London Pics from My Extra Day!

With my departure delayed until tomorrow, I headed into London and visited the bookshops in Charing Cross Road. Didn't buy anything - though I did find a superb 3 volume first edition of Churchill's "World Crisis', his history of the First World War. It was only 300 pounds...oh well! Saw the place where the old bookshop made famous in Helene Hanff's '84 Charing Cross Road' once stood, together with the commemorative plaque noting the book and the store. Here are some pictures from running around today. The bookshop by the way is Edwards, from around 1855, but not the spot of Marks & Co. That's a little further along - now an empty building again. Hmmmm. Ideas...

Best of Britain

There are so many things the British do best. Pondering this, the following short list comes to mind:

1. Roundabouts: Brilliant! Why we don't change the whole world to this system is beyond me.

2. Road Signs: Entertaining and incredibly clear.

3. Curry. No, its only half Indian. Chicken Tikka Massala doesn't exist in India, but it may be the new national dish of Britain.

4. Police: how do they manage to be so incredibly tough and nice at the same time?

5. Trains. TRAINS! I love trains and the British trains and stations are a world unto themselves. Waterloo is almost a tourist site on its own.

6. Newspapers. Not sure about this, but while newspaper reading in the rest of the world is way down it seems as strong as ever here - and what a great selection.

7. Tea and scones. REAL scones - not those wedge shaped flour bricks we have in the US. Nope, the sweet, lighter ones from here, smothered in Devonshire clotted cream and strawberry jam.

8. Hospitality: the warmth of welcome here - and London is like the world's bus stop - is pretty incredible.

9. Buses - especially those cool double decker editions.

10. Outdoor Shakespeare: Can you top a cool evening in July with a blanket, tea, strawberries, champagne, and a hilarious performance of a Mid-Summer Night's Dream? I think not.

11. Pubs. Seriously - can there be a better meeting place?

12. Flower Gardens. Stunning.

13. History - name the period, it doesn't matter; Britain is a giant living history text to be opened and read at will and with joy.

14. Villages - I think village/small town life in America is under threat by an over-reaching urbanization, but Britain's little places are enjoying a renewal and protecting their place with zeal and effectiveness.

15. Open markets. Fabulous and cheap.



I can think of more, but will let you add to the list.


On the not so good front:


1. Customer service...slooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwww.

2. Taxes

3. Showers (but improving!)

4. Vegetables - always fresh, but always soggy.

5. Traffic in London. Oh my. Worse than ever, and that after restrictions to make it less so.

6. Free refills. "Sorry?"

7. American fast food. I noticed an alarming increase in obesity here - not 'chunky', but real, 'biggest loser' contestant level dangerous obesity. Everywhere. What's changed? Ubiquitous American based fast food chains, and they are jam packed: McDonalds, BK, KFC, Dominoes, you name it. They dominate and its a worrisome trend.

Travel Notes 4: July 30

Last full day here, and headed back tomorrow. To say I am thankful for these days in Britain would be a wild understatement. The personal times of prayer and reflection, the liturgy and hymns, the magnificent re-connect with the ancient via the stones of the cathedrals, churches, chapels, graves, and houses, the challenging lectures and warm fellowship, and the renewal of acquaintance with friends not seen for several years was refreshing and reviving. I saw things new and things old and trust that I will be able to keep them all in the treasure house of my heart for future distribution to all.

The pictures above are first of all, some of the iconography within St Albans; secondly, Chartwell, the family home of Sir Winston Churchill; and thirdly, Hever Castle, the home of Anne Boleyn, second wife to Henry VIII, and mother of Elizabeth I. Hever was one the new stops on this trip, and well worth the visit, especially to see the magnificent Holbein portraits. I had been Chartwell, but its been 20+ years since that visit, and so - since it is so close to Hever - I decided to stop in. Once again, the visit was rewarding. Toni knows that I always get very tearful around Churchill 'places' and memorabilia, and this visit was no different.

So this was a fascinating trip, encompassing century after century of history and finding once again that the residual anointing in the hidden bones of our Elishas from years gone by will yet prove vivifying for us if we will humble ourselves to listen afresh to their voices rather than succumbing to the modern noise that reduces them to echoes. Looking back over the past several days, here are some of the places I was able to go, some of the stones I heard speak. My only regret - doing it on my own.

1. Hever Castle, ancestral home to Anne Boleyn

2. Chartwell, family home to Churchill

3. St Alban's Cathedral with its remarkable ancient iconography and Shrine, the most ancient Christian worship site in England

4. Ely Cathedral with its amazing testimony in art, together with its astonishing Lady Chapel

5. The Jerusalem Chamber at Westminster Abbey

6. Close up with the tomb of Edward the Confessor, founder of the Abbey

7. Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge

8. King's College Chapel, Cambridge

9. Home of Oliver Cromwell

10. Duxford Air Field, home to the Flying Fortresses, Mustangs, and Spitfires still in use - and its incredible WW2 Battle of Britain museum

11. American WW2 Cemetery in Cambridge, honoring the dead and missing, especially the air crews, that perished in the effort to liberate Europe from the Nazis.

12. Visited All Souls, Langham Place, and was privileged to write a card of remembrance for John RW Stott.

13. Walked along a path that was once an Anglo-Saxon trade route from the Cambridge area down to the Thames. I recited some Anglo-Saxon lines as I strolled there.

Along the way, I went through beautiful villages, and fell in love with Hadon in Cambridgeshire (Thank you David and Diana!). I shopped at Daunts again, wandered around Hertfordshire for the first time - beautiful! - and felt incredibly blessed to enjoy some of my favorite food from this side of the ocean. I am deeply grateful for the generosity that enabled me to make this trip, and - honestly - can't wait to get back again soon. Thank you for the prayers offered by so many as well; I can't help but think that God has heard and answered you in ways "exceeding abundantly beyond all we can ask or imagine."

My only regret - doing it on my own. Next time...

Ceiling (No, Not the Debt Ceiling!)

High Ceiling for Worship (King's College Chapel); Mosaic Ceiling in Memory (Chapel in the American WW2 Cemetery in Cambridge honoring the US sacrifice in the air war against Nazis) - I shed a lot of tears there - he Mosaic shows angels accompanying the flying fortresses and mustangs as they make their way across the channel - many never to return; finally, Low Ceiling at Breakfast;

Final Lecture at OICS: Orthodox and Catholic Responses to Secularism

Dr Brandon Gallaher
Theology Lecturer at Keble, Oxford

The Response of Roman Catholic and Orthodox Episcopal Authorities to Secularism: an analysis of Pope Benedict XVI and Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev of the Moscow Patriarchate

I. The Complexity of Secularization
Danger of monolithic views of atheism and secularism/post-modernity
Orthodox need to acknowledge this
- ‘Multiple Modernities’
Secularism/Modernity - overthrow of mystery in the world
Relentless movement of progress will bring about ‘the disenchantment of the cosmos’
This however has not been the outcome

II. Roman Catholic Response to the Secular-Modern
“Dictatorship of Relativism” - avoiding doctrinal ‘shifting waves’, that recognizes nothing as fixed in reference to the truth.
Christian theology should be done in an ecclesiastical context

Regensberg Address and Westminster Hall address
West is forgetting its roots in God
West is relegating God to personal, the west is negating the communal dimension of man, further reducing man to a mere utilitarian object” “calculation of consequences”.
This amnesia leaves man at the mercy of majority rule, technological tyrants, and power
‘Negative tolerance’ - banning crucifixes
“In the name of tolerance, tolerance is being abolished.” - B16
a very apocalyptic vision
“reason pathologies” (when what is rational is exclusively technical and measurable)
“Reason needs faith and faith needs reason...”
“Pathologies of religion” - power structures imposed
Just as Faith is called to purify reason, so also reason assists Faith - “faith is not a problem for legislators to solve, but a helpful contributor to the conversation.”
This sees Enlightenment as Gift and Christian Originated Project
In this sense, ‘Secularism’ is Christian.
He calls the secular person, Pascal like, to imagine the world ‘as if’ there is God - what then?
B16 argues from Toynbee, a ‘creative minority’ making the Christian faith visible and compelling.
What Kind of Episcopacy/Polity does this Requires
Papacy is to lead the way in making the Christian faith credible.

III. Orthodox Response to the Secular-Modern Project
There is a Reiteration of B16’s themes
But Orthodoxy is concerned with Traditionalism as well: Reason and Faith AND Tradition; this may render dialogue difficult or even impossible.
We need to note that Rome is western, but Orthodoxy is East
Orthodox is primarily local and Rome is global
Orthodoxy is post-communist

Discussions between Orthodoxy and Rome (Primarily Russian and Roman)
Met Hilarion: ‘Alliance’ of Rome and Orthodoxy
“Christianophobia”
Systematic war against Christian faith and Biblical institutions: he draws his thinking from Pat Buchanon!
He uses martial and bellicose language on this - ‘repel the onslaught...’
Not about power but love and service - drawing on Eucharistic role of the Bishop
BUT, he also uses military metaphors: church as army, with Bishops as Generals sending signals to the troops on the move. He employs a ‘culture war’ worldview in the service of Orthodoxy

Church and State
Mutual non-intervention and no symphonia
That official position is actually ignored - fiscally, education, etc.
Wkileaks: Hilarion conversation with John Beryl - Met describes the Patriarchate as significant player with political function in the modern state. The Church has a role in promulgating government policy - including ‘limited democracy’.

