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By In Art, Books, Theology

Book Review: All That God Cares About by Richard Mouw

Richard Mouw is a big name in Kuyperian circles. He regularly writes about neo-Calvinism and Kuyper’s vision of Common Grace. His latest book, All that God Cares About (available June 16, 2020), continues that work. I will admit that this is my first look at Mouw’s work so I am behind in the conversation but I think it is worth jumping in here since Mouw says that this book is an update on his previous work on common grace. 

For those new to the discussion, common grace is the term theologians use to describe the work that God does in restraining unregenerate men from doing evil continually and instead enables them to do limited good in the world. This teaching comes from key passages in the Bible as well as John Calvin and other reformers. It is closely related to the doctrine of total depravity: fallen man is dead in his sin and is incapable of redemption apart from God quickening him. In teaching total depravity, Calvin and others acknowledge the Bible’s teaching that unregenerate Man is not absolutely evil in all actions but in fact often does real positive good in the world. 

In considering common grace, the primary question Mouw considers is how God can both bless non-Christians with artistic skills and also allow them to go to Hell. At one point, Mouw points to ancient Chinese pottery and asks: “What does God think of those pots and vases? I don’t think the production of these works of art is explainable simply in terms of the providential restraint of sin. My sense is that the Lord took delight in the talents of the artists themselves in crafting this pottery and wants us to delight in them as well” (Kindle Location 905). In this example, Mouw is pushing back on the frequent description of common grace as merely a restraint on evildoers and instead Mouw suggests that in some way God actually delights in these gifts that he gives to non-Christians. 

I appreciate much of Mouw’s discussion in this book and it was edifying to read about other theologians who have talked about this issue: Cornelius VanTil, Klaas Schilder, and Herman Hoeksema. I do have some concerns about this book but I will discuss one key appreciation first. 

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By In Art, Books, Theology

Kuyper’s Lectures on Calvinism: Calvinism and Art

This is the fifth part of a six part article series on Abraham Kuyper’s Lectures on Calvinism. He gave these lectures at Princeton Theological Seminary over a series of days in October 1898. Happy International Abraham Kuyper Month!

Kuyper begins this lecture acknowledging the terrible idol that Art has become. He says, “Genuflection before an almost fanatical worship of art, such as our time fosters, should little harmonize with the high seriousness of life, for which Calvinism has pleaded, and which it has sealed, not with the pencil or the chisel in the studio, but with its best blood at the stake and in the field of battle” (p 142). Kuyper is reminding us to to see the vast difference between the artists in the art shop and the faithful men and women who sealed their confession with their very blood. While art does make an impact on culture and society, those who have died for the faith have the greater victory. 

Kuyper then says, “Moreover the love of art which is so broadly on the increase in our times should not blind our eyes, but ought to be soberly and critically examined” (p 142). We should not create art for the sake of art, nor should we enjoy it for itself. We must do art for God’s sake and glory. This means a high and serious examination of all art in order to bring it in submission to God.   

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By In Art, Books, Culture, Scribblings

The Stone Upon the Well

Sunday morning found me kneeling at the foot of my bed, trembling, pebbles of sweat leaping off the edge of my brow and nose, and hitting the floor in front of me, but not from piety was I procumbent; though as a minister for over a decade, I had made threadbare the knees of my pants from petitionings. No, I was crouched and quivering, begging in half-measures, because of a shooting pain in my side, caused by kidney stones. Doc Thomas said my trouble breathing was purely in my head, but he had given me ample painkillers to make it through the weekend. The new church building was being dedicated today and he’d midwife my suffering on Monday.

I swallowed my medication. The pill a seed from which, I pray, nothing will grow. I dressed and walked across the expanse of grass, spendthrifting the morning glories, to stand beneath the shade of the pecan tree. The white of the slat wood chapel bounced the brightness of dawn to high heaven and the heat was rising, so I staggered back to my study in the little manse across the field.

My study was inviolable, a sanctuary, and only one person was allowed to ascend the mount to meet with me. My father-in-law, my ex-father-in-law, practically my father, an elder, the elder, my only elder in the church, Doc Thomas would knock on the door fifteen minutes before the service and we would pray together; for the church, for the city, for the sick by name, for the lost by the inward groaning of the spirit, for all the burdens of his heart and mine that we dare mention aloud.

After the loss of our building fund, he came through, funded the rest of it from his own pocket. Having given so much, I was ashamed to take more, prodigal of his gifts, but he felt the betrayal in our marriage more intently than I did, for I knew my faults and knew what I deserved far better than he. She left me and I could hardly blame her. She had so much to give and I was fearful of how much I wanted. I took too little, too little notice, too little care, belittling and of little faith.

There was a soft knock and Thomas entered. I was crouched over in my chair, sweat crowning my forehead. “Good morning, Doc,” I said softly. He thought I was weeping.

