Ronald Knox in "Enthusiasm: A Chapter in the History of Religion" describes the Quietists, a perfectionistic sect.

"God is our first Beginning; he is also our last End. And the Quietist, pedantically fearful of mistaking himself for the principle of his own actions, is Quixotically determined not to make himself, however indirectly, the end of his own actions. He will torture himself with scruples to make sure that he is not loving God because he hopes to get anything out of it, or even because he enjoys it. And the effect of this tendency, if it is allowed to have its way, is to depersonalize, dangerously, our love of God; it turns into mere motiveless self-renunciation instead of love proper. Meanwhile, our action and our interest thus wholly identified with God's, how shall we remember to distinguish ourselves, even in essence, from him?"

That pretty much describes me when I was a foaming-at-the-mouth-neophyte-Calvinist-Baptist. I believed that I was incapable of "really" loving God and that worship was about complete selfless service to God (whatever that means) without expecting anything in return. I believed that Christian service and worship is all about giving without ever expecting anything at all in return. How arrogant! As if God needed me more than I needed him! I scrutinized and agonized over every single thought, action and word to sift out anything that could even be misconstrued as being Arminian or self-fulfilling in any way.

I know some other Baptists-lately-turned-Calvinists who believe and think this way. Do all Baptists who start down the road to theological reformation go through a stage of boorish pietism?

Today marks the last day of Black History Month... or as I like to call it, February.

I really haven't heard a lot of promotion surrounding it this year. Did the Olympics take the attention away? Was I just not paying attention?

Over the weekend we bought Fernando Ortega's brand new album, and just yesterday we found that Glad had sent us their new album... no charge. What a pleasant surprise!

I haven't had a chance to really listen closely to either recording, but as soon as I do, I'll post some comments.

To my knowledge, there really are only a few Reformed Contemporary Christian musicians. Add Michael Card, Steve Green and Steve Camp to those two and I think you've named them all.

Are there any others that I have missed?

There are a handful of obscure cartoons that I remember watching as a kid, and when I mention them to other people today, nobody ever seems to remember them.

Among those:

Rubik the Amazing Cube - Was about an enchanted Rubik's Cube puzzle. He lost his powers when his colors got scrambled.

Ghostbusters - Suprisingly had nothing whatsoever to do with the Bill Murray/Dan Akroyd movies. One of the characters was an ape named Tracy.

The Dukes - Cartoon version of The Dukes of Hazzard television series. When Tom Wopat and John Schneider (that's Bo and Luke Duke for the unwashed) went on strike from the live-action show and were replaced by cousins Coy and Vance Duke, the two were replaced on the cartoon as well.

Monchichis - The adventures of fuzzy little creatures similar to Ewoks. If you have ever heard the theme song to this cartoon, you will remember it, and you will be able to recall it and play it over and over in your head until you die.

Rambo - Cartoon translation of the movies. The acting and character development were much better in this version than in the live action.

Does anyone remember any of these?

Before our daughter was born, it seems like I would take my wife to the picture show just about every weekend. Since March 14, 2001 we have only been to maybe three movies.

I think I would like to take her out on a date this weekend, but is there anything playing at the cinema that is worth seeing?

Does anybody have any recommendations?

A few more lines from D.G. Hart’s article, “Rediscovering Mother Kirk”

“Ever since the revivals of the eighteenth century, which Presbyterians mostly embraced, the Reformed tradition in North America has been afflicted with the Evangelical assuption that for Christian devotion to be sincere it cannot be expressed in words or forms devised by someone else.”

“The notion that genuine religion has to be expressed in a believer’s own words actually leads in charismatic, not Presbyterian circles.”

“… the corporateness of worship requires such dependence (upon the pre-written words of others) since the demand for order means that only one person speaks or prays at a time; or if everyone speaks or prays, they do so in unison. Consequently, when my pastor prays the intercessory prayer, since he is praying on behalf of the whole congregation, I am using someone else’s words regardless of whether he wrote his own prayer or is using one from a book. In the case of congregational singing, everyone in the church is relying on the words of a poet to express his praise to God.”

God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
of never-failing skill
He treasures up His bright designs
And works His soveriegn will.

Ye fearful saints fresh courage take
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy and shall break
In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan His work in vain;
God is His own interpreter,
And He will make it plain.

William Cowper, 1774

If memory serves me, that Imo’s Pizza I had for lunch is the best I’ve ever eaten.
If memory serves me, that Imo’s Pizza I had for lunch is the best I’ve ever eaten.

