Theolatte
Nothing goes better with a steaming latte than an engaging discussion about theology and philosophy. Sit down with your favorite caffeinated beverage and peruse the thoughts of a pseudo-intellectual.
Et Cetera
Christianity Satisfies (part two)
September 1st, 2010
The following is a continuation from the previous post. This the final section of G.K. Chesterton’s book, Orthodoxy.
Joy, which was the small publicity of the pagan, is the gigantic secret of the Christian. And as I close this chaotic volume I open again the strange small book from which all Christianity came; and I am again haunted by a kind of confirmation.
The tremendous figure which fills the Gospels towers in this respect, as in every other, above all the thinkers who ever thought themselves tall. His pathos was natural, almost casual. The Stoics, ancient and modern, were proud of concealing their tears. He never concealed His tears; He showed them plainly on His open face at any daily sight, such as the far sight of His native city. Yet He concealed something.
Solemn supermen and imperial diplomatists are proud of restraining their anger. He never restrained His anger. He flung furniture down the front steps of the Temple, and asked men how they expected to escape the damnation of Hell. Yet He restrained something.
I say it with reverence; there was in that shattering personality a thread that must be called shyness. There was something that He hid from all men when He went up a mountain to pray. There was something that He covered constantly by abrupt silence or impetuous isolation.
There was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied that it was His mirth.
Christianity Satisfies
August 31st, 2010
Have you ever read something so profound that you felt like you had to share it with everyone?
That’s the sense I get after reading any given page out of just about any book written by G.K. Chesterton. The following is an excerpt from the end of the book Orthodoxy:
The mass of men have been forced to be gay about the little things, but sad about the big ones. Nevertheless (I offer my last dogma defiantly) it is not native to man to be so. Man is more himself, man is more manlike, when joy is the fundamental thing in him, and grief the superficial.
Melancholy should be an innocent interlude, a tender and fugitive frame of mind; praise should be the permanent pulsation of the soul. Pessimism is at best an emotional half-holiday; joy is the uproarious labour by which all things live. Yet, according to the apparent estate of man as seen by the pagan or the agnostic, this primary need of human nature can never be fulfilled.
Joy ought to be expansive; but for the agnostic it must be contracted, it must cling to one corner of the world. Grief ought to be a concentration; but for the agnostic its desolation is spread through an unthinkable eternity. This is what I call being born upside down. The sceptic may truly be said to be topsy-turvy; for his feet are dancing upwards in idle ecstasies, while his brain is in the abyss.
To the modern man the heavens are actually below the earth. The explanation is simple; he is standing on his head; which is a very weak pedestal to stand on. But when he has found his feet again he knows it.
Christianity satisfies suddenly and perfectly man’s ancestral instinct for being the right way up; satisfies it supremely in this; that by its creed joy becomes something gigantic and sadness something special and small.
The vault above us is not deaf because the universe is an idiot; the silence is not the heartless silence of an endless and aimless world. Rather the silence around us is a small and pitiful stillness like the prompt stillness in a sick-room. We are perhaps permitted tragedy as a sort of merciful comedy: because the frantic energy of divine things would knock us down like a drunken farce.
We can take our own tears more lightly than we could take the tremendous levities of the angels. So we sit perhaps in a starry chamber of silence, while the laughter of the heavens is too loud for us to hear.
(…the final words from Chesterton’s Orthodoxy to be posted tomorrow)
Plain Christianity
August 17th, 2010
The following is an excerpt from the book Plain Christianity published in 1960 by J.B. Phillips. The book is a summary of a series of radio lectures Phillips gave for the Australian Broadcasting Commission. He was a pastor in London during WWII. It was during this time that his disappointment with young people’s lack of biblical literacy led him to produce personal paraphrases of the New Testament. C.S. Lewis was supportive of his work.
What we human beings really need, if we’re ever to know God at all, is to see Him ‘focused’ in a form that we can understand. He must ’speak our language,’ as it were, if we’re ever to have a hope of understanding the Character of Anyone so vast and so complex.
This is exactly what He has done. God did deliberately focus Himself in a human being when He became a man in Jesus Christ. ‘The word became flesh,’ wrote St. John long ago; which is another way of saying that God expressed Himself in a human being.
It is, of course, a terrific thing to believe. I haven’t much use for people who say, “oh, you mean the Incarnation,’ and let it go at that. It doesn’t seem as if they’d really sat down and thought what a staggering thing it is to believe that God in all His greatness and wisdom and splendor should deliberately stoop to become a human baby. I confess it takes my breath away.
