Marvels of media technology, created by people with the best science education in history, barrage us with freakish “art” debasing everything of beauty and nobility in the cultural tradition that nurtured science.
The world has always been difficult for Christians. In the early church they were subject to prosecution for their faith and even martyrdom. The hope of a better world beyond the slavery of present evil sustains them while creation groans awaiting deliverance. Often enough, another Moses appears to liberate the oppressed and lead them to Canaan. Jesus came to fully reveal God in His mercy and prophetic eschatological hope.
The Passover of the death angel foreshadows, for Christians, their own release. The resurrection and the unveiling of the Kingdom of God in his presence is not life in some ethereal heaven but actual redemption of the world. Those of us who have lived with this hope know there are numerous resurrections on the way to the new creation. God is faithful, and the end of one era is the beginning of another. We press on toward the dawn of eternal splendor by the river of life.--Mike Dodaro
April 17, 2005
Sacrifice: An Out-Dated Concept?
Sacrifice signifies neither amputation nor repentance. It is in essence, an
act. It is the gift of oneself to God and to others. The Apostle Paul urged
Christians, "...in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living
sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship"
(Rom 12:1). These words almost sound foreign to our modern ears. Hedonistic
self-love is the cultural norm and like the ethic of Epicurus, pleasure is the
goal of life for the self-actualized 21st century man/woman. Sacrifice? What an
archaic notion.
Yet noble living is not possible without the spirit of sacrifice. And here we speak of more than giving your possessions, though that can be sacrificial, but more importantly, the giving of yourself to the Cause of Christ and to meet the real needs of others. What kind of needs? Beginning with one's family are the everywhere needs to be loved and cherished, to be listened to, to be given attention, patient time, and physical help. Your life is time and time is your life. When you give of your time/live and goods for the good and building up of another, you perform an voluntary sacrificial offering that is pleasing to God. It is only through the mystery of sacrificial living that a man may find himself anew--his fulfillment and meaning for existence.
God has always wanted man to embrace the tender spirit of sacrifice--and he wasn't speaking of animal sacrifice. Through the prophet God says, "I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings" (Hos 6:6). When you offer yourself to God you become a living sacrifice. To "love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength" (Dt 6:5) is the first and greatest commandment. To love your neighbor as yourself is the second greatest. Both require a willingness to wholeheartedly give of yourself for a greater good. This is called sacrifice. The concept isn't obsolete--it is what makes the universe work.
This coming Friday night marks the beginning of the Passover season memorializing the time when the Son of God offered himself as a sacrifice to his Father on behalf of you and me--thus fulfilling the in the most perfect way the two greatest commandments. Because of his mercy we have offered to us forgiveness of sins and the gift of eternal life. The power of sacrifice reigns. --Ken Westby
April 15, 2005
Self-Delusion & Self-Righteousness = A Poisonous Mix
Jesus would not tolerate having people from the past judged according to
contemporary standards. He said, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,
for you say: 'Had we lived in the time of our fathers, we would not have joined
them in spilling the prophets' blood'" (Mt 23:29).
They had deluded themselves into thinking that they were incapable of such barbaric conduct. They were also self-righteous thinking that they were too godly and religious to countenance murdering God's servants. Of course, the record shows that they killed God's greatest servant and prophet, Jesus Christ.
Modern American Pharisees, secular and religious, look back at the early American settlers and think how cruel they were in killing the native American Indians. Of course today we are so enlightened and compassionate and sensitive that we wouldn't do such a barbaric thing. Really? Never mind that the decimation of the North American Indian population was largely due to diseases contracted from contact with Europeans for which they had no immunity. Sure, thousands were killed on both sides in various wars and there were massacres committed on both sides. Moderns also look back on the days of slavery and the Civil War and think we wouldn't have allowed that to happen. We think that we are so far advanced that we wouldn't enslave people or engage in a bloody conflict like the American Civil War. By today's contemporary standards we are a better, more civilized, and a less violent people. Really?
Let's shake off our self-delusion. By our contemporary standards we have authorized the killing of 40 million defenseless little humans waiting to be born into their world. We don't even shudder to think of it. Pile up those 40 million little bodies into one huge mountain of tender flesh and think again about our superiority and righteousness. Contemplate the immense scare of this slaughter of innocents. Everywhere you hear educated people making arguments that abortion is a noble thing to do. Killing off these "unwanted" and "inconvenient" little humans makes for a better life for the mother and society. Really? At least the Indians could defend themselves and fought back--often winning. We are less barbaric today than in the 17th to 19th centuries of Indian and Civil Wars? The total amount of Indians killed in wars numbered in the tens of thousands. Soldiers killed in the Civil War were about 600,000 and it was the bloodiest war in American history. How does that compare to 40 million helpless little ones killed within months or weeks of taking their first breath? We're more compassionate today? More upright? More civilized?
Just because there is popular support and even legal support doesn't mean something is right. A culture that kills millions of its helpless unborn is more barbaric than one that battles with armed adversaries for land and survival. But we Americans are like those Christ addressed; thinking we are above the hideous crimes of the past while committing worse ones every day. It's called self-delusion. And when the self-deluded are self-righteous about their crimes, it is beyond the pale.
