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Will Science Live Again?
The recent “there and back again” of Artemis II is an achievement, even if it only beat the previous record by a small proportion. It’s tempting to say that “we’ve done this before” but that should be tempered by two facts: the fact that we did it after a half century gap when the learned experience had largely faded into the past, and the fact that we did it at all. That wasn’t a given in the wake of the way we walked away from the program the last time, content with earth orbit–albeit with some substantial spacecraft and long stays.
Back in the day there were people out there who were ready to push forward–and those who were pushing back–as I documented in my 2019 piece The Day Science Died:
I recently read a book I picked up entitled Space Frontier by Wernher von Braun. It’s basically a series of articles he wrote for Popular Science from the early 1960’s until just before Apollo 11 in 1969, covering various aspects of the space program and accurately describing the moon mission that shortly took place. von Braun was more than a rocket scientist: he was a visionary who saw us going to Mars in 1986, and had a good idea what it would take to accomplish this.
When I read this book, the first thing that came back to mind was the tight relationship between NASA’s civilian efforts and that of the military. That was inevitable, not only because most of the early astronauts were military pilots, but also because rocketry was very much a province of the military. I wish I had read this book before or during my time in the aerospace industry; it would have given me context for my work.
But the other thing that came in reading this book was an ache–an ache for a time when we were literally reaching for the stars (or at least the moon.) The passing of that time–something that basically lost its momentum after the moon shots and never quite got it back–is a point in history when something seriously died in this country, and that was a general commitment to the advancement of our state with science…
But by the time Armstrong and Aldrin set foot on the moon, the mood had changed. The 1960’s were a decidedly Luddite time; technology was blamed for despoiling the environment and creating the “few minutes to midnight” atmosphere of the Cold War. Those who plied their trade in technology were “nerds.” The space program collapsed and the aerospace industry went with it. A new generation turned away from technology to more “relevant” (and easier way up) professions such as law and finance. Instead of landing on Mars in 1986, we were in angst (something we’ve gotten good at) over the explosion of the Challenger.
Fortunately there were two revolutions going on. It took some time (one wonders if pushing the space program would have speeded it up) but the revolution in computing power was changing the landscape. Would the nerds get their revenge? Well, sort of…but people whose training is in the sciences were still very much in the back seat of our society, in contrast to other parts of the world.
It took the initiative of people who are otherwise unmentionable in fashionable circles to get it going again. It’s true that Elon Musk is trying to fulfil von Braun’s vision of going to Mars, but it’s good that NASA is coming back to the mission that made it great.
The one thing we still need to do–and there’s no sign of meaningful movement on this–is shifting the centre of gravity (in itself a scientific concept) of our educational system from the “arts” (such as they are these days) to a scientific one. I am guaranteed to get a hostile response to this when people figure out that’s what I’m saying, but I’m sticking with it: in a world driven by science and technology, ignorance of same is deadly.
No where was this more in evidence than our response to COVID. I commented on the aftermath of that fiasco here:
In addition to the factors you mentioned, there were several others that made COVID-19 such as fiasco in the U.S.
The first was the fact that it invaded a population with many co-morbidities, such as age, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, etc.. It almost seems from that respect that COVID-19 was made to attack our population.
Second, the powers that be decided from the beginning that any cure/prevention for the disease disseminated have an unexpired U.S. Patent. That’s why things such as hydroxycholoroquine or ivermectin were shunted aside, irrespective of their merits or lack of same.
Third, the introduction of mRNA vaccines on a population of 300+ million with as relatively little dissemination of these vaccines (and with as little testing as was done due to time constraints) was irresponsible. But our powers that be used Americans’ obsession with “the latest and the greatest” to attempt to popularise this, up to and including a disinformation campaign against J&J.
Fourth, our authorities spoke with scientifically unjustified certainty about the way to combat the spread of the virus. We went into this “behind the eight ball” of knowledge and should have been more up front about that. When things didn’t go the way they said they would, trust was eroded. I discuss the whole business of certainty (or lack thereof) in scientific and engineering processes in my post Teaching Secular Blasphemy.
Fifth, the way reputable people were treated who dissented from the solutions determined was shameful. I’m thinking primarily of those who signed and supported the Great Barrington Declaration.
Sixth, HIPAA made effective contact tracing impossible, thus the lockdown was the only alternative, collateral damage following.
I happen to teach a specialty (geotechnical engineering) which is basically an applied earth science. As such uncertainty due to the complexity of the environment is part and parcel with the field. Engineering students find that hard to take sometimes but they need the perspective. You can view my engineering courses (with the videos I produced for COVID) here.
