Turkeys in PA

My friend Graham and I hit paydirt this morning on a turkey hunt in the northwestern tip of Beaver County. We went yesterday morning and heard absolutely no turkeys gobbling. As I woke up early this morning, I worried that the hunt would not go well.

We arrive about 30 minutes before daybreak and heard a hen clucking near a pasture. We set up in that area hoping there was a gobbler nearby. There was not, so we began scouting around a little bit.

We then heard two toms gobbling on the far end of the pasture, so we hustled down the pasture in their direction. We located the nearest bird and I began calling to him. About thirty minutes later, this turkey showed up looking for us and Graham killed him.

What a great hunt! We're back in the woods tomorrow morning to see if we can get another one!

Paul Zahl Blog

The following is a blog posted by our "beloveded (Ernest T. Bass lingo) " Dean/President Paul Zahl:

Aliens and the Law

It is amazing. I heard about a sermon preached recently at a large and celebrated evangelical church (not in Pittsburgh), and it was that massive same-old, same-old. The preacher said that there are two questions we shall all be asked on Judgment Day: One, did we accept Christ? And Two, how did we do after we had accepted Christ? He said that he “guaranteed” that we would all be asked these two questions.

Now here is this preacher acting like Britney Spears: “Oops! I did it again.” Oops, I preached the Law again, to Christians. I started by preaching the Grace of God – that is, before you accepted Christ – but then, after you became a Christian, it’s the Law for you!

This is just the same thing we hear everywhere and Sunday after Sunday, from here to eternity. You preach forgiveness to sinners, then once they respond in joy to that great enabling word, you place their necks securely under the Law.

I note that more and more of our students are referring to Christianity as “covenantal nomism.” This is a technical phrase from the “new perspective on Paul,” according to which Paul’s idea of Christianity was simply that of his rabbinic colleagues – i.e., “covenantal nomism” – with the little extra additive of Christ being the Messiah. The actual religion of Christianity was, and is, just Judaism minus the body-piercing and the special diet. Jews are covenantal nomists, and Christians are lucky to be the same, but without the ethnic part.

The preacher who sang the song of “Oops! I did it again” – which is to say, rats, he preached the Law instead of the Gospel, like just about every single one of his evangelical co-religionists – is the Gentile embodiment of a First-Century rabbi, with, again, that little messianic plus.
This is terrible.

The conservative Christians are preaching the Law. The liberal Christians are preaching the Law – and in the case of ECUSA bishops, canon Law. So where is there a place for any son of Adam or daughter of Eve to lay his head?

Nowhere.

Which brings me back to Aliens, and Jesus Christ.

I inventoried my Outer Space videos the other night and divided them into a couple of categories. First, there are movies in which the alien is pure Law and attack, utter and decisive judgment. Such as The Thing and It! The Terror from Beyond Space. Second, there are movies in which the alien is well-meaning but misunderstood, such as It Came From Outer Space and The Day the Earth Stood Still. Third, there are movies in which the alien is truly benign and dear, such as The Bellero Shield (Outer Limits) and Rod Serling’s The Gift (Twilight Zone). In the latter category, the aliens are almost always Christ-figures.

What you see in the movies is paralleled precisely in theology. All aliens are obtrusive and intruding, and fully other. They are not nice and they are not humane and they are definitely not Grace-filled. They are pure Law, and suppressive and controlling, and often terminating.

The best alien story ever written is the story of Christ’s coming to the earth. Why? Because it is truly an alien story. The gift of Grace is alien to the human condition. Grace is not Law. It does not accuse, nor does it demand, nor does it legislate, nor does it require. It sets all that aside. The best tag-line for a science-fiction move that has ever been written was written by St. Paul, when he said, “Christ is the end of the Law, for them that believe” (Romans 10:4).
That is alien wisdom. It could never have come from a human hand.

We would have put in requirements, or conditions, or “tweaked” it (a truly Legal phrase), or talked about “good cop, bad cop,” or put it in our own action-consequence lingo. We could never, ever have come up with something like, “Christ is the end of the Law.” And for Christians, no less.

