The First Years at Ozark Christian College
My five years at Ozark Christian College are a period in my life to which I look back with nostalgia, thanksgiving and joy. There were struggles, to be sure. At one point, as will be explained, I considered leaving. But even knowing what I do now, I would not hesitate to redo that period of my life. Indeed, it is precisely because of what I learned, and the mentoring I received, that I eventually came to where I am now, on the threshold of the Orthodox Church.
My first three years at Ozark were a mix of discerning my vocation (should I be a missionary, youth minister, pastor, campus minister?), learning how to defend the faith and growing in my ability to read, understand, apply and to teach and preach the Bible. I took three years of Greek, two years of Hebrew, and had exegetical classes in: Mark, John, Acts, Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Hebrews, and Revelation; and also took two (of six) semesters of a class entitled the "Life of Christ" which was a synoptic, chronological exegesis of the Gospels. I took a year of Old Testament history, and had a few classes in apologetics. There were ministry classes as well, but this will give a glimpse into the biblical worldview that was being shaped in my mind.
Mine was a fairly normal college experience. I had a few girlfriends while studying there, and went on dates. I rebelled against campus curfews. I played practical jokes on friends. I debated politics and religion with my friends. I played racquetball and went to the gym at the Y. And, seeking my vocation in the churches I was training to serve, spent most weekends as a student youth minister in Stockton, Missouri; later as a student pastor to yoked parishes in Mound City, Kansas.
But through these first three years imperceptible if no less fateful decisions and changes were occuring. First and foremost, I bought in deeply to the "plea" of my churches: to see the life and faith of the New Testament Church made a reality in my lifetime. I very much longed for that which the New Testament-era Christians had: a direct connection to the Church founded by the Apostles.
Secondly, I also bought in deeply to the insistence of my churches that our doctrine and the content of our faith conform to that of the Apostles. I very much longed for an adherence to the original Faith in all its purity.
Finally, the last important element was an insatiable appetite to understand ideas, and the skills to research them. This was to bear fruit in the last two years of college in terms of the papers I wrote and the friends I associated with, but I will write about that later. One early example, was my purchase of a text of the writings of the Apostolic Fathers, including Ignatios of Antioch, the Didache, 1 Clement, the Martyrdom of Polycarp, the Shepherd of Hermas, and so forth. I bought the book during the Christmas holidays of my freshman year. Another example was my Church History class. Though I didn't keep any papers I wrote for that class, I very much attribute to that class my awareness of such things as the Church Councils, the battle against heresy, the Fathers of the Church and their writings, and so forth.
So by the time I began my fourth, and next-to-last, year at Bible college, the foundations had been laid for the changes that were soon to take place.
After the Holy Communion takes place, during the Divine Liturgy, the Priest and people pray:
PRIEST: O god, save thy people and bless thine inheritance.
CHOIR: We have seen the true light, we have received the heavenly Spirit; we have found the true faith, worshipping the undivided Trinity: for He hath saved us.
That response of the choir, and all the congregation, seems to us, in our day of divided Christendom, at best triumphalistic, and at worst terribly judgmental. One certainly doesn't make comments like that among polite ecumenical company.
Who, after all, can really claim to have finally arrived at the truth? At best we can only claim to have made the best possible guess that we can. And to claim that one has the "true faith"! What about those who disagree? Do they not have the true faith?
But this liturgical hymn is the Faith of the Church, and has been sung for centuries.
Of course, one can claim all sorts of things . . . without any basis whatsoever. We see this all the time in partisan politics . . . and fishing. But of course, Orthodoxy doesn't make this claim in a vacuum. There is a wealth of history, writings of the Fathers, Scripture, various Church liturgies, and so forth, with which Orthodox evidence the veracity of their claims.
And having found the true Faith, the Orthodox have worked hard to keep it. The lives of the Christian martyrs under Nazi Germany and Communist Russia alone, in the twentieth century, far exceed the number of martyrs through the preceding centuries. And the stories of Christian martyrs under Islamic persecution in African nations continue to filter into the West. Never have so many people died for the Christian Faith.
But Orthodox also are painstaking about ensuring that what they teach, the customs they practice, and the lives they live are in concert with those that have gone before them. More so than some, Orthodox give a vote to their forebears in the Faith, who are for a time no longer with us in the flesh. This takes great effort in a world bent on the latest new thing. It is difficult enough to keep the Faith; it is ever more difficult to keep from being seduced into the ahistorical life of the world and maintain that Faith.
But as hard as it is to labor as an Orthodox, I cannot but think how much harder it is to chase the present in reference to a future that is undetermined because it is not grounded in history, or, rather, the historical Life of the Church.
I look around me and I see my Protestant friends, I read em-church bloggers, and so forth, and I have to ask: "Why all this hard work at reinvention?" It must be exhausting to start over from scratch every new generation.
If you think about it, for most Christians today much of traditional Christianity has to be reinterpreted in light of changing mores (which entails keeping up with the mores) and/or ignored (which entails constructing ever more complex arguments for why ignoring certain doctrines is both Christian and in the spirit of the historic Church, whose doctrines are being ignored). Whether that be headship in the home (as Tripp and I, with others, have been discussing on his blog--first part here), or the undertanding of what we believe and how we are to speak about what we believe (as is going on over at James' and Justin's blogs--Karl has an excellent response).
Or, think about all the new ecclesiology that has to be created. Actually, there was never really quite the effort at ecclesiological theory with the Boomer seeker churches and the church growth movement as is taking place within the em-church crowd. There are a plethora of models and paradigms--though the similarities on main points are fairly obvious--but all of them having a common anti-institutional, ahistorical (despite appeals to specific aspects of the Tradition), non-sacramental bent. A lot of mental and emotional energy is expended on books, conferences, and media to try to come up with something fresh and new that just captures what it is for the Church to be the Church. And often with the up-front admission that something new will have to come along to replace what's currently going on.
All this is often romanticized as something like a "chasing after the Spirit," or "following the trail of grace," or some other adventuresome metaphor in which the Holy Spirit plays hide and seek with us, giving us only tantalizing hints and clues about what He's doing, but never giving us full knowledge. "Relationships are too complex to fully understand; we need to be open to the Spirit." "The Church is greater than our understanding; we need to be open to the Spirit." And so on.
This is all well and good, insofar as those brothers and sisters of mine in Christ are offering them in true and sincere attempts to follow God.
But I have to ask: Is this what the Spirit really does: endlessly tantalizes us with continued ignorance and partial understanding? Didn't Jesus say to his Apostles, "But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will lead you into all truth?" (John 16:13). What sort of God is that, Who promises us to lead us into all truth, but never lets us have anything but part of the truth?
Don't misunderstand me. It's not as though I think that since we have the Tradition (Scripture, Liturgy, Canons, Church Father, and the lives of the Saints) that we don't need to think any more, nor that we don't need to work hard at keeping the Tradition. There will always have to be work to understand the Tradition because our times and circumstances will change. It will not be the Tradition that will have moved; it will be us. And because we've moved, we will have to refocus our lenses on the Tradition. It won't be new insights we're after, it will be a right understanding of the unchanging Tradition, which is the very Life of the Trinity in the Church.
But that's a far different cry from starting from scratch to piece together a quiltwork of new theories and "-ologies."
If one goes back to that liturgical hymn in Orthodox worship, one cannot but get a feeling of joy and thanksgiving. What has happened in the Liturgy? We've been reminded of our sin and Christ's sacrifice. We've been told again and again of God's love for us. We've been promised the Kingdom. And then we commune with God. Once all this is done, we sing with joy at what we have found. This is not a song of judgment. We don't here glory in our being right and other Christians being wrong. Rather this is a hymn sung in the full knowledge and awareness that what we have is a gift we don't deserve. We have found the true Faith--we who are not worthy of it. We have seen the true Light--whose minds were darkened by self-will and sin. We, who have done nothing to deserve Him, have received the Holy Spirit, partaking by grace of the Life of the Holy Trinity.
We have been saved from death and destruction of our own making. And having given all, we receive more than our all back. This is the Pearl of Great Price. If there is a note of triumph, it is directed at the Devil from whose bondage we have been liberated. If there is a note of triumph, it is because our Conqueror has trampled down death by death, granting us life and great mercy.
So, today, I sang this hymn with as much gusto as I could. Because I was so grateful.
Senior Year Decisions
Through all these things a good solid foundation of faith had pretty much just been laid when the summer of 1985 came around. My parents, after several weeks' separation, made another attempt to reunite. And they decided to try to get jobs back in our hometown area so that we could move back to our hometown. This would enable me to graduate with the class with whom I'd grown up. As much as I had hated to leave Augusta, I was ambivalent about returning. There was excitement to see my friends again, but I was not enthusiastic to leave my first real church home.
But return we did. It proved to be a year of mixed blessings. For the first time in several years the football team not only had a winning season, but made it to the district playoffs. We missed the regionals playoffs by a single point. I was involved in the school plays and forensics, and won some awards. I got involved with the Fellowship of Christian Atheletes group at high school. I dated a long-time friend. And I looked forward to graduating.
But in the late fall, my parents split again. This created turmoil for me. I began to act out in school, and was essentially given the option to not enroll in the second semester of my German language class, or be kicked out of it. I skipped school. My girlfriend and I broke up over the Christmas holidays. And I had no clue what I was going to do for college in the fall. My mom and I made a few (for me) half-hearted school visits. But I was adrift.
The spring I was to graduate, I read Elisabeth Elliot's Through Gates of Splendor, an account of the mission work among the Auca Indians of Ecuador and the martyrs' deaths at the hands of the Aucas of Jim Elliot, Nate Saint and their companions. It was a moving story, and it gave me a clue as to a way I could live the dedication I felt to my Christian faith. A few months later, I decided that I would go to Ozark Christian College and train to become a missionary.
Just prior to that decision, I had made another decision. Since our return from Washington, I had mostly attended the local Baptist church with my friends. While my dad, who was raised Southern Baptist, would not have cared, he was not living with us. My mother, however, cared deeply. She and my dad had decided, by means unknown to me, that my sisters and I would be raised in the churches she'd grown up in, and in which her dad, my grandfather, had ministered, the Restoration Movement churches. Since the Baptists did not believe that baptism was essential to the process of salvation, and did not observe the Lord's Supper weekly--and perhaps for reasons less oriented to doctrine and more influenced by our chaotic family situation--she repeatedly refused to allow me to go to the Baptist church with my friends. But being physically larger and stronger than her, and having my own set of keys to dad's pickup, I simply walked out the door on Sunday mornings and went to the Baptist church.
