The Center for Gospel Culture Blog
The Heart as an Idol Factory: Then and Now
Nicholas KerhoulasMay 18, 2012
Stephen Um and Richard Lints on the idols of our hearts. What is your functional diety? Are you worshiping that which deserves it? Watch and hear as Stephen Um and Richard Lints discuss and define the nature of idolatry then and now.
Why Cities Matter (Book Cover Unveil)
Justin RuddyMay 17, 2012
Yesterday, Justin Buzzard gave us a glimpse of the cover of the book that he and Stephen Um just finished writing together. Needless to say, we're extremely excited to tell you about it, and you'll be hearing quite a bit in the coming months about Why Cities Matter. One exciting fact, which is hard to make out in this small picture, is that it includes a foreword by Tim Keller. Many thanks to the team at Crossway for all that they've done and plan to do for this book and the cause of the gospel in the world's cities.
God’s Ridiculous Generosity
Nicholas KerhoulasMay 16, 2012
Stephen Um addresses God's Ridiculous Generosity. We see that God's generosity is costly and is so much greater than what we could ever ask for. "Our dreams and aspirations are not to big but too small."
Hear the whole sermon here.
“For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. 2 After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard.a] a day, he sent them into his vineyard. 3 And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, 4 and to them he said, ‘You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.’ 5 So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same.6 And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing. And he said to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’ 7 They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’ 8 And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.’ 9 And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. 10 Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. 11 And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house, 12 saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ 13 But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? 14 Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. 15 Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Ordo you begrudge my generosity?’ 16 So the last will be first, and the first last.” (Matthew 20:1-16)
A Lonesome Ministry
Jeremy M. MullenMay 15, 2012
Loneliness has been on my mind since meeting with a Harvard senior the other day. While reflecting with her back over her time at Harvard, I asked her what some of the biggest challenges of life at Harvard were. She answered that many relationships were simply about the mutual goods that the two parties could offer each other, and so it was hard to find many friends who took a genuine interest in the other person as a person. Some people, she thought, never really found meaningful relationships during their time – though thankfully she had! She saw loneliness as a rampant problem. Though I already knew it was a huge problem, it is always fascinating and a little frightening to hear students speak to the experience of it directly.
When I thought about loneliness, my mind wandered back to an essay of Marilynne Robinson's that I had read a few weeks back. In that piece she holds forth that old ideal of the American west: lonesomeness.
The peculiarities of my early education are one way in which being from the West has set me apart. A man in Alabama asked me how I felt the West was different from the East and the South, and I replied that in the West "lonesome" is a word with strongly positive connotations.[1]
It strikes me that much about loneliness and lonesomeness is similar. Yet they are exceedingly different. Loneliness is born out of an inability to connect with others. Sometimes that inability is due to our own bad habits of relating; sometimes it stems from a situation that is completely foreign and inscrutable. Hence, one can be lonely in the middle of a crowd or in a bustling metropolis or on the top-ranking college campus. Cities and college campuses might just be some of the loneliest places in the world.
Lonesomeness, by contrast, is a pursuit. It is a purposeful exile – in order to find something, learn something, or even to clear one's head. Perhaps there's something temperamental about it. (My wife is a verbal processor, but I need time to my thoughts to come to a conclusion.) Perhaps it is the critical distance we gain from standing outside of a situation for a while. Perhaps it is simply the time and the quiet that give us room to think – room to think Robert Frost's "long, long thoughts of youth."[2] I, for one, wish I had more lonesomeness in my life.
Perhaps there's something to be learned here about a healthy spiritual life. Loneliness is spiritually deadening. The Christian faith – like most human action – thrives in community, and all the more because the Spirit – the Lord and Giver of Life – is active in it. And yet the church is often noise, busy, and unreflective. My own work in college ministry is better off for the clarity I gain when I have time away from students and weekly schedule. It is a luxury of my job, I know. I wish more Christians could pursue lonesome time, especially pastors.
[1] Marilynne Robinson, When I Was a Child I Read Books: Essays (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012), 88.
