Commonplaces: October thru December 2024

“Some students don’t know enough to tackle a dead cat.”—Dr. Gordon Wilson

“The boldness of this age is such, is not only to make a man’s words sound otherwise than when they came from him, and so traduce him; but confidently to aver that there are such things written in books, of such men, which never yet came into their thoughts, much less into their pen.—Jeremiah Burroughs, Irenicum

“Truth is the bond that keeps unity, but error is wild. You know not where to find it, nor yourselves if you give way to it. Our present times will be a testimony of this to all future generations.”— Burroughs

“Don’t talk to me of pacts. There are no binding oaths between men and lions—wolves and lambs can enjoy no meeting of the minds—they are all bent on hating each other to the death. So with you and me.”—Homer, Iliad (Fagles Bk XXII)

“Thrice miserable and lost are people whom nothing can delight except what is, if not obscene and dirty, yet inane, profitless, ridiculous, and unworthy of man.”—Bucer, De Regno Christi

“Denique cum praecipua felicitatis pars sit, ut quod sis, esse velis, nimirum totum hoc praestat compendio mea Philautia, ut neminem suae formae, neminem sui ingenii, neminem generis, neminem loci, neminem instituti, nemiminem patriae poeniteat, adeo, ut nec Irlandus cum Italo, nec Thrax cum Atheniensi, nec Scytha cum Insulis Fortunatis cupiat permutare. Et o singularem naturae sollicitudinem, ut in tanta rerum varietate paria fecit omnia.” [And since for the most part happiness consists in being willing to be what you are, my Self-love has provided a shortcut to it by ensuring that no one is dissatisfied with his own looks, talents, people, position, customs, or country. And so no Irishman would want to change places with an Italian nor Thracian with Athenian nor Scythian with an inhabitant of the Islands of the Blessed. What remarkable foresight of Nature it was, to level out all these variations and make all alike!]— Erasmus, Praise of Folly

“[These essays’] second object was to show that the acquisition of wealth was finally possible only under certain moral conditions of society, of which quite the first was a belief in the existence and even, for practical purposes, and the attainability of honesty.”— Ruskin, Unto These Last

“For no human actions ever were to intended by the maker of men to be guided by the balances of expediency, but by balances of justice. He has therefore rendered all endeavors to determine expediency futile for evermore. No man ever knew or can know, but will be the ultimate result to himself, or to others, of any given line of conduct. But every man may know, and most of us do know, what is a just and unjust act.”

“…perhaps even that the final outcome and consummation of all wealth is in the producing as many as possible full-breathed, bright-eyed, and happy-hearted human creatures.”

“Labor is the contest of the life of man with an opposite—the term “life” including his intellect, soul, and physical power, contending with question, difficulty, trial, or material force.”

“We continually hear it recommended by sagacious people to complaining neighbors(usually less well placed in the world than themselves), that they should “remain content in the station in which providence has placed them.” There are perhaps some circumstances of life in which Providence has no intention that people should be content. Nevertheless, the maxim is on the whole a good one; but it is peculiarly for home use. That your neighbor should, or should not, remain content with his position, is not your business; but it is very much your business to remain content with your own. What is chiefly needed in England at the present day is to show the quantity of pleasure that may be obtained by a consistent, well administered competence: modest, confessed, and laborious. We need examples of people who, leaving Heaven to decide whether or not they are to rise in the world, decide for themselves that they will be happy in it, and have resolved to seek—not greater wealth, but simpler pleasure; not higher fortune, but deeper felicity; making the first of possessions, self-possession; and honoring themselves in the harmless pride and calm pursuits of peace.”

“We had better seek for a system which will develop honest men, then for one which will deal cunningly with vagabonds. Let us reform our schools, and we shall find little reform needed in our prisons.”

“No doubt work is a luxury, and a very great one. It is, indeed, at once a luxury and a necessity; no man can retain either health of mind or body without it.”—Ruskin

“Our own generation enjoys the legacy bequeathed to it by that which preceded it. We frequently know more, not because we have moved ahead by our own natural ability, but because we are supported by the strength of others, and possess riches that we have inherited from our forefathers. Bernard of Chartres used to compare us to dwarfs perched on the shoulders of giants. He pointed out that we see more and farther than our predecessors, not because we have keener vision or greater height, but because we are lifted up and borne aloft on their gigantic stature.”—John of Salisbury, Metalogicon III.4

“Imitatur ars igitur naturam, et quod ea desiderat id inveniat, quod ostendit sequatur. Nihil est enim quod aut natura extremum invenerit aut doctrina primum; sed rerum principia ab ingenio profecta sunt exitus disciplina conparantur.” [Let art, then, imitate nature, find what she desires, and follow as she directs. For in invention nature is never last, education never first; rather the beginnings of things arise from natural talent and the ends are reached by discipline.]—Rhetorica Ad Herrenium III.xxii

“Neque equus indomitus quamvis bene natura conpositus sit, idoneus potest esse ad utilitates quae desiderantur ab equo; neque homo indoctus quamvis sit ingeniosus, ad virtutem potest pervenire.” [Neither can an untrained horse, however well-built by nature, be fit for the service desired of a horse; nor can an uncultivated man, however well-endowed by nature, attain to virtue.]—IV.xlvi

“It is the nature of war that what is beneficial to you is detrimental to the enemy and what is of service to him always hurts you. It is therefore a maxim never to do, or omit doing, anything as a consequence of his actions, but to consult invariably your own interest only.”—Vegetius, De Re Militari Bk III

“Nature is infinitely stronger than the works of man; why not profit from it?”—Maurice de Saxe, My Reveries on the Art of War

“The first thing to about think about then will be the question of subsistence; without supplies no army is brave, and a great general who is hungry is not a hero for long.”

