oakleys.org.uk

"More than one Israelite man went to worship the golden calf because there was a good prospect there for getting laid. It sort of gave the 'golden calf theology' that little extra appeal. God struck twenty-three thousand of them down because of it. We should be well acquainted with God's treatment of them, along with His destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, His judgment in the Flood, and so forth. These things were written for us as examples, and apparently God thinks them to be effective examples. We must know them and meditate on them" (Fidelity, p. 35).

"There is a relation between what predominates in our preaching and what we deem to be of greatest importance" (Gordon, Why Johnny Can't Preach, 91).

I could not sit on this any longer, a Friday video a brewing guide for the aeropress.

I am super pleased with it, with more to follow very soon. I’d love to hear your feedback through the normal channels.

There is also a guide below and a download pdf version here

I think it goes without saying that biblical Christians will vote in November in a way that favors basic pro-life issues, supports a return to some form of fiscal sanity, and rejects all attempts at legislative gender-bending. So much goes without saying. So I am not so much concerned about how our folks vote, for voting out the rapscallions can be edifying on a personal level, and instructive for the kids to boot. I am talking rather about how conservative Christians might get themselves invited to a rally, and then be tempted to get swept up into all the throw-the-bums-out excitement, losing track of some things that would be better not to lose track of. So . . .

1. Keep your head. We are living in a time when politicommotions are running high, and the pushback against socialist lunacy is likely to be rowdy and vigorous . . . but angry mobs do not constitute permission from God to stop obeying Him for the duration of the rally. If you are called to fight, then gird up the loins of your mind (1 Pet. 1:13).

2. Conservative forms of postmodern relativism are no better than the other kinds. History happened the way it did, and advocacy history for our side, celebrating whatever makes us feel better about ourselves, is no better than having the light bulb invented by a Zulu chieftain during Black History Month, and by Edison the rest of the year. I mean, co-opting Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. as champions of conservatism is enough provocation to make St. Francis kick three or four puppies. If some conservative rally a century from now has a big banner of Obama at it, then perhaps it wouldn't be too far off to suggest that somehow, somewhere, somebody slipped a cog.

3. Do not make the mistake of thinking that anything that makes the socialists, liberals, progressives, and commies froth at the mouth must be biblical. What they are advancing is evil, sure enough, but that doesn't mean that anyone who fights them must be good. Evil forces fight other evil forces, evil forces fight confused forces, and evil forces fight good forces. So you could be fighting evil, and still have the odds of you being a good guy be two to one against.

4. Always act, and never react. Action needs to proceed from a biblically based framework of political principles, and not from faux outrage over the fact that your gored ox is not covered by Medicaid.

5. Don't support any political movement in such a way that eliminates your ability to protest the inevitable compromises that will follow in the train of electoral victory, such compromises being undertaken and advanced by Republicans ten minutes after the election. Ten dollars says that after the election, which will be a good night for Republicans, a few leading Republicans will come out almost immediately and say that they don't actually want to dismantle Obamacare piece by piece, in order to throw it into the Chesapeake piece by piece. The only way to effectively counter to this will be by throwing congressmen into the Chesapeake, as a way to help them get the tar and feathers off.

6. Take note of the fact that pastors, theologians and writers alive today, who actually embody the principles held by the Founders, will usually not be allowed anywhere near the microphones, at least not while the television crews are still there. I have a cartoon from The New Yorker hanging on my bulletin board, where a school teacher in a flower power dress is saying to the kids, "'Give me liberty or give me death.' Now what kind of person would say that?"

7. Above all, beware the idolatry of a Christless civil religion. The American civil religion has the kind of pantheon that can fit lots of statues around the base of that dome, and Christians must not bow down to any of them. We are Christians and the worship of a generic Deity is prohibited to us. There is no way to the Father except through the name of Jesus. But there are manifestations of the American civil religion that are seductive to evangelicals. And so we must be told, again and again, little children, keep yourselves from idols (1 John 5:21).

The Philistine cows “went straight in the direction of Beth-Shemesh … they turned neither to the right nor to the left” (1 Sam 6:12), because it’s better to die in Israel that to live in Philistia – especially if you get to die as an offering to the LORD (v. 14).

