Archive for October, 2008
Today Is Not Just Halloween …
Today also happens to be Reformation day. 491 years ago, an almost thirty-five year old monk and university professor nailed ninety-five theses to a church door in Wittenberg, Germany. This act led to what is now known as Protestantism, which had no small part to play in the formation of modern democracies.
It’s a good day to take a few minutes to read this historic list of ninety-five points:
DISPUTATION OF DOCTOR MARTIN LUTHER
ON THE POWER AND EFFICACY OF
INDULGENCES
OCTOBER 31, 1517
Out of love for the truth and the desire to bring it to light,
the following propositions will be discussed at Wittenberg,
under the presidency of the Reverend Father Martin Luther,
Master of Arts and of Sacred Theology, and Lecturer in
Ordinary on the same at that place. Wherefore he requests that
those who are unable to be present and debate orally with us,
may do so by letter.
In the Name our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
1. Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when He said Poenitentiam
agite, willed that the whole life of believers should be
repentance.
2. This word cannot be understood to mean sacramental penance,
i.e., confession and satisfaction, which is administered by
the priests.
3. Yet it means not inward repentance only; nay, there is no
inward repentance which does not outwardly work divers
mortifications of the flesh.
4. The penalty [of sin], therefore, continues so long as
hatred of self continues; for this is the true inward
repentance, and continues until our entrance into the kingdom
of heaven.
5. The pope does not intend to remit, and cannot remit any
penalties other than those which he has imposed either by his
own authority or by that of the Canons.
6. The pope cannot remit any guilt, except by declaring that
it has been remitted by God and by assenting to God’s
remission; though, to be sure, he may grant remission in cases
reserved to his judgment. If his right to grant remission in
such cases were despised, the guilt would remain entirely
unforgiven.
7. God remits guilt to no one whom He does not, at the same
time, humble in all things and bring into subjection to His
vicar, the priest.
8. The penitential canons are imposed only on the living, and,
according to them, nothing should be imposed on the dying.
9. Therefore the Holy Spirit in the pope is kind to us,
because in his decrees he always makes exception of the
article of death and of necessity.
10. Ignorant and wicked are the doings of those priests who,
in the case of the dying, reserve canonical penances for
purgatory.
11. This changing of the canonical penalty to the penalty of
purgatory is quite evidently one of the tares that were sown
while the bishops slept.
12. In former times the canonical penalties were imposed not
after, but before absolution, as tests of true contrition.
13. The dying are freed by death from all penalties; they are
already dead to canonical rules, and have a right to be
released from them.
14. The imperfect health [of soul], that is to say, the
imperfect love, of the dying brings with it, of necessity,
great fear; and the smaller the love, the greater is the fear.
15. This fear and horror is sufficient of itself alone (to say
nothing of other things) to constitute the penalty of
purgatory, since it is very near to the horror of despair.
16. Hell, purgatory, and heaven seem to differ as do despair,
almost-despair, and the assurance of safety.
17. With souls in purgatory it seems necessary that horror
should grow less and love increase.
18. It seems unproved, either by reason or Scripture, that
they are outside the state of merit, that is to say, of
increasing love.
19. Again, it seems unproved that they, or at least that all
of them, are certain or assured of their own blessedness,
though we may be quite certain of it.
20. Therefore by “full remission of all penalties” the pope
means not actually “of all,” but only of those imposed by
himself.
21. Therefore those preachers of indulgences are in error, who
say that by the pope’s indulgences a man is freed from every
penalty, and saved;
22. Whereas he remits to souls in purgatory no penalty which,
according to the canons, they would have had to pay in this
life.
23. If it is at all possible to grant to any one the remission
of all penalties whatsoever, it is certain that this remission
can be granted only to the most perfect, that is, to the very
fewest.
24. It must needs be, therefore, that the greater part of the
people are deceived by that indiscriminate and highsounding
promise of release from penalty.
25. The power which the pope has, in a general way, over
purgatory, is just like the power which any bishop or curate
has, in a special way, within his own diocese or parish.
26. The pope does well when he grants remission to souls [in
purgatory], not by the power of the keys (which he does not
possess), but by way of intercession.
27. They preach man who say that so soon as the penny jingles
into the money-box, the soul flies out [of purgatory].
28. It is certain that when the penny jingles into the
money-box, gain and avarice can be increased, but the result
of the intercession of the Church is in the power of God
alone.