St. Paul was not a “covenantal nomist.”

Flee churches that place nice Christian sufferers under the Law.

But… where will you go?

Love, and always, your,PZ

P.S. If you want to watch a nice movie this Saturday afternoon while they are counting the ballots in San Francisco, put on It Came from Beneath the Sea. It is easily available at any Best Buy or from Netflix, and its plot (and locale) speaks for itself.

The Dostoevsky Moment, Part IV

Here is the last story. As you can see, this story kind of throws a wrench in the trend. Dostoevsky apparently does this a lot.

"Well, I went homewards, and near the hotel I came across a poor woman, carrying a child--a baby of some six weeks old. The mother was quite a girl herself. The baby was smiling up at her, for the first time in its life, just at that moment; and while I watched the woman she suddenly crossed herself, oh, so devoutly! 'What is it, my good woman?’ I asked her. (I was never but asking questions then!) Exactly as is a mother's joy when her baby smiles for the first time into her eyes, so is God's joy when one of His children turns and prays to Him for the first time, with all his heart!' This is what that poor woman said to me, almost word for word; and such a deep, refined, truly religious thought it was—a thought in which the whole essence of Christianity was expressed in one flash--that is, the recognition of God as our Father, and of God's joy in men as His own children, which is the chief idea of Christ. She was a simple country-woman--a mother, it's true-- and perhaps, who knows, she may have been the wife of the drunken soldier!"

"Listen, Parfen; you put a question to me just now. This is my reply. The essence of religious feeling has nothing to do with reason, or atheism, or crime, or acts of any kind--it has nothing to do with these things--and never had. There is something besides all this, something which the arguments of the atheists can never touch. But the principal thing, and the conclusion of my argument, is that this is most clearly seen in the heart of a Russian. This is a conviction which I have gained while I have been in this Russia of ours. Yes, Parfen! there is work to be done; there is work to be done in this Russian world! Remember what talks we used to have in Moscow! And I never wished to come here at all; and I never thought to meet you like this, Parfen! Well, well--good-bye--good-bye! God be with you!"

The Dostoevsky Moment, Part III

Here is the third story:

"Next morning I went out for a stroll through the town," continued the prince, so soon as Rogojin was a little quieter, though his laughter still burst out at intervals, "and soon observed a drunken-looking soldier staggering about the pavement. He came up to me and said, 'Buy my silver cross, sir! You shall have it for fourpence--it's real silver.' I looked, and there he held a cross, just taken off his own neck, evidently, a large tin one, made after the Byzantine pattern. I fished out fourpence, and put his cross on my own neck, and I could see by his face that he was as pleased as he could be at the thought that he had succeeded in cheating a foolish gentleman, and away he went to drink the value of his cross. At that time everything that I saw made a tremendous impression upon me. I had understood nothing about Russia before, and had only vague and fantastic memories of it. So I thought, 'I will wait awhile before I condemn this Judas. Only God knows what may be hidden in the hearts of drunkards.'

The Dostoevsky Moment, Part II

Here is the second story:

"That same evening I stopped at a small provincial hotel, and it so happened that a dreadful murder had been committed there the night before, and everybody was talking about it. Two peasants-- elderly men and old friends--had had tea together there the night before, and were to occupy the same bedroom. They were not drunk but one of them had noticed for the first time that his friend possessed a silver watch which he was wearing on a chain. He was by no means a thief, and was, as peasants go, a rich man; but this watch so fascinated him that he could not restrain himself. He took a knife, and when his friend turned his back, he came up softly behind, raised his eyes to heaven, crossed himself, and saying earnestly--'God forgive me, for Christ's sake!' he cut his friend's throat like a sheep, and took the watch.

Rogojin roared with laughter. He laughed as though he were in a sort of fit. It was strange to see him laughing so after the sombre mood he had been in just before.

"Oh, I like that! That beats anything!" he cried convulsively, panting for breath. "One is an absolute unbeliever; the other is such a thorough--going believer that he murders his friend to the tune of a prayer! Oh, prince, prince, that's too good for anything! You can't have invented it. It's the best thing I've heard!"