11Jun

In Honor of Pentecost: Veni Sancte Spiritus

sung by the choir of Notre Dame de Paris. Organ – Pierre Cochereau

Come, Holy Spirit,
send forth the heavenly
radiance of your light.

Come, father of the poor,
come, giver of gifts,
come, light of the heart.

Greatest comforter,
sweet guest of the soul,
sweet consolation.

In labour, rest,
in heat, temperance,
in tears, solace.

O most blessed light,
fill the inmost heart
of your faithful.

Without your spirit,
there is nothing in man,
nothing that is not harmful.

Cleanse that which is unclean,
water that which is dry,
heal that which is wounded.

Bend that which is inflexible,
fire that which is chilled,
correct what goes astray.

Give to your faithful,
those who trust in you,
the sevenfold gifts.

Grant the reward of virtue,
grant the deliverance of salvation,
grant eternal joy.

14May

A Scam, With Terrible Consequences for a Serviceman

The army veteran Jared Johns was inspired by the tragic events of 9/11 to join the military as soon as he graduated high school. Following a tour of duty in Afghanistan, he struggled with depression and PTSD. Exactly 17 years after the World Trade Center tragedy, at age 24, he killed himself on another 9/11. He left a suicide note to his two young sons, who will grow up fatherless, saying, “It’s better this way, I promise.”

As it turns out, he had been the victim of a blackmail scam, perpetrated by inmates at a South Carolina prison, who have been targeting military personnel. Posing as young women, the men would flirt on dating sites, and eventually send nude photos. After reaching the nude photo stage in the “relationship” the scammers would then send threatening messages in which they pretended to be an enraged father of an underaged girl, who threatens to go to the police, and demands money in exchange for silence.

The Washington Post reports:
Between 2015 and 2018, 442 service members from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps were conned out of more than $560,000 through the scam, the investigators found. Five inmates were indicted in November, with officials warning that more than 250 people were under investigation and additional arrests could be forthcoming. (Washington Post, online at https://www.google.com/amp/s/beta.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/05/14/veterans-suicide-was-blamed-depression-then-police-found-threatening-texts-sent-prison/%3foutputType=amp

What a tragedy this is for this man and his family.

Filed under “Reflections of the Fall”

05May

An Easter Quote from Fleming Rutlege

The power of God to make right what has been wrong is what we see, by faith, in the resurrection of Jesus Christ on the third day. Unless God is the one who raises the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist, there cannot be serious talk of forgiveness for the worst of the worst—the mass murderers, torturers, and serial killings—or even the least of the worst—the quotidian offenses against our common humanity that cause marriages to fail, friendships to end, enterprises to collapse, and silent misery to be the common lot of millions. “All for sin could not atone; thou must save, and thou alone.” This is what is happening on Golgotha.
(Fleming Rutlege, THE CRUCIFIXION: UNDERSTANDING THE DEATH OF JESUS CHRIST, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015)

03May

An Old Easter Message is Resurrected, to the Chagrin of Anglican Centre Director

On the heels of the previous article, another case of “resurrection denial” has come to my attention. In January of this year, the former Dean of Perth in Australia, the Very Reverend Dr. John Shepherd, was appointed interim director of the Anglican Centre in Rome, only to face a sudden firestorm of criticism stemming from an Easter message he posted online in 2008. One cheekily worded headline (Eternity News) observed, “Church Leader Finds Internet Never Forgets”.

In the message that was “resurrected” (pardon the pun), Dr Shepherd states:

The Resurrection of Jesus ought not to be seen in physical terms, but as a new spiritual reality. It is important for Christians to be set free from the idea that the Resurrection was an extraordinary physical event which restored to life Jesus’ original earthly body.
…
Jesus’ early followers felt His presence after His death as strongly as if it were a physical presence and incorporated this sense of a resurrection experience into their gospel accounts. But they’re not historical records as we understand them. They are symbolic images of the breaking through of the resurrection spirit into human lives.
…
Jesus lived … as a transformed spiritual reality.

Apparently, this was old news to other Anglicans in his region. A group identifying itself as “Sydney Anglicans” noted way back in 2003:

Dr Shepherd wrote that it was not necessary to believe the Gospel accounts of Jesus appearing to his disciples, that Jesus was physically and literally raised to heaven, or that he will come again ‘in the form in which he has already been present on earth’.
He also said that there is no need to believe “there will be a final judgment where the righteous will be accepted into a so-called heaven, and sinners condemned to everlasting damnation.”

