More Irrational Man

He (Nietzsche) was able to see the Will to Power secretly at work everywhere in the history of morals: in the asceticism of the saint and the resentment of the condemning moralist, as well as in the brutality of the primitive legislator. All his separate insights on the theme accumulated finally in a single monolithic idea of all-comprehending universality: the Will to Power was in fact the innermost essence of all beings; the essence of Being itself.

Whoa. - DOB

Oswald Chambers

Here is a quote from My Utmost For His Highest. This is for June 17:

There is no getting away from the penetration of Jesus. If I see the mote in your eye, it means I have a beam in my own. Every wrong thing that I see in you, God locates in me. Every time I judge, I condemn myself (see Romans 2:17-20). Stop having a measuring rod for other people. There is always one fact more in every man's case about which we know nothing. The first thing God does is to give us a spiritual spring-cleaning; there is no possibility of pride left in a man after that. I have never met the man I could despair of after discerning what lies in me apart from the grace of God.

Ernst Kasemann

"What causes most trouble for Christians of all ages is not legalism or lack of faith or theological controversies; it is Jesus Himself, who bestows freedom so openhandedly and dangerously on those who do not know what to do with it. The church always gets panic-stricken for fear of the turmoil that Christ creates when He comes on the scene; and so it takes His freedom under it own management for the protection of the souls entrusted to it, in order to dispense it in homeopathic doses when it seems necessary. The church claims to represent Jesus on earth, but in fact it often supplants Him. It must tremble in all its joints when confronted with His portrait. Ecclesiastical traditions and laws have domesticated Jesus and today all the churches are living off the success of the attempt."
– Ernst Kasemann

The Black Rubric

"Whereas it is ordained in this Office for the Administration of the Lord's Supper, that the Communicants should receive the same kneeling; (which order is well meant, for a signification of our humble and grateful acknowledgment of the benefits of Christ therein given to all worthy Receivers, and for the avoiding of such profanation and disorder in the holy Communion, as might otherwise ensue;) yet, lest the same kneeling should by any persons, either out of ignorance and infirmity, or out of malice and obstinacy, be misconstrued and depraved: It is hereby declared, That thereby no adoration is intended, or ought to be done, either unto the Sacramental Bread or Wine there bodily received, or unto any Corporal Presence of Christ's natural Flesh and Blood. For the Sacramental Bread and Wine remain still in their very natural substances, and therefore may not be adored; (for that were Idolatry, to be abhorred of all faithful Christians;) and the natural Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ are in Heaven, and not here; it being against the truth of Christ's natural Body to be at one time in more places than one."

Hooray for Thomas Cranmer and the Black Rubric!! - DOB

Anna Nicole Before Us

Matthew 21:28-31 (RSV) "What do you think? A man had two sons; and he went to the first and said, `Son, go and work in the vineyard today.' And he answered, `I will not'; but afterward he repented and went. And he went to the second and said the same; and he answered, `I go, sir,' but did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?" They said, "The first." Jesus said to them, "Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you.

We took a look at this verse this morning and thought about the ramifications as it relates to real lives. The point Jesus was trying to make was that the conversion of the heart was what matters. Forget about outward actions. Outward actions mean nothing.

This made me think about a person who meant and said “no” and has not yet converted. Who is closer to God then? One who says “no” and means it or one who means “no” and does what appears to be good. My conclusion was that the one who says “no” and means it is still closer to God than the one who shows all the right outward actions but does not earnestly do the thing out of love.

Now, obviously, both are in the same condition before God because their hearts are both in the same place. This is simple Pauline-Augustinian Christianity. The one with the integrated understanding is the one with the advantage. The prostitute has the advantage. The robber and the murderer have the advantage. Why? They understand who they are. The consequences of life have made them painfully aware of what is going on inside of their heart.

This led me to an article in today’s Opinion Journal about Anna Nicole Smith. The author takes the tragic figure of Ms. Smith and (condescendingly and dismissively, in my opinion) makes her into this representative of the wayward and materialistic American culture. This PERSON. She was a PERSON. A tragic, victimizing, brokenhearted, heart-breaking, exploited and exploiting PERSON.

I then thought of who was closer to God. Anna Nicole Smith or this columnist with an incurable admiration for his own prose? It is Anna Nicole Smith. Anna Nicole Smith goes into the kingdom of God before any of us. Sinners leap with joy at the mercy of God while Pharisees recoil. This is the intent of Jesus in the Parable of the Two Sons.

Albert Mohler Piece About TEC

Here is a really nice take on the new Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church. It is by Albert Mohler who is the President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY. He is a Reformed guy, not your standard fare for Southern Baptist Churches.

