Patristic Theology

http://www.myriobiblos.gr/texts/english/clement_1.html

The Crusades

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-2093921,00.html#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=World
I like this new pope.
The faux Liberaux reopened the debate by hating everything that reeks of cultural Christianity (Leithart's Christendom). Ridley Scott's movie was a slap in the face of all who kept their mouth shut so as not to offend needlessly. There were many noble people involved in the Crusades, and they were a response to centuries of Islamic expansion by the sword. That said, we should still apologize for our sins.

Baroque Protestantism?

Here is an excellent exchange by two very good men demonstrating a slight theological difference and how it causes people to talk past each other.
Ever been in a debate where two people cite the exact same fact as evidence for two opposite conclusions?
Part of this debate is over whether the Reformation needs Reforming (Milton) and whether man's problem is that he is essentially religious (Karl Barth). Typically, one side in the Reformed movement aims at stabilizing a Reformed Orthodoxy, and the other side aims at continuing the Reformation project, even if it means self-critiquing, second-guessing, and even innovation (Neo-Orthodoxy or, in Bartos' case, Baroque and Continental Protestantism).
Part of the problem is defining the difference between inculcating a child and propagandizing/polemicizing.
Conservatives argue for character, and liberals argue for personality, but a broad-minded approach would no doubt incorporate both, recognizing that they are approaching the same problem from different directions. Alexander Vinet would be proud of both of these men.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandre_Vinet


RESPONSE FIRST
Dear Pastor Bartos,

Thank you for this ministry. I enjoy your work. I have missed your articles lately, but now receiving this one, am perplexed by it, and if I understand you correctly, must disagree. How does your thesis jibe with Deuteronomy 6 and Psalm 78, for example? Briefly, my experience at applying the Biblical imperative for the last 25 years teaches me that it is not over-teaching that produces rebellion, but mere abstract teaching without diligent practice. A complex of teaching, example and practice (discipline), by faith with prayer, as a family has proved an astoundingly effective means of reproducing the faith in our children (five of them) and the children of those families I have served in formal educational office. Interestingly, I have found particularly that not continuing such education in practice through adolescence, at least through high school, tends to produce rebellion. Parents who live and educate the faith, including its discipline, with their children through adolescence win them for life. Some aspects of such a life include making the family the family in practice. The peer crowd (even a Christian one) is the most devastating influence on an adolescent. The home must be the greatest influence. A family embracing love of learning and literature, especially the Bible, is critical. Christina and I have worked as hard at forming a friendship with our children, an on-going personal relationship, as we have disciplining them. Parental self-consciousness and transparency regarding sin is hugely important. Children see through hypocrisy at a very young age. Indeed, what is the faith of Christ, if not trust in Him to forgive and redeem from our sin? Without transparency over sin, Christianity is mere external religion. The principle of liberty is imperative. The law is for the lawless. Discipline for discipline's sake is destructive, but where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Family economy that includes everyone's contribution and blessing is another element. Many more principles bear on the results of family religion. Thus, parents represent God in a very personal and real way. Pretty much, if an evangelical parent (or teacher) wins a child's love and respect to himself, he has won love and respect for God.

Not too much religion, but the kind of religion is at issue. True religion, where everything belongs to God in practice, with joy, grace and loving discipline (especially including self-discipline) is the key to rearing a godly home. Neglecting Biblical instruction is equally as bad as hypocritical over-doing. I hope I have not misconstrued you. This is such a fundamental element of the Christian life, I could not neglect to respond. I hope that my thoughts on this will be a blessing to you as yours typically are to me.