Perhaps the senior cleric has changed his mind. To his critics, Dr. Shepherd says, “I have never denied the reality of the empty tomb”. His efforts to distance himself from his earlier comments appear to have been successful. Calls for him to be removed from his position have gone unheeded, and the controversy seems to have evaporated.

For further reading:

David Ould, Jan 10, 2029. “NEW HEAD OF ANGLICAN CENTRE IN ROME IS DENIER OF JESUS’ RESURRECTION.” Online at https://davidould.net/new-head-of-anglican-centre-in-rome-is-denier-of-jesus-resurrection/

“Dean of Perth commits heresy in broad daylight”, April 28, 2003. Sydney Anglicans. Online at https://sydneyanglicans.net/news/730a

“Interim Director of the Anglican Centre in Rome rebuffs “resurrection” criticism”. Jan 15, 2019. Anglican Communion News Service, online at https://www.anglicannews.org/news/2019/01/interim-director-of-the-anglican-centre-in-rome-rebuffs-resurrection-criticism.aspx

03May

Deniers!

I recall the term “denier” originally being applied pejoratively to those who minimize or outright disbelieve the horrors of the Holocaust—the genocide of Jews in Europe under the Nazi regime during World War II. Holocaust denial is associated with racist ideologies, and expressing such denial generally pushes one to the fringes of society. Deniers face (and rightly so) anger, public shame, and ostracism, and depending on the locale, may also find themselves in violation of law. French historian Robert Faurisson was prosecuted, and fined under the Gayssot Act in 1991, and subsequently was removed from his academic post. (He is not totally devoid of public support—In 2012 he was awarded for his “courage” by Iranian president Ahmedinejad, himself a “denier”).

The “denier” label, with emotional power borrowed from Holocaust denial, has been used more recently against skeptics of the current scientific consensus on “global warming” (or “climate change”). The top few “hits” from a search engine will pull such titles as “The Depravity of Climate-change Denial” (The New York Times), “What Deniers of Climate Change and Racism Share” (The Atlantic). As this is a political issue of much controversy, I’ll merely note this as a phenomenon and move on.

(As an aside, I think that there exists a lot of denial about the atrocities of global Communism, and that would be a worthy target of activism. Unfortunately, those controlling the organs of culture right now are more often ideologically aligned with Communism than opposed to it).

Every Easter, another kind of denial rears its ugly head among those who claim to be followers of Christ. A recent New York Times column by Nicholas Kristof has me thinking about this issue again with respect to the bodily resurrection of Jesus, celebrated by Christians around the globe during Easter. No less a personage than the president of New York’s famed Union Theological Seminary, Dr. Serene Jones, was pressed about her views on the subject. She made it clear that she is in fact on the correct side of climate change, but about the physical resurrection of Jesus, she is a “denier”:

When you look in the Gospels, the stories are all over the place. There’s no resurrection story in Mark, just an empty tomb. Those who claim to know whether or not it happened are kidding themselves. But that empty tomb symbolizes that the ultimate love in our lives cannot be crucified and killed.

She expressed doubt regarding other miracles, called the virgin birth “bizarre”, and questioned whether there is an afterlife (“I don’t know! There may be something; there may be nothing.”). Regarding the God of the Bible, she opines,

God is beyond our knowing, not a being or an essence or an object. But I don’t worship an all-powerful, all-controlling omnipotent, omniscient being. That is a fabrication of Roman juridical theory and Greek mythology. That’s not the God of Easter. The God of Easter is vulnerable and is connected to the world in profound ways that don’t involve manipulating the world but constantly inviting us into love, justice, mercy.

In a critique, Dr. Albert Mohler, president of another famous Protestant seminary, the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, takes Dr. Jones to task. “Let’s be clear. She is teaching a religion here – but that religion is not Christianity.”

Many of our leaders and academics are quite squeamish about the idea of an actual resurrection. They are somehow able to affirm the words of the old creeds in their churches on Sunday, “I believe in the resurrection of the dead,” with two fingers crossed behind their backs.