29. Who knows whether all the souls in purgatory wish to be
bought out of it, as in the legend of Sts. Severinus and
Paschal.
30. No one is sure that his own contrition is sincere; much
less that he has attained full remission.
31. Rare as is the man that is truly penitent, so rare is also
the man who truly buys indulgences, i.e., such men are most
rare.
32. They will be condemned eternally, together with their
teachers, who believe themselves sure of their salvation
because they have letters of pardon.
33. Men must be on their guard against those who say that the
pope’s pardons are that inestimable gift of God by which man
is reconciled to Him;
34. For these “graces of pardon” concern only the penalties of
sacramental satisfaction, and these are appointed by man.
35. They preach no Christian doctrine who teach that
contrition is not necessary in those who intend to buy souls
out of purgatory or to buy confessionalia.
36. Every truly repentant Christian has a right to full
remission of penalty and guilt, even without letters of
pardon.
37. Every true Christian, whether living or dead, has part in
all the blessings of Christ and the Church; and this is
granted him by God, even without letters of pardon.
38. Nevertheless, the remission and participation [in the
blessings of the Church] which are granted by the pope are in
no way to be despised, for they are, as I have said, the
declaration of divine remission.
39. It is most difficult, even for the very keenest
theologians, at one and the same time to commend to the people
the abundance of pardons and [the need of] true contrition.
40. True contrition seeks and loves penalties, but liberal
pardons only relax penalties and cause them to be hated, or at
least, furnish an occasion [for hating them].
41. Apostolic pardons are to be preached with caution, lest
the people may falsely think them preferable to other good
works of love.
42. Christians are to be taught that the pope does not intend
the buying of pardons to be compared in any way to works of
mercy.
43. Christians are to be taught that he who gives to the poor
or lends to the needy does a better work than buying pardons;
44. Because love grows by works of love, and man becomes
better; but by pardons man does not grow better, only more
free from penalty.
45. Christians are to be taught that he who sees a man in
need, and passes him by, and gives [his money] for pardons,
purchases not the indulgences of the pope, but the indignation
of God.
46. Christians are to be taught that unless they have more
than they need, they are bound to keep back what is necessary
for their own families, and by no means to squander it on
pardons.
47. Christians are to be taught that the buying of pardons is
a matter of free will, and not of commandment.
48. Christians are to be taught that the pope, in granting
pardons, needs, and therefore desires, their devout prayer for
him more than the money they bring.
49. Christians are to be taught that the pope’s pardons are
useful, if they do not put their trust in them; but altogether
harmful, if through them they lose their fear of God.
50. Christians are to be taught that if the pope knew the
exactions of the pardon-preachers, he would rather that St.
Peter’s church should go to ashes, than that it should be
built up with the skin, flesh and bones of his sheep.
51. Christians are to be taught that it would be the pope’s
wish, as it is his duty, to give of his own money to very many
of those from whom certain hawkers of pardons cajole money,
even though the church of St. Peter might have to be sold.
52. The assurance of salvation by letters of pardon is vain,
even though the commissary, nay, even though the pope himself,
were to stake his soul upon it.
53. They are enemies of Christ and of the pope, who bid the
Word of God be altogether silent in some Churches, in order
that pardons may be preached in others.
54. Injury is done the Word of God when, in the same sermon,
an equal or a longer time is spent on pardons than on this
Word.
55. It must be the intention of the pope that if pardons,
which are a very small thing, are celebrated with one bell,
with single processions and ceremonies, then the Gospel, which
is the very greatest thing, should be preached with a hundred
bells, a hundred processions, a hundred ceremonies.
56. The “treasures of the Church,” out of which the pope.
grants indulgences, are not sufficiently named or known among
the people of Christ.
57. That they are not temporal treasures is certainly evident,
for many of the vendors do not pour out such treasures so
easily, but only gather them.
58. Nor are they the merits of Christ and the Saints, for even
without the pope, these always work grace for the inner man,
and the cross, death, and hell for the outward man.
59. St. Lawrence said that the treasures of the Church were
the Church’s poor, but he spoke according to the usage of the
word in his own time.
60. Without rashness we say that the keys of the Church, given
by Christ’s merit, are that treasure;
61. For it is clear that for the remission of penalties and of
reserved cases, the power of the pope is of itself sufficient.
62. The true treasure of the Church is the Most Holy Gospel of
the glory and the grace of God.
63. But this treasure is naturally most odious, for it makes
the first to be last.
