Bless This Food

One of my favorite collaborations with Karen has just been re-released in a beautiful french-fold, over-size paperback. Bless This Food is a scrumptious cookbook, a guide to seasonal celebrations, an anthology of prayers and blessings, a cofee table display book, and a theology of food all rolled into a single volume. Besides that, it has my favorite cover of any of our books. Available in most fine bookstores and online services, the attendees at the King's Meadow Film Conference this weekend will have first shot at it here in Franklin--just in time for holiday giving!

Saint Crispin's Day

Crispin and his brother Crispinian were Christians who were martyred during the persecution by the Emperor Maximian in Rome. They were humble men who preached Good News to their neighbors during the day and made shoes at night in order to earn their living. Their sterling example provided a model of courage and persistence against overwhelming odds for the generations of Christians who came after them. This day has therefore been celebrated as St. Crispin's Day ever since.

Of course, for many of us St. Crispin's Day does not so much bring to mind Crispin and his brother as it does the Hundred Years War. It was on this day in 1415, during that calamitous war, that England’s King Henry V defeated the overwhelming force of French Army in the fields of Agincourt inspiring Shakespeare’s famous monologue:

"If we are marked to die, we are enough to do our country loss; and if to live, the fewer the men, the greater share of honor. God’s will, I pray thee, wish not one man more. This story shall the good man teach his son, and Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by from this day to the ending of the world but we in it shall be remembered. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile, this day shall gentle his condition. And gentlemen in England now abed shall think themselves accursed they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks that fought with us on St. Crispin’s Day."

Controversy and Hope

This coming weekend, Vision Forum Ministries will host the Second Annual San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival and Jubilee Awards at the Lila Cockrell Theater and Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio, Texas. The festival will feature more than forty independent Christian films presented on four screens over a three-day span. Once again, I have the privilege of being one of the judges—though I will not actually travel to San Antonio this time. Indeed, King’s Meadow will actually host a companion film conference here in Franklin. But, I have had the chance to view all of the films submitted to the festival and I am even now working on reviewing each of films of the finalists. I am taking my responsibilities seriously. The stakes are high, after all. The “Best of Festival” winner will receive the $10,000 Grand Prize Jubilee Award.

All this is quite timely and quite important. “The mission of the San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival is to encourage Christian filmmakers to neither retreat from society, nor to synthesize with paganism--but to do God’s work, God’s way, from the ground level up,” explained Doug Phillips, the festival’s founder. “We are urging filmographers to force the antithesis between cultural righteousness and cultural evil.”

Last year’s inaugural festival drew more than seven hundred attendees, including filmmakers from England and Scotland. More than twelve hundred are expected to attend this year’s event.

“We are pleased that the call to take a stand for Christ in the critical arena of film has resonated with filmmakers across the globe,” remarked Phillips, “What this festival showcases is a groundswell of interest on the part of aspiring Christian filmographers to chart a new path and to define success using a biblical criteria--not to except the scraps from Hollywood’s table.”

“Our film festival is controversial,” continued Phillips,” not because it seeks to be avant-garde or push the envelope of visual acceptability. It is controversial, because it dares to proclaim that the Lordship of Christ applies to our methodologies as well as our ends. It is controversial, not because of the offensive things you will see, but because of what you will not see.”

In addition to the film screenings, the festival will offer workshops with seasoned filmographers, including veteran producer Geoff Botkin, adventure cinematographer David Rasmussen, and composer Ron Owen, who wrote the score for “Beyond the Gates of Splendor.” Bible teacher R.C. Sproul, Jr. and radio host, Kevin Swanson, will also address the gathering.

Festival attendees will be treated to outdoor entertainment at the Riverwalk’s enchanting Arneson River Theatre with dramatic presentations by narrator and actor, George Sarris, and rousing ballads with maritime balladeer, Charlie Zahm.

While some may not agree with the standards advanced at the San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival, organizers believe the event provides a forum for hope for Christian filmographers, “Those who take part in the festival you will not only hear a message of hope,” explained Phillips, “but they will witness the fruits of the hopeful -- men and women laboring to advance the crown rights of Christ in a medium of defining significance for twenty-first century Christians.”

