Below is a screen shot of the spread of Amazon ratings for three books. The first, I really liked. The second, I was not too thrilled with, but it was not bad. And the third I thought was awful (also here).
I’m guessing there is a lesson here of some kind, but I’m not sure what it is. At the least, it’s interesting. To me, at any rate.
Late in high school I began to read the Bible with a pencil/pen and paper in hand. I don’t know who suggested I do this, or if rather the idea just spontaneously combusted in my still unformed brain. Whatever prompted it, it stuck.
Some time later it occurred to me that there was more value in reading the Bible slowly than in reading it fast. Again, I’m not sure whether this was a conclusion independently drawn or drawn from another’s wise words. Nevertheless, it too stuck.
Both ideas have been a gift.
My current practice is to each morning read a small portion of Scripture, perhaps a chapter, perhaps a portion of a chapter. I opt for bite-sized chunks that I can savor, think about, reflect upon, and remember. The thoughts stimulated by these reflections get recorded in the journal open in front of me and often morph into words of prayer.
I’ve done the ‘read through the Bible in a year’ thing and found it too easy to not pay attention to what I’m reading. I’ve decided to be the tortoise, casually reading through the bible once every four to five years, meditating upon it along the way. Hares consume at a much more rapid pace, but this serves me well.
And it has served others well. Tim Keller suggests a reason why. In his book Prayer (in which I was largely disappointed, but not completely), he expresses a concern that we too easily separate our reading of Scripture from our prayer life. He challenges Christians to engage in the reflective and interactive approach to Scripture known as meditation. As we meditate on the text God speaks to us, and, subsequently, we pray moved by what we ourselves have heard. It is, as Keller rightly notes, a conversation. Sometimes, Keller reminds us in chapter 10 of that book, we are content to grasp what a passage says and don’t take time to think about what the passage says ‘to me’. And that leaves us impoverished.
Recently in preparing a sermon I was confronted with the challenging words of Jesus, “One’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” (Luke 12:15) It would be easy to treat that text in the abstract and to simply accept that this is something Jesus said and be content to assume we know what it means. Far more value comes from chewing on such a text and asking questions that impinge upon one’s own heart attitude toward possessions. Do I care more for my things than I do for God? If I lost my things would I still trust God? Which is the greater source of my happiness: that I have things or that I belong to God? And so forth.
These are the questions that arise when one is pressing a text hard into his or her own psyche. These are the questions of meditation. Asking such questions may not generate satisfactory answers, but they will produce prayer. As we think about a text we hear God’s voice in it, and our impulse will be to speak back, if even to say, “God, I don’t like what this is saying.” Or, “God, my heart is more committed to things than to you. Will you fix that in me?”
It is true that we cannot see God, and, as someone recently told me, it feels artificial to attempt to speak, to pray, to someone we can’t see. I get that. But meditation helps us hear God so that, though I don’t see him, I hear him. And the one I hear, to him I can speak in reply.
Grab a bible, a pencil, and a composition book. Set aside some time during the week. Once. Thrice. Daily. Read slowly, listen, ask questions, respond, and pray.
And you can forget who made the suggestion.
Several years ago, the movie buzz was all about the Christopher Nolan film Inception. The positive talk was so great that when I finally saw it, I was disappointed. The law of overly hyped expectations kicked in and what was probably a very good movie fell short of my expectations and felt unsatisfactory.
So, I understand how a movie loving friend of mind who went this week to see Midnight Special upon my recommendation came away dissatisfied. I had unreasonably raised his expectations.
So, for any future viewers, keep in mind that it’s really not all that good. You may in fact be wasting your time and money. There’s nothing special about it after all. In fact the 17% of Rotten Tomatoes reviewers who did not like it are probably right.
There. That should do.
===
Kudos to those who correctly identified the movie that was mentioned but unnamed in Monday’s post. It was, as several of you guessed, O Brother, Where Art Thou.