Nonetheless, sitting in the worship service with that morning's conflict with my mother still ringing in my head made me absolutely miserable. I could see no valid reason why I shouldn't worship here--especially since my own mother was at that time not consistent in attendance at her own church--and no reason how this was in any way really disobedient to my parents. After all, didn't God take precedence if a parent told their kid to do something that was against God's will? Nonetheless all this rational analysis would not allow the uneasy feelings to dissipate, so in April I formally joined the Restoration Movement church she considered home.
With that decision, and the subsequent decision to attend Ozark Christian College, I had made my adult commitment to the Restoration Movement churches.
The following is a reply I posted on Tripp's blog, but I wanted a larger group to read and critique it. It is given in the context of a discussion on Ephesians 5.
The essence of manhood, is, personhood, which highlights the always already communal nature of what it means to be a man. Thus, men, being essentially persons, have an essential equality with women, whose essence is also personhood.
But manhood cannot simply be reduced to its mere essence, because manhood is also always already embodied. There is no such thing as manhood in the abstract, but only men. And here biology and personhood are united, two natures, as it were, in one person. Men, as persons, share an essence with women, but are also different and distinct, because as embodied, they have different traits and characteristics which arise from their biological embodiedness.
Thus, in conception, men play a biological role that is distinct from that of women, and therefore, they embody conception in a different way than do women. Similarly, the nuture that men give their children are distinct and different from women. But yet at the same time, their nurturing shares an essential similarity in that both men and women are always already in community, and so also the children they conceive and bear.
Now beyond the obvious biological traits are the more controversial ones. Clearly Scripture embodies distinctive roles in the family. There is an essentially similar submission, but because of the embodied personhood which men and women possess, their roles are distinctive.
Why I think my definition commends itself over yours is that it has obvious symmetry between the definitions for manhood and womanhood, it is clearly modelled on conciliar Trinitarianism, as well as on the Chalcedonian definition of Christ as the new Adam.
What think ye all?
After God had led David to the throne of Israel, David wanted to build a temple for worship of God. God sent Nathan to tell him no, but gave him a much greater promise instead: from his house would come the Messiah.
"Then went King David in and sat before the Lord, and he said: 'Who am I, O Lord God? And what is my house, that Thou hast brought me hitherto? And this was yet a small thing in Thy sight, O Lord God; but Thous hast spoken also of Thy servant's house for a great while to come.' . . ." (2 Samuel 7.18-19)
Exactly two weeks ago today, my family was in an auto accident, and our car was totalled. I was so angry. I had to quite consciously refrain from any critical remarks to Anna--as she had been driving. After all, it was hardly something she intended to do. What do they call these things? Accidents, not "on-purpose-ents." (She even said to me later that day, "Well you haven't yelled at me yet." I pointed out to her that doing so would hardly accomplish anything helpful, and in any case, she didn't mean to do it, and it wasn't as though she had a habit of driving recklessly.)
I tried as hard as I could to try to see behind the outward circumstances and find there some evidence of what God was doing. I didn't come up with much.
But neither did I have long to wait for it to become clear in what ways God would bless and take care of us in the midst of these difficult circumstances.
The very first bit of evidence was the willingness of one of the parishioners at All Saints to come and pick us--and all our baby gear--up from the accident site. Pat Kushiner is an angel. And she did much to try to bring us cheer as we drove home.
Next came Blaise and Lynn Kueck, who drove us to services one Sunday. Not to mention Michael and Todd giving me rides home from the men's group.
Then came an anonymous cash gift (of some significant proportions) from someone in the parish through the pastoral discretionary fund. (When Father handed me the envelope, I didn't have to ask what was in it. I just broke down and wept.)
Next came the offer for the second part-time job at the library where I work. This effectively puts me at full-time benefits status. There's a lot of blessing there. (Oh, and the summer ethics course I'm teaching.)
Then came as almost perfect a used vehicle as you could imagine. Sold to us by the first owner, it was the same manufacturing year as our now-deceased Saturn, with only 64K+ miles, new tires and battery, towing package, CD player (we've never had one of those), fold-in mirrors (great for our narrow one-way street we live on), and needing only routine 60K maintenance (tranny service, fluid flush, spark wires, etc.). Not cheap, of course, but not unexpected.
Next was the amount of total loss the insurance company gave us for the Saturn. The retail was for about 2K, but ours was high mileage (140K), so we expected much less. Instead, we got more than double what we thought we would get for the car.
The owner's asking price for the car was $500 under what the bank would loan us, and we eventually got the owner down to $1500 under her original asking price.
But all that almost hit a snag when we hit the bank. We have great credit--in fact, the interest my credit union offered me was only a half point above their best rate for used cars--but with Anna no longer working our debt-income ratio looked horrible. But God put us with a loan specialist who was willing to work with us, and through some careful questioning was able to "make the numbers work."
So as of last night, we are the grateful owners of a new vehicle.
So, through one totalled car, God blessed us with no injuries, the outpouring of love from a parish of which we are not formally members, a generous gift and other financial blessings, and a new car.
In less than two weeks.
This hardly is the same as being promised to be the ancestor of the Messiah. But I'm with David. All I can say is, "Who am I, O Lord God?"
Gretchen Wilson sez it best in Redneck Woman (Note: Website midi starts playing when you access the site):
Well I ain't never
Been the barbie doll type
No I can't swig that sweet champagne
I'd rather drink beer all night
In a tavern or in a honky tonk
Or on a 4 wheel drive tailgate
I've got posters on my wall of Skynard, Kid and Strait
Some people look down on me
But I don't give a rip
I'll stand barefooted in my own front yard with a baby on my hip
Cause I'm a redneck woman
I ain't no high class broad
I'm just a product of my raisin'
And I say "hey y'all" and "Yee Haw"
And I keep my Christmas lights on, on my front porch all year long
And I know all the words to every Charlie Daniels song
So here's to all my sisters out there keepin' it country
Let me get a big "Hell Yeah" from the redneck girls like me
Hell Yeah
Hell Yeah
Victoria's Secret
Well their stuff's real nice
Oh but I can buy the same damn thing on a Wal*Mart shelf half price
And still look sexy
Just as sexy
As those models on TV
No I don't need no designer tag to make my man want me
You might think I'm trashy
A little too hard core
But in my neck of the woods
I'm just the girl next door
Hey I'm redneck woman
I ain't no high class broad
I'm just a product of my raisin'
And I say "hey y'all" and "Yee Haw"
And I keep my Christmas lights on, on my front porch all year long
And I know all the words to every Tanya Tucker song
So here's to all my sisters out there keeping it country
Let me get a big "Hell Yeah" from the redneck girls like me
Hell Yeah
Hell Yeah
I'm a redneck woman
I ain't no high class broad
I'm just a product of my raisin'
I say "hey y'all" and "Yee Haw"
And I keep my Christmas lights on, on my front porch all year long
And I know all the words to every Ol' Bocephus song
So here's to all my sisters out there keeping it country
Let me get a big "Hell Yeah" from the redneck girls like me
Hell Yeah
Hell Yeah
Hell Yeah
Hell Yeah
Hell Yeah
Hell Yeah
I said Hell Yeah
(The video absolutely ROCKS, by the way!)
Renewal of Faith
I was born at the time of the split in the Disciples, so my upbringing in the Stone-Campbell churches reflected the difficult feelings resultant from the split. My understanding of the Church was staunchly anti-denominational, and, to a degree, anti-intellectual, both reactions to theological liberalism and to the denominationalism that forced out most of the former Disciples churches.
As is often the case with young believers, my teen years proved a difficult time, especially concerning faith and morals. Although I would not have denied the central Christian doctrines I had been taught--such as the divinity of Christ and the Trinitarian understanding of God--in terms of moral behavior, I succumbed to those fairly typical temptations of teen years: lust, drunkenness, lying, and mistreatment of other "weaker" teens. Being a year-round sport letterman, I fit in with the "macho athletic" crowd, got into some fights, and picked on other kids. At the same time, being in the accelerated study program, I was held to higher expectations, and was fairly frequently in outright rebellion with my teachers and other authority figures. Although drugs made inroads among my peers, by my own parents' involvement in my life, as well as the mercy of God, I was kept free from drug use. Too, I'd seen the effects drugs had had among my own family members, losing an uncle to the downward spiral drugs inflict, and so had a strong influence against using drugs.
During my sophomore year of high school, my dad was transferred by his employer from Augusta, Kansas, to northwestern Washington state. We settled in Bellingham, Washington, and for the first several months, I hated it. More than once I woke up amidst dreams that I was back home with my friends, only to realize as full consciousness came that I was some two thousand miles away. But as summer approached, the anticipation of the football season hit me. I had made friends through working out in the high school weight room with some of the upper classmen who would be leading the football team in the autumn. In June there was a football camp near where I lived, to which many of my fellow teammates were going. It was a Christian camp put on by former NFL professional football players. I went, had a good time, and met some professional athletes, Christians, whom I quickly grew to admire.
But after the camp was over, I continued the "nominal" Christian life I'd been living for most of the time following my baptism. On 1 August 1985, that all changed.
One of the professional football players at the camp, a former linebacker for the Seattle Seahawks, was giving a talk at the local Assembly of God church in town, Calvary Temple. I was familiar with the church, having gone to it several times with some of the high school acquaintances I'd gained after arriving in Washington. On the morning of 1 August, I received a call from the former NFL linebacker. He told me about the talk, and invited me to come. He said that it might work out afterwards if I had any questions or wanted to talk that perhaps I could go with him and the youth pastor for a soda. I told him I'd go, and hung up the phone.
Despite being called by a man who'd played in the pros, and anticipating going to the talk, I nonetheless almost didn't go. I went to the gym in the late afternoon for a good workout prior to the talk, and wrestled with myself while in the shower afterwards as to whether or not I'd really rather go to the talk or go home and enjoy a nice summer evening watching TV. As you may already guess, I went to the talk.