IV. Positive Responses
There are gifts within Enlightenment thinking
The asymmetrical dimensions of Orthodox must be maintained: Tradition must correct modernity but modernity/secularism cannot and may not correct Tradition.
Secularism is a child of western Christianity where theory leads practice, while in Orthodoxy faith and practice cannot be separated.
If there is no shared culture there can be no shared objectives in regard to moral norms in a civil society. Florovsky: daring witness.
Bottom line on ‘human rights’: they must be guaranteed because of but be shaped and informed by the Church’s moral teaching.

Travel Pictures

Hobbit Life in Cambridge; the Dedication Stone noting a Nazi Bombing; St Albans Shrine

Lecture Notes 8: Irina Kirillov on Dostoevsky as Prophet Contra Mundum

Irina Kirillova
Dostoevsky’s “If there is no God, then all is permitted.”

Actually what was written of course was “if there is no immortality...”. This is D’s response to secularism.

Dostoevsky as Prophet
He was a polemicist - and his approach would likely be unpopular now as then.
Dos did not believe in a simplistic approach that suggested a religious society was always ‘good’, but he did know that the loss or repression of religion would create a tyrannical culture. Man is fallen and cruel; without God he does create ‘the end’ of history - a rational, liberal heaven.
There is no love in the Man-God. Love is found in the God-Man
Philip Blond - ‘Broken Britain’ (Red Tory), on the malaise of Britain
D. Bleak Utopia
A society that’s lost it soul is about to lose its future.
Umberto Eco - ‘down to the positive hero of myth...’
these are the replacement idols for our godlessness

Dostoevsky on Rationalism
The conflict between faith and rationality - “If someone were to prove to me that Christ is outside the truth, then I would rather be with Christ than with the truth. My faith is not a childish faith; it has been sorely tried by faith.”
Great Tyrannies Opposing the Church and the Faith
French Revolution
Bolshevik Revolution
Nazi Regime
Maoist China
The Revolutionary view of Jesus: itinerant philosopher who suffers ‘an unfortunate death’
Dostoevsky’s ‘The Idiot’ - showing the corpse of Jesus; Holbein’s Jesus.
The Norwegian “Utopia”

The Negation of Utopia
Dostoevsky wanted to embrace the utopian ideal, but in the end abandons the notion because it is destructive.
It is in prison that he discovers afresh that man is made in the image of God and that man is called to likeness.
“Man in rejecting God does not gain freedom...” - “The Grand Inquisitor”
Notes from the Under Ground
“Twice two is four is nice. How much nicer when twice two is five.”
kill the pawnbroker in the name of social good (Roskolnikov)
PD James - ‘The Children of Men’ ( man of faith exposing the horror of the so-called social good promoted violence). Roskolnikov is an atheist but demands that the raising of Lazarus is read to him. He doesn’t repent, but does recognize that only a miracle can save him.

* Dostoevsky’s work opens up the jaws of hell. “After preparing this paper, I wanted to go to Church and have communion, and cleanse myself of contact with this evil.”
Man is a sinner, fallen, and cannot save himself.

The Revolution
“By 1966 there will not be a single member of the clergy left alive in the Soviet Union”

Under Lenin, priests were crucified, and sometimes they were nailed to the floor, and then had their eyes ripped out. Lenin would shake with rage and shout, “All must be destroyed!”

“All slaves must be equal - inequality is the great evil: cicero has his tongue cut out, copernicus has his eyes gauged out; shakespeare is stoned to death.” - The Devils

He nowhere suggests Theocracy, but remains silent on such macro-notions, pointing us back to our own interior telling us to trust in and confess Christ.

Lecture Notes 7: Alexander Ogorodnikov - The Suffering of the Russian Church

This address passed through two translators, and was more of a conversation than outlined presentation.

Alexander Ogorodnikov
Godlessness and the Russian Experience of Tyranny

The War Against Religion

The unprecedented challenge to the Faith and the Church in the 20th century was Totalitarianism - by means of violence asserting itself as the new religion. In Germany, the Nazis sought to make Arianism the new religion, while the Bolsheviks sought the elimination of ALL religion.

In 1923 there was a Tribunal held in Moscow by the powers - a show trial - in which God was tried, found guilty, and condemned to death.

Lenin gave the order to exterminate religion:

In 1939, there remained 4 out of 400 Bishops.

1952 - 5 year plan to destroy all churches and a further strategy employed which would lead to the elimination of the word ‘God’ from the Russian language. Destruction of icons and other visible religion. Not a battle against religion alone, but a ‘storming of heaven’ to overthrow God and bury him.

The term was not ‘atheist’ but the more specific ‘godless’

What they could not extinguish was the quiet courage of faith. Quiet family faith endured. That said, while there were thousands and thousands of martyrs, there were also many more thousands of apostates.

Results

The blood of the martyrs was sprinkled across the ground of Russia as far as its widest boundaries.
The miracle of the re-birth of the Russian Church was through the seed of this prophetic martyr blood.
The Church was founded on the blood of martyrs and this has been witnessed again 2000 years into her history, this time in Russia. The modern massacre could not succeed in its objectives. Yet in 30 years in Russia there were more martyrs made than in all the previous years of the entire Church’s history combined.
What happened to turn things around was WW2. It began in Russia on the day of the celebration of the Feast of Russian Saints. While every Russian suffered unspeakably, and the persecution of the Church returned after the war, Stalin - the former Seminarian(!) - knew that people would not die for the sake of the communist ideal, but for a unified nation. The Germans had started to re-open churches in the occupied territories. In 1943, Stalin met with 3 hierarchs and asked them to re-found (form) the Moscow Patriarchate. He allowed the opening of seminaries and released some priests from prison. This was a brief respite from the persecution.
The Bishops were released from the labor camps but were under constant surveillance (kept in a golden cave)
Both Bishop and godless official were working on the same project: national unity. But the Church re-opened was a religious museum with a performance of ritual; any deviation from the form resulted in re-imprisonment.
In the 1970s an independent Christian community began to form
This development signaled the rebirth of the Church in Russia, though the official hierarchy refused to recognize it.
On a certain feast day, a Bishop was preaching to a large congregation, some 60% of whom were youth, and not a few were Jewish converts as well, he said ‘your parents brought you to church...’ - revealing he knew nothing about the Church or what the Lord was doing in calling again a new people to himself.
This chasm between perception and reality has left a schism in the contemporary church
The Bishops came to the West and told western leaders that there was no persecution of the Church in Russia and that those in the prisons had to be criminals. It is tragic that such voices as Solz and others were not heard.
The emergence of the ‘separatist’ movement - living church - looked to be missional - apologetics, evangelistic, etc., but so many were new converts and thus young in the Faith. Only later did they discover the depth of Church life beneath the surface of the visible church.
The strength of the Orthodox experience for survival was Sobornsk - the spiritual father, the elder, the staritz. People attended prayer services on the anniversary of the October revolution.

Perestroika: the Path to Freedom

The genesis of this meant that the suffering ended. While the country needed a new leader, the Church was not able to provide such. The captive church could not produce a leader. Yeltsin emerged proclaiming himself a democrat. The fall of communism created an ideological vacuum. A ‘meta-idea’ was needed however for the society. The idea that was essential was repentance.

The Russian Hierarchy refused to repent (Bulgarian and Romanian experience was different)

The new situation appears to have the seeds of a new totalitarianism through secularism.
There is a strong anti-clericalism among the members rooted in their experience of the Church’s connection with abusive power. There is massive growth in the Church, but resistance to various expressions of Church authority, and not as much growth in the numbers of priests. Still though, little opportunity for initiative on part of the laity for the Church
there was a massive influx of ‘Protestant’ missions (these were mostly evangelical sects of course) with large expenditures in the 1980s, but this mission has largely failed. Before they came there were approximately 500K protestants in Russia and the number is now the same.

Testimony from a Soviet Prison

Alexander Ogorodnikov
Lessons from Prison

1. One must NOT be afraid - “I am a weak person, but when God gave me the gift of prison, he gave me strength to serve him there.”

2. Fires of Opposition Serve our Holiness - “I met a man who had spent 47 years in that hell and he shone with the light of Christ. I asked him how that was possible. He replied, ‘In the fires of this hell, all that is evil is burned - my hate, lies, self-love; all that remains is love.’

3. The prison was a school of Christ.”
“I was placed in solitary - not alone in a cell, but alone in an entire building. My only companions were hunger and cold. The hunger was so great, that I wanted slit my wrists to drink my own blood in order to survive. And the cold? It was northern Siberia. The guards would smash the windows to let the freezing wind come in. You could not flee the cold. The cell is a tomb, with only a weak light present. In my cold, I would pray - so I ‘prayed without ceasing’. I had no experience of the Jesus prayer before this, but this I prayed constantly. This prayer helped me breathe and calmed my heart. I said, ‘Surely God you have not forgotten me’, and as I prayed I would become warm. I can only compare this warmth to the breath of a mother upon her cold child. I cannot communicate this beauty to you. I began to weep and a quiet joy - quiet but uncontainable - began to rise within me. Then I did not notice the passage of time or the cold. In the morning the guards would come with a doctor expecting to find me dead. But I was warm and well instead. The Lord showed me I was preserved, not by my merit but by the prayers of thousands of people, thousands of miles away - those prayers rose to heaven, got over the wires, passed the dogs, and came to embrace me. A voice came to me and said, “You are not alone.” And I wasn’t.

