Grantian Florilegium

40 Days of Prayer for Congress

2012-01-23T15:22:00.000-06:00

Lots of us complain about the current political and moral mess in Washington. But how many of us are actually trying to do something about it?

According to the Apostle Paul, there is something we can all do--something that is more effectual than all our complaining, all our lobbying, or even all our politicking:

"I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone--for kings and those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness." (1 Timothy 2:1)

Paul says first and foremost, we should be praying. So, why don't we?

For forty days beginning on January 30 we have the opportunity to do just that--in a coordinated fashion thanks to a daily plan put together by the good folks at the American Policy Roundtable (APRoundtable.org). We will simply pray through the list of names each day. And at the end of 40 days we will have lifted every seat, every Representative, every Senator before the throne in prayer.

What a plan! So much better than just complaining!

God's Design

2012-01-10T00:30:00.000-06:00

“The first thing to notice in the story of the building ofthe ark is that its plan was not dreamed up by Noah. He was not a boat engineer. Rather, the plan of the ark came from God Himself. It was a specific, propositionalrevelation that dealt with detail. At another great moment, when the Tabernacle was to be built, God alsogave specific plans and dimensions of all that concerned it. These were no ordinary enterprises.” Francis Schaeffer

Isaiah 54:9-10

2012-01-09T21:56:00.001-06:00

“This is like the days of Noah to me,” says the Lord. “As I swore that the waters of Noahshould no more cover the earth, so I have sworn that I will not forever beangry with you, and I will not rebuke you. For the mountains may depart and thehills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and mycovenant of peace shall not be removed.” Thus says the Lord God, who has compassion on you.

Schaeffer 100 Conference

2012-01-06T18:28:00.002-06:00

Epiphany Hymn

2012-01-05T22:45:00.002-06:00

Incarnational hope hastens hence

on bud, breeze, and blossom

grieving rynds banished in lilacscents.

Hark, the Epiphany Hymn ringshaste

from its loveliest biding-place.

A lavish breach of winter's curthard sword

an ardent repudiation of death'sdark pall

the out-viening sun of theChristus Lord.

Hark, the Epiphany hymn ringshaste

From its loveliest biding-place

At the refectory of yourloving-care

the transfiguration clarion soundsa call

that didactae could ne're conveynor spare.

Hark, the Epiphany hymn ringshaste

From its loveliest biding-place

Thus, Gospel comes ensconced inWord and Deed

and the evidence is yourshimmering touch:

Christus Victor, shown in a life'ssown seed.

Hark, the Epiphany hymn ringshaste

From its loveliest biding-place. –George Grant

The Confessing Church

2012-01-04T06:33:00.002-06:00

When the brash socialist agitator, Adolf Hitler first cameto power as the Chancellor of Germany in 1933, he was welcomed by most churchmembers and leaders from around the nation. One prominent pastor and theologian leader even said that1933 and Hitler's rise was a gift of mercy from God's hand. To be sure, Hitler used the rhetoric ofa Christian restoration of law and order, morality, and traditional values.

Since the defeat of the nation in the First World War andthe humiliation of the Versailles Treaty, the German Weimar republic hadallowed an extreme modernist culture to flourish, and many Christian leadersbelieved Hitler would bring a spiritual renewal to the German people. They hoped that at last a Germannational church might be established, and in May, 1933, a constitution for aunified national church was produced by the new Nazi administration. But then, in July, two restrictionswere placed by the government on the clergy: that they be politicallysubservient to the Nazis and that they accept the superiority of the Aryanrace.

A small group of church leaders in Germany began to resistsuch ideas and oppose the restrictions. They believed the church should have full freedom to serve God apartfrom political influence, and they began to organize formal opposition to thenew national church. Prominenttheologians like Karl Barth, Martin Niemoeller, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer wereamong the leaders of this new opposition.

On this day in 1934, they met in Barmen and accepted Barth'sDeclaration on the Correct Understandingof the Reformation Confessions in the German Evangelical Church. By April the opposition hadofficially formed the Confessing Church as the underground Protestant church ofGermany. At the first Synod of theConfessing Church, held openly at Barmen several months later, another Declaration was written which ultimatelybecame the confession of the church. The Declaration stressed thatunity, "can come only from the word of God in faith through the HolySpirit." It added that inorder to serve God properly, the church must be totally free from politicalinfluence. It resisted the Nazicontention that God was giving a new revelation through the history of theGerman nation. The ConfessingChurch maintained there was no revelation in addition to that of Jesus Christand the Word of God.

Alas, each of the men wholead this confessing opposition to the Nazi’s paid dearly for theircommitment; most died in prisons or suffered long and bitter confinementsalongside the Jews and Gypsies in the concentration camps. Nevertheless, they kept alive theindependent proclamation of the Gospel during the difficult days of the Naziterror.

Ideological Busybodies

2012-01-03T00:30:00.000-06:00

“Of all thetyrannies, a tyranny sincerely expressed for the good of its victims may be themost oppressive. It may be betterto live under robber barons than under omnipotent ideological busybodies.” C.S. Lewis (1898-1963)

True Grit

2012-01-02T08:58:00.001-06:00

“Courage is nothaving the strength to go on; it is going on when you don’t have thestrength. Industry anddetermination can do anything that genius and advantage can do and many thingsthat they cannot.” TheodoreRoosevelt (1858-1919)

New Year Celebrations

2011-12-29T20:26:00.002-06:00

Thecelebration of the New Year did not occur on the first day of January until after theintroduction of the Gregorian calendar in 1582—and even then only in France, thenorthern Italian city states, Portugal, and in the Spanish nations of Castileand Aragon. The new calendar wasnot accepted until 1600 in Scotland and 1752 in England and America.

From the earliest days of the Romanimperial calendar the New Year was celebrated on March 25—which is whySeptember, October, November, and December are derived from the Latin words septem (seven), octo (eight), novem (nine), and decem (ten).

ThroughoutChristendom, January 1 was instead celebrated as a day of renewal midway through the Yuletide season—it was thus a day for vows,vision, and vocation. It was onthis day that guild members took their annual pledge, that husbands and wivesrenewed their marriage promises, and that young believers reasserted theirresolution to walk in the grace of the Lord’s great Epiphany.

In Edinburgh beginning in theseventeenth century, revelers would gather at the Tron Church to watch thegreat clock tower mark the last hours of Christmastide—which was the inspirationbehind the much more recent Times Square ceremony in New York. In Edinburgh, of course, the purpose was notmerely to have a grand excuse for a public party, but was a way for the whole covenant community to celebrate thegrace of Epiphany newness.

Thinking About Sanctity of Life Sunday

2011-12-28T14:58:00.001-06:00

“The Modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; but their truth is pitiless. And thus some humanitarians care only for pity; but their pity--I am sorry to say--is often untruthful.” G. K. Chesterton

“Our livesbegin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter most.” Martin Luther King, Jr.

“OurLord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-heartedcreatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition, when infinite joy isoffered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in theslum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at thesea. We are far too easily pleased.” C.S. Lewis

“Do unto others as if you were the others.” Leonardo da Vinci

Childermas

2011-12-28T00:30:00.000-06:00

Often called Childermas,this day on the Christian calendar has traditionally been celebrated as theFeast of the Holy Innocents. It is a day that solemnizes the slaughter ofthe children of Judea by Herod the Great following the birth of Christ.

It has always been thefocus of the Christian’s commitment to protect and preserve the sanctity ofhuman life—thus serving as a prophetic warning against the practitioners ofabandonment and infanticide in the age of antiquity, oblacy and pessiary in themedieval epoch, and abortion and euthanasia in these modern times. Generally set aside as a day of prayer,it culminates with a declaration of the covenant community’s unflinchingcommitment to the innocents who are unable to protect themselves.

Virtually every culture inantiquity was stained with the blood of innocent children. Unwantedinfants in ancient Rome were abandoned outside the city walls to die fromexposure to the elements or from the attacks of wild foraging beasts. Greeks often gave their pregnant women harsh doses of herbal or medicinalabortifacients. Persians developed highly sophisticated surgical curetteprocedures. Chinese women tied heavy ropes around their waists soexcruciatingly tight that they either aborted or passed into unconsciousness. Ancient Hindus and Arabs concocted chemical pessaries--abortifacients that werepushed or pumped directly into the womb through the birth canal. Primitive Canaanites threw their children onto great flaming pyres as asacrifice to their god Molech. Polynesians subjected their pregnant womento onerous torture--their abdomens beaten with large stones or hot coals heapedupon their bodies. Egyptians disposed of their unwanted children bydisemboweling and dismembering them shortly after birth--their collagen wasthen harvested for the manufacture of cosmetic creams.

Abortion, infanticide,exposure, and abandonment were so much a part of human societies that theyprovided the primary literary liet motif in popular traditions, stories,myths, fables, and legends. The founding of Rome was, for instance,presumed to be the happy result of the abandonment of children. Accordingto the story, a vestal virgin who had been raped bore twin sons, Romulus andRemus. The harsh Etruscan Amulius ordered them exposed on the TiberRiver. Left in a basket which floated ashore, they were found by a shewolf and suckled by her. Romulus and Remus would later establish the cityof Rome on the seven hills near the place of their rescue. Likewise, the storiesof Oedipus, Jupiter, Poseidon, and Hephaistos, were are victims of failedinfanticides.

Because they had beenmired by the minions of sin and death, it was as instinctive as the autumnharvest for them to summarily sabotage their own heritage. They sawnothing particularly cruel about despoiling the fruit of their wombs. Itwas woven into the very fabric of their culture. They believed that itwas completely justifiable. They believed that it was just and good andright.

The Gospel therefore came into the world as a stern rebuke. God, who isthe giver of life (Acts 17:25), the fountain of life (Psalm 36:9), and thedefender of life (Psalm 27:1), not only sent us the message of life (Acts 5:20)and the words of life (John 6:68), He sent us the light of life as well (John8:12). He sent us His only begotten Son—the life of the world (John6:51)--to break the bonds of sin and death (1 Corinthians 15:54-56). ForGod so loved the world, that He sent His only begotten Son, that whosoeverbelieveth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life (John 3:16).

The Spirit of the Age and Christmas

2011-12-25T08:31:00.004-06:00

This day,
In sadness borne,
We must confess:
The Spirit of the Age
Has crushed
The infant in the cradle.

And yet:
O glorious yet,
One day, in gladness shown,
We must profess:
The infant from the manger
Has crushed
The Spirit of the Age.
--Tristan Gylberd

The Conversion of the World

2011-12-23T12:26:00.001-06:00

Christians have celebrated the incarnation and nativity of the LordJesus on December 25 since at least the early part of the third century—just afew generations removed the days of the Apostles. By 336, when the Philocalian Calendar—one of the earliestdocuments of the Patriarchal church—was first utilized, Christmas Day wasalready a venerable and tenured tradition. Though there is no historical evidence that Christ wasactually born on that day—indeed, whatever evidence there is points to altogetherdifferent occasions—the conversion of the old Pagan tribes of Europe left agaping void where the ancient winter cult festivals were once held. It was both culturally convenient andevangelically expedient to exchange the one for the other. And so joy replaced desperation. Celebration replaced propitiation. Christmas Feasts replaced new Moonsacrifices. Christ replaced Baal,Molech, Apollo, and Thor. The Gospel conversion brought transformation to cultures and kingdoms as well as hearts and souls. His blessings flow as far as the curse is found. Gladtidings of great joy, indeed.

Gloria in Excelsis Deo

2011-12-23T08:29:00.003-06:00

I love Advent. I love Christmas. I loveEpiphany. I love all the holidayholy days. And I love everythingthat goes with them. I lovemistletoe, plum pudding, Stir-Up-Sunday, holly and ivy, Advent wreaths,nativity scenes, caroling, sleigh rides, Christmas trees, jingle bells, pecanpie, Martinmas, Little Pascha, wassailing, Twelfth Night, reindeer sweaters,fruit cake, twinkling lights, egg nog, gift giving, card exchanging, red plaidvests, Lessons in Carols, mantle decorations, Boxing Day, and Saint Nick. I love all the beautiful sights, thewonderful sounds, the cherished recollections, the delectable tastes, thepungent aromas, the brisk winds, the early nightfalls, the sentimental oldmovies, the Chesterton poems, the big family reunions, the snug evensongs, andthe chestnuts roasting on open fires. I love the salutations of “Merry Christmas,” “Happy Holidays,” “FelizNavidad,” “Noel,” “Joy to the World,” and even the occasional, odd “Season’sGreetings.”

I love it all—well, almost all. I confess I’m not a shopper and I just about never go to malls, so Ihave a hard time reconciling the more commercial aspects of the season with mylove of Yuletide. So, no Black Friday, Blue Light special, Groupon, or Sweet Jack sales for me. But, I lovepretty much all the rest of it.

The fact that I love Christmas hardly makes me unique, ofcourse. Christmas is nearlyeveryone’s favorite time of year because it is adorned with so many specialcelebrations, happy memories, delightful stories, wonderful songs, and richrecipes. It is a season ofselfless giving, expressive love, and poetic joy. It is a time for family togetherness, for snuggling up tothe hearthside, for recalling legends and fables, and for celebrating thethings that matter most.

Of course, while many of the richest and most satisfyingaspects of the season have passed into common practice, their meaning andsignificance have often been shrouded in forgetfulness, neglect, ignorance,superstition, or misunderstanding. Alas, this has meant that their greatest pungency, power, and purposehas been lost to us. But, this toohas led to something I love: explaining all the whys and wherefores of our mostcherished holiday traditions, observances, and rituals to others. I love the surprise, delight, andinsight that always comes with teaching and learning—especially atChristmastime. I love the fact that at Christmas, the wonder and the promise of the Gospel is so easy to talk about, so easy to express, so delightful to exclaim.

So, from all of us here in beautiful Franklin, “Gloria in excelsis deo, et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntaries. Ubi caritas gaudet, ibi est festivities." Blessed Yuletide!

Chesterton and Christmas

2011-12-22T08:22:00.000-06:00

Gilbert Keith Chesterton was surely among the brightestminds of the twentieth century—a prolific journalist, best-selling novelist,insightful poet, popular debater, astute literary critic, grassroots reformer,and profound humorist. Recognizedby friend and foe alike as one of the most perspicacious, epigrammatic, andjocose prose stylists in the entire literary canon, he is today the most quotedwriter in the English language besides William Shakespeare.

His remarkable output of books—more than a hundred publishedin his lifetime and half again that many afterward—covered an astonishing arrayof subjects from economics, art, history, biography, and social criticism topoetry, detective stories, philosophy, travel, and religion. His most amazing feat was not merelyhis vast output or wide range but the consistency and clarity of his thought,his uncanny ability to tie everything together. In the heart of nearly every paragraph he wrote was ajaw-dropping aphorism or a mind-boggling paradox that left readers shakingtheir heads in bemusement and wonder.

But Chesterton was not only a prodigious creator of characters;he was also a prodigious character in his own right. At over six feet and three hundred pounds his romanticallyrumpled appearance—often enhanced with the flourish of a cape and aswordstick—made him appear as nearly enigmatic, anachronistic, and convivial ashe actually was. Perhaps that wasa part of the reason why he was one of the most beloved men of his time—evenhis ideological opponents regarded him with great affection. His humility, his wonder at existence,his graciousness and his sheer sense of joy set him apart not only from most ofthe artists and celebrities during the first half of the twentieth century, butfrom most anyone and everyone.

He was amazingly prescient—predicting such things as themindless faddism of pop culture, the rampant materialism permeating society,the moral relativism subsuming age-old ethical standards, disdain of religion,the unfettered censorship by the press (as opposed to censorship of the press),the grotesque uglification of the arts, and the rise of the twin evils ofmonolithic business and messianic government. It seems that his words ring truer today than when they werefirst written nearly a century ago.

But perhaps the most remarkable thing about Chesterton wasnot his prodigious literary output, his enormous popularity, or his culturalsagacity. Instead, it was hisenormous capacity to love—to love people, to love the world around him, and tolove life. His all-encompassinglove was especially evident at Christmastime.

