The Incarnational Art of Flannery O’Connor by Christina Bieber Lake
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book is just phenomenal. Christina Bieber Lake is amazing in this book. She is interesting and keeps you moving through the book. She brings in philosophers and authors to shed light onto O’Connor’s writings. She frequently references books that O’Connor read or underlined and often does so in the context of O’Connor having read that book while writing a particular novella or short story.
by Marc Hays
One-Hundred and thirty-nine years ago today, Gilbert Keith Chesterton was born in Kensington, England. I tend to keep track of the anniversary of his birth, because I was born 100 years and 2 days later. (It would be way cooler if the “2 days” part was not there, but it is what it is.)
Since you’re here, and given the small amount of time you have to devote to reading blog posts, I am going to give you the gift of brevity for Mr. Chesterton’s birthday, i.e. I’m going to hush and let GKC speak for himself. If the best gift you can give an author is to quote him, then Mr. Chesterton, having perfected the art of quotability, must be one of the easiest people in the world to buy for. (more…)
by Marc Hays
Earlier this year I was sick. I slept most of a Saturday. On Sunday afternoon I tried to redeem some of the time by listening to a few lectures on my ipod. Shortly after beginning to listen, my six-year-old son, Seth, came into the bedroom and asked to lie down beside me. I told him that he could and rolled over on my side. He laid himself down behind me and began to rub my back. For the next three hours, Seth did nothing except spend time with me. He would periodically rub my back and ask if it felt good. Sometimes he would watch the clock countdown on the ipod and tell me how many minutes that I had left in a particular lecture. He didn’t need toys, books, or movies to keep him occupied, because he was completely occupied by simply being with me.
I remember reading once that Jonathan Edwards recommended using a time of illness as an opportunity for self-examination. This should come as no surprise; there weren’t many periods in one’s life that Edwards did not recommend as being appropriate times for self-examination. He said that one should not see the illness as a direct result of one’s sin, but wasting the time spent flat on your back would be foolish.
So there I lay–flat on my back, receiving the undivided attention of my son, examining myself, and realizing that I am much more like Martha than I am like Mary. I need purposes, goals, aspirations–something to “do” to show my love. Give me a schedule or a deadline, and I can prove that I mean business. But like Mary, Seth knows of a better way to show devotion. He can just sit at my feet, or lie beside me as it were, because he loves me. Where I am, is where he wants to be.
Paul told the Philippians that for him to remain in the flesh meant fruitful labor, but to depart and be with Christ was far better. When it comes to “fruitful labor”, I know how to keep a day jam-packed with profitable things, but Paul taught us that the better thing is “to be with Christ”. I don’t think I’ve begun to understand “being with Christ”. Maybe I can begin to see by remembering the guileless attention of my son, who paid his father the highest honor imaginable by simply wanting to be with him.<>
by Marc Hays
It comes as no surprise to hear that the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the Romeike’s continued asylum in these United States. Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton, a George W. Bush administration appointee, said, “Germany is not forbidding home-schooling … It’s not like saying you can’t teach them at home in the evenings.” This is, of course, utter nonsense, but that is not surprising either. “W” appointed him. Michael Farris of the Home School Legal Defense Association related this type of thinking to telling a Jew that their children could eat kosher at home every evening even though the state will be feeding them bacon for 6 hours per day for 180 days per year. How is that eating kosher? How is forcing Christians to subjugate their children to the religion of the German state not religious persecution? If you think Germany does not have a state religion, you can read more about that here.
This news comes to us as bad news, and it is. Anytime a God-ordained liberty, like a father raising his children (Deut. 6), loses to tyranny, it’s bad news, and it’s bad news for all of us. This ruling is indicative of our court system, our attorney general, our president and his administration, but worse yet is that they don’t define us. We define them. The people of the United States elected Barak Hussein Obama to four more years. President George W. Bush appointed Judge Sutton to his bench. We granted them these powers, so they are indicative of us as a nation.
