Tuesday, May 30th, 2006
I went to church Sunday and George Forell was visiting and taught the adult education class. The title was officially on Luther and Paradox. But the heart of what Dr. Forell shared, after some wonderful introduction, was "Three Things that make Luther Important Today."
First some of the wonderful introductory material. I think my favorite part of the introduction was when Dr. Forell was explaining how it was more dangerous to make Christianity trivial than it was to treat it as false. He said that he preferred teaching at the University of Iowa rather than a seminary because at the seminary someone would be wanting to talk about when you wear a surplice and when you didn't, and that when people started talking like that, he wanted to hit somebody. He preferred a conversation with an atheist because at least it would be about the central question. "I don't believe in God." "You don't? Let's talk about that..."
Another good part was where Forell spoke about how in the early years of his teaching career, people were always talking about how religion was dead. The world had lost interest. It was the concern of a past age. But Forell taught the subject, and his class at the University of Iowa was the only one with over a thousand students in it. He said that the other professors were angered at the very existence of his class, as it showed just how wrong they were in their claim. To the students, religion was a very live concern. And this is clearly the case in the larger world outside the university. Religion is the one thing people will kill over. Recent events have made that clear. In our time, people know that for better or for worse, this must be understood.
Now for the Three Things that Make Luther Important Today:
1. The Church is the creation of God's Word, which is made up of Law and Gospel.
2. Man is simul justus et peccator. If you want to see the sinner, look in the mirror. If you want to see the saint, look at Christ.
3. In Scripture, Eucharist, and Vocation, the Finite is the Bearer of the Infinite.
What usually marks Forell's statements is not the novelty of what he says, though there is often a bit of that, too. But that he can be relied upon for really finding the central nugget. If you are familiar with these doctrines, time spent considering them will be worthwhile. I found Forell's pulling together the different strands of item three intriguing. The "three things" seem to themselves be related by the way the Word creates church, applies the alien righteousness to the individual, and perhaps how it makes the finite bear the infinite. (How this works in vocation will be worth teasing out, if that is a real connection. I have not done so yet!)
After our class and the worship service, I had the opportunity to go out to brunch with Dr. Forell. I may be blogging on some of that later, especially where he was summarizing some of his writings on Luther's social ethics.
1:38 am Pacific Standard Time
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Wednesday, May 24th, 2006
I am starting something new. (My friends are never surprised to hear these words from me!) I'm beginning to study Modern Greek. I took Koine in college and seminary, and wanted a way to keep up with it. I have to a degree. I use my Greek often, though not extensively. I had heard that there was a great distance between Koine (and Classical) Greek and Modern Greek. One so great that Modern Greek would be a waste of time. Then I bought a book called The Oldest Dead White European Males, And Other Reflections on the Classics in which the author Bernard Knox said he had heard the same (at Oxford), but found it to be false. He lived in Greece for a time and found his exposure to Modern Greek helped him immeasurably. I have found some nice resources online. (here and here.). I am also using music. Nana Mouskouri singing Samiotisa is quite fun. (Relative to anything we did in Intermediate Greek at Gordon-Conwell, anyway, despite the prof's great sense of humor.) If you want to see with your own eyes one example of how short the distance between forms of Greek CAN be, see below. I am including Romans 1:1-5 and bolding where the two overlap. You can see it is most of the passage. I find that in my early Modern Greek lessons, about half the vocabulary is familiar. The reason Modern Greek is attractive to me here is that it is a living language, and I find that living languages are often taught more effectively than dead ones. There is more of an emphasis on the ear than the eye. This is very important. I think we are neurologically hard-wired to learn languages more quickly this way. When I hear people talk about how adults can never learn languages as quickly as children, I know they may have a point, but I also know that their comparison is not a fair one. How much language would their children have picked up in a university classroom, especially as the dead languages are taught, with reading being emphasized from week one? Romans 1:1-5 in Modern Greek Romans 1:1-5 in Koine
to opoion proupesceqh dia twn profhtwn autou en taiV agiaiV grafaiV,
peri tou Uiou autou, ostiV egennhqh ek spermatoV Dabid kata sarka,
kai apedeicqh UioV Qeou en dunamei kata to pneuma thV agiwsunhV dia thV ek nekrwn anastasewV, Ihsou Cristou tou Kuriou hmwn,
dia tou opoiou elabomen carin kai apostolhn eiV upakohn pistewV pantwn twn eqnwn uper tou onomatoV autou,
o proephggeilato dia twn profhtwn autou en grafaiV agiaiV,
peri tou uiou autou tou genomenou ek spermatoV dauid kata sarka,
tou orisqentoV uiou qeou en dunamei kata pneuma agiwsunhV ex anastasewV nekrwn, ihsou cristou tou kuriou hmwn,
di ou elabomen carin kai apostolhn eiV upakohn pistewV en pasin toiV eqnesin uper tou onomatoV autou,
2:01 pm Pacific Standard Time
[ posted by Rick Ritchie | 15 comments | Permalink ]
Tuesday, May 16th, 2006
I just received my current issue of Addenda from Mars Hill Audio, and it contained the following surprising statement: "It has long been assumed by people who care about such things that no recordings of those talks survived. However, the BBC has made available online a 14-minute selection of original reading of what became the third part of Mere Christianity, a section called 'Beyond Personality.'"