Perhaps Christianity could borrow the secular world’s approach, and address its own problem with progressives and skeptics, who have ravaged churches and seminaries from within. One significant fracture point would be the resurrection of Jesus. We could name names, and create lists of “Resurrection deniers.”

Applying the term “denial” would even be biblical. The apostle Paul warned Timothy in his second letter that the “last days” will bring to ascendance all manner of wicked and unsavory people, “having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.” (2 Timothy 3:5)

I don’t foresee an organized effort by traditionalists to recapture the faith from tepid nonbelieving leaders. They may not even need to bother. As vibrant orthodox Christianity grows ever stronger, this other milquetoast and eviscerated version of religion is simply evaporating. Once glorious Protestant churches are in a demographic death spiral, as they somehow fail to be energized by the progressive theologians’ message that “love in our lives can’t be crucified” (but of course death is the end of you).

Still, I think many in the pews would welcome the return of orthodox Christianity back into the historic houses of worship. I would.

Sources:

Kristof, Nicholas, April 20, 2019. “Opinion: Reverend, You Say the Virgin Birth Is ‘a Bizarre Claim’?”, New York Times, available online at https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/04/20/opinion/sunday/christian-easter-serene-jones.amp.html

Albert Mohler, April 22, 2019, “A Tale of Two Religions: Liberal Theology Without Illusions”. Online at https://albertmohler.com/2019/04/22/a-tale-of-two-religions-liberal-theology-without-illusions

01May

The Light Triad

Researchers have recently announced a corollary to the “dark triad” that marks extreme psychopathy and criminal behavior. The “dark triad”, as you may have encountered in school or from outside reading, represents the worst of humanity: Narcissism, Psychopathy, and Machiavellianism. These are the Hannibal Lectors and Jeff Dahmers and mobsters of our world. They are self absorbed people, with low empathy, who are antisocial and manipulative. Not all of them are criminals, but they still damage those around them. As Wikipedia summarizes well: “People scoring high on these traits are more likely to commit crimes, cause social distress and create severe problems for an organization, especially if they are in leadership positions.”

What then is the “light triad”? Authors Kaufman and colleagues have developed a “light triad scale”:

The LTS is a first draft measure of a loving and beneficent orientation toward others (“everyday saints”) that consists of three facets: Kantianism (treating people as ends unto themselves), Humanism (valuing the dignity and worth of each individual), and Faith in Humanity (believing in the fundamental goodness of humans).

The three major categories noted above were mapped against other paradigms such as the Big 5 personality traits, and compared with the dark triad. On the religiosity tests they found that “religious and spiritual people are more likely to also be high scorers on the Light Triad scale.”

I found the following data to be interesting:

The Light Triad was positively correlated with Oneness Experiences and God Experiences, and these correlations remained significant even after controlling for the facets of Agreeableness and Honesty-Humility. The Dark Triad was also positively correlated with Oneness Experiences, and this correlation remained significant even after controlling for the facets of Agreeableness and Honesty-Humility. The Dark Triad was uncorrelated with God Experiences.

As an exercise, I decided to pair each positive trait with a biblical passage that represents the trait in question.

1. Kantianism (treating people as ends unto themselves)

”You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:39)

2. Humanism (valuing the dignity and worth of each individual)

So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:27-28)

Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. (Romans 12:15-18)

3. Faith in Humanity (believing in the fundamental goodness of humans).

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. (John 3:16)

But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. Romans 5:8

I would offer a point of objection that these labels smuggle in a worldview of humanism that isn’t perfectly aligned with Christianity. Christians can be and have been humanists, but certainly “fundamental goodness of humanity” would have to be phrased in a more nuanced way. We could as equally affirm the fundamental evil of humanity. Christianity teaches neither—We generally embrace the idea of an original goodness that has been tarnished or lost, but can be restored again. God has a love that is always seeking reconciliation, and is intended for all manner of people, transcending the puny boundaries of culture, gender, and race.

As Christians we are also to radiate this love. We are to love one another as God has loved us. “Walk in love as Christ loved us…” says the old Book of Common Prayer, echoing Ephesians 5:2. Nevertheless, we are called to love not blindly (by pretending that something is what it isn’t), but rather to love as God does, despite the flaws of that love’s object. And we are to realize the sacrificial nature of love. The rest of the phrase goes like this: “…and gave himself for us, an offering and sacrifice to God.” By the way, the very definition of Christian love, “agape” in the original Greek, means not merely to be self effacing, but primarily to be other-enhancing.

