When Divorce Is the Only Option

Knowing only a little about this subject—that Bucer held slightly more "liberal" views than his fellow Reformers—I sought to get my head around it in order to see if my ex had sufficient grounds to initiate the divorce. 

I did not do so with the intent to present whatever I found to her; it's an obvious though unfortunate fact that reasonable discourse is not tolerated, much less heard, in situations such as this. What I wanted was to be confronted with my own sin so that I could own up more honestly and faithfully to the part I played in the dissolution of our marriage. Probably my greatest hope was that I would be vindicated (not of our relational demise, to which I no doubt contributed), at least to my own mind and before God, should I find that I was not implicated in Bucer's grounds.

In short, what I wanted to find was that while we marrieds can easily find multiple reasons to leave each other over the years, the higher road or calling was to stick with the marriage, not least in the absence of infidelity or abuse.

What I found was that I could've divorced my wife years before (unilateral abstinence, irreconcilability), and she probably also could've made the case on at least one ground to initiate when she did (irreconcilability)—because by the time she did pursue a legal divorce, the relationship had grown very toxic, indeed. Claiming the "higher road" by not initiating made me feel better, but I'm a pretty pathetic judge.

Ah, well. Life's events seldom shake out in black and white.

John Burcher, who stood in opposition to Bucer, wrote in a letter to Henry Bullinger June 8, 1550, that Bucer was more than licentious on the subject of marriage. He accused Bucer of having asserted that a divorce should be allowed for any reason, however trifling (see H. Robinson, Original Letters, vol. 2, The Parker Society, CUP, 1846,  p. 666). I could see how downstream from Bucer this could be extrapolated from what he wrote (e.g., recall Milton's spin on the subject). There's no doubt that the paradigmatic shift away from procreation being the centerpiece of a marriage in favor of mutual companionship lies upstream from no-fault divorce, just as the sacramental notion of the indissolubility of marriage has just as often led to the imprisoning of women in abusive relationships (whether physical, emotional, spiritual or sexual). There are of course other factors leading to such unfortunate circumstances (e.g., the absence of an individual woman's legal rights), but the causal relationship of the aforementioned appears obvious to me.

So, what Bucer ultimately taught me about divorce was to in principle find the path that is in your power to please God. Staying together remains that path if—and only if—your partner is willing so to do. Absent that, what's in your power to please God is to negotiate the divorce in such a way as to be able stand with your head held high before the only judge who counts in the end. It is by grace (and hopefully not delusion) I can say today that with respect to my ex and my children, I conducted myself during the entire divorce proceedings in a manner I'm not ashamed of. That is to say, I can talk about my actions and reactions both in court and at home publicly without shame.

When we're hurt, we often lash out. In such a situation as this, where emotions run high and fear takes control, we might be tempted to, for example . . .

• Initiate a divorce on fallacious grounds.
• Sue for sole custody of the children.
• Seek removal of the children to another locale, far away from one of their parents.
• Refuse to consider mediation for the sake of establishing a healthy, co-parenting relationship once the dust has settled.
• Take conversations and/or texts out of context in order to besmirch the other's character.
• Anonymously write the other's place of business with accusations—however close to the truth they might be (the best lies always are)—with hopes that they'd terminate employment.
• Cling to the sole custody and removal suit until the last possible moment (say, 18 months), until it becomes obvious that it will not go favorably, thereby wreaking havoc on all finances in the process.
• Refuse to take any responsibility for the breakdown of the marital relationship and foist all the blame on the other.
• Steal opportunities from your children by refusing to find sustainable and gainful employment—despite being young, healthy and educated—in order to contribute something financially to the rearing of the children.

Don't succumb to these temptations. Nothing good ever comes from playing the victim.

If you're on the receiving end of such vengeance, protect yourself—legally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, financially. The avenger suffers from a (we hope) momentary lapse of reason. Hold on.

To be sure, I missed the mark (and continue to do so) in other, personal ways during that time, but my actions and reactions both in court and at home exhibited, I believe, a kind of grace that can only emerge in a situation where you've committed not to play the nihilist, where you're not taking an "ends justifies the means" approach to getting what you want in court, where you're constantly humanizing the other by remembering your own faults, despite the violence she's perpetrating, not least for the sake of your children and their lifelong relationship with you—and their mother.

You want a divorce predicated on irreconcilable differences? Then go get one. Just don't blame anybody else for it. And, most of all, remember that there's an entire life to live on the other side of it, and especially the children's lives, coram Deo. What you do building up to that will impact those lives deeply. Outdo each other in kindness. It's never too late to start.

And it's important to hear: You are allowed to terminate toxic relationships. You are allowed to walk away from people who hurt you. You are allowed to be angry and, for a brief time, selfish and unforgiving. You don't owe anyone an explanation for taking care of yourself.

While that selfishness and unforgiveness must pass quickly if healing is to take place, it is nevertheless part and parcel of that process early on. In my life at the time, I needed to remember that I could walk away, but that meant I could not judge my ex for doing the same, even if I abhorred it, even if I thought she'd be wrong or giving up in so doing. As I said, I'm a pretty pathetic judge, and, at any rate, I'm not her judge for walking away, not least if I had perpetrated pain and toxicity, which, to my chagrin, implicates me in Bucer's grounds, after all.