Next Friday night, the Passover, is the anniversary of the killing of Jesus by the crowd who said they would not kill the righteous prophets of God. The murder of Christ is likened to a unblemished lamb being led to the slaughter. Before we as a "Christian" nation say we wouldn't do such a thing, we had better take a look at those unblemished ones we are now slaughtering. --Ken Westby
April 13, 2005
World as Patient
If the present World (all nations) were to be given a physical exam what
would it reveal? After examining all areas of the patient the doctor would have
to conclude that it is afflicted with several chronic, potentially fatal
diseases. There are wars, poverty, tyrants, slavery, injustice, and enough other
problems to use up the doctor's prescription pad writing remedies. Operations,
major and minor, are needed lest pathologies spread. Some portions of the body
(like the entire African continent) are filled with disease and almost beyond
remedy.
After the exam the doctor would sit the World down and give it a stern talking to realizing that his wise warnings and advice will probably be ignored as it was in previous physicals. But this time, the doctor has an encouraging report for World. Since its last physical several years ago some serious pathologies have either disappeared or retreated. The doctor commends World for facing its problems and taking remedial action. Several vicious dictators were removed, corrupt governments overthrown, and many millions given the health of freedom. The World walks out of the doctors office with a mixed report in hand--some improvement, but much more to be done.
The above fantasy has no actual parallel to fact. There is no one voice (apart from God) that the World can go to for evaluation and advice. Instead there is a yapping multitude of would-be-doctors advising what should be done to make this a better world--anarchists, communists, nationalists, socialists, environmentalists, Islamists, capitalists, etc. The United Nations is the watering hole for these yappers. One such yapper is big-mouthed film mogul Michael Moore, star personality of the loony left. His anti-Americanism and prescriptions for the World, so widely spread and applauded, need to be examined and tested for effectiveness. If his quackery were followed the patient World would be in much worse shape that it was even a few years ago.
Christopher Hitchens writes in his new book (Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays) what the World would look like had Michael Moore's advice been followed. "If Michael Moore had had his way, Slobodan Milosevic would still be the big man in a starved and tyrannical Serbia. Bosnia and Kosovo would have been cleansed and annexed. If Michael Moore had been listened to, Afghanistan would still be under Taliban rule, and Kuwait would have remained part of Iraq. And Iraq itself would still be the personal property of a psychopathic crime family, bargaining covertly with the slave state of North Korea for WMD."
There is no World doctor, but there are right and wrong prescriptions to deal with geopolitical maladies. The wisest prescriptions will come from those who understand that God is Creator, it is His world, he has made man in His image to be free and prosper, and he requires man to manage his world with justice and mercy. Rulers who have God's worldview will bless the World with better health. Until Christ brings the Kingdom of God to rule the world we must struggle to keep the patient from killing himself. --Ken Westby
April 12, 2005
The Church Exults
The church in all its permutations is reprobate, but it has not failed. It
must be acknowledged that it has erred most grievously in the Lord’s command
that we be one. For centuries the church persecuted its dissidents.
Luther’s eventual reforms were stonewalled by the reigning clergy. The resulting Lutheran schism was a prelude to more than a hundred years of warfare in the name of Christ. Now these horrors are the primary evidence unbelievers cite in rejection of the truth claims of the church. If nothing else, the rancorous denominations of Christianity show that despite the claims of numerous advocates, nobody has a monopoly on the truth. But God’s word is indestructible. It does not return void regardless of evils perpetrated in its name. The freedom and human rights we take for granted in Western democracies are premised on the idea that man is created in God’s image, as found in the Hebrew Bible. The ministry of Jesus to the poor and infirm, recorded in the Gospels, has for two thousand years compelled civilized communities to recognize their moral obligation to even the most vulnerable in their midst. Conspicuous divergences from this norm, like slavery, have led to reforms grounded on religious confessions on both sides of disputes.
For reasons that are easy enough to discern, the intelligentsia in universities, many of them founded by churches, have declared war on the church and Western Civilization. The normative strictures of Western culture have become the targets of a purge driven by ideologies too freakish to detain us. Hypocritically claiming that injustices are perpetrated by the very ideals that define justice in our society, deconstructionists pretentiously deprecate the Western literary canon, line by line. Music has become the domain of a well-funded coterie of directors who make operas into travesties of the heroic ideals they once celebrated. Since Picasso, the visual arts have been in regression to barbarism.
In 1952, in an interview published in the periodical "Libro Nero", Picasso conceded:
"In art the mass of people no longer seeks consolation and exaltation, but those who are refined, rich, unoccupied, who are distillers of quintessences, seek what is new, strange, extravagant, scandalous. I myself, since Cubism and before, have satisfied these masters and critics with all the changing oddities which pass through my head, and the less they understood me, the more they admired me. . . Fame for a painter means sales, gains, fortune, riches. And today, as you know. I am celebrated, I am rich.
But when I am alone with myself, I have not the courage to think of myself as an artist in the great and ancient sense of the term. Giotto, Titian, Rembrandt were great painters. I am only a public entertainer who has understood his times and exploited as best he could the imbecility, the vanity, the cupidity of his contemporaries."
We’ve gone several stages beyond the modernism of Picasso. Postmodernism debases every aesthetic standard by reference to which Picasso could still lament the decadence of his art. This destruction of norms has resulted in moral anarchy. If it continues, the basis of rational thinking will be undermined until, in the eventual collapse, formerly rational people completely relinquish control of their minds to pretentious ideologies.
Oligarchy has been justified in the church by religious dogma. If Western Civilization can be deconstructed, the intelligentsia will step in to fill the void. They are already justifying their creeds as a means of preserving order in the nihilistic environment they have created.