I could go on with the effects of our deindustrialisation, which has hampered our efforts both in Ukraine and more recently in Iran.
The jury is still out on whether real science and its validator technology will assume the place they deserve in our society or whether they’ll just be drug out from time to time for the convenience of our power holders.
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“Dreaming of the Red Churches”: My Wrap on Joe Colletti’s Theology and the Responses
The Chinese novel Dreaming of Red Mansions (or Dreaming of the Red Chamber) by Tsao Hsieh-chin is considered a classic in Chinese literature. The title though has nothing to do with the fact that it’s the colour of the Chinese Communist Party (it was written during the Ch’ing Dynasty.) Red in China is traditionally the colour of success and prosperity, which may by a marker as to why Chinese communism is so hopelessly heterodox from a Marxist-Leninist viewpoint. To dream of red mansions or the red chamber is to yearn for a propserous and successful life.
When I read both Joe Colletti’s original piece on why he was going to the Episcopal Church and the responses, it occured to me that this was what he and many of his respondents were looking for in a church: an ideal church in unity with that of the Apostles, whose earthly hierarchy is, like Pseudo-Dionysius envisioned, a reflection (or earthly type) of the heavenly hierarchy of the angels leading up to God himself. And it also occured to me that their attempt to get there is no more successful than those in the novel.
Probably the best response of the six that the North American Anglican published was that of Alexander Wilgus. It was relatively brief and to the point, which is a rarity in much Anglican commentary. His response was centred on the importance of confessional orthodoxy. That’s one of the things that bothers me about even stepping into most Episcopal churches (there are exceptions, but they’re few and far between.) The Episcopal Church has worked hard to be a progressive church and to put this in front of their laity as many Sundays as their laity’s attendance will allow. It’s one of the things that created the blow up last year which was the basis for my post About Those “Loosey-Goosey” Communion Theologies, Episcopal and Otherwise. As I noted in that post:
The minister who complained about receiving Communion in the Episcopal Church did so because this church is a “gay-friendly church.” While I’m sure some Episcopalians would try to dodge this characterisation, during the last quarter century and more the actions of its prelates and the General Convention say otherwise.
A church is first and foremost defined by what it believes and what teaches its laity and clergy to be the truth. As Origen eloquently put it at the start of his Peri Archon:
All who believe and are convinced that grace and truth came by Jesus Christ and that Christ is the truth (in accordance with his own saying, ‘I am the truth’) derive the knowledge which calls men to lead a good and blessed life from no other source but that very words and teaching of Christ himself. By the words of Christ we do not mean only those which formed his teaching when he was made man and dwelt in the flesh, since even before that Christ the Word of God was in Moses and the prophets.
It is unfortunate that many churches with ancient roots have wandered far from that, but it is a reality that cannot be ignored.
Those who would bemoan the whole business of multiple churches that are the result of “scism” need to realise that that’s been going on for a long time. I’m aware of the endless argument that the Church of England and its progeny are a “true church” because they’re “the British church,” which conveniently ignores the fact that the original British church was swept into the corners of the British Isles in the wake of invasions from the Continent and that the see of Canterbury itself was established by a papal mission. (The rest of the British Church was beaten down in the subsequent Roman-Celtic church conflict.) Removing sovereignty over the church from Pope to Sovereign is, at least from Rome’s perspective, supremely scismatic.
The Episcopal Church was itself the result of another scism, but this time secular: the independence of these United States from the United Kingdom. It was evident that independence included that from the Church of England, but the latter was initially unenthusiastic to do anything about this situation, so the Americans went to Scotland and the Anglican church there, itself the result of secular conditions after the failure of Archbishop Laud to impose liturgical worship on the Scots. The Episcopalians have never done anything to put themselves under the authority of the See of Canterbury, even when the politics allowed it and while watching the Roman Catholics build their church in the U.S. under the authority of–God forbid–that dreadful Pope in Rome.
That, of course, leads to the next anomoly in this mess: the ACNA’s own view of its own authority. The ACNA was constituted with two assumptions: the laity caused the rot in the Episcopal Church, and a decidedly Anglo-Catholic view of the episcopate, the latter in spite of (or buttressed by) the strong Charismatic underpinnings of many who started the ACNA. It reflects a longing for human authority to go along with divine authority, and it got sideswiped in Abuja when those assembled opted for a committee at the top rather than a primus inter pares. (It’s worth noting that this move was encouraged by the Sydney Anglicans, whose country’s move out from under the UK was a lot smoother and less an assault on authority than ours.)
It’s time for Colletti and others to stop “dreaming of red churches” and start asking the important question: is the church I’m a part of a help or hindrance to my fulfilling the mission that God put me on this earth to do, from salvation onwards? Apostolic churches are certainly capable of facilitating that fulfilment: it’s not a matter of “can’t” but “won’t.” The hour is late, however, it is time to decide.