In early 2001, my teen-aged son and I went to see a movie just then getting its wide release. It was showing in the Hollywood 20 Theaters in Sarasota, in the smallest of the building’s theaters. He and I were among the few in attendance. The movie had not been marketed much at all. Few knew much about it, most had never heard of it. I wanted to go because of something I had heard about the music, but I knew nothing about the movie itself. My son went just because that was what we did.
We left the theater thinking that we had just seen one of the funniest, oddest, most entertaining, and most intriguing movies we had ever seen. It went on to gross $45 million and to be nominated for two Oscars, but on that weekend, people were drawn to other fare.
On a recent Friday my wife and I went to see a movie we had long been waiting to see. While others were enjoying Jungle Book or mindlessly considering the dawn of justice in Batman V. Superman (yes, my bias is showing), we had our own private viewing of Midnight Special. This movie is part thriller, part Sci-fi, part drama, and full of life. It is thoroughly entertaining and, like all movies by Jeff Nichols, sufficiently ambiguous to demand a second viewing, something we’ll gladly give. Plotwise, the most that can be safely said is that a father who has kidnapped his 8 year-old son is pursued by a religious cult and the US Government toward a magnificently creative and mystifying showdown. Along the way, the movie explores issues of belief and reality that encourage conversation afterword.
But we were two of four in a 190 seat theater.
That was Friday. For Saturday’s normal ‘Pizza and Movie Night’ in our house I had picked up from Redbox a movie called Brooklyn. Though nominated for three Oscars, including best picture, many people have not heard of it. There is no super-hero in the title and it is neither a sequel or a prequel. It is a romance, yes, but it is more. What struck our family as we watched it was that the customary romance plot lines never appeared. It felt REAL. There is a beauty to watching and identifying with emotional and cultural struggle in characters about whom we begin to care. Art takes us into the experience of another, or others as a class, and we can feel what they feel in ways that nothing else can. Brooklyn does this.
These were gems that don’t get enough attention. I will still see the blockbusters. If there is a Star Wars or super-hero or dystopia movie, my wife and current teen-aged son will not let me miss it. And they can be fun. But it would be sad at the same time to miss these buried cinematic gems.
[Three cheers for any who can correctly identify the un-named movie which introduced this post!]
I’ve been listening quite a bit to the Hamilton soundtrack over the weekend, and this evening before supper, I was, apparently, walking around the house singing, “I’m not throwing away my shot…”
My 15 year-old looked at me with puzzlement and a hint of renewed respect. His dad was apparently sounding like the music he listens to.
Yup. This guy deserves to stay on the $10 bill.
Refreshingly, someone told me the other day that they did not care whether I was Republican or Democrat or Independent. I told them that I was simply disgusted, but I don’t think that is an organized party.
As I thought about it, it occurred to me that what I want in a political candidate of whatever level or stripe is someone who
1. speaks what he believes,
2. believes what I believe, and
3. tells the truth.
I might settle for anyone who simply could be counted on to tell the truth. Those are rare.
When I saw a bumper sticker on the truck of a sadly bitter driver (his whole tailgate was covered with similar sentiments) that said “Obama lied – deal with it”, my first flush of frustration at such polarizing sentiments was then matched with sadness. There is truth to the joke that you can tell when a politician is lying because his lips are moving. I don’t want this to be the case. I want there to be heroes, and I want my heroes to tell the truth.
The idea that politicians lie is such a part of our popular psyche that it becomes easy money for cartoonists and comedians.
I suppose that Abraham Lincoln adopted the name ‘Honest Abe’ to differentiate himself from the political pack. I wonder if he was successful. George Washington confessed his wrong in The Incident of the Cherry Tree, but even that may have been a story made up to overcome the aged presumption that politicians, of which he was one, lie.
I want my heroes to be men of character who tell the truth, and there seems to be something about the political domain that dashes such idealism to the ground.