In the decadence of historically Christian culture, the church can have an enormous impact by sustaining high culture. Herbert Armstrong brought the Vienna Philharmonic to Ambassador College. People are still talking about that concert! There were many such things during the heyday of the Worldwide Church of God. A talkative salesman in Seattle told me he used to go to those concerts. His favorable impression of the church has survived all the negative press and the scandals of the Armstrong empire. Now denominations with vastly greater resources squander them on pop culture that only reflects postmodernism as it is being marketed to the masses. If the mega-churches within ten miles of my home would spend as much on orchestral music and opera as they do on pop music, the church could turn the propaganda of the arts mafia against itself and revive great art to the glory of God.
An unapologetic argument for high culture can be based on the conviction that the finest things in Western Civilization are Judeo-Christian in their inspiration. Artistic masterpieces reflect a relationship God has sustained with people and civilizations in a tradition going back to Abraham. None of the churches have been faithful to everything God has offered them, but the wealth of virtues He reveals make it impossible not to achieve some semblance of the Kingdom of God in the world. Heroic art provides both an understanding of history and visionary hope for the future. May the church, before long, recognize its heritage and exult in it. --Mike Dodaro gmdodaro@hotmail.com
Where Is God?
"When you turn to God, you discover he has been facing you all the time,"
said Zig Ziglar, the famous motivational speaker and Christian. He's right. It
is difficult to see God until you turn toward him. Many of us turn our backs to
God and then complain amid troubles, "Where is God?" Well, he hasn't gone
anywhere. God doesn't go astray nor does he get lost, but we do.
Peter said in his Temple sermon shortly after the resurrection of Jesus: "Repent and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, and that he may send the Christ, who has been appointed for you--even Jesus" (Acts 3:19-20). Turning to God brings an immediate response from Him--forgiveness, refreshing, and help from the Son of God.
We can't factually complain that God is far away or that his guidance or "word" for us is absent. Moses said God's word "is very near you," accessible, and able to lead you to "walk in His ways" (Dt 30:14, 16). All God asks you, said Moses, was to "turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul" (vs 10).
When you turn to God, he will lead you as he has always led his servants: "The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged" (31:8). What God asks of you "is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach" (30:11). So why then do we find it so hard to turn to God? ... Okay, I know that, but does it make sense? --Ken Westby
April 11, 2005
A
Better Grade of Prisoner
When things have gotten badly out of hand, humor is sometimes a relief. Carl
Grant is a comedian who, in one of his routines, uses the story of Lester
Maddox commenting on prison riots in Georgia while he was governor: "I don't
think," Maddox opined, "that we're gonna see much
improvement in this situation, until we start gettin'
a better grade of prisoner." After a pause for timing, Carl adds, "Here's a
man who's gotten right to the heart of the problem. Of course! We've been
letting a lot of riff-raff into our jails." One would have to agree that this
story, possibly not apocryphal, shows how order is subverted by undesirable
human character. To say that we have a somewhat similar problem in our
churches is sounding less and less outrageous, and it doesn't seem we'll see
much improvement until we start getting a better grade of sinner.
The liturgical innovations, moral accommodations, and scandals in the church could provide comedians with material to compete with that available from politicians. Unfortunately, it’s not funny and it's not really new material. John the Baptist must have elicited derisive laughter when he called the clerics of his day a bunch of snakes. Bear with me for a moment in this line of reasoning. People who claim moral authority in the community are too often discovered and exposed in vices that make the sins of the laity pale by comparison. The hypocrisy of this evil is so offensive that we recoil as if the venomous snake handled by a biologist at the zoo has escaped into the crowd. Humor is a defense of sorts. Jay Leno made jokes about Osama bin Laden.
While we're laughing, it's even more absurd that the today's doctrinal accommodation and innovation becomes the venerable tradition of tomorrow. When Archbishop of Canterbury was inducted into the Welsh order of Druids, conservatives were alarmed, but an elementary knowledge of the syncretism evident in Christmas and Easter might give one pause. It's hard to say whose indignation is more ironic, that of the accommodators and innovators in the church or those who oppose them. The renunciate communities of the third and fourth centuries, in their contempt for the flesh, opposed a growing worldliness in the church. Flagellants and Stylites interpolated Neo-Platonism into the Judeo-Christian tradition to a degree that can be measured by Augustine's Confessions, wherein we find his conviction that becoming a Christian, were he to do it properly, would require putting away his mistress. Despite the fact that this woman had been the venerable saint’s companion for years and born him a son, marrying her was out of the question, because, by this time, celibacy had become the norm for observant professional Christians.
Spiritual athleticism led to communities of religious for whom chastity is the ideal. It led to a celibate priesthood. Recent scandals should force, at least, a re-examination of the now traditional norm. In American church history there have always been those who insist that priestly celibacy creates a dissonance with the Pauline injunction that a bishop should be the husband of one wife. This has long been a staple of Christians in the Campbellite tradition who, in their zeal for the faith once delivered to the apostles, disregard both history and tradition. Campbellite Churches of Christ idealize congregational autonomy--as in the synagogues of the Pauline era and, emphatically, not as in the formerly pagan basilicas of the Roman Catholic Church. Church of Christ preachers used to quote Jesus in his now problematic instruction that his followers not refer to their guru as father.