4. Prison is Witness: I was jailed first with true criminals - mafia, rapists, murderers. Sometimes this cell would have up to 60 people in it. They would say, “Alexander don’t pray for us today, we want to play cards.” In the morning they would stand silent until I had finished praying. I was able to share Christ with them all, in word and example.

Travel Notes 3: July 26

I've been very busy writing and posting lecture notes from the first two days of the IOCS summer school, but its time for some travel notes.

First of all, it was COLD today - OK, chilly: 55 for a high, cloudy, but no rain. Am I complaining? No! The cool days and cooler nights are a great relief, as everyone who's been roasting in the South Texas oven with me this summer can testify.

I had two free hours this afternoon, so I wandered through an open air bookstall (shock) and also renewed acquaintance with the Kings College Chapel, one of the most breathtaking spaces for worship constructed here. Pictures asap - I'm having some trouble with uploading pictures here, but hopefully tomorrow that'll be resolved. I am always taken by the initials inscribed on the organ casement, donated to the College by Henry VIII. One sees not only the expected HR, but also RA, and even one HA - the A being for Anne Boleyn, Henry's ill-fated second wife (he had her beheaded on trumped up charges of adultery), the mother of Elizabeth I. Yesterday I went to Great St Mary's Church (distinguished from Little St Mary's), which was a hotbed of Reformation preaching, including the ministry of Martin Bucer. The great Strasburg Reformed leader was buried in the church, but his body was exhumed and burned during the reign of Mary Tudor (daughter of Henry VIII's first wife, Catherine of Aragon, whom he divorced to marry Anne Boleyn - following this?). Anyway, I was very saddened to see that the only testament to Bucer in the Church was a very small plaque in the floor near the altar, and that was hidden under the leg of a bulletin board!

Tomorrow I'm planning to visit Little St Mary's Church, built in 1352, and once served by a Rector named Godfrey Washington - the Great Uncle of George Washington. I'm also planning some time at the American Cemetery for WW2 dead. Many thousands of Americans were stationed in this region's air fields during the war, and many gave their lives in the effort to defeat fascism. I also discovered a small village church nearby with an inscription over the door informing all that the church was established in the 1300s, but was rebuilt after 'being bombed by the Nazis'! I checked with some locals and the bomb - no doubt intended for a nearby air field - hit the church only one hour after the conclusion of a Sunday morning service. Again, pictures as soon as I can upload them.

The food in the college has deteriorated significantly since my visit here two years ago, but the food around Cambridge remains pretty good. I'm determined to find a good curry tomorrow. I'll probably gain 50 pounds while I'm here but I can't resist flapjack, McVities, and sausage rolls. Oh, and I did get the 'must have' Mushroom, Steak, and Guinness Pie at Browns. Yes, I'm running in the morning...Ok, walking everywhere too...but that makes me hungry! In the immortal words of the consummate Englishman Winnie the Pooh, "I have a rumbly in my tumbly."

The best part of the summer school so far has been the fellowship with other Pastors from so many varied backgrounds - and arguing with Christian socialists about what constitutes a Christian economic system. Such fun! And we all like each other too. Great discussion tonight over beer with Fr Alexander (Antiochian) about the hypostatic union of the two natures of Christ and how that works out in Eucharistic theology, both East and West. Theology and Beer - heaven. OK, mid-heaven.

Weird stuff:

1. I have not yet been waited on in the college or any eating establishment by an English person. All these jobs are taken by Eastern Europeans, mostly Poles so far as I can tell. I have no idea how many people from that part of the EU have moved here, but it must be very high indeed.

2. Half the population of Japan is here and touring Cambridge.

3. During a tea break I was offered BAG of tea IN A CUP with HOT WATER. WHAT???? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Is this Albuquerque or something? Oh, and it gets worse: the fellow serving it, poured milk in the cup ON TOP OF THE BAG. Yes, he was Ukranian, but we're talking tea in England people...TEA! They can't let the newbies serve the national drink without proper training. There's a way to make tea and that's not it. It takes a pot, boiling water, and...oh bother, drop by for a demo.

4. I will not complain about the price of gasoline in America - for at least one week after I get back. Oh my.

Lecture Notes 6: Pray Without Ceasing; Prayer as Answer to Secularism - Metropolitan Kallistos

Metropolitan Kallistos
Our Orthodox Response to Secularism, Part Two: Pray Without Ceasing

How we respond personally to the challenge of secularism.

I. A Map of the Spiritual Way in the Orthodox Tradition (noted in Origin, Evagrius, Maximos, and others).

A. Praktaki (Praxis): As the Fathers use the term, not external activity or vocation, but the struggle to acquire internal virtue and subdue passions; this begins with repentance (metanoia) and ends with apatheia - not apathy, nor the denial of feelings, but freedom the rule of passions in order to enjoy a new dynamic for life: “The fire of passionlessness”.

B. Physiki: The Contemplation of Nature, seeing God in all things and all things in God. One *might* employ a term like panentheism for this notion (not pantheism, all things God and God all things, losing the Creator-creature distinction, but rather the presence of God in the creation and the life of creation in God and dependent on God. “See Christ everywhere, and rejoice in him” - Schmeman (Pan-Christification)

C. Theologia: The vision of God. Not theological study in the academic sense. Physiki is to apprehend God in his works, but theologia is to encounter God directly, above language, image, or intellectual concepts.

* These are not ‘stages’ - one discarded when mastered so that the disciple moves on to the next. No, rather different mysteries into which one goes more deeply, all three together. The life of contemplation begins with the second.

II. Physiki as Response to Secularism

A. We don’t live in the world as if there is no God, but in the world finding God everywhere:
* Herbert’s ‘The Elixir’:
    Teach me, my God and King,
        In all things thee to see,
And what I do in any thing,
        To do it as for thee:

        Not rudely, as a beast,
        To runne into an action;
But still to make thee prepossest,
        And give it his perfection.

        A man that looks on glasse,
        On it may stay his eye;
Or if he pleaseth, through it passe,
        And then the heav’n espie.

        All may of thee partake:
        Nothing can be so mean,
Which with his tincture (for thy sake)
        Will not grow bright and clean.

        A servant with this clause
        Makes drudgerie divine:
Who sweeps a room, as for thy laws,
        Makes that and th’ action fine.

        This is the famous stone
        That turneth all to gold:
For that which God doth touch and own
        Cannot for lesse be told.

B. Nature as God’s Book: Psalm 19
“Love the trees; he who does not love the tree does not love Christ.”
Or God's Grandeur, by Hopkins:

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
    It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
    It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
    And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
    And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
    There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
    Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
    World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

- Maximos - The world finds it origins in Christ and it is to Christ that all will return. ‘from him and through him and to him are all things...’: Logos and Logoi
- Palamas: Divine Energies (distinguished from his essence): God permeating the creation, everywhere present and filling all things. Without the presence of the Creator in everything and anything, the thing would collapse and cease to exist.
- In him we live and move and have our being
- He upholds all things by the word of his power
- In him all things hold together

III. The Jesus Prayer as Physiki and Response to Secularism
(Arrow Prayer)
A. Two Kinds of Prayer Usage
Fixed - Making the Jesus Prayer part of our regular prayer life
Free - To Unite the Jesus Prayer with our everyday activities.

B. “Create Silence” - Kierkegaard. We live in a loud and boisterous age and we stand in desperate need of silence.
The constant repetition of the same simple words leads us to interior silence
This counters the endless multiplication of words and the cheapening of words
* Von Huegel - “Man is what he does with his silence”
* Silence is not a void but a fullness and allows us to note the presence of the Other. Silence is a presence and in its midst is God. Psalm 46 - “Be still and know that I am God.” Silence allows listening and thus relating.
- Free use: walking about, counseling, committee meetings, in pain, despair, and so on. This kind of praying unites work and prayer time. It makes our work prayer.
- “Pray without ceasing...” - 1 Thessalonians 5
- “Not people who say prayers from time to time, but who are prayer.”
Pray-ers

IV. Prayer, Encounter, and Facing the Secular Challenge - Moses at the Burning Bush
“Take off your shoes.”
“Holy Ground”

To pray is to stand before and in the presence of God to encounter his holy presence around us and his holy earth beneath us. All of creation is his and all of Him is given in Christ to his creation.

More from RB to EBB

Meeting at Night
BY ROBERT BROWNING

I
The grey sea and the long black land;
And the yellow half-moon large and low;
And the startled little waves that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed i' the slushy sand.

II
Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross till a farm appears;
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match,
And a voice less loud, thro' its joys and fears,
Than the two hearts beating each to each!