He gave his testimony as to how he became a Christian. I didn't quite relate exactly to all that he had to say. He'd lived a wild life prior to becoming a Christian. In some ways, my relatively "wild" days happend post baptism. But what he said about living the Christian life in the power of the Holy Spirit by the grace of God through faith hit a chord with me. I went home and lay in bed praying. I told God that I'd messed up a lot, but though I'd at times repented and tried to get my life right, I just could never live the way he wanted me to. I just didn't have the strength to do it. I finally told him, in terms that are probably best not used when addressing Deity, that if he wanted me to live the Christian life, I would do it, but I couldn't do it on my own strength. He'd have to do it through me. But if he would do it through me, I'd sure let him. I'd do my best not to let him down.
I had discovered, at fifteen years old, the biblical understanding of grace as synergy. Or as Paul puts in in the letter to the Philippians, "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, knowing that God works in you both to will and to do his God pleasure." And so, not surprisingly, by the mercy and grace of God, I have not turned away from that decision even nearly twenty years later. I surely have sinned since then. And I have had some brief periods of rebellion. But they have always been followed by heartfelt repentance as I continue to grow in the faith.
Shortly after this renewal of faith, my parents went through a difficult time in their marriage. As a high-school aged kid, I was both aware of things my parents tried to shield me from and also blinded by my loyalty to my parents to some of the issues around which their marital struggles revolved. This was a very dark time for me, especially having just begun to take seriously the faith in which I'd been baptized. But two things helped me bear up under these challenges.
I'm not sure how or why, but shortly after I'd been renewed in my faith, I began praying and reading the Scriptures every morning. It was immediately a habit. I never experienced the struggles most people go through in making a time of daily worship and Bible reading part of their faith practice. Of course, I've often missed days. And indeed, for most of the time I was in the Episcopal seminary, I didn't keep this habit (though I returned to it soon after I left the seminary). But it has nonetheless been a life-long habit all the years since.
By the providence of God, I had also made friends with a classmate, a year ahead of me in school, who went to an independent Bible church there in Bellingham. Through my going to church with him, and through our friendship with his family, my family (except for my father who was separated from us) also began to attend, though what the church taught about baptism and the Lord's Supper differed markedly from the teachings with which we'd been raised. But it was a church home, and one other very important factor marked my earliest months of rededication to Christ.
One of the most important aspects of the church life there at the parish was a strong discipling ministry that the high school youth group had. Young college age men, young fathers, as well as a few older men, all ensured that we young men (the girls and women were similarly matched up) were taught the basics of the faith and how to defend our beliefs in a world antagonistic to belief in the deity of Christ and his bodily resurrection from the dead. It was an important time. I saw people older than me but near enough to my own age who I could both respect and admire living out the faith fearlessly and boldly. These were adults who took their faith seriously and gave of their time to ground us young men and women in the faith.
My mother, of course, was quite concerned that I might be persuaded to accept doctrines foreign to what I'd been taught, or to reject them for other beliefs. But she need not have worried. Though there were clearly influences toward premillennial dispensational eschatology, and salvation without baptism, I was largely immune to these things because I was mostly indifferent to them. I was more taken with the fact of these leaders living the faith day in and day out, and that I could give a rational defense of my faith.
In a recent exchange over on Tripp's blog regarding servanthood and fatherhood, there's been an exploration regarding what Paul says in Ephesians 5 on the relationship between husbands and wives and what it means to submit. At one point, one respondent asked me "Where in the Gospels does it say that men and women are spiritually distinct?"
My post today is not about wives and husbands, but about this idea that the Gospels somehow trump the Epistles. There's an understanding that somehow the Gospels reinforce modern enlightened understandings (on marriage, sexuality, etc.), whereas the Epistles, especially the Pauline epistles, contradict in some way, the Jesus of love, inclusivity and tolerance.
Currently, for example, much is trotted out about the fact that nowhere does Jesus condemn homosexual behavior. In fact, nowhere, so the argument goes, does Jesus say anything about homosexual acts. The silence, then, is interpreted to mean that this Jesus who did away with the old Law--which, by the way, did condemn homosexual behavior in no uncertain terms--now frees us to engage in whatever sexual practices we desire, so long as they're consensual and monogamous.
But this fails to take into account one simple and important fact: the only sexual relationship Jesus did bless was the heterosexual union of a man and woman in marriage. Not only did Jesus uphold this standard, he blessed it with his presence at the wedding in Cana in Galilee. Furthermore, Jesus' holding up of the standard of lifelong heterosexual marriage is based explicitly on the Genesis creation account. In other words, Jesus understood that there was one way of holy sexual behavior, rooted in God's original design for the universe, and that this was the lifelong marriage of one man and one woman. This is something Jesus actually did say (as opposed to making guesses about what Jesus did not say), and in fact, not only is it what he did say, the very nature of what he said and his rooting it in the creation account, shows that it is the standard which does not allow any exception.
But this is only one example. My point is that the divorcing of Jesus from the Epistles is not somehow more authentic Christianity, but is frequently little more than remaking Jesus in our own image.
This Jesus is also the one who spoke about Church discipline and about treating the unrepentant Christian "as a tax collector and pagan" and gave to the Church the authority to bind and to loose (Matthew 18:15-20). But of course this text is often ignored in favor of the more winsome "He is a friend of tax collectors and sinners." We don't much emphasize Jesus' "Go and sin no more" since we'd rather hear "Neither do I condemn you."
David Mills, in his article, St. Paul the Eccentric, writes:
This is a now common problem in Western Christianity, Catholic and Protestant: the Christian who believes that Jesus of Nazareth is God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, and who also almost completely rejects the unfashionable teachings of the Bible found outside the four Gospels. As our society becomes more and more interested in "spirituality," we find more and more people talking in very traditional terms about Jesus while assuming that the Scripture in which he is revealed has nothing to say about any part of their lives they wish to keep to themselves.
These people in effect separate the Gospels they accept—partly because they have not read them closely—from the Epistles they reject. It is usually St. Paul whose words they reject. The other New Testament writers they usually ignore, perhaps because they did not say anything so offensive to modern ears as St. Paul’s instructions on men, women, and sexuality. They do not reject even Paul’s Epistles entirely, of course, as they accept those useful verses, most famously Galatians 3:28, that they can take out of context to support some view one suspects they already hold for other reasons.
Those who think this way often divide Jesus the gentle prophet of inclusive love (or however the favorite Jesus of the moment is described) from St. Paul the rule-maker, and sometimes also divide St. Paul the apostle of freedom from St. Paul the unreformed Pharisee. Sometimes they simply talk a lot about Jesus and pretend that St. Paul did not exist. The first tactic seems to have been the more popular some decades ago, while the latter seems now to be the more popular of the two. It is certainly shrewder to forget to invite St. Paul to the party than to invite him and then pick a fight with him in front of the guests.
The problem with all this anti-Paul, pro-Jesus, and anti-judging Jesus, pro-inclusive Jesus, is that Scripture is divided up according to the criteria of the reader. Certainly it's true that all Christians fail to live up to all the standards of Scripture. And it's also true that we tend to ignore those passages of Scripture that conflict with our worldview or cherished practices. But this conscious attempt to provide a rationale for excising one or another passage--usually by complicated interpretive methods that gut the text of any intrinsic meaning--is a different thing altogether. It is the willful subjection of Scripture to our own authority. We decide what's in and out, what applies and what doesn't. Rather than Scripture being a living active sword to divide joint and marrow, we are the swords dividing up Scripture to suit our tastes. We judge Scripture. It doesn't judge us.
To further complicate this divorcing of Paul and Jesus is just a plain historical fact: Paul's epistles were the earliest New Testament Scriptures the Church had, and Paul's epistles were beginning to be recognized as Scripture by the Church as early as the AD 60s* when Peter wrote: "our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures" (2 Peter 3:15-16). In other words, both on internal New Testament evidence, as well as evidence supplied by the earliest Christian writers, Paul's letters were understood to be of equal weight with the Old Testament Scriptures at a very early date, even within his lifetime.
Add to this the other fact that the Gospels were not written (at the earliest) till near the deaths of Peter and Paul (in the case of Mark), or until well after their deaths, as in the case of Luke, Matthew and John, and far from making a case for the more primitive authority of the Gospels, one is quite struck by the fact that the Episles held the earliest (chronologically) place of authority.
But of course, it is not my intent to place the Gospels over against the Epistles. At the same time that the Apostles, and Paul in particular, were handing on the Tradition Jesus had established, the oral pieces of what later became our canonical Gospels were also being circulated in the Church. In other words, the Gospels and the Epistles were equally authoritative both chronologically and pneumatologically. Neither can be divorced from the other. But most be understood together.
*Addendum: I recognize the dispute as to the authenticity of the Petrine authorship of this epistle, but following other NT scholars, I find the difficulties surrounding the assertion that 2 Peter is pseudepigrapha are far greater than the difficulties surrounding Petrine authorship. So a date of mid-60s seems to me to be the most reasonable conclusion, even if no theory entirely lays to rest its own difficulties and problems.
We're now into the Apostles' Fast, the variable-length fasting period between the Monday after All Saints (for Orthodoxy, the Sunday after Pentecost) and the feast of the Apostles, Peter and Paul, on 29 June. Our men's group at All Saints parish wanted to go out to a pub after our last meeting, which is today, but because of the fast, we did it last Sunday. While all the rest of America has been cranking up the grill and getting back into barbecue-form, the Orthodox take a few weeks off to discipline the body for the sake of the soul.
Pretty crazy, if you ask me.
I've been noticing how what once was a way of life for me, in terms of my religion and faith, I'm both becoming more conscious of and more annoyed by its evidence in my own life and that of the culture around me. I'm speaking, of course, about self-interest.