[2] Robert Frost, “The Later Minstrel” in Collected Poems, Prose, and Plays (New York: Library Classics of the United States, 1995), 511.
Creature and Creator in Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein”
Jay H. Lee May 10, 2012
Often, Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein Halloween-inspired brings to mind images of a hulking figure with green skin and bolts protruding from its neck, lurching down a hallway with arms propped forward, communicating in primal grunts and seeking to destroy all in sight. In truth, Frankenstein is an all-too-human story that speaks to the longings and desires found in every heart. Shelly uses the fantastical characters of Victor Frankenstein and the monster to which he gives life to craft a story that asks and answers questions about meaning and existence. These are questions that most men and women ask themselves but leave unanswered. By telling a tale of creator and creation Shelly seeks to answer the age old question: Is there a purpose in life? Frankenstein is not Shelly’s attempt at a retelling of Genesis 1 and 2, rather she cleverly does the opposite and crafts an extraordinary ‘what if’ story that asks and answers these questions: What if we had no creator? Or worse yet, what if our creator had no plan for us? By playing devil’s advocate Shelly reveals the need that we all have for an intimate creator.
What if we had no creator?
A popular misconception with Shelly’s work is that Frankenstein is often believed to be the monster, and it’s here that people begin to head in the wrong direction, missing the heart of Shelly’s work. In truth, Victor Frankenstein is the creator of the monster, and is the opposite of a monster by all appearances. He is a man of means and education with the purpose and determination to create life from nothing. Driven to the point of obsession, he ultimately achieves this with the creation of the monster, and it’s in this drive to do the impossible (along with the ensuing results) that raises and answers the question, What if we had no creator?
Victor Frankenstein seems admirable because he isn’t seeking to accomplish this task in the hope of fame, or to arrogantly prove his naysayers wrong. Rather, he seeks to build the monster because he excels at science and, in turn, is driven to do great things with his gifts. He is a man who takes control of his own life and gives himself purpose, not just any purpose, but one that would seem impossible. This type of drive and dedication has a noble quality to it. In a generation where people are famous for merely being famous, how can one not commend a person for pursuing excellence and achievement merely out of personal drive and determination? There is a certain purity in Frankenstein’s obsession that is to be admired, but it’s in Frankenstein’s accomplishment, the creation of the creature, that we begin to see that this paragon of the independent man has its own flaws. Almost instantaneously, from the moment his creation is given life, the cracks in Frankenstein’s attempt to give himself purpose become apparent. We hear this in his response to accomplishing what was thought imposisble: “...now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart” (Shelley, Volume One, VII).
It seems almost absurd to think that Frankenstein can have this change of heart so suddenly. While the monster is lifeless he sees it as beautiful, but upon giving it life he sees it in a new way, in a way that stirs up terror and disgust. The monster was fashioned by Frankenstein’s own hand, so it is impossible to think that its grotesque appearance would cause this change in Frankenstein’s heart only upon its gaining breath. The question we can’t help but ask is, Why? Why is Frankenstein suddenly disturbed by his creation? What, in this moment, makes the monster a creature to be feared and hated?
The answer is that nothing changed in what was in front of Frankenstein, the monster looked no different, it wasn’t a beautiful creature when inanimate, but once alive fearful. Rather, the change that occurred was within the heart of Victor Frankenstein. While having purpose, the desire and drive to create life, Frankenstein was blind to the simple fact that what he was making was actually an abomination. Creating purpose in life worked because Frankenstein was able to blind himself from the fact that what he was creating was something that in fact disgusted him, and it was only when he finally accomplished his purpose that he was able to step back and see what he actually achieved.
