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On September 17, 2021 By In Podcast

Ep. 91 of KC Podcast, The Genevan Psalter with Dr. David Koyzis

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In this interview, we discuss the Genevan Psalter.

Dr. Koyzis notes that, “The Genevan Psalter was a project that began in the late 1530s as part of an effort to make available to the newly reformed congregations a way to sing the biblical Psalms, initially in Strasbourg and later in Geneva. How were they to be sung? Up to that point the western church had chanted the psalms in Latin according to the method ascribed to Pope Gregory I the Great (c. 540-604). The chanting of Psalms in course over a specified period of time had developed in the monasteries under the influence of the Rule of St. Benedict, shaping into what is known as the Daily Office or Liturgy of the Hours. Rooted in ancient Jewish usage (see, for example, Psalm 119:164 and Daniel 6:10), the Liturgy of the Hours consists of regular prayer offices said or sung throughout the day at approximately three-hour intervals (cf. Acts 10:9). In the Orthodox Church the Psalter is divided into twenty kathismata, or sittings, during which the entire Psalter is sung in course.”SHOW LESS

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On September 16, 2021 By In Counseling/Piety

The Art of Complaining and Grumbling

We don’t struggle with the abstract things said in the pulpit; we struggle with their application. So, for example, if I say, “Language is a gift from God that ought to reshape our humanity,” you might respond, “Well, that’s beautiful, Pastor Brito. I am going to quote you on that,” but if I say, “Quit grumbling like a spoiled child,” then, you might say, “Well, that’s way too personal.”

Theology in big categories is necessary to form our application, but we will end our days at the “self-help” section of Barnes & Nobles when we apply without first doing theology. When we apply poorly, we end up with all sorts of weird notions of life—thinking that certain things are acceptable when the biblical reality says otherwise.

The wilderness provided Israel many opportunities to test God’s applications of his law. And inevitably, when God said that he would do something out of the ordinary, what do the people do:

You grumbled in your tents and said, “The LORD hates us; so he brought us out of Egypt to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us. Where can we go? Our brothers have made us lose heart. They say, ‘The people are stronger and taller than we are; the cities are large, with walls up to the sky.”

In that same passage in Deuteronomy, grumbling is dealt with harshly; it is viewed as distrust in Yahweh to the point where God disallows Israel to enter the land. So, grumbling is not a little thing. Luke says that it’s out of the overflow of the heart that the mouth speaks. The Bible dissects our problems with a lot of clarity when it comes to grumbling, but our functional response is to say, “My children made me angry, and then my car, my cat, my boss, the Democrats, my spouse, my remote control, or whatever else made me angry.” However you parse that out you still have to deal with grumbling in the Bible which is unmistakably a condition of the heart.

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On September 13, 2021 By In Culture

The Worldview Ultimacy of COVID

The COVID death rate for humans from 0-17 years is .001%, according to the CDC. There have been about 400 COVID-related deaths in that age group in the entirety of this era. Unfortunately, the majority of these cases happened with children with various underlying medical conditions. Nevertheless, that number is so minuscule in relation to other diseases, that any comparison is therefore laughable.

Now that we are all agreed, let’s make another salient point: children are used as tools for any nefarious system that wishes to institute fear as a national currency. Whether the numbers are on their side is irrelevant. The point is that no crisis can be wasted when the potential gain is significant. And there are no better prime candidates than an age group that presents themselves as innocent bystanders. They become icons for a greater cause, even though the cause is filled with apocalyptic footnotes. But enough about Greta Thunberg.

Let’s move to a greater point still. The point is that if you consolidate all your worries into one big virus, then every other worry can dissipate. In short, if the entire ecosystem of individual attention can be summarized in COVIDom, then any system can use that data to communicate whatever ideology, philosophy, and rhetoric (Col. 2:8).

The strategy is to put away distracting items and convey a message through one medium rather than a thousand fragments. Therefore, we don’t illuminate the world on Global Warming as an isolated issue, or statist overreach, or LGBTQ agendas–nay; instead, we communicate all these ideas through the lens of COVID. We use suffering children as means to portray a vision that is grander for society.