How
shocking it is when it comes to light that religious orders professing
celibacy have been the habitat of those engaged in sexual excesses that bring
out pagans with pitchforks, and that a denomination of the church in the
tradition of Alexander Campbell, professing local autonomy, provided Jim Jones
sufficient latitude to perpetrate mass suicide. Late night comedians will
find humor even in these things. The line between cynical humor and irony is
perhaps a matter of serious intent. Jesus seems to have been capable of both
humor and irony. Was making a laughing stock of the clerics of his time what
made him into a magnet for controversy?
Interesting in this regard is that he attacked both the liberals and the
conservatives. Then the Pharisees were the traditionalists and Sadducees the
accommodators. Now any paraphrase of irony in the sayings of Jesus would have
to find a way to lampoon the moralistic a-moralism
that is now politically correct, especially as it is evident in Main-Line
Protestant churches. In view of the historical and contemporary outrages
perpetrated by the church, what rankles isn’t so much what the church
teaches as the authority it claims for its doctrines and moral
pronouncements. It would seem that the metaphor of the offending eye is Jesus
engaging in the bitterest irony. Do I have to draw a picture? "You have
heard it said by dignified Protestants that truth is relative and by
Evangelicals that it is relative only to the current top-40 music charts. I
tell you, most of you would be better off as Catholics, under a hierarchy,
than making up theology as you go along. You want to be tolerant? Pluck out
the eye that makes distinctions. Trendy? Cut off
the hand of any real musical craftsman in your midst.”
A further irony in all this is that not engaging in this kind of irony might have kept Jesus and the prophets from becoming martyrs. --Mike Dodaro gmdodaro@hotmail.com
April 8, 2005
The Pope and Secular
Schizophrenia
With the death and funeral of Pope John Paul II, we have witnessed
worldwide media coverage more extensive than anything I have ever seen. Even
the largely secular, leftist mainstream press in the
Yet, as the secular press seem
to understand the source of the pope's greatness, they run piece after piece
on the need for the next pope to be more "modern" in his thinking, more
flexible in his approach, and more compromising on current moral trends such
as the rights of homosexuals, women in the priesthood, birth control, and
abortion. One reporter wrote that he hoped the next pope would have the
"courage" to break with tradition and compromise on some of our day's moral
and social issues.
In a word, the secularists don't get it. If a man is "great" because of his unwavering consistency on moral issues, then his successor cannot become "great" based on his "courage" to compromise on those same moral issues. The problem with our secular, socialist news media is that they don't have the eternal moral core principles to stand firm on anything. If you believe, as they do, in moral relativism, this is the kind of insanity you end up with. "Your" morality is fine if it doesn't interfere with "my" own personal desires, because that doesn't "feel" good.
Any society based on what the secularists want eventually hurtles toward chaos, and at the end of chaos is brutal tyranny and dictatorship because that society's citizens will not tolerate for long the threats of violence and the results of everyone doing what is right in his own eyes.
Their way is the legacy of
Enlightenment and Evolution. What modern secularists want would bring us a
repeat of the French Revolution with its Reign of Terror. The solution, of
course, is to reclaim for our society that timeless moral core which is the
foundation of Christianity. Jesus called it "salt" and "light." --Ken Ryland
The Chicken Wire Dam
April 7, 2005
European Union's New Constitution is no Slam Dunk
Early euphoria over of the EU's proposed new constitution has calmed as
France's approval of it is now in question. France, which sees itself as the
heart of the EU is getting opposition to it from within it own party that
formerly supported it. The Constitution was signed by EU leaders last year in
Rome, but must be approved by all 25 member states--either by public
referendum or parliamentary vote. Italy has just become the first of the
founding states of the EU to ratify the new constitution by parliamentary
vote. Spain had approved the text with a public vote. A long road remains. The
late Pope John Paul II criticized the document for failing to include a
reference to Christianity or God.
The big fear on this side of the Atlantic is that a tightly unified EU will become increasing anti-American if molded into the French image. How the 21st Century develops may largely depend on what happens in Europe. To keep up with what is happening in Europe, Ray Kosanke recommends to our ACD Blog readers to check out this website: www.euobserver.com for up-to-date commentary from an European perspective. EU Constitution news is found in the left hand column at that site under "News." --Ken Westby
Abraham's Legacy
The life changing influence of faith in God has a compounding
effect. The longer one lives in God’s presence, the more confidence one has
that the moral and spiritual precepts of the Judeo-Christian tradition are
true.
Sometimes this is evident to other people. Dramatic conversion stories are always interesting. Unfortunately they can only be verified by people who have seen, first hand, a transformation in a family member or friend. What might be the equivalent of the regenerated life that is verifiable by anybody who wants to know what God is doing in the world? Those of us who have studied apocalyptic literature and prophecy understand its impact and why millions of people continue to be intrigued by it, but it leaves unanswered questions. Many people are suspicious of the whole interpretive process or just don’t get it. There is another way to discuss God’s continuing activity in history even for non-historians.
The story of Abraham is not difficult to understand and relate. God’s promise is that through Abraham all nations will be blessed. Whether this promise has been fulfilled is open to verification by anyone. The Mosaic Law is at the core of Western Civilization. The creation epic of Genesis and stories of the patriarchs are pervasive in art and literature, as are the Gospel narratives. Human rights as we know them were established in culture thousands of years ago by the Hebrew prophets. On both sides of the currently raging culture war, numerous advocates recognize that the battle is about the Biblical cosmology and moral core of Western culture.
