You can win a prize of two books, Bread & Wine and Watch For the Light, both collections of essays and meditations on Christian seasons, the former for Lent and Easter, the latter for Advent and Christmas. Authors include C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, Madeleine L’Engle, Annie Dillard, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Pretty awesomesauce.
Be sure to enter. Referrals, by the way, get you three entries each. So show us some love, dear friends of Kuyperian.
[contesthopper contest=”7513″]<>
From Book 2, Chapter 20 of Augustine’s The City of God.
Of the Kind of Happiness and Life Truly Delighted in by Those Who Inveigh Against the Christian Religion.
But the worshippers and admirers of these gods delight in imitating their scandalous iniquities, and are nowise concerned that the republic be less depraved and licentious. Only let it remain undefeated, they say, only let it flourish and abound in resources; let it be glorious by its victories, or still better, secure in peace; and what matters it to us? This is our concern, that every man be able to increase his wealth so as to supply his daily prodigalities, and so that the powerful may subject the weak for their own purposes.
Let the poor court the rich for a living, and that under their protection they may enjoy a sluggish tranquillity; and let the rich abuse the poor as their dependants, to minister to their pride. Let the people applaud not those who protect their interests, but those who provide them with pleasure. Let no severe duty be commanded, no impurity forbidden. Let kings estimate their prosperity, not by the righteousness, but by the servility of their subjects. Let the provinces stand loyal to the kings, not as moral guides, but as lords of their possessions and purveyors of their pleasures; not with a hearty reverence, but a crooked and servile fear. Let the laws take cognizance rather of the injury done to another man’s property, than of that done to one’s own person. If a man be a nuisance to his neighbor, or injure his property, family, or person, let him be actionable; but in his own affairs let everyone with impunity do what he will in company with his own family, and with those who willingly join him. Let there be a plentiful supply of public prostitutes for every one who wishes to use them, but specially for those who are too poor to keep one for their private use. Let there be erected houses of the largest and most ornate description: in these let there be provided the most sumptuous banquets, where every one who pleases may, by day or night, play, drink, vomit, dissipate. Let there be everywhere heard the rustling of dancers, the loud, immodest laughter of the theatre; let a succession of the most cruel and the most voluptuous pleasures maintain a perpetual excitement. If such happiness is distasteful to any, let him be branded as a public enemy; and if any attempt to modify or put an end to it let him be silenced, banished, put an end to. Let these be reckoned the true gods, who procure for the people this condition of things, and preserve it when once possessed. Let them be worshipped as they wish; let them demand whatever games they please, from or with their own worshippers; only let them secure that such felicity be not imperilled by foe, plague, or disaster of any kind.<>
by Joffre Swait
A few years ago I was asked to give a talk/homily/grace thing at ThanksFest, a local ecumenical Thanksgiving feast put on by some great guys. This is a Thanksgiving feast that includes a Man Stone Throw. It’s a great party.
I decided to recite a poem (originally posted here, at my blog), which I wrote especially for the occasion, and delivered as a toast. This is that poem. Truth be told, it’s really three poems. Made one. Have fun with it, and I hope you enjoy it. If you make it a part of your festivities, I will be deeply honored.
Thanksgiving Poem
Thanks For Ever
But as for me, I am like a green olive-tree in the house of God: I trust in the lovingkindness of God for ever and ever. I will give thee thanks for ever, because thou hast done it; And I will hope in thy name, for it is good, in the presence of thy saints. Psalm 52:8, 9
Taking Time
Why do we mark out special times,
and why do we mark them with food, and with rhymes?
The Lordship of Christ’s in all history,
He enacts it through means, both obvious and mystery.
This poem’s about good Jesus, our King,
And how he has made us able to sing
Thanksgiving to him throughout the whole year
For taking away our dooms and our fears.
But this poem can get pretty complicated,
So first I’ll explain how it’s all related.
Adam was put in a garden sweet,
Where the fruit of the ground was sufficient meat.
All of the earth was his domain,
Even time was beneath his reign.
For God had made him not to die,
With eternal life beneath the sky.
But when we sinned we began to fear,
As seasons turn, well, death draws near.