Yours for the King,
Ron

ARTICLE
Just a thought…..
Christian * Non-democratic * non-egalitarian * Free-market * politically incorrect * anti-étatist
Can too much religion hurt?
At the first glance this very question may seem rather suggestive, and, in a sense, even misleading unless we exclude the fact that fallen man can never be “too religious” before the absolute God in the absolute sense from the focus of this essay. However, religion includes not only a non-propositional, ”abstract”, spiritual aspect of worship, but, and perhaps mostly, a practical, propositional, institutional aspect thereof, especially of an ecclesiastical character. Too much too early of the latter may indeed prompt even the most obdurate rebellion and apostasy. Yet, often quite unnecessarily.
According to one of the great minds of the past age it is a simple fact, if not a law, how unequipped young people are for any final negative decision as to religion, i.e. a definite, institutional religion, before the age of thirty at the earliest.* While leaving the question of the readiness for a final positive answer for another treatment, we can immediately deduce, if the forgotten author is right, how heavy responsibility parents, seniors, pastors, or theologians have, for then it is possible for them to give ready occasion to, to provoke the young people to any indiscriminate revolt against such a definite institutional religion.
It seems to me that mature men may have the deepest experience of what such definite, institutional religion means in and for their own lives, but they not always remember that their own presently formed conviction has been an affair of a long time, of own personal religious growth and overall maturation, and that they cannot presuppose it as extant in the young, the immature. More importantly, they may also fail to see that this particular experience is NOT simply transferable to the young, and this by any command, by any careful teaching. Complex experiences or ideas cannot be simplified into a ”simple talk” or a primitive didactic exercise á la “Let’s play on little Jesus” precisely because they are complex. There are simply no geniuses in true religion, and hearing little kids or young people how they commonly use formulas, phrases, words and concepts of which they clearly have no idea whatsoever, let alone any understan ding, is truly awkward, embarrasing and deplorable.
This does not mean at all that children and young people should not be taught, well, some religion, that they should not be trained in some institutional religious convictions and habits, for that is what general wisdom and discrimination requires. After all, docility is no less a most necessary virtue than sincerity in the modern era of cognitive superficiality and emotional disintegration and mediocrity.
The rebellions of the young against the necessarily self-induced misrepresentation of the parent’s, teacher’s, or pastor’s religion (due to the indiscriminate ”overdosing”, which they cannot handle) can be very tragic and saddening in the family, in the church, in the father’s and mother’s heart. Thus, it is a matter of imperative responsibility to remain conscious of the inevitable, of the fact and right of the difference between the young people and the mature at every step of their maturation. While we may think that the maximum exposure of the young to an institutional religion (both in a quantitative and qualitative sense) will make them good Christians and save them from unbelief, in the long-run evaluation the opposite may be closer to truth since rebellion and apostasy does not always, nor usually, take the form of outright denial and communion absence. There is no question that popular liberalism – empty or shallow religiousness - is growing en ma sse among church-going members.** Thus, on the other hand, we may gain a great and lasting point if our immature ones leave us only with a little, yet firm definite religion, but with a deeply rooted and cherished sense that there is much more in it than they can, so far, see for themselves.
P.B.
* Since the author, B. F. v. Hagel, belonged to the 19th century, still a literary age, we can only imagine that that age level would be still higher today, in the age of popular literary illiteracy, of the ”Real Flat culture”.
** Personally, I think this latter form of revolt and apostasy is more ”fatal” due to its internal, subjective and later even subconscious character leading to a total in-depth spiritual apathy while formally subsisting in the observation of religious externalities for social or cultural reasons. Surely, these apostates can pray marvelously in public and be even ecclesiastically quite active.

Orthodoxy Isn't Enough

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/008/28.42.html

Europe's Population Decline

http://www.welt.de/data/2006/03/15/860324.html
According to this article (if I read in my terrible German correctly), Germany will have the lowest birthrate in the world outside of the Vatican City, in the next few decades, and the lowest in its recorded history since 1945.
"With terrible consequences to the Economy and the Rent-System..."
You think so?
Maybe also the Islamic immigration may factor in to make this...the Perfect Storm.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05193/536684.stm
Spengler for the Asia Times Online writes more eloquently than I.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/HB22Aa02.html
Note the decline in Eastern Europe; I assume Western Germany will not be far behind.

Prometheus

Here's a reason to love this poet-
Bedecke deinen Himmel, Zeus, Bedeck your Heaven, Zeus,
Mit Wolkendunst With cloudy vapors
Und ube, dem Knaben gleich, And practice, boyishly (like a young knave),
Der Disteln kopft, Who is beheading thistles,
An Eichen dich un Bergeshohn; Upon the oaks and the mountain tops,
Must mir meine Erde You must to me my Earth
Doch lassen stehn Indeed (or still) let stand
Und meine Hutte, die du nicht gebaut, And my hut, which you built not,
Und meinen Herd, And my hearth,
Um dessen Glut Whose glow
Du mich beneidest. You envy me.