Courses in the history of Western Civilization begin with the Bible because the dominant civilizations of human history are culturally descended from Abraham. Other ideas found their way to European civilization, but everything was sifted and evaluated under the auspices of the Christian Church in its several permutations. The early American settlers were religious pilgrims who believed in Covenant Theology, and strove to create a society that would be a city on a hill. They succeeded beyond their most extravagant imaginings. Everything that remains of their enterprise is what postmodern critics are trying to deconstruct.
Clearly God is interested in human history on a larger scale than personal morality and religious experience. Jesus preached to the powerless and infirm, but his Kingdom sayings, especially the parable of the mustard seed, could not have been more prescient as to how the Kingdom would develop. And we’ve only seen the beginning. The current epic in Christian Civilization involves a crisis of faith in everything noble and beautiful in our heritage. Churches of every denomination are in uproar about the formal order God has revealed. The more radical departures from traditional culture stretch credulity by the ideas being propounded. Old line Protestants adopt the values of the intelligentsia and Evangelicals pander to postmodernism in every permutation of popular culture, while the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church astonishes the world with faith that demolishes Communism.
In the current upheaval, the church only needs to continue to speak the truth in love, upholding the culture of life against moral anarchy. Many compromises have been made, many of them destructive, but none are irrevocable or unredeemable. God’s ancient promises have been fulfilled despite atrocities against the church and even those perpetrated by the church. Christian theology will survive. It survived Egyptian Gnosticism, Greek Platonism, and persecution by the Roman Empire. The postmodernism of the current academic mafia will not prevail against a church that continues sifting and salvaging the virtues and artifacts of its long militancy in the world. The Kingdom comes. --Mike Dodaro gmdodaro@hotmail.com
April 6, 2005
This Too Will Pass
Two days ago I was talking a walk along Puget Sound basking in the early
spring sunshine. However, looking West across the Sound toward the Olympic
Mountains I saw stormy, dark clouds dumping large amounts of rain. Here I was
walking in dry, sunny warmth and a few miles away on the western shore any
walkers would be getting pounded by a storm. I reflected on the times when I was
in the reverse situation. So too, I thought, of the periods of life.
If your life has been like mine, its included both sunny times of peace, happiness, health and prosperity, and times of being pounded by troubles, enemies, adversity, misery, health and financial reverses. I like the sunny times. Perhaps the guy who made the point that we make more personal growth and learn more important lessons through adversity than times of ease is correct, and experience seems to validate his point, but I still prefer the sunny times. I've been under the dark clouds wondering if troubles would ever lift while looking at the lucky, carefree folks walking in the sun on greener grass wondering if life will ever be like that for me. Sure enough, through proper action, patience, blessings, and "luck" the clouds lifted and life was good again. After several such episodes I began to view people I encountered still under storm clouds with a bit more compassion. I've been there, and somehow I sensed I would likely be there again.
Well, I've been in and out of those dark clouds of life many times. I know you have too. And having seen the life cycle of peaks and valleys and ease and pain, and experiencing how in due time things always change, one must be reflective. When in the midst of troubles and no end in sight, one must say to himself, "this too shall pass," for surly it will. The Preacher says, "there is a time for everything'" (Ecc 3:1). Its like when I'm sitting in the dentist's chair all tensed up as the madman grinds away, I say too myself, I'll not always be in this chair--an hour from now I'll be out. So it is when we are in times of heaviness and stress. Ask God for strength and patience to endure knowing that, this too will pass. --Ken Westby
April 4, 2005
God Must Have Something Big in Mind
One nighttime look at a star-filled sky, which I saw last night, and
you'll never accuse the Creator of "small thinking." I've heard that an easy
way to remember the immense size of the cosmos is that there are a
hundred-billion galaxies each containing a hundred-billion stars. That of
course is just an estimate and to that we may suppose there are innumerable
planets attached to the innumerable star systems. Our best astronomical
detection devices have not yet found the end of the cosmos. It seems to just
go on and on.
Why so big? One can only conclude that a Creator wise and powerful enough to construct such an awesome universe must have a wise and marvelous plan for it. We, of course, would know nothing specific of God's plans apart from his revelation in Scripture. In it he reveals that the purpose of mankind is the key to understand the why of the vast cosmos. What then, is the purpose of mankind? Simply this: To become like his Maker in character, mind, and deed. To the heavenly host God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness..." (Gn 1:26). In the same passage God said the prime duty for this God-image man was to "rule" the creation.
Jesus taught that his followers would "reign" with him in his Father's coming kingdom. Of a Christian's future Paul wrote, "If we endure, we will also reign with him" (2Ti 2:12). Following the First Resurrection at the return of Christ, the newly immortalized saints will rule the earth "with Christ a thousand years" (Rev 20:4). God's Grand Plan calls for those made in his image to rule all creation with him beginning in phase one with the earth. What comes thereafter is not specified except with the intriguing words of the Creator, "I am making everything new!" (Rev 21:5). I believe that in those mysterious words are found the reason for the unbelievably immense size of the created order. God is going to use his saints to "create" the earth anew filling it with the knowledge of God and making it a gleaming Paradise of Eden. I suspect the phase following that accomplishment will reach out toward those hundred-billion galaxies of a hundred-billion stars each.
A little math would suggest that the size of the cosmos will require a lot of God's sons and daughters to rule it. This might explain why God has allowed the human family to become so large over thousands of years. It is God's will that eventually all mankind will repent of its sins and take on the Divine nature and become true sons and daughters of his. This will be accomplished by free choice and the great harvest of souls awaits the coming Kingdom of God on earth.