Where once time meant more life with God,
Now time stalked, and ripped, and clawed.
The pagan man felt the trap of age,
That time and death were a bitter cage.
So Norseman, Greek, and the Chinese,
Said time was a circle, with no surcease.
The seasons and time would go ever round,
And beneath it all of man’s cities would drown.
Then Jesus came to make world anew,
The circle was broken, time was made true.
While earth and the seasons may cycle and spin,
Time marches toward a goal in the end.
Creation anew, which came and which comes,
Brought new sense of time to his Chosen Ones.
He’s called us to climb up to his holy hill,
Sing thanks that he’s saved us, and is saving us still!
We now mark the year as Christians may,
By festival, feast, and high holy day.
A humble spirit and grateful heart
For the spiritual food he does impart.
This poem next will tell who hears,
Thanksgiving ends, or begins the year
With gratitude for his provender
As it opens and ends the Christian calendar.
The Holiday
Thanksgiving comes in autumn time,
which is the time of fading.
The glory of the trees is gone
and winter soon comes raiding.
And death has stalked us all for long;
death will still come creeping.
In winter man has need for bread,
and hunger finds him weeping.
In spring man watches skies for rain
and knows his life is set
On whether earth will grant reward
for labor and for sweat.
In summer all begins to grow,
the beasts and the diseases.
If death can close its awful jaw,
it never will release us.
And so the world will spin its course;
Adam counts the seasons.
The sons of Adam never make
escape, by force or reason.
But Jesus made the world new
when Jesus broke the ages.
Time had trapped us in a ring;
we now ascend, in stages.
We once were caught by time and death,
the seasons were our prison.
Now we climb the Holy Mount,
and sing that he is risen.
These songs are what will mark our time
as we climb to be near.
Thanksgiving Day can summon us
to sing a festal year.
Thanksgiving comes in autumn time,
which is the time of reaping.
The glory of the fruit lives on
for the food that we are keeping
To feast and drink when Advent brings
Heavenly Bread to table.
Winter comes, but we are warmed
by Creation in a stable.
All the beasts and all the nations!
They all may enter the store.
The winter brings Epiphany,
and nations stream up to the door.
Within that door the seed is kept,
At Easter it will flourish.
We who were buried all rise up,
By mana we are nourished.
The fruit of summer rises up
in the time we call Ordinary.
Where once was jungle, now we find
a farm, a garden, a dairy.
From there our summer leads to fall,
we’ve been fed from day to day.
A year has cycled fully ’round,
We sang ascending the heavenly way.
On Advent Sunday another year
will be marked out in song.
Where every Sunday’s a holy day
and festal weeks are long.
This new creation and new time
is only for the grateful.
We thank our God, who did provide
down to every plateful.
So this is where our verse can change,
and cheer our celebration.
America may thank our God,
the Church is his true nation.
Our fathers found, in hostile land,
an unexpected mercy.
And so do we, and just like they,
we feast upon a turkey!
So let us thank the one true God
for good gifts and for plenty.
Begin a new year, and raise a cheer
in thanks to One for many.
Thanksgiving For The Turkey
We thank our God, for the turkey who died,
For farmers from Georgia, and peanut oil.
It’s pretty good baked, but it’s better deep-fried
In a pot full of fat that’s come to a boil.
These orange potatoes, which some have called sweet,
Were never named thus by we honest fellows.
To live up to their name, to be proper and meet,
We’ve added brown sugar, and also marshmallows.
We thank God for beer, this Highlands strong ale,
With which we toast health, and strength come from Him.
Yes, sugar and yeast make beer hearty and hale,
As the wine of the Spirit gives vigor and vim.
So here is a health to the people of God
Who love him in every season and day.
For He loved us first which seems a bit odd,
But now we’re his children, so hip-hip…hooray!
We children will toast our God, who is Father.
Mighty hen, we’re his chicks, in his bosom we lay.
Creator of all things, our Guide and our Rudder,
Sustains us each day, so hip-hip…hooray!
Again, let us cheer our God, who is Son.
Came down from Heaven, so that He may
Conquer our death, a fight that he won.
He’s first-fruits of life, so hip-hip…hooray!
Once more we’ll cheer our God, who is Spirit.