Frankenstein sought to define himself. Once he achieved this self-definition, he found it to be completely empty. For many, the realization merely results in a restlessness of the heart and leads to a setting of new goals. As children we experienced this every time we went to the toy store with our parents, always finding some toy that we needed. We would kick and scream until our parents relented and purchased the toy, only to lose interest a few weeks later. The cycle continued, without fail, each time we returned to the toy store. Though we have moved on from childish things like toys, this same unachievable attempt at meaning and satisfaction lies in our hearts. Which of us hasn’t thought, “If only I got that job,” or that we could find ultimate purpose in the arms of a significant other? In Frankenstein’s case he sought to make himself God by creating life. The only difference between Frankenstein and us is that when we fail at our attempts to be our own God, we usually look for new ways to become God. Victor Frankenstein, on the other hand, saw the futility in this. For most, the dissatisfaction and emptiness found in our attempts at giving ourselves purpose leads to new attempts at self-definition. At his moment of achievement, Frankenstein saw that his self-deification project was failing miserably, and he was overwhelmed by the horror of his attempt to become God. The shallowness of giving oneself meaning, of becoming one’s own God, became apparent to Frankenstein. He wanted a God. He got a monster.
What if our creator didn’t have a plan for us?
In Victor Frankenstein we find a man who attempts to give himself meaning in life but is ultimately destroyed by the pursuit of said meaning. Victor Frankenstein is not only a victim of his pursuit; he is also a fickle creator whose care and interest in his creation is not much different than that of a small child. He is a creator who creates and then abandons. In turn, we see in the discarded creature a being created for no other reason than the whim of a fickle creator. As we look closer at the experience of Frankenstein’s creation we are forced to ask, What if our creator does not have a plan for us?
Upon his creation the monster flees and seeks, much like Frankenstein, to find meaning in his life. Rather than having grandiose dreams of achievement like his creator, the monster seeks meaning in more humble things. He seeks companionship, hoping that finding others who embrace him will give him reason for his existence. Unfortunately, he fails to find anyone to embrace him. In the novel, his ghastly appearance makes it impossible for others to accept him.
Some would argue that the monster’s inability to find acceptance is unrealistic. Surely not all are so small-minded as to be unable to see beyond an individual’s physical appearance. However, the monster’s inability to find purpose and meaning is not a result of his physical appearance alone. It is intrinsically tied to the capricious creator who, out of lack of concern or care for his creation, leaves it in a state where meaning is impossible to find. The monster realizes this and ultimately seeks out his maker to create him a companion. The result is that he is spurned by Frankenstein once again. The monster is left to face an existential problem that is rooted in the one who created him.
The monster learns the same truth that Victor Frankenstein found. It is impossible to self-create an ultimately fulfilling purpose for one’s own life. Having no other available options, the monster lashes out in an attempt to give himself a sense of purpose. He becomes the very opposite of his creator. He fashions himself the destroyer of the creator, deciding that if he has a creator that has abandoned him, then his purpose will be that of vengeance—to destroy all that Frankenstein holds dear. We see that the monster ultimately finds this to be unfulfilling. Once his purpose is completed and Frankenstein is dead, he has no lasting peace. Lacking this ultimate consolation, he chooses to end his existence, burning himself on a funeral pyre. In this he acts much like Frankenstein did when originally giving the monster life. The difference is that the monster is not under the illusion that his actions will provide fulfillment and self-definition.
If we reject the notion of a loving God, of one who calls us and demands our lives, then we are left to be like either Victor Frankenstein or the monster. If we believe that we have a creator who is fickle and has no plan for us, we are left to strive and fail to give ourselves meaning, much like Victor Frankenstein, or, like the monster, to find a short-lived substitute-meaning in hating and destroying the creator. At the heart of every man and woman is this struggle. Is there another option? How might this struggle be resolved?
The Intimate Creator
Through the process of elimination, it would seem that Shelly is opening up space for the kind of creator who creates with purpose. Though Shelly gives us no direction, we meet such an intimate Creator in another book: the Christian scriptures. There, we find an intimate creator and supplier of purpose who is the very opposite of failed-creators of Frankenstein. Shelly showed us individuals too fickle or flawed to be creators of purpose and meaning. In stark contrast, the God of the Bible is one without shortcomings or flaws, and is anything but fickle.
