I plan to begin a series considering the warning passages in Hebrews, but that will have to wait a few days. For now, though, there are a couple things I’d like to bring to your attention.
First off, listen to this clip of a radio call-in show with guest Scott Hahn. In particular, listen to the voice of the caller asking the question, and take note of where he’s calling from. Is it just me, or does that voice sound eerily familiar? Could it be? And what does it mean?
Secondly, in a brilliant display of wisdom and insight, the Vatican made a pronouncement last Saturday that is so unquestionably correct, so unequivocally right, and so unarguably true that it should shake even the most ardently Calvinistic among us to our very core. Even a staunch two-kingdoms guy like me will give the Catholic Church a pass on this one.
The title of this post, as many of you probably know, comes from U2’s “New Year’s Day” from their 1983 album War (which, incidentally, is the first U2 song I ever heard, after which, at age ten, I went out and bought the LP. The rest, as the fella said, is history). So here I am, 26 years later on what will in two hours be New Year’s Day, sipping Bunnahabhain, reading Hemmingway, listening to U2’s latest album No Line on the Horizon, and wondering where all the time has gone.
Exactly ten years ago tonight, at the turn of the millennium, I was preaching a sermon from Romans 9 to a group of Hungarians from the Calvary Chapels of Miskolc and Debrecen on the glory of God displayed in both the salvation of the elect and the damnation of the reprobate (I was young). Less than a month later I would find out that we would be kicked out of Calvary because of sermons like that, and three months later my wife and I would move back to the U.S. and figure out what the next step would be.
At this moment it is hitting me with an almost crushing sense of wonder that the ‘90s were no longer last decade, but now the decade before last. I began that decade a 16 year-old and ended it at the ripe old age of 26. I spent almost a year of it in Africa and six years of it in Europe, and it was during those years in Hungary especially that I sort of became who I am, both personally, philosophically, and theologically. It is probably the hours and hours I spent wandering the streets, alleyways, and courtyards of Budapest thinking about love and life and lamentation that are to blame for my ever-increasing desire to get back there somehow (for now I must content myself with videos like the one below, directed by an old friend). Ah, nostalgia: It ain’t what it used to be….
So anyway, here I am, waxing pensive and realizing once again that all my desires—whether for things past or things to come—are really just a big ol’ farce, nothing more than a longing for heaven that is every bit as hounding as it is haunting, equally intransient as inconvenient. “My mind races with all my longings,” sings the poet, “but can’t keep up with what I’ve got.” But I suppose I’m in good company, for if Adam longed for something better than Paradise, then who am I to be content with life in a passing age, characterized as it is by a servile bondage to decay and death?
A raising of the glass, then, to the coming decade—may it be filled with mirth as well as melancholy, laughter as well as lament. May we rise high above our feats and defeats, knowing that at the end of the Day when all is said and done, earth simply isn’t worthy of us.
Just a few random things I'd like to bring to your attention....
First, be sure to tune in to Westminster Seminary California's new program Office Hours. It features interviews with various faculty members like W. Robert Godfrey and Julius Kim.
Thanks to all of you who have purchased by book, Dual Citizens. Next task is to read it, then talk and blog about it, and then tell others to buy it, too. Or just buy it for them.
Chesterton makes a great point in Orthodoxy about how we ought to see Nature not as our Mother, but as our Sister, since we both have the same Father. Mothers have authority, but not sisters. Sisters you admire but don't need to imitate. "Nature was a solemn mother to Wordsworth or to Emerson. But Nature is not solemn to Francis of Assisi.... To St. Francis, Nature is a sister, and even a younger sister: a little, dancing sister, to be laughed at as well as loved." If this is true, and given evangelicalism's unease with earth, it appears that there's a bit of sibling rivalry going on.
Lastly, although Scripture tells us that the church speaks in Christ's name, it appears that Metro South Church in the Detroit area is now also speaking in Satan's. As a ploy to attract newcomers, they have rented billboards and printed tracts that say things like, "Metro South Church Sucks." Signed, Satan. I hate to say it, but I think this time Satan may be on to something.
Call me behind the times or hopelessly out of touch, but last week I heard, for the first time, about carbon credits.
The way these credits work, as far as I can tell, is by allocating to a company a certain amount of credits which they can use to pollute the environment. Companies that pollute less, and therefore have extra credits which remain unused, can sell those credits to companies whose pollution levels exceed what their carbon credits will allow.
First of all, this sounds a lot like the Roman Catholic practice of selling indulgences, doesn't it? If you're going to sin, here's a pre-approved, divinely sanctioned excuse for it. Pretty soon we'll be hearing that the carbon credits still in the accounts of companies that go belly-up will be placed in a "treasury of merit" from which those with less than super-erogatory tendencies may draw.
Secondly, it drives me crazy that something like "environmental virtue" can be placed within the jurisdiction of the Market and treated as a commodity. Didn't there used to be things called "commons" which were, back in the day at least, big open spaces that belonged to everyone? Well, it seems the Enclosure Act that placed literal spaces (like parks and greenbelts) in private hands has extended beyond mere real estate and now includes all kinds of other things that are now up for sale.
I guess it just annoys me that everything from schools to street signs, hospitals to health care, and water to warfare are subjected to Market forces and treated as consumer products auctioned off to the highest bidder.
De Regnis Duobus exists in order for believers to discuss the sacred, the secular, and how they intersect (if at all). The images used on the banner were chosen because we find them to be interesting juxtapositions, not of good and evil, but of heaven and earth. We hope that you find not just the banner but the content of what is written both provocative and challeng-ing.
... I was born and raised in Orange County, CA (also known as "The OC" by people not from there), and served as a missionary with Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa in Uganda (’91-’92) and in Hungary (’94-’00). After becoming Reformed and being subsequently “dismissed” from ministry with Calvary, I went to Westminster Seminary California where I received my M.Div. in 2004. After graduation I was ordained by the Pacific Northwest Presbytery of the PCA and called to plant Exile Presbyterian Church in the Seattle area, where I served from 2004 - 2012. On September 23, 2012, I was received into the Catholic Church.
I am the author of Dual Citizens: Worship and Life Between the Already and the Not Yet (Reformation Trust, 2009), and The Destiny of the Species (forthcoming).
I plan to begin a series considering the warning passages in Hebrews, but that will have to wait a few days. For now, though, there are a couple things I’d like to bring to your attention.