Furthermore, a word to parents. From a Christian perspective, the goal of parenting is not shepherding your children into the right colleges, teaching them to survive in business, or making sure they want for nothing. “Bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” says Paul (in Ephesians, 6:4). A good portion of that task is character development.

For further reading

Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_triad

Kessler, SR; Bandeiii, AC; Spector, PE; Borman, WC; Nelson, CE; and Penney, LM 2010. Reexamining Machiavelli: A three dimensional model of Machiavellianism in the workplace. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 40, 1868–1896

Schley, Lacey, April 5, 2019, “The Light Triad: Psychologists Outline the Personality Traits of Everyday Saints”, Discover Magazine.
Online at http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2019/04/05/light-triad-traits/#.XMM8ShYpCEf

Kaufman, SB, et al, “The Light vs. Dark Triad of Personality: Contrasting Two Very Different Profiles of Human Nature”,
Front. Psychol., 12 March 2019. Online at https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00467/full

Bible references are from the New Revised Standard Version.

23Apr

A Bloody Easter in Sri Lanka

On Easter Sunday 2019, decades of relative calm in Sri Lanka were ruptured by a brutal and well coordinated terror attack against Christians. More than 290 people were killed, and 500 injured, as explosions by suicide bombers ripped through three churches and three hotels An obscure Islamic group is being blamed, though no group has yet claimed responsibility.

Details can be found at many news outlets, including New York Times: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/04/22/world/asia/sri-lanka-attacks-bombings-explosions-updates.amp.html

23Apr

Notre Dame Community Honors Fire Fighters

At a ceremony moved to nearby St. Eustache church, the archbishop of Paris honored those who labored to save the iconic Notre Dame Cathedral from the blaze that almost destroyed it. He handed them a rescued bible in “humble thanks”:

Aupetit told the congregation, “We, too, brothers and sisters, we will rise again, just like our cathedral will rise again.”

19Apr

Mysterious Goings-on at the Temple?

On a bleak day in the year 33 of the Common Era, Jesus of Nazareth, a righteous man who had run afoul of both Jewish authorities and the Roman government, had been hastily sentenced to death, and had just trudged his way to Golgotha, the “Place of the Skull.” This man, Jesus, was then nailed to crossed beams of wood and forced to hang there until dead. As if this weren’t awful enough, accounts of the event suggest that while he hung on the cross, eerie events occurred: Blackness filled the sky, and other supernatural portents punctuated the event of his death. Matthew relates:

And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.
And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many. When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, “Truly this was the Son of God!”
(Matthew 28: 50-54)

One of the most shocking of these aspects of the New Testament accounts of the death of Jesus is the spontaneous tearing of the massive “temple veil”. This is generally thought to have been the barrier that guarded the entrance to the “holy of holies”, the sacred space into which only the high priest could enter; However, this isn’t perfectly clear, and could also refer to an outer court veil that would be more visible. Naturally, secular historians don’t believe that this actually occurred, and even Christians, who accept it on faith, treat it as a minor footnote between the agonies of Jesus’ death and the glories of the Resurrection, which is a much more impressive miracle.

Intriguingly, extra-biblical sources do also attest to some weird goings on at the Jewish temple, in about the year 30. In an interesting article entitled, “Something Awry in the Temple?” Robert L. Plummer, a New Testament professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, reviews six of these sources, which include the Jerusalem Talmud, Babylonian Talmud, the Midrash Rabbah, and the writings of Josephus.

The Jerusalem Talmud presents four disturbing and inauspicious signs:
It has been taught: Forty years before the destruction of the Temple the western light went out, the crimson thread remained crimson, and the lot for the Lord always came up in the left hand. They would close the gates of the Temple by night and get up in the morning and find them wide open. Said [to the Temple] Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, “O Temple, why do you frighten us? We know that you will end up destroyed. For it has been said, ‘Open your doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour your cedars!’” (Zech 11:1).17

In a work known as “the lives of the prophets”, dating to the first quarter of the first century, an oracle attributed to “Habakkuk” states:
At that time,” he said, “the curtain of the Dabeir [that is, the temple curtain separating the Holy from the Holy of Holies] will be torn into pieces, and the capitals of the two pillars will be taken away, and no one will know where they are; and they will be carried away by angels into the wilderness, where the tent of witness was set up in the beginning. And by means of them the Lord will be recognized at the end, for they will illuminate those who are being pursued by the serpent in darkness as from the beginning.”

