Bernard McGuirk, the executive producer of Imus in the Morning, did (and may still do) a bit in which he played Cardinal Egan and would ridicule Don Imus up one side and down the other in a thick Irish accent. His barbs were far more abusive than anything the host said about the women’s basketball players at Rutgers University.
One part of Cardinal Egan’s shtick was the game, “which doesn’t belong and why.” He would name three people, objects, teams or songs, and then ask Imus to identify the odd one out. Imus was always wrong because Egan had a witty and sometimes degrading reason for which one actually did not belong.
In the spirit of a show I used to listen to before Imus got fired and is no longer syndicated, I post the series of events scheduled at Eerdmans this summer to mark the publisher’s 100th anniversary. I am honored and do not feel worthy of this company, so I have my own answer to the question, “which doesn’t belong and why.” But I invite readers to submit their own answers. The winner (the funniest) will receive a copy of the book.
P.S. Apologies to Nick Wolterstorff for not posting this in time for his lecture last week.
For those who resist watching videos like the one posted earlier today from “King of the Hill,” here is the text of Bobby’s prayer, which is a brilliant illustration of the enormity that happens when trying to put sober truths into vulgar words.
I want to give a shout out to the man that makes it all happen. Props be to you for this most bountiful meal that’s before us. Okay, check it. God, you got skills. You represent in these vegetables and in this napkin and in the dirt that grows the grains that makes the garlic bread sticks that are on this table today. Yes. Yes. Thanks, J-man. Peace.
Of course, Reformed Protestants don’t need to go the Anglicans to read prayers before meals. Most of the older psalter-hymnals of the Dutch Reformed churches include liturgical resources at the back of the book that reproduce prayers, many of them attributed to Calvin, for public worship, ecclesiastical assemblies, and family devotion. The following is the prayer for before a meal. At the risk of offending contemporary worship leaders, I’d argue this is, like “Of the Father’s Love Begotten” is a better hymn than “Shine, Jesus, Shine,” a better prayer than Bobby’s.
Almighty God, faithful Father, You have made the world and uphold it by Your powerful word. You did provide Israel in the desert with food from on high. Will You also bless us, Your humble servants, and renew our strength by these gifts, which, through our Lord Jesus Christ, we have received from Your bountiful Fatherly hand. Give that we may use them with moderation. Help us to put them to use in a life devoted to You and Your service. May we thus acknowledge that You are our Father and Source of all good things. Grant also that at all times we may long for the lasting food of Your Word. May we thus be nourished to everlasting life, which You have prepared for us by the precious blood of Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Savior, in whose name we pray. Amen.
One additional advantage of Calvin’s prayer over Bobby’s is that the Frenchman’s thanksgiving is not blasphemous.
The Brothers Bayly have stirred up the pot again by arguing that Tim Keller is a greater threat than Doug Wilson and the Federal Vision to the PCA. Calculating the heinousness of error is indeed a judgment call, but the Shorter Catechism does indicate that some sins are more grievous than others.
As folks who often read the Baylys know, these PCA pastors rank sexual identity and gender relations fairly high on the list of woes that are afflicting the United States and the church. And despite our Lord’s own teaching that love of God is the greatest commandment – which would include those laws about blasphemy, idolatry, worship, and the Sabbath – my own sense of the Baylys is that they are not as rigorous in applying the third and fourth commandments as they are about the fifth and the seventh. My reason for thinking this is the Baylys’ preference for forms of worship music that do not, as I see it, maintain an atmosphere of reverence and awe. I am not going to listen to lots of tracks or watch lots of videos of the Good Shepherd Band to back up this claim, though I have seen a few. When the guitars come out, this aging boomer melts down.
I will grant that lots of folks disagree about the application of the first table of the law and I wish the Baylys could be as generous on differences in applying the second table (you know, whether protesting with them at abortion clinics is required in the sixth commandment). But even at the level of egalitarianism, one of the Baylys bugaboos, one could argue that contemporary praise music is fundamentally egalitarian by leveling all aesthetic standards down to those of what adolescents prefer. Actually, it is a kind of aesthetic superiority and ageism where the young are automatically given authority over the old. Democracy of the dead’s hymns and psalms? I don’t think so.
Which is why this video from King of the Hill is so refreshing (thanks to one of our southern correspondents). When Hank says, “I never thought that Members Only jacket would go out of style,” he put his finger on what ails contemporary worship: contemporary style is ephemeral and so not a reliable vehicle for communicating permanent truths.
In which case, why don’t the Baylys understand that by packaging worship in the idiom of contemporary music, they may be putting their Lord in Hank Hill’s box of lame? It sure doesn’t honor the Lord, not to mention that it doesn’t seem to be all that wise a strategy for fighting the culture wars.
Sometimes the light of nature (and even Hollywood writers) does really enlighten.
The following passage from Luther’s daily readings left me thinking:
What more could God do? How could a heart restrain itself from being happy, glad, and obedient in God and Christ? What work or suffering could befall to which it would not gladly submit, singing with love and joyful praise to God? If it fails to do so, faith has certainly broken down. The more faith there is, the more joy and freedom there is; the less faith, the less joy. Behold, this is the true Christian salvation and freedom from the Law and from the judgment of the Law, that is, from sin and death. Not that there is no Law or death, but that both death and Law become as if they were not. The Law does not lead to sin, nor death to doom, but faith walks through them into everlasting life.
I know, Luther does not mention justification but he might as well since we are justified by faith and our acquittal in justification is precisely what we need to beat the rap of guilt for sin and the accompanying penalty of death. I suppose someone might be able to write about union in such glowing ways, but I doubt it would make as much sense in the forensic world of law, guilt, judgment, and acquittal.
Is there more to salvation than justification? Sure. But can any other doctrine in the realm of the application of redemption pull off what justification by faith alone does? I doubt it.
Old Life 