Baseless?

Published on by D. G. Hart23 Comments

I am not in the habit of making political predictions, nor do I follow the polls or pundits sufficiently to feel comfortable doing so. But I did tweet on the eve of the Supreme Court’s ruling on Obamacare that if the President’s plan was upheld, then he would lose the November election. The reason is that the Supreme Court’s decision would energize the GOP’s base at a time when its November candidate is hardly inspiring too red meat conservatives.

Obama had no control over the Court’s decision or timing (on the eve of the election), but he has had some say in other matters that are also energizing social conservatives, such as immigration or gay marriage, and for some reason the Obama campaign doesn’t seem to worry about riling up all of those people who listen to Rush, Sean, Bill (Bennett), Michael (Medved), and Hugh (Hewitt). Maybe these guys are the smartest people in the nation. Or it could be that they are tone deaf to Red State politics.

A further indication of Obama unwittingly helping Romney came yesterday with the news that Wheaton College is joining with the Catholic University of America to file a lawsuit against the Obama administration’s contraception mandate. In an interview with Christianity Today, Wheaton’s president Phil Ryken explained why despite the timing this should not be construed as a partisan political act:

Wheaton College is not a partisan institution and the effect of our filing on any political process has played no part at all in any of our board discussions on the issue. The timing of things is driven primarily by the mandate itself. Wheaton College stands to face punitive fines already on January 1, 2013, and I am welcoming incoming freshmen in two weeks. It’s already an issue for us in terms of our health insurance and what we provide for this coming academic year. Although we wanted to wait for the Supreme Court decision out of respect for the legal system, we do not believe that we can wait any longer.

I too regard this as simply the prudent action of a college administration in response to unwise federal policy. And that is what is remarkable. Wheaton College is hardly part of the Religious Right. Ryken is no culture warrior. In fact, if anything the college is as uncomfortable with the GOP as many evangelical colleges and universities (compared to the 1980s). And yet, Obama and company have put Christians, with all sorts of reasons to be sympathetic to him, on the defensive at a time when they may revert to Republican habits of vote.

Odd.

Why Exclude Walter and the Dude?

Published on by D. G. Hart24 Comments

Viewers of “The Big Lebowski” may well remember one of many memorable lines from Walter Sobchak. This one comes in the context of a discussion with Donny about the merits of nihilism. Walter will have none of an outlook that believes in nothing. As he explains to Donny, “Say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it’s an ethos.”

That line came to mind when reading a recent Christianity Today editorial about Chuck Colson and his efforts to unite Roman Catholics and Evangelicals in an Abraham-Kuyper like coalition to oppose “spiritual nihilism.”

Colson, like Kuyper, was concerned about the effects of modernism and later postmodernism on contemporary culture. And like Kuyper, he believed that unless believers are equipped with the critical tools of worldview thinking, they are unlikely to make any headway in redeeming culture.

When Colson and Richard John Neuhaus formed Evangelicals and Catholics Together (ECT), their new Protestant-Catholic initiative, the group focused its initial statement on the common mission of the church in the third millennium. That mission, their 1994 document said, involved contending together “against all that opposes Christ and his cause.” In “developed societies,” that included “widespread secularization” that had descended “into a moral, intellectual, and spiritual nihilism that denies not only the One who is the Truth but the very idea of truth itself.”

Within the framework of Kuyper’s vision, this was an excellent summary of what Protestants and Catholics needed to address together.

As commendable as it may be for Christians to combat nihilism, why would this be a project that would exclude religiously conflicted folks like the Dude’s good friend and bowling team member, Walter? Lots of people who are not Christians oppose nihilism. Some of them are Christian. Some are Muslim. Some are Mormon. Some profess no God. If you want to oppose nihilism, then why not broaden the tent?

It could be that Christians think they alone have the true basis for a proper opposition. Or it could be that “spiritual nihilism” is different from Karl Hungus’ version of nihilism. But it does seem to me to be a form of shooting yourself in the foot when you make a common cultural cause into a matter of the gospel of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Postscript: are neo-Calvinists really comfortable with Colson carrying the water for Kuyper’s legacy?

Who's Afraid of the Means of Grace?

Published on by D. G. Hart108 Comments

Well, Dr. K. has done it. His interminable review of VanDrunen’s Natural Law and Two Kingdoms has terminated and is now available as a booklet, free to anyone who cares to download it (even if you don’t have a w-w). I have heard of review essays, not review books.