“A perfect general, like Plato’s republic, is a figment of the imagination. Either would be admirable, but it is not characteristic of human nature to produce beings exempt from human weaknesses and defects. The finest medallion have a reverse side.”

“Skepticism is the mother of security. Even though only fools trust their enemies, prudent persons never do. The general is the principle sentinel of his army.”— Frederick the Great, Instructions for His Generals

“A well-established maxim of war is not to do anything which your enemy wishes—and for the single reason that he does so wish.”

“The passage from the defensive to the offensive is one of the most delicate operations of war.”

“The effect of discussions, making a show of talent, and calling councils of war will be what the effect of these things has been in every age: they will end in the adoption of the most pusillanimous or (if the expression be preferred) the most prudent measures, which in war are almost uniformly the worst that can be adopted. True wisdom, so far as a general is concerned, consists in energetic determination.”

“War is composed of nothing but accidents, and, although holding to general principles, a general should never lose sight of everything to enable him to profit from these accidents; that is the mark of genius. In war there is but one favorable moment; The great art is to seize it.”— Napoleon Bonaparte, Maxims

“Now, for your help in this, God has given two lights to the world: the sun, the greater, to rule the day; and the moon, the lesser, to rule the night. So he has given two lights to man to guide his course: first are the scriptures, the greater, to guide man, especially in his spiritual condition, in those more immediate references he has to God, for His worship and enjoyment of communion with Him. The other is less, the light of reason, to be his guide in natural and civil things, in ordering his life for his natural and civil good. And though it is true that religion makes use of reason, and that we have help from the scriptures in our natural and civil affairs, yet these two lights each have their distinct, special use according to those distinct conditions of man.”— Jeremiah Burroughs, Irenicum

“None of this means anything if you are alone with your genius, whispering back and forth to each other cogito ergo sum until you realize you’re the same person. That was the promise of modernity and postmodernity, and you are more prey to it than you realize.”—Joffre Swait, Substack “Repent of Aloneness”

“Admittedly there are spirits so pronounced that they are unrepentant. Chief among them is marc, or grappa—brandy distilled from the leavings of the vintage. As it happens, though, I have no desire to cover it with anything. I find it delectable— full of nostalgia and the remembrance of the first afternoon on which I drank it. It is relevant of earth and stems and the resurrected soul of the grape, all combined with an overpowering suggestion of freshly painted radiators in a shoe store—which, you will concede, must be the very essence of unforgettability.”— Robert Farrar Capon, The Supper of the Lamb

“Let the end then of the common law be defined as the preservation, in the concerns and disputes of citizens, of an impartiality founded on statute and custom.”—Cicero, De Oratore I.lxii

“And as history, which bears witness to the passing of the ages, sheds light upon reality, gives life to recollection and guidance to human existence, and brings tidings of ancient days, whose voice, but the orators, can entrust her to immortality?”— II.ix

“But these loci can be useful only to a speaker who is a man of affairs, qualified by experience, which age assuredly brings, or by listening and reflection, which through careful study outruns age. For bring me a man as accomplished, as clear and acute in thinking, and as ready in delivery as you please; if, for all that, he is a stranger to social intercourse, precedent, tradition, and the manners and disposition of his fellow countrymen, these loci from which proofs are derived will avail him but little. I must have talent which has been cultivated; soil, as it were, not of a single plowing, but both broken and given a second plowing so as to be capable of bearing better and more abundant produce. And the cultivation is practice, listening, reading, and letters.”—II.xxx

“Together with all your other claims to distinction the greatest one was that you not only said the proper thing but also avoided saying what was not the proper thing.”—II.lxxiii

“They may anticipate that an academic system, formed upon my model, will result in nothing better or higher than in the production of that antiquated variety of human nature and remnant of feudalism, as they consider it, called ‘a gentleman.’”— Richard Henry Newman, The Idea of a University

“Just as a commander wishes to have tall and well-formed and vigorous soldiers, not from any abstract devotion to the military standard of height or age, but for the purposes of war, and no one thinks it anything but natural and praiseworthy in him to be contemplating, not abstract qualities, but his own living and breathing men; so, in like manner, when the Church founds a University, she is not cherishing talent, genius, or knowledge, for their own sake, but for the sake of her children, with a view to their spiritual welfare and their religious influence and usefulness, with the object training them to fill their respective posts in life better, and of making them more intelligent, capable, active members of society.”

