I've lost my muse

Some have wondered why my blog has gone dark. The truth is, my muse has gone missing.

If anyone has seen him, tell him to get back to work. I want to write again!

But, alas. He comes and goes as he pleases. I only hope he's not dead!!

The High Cost of Doing Nothing

I stumbled across an incredibly moving program on CNN Saturday Night. Christiane Amanpour was hosting a show entitled "Genocide" -- a survey of the mass ethnic slaughters that have taken place since the term was invented in the mid-twentieth century. Although I missed the first half, I take it she began with Pol Pot and the killing fields of Cambodia --about which I know very little.

Then she surveyed: the Iraqi Kurds, Bosnia, Rwanda, and Darfur, and interviewed those brave individuals who tried to intervene and help, by "crying bloody murder." Several did this at great personal cost. And, as so often is the case, the failure of other powers to intervene led to the wholesale slaughter of not just men, but women, children, infants, and unborn children. The scenes are gut-wrenching in the extreme, but important.

The most affecting scene was the head of UN "forces" in Rwanda, a Canadian. Before the slaughter of the Tutsi broke out, this man had asked for 4,500 troops. He was granted 2,600, and a very limited mandate. As the slaughter began to unfold, his troop force was cut to 260. It became impossible even to rescue women and children from the long knives of the Hutu, and entire families were slaughtered, something on the order of 300,000 souls in a matter of a few weeks. The UN ordered the general to decamp --and he refused. The order, he said, was legal, but immoral. He was bowing to a higher law --the law of all that is just and good and right, no matter how hopeless the cause. He had gone to Rwanda with high hopes, and returned a crushed, bitter and broken spirit --not just because of the carnage he saw, but because the nations of the world had turned a blind eye to the mass slaughter.

The most moving story was of a Tutsi woman. When the carnage broke out, Hutus in her village with whom she had lived her entire life, turned on her family and killed her husband and 5 of her children. When Amanpour asked her how she could cope with such brutality, she said "I am a Christian, and I pray a lot." Then, it showed how she welcomed the murderer of her husband into her house, forgave him, and broke bread with him. She had started a business enterprise with the wife of her family's murderer. The murderer spent time in jail, and came back, and pled for forgiveness for his crimes, and she forgave him. Grace at work.

All of this carnage brought home to me in a new way just how desperate and dark the world is. We hide from it in the western world, where only occasional bad things happen. We might be the victim of a random crime, but even the events of 9-11 pale in comparison with the horror of these genocides. Some Christians would have us turn in and away from the horrors of the world --the church's kingdom is "spiritual," and it has nothing whatever to say about injustice and evil in the world. I think such a position is craven and cowardly in the extreme, cloaked as it may be under the cover of orthodoxy and spirituality.

That Christians may disagree on what is an appropriate response (military, humanitarian, or some mingling of the two), the wrong response is to do what so many of the Orthodox German Lutherans did at the rise of Hitlerism, which is to fold their hands, pray, and do nothing, or, worse, to support unthinkingly the powers that be.

Love the world, pray for the world, and plead the cause of the helpless, pester leaders to do the right thing, rabble rouse for those who cannot take up for themselves, be they the unborn here, or the children of Darfur.

Jean Cauvin on Preachers Who Fuss and those Who Fuss at Them about Fussing

That's Calvin to you Anglo-philes. Of course that's not Calvin in the photo --there were no cameras in the 1500's! Duh. That's J. Gresham Machen, a personal hero, and a preacher who was wont to fuss.

HT: Tim Bayly

Indeed it is appropriate to repeat here once again what I mentioned before, that fault must not always be found with the servants of Christ, if they are driven with violent force against professed enemies of sound doctrine, unless one is perhaps disposed to accuse the Holy Spirit of lack of moderation. ... the vehemence of holy zeal and of the Holy Spirit in the prophets was like that, and if soft, effeminate men think it stormy, they do not consider how dear and precious God's truth is to Him. (Calvin on Acts 13:10)

Church Hoppers --Quit Dating the Church!

If you want to have the kind of a church
Like the kind of a church you like,
You needn't slip your clothes in a grip
And start on a long, long hike.
You'll only find what you left behind,
For there's nothing really new.
It's a knock at yourself when you knock your church;
It isn't the church--it's you.

When everything seems to be going wrong,
And trouble seems everywhere brewing;
Just take a look at yourself and say,
"What's the use of being blue?"
Are you doing your "bit" to make things "hit"?
It isn't the church--it's you.