Our eternal destiny then, with Christ as God's CEO, is to rule the cosmos. All that "rule" entails will be made plain by God in due course. Right now we just marvel at the size, beauty, power and complexity of the starry heavens and wonder at what God has in store for those who love him. "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him" (1Cor 2:9).
Just for fun try this speculation on for size. It has been estimated that till now no more than thirty billion people have ever lived in the six to ten thousand years man has been on earth. Right now the earth has about 6.3 billion people. If every one of those thirty billion humans eventually enters the family of God and shares in the rule over creation, and if God divided things up equally, and you are one of them, how big might your job be? Can you handle 3.3 billion galaxies of a hundred billion stars each? Not now for sure (balancing your checkbook is a challenge), but remember God thinks big.
If we learn now to rule our lives under God's direction he promises to give us such power, glory, joy, challenge, and satisifaction it will require the size of God's cosmos to contain it all. --Ken Westby
April 3, 2005
April 2, 2005
Church and Culture
A church that has lost its soul to the spirit of the age is driven by
culture instead of inspiring cultural renewal. When the church occupied
Roman temples and adapted the art of the Greeks, it gained influence and was
enriched by alien traditions, but the alliance with imperial power soon led
to abuse and the persecuted church became a whore that waged war on
dissidents. Bishops lived in palatial grandeur surrounded by the finest
art, but most were autocrats and their ministries were sold to the highest
bidder. After centuries of the abuse of power the church was fragmented by
revolts and religious wars throughout Europe.
In the past hundred fifty years, assimilation of the church by Enlightenment empiricism has reached a stage that many Christians cannot not credibly defend their essential theology and moral truths. Probably the clearest example of materialism in Christian thought is liberation theology, a variant of dialectical materialism. For much of the twentieth century nobody in the social service ministries of the church could ignore the contention that material resources were the only real basis for aid. Catholic churches benefit from the stabilizing influence of historic moral and theological traditions and liturgical form, but the level of government funding in Catholic social-service ministries still drags religious orders to the political left.
Old-line Protestants conform to “values” dictated by the intelligentsia in matters of sex and politics. As with the Catholics, generations of permissive sexual mores has led to scandals and a feast of litigation against sexual abusers among the Protestant clergy. Since the revival era Evangelicals have pretty much defaulted to pop culture. Worship in most churches sounds like a hootenanny or a rock concert. Nobody should be surprised when evangelists carry on like pop-music idols.
If the doctrines can be maintained that make the church God’s instrument in the world, the process of enculturation is ennobling both for Christians and those whose culture the church assimilates. The Kingdom of Heaven claims art and science for the author of creativity and invention. But how does the church redeem the world in its expansion without being molded by destructive ideologies that are always at hand? Part of the answer can be found in the doctrine attributed to St. Augustine called the unity of truth. In this conception, the church does not have a monopoly on truth. Truth is to be found in its own scriptures, traditions, and through human reason, but the literature, traditions, and philosophy of other civilizations are also legitimate in many particulars. Discernment guides those who seek to adapt the finest things of all cultures, not the most marketable, in service of faith and civility.
Unfortunately, the current cultural ethos marginalizes the people most likely to aid cultural renewal in the church and, through its influence, in the community. Evangelicals seem sincere about maintaining traditional doctrines, while giving in to pop culture. Historic churches with traditional liturgy subsidize excellence in the arts but acquiesce to liberationist creeds. Those who try to think independently are alienated by relentlessly expanding accommodation and find themselves marginalized in church just as they are at work, in the arts, and in academic communities. The tyranny of the majority is the norm. It doesn’t take a genius to see the loss of credibility the church incurs through its malleability to everything that comes down the pike. The question is how minorities holding on to both the historic doctrines of the church and the cultural legacy of Western civilization can prevail against majorities of pragmatists in their congregations.
During the optimistic beginnings of the Ecumenical Movement there were living-room dialogues between Catholics and Protestants, which often only confused people about what others believed and even about the theology of their own denominations. It’s going to take more than dialogue to forge coalitions to maintain both sound doctrine and build on the historic cultural advances of Christians who got the church and culture exchange right. People of orthodox conviction whether Evangelicals, historic Protestants, or Catholics, need to organize against the impoverishments of body and soul threatening to undo centuries of progress. A lot more is at stake that good music. When the church can’t find a way to worship with excellence and dignity in its own sanctuaries, how is it going to prevail against the moral anarchy outside? In the cultural void left by deconstruction of Western Civilization, advancements against autocracy and terror that took centuries to establish will, sooner or later, be relinquished to an oligarchy presuming to restore order. The doctrines that still delay full communion of the Church pale beside ideologies that will damage all alike unless there is cooperation in exposing crimes against humanity that materialistic creeds entail. Pray for vision and endurance. Pray for vital spiritual formation within the church that will make it a city on a hill instead of a ghetto of derivative nonsense. -- Mike Dodaro gmdodaro@hotmail.com
April 1, 2005
Pope John Paul II -- A Force for Good He stands with the likes of Ronald Reagan and Lady Thatcher as a constructive shaper of recent history. His influence was critical to the fall of communism in Europe and the ultimate freedom of tens of millions. He was also a powerful moral force to oppose the moral decline in the West. He has also put the breaks on the leftward drift of the Catholic Church on both moral and political grounds.