The link to the recording can be found here. Enjoy!
9:30 am Pacific Standard Time
[ posted by Rick Ritchie | 4 comments | Permalink ]
Monday, May 15th, 2006
A QUOTE FROM 1825
A few years ago it seemed as if everyone was trying at the same moment to discover the best way to make coffee; this was a result, almost certainly, of the fact that the chief of state drank a great deal of it.
Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, The Physiology of Taste: Or, Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy trans. by M.F.K. Fisher (New York: The Heritage Press, 1949), p. 108.
5:33 pm Pacific Standard Time
[ posted by Rick Ritchie | 5 comments | Permalink ]
Saturday, May 6th, 2006
I think the current immigration debate is fundamentally wrong-headed. My favorite fellow Lutheran blogger Kobra (And it takes a lot to horn in over ConfessingEvangelical.) has talked about how he's going to go ballistic if someone says that immigrants don't have rights because they aren't citizens. (Because he believes in inalienable rights a la our political saviour Thomas Jefferson). I know I have been built with the same resonating frequency. (Partly because he loves dogs.)
I have argued this as follows. To argue that the government should exclude illegal aliens because if we don't it will be a strain on our system because of the social programs we offer is like having Robin Hood as your party bounder. As he throws people onto the street face first, he says, "Sorry, folks! If I allowed you in, I would steal from the other guests to pay for your being here!" It seems to me that in that situation, your problem would not be the guests, but Robin Hood.
8:18 pm Pacific Standard Time
[ posted by Rick Ritchie | 13 comments | Permalink ]
Friday, May 5th, 2006
Micah has been arguing that preaching the Gospel is the one exception to Romans 13. I think there are many more. I argue for looking at the original intitution of what God has established to figure out the boundary lines. For the state, we find Genesis 9:6, where the taking of life for life is established.
Another institution that we find established early is marriage. And Jesus says of it, "What God has joined together, let not man put asunder." Now, one possible conflict that could come up came up often in the centuries of slavery. In putting together a class on American Christianity, I read a book from Oxford University Press called Slave Religion which told of this. How the laws of the land made slave marriage a temporary affair. Yet Jesus argues against marriages being split up by man. And seems to even say when the civil law was written by Moses, it was done in part out of recognition of the hardness of people's hearts.
Now, if marriage is supposed to be sought in part to avoid immorality, it seems to me that the state is working against morality when it splits up marriages. It is going against its purpose, and violating the command of Jesus for man not to put usunder what God has joined together. (Consider this. Was marriage being put asunder by man EVEN WHEN people divorced according to the God-given Law of Moses?) I think that the slaves who fled to Canada did right. They saved their God-joined marriages. And it is assumed they submitted to authority when they arrived there.
This is the kind of situation where I think the question of civil disobedience needs to be addressed. The ideal Christian is a perfect martyr. The ideal Christian can say "no" to his urges forever. But we are not ideal Christians. And we are called to make a sober assessment of what we can handle. Some will make eunuchs of themselves for the kingdom of heaven, but that is only for those who can receive it. As St. Paul says, he would have all men be as he is, but not everyone has the same gift (1 Cor. 7:7).
12:41 pm Pacific Standard Time
[ posted by Rick Ritchie | 10 comments | Permalink ]