Those interested in Biblical Theology and related subjects will find a wealth of thoughtful and thought-provoking material here: http://beginningwithmoses.org/

Carrying of from yesterdays work another post on one of the farms from my Bahia trip last week. This is from the neighbouring farm to Aranquan floresta is a farm I know quite well.

Farm Name: Fazenda Floresta
Producers Name:Nelson Ribeiro
Region:Chapada Diamantina
Altitude:1050 to 1200 meters above sea level
Varieties Grown:Bourbon, Catura, Java, Pacamara, obertan, topia
Last visit: November 2009

Report: Since the last visit in 2009 much of the work has been done in upgrading drying patio facilities. This is part of an ongoing program in the farm to raise the quality of production. The cupping lab that was set up on the last visit has continued to be used with monthly cuppings being held where every one joins in. Junior (nelsons oldest son) has participated in a in depth course to understand cupping and sample roasting which has been valuable while setting up the lab.

Newly planted growth from the last visit has continued to thrive and the whole farm is looking incredibly healthy. Grivilia (a shade tree) has been planted all over the farm to help with shade and as a pest deterrent.

A project to grow passionfruit in between the coffee plants has also started. Although competing in the same soils there root structure is different and harvest periods opposite ends of the year. So a small test section has been set up.

Planting of a varietal called oberertan has produced its first harvest. This varietal has very elongated branches that tend to fruit towards the ends. It is not known how this plant will react to the conditions of Bahia and in particular Floresta but we hope to see some early samples soon. Also planting of a pacamara and java where we should see the samples of this experiment although there will be no commercial offering until after these tests and more planting

The Bourbon trees that Has Bean bought all the crop from last year have thrived in the past 11 months and are looking very healthy. In spite of this, disappointingly the crop has underperformed producing less that last year. It seems the bourbon tree is not a fan of high yields and organic farming, and it seems that it is very difficult to grow in these growing conditions. Plans to extend the bourbon plants by a 1000 have been put on hold because of this, and maybe put off completely.

Instead of planting more Bourbon Nelson has allowed me to choose what to plant, in a mini Fazenda Has Bean Project. I have suggested two to Nelson who will go see if he can get the seedlings to start it off, and will be a Has Bean Exclusive.

The farm in general looks amazing and much work have been done over the past twelve months, investment of money time and energy is starting to pay off.

Cupping of the naturals, pulp naturals and washed were interesting so early in the season. The naturals stood out for special praise, you could taste the attention to detail.

All in all a farm that feels like its progressing and moving forwards in the specialty and quality.

Gregory charges Eunomius (11.5) with undermining the efficacy of sacraments.  Eunomius claims, “we, in agreement with holy and blessed men; affirm that the mystery of godliness does not consist in venerable names, nor in the distinctive character of customs and sacramental tokens, but in exactness of doctrine.”

Gregory charges that this treats “the sacrament of regeneration as an idle thing, the mystic oblation as profitless, and the participation in them as of no advantage to those who are partakers therein.”  He follows Manicheans, Montanists, Marcionites and others who say that “neither the confession of sacred names, nor the customs of the church, nor her sacramental tokens, are a ratification of godliness.”  For the orthodox, “the mystery of godliness is ratified by the confession of the Divine Names . . . and our salvation is confirmed by participation in the sacramental customs and tokens.”

Is this low sacramental theology inherent in Arianism?  Does Arianism lead to denial of sacramental efficacy?  Or, is a low view of sacramental efficacy a sign of Arian or Arianizing Christology?  Gregory seems to think there are connections.

One of them has to do with the names of the Triune persons.  According to Eunomius, the “confessions of the reverend and precious names of the Holy Trinity is useless,” and that is not surprising since in his fundamental theology he denies the truth of the names of the Son.  Scripture calls Jesus Lord, God, eternal Word, only-begotten, and Eunomius questions the legitimacy of all those names.  Consistently, he denies the power of those names in the sacraments of the church.

Also, implicit in Arian Christology is the notion that there is a Supreme power that transcends that of the Son.  There is a God above and beyond the names of God, a God above and beyond the Triune Name into which one is baptized.  What is important, then, is the mystical transport past the Son and the church’s ordinances to the realm of the Ungenerate Father.

