Holy, Holy, Holy...

I'm feeling pretty tired as I write this. Our congregation just had it's weekend away down at Gerringong. It was a great time of fellowship, rest and community. Michael Jensen also gave three outstanding talks on God: The one-ness of God; The Pleasure of God; and The Wisdom of God. If it ever makes it into a book, it will be a great follow-up to YOU: An Introduction.

On the trip home we had the ipod on surprise (also known as shuffle. This is fairly normal for Alison and me). The best part was when Sufjan Steven's version of Holy, Holy, Holy came on. What a treat!

Why We're Still Talking About Calvin

In case you missed it, Michael Jensen had a great op-ed in yesterday's Australian on the decline of Calvin. The quote from Pulitzer prize-winning novelist Marilynne Robinson on Calvin's influence is worth repeating:

"Any reader of the Institutes must be struck by the great elegance, the gallantry, of its moral vision, which is more beautiful for the resolution with which its theology embraces sorrow and darkness.

...There are things for which we in this culture clearly are indebted to him, including relatively popular government, the relatively high status of women, the separation of church and state, what remains of universal schooling and, while it lasted, liberal higher education, education in the humanities. How easily we forget."

In reading Michael's op-ed, I was reminded of something I've been intending to mention for a while now. My friend Angus Courtney submitted his honours thesis last year in history. Not only is it a superb piece of work on the 17th Century English Civil and republicanism, but it provides a paradigm shifting argument against the weight of recent historical scholarship. Angus argues that although the puritans (a label many historians have conveniently avoided using when describing the republicans) were well versed in classics, they lived and breathed the bible and Calvinist theology. Here is an excerpt:

"The defining mark of the historiography of English republicanism is its insistence on the classical basis of English republican ideas. Drawing on the theorists of Greece and Rome––the argument goes––a handful of English writers in the mid seventeenth century articulated a vision of republican government infused with classical ideas and values. It is not an unreasonable argument, particularly considering that a number of English republicanism’s central writers, like John Milton, were prolific classicists who were widely familiar with ancient political theorists and historians. Just as significantly, they lived in extraordinary times that sparked an immense body of political re-examination.2 The result was to be a rich tapestry of republican thinking that was unparalleled in the seventeenth century. It was a unique (if fleeting) moment in English political history, in which ideas were developed that would become essential to eighteenth century political thought in England, the Continent, and America...But this approach makes a serious category error. The essential character of English republicanism was not classical. Although English republicans were familiar with classical texts and referred to––as Sidney put it––the ‘great masters of human reason’, these writers were rarely their primary authority, nor was their example primarily the republics of Greece or Rome. If we are prepared to take Milton at his word (as historians have been), this point is unmistakable. According to Milton, ‘The English people…were not inflamed with the empty name of liberty by a false notion of virtue and glory, or senseless emulation of the ancients.’ Rather, they formulated their republican vision and waged war against the king because of their purity of life and blameless character, in an effort to defend law and religion, rooted in a firm trust in God. At its core, English republicanism was a religious republicanism: a Puritan vision of total reformation that extended not only through the church but also to government. It was a vision inspired by Biblical Scripture, directed towards the godliness of the nation and the glory of God.

The radical nature of this proposition warrants its restatement: English republicanism was religious republicanism. Its central thrust was not towards classical republican government, but the government of God. Its purpose was not civic glory, but the godliness of the community for the glory of God. Regarding English republicanism as primarily classical is to overlook the context in which republicanism developed, the explicit goals for which it was used, and the clear biblical arguments that were used to justify its imposition. To appropriate a biblical metaphor, this overlooking of such a critical aspect is akin to having ‘strain[ed] out a gnat but swallow[ed] a camel.’ My assertion is not that classical republican ideas were absent from the English republican vision. Rather, it is that a much more significant aspect has been overlooked. This is an error in need of correction. We must recover the essential religious component of the English republican vision.

Around the Web

You may have missed this on the weekend, I certainly did, but the SMH had an article about CMS Missionary Maggie Crewes and her work with street kids in Ethiopia. It's an interesting article and worth checking out.