“When the intellect has once been properly trained and formed to have a connected view or grasp of things, it will display its powers with more or less effect according to its particular quality and capacity in the individual. In the case of most men it makes itself felt in the good sense, sobriety of thought, reasonableness, candor, self-command, and steadiness of view, which characterize it. In some it will have developed habits of business, power of influencing others, and sagacity. In others it will elicit the talent of philosophical speculation, and lead the mind forward to eminence in this or that intellectual department. In all it will be a faculty of entering with comparative ease into any subject of thought, and of taking up with aptitude any science or profession. All of this it will be and will do in a measure, even when the mental formation be made after a model but partially true; for, as far as effectiveness goes, even false views of things have more influence and inspire more respect than no views at all. Men who fancy they see what is not are more energetic, and make their way better, than those who see nothing; And so the undoubted infidel, the fanatic, the heresiarch, are able to do much, while the mere hereditary Christian, who has never realized the truth which he holds, is unable to do anything. But, if consistency of you can add so much strength even to error, what may it not be expected to furnish to the dignity, the energy, and the influence of Truth!”

“It is no principle with sensible men, of whatever cast of opinion, to do always what is abstractedly best.”

“Compromise, in a large sense of the word, is the first principle of combination; and anyone who insists on enjoying his rights to the full, and his opinions without toleration for his neighbor’s, and his own way in all things, will soon have all things altogether to himself, and no one to share them with him.”

“Rather, in a state of society such as ours, in which authority, prescription, tradition, habit, moral instinct, and the divine influences go for nothing, in which patience of thought, and depth and consistency of view, are scorned as subtle and scholastic, in which free discussion and fallible judgment are prized as the birthright of each individual, I must be excused if I exercise towards this age, as regards its belief in this doctrine, some portion of that skepticism which it exercises towards every received but unscrutinized assertion whatsoever.”

“[The sciences] serve to transfer our knowledge from the custody of memory to the surer and more abiding protection of philosophy, thereby providing both for its spread and its advance…”

“Any secular science, cultivated exclusively, may become dangerous to Religion; and I account for it on this broad principle: that no science whatever, however comprehensive it may be, but will fall largely into error, if it be constituted the sole exponent of all things in on earth, and that, for the simple reason that it is encroaching on territory not its own, and undertaking problems which it has no instruments to solve.”

“The drift and meaning of a branch of knowledge varies with the company in which it is introduced to the student. If his reading is confined simply to one subject, however such division of labor may favour the advancement of a particular pursuit, a point into which I do not here enter, certainly it has a tendency to contract his mind. If it is incorporated with others it depends on those others as to the kind of influence which it exerts upon him. Thus the Classics, which in England are the means of refining the taste, have in France subserved the spread of revolutionary and deistical doctrines.”

“Things, which can bear to be cut off from everything else and yet persist in living, must have life in themselves; pursuits, which issue in nothing, and still maintain their ground for ages, which are regarded as admirable, though they have not as yet proved themselves to be useful, must have their sufficient end in themselves, whatever it turn out to be.”

“There is no true culture without acquirements, and philosophy presupposes knowledge. It requires a great deal of reading, or a wide range of information, to warrant us in putting forth our opinions on any serious subject; And without such learning the most original mind may be able indeed to dazzle, to amuse, to refute, to perplex, but not to come to any useful any trustworthy conclusion.”

“Again, the study of history is said to enlarge and enlighten the mind, and why? Because, as I conceive, it gives it a power of judging of passing events, and of all events, and a conscious superiority over them, which before it did not possess.”

“Such a training is a matter of rule; it is not mere application, however exemplary, which introduces the mind to truth, nor the reading of many books, nor the getting up many subjects, nor the witnessing many experiments, nor the attending many lectures. All this is short of enough; A man may have done it all, yet be lingering in the vestibule of knowledge.”

“A man of well improved faculties has the command of another’s knowledge. A man without them, has not the command of his own.”

Eh, What's Classical Education, Doc?

 

If you hang around more than one classical Christian school for any length of time, it can quickly become apparent that no one knows exactly what they’re doing. I don’t mean that the teachers don’t know their subjects well, or that the administrators can’t fill out a spreadsheet, or that the students can’t add up a grocery bill—those skills are usually better than the average. But if you ask twenty people in those schools what on earth classical education is, exactly, you will probably get twenty-two different answers.

Some people say a classical education is about the great conversation around big ideas (unlike all those other ways of learning out there). Some say it’s about instilling virtue and despising vice (a definition that could apply equally well to life generally). Is it an educational method involving the Trivium-as-learning-stages—a formulation so “classical” that no one used it until 1981? Or is it a course in Western Civilization, warts and all? (Good luck explaining to your Chinese neighbor how math is peculiarly “Western”!) Perhaps it’s about “Great Books”…but which books are great, who says, and how many of them can you cram down a ninth-grader’s throat before he chokes? Is it about training a kid in “how to think, not what to think”? Or do the particular subjects matter? And then there are the non-academic concerns. Will a student ever be able to get a job with this sort of training? And how does the “Christian” part fit in, anyway? Broad tent? Narrow denominational focus? Do the Romans Catholics count? What about the Mormons? Both of them can claim a fair amount of influence in Western American culture, after all…

You begin to see why, if a certain carrot-crunching, wiseacre cartoon rabbit popped up next to you and wondered, “Eh, what’s classical education, Doc?” you’d be in so much trouble! Yet if you’re reading this blog, you are at least considering this education, if not immersed in it. So what is going on?