In fact, in the scriptures we find a God who created with great care and at great cost. He is seen to be a God who gives great meaning and purpose to his creation. When we were created we were not horrible or terrifying, but rather entrusted the imago dei. However, when sin entered the world through our own choosing, we became not unlike the monster at his birth: reprehensible to our Creator. By sin, we were made far more horrifying than any monster’s physical appearance. In light of this, God had every right to abandon us. But, rather then reject us or seek to destroy us like Frankenstein did with his creation, God chose a different option. He chose to redeem us.
It is in our redemption that we see the depths of the intimacy of this Creator. For when he created us he walked among us in the Garden, and after the fall he continued to lead us, but moreover at the cross he paid the price of our deformity, our sin. While owing nothing to us he chose at great cost to himself to pay our ransom, restoring the beauty and righteousness that we ourselves had traded in for the ugliness of sin. There was no waving of a magic wand that cured us. It was the life and death of his Son, Jesus Christ, which took away our sin and made us new creations. In this, he showed himself to be the ultimate intimate creator and redeemer for which we are all looking.
As our Creator, God calls us to be a part of his story, and this is where our meaning is found. There is great comfort to be found in the knowledge that meaning and purpose do not have to be derived from our own small stories. To have the smallest of roles in God’s story means to be a part of the ultimate story, one that holds ultimate, ongoing, eternal significance.
Losing Sight of Our Plight?
Nicholas KerhoulasMay 09, 2012
"Until we realize our plight we will always be bitter when others advance." Pastor Um discusses what happens in our hearts, actions, and attitudes when we lose sight of our plight.
Preached at Citylife Presbyterian Church Boston [5/6/12] Hear the whole sermon here.
“For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and to them he said, ‘You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.’ So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing. And he said to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’ And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.’ And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’ So the last will be first, and the first last" (Matthew 20:1-16).
Asking the Right Questions of Our Work
Jonathan KerhoulasMay 08, 2012
At Citylife Church we love our city. In fact, one of our core values is the adoption of a robust “city vision” – the idea that as Christians we ought to have a view toward Boston that not only pushes us to participate in all that is “good, true, and beautiful” but also prods us to fight against injustices through gospel-motivated love, attitudes, dispositions, and actions. One of the specific expressions of our “city vision” is the development of both our Discipleship and Faith and Work initiatives.
Having explored the topics of community renewal, mercy and justice, and personal renewal, our discipleship initiative is concluding the term with a 3-week conversation on faith and work. To quote David Cho on our goals for this conversation, "[we are seeking] to participate in the advancement of God’s Kingdom by pursuing cultural renewal in the city of Boston and beyond. We believe that one of the primary ways to do this is through the integration of Faith and Work. Thus, our vision is to engage and shape various vocational fields with the truth of the gospel for the purpose of justice, equity, and the common good."
Learning to “engage and shape various vocational fields with the truth of the gospel” is in fact just that: an opportunity to learn and be challenged. Learning often begins by asking the right questions, and so we’ve posed a list of questions we hope our members will begin to ask of their particular field / vocational industry. Consider these for your own workplace and industry. Mull over one question per day for a week with the hope and expectation that a gospel-shaped vision toward your vocation will take slow but steady shape.
Consider these questions:
1. Work is intended to be more than a status, reputation, or portfolio builder. It’s intended to be a “calling.” What originally peaked your interest in your particular field/industry?
Why do you feel called to labor in this particular area?
2. What enables you to do your job well, with genuine delight and real joy? What factors make your work tiresome, stressful, and/or merely duty-driven?
3. Work is designed to meet specific needs in human culture. What role does your industry play at-large? What role do you play in-particular?
4. What are the particular idols of your vocation/industry? Do you notice certain industry-values pulling on your own personal idolatries?
5. Where do you notice the values of your industry supporting and complementing the values of your faith?
Conversely, where do you sense the tension between the values of your workplace/industry and the values of your faith?
6. In what ways does (or could) your industry have an eye toward real human flourishing and/or bend toward mercy/justice?