But once you do believe it, really believe it, the rather wonderful things happen. First, you know now by looking at Jesus Christ what the eternal God is really like. you can read in the Gospels and understand for yourself what He is trying to do in this world, and what sort of people He wants us to become. You can begin to see the meaning behind the plain and obvious happenings of everyday life. In fact, once you accept Jesus Christ as the true Character of God expressed in human history you can begin to learn the real ‘facts of life.’
A Natural Disaster
August 12th, 2010
There are ultimately only two basic views of reality. The first allows for metaphysics and the second is limited to mere physics. Another helpful way of describing these contrasting categories is to call the first a supernatural worldview and the second a natural one. One person believes in the existence of God while another declares it impossible.
The Apostle Paul refers to both categories in Galatians 6:7-8
Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.
Paul says that all who invest only in the physical world, only in the flesh, will receive their reward from nature. Those who invest in metaphysics, to the Spirit, will receive their reward from God. Both views represent paths with predetermined destinations. One leads to corruption while the other leads to life.
It is interesting that a purely natural worldview leads to corruption. Even the law of entropy teaches us that this is true. Nature is moving away from something (a beginning) towards an end. One does not have to look far to find scientists who recognize that the earth has both a beginning, as well as, an inevitable end. The earth is not able to indefinitely sustain life. To only invest in this world is most certainly to result in disaster.
Conversely, those who invest to the Spirit will receive life. Jesus posed this truth in the form of a question, “What does is profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?” If one rejects the idea of anything immaterial, of any reality of a soul, then to lose it would be of little consequence. It is, after all, already lost – or that is to say it never existed to begin with. However, if man is more than just matter plus environment, if man has a soul, then this would be a great loss indeed.
I don’t wish here to present arguments for the reality of metaphysics based on beauty, morality, or human longing. Neither do I seek to present a theological basis for the exclusivity of Christ as revealed and vindicated by the Spirit. While I believe both are important, I simply want to emphasize the biblical notion of two paths. One is natural leading to corruption. The other is supernatural leading to life.
As Jesus said, “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” On another occasion Jesus said, “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life.” Jesus made it clear that the natural road is broad and is traveled by the multitudes. The way to life is found only through Christ. Herein the spiritual road is said to be quite narrow and its passengers few.
The real question is which road are you on?
“Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.” – CS Lewis
“We have said we must be fond of this world, even in order to change it. We now add that we must be fond of another world (real or imaginary) in order to have something to change it to.”
-GK Chesterton
Confessions of a Coffee House Evangelist
July 23rd, 2010
If I ever stopped drinking coffee I would have to completely rebrand myself. From my blog title to my Twitter updates, coffee is an ever present theme in my life. Ironically, in the providence of God, I have the opportunity to preach the gospel in a coffee shop every week.
Three things I love about preaching in a coffee house:
1.) Preaching in a public setting provides random contacts with people who wouldn’t go to a typical church.
We get to meet a lot of people who wander into the coffee house, since it stays open for business during our worship service. While there are some disadvantages, like the noise generated from the blender while they make iced drinks, I love the interaction with the customers.
2.) Preaching in a public setting keeps you from being preachy.
When you have customers either walking through during our Bible study, sitting and listening in, or even just leaning at the counter trying to figure out what we are doing…it is impossible to “preach to the choir” in a context like this. I once had a young man who was in the back of the coffee shop working at a computer stand up and begin walking towards me as I discussed the fundamental flaws of a naturalistic worldview. At first he seemed potentially aggressive, but later appeared interested. At one point I looked down to read a Bible passage and when I looked back up he had walked out the back. I’ve never been accused of being overly stuffy or academic in my presentation style, but if it were a problem it would certainly be knocked out of me in this context.
3.) Last, and probably least, I get to drink coffee while I preach.
Sometimes I ask questions to initiate dialogue with the audience. Sometimes I ask questions to provide a brief interlude to take a sip of my cappuccino. All kidding aside, there is something fundamental to the idea of food and fellowship. Something magical happens as we sit in a relaxed setting with beverages in hand. The New Testament calls it fellowship. Every Thursday evening we get a foretaste of an eschatological fellowship and a future meal. This public context prevents some of the formalities that often inhibit authentic fellowship.
TO BE CONTINUED…