Maisie Ward, Chesterton’s authoritative biographer andfriend asserted, “Some men, it may be, are best moved to reform by hate, butChesterton was best moved by love and nowhere does that love shine more clearlythan in all he wrote about Christmas.” Indeed, he wrote a great deal about Christmas throughout his life—and asa result his love shines abroad even now, nearly three-quarters of a centuryafter his death.

He wrote scintillating Christmas essays, poignant Christmasverse, and adventurous Christmas stories. He wrote Christmas reviews, editorials, satires, and expositions. He wrote of Christmas recipes andChristmas presents and Christmas sermons. They all bespeak the stalwart faith, the abiding hope, and theinfectious joy he drew from the celebration of Christ’s incarnation.

St. Thomas’ Day

2011-12-21T20:10:00.000-06:00

Thoughhe was doubter at first, the Apostle Thomas (c. 10-60) came to believe thatChrist was not only risen from the dead, but proclaimed Him “my Lord and myGod.”

His anticipation of the fullrevelation of the Kingdom has been celebrated on December 21 since at least the fifth century. Traditionally this has been a day forwell-wishing—friends, neighbors, and loved ones going out of their way toremember other and to bless one another. Though Christmas cards were a Victorian innovation, they were originally conceivedas a kind of St. Thomas’ Day gesture of kindness, encouragement, andgraciousness.

Comfort, Comfort

2011-12-18T17:51:00.003-06:00

Comfort, comfort ye my people,
speak ye peace, thus saith our God;
comfort those who sit in darkness,
mourning 'neath their sorrow's load;
speak ye to Jerusalem
of the peace that waits for them;
tell her that her sins I cover,
and her warfare now is over.

For the herald's voice is crying
in the desert far and near,
bidding all men to repentance,
since the kingdom now is here.
O that warning cry obey!
Now prepare for God a way!
Let the valleys rise to meet him,
and the hills bow down to greet him.

Make ye straight what long was crooked,
make the rougher places plain:
let your hearts be true and humble,
as befits his holy reign,
For the glory of the Lord
now o'er the earth is shed abroad,
and all flesh shall see the token
that his word is never broken.

Johann G. Olearius, 1671; trans. Catherine Winkworth, 1863

Schaeffer and Worldview

2011-12-18T09:06:00.000-06:00

On this day in 1979, Francis Schaeffer gave an historicspeech which would form the basis of his landmark book A ChristianManifesto. He asserted that"the basic problem with Christians in this country" over the last twogenerations or more has been that "they have seen things in bits andpieces instead of totals.” Theresult has been a kind of hesitant hit-or-miss approach to the dire dilemmas ofour day: “They have very gradually become disturbed over permissiveness,pornography, the public schools, the breakdown of the family, and finallyabortion. But they have not seenthis as a totality--each thing being a part, a symptom, of a much largerproblem.”

He said that part of the reason for this was: “They failedto see that all of this has come about due to a shift in worldview--that is,through a fundamental change in the overall way people think a view the worldand life as a whole.”

When the subject of worldview comes up, we generally think of philosophy. We think of intellectual niggling. We think of the brief and blindingoblivion of ivory tower speculation, of thickly obscure tomes, and ofinscrutable logical complexities.

In fact, a worldview is as practical as potatoes. It is less metaphysical than understandingmarginal market buying at the stock exchange or legislative initiatives incongress. It is less esoteric thantyping a book into a laptop computer or sending a fax across the continent. It is instead as down to earth astilling the soil for a bed of zinnias.

The word itself is a poor English attempt at translating theGerman weltanshauung. It literally means a life perspectiveor a way of seeing. It is simplythe way we look at the world.

You have a worldview. I have a worldview. Everyone does. It is ourperspective. It is our frame ofreference. It is the means bywhich we interpret the situations and circumstances around us. It is what enables us to integrate allthe different aspects of our faith, and life, and experience.

Alvin Toffler, in his book Future Shock said: “Every person carries in his head a mental modelof the world, a subjective representation of external reality.”

This mental model is, he says, like a giant filingcabinet. It contains a slot forevery item of information coming to us. It organizes our knowledge and gives us a grid from which to think. Our mind is not as Pelagius, Locke,Voltaire, or Rousseau would have had us suppose—a tabla rasa, a blank and impartial slate. None of us are completely open-minded or genuinelyobjective. “When we think,” saideconomic philosopher E.F. Schumacher, “we can only do so because our mind isalready filled with all sorts of ideas with which to think.” These more or less fixed notions makeup our mental model of the world, our frame of reference, ourpresuppositions--in other words, our worldview.

Thus, a worldview is simply a way of viewing the world. Nothing could be simpler. But by raising the issue when he didand how he did, Francis Schaeffer altogether altered the terms of thetheological debate in America and ushered in a new wave of reform.

The Twelve Days of Christmas

2011-12-14T16:52:00.001-06:00

Every day, fromDecember 25 to January 6, has traditionally been a part of the Yuletidecelebration. Dedicated to mercy and compassion--in light of the incarnation ofHeaven’s own mercy and compassion--each of those twelve days between Christmasand Epiphany was to be noted by selfless giving and tender charity. In manycultures, gift giving is not concentrated on a single day, but rather, as inthe famous folk song, spread out through the entire season.

In that delightfulold folk song, The Twelve Days ofChristmas, each of the gifts represent some aspect of the blessing ofChrist’s appearing. They portray the abundant life, the riches of the Christianinheritance, and the ultimate promise of heaven. They also depict the essentialcovenantal nature of life lived in Christian community and accountability--butperhaps not as specifically as you may have been led to believe. Thoughtheories vary on the origin of the song (it first appears sometime during theadvent of Protestantism in Tudor England) it is likely an urban legend that itwas intended to be a secret catechism song during those difficult times ofpersecution.

That rather fancifulinterpretation of the song has attached very specific and very dubious meaningsto the symbols: the partridge in a pear tree, for instance, is taken to beChrist, Himself. It is supposed that in the song, He is symbolically presentedas a mother partridge feigning injury to decoy predators from her helplessnestlings--an expression of Christ's sadness over the fate of Jerusalem:"Jerusalem! Jerusalem! How often would I have sheltered thee under mywings, as a hen does her chicks, but thou wouldst not have it so." The twoturtledoves are taken to represent the Old and New Testaments. The three FrenchHens supposedly symbolize faith, hope, and love. The four calling birds aresaid to portray either the four Gospels or the four evangelists. The fivegolden rings are supposed to be the first five books of the Old Testament the"Pentateuch." The six geese a-laying are said to be the six days ofcreation while the seven swans a-swimming are taken to be the seven gifts ofthe Holy Spirit. The eight maids a-milking are supposed to be the eightbeatitudes while the nine ladies dancing supposedly represent the nine Fruitsof the Holy Spirit. The ten lords a-leaping are naturally taken to mean the TenCommandments. The eleven pipers piping are supposed to be the eleven faithfulapostles and the twelve drummers drumming are either the tribes of Israel, theelders of Revelation, or the points of doctrine in the Apostle's Creed.

Most of thesewell-intended interpretations are likely just wishful thinking. For one thing,all of the first seven gifts actually refer to birds of varying types. Thefourth day's gift, for instance, is four "colly birds," not four"calling birds" (the word "colly" literally means"black as coal," and thus "colly birds" would beblackbirds). The "five golden rings" on the fifth day refers not tofive pieces of jewelry, but to five ring-necked birds (such as pheasants).

But, even thoughsymbolic maximalism likely goes too far, it is equally excessive to assume thatthe song is "strictly secular," as one debunking web site dubbed it.Indeed, secularism in sixteenth century England was about as credible then asan Elvis sighting is today. The answer to overly-anxious allegorical apocryphalismis not the equal and opposite error of overly-anxious rational reductionism.Symbols don't have to mean everything in order to mean something--nor do theyhave to mean nothing.

Very likely, thisdelightful folk song was just intended to generally and joyously portraythroughout the Yuletide season the abundant Christian life, the riches of theChurch's covenantal inheritance, and the Gospel's ultimate promise of heaven.Sing, therefore, with new gusto and zeal. For, "every good and perfectgift comes from above." Even partridges, pear trees, and leaping lords!

"The Whip of Advent" by Tristan Gylberd

2011-12-09T13:00:00.001-06:00

The pitch of thestall was glorious

Though the straw wasdusty and old

Though it blew bitterand cold

The wind sang with orchestral beauty

The night wasmysteriously gleaming

Though the earth wasfallen, forlorn

For under the eavesof splendor

A child-The Child-wasborn

Oxen Sheep and doves

Crowded roundNativity's scene

Though the worldstill failed to grasp

T’was here that peacehad been

Cast out into a cave

When no room wasfound for Him

His coming was ascourge

That cleansed arobber's den

While the Temple'sbecome a cattle stall

Where beasts and suchare sold

The Child's turnedManger into Temple

And changed the baseto gold

Tis the paradox ofthe ages:

Worldly wisdom willne're relent

To notice signs ofvisitation

Nor the cords of thewhip of Advent

Pearl's Infamy

2011-12-07T08:40:00.001-06:00

Onthis day in 1941, "a day that will live in infamy," a surprise attack by Japanese forces at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, thrust the United States into the conflagration of the SecondWorld War.

At anchor in the harborwas nearly the entire United States Pacific fleet. In the attack that lasted for just over one hour, severalships were sunk, two hundred airplanes were destroyed on the ground, and almost3,000 people lost their lives.

Seventy years later, Americans still remember--with solemn resolve, gratitude, and hope.

St. Andrew's Day

2011-11-30T00:30:00.000-06:00

Numbered among the Apostles, the brother of Simon Petereventually became the revered patron of both Greece and Scotland where hisfeast day, November 30, remains a kind of national holiday.

Andrew (c. 10-60) may well have been,as tradition asserts, the founder of the church at the site of Constantinople,but he was most assuredly the great reconciler, as Scripture asserts. As a result, his memory is celebratedby a day of forgiveness. Servicesof reconciliation are often followed by a great feast of roasted or smokedbeef, the telling of heroic tales, the reciting epic poetry, and the singing ofgreat ballads. King David ofScotland, son of Malcolm Canmore and Queen. Margaret, codified the day anational holiday in 1125—and so it has been ever since.

2011-11-28T15:20:00.001-06:00

"If you cannot readall your books, at any rate handle, or as it were, fondle them—peer into them,let them fall open where they will, read from the first sentence that arreststhe eye, set them back on the shelves with your own hands, arrange them on yourown plan so that you at least know where they are. Let them be your friends; let them be your acquaintances." Winston S. Churchill

The First Proclamation

2011-11-23T07:33:00.001-06:00

The Mayflower was not the first ship ofcolonists to arrive in the New World. It was not even the first in the English domains. Yet it retains a place of first importancein the lore and legend of this land.

In this romantic verse by Margaret Preston, we catch a glimpse of the faith, resolve, andbold sense of providence that the passengers of that little ship brought withthem from across the Atlantic—and that they then endowed upon all those whowould follow them:

"Ho, Rose! "quoth the stoutMiles Standish,

Ashe stood on the Mayflower's deck,

And gazed on the sandy coast-line

Thatloomed as a misty speck.

On the edge of the distant offing;

See! yonder we have in view

Bartholomew Gosnold's headlands.'

'Twasin sixteen hundred and two

"That the Concord of Dartmouthanchored

Justthere where the beach is broad,

And the merry old captain named it

(Halfswamped by the fish)—Cape Cod.

"And so as his mighty 'headlands'

arescarcely a league away,

What say you to landing, sweetheart,

Andhaving a washing-day?"

"Dear heart"—and the sweet RoseStandish

Lookedup with a tear in her eye;

She was back in the flag-stoned kitchen

Whereshe watched, in the days gone by:

Her mother among her maidens

(Sheshould watch them no more, alas!),

And saw as they stretched the linen

Tobleach on the Suffolk grass.

In a moment her brow was cloudless,

Asshe leaned on the vessel's rail,

And thought of the sea-stained garments,

Ofcoif and farthingale;

And the doublets of fine Welsh flannel,

Thetuckers and homespun gowns,

And the piles of the hose knitted

Fromthe wool of the Devon downs.

So the matrons aboard the Mayflower

Madeready with eager hand

To drop from the deck their baskets

Assoon as the prow touched land.

And there did the Pilgrim Mothers,

"Ona Monday," the record says,

Ordain for their new-found England

Thefirst of her washing-days.

And there did the Pilgrim Fathers,

Withmatchlock and axe well slung,

Keep guard o'er the smoking kettles

Thatpropt on the crotches hung.

For the trail of the startle savage

Wasover the marshy grass,

And the glint of his eyes kept peering

Throughcedar and sassafras.

And the children were mad with pleasure

Asthey gathered the twigs in sheaves,

And piled on the fire the fagots,

Andheaped up the autumn leaves.

"Do the thing that is next,"saith the proverb,

Anda nobler shall yet succeed:

'Tis the motive exalts the action;

'Tisthe doing, and not the deed;

For the earliest act of the heroes

Whosefame has a world-wide sway

Was--to fashion a crane for a kettle,

Andorder a washing-day!

A Literary Life

2011-11-22T13:19:00.001-06:00

Long before the bane of cable television and the internet invaded our every waking moment C.S. Lewis commented that while most people inmodern industrial cultures are at least marginally able to read, they just don't. In his wise and wonderful book An Experiment in Criticism he said, “Themajority, though they are sometimes frequent readers, do not set much store byreading. They turn to it as a lastresource. They abandon it withalacrity as soon as any alternative pastime turns up. It is kept for railway journeys, illnesses, odd moments ofenforced solitude, or for the process called reading oneself to sleep. Theysometimes combine it with desultory conversation; often, with listening to theradio. But literary people arealways looking for leisure and silence in which to read and do so with theirwhole attention. When they aredenied such attentive and undisturbed reading even for a few days they feelimpoverished.”

Lewiswent further admitting that there is a profound puzzlement on the part of themass of the citizenry over the tastes and habits of the literate. “It is pretty clear that the majority,”he wrote, “if they spoke without passion and were fully articulate, would notaccuse us of liking the wrong books, but of making such a fuss about any booksat all. We treat as a mainingredient in our well-being something which to them is marginal. Hence to say simply that they like onething and we another is to leave out nearly the whole of the facts.”

C.S.Lewis was the happy heir of a great tradition of books and the literarylife. His brilliant writing—in hisnovels like The Lion, the Witch, and theWardrobe, The Screwtape Letters, and Perelandra,as well as in his nonfiction like TheFour Loves, Surprised by Joy, The Abolition of Man, and A Grief Observed—evidence voraciousreading. He was born in 1898 anddied on this day in 1963, just seven days shy of his sixty-fifth birthday. In the years in-between he became renownedas a popular best-selling author, a brilliant English literary scholar andstylist, and one of the foremost apologists for the Christian faith. Recalling his formative childhoodyears, he wrote, “I am the product of long corridors, empty sunlit rooms,upstairs indoor silences, attics explored in solitude, distant noises ofgurgling cisterns and pipes, and the noise of wind under the tiles. Also, of endless books.”

Throughouthis life, Lewis celebrated everything that is good and right and true about theliterary life. The result was thathe was larger than life in virtually every respect. Though he knew that this was little more than a peculiarityin the eyes of most, he did not chafe against it. Instead, he fully embraced it. He explained, “Those of us who have been true readers allour life seldom fully realize the enormous extension of our being which we oweto authors. We realize it bestwhen we talk with an unliterary friend. He may be full of goodness and good sense but he inhabits a tinyworld. In it, we should besuffocated. The man who is contentedto be only himself, is in a prison. My own eyes are not enough for me. I will see through those of others.” This is because, he argued, “Literary experience heals thewound, without undermining the privilege, of individuality. Here, as in worship, in love, in moralaction, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than whenI do.”

The Battle of Lutzen

2011-11-19T08:03:00.001-06:00

In the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Lutzen—one ofthe most crucial engagements in the bloody Thirty Years War—it was announced tothe world that King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden had died. During the course of the battle on thisday in 1632, the king had been surrounded by enemy soldiers. Before taking hislife, they demanded his name. Gustavus replied, "I am the King of Sweden!And this day I seal with my blood the liberties and religion of the Germannation."