One of the striking things about Erik Larson’s superb book Dead Wake about the sinking of the British cruise liner Lusitania is the bulk of intelligence that warned of a disaster and the inaction of the British government to intervene in any way. In the end, the blame fell on the Lusitania’s captain William Turner, a blame he bore heavily but unjustly.
The government’s official line in its later investigations was that the ship was hit by two torpedoes and not one. That thoroughly untrue claim was designed to imply the inevitability of the disaster and to divert attention from the absence of British preventative measures.
Winston Churchill, by all measures a political hero, was at the time eager to get United States involvement in WWI, and so he turned a blind eye to the fact that the Lusitania was sailing into a trap. He would forever claim, against the contrary evidence, that the attack was unexpected and the government was unaware. Both were fictions. Larson comments:
“The final humiliation for Turner came later, with publication of Winston Churchill’s book, in which Churchill persisted in blaming Turner for the disaster and, despite possessing clear knowledge to the contrary, reasserted that the ship had been hit by two torpedoes.” (page 347)
Lies are hard to prove, and I generally want to give people, even political people, the benefit of the doubt. But when politicians’ lips move, history suggests they are at best, ‘redistributing the facts’.
Tim Keller, the now well-known pastor of NYC’s Redeemer Presbyterian Church has had a significant impact in my circles and on me personally. He’s one of the finest preachers I’ve ever heard, uniquely gifted to speak with wisdom and clarity to a confused and skeptical age. His teaching has straightened a great deal of my own confusion. I have been thankful for just about everything Tim Keller does and has done until now. His book Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God seems to be one in which he loses sight of both his audience and of the type of book he wanted to write.
Instead of writing a book on prayer, he has written a manual on how to use prayer to have an experience of God. The subtitle has swallowed the title.
Keller says many good things. Prayer, he reminds us, is not about getting stuff. It’s much bigger than that. And he reminds us that emotions are to play a role in our Christianity as much as our brain. Prayer is more than a routine and a duty and a tool, and it is important that we are reminded of that.
But I get the odd feeling that prayer remains a tool, in this case a tool by which we get an experience of God.
I appreciate Keller’s insistence that we who are created for an eternity of the ‘full enjoying of God’ are in fact to experience some level of awe and intimacy. Communion with God and an experience of his nearness and fatherly affection are great gifts. But that is a different book, it seems to me, than one on prayer. I think that is the book he wanted to write.
There is a wealth of wisdom deposited here, but it feels like a research paper. The wisdom revealed is wisdom wedged into a fairly sterile report on the teaching of the saints of the reformed church. We hear very little of Keller’s passion and very little of any struggle he’s had in prayer. I come away knowing what Calvin, Luther, Augustine, John Owen, Jonathan Edwards, and CS Lewis taught about prayer, and more pointedly, about experience with God and, to be honest, to be in the company of such men can often discourage we mere mortals.
And this is where I think he loses sight of his audience. I consider myself a fairly mature Christian and I believe myself to be fairly disciplined in my Christian walk. And yet I think I need to turn in my Christian Maturity Card whenever someone tells me to read Luther’s letter to his barber which is called ‘A Simple Way to Pray‘. His barber may have found it simple, but I find nothing simple about it at all. I find it daunting. I’m greatly moved by Calvin’s chapters on prayer, and I’ve read and been touched by John Owen’s “Meditations on the Glory of Christ” and “Communion with God“. But I can’t be these men any more than members of my congregation can be me.
To set them as the standard for intimacy with God is to set a standard that none of us can reach, and we will instead, more likely than not, walk away or give up or despair.
I have experienced awe and intimacy with God, but I can’t show another how to ‘do’ that. I’ve wept in services of worship when my life situation and the word preached and the songs sung all flowed together to remind me of my Father’s love. I’ve been moved to deep humility holding the communion cup in my sinful hands knowing how undeserving of such grace I am. At times I’ve almost danced! I’ve had those experiences, but they come by putting myself where God works and waiting for him. I can’t teach another how to have such an experience.