I came of age, faith-wise, in a conservative evangelical youth culture which on the one hand said, "It's not what you get out of worship, but what you give to it," but then spent a lot of energy and money catering to almost my every whim. Sermons were evaluated on the basis of what it did to me. This could range from being convicted of sin to being comforted, but the focus was on what happened inside me. My Protestant paradigm for spiritual growth was a continuous gauging of "where I was at" in terms of my faith walk. This evaluation was not usually done in conjunction with anyone else except me. I might use teachings that I had gotten from sermons, books and conferences to do that evaluation, but it was me evaluating myself. I might go for weeks without a sense of nearness to the Lord, and even if I remained steadfast in my Christian duties, this time of dryness was seen as a problem to be fixed. Maybe having more quiet times, listening to more Christian music, doing more Bible study. One could not rest until one once again felt close to God. How did one know that? By how one felt. (Conversely, one could be derelict in many of one's Christian duties, but so long as one felt close to the Lord, one's spiritual life was not deemed to be in any significant trouble.)
This, of course, was how I turned to Orthodoxy in the first place. I didn't like what I'd seen at the Episcopal seminary I was then going to, nor what was happening in the Episocpal Church at large, so when I sort of by happenstance began looking at Orthodoxy, I looked at it in terms of where it fit me and my preferences. It definitely had the "high church liturgy" that as an Anglo-Catholic leaning Episcopalian I liked. It definitely matched my theology more. And there was a certain sense of "being different" that Orthodoxy afforded me: I could stand out against mass churchianity.
How adolescent and self-absorbed!
But clearly I didn't know better. In fact, the first time I consciously remember that my me-centered religion wasn't going to fit very well into Orthodoxy was when I had received a reply from my now-parish-priest, Father Patrick with regard to my bellyaching about fitting my career goals in with being assigned a parish in Podunkville, Illinois. Father's reply was a single line: He wouldn't entertain any thoughts of going anywhere else than where his bishop sent him. There was no commiserating: "Oh, yes, Clifton, this must be a difficult challenge for you." Just: "What else do you expect?"
Then there was all the standing for Orthodox worship. I shuffled from foot-to-foot. I was continuously looking at my watch. I noted that the Antiochian prayerbook made rubrical provision for sitting at certain points in the service; why didn't this parish do that?
But perhaps the quintessential example of my trying to form Orthodoxy into my own image came in the arena of fasting. I would go to Father Patrick again and again and ask his advice with regard to strengthening the Advent or Lenten fasts. But I quickly learned that Father wasn't going to put any restrictions on my diet except for meatless Wednesdays and Fridays. "That's it?!" I asked myself. Ah, but I was wiser than Father Patrick and all of the Orthodox Church, I would add more rigor to these fasts. I would skip breakfast or lunch, or even plan to fast all of Holy Week, like the monks. Every time I would fail. Every time, Father Patrick would look at me gravely, knowing that though I meant well, this sort of autonomous authority was not good for my soul.
I have thoroughly enjoyed learning more about the Faith and Tradition of the Church. The more familiar I get with the Liturgy, the better are my private prayers. The more I invoke the saints' prayers, the more frequent are the Lord's blessings on us.
But when it comes to giving up the heresy and idolatry of the religion of Me, I've got a long way to go.
Father won't allow me to practice the Apostle's Fast--mainly for Anna and Sofie's sake. Anna is nursing and doesn't need to restrict her diet. Or at least that's the spoken reason. I'm beginning to see that by refusing me this sort of participation in the Church's askesis, Father is actually getting me to fast in the way that is really the whole point of it all: killing my old self-absorbed man, so that the new creation in Christ can be given room to grow.
President Bush met with religious leaders recently, and Christianity Today has compiled a complete transcript of the meeting in an online resource: Bush Calls for 'Culture Change'. Following is one excerpt.
And finally, I say to people all the time, "Thank you for your prayers." Something's happening in America. Although I'm not the perfect guy because the focus groups I tend to be in front of are loud, are large, and you know, pretty well made up their mind. But when I'm walking the rope line people say things different than they did four years ago.
The thing they say different now than four years ago is, "Mr. President, we pray for you." That happens a lot--at least from my perspective, what I'm able to see. When I'm shaking those hands, I bet you every other person or maybe every third person says, "Mr. President, my family prays for you."
It's not, you know, "Good luck, I hope you go tear down your opponent or go do this." It is, "My family prays for you." Now I admit I'm not spending a lot of time when I'm working the rope line. I can only tell you what I hear. And that is an incredibly sustaining part of the job of president. And people say--that's why I need Father Richard [Neuhaus] around more, he helps me articulate these things--I say, "It helps a lot." And people say, "Well how do you know?" I say, "Well if I have to explain it to you how I know then you can't possibly get it. I just know." And it matters a lot. It has made being the President of the United States a heck of a lot easier to be sustained by the prayers of the people and my own personal prayers.
Just as an aside from a personal perspective, if you're interested: I read Oswald Chambers every morning. To me, he is good. He helps me understand how far I am on my walk. I mean if you can figure out everything he's saying, then you got a depth of understanding of the gospel beyond the emotional. He's a great Christian writer. And then I'm reading a devotional by the former chaplain of the Senate, Lloyd Ogilvie. And next year I'll read the One-Year Bible again. I read it every other year and a half.
People say, "When do you pray?" I pray all the time. All the time. You don't need a chapel to pray I don't think. Whether it be in the Oval Office, I mean, you just do it. That's just me. I don't say that to try to get votes. I'm just sharing that experience with you.
Following are excerpts from the text of President Bush's tribute to Ronald Reagan
We lost Ronald Reagan only days ago but we have missed him for a long time. We have missed his kindly presence, that reassuring voice and the happy ending we had wished for him.
It has been 10 years since he said his own farewell, yet it is still very sad and hard to let him go. Ronald Reagan belongs to the ages now, but we preferred it when he belonged to us. . . .
Ronald Reagan believed that everything happens for a reason and that we should strive to know and do the will of God. He believed that the gentleman always does the kindest thing. He believed that people were basically good and had the right to be free. He believed that bigotry and prejudice were the worst things a person could be guilty of.
He believed in the golden rule and in the power of prayer. He believed that America was not just a place in the world, but the hope of the world. And he believed in taking a break now and then, because, as we said, there's nothing better for the inside of a man than the outside of a horse. . . .
Ronald Reagan's deepest beliefs never had much to do with fashion or convenience. His convictions were always politely stated, affably argued, and as firm and straight as the columns of this cathedral. . . .
He came to office with great hopes for America. And more than hopes. Like the president he had revered and once saw in person, Franklin Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan matched an optimistic temperament with bold, persistent action.
President Reagan was optimistic about the great promise of economic reform, and he acted to restore the rewards and spirit of enterprise. He was optimistic that a strong America could advance the peace, and he acted to build the strength that mission required.
He was optimistic that liberty would thrive wherever it was planted, and he acted to defend liberty wherever it was threatened. And Ronald Reagan believed in the power of truth in the conduct of world affairs. When he saw evil camped across the horizon he called that evil by its name.
There were no doubters in the prisons and gulags, where dissidents spread the news, tapping to each other in code what the American president had dared to say. There were no doubters in the shipyards and churches and secret labor meetings where brave men and women began to hear the creaking and rumbling of a collapsing empire. And there were no doubters among those who swung hammers at the hated wall that the first and hardest blow had been struck by President Ronald Reagan.
The ideology he opposed throughout his political life insisted that history was moved by impersonal tides and unalterable fates. Ronald Reagan believed instead in the courage and triumph of free men and we believe it all the more because we saw that courage in him.
As he showed what a president should be, he also showed us what a man should be.
Ronald Reagan carried himself, even in the most powerful office, with the decency and attention to small kindnesses that also define a good life. He was a courtly, gentle and considerate man, never known to slight or embarrass others. . . .
In the end, through his belief in our country and his love for our country, he became an enduring symbol of our country.
We think of the steady stride, that tilt of the head and snap of the salute, the big-screen smile, and the glint in his Irish eyes when a story came to mind.
We think of a man advancing in years with the sweetness and sincerity of a scout saying the pledge. We think of that grave expression that sometimes came over his face, the seriousness of a man angered by injustice and frightened by nothing.
We know, as he always said, that America's best days are ahead of us. But with Ronald Reagan's passing, some very fine days are behind us. And that is worth our tears.
Americans saw death approach Ronald Reagan twice, in a moment of violence and then in the years of departing light. He met both with courage and grace. In these trials, he showed how a man so enchanted by life can be at peace with life's end.
And where does that strength come from? Where is that courage learned? It is the faith of a boy who read the Bible with his mom. It is the faith of a man lying in an operating room who prayed for the one who shot him before he prayed for himself. It is the faith of a man with a fearful illness who waited on the Lord to call him home.
Now death has done all that death can do, and as Ronald Wilson Reagan goes his way, we are left with the joyful hope he shared. In his last years he saw through a glass darkly. Now he sees his savior face to face.
And we look for that fine day when we will see him again, all weariness gone, clear of mind, strong and sure and smiling again, and the sorrow of this parting gone forever.
May God bless Ronald Reagan and the country he loved.
Following are excerpts from the text of Margaret Thatcher's eulogy:
Ronald Reagan's life was rich not only in public achievement, but also in private happiness. Indeed, his public achievements were rooted in his private happiness. The great turning point of his life was his meeting and marriage with Nancy.
On that we have the plain testimony of a loving and grateful husband: `Nancy came along and saved my soul'. We share her grief today. But we also share her pride - and the grief and pride of Ronnie's children.
For the final years of his life, Ronnie's mind was clouded by illness. That cloud has now lifted. He is himself again - more himself than at any time on this earth. For we may be sure that the Big Fella Upstairs never forgets those who remember Him. And as the last journey of this faithful pilgrim took him beyond the sunset, and as heaven's morning broke, I like to think - in the words of Bunyan - that `all the trumpets sounded on the other side'.
We here still move in twilight. But we have one beacon to guide us that Ronald Reagan never had. We have his example. Let us give thanks today for a life that achieved so much for all of God's children."
Here is an extremely well-done tribute to Ronald Reagan from the Heritage Foundation: The Heritage Foundation Remembers Ronald Reagan.
A wealth of material well-worth your time.
In a previous post, I discussed the intercessions of St. John the Wonderworker, and how this saint was watching over my family and how through his prayers, God was caring for us.
Today I was offered the second part-time job for which I'd applied. I, of course, accepted.
To all those who had joined their prayers for us with those of the Theotokos and St. John, I offer our thanks.
Glory be to God!
If it's true that when it comes to prayer, there are no coincidences, then last night was very much an answer to prayer.