Commonplaces: September 2024

 

“A negative holiness is far from being acceptable to God.”— John Colquoun, The Law and the Gospel

“My head is just a hat-place.”—Rogers and Hart, “A Ship Without a Sail”

“Now before I set about arguing these things, there is a cloud of skirmishers, of harmless and confused modern skeptics, who ought to be cleared off or calmed down before we come to debate with the real doctors of the heresy.”— Chesterton, Eugenics and Other Evils

“Quid enim est aut tam admirabile, quam ex infinita multitudine homium existere unum, id quid, quod omnibus natura sit datum, vel solus, vel cum paucis facere possit?”[For what is so marvelous as that, out of the endless multitude of man, a single being should arise, who either alone or with only the help of a few can make effective a faculty that nature has given to all?]—Cicero, De Oratore I.viii

“For what faithful schoolteacher, or teacher of any discipline or art, thinks that it is enough to have recommended good authors to his students, or to have handed on the rules of disciplines and arts, and does not also examine his students on what he explained or shared in an effort to get them to learn better, questioning them to see how each has understood the matter and giving them an opportunity to ask him about anything that has not been well enough understood?”—Bucer, De Regno Christi

“In all ages of the world men have dreamed of a state of perfection, which has been, and is to be, but never is, and seems to disappear under the necessary conditions of human society. The uselessness, the danger, the true value of such political ideals have often been discussed; youth is too ready to believe in them; age to disparage them.”— Benjamin Jowett, Introduction to Plato’s Statesman

Afflicted in Body, Mind, and Soul

 

James, the fifth chapter: The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth for the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.

Lord, there are many afflicted here, in body, mind, and soul. You command them to pray, and so we come before your throne with our petitions. Those hurt in body are the easiest to spot and the easiest to remember before You. We pray for Whitney Maier and Karen Christiansen, as they deal with bodies under our weary curse. We pray for those dealing with long-suffering, such as the Berglunds and Snells,

Daniels and Stutzmans, Vanderploegs and many others. Raise up all the sick and save them from their sins and temptations.

We pray for those wounded in mind, and those who faithfully care for them morning and night. It is an often thankless and fearful task, but you see all. Give them your comfort, and help us to give them ours.

And we pray for those with wounded souls, an invisible crowd without number. Be with those who desire to be married; they walk a lonely path. Be with Pastor Wilson and the brothers in Brazil as they minister to the hungry there, and grant them your protection. Be with the presidents and headmasters of all the schools in our area, as they mold—knowingly or unknowingly—immortal souls and their desires. We particularly ask for your wisdom for President Merkle as he decides how to deal with our petty city officials. And we pray that the Christ Church Hall would be finished soon, so that our community may grow and take root and flourish and testify. For he who converts a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and hide a multitude of sins. So we ask all this and more, most boldly.

Amen

Petitions, King's Cross, Sept. 22, A.D. 2024

Commonplaces: August 2024

 

“The man who does not rein in his will to power and is at the same time very active according to the natural law is in a fair way to become an efficient megalomaniac.”—Irving Babbitt, Rousseau and Romanticism, in Antigone Journal “Humanities Without Humanism”

“The sentimentalist, who would subject man to the rule of impulse and passion; the pragmatic naturalist, who would treat man as a mere edified ape; the leveling enthusiast, who would reduce human differences to a collective mediocrity—these are the enemies of true human nature.”—Russel Kirk, Introduction, Literature and the American College

“Colleges had been founded for the study of abstractions, not as schools to supply entertainment and job-certification for boys and girls.”

“It is not always easy, of course, in the ebullitions of a new movement, to distinguish the man who has received the living word from the man whose access of energy is the result of being relieved of the necessity of thinking for himself. Men who have stopped thinking make a powerful force.”

“At best, what the typical college has offered its undergraduates, in recent decades, has been defecated rationality: that is, a narrow rationalism or Benthamite logical ism, purged of theology, moral philosophy, and the wisdom of our ancestors. This defecated rationality exalts private judgment and gratification of the senses at the expense of the inner order of the soul and the outer order of the republic. On many a campus, this defecated and desiccated logicalism is the best that is offered to the more intelligent students; as alternatives, they could pursue a program of fun and games, or else a program of social commitment of a baneful or silly character, wondrously unintellectual."

Book of the Month July 2024: The Total State

 

I am a teacher, and a bookworm, and a nerd (possibly in that order) and so when I want someone to understand something, I will usually hand them a book. You want to understand the Crusades? Book. You can't figure out how to reconcile the one and the many? Book. How should you raise kids? Here's a book. The Bible is one of them, of course, but God has been kind enough to let us copy his method of communication about innumerable things. 

But this leads to a problem: how do you decide which books to read? There are probably now more books about, say, WWII than any one person could, quite literally, read in a lifetime! With all this information wandering about, how do you select and shape your reading?