He’s given to us, and with us He’ll stay.
A comfort, a joy, whenever we’re wearied,
He’ll never forsake us, so hip-hip…hooray!
So now raise your glasses, and encourage your neighbor,
With Thanksgiving cheer the God who gives favor!
To Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, let’s drink thanks!<>
by Joffre Swait
Thanksgiving, like many holidays, can be as stressful for some as it can be joyful for others. On Thanksgiving, the cook(s) classically labors, frets, worries, hangs hopes on the success of the souffle, and forgets to not make that stuffing recipe that father-in-law complains about every year.
We tell ourselves to be at peace, to pray, to be full of joy during the holidays. We tell ourselves to be grateful. But when we seem to be the ones doing all the work and all the giving, thankfulness can be hard. Nonetheless, it is necessary. Here we are in God’s wonderful world, in olive groves we did not plant, surrounded by curse and blessing of epic proportions. We must be thankful, even if we were the ones who bore the brunt of the sun and watched as the newcomers got the same wage.
What’s more, once the grand feast is plated up, your work isn’t done. And these newcomers have already finished all the cranberry sauce.
Since it is often difficult for the makers to avoid falling into this tearful way on Thanksgiving, I thought it appropriate to offer some reasons to be grateful for being the cook.
If you cook with any regularity, you already know these things. But the change from quotidian to festal eating highlights them to all parties. Suddenly every dish is made special and fraught with meaning and the weight of history, every decision to serve this instead of that worthy of praise and condemnation.
Thanksgiving is supposed to be a time of gratitude for God’s gifts. You, dear cook, in all your service, are elevated to a role of highest honor. You manifest God’s kind provisions to his beloved in tangible and visceral ways. You conceive, you create, you lay your talents and provender before your welcome guests. And whether they are grateful or not, you are sanctified. Your people may seem ever ungrateful, but you don’t provide for them to receive thanks. You do it because you love them.
At Thanksgiving the cook presides over a liturgy that not only connects us to our Father in Heaven, but to our brothers in times past. This, by the way, is the only acceptable reason for making a sweet potato casserole covered in brown sugar and marshmallows: because your grandmother made it that way and your great-uncles loved it. We live in a society that, on the one hand, abounds in varieties and origins of food that would have boggled the minds of previous generations, and on the other, moves toward a sloth in the preparation of food so great that we don’t even remember our own mother’s recipes. At Thanksgiving we remember at least some of the old ways. And you are the one presiding over this great feast of mourning over the dead and joy for the living.
You are also coquus semper reformando, the always reforming cook. You honor tradition, but you are able to take the lead in establishing new family traditions.
The cranberry sauce we use on Thanksgiving is my dad’s. It has been in our family for only twenty years. But who knows how much farther into time it will travel, being cut off in some streams of our family after perhaps only a generation, while proceeding down other streams for many ages of men? On Thanksgiving every dish holds its weight in glory.
Not only has time become your playground, but so has all the earth. Three hundred short years ago, would you have had much black pepper in your house? Marshmallows in a variety of size and color? Oranges from over there? Pineapple from who knows where? And yet all these, thanks be to our God, are before you now, waiting for you to fulfill their destinies, which their fathers labored in darkness over for so long. To past generations of northern Christians, getting hold of an orange in winter was enough of a feat that the orange would be featured in the Christmas stocking; we still cling, without thinking, to such traditions. Will you, who live in Wisconsin, fail to be grateful for the bags and bushels of oranges available to you? You will not. You will give glory to men, and oranges, and cranberries, and God who made them, by putting orange zest and orange bits in your cranberry sauce.
Take therefore your place of honor with gratitude. Sweat over the stove, weary your arms with the stirring of sauces. Be thankful for the honor bestowed upon you by holy God, who has chosen you to preside over a symphony of trials past and glories to come, of lands lost and lands conquered, of ships at the last barren of ale and ships on the nonce laden with fruit, of mighty men dead and children given new life, of long hard winters and help unlooked for.
You, good lady, kind sir, may hold your wooden spoon up as a scepter.