Keller shares a tender story about a father and a son. The son knows he has a father when he is walking with his father. But he knows that reality with far greater warmth and passion and depth when the father scoops the child up in his arms and holds him tight. Keller’s point is that it is this latter experience of God that we should long for.
I agree! But it is a mistake to think that by doing prayer and meditation as he outlines it here will guarantee this. As I think about that image, what I learn is that it is good to be near to the Father. It is good to walk in his presence. It is good to be where he works. But it is his sovereign choice to grab us and hug us. If I try to implement a strategy whose goal is experience, I’ll meet frustration.
You will not have my experience of God, and I will not share yours. You should not aspire to the experience of Augustine, Calvin, or Keller. We can simply walk with God, even through the wilderness. If he chooses to reach down and hug us, we are grateful. But if we know that he has lived, died, and been raised for us, that may need to be enough.
Those who have hung around evangelical circles know the following statement posted on the “Together for the Gospel” twitter feed to be fundamental to the evangelical faith:
“Mental assent and simple profession are not efficacious.”
This was posted with a picture of evangelical theologian R. C. Sproul in his most vigorous pose over which was written a further quote, all attributed to him:
“It is the POSSESSION of faith, not the PROFESSION of faith that transfers us from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light.”
And again, those nursed and bred on evangelical Christianity will raise a hearty “Amen” to these sentiments (Unless we are Presbyterian, in which case we will tighten our lips and nod our heads up and down, lest we seem too demonstrative.)
I do not have the full document from which these statements were lifted to properly understand the nuance lying behind them. If I have misapprehended the intent of such statements, then I trust someone will correct my misunderstanding. They are, however, by themselves suggestive and apparently sufficiently clear for @T4GOnline to post without context. As they are, and as they reflect a well worn sentiment, they invite comment.
Though we would not quibble with the basic assertion that mere profession is not what unites us with the saving work of Christ, we must ask, “How is such possession measured?” It would seem to be a fundamentally important question. If one’s only hope for eternal salvation, if one’s only confidence for the forgiveness of sin, if one’s only assurance that the death of Jesus was in fact efficacious for me, is my possession of faith, then how do I know that I possess it? What if I’m only fooling myself into thinking I have it? How can I know that I possess this thing apart from which I am eternally lost?
As a pastor, this is a question asked often of me. It is asked by those who profess love for God but wonder if they are fooling themselves and fear they lack possession of what they profess. In fact, they read such tweets and walk away with their confidence shaken (such that those who make such statements might consider the weight of millstones before tweeting).
If possession is 100% of gospel hope how then can one be sure of possessing what is needed for salvation? With such questions we leave the comfortable world of theological assertion and enter the messy world of real people making the real journey from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City.
The question being asked is, “How can I know that I am saved?” The answer to that on which I have been nurtured has been that our assurance rests on a three-legged stool: the certainty of the Word of God, the evidence of a changed life, and the inner testimony of the Holy Spirit. But as I shepherd real people (indeed as I navigate my own life) I find that though they believe the Bible (leg #1), they see so little change in their lives (leg #2). This uncertain holiness tends to muffle inner assurances (leg #3), leaving them to wonder if the voice they hear assuring them of their sonship is not the Holy Spirit at all, but some other intent on leading them to damnation.
These are sensitive and lovely people who are not helped by the clever turns of phrase that make for good tweets telling them that their profession is meaningless in the larger scheme of things.
I want to cry out in protest, but there are few who hear my voice in this little corner of the evangelical world, no matter how loudly I speak. Were I to be heard I would point out that some well respected theologians, St. Paul among them, have placed greater weight on profession than our evangelical forebears have done. Paul reminds us of the importance of inward faith, certainly, but it is interesting to me that when he does he gives a priority to outward profession that seems missing from our tweets:
“…if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Romans 10:9-13)
Essential inward trust cannot be known without public profession. Merely external words do not save anyone, but neither does a purely inward faith. In fact, contrary to the tweet, it is not our faith at all that transfers us from the kingdom of darkness to that of the light, but our Savior. This he does by living, dying, and rising again, all in which we take part through our union with him. We take hold of Christ by believing in our heart and by confessing our trust in him with our mouths before the church and by being marked with the covenantal sign of baptism.