Of late the good doctor seems to be backing away from some of his fear mongering. He wants to promote a “reasoned” discussion of 2k. He even tries to credit 2kers with some positive contributions. The latter is evident in the following quotation from this book:

Numerous fears can lead us to a fear of engagement with today’s culture. Fear of worldliness, fear of losing our very souls, fear of accommodation, fear of losing our children. Our NL2K friends are rightly trying to warn us against triumphalism—thinking and acting as though we are bringing in the kingdom of God. They seek properly to warn us against biblicism—throwing Bible verses at people, at issues, at opponents without regard for careful interpretation and proper use of Scripture. They seek passionately to warn us against devaluing the institutional church—minimizing worship, denigrating the means of grace, and falling for the religious gimmickry used for marketing today’s religious associations that go by the name “church.”

But fear can never be the source of power. Only faith can provide power.

Here Dr. K. misidentifies the fear associated with 2k. The 2kers I know are not afraid of engaging the culture. We do so daily in the variety of callings God has granted. The fears that lurk around 2k are those of its critics who seem to be afraid that the kingdom will not come without the culture wars or the redemption of “all things.” Surely, neo-Calvinists of Dr. K.’s stripe would have us believe, Christians can do more to contend against the forces of evil than by simply going to church, worshiping God, attending the means of grace.

In point of fact, the gates of hell will not prevail against word, sacraments, prayer, discipline, and offerings. Saddam Husseins come and J. S. Bachs go. 2kers are confident (though doubts afflict us all) that God’s word will abide. It is 2k’s critics who can’t seem to fathom that God is prevailing even when his people do not appear to be, as if they have not read or reflected on that Word.

Men and Monsters

Published on by D. G. Hart27 Comments

Imagine a couple of hypothetical scenarios. Both involve your spouse.

Say your husband telecommutes to an educational non-profit. He works from home about three weeks a month, and goes to the office for one week of meetings and other business functions. When at home you notice that he sometimes takes an afternoon off and has a cocktail while streaming a movie on Netflix. You ask if he should be doing this and he says probably not. But he adds, “when the cat’s away dot dot dot” and goes back to his movie. Do you call his boss and tell about his abuse of company time — he is getting paid full-time, after all? Or do you grin, bear it, and look for another opportunity to bring up his ill-formed work ethic?

Here’s the second hypothetical. Say your wife, who works for another non-profit, this one a county agency that places homeless families in government-assisted facilities, has figured out a way to embezzle funds from several budget lines in her agency. You are disappointed. When you discover that she is using the money to pay for a high-end collection of running gear that you thought was pretty pricey but decided not to inquire about because you are often accused of being a control freak, you become angry. But what do you do, after you confront her and she says she is sorry and will stop? Do you tell her boss and thus insure that she will lose her job, which will certainly hurt the family’s financial health? Do you report her to the civil authorities and risk seeing your wife going to jail? Or do you simply tell your session so that they can shepherd your wife to repentance?

The point of these scenarios is that when you are close to or love someone who does something wrong, you are likely not to get litigious and insist that the full force of the law be brought against your relative or friend. Instead, you will likely try to do anything to save your spouse from punishment and embarrassment. You may know that this is wrong. But the law is a cold instrument when it comes to loving someone and looking out for them. You may even be willing to let someone else be the bad cop rather than yourself. In the long run it may even help the relationship that you were not the snitch while your conscience is clear in not having to cover for your friend or relative.

Longtime readers of Old Life may likely see where this is going if they have been following the news about Penn State. Yesterday, the Louis Freeh report on the Sandusky scandal at Penn State came out. Philadelphia’s talk show hosts cannot shut up about it. Too good for ratings, not to mention more self-righteous posturing. But it has also been in the headlines of most radio news syndicates. The report is a big deal because it shows apparently that Joe Paterno, the man considered to be without a moral peer in the world of collegiate athletics, knew about Sandusky’s behavior and kept it from “authorities” (Freeh used this word frequently in his remarks before the press but did not define them — are they civil, political, religious, university, divine?).