Commonplaces: June/July 2024

 

“She looking thro’ and thro’ me/Thoroughly to undo me,/Smiling, never speaks:/So innocent-arch, so cunning-simple…”—Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Lilian”

“Tota ecclesia instar tonitrui reboat Amen.”—Jerome, 2nd Prologue to his Commentary on Galatians, in Whitaker, Disputations on Holy Scripture

“We must exactly distinguish between man’s duty and God’s purpose, there being no connection between them. The purpose and decree of God is not the rule of our duty; neither is the performance of our duty in doing what we are commanded any declaration of what is God’s purpose to do, or his decree that it should be done. Especially is this to be seen and considered in the duty of the ministers of the gospel, in the dispensing of the word, and exhortations, invitations, precepts, and threatenings, committed unto them; all which are perpetual declaratives of our duty, and do manifest the approbation of the thing exhorted and invited to, with the truth of the connection between one thing and another, but not of the counsel and purpose of God, in respect of individual persons, and the ministry of the word. A minister is not to make inquiry after, nor to trouble himself about, those secrets of the eternal mind of God, namely—whom he purposes to save, and whom he hath sent Christ to die for in particular. It is enough for them to search his revealed will, and thence take their directions, from whence they have their commissions…and when they make proffers and tenders in the name of God to all, they do not say to all, “it is the purpose and intention of God that ye should believe,” (who gave them any such power?) but, that it is his command, which makes it their duty to do what is required of them; and they do not declare his mind, what himself in particular will do.”—John Owen, The Death of Death in the Death of Christ

Book of the Month June 2023: Empires of Light

Great are the powers of electricity....It makes millionaires. It paints devil's tails in the air and floats placidly in the waters of the earth. It hides in the air. It creeps into every living thing....Last night it nestled in the sherry. It lurked in the pale Rhine wine. It hid in the claret and sparkled in the champagne. It trembled in the sorbet electrique....Small wonder that the taste was thrilled and the man who sipped was electrified...energy begets energy. (from the Buffalo Morning Express, January 13th, 1897, after the city had been electrified)

I rather desperately wanted to write this on Joe Rigney's new Emotional Sabotage. But if you're one of the four people who reads my stuff, you've already heard of that one. So I decided to do something a bit more unknown. So our candidate for this month, flouncing into the (electric) spotlight in all her shy glory, is Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World by Jill Jonnes (2004). In this highly readable historical work, we are treated to visions of how a substance that we moderns take for granted--electricity--sparkled and crackled its way into American life at the end of the 19th century.

You Can Only Tell What You Know

 

"...not that I mean to depreciate [the poets]; but everyone can see that they are a tribe of imitators, and will imitate best and most easily the life in which they have been brought up; while that which is beyond the range of a man’s education he finds hard to carry out in action, and still harder adequately to represent in language.”—Plato, Timaeus (Jowett)

It is a common Twitter trope these days to portray our American elites (political or artistic) as a deliberate set of societal saboteurs, scheming in air-conditioned offices about how to take down the whites and the Christians, the "grillers" and the "normies." They lure us with innocent-sounding phrases like justice and neighbor or a wonderful Episode 1 of a streaming series. The mass of middle America joins in, some with caution, more with enthusiasm. And then--bam--in swoops the Wokeness, the lawfare, the main-character-who-surprise-is-actually-gay-but-still-somehow-just-as-awesome. The trap closes, we conservatives lose another political battle or beloved IP, and the process starts all over again.

Book of the Month May 2024: Ascent to Love

"Here failed the strength of my high fantasy;/Already though my will and my desire/Were, as a balanced wheel is moved, turned by/The love that moves the sun and other stars."

Ascent to Love is a study guide (or perhaps, more accurately, an interpretive overview) of Dante's Divine Comedy. I heard someone say once that Peter Leithart is a better literary critic than a theologian, and based on what I've read of his stuff so far, it seems to check out. This was excellent. He charts a course through the three parts of the Comedy and ties it all together as a pursuit of Love--not the smarmy emotion of so many Hollywood movies, but the burning, bright holiness that makes everything work. Dante begins wandering in a dark wood. He is lost, hunted, and unable to reach his life's goal. But his cries are heard, and he is sent a guide--the great poet Virgil--to show him the way out of his errors. His journey is the wonderful song of the Commedia. 

Commonplaces: May 2024

 

“Nec promiscuam habere ac vulgarem clementiam oportet nec abscisam; nam tam omnibus ignoscere crudelitas quam nulli.” (Neither should we have indiscriminate and general mercy, nor yet preclude it; for it is as much a cruelty to pardon all as to pardon none.)—Seneca, De Clementia I.ii

“Principum saevitia, bellum est.”—Seneca, De Clementia I.v

“The Christian, when fullest of divine communications, is but a glass without a foot; he cannot stand, or hold what he hath received, any longer than God holds him in his strong hand.”—William Gurnall, The Christian in Complete Armour

“Many lose heaven, because they are ashamed to go in a fool’s coat thither.”—Gurnall

“Obedience, being a child of faith, partakes of its parent’s strength or weakness.”—Gurnall

“They say writing is just pushing a feather, but… writing occupies not just the fist or the foot while the rest of the body can be singing or jesting, but the whole man. As for school teaching, it is so strenuous that no one ought to be bound to it for more than ten years.”—Martin Luther, in Roland Bainton’s Here I Stand

Book of the Month April 2024: Common Grace

“We fortify ourselves in opposition to God when we view this world as our sphere and this earth as our domain. God has his heaven, and we have this earth, and a bartering ensues in which, after death, God allocates to us a piece of his heaven--while we, in exchange, give God during our earthly life a piece of this earthly life, as it were. And then, of course, a somewhat businesslike mind-set governs in this sacred realm as well, by which we attempt to purchase as large a piece of heaven as possible by sacrificing as small a piece of this earthly life as possible.”—Abraham Kuyper, Common Grace Vol. II

It is quite common in modern Reformed circles to talk blithely of "Kuyperianism." The term is rarely defined, but seems to mean the opposite of a stark spiritual/material dualism, where heaven is God's pure spiritual domain and the earth belongs to the Devil and his angels (meaning a Christian need not bother himself with it overmuch). We might summarize it as the mindset of "this world is not my home, I'm just a-passin' through" of many old gospel songs. In this view, a Christian is a stranger with his mind on purely spiritual concerns, and what is going on in this realm of sin and trouble need not concern him. But Kuyperians instead claim the Christian does have earthly concerns--usually concentrated in the political and economic realms. While this is a fine definition, there is a lot more to true Kuyperianism than an integrated orthopraxy.