<>
by Joffre Swait
Many of you have heard of Eric Liddell, the famous Scottish sprinter of Chariots of Fire. He famously refused to run on Sundays. Not many know that he also played wing for the Scottish national rugby side. I wrote on why it makes sense that Eric Liddell was a consummate rugby player here.
Today there’s another name, one that few Americans know, that should be of great interest to Christians who love Sabbath feasting.
Euan Murray is a prop forward for the Scotland rugby team. He plays professionally for Worcester in the Premiership. Unlike Liddell, who was a pretty boy and played on the wing, Murray is one of the big ugly bruisers who play in the front row. What do they have in common? Besides rugby, that they won’t play on Sunday.
Rugby is traditionally played on Saturdays, although Friday nights and Sundays are becoming more common. Murray will not be representing Scotland against South Africa this coming Sunday.
And this is far from the first time. He missed a World Cup game against Argentina in 2011. He missed two matches in the all-important 6 Nations tournament this past spring.
But he is still on the team. When he’s available, he starts. God appears to be blessing his ugly mug.
A side note that I find hilarious. Backs, like Eric Liddell was, get to do all the fancy stuff and keep their hands clean. Forwards have to get their hands dirty. Here is a ten-second video of a faithful sabbatarian cheating outrageously (you’re not allowed to block in rugby).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPORDiDZQMY<>
It would give us great joy to share the joy of these seasons with you. Our God is the God of winter, and the God of feasting! Laissez les bons temps of Thanksgiving and Christmas rouler!
[contesthopper contest=”7239″]<>
LifeSiteNews, a well-known anti-abortion website, has posted a video of Dan Savage, homosexual founder of the “It Gets Better” campaign, saying that abortion should be mandatory for thirty years. You know, until the current overpopulation crisis passes.
Let’s state this clearly. Mr. Savage would like to have the in utero babies of women who want to have babies killed.
There is oh so much to address here, but let us gloss over the murder and bad science. Let’s talk about this: who does Mr. Savage imagine would be making abortion mandatory? People who worship the State like to talk in nebulous terms, to make their ideas sound like they come from a wellspring of mainstream support. But…even if they did, who is doing the mandating? Who is enforcing this?
We’re talking about laws and policemen here.
So we’re talking about the State.
Very well. We accept this. We accept that the man who made his name with an “anti-bullying” campaign condemning a majority for telling a minority how to live their lives, is going to ask an as-yet-non-existent oligarchy to tell a majority how to live their lives.
What I get from this is that it’s not “bullying” that is wrong. Or rather, bullying is only bullying when the bully disagrees with Mr. Savage. If the bully’s goals are those of Mr. Savage, why then, that man is a good soldier and a savior.
At what point are we allowed to call this a crusade, or a war? When men with guns are involved? From London to Beijing to Ottawa, that is already happening.
<>
by Joffre Swait
Here at Kuyperian Commentary we go from strength to strength, marking one holiday after another, processing through the year beset on all sides by significance, meaning, and the weight of history.
Today is another holiday. It is Guy Fawkes Day.
Remember, remember the fifth of November, the Gunpowder treason and plot!
This is the day the English celebrate the foiling of a plot to blow up parliament in 1605.
I have never celebrated Guy Fawkes Day, but I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t aware of it; my mother had been educated at a British school and had painted vivid images of bonfires and burnings in effigy. Seemed like a pretty cool holiday. I mean, fire.
This is not a call for you to celebrate Guy Fawkes Day rightly. It is not a call for you to celebrate it at all. But today would be a good occasion for Kuyperians, we who wear the Orange, to recall our own shared heritage and history, and perhaps to look forward. As we see it, there’s no need to engage in the Girardian scapegoating of burning a Guy in effigy.
As the Ecclesia Semper Reformanda, who just observed Reformation Day on All Hallows Eve, we like to remember their doctrines and old books, but are sometimes guilty of being weak on our own history that solidified them as a people – a forgetfulness that has helped to fragment us.
As much as Guy Fawkes has become a political icon, especially as a symbol for anarchism (would you care to purchase an Anonymous/wikileaks Guy Fawkes Libertarian/revolution Hacker Anarchy T‑shirt?), the Gunpowder Plot was not simply a political plot. It was a plot by Roman Catholics to install a Catholic monarch.