Throughout the horrific conflict, during which Gustavusdefended the cause of the Protestants against Emperor Ferdinand II, a staunchRoman Catholic, the people of Europe suffered terribly. Out of a German population of sixteenmillion people, only about four million survived. The town of Augsburg had apopulation of 80,000 people at the beginning of the conflict but only l8,000survived to the end. Indeed, before the awful war had concluded an estimated30,000 villages were destroyed. It was one of the saddest chapters in the longhistory of man—and the loss of Gustavus was a bitter loss for all the advocatesof freedom.

Martin Bucer

2011-11-11T13:47:00.001-06:00

Martin Bucer was born on this day, Martinmas, in 1491 in the Alsace-Lorraineborderland between France and Germany. He would eventually become one of the most influential men in the GreatReformation.

He served as a mediator between Luther, Zwingli, and Melancthon atthe Marburg Colloquy. He was a theological sounding board for Kopfel, Zell,and Cop at Heidelberg. He served as a mentor to Calvin, Beza, and Knox at Strasburgand Geneva. And he helped Cranmer compile the first Anglican Book of Common Prayerin Canterbury.

No other Reformer had such an impact on so many spheres, men, or nations.

According to historian Philip Schaff, “Martin Bucer is simultaneouslythe most neglected and the most influential of all the first generationReformers. His impact was felt invirtually every sphere and every arena of the age.”

The Prevailing Power of Prayer

2011-11-11T10:43:00.001-06:00

"Prayer does not fit us for thegreater work; prayer is the greater work." Oswald Chambers

“Prayer can never be in excess.” C.H. Spurgeon

"Prayer is not learned in a classroom but in thecloset." E.M. Bounds

"There is no power like that of prevailing prayer, of Abrahampleading for Sodom, Jacob wrestling in the stillness of the night, Mosesstanding in the breach, Hannah intoxicated with sorrow, David heartbroken withremorse and grief, Jesus in sweat of blood. Such prayer prevails. Itturns ordinary mortals into men of power. It brings power. Itbrings fire. It brings rain. It brings life. It bringsGod." Samuel Chadwick

"We give too much attention to method and machinery andresources, and too little to the source of power." J. Hudson Taylor

"It is in the field of prayer that life's critical battlesare lost or won.” J.H. Jowett

"Prayer is the first thing, the second thing, the third thingnecessary to a minister. Pray, then my dear brother; pray, pray, pray."Edward Payson

"Let this be your chief object inprayer, to realize the presence of your heavenly Father." Andrew Murray

"Praying men are the vice-regents of God; they do His workand carry out His plans." E.M. Bounds

"Prayer shouldbe the breath of our breathing, the thought of our thinking, the soul of ourfeeling, the life of our living, the sound of our hearing, and the growth ofour growing. Prayer is lengthwithout end, width without bounds, height without top, and depth withoutbottom; illimitable in its breadth, exhaustless in height, fathomless indepths, and infinite in extension. Oh, for determined men and women who will rise early and really burn forGod. Oh for a faith that willsweep into heaven with the early dawning of morning and have ships from ashoreless sea loaded in the soul's harbor ere the ordinary laborer has knockedthe dew from the scythe or the lackluster has turned from his pallet of strawto spread nature's treasures of fruit before the early buyers. Oh, for such.” Homer W. Hodge

"No learning can make up for the failure to pray. Noearnestness, no diligence, no study, no gifts will supply its lack." E.M.Bounds

"Men may spurn our appeals, reject our message, oppose ourarguments, despise our persons, but they are helpless against our prayers." J. Sidlow Baxter

"Satan does not care how many people read about prayer ifonly he can keep them from praying.” Paul Billheimer

"0h brother, pray; in spite of Satan, pray; spend hours inprayer; rather neglect friends than not pray; rather fast, and lose breakfast,dinner, tea, and supper--and sleep too--than not pray. And we must not talkabout prayer, we must pray in right earnest. The Lord is near. He comes softlywhile the virgins slumber." Andrew Bonar

"Don’t pray when you feel like it. Have an appointment withthe Lord and keep it. A man is powerful on his knees." Corrie ten Boom

"Talking to men for God is a great thing, but talking to Godfor men is greater still." E.M. Bounds

"Satan trembles when he sees the weakest Christian on hisknees." William Cowper

"You may as soon find a living man that does not breath, as aliving Christian that does not pray." Matthew Henry

"Prayer will make a man cease from sin, or sin will entice aman to cease from prayer." John Bunyan

"He who has learned to pray has learned the greatest secretof a holy and happy life." William Law

"Prayer is not overcoming God's reluctance, but laying holdof His willingness." Martin Luther

“The one concern of the devil is to keep Christians frompraying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work andprayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, mocks at our wisdom, but hetrembles when we pray.” Samuel Chadwick

“I would rather teachone man to pray than ten men to preach.” C.H. Spurgeon

“The man who mobilizes the Christian church to pray will makethe greatest contribution to world evangelization in history.” Andrew Murray

“To make intercessionfor men is the most powerful and practical way in which we can express our lovefor them." John Calvin

“Prayer is the root, the fountain, the mother of a thousandblessings." John Chrysostom

Prayer should not be regarded "as a duty which must beperformed, but rather as a privilege to be enjoyed, a rare delight that is alwaysrevealing some new beauty." E.M. Bounds

"Our praying must not be self-centered. It must arise notonly because we feel our own need as a burden we must lay upon God, but alsobecause we are so bound up in love for our fellow men that we feel their needas acutely as our own." John Calvin

"We have to pray with our eyes on God, not on thedifficulties." Oswald Chambers

"Prayer breaks all bars, dissolves all chains, opens allprisons, and widens all straits by which God's saints have been held." E.M. Bounds

"Four things let us ever keep in mind: God hears prayer, Godheeds prayer, God answers prayer, and God delivers by prayer." E.M.Bounds

"Prayer is the acid test of devotion." SamuelChadwick

"As is the business of tailors to make clothes and cobblersto make shoes, so it is the business of Christians to pray." Martin Luther

"True prayer is measured by weight, not by length. A singlegroan before God may have more fullness of prayer in it than a fine oration ofgreat length." C.H. Spurgeon

“What the church needs today is not more machinery or better, notnew organizations or more novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost canuse—men of prayer, men mighty in prayer" E.M. Bounds

"If you want that splendid power in prayer, you must remainin loving, living, lasting, conscious, practical, abiding union with the LordJesus Christ." C.H. Spurgeon

"The word of God isthe food by which prayer is nourished and made strong." E.M.Bounds

Martinmas

2011-11-11T08:19:00.001-06:00

Martin of Tours was a faithful pastor in Gaul who was martyred on this day in397. Also on this day in 655,Martin of Umbria was martyred during the great Monothelite controversy. Both men demonstrated perseverance inthe face of political persecution, personal humiliation, torture, starvation,and eventually, death, made them models of faith during the early medievalperiod.

According to legend, Martin of Tours once cut his own coatin half to share it with a beggar. Part of the cloak was saved and considered a holy relic in France, withmonarchs going so far as to carry it into battle. The cloak was kept in a small cask called the “chapelle,”from the French word “chape,” meaning“cape,” and its overseer was the “chapelain,” from which, of course, weget our words “chapel” and “chaplain.”

The spell of warmer weather often falling around this timeis called Saint Martin's Summer, especially in England. During his finalimprisonment, Martin of Umbria diligently kept the fasts of the Little Pascha,as Advent was then called, though he was already dying of hunger.

Traditionally, Christians have recalled the faithfulness ofboth saints on November 11 by enjoying the last great feast of theseason—in England a sumptuous dinner of beef is consumed while in Germany agrand banquet featuring roast goose is served. The new wine is uncasked. Good children receive gifts of fruit and nuts—while naughtychildren receive little more than sticks, stones, and ashes.

A Most Zealous and Efficient Evangelist

2011-11-10T00:30:00.000-06:00

According to tradition, on this day in the year 432, a youngBritish monk—formerly held captive as a slave by the very people he now soughtto serve—arrived in Ireland to begin his ministry.

Patrick was said to have been born at one of the littleChristian towns near present day Glasglow—either of Bonavern or Belhaven.Although his mother taught him the Christian faith, he preferred the passingpleasures of sin. One day while playing by the sea, Irish pirates capturedPatrick and sold him into slavery on a farm in Ireland. Alone in the fields,caring for sheep, Patrick began to remember the Word of God his mother hadtaught him. Regretting his past life of selfish pleasure-seeking, he turned toChrist as his Savior.

Writing of his conversion, Patrick later wrote, “I was sixteen years old and knew not thetrue God and was carried away captive; but in that strange land the Lord openedmy unbelieving eyes, and although late I called my sins to mind, and wasconverted with my whole heart to the Lord my God, who regarded my low estate,had pity on my youth and ignorance, and consoled me as a father consoles hischildren. Every day I used to look after sheep and I used to pray often duringthe day, the love of God and fear of him increased more and more in me and myfaith began to grow and my spirit stirred up, so that in one day I would prayas many as a hundred times and nearly as many at night. Even when I was stayingout in the woods or on the mountain, I used to rise before dawn for prayer, insnow and frost and rain, and I felt no ill effect and there was no slackness inme. As I now realize, it was because the Spirit was glowing in me.”

Eventually rescued through a remarkable turn of events,Patrick returned to his family in Britain. But his heart increasingly longed to return to his Irishcaptors and share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with them. He sought theological training on thecontinent and gained a warrant to evangelize his former captors in Ireland.

When he finally did return, Patrick preached to the pagantribes in the Irish language he had learned as a slave. Many accepted Christ,and soon heathen songs were replaced with hymns praising Jesus Christ as Lord.Patrick once wrote that God's grace had so blessed his efforts that thousandswere "born again to God" through his ministry. Killen, a prominenthistorian of Ireland wrote, "There can be no reasonable doubt that Patrickpreached the Gospel, that he was a most zealous and efficient evangelist, andthat he is entitled to be called the Apostle of Ireland."

Patrick ministered to the Irish more than 50 years until hedied in 493. Tradition asserts that he reached and baptized in excess of ahundred thousand people.

All Saint’s Day

2011-11-01T00:30:00.000-05:00

In the earliest years of the church,so many martyrs died for their faith, Christians set aside special days tohonor them. For example, in 607 Emperor Phocas presented the beautiful RomanPantheon to the church. Boniface IV, the Bishop of Rome, quickly removed the statues of Jupiterand the other pagan gods and consecrated the Pantheon to the memory of all the martyrs who hadsuffered during the Roman persecution in the first three hundred years afterChrist--that great cloud of witnesses to the Christian faith. Originally celebrated on May 1, afestival in commemoration of those faithful saints was eventually moved to November 1 byPope Gregory IV. Ever since this day has been set aside as a time of remembrance of all those who have suffered persecution for their faith. And, given the fact that more Christians have been martyred in the last century than in all the other centuries combined, this is a particularly relevant remembrance.

Hallowmas or Halloween

2011-10-31T10:13:00.005-05:00

Christians have celebrated All-Hallows-Eveor Hallowmas since about the 8th century as a night of prayerfulpreparation before All Saints Day. But, the pagan associations of Halloween with the day are actually mucholder—and perhaps more deeply entrenched.

Many of the ancient peoples of Europe marked the end of theharvest season and the beginning of winter by celebrating a holiday in lateautumn. The most important of these holidays to influence later customs was Samhain,observed by the ancient Celts. Samhainmarked the end of one year and the beginning of the next. According to their tradition, thespirits of those who had died in the preceding year roamed the earth on Samhain evening. The Celts sought toward off these spirits with offerings of food and drink. They also builtbonfires at sacred hilltop sites and performed rituals, often involving humanand animal sacrifices, to honor Druid deities.

When the Celts were eventuallyabsorbed into the Roman empire, many of their traditions were adapted by theconquerors as a part of their own celebrations. In Britain, Romansblended local Samhain customs withtheir own pagan harvest festival honoring Pomona, goddess of fruit trees—fromwhich the game of bobbing for apples was derived. In many places such as Scotland and Ireland, Samhain was abandoned only when thelocal people converted to Christianity during early Medievalism. But even then,pagan folk observances were linked to a number of Christian holidays.

Thus, many of theold Samhain traditions thoughtto be incompatible with Christianity often became linked with Christian folkbeliefs about evil spirits in the celebration of Halloween. Although such superstitions varied a great deal fromplace to place, many of the supernatural beings now associated with the holidaybecame fixed in the popular imagination during the Renaissance. In Britishfolklore, small magical beings known as fairies became associated with Halloween mischief. The jack-o’-lantern,originally carved from a large turnip rather than a pumpkin, originated in MedievalScotland.

As belief in many of the old superstitions waned during thelate 19th century, Halloween wasincreasingly regarded as a children’s holiday. Beginning in the 20^th century, Halloween mischief gradually transformed into the modern ritual oftrick-or-treating. Eventually, Halloweentreats were plentiful while tricks became rare.

Alas, the idea of the day being a prayerful preparation for All Saints Day is even more rare.

Luther's Gospel Cry

2011-10-30T00:30:00.000-05:00

From depths of woe I raise to Thee 

The voice of lamentation; 

Lord, turn a gracious ear to me 

And hear my supplication;

 If Thou iniquities dost mark, 

Our secret sins and misdeeds dark, 

O who shall stand before Thee?

To wash away the crimson stain, 

Grace, grace alone availeth; 

Our works, alas! are all in vain;

 In much the best life faileth:

 No man can glory in Thy sight, 

All must alike confess Thy might, 

And live alone by mercy.

Therefore my trust is in the Lord, 

And not in mine own merit; 

On Him my soul shall rest, His Word 

Upholds my fainting spirit:

 His promised mercy is my fort, 

My comfort, and my sweet support;

 I wait for it with patience.

What though I wait the livelong night, 

And till the dawn appeareth, 

My heart still trusteth in His might;

 It doubteth not nor feareth: 

Do thus, O ye of Israel’s seed, 

Ye of the Spirit born indeed; 

And wait till God appeareth.

Though great our sins and sore our woes, 

His grace much more aboundeth; 

His helping love no limit knows, 

Our utmost need it soundeth. 

Our Shepherd good and true is He, 

Who will at last His Israel free.

From all their sin and sorrow.

Until the Nation Pays Homage

2011-10-29T00:07:00.000-05:00

On this day in 1907, the entire nation of theNetherlands celebrated the seventieth birthday of Abraham Kuyper. A nationalproclamation recognized that "The history of the Netherlands, in Church,in State, in Society, in Press, in School, and in the Sciences the last fortyyears, cannot be written without the mention of his name on almost every page,for during this period the biography of Dr. Kuyper is to a considerable extentthe history of the Netherlands."

The boy who was born in 1837 was at first thought tobe dull, but by the time he was twelve he had entered the Gymnasium. Yearslater he would graduate with highest possible honors from LeydenUniversity. In short order heearned his masters and doctoral degrees in theology before serving as ministerat Breesd and Utrecht.

The brilliant and articulatechampion of Biblical faithfulness was called to serve in the city of Amsterdamin 1870. At the time, the religious life of the nation had dramaticallydeclined. The church was cold and formal. There was no Bible curriculum in theschools and the Bible had no real influence in the life of the nation. Kuyperset out to change all of this in a flurry of activity.

In 1872, Kuyper founded the dailynewspaper, De Standard. Shortly afterward he also founded De Heraut, a weekly devotionalmagazine. He continued as editor of both newspapers for over forty-fiveyears—and both became very influential in spreading the winsome message of aconsistent Christian worldview.

Two years later, in 1874, Kuyperwas elected to the lower house of Parliament as the leader of theAnti-Revolutionary Party—and he served there until 1877. Three years later hefounded the Free University of Amsterdam, which asserted that the Bible was thefoundation of every area of knowledge.

Following a stunning victory at thepolls, Kuyper was summoned by Queen Wilhelmena to form a cabinet and becomePrime Minister of the nation in 1902—a position he held for three years. Anumber of politicians were dissatisfied with Kuyper’s leadership because herefused to separate his theological and political views separate. To him, theywere identical interests since Christ was king in every arena of human life. Hebelieved that Christ rules not merely by the tradition of what He once was,spoke, did, and endured, but by a living power which even now, seated as He isat the right hand of God, He exercises over lands, nations, generations,families, and individuals.