Eunomius’ denial of the deity of the Son also casts doubt on the truth of the Son’s words.  When the Son urges that a man cannot enter the kingdom without being born of water and Spirit, or when He offers His flesh and blood as our food and drink, Eunomius is not sure we can trust those words.

Gregory in any case has severe words for those who deny the power of sacraments: “They who in act deny the faith . . . and judge the sanctification effected by the sacramental tokens to be worthless . . . what else are they than transgressors of the doctrines of salvation?”

A line from Dickinson: “the nerves sit ceremonious like tombs.”  This is an extremely complex literary device, or set of devices.

First, personification: The nerves “sit” like people, and sit in a particular way, ceremoniously.

Second, the personification spreads out to evoke a scene.  Ceremonious sitting takes place in church, at weddings, or, as in this poem, at funerals.

Third, the personification itself is encompassed and somewhat canceled by another device, the concluding simile.  The whole scene of nerves-sitting-ceremoniously is compared to “tombs.”

Fourth, this creates a scene change: The ceremoniously sitting nerves are now tombstones in a cemetery.

In sum: Nerves are people.  But the people are like tombstones.  So nerves are people who are tombstones.

And all in six words.

A student, Heather Denigan, is working on Emily Dickinson, and pointed me to this remarkable poem about baptism:

I’m ceded, I’ve stopped being theirs;
The name they dropped upon my face
With water, in the country church,
Is finished using now,
And they can put it with my dolls,
My childhood, and the string of spools
I’ve finished threading too.

Baptized before without the choice,

But this time consciously, of grace

Unto supremest name,
Called to my full, the crescent dropped,
Existence’s whole arc filled up
With one small diadem.

My second rank, too small the first,
Crowned, crowing on my father’s breast,
A half unconscious queen;
But this time, adequate, erect,
With will to choose or to reject.
And I choose — just a throne.

Dickinson, renouncing her baptism as a childish toy, shows a deeper understanding of what baptism entails than many who continue in the faith.

"Those who worship sexual pleasure receive, in the long run, the destruction of the thing they worship. Wisdom tells us in Proverbs that all who hate her love death (Prov. 8:36). Those who hate sexual wisdom love sexual death" (Fidelity, p. 32).

"Our seminary curricula are largely identical to what they were around the First World War, but the entering seminarian is a profoundly different person than was the seminarian of the early twentieth century. Then, the individual was well-read in poetry, and had studied nearly a decade of classical language (Latin, Greek, or both), learning by reading poetry and ancient languages to read texts carefully. He had written compositions almost weekly in many of his academic classes, and often wrote letters to friends and family. In contrast, the entering seminarian today has the faculties of a sixth- to eighth grader sixty years ago, and the seminary curriculum cannot make this seminarian an adult by the time he graduates" (Gordon, Why Johnny Can't Preach, p. 68).

HT: Johnny Simmons

Creation, Gregory of Nyssa insists, is not eternal: “For we have learned that the heaven and the earth were not from eternity, and will not last to eternity, and thus it is hence clear that those things are both started from some beginning, and will surely cease at some end.”

On the other hand: “the Divine Nature, being limited in no respect, but passing all limitations on every side in its infinity, is far removed from those marks which we find in creation.”

But then: “that power which is without interval, without quantity, without circumscription, having in itself all the ages and all the creation that has taken place in them, and over-passing at all points, by virtue of the infinity of its own nature, the unmeasured extent of the ages, either has no mark which indicates its nature, or has one of an entirely different sort, and not that which the creation has.”

That is, while creation is not eternal, all the ages and intervals that make up the creation are contained within the eternal, infinite, divine nature.  Creation is pre-contained in God.  How, indeed, could it be otherwise.

As a side note: Note the unargued movement from talk about “the Divine Nature” to talk about “that power.”  A point developed well by Rene Michel Barnes, and one that warms the heart of Robert Jenson.