Now, most American Christians who are aware of the holiday or the Plot know that Fawkes was Catholic. But he wasn’t just Catholic.
Guy Fawkes was part of a struggle between Protestants and Catholics that engulfed most of Europe and traveled with the Europeans to the Americas. Guy Fawkes was a soldier. He became a soldier not by joining an English army. Fawkes went to Holland, where the Dutch were fighting for independence from the Spanish Empire. That war is not often called the Dutch War of Independence, but the Eighty Years’ War. This was an epic struggle. It was a war between Roman Catholics and Protestants. Not simply a war that happened to be between “Catholic” and “Reformed” belligerents, but a war that was about their Roman-ness and Protestant-ness. Guy Fawkes made his way over to the Low Countries specifically because he wanted to fight Protestants. Then he brought the fight home. This was common on both sides (Sir Philip Sydney was a kick-ass knight of Protestantism who could write a mean poem – he died of a wound taken on a Dutch battlefield).
The Roman Catholic Church, his Most Catholic Majesty of the Spanish Empire and the Holy Roman Empire, and many popish powers and principalities were wishing and willing to exterminate Protestants. To us, this ought not be just bare historical fact. If we are Reformed, we ought to embrace that history as our own. Thirty years before Fawkes the Huguenot Protestants were driven underground and out of France. After the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, they were scattered to the four winds of the world. Wherever they settled, if the Catholic powers found them, they were exterminated. Unless they settled in English territory.
The orange in the flag of today’s Catholic Ireland is there because of English involvement in the Eighty Years’ War. If you don’t know how, I’ll let you play the wikipedia game to figure it out. Scotland gets involved too. All of Western Europe and North America was involved.
What is all this to say? That we Protestants are enemies of the Catholics? No. Those days are gone. All this is to say that Protestant and Reformed history goes beyond Reformation Day. We’re not just about 95 Theses. We’re about everything that came before, and everything that came after. Perhaps you identify with the Covenanters, or the Oxford Martyrs, Sir Francis Drake and the Spanish Armada, or William of Orange. There are many streams.
We tend to identify ourselves by our theological stream. But do you know who else was alive, or what deeds were being done, when your favorite theologians were writing? When we think of the Reformation, we should not only think of the dissemination of theologies, but of the mustering of armies, the flight of refugees, the building of ships, and the plottings of assassinations. It is more salutary to get our identity from our history, than our theology. It is from our history that we gain perspective, growth, and forgiveness. I would even dare to say that history plays a greater role than theology in helping us trust God. What is better in trusting God than knowing how he has cared for his people through every age?
I don’t celebrate Guy Fawkes Day, really. I’m not English. But I kind of dig it. I’ve decided that it’s part of my history, not only by blood, but by Christian identity. And yes, unlike many Reformed, I identify more with the English than with the Scots or the Dutch. Here’s what I ask of you: know where you come from, what your stream is. Find out its history, not just its theology.
Your children should not see your theology as something you picked off an a la carte menu, even though for a lot of Americans, including me, it definitely feels that way. Assume the entire mantle of your theology, and let it cover you in its history.
This is not a call for you to celebrate Guy Fawkes Day rightly. It’s not a call for you to celebrate it at all. But today would be a good occasion for Kuyperians, we who wear the Orange, to recall our heritage and history, and to look forward to making more.
The Fifth of November (c. 1870)
Remember, remember!
The fifth of November,
The Gunpowder treason and plot;
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot!
Guy Fawkes and his companions
Did the scheme contrive,
To blow the King and Parliament
All up alive.
Threescore barrels, laid below,
To prove old England’s overthrow.
But, by God’s providence, him they catch,
With a dark lantern, lighting a match!
A stick and a stake
For King James’s sake!
If you won’t give me one,
I’ll take two,
The better for me,
And the worse for you.
A rope, a rope, to hang the Pope,
A penn’orth of cheese to choke him,
A pint of beer to wash it down,
And a jolly good fire to burn him.
Holloa, boys! holloa, boys! make the bells ring!
Holloa, boys! holloa boys! God save the King!
Hip, hip, hooor-r-r-ray!