Kuyper was undoubtedly a man oftremendous versatility—he was a noted linguist, theologian, universityprofessor, politician, statesman, philosopher, scientist, publisher, author,journalist, and philanthropist. But amazingly, in spite of his manyaccomplishments and his tremendous urgency to redeem the time, Kuyper was alsoa man of the people.

In 1897, at the 25th anniversary ofhis establishment of De Standaard, Kuyper described the ruling passionof his life: "That in spite of all worldly opposition, God's holyordinances shall be established again in the home, in the school, and in theState for the good of the people; to carve as it were into the conscience ofthe nation the ordinances of the Lord, to which Bible and Creation bearwitness, until the nation pays homage again to God."

The Battle Hymn of the Reformation

2011-10-28T08:58:00.004-05:00

A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing; 

Our helper He, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing:

For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe; 

His craft and power are great, and, armed with cruel hate,

On earth is not his equal.

Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing; 

Were not the right Man on our side, the Man of God’s own choosing: 

Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is He; 

Lord Sabaoth, His Name, from age to age the same, 

And He must win the battle.

And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undous, 

We will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph throughus: 

The Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for him;

His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure, 

One little word shall fell him.

That word above all earthly powers, no thanks to them, abideth; 

The Spirit and the gifts are ours through Him Who with us sideth: 

Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also; 

The body they may kill: God’s truth abideth still, 

His kingdom is forever.

The Fundamental Orders

2011-10-26T09:06:00.001-05:00

On this day in 1633, the little Puritan and Pilgrimcongregation at Newton, in the fledgling Massachusetts Bay Colony—since renamedCambridge—held a day of fasting and prayer at the end of which they choseThomas Hooker as their pastor. Hooker had only arrived in the colony theprevious month, but his zeal for the doctrines of grace and his pastoralqualifications had been amply demonstrated in years of difficult service inEngland.

Born in 1586 in Leicestershire, Hooker studied theology atCambridge University and became a popular lecturer and an able assistant to therector of the parish church in Chalmsford. Though Hooker accepted the most ofthe doctrines of the Church of England, he did not believe its liturgy orecclesiology was Biblical—in other words, he was a dissenter when it came toworship and church government. Accordingly, in 1630 he came under thediscipline of Archbishop Laud—a fierce persecutor of nonconformity. When he wassummoned to appear before the dreaded High Commission, Hooker fled to Hollandwhere he preached to exiled Puritans in both Delft and Rotterdam. He became anassistant to the renowned theologian, William Ames and wrote a pamphletentitled, A Fresh Suit against Human Ceremonies in God's Worship.

In 1633, Hooker, along with the Puritan preachers JohnCotton and Samuel Stone, fled to America aboard the Griffen. When thethree prominent men arrived in Boston in September, several Puritans quippedthat they now had "Cotton for their clothing, Hooker for their fishing,and Stone for their building." It was not surprising that the Newtoncongregation so quickly chose Hooker as their pastor.

In Massachusetts, however, Hooker began to question the formof government established by the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He questioned thevalidity of a church covenant forming the basis for a civil government. Hookerdid not believe that participation in the government should be limited tochurch members. Rather, he asserted that all civil government should be basedon voluntary submission to some kind of civil covenant, just as the churcheswere established on a covenant in spiritual things. The foundation ofgovernment, he thought, lay in the free choice of the people, who were tochoose public officials according to God's will and law. Hooker's views ongovernment were much more democratic than those espoused by the leaders of theMassachusetts Colony.

Because of these differences, Hooker peacefully leftMassachusetts with a number of members from his Newton congregation andestablished the town of Hartford in Connecticut. In 1638, three of theConnecticut towns met to form a government. In a sermon preached to the GeneralCourt at that time, Hooker maintained that the foundation of governmentauthority is "laid in the free consent of the people, that the choice ofpublic magistrates belongs unto the people by God's own allowance." Thetext from which Mr. Hooker derived his sermon was Deuteronomy 1:13, "Takeyou wise men, and understanding, and known among your tribes, and I will makethem rulers over you."

The resulting government which was formed, TheFundamental Orders of Connecticut, was the first written Constitution inAmerica.

St. Crispin’s Day

2011-10-25T15:54:00.003-05:00

Two legendary battles, both immortalized in English literature, took place on this day, the Feast of St. Crispin.

The first, in 1415, was the greatBattle of Agincourt. England’sKing Henry V and his long bow archers defeated the overwhelming force of FrenchArmy in the fields of northern Normandy. Vastly outnumbered, weary from a long and difficult campaign, hopelessly trapped against the coast, with no possible retreat, Harry deployed the heretofore untested technology of the long bow to stunning effect.

The feat inspired Shakespeare’s famous monologue in his epic drama, Henry V:

If we are marked to die, we are enough to do our countryloss;

And if to live, the fewer the men, the greater share of honor.

God’s will, I pray thee, wish not oneman more.

This story shall thegood man teach his son,

And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by

From this day tothe ending of the world but we in it shall be remembered.

We few, we happy few, we band ofbrothers.

For he today that shedshis blood with me shall be my brother;

Be he ne’er so vile, this day shallgentle his condition.

And gentlemenin England now abed shall think themselves accursed they were not here,

Andhold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks that fought with us

On St.Crispin’s Day.

The second battle, in 1854, was the Charge of the Light Brigade at the climax of Battle of Balaklavaduring the Crimean War. The battle which has been long regarded as one of themost famous military blunders in history, pitted an allied Anglo-French armyand a Russian force commanded by General Liprandi.

The Light Brigade consisted of five regiments totaling 661men. The men were ordered toattack a well-entrenched Russian force—it was a certain slaughter but due toconfused communications and conflict within the officer corps, the men advancedinto a withering line of fire. The charge lasted less thantwenty minutes. When the brigadewas mustered afterwards, there were only 195 mounted men left.

Though the maneuver seemed to be a complete disaster, the men actually achieved theirobjective. General Liprandiwas deeply impressed by the unflinching composure of the British horsemen. And,the moral effect on the Russians of the discipline, courage, and resolve of theLight Brigade was immense. For the rest of the war, the Russian cavalry refuseddirect, pitched combat with the British, even when vastly superior in numbers.

Long afterwards, the fact that a single, under-strengthbrigade of light cavalry had captured a battery of guns and driven off a farlarger body of Russian horses was the admiration of Europe.

This battle also inspired a work of great literature, The Charge of the Light Brigade, byAlfred Lord Tennyson:

Half a league half a league,

Half a league onward,

All in the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred:

'Forward, the Light Brigade!

Charge for the guns' he said:

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

'Forward, the Light Brigade!'

Was there a man dismay'd ?

Not tho' the soldier knew

Some one had blunder'd:

Theirs not to make reply,

Theirs not to reason why,

Theirs but to do and die,

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon in front of them

Volley'd and thunder'd;

Storm'd at with shot and shell,

Boldly they rode and well,

Into the jaws of Death,

Into the mouth of Hell

Rode the six hundred.

Flash'd all their sabres bare,

Flash'd as they turn'd in air

Sabring the gunners there,

Charging an army while

All the world wonder'd:

Plunged in the battery-smoke

Right thro' the line they broke;

Cossack and Russian

Reel'd from the sabre-stroke,

Shatter'd and sunder'd.

Then they rode back, but not

Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon behind them

Volley'd and thunder'd;

Storm'd at with shot and shell,

While horse and hero fell,

They that had fought so well

Came thro' the jaws of Death,

Back from the mouth of Hell,

All that was left of them,

Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?

O the wild charge they made!

All the world wonder'd.

Honour the charge they made!

Honour the Light Brigade,

Noble six hundred!

All Heaven and Earth

2011-10-24T13:52:00.002-05:00

‎"When you sell a man a book you don’t sell him just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue—you sell him a whole new life. Love and friendship and humor and ships at sea by night—there’s all heaven and earth in a book, a real book I mean." Christopher Morley

God's Victory

2011-10-23T18:14:00.000-05:00

Three days after French troops under the command of Jean Baptiste de Vimeur, Comte de Rochambeau, and the Marquis de Lafayette helped George Washington's ragged forcesdefeat the British Army, the men celebrated the formal surrender of LordCornwallis. The British bandplayed the popular song "The World Turned Upside Down" as theystacked up their arms.

The last major fighting of the American War for Independencehad somehow ended in a resounding American victory. Washington and the others could not help but recognize God'shand in the victory. Indeed, it was when the American forces were at theirweakest, that victory had finally come. Accordingly, Washingtonissued orders to the army that "Divine service is to be performed in theseveral brigades and divisions. The commander-in-chief recommends that thetroops not on duty should universally attend with that seriousness ofdeportment and gratitude of heart which the recognition of such reiterated andastonishing interpositions of Providence demand of us."

That celebration of God's good providence occurred on this day in 1781.

Texas: A Whole Other Country

2011-10-22T07:33:00.003-05:00

On this day in 1836, former Tennessee congressman, senator, and governor, Sam Houston was inaugurated as the first constitutionally elected president of the Republic of Texas.

Let There Be Light

2011-10-21T07:53:00.001-05:00

On this day in 1878, ThomasA. Edison invented a practical incandescent lamp in his laboratory at MenloPark, New Jersey. "The longerit burned," he said, "the more fascinated we were…there was no sleepfor any of us for forty hours."

On the Nightstand

2011-10-20T19:40:00.003-05:00

Johnson's Latest

2011-10-20T11:07:00.002-05:00

In 2003, when Paul Johnson published his massive and magisterial Art: A New History, he announced it would be his last book. Since then, he has published by my count, eleven new books. Thanks be to God. The new books have mostly been shorter biographies--in his Brief Lives series. This morning I finished the most recent of these: Socrates. Since I'm lecturing on the world of Antiquity this year, this new contribution from my favorite living historian is most welcome. And as always, Johnson is witty, insightful, and provocative. This is the application of the old discipline, Moral Philosophy, at its best. I am so glad that Johnson just couldn't help himself from writing--long after he'd decided to stop writing! We're all the better for it.

The Louisiana Treaty

2011-10-19T09:48:00.000-05:00

The United States Senate ratified the Louisiana PurchaseTreaty by a vote of 24-7 on this day in 1803. The vastregion encompassed more than 800,000 square miles of territory and comprisedpresent-day Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota west of the Mississippi River,North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, nearly all of Kansas, theportions of Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado east of the Rocky Mountains, andLouisiana west of the Mississippi River as well as the city of New Orleans. At the time ofpurchase, Thomas Jefferson was concerned about the constitutionality of makinga land acquisition without adding a covering amendment to the U.S.Constitution. The law of the land, however, did give the presidenttreaty-making power, and the Louisiana Purchase was ratified into law as atreaty by the U.S. Senate. The Louisiana Purchase stands as the largest area ofterritory ever added to the U.S. at one time.

From Depths of Woe

2011-10-18T18:15:00.005-05:00

William Cowper (1731-1800), the pastoral English poet, collaborated with the curate John Newton in publishing the Olney Hymns—a classic collection of Evangelical and Reformed hymns. Cowper who generally wrote about simple pleasures of countrylife and expressed a deep concern for human cruelty and the suffering of the innocent, was born inGreat Berkhampstead, Hertfordshire. Though he suffered periods of acutedepression he lived with the evangelical cleric Morley Unwin and his wife,Mary. In 1773 Cowper was seized by a severe despondency, rooted in religiousdoubts and fears that plagued him all his life. It was apparently the care ofMrs. Unwin, who encouraged him to compose poetry, that enabled him to recover.

And thus, out of the depths of woe was the church given the great gift ofhis verse.

Better to Be Underestimated

2011-10-17T06:58:00.000-05:00

Known for his witty style, the amazingly prolific author G.K. Chesterton wrote in many genres, including fiction, biography, poetry,theology, history, as well as a myriad of essays. He was one of the most belovedwriters in England during the first part of the 20^th century.

On this day in 1912, biographer Hugh Lunn interviewedChesterton for the Hearth and Home magazine. He began with a description of the great man, “Everyoneknows Mr Chesterton's appearance, a good portly man, i' faith, and acorpulence, like Falstaff. His writings, too, have become familiar, winningmany disciples, especially among the young. At Oxford the Chestertonian and theShavian are well-known types: the Shavian enthroned above human emotion isclever, but a prig; the Chestertonian, less brilliant, is more likeable. Hedoesn't care for advanced ideas, but he would like to combine wit and probity.So he welcomes a writer who defends old modes of thought with humor, andattacks modern thinkers on the ground that they are antiquated bores indisguise.”

Lunn was soon to discover that, with Chesterton, there wasmuch more than met the eye—despite the fact that his rotund figure wassufficient to fill the eye. With aglint of good humor, Chesterton began with characteristic words, “I am alwaysready to be interviewed, for I hold the theory, nowadays completelyforgotten—as forgotten as this matchbox was still this moment (fishing a boxout of a bowl on the mantelpiece)—the theory that the Press is a public agora.I should not refuse an interview even to a paper owned by one of thosecapitalist millionaires, whom I hate. Nowadays the Press merely echoes thepowerful; its real aim should be to give the public a chance to state itsviews.”

Lunn could hardly get a word in edgewise, so the interviewturned into something of a monolog—a forum for the great man to hold forth onall manner of ideas, much like his writing, “And now what do you want me totalk about? I am ready to give my opinion on any question, whether I knowsomething about it or not. No, I'm not an Imperialist in the modern sense; theonly theory of Imperialism that seems to me sound is Dante's. He defended theRoman Empire as the best human government, on the definite ground that the besthuman government would probably crucify God. Caesar had to be lawful; becauseChrist had to be killed by law.”

With that, he paused with a smile to ask Lunn what questionshe really wanted to put upon the table. He should not have bothered, before hecould reply, Chesterton was off again, “I do not believe in Cosmopolitanism,you know: nowadays it's either run by financiers for their own profit, or it'sthe product of Atheistic Socialism, as in Germany. Christ didn't come to bringpeace among the nations. When He said that a man should turn the other cheek, Ifancy He meant that a man, when attacked, should humiliate his enemy bytreating him with sudden and unexpected contempt.”

And so it went for nigh on an hour. Lunn had to admit afterward, “I had altogetherunderestimated the tornado of thought and creativity and imagination that thejolly figure of Chesterton contained.” To which Chesterton later retorted, “It is always better to beunderestimated than overestimated—that way, all good things are taken as if bysurprise and are therefore all the more appreciated.” Appreciated, Chesterton surely is.

New AFA Documentary: Divorcing God

2011-10-04T18:20:00.000-05:00

Oxford and Tolkien

2011-09-22T07:51:00.001-05:00

Few provincial cities anywhere are more crowded withincident and achievement than the English University city of Oxford. In a shortstroll visitors may pass the house where Edmund Halley discovered his comet;the site of Britain's oldest public museum, the Ashmolean; the hall wherearchitect Christopher Wren drew his first plans; the pub where Thomas Hardyscribbled his notes for Jude the Obscure; the track where RogerBannister ran the first sub-four-minute mile; the meadow where a promisingyoung mathematician named Charles Lutwidge Dodgson refined The Formulae ofPlane Trigonometry, An Elementary Treatise on Determinants and, of coursehis famous children's trifle called Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Walk down the broad and curving High Street, thought by manyto be the most beautiful in England, or through the maze of back lanes thatwander among the golden, age-worn college buildings, and visitors may follow inthe footsteps of Samuel Johnson, Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon, Jonathan Swift,John Donne, Roger Bacon, Cardinal Wolsey, Oscar Wilde, Graham Greene, EvelynWaugh, T. S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Indira Gandhi, andMargaret Thatcher, to name just a few who have worked and studied here.

The heart of thecity is Carfax—from the Latin quadrifurcua,”four-forked”—from which themain streets run to the four points of the compass. This was the center of the walled medieval city—built on thefoundations of an early Saxon trading settlement which was located near theford in the river there.

It was in thisremarkable environment on this day in 1921 that the esteemed professor ofetymology, J.R.R. Tolkien, began to recount the stories of Bilbo andFrodo Baggins, Hobbits of Middle Earth—one of the most remarkable achievementsin English literature.

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, was born in South Africa in1892. After a brilliantundergraduate career, he became a medieval scholar, philologist, and professorat the university. His scholarly workat concerned Anglo-Saxon and medieval literature.