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“Next Time Let Somebody Else Do It”: A Good Friday Reflection
Teaching at Lee University makes me take a greater interest in who’s going there, whether they’re going into the field I teach in (Engineering) or not. One day at church I found out that one of our young people is planning to start at Lee next fall in Nursing. That school is, in reality, the forerunner for the School of Engineering: it “broke the mould” on the strict liberal arts model that Lee has generally followed, making our entrance into the Lee family much easier. How she came into the world, however is an extraordinary story.
Her mother is the oldest of three sisters whose family is well respected in our church. When she was born, her mother had terrible, catastrophic consequences to the pregnancy, so much so that her mother was put into an induced coma and brought back to life on a gradual basis. She literally came back from the dead. The year was 2008; in addition to this resurrection, the Florida Gators–and all three sisters and the entire family are die-hard Gator fans–won the National Championship. In my silly way I’ve always connected the events and mentioned that to her mother, whose response was quick and to the point:
“Next time, let somebody else do it.”
In an age of positive confession and “name it and claim it,” that may come across as an odd response, but Jesus himself was of like opinion while facing his own road to the Cross:
Taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebediah, he began to show signs of sadness and deep distress of mind. “I am sad at heart,” he said, “sad even to death; wait here and watch with me.” Going on a little further, he threw himself on his face in prayer. “My Father,” he said, “if it is possible, let me be spared this cup; only, not as I will, but as thou willest.” (Matthew 26:37-39)
As a man, Jesus Christ found the burden he was about to bear…unbearable; but as God, there was no one else to do it:
But, when Christ came, he appeared as High Priest of that Better System which was established; and he entered through that nobler and more perfect ‘Tabernacle,’ not made by human hands–that is to say, not a part of this present creation. Nor was it with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, that he entered, once and for all, into the Sanctuary, and obtained our eternal deliverance. For, if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of the ashes of a heifer, purify those who have been defiled (as far as ceremonial purification goes), how much more will the blood of the Christ, who, through his eternal Spirit, offered himself up to God, as a victim without blemish, purify our consciences from a lifeless formality, and fit us for the service of the Living God! And that is why he is the intermediary of a new Covenant; in order that, as a death has taken place to effect a deliverance from the offenses committed under the first Covenant, those who have received the Call may obtain the eternal inheritance promised to them. (Hebrews 9:11-15)
The system in place at the time couldn’t finish the job:
The Law, though able to foreshadow the Better System which was coming, never had its actual substance. Its priests, with those sacrifices which they offer continuously year after year, can never make those who come to worship perfect. Otherwise, would not the offering of these sacrifices have been abandoned, as the worshipers, having been once purified, would have had their consciences clear from sins? But, on the contrary, these sacrifices recall their sins to mind year after year. For the blood of bulls and goats is powerless to remove sins. (Hebrews 10:1-4)
Fortunately for us–and certainly for my friend whom God brought back from the dead–Jesus Christ made full payment for our sins and won us eternal life, life that can start now and move us into eternity with God.
It’s hard to know when or if the Florida Gators will win the national championship again. Gator fans look for a miracle for it to happen. But we don’t have to wait for the Gators or any other earthly team, cause or nation to obtain the eternal life that Jesus Christ and he alone won for us on that first Good Friday.
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The Cattle Have Already Checked Out: My Response to Joe Colletti’s “On the Theology of Communion and Separation”
The North American Anglican has not included me (wisely, some would say) in the official responders’ list to the above referenced post. But I would like to do so, and since I have this forum (and have commented on many of their posts in the past) I will do so on this one.
I only want to address one issue: the one of parallel jurisdictions. Colletti thinks he has an strong case, but there is one serious problem: the Roman Catholic Church. No one in the Anglican-Episcopal world AFAIK thinks that there is any problem with either their apostolic succession or the validity of their sacraments. As I had a little fun with in a novel I wrote a few years back:
“Is there any question about the validity of the sacraments of the Roman church?” Julian asked.
“There’s never a question there—it’s ours that seem to always be in doubt,” Desmond answered. The Bishop glared sourly at Desmond.
“No, dear Julian, there isn’t,” the Bishop admitted. “Why is that germane to this discussion?”
“Because she was raised as a Roman Catholic—she was both baptised and confirmed there, and I believe in the same church that you were in just now to witness Bishop des Cieux’ consecration.”