<>
by Joffre Swait
My wife and I were married at a beautiful bed and breakfast in the small and historic town of Micanopy, Florida, just a few miles south of Gainesville, where we met. Micanopy is a charming little town, the sort where you stop in to go antiquing on Saturdays, or where you might brunch before a little visit to Payne’s Prairie.
Alas that no one in Florida knows that Micanopy. Because what Micanopy really is is Cafe Risque. Like a pornographic South of the Border, I-75 for miles in either direction as one approaches Micanopy is dotted with billboards letting truckers and general citizens know that a world of greasy and tawdry delights awaits them at exit 374.
The edifice pictured here is not Cafe Risque. This is where we were married…the Herlong Mansion. Are you being serious right now? “Herlong”? Yes.
_____________________________________
Of the several grocery chains in our area, Bi-Lo is the shadiest, and you can see it in the check-out aisles. Few grocery stores in the area exercise what I think would be the common courtesy of covering up the Cosmo magazines at the check-out, but Bi-Lo is the worst about shoving them right in your face.
The thought that my nine-year-old daughter might be consistently exposed to the sort of misogyny embodied in desperate headlines like “25 Orgasm Tricks That Couples Love” displeases me. I would love to see more grocery store chains adopt policies of covering up those magazines. Ideally, of course, they wouldn’t sell that type of sad pornography for women, but I realize that’s asking the moon.
It would only take enacting a policy. Whatever private company decided to be consistent about such a policy would likely become my new favorite grocery store.
And certainly no one would argue with a private business’ right to choose such a policy.
_____________________________________
I detest federal centralization. I’m all about local representation and a small federal government. I mean, come on, I’m Presbyterian. Even my church polity is about decentralization. The South was right on constitutional grounds…it was a War of Northern Aggression. Lincoln was The Great Centralizer, our Constitution is broken, and now the country’s poorer for it.
Have I established my rabid and crazed anti-federal and anti-centralization radical bona fides? I hope so, because I’m about to get all anti-libertarian on you.
I want city and county governments to make pornographic billboards illegal. GASP! Surely you don’t mean that! Those billboards are on private property!
How wonderful to live in a society with a (at least somewhat) representational government. And that government does not solely exist to keep people off each other and allow them go about their private business. A libertarian thinks that building codes are ridiculous; I think that federal building codes are ridiculous. It’s quite wise of a city or county to make sure no one comes in and starts building and selling really crappy houses to their people. At which point some libertarians say caveat emptor and I ask them to go read Rand by themselves in their selfish little corners.
I am not a libertarian because of Cafe Risque. Or, more appropriately for me now that we’ve moved, because of Bedtyme Stories near Blacksburg, SC.
Cafe Risque is actually outside the city limits of Micanopy, which is why it can do what it does. Still, I would love to see the county take care of the problem (yes, I know it won’t because of moneymoneymoney).
The goal of our Constitution was to have minimal federal government.Nothing wrong with a more robust and virile government at town, county, and state levels. In fact, I think that would help in dealing with the federal government. Does this mean that I long for a piling on upon a piling on of laws? No. But I would like Christians to consider being less resentful of the only governments God has put over them that are immediately representational: local government. Of course, most never vote in local elections because they’re busy talking about the evils of Democrats and the Fed.
We have to many laws and too many codes at every level of government. That doesn’t mean we reject all government. The solution is not some principle that rejects the whole package. The solution is the hard work of doing it right. The State exists and is (“Alas”, we think to ourselves) ordained by God. If we have anything to say about the State, it is that it must not be the Leviathan it wishes to be, but that it has a place on the earth. We musn’t abstract government into some sub-category of a sacred meta-concept like Private Property or The Right to Trade.
_____________________________________
Am I suggesting that we legislate morality?
Of course. Is there something else a law is?
Originally posted at Joffre the Giant.<>
So some atheists and Newsweek have gotten together to make some noise.
They say that Americans might be poorer because churches don’t pay taxes. This makes sense, you see, because Americans get their money from the state. And the state is running out.
“We’re not doing this to hurt anyone. We’re not doing this to attack churches or attack religion. We simply want things to be fair.”
Kuyperian Commentary Podcast
