Monday Morning Music Ministry

3-25-19

We cannot separate ourselves from this world. No matter how rotten our present circumstances might be, or bleak the future seems, or how passionately we comprehend the glories of Eternity, God does not want us to book swift passage to Heaven. This might seem like a stark theological challenge, but its answer is found in the clear intention of God – He designed us for work on earth; His call is on us to do His will and glorify Him in our works.

But before works is faith. I respect the schools of Christianity that lay emphasis on works, for instance the short book of James; works, sacrifice, suffering, forbearance and other spiritual disciplines that both reflect one’s deep faith and provides “legs” for the exercise of faith in Christ.

Yet without faith, good works are dead. I realize that reverses the argument in that book of James – and is one of the factors why many theologians from the Early church through Luther’s day thought James was not canonical. It can veer toward primarily a word game, but is faith real if not manifested by good works? And is there salvation in good works alone?

To me, the first question is a challenge to our morals and duties of fellowship; the second is almost rhetorical – “no” – for confessional Christians. But I am here to cite, not discuss (and certainly not to solve) the choice.

I do invite thoughts about Faith. Christian faith in the 21^st century. We are living in a post-Christian world; cultures that not only challenge but reject many of the truths of previous generations.

Faith largely is regarded by Western Civilization 2.0 – and in fact the world at large, including, for differing reasons, Socialist and Totalitarian societies, as well as those of other faiths – as a relic. Worse than outmoded, faith widely is regarded as a body of lies, superstitions, and vestiges of ignorance.

In the absence of faith, we are encouraged to rely on self, science, and reason.

There are enormously consequential implications in this pursuit of folly. Self-swindling nonsense among whose functions are delusions of serenity and satisfaction. But the implications include reminders that faith animates the human soul toward justice, mercy, charity, good will, and commitments to improve oneself, one’s community, one’s legacy. I emphasize the word toward these things.

Faith in Jesus (because “faith” as abstract word is an absurdity: faith in what? In whom? By what standard?) does not make anyone perfect here on earth. That was never His promise. Faith in Jesus inspires us, and the Holy Spirit responds with gifts of empowerment and wisdom, to strive toward perfection.

That Christian faith has motivated generations believers to great works and, yes, mighty deeds. Betrayal of that faith has resulted, as a clear consequence, in incidents of grief and misery. Denial of that faith is the saddest words of tongue or pen. People with no standards cannot, by definition, have standards on which to act… or to base their worldview.

So we have a world – vast portions of it – where standards, values, practices, rules, and laws are fashioned by human ideas, which can and do change. By political and economic theories, arbitrary and often imposed by force. By inertia and worldly, selfish standards – what feels good; what “doesn’t hurt anybody else,” which, again, is self-swindling disaster waiting to happen.

This is nothing new; certainly the critique of our spiritual crisis is not new. Enemies of faith have been discerned and called out since the first-century church, indeed since the Garden. And it is not only theologians and apologists. I will cite the enemies of faith that have been identified, without Bible verses or works of latter-day Jeremiahs:

The lies of the devil… Anxiety… Obsessions with the petty things of life… Fear (we are reminded how often Jesus greeted people with the phrase “Fear not”)… Lack of love or charity… Doubt… Faulty understanding… Ignorance of Christ’s promises… Rebellion… Rejection of God’s imputed Will… Unforgiveness… Lack of Self-Esteem… Timidity… Insecurity…

Yet I am persuaded that the most serious enemy of our faith is the one cited by Brother Martin Luther, who is referred to above. His analysis and prescription are the least palatable, the least welcome, to post-moderns and post-Christians and contemporary Western societies. He boldly stated:

Reason is a whore, the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.

Reason.

Reason, the intellectual prize of Thinking People, Rationalists, the Renaissance, the Age of Enlightenment, the Scientific Age. The modern age. The Brave New World.

But I am persuaded by the proposition that Truth does not rely on our opinion of it.

In fact, if it is the truth, persuasion is superfluous. Luther typically made his point by overkill, characterizing Reason as a whore. But a hard fact can compel hard language. Just as a spiritual crisis requires a spiritual solution. And Luther was correct.

There is sin in the world, a fact largely conceded (even under other terms) by atheists. Humanity’s continuous challenge through the ages has been countering the corrosive tendencies of “sin” – traditionally, pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth – that is, our corrupt natures. If we recognize, as Luther did, that basic human nature grew from original sin; and that neither good works of our own devising, nor “proper thoughts” – Reason – will change the world or ourselves… then Reason must be regarded as a flawed resource.

So. Do we become dumb? Nonsense; knowledge is beneficial, and Luther spoke of deifying Reason. Do we abandon the Scientific Method and other experiments? Of course not. Do we abandon the search for Truth? No: even the major Enlightenment figures were people of faith; many of them believers of the literal Bible. Surprise!

What we should prepare to do is not “delete” Reason from our personal, intellectual screens, so to speak. We should just file it in its proper category – a reliable resource but often unreliable god in our cosmology.

Rather we must recognize Faith. Rediscover what it is to accept His Word and Will. Reacquaint ourselves with utter dependence on God. Respect the Bible as His revealed Word, and as a Resource to light our paths.