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Ever-Day Has Begun

 
Not only does the church suffer from an open wound of schism, she is weak, and unsurprisingly so, in this time between the times. The former continues in disobedience; the latter is just the way it is, at least until that final day.

Has anything ever been decreed absolutely by God (when it comes to his contingent creation), without any expectation of meeting certain conditions on our part, without any response on his part to intervening historical contingencies? Taking our cue from the sacred Scriptures, we see that even those decrees (oracles, prophecies, apostolic utterances, etc.) that appear at first glance to be absolute (e.g., Jonah 3:4), are nevertheless laden with conditions (when dealing with humankind in particular).

I submit that the same holds true with respect to the people of God and their calling to be one, holy, catholic, and apostolic.

Put another way, I'm talking about a God who called out of the massa perditionis a Christ (the eternal Son of God who took upon himself our nature), in whom people are united (through baptism and faith), which people are then called to be what they are. Being thus made posse non pecare they are given the tasks laid out in various places throughout the Scriptures of embodying what it means to be corpus Christi, and, by virtue of the indwelling Spirit of God, are thus able to do so. In doing so, they falter, they err, and all the while their loving and patient God struggles with them, responding to them, and continually goads them on toward the unity (of will and purpose and substantiality) that is shared among the Godhead, the great Three in One.

And the reality is, the church continues to fail in this particular calling toward unity set before it, a church of the open wound. So far as this world and our finite perspectives are concerned, Christianity, with all its divisions, worldly alliances, demagoguery, and heterodoxy, does indeed look false. But there's hope with each dawn, which will be fully realized on that final morn when there will be no more night, for the Lord God himself will shine (Rev 22:5); indeed, the city will have "no need of sun or moon, for the glory of God illuminates the city, and the Lamb [will be] its light" (Rev 21:23).

No-nightness comes.

Ever-day has begun to encroach upon the lightless land,
and we, lamp-stands all, called to remove the basket covering.

But how is the church "rightly" weak today? Perhaps it's better stated this way: the church has always been weak, and we have the tools to recognize it as such, and therefore we have the tools to better "let our good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise our heavenly Father" (Matt 5:16).

Recently, an essay over at First Things by Matthew Rose on "Karl Barth's Failure" produced some critical responses by a few Protestant bloggers. One, in particular, stood out: David Congdon's "In Defense of Modernity." In brief, Congdon writes, "Put plainly: modernity is Protestant, so to reject modernity is to reject Protestantism. Perhaps that is the underlying message of Rose’s article. Barth finally fails, because he remains, at the end of the day, "a theologian of the Reformation."

And what are some of the contours of that modernity? You can read Congdon's post to see, but I'd like to highlight one—the rise of historical consciousness as a genuinely theological event. He quotes Gerhard Ebeling at length to unpack the point:

The sola fide of the Reformation is directed not only against justification by works and thereby against a legalistic exposition of scripture, not only against mysticism and against multiplication of the revealing reality in the form of saints and against materialization of the revealing reality in the form of sacred objects. But the sola fide has undoubtedly also an anti-sacramental and an anti-clerical point. To the sola fide there corresponds solus Christus. Revelation and the present are separated from each other in such a way that only one bridge remains: the Word alone—and indeed, lest any misunderstanding should arise, the Word interpreted as salvation sola gratia, sola fide. All other bridges have been broken up. The whole system of Catholicism has thereby collapsed. There is no such thing as a simple, matter-of-fact presence of revelation. (emphasis mine; Word and Faith, 35–36)

"There is no such thing as a simple, matter-of-fact presence of revelation." The sola fide of the Reformation implies a rejection of all absolute institutional claims, of all offers of restored taken-for-granted institutional certainty (to paraphrase Peter Berger). But does this mean that no institution is left standing? No. But what type of institution can we then speak of? Extraordinarily weak associations of individuals with no deep commitment. Can such institutions survive? They can and do. (I'm a member of a vibrant parish in a decidedly progressive mainline diocese, and it has much more in common with its traditionalist counterparts in Roman and Lutheran churches, and yet is not filled with parishioners who maintain a posture of alleged certainty. And this phenomena occurs regularly within the old mainline churches, often cast in less traditional forms, whether broad-church or evangelical.)

No doubt the certainty of Rome’s institution has been considerably weakened by historical scholarship and the social sciences. The same holds true, of course, for Protestant institutions as well. Every time the structures of Protestant orthodoxy sought to recapitulate Rome's absolute claim—in order to maintain a "strong" institution, one that has a "foundation of taken-for-granted verities, requiring representatives who exude an air of self-assured certainty," so Berger—those structures have also come tumbling down. It's one of the unintended consequences of the Reformation—the divine and human protest again any absolute claim made for a relative (i.e., socially constructed) reality, which immediately turns directly back on to itself.

What this means is simply this: "For the sake of Christ, take pleasure in your weakness . . . . For when you are weak, then you are strong" (2 Cor 12:10). Knowing you're weak, recognizing the gaping wound in the side of our Lord's bride, reshapes the mission each of us have been called to in this American life.