64. On the other hand, the treasure of indulgences is
naturally most acceptable, for it makes the last to be first.
65. Therefore the treasures of the Gospel are nets with which
they formerly were wont to fish for men of riches.
66. The treasures of the indulgences are nets with which they
now fish for the riches of men.
67. The indulgences which the preachers cry as the “greatest
graces” are known to be truly such, in so far as they promote
gain.
68. Yet they are in truth the very smallest graces compared
with the grace of God and the piety of the Cross.
69. Bishops and curates are bound to admit the commissaries of
apostolic pardons, with all reverence.
70. But still more are they bound to strain all their eyes and
attend with all their ears, lest these men preach their own
dreams instead of the commission of the pope.
71 . He who speaks against the truth of apostolic pardons, let
him be anathema and accursed!
72. But he who guards against the lust and license of the
pardon-preachers, let him be blessed!
73. The pope justly thunders against those who, by any art,
contrive the injury of the traffic in pardons.
74. But much more does he intend to thunder against those who
use the pretext of pardons to contrive the injury of holy love
and truth.
75. To think the papal pardons so great that they could
absolve a man even if he had committed an impossible sin and
violated the Mother of God — this is madness.
76. We say, on the contrary, that the papal pardons are not
able to remove the very least of venial sins, so far as its
guilt is concerned.
77. It is said that even St. Peter, if he were now Pope, could
not bestow greater graces; this is blasphemy against St. Peter
and against the pope.
78. We say, on the contrary, that even the present pope, and
any pope at all, has greater graces at his disposal; to wit,
the Gospel, powers, gifts of healing, etc., as it is written
in I. Corinthians xii.
79. To say that the cross, emblazoned with the papal arms,
which is set up [by the preachers of indulgences], is of equal
worth with the Cross of Christ, is blasphemy.
80. The bishops, curates and theologians who allow such talk
to be spread among the people, will have an account to render.
81. This unbridled preaching of pardons makes it no easy
matter, even for learned men, to rescue the reverence due to
the pope from slander, or even from the shrewd questionings of
the laity.
82. To wit: — “Why does not the pope empty purgatory, for the
sake of holy love and of the dire need of the souls that are
there, if he redeems an infinite number of souls for the sake
of miserable money with which to build a Church? The former
reasons would be most just; the latter is most trivial.”
83. Again: — “Why are mortuary and anniversary masses for the
dead continued, and why does he not return or permit the
withdrawal of the endowments founded on their behalf, since it
is wrong to pray for the redeemed?”
84. Again: — “What is this new piety of God and the pope,
that for money they allow a man who is impious and their enemy
to buy out of purgatory the pious soul of a friend of God, and
do not rather, because of that pious and beloved soul’s own
need, free it for pure love’s sake?”
85. Again: — “Why are the penitential canons long since in
actual fact and through disuse abrogated and dead, now
satisfied by the granting of indulgences, as though they were
still alive and in force?”
86. Again: — “Why does not the pope, whose wealth is to-day
greater than the riches of the richest, build just this one
church of St. Peter with his own money, rather than with the
money of poor believers?”
87. Again: — “What is it that the pope remits, and what
participation does he grant to those who, by perfect contrition,
have a right to full remission and participation?”
88. Again: — “What greater blessing could come to the Church
than if the pope were to do a hundred times a day what he now
does once, and bestow on every believer these remissions
and participations?”
89. “Since the pope, by his pardons, seeks the salvation of souls
rather than money, why does he suspend the indulgences and pardons
granted heretofore, since these have equal efficacy?”
90. To repress these arguments and scruples of the laity by force
alone, and not to resolve them by giving reasons, is to expose the
Church and the pope to the ridicule of their enemies, and to make
Christians unhappy.
91. If, therefore, pardons were preached according to the
spirit and mind of the pope, all these doubts would be readily
resolved; nay, they would not exist.
92. Away, then, with all those prophets who say to the people
of Christ, “Peace, peace,” and there is no peace!
93. Blessed be all those prophets who say to the people of
Christ, “Cross, cross,” and there is no cross!
94. Christians are to be exhorted that they be diligent in
following Christ, their Head, through penalties, deaths, and
hell;
95. And thus be confident of entering into heaven rather
through many tribulations, than through the assurance of
peace.