Christianity is not a mere inner conviction. It is not a private faith. It is covenantal to the core, as Mr. Sproul would, I know, agree. The hope of our eternal salvation is dependent solely on Christ and not upon my ability to hold on to a pure inward faith. Jesus holds on to me even when my heart is broken and shaken and weak.
When people question their salvation and look about for some word to assure them that they are secure, as sheep often do, it does no good to ask them to look into their hearts to see if they possess faith. That is the very question they are asking. And it does no good to ask them to scan the works they have done, because being sensitive they will see their lives littered with the remains of promises broken, holiness marred, love denied. Ask them to listen to the inward voice of the Holy Spirit and all they might be able to hear is someone screaming “hypocrite” deep within them. They can find no solace by an inward examination.
But we can ask them to look elsewhere. They can look to that time when they professed faith, publicly embracing Jesus Christ as he is freely offered in the gospel. And they can look to the mark they bear, the sign of God’s covenant faithfulness applied to them, the sign of baptism. By these things they can see, and are MEANT to see, that they have been marked by God as belonging to him not by what they have done, but by what he has done for them. By looking at these objective signs, they can see that, so united with Christ, they are secure in the heavenly places with him.
They can, in fact, look to their profession and their baptism and their relationship to the body of Christ, the church, as objective signs of an inner reality that, though oft assailed, is nevertheless real. And they can rest in that when all other subjective measures slip through their fingers like dry sand.
It is the possession of faith that unites us with Christ, of that there is no doubt. But a possession so often assailed is fortified by a sign and seal of God’s promise that he who professes faith will be saved. On that I can rest. On that those who post such things rest.
I just wish they would let others rest in this as well.
❦
For similar thoughts, more carefully expressed, from someone with actual credentials, see this.
Steven Greydanus (decentfilms.com) is a film reviewer whose point of view I greatly respect. I commend him to you. He is also a Roman Catholic. His take on Spotlight (a movie we’ve discussed here and here) as a Roman Catholic is worth noting.
Recently, this was posted to Twitter by a Father Kevin Cusick:
Spotlight places in @DecentFilms top 10: I found it a bit shallow on abuse cause, superficial in treatment of Church
Greydanus (@DecentFilms), over several tweets, responded with this:
FWIW, Catholic response to #Spotlight has been positive. http://bit.ly/1RNfhC7
As with any historical film, one can take issue with Spotlight on individual points (I do).
It’s important to recognize that Spotlight presents subjective experiences/opinions of characters…
…who helped expose abuse/coverup. Sadly, these journalists etc. were mostly alienated from the Church…
…because church leaders and others in the Church didn’t take responsibility for cleaning up our own house.
If church leaders had done their job, we would control the narrative. They didn’t and we don’t.
Despite their anti-Church animus, the [Boston] Globe reporters did us a service. The film is their story, not ours.
His full review is here.
I want to ask a favor of any of you who have read Tim Keller’s book Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God. I want to know about your experience of reading the book. I’m not asking what you thought of the content, though that is related, and I’m happy to hear.
But I’m mostly interested in knowing how your heart reacted to reading the book. That is, were you encouraged or discouraged or something else? Did the book make you feel like you could do more or did it frustrate your efforts? How did you respond to the book emotionally? Did it make you angry? Did it make you happy? Did you feel like it was written for you? Or did you find the book mystifying, like the author aimed and missed where you were at?
I’m not asking for a publishable review. Just a few thoughts on the experience of reading it. You can put these in the comments section below, for all the world to see (and I rather doubt that Tim Keller reads this blog, so you are certainly safe on that front) or you can email me privately. Either way, I’m interested.
Thanks!
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