I do not doubt that Joe Paterno did something here that was wrong — how wrong is a question that few in our culture of moral midgets are qualified to determine. I am even convinced that he committed other acts that were wrong. How his career should be regarded is hard to say since the public is involved in this process of regarding and right now JoePa’s stock has plummeted. Reputations are flimsy investments. Whether I am a moral cretin for not shouting from the mountain top that JoePa is desperately wicked may be debatable if readers take into account the scenarios above. I did not know Joe Paterno personally. But from what I did know, he was a hero, a friend, a commendable “authority,” someone to whom to be loyal. For this reason, I cannot look at JoePa only through the bright light of the law, or through harrowing thoughts about Sandusky’s victims. JoePa was admirable and a moral failing does not change all his other accomplishments.

Could it be that Sandusky was at one time also an admirable man? Could it be that JoePa esteemed Sandusky and did not want to see his friend suffer, even though he knew that what Sandusky was doing was wrong? Freeh’s report never considers this angle. In fact, a line from Freeh’s remarks to the press yesterday indicate what may be a glaring flaw in this report:

The evidence shows that Mr. Paterno was made aware of the 1998 investigation of Sandusky, followed it closely, but failed to take any action, even though Sandusky had been a key member of his coaching staff for almost 30 years, and had an office just steps away from Mr. Paterno’s.

The words, “even though,” suggest that Paterno should have taken action against Sandusky precisely because he had such a long association with him. It assumes, quite counter intuitively, that the closer you are to someone, the more inclined you will be to turn them in. Huh? What makes much more sense, at least on planet earth, as opposed to the moral laboratory that most commentators on this scandal inhabit, is that Paterno did not take any action precisely because he was so close to Sandusky. Maybe the report says a lot about the relationship between JoePa and Sandusky that would undermine this speculation. But Freeh’s remarks never seen to entertain this possibility. (Freeh even says in god-like fashion that Paterno and company did nothing to stop Sandusky. Was Freeh a fly on the wall in JoePa’s office, home, or local watering hole where the head coach may have pleaded with his assistant to stop playing around with boys? Was Freeh actually tailing JoePa with FBI agents long before he conducted this investigation?)

And one of the reasons why Freeh and others can’t fathom that JoePa may have had a close and fraternal bond with Sandusky is that for most Americans a pederast is not a human being but a monster. So it is unthinkable that anyone could ever like or love such a person. But if sin comes in all shapes and sizes, in persons lovable, smart, funny, intelligent, and even inspiring, then it is possible to imagine why JoePa may have acted the way he did. Heck, all of us who are married, have children, or come from families (which would be practically anyone reading this) knows what it is like to look away from a loved one’s foibles, failings, and sins, and “pick your battles.”

Means of Grace versus Means of Peace (and war)

Published on by D. G. Hart12 Comments

From our mid-western correspondent comes this quotation by President Harry S. Truman about the use of atomic weapons (sometime between the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki):

The atomic bomb is too dangerous to be loose in a lawless world. That is why Great Britain, Canada, and the United States, who have the secret of its production, do not intend to reveal that secret until means have been found to control the bomb so as to protect ourselves and the rest of the world from the danger of total destruction.

As far back as last May, Secretary of War Stimson, at my suggestion, appointed a committee upon which Secretary of State Byrnes served as my personal representative, to prepare plans for the future control of this bomb. I shall ask the Congress to cooperate to the end that its production and use be controlled, and that its power be made an overwhelming influence towards world peace.

We must constitute ourselves trustees of this new force–to prevent its misuse, and to turn it into the channels of service to mankind.

It is an awful responsibility which has come to us.

We thank God that it has come to us, instead of to our enemies; and we pray that He may guide us to use it in His ways and for His purposes.

To make light of the moral dilemmas involved in Truman’s decision would be easy, as if anyone should know that nuclear weapons are evil. Being the son of a Marine who survived Iwo Jima and was waiting in Hawaii to conduct a similar mission to Japan’s shores, I myself have a small portion of my heart expressing gratitude that my father was spared having to fight in Japan. Chances are I would not be blogging if not for that bomb. (Old Life loyalists may want to thank Truman as well.)

The problem is the president’s identification of a weapon of mass destruction with God’s purposes. Providentially speaking, no one, not the president or even a minister of the gospel, knows God’s purposes in human history. But when it comes to God’s revealed purposes, as in saving a people for himself, we know what the weapons are — word, sacrament, and discipline. Those are the means by which Christ’s kingdom (of grace) comes.

Truman was not wrong to pray for wisdom, though he may have been sanctimonious to do so while bombing the bejeebers out of the Japanese. But he needed to know how to pray and what to pray for (sorry for the concluding preposition). That’s why God gave us the Lord’s Prayer. No atomic WMD’s there. Only spiritual ones.

