Half Past Noon

Just a narcissistic link to a post of mine at Theopol which has a remote chance of interesting my HPN co-conspirators: A theology of suburbs.

I attended Wheaton College’s N.T. Wright conference this past week, and had a great time visiting my old western suburban backyard. Wheaton put on a good show, with a great supporting cast to back up the imposing performances of the bishop from Durham. I only wish some of my Moscow friends could’ve joined me. After hanging out with a number of Canadian Reformed ministers over the long weekend, I began to slip “eh” onto the end of my increasingly Kuyperian-inflected sentences.

Somehow, I was unaware until a few days ago that another noteworthy conference was underway at the very same time down in Louisville: Together for the Gospel (T4G). Names such as Sproul, MacArthur, Duncan, Mohler, Piper, put together what I think may have been the first massively organized assembly of neo-Reformed figureheads. Over at Christianity Today, Brett McCracken writes about his experience last week attending both events. The whole review is worth a read. (McCracken is right to highlight Vanhoozer’s talk, which was one of the best parts of the weekend for me.)

For the T4G folks, protecting disputed doctrines against heresy is where good theology is born. Clear thinking comes from friction and protestation, from Hegelian dialectics (R.C. Sproul spoke on this), but not from compromise. The Patristic Fathers got it right whenever they were ironing out disputed doctrines and fighting against heresy, said Ligon Duncan in his talk. But on matters that were not disputed, he said, their thought sometimes got muddled up.

The exact opposite point was made at the Wheaton Conference by Kevin Vanhoozer, professor of systematic theology at Wheaton, who suggested that theologians like Wright (and, presumably Christians in general) are more often correct in matters they collectively affirm than in matters they dispute. This statement reflects the contrasting spirit of the Wheaton Conference as regards unity: It’s what we affirmthat matters. Are we on the same page on the core issues? Can we agree on the claims of the creeds? Yes? Then let’s hash out the details of theological minutia (which is definitely important) in a spirited, friendly debate as the people of God exercising the renewal of our minds (Romans 12:2).

Who does this sound like?:

“Our country is filled with a socialistic, I.W.W., communistic, radical, lawless, anti-American, anti-church, anti-God, anti-marriage gang, and they are laying the eggs of rebellion and unrest in labor and capital and home; and we have some of them in the universities. I can take you through the universities and pick out a lot of black-hearted, communistic fellows who are teaching that to the boys and sending them out to undermine America. If this radical element could have their way, my friends, the laws of nature would be repealed, or they would reverse them; oil and water would mix; the turtledove would marry the turkey buzzard; the sun would rise in the west and set in the east; chickens would give milk and cows would lay eggs; the pigs would crow and roosters would squeal; cats would bark and dogs would mew; the least would be the greatest; a part would be greater than the whole; yesterday would be day after tomorrow, if that crowd were in control.”

In his sermon “Christian Charity,” Jonathan Edwards argues that Christian virtue should animate both private (voluntary) giving as well as legally-imposed public welfare. The two sources of poor relief need not be set at odds with each other (as some of his contemporaries were apparently suggesting). Further, the historical circumstances do not fundamentally alter this relationship; both 1st century Christians under unregenerate rule and 18th century New England Puritans have incentive to support both private and public poor relief. While the two sources may have different aims and modes of relief, they are not inherently rivals, even as private charity is preferred:

Nor do I suppose it was ever the design of the law, requiring the various towns to support their own poor, to cut off all occasion for Christian charity: nor is it fit there should be such a law. It is fit that the law should make provision for those that have no estates of their own; it is not fit that persons who are reduced to that extremity should be left to so precarious a source of supply as a voluntary charity. They are in extreme necessity of relief, and therefore it is fit that there should be something sure for them to depend on. But a voluntary charity in this corrupt world is an uncertain thing. Therefore the wisdom of the legislature did not think fit to leave those who are so reduced, upon such a precarious foundation for subsistence.

Nothing terribly new, but Patrick Deneen has some good stuff on the decline of small businesses: Finger on the Scale. The piece seems to imply (rightfully, I think) that we can’t ever escape the formative effect that the imagination and goals of society have on economic exchange. The real issue is how we can re-center that influence toward its proper aim. Not to turn all Aristotelian or anything…

This is an open question; no need to agree with Deneen one-hundred percent. But I think we’ve got to wrestle with this.

…perhaps it would not be too difficult to begin looking at systematic ways in which current policy supports concentrated economic power, and to begin its dismantling. It may also be that Government needs to be more active in enforcing anti-trust measures. The Republican orthodoxy will scream that such activity is an intrusion of “Gummint,” but it’s clear that Gummint has already intruded in this area, and is doing tremendous damage to the fabric of the nation (the Republican orthodoxy’s ecstasy in the wake of the recent Supreme Court decision that ensures unlimited corporate participation in our electoral process does not inspire confidence about their motives). Perhaps some log-rolling is in order: in exchange for a serious consideration about the disproportionate impact of regulation on differently scaled businesses, a sustained look at anti-trust enforcement could be considered…. We will differ even here on how much of a role the Gummint should have in tipping the scales, but it’s quite clear that the scales have already been considerably tipped, and that American towns, citizenship, and virtue have all suffered as a result – and that finally cheap prices are too high a price to pay.

An Augustinian is going to recognize that living in this world is a dirty business. An Augustinian is also going to invite the world to be better.

If we agree on that, how should we apply it?

What fond memories. “Werner Herzog” reads Curious George:

Calvin on the appearance of truth among the profane:

Therefore, in reading profane authors, the admirable light of truth displayed in them should remind us, that the human mind, however much fallen and perverted from its original integrity, is still adorned and invested with admirable gifts from its Creator. If we reflect that the Spirit of God is the only fountain of truth, we will be careful, as we would avoid offering insult to him, not to reject or condemn truth wherever it appears. In despising the gifts, we insult the Giver (Institutes, 2.2.15).

I feel like only half the discussion is getting voiced.

Question for discussion:

Let’s all close our eyes and imagine a certain post-theonomist, VanTillian definition of the antithesis. Got it? Can you picture the black and white edges, the smooth categorical texture, the easy duality of ascribing a grand unity of instinct and action? (Readers of Dutch Reformed theology may notice that this philosophical concoction is an unfair exaggeration of Dooyeweerd and perhaps Van Til; but can we admit that we ourselves have all at some point used such a caricature of the antithesis?)

Okay. Now where does love of neighbor fit in? Where is our theology of creation? Where is our (Calvinistic) humanism? How do we not end up with a conversionistic piety which consumes us with doubt about whether our actions are pure enough?

I’m reading George Marsden’s biography of Jonathan Edwards (a really fun read, btw) and I think there’s a very strange connection between late Puritan piety (of the navel-gazing, half-way-covenant variety) and modern day exaggerations of the antithesis. Both are preoccupied with the possibility that an impure heart (perhaps undetected) might spoil seemingly “good” actions. Edwards’ father styled himself as a expert in discerning true conversion from false conversion. False conversion would result in seeming piety, only to sour and later reveal that nothing of true worth ever came out of the original “awakening.” Of course, for Jonathan and others, this led to a paralyzing doubt: what if their conversion was empty and all the good works were devoid of value?

All this to say, I’m not convinced that the antithesis, as sometimes used, is a helpful way of living the Christian life. Is there an ultimate dividing of sheep from goats? Of course. But goats make milk, too.