Archeologist finds 3,000-year old Hebrew text
For someone like me, this is really interesting:
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/10/30/israel.ancient.text/index.html
Faith and Doubt: My Development
A few hours ago, I got an e-mail from Christianbook.com that advertised, among other things, a new book by John Ortberg called Faith and Doubt. My interest was roused and I looked it up on Amazon to see if there were any reviews on it yet. There was only one short review that was not very helpful (I refrained from clicking the “Not Helpful” button). But the product description did quote the back cover of the book, which gave me the gist of it:
We often think of doubt as the opposite of faith, but could it actually strengthen our relationship with God? According to John Ortberg, best-selling author and pastor, the very nature of faith requires the presence of uncertainty. In this refreshingly candid look at a life of faith, he traces the line between belief and unbelief: less a dividing line between hostile camps than a razor’s edge that runs through every soul. His findings point us toward the relief of being totally honest. Questions can expand our understanding, uncertainty can lead to trust, and honest faith can produce outrageous hope. Written from Ortberg’s own struggle with faith and doubt, this book will challenge, comfort, and inspire you with the truth that God wants all of us—including our doubts.
That reminded me of a certain stage in my development in regard to faith and doubt (a development that I don’t claim to have finished yet). My life so far has gone something like this:
- Hardly any doubt about my Christian faith.
- Discovering that doubts and questions are all right, but believing quite firmly that they will ultimately always strengthen the muscle of faith.
- Being plagued by many doubts and questions myself and hoping that something – whatever it is – would be waiting for me just around the corner to solve the issues and give me assurance.
- Finding peace when I accepted to live with a large (often very large) degree of unsureness.
- Actually considering it a sign of sanity to doubt the things that really are doubtful.
- Attacking faith too much at times, and having difficulty to see the value of faith.
- A slow growth of again appreciating faith to a degree.
Thomas More’s “Utopia” – an Astonishing Work for Its Time
This is an astonishing work – given that it was written five hundred years ago by Thomas More, a rich Catholic and later Lord Chancellor.
Thomas More begins his tale autobiographically and relates how he meets a traveler called Raphael who is highly educated in Greek language and literature (who is, in other words, a humanist). The rest of the short book consists mainly of Raphael’s discourse about the island of Utopia, which is Greek for “no place” (though it might also be a pun for “good place”).
Utopia is a country without private ownership and many other features that stood in stark contrast to More’s England of the time – and, in fact, to the Catholic Church. In that way the book can be seen as a (sometimes tongue-in-cheek) critique of early 16th-century society. Utopia is truly “no place”: a place that does not and will never exist. It is, instead, a literary device for More to challenge his own culture.
These challenges include the way slavery was conducted, the greedy obsession with gold and the oppression of the poor, the complicatedness of the judicial system, religious intolerance, etc. Coming from a rich Catholic lawyer, this truly is astonishing: a satire about the establishment written by someone inside the establishment itself.
Consider this description of religious tolerance, for instance:
“He judged it not fit to determine anything rashly; and seemed to doubt whether those different forms of religion might not all come from God, who might inspire man in a different manner, and be pleased with this variety; he therefore thought it indecent and foolish for any man to threaten and terrify another to make him believe what did not appear to him to be true. And supposing that only one religion was really true, and the rest false, he imagined that the native force of truth would at last break forth and shine bright, if supported only by the strength of argument, and attended to with a gentle and unprejudiced mind; while, on the other hand, if such debates were carried on with violence and tumults, as the most wicked are always the most obstinate, so the best and most holy religion might be choked with superstition, as corn is with briars and thorns; he therefore left men wholly to their liberty, that they might be free to believe as they should see cause.”
It should be pointed out, however, that other high churchmen prior to More had voiced similar open-mindedness, such as Nikolaus von Kues (1401-1464). So perhaps such tolerant sentiments were not as astonishing at the time as we might think.
But the method More uses to convey his points is certainly very early for its type. I almost felt that the book anticipated Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels,” written a bit more than a century later, in which society is likewise being challenged by painting a picture of radically different places.
Which is not to say that “Utopia” is revolutionary on every point. At times the book does affirm a very strict morality, such as state-inflicted punishment for extramarital sex, and it certainly affirms religion as such and obedience to the priesthood. At other times, “Utopia” is quite amusing, such as the following passage about picking one’s spouse, with which I shall close this review:
“In choosing their wives they use a method that would appear to us very absurd and ridiculous, but it is constantly observed among them, and is accounted perfectly consistent with wisdom. Before marriage some grave matron presents the bride, naked, whether she is a virgin or a widow, to the bridegroom, and after that some grave man presents the bridegroom, naked, to the bride.