Postscript of full disclosure: I am technically a graduate of Harry S. Truman High School in Levittown, Pennsylvania (the proverbial armpit of Bucks County). I say technically because the school’s name at the time of my diploma was Woodrow Wilson, not necessarily a better choice in the horse race of admirably restrained presidents. But the change of name is not a factor in my evaluation of Truman’s remarks.

American Presbyterianism Then and Now (mainline anyway)

Published on by D. G. Hart51 Comments

Thanks to our southern correspondent, I saw a short piece at the Presbyterian Layman’s website on something called “Narrative on the State of Religion.” The Evangelical Covenant Order (ECO) of Presbyterians (the most recent group to leave, sort of, the PCUSA) was debating whether to re-institute these reports. Each congregation was expected to evaluate its spiritual health and send its “Narrative” to presbytery. Jim Singleton, a leader within ECO, opines that the PCUSA in 1925 stopped using these narratives and resorted to numerical statistics as a measure of congregational health.

Here is the list of questions sessions used for the old Narrative reporting:

Attendance upon the service of the sanctuary by members and others;

Proportions of families that observe family worship;

Observance of the Lord’s day by the members;

Home-training of the children in the Scripture and in the catechism of the church;

Training of pupils in the Sabbath school in the Scripture and the catechism of the church (Singleton said that during that time, Sabbath school was for non-Presbyterian children. The congregation’s children were to be trained at home.);

Fidelity of the membership in honoring the Lord with substance;

Has the congregation paid its minister fully and promptly the amount promised him?

Have there been any special manifestations of the Holy Spirit’s power in the church either by conversions or by increased activity in church work?

To what extent does worldly conformity exist in the church?

What evangelistic work is done by the church outside of its bounds?

What is the church doing to secure people for the Gospel ministry?

For what it’s worth, this is a remarkably good set of questions for pastors and elders to employ in evaluating their flocks and their own ministry. Singleton’s pointing to 1925 is also of interest since for Old Lifers that year was arguably THE turning point in the history of American Presbyterianism, a time when the PCUSA whitewashed the denomination’s health and started to blame conservatives for the church’s woes.

But I cannot go all the way with Singleton or ECO on the “Narrative” they hope to resuscitate. The proposed Narrative looks like this:

How has the Holy Spirit been evident in your congregation in the past year (through conversions, growth in the fruit of the Spirit or other transformational experiences in the congregation)?

How has your congregation extended itself beyond its bounds through the establishment of new communities of worship and discipleship?

In what ways is your congregation seeking the welfare of the “city” (community) to which we are called?

How has your congregation devoted itself to the poor in this past year? Describe the evidence of the heart of compassion.

How has your congregation sought justice as an expression of the Kingdom of God?

Describe the state of moral expression in your congregation — are you more like the world or more like the participants in the values of the Kingdom of God?

How are individuals, including women, men and people of different ethnic groups, experiencing the call to full-time or part-time ministry in your congregation?

Describe how the idea of ministry as the joy and calling of every disciple is evident in your congregation.

Describe how your employment practices are moving toward an expression of the values of the Kingdom of God.

Explain how your congregation understands its commitment to the larger church through our connectional relationships within the Body of Christ.

Strikingly absent are concerns about public worship, observing the Lord’s Day, family worship, and catechesis. It’s as if the folks at Redeemer NYC were responsible for drafting the new Narrative (though I’m not sure the last item about connectional relationships would have made the cut).

Too bad. The old Narrative was a good idea.

Two-Kingdom Mojo WorKKing

Published on by D. G. Hart35 Comments

Advocates of 2k have long maintained that two-kingdom theology is the default position for most Protestants, even the critics who protesteth too much. After all, the only biblical alternative to 2k is theonomy, and even theonomists have not yet revolted against the American regime. (The political alternative is the confessional state with the magistrate enforcing the true religion but all Reformed communions have rejected this.) For this reason, finding 2k logic in a variety of remarks either about the United States or about biblical teaching should not be surprising. What is surprising is that none of 2k’s critics seem to object to the following:

For instance, was John Frame’s radar warning of the so-called Escondido theology’s dangers turned off when his comrade in modems, Vern Poythress, wrote this:

We must first seek to determine the scope of state responsibilities. In the area of punishment, I maintain that modern states are only responsible for punishing offenses against other human beings, not offenses directly against God.

To understand the issue, we must distinguish sins from crimes.