He cleaned house of the Church's leftist liberation theology movement that had become the willing tools of communist tyrants. He held fast on opposition to abortion, homosexuality, euthanasia, and premarital sex. In fact, he has been the world's most powerful voice for the culture of life and in opposition to the culture of death. He has stood for traditional, biblical moral standards while much of the Christian world was going soft on morality and trying to accommodate the fallen culture.
He also allowed and encouraged a Church-wide house cleaning of those clergy corrupted by homosexuality. He apologized to the world for the unchristian and abusive behaviors that characterized the Church in centuries past. We can hope and pray that the next Pope will continue his mission.
I'm not a Catholic and for over 40 years have been critical of its doctrine and practices. Certainly, its history is a mixture of good and evil. Yet the current Catholic Church is not the same Church as the one of the middle ages. Catholic-haters need to update their frame of reference. There are many Evangelicals who still see the Catholic Church as the Great Whore of the book of Revelation and the Pope as the end-time False Prophet. Anyone is entitled to construct prophecy as he sees it, but I think these positions are hard to substantiate by what can be seen in the current Catholic Church.
I believe Catholicism represents an apostasy from the faith of the Primitive Church. It embraced an Hellenic (Gentile) version of Christianity that embraced many of the pagan doctrines of Greek religion. However, the same could be said of the Protestant churches on a doctrinal level. Yet, in spite of Protestant and Catholic errors, there remain powerful elements of a Christian message, and the Bible is universally held up as God's word and the guide to right living. The Word can work God's will in spite of the church organization that promotes it. The True Church of God, we must acknowledge, is the body of believers that belong to God and have received his Spirit, follow Christ, and have their names written in the Book of Life. That membership transcends any earthly organization.
When the Apostle Paul brought up the preaching of Christ he acknowledged that some preached Christ imperfectly or even corruptly. He said: "But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, and whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice" (Phil 1:18). We must be honest to acknowledge good, regardless whether it originates with our church affiliation or from another. --Ken Westby
March 31, 2005
March 30, 2005
March 29, 2005
March 27, 2005
Truth in Labeling: Is it Easter or Passover?
It might come as a surprise to some Christians to discover that "Easter"
is not mentioned anywhere in the Bible. The resurrection and Passover,
however, are prominently mentioned in Scripture. Well, you say, isn't Easter
just a synonym for the resurrection of Jesus? I grant that it has become so,
but the association is still foreign to the biblical record.
Some will argue that the word "Easter" truly is in the Bible
and can be found in Acts 12:4 "...intending after Easter to bring him
forth to the people." That quote is from the 1611 AD King James Version
which like a few older translations chose to insert "Easter" instead of
translating the actual word from the Greek manuscripts. Apparently some
theologians and churchmen were self-conscious over the fact that the most
sacred festival of traditional Christendom didn't merit even one mention in
Scripture. Modern translators have corrected this slight of hand translation
to follow the actual Greek text: "...intending after Passover [Greek:
Pascha] to bring him out to the people" (RSV--the NIV is similar. In
this case Passover means the entire week-long festival season which includes
the Days of Unleavened Bread mentioned in verse 3. In most contexts Passover
refers to the specific day the lambs were killed (the 14th of Nisan) and the
day on which Christ was crucified. As a matter of historical record, Jesus was
raised from the dead during this festival called Passover/Days of Unleavened
Bread.
One is then left with the question: What is "Easter" and how
did it come to be the celebration of Christ's resurrection? Answers can be
found in any good encyclopedia or ancient history. There you will find
described the original Easter--a pagan festival of spring honoring a fertility
goddess. "Easter" is derived from the Anglo-Saxon "Eostre," the pagan goddess
of Spring. In her honor sacrifices were offered at the time of the vernal
equinox in hopes of a fertile, bountiful year for herds and crops. Of course,
this springtime goddess of fertility was worshipped centuries before Christ by
various names in many ancient cultures including Babylon where the fertility
goddess was called "Ishtar." God warned ancient Israel through his prophets
not to worship this goddess. The Hellenic world in which early Christianity
grew was a world that celebrated this ancient fertility rite and Christianity
was influenced by it. By the 8th century the term Easter came to be applied to
the anniversary of Christ's resurrection. Present day Easter celebrations
still carry some of the ancient fertility symbols of eggs and
rabbits--strangely out of place in a Christian celebration honoring Christ's
resurrection.
Names mean things and God likes names to reflect the reality
of the thing named. He has revealed his own name and even changed the names of
individuals when their status or character changed (Abram to Abraham, Sari to
Sarah, Jacob to Israel, Saul to Paul, etc.). Certainly the thing honored is
more important than the name given to it; but why should the most important
event since creation--the resurrection, glorification, and exaltation of the
Son of God--be given the name of a pagan fertility goddess? Is this not a case
of identity theft? Hijacking the sacred in favor of the profane? Is that not
like spraying graffiti on a beautiful picture? Or am I being too precise and
just making a mountain out of a mole hill? --Ken Westby
March 25, 2005
Easter and the Stations of the Cross
Today the full moon appears and it is "Good Friday." Some may object to
the description of Christ's suffering as "good" or additionally object to
placing his crucifixion on a Friday which doesn't allow a full three days and
nights between his death and resurrection. But all can agree that Jesus
suffered on the day he died as was dramatically displayed in the recent movie
"The Passion of the Christ." How do we 21st Century Christians remember the
day of Jesus Death?