“We, indeed, both laughed at this, and condemned it as very indecent. But they, on the other hand, wondered at the folly of the men of all other nations, who, if they are but to buy a horse of a small value, are so cautious that they will see every part of him, and take off both his saddle and all his other tackle, that there may be no secret ulcer hid under any of them, and that yet in the choice of a wife, on which depends the happiness or unhappiness of the rest of his life, a man should venture upon trust, and only see about a handsbreadth of the face, all the rest of the body being covered, under which may lie hid what may be contagious as well as loathsome.
“All men are not so wise as to choose a woman only for her good qualities, and even wise men consider the body as that which adds not a little to the mind, and it is certain there may be some such deformity covered with clothes as may totally alienate a man from his wife, when it is too late to part with her; if such a thing is discovered after marriage a man has no remedy but patience; they, therefore, think it is reasonable that there should be good provision made against such mischievous frauds.”
What Does Time Smell Like?
I’m currently reading – to my great delight – The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury and came upon this fascinating passage about Time:
There was the smell of Time in the air tonight. He smiled and turned the fancy in his mind. There was a thought. What did Time smell like? Like dust and clocks and people. And if you wondered what Time sounded like it sounded like water running in a dark cave and voices crying and dirt dropping down upon hollow box lids, and rain. And, going further, what did Time look like? Time looked like snow dropping silently into a black room or it looked like a silent film in an ancient theater, one hundred billion faces falling like those New Year balloons, down and down into nothing. That was how Time smelled and looked and sounded. And tonight – Tomas shoved a hand into the wind outside the truck – tonight you could almost touch Time.
How Myth Became Fact for C. S. Lewis
| Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life | |
| by C.S. Lewis |
The subtitle of the book – “The Shape of My Early Life” – already indicates what this is about: the experiences that shaped Lewis’ thinking in his childhood and early years as an adult, up to his conversion to Christianity. It is not meant to be a complete autobiography, but somewhat of a spiritual memoir.
I recommend reading this book shortly before or after “The Pilgrim’s Regress,” which is an autobiographically inspired allegory of someone abandoning the Christianity of his youth, going on a journey of various worldviews, and finally finding Christianity again in a whole new, surprising way.
In both of these books, what Lewis terms “Joy” plays an important part. By that, he means a longing for and a delight in the “beyond”: the esthetic experience you might have by staring at mountains far away; the emotion one might feel by reading myths; the fascination of the numinous.
This Joy, he experienced in pagan myths, in stories, and in nature, but not in Christianity. He describes the reason for this very well in the following passage of “The Pilgrim’s Regress.”
When the main character, John, abandoned his belief in the Landlord (that is, God), he was “bounding forward on his road so lightly that before he knew it he had come to the top of a little hill. It was not because the hill had tired him that he stopped there, but because he was too happy to move. `There is no Landlord,’ he cried. Such a weight had been lifted from his mind that he felt he could fly. All round him the frost was gleaming like silver; the sky was like blue glass; a robin sat in the hedge beside him; a cock was crowing in the distance.
“‘There is no Landlord.’ He laughed when he thought of the old card of rules hung over his bed in the bedroom, so low and dark, in his father’s house. `There is no Landlord. There is no black hole.’
“He turned and looked back on the road he had come by: and when he did so he gasped with joy. For there in the East, under the morning light, he saw the mountains heaped up to the sky like clouds, green and violet and dark red; shadows were passing over the big rounded slopes, and water shone in the mountain pools, and up at the highest of all the sun was smiling steadily on the ultimate crags.
“These crags were indeed so shaped that you could easily take them for a castle [where John had previously believed the castle of the Landlord to be]: and now it came into John’s head that he had never looked at the mountains before, because, as long as he thought that the Landlord lived there, he had been afraid of them. But now that there was no Landlord he perceived that they were beautiful.”
So, by abandoning the Christianity of his youth, he was free to discover beauty and delight. But none of that was lasting. No step on his journey brought the ultimate fulfillment. “Joy” always slipped away.