He was silent as he took a seat at my side, his hand resting on my shoulder, and then prayed. I had not realized until then that it was the anniversary of her leaving. Doc Thomas was aware and his words invoked an unspoken sorrow, a burden I had not been aware of until now. I remembered the last time I saw her.

When I found them I was too stunned to talk. Joe stood up, as guilty as Adam and as nude, and told me he was invited. My wife was too shocked to speak. Joe wrapped himself in a linen sheet and left. I followed him, wanting to ask a question, but all I could think to ask was how soon would the roof would be finished.

I stood at the front door and watched him walk across the field. I could think of only one thing to say, so finally I called, “That’s mine!”

He thought I was talking about his makeshift loincloth and he paused. Then he let fall the linen sheet and ran away naked. His truck was parked at the far end of the construction site, and as the great vehicle revved and wheeled about, my wife pushed past me with a suitcase and an abrupt goodbye. He waited for her and then they were gone. Over the next several weeks, I let the rain ruin the unshingled roof. The tarps were windtorn and rot set in. Plywood had to be replaced and a new crew had to be found to shingle it. And then the money was gone.

I could’ve tracked down Joe and gotten the rest of it back, but forgiveness is more needful than money and I owed my wife a great debt in that department. But I couldn’t bring myself to speak to her.

I amen’d at the end of Thomas’s prayer. We shook hands, then we hugged, and he said something about it being a happy day for the church. We walked over and I was feeling better. The stitch in my side and the thunder and lightning of pain was gone.

The congregation was gathering on the grass. I offered a prayer, a ribbon was snipped, and we trickled inside to the cool of the sanctuary. Pews were selected. A row of children jumped in place until they got their chance to pull the bell’s fat rope. Every soul got its ring. Miss Mattie could not play the piano loud enough, our voices outdid her hands for once. She was glad to be back at the upright, hammering away like a smith at his anvil.

I read the text and prayed to the Spirit for illumination. The passage was the woman at the well. She’d had five husbands when Jesus found her there.

When I looked up, I saw her. Maggie still talked to her father once a week. She knew what today was. She’d think I did it on purpose, dedicate a church on the anniversary of the dissolution of my marriage. I was of a mind to believe it myself. I’m that sort of fool. Married to the church, she’d say with vinegar under her tongue. She knew I measured poorly as a bridegroom. She’d slipped in for the sermon and stood in the back.

And Jesus said, “And the one you are with is not your husband.” Jesus said it, but I could not. I felt her eyes on me. The woman at the well switched topics to the question of where to worship and I did the same.

“‘Our fathers worshipped on this mount, but ye say in Jerusalem,’ the woman said.” I told them how Christ replied, and I told them about mountains, and about the faith that could move mountains.

“Every valley shall be exalted,” I said. “And every mountain laid low, saith the prophet Isaiah. Jesus quotes this too and I’ve always found it a curious thing.”

I was off script and wandering in the wilderness of the Word of the Lord. “We hear about the faith that can casts mountains into the sea and we think that means faith can be strong. And maybe that’s true.”

I felt a gonging in my stomach. The pain returning. And I felt bad, nobody likes to hear about a faith that might not be strong, but I pressed on. “Why would mountains need to be moved? Or really, the question is what are mountains for and why would we not need them in the new covenant?”

Maggie started to walk to the exit and pain whited out my sight. I clung to the pulpit to steady myself. “We have to understand, in the old covenant, mountains were meeting places, ladders to heaven. You could think of mountains as full sized altars.”

I was losing my breath. All other faces grew cloudy, a cloud of witnesses.

“The reason why mountains will be laid low or cast into the sea is because,” I nodded at Miss Mattie so she could get to the piano. She liked to play through the final prayer, which would have to come soon. I gripped my side. “Now, we no longer need to ascend the mountain to meet with the Lord. Where two or three are gathered together in his name—”

A man entered, I couldn’t see who, and he whispered something into the ear of someone in the back row. I tried to continue, but there was a ripple of talk and Doc Thomas stood, raising his hand. I ceded the service to him.

Doc had a voice I envied. A tremulous tone with a lilt that could break anger like a dry twig. “Brothers and sisters,” he said and all heads rotated his direction. “The house across the street, the Peterson house, is on fire.”

The commotion was instant. A pastor has never seen such a response to his own words. Every man stood and rushed out the door, the children followed with their mothers in tow.

I slowly made my way to the door, a hand to every pew, and looked across the street as the flames broke through the roof of the Peterson’s. The fire formed a steeple and a siren sounded far off. The Petersons weren’t members and weren’t home. I tried to pray, but the roar of pain inside me swallowed it. I think I saw my wife, my ex-wife, my sister-in-law and once bride, she hugged her father. He knelt before her and clung to her waist, laying his head against her stomach.