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When Teleology Trumps Soteriology

I delivered this rant a few weeks ago in a doctoral seminar I'm taking from Tom McCall (co-author of Jacob Arminius: Theologian of Grace). It's basically a riff on Newbigin's doctrine of election and how it completely subverts the ordo decretorum (logical order of God's decrees) debates of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries between supras, infras, conditional infras, etc., etc. Due to the required length of the paper, I had to leave a whole lot of thoughts on the floor, so it definitely runs the risk of presenting a lopsided view of the matter. I also focus criticisms on Arminian arguments because, well, it's a seminar on that very subject.

The Logical Order of Things About Which We Know Next to Nothing

Mercutio: I am hurt.

A plague a’ both your houses! I am sped.

—Romeo and Juliet, 3.1.86–87¹

The church has been hurt, indeed, “sped” throughout the years whenever she finds herself caught in the crossfire of battles over the logical order of things about which we know next to nothing. This is not to suggest that one view with respect to the ordo decretorum is as good as any other; some truly do, however inadvertently, commit blasphemy: some “logical” orders make God the author of sin, while others make man the author of himself.

Nevertheless, the church suffers every time its leaders and laypersons obsess over the reasons for an individual’s election by probing backwards toward the secret counsel of God instead of pressing forward from one’s election (in both individual and corporate terms) to the purpose of that election.² This obsession most notably plagued the Reformed churches in the late sixteenth century and well into the seventeenth century. The Arminian and Remonstrant response, unfortunately, faired little better, precisely because they too shared in their compatriot’s assumptions regarding the final destiny of individuals flowing from decrees made in eternity “past.” Despite the appropriate Arminian allergic reaction to certain Reformed articulations of election that lead to churches thinking of themselves as exclusive beneficiaries of God’s saving love, the biblical fact and fundamental truth of election is that it is made according to God’s sovereign and unconditional choice. Keeping the center of the doctrine of election away from any consigning of individuals to either eternal life or death ought to remove the edges with which it is unnecessarily laden. In so doing, we can see the highly speculative and unedifying nature of the ordo decretorum for what it is, a less-than-robust expression of the purpose of election itself—expressions that Arminians and Remonstrants only recapitulated in their protests.

Taking my cue from St. Thomas, as many others often have, election appears to be primarily teleological—it is all about where we are sent, rather than from where we have come. And by invoking destiny, I do not mean so much individual or corporate salvation as individual and corporate purpose, not so much related to the salvific outcome of absolute decrees among the Godhead as to the purpose for which those decrees were made: Like an arrow directed by the archer towards its mark, the movement of predestination “gets its specific character from what it is a motion to, not a motion from.”³ And it is with that motion to in mind that the mission of God in the election of his people becomes most robustly realized. When members of Christ’s church consider their election as a calling to die to self for the salvation of the world, not as God’s way simply to secure for himself an elite group of chosen individuals, or as a pronouncement upon people he foresees who employ grace just enough to work out their salvation to the end of their lives, the pastoral objections (that the Reformed ordo causes despair or presumption) to God’s sovereign choice in election fall away. In other words, properly emphasizing the individual and corporate teleology, rather than the individual soteriology, of election renders both the Reformed and Remonstrant ordo constructions moot.

When looked at in this way, arguments over whether God elects unbelievers and predestines them to become believers or whether he elects foreseen believers and predestines them to become his children are out of place. This is not to deny a cause or basis of God’s election, because, as stated above, it is biblically obvious that election stems from the elector’s good pleasure. Yet this need not make the Arminian interlocutor anxious, as if her argument that the cause of God’s election instead centers on the free will act of an individual fulfilling the conditions of salvation suffers from incoherence. If the purpose of election was primarily the salvific destiny of individuals, then the Arminian rebuttal to the majority of Reformed expressions merits serious attention. That is to say, in the context of early seventeenth-century debates revolving around the ordo decretorum, Arminius’ opposition to deterministic supra- and infralapsarianism was raised for all the right reasons.

Still, relegating predestination merely to a function of divine foreknowledge is less than satisfactory. Whatever else can be said of the differences between Arminius and subsequent generations of seventeenth-century Remonstrants on redemption, there’s no difference among them on the subordination of God’s decree to predestinate and reprobate certain individuals to his foreseeing their completion or rejection of salvation’s conditions. If, again, the ordo decretorum primarily has to do with how an individual comes to be elected rather than the missiological why that individual was elected, then the Arminian construction finds itself rightly critiqued for reviving something akin to late medieval works-righteousness—perhaps worse, depending on how anemic its ecclesiology is.⁴