The idea from now on will be to make the COVID conversation through its many re-creations and variations more and more central to the economic, political, and sociological discourses. After all, if we believe COVID mutations are subtle, contagious, and pernicious, we can begin to use it as a presupposition for all monologues on the world stage.

When we talk about epistemic questions, we–Van Tilian aficionados–talk about the significance of starting with the right presupposition. Everyone has it, whether it be reason or the Koran. We all have a way of looking at the world. What I am arguing is that COVID has become the lens of expectation and conversation. It has become the opening scene of life in Shakespearean proportion. To COVID or not to COVID is more than a question, but the answer to many disputes.

My proposal is we overturn this desire for ultimacy in worldview thinking. We must change the conversation into other ultimate starting points: Scriptures, Feasts, Hymns, and more Scriptures. Forsake the temptation to derive courage and strength from the attempt at starting life again from a separate worldview, even if little children are manipulatively used as memes for their cause.

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On September 10, 2021 By In Podcast

KC Podcast, Episode 90, The Significance of Writing with Dr. Dustin Messer

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Dr. Messer and I discuss our writing habits and share some personal thoughts on how writing has shaped us. We conclude our discussion on the importance of courage in writing.

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On September 8, 2021 By In Family and Children

Parenting as Human Formation

One of my parishioners posed the question about parenting five children. My general answer–which can be applied to 1 or 11 children–is that it comes with all sorts of inherent traps related to doubts about whether we are doing well or whether they will end up on the front page of the city paper for the right or wrong reasons. I confess my skepticism about parents who act as if the struggle is not necessary.

Because of my role in the community, I receive lots of questions on parenting and I happily oblige with my thoughts, but never from the standpoint of achievement, but from the perspective of mutually pursuing the good of our little ones; and certainly not as an expert, but as a traveler on the yellow-brick road. I begin by asserting that I am in the middle of the battle with five kids ranging from 4-13. Everything is fresh and applicable, and it is a lot easier to opine when the experiences are literally running around your feet.

Whatever piece of wisdom I offer may stem from the incalculable amount of hours I’ve spent reading and writing on parenting over the last 15 years and hopefully, and primary, a heavy dose of biblical wisdom. But as we all know, the entire process is a flurry of unexpectedness. Parenting is not formulaic, it’s relational adjustments momentarily and momentously. Parenting is the art of adjusting to circumstances well.

As a member of the hated patriarch, I support a healthy dose of rituals that shape a home. Some things ought to be consistent like a Tom Brady Superbowl ring. Family worship should happen consistently, but not rigidly like a Puritan songbook. Table dinners together should happen as frequently as possible. But none of these things are Gospel necessities. We are not saved by food or singing, but by faith alone. Faith manifests itself in food and singing and Bible reading and table fellowship, but those are not the final ingredients of justification. Of course, my entire public writing history is a history of encouraging those endeavors as unto the Lord. But I hope I have not treated them as a self-help manual.

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On August 30, 2021 By In Podcast

Episode 89, Micro-Christendoms and the Local Church: A Conversation with Dr. Dustin Messer

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I sit down via zoom with newly minted, Dr. Dustin Messer to discuss his dissertation on Micro-Christendoms. We discuss the role of local communities as a means to shaping the kingdom in more effective ways than our typical disposition towards D.C. politics, or the “outer ring,” as Dustin notes. This is a fruitful discussion and also a bold call to local faithfulness.

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On August 25, 2021 By In Wisdom

Moving Beyond our Sinful Past

Wisdom is a gift from a generous God (Prov. 2:6-9; James 3:17-18). It comes from the hard work of decision-making in the context of a healthy community. Decision-making under such a rubric becomes a central duty of godly saints. We become wiser with age when age allows us to think wisely about our past. But when we cease to reflect on the goodness of God throughout our lives, we fail to grow in wisdom. Gray hair is a crown of splendor only to those who walk in righteousness (Prov. 16:31).

Consider, for instance, how many struggle with past decisions and wonder at times what would have happened if they had taken a different route. “What if I had sought better friends?” “What if I had loved my children more?” “What if I had spent more time with my family?” “Why did I wait so long?”