7. What about your work do you have a hard time resting from? Where/why are there residual anxieties, even on days off?
Preaching the Bible Holistically
Nicholas KerhoulasMay 07, 2012
Stephen Um and Richard Lints continue to think through reading scripture with a one story plot line. They take it a step further in this video discussing the importance of and responsibility to preach the bible holistically.
The Victory of Jesus in Bach’s John-Passion
Ben ShuteMay 04, 2012
Having considered the last chorus of Bach’s Matthew-Passion several weeks ago, I’d like to turn our attention now to the last chorus of his John-Passion. The text[1] reads:
A-section:
Ruht wohl, ihr heiligen Gebeine,
Rest well, you holy limbs,
Die ich nun weiter nicht beweine,
Which I will no longer mourn,
Ruht wohl und bringt auch mich zur Ruh!
Rest well and bring me also to rest!
B-section:
Das Grab, so euch bestimmet ist
The grave that is appointed to you
Und ferner keine Not umschließt,
(And contains no further affliction)
Macht mir den Himmel auf Opens Heaven to me
und schließt die Hölle zu. and shuts [the gates of] Hell.
[A-section repeats] [A-section repeats]
At first the text of the A-section seems ambiguous: why no more mourning? What exactly is being longed for? “Rest well and bring me also to rest”: is this some sort of nihilistic longing for death as release?
Bach, master craftsman that he is, uses structure to point us in the direction that will unlock the riches of the entire chorus. The movement is a palindrome of palindromes:
I). a. orchestral ritornello
b. choir sings A-section text
a. orchestral ritornello
II). choir sings B-section text
I). a. orchestral ritornello
b. choir sings A-section text
a. orchestral ritornello
True to convention, the heart of the content lies at the structural heart of the palindromes: the heart of the palindromic outer sections (labeled “I” above) is the A-section text. The heart of the entire palindromic structure is a brief 12 measures (labeled “II” above) in which the B-section text is heard—and it is this B-section that illuminates the content of the whole. Before we even discuss content, then, we can see the parallel to the gospel at the level of form itself: this B-section, which essentially presents the gospel, is small as a mustard seed, yet it is that which alone can give meaning and sensibility to the whole.
Briefly, then, what illumination does this B-section text provide?
· Assurance of completion: The work that opens heaven and shuts the gates of Hell has been accomplished. The tomb “contains no further affliction” because Jesus has exhausted it to its bitterest end.
· A robust conception of rest: The A-section expresses the desire to be brought to rest, but it leaves this concept of “rest” as vague as the idea of Sheol in the Old Testament. However, in the B-section the longed-for future is the opening of the gates of Heaven: that is, everlasting redeemed life. Since the anticipated future is seen in terms of both rest and eternal life, we no longer have the option of defining the hoped-for “rest” as anything antithetical to the robust life of Heaven: this “rest,” therefore, is characterized not by torpor but victory; it consists not of a lack of activity or consciousness (far from it) but rather a lack of antagonism. As such, one of its chief characteristics is a truly glorious freedom.
· A nuanced view of vicariousness: Since it is Christ’s tomb that “opens Heaven” to us, and since Heavenly life is the victorious rest anticipated, it follows that Christ’s tomb is the means by which we share in His risen life. Approaching the matter from a somewhat different angle yields a more incisive theological question: If Jesus has truly exhausted the grave, as our text claims, why do we continue to experience suffering and death? I think the answer we are meant to see here is that it is through participating in Christ’s suffering and death that we also participate in His resurrection.[2] And the implications of this are wonderful: it means that the suffering and death we experience are ultimately not our own: they are Christ’s—He has claimed them as His own. And so we can know that, come what may, we tread no ground that Jesus has not already trod and conquered.