We experienced the first night in which neither Anna nor myself went to check on Sofie. We can't say for sure that Sofie slept through the night--though it seems like she did--but she never once woke enough to spend more than just a few moments crying.
When Sofie was first born, the adjustment to daytime wakefulness and nighttime sleeping was, for us firsttime parents, a brutal experience. I didn't know you could be so sleep-deprived and not lose your mind. But once Sofie's sleep rhythms resembled less a vampiric one and more a human one, the nighttime wakings and feedings were almost as regular as clockwork.
Then came the Christmas holidays. And while she stayed on her sleep cycle for most of our two weeks with family, by the time we returned home, things had begun to get out of sync. We were home five days, and then we went to San Diego for about a week. Then once we got home from San Diego, the very next day Anna and Sofie flew home to see Anna's brother, Delane. Then it was three weeks all day at the babysitter's, and so it went.
Needless to say, by February, Sofie had lost pretty much all semblance of a regular sleep pattern. Gone the eleven-one-three-thirty-five wakings, with naps at seven-thirty, ten, and one. When Sofie went to sleep, other than the six-thirty to eight-thirty window in the evening, was anybody's guess.
So we were getting pretty desparate. Neither of us could stomach the "let her cry it out" method, so Anna read up on a lot of stuff on childhood sleep. That of course, made us feel more guilty. Sofie was overtired, which only exacerbated the problem and slowed down cognitive development.
And with all the reading came umpteen methods of teaching Sofie to fall asleep. Everything from the Ferber (sp?) method to the "let her cry it out" method. And we tried all of them. None of them seemed to work. So we sort of morphed the "let her cry it out" method into the "let her cry it out whenever you can stand it and it doesn't feel like someone is pushing a large sword through your heart and the rest of the time do what your instincts tell you" method.
With that last method, we finally began to see some regular patterns, and some progress. We've gotten almost completely away from all nighttime feedings, and Sofie is only waking about twice during the night. Sometime around one, and then again somewhere in the window of three-thirty to five-thirty. And her naps were much more regular. A morning nap sometime about an hour and a half to two hours after she wakes. A mid-day nap. And a nap near three in the afternoon.
So we come to last night.
Sofie was on a tear. She hadn't slept very well the previous night, and her daytime naps were almost non-existent. Her last semblance of a nap had been at two. When we tried to feed her supper at her normal time, she fought me every step of the way. Temper tantrums came in steady outbursts. So we threw in the towel. Foregone was the nighttime bath, the rubdown with lotion, the story, even the Lord's Prayer. It was: change the diaper, get a onesie on her, and put her down.
But while I was changing her diaper, I said to Anna, "Honey, bring me the holy water from the icon shelf. I'm going to anoint Sofie with it." Anna did so, and I poured a bit on Sofie's head. My prayers were something of a combination of ad hoc liturgy and extemporaneous arrow prayers. "By Thy baptism in the Jordan, O Lord, Thou didst sanctify the waters of the earth. I anoint Sofie with this water, for her wholeness of body and soul. Grant her peaceful rest this night, and heal her of her infirmities." And: "O Lord, I commend to You the body and soul of Sofie, do Thou bless her, have mercy on her and grant her life eternal." With: "Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for my daughter Sofie so that she will get the rest and sleep she needs this night." I then lay Sofie on her back (on the changing table where I had been changing her) so I could close the bottle of holy water. I signed the cross on her forehead and prayed, "The Lord bless you and keep you, make His face shine upon you and grant you peace."
Okay, so a liturgist I'm not, and my memory of the Church's prayers is a bit sketchy at best. But if the key to effective prayer is a cry from the heart, then I had a ringful of them. We really needed Sofie to sleep!
Well, Anna nursed her and put her down. And she cried for half-an-hour. It was heart-wrenching, of course, as it always is. Just when you think you've begun to get a bit hardened to the cries and the hiccoughing, your little daughter starts to babble. And add words like "Babaa bo yie ma dee" to some crying, or to hear sobbing that comes out "Yie ya yee ya ya"--well, that's the red-hot sword through the heart bit. I tear up even now recalling that.
But after a half hour Sofie went to sleep. I was awake till midnight, and heard her cry twice, but neither time for more than a few seconds.
Anna went to bed early, about seven-thirty. She was one exhausted momma! But as you can guess, since Anna didn't hear anything from the nursery, she was awake just about every hour on the hour, listening. And then, at five-thirty, when she hadn't heard Sofie wake at her normal time, she went back to check on her . . . and woke her up.
But as I type this, Sofie has been cheerfully babbling and playing. She's clearly rested.
And we are grateful to God and the Theotokos for answers to prayers.
Excerpts from Ronald Reagan's Farewell Address:
This is the 34th time I'll speak to you from the Oval Office and the last. We've been together eight years now, and soon it'll be time for me to go. But before I do, I wanted to share some thoughts, some of which I've been saving for a long time.
It's been the honor of my life to be your president. So many of you have written the past few weeks to say thanks, but I could say as much to you. Nancy and I are grateful for the opportunity you gave us to serve. . . .
I've been asked if I have any regrets. Well, I do. The deficit is one. I've been talking a great deal about that lately, but tonight isn't for arguments. And I'm going to hold my tongue. But an observation: I've had my share of victories in the Congress, but what few people noticed is that I never won anything you didn't win for me. They never saw my troops, they never saw Reagan's regiments, the American people. You won every battle with every call you made and letter you wrote demanding action. Well, action is still needed. If we're to finish the job, Reagan's regiments will have to become the Bush brigades. Soon he'll be the chief, and he'll need you every bit as much as I did. Finally, there is a great tradition of warnings in presidential farewells, and I've got one that's been on my mind for some time. But oddly enough it starts with one of the things I'm proudest of in the past eight years: the resurgence of national pride that I called the new patriotism. This national feeling is good, but it won't count for much, and it won't last unless it's grounded in thoughtfulness and knowledge.
An informed patriotism is what we want. And are we doing a good enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world? Those of us who are over 35 or so years of age grew up in a different America. We were taught, very directly, what it means to be an American. And we absorbed, almost in the air, a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions. If you didn't get these things from your family, you got them from the neighborhood, from the father down the street who fought in Korea or the family who lost someone at Anzio. Or you could get a sense of patriotism from school. And if all else failed, you could get a sense of patriotism from popular culture. The movies celebrated democratic values and implicitly reinforced the idea that America was special. TV was like that, too, through the mid-'60s.
But now, we're about to enter the '90s, and some things have changed. Younger parents aren't sure that an unambivalent appreciation of America is the right thing to teach modern children. And as for those who create the popular culture, well-grounded patriotism is no longer the style. Our spirit is back, but we haven't reinstitutionalized it. We've got to do a better job of getting across that America is freedom--freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise. And freedom is special and rare. It's fragile; it needs protection. . . .
And that's about all I have to say tonight. Except for one thng. The past few days when I've been at that window upstairs, I've thought a bit of the "shining city upon a hill." The phrase comes from John Winthrop, who wrote it to describe the America he imagined. What he imagined was important because he was an early Pilgrim, an early freedom man. He journeyed here on what today we'd call a little wooden boat; and like the other Pilgrims, he was looking for a home that would be free.
I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace, a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity, and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it and see it still.
And how stands the city on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure, and happier than it was eight years ago. But more than that; after 200 years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she's still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home.
We've done our part. And as I walk off into the city streets, a final word to the men and women of the Reagan revolution, the men and women across America who for eight years did the work that brought America back. My friends: We did it. We weren't just marking time. We made a difference. We made the city stronger. We made the city freer, and we left her in good hands. All in all, not bad, not bad at all.
And so, good-bye, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.
I post here for your perusal several links to articles critically examining the arguments surrounding women's ordination. (Props to David Mills & Co. at Touchstone)
Rev. Dr Rodney A. Whitacre, The Biblical Vision Regarding Women's Ordination
Stephen B. Clark, Man and Woman in Christ
E. L. Mascall, Women priests
And the Episcopal priest at Pontifications has written, Catholicity or female priests? Must the choice be made?
(I also commend to you, because God language is so often brought into these discussions, another of the Pontificator's writings: I love my Mom, but I don't want her to be my God)
Excerpts from Ronald Reagan's Second Inaugural Address:
My fellow citizens, our nation is poised for greatness. We must do what we know is right, and do it with all our might. Let history say of us: "These were golden years--when the American Revolution was reborn, when freedom gained new life, and America reached for her best." . . .
At the heart of our efforts is one idea vindicated by 25 straight months of economic growth: Freedom and incentives unleash the drive and entrepreneurial genius that are the core of human progress. We have begun to increase the rewards for work, savings, and investment; reduce the increase in the cost and size of government and its interference in people's lives. We must simplify our tax system, make it more fair and bring the rates down for all who work and earn. We must think anew and move with a new boldness, so every American who seeks work can find work, so the least among us shall have an equal chance to achieve the greatest things--to be heroes who heal our sick, feed the hungry, protect peace among nations, and leave this world a better place.
The time has come for a new American emancipation--a great national drive to tear down economic barriers and liberate the spirit of enterprise in the most distressed areas of our country. My friends, together we can do this, and do it we must, so help me God.
From new freedom will spring new opportunities for growth, a more productive, fulfilled, and united people, and a stronger America--an America that will lead the technological revolution and also open its mind and heart and soul to the treasures of literature, music, and poetry, and the values of faith, courage, and love. . . .
Today, we utter no prayer more fervently than the ancient prayer for peace on Earth. Yet history has shown that peace does not come, nor will our freedom be preserved, by good will alone. There are those in the world who scorn our vision of human dignity and freedom. One nation, the Soviet Union, has conducted the greatest military buildup in the history of man, building arsenals of awesome offensive weapons.
We've made progress in restoring our defense capability. But much remains to be done. There must be no wavering by us, nor any doubts by others, that America will meet her responsibilities to remain free, secure, and at peace. There is only one way safely and legitimately to reduce the cost of national security, and that is to reduce the need for it. And this we're trying to do in negotiations with the Soviet Union. We're not just discussing limits on a further increase of nuclear weapons; we seek, instead, to reduce their number. We seek the total elimination one day of nuclear weapons from the face of the Earth.