So, this is bad news, but this is not the end of the story. (more…)
by Marc Hays
Usually sanctification comes as a steady rain. Drop after drop after drop until the ground of your conscience has been saturated and you’re different than you were before. As the Spirit is prone to move like the wind, we don’t see where He comes from or where He goes. Sometimes sanctification comes like a flash flood. Life was dry and sunny and then “boom”! You’re not even sure what hit you, but you’re soaking wet and you’re no longer the same person you were before. I had one of these flash flood, sanctifying moments as G.K. Chesterton unfolded the “Ethics of Elfland” in his book Orthodoxy. Here’s a paragraph that changed me forever:
The sun rises every morning. I do not rise every morning; but the variation is due not to my activity, but to my inaction. Now, to put the matter in a popular phrase, it might be true that the sun rises regularly because he never gets tired of rising. His routine might be due, not to a lifelessness, but to a rush of life. The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or joke that they specially enjoy. A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical ENCORE. Heaven may ENCORE the bird who laid an egg. (more…)
The Westminster Confession of Faith says this about the Sabbath:
VIII. This Sabbath is to be kept holy unto the Lord when men, after a due preparing of their hearts, and ordering of their common affairs beforehand, do not only observe an holy rest all the day from their own works, words, and thoughts about their worldly employments and recreations, but also are taken up the whole time in the public and private exercises of His worship, and in the duties of necessity and mercy.
In defense of the Sabbath for Christians, some have argued that the reason we don’t appreciate the Sabbath is because we don’t appreciate the other half of the commandment: to work six days.
In other words, if we honored the commandment to work six days, we’d be much more inclined to rest on the seventh. This post is brief, in that the combination of these two points, 1. working six days and 2. resting the seventh, raises one question for me.
When do we play?
Is play a subcategory of work, so we play on the six days of the week that we work? Or, is play a subcategory of rest, so we play on the seventh day of rest?
The Westminster Confession of Faith defines rest and Sabbath-keeping so that it explicitly excludes play: “are taken up the whole time in the public and private exercises of His worship, and in the duties of necessity and mercy.”
So when do we play? What are your thoughts on this question?
* Matt Bianco is a PCA elder, the homeschooling father of three children, a result of his marriage to his altogether lovely high school sweetheart, Patty.
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commendation by Marc Hays
In this post I’ll be commending to you an article and a man. Said man wrote the commendable article. In fact, he writes many commendable articles, hence the commendation.
On April 30, Toby J. Sumpter published an article on his blog entitled, “The Porn War”. He reminds us that the war against sexual sin must have a strong defense, but that simply having a defense will never win a war. He begins,
Defensive warfare is not a winning tactic, but it is a necessary tactic. And usually, when the Spirit has sacked a man, and he comes to his senses, repents, and wants to get out the prison cell of lust and pornography, the defensive angle has to be emphasized first. You need to get real accountability (pastor, parent, wife, godly roommate), change jobs, stop traveling so much, throw away your computer, put Covenant Eyes on your smart phone, cut off your hand or eye causing you to sin (Mt. 5:28-30). Jesus prescribes amputation, so don’t expect this to be very fun. (more…)
by Marc Hays
It finally happened. I could hardly believe it myself, but I was there when it happened. No, I didn’t win the lottery. (You actually have to buy a ticket to do that.) And besides, this event was way more exciting than a few million Federal Reserve Notes. This was a moment I had been anticipating for years. Okay, okay, I’ll tell you. After reading three chapters of Prince Caspian to my children, they asked me to read another one, and then another. I know, I know, it’s hard to believe, but I tell you the truth, I am not lying.
Maybe you experience this beautiful moment nightly. I hope that you do, but usually, at the end of reading to my children, I hear encouraging comments like, “So, are we done now?”, “Can I go play?”, or, worst of all, “Can we watch a movie now?”. But not that day. That day they wanted more, so I gave it to them. (more…)
Since belief in the Trinity lies at the very heart of the Christian faith, a tiny difference in Trinitarian theology may well have repercussions upon every aspect of Christian life and thought.[1]
Trinitarian theology is just that, the very heart of the Christian faith, yet Christianity has largely pushed Trinitarian theology to the sidelines. As some have pointed out, it has become nothing more than an awkward mathematical formula that we must accept as part of the faith, but has little to no bearing on our lives beyond that. By way of illustration, the very word processor I’m typing this post into keeps trying to change my use of the word Trinitarian into the word Unitarian!
I recently interviewed Calvin College professor of Philosophy and author, James K.A. Smith. Dr. Smith has written books such as Desiring the Kingdom, Imagining the Kingdom, the forthcoming Embodying the Kingdom, Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism?, and more.
We primarily discussed his book, Desiring the Kingdom, and he made some points that I thought were worth revisiting.
First, when it comes to education, we are going to educate primarily based on our answer to the question, “What is man?” If we imagine humans to be consumers, our education will look similar to public education. If we imagine humans to be primarily thinkers, we will educate another way. But, if we imagine humans to be primarily worshipers, then our education will look another way.
Kuyperian Commentary Podcast