· The virtuosic victory of God: In a profound irony, the path to eternal life is through the tomb. We have already considered two levels at which this applies. Firstly, Christ’s tomb represents His completed work that opens Heaven to us: He bore the death we deserve. Secondly, our identification with Christ in His efficacious death is the means by which we also participate in His risen life. But there is a third level, where the biting irony of God’s redemption is distilled with devastating beauty at a deeply personal level: it is precisely at the point of death that the Christian is manifestly lifted beyond the reach of all that would threaten to overwhelm us and pull us away from Christ; the moment of death is the very point at which the victory of that saved sinner’s life is definitively realized in history and seen to have been an eternal certainty. For those in Christ, the only effect death can have is to clear them of the hurdle of ultimate death; and thus death becomes the herald of its own demise. In awesome virtuosity, the burning zeal of God accomplishes a victory in which, for the great enemy Death, the bitterest insult is added to mortal injury; Death is not merely overpowered but fundamentally confounded, subjected to incomparable shame and futility; its weapon is not merely blunted but turned inward, so that all attempts to undo those belonging to Christ should actually undo none but itself, by God’s sovereign ordination through the confounding power of the cross. How fitting for the God whose very nature defines justice and goodness, the God who is the stalwart defender of the weak, the God for whom the impossible is possible, the God of the upside-down gospel. How truly the Scriptures tell us that “for those who love God all things work together for good.”[3] As Bach was fond of writing in his manuscripts, Soli Deo Gloria!
Happy People Delight in God’s Word
Nicholas KerhoulasMay 03, 2012
"Do you desire God's Word more than money? Do you desire God's Word more than the finest food?" Gregory Beale defines what happiness and success is in view of delighting and meditating on the Word of God.
Sermon Preached at Citylife Presbyterian Church (4/26/12). Hear the whole sermon here.
“What a Piece of Work Man Is”: Resurrection & Scientific Positivism
Jeremy M. MullenMay 02, 2012
Recently I finished reading through Marilynne Robinson’s new collection of essays, When I Was a Child I Read Books.[1] Many of the essays have to do with Robinson's understanding of the significance of Christian faith to her experience as a writer, a citizen, and generally as a human being. In fact, she returns in several to the topic of science and faith, as she did in her published lectures Absence of Mind.[2] In an essay titled “Freedom from Thought”, she makes the following observation:
For almost as long as there has been science in the West there has been a significant strain in scientific thought which assumed that the physical and material preclude the spiritual. The assumption persists among us still, vigorous as ever, that if a thing can be "explained," associated with a physical process, it has been excluded from the category of the spiritual. But the "physical" in this sense is only a disappearingly thin slice of being, selected, for our purposes, out of the totality of being by the fact that we perceive it as solid, substantial. … Religious experience is said to be associated with activity in a particular part of the brain. For some reason this is supposed to imply that it is delusional. But all thought and experience can be located in some part of the brain, that brain more replete than the starry heaven God showed to Abraham, and we are not in the habit of assuming that it is all delusional on these grounds.[3]
Later she points out:
The notion that religion is intrinsically a crude explanatory strategy that should be dispelled and supplanted by science is based on a highly selective or tendentious reading of the literatures of religion. In some cases it is certainly fair to conclude that it is based on no reading of them at all. Be that as it may, the effect of this idea, which is very broadly assumed to be true, is again to reinforce the notion that science and religion are struggling for possession of a single piece of turf, and science holds the high ground and gets to choose the weapons. In fact there is no moment in which, no perspective from which, science as science can regard human life and say that there is a beautiful, terrible mystery in it all, a great pathos. Art, music, and religion tell us that.[4]
Here we find a powerful critique of much that passes as common knowledge not only in New Atheist circles but also often enough in wider public opinion. In particular, we're reminded that such scientific positivism smacks of nihilism. Certainly many who hold this view would say that it is not nihilistic (for example, Sam Harris in his The Moral Landscape[5]); however, such a claim can only be legitimated if one moves beyond the "disappearingly thin slice of being" for which science takes account. Any movement beyond an explanatory account of the measurable aspects of reality inevitably entails movement beyond science. Of course, this critique is not a critique of science itself, but rather of those who misuse and abuse science. Moreover, the aims of religious texts of various sorts, especially the ancient ones, most certainly do not seem to have an account of the physical origins and workings of the world as a significant interest. It’s not that claims about creation are not made, but simply that the point is theological – not usually interested in describing the details of divine action in that process.