Now, for decades, we and the Soviets have lived under the threat of mutual assured destruction--if either resorted to the use of nuclear weapons, the other could retaliate and destroy the one who had started it. Is there either logic or morality in believing that if one side threatens to kill tens of millions of our people our only recourse is to threaten killing tens of millions of theirs?
I have approved a research program to find, if we can, a security shield that will destroy nuclear missiles before they reach their target. It wouldn't kill people; it would destroy weapons. It wouldn't militarize space; it would help demilitarize the arsenals of Earth. It would render nuclear weapons obsolete. We will meet with the Soviets, hoping that we can agree on a way to rid the world of the threat of nuclear destruction. We strive for peace and security, heartened by the changes all around us. Since the turn of the century, the number of democracies in the world has grown fourfold. Human freedom is on the march, and nowhere more so than in our own hemisphere. Freedom is one of the deepest and noblest aspirations of the human spirit. People, worldwide, hunger for the right of self-determination, for those inalienable rights that make for human dignity and progress.
America must remain freedom's staunchest friend, for freedom is our best ally and it is the world's only hope to conquer poverty and preserve peace. Every blow we inflict against poverty will be a blow against its dark allies of oppression and war. Every victory for human freedom will be a victory for world peace.
So, we go forward today, a nation still mighty in its youth and powerful in its purpose. With our alliances strengthened, with our economy leading the world to a new age of economic expansion, we look to a future rich in possibilities. And all of this is because we worked and acted together, not as members of political parties but as Americans.
My friends, we live in a world that's lit by lightning. So much is changing and will change, but so much endures and transcends time.
History is a ribbon, always unfurling. History is a journey. And as we continue our journey, we think of those who traveled before us. We stand again at the steps of this symbol of our democracy--well, we would have been standing at the steps if it hadn't gotten so cold. [Laughter] Now we're standing inside this symbol of our democracy, and we see and hear again the echoes of our past: a general falls to his knees in the hard snow of Valley Forge; a lonely President paces the darkened halls and ponders his struggle to preserve the Union; the men of the Alamo call out encouragement to each other; a settler pushes west and sings a song, and the song echoes out forever and fills the unknowing air. It is the American sound. It is hopeful, big-hearted, idealistic, daring, decent, and fair. That's our heritage, that's our song. We sing it still. For all our problems, our differences, we are together as of old. We raise our voices to the God who is the author of this most tender music. And may He continue to hold us close as we fill the world with our sound--in unity, affection, and love--one people under God, dedicated to the dream of freedom that He has placed in the human heart, called upon now to pass that dream on to a waiting and hopeful world.
God bless you, and God bless America.
[Note: I have written of my journey to Antioch, still very much under way. But my account of my attraction to and movement toward Orthodoxy is only the last of a trilogy, which includes an account of my childhood and early adulthood in the Restoration Movement church (this present series), and an account of my attraction to the Anglican tradition and my confirmation in the Episcopal Church. These three sets of autobiographical essays were originally conceived during the summer of 2000. I was then extremely disillusioned with the Episcopal Church, after having had one term at seminary, was looking into Orthodoxy, and wanted to come to some sense of assessment in all this. I wanted to understand whence I had come, what then preoccupied me, and reflect on where I might find myself. The three separate essays were written within several months, and they've seen many revisions since then. This is the first part of the account of my Restoration Movement heritage.]
Early Childhood
I was born at 11:09 am, Thursday morning, 21 September 1967 in Wichita, Kansas. I was born a few weeks premature. My dad was working out in the field on my grandpa's farm when my mom went into labor, and they had to race to get him in a world before cellphones. At birth I had some breathing problems, so I remained in the hospital for several days. But soon I was brought to a loving Christian home.
Much of my early childhood I remember only in fragments. I have memories of church and Sunday school, of Vacation Bible School, and listening to my parents or one of my relatives reading the account of Jesus' birth from Luke's Gospel every Christmas Eve. I remember prayers over dinner and memorizing Bible verses. From things my aunts and uncles tell me, I was an avid reader of the Bible. But I don't remember much of this, except for a children's New Testament I received from my maternal grandparents. But it wasn't till I was about seven years old that I had any real conscious memories of prayer and relating to God personally.
When I was seven, over the Christmas school holidays, I one night lay awake waiting to go to sleep. I'm not sure what prompted the thought, but I distinctly recall the words "You should be baptized" coming to my attention. I lay there thinking about them a little further. I thought that God had spoken to me, so I shortly thereafter went into my parents' bedroom and told them I wanted to be baptized. My grandfather, who was then a minister, came to visit and questioned me to make sure I understood, as much as a seven year old could, what I was doing. I must have satisfied him, so in January 1975 during a Sunday morning worship service at Countryside Christian Church, Grandpa baptized me in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit for the remission of my sins and that I might receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
My life after baptism was the same as any other Midwestern kid raised in the mid- to late-seventies. I prayed. I went to church most Sundays. I tried to live within the moral framework my parents and church had set for me. There were summers at church camp, Little League baseball. I read the Bible and other Christian books. I memorized Bible verses. I was taught what our churches believed.
The Stone-Campbell/Restoration Movement churches
I was raised in, and spent most of my adult life in the Stone-Campbell movement churches, sometimes called the Restoration Movement churches. Historically, these churches arose out of primitivist and revivalist Christian movements in the early nineteenth century. These revivalist happenings are known as the Second Awakening (following on the first Great Awakening in New England in the eighteenth century), and one of the greatest of these revivals occurred at Cane Ridge, Kentucky, home to Barton W. Stone, a one-time Presbyterian minister, one of the early founders of the movement. At that revival a great ecumenical work was done as Baptist, Methodist and Presbyterian ministers, some thirty or forty or so, ministered in unity to the thousands that came to the revival. Cane Ridge is considered, by many Restorationists, to be the incipient event launching the Restoration movement.
The other family involved in the founding of the Stone-Campbell movement was Thomas Campbell and his son, Alexander, from Scotland, also Presbyterians. Barton W. Stone has often been noted as being the great catalyst toward unity in the movement. The more philosophically inclined Campbells, Alexander in particular, lent the movement its other emphasis on purity of doctrine based on Scripture alone.
For the first three decades or so of the movement, it was much more a loose association of various groups who agreed on the twin foci of unity and sola scriptura. Something more like a parachurch organization, the association soon found themselves unwanted as they pressed their home churches to forego creeds and confessions, perceiving them to be instruments of division, for the simplicity and purity of doctrine arising from a singular consideration of Scripture. Seemingly unable to work this "second reformation" from within the existing churches, the association eventually formed their own group of churches and called themselves the Disciples of Christ.
The balance of emphases on unity and doctrinal purity was a hard one to maintain. Soon even within the Disciples there was a major hermeneutical difference that centered on the use of instrumental music in worship. The more Southern branch of the movement asserted that since the New Testament didn't explicitly command or allow the use of instruments in worship, then their use was forbidden. The other northern churches in the movement asserted that silence was not prohibition, but rather could be seen in this instance as freedom. If instrumental music were not explicitly condemned, then as it did not violate any other clear command of Scripture, musical instruments could well be used. In the years following the Civil War, these more conservative a capella churches split from their northern neighbors and became known as the a capella churches of Christ. Though ostensibly about worship practices and biblical interpretive methods, clearly sociological differences exacerbated the tensions as well. The non-a capella group continued to call themselves the Disciples of Christ.
In the twentieth century, the Disciples of Christ were not immune to the battles over theological liberalism that raged through most American denominations. The more conservative group resisted this trend by establishing Bible colleges and eschewing many of the institutions of higher learning. But when some of the Disciples wanted to form their own denomination, the more conservative group utilized it as a catalyst for the enjoined struggle. Eventually, the more conservative group split away as the Disciples formed their own denomination. The conservative churches generally called themselves the independent (as in non-denominational) Christian churches and churches of Christ. These, together with the a capella churches are what are generally referred to when use is made of the phrase "Restoration Movement churches."
Excerpts from Ronald Reagan's First Inaugural Address:
In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. From time to time we've been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else? All of us together, in and out of government, must bear the burden. The solutions we seek must be equitable, with no one group singled out to pay a higher price.
We hear much of special interest groups. Well, our concern must be for a special interest group that has been too long neglected. It knows no sectional boundaries or ethnic and racial divisions, and it crosses political party lines. It is made up of men and women who raise our food, patrol our streets, man our mines and factories, teach our children, keep our homes, and heal us when we're sick--professionals, industrialists, shopkeepers, clerks, cabbies, and truck drivers. They are, in short, "we the people," this breed called Americans. . . .
It is no coincidence that our present troubles parallel and are proportionate to the intervention and intrusion in our lives that result from unnecessary and excessive growth of government. It is time for us to realize that we're too great a nation to limit ourselves to small dreams. We're not, as some would have us believe, doomed to an inevitable decline. I do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing. So, with all the creative energy at our command, let us begin an era of national renewal. Let us renew our determination, our courage, and our strength. And let us renew our faith and our hope.
We have every right to dream heroic dreams. Those who say that we're in a time when there are no heroes, they just don't know where to look. You can see heroes every day going in and out of factory gates. Others, a handful in number, produce enough food to feed all of us and then the world beyond. You meet heroes across a counter, and they're on both sides of that counter. There are entrepreneurs with faith in themselves and faith in an idea who create new jobs, new wealth and opportunity. They're individuals and families whose taxes support the government and whose voluntary gifts support church, charity, culture, art, and education. Their patriotism is quiet, but deep. Their values sustain our national life.
Now, I have used the words "they" and "their" in speaking of these heroes. I could say "you" and "your," because I'm addressing the heroes of whom I speak--you, the citizens of this blessed land. Your dreams, your hopes, your goals are going to be the dreams, the hopes, and the goals of this administration, so help me God.
We shall reflect the compassion that is so much a part of your makeup. How can we love our country and not love our countrymen; and loving them, reach out a hand when they fall, heal them when they're sick, and provide opportunity to make them self-sufficient so they will be equal in fact and not just in theory?
Can we solve the problems confronting us? Well, the answer is an unequivocal and emphatic "yes." To paraphrase Winston Churchill, I did not take the oath I've just taken with the intention of presiding over the dissolution of the world's strongest economy. . . .