Thus, the Remonstrant critique could be seen as a recapitulation of the covenantal nomism that Saint Paul challenged so long ago. Arminius’ confession that he “ascribes to God’s grace the origin, the continuance, and the fulfillment of all good”⁵ may excuse him from the sharpest points of this criticism, but it may also be that his remonstration lead to the unintended consequence of making too much of human performance as a condition of God’s mercy. E. P. Sanders’ summary of second-temple Judaism as “getting in by grace, staying in by obedience”⁶ parallels in significant ways the Remonstrant view that any move toward God is by (prevenient) grace alone while increase in grace and final justification depends ultimately on human cooperation. Not even the most strident Remonstrant has argued that one can be saved by works alone, as human works are not seen to be meritorious in and of themselves (and thus always insufficient to gain God's forgiveness). Yet according to the Remonstrants in particular, in God’s new covenant in Christ Jesus, he promises to accept as righteousness the believer’s obedience of faith. The implication is that the law we humans have always transgressed has been softened to the point that people who make good use of grace can now do it and live, provided they continue to perform.⁷ What is this if not the principle of “getting in by grace, and staying in by obedience”? But this is the very principle that the apostle opposed when he wrote, “You began by God’s Spirit; do you now want to finish by your own power?” (Gal 3:3). If indeed the gospel is a new law, then Augustine’s prayer to a sovereignly electing God to “grant what you command, and command what you will” becomes ever the more necessary.⁸

In short, the debates revolving around the ordo decretorum simply miss the point. What God commands, and what he grants to that end, is encapsulated most succinctly in the motion to of the Great Commission. Herein lies the purpose of election, the telos of which the church forgets at her peril. Lesslie Newbigin summed it up best:

And we can also see that wherever the missionary character of the doctrine of election is forgotten; wherever it is forgotten that we are chosen in order to be sent; . . . wherever men think that the purpose of election is their own salvation rather than the salvation of the world; then God’s people have betrayed their trust.⁹

The salvation of the world with which the elect of God have been entrusted, the called-out ones commissioned to enact God’s kingdom will on earth as it is in heaven, must leave this old debate in the old books where it belongs if it will ever get down to doing its “best to make [the day of God] come soon . . . where righteousness will be at home” (2 Peter 3:12–13).

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1 From The Yale Shakespeare (Barnes & Noble Books, 1993), 918.^↩

2 St. Augustine’s warning comes to mind: “Wherefore he draws this one and not that one, seek not to decide if you wish not to err.” From Tractates on the Gospel of John, 26.2 (NPNF¹ 7).^↩

3 Thomas Aquinas, ST, I, Q. 23, Art. 1, Reply Obj. 3. Quoted from Summa Theologica, “God’s Will and Providence” (1a. 19–26), eds. Thomas Gilby and T. C. O’Brien, Blackfriars, vol. 5 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967), 111. See also Thomas’ ordo in Art. 4: particular love→election→predestination. “Therefore all the predestined are picked loved ones” (121). God creates the lovely through his electing love; it’s in no way based on the created’s loveliness (cf. Art. 5).^↩

4 It's beyond the scope of this post to defend this here, but suffice to say that where baptism and the Eucharist are largely removed from the equation of election, the theologian is left to over-emphasize—and thus truncate—the means ordained in Scripture by God to actualize his elect.^↩

5 W. Stephen Gunter, Arminius and His Declaration of Sentiments: An Annotated Translation with Introduction and Theological Commentary (Baylor University Press, 2012), 141.^↩

6 E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977), 93, 178, 371.^↩

7 See, e.g., John Mark Hicks, “The Theology of Grace in the Thought of Jacobus Arminius and Philip van Limborch: A Study in the Development of Seventeenth Century Dutch Arminianism” (PhD diss., Westminster Theological Seminary, 1985), 103–11, esp. at 110. See also Keith D. Stanglin and Thomas H. McCall, Jacob Arminius: Theologian of Grace (OUP, 2013), 167–68.^↩

8 Saint Augustine, Confessions, X.xxix (40), trans. Henry Chadwick (OUP, 1998), 202. It may be that the historic triplex model of natural law→old law→new law best encapsulates the covenantal framework of God’s redemptive plan, but I do not concede that the necessary grace required to fulfill that new law has been imparted indiscriminately. Even the Remonstrant Limborch confessed as much when he wrote that while God’s general decree of salvation and damnation is not unclear, the other special decree regarding the means thereunto is mysterious, “upon the account of that disproportion wherein God is pleas’d to communicate the means of salvation to men. For he does not bestow an equal share of grace every where at all times and upon all men.” This depends “on the mere good pleasure of God,” and is unsearchable. Quoted from A Compleat System, or, Body of Divinity, both Speculative and Practical, Founded on Scripture and Reason (London: William Jones, 1702), 347.^↩

9 Lesslie Newbigin, The Household of God (Wipf & Stock, 2008), 55.^↩

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Forgive or Die

 

Forgiveness in the teaching of Jesus is not for the sake of moral purity;
it’s quite simply for the sake of a future. ~Fr. Richard Rohr

The above quote from Rohr is nagging at me. I think it may be profoundly true on a level we're happy to miss.

On the surface, it's a fine piece of rhetoric: by a simple use of antithesis, Rohr challenges a common assumption—that the letting go of one's offenses, as if they had never been committed, in the teachings of Jesus had as its primary objective the cleaning up of one's life (inside and out). Sure, that may be one means to the end, but it's the end—the future—that faces extinction without forgiveness.

This idea isn't original with Rohr, of course. I think most notably of former Archbishop of Cape Town Desmond Tutu's book No Future Without Forgiveness (Image, 2000). Through his eyewitness account, Tutu focuses on how the Truth and Reconciliation Commission he chaired (pressed upon him by President Mandela, et al.) attempted to move beyond the various forms of institutionalized retribution taking place in post-apartheid South Africa. Calling out the unworkable "solution" of bringing perpetrators of apartheid to court, he describes the highs and lows of his commission's approach to justice: the granting of political amnesty to those who make a full confession of their crimes.