Sin is like operating a pneumatic drill without ear defenders in at least 25 ways:

1. It might seem at first glance like the quickest and easiest option,
2. but it damages you right from the moment you start,
3. and it’s completely destructive in the long term,
4. so you’ll certainly regret it afterwards.
5. You’ll find lots of fools saying it won’t do you any harm,
6. and they’ll probably laugh at you if you avoid it,
7. but wise people will certainly warn you against it,
8. and deep down, you’ve got a sneaking suspicion they’re right.
9. In fact, there is probably a law against it somewhere.
10. You’d realise the truth if you could think straight for more than about 10 seconds,
11. but the whole trouble is that once you get started it’s hard to think straight.
12. In fact, it becomes harder to think straight the longer you carry on,
13. so what you really need is someone from outside the situation to come alongside you and do some straight talking.
14. Once the straight talking begins, some of your friends will probably tell you there’s no point in changing now,
15. but they’re wrong.
16. If you stop, those friends probably won’t want to hang out with you so much,
17. despite the fact you’ll obviously be in better shape than before.
18. On the other hand, there’s a chance that you might be able persuade some of them to give up too,
19. in which case they’ll be grateful afterwards,
20. even though they might not thank you at the time.
21. If you stop, you’ll still be tempted to do other things that are just as stupid,
22. and you’ll probably suffer the after-effects for some time,
23. but at least the symptoms won’t get any worse;
24. in fact, you’ll almost certainly get gradually better,
25. and one day the damage will be put right for good.

Here are some thoughts by Christopher on the efficacy of prayers for his cancer. The obvious conclusion is that we need to double down.

When I made some sharp comments about Thomas Oord’s book on love a few weeks back, Oord wrote to inform me that he’s written another book that deals more overtly with the themes I found lacking in his other book.  Oord conceded that I might remain unsatisfied even then, but I thought it only fair to take a look at the fuller account (The Nature of Love: A Theology).  As he expected, I do remain unsatisfied, and how.

One of the alarming recent developments within “open theism” is the overt renunciation of creatio ex nihilo.  As Oord argues, rightly, “A God who can create something from nothing is a God whose power and resources are apparently unlimited. . . . The God whose unlimited power created something from nothing is capable of completely controlling that which God creates – which is everything.”  Then he pushes the argument to say that creatio ex nihilo implies that God is “culpable for failing to control creatures” and so to “prevent genuine evil.”  I don’t agree with the last point, but the challenge is a powerful one, and Oord is correct to stress (over against many who deny it) that this strong form of sovereignty is inherent in the doctrine of creation.

A God who controls everything is a problem for Oord because he wants a theology that makes it impossible for God to coerce, because, on his account, coercion is incompatible with love.

He writes, “One of the keys to constructing an adequate theology of love is to portray God as unable to coerce.  This means God cannot entirely control others.  An adequate theology of love, however, should present God as almighty.  Being almighty need not entail the capacity to coerce others, in the sense of overriding, withdrawing, or failing to offer freedom.  Coercion and love are irreconcilable.”

The logic of the position is impeccable: To protect human freedom, we need to adjust the classical doctrine of God so that He’s no longer in complete control of the world.  And to ensure that He’s not in complete control of the world, we need to deny creatio ex nihilo, because a God who can create from nothing looks a lot like the God that Calvin worshiped, and we can’t have that.

I find little persuasive in Oord’s positive argument, but let me highlight only one point that, to my mind, pulls the rug from his whole project.  Jettison creatio ex nihilo, and what’s left?  A God who creates from something existing alongside.  And how does this God-who-cannot-create-from-nothing shape that something into the world we know?  He’s gotta struggle with it.  Oord cites, with apparent approval, Jon Levenson’s claim that “We can capture the essence of the idea of creation in the Hebrew Bible with the word ‘mastery,” and Oord himself adds that in creation “God is the victor in combat” over enemies that “existed prior to God’s creating the universe.”  He also cites Rolf Knierim’s claim that creation is like redemption, “Yahweh is the creator of the world because he is its liberator from chaos, just as he is the creator of Israel because he is its liberator from oppression.”

Now, “mastery” and “victor in combat” and “liberation from oppression” all sound terribly coercive to my ear.  Creation is like redemption from Egypt – as in, Yahweh brings plagues and beats down the chaos in order to liberate order?  For Oord, apparently, God’s relation to creation is, at its initiation, coercive.  While, on the other hand, those dreaded “classical theists” speak of creation as a gift of being, of created existence as existence by participation, which is to say, by the continuous generous outpouring of the Spirit.  Who’s got the better-founded theology of love?  Oord’s position doesn’t sound at all like an ontology of love to me.  It’s a reiteration of pagan/modern/postmodern ontologies of violence.