On the eve of our struggle for independence a man who might have been one of the greatest among the Founding Fathers, Dr. Joseph Warren, president of the Massachusetts Congress, said to his fellow Americans, "Our country is in danger, but not to be despaired of . . . On you depend the fortunes of America. You are to decide the important questions upon which rests the happiness and the liberty of millions yet unborn. Act worthy of yourselves." Well, I believe we, the Americans of today, are ready to act worthy of ourselves, ready to do what must be done to ensure happiness and liberty for ourselves, our children, and our children's children. And as we renew ourselves here in our own land, we will be seen as having greater strength throughout the world. We will again be the exemplar of freedom and a beacon of hope for those who do not now have freedom. . . .
Beyond those monuments to heroism is the Potomac River, and on the far shore the sloping hills of Arlington National Cemetery, with its row upon row of simple white markers bearing crosses of Stars of David. They add up to only a tiny fraction of the price that has been paid for our freedom. Each one of those markers is a monument to the kind of hero I spoke of earlier. Their lives ended in places called Belleau Wood, the Argonne, Omaha Beach, Salerno, and halfway around the world on Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Pork Chop Hill, the Chosin Reservoir, and in a hundred rice paddies and jungles of a place called Vietnam.
Under one such marker lies a young man, Martin Treptow, who left his job in a small town barbershop in 1917 to go to France with the famed Rainbow Division. There, on the western front, he was killed trying to carry a message between battalions under heavy artillery fire.
We're told that on his body was found a diary. On the flyleaf under the heading "My Pledge," he had written these words: "America must win this war. Therefore I will work, I will save, I will sacrifice, I will endure, I will fight cheerfully and do my utmost, as if the issue of the whole struggle depended on me alone."
The crisis we are facing today does not require of us the kind of sacrifice that Martin Treptow and so many thousands of others were called upon to make. It does require, however, our best effort and our willingness to believe in ourselves and to believe in our capacity to perform great deeds, to believe that together with God's help we can and will resolve the problems which now confront us.
And after all, why shouldn't we believe that? We are Americans.
God bless you, and thank you.
It's time to take stock once more of the developments of the last few months. The last entry in the series, brought things up to mid-March (although I added this mid-April post summarizing our activities during the Triduum and Pascha, since that was also a significant step along the journey toward Orthodoxy). At that point, the Healy's as a family were going regularly to Sunday Liturgy, Anna had gotten involved in the moms-and-tots group, and I was reading St. Theophan the Recluse's The Spiritual Life with some of the men of the parish.
And in the last few weeks, I've been granted some significant glimpses of Anna's journey.
In the last month, Anna and I have decided that Sunday Liturgy was not enough. I mentioned to Anna that we should also go to either the Wednesday Vespers service, or the one on Saturday, and any of the major feast days. She agreed. But while I suggested only one of the two Vespers service, she decided on her own that we should go to all the services each week. So we have done so. It's been great. Anna's been exposed to more Orthodox worship and teaching--and she gets the added bonus of deeper connections with the women of the parish.
Back on 18 May, I noted how one of the prayers of St. John the Wonder-worker for us had been answered. At the time, I had blurted out to Sofie and Anna, "See the saints do pray for us!" Anna remarked later that the thought of praying to the saints just "sort of creeped her out."
However, only a couple of weeks later, riding home from a Memorial Day gathering, we talked again about the saints and prayers. I had in the previous week made mention to Anna that I wanted to obtain an icon of St. Michael the Archangel to have blessed and put outside our front door. On the ride home from the celebrations, she asked me about how large was the icon I had in mind. I told her. She then asked me who the patron saint of fertility was. I told her I didn't know. She replied that I should find out, we should get the icon, have it blessed, and send it to our friends--themselves traditional Christians--who are trying to conceive. From "sort of creeped out" to "let's get an icon of the patron saint of fertility" in a couple of weeks.
Also recently, there have been some things I've noticed, though I've not approached Anna about them. Coming home from work one afternoon, Anna and Sofie were taking a nap, so I decided to sit down at the computer and check email. Anna had left open the browser she'd been using to surf the web. The last site she'd viewed was Traditional Byzantine Iconography. (This past week in the Liturgy, she said to me that according to what she'd read on the web, the blessing of an icon was redundant, since all sorts of holy preparations and prayers of blessing go into the making of an icon. I cocked an eyebrow and said, "Oh, well, we'll have them blessed anyway." Besides, I didn't know if this applied to reproductions of icons pasted on wood--which is the only sort of icon we have at home, and can afford, anyway.)
I also noticed that after the last moms-and-tots group, she'd come home with a Conciliar Press pamphlet on infant baptism. This was apparently something she'd wandered into the nave and over to the tract rack to pick up (though she may have gotten a copy of it from Khouria). Sofie's baptism is something we've discussed before, and something to which she is open. Though the last time we talked, she wasn't convinced of its practice. Perhaps that is changing.
This last item I am about to note, however, I did not, myself, witness, but was told it by Father when I met with him last week. That same day of the moms-and-tots meeting, he'd come into the church (to, I presume, pray the hours). He told me that he noticed Anna kneeling in prayer before the Royal Doors. She was alone, and apparently unaware that Father was there. I have no idea for what Anna was praying--healing for her brother, the ability to conceive a healthy child for our friends, adequate income to pay our bills, wisdom for us to know when to conceive our next child, the truth of Orthodoxy? And while Anna is a deeply faithful woman, she's not given to kneeling as a bodily posture for prayer.
So the Holy Trinity is working in the Healy family both in ways I can see and in unseen ways. Though part of me wants very much to talk to Anna about all these things, by the same token, given my ham-handedness in dealing with delicate matters I am holding off lest I snuff out a smouldering wick. Anna is very honest and forthright. She won't hesitate to ask me questions when she's ready. But I suspect that Khouria will be the one to help my wife with her particular journey.
Still, that image of Anna praying before the Royal Doors, much as our holy mother Hannah did in the tabernacle, is one that will live in my imagination.
Here are excerpts from Ronald Reagan's Speech on the 40th Anniversary of D-Day (Point du Hoc):
The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next. It was the deep knowledge--and pray God we have not lost it--that there is a profound, moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt.
You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One's country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man. All of you loved liberty. All of you were willing to fight tyranny, and you knew the people of your countries were behind you.
The Americans who fought here that morning knew word of the invasion was spreading through the darkness back home. They thought--or felt in their hearts, though they couldn't know in fact, that in Georgia they were filling the churches at 4 a.m., in Kansas they were kneeling on their porches and praying, and in Philadelphia they were ringing the Liberty Bell.
Something else helped the men of D-Day: their rock-hard belief that Providence would have a great hand in the events that would unfold here; that God was an ally in this great cause. And so, the night before the invasion, when Colonel Wolverton asked his parachute troops to kneel with him in prayer he told them: Do not bow your heads, but look up so you can see God and ask His blessing in what we're about to do. Also that night, General Matthew Ridgway on his cot, listening in the darkness for the promise God made to Joshua: "I will not fail thee nor forsake thee.''
A Continuation
Back in December, I wrapped up a series of posts reflecting on why it was that Orthodoxy drew me. I listed several reasons: from the Orthodox Church's honoring of the past and her respecting the present to the historical validity of her claims, from the unity of Church and home in her belief and practice to the fullness of her faith, and her consistency of theology and objective and existential worship and askesis. In continuing to reflect on why it is that the Orthodox Church is now what I consider to be the end of my spiritual pilgrimage, as well as its beginning, I have decided to add another post on the theme "Why Orthodoxy?"
All of the factors I reflected on through last autumn still remain true. These are things about Orthodoxy that got me turned toward her beauty, and which still keep me focused on her. One of those was the objectivity of Orthodox worship. By that, I meant (and mean) that the focus of worship in the Orthodox Church is the Holy Trinity, not me. No one is going to ask me if I'm comfortable with the service. The Liturgy is not going to be tailored to me predilections. Rather than the obsequiousness of "relevancy" Orthodoxy offers instead the pearl of great price. The Orthodox Church offers Christianity straight. The Orthodox Church says, in effect, "You're dying. You have a choice. Here is life if you want it."
But the effect of this seeming indifference to my "needs" serves a greater end. It serves first to wean me of self-interest. And it is on this end that I want to focus today.
In the last several months, especially through this Great Lent just ended, the difference of the Orthodox Church compared to the Restoration Movement churches of my heritage and the Episcopal Church in which I was confirmed, has become ever more clear to me, on just this very point. The Orthodox Church tells me where is eternal life--just as did the Restoration Movement churches and the Episcopal parishes of which I've been a part. The Orthodox Church tells me what it is I must know about eternal life--so, too, did the Restoration Movement churches and those Anglican parishes I experienced. But the Orthodox Church also tells me how to get there and of what use are the things I know.
Let me try to put it this way. In the Restoration Movement churches, I was told the Gospel. Holiness of life was demanded of me. I was given the Truth to know and a model and paradigm, in Jesus, for living a life of faithful holiness. But that was it. I was not told how to become holy. It was emphasized again and again that my being made holy was an act of grace with which I must cooperate (as per Philippians 2:12-13). But how to resist the urges of lust, hate, anger, jealousy and envy, and all the fruit of sin in my life was not a part of my learning.
In the Episcopal Church, I heard similar messages of truth and grace. And the Episcopal Church offered me further clues. There were the sacraments, especially that of Confession and the Eucharist. I was told that these mysteries were essential for growth in Christian virtue. But not only was I not told how to resist the flesh, nor how to connect the Mysteries with this ascetical struggle, but save for the sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion, there was no consistent practice, no necessity, among the whole of the parish regarding these matters, nor was any demand made on the parish as a whole relative to the use of the "lesser mysteries." In short, my struggle against the flesh, though it was grounded in the mysteries of the Church as a whole, was a single, solitary one, unsupported by the wider parish life.
In short, my exeperience among the Christian churches of my past is that Faith is mostly about the intellect and the assent we give to right doctrine, and the struggle against the flesh was essentially moralistic, a set of guidelines and principles to follow in general.
Orthodoxy, I have discovered, offers the fulfillment of what I have been missing from my previous experiences. There is Truth, right doctrine, principes and moral guidelines, to be sure. There is the exhortation to struggle and to rely wholly on God's grace. But what Orthodoxy has that the others lack, is a "science," as it were, of warfare against the flesh.