More from Irrational Man

"... modern man seems even further from understanding himself than when he first began to question his own identity. Of documentation of external facts we have had enough to spare, more than the squirrellike scholars will ever be able to piece together into a single whole, enough to keep the busy popularizers spouting in bright-eyed knowledgeability the rest of their days; but of the inner facts - of what goes on at the center where the forces of our fate first announce themselves - we are still pretty much in ignorance, and most of the contemporary world is caught up in an unconscious and gigantic conspiracy to run away from these facts. Hence the necessity of returning to a subject that only appears to be well worn. With civilizations, as with individuals, the outer fact is often merely the explosion resulting from accumulated inner tension, the signs of which were plentifully present, though none of the persons concerned chose to heed them."

This is INSPIRED, INSPIRED work. Think of deeply existential law/gospel preaching and the insight of Augustine and Luther. On the surface, it seems like one is hearing the same message over and over. 'Why can't we move on the meat of Christian living,' I hear ad nauseum. Because that is not the meat. Law and gospel reveals and absolves the deep moving targets within the condition of man. It is from the inward that manifestations of the outward flow. That said, I expect no one to agree with me. - DOB

Quiz

Is this the same dog?

Some Summer Pictures in a Winter Freeze

And I mean to tell you it is cold up here. These are some pictures of a successful bream fishing expedition at Walter Little's pond in Vandiver, Alabama. Look at the size of those bream! They just don't get much bigger!

FitzSimons Allison Sermon

Listen to this wonderful Baptismal sermon by one of my heroes, Bishop FitzSimons Allison.

Irrational Man

Here is a quote from the book Irrational Man:

Each [Existentialist] has put religion itself radically in question, and it is only to be expected that the faith, or the denial of faith, that emerges in their thought should be somewhat disconcerting to those who have followed the more public and external paths into a church. Unamuno seemed always to be on the verge of excommunication by the Spanish bishops; Buber is a prophet with not very much honor in his native land of Israel; and Kierkegaard fought the last battle of his life against the ordained hierarchy of the Danish Church. The atheist sect, on the other hand, sniffs the taint of heresy in Heidegger, whose thought, which he himself calls in one place a "waiting for god," has been criticized by one American philosopher as opening the back door to theology. It is evident that anyone who has passed through the depths of modern experience and strives to place religion in relation to that experience is bound to acquire the label of heretic.

Does this sound familiar to any of you who embrace the theology of the cross? - DOB

Bishop FitzSimons Allison Essay

This essay is a brilliant and entirely correct engagement with ecclesiology in regard to the situation in the Anglican Communion. It is a must-read for everyone, especially low churchmen like myself.

Flea Market in Montgomery

Do yourself a favor and watch this video.

Hello?

Now, I know David's treestand is around here somewhere......

Good Story from Helen Traweek

Here is a really touching story sent to me by Helen Traweek, a true blue Christian woman from the Advent. - DOB

One rainy afternoon I was driving along one of the main streetsof town, taking those extra precautions necessary when the roads are wet and slick.

Suddenly, my daughter, Aspen ,spoke up from her relaxed position in her seat. "Dad, I'mthinking of something." This announcement usually meant she had been pondering some fact for a while, and was now ready to expound all that her six-year-old mind had discovered. I was eager to hear. "What are you thinking?" I asked.

"The rain!" she began, "is like sin, and the windshieldwipers are like God wiping our sins away."After the chill bumps raced up my arms I was able to respond. "That's really good, Aspen"

Then my curiosity broke in. How far would this little girl take this revelation? So I asked... "Do you notice how the rain keeps on coming? What does that tell you?"

Aspen didn't hesitate one moment with her answer: "We keep on sinning, and God just keeps on forgiving us."

I will always remember this whenever I turn my wipers on.

Another Paul Zahl Quote

From Grace in Practice:

The ground floor of Paul's theology is Romans 10:4: "Christ is the end of the law." This ground floor is held up by great bricks of atomic substance in the following words from the third chapter: "For 'no human being will be justified in [God's] sight' by deeds prescribed by the law, for through the law comes knowledge of sin. But now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law [in the five books of Moses] and the prophets" (verses 20-21).

Paul taught what Jesus did. Given the total inability of the people it oppresses to effect their own freedom, the end of the law comes through the instrumentality of one man's sacrifice of substitution.

What profound, profound words from the Apostle Paul. And Dean Zahl is one of about four theologians to see, in full view, the vast ramifications of the Apostle's words here. Superstitious Stoicism be gone. The gospel is re-asserting itself. - DOB