Josephus’ account mentions the spontaneous opening of the eastern door, as well as other portents, including a comet, the shining of a mysterious bright light from the altar, and a heifer that had been brought in for slaughter mysteriously giving birth before it could be slain. An earthquake in the Temple grounds was also reported, as relayed by Plummer:

For purposes of confirming the NT records, it is significant that Josephus speaks of an earthquake that was felt in the temple precincts. According to Josephus, this earthquake was accompanied by a loud sound—like the sound of many voices—which some present interpreted as saying, “Let us depart from here” (not a particularly auspicious statement). Josephus dates this particular event to an unnamed Pentecost preceding the destruction of the temple.

It should be noted that these stories differ significantly from each other, and from the Gospels. Furthermore, the dating of these stories cannot be correlated precisely to what we would call “Good Friday.” But they do testify to a belief on the part of Jewish people, that some mysterious portents occurred in and around the Temple, around the year 30.

Sources:
1. Holy Bible, English Standard Version.
2. Plummer, Robert L, “Something Awry In the Temple? The Rending of the Temple Veil and Early Jewish Sources That Report Unusual Phenomena In The Temple Around AD 30.” Journal of the Evangelical Theologicsl Society 48 (June 2005): 301–316. Online at:
https://www.etsjets.org/files/JETS-PDFs/48/48-2/48-2-pp301-316_JETS.pdf

12Apr

Reflections Around the End of Lent

Today is the Friday before Palm Sunday, and it is a day that as far as I know has no particular name on a church calendar. It is just another day in Lent, that season of fasting and penitence that in many traditions of Christianity precedes Easter. In exactly one week we will have one of those days which does have a famous name, “Good Friday”, which will commemorate the crucifixion of Jesus. The great pageants and commemorations coming in the next week will be a liturgical—and potentially emotional—roller coaster for Christians around the globe.

Palm Sunday looks back to “The Triumphal Entry” of Jesus into Jerusalem, just before his death, when adoring crowds waved palm branches and shouted “Hosanna!” as Jesus entered the city. In many churches these ceremonies take on almost a cheerful and festive tone, a kind of foretaste of Easter. The rest of Holy Week reverts back to the solemnity of Lent, with Good Friday being a focal point—we look back through the corridor of time to Jesus lifting his bloodied head one last time as he hangs from those dreadful crossed planks; He cries out in a loud voice as he slumps into death, and the land is covered in an eerie blackness. By Easter Sunday, the tomb of Jesus is empty and churches explode into full-on celebration. Even fairly dormant mainline Protestant churches will, for one glorious day, be overflowing with people. Some of their left-leaning pastors will even deign to choke out an orthodox sermon for the occasion.

A part of me is glad for the coming of Easter. Austerity, discipline, and penitence are not always fun. I am sitting here at what could be “happy hour”, sipping tea in place of my usual Manhattan or Gin and Tonic, because one of my own Lenten observances is to give up alcohol; in just over a week I’ll permit myself to enjoy those libations again.

Lent is, of course, a voluntary observance. It’s not something you’ll find in the Bible. You can have Christianity without it, and many people do. Still, I appreciate Lent. It may not be “fun”, but it is spiritually enriching. I embrace it willingly, and even look forward to it. I feel that I get an enhanced sense of clarity and perspective, even joy, from the increased attention to my spiritual well-being. Even though the Christian life is a 24 hr/day, 365 day-per-year endeavor, I yet find it useful to have seasons that focus our energies in particular ways.

By not drinking that Manhattan, my mind is almost forced to obey the command of Colossians 3:2: “Set your affections on things above.” It must be something akin what a runner feels when training—All that exercise and giving up sweets has had its benefits.

So, I will raise my glass of ice tea to you as a toast. There’s still some time to fast and pray, if you feel so moved, before the dawn of Easter.

Brother James’ Airs

Author: BrJames