A segment of Christianity, attempting to be faithful to Scripture and to the practices of the Early Church, celebrate the Passover at the same time the Jews do. They celebrate it as a Lord's supper or Christian Passover service. Unleavened bread and red wine symbolize the broken body and spilled blood of our Savior as he suffered and died on the Jewish Passover almost 2000 years ago. In the centuries following Christ's death, resurrection, and exaltation there was a continual movement away from first century Jewish Christianity toward a Greek (Gentile) version of Christianity. There were many differences between the two. One was the rejection of things Jewish by what came to be regarded as "traditional" Christianity. The Passover was rejected in favor of Easter. The Lord's supper or the Eucharist (meaning "thanksgiving") came to be celebrated under different names and in different ways, whether daily, weekly, or monthly among Protestants and Catholics. The Passover was observed by the Jews and early Christians as an annual celebration. Easter replaced Passover as the Passion's annual celebration and along with Easter came some of its pagan baggage--the festival of Easter predates Christianity by centuries. Observing the Stations of the Cross came to be an annual celebration for Good Friday.
In my visits to Israel I've passed some to the traditional Stations walked by pilgrims in Jerusalem. In the mid 1700s the Stations of the Cross were first reenacted in Rome's Coliseum and later revived in 1964 by Pope Paul VI. There is no biblical command for this practice although it is a way to relive that fateful day that changed the world. The1st Station: Jesus is condemned to death; 2nd: Jesus takes up his cross; 3rd: Jesus falls for the first time; 4th: Jesus meets his mother; 5th: The Cyrenian helps Jesus carry the cross; 6th: Veronica wipes the face of Jesus; 7th: Jesus falls for the second time; 8th: Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem who weep for him; 9th: Jesus falls for the third time; 10th: Jesus is stripped of his garments; 11th: Jesus is nailed to the cross; 12th: Jesus dies on the cross; 13th: Jesus is taken down from the cross and given to his mother; 14th: Jesus is laid in the tomb.
Most, but not all, of these events can be found in the Gospel
accounts--others reflect Catholic tradition. In worship liturgy these stations
in turn are accompanied with scripture reading, prayer and meditation.
I don't criticize those who have chosen to remember our Lord's Passion and
Resurrection in ways I don't. I believe some practices are plainly more
scriptural and true to the practices of the early church, while others are
encumbered with non-biblical traditions. Yet, what is more important than
dates, traditions, liturgy, and doctrinal dogma, is that Christians have
accepted Christ as Savior and have turned their hearts toward God; that they
have submitted their will to God's will and have embarked on his way of life;
that they have repented of sin and pursue righteousness, justice and mercy
with all their heart, mind and strength; and that they are developing Godly
character fitting for the coming Kingdom of God. It isn't as important how we
observe the Passion, but whether we are reacting to it in ways pleasing to
God.--Ken Westby
The Conundrum of Michael
Schiavo
Michael Schiavo, Terri's supposed husband and the custodian of her care,
has a serious conflict of interest. While he has been married to Terri, he has
also been living with another woman for over 10 years and has produced two
children by this woman. Outside of the fact that this is a clear case of
adultery and a profound manifestation of a legal conflict of interest, he is
in a unique position with respect to the law that is shared by no other man in
the United States, and this is the legal conundrum of his life:
If his current live-in woman were to become severely disabled due to an accident or a disease, he would have legal standing in court to pull the feeding tube on her as he has done in the case of his legal wife, Terri. In other words, he is legally married to two women. He has the legal right to determine the end-of-life care of both women.
If you were the judge and knew this, would it change your opinion regarding his decisions about his wife Terri. --Ken Ryland
Weak Politicians, Wicked Judges
Weakness is the handmaiden of wickedness. We have witnessed the truth of
this axiom most poignantly this past week in the case of Terri Schiavo. The
weak have enabled the wicked to gain the upper hand in their attempt to murder
this disabled woman--a woman who is conscious and who has no life-threatening
disease. Time after time politicians have deferred to the will of the corrupt
judges, even though those judges have clearly exceeded the scope of their
mandated jurisdiction.
The U.S. Congress passed and the President signed a law mandating that the case of Terri Schiavo be tried in federal court "de novo," that is, as if it were a brand new case. The bill allowed Terri's parents legal standing to bring the suit in federal court. In spite of all that, the federal district judge refused to hear the case and simply reiterated the ruling of the Florida state court judge--clearly violating the intent of Congress and the statute that was passed. (As an aside for those who think that Congress acted outside its jurisdiction by enacting this law, read Article 3 of the U.S. Constitution, which gives to Congress the sole authority for establishing courts and their jurisdiction. In other words, Congress has the right to decide what federal judges are to rule on.)
The worst case of weak knees seems to be that of Florida Governor Jeb Bush who has the legal authority to take Terri Schiavo into state custody so that she may live. Yet, at each step along the way, Governor Bush has deferred to the Florida state courts, seeking their opinions on whether he has the right to take Terri Schiavo out from under the court's jurisdiction. The governor asked the same judge who sentenced Terri to death whether it would be all right if he took her out from under Michael Schiavo's custody and put her under the protective custody of the state's Department of Children and Families ("pretty please, Mr. Judge"). As pastor D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge, Florida, pointed out in a recent article, "...the Florida constitution states in Article I, Section 2, that '[a]ll natural persons, female and male alike, are equal before the law, and have inalienable rights, among which are the right to enjoy and defend life ....' According to the Constitution, 'no person shall be deprived of any right [including the right to enjoy life] because of ... physical disability'" (