Now Goethe goes on to have Prometheus defy Zeus, and promise the tyrant, whom he once was so naive to think heard his prayers, that he will raise man in his own image, to live, love, suffer, and rejoice without thinking one whit of Zeus.
It's quite clear that Goethe, like Shelley, realized the potential for an epic in the Prometheus story (who I argue is a Christ figure who defies Satan in the guise of Zeus), but that neither had the theology to make much sense out of it. After all, the Black Sea region is also the origin by legend of wine, as well as fire.
In any case, one can see how related German is to English, and get a feel for the beauty of the language, which is, contrary to belief, not guttural at all, but just French enough sounding to soften its strange English.

Harry Potter

http://www.george-macdonald.com/harry_potter_granger.htm
Great link for Potter fans. Here is his entire book, which is excellent:http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1414300913/104-8862816-9099940?v=glance&n=283155
Harry Potter is a modern morality play (Rowling loves Dickens and Austen). It is cleverly disguised as vastly entertaining mystery/fantasy, with Christian allegories hidden behind alchemical paradigms and not a little bit of antique Orthodoxy (the Orthodox doctrine of divinization with God's energies, which we so drily refer to as sanctification.
The real question is - will Rowling end up outdoing Tolkien (hard to imagine, but possible) and Robert Jordan (his story is also a disguised Christian fantasy - witness the wounds and rebirth of Rand al'Thor). It's difficult to say because, although Tolkien's reputation is secure, Rowling and Jordan are still writing.
Who knows what they may bring us?
That's why we read them.

Eden

Thrall am I, my name no song nor flame,
So strong runs thin blood, emptying even death.
Slave of the law and rule and line, swear I,
A cozened, curious thrall not wreaking or recking,
An apish thrall with need of air and water,
Encased and twined in cheated and cheating
Necessity, who must feel no happy check.
Logos and sigil, jot and tittle, little by little,
I weave lucky, filthy days with impulse.
Bright heavens, invented and real, elude me.
An old camel am I, a dromedary invalid,
With one too many deserts to cross.
I cannot do the things I shortly shall,
And thus am I the perfect slave of God,
So fine a man may rise from muck
And shake the angels of desire by the forelock.
Where is my little world?
My scribblings are inept and fearful.
Death is no foe, nor friend neither,
But a frequent interlocuter and shadow.
God loves me and I find things differently
On the crowing of the rooster.
He dies in me and comes to life again.
God walks through the fallen Edens of my heart.


There you are, you free verse nuts! How's that?

American Literature

http://www.absinthe-literary-review.com/archives/sloan7.htm
http://www.absinthe-literary-review.com/archives/sloan5.htm
http://www.absinthe-literary-review.com/archives/sloan3.htm
http://www.absinthe-literary-review.com/archives/sloan3.htm
http://www.absinthe-literary-review.com/archives/fierce2.htm

Here are some interesting literary articles, many of them centering around American religion.

German Lyric Poetry

According to my Penguin Anthology of German Poetry, the best German lyric poetry generally concerned the following: nightfall, the moon, death, and God. Unlike the French and English poets (who frequently treated of Nature and Love), the Germans concentrated on the bare essentials. How to survive the Thunder-word of Eternity?
Such existential Angst undoubtedly lead to the Lutheran Reformation, with its radical division between the visible and the invisible Church, its insistence that Herod showed the wisemen to Christ and so who knows what they believe who urge us to believe?, and its logical push of the tenets of Catholicism into rigor (Luther stumbled upon Rome's Sistine Chapel and was appalled).
Had someone been astute enough, they could have diagnosed the Russian Revolution using Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Russian Orthodoxy (as well as geography and weather). Likewise, the Nazi Storm of 1933 and following was heralded by a long procession of German signums, which augured that the mix between liberal Lutheranism and radical Catholicism in the German soul might not have set too well too peacefully too long. It was just this combination of a decayed Protestantism gone Red to win the election with apostate Catholics devoted to High Culture no doubt providing dedicated soldiers that made Hitler so lethal (Austria was conservative and resisted Hitler, but once in, Hitler recruited many of the SS from that area).
Anti-semitism, intellectual freedom, a derring-do of soul, nationalism, and frustrated Imperial ambitions were not the best signs. England should have mourned Bismarck's Prussian/socialist ascendency over the Hapsburgs. Instead, the Protestants were eager to bring down a Catholic monarchy.
Sic transit gloria Europa

Don Quixote - Tragedy or Farce?