Festival passes are $125 for adults, $100 for students. Passes allow access to all the festival events. Space is limited. For more information on the San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival and Jubilee Awards, please visit the vision forum film festival web site .

Those 'Stros

I was sitting in my first Major League Baseball game--between my father and my grandfather--in the old Colt 45s stadium in Houston, Texas. I still remember the ceremony during the seventh inning stretch when Judge Roy Hofheinz announced to a jubilant crowd that he was building a new "super-futuristic domed stadium." I looked back over my shoulder to the place where the Astrodome, the "Eighth Wonder of the World," would be built and began then and there to dream about going to a World Series to watch "my" team take on Mickey Mantle and the Yankees.

Things never quite worked out that way though. Indeed, until last night, the Colt 45s-turned-Astros have been a paradigm of post-season futility. Now at last, they are on their way to the big one. Alas, they are going having dispatched the other team that figured into my childhood, the St. Louis Cardinals (the team from my dad's hometown and thus, the only baseball team we ever really talked out loud about at home--unless it was to curse the Yankees).

You can imagine my delight when my good friend, Bob Donaldson, sent me the following late-night, post-game rumination about baseball, theology, and Texas:

You know ... I was dozing in and out last night after the game ... that time of day when the most convoluted and obscure philosophical problems seem to suddenly become crystal clear ... and it occurred to me that sports ... and baseball in particular ... are a wonderful confirmation of the principles of federalism. After 43 years of waiting, "we" are going to the World Series. "We" have suffered from several near misses though the years ... as well as extended period of genuine mediocrity ... but now "we" are about to be ushered into the promised land. How is it that the "we" includes people like me; he of the .037 Little League batting average; he whose slow-pitch softball career came to an end two decades ago; how is that possible? Clearly, the principles of federalism are at work. The current crop of Astros represent me and my aspirations for victory in battle and the attendant glory. I cringe with them when things go wrong; I share their despair when victory is wrenched from their expectant grasp by a ninth inning homerun; and I somehow actually participate in the glory of ultimate victory ... taking to myself some reflection (at least) of the praises that they have earned on my behalf. I didn't elect them to be my federal representatives, and they certainly did not invite me to the party in any formal sense; somehow it was just part of the natural order of things ... ordered, that is, by the One who orders all things.

When I try to capture these thoughts now in the light of day, they seem somewhat less profound ... less helpful as an insight into the meaning of life. But last night, it seemed that I had hit on an essential truth ... we want to be "included" ... we want to share in the glory ... and that is what God invites us to do through Jesus Christ, our federal representative, who has earned eternal glory and invites us to join with Him in the eternal celebration of that victory.

Maybe it's just baseball. Maybe it's just entertainment. But for a moment last night, it seemed to me to be the ultimate metaphor.

Amen, and amen.

Heartbreak

Oh, and then there is this from my friend Bob Phillips (for all those 'Stros fans who are still having a hard time getting over the Pujols three run shot at the end of game five or all those Cards fans who still can't believe the last game has been played in Busch Stadium):

"Baseball breaks your heart; it's designed to break your heart." A. Bartlett Giamatti

Positively Medieval

Tomorrow morning I wil be lecturing on the rise of Feudalism and how that remarkable social order laid the essential foundations for Medieval Christendom. It is one of my favorite subjects precisely because like faith, the Feudal culture of the Medieval age was a perpetually defeated thing that somehow always survived all its conquerors.

Feudalism was forever a paradox. It was a romantic riddle. On the one hand it was marked by the greatest virtues of morality, charity, and selflessness; on the other hand it was marred by the flaming vices of perversity, betrayal, and avarice. It was often timid, monkish, and isolated; oftener still, it was bold, ostentatious, and adventurous. It was mystical; it was worldly. It was tenderhearted; it was cruel. It was ascetic; it was sensual. It was miserly; it was pretentious. It gripped men with a morbid superstition; it set them free with an untamed inquisitiveness. It exulted in pomp, circumstance, and ceremony; it cowered in poverty, tyranny, and injustice. It united men with faith, hope, and love; it divided them with war, pestilence, and prejudice. It was so unstable it could hardly have been expected to last a week; it was so stable that it actually lasted a millennium.

Whatever its strengths or weaknesses--and however much it paralleled our own strengths and weaknesses--the most obvious fact about the strange and unfamiliar Feudal world of Medieval Christendom is that it is indeed, strange and unfamiliar--at least, it is to us Moderns.