Until he connected his delight in myths with Christian doctrine. “If ever a myth had become fact, had been incarnated, it would be just like this,” writes he in “Surprised by Joy” about his gradual acceptance of the Gospels. “And nothing else in literature was just like this. Myths were like it in one way. Histories were like it in another. But nothing was simply like it. And no person was like the Person it depicted; as real, as recognizable, through all that depth of time, as Plato’s Socrates or Boswell’s Johnson (ten times more so than Eckermann’s Goethe or Lockhart’s Scott), yet also numinous, lit by a light from beyond the world, a god. But if a god – we are no longer polytheists – then not a god, but God. Here and here only in all time the myth must have become fact; the Word, flesh; God, Man. This is not ‘a religion,’ nor ‘a philosophy.’ It is the summing up and actuality of them all.”
For Lewis, myth had finally become fact. Joy was found in a Person who is both God and Man.
There are many more details in “Surprised by Joy,” and he does not speak on Christianity or spiritual issues on every page, but, like I said, it’s not an autobiography as such, and readers expecting this might be disappointed by what Lewis leaves out.
Without such expectations, though, it is a fascinating read and something that people who have enjoyed some of Lewis’ other works shouldn’t miss
The Iliad by Homer, Translated by Samuel Butler
Any rating of “The Iliad” has to be primarily a rating of the translation, not of the work as such. Obviously “The Iliad” does not measure up to 21st-century expectations of riveting fiction, but then again, it was not written in the 21st century and it would be silly to expect anything of the sort.
It was instead written in about 800 BCE and is the cornerstone of Western literature. Homer was for the Greeks what the Bible was for the Hebrews: Homer gave the loose Greek tribes a common identity in a semi-mythical history. Homer, in a way, gave birth to Greece, and Greece contributed significantly to the birth of Western culture.
For this reason alone, anyone who lives in or identifies with the West should read “The Iliad.” We wouldn’t be here without it.
Now as far as modern taste and entertainment value goes, “The Iliad” might conceivably be disappointing. It tells the war at Troy with its principle heroes Achilles and Hector, but the story ends anti-climactically with the burial of Hector. The Trojan horse is not mentioned in it, nor is the city conquered.
For the retrospective account of the Trojan horse and the fall of Troy, one has to turn to “The Odyssey” – which is a more engrossing tale than “The Iliad” in terms of human interest, fantasy, and a satisfying ending.
Now to this particular translation, made by English novelist Samuel Butler in 1898. I found it very clear and straightforward, but one has to realize that it turns Homer’s poetry into prose, thereby losing much of its beauty. Furthermore, Butler uses the Roman names for the gods and other characters (e.g., Jove instead of Zeus), which I found unfortunate.
For a prose translation that uses the Greek names, I recommend the one by W.H.D. Rouse (The Iliad (Signet Classics)). The advantage of the Butler translation, however, is that it is in the public domain, which means that you can get it as an e-text on the internet and also as a free audio book at www.librivox.org.
Those who would like to appreciate “The Iliad” as poetry, may turn to the translation by George Chapman (The Odyssey (Wordsworth Classics)), though that one is quite a bit harder to understand than Butler’s prose.
Overall, the Butler translation is a good deal. If you are not sure, sample the text online first or listen to the free audio.
The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible – by A. J. Jacobs
A few months ago, I was going on a trip to Italy, including Rome, and thought this book would be a good travel companion. It was: light and funny enough for casual reading, but serious and reverent enough for its subject matter.
The subject matter being: “What happens when an Agnostic Jew from New York tries to live for a whole year like the ultimate Bible Fundamentalist? What happens if you really see the Bible as a divine encyclopedia and read it primarily to make lists of right and wrong behavior, right and wrong beliefs?”
In the ensuing year-long experience in which A. J. Jacobs turns himself into a human guinea pig, we meet many interesting creatures: Orthodox Jews at a dance party and a ritual sacrifice; religious clothes’ inspectors, owners of a Creationist museum, snake handlers, and the like.
What is most striking is that Jacobs doesn’t primarily make fun of them, but sincerely tries to make the reader understand them. His own patriarchal beard and biblical outfit no doubt helped in winning the trust of the religious oddballs.
I only wish Jacobs had gone deeper into the actual fiber of people’s beliefs. Given the length of the book, perhaps too much was filled with relatively meaningless anecdotes.
Which is not to say that it wasn’t worthwhile reading – even if it had been merely for the absolutely hilarious conversation with the Christian polygamist who advises Jacobs in all seriousness on how to breach the news to his wife that he wants to take a second wife.