A friend of mine argues, based upon the last chapter of the Man of La Mancha, that it is a sad, pathetic, pitiable tragedy. Don Quixote calls for a confessor, and repents of his foolishness, and makes his peace with God, just in time to die.
I am wondering if perhaps Cervantes meant this as a little joke. After all, he went with Don Juan of Austria to fight the Last Crusade at Lepanto, and he lost his arm. He wrote his novel while living in cramped quarters with more than several women (related, plus wife), and was penniless upon his deathbed (if memory serves).
Cervantes seems to me to have been a man of eminent humor, pithy insight, and jocund spirit. I do not think he was satirizing either his hero or mankind. The joke, rather, was upon the Spain of his day. Perhaps he was disgusted with it. After all, they were busy planning the invasion of England rather than opposing the encroaching Turk.
In any case, I would rather have the complete volume of Don Quixote with me upon a deserted island than all the works of Shakespeare.
It would be more ho-ho-larious.

Interesting Others

http://www.tektonics.org/jesusclaims/trinitydefense.html
An interesting apologetics site...
http://sinequanon.spleenville.com/
Great humor and insight, and merciless on the abusers of language (which Leftists generally are - they have to be to make their philosophy/ideology come out in the wash).
http://crackersquire.blogspot.com/
A Democrat disgusted with his party...

Fun Stuff

This caught my eye as intriguing -

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-karnick101502.asp
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-karnick100102.asp

The best canceled show ever, and an amazing deal at 35 bucks -

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000AQS0F/102-6937061-3194534?v=glance&n=130

Orthodoxy II

http://www.orthodoxpress.org/parish/river_of_fire.htm

By coincidence a correspondent of mine, whose name I withhold because it is well known, mentions that he is considering conversion to Orthodoxy.You might be interested to know that Franz Rosenzweig hails Goethe as the first modern Church father of Orthodoxy. There is a marvelous digression in Rosenzweig's "Star of Redemption" on the Eastern Church, or what he calls (after Schelling) the Johannine Church (where the Catholic is the Petrine and the Protestant the Pauline). He writes (Galli's translation, p. 302 passim):"Love was very feminine, faith very masculine; only hope is always childlike; only in it does the 'become like children' begin to be realized in Christianity...Goethe..hopes, as Augustine loves, as Luther believes. And so the whole world comes under the new sign. Hope becomes now the greatest. The old powers are reconciled in hope; faith and love adapt themselves. From the children's sense of hope now they get neew power, such that they become young again like the eagle. It is like a new world morning, like a great new beginning anew from the beginning, thus as if there had been nothing before. Faith that proves true in love, the love that carries faith within its bosom, they are both now carried on high on the wings of hope. For thousands and thousands of years, faith has been hoping to have been true in love, love to have carried true faith into the one and universal light of the world. Man says: I hope to believe."One must read the whole discussion in the "Star," and last week's "Sourdough" essay provides some helpful background on Goethe. I would be interested in your thoughts if you get around to reading Rosenzweig. - Spengler, Asia Times Online

My biggest objection to Orthodoxy is, after months of reflection and back and forth, that they reject Protestantism (F. Seraphim Rose called it a snake biting its own tale, Eternal Reformation of Itself), but can themselves offer no explanation why the universalism and lack of ikons in the Cappadocian Fathers were Reformed by Augustine, Tertullian, and Photius into a more or less recognizably "Orthodox Church". In otherwords, creatively adding ikons was (in one sense) fine, but one cannot arbitrarily then put an end to innovations in the name of anti-Western zeal for the purity of the Gospel. The Church has always innovated, always Reformed, always branched (flowered) forward into new varieties.