The entire process of contemplation becomes endless and easily results in a fruitless pursuit of shame and guilt. When a man wonders, “If I had not pursued this immoral lifestyle for most of my youth, I would be in a better place right now,” he is acting like the wrong kind of storyteller. Good Christian storytellers remember their sinful pasts in light of the forgiveness they have received. The more they grow in wisdom, the greater redemptive re-tellers they become. They look at their past as painful lessons of rebellion, but they cannot dwell on them lest they become tedious tellers of time. The bodies of the Israelites serve as testaments that the road to the Promised Land is filled with those whose stories dwelt in the abundance of Egypt and wished to return and stories of the promise of a new land under a true Lord.

When Christians become paralyzed by their past, they are not submitting to the God of the future. Every poor decision demands not a penance, but a repentant heart that can see–in hope–a new trajectory being formed. That new trajectory is filled with opportunities for new decision-making exercises. In fact, new decisions made in the context of the good and true allow saints to view past sins anew.

When God removes our sins as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103), he is granting us the gift of living in the place of blessing without being overwhelmed by the place of sin; they can now live in light of the new life instead of allowing the old to control their actions. God gifts us with the mind to move forward in faith knowing that our new story emerges in a land flowing with milk and honey despite our long sojourn in the wilderness.

I am not arguing that heinous sins don’t linger in the imagination, but I am arguing that heinous sins should not control the imagination. Christians are, after all, people of wisdom. They fill their lives with the nurture of heaven and that keeps them grounded on earthly duties. For this reason, the best decisions we make stem from a heart filled with gratitude to a God who has forgiven us and accepts us in the Beloved. We move forward as creatures bound by a future-making God who decrees all for his glory and pleasure. 

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On August 24, 2021 By In Culture

The Case for Coffee Tables

Back in the blessed year of our Lord Twenty-twenty, when the orange man led the mutiny against leftism one tweet at a time, life was quite tolerable for Christians who gave a dram about ethical currency. Back then, I wrote:

“If we cannot get our act together during COVID under a relatively pro-liberty, pro-church president, how many jumping jacks will we be willing to do under a Biden presidency if the next tempest rises? How much longer will we be willing to keep our churches closed? How much more will we be willing to subscribe to government mailing lists? How much more will we be willing to spread fear as a virtue? How much more will we be willing to concede?”

As Yoda would say, “Concede we have.” But we have conceded ground quicker than even I expected and evangelical Christians are so eager to taste the Kool-Aid of concession that they drank it straight. And drinking anything straight is quite a challenge for the Charles Finney generation.

So, as we move on we must get the house in order. And by house, I mean the literal oikos, and not some metaphysical one, which we will touch on in a later post. But for now, let’s begin our focus on the living room rules that should guide our revolution:

If Jesus is Lord, then the coffee table is under his domain. I have talked so much about hospitality over the years that if you poke me I’d bleed mash potatoes. That is because the entire endeavor has eternal consequences and hospitable people will one day rule the world. But my point is a bit more nuanced, if I may.

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On August 18, 2021 By In Politics

America’s Foreign Policy and the Ethics of Paris Hilton

I have always opposed neo-conservatism and a massive part of the Trump attraction to me was his opposition to nation-building, which incidentally was what built the conservative movement’s opposition to the Bush and Obama administrations post-Iraq war. That said, what is taking place in Afghanistan is barbaric in too many ways to count. I am of the opinion that a word can paint a thousand pictures, but the scene of Afghans clinging to the U.S. military plane painted a thousand words.

Without delving into a thesis on the role of the United States foreign policy and how fast or how slow withdrawal needs to take place if at all, I want to delve into two brief implications of the current crisis that touches on the subtle ways in which we have re-imagined ourselves after the ethics of Paris Hilton.

The first is the American administration’s failure to understand basic patterns of culture. Charles Taylor uses the language of “immanent frame” to describe those who build ideologies on the basis only of what they feel and sense. In other words, only what we see is valuable in grounding our philosophy of war, sex, and language. This is in contrast to a “transcendent frame” that allows our worldviews to be shaped by transcendent/divine meaning and morality.