Lecture Notes 5: Transfiguration as Answer to Secularism

Metropolitan Kallistos

Our Orthodox Answer to Secularism, Part One: The Transfiguration of Christ

I. Three Possible Attitudes in Response to Secularism

Pietism: limit the faith and life of religion to the internal sphere. Dis-engagement from culture; safe within your personal sanctuary, you set a deep chasm between yourself and the world. This is utterly inadequate and isn’t in fact an answer at all. People become ‘church mice’. (I call it isolation)
Secular Christianity: Under the influence of those who followed Bonhoeffer (though mistakenly, says Ware): “Live in the world as if there is no God.” This is the embrace of the secular world on its own terms. But this leaves out both the nature of the fall and the need for repentance (metanoia). (I call it imitation)
Transfiguration: The fallen world is neither rejected nor naively accepted on its own terms; rather we are called to discern the presence of Christ in the world. This means we note our own need for personal transformation and the need for the fallen world’s transformation as well - the presence of the future with us now giving us hope. (We live with insulation and pray for transfiguration): Revelation 21:5 - Not, “I make all new things”, but rather ‘All things new’; not a different reality but this reality renewed and transformed - transfigured. Resurrection was not in a different body, but the self same body in which he suffered and died, now transformed: “see my hands and my feet - it is I myself.” The wounds visible are pledges of continuity and victory, and thus the promise of transfiguration. 1 Corinthians 15 - a ‘spiritual body’; not a de-materialized body, but one that is filled with the grace and power of the Holy Spirit. His body made new is the hope of a world made new.
Thus our calling is to ‘Christianize’ this world (or, I note, at least trust that Christ shall do so).


Three Questions Concerning this Vocation
Tolstoy’s Story of the Three Questions: The most important moment? The most important person? The most important task?

What does Christ’s Transfiguration tell us -

About Christ?
What is the Light which shone forth? It was the uncreated light of God, the light of the Holy Trinity. Noted especially in texts for the Feast.
Supra-essential
“A light that transcends the senses...” - Maximos
“The eyes of the Apostles don’t see the light by natural eye sight but by eyes transformed by faith.” - Clement of Alexandria

Christ is thus Truly God; note context - Peter’s Confession
But note that Christ remains truly human. His humanity is taken up into the God head but not abolished. Rather it is rendered transparent - the Godhead shining forth from it. The eternal glory was always his - from conception and throughout life, even in deepest humiliation. Glory was not added and humanness was not taken away.
He is transfigured not by assuming what he was not but by opening the eyes of the disciples to who he always was - and is. He was not changed, but the disciples were changed.
Christ is one person in two natures.Our human nature taken up into God and being transformed while remaining completely human as well.
Into the one river of truth many streams flow” - Clement of Alexandria (on the use of Hellenic categories in Christian thought).



About Ourselves?
The Trans discloses the nature of God but also shows the true nature of humanness.
Kantakion of the fore-feast; small vespers as well. Transfigured Savior has made disfigured man shine with light. Here the last Adam shows us both the nature of man before the fall and the nature of man - glorified - as he will be in resurrection.
It looks back at the fall, through the cross, and to the consummation. Salvation is not merely a return to Paradise but a new beginning and new hope rooted in Christ.
The Transfiguration becomes the inauguration of the Parousia -
“After eight days...” - the new world (just as it was also the first day): the eighth day is a unit beyond time - the presence of the eternal in the temporal
Matins on the Feast Day



About the World?
The Transfiguration is cosmic in its scope. We are not saved from the created order but with the created order: Romans 8 - ‘the revealing of the sons of God’, etc. in response to the world’s groaning, waiting for redemption.
His CLOTHES are shining as well - the material he wears - man made and utterly of this order - is also subjected to being the vehicle of the out-shining of divine majesty. The material world is taken up and all is in service to God.
The material is not secular but becomes - with Christ - the means of revelation and service, even at the Cross.


The Context: Before and After
Before: Same Sequence in all the synoptic Gospels -
Peter’s Confession
Jesus’ Prediction of his Coming Crucifixion
Peter Scandalized
Jesus’ call to be his cross bearing disciple
Jesus’ promise of his coming in glory (the Kingdom).
Tabor amplifies and affirms Peter’s Confession
Tabor also points forward to revealing glory on this mountain and the mountain of calvary. Same three disciples here as in Gethsemane
Witnesses of his uncreated splendor, the same are witnesses to his suffering and agony.
These are not two mysteries, but two aspects of the one great mystery.
Luke 9:31 - the exodon; thus the connection between Tabor and Calvary is explicit.
In the brilliant light of transfiguration it is the cross that is discussed
Note 1 Corinthians 2:8

Note hymns for the Day as commentary on the event.

This means we cannot leave out the CROSS when it comes to the message of transformation. There is no theosis without kenosis.

After: Same in Sequence
Peter wishes to remain
Jesus says No
They encounter the demonized, suffering world; they enter into this suffering rather than staying upon the mountain.
They encounter the failure of our ministry
They discover afresh the power of Christ.

Lecture Notes 4: A Christian Response to the Global Economic Crisis

Wow - this was one with which I have the strongest possible disagreement. The notes are what he said, not what I think. I asked some pointed questions, and I'm afraid the answers offered were as unsatisfactory as the talk itself. Dr Hughes is an able scholar, and of course he was speaking within the British context. Nevertheless, the defense of forced redistribution of wealth rather than the creation of new wealth was, as I see things, deeply troubling.


Rev Dr John Hughes
Moralism and the Market

Morality and the Market

* Claims that the Free Market is bound up with secularism.

Since 2008-09 intl leaders note that the mkt cannot be an end in itself. “It should be free, but not values free.”

“Are there global economic rules? Markets cannot self-regulate but they can self-destruct.” - Gordon Brown

This is a disavowal of liberal market

“Wealth without fairness...capitalism without a conscience...markets are there to serve...we must shape capitalism to serve...the market is not an end in itself but rather a means to an end...” - David Cameron

The politics of virtue is on the rise.

(But whose principles informing whose conscience?)

Completely laissez faire approaches are only materialist in their view of humanity. It is utterly Darwinian.

Secularism - according to Schmeman - areas of life are viewed as separate from God; Faber notes the dis-enchantment of the world authored by the Puritans led to a work ethic that was inherently secular and materialist.

(Watch out for the Law of unintended consequences!)

The market crisis was a moral crisis in relationship to risk, debt, and de-regulation. These are choices made, not inevitabilities that were impossible to avoid.

“We need rules that make hedge funds and risk visible...” - G Brown

Move away from a culture of irresponsible debt to a culture of Jubilee.

(Seriously???)

But what is needed is not the pruning of excesses but the a new moral economics and mutuality in market relations.

Red Toryism - Philip Blond (formerly a theologian of the RO)

Re-Moralization of the Market
Classical Liberalism cannot offer authentic moral ends
Resistance to monopolistic capitalism strangling the economy
This is the distributization envisioned by Chesterton and Belloc

2. Re-Capitalization of the Poor.

Compass Group (Blue Labor)

From work ethic to ethic of care
Free from poverty and exclusion

Making economy more local.


The co-inherent economy is ‘body-politic’; it is Christendom in its orientation.


Questions

What is the role of the state?
Blond - some role; Compass, more so.

International Justice?
Though global, Blond and Compass are primarily concerned with national issues.

What is the ‘theology’ of the proposals being made.

Caritatis in Veritate - B16 (3rd Encyclical)

Economic Sphere is not Neutral
Economic Decisions are moral Decisions
Profit not an end in itself, but rather service.
Socially responsible businesses
Unionization as Protection of workers (Oh really? Which workers?!!!?)
Decision Making at Local Level rather than state centralism
Global Collaboration
World-wide re-distribution of Energy and Economic Resources
World Polity - Family of Nations
Waste of Intl Aid by Oppressive Governments is Condemned
Large-Scale re-distribution of wealth global
“Civilizing the economy”
- Charitable works associated with private companies


Implications

Charity as ‘Gift-Exchange’
Augustinian and Johannine - participatory not merely private, and reciprocal
Love moves to courageous action

Sharing is at the Heart of the Gospel Message

C. The old division of nature/grace and faith/reason must be overcome.

Lecture Notes 3: Secularism vs Christian Democracy

While this lecture focused on the situation in Britain, the principles in play have a great deal to do with the debate and conflict in America about Religion in the Public Sphere.

Dr Jonathan Chaplin
Between Theocracy and Secularism: Religion and the State in Britain Today

The emergence of a secular priesthood: journalists, stars, academic ‘experts’. Secularism is in fact parasitic in terms of legal tradition, and in large parts of its intellectual vigor, living of the Judeo-Christian capital of the West.

Basic to the secular ideal is the radical separation of the religious and the public and jurisprudential spheres.

Citizens may not appeal to their religious views in regard to their approach to law
There is an ‘empirical world’ with which religion has no inter-action.
‘Theocracy’ is a scare tactic
Theocracy is a misunderstanding; what they object to is in fact an ecclesiocracy.

Varieties of Secularism (Not the ancient notion of the secular but the idea that there is an area or areas of life not under God)

Militant Secularism: state officially committed to a secular/atheist position which the state propagates through state action - either passively or aggressively, either violently or by exclusion.

Exclusionary Secularism: state seeks to keep the influence of religion and faith out of public policy and debate; does not oppose private religious belief, but restricts the public manifestation of religion. Religion may be prevalent at the personal level but invisible at the public level.