His depth and breadth of scholarship is most evident in theepic works he created about the fantasy world he called Middle Earth. He wroteThe Hobbit in 1937 as a children's book. Its sequel, the trilogy entitled TheLord of the Rings—finally published after much anticipation in 1954 and1955—included The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, TheReturn of the King. The workis an imaginative masterpiece that has captured the imagination of generationsever since. It is a profound taleof the conflict between good and evil told against a backdrop of rich cultures,vibrant characters, and stunning prose and poetry.

Tolkien’s close friend and fellow professor, C.S. Lewis,commented that “such a tale, told by such an imaginative mind, could only havebeen spawned in such a place as Oxford.”

Anacreon in Heaven

2011-09-13T20:02:00.003-05:00

The War of 1812 had been fiercely raging for two years when Francis Scott Key,a Washington attorney was sent to the British naval command to secure therelease of a prisoner when the fleet began to bombard the placements of Americanfortifications in Baltimore at Fort McHenry. Key had to watch in agony, wondering if his nation couldpossibly withstand such a barrage.

Though the battle raged through the night of September 13, 1814, the Americandefenses stood firm. The sight ofthe flag still flying over the fort the next morning inspired the young lawyerto pen the immortal words of the StarSpangled Banner.

Later it was set to a popular English hymn tune, Anacreon in Heaven, and it became astandard in the patriotic repertoire. Congress officially confirmed it as the national anthem more than ahundred years later, just before the First World War.

Though the first verse of the anthem is well known—sung atthe opening of most political and sporting events—the other verses are almostentirely unknown:

O! say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,

What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming:

Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilousfight,

O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming,

And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,

Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there:

O! say, does the star-spangledbanner still wave

O’er the land of the free and thehome of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen through the mist of the deep,

Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,

What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,

As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?

Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam—

In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream

‘Tis the star-spangled banner, O!long may it wave

O’er the land of the free and thehome of the brave.

And where is the band who so vauntingly swore

That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion

A home and a country would leave us no more?

Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.

No refuge could save the hireling and slave

From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave!

And the star-spangled banner intriumph cloth wave

O’er the land of the free and thehome of the brave.

O! thus be it ever when freemen shall stand

Between their loved homes and the foe’s desolation;

Bless’d with victory and peace, may our heaven‑rescued land

Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.

Then conquer we must, for our cause it is just—

And this be our motto—“In God is our trust!”

And the star-spangled banner intriumph shall wave

O’er the land of the free and thehome of the brave.

Little Questions

2011-09-09T20:31:00.001-05:00

By all accounts, the very first catechism—a manual ofChristian doctrine drawn up in the form of questions and answers for thepurpose of instruction in thefaith—was compiled by the English scholar Alcuin sometime in the 8thcentury. It was followed in thenext 100 years by many others, among them those of Notker Labeo, monk of theAbbey of Saint Gall, in Switzerland, and of the German monk Otfried ofWeissenburg in Alsace. Nevertheless, catechisms remained relatively rare until the time of theReformation.

Because of Martin Luther's insistence on the religiousinstruction of children, the venerable tradition of the catechism wasrevived—indeed catechisms became one of the distinctives of Reformation renewal.After Luther published his first little primer of religion, A BriefExplanation of the Ten Commandments, the Creed, and the Lord's Prayer in1520, several other catechisms were prepared by leading Protestant theologians.Luther's visitation of the Saxon churches in 1528 led him to prepare his Largerand Smaller Catechisms the following year.

The Swiss, English, Dutch, and Scottish Reformed also madewide use of catechisms—and a number were published in the 16^thcentury. The most noteworthy were the Geneva and Heidelberg catechisms, andthose of the German theologian Johannes Oecolampadius of Basel. The Swiss reformer Heinrich Bullingerproduced a catechism in Zürich in 1555. Likewise, John Calvin produced catechismsfor the church in Geneva. The SmallerCatechism was published in French in 1536 while the Larger Catechismappeared in 1541—both of which were translated into various languages, andbecame an acknowledged standard of the Reformed churches.

The Heidelberg, orPalatinate, catechism was compiled in Heidelberg by the German theologiansCaspar Olevianus and Zacharias Ursinus, at the request of the Elector FrederickIII of the Palatinate. It was published in 1563 and was translated into all thelanguages of Europe. It became the standard of the Dutch and German Reformedchurches of America. Soon, even the Roman Catholic church, began producingcatechisms—the first was prepared by the Council of Trent and published in1566.

The Larger and Shorter Catechisms, which, withthe Westminster Confession of Faith, became the standard catechisms ofthe Presbyterian churches throughout the countries of the former British Empirewere compiled by the Assembly of Divines at Westminster between 1645 and1652. The very familiar ShorterCatechism opens with the words, “What is the chief end of man? Man’s chief end is to glorify God andenjoy him forever.”

Amazingly, this little didactic device became the means bywhich the very foundations of Western culture were reshaped. As Samuel Johnson asserted, “The littlequestions and answers of the catechisms afford us a glimpse at the innerframework of the Western view of the world.”

Quo Vadis?

2011-09-09T13:27:00.003-05:00

Henryk Sienkiewicz was aninternational phenomenon a century ago--at the end of the nineteenth and thebeginning of the twentieth centuries. He was trained in both law and medicine. He was a respected historian. He was a successful journalist. He was a widely sought-after critic and editor. He was an erudite lecturer. And in addition to all that, he was anamazingly prolific and wildly popular novelist—selling millions of copies ofhis almost fifty books in nearly three hundred editions in the United Statesalone.

Hewowed the world with his grace, his learning, his courage, his depth ofcharacter, and his evocative story-telling. His writing includes some of the most memorable works ofhistorical fiction ever penned—raking with the likes of Sir Walter Scott,Robert Louis Stevenson, and Samuel Johnson.

Itwas an unlikely destiny for a passionately ethnic novelist from the isolated,feudal, and agrarian Podlasie region of Poland to fulfill. Born in 1846, helived during one of the most tumultuous periods of Central Europeanhistory. Ideological revolutions,utopian uprisings, base conspiracies, nationalistic movements, andimperialistic expansions wracked the continent in the decades between the fall ofNapoleon and the rise of Hitler. Wars and rumors of wars shook the foundations of social order to anextraordinary degree. His ownnation was cruelly and bitterly divided between the ambitions of the PrussianKaiser and the Russian Czar. Theproud cultural and national legacy of Poland was practically snuffed outaltogether—all the distinctive aspects of the culture were outlawed and eventhe language was fiercely suppressed.

Sienkiewiczbecame a part of the underground movement to recover the Polish arts—music,poetry, journalism, history, and fiction. He used the backdrop of the social, cultural, and political chaos toreflect both the tragedy of his people and the ultimate hope that lay in theirglorious tenacity. He was thus, atrue traditionalist at a time when traditionalism had been thoroughly andsystematically discredited the world over—the only notable exceptions being inthe American South and the Dutch Netherlands. As a result, his distinctive voice rang out in starkcontrast to the din of vogue conformity. Thus, his novels not only introduced the world to Poland, they offered astern anti-revolutionary rebuke in the face of Modernity’s smothering politicalcorrectness.

Hismassive Trilogy, published between1884 and 1887, tells the story of an ill-fated attempt to save his homelandfrom foreign domination during the previous century. When they were first released in the United States, thebooks became instant best-sellers. They made Sienkiewicz a household name—so much so that Mark Twain couldassert that he was the first serious, international writer to become anAmerican literary celebrity. Evenso, the Trilogy did not achieve forhim even a fraction of the acclaim that came his way with the publication of Quo Vadis? in 1898. It was nothing short of aphenomenon. It was the first bookthe New York Times dubbed a“blockbuster,” and became the standard against which all futuremega-best-sellers was judged.

Onthis day in 1905, Sienkiewicz saw his brilliant career capped when he was awardedthe Nobel Prize for literature.

Awaken

2011-09-05T11:04:00.000-05:00

The Great Awakening touched every sectionof the colonial domains of England in the New World—from northern-most NewEngland to southern-most Georgia. And its impact was enormous. Interestingly, this cultural and spiritual phenomenon was entirelydriven by grassroots evangelism and community cooperation, as Lawrence Tribble’slittle ditty, "Awaken," illustrates.

I found this bit of verse at a Bostonlibrary about 20 years ago. It hadbeen tucked away in the back of a Revolutionary War era Bible, lost for over200 years.

The contemporary Christian music group,Leeland, has now set these lyrics to music for their upcoming CD, “The GreatAwakening.” I couldn’t be morepleased for a new generation to hear—and heed:

One man awake,

Awakensanother.

The secondawakens

Hisnext-door brother.

The three awakecan rouse a town

Byturning

Thewhole place

Upsidedown.

The many awake

Canmake such a fuss

It finallyawakens

Therest of us.

One man up,

Withdawn in his eyes,

Surelythen

It multiplies.

Boring Is Good

2011-09-02T14:44:00.001-05:00

In his masterful novel The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane traced the effects of war on a single Union soldier, Henry Fleming, from his dreams of soldiering, to his actual enlistment, and through several battles of the all too uncivil War between the States. Unhappy with his dull, quiet, and boring life at home on the farm, Fleming yearns to somehow earn glory and renown for his heroic achievements in battle.

After he enlists however, he discovers that a soldier’s life consists of two parts futility, one part confusion, and one part terror. Set at the battle of Chancellorsville--though it actually remains unnamed in the story--the young idealistic soldier is forced by the dumb certainties of experience to become a hardened realistic veteran. And in the process, he comes to the difficult realization that boring is actually a virtue not a vice.

The reality is that boring is what most people are actually yearning for--they just don’t know it. Boring is having time for the things that matter the most; no tyranny of the urgent, no unbidden tasks, and no unexpected tasks to accomplish--it is the ideal adventure. People go halfway around the world to find a secluded beach or a remote cabin or a mountain chalet, just so they can do nothing but be with their family or read a book or create their art in peace. It is dull people who have to be stimulated constantly. For them, something has always got to be going on.

Most modern men and women are addicted to the razzle-dazzle. We want wow. And we want it now. Our whole culture, from popular entertainment to corporate management, is predicated on the idea that our lives ought to be defined by a frenetic go-go-go sense of busyness. There is no time to reflect. No time to think. No time to do anything at all except be busy. So, moms are harried taxi drivers. Dads work 60 hour weeks--and then bring more work home with them.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Somehow, Stephen Crane realized a little over century ago what we are still struggling to come to terms with. He realized it too late to wrench his life away from the precipitous decline of debauchery--though his novel remains a morality tale, a steadfast warning for us. He sold an abridged version of The Red Badge of Courage to the Bachellor-Johnson Syndicate for ninety-dollars on this day in 1894, and it first appeared in the Philadelphia Press about a month later.

Within five years of his greatest achievement, Crane was dead. Suffering from several tuberculosis attacks and a general physical collapse due to his heavy drinking and dissolute lifestyle, Crane was just twenty-eight years old. In his journal he had scratched out a few final words just a day before. Though it was destroyed along with all the rest of his effects, an orderly at the sanitarium reported his last desperate cry, “Oh, to find rest, sweet repose. Why must we grind out our lives in search of vain glories when all that is wanted is home?”

Next Up Must-Reads

2011-08-24T20:18:00.001-05:00

The Covenanter and the King

2011-08-19T20:48:00.000-05:00

The Marquess Archibald Campbell, Earl of Argyll (1598-1661) defied Oliver Cromwell’s English Protectorate and invited the exiled Charles II to return to Scotland to receive his crown on this day in 1650. A Scots Presbyterian, Argyll was the leader of the Covenanters, and at the onset of the first phase of the English Revolution, he had forced King Charles I to submit to the demands of the Scottish Parliament—so his role in reestablishing the monarchy was seen as more than a little ironic.

The Covenanters had long been devoted to maintaining Presbyterianism as the faith of Scotland. As a consequence they were largely responsible for establishing the supremacy of Parliament over the monarchy. In reality though, the Covenanters were merely following an old Scottish tradition dating back to the Arbroath Declaration of 1320. Other early covenants--the written documents which bound them to their sacred cause--had been signed as recently as 1557 and 1581 by King James.

When Charles I came to the throne in 1625, he was immediately opposed by the Scottish bourgeoisie because of his policy of oppressive taxation and by the Scottish nobility because of his attempts to impose the Anglican church on Scotland. In 1638 the old covenant of 1581 was revived, and its signatories added a vow to protect the Reformation in their land. Charles, fearing a revolution, convened a General Assembly of Scotland in November 1638. Consisting exclusively of Covenanters, the assembly defied royal authority and abolished the Anglican episcopacy. The resulting First Bishops' War (1639) was settled by referring the dispute to another General Assembly and to a new Scottish Parliament. But the new assembly reaffirmed the decisions of its predecessor, and a Second Bishops' War resulted during which Charles was defeated at Newburn (1640).

Similar conflicts led the English Parliament to join the Scots in their opposition to Charles, and the Solemn League and Covenant was adopted by the two parliaments in 1643 launching a united civil war between Royalists and Parliamentarians across the boundaries of the two nations. During the First Civil War (1642-46) the Covenanters fought side by side with the Parliamentarians. Eventually, Charles surrendered to the Covenanters in 1646. But because he still refused to subscribe to the Solemn League and Covenant, he was turned over to the English.

After the king’s execution in 1649, the Scots increasingly became alarmed by the tyrannical ambitions of the English. During what was known as the Second Civil War—the Parliamentarian leader Oliver Cromwell conquered Scotland. As a consequence, Argyll, brought Charles II to Scotland and crowned him king of Scotland at Scone.

Ironically, Charles II turned on the man most responsible for his restoration. In 1660, Argyll was arrested on a charge of having collaborated with the Cromwell in the infamous invasion of Scotland. Though the charges were patently false, Argyll was tried by the Scottish Parliament and was convicted and beheaded.

Under Our Own Command

2011-08-12T07:56:00.000-05:00

When the esteemed Senate Majority Leader of the Senate, Henry Cabot Lodge, addressed his colleagues on this day in 1919, the nation was already in the midst of a “Great Debate” over its future foreign policy. What was then called the Great War--what we call the First World War--had just ended. Should the country now join the new League of Nations that President Woodrow Wilson had hammered into shape at the Versailles Peace Conference, or should the nation retain its traditional commitment to neutrality--as articulated in Washington’s hallowed Farewell Address?

Utilizing carefully measured phrases and appealing to the mood of the audience Lodge’s speech somehow bridged the gap between the two positions and unleashed a storm of applause from the packed galleries. A group of Marines, just returned from France, pounded their helmets enthusiastically against the gallery railing; men and women cheered, whistled, waved handkerchiefs and hats. It was minutes before order could be restored, and when a Democratic Senator attempted to reply to Lodge’s arguments, his remarks were greeted with boos and hisses.

Lodge argued against any possible infringement of America’s sovereignty, “I object in the strongest possible way to having the United States agree, directly or indirectly, to be controlled by a league which may at any time, and perfectly lawfully and in accordance with the terms of the covenant, be drawn in to deal with internal conflicts in other countries, no matter what those conflicts may be. We should never permit the United States to be involved in any internal conflict in another country, except by the will of her people expressed through the Congress which represents them.”

Likewise, he argued for a strong moral stance regarding the horrors of war while at the same time ringing the bell of patriotism, “In the Great War we were called upon to rescue the civilized world. Did we fail? On the contrary, we succeeded, succeeded largely and nobly, and we did it without any command from any league of nations. When the emergency came, we met it, and we were able to meet it because we had built up on this continent the greatest and most powerful nation in the world, built it up under our own polices, in our own way, and one great element of our strength was the fact that we had held aloof and had not thrust ourselves into European quarrels; that we had no selfish interest to serve. We made great sacrifices. We have done splendid work. I believe that we do not require to be told by foreign nations when we shall do work which freedom and civilization require. I think we can move to victory much better under our own command than under the command of others.”

His logic, resounding with the moral fervor of his dear friend Teddy Roosevelt, won the day. In the end, the League of Nations treaty was defeated and the policy Lodge elaborated became the foundation of all American foreign relations for the rest of the century.