If God had intended for us to drink beer, He would have given us stomachs.

Check out the "my family" link to the left. I just put up two new pictures of my daughter Bailey. One of the pictures is a shot of Pastor Jeff Meyers holding her on the day of her baptism.

There are some books that get better every time you read them.

“There’s a Wocket in my Pocket” is not one of those books.

Winter is foaming and spewing forth its final, dying protest against the impending Spring. Yesterday, I was comfortable in short sleeves and even felt a little toasty in the direct sunlight. Tonight we are close to collecting our third inch of snow.

It is sort of nice, given the wimpy winter we have had this year. I love to walk outside at night when it is snowing and hear the soft sifting sound of the flakes piling on top of each other.

Maybe tomorrow God will grant my employers the good sense and grace to declare a snow day.

I have been plagued by flat tires. I have had seven in the last four months. No one tire has been the lone repeat offender. Each of the four have been punctured by nails, screws and various debris – a broken key was found stuck in one of them. I keep getting them patched and they keep getting stuff stuck in them.

This morning I rushed out the door on the way to work and saw my right rear wheel rim sitting on the ground. I ended up buying a new tire.

I am scared to go anywhere without a can of fix-o-flat.

I am really laboring through the first book I have listed to the left which is “Enthusiasm – A Chapter in the History of Religion”. I haven’t had this much difficulty getting through a book in a long time. I’m thouroughly interested in the subject matter, and I am learning quite a bit, but it is becoming increasingly difficult for me to force myself to pick it up and crack the spine.

The one thing that is most impeding my progress is Knox’s penchant for inserting lengthy quotes from Latin and French sources without translating them. I can manage the odd Greek reference he throws in from time to time, but I’m wondering why he chose to write in English at all? I’ve happened upon other authors who do this and maybe someone can tell me why.

If he is assuming that his audience will have no problem assimilating his Latin and French, and if those two tounges are so superior that they would be desecrated by their translation into English, why not just write the whole book in one of those two languages? When an author does that, I assume that he is either being an intellectual snob or else he is just showing off.

It reminds me of what my Turkish friend Achmed said the other day, “Sadece bir kac kelamedh, Turkce bilmyorum!” He is such a kidder!

Why don’t they just fabricate a completely new language which can only be translated and read by a secret enclave of intelligensia?

You know, like whatever that language is that they speak up in Canada.

Pop stars are like breakfast cereals... there are too many of them and none of them are really that good.

Do you know what an apostrophe is for? It tells you that an "s" is coming.

Examples that I've seen recently.

A billboard on Hwy 55 - "Denture's for less!"
A bag of frozen vegetables in Schnuck's - "Green Giant Pea's"
A sign at a kiosk in the mall - "3 Donut's for $1"
A sign at an Amoco station - "Please do not block the pump's"
At a cash register in a bookstore - "Sorry, no check's accepted"

So I'm guessing that there is some new punctuation rule that I must have missed somewhere.

Oop's! I mean...
'So I'm gue's'sing that there i's 'some new punctuation rule that I mu'st have mi's'sed 'somwhere.

From now on I will be putting an apo'strophe in front of every "'s" that I u'se in written communication. I may even 'start 'saying it out loud.

THAT won't be annoying.

I wonder what Muppet meat tastes like.

If you had to pare your music collection down to just five albums what would they be?

For me:
Peter Gabriel - "So"
Better than Ezra - "Deluxe"
Van Morrison - "Poetic Champions Compose"
Neil Young - "Harvest Moon"
New York Philharmonic directed by Leonard Bernstein - "St. Matthew's Passion"

In the Year of our Lord 1314, patriots of Scotland, starving and outnumbered, charged the fields of Bannockburn. They fought like warrior poets. They fought like Scotsmen... and won their freedom.

There comes a day in every man's life when he has to face up to the fact that he will never be a world-champion ice dancer.

For me, today is that day.

If a credo-baptist were to be completely consistent, then shouldn't he demand that his son be able to recite the family lineage in detail before giving that son his last name? Shouldn't he demand that his daughter be able to recite the preamble to the Constitution and the Gettysburg Address before he considers her a real American?

Ridiculous? Why would you give your child your last name and your national identity, but refuse them the one identification and relationship that is most important to you?

I think that also goes for folks who deny their children access to the Lord's table.