While Tutu's account centers on this world, it's deeply informed by the next. It's a working out of the blueprint Israel's god YHWH drew up so long ago. It's the imperfect attempt to follow the model that God in Christ lived out. It's God's way to approach justice that his Spirit continues to empower up to this very day.

While we are no doubt chosen "to be [God's] through our union with Christ, so that we would be holy and without fault before him" (Eph 1:4; see also Col 1:22), it's God's forgiveness that creates the biblical vision of his future—resurrected life on a renewed earth. The bit that gets so hard to grasp is the fact that the creator God bound himself to forgive. Without forgiveness, even his future goes. What else does the story of him walking through the animal halves alone when ratifying his covenant with Abraham mean (Gen 15:12–21)? That if the promise fails, YHWH himself will be like those shredded carcasses. This is why in the new covenant, ratified by the life and death and resurrection of Jesus, we see that if "we confess our sins to God, he will keep his promise and do what is right: he will forgive us our sins and purify us from all our wrongdoing" (1 Jn 1:9). How striking that the writer includes that God will "do what is right"! Why is it "right" (or "just") for God to forgive sins when they're confessed? Because that's what he promised to do, precisely because of his promised future.

He binds himself to forgive. Remember that the next time you fall into the same old sinful patterns that betray his covenant.

As Tutu's example shows, this kind of forgiveness for the sake of the future, the kind that God himself enacts and ultimately embodied in Jesus by the power of his Spirit, easily applies to every relationship we experience. From the creator God to his created, to the rebuilding of nations, and (not least) to familial ties, withholding forgiveness murders the future—and it will kill you.

Forgive (and be reconciled) or die.

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Frustrating Kindness

 

“One who loves instruction is one who loves knowledge,
but one who hates correction is an ignoramus” (Prov 12:1).

It's nothing new: those who dare embrace the label Christian must be known by their love—indiscriminately to all, and especially to each other in the household of faith. They must practice, in a word, friendship. They must risk shame; they must wash feet. They must exclaim, at least in actions if not in words, “Hosanna!”

So, in the proverb quoted above, we see that they must “love instruction”; otherwise, they’re just ignoramuses—brutish, senseless creatures—indeed, less human than God desires. Enter the amazing grace of our triune Lord, without which our destiny, declared by the Creator to be a life centered around him, devolves into savage narcissism.

By his grace, those of us who confess that Jesus is Lord and that God raised him from the dead (Rom 10:9), no matter what his or her heritage, are ingrafted branches, stemming from the true vine (John 15:1–11). And yes, by his loving grace, those confessors who bear fruit are pruned, so that they bear more fruit (v. 2). Grace is being given the passion to love this, to love the instruction, the correction, that directs us toward knowledge, which knowledge paves the way toward the God-centered life. Hating this, in short, bears nothing, no fruit, and is thus heading toward being broken off (v. 2).

With the above proverb in mind, another way of saying all this is that being a branch stemming from the real vine involves embodying what it means to be human in Christ Jesus (see 2 Cor 5:17). Meeting reproof with hatred (often disguised as incredulity), exposes the pride that goes before destruction (Prov 16:18). Even more, it betrays the place where such a person has made his stand—“outside the divine realm of sensible discourse [and in] the animal kingdom” (Waltke, Proverbs, vol. 1, p. 520). Following this trajectory leads only to one place—the broken-branch realm of stupidity, irrationality, and animal-like brutishness. In other words, the devolution of the image of God in man to the point of no return. Think of Nebuchadnezzar: driven out of human society, eating grass like an ox, sleeping outside with hair as long as eagle feathers and nails as long as bird claws (Dan 4:33).

But then, the unexpected: Grace. His sanity returned and he praised the supreme God (v. 34). Our Lord has a maddening tendency, doesn’t he? To bring back people (we’ve often written off) from the point of no return (see Rom 10:23–24). May we learn to love this frustrating kindness of Almighty God.

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When the Ice Melts

© Chema Madoz

THE LAST TIME I ever thought about touching that deadly rock happened while sitting in an apartment without furniture, watching a group of addicts huddled in the center of the "dying" room, like scavengers hovering over a carcass, snarling at each other to pass the pipe, to not take so big a hit the next time.

That memory haunts me still.

Nothing smells or tastes like crack cocaine. I don't type this lightly. In fact, it's a horrific and embarrassing thing to admit. I don't do so merely to bring attention to myself. I do so because at times I smell it and taste it—not as if I'm tempted to partake in that particular activity, but because it still trips me out. Like a shadowy ghoul perched on my shoulder, I'm reminded of sensory experiences that I cannot shake.

When the ice melts (perhaps over a bowl of ash), what will you leave behind? What will you have left?

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I posted this about a year ago and then took it down. It seemed a bit too self-absorbed, even for me. I know not many, if any, former crackheads (I was not one, being more of a "generalist") read this blog. So what purpose would this post serve? On the other hand, I'm sure lots of folks out there often feel like they have little control over the events in their lives. And it keeps piling on, forcing you to fix your gaze only on the temporal, which causes fear, anxiety, depression—basically all the stuff that gets you screaming for some quiet.