The name is coined from Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920), a Dutch pastor who managed to do more in his eighty-seven years than any one man had a right to do (start a political party, found and edit a major newspaper, manage a nationwide church split, found a university, be elected prime minister, write theological bestsellers...the list could go on). In America, he is best known for his Lectures on Calvinism, originally six talks given as part of Princeton's Stone Lectures in 1898; as well as for his famous quote,

 "Oh, no single piece of our mental world is to be hermetically sealed off from the rest, and there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: 'Mine!'"

Kuyper was one of the leading voices of what is often called Neo-Calvinism, a movement that opposed Modernism--the rationalism and secularism that flowed over Europe in the wake of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic conquests. He saw Calvinism as not simply a particular Reformed response to the papacy or a special emphasis on soteriology, but as a total system or "worldview." This system would allow Christians to oppose the totalizing claims of modern life with an equally totalizing (but far more justly balanced) response.

He is particularly well-known today for his response to the exaltation of the principle of popular sovereignty. Europe had rallied to the idea that the voice of the people, not the monarch, holds ultimate sway in any government system. Whatever the people decide goes. Hegel divinized that process as the dialectical "voice of history" and it is, of course, a key component of political battles in our day. Therefore, if what ever the people says goes, and the voice of the people is the government, then there is no appeal beyond government fiat. Kuyper refused to accept this view of the state's all-encompassing authority. Instead, he divided various governments into "spheres"--primarily civil, ecclesiastical, and family. Each sphere has unique authorities and penalties, and were separated and founded by God; but they overlap in practical ways in day-to-day life. Dividing them is where it gets tricky, because every individual belongs to different spheres.

So how do we know what to do? One of the common answers has been the classical concept of "natural law." However, with the rise of Darwinian evolution and materialism, this term often got freighted with the idea that the rules for life somehow existed outside of God, or at least of any Christian revelation. Kuyper, leaning on the traditional Reformed view of covenant, instead formulated the concept of "common grace." Grace here might be best defined as "God's unmerited favor." While particular grace saved the individual, and covenantal grace saved the elect, common grace saved all of mankind after the sin of Adam, when it rightly should have died in his transgression. Without this general or "common" grace, the last two would have no opportunity to work.

Here, then, are three touchstones of grace. One is entirely personal, a white stone, engraved with a name known only to God and to you. This is wholly particular grace. The second one is the touchstone of the covenant grace, a blessed gift you enjoy in common with all God's children. The third is the touchstone of a general human grace, coming to you because you are among the children of humanity, yours together with not only all God's children but in common with all the children of humanity. (Common Grace, Vol. I, pg. 5, italics original)

It is important to note that Kuyper saw common grace as in no way salvific, as he was occasionally accused of doing (and went to particular pains to refute). He saw it instead as a way to distinguish God's forbearance against sin:

The notion of "general" grace is so easily misused, as if by it were meant saving grace, and that is absolutely not the case. The only grace that is saving in the absolute sense is particular, personal grace, and even covenant grace receives this title of honor only with certain qualifications. Nevertheless, even though covenant grace in certain instances is saving in terms of its nature when significance, this may never be ascribed to general grace.... In itself general grace carries no saving seed within itself and is therefore of an entirely different nature from particular grace or covenant grace. Since this is often lost from view when speaking about general grace, to prevent misunderstanding and confusion it seemed more judicious to revive in our title the otherwise somewhat antiquated expression, and to render the phrase communis gratia, used formerly by Latin-speaking theologians, as "common grace." (Vol. I, pg. 6) 

He treated the subject at length in articles in the newspaper he founded and ran, De Heraut. The finished articles were then organized and collected into three volumes: Volume I covered the biblical theology of the doctrine, what Kuyper called its "origin and operation;" (Vol. I preface, xxxviii) Volume II offered a doctrinal, systematic presentation; Volume III gave practical out workings of the doctrine in everyday Dutch life (from cowpox vaccines to education to Sabbath laws). The entire set was published in book form in 1902. It has been freshly translated into English in a fine set available from Lexham Press.

In our day of debates over general equity theonomy, Christian nationalism, or the effectiveness of the Constitution, the most valuable and easily accessible volume will be the third on practical concerns. In spite of the intervening time and ocean, most of his topics remain highly relevant to American Christians today. I mused while reading it that the history of America might have looked quite different if this work had been translated when it came out, instead of a hundred and ten years later--we might have been far more skeptical of government education, for one. But it is never too late to do the reading! Kuyper is brilliant, and even when you disagree with him, he forces you to think through an issue.

Thanks to the Abraham Kuyper Translation Society, there is much more of Kuyper available in our day than the Lectures on Calvinism. If you've got the time and the inclination, I highly recommend you dive deeper into the work and life of this irrepressible Dutchman.

