May 24
To Tony Phelps and his article on how Luther helped him, a Calvinist, learn about the Gospel. This article appeared in Heidelblog.
There are many things to love and appreciate that came from Luther. There are also things to like from the Westminster Standards and the Heidelberg Catechism. But I have to disagree with mandating subscriptions to any set of confessions. Why? It is because those standards often cover too much material and thus become unnecessarily divisive in the Church.
But there is another reason to be leery of subscriptions. Subscriptions lure people into traditionalism and traditionalism is just a mirror image of narcissism.
How are traditionalism and narcissism related? Both put a set of time periods on a pedestal that is way too high. Thus traditionalism claims that those from its favorite periods of time have everything to teach and nothing to learn from those who live in the here and now. Narcissism simply states the converse. Thus both are shutting their ears to the wisdom that the Church fallibly speaks both throughout history and today.
Do traditionalists mean to say that Martin Luther, John Calvin, Zacharias Ursinus, and the Westminster Devines had nothing to learn from today's social justice warriors.? The answer is a resounding 'YES!' Do narcissists mean to say that social justice warriors have nothing to learn from Martin Luther, John Calvin, Zacharias Ursinus and the Westminster Devines? Again, the answer is a resounding 'YES!' So traditionalism and narcissism share the same problem. Both display much arrogance over their favorite set of time periods against all other time periods. And arrogance is a real spiritual problem for the Church.
And so what do we do with a quote from Luther like the one below:
Although the works of man always seem attractive and good, they are nevertheless likely to be mortal sins.
Certainly our works cannot not merit any favorable standing before God. But does that imply that working against racism, the polluting of the environment, economic classism, war, patriarchy, and other injustices are mortal sins? Was working against the Nazis in Bonhoeffer's time a mortal sin? Does this quote from Luther give a possible explanation as to why Vladimir Lenin observed what he did in 1905?
Religion is one of the forms of spiritual oppression which everywhere weighs down heavily upon the masses of the people, over burdened by their perpetual work for others, by want and isolation. Impotence of the exploited classes in their struggle against the exploiters just as inevitably gives rise to the belief in a better life after death as impotence of the savage in his battle with nature gives rise to belief in gods, devils, miracles, and the like. Those who toil and live in want all their lives are taught by religion to be submissive and patient while here on earth, and to take comfort in the hope of a heavenly reward. But those who live by the labour of others are taught by religion to practise charity while on earth, thus offering them a very cheap way of justifying their entire existence as exploiters and selling them at a moderate price tickets to well-being in heaven.
Are quotes like the above one from Luther, not Lenin, a contributing factor as to why predominant branch of the Church has often sided with wealth and power of a given country over the past few centuries and have thus contributed to the above quote from Lenin?
Does Tony point out many contributions that Martin Luther makes to our understanding of the Gospel? Most certainly. Luther's Bondage Of The Will and his Commentary On The Epistle To The Galatians are two of my favorite books. But should we also see that laxity in subscription to a set of confessions which allows for responding to social injustices as signs of not making Christ the center of our faith? The answer is a resounding 'YES!' if we want to be like those Christians whom Lenin observed and became stumbling blocks to his listening to the Gospel.
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To Michael De Sapio and his article that explores the question of whether music has progressed. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.
What I would like to add here is that, from what I've seen, music is listened to for one of two reasons. One reason why people listen to music is for music to act like a drug and make them feel a certain way. So they listen for music that expresses how they want to feel. Another reason why people listen to music is to listen to music that expresses how they already feel from experiencing life. In the first instance, people are using music like they use drugs. In the second case people are using music to express how they experiencing life
So which music will be listened to depends on why people are listening to music. Thus the length of time a particular kind of music remains listened to is not necessarily an indicator of its quality as it is a measure of the audience over time
Now as much as De Sapio likes classical music, music has advanced since the classical time period. Only the some of the sources for that progress come from outside of Western sources. Rhythmic development from Eastern Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa go well beyond what is heard in classical music. The added influence of Africa to classical music create Jazz. Jazz developed in many ways beyond Classical music both in rhythm, harmonies, and virtuosity. Modern music has added a host of rhythmic developments that call for more percussion instruments and a greater prominence of those instruments in the playing of the music along with odd and irregular meters, and polyrhythms. In terms of harmony, chord substitutions and polytonality have been more common place in music and we have the quarter-tone system from India--Western music relies on half-tones.
But the real issue here is whether musical tastes have progressed or digressed. And again, this goes back to why people listen to music. People who use music like they would use a recreational drug to make them feel the way they want to feel will tend to prefer simplicity in their music. Simplicity in music is fine as long as there is variation. That is because not all of life is simple. But when simplicity in music rules the day, music digresses and loses the ability to be expressive The loss of expression in music only causes music to digress and that is because music is first about communication. Music is meant to communicate what life is about. And life is, at times, very complex and complicated.
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