I'm still shaken and mesmerized by how a piece of rock melts beneath its flame. Its alchemy. And that thirty-second high. There's little competition out there for how high it actually is.

Unfortunately, I've learned time and again that the troubles I walked away from in that scene described above have followed me in different forms these past (almost) twenty years. Starting to take the Christian faith seriously (i.e., practicing it), which is how I'm describing conversion (or perhaps a return of sorts), as anyone knows who has been at it for any length of time, means many years of painful refining, often commensurate with how deeply the evil one's way has become one's own. Sanctification, too, is by grace through faith.

One the reasons my spiritual journey is comprised of a series of rejections of modern evangelicalism (how's that for a non sequitur?) is its obsession with salvation through change—the personal amending of one's life. "Clean up your life and become a Christian!" If we can just stop doing this or that, acting this way or that way, then God will pay it all off with his grace.

On the contrary, the cart of reformation indeed comes. But it's pulled by the workhorse of a restoration wrought by an irruptive grace.

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Free Is Not Cheap

The ovens of Buchenwald | © Chris Donato

WHEN JESUS PREDICTED his death to the disciples (Matt 16:21), it surprised them. The Messiah wasn’t supposed to die—especially at the hands of the pagan Roman empire. In another sense, however, it wasn’t all that surprising.

Prophets like Jesus, Jeremiah, or John the Baptist often met with less than happy endings. In this case, it’s equally surprising that he pushed on toward Jerusalem. But such was the cost of discipleship.

Jesus understood well that his messianic work of establishing God’s kingdom entailed more than preaching and eating with unclean sinners. It included suffering and death, and, of course, vindication through resurrection. Upon these final acts, the whole battle hinged. If the creator God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, would have the effects of his kingdom bear on earth as they do in heaven, then his Messiah would have to shoulder the battle that would eventually end all battles.

Jesus therefore easily makes the connection from his suffering to ours, not because ours redeems anyone but because he was fulfilling God’s plans through the cross, which began in the garden; thus we too must go his way. That is, if we want to belong to the new covenant community in this time when the Evil One continues to wage war, then we also must say no to our selfish desires, pick up our crosses, and follow him.

This call so captured a young Lutheran pastor during the rise of the Nazi regime that he wrote in 1937 what is now the classic Cost of Discipleship. And Dietrich Bonhoeffer, like so many with a prophetic voice before and after him, paid the ultimate price for refusing to consider his Christianity, his following of Christ, as nothing less (but certainly more) than active protest against injustices—an undeniable facet of bringing God’s will to bear on earth. Jesus knew such sacrifice all too well (and his disciples would also learn this soon). He didn’t doubt for a second that the likes of Caiaphas, Herod, Pilate, and Caesar would cut him down the first chance they got. His message challenged their little kingdoms by undermining their pathetic attempts to grasp for the kind of power that sets itself up against the throne of God.

Hitler’s Germany posed a threat to the world and a challenge to the Christian church. History sadly records how badly the established church in Germany did in facing that challenge. After the Reformation, Bonhoeffer argued, the church again cheapened the preaching of the forgiveness of sins, and this has seriously weakened her witness: “The price we are having to pay today in the shape of the collapse of the organized church is only the inevitable consequence of our policy of making grace available to all at too low a cost. We gave away the Word and sacraments wholesale, we baptized, confirmed, and absolved a whole nation without condition. Our humanitarian sentiment made us give that which was holy to the scornful and unbelieving. . . . But the call to follow Jesus in the narrow way was hardly ever heard.” Thus the collective consciousness of the country went on with business as usual, baking their bread, selling their goods, with a prison camp like Flossenbürg just a few miles outside of town.

It was in the Flossenbürg concentration camp, incidentally, that Bonhoeffer met his untimely death in April 1945, just as the American forces were approaching. The account is gruesome. Suffice to say it was slow and painful. Thus Bonhoeffer understood well the difference between what he called costly grace and cheap grace: “Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline. Communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.” Or, to put it even more clearly, it is to hear the gospel preached as follows: “Of course you have sinned, but now everything is forgiven, so you can stay as you are and enjoy the consolations of forgiveness.” If the gospel made no such demands for discipleship, then Bonhoeffer could and should have happily joined the ranks of the organized church in Germany. And we too can happily join the church in America at those precise points where it baptizes the injustices of its culture.

Nazi Germany, however, is an easy target. Wading through the subtleties of idolatry and calling them out in America is another matter. Where do we begin? How do we avoid both extremes of baptizing anti-Christian culture or withdrawing to the point of quiet inaction? The cost of discipleship in these United States doesn’t seem all that costly. Or have we missed what it means to be a disciple? Consider again Jesus’ warning to us: “If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it” (Matt 16:25). What good will it do for us to accumulate bigger, better, and more things and yet lose our lives?


{Part of this originally appeared in Tabletalk 32.7 (July 2008): 28–29}

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There's No Turning Back?

YOU KNOW THAT OLD CLICHÉ, "There's no turning back"? You know how in almost every circumstance when it's employed that it's not exactly true? More often than not, it's a cop-out, used when we've stepped in a steaming pile and subsequently refuse—out of pride and stubbornness—to clean off our shoe and turn around.