I came across an article titled "Rediscovering Mother Kirk - Is High Church Presbyterianism an Oxymoron" by D.G. Hart, an OPC elder and professor at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia. He gives some pretty clear insight into the history of Presbyterian worship and laments the present abandonment of high-church forms and the regard for "heartfelt" experiential Christianity.

Some poignant passages:

"The image of Reformed believers with their eyes open in prayer, because of the use of a prayer book, is one that would strike many contemporary Presbyterians as a sign of spiritual rigor mortis. In many Presbyterian circles it is common to assume that real faith expresses itself spontaneously, without the props of formalism.

"But Calvin had good reasons for writing out prayers, not just for families, but also for pastors. 'I highly approve of it that there be a certain form,' he declared, 'from which the ministers be not allowed to vary: that first, some provision be made to help the simplicity and unskillfulness of some; secondly that the consent and harmony of the churches one with another may appear; and lastly, that the capricious giddiness and levity of such as affect innovations may be prevented.'...

"(In this Calvin) admits implicity that some people pray better than others and that worship, which is designed for God's pleasure, should use the best efforts that the Church can produce. In other words, worship is not a form of spiritual affirmative action that allows everyone equal time in the liturgy. Better to use the prayers deemed superior, even if prepared by saints of the past, than to give precedence to the words assembled by the current pastor simply because he is the one now given the responsibility for praying...

"For Calvin, Reformed theology should be embodied in certain liturgical manners; it is not a shapeless substance that can take any possible form as long as one is sincere or earnest...

"Finally, he believed written prayers prevented the kind of flippancy and disrespect so often expressed in the practice of spontaneous prayer, especially when sincerity and passion, more than dignity or truth, are the criteria."

--
Can anything be further from the American individualistic and enthusiastic idea of what worship is and should be? Yet with this view of worship I believe we achieve a higher ideal as a church catholic. "The consent and harmony of the churches one with another...appear(s)." What power could withstand a global church unified in this manner? It would seem that a desire for individualism and unique innovation in worship works in direct opposition to harmony and unity.

Yes! The US hockey team goes on to face Canada for the gold!
UPDATE Nevermind!

One thing a computer can do that most humans can't is be sealed up in a cardboard box and sit in a warehouse.

On topic:

A-B isn't the only brewery here in St. Louis. Lately, I've been sampling a few beers brewed by Schlafly, another local brewery. I really like their Pale Ale, which they describe as a "rich, amber-colored, medium bodied, British-style ale." It is warm and nutty and goes great with everything. I think I've found a new favorite. It's a couple more bucks than the mass produced brands, but it's worth it.

My wife bought me a collection of Bach Violin Concerti. Not that you can ever go wrong with Bach, but there are only a handful of recordings that I would recommend for folks just getting into his music. This is one of them. This album contains a few themes that should sound familiar to the casual listener and it doesn't demand the constant attention that his more complex compositions require in order for them to be fully appreciated.

The last time I visited my parents I spent some time sitting in the easy chair flipping through the stations on their huge television. (This is quite a novelty for me because they pay for their TV stations and I don't... so they have quite a few more viewing options than I do.) I was cruising through the channels when I ran into a big blue screen that said something like "program exeeds ratings limits".

Turns out that they have this option on their television that will block a channel if the program's ratings exceed the user's pre-set ratings limit. In other words, the user can choose to block all programming with a rating that indicates strong language or violence or adult content or Teletubbies or whatever. I thought that I was up on all the technology, but this was a new one for me, and I don't like it.

I'll explain.

If you have ever used Microsoft Word or Works, you have likely at one time or another typed some bit of compositional genius only to have a little pontificating bit of programming scribble snivelling red and green lines under your bad grammer or misspells. It automatically underlines run-on sentences and fragments, subject/verb disagreements and poor capitalizations. It even underlines proper names and treats them like misspelled words if the letter combinations don't match its internal dictionary. Have you ever copied and pasted Bible text into Word? If you have, you have found that it even has the audacity to grade the quality of writing in the Authorized Version of the Holy Scriptures, scribbling under everything that Paul wrote and even some of the words that we often find printed in red.

I always turn off this auto-proofing option immediately. I reject Microsoft's authority over the words I choose to use and how I choose to put them together. If I write a bad sentence, it is at least MY sentence, rather than some homogenized sentence that clicks with Word's internal parameters. If I make a spelling mistake and it slips through, I should have proofed it better, but it remains my word that came from my fingers.