Through the writings of St. Theophan the Recluse (The Spiritual Life and How to Be Attuned to It, which I've been reading with several of the men of our parish, and The Path to Salvation, which has been my Lenten reading), who himself passed on the Church's two-thousand-year-old wisdom, I have come to a greater understanding of how the sinful nature works, and the temptations wrought in and through it, as well as how to fight against the temptations it brings and which come through it. I better understand how it is that I am attacked first in the realm of thoughts--and thus the necessity for ortho (right) doxy (thinking)--but also that due to habitual sins, the path from thought to desire to intention is so well worn that many times the temptation must be attacked right at the cusp of the action of the will.
I better know how it is that the life of Orthodox Faith must be lived in the heart, and how to pray from the heart. All my praying, or most of it at any rate, has been either located in my skull, or wholly seated in the emotions. I have never, or at least only extremely rarely, known what it is to pray from the center of my being, where are joined head, body, emotions and will. But since pursuing Orthodoxy, this prayer of the heart, though still rare due to my stubborn refusal to let go of myself, is more often experienced.
And none of this is done in a corner. All of this warfare is one communal event. It is evident in the Liturgy and the hymnody of the Church. It is evident in the fasting of the Church--and today we start the Apostles' Fast lasting till the 29th of this month when we celebrate the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul. It is evident in the semi-public nature of Confession, as at each Vespers service, a handful of parishioners, both before and after the service, stand with the priest before the icon of Christ, in full view of the worshippers (though not within their hearing).
I have longed all my Christian life for a time-tested way to grow in the Christian virtues, the fruit of the Spirit. God, in his grace, has blessed my bumbling efforst. But how frustrating it has been to always be so hit and miss. I now have two weapons with which to fight the world, the flesh and the devil: a "manual" as it were of the writings of the Fathers and the wisdom of a spiritual father, and a community who knows that the struggle is lifelong and that we all are warriors in this fight.
I am now at a point of great responsibility. With greater knowledge comes greater obligation. But I welcome the higher standard, because with it comes greater hope of victory, and the promise of fulfillment in that Day.
On 23 August 1984, President Reagan spoke to an ecumenical prayer breakfast in Dallas, Texas.
I believe that faith and religion play a critical role in the political life of our nation -- and always has -- and that the church -- and by that I mean all churches, all denominations -- has had a strong influence on the state. And this has worked to our benefit as a nation.
Those who created our country -- the Founding Fathers and Mothers -- understood that there is a divine order which transcends the human order. They saw the state, in fact, as a form of moral order and felt that the bedrock of moral order is religion.
The Mayflower Compact began with the words, ``In the name of God, amen.'' The Declaration of Independence appeals to ``Nature's God'' and the ``Creator'' and ``the Supreme Judge of the world.'' Congress was given a chaplain, and the oaths of office are oaths before God.
James Madison in the Federalist Papers admitted that in the creation of our Republic he perceived the hand of the Almighty. John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, warned that we must never forget the God from whom our blessings flowed.
George Washington referred to religion's profound and unsurpassed place in the heart of our nation quite directly in his Farewell Address in 1796. Seven years earlier, France had erected a government that was intended to be purely secular. This new government would be grounded on reason rather than the law of God. By 1796 the French Revolution had known the Reign of Terror. . . .
In 1962 the Supreme Court in the New York prayer case banned the compulsory saying of prayers. In 1963 the Court banned the reading of the Bible in our public schools. From that point on, the courts pushed the meaning of the ruling ever outward, so that now our children are not allowed voluntary prayer. We even had to pass a law -- we passed a special law in the Congress just a few weeks ago to allow student prayer groups the same access to schoolrooms after classes that a young Marxist society, for example, would already enjoy with no opposition.
The 1962 decision opened the way to a flood of similar suits. Once religion had been made vulnerable, a series of assaults were made in one court after another, on one issue after another. Cases were started to argue against tax-exempt status for churches. Suits were brought to abolish the words ``under God'' from the Pledge of Allegiance and to remove ``In God We Trust'' from public documents and from our currency.
Today there are those who are fighting to make sure voluntary prayer is not returned to the classrooms. And the frustrating thing for the great majority of Americans who support and understand the special importance of religion in the national life -- the frustrating thing is that those who are attacking religion claim they are doing it in the name of tolerance, freedom, and openmindedness. Question: Isn't the real truth that they are intolerant of religion? [Applause] They refuse to tolerate its importance in our lives.
If all the children of our country studied together all of the many religions in our country, wouldn't they learn greater tolerance of each other's beliefs? If children prayed together, would they not understand what they have in common, and would this not, indeed, bring them closer, and is this not to be desired? So, I submit to you that those who claim to be fighting for tolerance on this issue may not be tolerant at all. . . .
There are, these days, many questions on which religious leaders are obliged to offer their moral and theological guidance, and such guidance is a good and necessary thing. To know how a church and its members feel on a public issue expands the parameters of debate. It does not narrow the debate; it expands it.
The truth is, politics and morality are inseparable. And as morality's foundation is religion, religion and politics are necessarily related. We need religion as a guide. We need it because we are imperfect, and our government needs the church, because only those humble enough to admit they're sinners can bring to democracy the tolerance it requires in order to survive.
A state is nothing more than a reflection of its citizens; the more decent the citizens, the more decent the state. If you practice a religion, whether you're Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, or guided by some other faith, then your private life will be influenced by a sense of moral obligation, and so, too, will your public life. One affects the other. The churches of America do not exist by the grace of the state; the churches of America are not mere citizens of the state. The churches of America exist apart; they have their own vantage point, their own authority. Religion is its own realm; it makes its own claims.
We establish no religion in this country, nor will we ever. We command no worship. We mandate no belief. But we poison our society when we remove its theological underpinnings. We court corruption when we leave it bereft of belief. All are free to believe or not believe; all are free to practice a faith or not. But those who believe must be free to speak of and act on their belief, to apply moral teaching to public questions. . . .
Without God, there is no virtue, because there's no prompting of the conscience. Without God, we're mired in the material, that flat world that tells us only what the senses perceive. Without God, there is a coarsening of the society. And without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure. If we ever forget that we're one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under.
[The Quicktime mp3 audio file is here.]
"Abortion is advocated only by persons who themselves have been born."
--Ronald Reagan, Fortieth President of the United States of America
Ronald Reagan also published "Abortion and the Conscience of a Nation" in the Spring 1983 issue of The Human Life Review. Here are two excerpts:
The 10th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade is a good time for us to pause and reflect. Our nationwide policy of abortion-on-demand through all nine months of pregnancy was neither voted for by our people nor enacted by our legislators— not a single state had such unrestricted abortion before the Supreme Court decreed it to be national policy in 1973. But the consequences of this judicial decision are now obvious: since 1973, more than 15 million [today more than 40 million] unborn children have had their lives snuffed out by legalized abortions. That is over ten times the number of Americans lost in all our nation's wars. . . .
The real question today is not when human life begins, but, What is the value of human life? The abortionist who reassembles the arms and legs of a tiny baby to make sure all its parts have been torn from its mother's body can hardly doubt whether it is a human being. The real question for him and for all of us is whether that tiny human life has a God-given right to be protected by the law— the same right we have.
Wonder how the "pro-choice" advocates will spin this one:
A 25-year-old Maryland woman, four months pregnant, changed her mind about having an abortion after being taken to the procedure room. She ran back to the clinic entrance where her boyfriend stopped her. You have to get an abortion, he told her. I've already paid for it. Three clinic workers and the abortionists surrounded the women, sedated her by injection, and then took her back into the procedure room. After the forced abortion, she awoke in a closet.
But the first account is even more horrific:
On 23 January 2004, in Jane Roe II vs. Aware Women Center for Choice, Inc., the Eleventh Circuit Court ruled that an expectant mother can be aborted by force if the abortionist argues that it is necessary to "protect the health of the mother."
The story begins on 29 March 1997, when a young, pregnant mother entered the Aware Women Center for Choice clinic in Florida. She was there for an abortion.
Awaiting her was the abortionist, William P. Egherman, who has committed over 10,000 abortions and who has, perhaps not surprisingly, been addicted to alcohol and opiates. He began the procedure by attempting to dilate the woman's cervix with a 12 millimeter dilator.
"My God, you're hurting me" the woman began to scream. "You're killing me, I'll never be able to have babies…. Stop!"
The woman had had a change of heart. She did not want an abortion. She wanted to keep her baby. And she wanted to leave. Immediately. "Stop. Let me out of here," she cried.
Instead of respecting the woman's wishes and stopping the procedure, Egherman called for assistance. Clinic workers held the woman down as Egherman, ignoring the woman's screams, continued to dilate her cervix. Then he entered the victim with a pair of forceps--"the bear" Ehgerman called them--and began probing and pulling. He mistakenly pulled out part of the woman's intestines. For the woman, said her attorney, Chris Sapp, it was like being drawn and quartered.
Realizing what he had done, Egherman heavily sedated the woman. Then he called for an ambulance. He instructed the ambulance to come slowly, without lights or sirens, in order to give him "time to pack the woman with gauze."
Egherman was also worried that his regular flow of business would be interrupted by "all the hoopla." "Saturday's our big day," he explained, "and I didn't want to generate a lot of… any more confusion, any more panic than was already present at the time. She was loud, and as I said, she was shrill, and there were a lot of patients who were hearing what was going on, and the normal rhythm of the day was interrupted. The other patients must have been terrified, and I didn't want the ambulance showing up with all the lights and sirens…"
At the hospital, the woman was operated on and the damage to her internal organs repaired. Her baby was found to be dead, and was removed.
In a recent ruling the Federal Abortion Ban Struck Down in Court, Judge in Planned Parenthood Lawsuit Declares Dangerous Law Unconstitutional.
One wonders how this can be given the biological facts of fetal pain, including the horrific testimony given in the trial documents. Clearly for secularist law, a woman's ability to kill the unborn child in her womb takes precedence over the indisuputable fact of the magnitude of pain and the length of time it takes to kill the child during the partial birth abortion.
Go on, read the testimony of the abortion doctors about what the "fetuses" do during a partial birth abortion. I dare you. Then tell me it's not a child it's a choice. Go on. I dare you.