There was an interview where an American journalist interviewed several men of the Taliban. The discussion turned rather transcendent when she posed whether the Taliban would vote in favor of putting women into office. The men laughed and the interview ended. It ended because that journalist was operating under an “immanent frame” category. She failed to see–what leftists fail to see–that Middle Eastern tribal men function on the basis of an other-worldly view of the cosmos. Of course, we’d affirm that Islam is both satanic and sadistic, but that’s beside the point. They still function on the basis of an unalterable law called Sharia. The journalist couldn’t comprehend the totality of a worldview that functions with divine imperatives.

The second failure stems from a variety of voices, but most namely Twitter’s dissent from reason in allowing the Taliban to function as if they are good schoolboys operating under basic rules. “Ok, Jonny, you follow these basic rules and we will allow you to speak your truth to millions of people.” This entire brouhaha stems from a confusion of determining who are the real enemies. We, humble Christian people, should know that you don’t negotiate with satirists. And that is exactly what these individuals are doing to the effeminacy of American politics. They are satirizing us and we are too stupid to pick up on subtleties. We are more eager to allow Abdul Ghani Baradar to speak to our audiences than the rural, good-guy, wife-lovin’, church conservative who defends Trump. It’s a failure of epic proportions and distortions, which they are targeting daily.

The moral of the story is that when we allow the Bidening of America, we are making America disgraced again. It’s a tough thing to say, but Schwarzenegger was right: “We are led by girly men.”

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On August 16, 2021 By In Family and Children, Pro-Life

The Delay of Motherhood

The New York Times addressed the current birthrate decline in the United States. In an article entitled, “Why American Women Everywhere Are Delaying Motherhood,” the authors peruse the landscape of the American scenery and conclude that the prioritization of careers and education have caused women to delay having children well into their 30’s. In fact, the pattern has become quite acceptable and the reason for enormous jubilation among the feminist elites.

America is now experiencing its slowest growth among the population since the 1930s. The traditional route of having children early on has now been quickly substituted for children in the 30s, which inevitably diminishes the opportunities for larger families (the birthrate in America is 0.8%). These are not barren women, but physically capable females who could decide to bear children but decline to do so.

As the NYT observes, the American women find themselves desiring the incentives of careers rather than the incessant needs of little children. They have traded the classic model of womanhood accepted in much of Christendom and classic Western history for the trailblazing academic and career pursuits. Thus, by the time their 30’s arrive, they are psychologically fulfilled and ready to bring children into a world of financial stability and happiness–or at least that’s the theory. The theory is summarized further by a demographer who notes, “Maybe there are fewer babies right now, but people are able to live the lives they want to, and that’s a profound thing.” And another who summarized the sentiment: “I want to know who I am first before having kids,” she said.

This identity crisis is a result of the professionalization industry which treats the priority of the home for the woman (Titus 2:5) as a dismissal of logic. The concept of woman as a beautifier of the home is a strange artifact in the ever-so-modern library of humanity. What we are witnessing in our day is the reversal of categorical trends established in history for new ways of contemplating the woman’s role in society.

It is also worth observing that this quest for “knowing who you are” contradicts basic sociology. Young couples often understand themselves at an entirely new depth when children enter the world. It is true that we may discover the hideous fact that we are self-absorbed beings, but we too may also find that we have the gift of self-giving in a way that never would have been manifested prior to children. We may even say that identities are built in the presence of diapers and sleepless nights. But instead, many women will have to convince themselves that their identities come only through well-furnished apartments and other pre-requisites. And who determines when enough is enough? Ultimately, this is a quest of self-deception for no woman can truly be happy outside their God-giving humanity.

Indeed, the reality of God’s imperative cannot be overturned no matter how much the modern woman seeks to find solace in her childlessness or even in the significant delay to motherhood. She cannot undo “be fruitful and multiply” for “be yourself and simplify.”

Such philosophies cannot succeed long-term. Women under such spell will find themselves utterly dissatisfied when their 30’s are passed. They have changed the benedictions and flatteries of bosses for the gentle and tender affirmation of their Lord and Master.

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