Most importantly, she reminds the Christian that they are not Gnostics. Humanity is created as a physical being; and resurrected, physical being is a significant part of the future hope of the gospel! Christians should avoid being duped, just as much as the non-Christian, by the false either-or of the physical and spiritual. Those with a resurrected Lord ought to know better.
[1] Marilynne Robinson, When I Was a Child I Read Books: Essays (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012).
[2] Marilynne Robinson, Absence of Mind: The Dispelling of Inwardness from the Modern Myth of the Self (New Haven: Yale University, 2010).
[3] When I Was a Child, 9-10.
[4] Ibid., 14-15.
[5] Sam Harris, The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values (New York: Free Press, 2010).
The Key for Success and Happiness?
Nicholas KerhoulasApril 27, 2012
Psalm 1
Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
but his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
He is like a tree
planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.
The wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that the wind drives away.
Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
for the LORD knows the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.
Gregory Beale speaks on the reality that success and happiness is not dependent on external circumstances but rather a matter of the heart.
The Whole Bible for Our Whole Lives
Nicholas KerhoulasApril 26, 2012
Richard Lints and Stephen Um consider how the whole Bible applies to our whole lives. For a wonderful, book-length treatment of this topic, consider picking up Lints' The Fabric of Theology.
The Gospel According to Bach (video)
Nicholas KerhoulasApril 25, 2012
Regular CGC contributor Ben Shute recently performed selections from J.S. Bach's six sonatas and partitas for Citylife Church's Night of the Arts. In this video, Ben sits down with us to talk about how Bach's music is laced with the gospel. With an uncanny mix of technical proficiency and theological precision, Ben's perspective and performance is one that warms the heart with the beauty of the gospel.
“The Pale King” and “This is Water” by David Foster Wallace
Ben SharbaughApril 24, 2012
With tax season still large in our rearview mirrors, and the paperback edition new to the shelves of bookstores, it is a perfect time to reflect on David Foster Wallace's posthumous novel "The Pale King". This unfinished novel, assembled by Wallace's editor in the years following the author's suicide, tells the stories of a collection of Midwestern IRS workers in the 1980s. There is not much of a central plot, most characters spend very little time in the narrative, and as you could probably guess, with a book centered around the IRS, much of it is boring.
But it is precisely this boredom that Wallace wants his readers to confront and consider. If you are unfamiliar with the life and work of David Foster Wallace, please take the time to read this piece from the New Yorker that was written shortly after his death and does an amazing job of putting his accomplishments and his literary concerns into perspective. His career is too complex and amazing to do it justice here, but suffice it to say, Wallace was intent on putting his characters, many of which were autobiographical to some extent, up against the darkest and most soul crushing challenges imaginable. Drug addiction, depression, suicide, poverty all took a toll on the characters Wallace created.
And so, because the stakes were often so high in Wallace's novels and stories, it is something of a surprise that the work he spent his final years on, a quest that many feel ultimately killed him, would be primarily about accounting.
While the book is occasionally slow, there are very long passages dedicated to dissections of tax code and the day to day of an employee of the IRS, the actual writing is nothing short of Wallace's brilliant standards. Few writers are as dexterous and exciting when firing on all cylinders. Wallace could create voices and worlds that are strange and bewildering, but still feel acutely real. He knew better than most writers exactly how the modern human brain works. He could get inside of fictitious heads and show the reader things about themselves that they have never understood before.
Due to the fact that "The Pale King" is a collection of unfinished fragments, it can feel bloated and uneven at times. Words and phrases repeat more often then they probably should and despite his commitment to producing prose that accurately reflects thought processes, it's hard not to feel that he is rambling at times. In spite of all of this, it is the final testament to Wallace as an artist that even in this unpolished state, the writing is often so good it can make you sweat.