New Sermon Series: Genesis 1-11

2011-08-09T12:46:00.002-05:00

Four decades ago Francis Schaeffer wrote, "The battle for a Christian understanding of the world is being waged on several fronts. Not the least of these is Biblical study in general, and especially the question of how the opening chapters of the Bible are to be read. Modern writers commenting on the book of Genesis tend to treat the first eleven chapters as something other than history. For some, the material is simply a Jewish myth, having no more historical validity for modern man than the Epic of Gilgamesh or the story of Zeus. For others, it forms a pre-scientific vision that no one who respects the results of scholarship can accept. Still others find the story symbolic but no more. Some accept the early chapters of Genesis as revelation in regard to an upper-story religious truth, but allow any sense of truth in regard to history and the cosmos (science) to be lost.... Here is where the great battle lines lie. Here is where the future of Christian civilization rests. Either God¹s Word can be trusted or it cannot. Therefore, it is the first order of business in the Church to settle the matter of how Genesis is to be read." (from Genesis in Space and Time, 1972)

What was evidently true then, is surely even more so today. The battle for our culture and the battle for the faith really begin on the front lines of Genesis 1-11.

Over the next several months at Parish Pres, we will undertake a detailed study of those early, formative chapters of the Bible--where virtually every Biblical truth, every doctrinal position, and every dogmatic revelation is given to us in seed form. May God use this time to shape and form in us an effectual faith and an abounding grace to meet the challenges of our culture and our world.

Resting and Recovering in Vienna

2011-08-03T08:14:00.000-05:00

Exhausted from his Herculean labors as a journalist, educator, statesman, theologian, pastor, and social reformer, Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) came to visit Vienna shortly after his first term in the Dutch parliament had come to an end on this day in 1876.

Even as it does today, the city presented him with a jumble of contradictory impressions. The railways, roads, and hotels were all marked by the kind of new world efficiency that was the hallmark of emerging modernity but the food, drink, and music were all marked by the kind of old-world hospitality that was the hallmark of fading antiquity. It was a seductive place with its magnificent theaters, its resplendent palaces, and its broad, bustling boulevards.

Needing rest, Kuyper relaxed in the famous coffeehouses and sidewalk cafes. He feasted on the sagging boards of sausages, strudels, goulashes, and schnitzels at the ornate Biedermeier inns and reveled in the lagers, porters, and stouts at the lively hofbraus. He ambled along the Ringstrasse and listened to the street musicians as he sat in the Burggarten and the Stadtpark. He took particular pleasure in watching the passing parade of busy and cosmopolitan Viennese shopkeepers in the early mornings. He visited the great Staatsoper opera house, culled the vast library collection of the Hofburg National Bibliothek, and marveled at the shows in the Spanish Riding School at the Hapsburg palace.

But Kuyper quickly discovered that the one place where all the strains of Vienna's wide-ranging heritage was most evident was the gem that dominated the center of the Stephansdomplatz: St. Stephen’s Church, the city's beautiful Gothic cathedral. Consecrated as a Romanesque basilica in 1147, it was one of the most stunning architectural feats of the medieval age. And it changed Kuyper’s life.

When he visited the great old church at the center of Vienna’s old city center, it was there that he found the reinvigorating vision that he would need for the arduous work that lay ahead of him. He was reminded of the fact that though the imperial House of Hapsburg employed a few master craftsmen from time to time at the cathedral, the vast majority of the construction was undertaken by the faithful members of the congregation, the ordinary folk of the town. That feat of stupendous architectural beauty was accomplished by the simple men and women at hand.

That, Kuyper realized was actually the great lesson of all of history. Whether building cathedrals like the Stephansdomplatz or toppling the evil empires of the revolutionary modernists in his own time, he came to appreciate once again the fact that all of history’s most significant developments had been wrought by babushkas and bourgeoisie, shopkeepers and students, dads and daughters, peasants and populists.

With that lesson learned, he was ready to return home and launch a remarkable reformation of justice, mercy, and Christian charity. And so he did.

The Wisdom of John R.W. Stott

2011-07-29T21:03:00.003-05:00

"Every Christian should be both conservative and radical; conservative in preserving the faith and radical in applying it."

"Before we can begin to see the cross as something done for us, we have to see it as something done by us."

"Good conduct arises out of good doctrine."

"We must allow the Word of God to confront us, to disturb our security, to undermine our complacency and to overthrow our patterns of thought and behavior."

"Apathy is the acceptance of the unacceptable."

"We should not ask, 'What is wrong with the world?' for that diagnosis has already been given. Rather, we should ask, 'Where is the salt and light? Where is the Church? Why are the salt and light of Jesus Christ not permeating and changing our society?'"

"To encounter Christ is to touch reality and experience transcendence."

"The Christian community is a community of the cross, for it has been brought into being by the cross, and the focus of its worship is the Lamb once slain, now glorified. So, the community of the cross is a community of celebration, a Eucharistic community, ceaselessly offering to God through Christ the sacrifice of our praise and thanksgiving. The Christian life is an unending festival."

"His authority on earth allows us to dare to go to all the nations. His authority in heaven gives us our only hope of success. And His presence with us leaves us no other choice."

"Christian giving, like Christian living, is to be marked by self-sacrifice and self-forgetfulness, not by self-congratulation."

"The authority by which the Christian leader leads is not power but love, not force but example, not coercion but reasoned persuasion."

"The chief occupational hazard of leadership is pride."

"It is impossible to pray for someone without loving him, and impossible to go on praying for him without discovering that our love for him grows and matures."

"The Gospel is good news of mercy to the undeserving. The symbol of the religion of Jesus is the cross, not the scales."

"These are the marks of the ideal Church: love, suffering, holiness, sound doctrine, genuineness, evangelism and humility. This is what Christ desires to find."

"The incentive to peacemaking is love, but it degenerates into appeasement whenever justice is ignored. To forgive and to ask for forgiveness are both costly exercises. All authentic Christian peacemaking exhibits the love and justice--and so the pain--of the cross."

Cameron the Covenanter

2011-07-22T12:09:00.000-05:00

On this day in 1680 a company of English dragoons surprised and surrounded a Scottish preacher and a small band of armed men. Deciding to fight to the death, their leader, Richard Cameron, prayed "Lord, spare the green and take the ripe." The skirmish took place at Ayrsmoss and sprang out of the complicated web of religious and political relations which strained English and Scottish relations at the time.

England had unilaterally imposed Episcopalian worship on most of Scotland. Cameron was a member of the historic but now-outlawed Covenanter movement--men and women who continued to worship in accordance with their Presbyterian convictions. Because of his natural gift of oratory, Covenanter leaders felt Cameron was called to preach the Gospel. And so, though not yet ordained, he became an outdoor preacher. He embraced the most steadfast position of the Scottish reformers and proclaimed the doctrines of grace with great fervor.

No doubt his patriotic Scots fervor for freedom from the despised English helped to shape his fierce recalcitrance, nonetheless, there was little doubt about the authenticity of his message. Thousands hung on his sermons, weeping when his eloquent appeals for repentance and submission to Christ touched their hearts. After receiving ordination in the Netherlands, Cameron returned to Scotland to plant churches.

In his absence, Charles II had offered a broad indulgence for the Scots--if only the Covenanters would recant. Cameron attacked the royal decree savagely. With a number of other leaders he drew up the revolutionary Sanquhar Declaration which disowned Charles II's authority and went so far as to boldly declare war on him. Cameron even prophesied the overthrow of the Stuart line for, among other things, "usurping the royal prerogatives of King Jesus." As a result, he was aptly nicknamed the "Lion of the Covenant."

A reward of 5,000 pounds was immediately placed on his head. A small band of guards had to accompany him wherever he went to preach. But their swords proved insufficient on the day of disaster. The dragoons charged and hacked the Scots to death--though they offered fierce resistance. Cameron was slain and his body was desecrated--his head and hands were cut off to be displayed on an Edinburgh gate.

Even so, Cameron's prophecy was fulfilled in short order. Charles II was succeeded by his brother, James II who was driven into exile. The English Parliament then ended the Stuart royal line by summoning William III of Orange to the throne in a bloodless revolution.

Birken’ead Drill

2011-07-14T17:14:00.000-05:00

On this day in 1852, one of the worst naval disasters in modern history occurred in the shark infested waters of the South Atlantic. The British troopship Birkenhead struck a rock shelf just off the coast of South Africa. The decrepit wood-hulled vessel carried the famed regiment of the 78th Highlanders--Scottish warriors who had distinguished themselves in every imperial scrap from the Napoleonic Wars to the Crimean Conflict. Also aboard were their wives and children—and of course, the ship’s crew.

It was almost immediately evident that the foundering ship was going to sink. Unfortunately, there were very few lifeboats aboard. Nevertheless, calm prevailed. Orders were given to remove the women and children first by placing them into the few precious lifeboat seats—there was just enough room for them. Within twenty minutes later the boat sank.

Not one woman or child was lost; not one man was saved. To make matters worse, the Highlanders and the crew of the Birkenhead had to endure grisly deaths--the sharks began circling even as the ship began to list. Their wives and children were forced to watch helplessly from the safety of the lifeboats.

Amazingly, in the last few moments before the boat dipped beneath the waves these brave and self-sacrificing men lined up in perfect military formation. Their piper band played the national air as the ship went down. Like the men of the Titanic a half a century later, the Scottish stalwarts aboard the Birkenhead willingly exercised that age-old Christian virtue of Chivalry—that in times of crisis men must give their lives that women and children may live.

The Birkenhead incident inspired poet Rudyard Kipling, one of the 20th century’s most accomplished defenders of bold manhood, to pen his famous memorial verse, “So they stood an’ was still to the Birken’ead drill; Soldier and sailor too.” And thus, the phrase Birken’ead Drill came to be synonymous with courage, valor, and self-sacrificing chivalry.

Jeffersonian Complexities

2011-07-04T09:12:00.002-05:00

On June 9, 1776, the Continental Congress accepted a resolution made two days earlier by Virginia delegate Richard Henry Lee to appoint a committee to draft a declaration of secession from the dominions of the English King and Parliament. On June 29, the committee—composed of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston--presented their draft for debate and a vote. Finally, on July 4, an amended version of that draft was accepted. The war that had been raging for more than a year had finally driven the reluctant revolutionaries to sever all ties with their motherland.

The original draft of that Declaration of Independence had been penned by the youngest member of the committee, Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), but they hardly bore the mark of immaturity, “We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

That day would not be the last time Jefferson’s words would launch significant reform. A quarter century later, his election to the presidency marked a profound but peaceful change in the administration of the young nation. Indeed, it was called by many the “Bloodless Revolution of 1800.” The reformer who boldly wrote religious and ethical beliefs into the Declaration of Independence brought to the office a philosophy of government firmly rooted in those same beliefs, a philosophy that concerned itself, above all, with the rights and liberties of the individual. It was Jefferson’s democratic views, with his enduring faith in the individual, that, more than anything else, turned the country away from the class rule of the Federalists.

Few men have been better equipped to become President--a graduate of William and Mary College and an able lawyer, Jefferson helped shape the destiny of the struggling nation from the beginning. He served in the Virginia House of Burgesses, in the Continental Congress--writing the final draft of the Declaration, as a minister in the French court, as Governor of Virginia, as Secretary of State under Washington, and as Vice-president under Adams. But as President, Jefferson proved that philosophical ability and practical experience in office were no replacements for political leadership. He was a remarkable inventor, a scientist, a writer, an artist, a planter, an architect, a musician, and an educator--but he proved to be a rather poor politician and administrator.

He was able however to restore a profound sense of democracy to the nation’s highest office, an accomplishment that ranks with the celebrated purchase of the Louisiana Territory as the outstanding achievement of his administration. Interestingly, it was during his time in the White House that the noted skeptic and independent thinker became, for the first time in his life, a serious Bible student and regular church-goer (at the Capital Hill presbyterian congregation that met in the Supreme Court chambers on Sunday mornings).

A complex man, Jefferson was one of the most accomplished of our Presidents. He was talented as are few men in any age--the living example of his own belief in the capacity of men to learn and to grow under freedom.

The Charge Up San Juan Hill

2011-07-01T08:23:00.000-05:00

It was on this day in 1898 that Theodore Roosevelt and his Rough Riders volunteer cavalry regiment secured a stunning American victory over the Imperial Spanish forces in the Battle of Santiago by storming San Juan Hill in Cuba. To avoid capture, Spanish Admiral Pascual Cervera tried to retreated from Santiago harbor two days later. The Spanish ships were attacked by the American fleet, burned and sunk. Two weeks later, the Spanish crown surrendered her remaining colonies in the West. And thus ended the short-lived Spanish-American War.

An Experiment in Liberty

2011-06-29T09:59:00.004-05:00

The great liberties that we enjoy in America have been secured against the arbitrary and fickle whims of men and movements by the rule of law. Our social system was not designed so as to depend upon the benevolence of the magistrates, or the altruism of the wealthy, or the condescension of the powerful. Every citizen, rich or poor, man or woman, native-born or immigrant, hale or handicapped, young or old, is equal under the standard of unchanging, immutable, and impartial justice.

As Thomas Paine wrote in Common Sense, the powerful booklet that helped spark the War for Independence, "In America, the law is king."

If left to the mere discretion of human authorities, even the best-intended statutes, edicts, and ordinances inevitably devolve into some form of tyranny. There must, therefore, be an absolute against which no encroachment of prejudice or preference may interfere. There must be a foundation that the winds of change and the waters of circumstance cannot erode. There must be a basis for law that can be depended upon at all times, in all places, and in every situation.

Apart from this uniquely Christian innovation in the affairs of men and nations, there can be no freedom. There never has been before, and there never will be again. Our Founding Fathers knew that only too well.

The opening refrain of the Declaration of Independence affirms the necessity of that kind of absolute standard upon which the rule of law can then be established:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

Appealing to the "Supreme Judge of the World" for guidance, and relying on His "Divine Providence" for wisdom, the Framers committed themselves and their posterity to the absolute standard of "the laws of nature and of nature's God." A just government exists, they argued, solely and completely to "provide guards" for the "future security" of that standard. Take away those guards, and the rule of law is no longer possible.

That is precisely why they felt compelled to so boldly declare their autonomy from the British realm. The activist government of the Crown had become increasingly intrusive, burdensome, and fickle and thus the possibility of rule of law had been thrown into very real jeopardy. The Founders merely protested the fashion and fancy of political, bureaucratic, and systemic innovation that had alienated the inalienable.

They said that the King's government had, "erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance." It had, "called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant. . .for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with the King's measures." It had, "refused assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary to the public good." It had, "imposed taxes without consent. . . taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our government." And it had, "plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, destroyed the lives of our people. . .and excited domestic insurrections amongst us."

The Founders believed that no one in America could be absolutely secure under the king, because absoluteness had been thrown out of the constitutional vocabulary. Because certain rights had been abrogated for at least some citizens by a smothering, dominating political behemoth, all of the liberties of all the citizens were at risk because suddenly arbitrariness, relativism, and randomness had entered into the legal equation. The checks against petty partiality and blatant bias had been virtually disabled.

Thus, they acted boldly to "form a more perfect union." They launched a sublime experiment in liberty never before surpassed, never again matched.

Sadly, not even in our own time. As P.J. O'Rourke has asserted, “There are twenty-seven specific complaints against the British Crown set forth in the Declaration of Independence. To modern ears they still sound reasonable. They still sound reasonable in large part, because so many of them can be leveled against the present federal government of the United States.”

The World, the Flesh, and the Devil

2011-06-25T14:54:00.000-05:00

Grappling with the dangers of the world, the flesh, and the devil has always been a prominent aspect of Christian thinking and living:

In his helpful Golden Booklet of the Christian Life, John Calvin asserts, "Nothing is more difficult than to forsake all carnal thoughts, to subdue and renounce our false appetites, and to devote ourselves to God and our brethren, and to live the life of angels in a world of devils."

Centuries earlier, Peter Abelard wrote in his Expositions that, “There are three things which tempt us, the world, the flesh, and the devil.”

Thomas Aquinas refers to the world, the flesh, and the devil in his Summa Theologica as “the great adversaries of our souls.”

The phrase probably entered popular use in English through the Book of Common Prayer, which utilizes the phrase in its Daily Litany, “From all the deceits of the world, the flesh, and the devil, Good Lord, deliver us.”