The engine arrived and two men jumped out, one of them slung some extra gear at the foot of Paul Milligan, our deacon, who was a volunteer. He had already stripped off his tie and shoes and went about frantically stuffing himself into the flame retardant pants, boots, and jacket.

The hose was hooked up to the hydrant at the corner and water was shot into the fire. A long black pillar rose into the sky. Another couple of volunteers showed up later, but the fire was too far gone. They only sought to control the burn and save the houses on either side.

The Petersons came back and their son sobbed while the mother and father took turns swearing into the cell-phones or under their breath. The crowd had thinned out and as the fire worked its way to the ground, the sun did the same.

In the dark, I had only made it to the pecan tree before I was stricken with a pain too great to move. Leaning against its the scaley bark, I could feel a ring where a sap-sucker had drilled holes. I labored to breathe.

Heat rose up in me and I unbuttoned my shirt. I’d not worn an undershirt and smelled. My cell buzzed in my pants pocket. I fished it out, hunching and resting my head against the tree. “Hello?”

“Mark,” she said and my face screwed up in sadness.

“Forgive me,” I stuttered.

“Was that sermon for me?”

“No,” I gasped. I felt a pressure in my bladder. I grit my teeth and cinched tight my eyes. “It was the doing of the lectionary. I would’ve avoided it if I could.”

I heard her breath crackle in the receiver. I couldn’t tell if it was scoff or sigh. If a scoff, it echoed the scoffing of my heart. If a sigh, it was the breath of my own soul.

“I’m staying at dad’s.” She said softly. “For now.”

“Yes.”

There was a pause. “The sermon—”

“Yes.”

“You never finished. What were you about to say?”

I wanted to scream: “I am the woman at the well, I am the unfaithful bride, I am the faithless husbands.” I felt nauseated and I badly needed to urinate. “I am the mountain that must be cast into the sea.” But I did not say this. I was too weak.

“What was I saying? I don’t remember.”

“Where two or three are gathered…”

“Yes, yes,” I said and the conclusion to my sermon came to me unbidden and full. “But then we shall see face to face.”

I nearly cried out in pain as some dagger of starlight danced upon my kidney. I felt severed. She thanked me, said goodnight, and hung up, instinctively closing with “I love you,” like children ending prayers with “Jesus name amen.” A thoughtless utterance that held all truth and anchored us to the world.

I could no longer wait and fumbled at my belt and let my trousers fall. In the dark, in the dark of the tree, on the tree, I passed the stone. I left a curse on my tongue and let a blessing well up inside me and flow free.

Remy Wilkins teaches at Geneva Academy in Monroe, Louisiana and the author of two middle grade novels, Strays (Canon Press, 2017) and Hush-Hush (forthcoming).

This post appeared originally at Theopolis blog and is reposted here by permission

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By In Books, Culture, Film, Interviews, Wisdom

Author Interview: Steven R Turley, PhD

Dr. Steve Turley teaches Theology, Greek, and Rhetoric at Tall Oaks Classical School, and he also is a professor of Aesthetics, Music and World Cultures at Eastern University, a co-educational, comprehensive Christian university in St. Davids, Pennsylvania, fifteen miles northwest of Philadelphia. He also writes and hosts the Turley Talks podcast and is an accomplished classical guitarist.

Dr. Turley has a recent publication available that posits the question: What if, instead of watching Christian movies, we cultivated the practice of learning to recognize biblical themes and symbology in films in general? (more…)

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By In Culture

Art in the Shadows

My fellow Kuyperian contributor, Dustin Messer, recently wrote some worthwhile reflections on David Skeel’s book True Paradox. Explaining Skeel’s take on art, Messer notes that in the Christian worldview, art must tell the truth about the world by witnessing to its entire story: creation, fall, and redemption:

“This story of creation, fall, and redemption permeates the Scriptures, and because the Scriptures tell the true story of this world, it permeates our experience as well. Thus, for art to be affirmed by the Christian worldview, it of course can—and must—touch on these themes. Granted, each and every piece of art won’t include each and every theme each and every time. A work which reflects the pain and depravity of creation is no less true than the work which points to the world’s inherent dignity and goodness, or a work which alludes to the balm and remedy brought by Christ, for that matter.”

Unfortunately, modern Christian forays into art seldom aspire beyond portraying the happy aspects of life in the world. Christians often treat art as something that exists only in the sphere of redemption—a discipline dealing only with the aesthetically pleasant. Rather than engaging the world, art functions as sanctified entertainment, leaving unexplored vast areas of human life. The full story of the fall is left untold—it may as well never have happened.