Back to boredom. Wallace famously said that "Fiction's about what it means to be a [expletive] human being." As a man who struggled mightily with depression, what it meant for David Foster Wallace to be human is probably different from what it means for most people, or at least to a different degree, but he asks the questions through his fiction that we all ask in our darkest hours. One character in "The Pale King" puts one of Wallace's greatest concerns into words:
"I'm talking about the individual US citizen's deep fear, the same basic fear that you and I have and that everybody has except nobody ever talks about it except existentialists in convoluted French prose. Or Pascal. Our smallness, our insignificance and mortality, yours and mine, the thing that we all spend all our time not thinking about directly, that we are tiny and at the mercy of large forces and that time is always passing and that every day we've lost one more day that will never come back."
In the world of "The Pale King", the characters insignificance manifests itself most painfully in the tedium of accounting and the IRS. However, it is this tedium that Wallace sees as a great opportunity for human growth. In one scene, a character who is in college accidentally wanders into the wrong classroom where he sits through a lecture from an accounting professor that changes his life. "I wish to inform you that the accounting profession to which you aspire is, in fact, heroic," the professor begins.
"Here is a truth: Enduring tedium over real time in a confined space is what real courage is. Such endurance is, as it happens, the distillate of what is, today, in this world neither I nor you have made, heroism. Heroism....I mean true heroism, not heroism as you might know it from films or the tales of childhood...you are ready for the truth's weight, to bear it. Welcome to the world of reality - there is no audience. No one to applaud, to admire. No one to see you. Actual heroism receives no ovation. No one is interested."
For those of us who live relatively comfortable lives and work the standard city desk job, tedium is often the greatest challenge faced on a daily basis. It has the power to overwhelm us, dull our passions and our ability to care for others. Many of us have every convenience imaginable and live comfortably, but still fight to stay positive and compassionate.
This deadening of the soul that every human must battle against was of great interest to Wallace in his final years. In 2005, he spoke at Kenyon College's commencement and gave a speech later published as a book entitled "This is Water." Read it here or (I implore you) listen to it here and here. The crux of the speech is also the crux of what the professor is talking about in "The Pale King." The greatest challenges most of us will face every day is not to be beaten down by that given day's tedium. In his speech, Wallace gives the example, in great detail, of a 21st century nightmare. The grocery store, after work, when you are starving and tired and just want to buy food and go home. But that's not what happens. There are, lines, rude people, crying babies, disgruntled cashiers, bumper to bumper traffic, etc...And it's all there to get in your way and bring you down.
In the face of this daily, soul killing tedium, Wallace says, each of us has a choice. We can lose our cool, have a terrible attitude, blame those around us for our unhappiness, and selfishly crawl into our shells or we can rise above that, open our minds to the plight of others, and care for them. But as we all know, this is difficult. Wallace says it requires "attention and awareness and discipline" to be able to "truly care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day."
This is where the heroism described above comes into play. We rarely are afforded the opportunity to pull somebody out of the way of an oncoming car or rescue somebody from the brink of suicide. However, we are daily, if not hourly, given the chance to love people and sacrifice for them in small ways. There is rarely an audience or a reward, but what could be more practically heroic on a day-to-day basis? The question is, how do we get the strength? Because this is hard. Wallace speaks to this in "This is Water."
"In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship--be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles--is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive."
What the professor in "The Pale King" describes is mostly true, but Christ sets a higher standard than just "enduring" the tedium. Philippians 2 calls us to imitate Christ and "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility, value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others." As Christians, we are called not to "endure", but rather to love heroically in "myriad petty, unsexy ways every day".
We may not be tax accountants, but life can be boring. Tedium can be hard and can cause us to be selfish and unloving. But it is imperative that we remain vigilant in our efforts to rise above this tedium, through the power of Christ, and exhibit compassion and love whenever and wherever possible. It is only by regularly encountering and meditating on his sacrifice for us that our hearts can be transformed from self-serving to self-sacrificing, and our perspective shifted from tedium-avoidance to a routine, beautifully monotonous love of others.
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