The point is, I don't want a bloodless series of ones and zeroes questioning what I write and correcting me along the way.

For the same reasons, I do not want a chip taking the place of my conscience when I watch television. If I am the sort of person who is tempted to watch things that are not becoming, then I need to cancel my cable subscription and use the shelf space for something other than a television. The solution in dealing with a right eye that offends is not to replace it with a bionic eye.

Look, we all know what TV is all about by now. How can we act as if we are suprised or shocked by anything that is broadcast? There isn't a panel of Evangelicals on the writing staff of "Friends". They're pagans and they have a pagan agenda to sell. Fine. We acknowledge that. Now all we can ever hope to do with the medium in its current state is to plunder it for what little scrap of value it has and discard it when it when we are done. No chip is going to help us do that better or warn us of the agendas behind the programming.

All a chip can do is ease us into a false sense of security. We can start to think that everything we are watching is holy and pure because it passed the chip test. "We didn't get a big blue screen, so we must be honoring God with our viewing selection.", as if the chip has developed a God-consciousness of its own and seeks to do justly, and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. Far more malevolent and destructive than the blatant sex, violence and language that gets blocked by our bionic conscience is the subtle God-hating humanism and vapidity that makes the cut. It lulls us into stupor and saps away the hours of our lives.

So it isn't enough that we have technology to do all the tough stuff for us such as print our words, increase the speed of our communication and wash our dishes. We must have technology that thinks on our behalf and a chip to which we delegate our responsibility to judge between good and evil. Maybe we will come up with some bit of programming in the future that can love our wives and children for us. Maybe I can send my laptop to church on Sunday to receive the Word and Sacrament for me. Now that would be progress.

As I posted yesterday, last night at 8:02 the date and time was 20:02 20/02/2002, perfect symmetry (if you date and time like a European).

The last time this happened was at 12:21 on December 21, 1221. 12:21 12/21/1221 (If you write your dates like an American)

If you insist on writing your date like a European, the last time was 11:11 on November 11, 1111. 11:11 11/11/1111

The next time this will happen will be at 9:12 on December 12, 2112. 21:12 21/12/2112 (Again writing the date like a European)

Am I the only one who cares?

When I signed on to get my email at 5:30 this morning, I saw an email from "Babies R Us", except the email address was all in lower case - "babiesrus". My not-yet-fully-awake mind read "Baby-saurus". Now I can't get that image out of my head. Babysaurus.

Sometimes I think we have a babysaurus. She is going to be one year old on March 14 and there is no limit to what she thinks she can do. "Hey, I wonder what this would feel like if I pulled this down on my head. Hey, I wonder what THIS would feel like if I pulled this down on my head."

Oh, we've baby-proofed the house, I assure you. What we failed to do, however, is "crazed chimpanzee"-proof the house. She is like lightning when she gets an idea in her head to do something, and she can empty a dresser drawer or a cabinet in four seconds flat. My wife and I have simply dropped back into a zone defense. We can't stop her, we can only hope to contain her.

Seriously, I love my daughter in a way that I never believed I could love another human. She is so sweet and happy and full of life. I can't get enough of her. (You can check out various pictures of her under "My Family".)

Today is 20/02/2002 (if you use the Euro dating system). And tonight at 8:02 it will be 20:02 20/02/2002.

That sort of thing would scare me if I were a dispensational numerologist.

Sooner or later Taco Bell is going to run out of ways to recombine the same five ingredients.

I thought this was an interesting article.(CNN) Some folks theorize that, if we should succeed in sending manned spacecraft past the moon, the English language spoken by space travelers on decades -long journeys will mutate over time, and produce a noticeably different dialect, and could possibly produce a completely different pidgin language.

I don’t buy it though. If language would really mutate in space, how is it that we could always understand what Captain Kirk said?

Sarah, my wife, is working hard on a home-school Greek curriculum. While there are a ton of Greek resources out there, it seems that there isn’t one that moves at the right pace for un-Greek-ed parents to teach their children. She is talking to a couple of publishers who are very interested in her format and her idea. I’m thrilled for her!

I’m amazed at what she does. She’s busier now as a “stay-at-home” mom than when she worked in an office full time. She teaches Latin to homeschoolers four days a week, helps out with some local kids music programs, herds an 11-month-old around and still has time to cook supper for me every night.