It has its origins in the "die is cast" metaphor/cliché, which was apparently coined by Julius Caesar in 49 BC to describe a military move into Italy across the river Rubicon, which he knew would give rise to a conflict that he must then win.

I faced such a conflict once—in the middle of the High Peaks Region of the Adirondack Mountains. Turning back was as equally dangerous as going forward, but with the added displeasure of defeat. In October 2007 I was playing the best man in a cousin's wedding in the Cascades, after which a small group of moderate hikers (myself included) made our way west to Phelp's trailhead from the small town of Keene Valley. What follows are a few journal entries from that trip.

18 October 2007
Camp. Shoulder of Mts. Basin and Saddleback,
Adirondack, New York.

I've seen the most spectacular vistas this day; I've also accomplished the most challenging hike of my life. From Slant Rock, we hiked up Mt. Marcy. It was a moderate hike, and it took most of the morning. After lunch, we then caught a spur up Little Haystack (overlooking Panther Gorge) and then on to Mt. Haystack, ascending some 400 feet with a few near vertical pitches (the so-called "Devil's Half Mile"). We climbed with our packs on (average weight about 40 lbs.). I don't recommend this (turns out, neither does the guidebook).

After reaching the summit, we immediately began our descent to the foot of Mt. Basin via the State Range Trail, with hopes of finding some water, since we were running out of both it and light. This descent (part of which we had just ascended) was the hardest and dangerous hike of my life, not least because of the burden on my back. The most nerve-racking part was the single-foot width path along a ledge that simply . . . vanished. Mt. Basin's peak was our third for the day, which I also don't recommend attempting, what with the shape we were in. By the final descent to the pocket below my legs were shaking from the strain. Finally, we entered the shoulder—battered, bruised and exhausted, and with no water!

For now: Sleep. Tomorrow: Saddleback, and then on to child's play.

It wasn't until we set up camp and I consulted the trail book, however, that I realized what was "comin' round the mountain." The next entry, which I wrote on the flight home, chronicles our final day.

As expected, we awoke around 6:45 on the 19th. All night the wind had been howling, spitting constantly with a rattle above our heads on the tent roof. I wondered how it was that our tent wasn't lifted up, the wind as furious as it was. That, coupled with my fear of climbing in such weather and the guidebook's warning: "Turning L at the end of the ledge, the trail descends [we ascended, coming from the west] precipitously over ledges where extreme caution is needed"—made for a restless night. To be honest, it bordered on anxiety with intermittent fits of panic. I worried about someone in the group getting hurt; I worried about myself; I worried about slick, iced-over rock; I worried about the paralyzing fear that can overtake someone on a precipitous ledge; I just worried.

But in the end, it was for naught. It's hard to describe—climbing ledges where a single slip meant death; climbing such ledges as an inexperienced climber with a backpack on—but it was every bit as precipitous as you'd imagine. The wind continued to push and the rain pelted our faces and made the rock slippery. It was stupid or brave. Perhaps both?

Of course, all this blather is relative to my experience. Were I a seasoned climber, I'd probably laugh at the drama. But it's drama we all experienced—together. We learned very little at the top of each summit; the mountainsides taught us the most. The hike ended thus:

Reaching Saddleback's summit in about an hour and a half, we saw nothing but fog and mist and decided to move on quickly before the weather worsened. Our descent took about the same time, but it was mostly hiking with less climbing involved. We had been out of water since the previous night. I spared a gulp for everyone when we reached the summit, as B.P_____ had done for us that morning. Every muddy puddle looked delicious. At around 10:45 a.m., we hiked down to the headwaters of the Orebed (now on the Orebed Brook Trail), and gorged ourselves with water and Ramen Noodles. From there, we made our way to Johns Brook and stuck close to it on the Southside Trail, one that offered magnificent views of the rapids and popping yellow and auburn leaves that lined its banks. After hopping a few rocks (thankfully, the water wasn't too high), we walked out of the woods earlier than expected—Friday evening instead of Saturday midday—on account of foregoing the climb up Gothics and putting our LORD God to the test.

So, that night we hobbled into the Ausable Pub & Inn, and, enjoying the food and ale, we decided to stay at this trustworthy establishment for the night. Therewith we proceeded with much mirth and merriment.

I'm sure there's a few devotional points embedded in this story somewhere, but I'll let the reader figure those out. All of these photos were taken with a junky point-and-shoot Sony Cypershot. Click on an image to get up close and personal.

Atop Mt. Marcy

Marcy Men: B.P., K.S., C.D., C.O.

A fairly typical climb—but not one of the steepest by a long shot

Random barn

Our walk out, flanked by the rushing brook on our left
and wrapped in golden yellow

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The Logical Order of Things About Which We Know Next to Nothing

Augustine (6th c. fresco)

THERE HAVE BEEN, at times, moments of expected flack since I’ve outed myself as a single predestinarian. At worst it’s deemed a belligerent betrayal, at best with a wink and a nod it’s seen as a defect—often in intelligence. Not too long ago, a dear friend approached me quite concerned about not having vocalized my thoughts on this subject to him or others near to me (he did this for all the right reasons; we all should be so lucky to have at least one friend who cares to this extent), also suggesting my thinking has changed on this issue. With my typical smug chuckle, I didn’t offer any explanation one way or the other—but I thought there wasn’t much of a point when it’s a presumed fact that the breadth of the Reformed tradition excludes single predestination.