The Road Leads Ever On

At long last. It is 4:30 AM and I have arrived safely home after a wearying journey back from New England. At various times in the last twenty hours or so I have been in Somersworth, NH, Boston, MA, Charlotte, NC, Atlanta, GA, Chattanooga, TN and then finally home! I'd love to tell the whole sordid tale of bad weather and worse airlines--but at this point, the details are really not very important. Sleep is.

King's Meadow Film Conference

For those of you who haven't heard, King's Meadow is hosting a Film Conference here in Franklin on October 28th and 29th. To be held at the downtown Christ Community Chapel, the event is the vision of Greg Wilbur and the wonderful office volunteers here at KM. Movies and discussion, popcorn and seminars...only a Study Center would think to put those things together and know how to make it a fun time of learning! Follow this link for more information or you could e-mail Amy Shore: Amy@KingsMeadow.com

Hope to see many of you there! AS

Heed the Call

He didn’t really tell me anything I didn’t already know. Nevertheless, his counsel proved to be invaluable. He somehow was able to wrench my indecision and uncertainty out of the realm of the individual and the subjective and into the much surer and securer realm of the covenantal and the objective.

I had been wrestling with the issue of calling for months when I walked into a dusty little antiquarian bookshop and providentially discovered a frayed, foxed, and frazzled copy of a booklet entitled Heed the Call. It had actually been written for a now practically-forgotten ecclesiastical crisis in 1844 by Thomas Chalmers, but it seemed to me to be more relevant than ever as I carefully poured over its brittle pages.

Like Chalmers before me, I was then engaged in academia and publishing but I was weighing a call to return to the pastorate. And like Chalmers, I often wondered if I was making wise choices in the process--or rather, if I had somehow failed to heed God’s call at critical points along the way in my life and ministry. What were the Biblical and covenantal criteria for a call to the Gospel ministry? Was my calling somehow diminished by the fact that I was not then opening the Word to a congregation week by week? Was I missing God’s best? Had I neglected the central gifting and calling upon my life? How could I know for sure?

Drawing on the great heritage of the Reformation and the inestimable riches of Scripture Thomas Chalmers not only answered my plaguing questions, but afforded me a perspective of calling that all my years before, during, and after seminary never did.

The great Scottish pastor, social reformer, educator, author, and scientist Thomas Chalmers lived from 1780 to 1847. 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 and confidantes. Indeed, he was among the most influential and highly regarded men of his day.

Even so, at the end of his life, when his reputation was well-established, his contribution to the life of Scotland, England and Ireland fully recognized, and his fame spread around the world he did not hesitate to involve himself in--and ultimately lead--a movement that was to divide the Church of Scotland, and to set him in apparent disregard of the authority of the highest civil court in the land.

With the disappearance of Roman Catholic authority in Scotland in the sixteenth century, Reformers worked hard to replace it with a faithful national Church. Their struggle for spiritual independence had been a long and costly one under the leadership of John Knox, Andrew Melville and Alexander Henderson amongst others. At long last, in 1690, their Reformed Church was legally recognized by the crown as the established Church of Scotland. The danger of such an establishment was that the state might attempt to manipulate the internal affairs of the Church.

Sadly, that danger was realized when Parliament imposed conformity with the standards of English patronage upon the Scottish Church. In reality, patronage was hardly different from the Medieval practice of lay investiture—it gave lords, lairds, and landowners the right to appoint a parish a minister who might or might not be Biblically qualified for the post or acceptable to the elders of the congregation. The patronage conflict in came to a head in 1838 when several ministers were forced on congregations opposed to their settlement and the Court of Session and the House of Lords ratified the appointments. Many, including Chalmers, believed that the integrity of the Gospel was at stake.

At about the same time, it was decided by Parliament that the Church did not have the power to organize new parishes nor give the ministers there the status of clergy of the Church. She had no authority to receive again clergy who had left it. And perhaps worst of all a creeping liberal formalism was slowly smothering the evangelical zeal of the whole land—in large part due to the assumption of pastoral duties by men altogether unfit for such a solemn vocation..

In other words, there arose in the land a crisis over the issue of what constituted a legitimate call to the ministry, how it was to be recognized, and how it was to be maintained.