Right? Right. Surely God’s own Reasoning is wiser than our own. Tough advice for our times, but Truth does not have an expiration-date.

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Click: Psalter 109

4-11-16

What would you call the age we live in? When I was a child, we were told that the Machine Age had been superseded by the Atomic Age. But that was marketing of sorts. Anyway, nuclear energy and the ability to incinerate the planet have become mundane topics. We might be in the Computer Age, but that term soon will sound as musty as new-fangled “horseless carriages” and “talkie movies” that once inspired awe.

I think we all flatter ourselves that we are blessed to be “modern,” up-to-the-minute (if not quite hip). So is this the Modern Age?

Actually, philosophers and artists maintain that the Modern Age ended long ago, followed by Post-Modernism… which has also ended. Eclipsed by – Post-Post-Modernism? Some people use this term. Do you get the feeling that we have just taken our seats at the stadium, and the game is already in extra innings?

My preference, and it seems very logical to me, is that our age is best described, in perspective of history’s grand sweep, as the Post-Christian Era. Some people would dismiss that as being too theocentric… but in view of the cultural, artistic, intellectual, economic, even diplomatic, and yes, religious, core of two millennia: yes, “Post-Christian” describes where we are.

“Modern” and its permutations are terms that tend to elude us. Whether the Renaissance was the last whiff of Classicism or the dawning of Modernism is debated. But we must go back in history that far. Luther was the last Pre-Modern. The Age of Reason was on the horizon in Europe, espied from the platform of Humanism. Yet Luther, the last Medievalist, held fast to the proposition that “reason is the enemy of faith.”

More than two centuries later, Luther’s artistic disciple Johann Sebastian Bach summed up the heritage of the Gothic, Renaissance, and early Baroque eras. Intending to summarize more than innovate, he was not seduced by potential acclaim nor his effect on the future. In fact, he was rejected by the first “Moderns” in Rococo Europe. Bach’s scientific contemporary, Isaac Newton, was representative of the Age of Enlightenment.

I am aware (all too aware, because it is clearly counter-factual) that many schools today teach, when they teach at all, that Enlightenment scientists and philosophers freed Western Civilization from the shackles of religion and superstition. That’s what “enlightened” meant, right?

Wrong. Philosophers like Pascal and Locke; scientists like Galileo and Newton; and creators like Bach and William Blake, all saw the substantial advances in their fields as confirming, not disproving, the existence of God and His plans. Newton concluded, it has been said, that we live within the space of God’s mind. The poet Alexander Pope wrote: “Nature and Nature’s Laws lay hid in Night; God said, ‘Let Newton be!’ And all was Light!”

But then, 50 years or so later, the mad swirl of Romanticism, revolution, industrialization, and social turmoil broke forth as like a lanced boil. It has not healed; the burst dam has not been mended. We have had Marxism since the 1840s, Darwinism since the 1850s, wars and rumors of wars since the 1860s, and the Industrial Revolution that brought many blessings but also brought poverty, injustice, dislocation, and wage-slavery instead of less pernicious traditional slavery.

Many people have not yet come to full realizations about the enormous disruptions caused by elements of contemporary life specifically of the past 200 years. As people became educated; climbed the ladder of prosperity, or were crushed under it; and earned the new commodity of leisure time… religion became less important.

People relied less on God. And for those vulnerable souls who need God’s blessings, the Modern State and its Socialist and Marxian manifestations are there, attempting to substitute for the Church. These tendencies have multiplied and accelerated. Not only the Dynamo (Henry Adams’ term for the Machine Age’s deity, supplanting the church) but the arts and ever-more secular philosophers, all worked to convince people that God was dead.

God has indeed died, in the Nietzschean sense that society no longer acknowledges Him, depends on His Word, worships His Son, or serves Him.

This is true. The inclination of sinful souls to reject God finds comfort in a culture that makes it safe to reject Him. Denominations even twist scripture and call evil good. Humankind’s soul is no less dark then ever, wars are more brutal, and the world hurtles toward unprecedented chaos, envy, and strife.

The Secularists have an answer: that we distance ourselves even further from God and His Word.

We have itching ears, as the Bible foretold – we hear what we want to hear. We invite cultural enablers.

We are happy to revel in wine, women, and song – or what seduced the decadent Romans, called “Bread and Circuses.”

How do we respond to all the biblical prophecies, all the warnings of our wise forebears, all the lessons of fallen civilizations gone before? We laugh and ignore the certainty of calamity.

The anti-religious impulse of scientists, of Marx, Darwin, Nietzsche, Relativism, Secularism, the negative effects of finance capitalism and repressive Socialism, the pollution of the earth and of our minds; indeed, human nature unfettered for the first time in history – where has it gotten us? Where are we headed? Adherents of those false gods should repent, as should we ALL.

Given the signs of the times and biblical prophecy, those who reject God ought to repent or at least desperately HOPE there is a God. For their alternative ideas have not worked, but rather have brought the world to chaos. Welcome to the brave new world of Post-Christianity.

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Our Click this week is a song by Merle Haggard, the iconic American poet, songwriter, and singer who died this week on his 79th birthday. Of the many genres he mastered, God and Country predominated. This song is among his best. Sadly, it is as pertinent now as when he recorded it, 1971.

Click: Merle Haggard – Jesus, Take a Hold