“There ain’t nothin’ like a good woman.” - Solomon

Johann Sebastian Bach held only five different vocational positions in his life. Twice he was the appointed court composer for German aristocrats. The other three postions he held were church-related. While most composers in Bach's day spent their lives bouncing from court to court, opera house to opera house, with little or no long-term stability, Bach spent the last twenty-seven years of his life as music minister for the churches of Leipzig, Germany. His duties there far exceeded simply tinkling around on his harpsichord, however. He oversaw the choirs of the three Leipzig churches. He composed the music not only for the worship services but also for all special celebrations within the municipality. He wrote one new cantata per week for six and a half years. He had to keep the organs in working order and he was responsible for educating the choir boys in music and Latin. This was the job description for a “minister of music” in Reformation-era Germany.

Bach signed a contract with the church councils when he moved to Leipzig, which read in part, “To the end that good order may prevail in these churches, I should so arrange the music that it may not last too long, and also in such ways that it may not be "operatic", but rather incite the hearers to devotion.” It is necessary to note that the opera was the pop music of Bach’s day. As hard as it is to believe today, opera was at that time the form of entertainment which was most easily assimilated by the masses and readily available to be consumed. Operas were mass-produced sappy melodramatic plays set to music. New operas were staged at a rate of almost one per week in some of the larger cities. Yet Bach resolved that the music that he wrote and implemented in worship would not be influenced by the din of the opera house. Surely there would have been those who would have approved of taking the popular music of the day and applying it to the worship of the church, but Bach determined that the sound of musical praise to God should be notably different from the music of the culture in which he lived.

The Reformation in Germany had re-introduced harmony and instruments and vernacular lyrics to the music of the church. While this may sound like the same sort of “worldy compromise” which Bach committed himself to avoid, it should be noted that while the church used the same musical tools as the secular composers, the body of work it built was remarkably different in tone, texture and most imporantly, spirit. Bach, in his religious compositions, invented entirely new uses and combinations of instruments, harmonies and chords. He borrowed little from his culture, though his culture very quickly began borrowing many musical ideas from him. It is almost impossible to imagine a Christian musician today having such individuality and ability that the world of popular music should copy his “sound”. But this is exactly what happened in Bach’s day. It was not long before secular operas started sounding like Bach’s cantatas.

Bach would select German chorales, or hymns to arrange for his choir and built his cantatas up around the themes of those hymns. Had Bach not used some of the early reformation hymns in his cantatas, it is very likely that a great number of these hymns would have been lost. Bach chose songs which reflected the glories of God and man’s eternal delight in them. His cantatas were purely Reformational in theme, for as you can understand, the purpose of church music in his day was not necessarily express certain feelings, or to relate the Christian experience, or to be something that was merely fun to sing, but rather, to codify the Christian faith. Every part of the Protestant church service in his day was meant to drive home a certain doctrine, and Bach’s music was no exception. Some of it could even be said to be militant and terse in its hard pursuit of doctrinal clarity. (As if something sung in German can resist sounding militant and terse!)

Bach wrote around three-hundred and fifty cantatas, but only about two-hundred and ten survived. They contain some of the most recognizable and melodic themes in classical Western music. Bach’s technique was unparralelled among the classical composers, and he is still considered today by many modern musical scholars to be one of the earliest musical geniuses.

We moderns have Bach to thank for fully establishing the use of harmony, instrumentation and vernacular language in church music. Let us not forget, however, how he used those wonderful gifts and his extraordinary talent to set Reformed worship music apart from both the music of Rome and the music of the opera house in order that he might incite worshippers to devotion.

Recommended Listening:

Cantata 140 “Wachet Auf” (Sleepers Awake)
Cantata 80 “Ein feste Burg” (A Mighty Fortress)
Motet 227 “Jesu, meine Fruede” (Jesus, my Delight)
contains the familiar movement “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring”

If you've ever driven on Highway 70 from Missouri into Kansas, you may remember the billboard that greets you when you leave the outskirts of Kansas City. It reads, "One Kansas farmer feeds 7,500 people".

And I can't help but think, "Sure, if they take really small bites."

I toured the Anheuser-Busch Brewery with Rick Capezza (BeautifulFeet.blogspot.com) this past Saturday where we learned the secret behind the production of Bud Light. The process involves a bucket of real beer, a clydesdale and an empty bucket.

I also learned that Bud Light outsold Budweiser for the first time last year. Wouldn't you agree that America's overwhelming preference for and consumption of sissy beer is evidence of her spiritual bankruptcy?