But, this triad of dangers is actually first clearly articulated in Christ’s parable of the sower in Matthew 13, Mark 4, and Luke 8. There the Lord provides us with three illustrations of unproductive soil: the seed choked by thorny soil represents the cares of the world; the seed that springs up in rocky soil but then withers represents shallow and carnal believers who live according to the flesh; and the seed that fell on pounded soil, along paths and roadsides, only to be devoured by the birds represents the Devil’s voracious wiles.

The Apostle Paul also describes these three dangers in Ephesians 2:1-3, “You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit now at work among those who are disobedient. For, all of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh."

And, the Apostle John alludes to them in 1 John 2:16, “For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the adversary.”

The point is: ours is a comprehensively fallen universe—it’s not just the devil we have to watch out for; it’s not just the devil and me; it’s everything, everywhere, all the time.

Re-Affirming the Parish Vision

2011-06-24T15:34:00.003-05:00

Our little faith community here in Tennessee, Parish Pres, has undertaken a host of changes in the past several months. We have multiplied our Gospel outreach by planting Cornerstone Pres--in a kind of reverse church plant. In so doing, we moved the mother congregation from downtown to east Franklin, from the historic Church Street chapel to the bucolic Clovercroft property, and from a central location to an out-of-the way mission.

In concert with these changes we felt that it was important to re-affirm our vision and mission--we have wanted to make sure that we remain unchanging in our commitments and our calling. To that end, we have been working on crafting an image to represent those missional principles of grace we hold so dear.

You’ll notice that the image paradoxically conveys both tradition and contemporaneity simultaneously--we’ve updated some very traditional elements and treatments with very modern typefaces and layouts. As you might expect, there are a lot of things “going on” in the image: the word “Parish” itself conveys movement and the embrace of covenant community as the r and the s wrap around the i; then the i forms the trunk of a tree of life with the cross forming the branches and leaves; the cross is taken from an old Celtic form to indicate both our Reformed theological heritage and our great Gospel hope in the finished work of Jesus; the cross also has elements representing the four Gospels, the five books of the Pentateuch, and the Trinity; the cross even hints at the idea of a fountain in the center of a garden; the arboreal theme is reinforced by the organic color scheme; the parchment background reminds us of the plenary nature of God’s revelation to us in Scripture; the very modern typefaces are ink-stamped and distressed to convey a sense of both the past and the future; and finally, the distinctiveness of the word “Parish” lends itself to lots of creative uses for future church plants, conferences, and missional works.

May God be pleased to use this image to remind us that amidst all the changes, nothing has really changed at all.

Re-Imagining Parish

2011-06-21T21:15:00.002-05:00

On the Nightstand

2011-06-20T09:16:00.003-05:00

Just Can't Wait

2011-06-20T07:21:00.000-05:00

Celebrating Pentecost

2011-06-12T01:15:00.001-05:00

Pentecost is the celebration commemorating the coming of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the Church fifty days after the resurrection of Jesus (hence its name) and ten days after His ascension.

It is also called Whit Sunday, Whitsun, or Whitsuntide. These names are from an Anglo-Saxon contraction of "White Sunday.” White (or whit) was not only a symbol of purity throughout Christendom, but also of “wit” or understanding—thus, the association with the outpouring of the Spirit upon the redeemed.

Pentecost corresponds to the Jewish festival of Shavuot, which commemorates God giving the 10 Commandments at Mt. Sinai fifty days after the Exodus.

So it is that on this day, we who are named with the Name of Christ, rejoice at the giving of His Spirit and all the good gifts therein.

Pentecostal Joy

2011-06-12T01:10:00.001-05:00

According to Arthurian legend, it was on Pentecost that the king always gathered his knights at the round table for a feast and a quest.

Goethe, Germany's great poet declared Pentecost "Das Liebliche Fest,“ “The Lovely Feast,” in a in his Reineke Fuchs.

Alexandre Dumas sets the sequel to The Three Musketeers at a feast to celebrate Penecost.

And Shakespeare sets the opening of Romeo and Juliette against the backdrop of Whitsuntide.

His Floodgates of Blessing

2011-06-11T16:31:00.002-05:00

Lord, as of old, at Pentecost, 
Thou didst Thy pow’r display— 
With cleansing, purifying flame, 
Descend on us today.

Lord, send the old-time power, the Pentecostal power! 
Thy floodgates of blessing, on us throw open wide! 
Lord, send the old-time power, the Pentecostal power! 
That sinners be converted and Thy Name glorified!

For mighty works for Thee, prepare 
And strengthen every heart; 
Come, take possession of Thine own, 
And nevermore depart.

All self consume, all sin destroy! 
With earnest zeal endue 
Each waiting heart to work for Thee;
 O Lord, our faith renew!

Speak, Lord! before Thy throne we wait, 
Thy promise we believe, 
And will not let Thee go until 
The blessing we receive.

Lord, send the old-time power, the Pentecostal power! 
Thy floodgates of blessing, on us throw open wide! 
Lord, send the old-time power, the Pentecostal power! 
That sinners be converted and Thy Name glorified!
Charles Gabriel, 1911

Chivalry and Sacrifice

2011-06-09T16:14:00.000-05:00

During the Senate hearing following the tragic sinking of the Titanic the doctrine of “women and children first” was very much the topic of discussion. Surviving Second Officer Charles Lightoller indicated that despite the fact that there were actually no maritime laws which mandated the such chivalry in times of danger, he and many other seamen like him, believed that the doctrine was a universally-recognized and uniformly-practiced principle of conduct. It was why the overall death toll in the Titanic disaster was nine men for every one woman--for the most part the men gave their places in the few available lifeboats to women.

That was the motivating virtue behind Nellie Taft’s efforts to establish a memorial to chivalry in Washington D.C. shortly after the Titanic disaster. The First Lady mounted a national campaign to raise funds for a monument to be built in Washington, D.C. Mrs. Taft explained, “I am happy to do this in gratitude to the chivalry of American manhood.”

Using the one-dollar donations of American housewives, nearly $90,000 was raised and a commission was given to a prominent team of artists, architects, and landscape designers.
The monument, dedicated at a very prominent location near the White House on this day in 1913, bears the inscription: “To the brave men who gave their lives that women and children might be saved.” Atop a grand pedestal a beautiful bronze statue of a man, arms outstretched, eyes toward the horizon, was placed.

Sixty years later, the entire monument was removed and placed in a storage facility where it languished, all but forgotten, for several years. Finally, in 1979 it was given a new home, overlooking the Potomac River where it stands to this day as a reminder of the old virtue of chivalry and sacrifice.

A World Split Apart

2011-06-08T14:44:00.000-05:00

It was on this day in 1978 that exiled Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn shocked America's elite during a commencement address at Harvard University. Much to their surprise, he censured the West just as stridently as he did the East:

"The fight for our planet, physical and spiritual, a fight of cosmic proportions, is not a vague matter of the future; it has already started. The forces of evil have begun their decisive offensive. You can feel their pressure, yet your screens and publications are full of prescribed smiles and raised glasses. What is the joy about?"

The address was later published as A World Split Apart. It remains astonishingly relevant, even precient.

Ascension Day

2011-06-02T06:51:00.002-05:00

Hail the day that sees Him rise,
Ravished from our wistful eyes!
Christ, awhile to mortals given,
Re-ascends His native heaven.
There the glorious triumph waits,
Lift your heads, eternal gates!
Wide unfold the radiant scene,
Take the King of glory in!
--Charles Wesley

"By the Ascension all the parts of life are brought together in the oneness of their common destination. By the Ascension Christ in His Humanity is brought close to every one of us, and the words “in Christ,” the very charter of our faith, gain a present power. By the Ascension we are encouraged to work beneath the surface of things to that which makes all things capable of consecration. Then it is that the last element in our confession as to Christ’s work speaks to our hearts. He is not only present with us as Ascended: He is active for us. We believe that He sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; He the fount of Living Water, now ever lives to refresh us unto eternal life."
--Brooke Foss Westcott

See, the Conqueror mounts in triumph,
See the King in royal state,
Riding on the clouds His chariot
To His heavenly palace-gate;
Hark, the choirs of angel voices
Joyful halleluiahs sing,
And the portals high are lifted,
To receive their heavenly King.
--William Wordsworth

Jerome of Prague

2011-05-31T06:52:00.000-05:00

Jan Hus began preaching the doctrines of the Reformation almost a century before Martin Luther when he brought the writings of John Wyclif to his native Bohemia. Hus’s friend, Jerome of Prague was likewise convinced of the Wycliffian truths and began to seriously think through their implications.

At Hus's suggestion Jerome sailed to England and studied at Oxford, Wyclif's old seat of learning. For the next several years, Jerome moved about a good deal, disseminating reformed doctrines in Paris, Jerusalem, Heidelberg, Vienna, Moscow, Budapest, and Cologne. He became a traveling ambassador for the fledgling reform movement. He became very active in public affairs throughout Christendom. In his native Bohemia he sided with nationalistic students. He denounced a bull proclaiming an indulgence for a crusade against Naples.

When Hus was arrested by the Council of Constance, Jerome secretly followed, hoping to defend his friend. He discovered he could do nothing and was in fact, in great danger himself, and so he went to neighboring Idelberg and asked for safe conduct. Unwilling to stand idly by while grave injustices were perpetrated, he had placards posted throughout Constance saying he was willing to appear before the bishops, that his character had been maligned, and that he would retract any error which could be proven against him. All he asked was a pledge of security.

When no pledge was forthcoming, Jerome headed home. On the way he was seized and sent in irons to the Council. A long chain was attached to the irons, and by this he was dragged into the cloister to be insulted, and then locked in a tower. His legs were fastened in stocks. For many days he was kept in this miserable condition. After Hus was burned at the stake, Jerome was threatened with torments if he would not recant. In a moment of weakness, he yielded.

Still he was not released. On the contrary, a second recantation was demanded. He said he would recant only in public. By then he had been a prisoner almost a year. At the public "recantation," he took back his earlier recalcitrance and demanded a hearing to plead his cause. The Council refused this plea. Indignantly he protested, "To my enemies you have allowed the fullest scope of accusation; to me you deny the least opportunity of defense."

Jerome insisted he protested only against the bad behavior of the clergy. Unlike Hus, he did not reject wholesale the doctrines of the the Roman Church. Nonetheless, he was condemned to die in the flames as Hus had. For two days the council kept him in suspense, hoping to frighten him into a capitulation. The cardinal of Florence personally reasoned with him. Jerome remained steadfast.

When a cap was made for him painted with red devils, he said, "Our Lord Jesus Christ, when he suffered death for me, a most miserable sinner, did wear a crown of thorns upon his head; and I for his sake will wear this adorning of derision and blasphemy.

He sang hymns on his way to execution. Because of his vigor and health he was a long time dying in the flames. On this day in 1416, he and his paper crown were burned.

The Fall of Constantinople

2011-05-30T07:53:00.000-05:00

It was on this day in 1453 that Mehmed II, Sultan of the Ottoman Turks, cruel and patient, laid siege the great Christian city of Constantinople.

He erected a fortress across the strait from the city, brought up his warships, and unleashed his dread janissaries--enslaved Christians who had been trained into an fearsome fighting force. Mehmed also unveiled a massive cast cannon that could hurl 500 pound stones a mile. The walls of the once invincible Constantinople were no match for this unprecedented assault. The city which had been ruled by nearly one hundred Christian emperors since Constantine had dedicated the city in 311, was forced to capitulate.

With the defenses shattered, Mehmed's enraged Muslim hoard swarmed into the city, murdering the citizenry indiscriminately. Churches were looted and the sacramental chalices slaked the marauder's throats. Christians were ravished on the altars. The land where Paul and Barnabas preached the Gospel, a land that had been the heart and soul of the Christian world for a more than a millennium, had become the latest in a long line of Islamic conquests. Alas, it would not be the last.

Charing Cross

2011-05-15T16:38:00.002-05:00

By Charing Cross in London Town
There runs a road of high renown,
Where antique books are ranged on shelves
As dark and dusty as themsleves.
And many book lovers have spent
Their substance there with great content,
And vexed their wives and filled their homes
With faded prints and massive tomes.
Norman Davey

This England!

2011-05-15T16:32:00.000-05:00

This royal throne of kings,
This sceptered isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, this demi-paradise,
This fortress built by nature herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world.
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house
Against the envy of less happier lands;
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm,
This England.

Renowned for deeds as far from home
For Christian service and true chivalry
As unto the Holy Sepulchre itself, this land
Of such dear souls, this dear, dear land:
This England.
William Shakespeare

Give Me Scotland, or I Die!

2011-05-15T16:23:00.000-05:00

John Knox appeared at the Church of the Blackfriars in Edinburgh to face charges of heresy on this day in 1556. The Catholic bishops had hoped to humble him. Instead he turned the tables and scored a stunning triumph. Humiliated, Regent Mary of Guise, the mother of Mary, Queen of Scots, dismissed the summons, and Knox went out into the streets of Edinburgh to preach to jubilant crowds.

Later that night, Knox famously wrote Mary of Guise a winsome letter of thanks--and asked her to offer a decree of toleration for all Protestants throughout the land. Though she would initially treat the letter with contempt, she soon realized that in order for the Stuart monarch to survive, toleration had became a practical necessity.

Indeed, even though he was briefly forced into exile (this, for the third time), Knox and his reforming friends, had clearly gained the upper hand. Eventually, the spiritual renewal of the Reformation swept across Scotland, transforming the land.

His oft repeated prayer, "Give me Scotland, or I die," was gloriously answered.

Lee's Right Arm

2011-05-02T22:07:00.000-05:00

Confederate General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson was accidentally wounded by his own men at the Battle of Chancellorsville on this day in 1863. He died eight days later to the great distress of Robert E. Lee who lamented, “I have lost my right arm.” Many historians believe that this strategic loss was actually the turning point in the very uncivil war which the South seemed to be winning at the time.

May 1, 2230 Hours

2011-05-01T22:41:00.007-05:00

On May 1, 1945 Germany made public the death of the notorious warlord Adolf Hitler. Exactly sixty-six years later, the United States likewise pronounced the end of another madman, announcing the killing of Osama bin Laden less than a thousand yards from the most elite military installation in Pakistan.

It was at 2230 hours when a newsreader announced that the Fuhrer had fallen at his command post fighting to the last breath. Likewise, President Obama broke the news about bin Laden at 2230 hours as he addressed the nation from the White House.

Hitler's thousand-year Reich (or “empire”) lasted 12 years and three months. bin Laden's vision for the recovery of the Muslim “Dhimmi” (or “rule of the righteous”) began in 1979 when he joined Afghan resistance against a Soviet military occupation before turning against Americans in the 1998--and then afterward, inspiring, if not masterminding, the global terrorist network, al-Qaeda.

Together, Hitler and bin Laden have joined a long line of would-be-rulers-of-the-world foiled at last by the dumb certainties of experience, the courage of a few, and the commitment of many.

In Spite of Himself

2011-04-25T13:43:00.000-05:00

"And we were baptized and all anxiety for our past life vanished away." With these joyous words Augustine recorded his entrance into the church on this day in the 387 AD.

Born in North Africa in 354 of a Christian mother and pagan father, Augustine became, at twelve years of age a student at Carthage, and at sixteen, a teacher of grammar. His mother was determined to see him become a Christian and baptized. He was equally determined to have his pleasures. He took a mistress and she bore him a son, Adeodatus. At 29 his restless spirit drove him to Italy. In Rome he taught rhetoric for a year, but was cheated of his fees. He then moved to Milan where he came under the influence of Ambrose, bishop of the city.

In spite of himself he began to drift toward faith. At last, in a moment of crisis, he came to grace. Immediately he thrust aside those sins of the flesh which had held him bondage. At his mother's death, he returned to Africa where he founded a small scholastic community--and later became bishop of Hippo. Over the course of the last forty years of his life, he proved to be a subtle theologian who more than any other stamped his imprint upon Western culture.

Blessed Easter Morn!

2011-04-24T00:01:00.002-05:00

Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed!