Impartial Secularism: State refrains from endorsing a religion or creed, adopting a stance of impartiality or neutrality towards all. Since the state cannot judge religion’s truthfulness, it should refrain from such judgments.
Theology of Freedom to the Call of the Gospel
Theology of the Church: Church stands under the authority of Christ in a way that other ‘spheres’ do not. This is not immunity for the Church, but it is to say that no human authority can restrain the Church in its mission.
Theology of the State: the limits of the state. Note the subversive nature of the ancient Church(Horsley, Wright, etc). The state may assist the Church, and should through the maintenance of peaceful conditions for the Church.
American system and in particular first amendment
The US Courts have imported an alien version of secularism - namely (B) - to replace (C).

Justifcatory Secularism: state refrains from officially offering religious justifications for its laws and actions. For instance, the state may say, “This violates the human rights of the foetus”, but may not say, “This is a violation of the image of God”.

Benefits of (C): Impartial Secularism

State is Humbled - it acknowledges its incompetence
The Church is Protected for its Gospel mission rather than being identified with the state.
This does not imply religious neutrality when it comes to Law: all laws are a legislation of morality, which is inescapably religious in nature.
Allows appeal by the state to the religious heritage (note recent example of Italy and the posting of crucifixes in state schools).


Exclusive Secularism’s Problems
It does in fact imply justificatory secularism
Separation of jurisdiction does not mean the separation of religion and state. A ‘religion-free state’ is mythological.
ES presupposes that secular speech/reasons unites people while religious reasoning/speech divides.
ES further presupposes that secular speech is rational and objective, while religious speech is irrational and subjective.
Yet both C and D are false.
ES’s damaging consequences
Catastrophic violation of individual rights
- the track record is that the religious are marginalized. This liberalism is illiberal.
Deprivation of society of an indispensable resource for moral consideration.
Theological-Cultural Amnesia at work.

Not Christian Nation but Christian Democracy
The Church does not rule the state (Gregory VII’s age even recognized the different jurisdictions): What people truly reject is ecclesiocracy - clerical domination of the state.
But what of ‘Christian Nation’? It seems to pre-empt true debate and it favors one religion over others.
In Christian Democracy, Christians engage, work through political and legal positions, and then work in the culture for these positions (say everything from life and death to ecology and economics).
Church must be alive and helping her members and office holders to be wise and diligent in their public service.

Egalitarianism as Heresy

Just want to note in passing, reflecting on the lecture on Marxism, that egalitarianism before the Law is one thing, but this cannot be confused with the demonic envy that demands the revolutionary overthrow of those who appear to have more by those who think they have less. Envy turned the primary angel of light into a ghastly, beastly monster. If envy can do such a terrible thing to an angel, how much more ourselves. We must always be on the guard then against this terror. Inequality of gift is not inequity; equality of opportunity cannot guarantee equality of outcome. Marx looked at the injustices of the society around him - noted by Dickens as well - but without a sound doctrine of man's fall, he lept in horrid self-righteousness to the condemnation of the classes he hated. Blame-shifting as old as Eden, accompanied by Utopianism fueled by envy and hate, threw the whole world into a bloodlust. The same demons crouch before every door. Beware. Beware the Messianic state. Beware making saviors of candidates, of whatever party. Fallen man and fallen society has but one Savior, one Lord.

Lecture Notes Two - Communism as Secularized Eschatology

Communism as Secularized Eschatology - Dr Mihail Neamtu (Romania)

Communism as a Heresy

To what extent does the presence of totalitarian movements highlight the failures of the political world to speak to the spiritual aspirations of man?

I. Secular Age

(Even before Spinoza)

Privatization of Faith/Religious Belief
Demythologizing the Bible

In regard to the first the confessional wars were the foundation from which western rationalists launched the project to eradicate religion from the public square to make the society safe.

Intellectuals become the new priests of the church of secularism.
- belief in revelation (and corresponding religious devotion) is a sign of weak mind.
Theological Political Treatise (published anonymously at first) is the primary work describing his project.
This is not only a cosmological revolution, but an anthropological one as well; after all, one cannot alter one’s view of God without altering one’s view of mankind.

When Eschatological Deliverance disappeared, secular versions took its place. The French and Bolshevik Revolution are examples of this outcome.

Collectivism Myth of Flourishing

This took the place of Spinoza’s individualism, and places power in the hands of the state. Hence political utopianism. The Utopians searched for a new heaven and new earth but without the possibility of creating a new man.

Marx left behind the Socratic imperative: its not our task to understand the world but to change it.

Marx’s Tools for Change
Replace God with History (Upper Case ‘H’)
Materialism (Revelation prevents revolution)
His avowed atheism was influenced by Feuerbach
Mythology - a re-telling of redemptive history
fall is alienation
redemption is salvation by workers or party
consummation is the communist state
Hatred - Currently dominated classes had to be overthrown and/or eliminated/re-educated.
For this there must be a revolution of the proletariat against the ruling or dominant classes
Envy is central fuel for the fires of hatred; egalitarian envy is thus central to the Marxist project.


His Conflict with Hegel - a critique of Idealism: Marx seeks to reverse the Hegelian personal process of transformation and transplant it into the communal historical context.
Hermeneutics of Suspicion - While Hegel valued art, revelation, and philosophy, Marx sees these are bourgeoise. The person must disappear and the class must become all.
Ay his funeral Engels said, “As Darwin discovered the evolution of the human species, marx had discovered the evolution of human history.”


Heirs of Marx: Lenin and Stalin
From the critique of privatization to collectivization
One thing to criticize the wealthy, quite another to pursue the collectivization of their property by force.
Not just theft, but economic stupidity: central planning simply did not and cannot work because it ignores the individual.
Lenin introduced the Gulag system: central planning forced the emergence of slave labor.
Cult of the Supreme Leader: The Messianic State.
in 1932 famine in Ukraine targeted elderly and children; 25m lost.
Ugliness of the Urban Space: demolition (iconoclasm) of the egalitarianism, resulting in mass produced ugliness: ‘raging squalor’. Communism mutilated art and banned religious expression. “If the early Christians knew they believed, the Communists believed that they knew.”

Communism as a System of Lies
Not Pravda, but Masks
Ethics of Denial and Duplicity
Culture of Fear
“Why did KGB operate in groups of three? One could read, one could write, and one could keep an eye on the intellectuals.”
Show Trials - Fraud in Justice
Lying is endemic to and fundamental to Communism.
Here we see the offspring of the father of lies
The party was the new ecclesia and the party leader the new universalist Messiah.
Discipleship was reshaped into state service.

Aristotle's Definition of Tragedy

This formed a vital aspect of lecture one:

“Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its katharsis of such emotions. . . . Every Tragedy, therefore, must have six parts, which parts determine its quality—namely, Plot, Characters, Diction, Thought, Spectacle, Melody.”

Lecture One Notes: Art - From Ritual to Voyeurism

I will post some parallel comments later, but here are my notes taken during the lecture. This was a fascinating 90 minute presentation on art in history, especially art as service to God and art as antagonist to the Faith - as well as the possible future path Christians can take to recover art in and for the Church. OK, one personal side comment: inconography is inevitable - even the absence of artistic expression in the Church - bare naked space - is a statement of doctrine and an invitation to and encounter with mystery. The iconoclast is an iconographer as well.

Dr Andre Andreopolis

The Place of Art: from Ritual to Voyeurism

I. Theories of Art:
Entertainment
Communication (deriving meaning whether with words, sign, music, but generally non-discursive)
Definition of Space
Identification of Persons (not just uniform or vestment, but all clothing defining moment and person - saying who we are in the sight of others)
Art provides non-discursive narrative - the way of existence

II. Origins of Art
From an anthropological point of view we see art emerging as defining the foundation of human culture. Why the cave paintings? Not utilitarian! Not a how to manual for hunting. They furnish an ‘as if’ pathway - the way of imagination. This marks a differentiation in reality - the visible and the ideal.

Scripture as written within a dramatic context - the drama/re-enactment involved in liturgy.

Rituals of the Egyptian tradition; life and death of the sun, etc.

Mysteries: originally, the presence of the ritual: thus the sacrament - ‘as if’ productions, something beyond what the senses communicate. Pointing to a more complete reality.
Tragedy in drama: how metaphysical identity is being communicated. Modern psychology was founded largely on one myth of tragedy: Oedipus.
Aristotle (Poetics): tragedy is an imitation of an action that is admirable, complete, possesses magnitude...pity and fear and bringing about purification (catharsis): thus it is transformational. One does not merely ‘watch’ or ‘spectate’ but participates - enters into - what is being performed.
Imitation - world of ideas/world of senses; how does imitation of a thing compare to its archetype?
In Aristotle - coming to see more clearly the archetype.
Plato: in an ideal state we would not need art, except for the military.

Art in Biblical Tradition: comes after the fall. Thus does it take it further away from paradise? No an instrument of our recovery.