It's really strange sometimes, don't you know,
That things go as well as they do,
When we think of the little--the very small mite--
We add to the work of the few.
We sit, and stand round, and complain of what's done,
And do very little but fuss.
Are we bearing our share of the burdens to bear?
It isn't the church--it's us.

So, if you want to have the kind of church
Like the kind of a church you like,
Put off your guile, and put on your best smile,
And hike, my brother, just hike,
To the work in hand that has to be done--
The work of saving a few.
It isn't the church that is wrong, my boy;
It isn't the church--it's you.

Legalist Preachers

I do not like this one so well, all he does is yell yell yell. I will not have this one about --when he comes in I put him out!!!

It seems there is afoot in the land a rash of people being rough on preachers.

Nothing new there. But the front is an interesting one: the advance is coming from seminary profs and presidents.

From both the left and the right.

From the right, the disciples of the late MG Kline (who I am sure would be appalled). The tar is that to preach imperatives is to be a legalist who doesn't preach grace or Christ. These men have done good work, particularly against the overly objective, outward and quantifiable crowd (FV to those "in the know").

From the left, the "Christ centered" crowd. Good folk, and I am grateful for them, generally. They don't return the favor, however, I guess. Again, to preach imperatives or cultural mandate is to be tarred a legalist.

Surprising victims include Edwards and Lloyd-Jones.

My own view is that we ought to have apostolic balance: indicative drives imperative. But, imperative cannot be lacking.

I thought we all agreed on that. Apparently, I am wrong. And I am very sorry to be wrong.

What Can You Do for Haiti?

Maybe just watch this and get some ideas:

With the Haiti earthquake and devastation still on all of our hearts, Bethany Christian Services is inviting you to attend a national webinar called "Haiti & Beyond" to learn more about what you can do to help the many children of Haiti and other countries around the world. We have been overwhelmed and are so appreciative for the thousands of people who have contacted us and are interested in donating, volunteering, taking children into their homes, and so much more to help the children in Haiti.

In response to all of this interest, we will be conducting a webinar from 3 to 4p.m. EST on Wednesday, January 27. There is no charge for this webinar and the login instructions are below. This webinar is open to the public and will be recorded and available to watch online at a later date. As our focus is on finding families to help children, please invite others who may be interested.

If you are unable to attend and would still like to donate to help make sure orphans in Haiti are having their basic needs met, please visit the above website to donate to the Haiti-Earthquake Recovery fund.


To login for the webinar please go here to view the instructions. It will be helpful for you to login by approximately 2:45 p.m. EST. We look forward to having you join us Wednesday afternoon!

What Gets In Front of Your Gospel? Or, the answer to the perennial question, "Who is buried in Grant's Tomb?"

Question, "Who is buried in Grant's Tomb?"
Answer, "Who cares?'

I have lived in the South for 14 of the last 16 years, and in the deep South for 9 of those years. So, I know about, and have experienced a bit, the race issue. I know, for instance, that not all Southerners are racists, nor were they in the past. I know that all racism is not of one kind, either. And, I know that many, if not most, Southern white folk would love to leave the race issue far in the rear view mirror. It is an embarrassment, a blot on an otherwise fine region of the country.

But, then there is always the sad spectacle of what happens on and around Martin Luther King Day. And, I am trying to understand that. The news headlines inevitably and appropriately focus on the King day celebration. Flawed prophet that he was (as all prophets are flawed), he led a movement that ended segregation in the South, and elsewhere.

Living in an impoverished city that is majority African American, I know that post-desegregation history has not been all sweetness and light, for white or black. Officially desegregated whites often segregated themselves by income into suburbs and private education.

But, as a suburbanite, I rejoice that my children had an African American principal, and my son had a fine African-American teacher. It does my heart good to go to a school and see not only black children and white children, but Asians and Indians. And, this in Mississippi. This is good.

But, the jarring reality of life in the New South still includes the matter of race and history. How bizarre that, while many gather to celebrate the achievements of Dr. King and those who followed him, a small group of Southerners get misty eyed around the Confederate battle flag, and commemorate Robert E. Lee?

The South, more than any other region of the country, is a place captivated by wispy, romanticized myth --think Gone with the Wind, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, and almost anything written about New Orleans. Southerners romanticize the past. That is not to say that most people long for the days of manorial estates, hoop skirts, cotillions, and Negro spirituals wafting up from the slave quarters. No, we live in the twenty-first century, but southerners do look at the past under a romantic patina --glossing over the ugliness of slavery, and fire hoses, and murdered children without justice for decades.