Jesus said, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.” John 11:25-26

For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures. 1 Corinthians 15:3-4

And Jesus Christ our Lord was shown to be the Son of God when God powerfully raised him from the dead by means of the Holy Spirit. Through Christ, God has given us the privilege and authority to tell Gentiles everywhere what God has done for them, so that they will believe and obey him, bringing glory to his name. Romans 1:4-5
 
Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Romans 6:8-11

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Philippians 3:10-12

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. 1 Peter 1:3  

View from the Shed Office

2011-04-23T10:08:00.000-05:00

He Came for Us!

2011-04-23T08:31:00.002-05:00

"No scene in sacred history ever gladdens the soul like the scene on Calvary. Nowhere does the soul find such consolation as on that very spot where misery reigned, where woe triumphed, where agony reached its climax." C. H. Spurgeon

"We live and die: Christ died and lived!" John R.W. Stott

"Christ has not only spoken to us by his life but has also spoken for us by his death." Soren Kierkegaard

“The marvel of heaven and earth, of time and eternity, is the atoning death of Jesus Christ. This is the mystery that brings more glory to God than all creation." C. H. Spurgeon

Good Friday

2011-04-22T07:02:00.001-05:00

He was the king of glory, the Morning Star, the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation—by Him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through Him and for Him. He was before all things, and in Him all things held together. In Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.

And yet, He was born for this moment. It was for this humiliation, it was for this shameful injustice, it was for this torture that He came into the world. He was made incarnate so that His holy brow might be crowned with thorns. He was made in the likeness of a servant so that He might be mocked by the very ones He had come to seek and save. He left His throne in glory so that His back might bear the stripes for our iniquity, so that His hands and feet and side might be pierced for our transgressions.

Hark that cry that peals aloud,
Upward through the whelming cloud.
Thou the Father’s only son,
Thou His own anointed one,
Thou dost ask Him, can it be?
Why hast thou forsaken me?
Twas me, twas me that placed thee there,
Twas me that shouldst have pierced the air.
Twas me that shouldst have borne that grief,
Yet t’was thou forsaken instead of me.

Palms on Palm Sunday

2011-04-17T07:20:00.002-05:00

The palm tree and palm leaves appear again and again throughout the Bible as symbols of integrity, honor, righteousness, holiness, godly authority, and royal glory. The palm was used in the carved decorations of the temple, usually associated with the Cherubim, but also with the regal lion and the flower in full bloom. Indeed, the association of the palm with these ideas recurs more than three dozen times. The blessing of the Lord is often portrayed as “Like palm groves that stretch afar, like gardens beside a river, like aloes that the Lord has planted, like cedar trees beside the waters” (Numbers 24:6).

In addition though, throughout the entire ancient Near East the palm also had the common cultural connotation of refreshment and restoration. Waving palm tops along the horizon heralded the location of a desert oasis, a welcome stop for both camel and traveler. Palms provided weary travelers food and shade; the oasis, water. So palm branches become the symbol of welcome, public homage, and journey’s end. It was the sign of completion, fulfillment, and satisfaction.

For both the Romans and the Jews the palm was carried in joyful or triumphant processions. In 293 BC victorious Roman soldiers bore palm branches when parading in Rome; and the palm was given as a victory emblem at public games. Palm branches were the conventional symbol of public approval and welcome by all the eastern peoples to conquering heroes, and were strewn and carried in triumphal processions. The palm tree was embossed on ancient Hebrew coins. Later, the Romans celebrated the conquest of Judea by issuing new currency, retaining the palm tree, but with an added inscription celebrating their crushing victory.

All the Gospels report that people gave Jesus the kingly honor of strewing palm branches along the path during His triumphal entry. In the Synoptics (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) we are told that they also laid down their garments with cut palm rushes on the street; John more specifically mentions the full palm fronds. The joyous Hosannas that the people were singing (Psalm 118) were actually from the benediction song for the Passover meal, and thus foreshadowed passion Jesus would suffer during the week ahead. In addition, the whole scene was a fulfillment of all the Old Testament prophecies of the coming King (Zechariah 9:9-10).

Not surprisingly, as early as the late first century the palm was connected with martyrdom (Revelation 7:9) and was used to decorate grave markers and tombs in the Roman catacombs as a sign of the triumphant death of the martyr. On mosaics and on sarcophagi it usually stands for paradise, and Christ is frequently portrayed amid palms in heaven. So also in the earliest Christian art, the Lamb of God and the Apostles are depicted amid palms. In addition, the use of the palm became an almost universal worship convention on Palm Sunday by the end of the second or the beginning of the third century.

On this Sunday, Christians will once again observe this venerable and ancient practice during our worship services, as we again sing Hosannas to our King, waving these old Biblical symbols of royal pomp and joyous celebration.

Bodies and Souls

2011-04-09T20:17:00.000-05:00

Born in Northern Ireland to a wealthy Presbyterian family, Amy Carmichael (1867-1951) became one of the best known missionaries of the first half of the twentieth century. Her ministry took her first to Japan, then to Ceylon, and finally to the Dohnavur province of India.

Although the brutal Hindu traditions of sarti and immolation--burning widows alive on the funeral pyres of their deceased husbands--had been legally banned, to her horror she discovered that ritual abortion and female infanticide were still quite common. In addition, many of the young girls that she had come to work with were still being systematically sold off as slaves to the nearby pagan temples in order to be raised as cult prostitutes.

She immediately established a ministry to protect and shelter the girls. Although she had to suffer the persecution of various Hindu sects and the bureaucratic resistance of the British colonial government, Carmichael built an effective and dynamic ministry renowned for its courage and compassion. Sadly, many of her fellow missionaries in India--having partially accepted the presuppositions of Planned Parenthood’s Malthusian thought--believed that her effort to build an orphanage and school was actually a "worldly activity" that distracted her from the "saving of souls." To such accusations she simply replied, "Souls are more or less firmly attached to bodies."

Since her death in 1951, her Dohnavur Fellowship has continued to carry on ministries of evangelism, education, and medical aid among the poor and helpless. It remains one of the most dynamic Christian, pro-life, relief and development works on the Indian subcontinent.

Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too!

2011-04-04T07:32:00.000-05:00

In 1840 the Whig Party took the gamble of nominating the oldest man ever to run for President, 68-year-old William H. Harrison (1773-1841), and they won the election but lost the gamble, for Harrison lived only one month after his inauguration. On March 4, 1841 he made a three hour inaugural speech in a drenching rain and caught pneumonia. One month later, on this day, he died in the White House.

He served the shortest term of any President, but his election ended the Jacksonian reign and brought the growing Whigs to power, even though John Tyler, the Vice-president who succeeded Harrison, was an ex-Democrat with rather watery Whig convictions.

The election of 1840 marked the beginning of elaborate national campaigns—by then the Whigs had become established as a second party, a development which helped to institutionalize the party system as the country’s method of selecting candidates. Smarting from their defeat in 1836, when they were new and poorly organized, the Whigs met almost a year before the election for their first national convention. They then proceeded to build an elaborate campaign around everything but the issues: Harrison’s military exploits against the Indians—especially the battle of Tippecanoe; and his service as a simple man of the West—the Ohio and Indiana Territories where he served as a civil and military leader.

Campaign posters pictured Harrison as “The Hero of Tippecanoe” or “The Farmer of North Bend,” hand to the plow in front of a log cabin. The catchy slogan “Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too!” rang out at the largest political rallies and mass meetings ever held in America. And it is one of the ironies of politics that the log cabin developed into a potent campaign symbol for Harrison, a man who was born in a white-pillared mansion into one of the aristocratic families of Tidewater Virginia. His father, Benjamin Harrison, was one of the Founding Fathers of the nation, a member of the Continental Congress and a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

And so it was that the man to hold the presidency for the shortest time may have made the biggest impact—if only from the standpoint of having invented the modern presidential campaign.

April Fools Day

2011-04-01T07:52:00.002-05:00

Since at least the seventeenth century this day has been celebrated with practical jokes and spurious news. Mark Twain commented in his Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar, “This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four.”

"For the Mahometans" by Charles Wesley

2011-03-31T14:55:00.000-05:00

Hymn #443 in the 1875 Wesley Hymnal (or #431 in the Collected Works of John Wesley) is a remarkable call for faithful intercession for the lost:

1. Sun of unclouded righteousness,
With healing in thy wings arise
A sad, benighted world to bless,
Which now in sin and error lies,
Wrapped in Egyptian night profound,
With chains of hellish darkness bound.

2. The smoke of the infernal cave,
Which half the Christian world o'erspread,
Disperse, thou heavenly Light, and save
The souls by that impostor led,
That Arab-thief, as Satan bold,
Who quite destroyed thy Asian fold.

3. O might the blood of sprinkling cry
For those who spurn the sprinkled blood!
Assert thy glorious Deity,
Stretch out thy arm, thou triune God,
the Unitarian fiend expel,
And chase his doctrine back to hell!

4. Come, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
Thou Three in One, and One in Three,
Resume thy own for ages lost,
Finish the dire apostasy;
Thine universal claim maintain,
And Lord of the creation reign

Jon Amos Comenius

2011-03-28T05:08:00.000-05:00

Pioneering educator, John Comenius was born in Prague on this day in 1592. Like most of the other followers of John Hus, he was forced into exile during the Thirty Years War. He and most of the members of his small covenant community settled in Leszno, Poland. There Comenius wrote several textbooks on education. These were so original in their conception of classical and covenantal discipleship that they won him the name "Father of Modern Education."

So, Which Will It Be?

2011-03-27T23:10:00.009-05:00

N. D. Wilson, author of Leepike Ridge and 100 Cupboards, has a new novel due out this summer. According to the Random House online press release, the new book promises "an imagination-capturing adventure that inventively combines the contemporary and the legendary." Hoo boy, can't wait. Just my cup of tea from one of my favorite authors.

The only trouble is that the site suggests two entirely different titles and two altogether different covers for the same book. At first, I thought that these might be volumes one and two of a new series. But then, I noticed that the two alternatives have the exactly same plot description:

For two years, Cyrus and Antigone Smith have run a sagging roadside motel with their older brother, Daniel. Nothing ever seems to happen. Then a strange old man with bone tattoos arrives, demanding a specific room. Less than 24 hours later, the old man is dead. The motel has burned, and Daniel is missing. And Cyrus and Antigone are kneeling in a crowded hall, swearing an oath to an order of explorers who have long served as caretakers of the world's secrets, keepers of powerful relics from lost civilizations, and jailers to unkillable criminals who have terrorized the world for millennia.

Having read his previous books, I have a good hunch that in this one, Wilson is once again queueing up a rollicking ride through ancient mythology and modern Americana, through arcane mysteries and topsy-turvy paradoxes.

So, which is it? Ashtown or Dragon's Tooth? I dunno. What I do know is this: whatever the title and whatever the cover, this one immediately goes to the top of my summer must-read list.

.

At the Final Four: Underdog Is Here

2011-03-27T16:19:00.004-05:00

Just thinking about the VCU and Butler match-up in the NCAA Final Four brings a smile to my face--and these lyrics to mind:

There's no need to fear! Underdog is here!

When criminals in this world appear,
And break the laws that they should fear,
And frighten all who see or hear,
the cry goes up both far and near,
For Underdog! Underdog! Underdog! Underdog!

Speed of lightning, roar of thunder,
Fighting all who rob or plunder.
Underdog! Underdog!

When in this world the headlines read,
Of those whose hearts are filled with greed,
Who rob and steal from those who need,
To right this wrong with blinding speed,
Goes Underdog! Underdog! Underdog! Underdog!

Speed of lightning, roar of thunder,
Fighting all who rob or plunder.
Underdog! Underdog!

There's no need to fear! Underdog is here!

On the Nightstand

2011-03-26T09:10:00.005-05:00

Arthur St. Clair

2011-03-25T08:26:00.002-05:00

Born on this day in 1734 in Edinburgh, Scotland during the tumultuous days of the final Jacobite Rising and the Tartan Suppression, Arthur St. Clair (1734-1818) was the only president of the United States born and bred on foreign soil. Though most of his family and friends abandoned their devastated homeland in the years following the Battle of Culloden—after which nearly a third of the land was depopulated through emigration to America—he stayed behind to learn the ways of the hated Hanoverian English in the Royal Navy. His plan was to learn of the enemy’s military might in order to fight another day.

During the global conflict of the Seven Years War—generally known as the French and Indian War—he was stationed in the American theater. Afterward, he decided to settle in Pennsylvania where many of his kin had established themselves. His civic-mindedness quickly became apparent: he helped to organize both the New Jersey and the Pennsylvania militias, led the Continental Army’s Canadian expedition, and was elected Congress. His long years of training in the enemy camp were finally paying off.

He was elected President in 1787—and he served from February 2 of that year until January 21 of the next. Following his term of duty in the highest office in the land, he became the first Governor of the Northwest Territory and the founder of Cincinnati.

Though he briefly supported the idea of creating a constitutional monarchy under the Stuart’s Bonnie Prince Charlie, he eventually became a strident Anti-Federalist—believing that the proposed federal constitution could someday allow for the intrusion of government into virtually every sphere and aspect of life. He even predicted that under the vastly expanded centralized power of the state the taxing powers of bureaucrats and other unelected officials might eventually be able to confiscate as much as a quarter of the income of the citizens—a notion that seemed laughable at the time but that has proven to be ominously modest in light of our current governmental leviathan.

St. Clair lived to see the hated English tyrants who destroyed his homeland defeated. But he despaired that his adopted home might actually create similar tyrannies and impose them upon themselves.

Belloc's Elegy

2011-03-20T16:39:00.001-05:00

"When I am dead, I hope it may be said, though his sins were scarlet, his books are read." Hilaire Belloc

Thomas Chalmers

2011-03-17T06:08:00.001-05:00

The great Scottish pastor, social reformer, educator, author, and scientist Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847) was born on St. Patrick's Day 1780 at Anstruther on the Fife coast. During the course of his long and storied career he served as the pastor of three congregations, taught in three colleges, published more than thirty-five best-selling books, and helped to establish more than a hundred charitable relief and missions organizations. He practically reinvented the Scottish parish system as well as the national social welfare structure. He counted such luminaries as the Duke of Wellington, Sir Walter Scott, King William IV, Thomas Carlyle, William Wilberforce, and Robert Peel as his friends. Indeed, he was among the most influential and highly regarded men of his day.

In 1809, having already made his mark as a brilliant professor of mathematics at St. Andrews and serving a small rural parish, he underwent a spiritual transformation following an extended illness. Afterward, he completely abandoned himself to his little covenantal community. He married and had his first children there. He established a classical school at the heart of the parish. He set about a reform of the ministry to the poor, the widows, and the orphans. He established a pioneer missionary society and a Bible society. In addition, Chalmers began his prodigious and prolific publishing career.

Chalmers went to Glasgow at the invitation of the Magistrates and Town Council in 1815. He served first in the Tron Church until 1819, and then, he was transferred to the newly-created parish of St John’s, a poorer parish with a very high proportion of factory a workers, where he had the freedom to develop ministry to the poor and needy.

From the beginning of his ministry in the city his preaching was fully appreciated, and many attended from throughout Glasgow, but Chalmers was concerned that his ministry should first and foremost be to the parish—where some eleven or twelve-thousand people lived and worked. He commenced a program of visitation from house to house which took two years to complete. He organized the eldership to cooperate in this task and developed Sabbath evening schools. He undertook care of the poor, education of the entire community, and reform of the local political economy. In addition, he became a popular author, at times even besting his friend Walter Scott in sales.

In later years, he prepared others for a similar impact in ministry at the University of Edinburgh—always modeling mercy himself. In 1843, he led the Evangelicals in the establishment of the Free Church. And in 1846 laid the cornerstone for its New College.

Thomas Carlyle said of him “What a wonderful old man Chalmers is. Or rather, he has all the buoyancy of youth. When so many of us are wringing our hands in hopeless despair over the vileness and wretchedness of the large towns, there goes the old man, shovel in hand, down into the dirtiest puddles, cleans them out, and fills the sewers with living waters. It is a beautiful sight.” By the end of his life, Chalmers had changed his land like no other since Knox.

A Child's Blessing

2011-03-13T06:11:00.003-05:00

The meat and bread Thou didst supply,
The more to provoke us to rely.
From Thy blessed, bounteous coffer
We do receive, and so now offer:
All we are and all we have,
To You our Savior, King, and Path.
Isaac Watts