Oord does identify some problems in traditional accounts of love (in Augustine, for instance), but his solution is worse than the disease.  And he doesn’t always hit home with his criticisms.  I doubt anyone would find “God’s freedom from us is more important than God’s love for us” a recognizable summary of Barth.

It seems common-sensical that the existence of something logically precedes its self-expression.

Trinitarian theology assaults that common sense.  There is no Father except as He has a Son; no Father who has not always already generated His perfect image and likeness; no God who has not always already expressed Himself in His eternal Word.

It is so for everything.  The table across the room doesn’t intend to express itself visually to me, but if it didn’t then I wouldn’t know it was there.  I think it fair to say that a table that completely and entirely failed to express itself would be a not-table.

For humans, there is often a gap between what we are and what we pretend to be.  There is still an unbreakable link between existence and self-expression, though the self-expression is a false image.  That is our fallenness, or (perhaps) our immaturity.  For God, there is perfect, spontaneous correspondence between what He is and how He shows Himself.

I’m not convinced Gregory’s argument from opposites (Against Eunimius 9.4) is sound, but it’s intriguing and engaging.

Here’s the argument: Certain realities have direct opposites that cannot coexist.  Light cannot coexist with darkness, but expels and destroys it.  On the other hand, darkness can expel light.  So also with the oppositions of good/bad, falsehood/truth.  No middle terms exist here, but simple polarities.  So, in the creation account, before God calls light into being, there is only darkness.  Now, the Son is Light; and if the Son once was not, then what was could not be some neutral neither-light-nor-darkness, nor some middle light-darkness.  Before the Father generated the Son, there must have been darkness.

It “necessarily” follows that prior to the begetting of the Son, Eunomius’s god was enveloped in darkness: “surrounded by darkness instead of Light, by falsehood instead of truth, by death instead of life, by evil instead of good.”  If “ungenerate light” is one thing, and “generate light” is another, then it follows that “it is impossible that the light [that is, the generated light] should shine forth save out of darkness.”  Between the ungenerate and ungenerating light of the Father and the generated light of the Son is an “interval of darkness,” a cloud of unbeing from which or through which the Ungenerate Father has to cut in order to generate a Son.

One of the many interesting implications of this is that Arianism falls back into the ontology of violence characteristic of combat myths.  To begin to be productive, the ungenerate must contend with his opposite.  To generate or shine the light that Eunomius claims he is, he must first overcome darkness.  The god of Eunomius may be able to forge some kind of demiurge; he is incapable of creating in the way that Genesis says Yahweh creates.

Gregory charges Eunomius (10.2) with believing he can climb past the word to a direct encounter with the Ungenerate Father.  As Gregory sees it, Eunomius is saying that “the human mind, scrutinizing the knowledge of real existence, and lifting itself above the sensible and intelligible creation, will leave God the Word, Who was in the beginning, below itself, just as it has left below it all other things, and itself comes to be in Him in Whom God the Word was not, treading, by mental activity, regions which lie beyond the life of the Son, there searching for eternal life, where the Only-Begotten God is not.”

Powerful stuff.  In response, Gregory points to the Johannine claim that the Word is eternal life, and that life is in Him.  Why then seek eternal life by leaping over the word.  To that we may add: As Gregory shows, Arianism dissolved into mysticism, as the Arian climbs past the eternal Expression of the Father to gain access to the now-wordless Father.  Arianism is also a kind of gnosticism, not only because it’s claiming an extra-human degree of knowledge but also because it is leaving time and matter behind.  In leaping over the Son to get to the Father, Arians inevitably also leap over redemptive history, where the Word is made flesh.

Gregory’s got it right: We need nor should we want anything beyond the Word, beyond the incarnate Word in whom we have seen the indwelling Father, beyond the words that the Word speaks and inspires to be write, beyond the visible words by which He comes near to us.  There are no side or back doors to the Father, for Jesus and Jesus alone is the door.