In Christianity

The ‘as if’ is a statement of reality
notes distance but also proclaims the union of history and eschatology.
Both remembrance (imitating an action) but anticipation (mystygogy): not just in imagination but in reality entering the future.
On Icons - what was the seventh ecumenical council saying about the question, “What are we looking at?”
The Biblical command against images - noted by the iconoclasts - that is the basis of the scandal
BUT the issue is really Platonic in its origins: how does the visible connect us - if at all- with God? This is how the fathers approached the issue.
How does the icon assist in regard to mystygogy?
Same person with defense of icons is the SAME person who codified musical notation - eight modes - John of Damascus; same generation, same issue.
Arius illustrates the use of music/hymnody to instruct.

At Renaissance the ‘as if’ shifts
Use of art apart from the ritual - not for purification but for stimulation, liberating art from the Church
This caused the emergence of ‘the artist’, a ‘prophet’ but of a non-religious person. This is the genesis of the secular. 16th century sees this in particular; the artist is seen as ‘creator’.
We know very, very few names of ‘artists’ before this time in the Church - whether iconographers, painters, or sculptors.
Ancient Church had a negative view of the artist - especially within the theater (not unlike its view of soldiers). But it had a positive view of ‘the artisan’, those who serve and hence sign the work ‘by the hand of...’

Humanistic Art
Art as recovery of human person (note to self: Alan Jacobs on Nazis reading Goethe; just because one enjoys Beethoven does not make one a better person; it could be nothing more than hedonism, but on a higher level).
Stimulation of New Desire - Note Marquis de Sade, on production of desire and then the satisfaction of that desire.
The French Revolutionaries and Romantic movement enthrones and seeks to embody this ideal.
Postmodernity as heir of this movement, but primarily re-establishing distance between viewer and work: “This is not a pipe.”
Influence of Da Da.
PM brings critique of questions to modern art. But supremely it is not about the meaning intended by the artist (those this is still ‘meaning’).
The pop art of the 60s: Andy Warhol as supreme artist/prophet; as a project of self-definition, yes pop art was prophetic and ‘real’
But Monet does not simply give us an alternative view; but the pop and modern artist suggesting/telling us to look more closely at who we are and commanding us to disbelieve what he rejects.

Next?
Meta-Postmodernity?
Art that denies connection between art and life
Is it possible to continue to engage with post-renaissance styles and in the service of the Gospel and the Church?
A Recovery of the Liturgical in art as that which is ‘time-resistant’ art.
Christian art is not the same as ‘socialist art’, promulgating an idea for the masses via speech, drama, music, picture, etc. In fact, in Christian history there is sometimes art work that leads to the idea and to its proper formulation as doctrine.
Rublev’s Trinity or Bach’s St Matthew’s Passion or a Kontakion, we are allowing the ‘artisan’ freedom’ to instruct and inform us. Art remains open as a place of discovery and a means of proclamation.

A Couple of Travel Pics

It turns out that the coronation rehearsal scene in The King's Speech was shot, not in Westminster Abbey where the event would've actually taken place, but in Ely Cathedral. The stage version of the Coronation Chair is on display there and you can take a seat in it - which I happily did, feeling momentarily regal.

I took the picture of the lamp post during a run yesterday. No wonder CS Lewis made these lovely lights such an integral element of the Narnia stories.

Travel Notes 2: July 24

After a very heavy night's sleep I headed over to Ely to visit the Cathedral there - one of the most magnificent and ancient places of worship in Christian history. The whole scope of our redemption is shown in the astonishing ceiling panels bearing brilliant pictures of the fathers and the prophets leading up to the Christ and His Kingdom. The stain glass windows and ancient iconographic images on the columns (covered over during the Reformation), the soaring triforium, and beautiful memorials all bear witness to the saving work of Christ - and the fidelity and martyrdom of those who gave all to bear witness to the same through the centuries. Queen (and Saint) Ethelreda was the founder of the Church that became this Cathedral - that's in the 700s. Between St Albans yesterday and Ely today, I am immersed in a glorious and cruciform history which humbles the proud soul.

Just outside the Cathedral is (ironically) the home of Oliver Cromwell - he and his family lived in Ely for some years. The Fens in east Anglia were long a hotbed of radical anti-monarchist sentiment, and those reached their zenith in the Civil War that resulted in the beheading of Charles I and the interegnum, that brief period on the 17th century when England was without a Monarchy and Cromwell ruled as Lord Protector. He was the great grand-nephew of Thomas Cromwell, the reforming - and often (long before the term came to be known) Machiavellian counselor to Henry VIII.

It was then on to Cambridge and registration for this week's classes, beginning tomorrow morning. It was wonderful to renew acquaintance with Church of Ireland Priest, Fr Patrick Comerford, and many other friends as well - especially Fr. Alexander, Chaplain of the Orthodox Institute at Cambridge. After Vespers, there was a friendly reception at Wesley House, and then I enjoyed dinner with Patrick and Gunther, a Lutheran Pastor from Iceland - its an ecumenical group to be sure!

Now to get some rest and be ready to give full attention tomorrow to what promises to be some very good lectures. Time permitting, I will get some lecture notes up as we go through the week.

Quotable - On Books and the People Who Read Them

"A book is like a mirror: if an ass looks in you can't expect an apostle to look out."
- G C Lichtenberg (18th century scientist, quoted by Alan Jacobs - told you this was good!)

Travel Notes 1: July 23

1. St Albans - After a good run, and a better breakfast, I headed off the St Albans to visit the Cathedral there, the oldest site of continuous Christian worship in Britain. The city and cathedral are named for England's first martyr, beheaded by the Romans, his shrine and reliquary now within the Cathedral. Please note that this martyrdom took place in the second century, long before Augustine of Canterbury (not to be confused with St Augustine of Hippo) was sent by Gregory the Great to convert the Angles. The Celtic Church had been there for centuries already, and was subjugated to Rome by Augustine, and not without great threats of violence against them by the Papal emissary, a surrender finally made official at the Synod of Whitby. The Cathedral itself, once a parish church, has a remarkable history, including being the home of Benedictines for many centuries, and consequently witnessing the abolition of that order and the stripping of the Church's material wealth prior to and during the Reformation (Prior to by Cardinal Wolsey and during by the agents of Henry VIII, especially operating under the orders of Thomas Cromwell). Robert Runcie, the Archbishop of Canterbury who presided over the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer, an ABC I remember well, was once Bishop of St Albans and is buried in her churchyard. England's only Pope - Adrain IV - was also from St Albans.

The city center offered a terrific Market Day - wonderful fare, with entertaining fishmongers and butchers gathering crowds to whom they could flog their goods. After searching numerous shops in futility, I managed to buy the right plug converter for my computer at one of the market stalls, and that for a couple of pounds. No souvenirs though - not even a salt and pepper shaker, but I bet I can find that in Cambridge. Sweet. OK, pictures tomorrow.

2. Food - What the British do exceedingly well should always be enjoyed: port; meat pies; sausage rolls; tea with scones and clotted cream; fresh, crisp vegetables, and breakfast. What the British cannot do, no matter how hard they try, should be avoided, and this is especially true when it comes to steak. I learned thirty years ago that getting a steak in Britain is always an astronomical gastronomical error. It still is. Proved that tonight. I finished the piece of meat out of sympathy for the cow that had the misfortune through no fault of its own to be raised, slaughtered, and prepared for a meal here rather than in Texas - or, say, France. I kept smothering the thing with sauce in hopes of improvement, but to no avail. Even the knife didn't want to cut it. The port was good though!

3. Books

A) Finished the little Churchill biography on the trip over. Nothing new, but a good intro and summary for those unfamiliar with the greatest man of the twentieth century - and maybe any other century as well, save the Apostles Peter and Paul. But as is the case with all of Paul Johnson's books, the prose is superior and the book un-put-downable.

B) Hard to find sufficient superlatives for Alan Jacob's little book on reading. Pages 46-53 alone are worth the price of admission. If you are a reader, this book should not be missed. Jacobs HELPS! His notion of 'whim' is superb and a great tonic to the soul burdened by the thought of reading that is undeniably not to one's (at least current) liking, not to mention those reading in a never-ending race to finish the 'top 100' so as to have something intelligent to say at dinner parties. It is filled with admirable - and often hysterical - quotations, many of which are going straight into my little note book for future deployment. Only Austen scholars would make the connection between the great novelist and the philosopher David Hume; only a scholar of Jacob's acumen would make that connection so memorable and compelling. And then there's that bit about reading, culture, and being a better person - and Machiavelli and the Nazis. Yes, worth reading.

* And what is it with Wheaton??? They not only have Jacobs teaching English Lit, but Kevin Vanhoozer on theology! That's an embarrassment of riches.


4. Weather - Perfect. Yes, perfect. Partly cloudy, high of about 72 with 50 or 55 at night, light winds, occasional gentle shower. Its heaven compared to 147 degrees and a drought in the Hill Country. Yes, I'm rubbing it in a little. Actually, no, I'm just incredibly grateful.


Run tomorrow again, worship, and then on to Cambridge.

To the UK Today

Heading off to Britain today for classes next week at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. I will try to post pictures here and on FB as I'm able. But here are a few from the College I thought you might enjoy! Cromwell's head is buried in the college grounds - lets hope I keep mine while I'm there!

"Off with his head!"