On a more pensive note, Jacobs’ self-experiment is also a good illustration of the interplay between faith and practice. It is often said that what you believe determines what you do, but this book shows that it’s at least equally true the other way around: What you do determines what you believe. Jacobs was an Agnostic when he started the year, and yet, because he actually prayed to the God of the Bible, he says that at times he really began to believe in Him.
Jacobs now calls himself a “reverend Agnostic,” which is perhaps not a bad thing to be. I was certainly enriched by reading about how he became one.
(For my own take on the Bible, see The C. S. Lewis Book on the Bible.)
“Bigoted Narrowness as Holy Zeal”: George Eliot on Evangelical Teaching
A few days ago, I read George Eliot’s essay “Evangelical Teaching,” which, though written a century and a half ago, is still sadly applicable to some circles of Evangelicalism today. Here’s an excerpt:
Given, a man with moderate intellect, a moral standard not higher than the average, some rhetorical affluence and great glibness of speech, what is the career in which, without the aid of birth or money, he may most easily attain power and reputation in English society? Where is that Goshen of mediocrity in which a smattering of science and learning will pass for profound instruction, where platitudes will be accepted as wisdom, bigoted narrowness as holy zeal, unctuous egoism as God-given piety?
Let such a man become an evangelical preacher; he will then find it possible to reconcile small ability with great ambition, superficial knowledge with the prestige of erudition, a middling morale with a high reputation for sanctity.
Let him shun practical extremes and be ultra only in what is purely theoretic: let him be stringent on predestination, but latitudinarian on fasting; unflinching in insisting on the Eternity of punishment, but diffident of curtailing the substantial comforts of Time; ardent and imaginative on the pre-millennial advent of Christ, but cold and cautious towards every other infringement of the status quo.
Let him fish for souls, not with the bait of inconvenient singularity, but with the drag-net of comfortable conformity. Let him be hard and literal in his interpretation only when he wants to hurl texts at the heads of unbelievers and adversaries; but when the letter of the Scriptures presses too closely on the genteel Christianity of the nineteenth century, let him use his spiritualizing alembic and disperse it into impalpable ether.
Let him preach less of Christ than of Antichrist; let him be less definite in showing what sin is than in showing who is the Man of Sin, less expansive on the blessedness of faith than on the accursedness of infidelity.
Above all, let him set up as an interpreter of prophecy, and rival Moore’s Almanack in the prediction of political events, tickling the interest of hearers who are but moderately spiritual by showing how the Holy Spirit has dictated problems and charades for their benefit, and how, if they are ingenious enough to solve these, they may have their Christian graces nourished by learning precisely to whom they may point as the “horn that had eyes,” “the lying prophet,” and the “unclean spirits. “
In this way he will draw men to him by the strong chords of their passions, made reason-proof by being baptized with the name of piety. In this way he may gain a metropolitan pulpit; the avenues to his church will be as crowded as the passages to the opera; he has but to print his prophetic sermons and bind them in lilac and gold, and they will adorn the drawing-room table of all evangelical ladies, who will regard as a sort of pious “light reading ” the demonstration that the prophecy of the locusts whose sting is in their tail is fulfilled in the fact of the Turkish commander’s having taken a horse’s tail for his standard, and that the French are the very frogs predicted in the Revelations.
The full essay can be found in The Spirit of the Age: Victorian Essays as well as in The Portable Atheist by Christopher Hitchens.
(Mary Ann (Marian) Evans (22 November 1819 – 22 December 1880), better known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist. She was one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. Her novels, largely set in provincial England, are well known for their realism and psychological perspicacity. - Wikipedia)
Sex and Christian Frigidness
| A Celebration of Sex: A Guide to Enjoying God’s Gift of Sexual Intimacy | |
| by Douglas E. Rosenau |
Having grown up in a conservative Christian environment, sexual activities apart from the Missionary Position were often tainted by feelings of guilt. When I read A Celebration of Sex a number of years ago, it really helped me to embrace my sexuality and get rid of my baggage of Christian frigidness.
But be warned: In this book you will be encouraged to touch yourself, to explore and play, and to – yes – actually celebrate sex without a guilty conscience. The book even includes hand-drawn pictures of various positions, which, though nothing extraordinary for sex guides in general, might almost be revolutionary for the conservative Christian. The book also helped my wife and me to openly talk about the details of sex, about our own sexual feelings or lack thereof, etc.
For the non-religious reader, this book is possibly still too unprogressive and has too many references to an Evangelical worldview, but it’s a great tool for liberating Christians from sexual legalism and undue guilt.
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