Favorite Student Blunders and Bloopers 2023-24

 It's that time again--time to revel in the slips and the slops, the misunderstandings and the falling short, the errors and the mistakes. Here are my favorite moments from my students of the last school year--and if you don't get it, make sure you read it again! Enjoy, and don't forget to chuckle!

“Rage—sing, goddess, of the rage of Peleus’s son Achilles,/Murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,/Hurling down to the house of death so many sturdy souls,/Great fighter’s souls, but made their bodies carry-ons…”

“The storm eschewed rage, and the ship drowned in that rage.”

Build Up David's Throne

 The 89^th Psalm:  Maschil of Ethan the Ezrahite. I will sing of the mercies of the LORD for ever: with my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness to all generations. For I have said, Mercy shall be built up for ever: thy faithfulness shalt thou establish in the very heavens. 

 

Lord, we love to sing of your mercies in this gathering. You are indeed faithful to all generations, from Adam down to the infant born this very morning. You have given your Word on the cross and in the Scriptures, and we are to spread that good news as far as we can. So first we thank you for an organization doing just that: Huguenot Heritage, for Francis Foucachon and the other members of that organization, working to bring your mercy to French-speaking lands. We ask that you bless their work with startling success and bring your wonderful covenant to even more of your chosen.

But evangelism is not the only method you have chosen to build up David’s throne. You have sworn to establish it “for all generations”—and in order to have those generations, you must grant us new ones to replace the old. And godly generations are most numerous when they are the fruit of godly marriages. So thank you for our marriages here at King’s Cross. In a Western world where most have never even seen constant, day-to-day faithfulness lived out between a man and a woman, you have made us abound in it. We do not thank you enough for that. So when our spouse delights—or frustrates—us this week, remind us to praise your wonders in marriage.

We bless your faithfulness to the congregations of the saints. Who can compare with it? Particularly we bring before you Covenant Presbyterian Church of Alberta, Canada, and their pastor Chris Cousine. We are grateful that lockdowns gave them the spark to gather together—establish their lampstand firmly.

And in all our other, unspoken blessings, help us to fear you as we ought, and not grow in easy contempt through out closeness.

 Amen.

Thanksgivings, King's Cross May 26th, A.D. 2024

Commonplaces: March/April 2024

“These people have only two categories, and one of them is Nazis.”—Jon Harris, Conversations That Matter Podcast

“So like a painted battle the war stood/Silenced, the living quiet as the dead,/And in the heart of Arthur joy was lord.”—Tennyson, Idylls of the King 

“Feeding on the air of entitlement of fading upper-class institutions that accomplish “little with a lot” of other people’s funds, the Harvard initiative reflected the increasing inebriation of elite American education. Focusing on stopping the world is full of books; But there are multitudes which are so ill written, they were never worth any man’s reading: and there are thousands more which may be good in

their kind, yet are worth nothing when the month for year or a progress, barring new power plants, dismantling chemical facilities, mobilizing against Israel, and other reactionary pursuits, Ivy institutions are pursuing the fancies of a declining intellectual and business elite, full of chemophobic nags and Luddite lame-ducks quacking away on their miasmic pools of old money as the world whirls past them.”—George Gilder, Life After Google

“Noise: interference in a message. Any influence of the conduit on the content: an undesired disturbance in a communications channel. Noise is commonly the distortion of content by its conduit. A high-entropy message (full of surprise) requires a low- entropy channel ( with no surprises). Surprises in the signal are information; surprises in the channel are noise.”—George Gilder, Life After Google

A Fusillade of Federalist

 Rather than overload a commonplaces post with the massive number I pulled out of my reading of the Federalist Papers (which I finally finished last month, after twelve years of attempts) I have decided to put them all in one place. Even if quote lists are not your thing, I think you will find some of these enlightening. Enjoy!

“Have we not already seen enough of the fallacy and extravagance of those idle theories which have amused us with promises of an exemption from the imperfections, weaknesses and evils incident to society in every shape? Is it not time to awake from the deceitful dream of a golden age, and to adopt as a practical maxim for the direction of our political conduct that we, as well as the other inhabitants of the globe, are yet remote from the happy empire of perfect wisdom and perfect virtue?”—Hamilton, Madison, or Jay, The Federalist Papers No. 6

Commonplaces: January/February 2024

 

"All warfare is based on deception.”

“In war, then, let your great object be victory, not lengthy campaigns.”

“Hence the saying: if you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

“The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy.”

“To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.”

“To see victory only when it is within the ken of the common herd is not the acme of excellence.”

Book of the Month February 2024: Full-Time

 

Full-Time: Work and the Meaning of Life by David Bahnsen is written by a Christian to Christians, and we desperately need to pay attention to every bit of what he has to say. This book has a pretty simple thesis: everything pop culture has told you about work has probably been wrong.

Overview

"I think we are all familiar with the cliched Hollywood setup of a man 'married to his career' who over the course of the movie slowly realizes that he is missing out on the 'important' things in life and eventually picks an alternative (a romance, his kids, more frequent walks through a garden, mentoring a troubled high school youth) over the 'evils' of careerism and personal ambition." (17)

Now, Bahnsen stresses (over and over again) that there is nothing wrong with these 'important' things. Rather, the problem is in making work and these things enemies. Can you have both work and a healthy life, without downgrading work or the life? Why are we always told we have to choose between them? Shouldn't it be possible to do both?