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Remembering God's Grace

FOR MANY OF US, at the beginning of our Christian journeys, we thought of and spoke often about the radical forgiveness of a God who has been greatly sinned against. I remember myself going on and on about God’s longsuffering and patience, and how grateful I was for it. I also recall having conversations with friends who did not convert out of a debauched past, who had never known a time they didn’t consider themselves Christian.

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What You Do vs. Who You Are

THIS IS A SNIPPET from an interview/testimony I delivered at the church of my youth—Bell Shoals Baptist Church in Brandon, Florida. In this bit I was attempting to hammer home the notion that salvation isn't so much about what we do but about who we are and to whom we belong.

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Therefore, Go

I MET A FELLOW the other day who claimed (in jest) to be a member of a recovery group for those addicted to rededications. Apparently, he had suffered from years of rededicating his life to God. By the time he was eighteen, he had rededicated his life ten times. The emotional support and strength he garnered every time he went forward at the end of camp week left him exhilarated, ready to face the task of being Christian in this world—that is, until he slipped up again.

Now, by no means is there anything wrong with rededicating one’s life to God, but by the tenth time, we might consider the notion that something in the church (by “church” I mean “all of God’s people,” not “clergy”) has run amuck. That something might be the lack of discipleship. Far too anxious to “get people in,” to pray the prayer, we have ignored what it takes to stay in, namely, the irresistible and efficient grace of God. Just as soon as we can get a Christian profession out of someone, we drop that person and move on to the next. What does this produce except new converts who have to learn the hard way how to avoid false teaching, or worse, confessors of the faith who have no faith at all? Combine this with the unspoken but ubiquitous (and misguided) doctrine that really good Christians no longer struggle with sin, and we have a situation ripe for rededications.

While dispensing with sin is indeed the charge and duty of all who claim to follow Jesus, the fact that sin persists in this world reveals our need of the grace of God. This, of course, does not mean that we continue in sin so that grace may abound (“By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?” Rom. 6:2). Rather, our continuing battle with sin, seemingly increased because as Christians we are more sensitive to it, reveals to us God’s abundant grace (see Rom. 5:20).

By this grace we are made into Christ’s disciples, but it doesn’t happen by just quietly sitting there. This is where the tired cliché “something worth fighting for” actually applies. Becoming a disciple of Christ has to be desired, yearned for, chased after; and further, we who are in a position to disciple must be willing to do so; we must actively seek the opportunities so to do (see Matt. 28:19a). And that means, if the metaphor holds, getting our dirty hands dirty with the lives of others. It simply will not do to shuffle people in only to shuffle them aside, unless we’re ready to send into battle one-legged soldiers in an army of rededication addicts.

{This originally appeared in Tabletalk 29.8 (August 2005): 25}

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Righteous Freedom

{This originally appeared as an editor's Coram Deo (the only one I've written) in Tabletalk 28.4 (April 2004): 2}

The early sixteenth century witnessed a reformation regarding the role of Jesus’ goodness and faithfulness in redemption. But moments such as these — moments of clarity — rarely last that long. Within a generation, the righteousness of Christ was forced once again to share the stage with human goodness.

Such decline in doctrine is by no means remarkable, and it should serve to remind us of an unfortunate truism in this fallen world. John Calvin knew it all too well. Hinting at his anxiety over the future of his home church in Geneva, he wrote, “It is not strange that today the authority of God’s servants, whom he has furnished with excellent and wonderful gifts, protects and preserves the church. But once they are dead, a sad deterioration will promptly begin, and impiety now hidden will erupt without restraint.” 

Sad words, indeed. Today, we face this same dilemma, as there are those who place the proper emphasis on Christ’s righteousness, while at the same time many sneak a works-based righteousness through the back door.

For this reason, now is a good time to devote an entire month of Tabletalk to this foundational and profoundly practical doctrine. From Christ’s humble service to his redeeming faithfulness, each article this month strives to direct us toward our only sure hope in redemption: the righteousness of the living Savior. Without his work alone on our behalf, we could not even cast a shadow upon the threshold of the invisible church, let alone cross it. 

Underlying this work of Christ in our stead is the inexhaustible grace of God. Redemption is not to be viewed as a single, specific instance of religious conversion. It is the whole Christian journey, and it is accomplished and applied by nothing less than the grace of our covenant Lord. 

Those who challenge this idea that God irresistibly draws believers to himself contend that he would not demand repentance from us if we were not already able to do it without special grace. Surely, they say, God would not hold us responsible for something we cannot do. The Reformers, however, taught differently. They, like Saint Augustine before them, entreated God to command whatsoever he will and grant whatsoever he commands. They recognized that their reliance, their sole foundation, rested upon sovereign grace.

Join in our study of this life-enriching doctrine as we seek to live coram Deo and shake-off the cold, iron shackles of our churches’ Pelagian captivity. 

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