A sin is any offense against God. A crime is a legally reprehensible offense against another human being.

Sin describes damage to our relation to God; crime describes damage to fellow human beings. The two are not identical. Every crime is a sin, but not every sin is a crime. . . .

Crimes are offenses against other human beings, and hence they always ought to punished by restoration and retribution paid to other human beings and supervised by human courts of justice. In typical legal cases in the Old Testament, like theft, murder, or false worship, the fundamental system of recompense involves the principle “As you have done, it shall be done to you,” by the offended party. Governmental authorities supervise the procedures leading to penalties, but in the typical case they are not themselves the offended party. Moreover, the offended party in view is always another human being or a group of human beings.

God is of course offended by every sin whatsoever. But not every sin merits state punishments. Nor is the kind of penalty determined by how God is offended, but by how other human beings are affected. Hence the provisions of the law point away from the idea that the state is responsible for offenses against God as such. The legal punishments supervised by earthly judges make sense only when they are viewed as the fitting payment for offenses against human beings.

Another instance of 2k teaching came from John Piper when he distinguished the duties of a preacher from those of a political activist. On the one hand, ministers of the word should condemn homosexuality as sin. On the other hand, ministers lose their authority and credibility when they become part of a political crusade:

Don’t press the organization of the church or her pastors into political activism. Pray that the church and her ministers would feed the flock of God with the word of God centered on the gospel of Christ crucified and risen. Expect from your shepherds not that they would rally you behind political candidates or legislative initiatives, but they would point you over and over again to God and to his word, and to the cross.

Please try to understand this: When I warn against the politicizing of the church, I do so not to diminish her power but to increase it. The impact of the church for the glory of Christ and the good of the world does not increase when she shifts her priorities from the worship of God and the winning of souls and the nurturing of faith and raising up of new generations of disciples.

If the whole counsel of God is preached with power week in and week out, Christians who are citizens of heaven and citizens of this democratic order will be energized as they ought to speak and act for the common good. I want to serve you like that.

Adding to the 2k buzz was Doug Wilson’s recent opinion that churches should not display the flag of the United States:

A Christian church has absolutely no business displaying a national flag in the sanctuary, at least not as it is commonly done. The church born at Pentecost was a reversal of Babel, not a doubling down on the fragmentation of Babel. . . .

If the church places an American flag in the front of the sanctuary, this becomes part of our sacred architecture, and therefore says something. It becomes a shaping influence.

Important questions should come immediately to mind: What is this saying? And is it scriptural? It should not be too much to ask for some kind of scriptural agreement with what we are saying before we say it. Placing a flag in a sanctuary has many possible implications. It could convey the idea that we claim some sort of “favored nation” status. It could imply we believe that the claims of Caesar extend into every space, including sacred spaces. It could imply that our version of Christianity is similar to some kind of syncretistic “God and country” religion, where patriotism and religion are one and the same.

It is unlikely that we as Christians would display another country’s flag, such as the flag of communist China, in a sanctuary. So we should seek to be consistent in our choices. One last caution is in order: Many don’t like the national flag in the sanctuary because they have no natural affection for it anywhere. But being a Christian doesn’t mean we should hate our home country, just that we should know how to rightly order our allegiances. This is why, in my ideal scenario, the elders who vote in session to remove the American flag from the sanctuary should all have that same flag on their pickup trucks, right next to the gun rack.

Finally, the fellows who seem to have started this 2k groundswell, the Brothers B., round out this 2k round up with the comments by Tim Bayly on a recent news-talk television show in Indiana where participants discussed the pros and cons of a state constitutional amendment to make gay marriage illegal. Pastor Bayly started out quoting from Scripture, but as the discussion progressed he too resorted to notions about the will of the people, historical precedent, and activist judiciaries — all from the tool kit of those who debate in the public square without everywhere and always declaring the will of God. (Readers will need to watch a video to hear Tim Bayly’s remarks on polling data, the will of the people, and legislatures which start around minute 9:20).

All of which suggests that 2k is not radical but modest and sensible.

Keeping it Eschatologically Real

Published on by D. G. Hart256 Comments

Some time back I wondered about the lack of support for 2k among Vossians. Recently over at Reformed Forum Jared Oliphint seemed to give some eschatological encouragement to 2kers when he wondered about the possibility of redeeming the stuff of creation:

What about the rest of creation? Is it being redeemed? Did Christ accomplish redemption for the rest of creation when he died and was raised?