From Robert Browning

A couple of weeks ago I published an excerpt from a love letter written by Elizabeth Barrett (Browning) to her beloved Robert Browning. Its only fair that I give Robert some space for a reply. Here's an sliver from one of his masterful - and romantic - responses:

When I come back from seeing you, and think over it all, there never is a least word of yours I could not occupy myself with, and wish to return to you with some ... not to say, all ... the thoughts and fancies it is sure to call out of me. There is nothing in you that does not draw out all of me. You possess me, dearest ... and there is no help for the expressing it all, no voice nor hand, but these of mine which shrink and turn away from the attempt. So you must go on, patiently, knowing me more and more, and your entire power on me, and I will console myself, to the full extent, with your knowledge—penetration, intuition—somehow I must believe you can get to what is here, in me, without the pretence of my telling or writing it.

He knew that she knew him, and what he felt and thought, even when, wordsmith though he was, his pen could not give voice to his soul.

Quotable

Matthew Henry on Adam and Eve -

"She was not made out of his head to top him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side, to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved.”

In the Book Bag

Sure, I have to pack my jeans and shirts, but most importantly I have to pack some books for the trip. I'm taking along some short reads:

1. Churchill, by Paul Johnson (my favorite historian on my favorite person)

2. The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distractions, by Alan Jacobs (my favorite biographer of CS Lewis on the subject of reading more deeply and joyously)

3. Water from Stone, by Jeffrey Greene (The story of the Selah, the Bamberger Ranch and Preserve in Blanco County; I mentioned this last Sunday - so I'm taking some Texas to the UK with me; great story of restoring the soil, with the important emphasis on the relationship between land and people).

4. The Jesus Prayer, by Lev Gillet (An introduction to an Orthodox prayer tradition)

5. Ascension Theology, by Douglas Farrow (a Roman Catholic Theologian whose work heavily influenced Michael Horton's 'People and Place', this is a follow on volume to his previous work on the same subject).

* Yes, of course my Oxford Book of English Verse is making the trip; one should go nowhere without great poetry. God bless Q!

Choruses From the Rock - Part Five

Much to cast down, much to build, much to restore;
Let the work not delay, time and the arm not waste;
Let the clay be dug from the pit, let the saw cut the stone.
Let the fire not be quenched in the forge.


III

The Word of the Lord came unto me, saying:
О miserable cities of designing men,
O wretched generation of enlightened men,
Betrayed in the mazes of your ingenuities.
Sold by the proceeds of your proper inventions:
I have given you hands which you turn from worship,
I have given you speech, for endless palaver,
I have given you my Law, and you set up commissions,
I have given you lips, to express friendly sentiments,
I have given you hearts, for reciprocal distrust.
I have given you power of choice, and you only alternate
Between futile speculation and unconsidered action.
Many are engaged in writing books and printing them.
Many desire to see their names in print.
Many read nothing but the race reports.
Much is your reading, but not the Word of God,
Much is your building, but not the House of God.
Will you build me a house of plaster, with corrugated roofing,
To be filled with a litter of Sunday newspapers?
1st Male Voice: A Cry from the East:
What shall be done to the shore of smoky ships?
Will you leave my people forgetful and forgotten
To idleness, labour, and delirious stupor?
There shall be left the broken chimney,
The peeled hull, a pile of rusty iron.
In a street of scattered brick where the goat climbs,
Where My Word is unspoken.
2nd Male Voice: A Cry from the North, from the West and from
the South
Whence thousands travel daily to the timekept City;
Where My Word is unspoken,
In the land of lobelias and tennis flannels
The rabbit shall burrow and the thorn revisit,
The nettle shall flourish on the gravel court,
And the wind shall say: "Here were decent godless people:
Their only monument the asphalt road
And a thousand lost golf balls."
Chorus: We build in vain unless the Lord build with us.
Can you keep the City that the Lord keeps not with you?
A thousand policemen directing the traffic
Cannot tell you why you come or where you go.
A colony of cavies or a horde of active marmots
Build better than they that build without the Lord.
Shall we lift up our feet among perpetual ruins?
I have loved the beauty of Thy House, the peace of Thy
sanctuary,
I have swept the floors and garnished the altars.
Where there is no temple there shall be no homes.
Though you have shelters and institutions,
Precarious lodgings while the rent is paid,
Subsiding basements where the rat breeds
Or sanitary dwellings with numbered doors
Or a house a little better than your neighbour's;
When the Stranger says: "What is the meaning of this city?
Do you huddle close together because you love each other?"
What will you answer? "We all dwell together
To make money from each other"? or "This is a community"?
And the Stranger will depart and return to the desert.
О my soul, be prepared for the coming of the Stranger,
Be prepared for him who knows how to ask questions.


О weariness of men who turn from God
To the grandeur of your mind and the glory of your action,
To arts and inventions and daring enterprises.
To schemes of human greatness thoroughly discredited.
Binding the earth and the water to your service,
Exploiting the seas and developing the mountains,
Dividing the stars into common and preferred.
Engaged in devising the perfect refrigerator,
Engaged in working out a rational morality,
Engaged in printing as many books as possible,
Plotting of happiness and flinging empty bottles,
Turning from your vacancy to fevered enthusiasm
For nation or race or what you call humanity;
Though you forget the way to the Temple,
There is one who remembers the way to your door:
Life you may evade, but Death you shall not.
You shall not deny the Stranger.

Sermon Notes for Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

The Seed, the Soil, and the Harvest (Part Two)
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
July 17, 2011

Review:
• The Primacy of the Parable
• The Power of the Seed/Word
• New Creation: from curse and thorn to fruitfulness
• The Problem of the Soil/Heart

Until only a couple of weeks ago, I’d never heard of David Bamberger. David grew up in Ohio during the great depression and WW2, moved to Texas, became a successful vacuum cleaner salesman, then the founder and CEO of Church’s Fried Chicken, and then, desiring to turn his wealth and attention to something that gripped his imagination since the day he first read a book that had been given to him by his mother, he founded Selah - Bamberger Ranch and Preserve. That book was published in the 1920s and was entitled “Pleasant Valley”, written by one Louis Bromfield. It was all about land restoration – taking misused and apparently useless soil and making it fruitful again, and doing so through 19th century methods.

In 1969 Bamberger went to the Texas Land Office and told them he wanted to buy the worst piece of land available in the Hill Country of Texas. “You’ll have a lot to choose from” was the reply he received. Bamberger settled on 3500 acres of dry, cedar choked, rocky land in Blanco County and went to work. Today that land is 5500 acres of paradise and known as ‘Selah’, the Bamberger Ranch and Preserve. When he started, Bamberger was ridiculed for looking to employ what people regarded as outdated methods on worthless land; today he’s regarded as conservation hero and pioneer.

• Facts from the Ranch

I. The Conditions of the Soil/Heart: Matthew 13:18-23; Proverbs 4:23
A. Hearing with Understanding (v. 14-15; again, from Isaiah 6)
• Yogi Berra – “99% of this game is half mental.”
• “Sure, and I suppose all we need to know about astronomy is ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’!” – RC Sproul
- Hosea 4:6
- Golgotha: the place of the skull
1. Hearing – Its relational: parents ‘hear’ the cry of their child
2. Accepting – Its an inclination rooted in trust: sheep and goats
- Isaiah 66:2; James 1:21

B. Three Problems
• He who peers beneath the veneer of the human soul, looks into the depths of hell.” – Sigmund Freud
• Genesis 6:5; Jeremiah 17:9

1. Hard Heart – Matthew 13:19
• Busyness – trampled down by traffic; everyone and everything, except the one thing truly necessary!
- Mary and Martha

2. Hidden Heart – Matthew 13:20-21
• Shallowness: The hardness is still there, but more cleverly hidden: 3-4 inches of top soil (what I wouldn’t give for 3-4 inches of top soil!); no possibility of roots going down deep when the heat is on; instead, the plant withers and dies.
- Moved by emotion and circumstance rather than principle
- “Friends firm; enemies alarmed; devil angry; sinners saved; Christ exalted; self, not well.” - CHS

3. Hazardous Heart – Matthew 13:22
• Crowded and over-run with all manner of destructiveness
- Merimna: “Cares”; 1 Peter 5:7
- “The anxiety of the age depresses us, while the delusion of wealth impresses us.” – Leiva-Merikakis

II. The Heart of the Healthy Harvest - Matthew 13:23
A. The Good Heart – Persevering (Luke 8:15; Galatians 6:9)

B. The Soil/Heart Can Change – Genesis 1-3; Isaiah 55
• The rocky, shallow, hard, cedar-choked land of our hearts can be transformed by the grace of God.
• God works by principle, not magic
• J David Bamberger has been amazingly successful – but there is a still greater husbandman of the land, the One who fashioned all things and made your heart to find its rest in him alone; the One who longs to root out of our hard, shallow, crowded hearts all those enemies which war against the harvest of his kingdom in our lives.
- Our Prayer: Psalm 139:23-24

Quotable: Life Purpose

God did not put me on earth to be successful, he put me here to be faithful.
- Mother Teresa

CJ and Larry Reconciled

In my mid to late teens I was, like many people involved in charismatic renewal movements, deeply appreciative of the many blessings so many of us received through the ministries of CJ Mahaney and Larry Tomczak. Indeed, CJ was one of the ministers officiating at my ordination in 1980. Sadly these two brothers, who were very close partners in Gospel proclamation, endured a painful and lengthy separation. In recent weeks they have reconciled, after a challenging and difficult path of confrontation, confession, and repentance. I rejoice in this and hope you will read this letter from Larry Tomczak describing how these events unfolded.

www.sovereigngraceministries.org/blogs/sgm/post/A-letter-from-Larry-Tomczak-on-his-reconciliation-with-CJ-Mahaney.aspx

Currently, CJ is taking a leave of absence from Sovereign Grace Ministries, and together with others, I pray that the issues surrounding that leave will find a gracious, principled, and lasting resolution to the further glory of God.