But the wonder of redemption is unintelligible apart from the horror of the fall. The reality of the fall is a truth no less than the new creation. Thus, if Christians are to tell the true story of the world, our involvement with art (whether as creators or audiences) cannot be limited to the brightness of redemption, but should entail confrontation with the darkness of the fall. Scripture certainly does not shy away from revealing the harrowing extent of the fall and its effects on all of creation.

A classic example of this is J. S. Bach’s masterpiece oratorio, St. Matthew’s Passion, whose final chorus is a lamentation on the death of Christ, entitled, “We Sit Down in Tears.” The Passion does not end with the resurrection, and so leaves the listener unsettled. Bach understood that profound art contains truth and tension, and even with a sacred work, he did not feel the need to append a happy ending so his audience would leave with good vibes. By concluding his piece with the burial of Christ (and dealing with the resurrection in a separate work), Bach enables listeners to feel the weight of sin and death and more fully identify with the sadness and despair experienced by Christ’s disciples.

For Christians, depicting the brokenness of creation is not lapse into nihilism, but rather a truthful, even hopeful, artistic endeavor. Simply acknowledging the reality of the fall presupposes that the world was created good, but that things are not now as they should be. Attesting to the darkness in the world can also illustrate the pervasive extent of the fall, narrate the misery and consequences of sin, expose injustice, point to the necessity of redemption, and accent the incompleteness of restoration until the life of the world to come.

Such a perspective ought to open up new vistas for Christian artistic endeavors and encounters. Life on this side of the new heavens and new earth will always partake of unresolved tension, and so artistic engagement with the fall will always be appropriate. Works of art presenting the depths of the fall can witness to the truth as much as works that are explicitly redemptive.

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By In Culture

The Transcendent Source of Beauty and Art

“But if you confess that the world was once beautiful, but by the curse has become undone, and by a final catastrophe is to pass to its full state of glory, excelling even the beauty of paradise, then art has the mystical task of reminding us in its production of the beauty that was lost and of anticipating its perfect coming luster.” -Abraham Kuyper

In his book True Paradox, David Skeel makes the point that beauty—especially that beauty which is seen in art—is the result of tension, of one kind or another. Obviously, the kind of tension that typically comes to mind is that between good and bad, right and wrong. Christianity gives a full throated voice to this tension. While the world was created good, it is fallen—which is to say it’s both broken and rebellious—but Christ has come to restore and redeem creation. In other words, Christ has come to resolve this tension.

This story of creation, fall, and redemption permeates the Scriptures, and because the Scriptures tell the true story of this world, it permeates our experience as well. Thus, for art to be affirmed by the Christian worldview, it of course can—and must—touch on these themes. Granted, each and every piece of art won’t include each and every theme each and every time. A work which reflects the pain and depravity of creation is no less true than the work which points to the world’s inherent dignity and goodness, or a work which alludes to the balm and remedy brought by Christ, for that matter.

The fact that beauty is a result of tension—and the tension between good and evil is resolvable—poses an interesting and important question vis-à-vis the Christian aesthetic; namely, “is beauty eternal?” The answer to this question is more complex than one might first expect. To begin with, the tension between “good” and “bad” is contingent upon evil—which is finite. Obviously, before the fall and after the second coming of Christ, there is no such tension. This tension has a beginning (Gen 3) and an end (Rev 21).

Now, at least the three Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) agree on this point: evil is not eternal—it has a beginning and an end. This tension, most of us agree, will be resolved. However, the Christian faith has a unique claim on beauty specifically. Before the fall, indeed before creation, God lived in perfect love, peace, joy, and relationship. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit were one yet three. Were God only one—were He a mono-personal being—there would be no tension in eternity past, let alone in the perfect world to come.

However, as we know, God is not such a being. While we can, without reservation, affirm the “oneness” of God’s essence, we can also, without reservation, affirm the various personalities of the Trinity. This tension—between Father, Son, and Spirit—is irresolvable. It is the governing reality of the cosmos. Of course, this reality is why we can say that love is eternal. There has always been “love,” a “lover,” and a “beloved.” However, this is also why Christians can say beauty is eternal. Before the creation of the world, God was not stagnant. He was in a complex and textured relationship with His Trinitarian Self.  Tension is eternal, in other words, because of the eternality of the Trinity.

As Trinitarians, Skeel argues, we can heartily acknowledge that there are more tensions in the world than those between “good” and “bad.” As a result, when we look at a truly beautiful painting, we appreciate the tension; not only between right and wrong, but also between colors, shades, fabrics, etc. These tensions—those which exist apart from sin—allude to the complexity found in the Godhead. Perhaps this is why a given piece of art can have such a transcendent effect on the viewer. In viewing beauty—as with experiencing love—the viewer is coming in contact with something that lacks a beginning and an end. At its best, this is what art does. Art makes us worship—not the object, but the reality which lies beyond the object, the Triune God of the universe.

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