For those who believe that all of creation is currently being “redeemed” in the eschatological sense, there’s a very simple test to see whether that is in fact the case. As a friend of mine puts it, you are tasked to find a single atom, molecule, object, anything that has the permanence of the everlasting, eternal new heavens and new earth. Such a thing would be indestructible, and would most likely exhibit characteristics that literally indicate an other-world. That would be quite a find.

Or take the language we sometimes find within evangelical circles of “redeeming the city”, for example. Is this appropriate language given what we know of the biblical use of redemption? That depends. People are redeemed by the Holy Spirit regenerating their hearts, having faith in Christ, repenting of their sins, and receiving Christ and his saving and renovating benefits from his accomplished work in history. Christ did not directly accomplish redemption for buildings, neighborhoods, cities, towns, or any other particular group or entity whatsoever. Christ’s benefits do not apply to a local diner or run-down gym. They do not apply to capitalism, to philosophy, to Wal-Mart, to the Icelandic courts of law, or any other non-human not made in the image of God.

Oliphint backs away from some of the implications of this point, but his assertion is one that should prompt the critics of 2k (it is dispensationalist, it is Lutheran, it is defeatist, it doesn’t lead to rallies in the nation’s capital) to pause and reflect. The powers that redemption and its means opposes are not poor working conditions, undrinkable water, economic inequality, or unimaginative artworks. The powers of this age that Christ continues to subdue are those of Satan and his kingdom.

Luther himself deflates any hope for transformationalism in a sermon from 1544:

For [the devil] seeks at all times to take possession of the Kingdom of God and to become lord of Christendom. He will to be seated and to rule, in the pure and holy Temple of God.

What, then, shall we do to him? This we, and especially those who preach the Word of God, should joyfully consider, that we must hope for no peace here, but should recollect that we are Christ’s warriors, in the field, always equipped and ready, for when one war ends another immediately begins.

For we are called by christ and already enroldled (in Baptism) in the army which shall fight under Christ against the devil. For He is the God who is a Prince of war and a true Duke who leads His regiment in battle, not in heaven above among the holy spirits where there is no need of battle, but here on earth in His Church. Yes (even though He is seated at the right hand of the Father) He is Himself with His warriors leading them against the enemy, whom no human power and weapons can withstand, resisting and restraining him with His Word, which He has given to His men.

If culture warriors (i.e., neo-Calvinists, theonomists, and social conservatives) think that reforming society or teaching a biblical w-w of botany are a part of the kingdom coming, then they have forgotten how powerful the enemy is that they battle and they have lost sight of who is responsible for winning the battle.

D.G. Hart Interviewed on the Regulative Principle of Worship

Published on by D. G. Hart2 Comments

Our own Dr. Darryl G. Hart was recently interviewed on Christ the Center regarding the regulative principle of worship. Listen to this interesting discussion touching on evangelicalism and the Reformed tradition.

And the Rocket's Red Glare . . .

Published on by D. G. Hart34 Comments

I suppose citizens of the United States enjoy fireworks partly because our National Anthem celebrates bombs bursting in air. (I won’t go to Wikipedia to check.) Last night, the better half and I discovered, much to our surprise, that the window in our guest bedroom provides a terrific vantage from which to watch the City of Hillsdale’s fireworks. We are only a couple blocks from the Fairgrounds, the site from which municipal workers launch those bombs. Earlier in the day (all about us), we enjoyed the City’s Fourth of July parade from the driveway of a good friend and neighbor, though we are still wondering why the parade and fireworks took place on July 3rd.

One additional wonder of this holiday season is why we know so little about Francis Scott Key, the author of The Star Spangled Banner, and another of Baltimore’s accomplished artists. Google Books shows a number of children’s books about Key, his song, and the anthem’s adoption as the nation’s song — it did not happen until 1931 (I wonder what they sang at baseball games when Babe Ruth was a rookie). But for any aspiring (or established) historian out there, the life of Key, who was an prolific poet and hymn writer, his poem about a significant battle during the War of 1812, how this war played in the imagination of the new nation, and the process by which later generations of Americans appropriated Key’s anthem, offers a historical canvass waiting to be filled. It could even work as well as the recent book of our neighbor and good friend.

Not to mention that Key’s anthem contains a political theology that few citizens of the United States ever consider. To remind my fellow Americans, here is the complete text of the Star Spangled Banner:

Oh, say can you see by the dawn’s early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
‘Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!