And the blogging world is abuzz with news of A.N. Wilson's conversion (h/t Michael). Wilson has written about it here and here. It's fantastic! I particularly liked this quote:

Easter does not answer such questions by clever-clever logic. Nor is it irrational. On the contrary, it meets our reason and our hearts together, for it addresses the whole person.

In the past, I have questioned its veracity and suggested that it should not be taken literally. But the more I read the Easter story, the better it seems to fit and apply to the human condition. That, too, is why I now believe in it.

Easter confronts us with a historical event set in time. We are faced with a story of an empty tomb, of a small group of men and women who were at one stage hiding for their lives and at the next were brave enough to face the full judicial persecution of the Roman Empire and proclaim their belief in a risen Christ.

Michael has followed this up with a great post on doubt. Go and read it now.

Picture from the SMH, Kate Geraghty.

YOU: A Review

YOU: An Introduction by Michael Jensen

Who am I? What does it mean to be human? Is there any purpose or meaning to life? My friends still grapple with these questions of identity, most notably when they ‘reinvent themselves’ every few years. It’s a question they face every day – studying Blade Runner in high school, deciding who to vote for (and which vision of the future they want), or the advertising world subtlety telling them who they should be (i.e. I drink Coke, not Pepsi) – what does it mean for me to be me? And how do I express this to everyone else. This is especially true of people in their teens and twenties. With so many direct and instantaneous ways of communicating – blogs, Facebook, YouTube, mobile phones – who I decide to be for the next 15 minutes can be conveyed to everyone on my friends list. We spend so much time trying to discover ourselves, and yet have never been more confused about who we are.

YOU: an introduction is a timely answer to these questions about who I am. Developed originally developed by Michael Jensen as a series of blog posts, YOU is engaging and a joy to read. In fact, one of the strengths of YOU is that it has retained the character of a blog. The chapters are brief and to the point, but the writing still feels like a conversation - at the end of each chapter are the comments from the YOU blog and you can read Michael respond to comments from bloggers.

I find YOU to be particularly culturally appropriate for people my age. The images and illustrations Michael draws are the ones me and my friends would be familiar with. Michael quotes a variety of contemporary sources as diverse as Russell Crowe and The Red Hot Chilli Peppers to Wikipedia and tattooing. This does run the risk of hastening the book’s use-by-date. However I actually think that it enhances the book, as it fits the headspace of where the reader is at.

What you get with YOU is the authenticity on the behalf of the author. YOU doesn't pretend to be the last word in anthropology. Nor does it dumb down the sometimes difficult issues. Instead, it faces the big issues head on, and invites the reader to explore what scripture has to say on the matter. The book deals with several issues of what it means to be human, such as life itself, death, gender and more. After laying down the ground work for each topic (what actually is the issue? what are some alternative answers?), Michael concludes each chapter with a snapshot of what scripture has to say on the matter.

I heartily recommend this book. YOU focuses on Jesus, the real humanity. He lived a real, en-fleshed life as the true image of what it means to be human. His death paid for the sin and evil that humanity was both involved in and enslaved to. He rose from the dead as a human and now reigns as the lord of all creation under his Father. This is the God Christians worship – the God we are introduced to in YOU.

YOU is available to purchase from Matthias Media.

YOU: An Introduction

Michael Jensen has released a book - YOU: An introduction. In his exploration of some of the different facets of the human condition (You are alive; You are free; You are a child), we soon discover that the question of who we are is essentially bound up with the question of who Jesus is.

YOU: An Introduction is a book about being a human. It is not as easy as it looks, being a human person. Each chapter addresses a different facet of human life – being a child, owning stuff, being male and female, having and being a body, dying, death and what comes after. What is like to be one of these things in the contemporary world? And what does the Bible say about this, especially in the light of the life of the best human who ever lived? A unique feature of the book is that it contains comments, questions and discussion that came from originally blogging the material – comments which take the argument in often unexpected directions.

YOU: An Introduction is a book that will be of interest to anyone – and it should challenge them/you, whether they are Christian or not, about what having a human life means.

You can read the introduction/first chapter and buy the book from here.