More Drought Humor

I was visiting online with a buddy out at Elk City and she said she'd killed a mosquito that was carrying a canteen.

A friend in southwest Oklahoma told me the chicken farmers were giving the chickens crushed ice to keep them from laying hard-boiled eggs.

But just this week, in Seminole, Oklahoma, a man said he saw a fire hydrant bribing a dog. In Seminole Lake, another friend caught a 20 lb catfish that had ticks on it!
HT to Barry M

Joke of the Day

How dry is it in Texas?

Well, it's so dry that the Baptists are sprinkling,
The Methodists are using wet wipes,
The Presbyterians are giving rain checks,
and The Catholics are praying for Jesus to turn the wine back into water!

HT to Paula McClain
(Thanks Paula!)

Quotable

Like mint, doctrinal compromise is hard to contain; like poison ivy, it's hard to kill.

- Tim Bayly

Practical Christian Unity

I enjoyed an interesting discussion earlier today with another Pastor on the limits and scope of working together with Christians from other traditions, including those with whom one might have substantial disagreements over doctrine and polity. This arose in response to join in an effort that is highly valued by a particular group but which could, if pursued, engage the other Pastor in work that would detract from his primary charge to care for the sheep entrusted to his care. "Is it wrong for me to refuse to get involved with this new initiative? After all, I do care about visible unity in the Church", he asked.

We worked through some levels of proper involvement with other groups, congregations, and individuals.


1. Pastors have a primary commission to shepherd the flock. Christians in general do not have that same charge and might be able to engage in a whole host of activities that transcend denominational, but none of these extra activities should keep them from their primary charge to care for their families. In the same way, even legitimate activities to which one is invited as a Pastor must not be pursued IF these take us from our chief task of feeding and tending the flock. Its the old proverb about keeping the main thing, the main thing. Refusing to participate does not mean that Pastors believe that the activity is wrong or will prove unfruitful - though that may well be the case. It simply means that its not something he can take up at that moment without violating his primary stewardship. Level One is no participation either because it takes one away from one's first work, or because the activity is so compromised from a theological standpoint that appearing as part of it would foster confusion in the church, and raise doubt about the veracity of the Church's teaching.

2. Vocational Partnership is helpful. Lets say that all the music ministers, or all the youth ministers, in a city want to meet and pray together - for the churches they serve, for the city, and for one another. That collaboration might well be very helpful to the participants in carrying out their primary task. Conferences to which one travels serve the same purpose; there's no reason to avoid the same kind of gathering when its meeting across town rather than across the country. That's Level Two - Regular Vocational Partnership for Mutual Edification.


3. Cultural Co-Belligerants: Churches, Pastors, and Christians can work together in a whole host of ways that promote the love of Jesus Christ for people where we live. Many Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox Christians, together with many Evangelicals and Pentecostals, have found common cause and the capacity to work together to promote the well being and protection of the unborn. Still others have joined together to care for unwed moms, for the hungry and needy, and to promote Christian education. I'm sure many examples could be cited. This is a Level Three involvement - we are visibly together to promote in our neighborhoods, cities, and towns those issues which we believe are vital to social justice.


4. Common Grace Concerns: If there is a tornado or flood that strikes a community, or if a local playground has fallen into disrepair, or if a major medical expense by a neighbor is overwhelming that person and their family, people from all faiths and no faith, as well as people and churches from all kinds of denominational traditions, band together to help and serve, and bring relief, renewal, and hope. We do this because everyone is made in the image of God - we help one another as a response of love that arises from the fact (even unrecognized by many) that God made us all from one and so we are linked together in ways that call forth from us all our 'better angels'. All people join together to assist those who hurt or who have been injured, or to make a community safer for our children, and we do this because, while sinful and in need of redemption, we can and must work together when an emergency demands it. That's a Level Four involvement - our home towns and the call to be Good Samaritans, good neighbors. If anything, Christians should lead the way on this.


So lets understand the limits of shared work, rejoice in the places we can currently share, pray for the day of full visible sacramental unity, and join with our friends and neighbors to bear witness to the truth that all are made in God's image, and all are in need of the Savior.

Sermon Notes for Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

The Seed, the Soil, and the Harvest (Part One)
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
July 10, 2011

(10 January 1846)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Robert Browning
And now listen to me in turn.
You have touched me more profoundly than I thought even you could have touched me - my heart was full when you
came here today. Henceforward I am yours for everything…
…Do you know, when you have told me to think of you, I have been feeling ashamed of thinking of you so much, of thinking of only you--which is too much, perhaps. Shall I tell you? It seems to me, to myself, that no man was ever before to any woman what you are to me--the fullness must be in proportion, you know, to the vacancy...and only I know what was behind--the long wilderness without the blossoming rose...and the capacity for happiness, like a black gaping hole, before this silver flooding. Is it wonderful that I should stand as in a dream, and disbelieve--not you--but my own fate?
Was ever any one taken suddenly from a lampless dungeon and placed upon the pinnacle of a mountain, without the head turning round and the heart turning faint, as mine do? And you love me more, you say? Shall I thank you or God? Both, indeed, and there is no possible return from me to either of you! I thank you as the unworthy may…and as we all thank God. How shall I ever prove what my heart is to you? How will you ever see it as I feel it?…

Elizabeth’s father, famously tyrannical, locked her up and rebuffed Robert Browning’s advances; finally the couple were married in secret, and sailed away to live in Italy and escape the wrath of the elder Barrett. Yet Elizabeth never gave up on that relationship. She wrote them of her love for them every week. Ten long years later, a box arrived by post in Italy for Elizabeth from her parents. Inside the box were all the letters she’d written so lovingly and sent their way. They were unopened and unread. Her words refused by hard hearts meant that no reconciliation could occur. I know a still greater tragedy…
I. The Primacy of this Parable – Matthew 13:1-3; Mark 4:13
• The First of Seven Parables in the third sermon of Jesus that Matthew records for the Church.

A. The Movement of Jesus from Intimacy of Home to World Proclamation and Dominion over the Waters: He rules and speaks His life-giving word to the multitudes; “The voice of the Lord is on the waters; the God of glory thunders!” – Psalm 29

B. The Necessity of Revelation - We are a Revelation Dependent People – Isaiah 55:6-13
1. We can’t know God and his thoughts unless he makes himself known
2. Thankfully He does make Himself known, and He does this through his Word, both incarnate, written, read, proclaimed, and sung
- Sufficiency; Clarity, and Power for Life Deuteronomy 29:29; John 6:66; Hebrews 4:12; 1 Peter 1:23-24; James 1:21
- Incarnation: The Seed of the Son sown into the world – John 12:24
C. The Sovereignty of Grace and The Purpose of Parables – Revealing AND Concealing – Matthew 13:10-16
• All of grace – “the hearing ear and the seeing eye, the Lord has made them both” – Proverbs 20:12: Ephesians 1:18-20
• “Hear him ye deaf…”
- “Your sins are forgiven…rise and walk!”



II. The Power of the Seed – Matthew 13:23; Romans 1:16-17
• Anyone can count the seeds in an apple; no one but God knows the number of apples in a seed.
A. The Seed is Alive with Power
• God works by Principle, not Magic: Genesis 1:11-12; 8:22

B. The Seed Sown Will Not be Denied its Harvest
• Sowing and Reaping are Permanently Connected - Galatians 6:7-10; Isaiah 55:11-13
1. The Christian must sow God’s word in his heart
• Joshua 1:8; Psalm 119:11; Colossians 3:16

2. The Church must sow God’s word in the world
• Both are our commission because Christ the Seed has come to be sown as the Incarnate Son, sown into the ground/grave, and raised in new life that has produced a crop of many sons.
• This is why Satan hates the seed! Matthew 13:18
- “By annihilating the seed, Satan hopes to annihilate the Savior.” – Leiva-Merikakis




The Seed of God’s Word sown in the Soil of a Good heart will produce a Great Harvest.

Exactly. What’s the problem with that formula? The Problem is not with the Seed! The problem is with the Soil. Our hearts – and the hearts of all – have a variety of conditions which systemically resist the ‘implanted word’ which salvages the human soul. “The heart of the human problem is the problem of the human heart.” – Blaise Pascal

Is the sick, hard, drough-stricken soil of our hearts curable? Is there any hope for a harvest in these hearts? God’s word says, “Yes!” Ezekiel 36:26

Solomon wisely wrote that we must ‘watch over the heart with all diligence for from it flows the springs of life’ (Proverbs 4:23). Next Sunday, come ready for the plough to open the soil of the heart, expose its maladies – and rejoice in ‘The Gardner’ who heals our hearts that we might bring forth a harvest that glorifies God.