Deliver Me, O Lord, From Mine Enemies

 

Hear me speedily, O LORD: my spirit faileth: hide not thy face from me, lest I be like unto them that go down into the pit. Cause me to hear thy lovingkindness in the morning; for in thee do I trust: cause me to know the way wherein I should walk; for I lift up my soul unto thee.--Ps. 143

 

Lord, we live in a world covered in enemies and foes. Some are out in the open, seeking to use their own power or even the power of others to crush us and our works. Some hide near us and whisper slanders and shame. Our own flesh shrieks rebellion, the very ground we work delivers thistles in return our toil. So deliver us, Lord, from all these enemies—we flee to you to hide from them. Thank you that when we flee we do not have far to go.

Be with Logos School members in their trials, and with the elders and deacons of Christ Church and King’s Cross as we attempt to build for the future here in our little corner. We pray also for the rest of your Temple: for the persecuted saints in India, for the Christian members of our legislative assemblies, for all those unsure of how to handle our troubled times. We ask that you grant them knowledge and teach them to do all Your will; for You are God: Your spirit is good; and you have promised to lead us into the land of uprightness out of a dark pit, or even a grave. For You even know the way out of one of those.

Let this comfort all here who feel the shadow of their grave fall on them: the sick and suffering. Particularly, be with those having operations, those with permanent sickness, and the rest of our saints whose names we bring before you every Sunday. Bring them to fullness of life, Lord, for your name’s sake, and for your righteousness’s sake (since we have none) bring them out of trouble. We have more suffering than we can name, but you have more righteousness than we could ever comprehend. And you promised it to us, in your own beloved Son.

So in thy mercy cut off our enemies, and destroy all them that afflict our souls: for this congregation is your servant.

Petitions King's Cross Feb. 18, A.D. 2024

Book of the Month January 2024: Did America Have a Christian Founding?

 

The short answer? Yes.

But if you want to start getting into more depth than that, Mark David Hall's Did America Have a Christian Founding: Separating Modern Myth from Historical Truth (2019) is a great place to start.

"Scholars and popular authors routinely assert that America's founders were deists who desired the strict separation of church and state...Even prominent Christian college professors such as Richard T. Hughes argue that "most of the American founders embraced some form of Deism, not historically orthodox Christianity." Examples of authors who make such statements may be multiplied almost indefinitely. These claims are patently and unequivocally false. This book demonstrates why." (xv) 

Why Should You Read This Book?

If you live in America today, you probably have been raised to believe one of two views of the United States' early relationship to religion:

Kuyper on Obergefell and Drag Queen Story Hour

“We observe [the impossibility of neutrality in government] perhaps most clearly in the question of marriage and the status of women. Here, too, opinions completely diverge. In one perspective, man and woman are only two names for what we commonly call human being, and because there must not be inequality between one person and another, no distinction between the two is warranted. Conceptually, then, marriage is something that cannot be permitted to persist. Or, if we still want to call it marriage, it is in fact nothing other than a contractual agreement between two equal individuals that in no case may be binding any longer than they themselves want it to be. Nor may such contractual living together be considered more honorable than living together without contract. In this way, “free divorce” and “free love” stand on the same level as marriage. With this the foundation of the family collapses, and the care for the children falls to the state. Diametrically opposed to this new—or, in fact, warmed-over pagan--thinking stands the other view, which acknowledges an essential difference between man and woman, sees marriage as arising from this essential difference, permits divorce only in very specific cases, and places—thanks to the permanent character of marriage—the children under the care not of the state but of the parents. How is government to remain neutral in this? And is it not clear that “neutrality” would in fact mean being partial to the first perspective? If the government is not involved with marriage and does not regulate its permanence and its consequences, then the men and women who advocate “free love” get what they want. Their will and desire become the law of the state, and marriage acquires the character of a private pastime. Here then a choice must be made and is always made. Government, if it is responsible in its choice, must know why it chooses the first over against the second approach.”--pg. 207

"The same must be said of the matter of public decency. To a greater or lesser degree, everyone still expects that the government will maintain a measure of decency in the public realm. Order and safety are not enough. Human honor must govern the public realm, and it is simply contrary to any notion of the role of government for it to allow human beings to live like animals. But, of course, in order to maintain “decency,” government must have a conception of what is honorable and what is not. Here, too, “neutrality” would be nothing but surrendering all decency, and the most shameless individual would attempt to have his base instincts become the law of the land." pg. 209, Common Grace Vol. III

 

A 2023 Reader's Digest

 Well, I didn't quite manage to publish twelve "Book of the Month" posts. I shall have to attempt to be more consistent in 2024. 

In order to console all five readers of this blog for missing so many of my sparkling recommendations, here is a brief list of twenty of my favorite reads of 2023. When strangers ask me what I do with my free time, the answer will probably involve some of these. They are in no particular order. Some of them appeared as a Book of the Month, some didn't--but I think they are all worth your time. I've added a few flyaway thoughts to each. If you want further musings on any of them, feel free to ask. There are few things I like talking about more than what I'm reading.

Happy New Year to you all, and let's see what this next one brings. (Hopefully, a lot more books!)

• Wordsmithy by Douglas Wilson. Always great, particularly if you have anything to do with crafting thoughts into words--which is most of us.