Just as in our own lives, we need to look deep into our own hearts, and come to terms with our own sin, I think that each region of the country needs to look its past full in the face. We need to understand our presuppositions, our opinion-forming myths, and be able to look at these in the light of the gospel.

The Southerner immediately protests that the North was godless, Unitarian, heartless, and just as racist, and that the federal government grew tyrannical. The case can be made. What's the difference? The North doesn't celebrate U. S. Grant. Even the celebrations of Lincoln are not pseudo-religious in nature any more. He gets (rightful) credit for freeing the slaves. Nobody weeps at Grant's tomb.

And, they will also often protest that the Civil War was not about slavery. That claim is not completely without merit. The Civil War was the product of many influences and much history, and not about one thing. Mostly, it was about wounded honor, I think, as I hope to demonstrate below.

One of my college history professors explained the Late Unpleasantness in terms of the civil strife between the Cavaliers and Roundheads in Merry Olde England. England was not so merry in the seventeenth century. Kings and Queens rose up and slaughtered Protestants, Protestants beheaded kings. The Roundheads were the followers of Cromwell --Puritans, merchant and middle class, untitled rising wealth. They were, in short, Yankees. They settled Massachusetts, Connecticut, and all of New England. The kings were ready to be rid of them --let them have their Holy Commonwealth. The Puritans developed (or were heir to) a culture built on justice --it is not hard to see where John Adams got his sentiment "A republic of laws, and not of men."

The Cavaliers were the landed nobility, the warriors of the status quo. And, cavalier culture was built not on justice, but honor. Losing face was the cardinal sin. The loss of honor was a stain that lasted throughout generations. And, the Cavaliers shaped the cultural mythos of the South --though they themselves were soon outstripped in numbers by the Scots and others. People are at a loss to explain the contradiction that was Thomas Jefferson --against slavery, but holding and profiting from and likely fathering children with, slaves. Or to explain the contradiction that was Strom Thurmond --an outspoken segregationist who carried on a torrid love affair with an African American.

But, these are no strange things in an honor culture. Look at Italy and omerta, or the Middle East with its ancient grudges and self-immolating zeal for honor , and one will again see similarities. Justice societies think in terms of guilt or innocence, right or wrong. Honor societies think in terms of offense or shame --why Arab fathers will murder their own daughters for dressing too provocatively. Sin is not guilt measured by an impersonal standard so much as it is betrayal against a person.

All of this explains why the War of Northern Aggression still sits so heavily on the Southern heart. It is not just a matter of a lost war, but the overweening vengeance of the victor in the period after the war. Grant and Lincoln were far more favorably disposed towards rebuilding the South than the Radical Republicans were --and they did no Southerner, black or white, any good.

And, it also explains the Klan (which was despised by most patrician Southerners, and opposed heroically by some) and George Wallace (who, again patrician Southerners despised), and why Emmett Till and Medgar Evers didn't get justice for thirty years or more, and why a Detroit housewife named Viola Liuzzo was shot in the face.

So some Southerners nurse the wounded pride of the lost cause. But, let's be clear about what that cause was. It was a cause of building wealth off another man's labor. It was the cause of breeding humans like livestock, of stealing children from tribe and family, of splitting up families, of opposing evangelization of the slave population, of rape and beatings. And, in the twentieth century, it was the cause of bombing churches and murdering little girls in a church, and murdering anyone working for change, and barring entrance to universities because they had the temerity to eat at a lunch counter or not move to the back of the bus or enroll at Ole Miss, that halcyon and hallowed institution.

And, the question, after all this, is, "Christian, is Robert E. Lee worth putting in front of the gospel?" Lee was a man of sterling character, a person worthy of esteem in many regards, a true gentleman and a Christian. But, none of that matters now. If the white church holds him up as some sort of paragon of Christian virtue, what are our chances for reaching our African-American neighbors with the gospel?

Some will protest that this is "their" problem, if it offends "them." Scripture says we ought not to eat meat if by our eating we destroy our brother for whom Christ died. And, more pointedly, Scripture says that race pride is a practical denial of the gospel, and that those who practice it within the church may just forfeit the kingdom.

I love the South and its history. I labor to understand it. I think it needs to look its history square in the face, and by the power of the gospel, turn away from it.