Alas, despite repeated requests, the Government refused to take action to deal with the threat of spiritual atrophy that a deficient or subjective view of calling inevitably produced. After a ten year long struggle to regain the soul of the church, the evangelical wing, led by Chalmers and others, laid a protest on the table of the Assembly and some four hundred ministers and a like number of elders left the established Church of Scotland on May 18, 1843, to form the Free Church.

When the General Assembly of the Free Church was constituted that grave morning, Thomas Chalmers was called to be its Moderator. He was the man whose reputation in the Christian world was the highest; he was also the man whose influence in directing the events leading to what would eventually be called “The Disruption” had been greatest.

Obviously, if the conflict had been provoked by a faulty view of what actually constituted a call to the Gospel ministry, it was incumbent upon the evangelical leaders to articulate the correct view. Chalmers wrote Heed the Call to do just that.

He argued that there were essentially “only two guiding principles for the affirmation of any doctrinal standard, yet which are of particular relevance to the current discussion. They are but the plenary objectivity of Holy Writ and the living appurtenance of parish life; again, they are but the authority of Scripture and the parameters of the covenant.” In other words, he believed that it was not necessary to depend on either the predilections of the rich and powerful or the inclinations of the people at large to determine who was or who wasn’t called into the ministry. The Bible was, is, and always shall be clear in detailing specific criteria and prerequisites for vocational service in the Church. But not only that, covenantal communities serve as the proving grounds for those criteria and prerequisites so that there is a kind of checks and balances system at work.

Chalmers asserted that the Bible makes it plain that any candidate for the ministry as well as the members of his immediate family must evidence constancy of character and virtue over the course of time (1 Tim. 3:1-7; Titus 1:5-9). He must also demonstrate particular pastoral gifts and aptitudes in the handling of the Gospel (Eph. 4:4-16; 2 Tim. 2:15-16). As he said, “The Word of God countenances as requisite both a testable sanctification and a notable endowment.” And such mandatory capacities are observable within the context of everyday parish life (Philem. 4-7). He said, “An affirmation of the ministerial calling is the inevitable result of a life rightly lived, gifts rightly shared, and proficiencies in handling both Scripture and adversity amongst those who might best be able to judge a candidate’s sincerity: his neighbors.” Accountability is thus assured.

He believed that by holding candidates for the ministry to this twin standard, both “the integrity of the Church’s divine offices” and the “vitality of every other calling to which believer priests might be appropriately inclined” would be preserved.

The result was that mere desire, or opportunity, or inclination, professional preparation, or even obvious aptitude alone was insufficient to commend a man to the pulpit--or, as he called it, "the sacred desk." And despite the need for faithful pastoral servants, all manner of haste in discerning the authenticity of calling was carefully avoided (1 Tim. 5:22). Ministry was thus maintained as an vital organism rather than as a mere organization. The Biblical precepts set the standard and then the community of faith affirmed and confirmed compliance with that standard in the life and work of every candidate.

When I first read the almost too-simple prescriptives of Chalmers in Heed the Call, I was flooded with a sense of relief. The issue was not nearly as complicated as I had made it out to be. I was able to rest in the assurance that there was no mystical override, no metaphysical trump, no divine notary that I had somehow overlooked or misread. Instead, I could rely on the clear mandates of Scripture as confirmed by those God had providentially placed around me in my own local congregation by my own session of elders. As Chalmers proclaimed, “Word and covenant: the one true foundation with its one true environ; they surely are the only, yet fully sufficient, provisions at our disposal for the discernment of purpose in this poor fallen world by which we might duly heed the call.”

Travels

I will be on the road the next several days, ministering. Today and tomorrow, I will be in beautiful Chattanooga to speak at First Presbyterian Church's annual missions conference. Then I fly to Boston Thursday morning. After an afternoon haunting Harvard Yard (and hopefully snagging a few good antiquarian books) I will drive up to New Hampshire with my good friends from Tri-Cities Covenant Church. I spend the rest of the weekend there speaking several times at the church and at the local Crisis Pregnancy Center--with only a brief respite to run a 10K road race: Portsmouth's Bridges 4 Friendship. Then, it is back to Boston, on to Chattanooga, and the drive back to Franklin.