Turning to the issue of parallel jurisdictions, in my own experience when I decided to “swim the Tiber” fifty-four years ago I transferred from the Diocese of South Florida to the Archdiocese of Miami. The latter was underscored by the fact that the parish I did this at was housed in the chapel of the main seminary for same Archdiocese! The Episcopal Church itself has been running a system (too large, I think) of parallel dioceses since its inception, as the Roman Catholic Church in these United States dates back to Colonial times.
When the Reformation took place the Anglican and Lutheran countries simply kept the Roman Catholic Church out of these countries. The Reformed did similar things in places like Scotland, the Netherlands (sort of) and Geneva. When things started getting “mixed up” on both sides of the Atlantic we had parallel jurisdictions. Once you start such a trend, it’s hard to stop.
The problem with the Roman church is that it has lost its way on preserving the sacred deposit of faith, which was its “one job” in this world. The churches of the Reformation–direct and indirect–have attempted to fix this problem. In recent times many of them have lost their way too, this was the impetus of the ACNA. The ACNA has its issues and what’s going on is an appalling failure of leadership and comity within that leadership, in addition to having left WO unresolved in its establishment.
The fact that there are geographically overlapping jurisdictions between TEC and ACNA are really not the problem, any more than those of the RCC and PECUSA (and TEC and ACNA and…) On this issue, as we say in the hills, to bring this up is like closing the barn door after the cows have all left (or more elegantly as I put it in the title.) Whether the reconquista effort will succeed is not known, although church history is not encouraging in that regard. The concept of the ACNA was sound in its inception and it’s a serious pity that the church has gotten off track the way it has.
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Not Our “Betters”: Some Thoughts on Jeffrey Epstein
Jeffrey Epstein, the crimes he committed and the people he involved are topics that simply will not go away in our news cycle, and that’s saying something in a news cycle with a notoriously short memory. It transcends the political spectrum (no mean feat either) and sticks in the craw of a significant portion of our population. Why is does this seems obvious, but if we look under the surface it isn’t as obvious as we think.
As a Palm Beacher, it doesn’t surprise me that his whole system of sexual exploitation started in my own home town. The first surprise comes in that the beginning of Epstein’s end came with the Town of Palm Beach Police and its police chief, Michael Reiter. While Palm Beach County and the State of Florida, where the triumph of “good government” over the “Pork Chop Gang” used to be the stuff of political legend, tried to dodge the issue, Reiter pressed on and got the FBI involved, which was the beginning of the end for Epstein. My only hope is that, when they arrested him, they used the same line the Palm Beach Police used on my brother when they caught him for speeding in our baby blue Pinto: “We’ve been looking for you for some time.”
Let’s get back to serious matters: there are many scandals that fill both air time and internet bandwidth. Why is this one so special? I think that the whole Epstein business is a dagger in the heart of the way people look at life in these United States and for that matter in our estranged neighbour to the north, Canada, and people have reacted viscerally to the assault on their cherished beliefs.
As I settled down to life in lower Appalachia, there’s one nearly universal attitude amongst the people I ran with which took me aback: the attitude that the “rich” (and that definition is very elastic) were more virtuous than those below them. I was prepared for the resentment driven attitude that my mother’s people exhibited, but while I wasn’t looking there had been a vibe shift in the culture. Experience taught me differently, but more about that shortly.
Years later I got into lockhorns with my “Canadian sheeple,” who exhibited a similarly deferential attitude which I characterised at the time (and still do today) as sycophantic. He described himself as a “country boy” from deepest Ontario. Country boys are something I’m familiar with, but they’re generally different in their politics from Ontario to Ocoee. In their attitudes towards those up the food chain, however, I found common ground. In the end he developed TDS and our communication broke down, even though my attitude towards the “hero of Mar-a-Lago” is more utilitarian than anything else.
The reason why I feel the way I do is really simple: my years in Palm Beach (and those further down the coast) tell me that the wealthy and their spawn are not more virtuous than those whom they lord over. Many of these people are deeply sybaritic and insouciant in their outlook on life; their main goal is to get laid, high or drunk, and preferably all three. Now I’m certainly aware that the wealthy were capable of partying hard in the old times, but this ethic was neither the religion nor the driver of public policy that it has been for the last half century.
Although certain groups had their own dysfunctions to spread around, most of the rot in our society started at the top. This includes divorce; the first time the reality of this hit home is when I read through all of the name changes in the school directory. The drug culture, the hallmark of the 1960’s into which I was thrown, needed money, which was easily obtained at the top and only with effort (usually illegal) at the bottom. Running to therapists instead of other guides was the sport of people who could afford the hourly fees. And the environmental movement was shaped by people who instinctively saw it being used to impoverish potential competitors coming up from below (yes, this is the key reason why nuclear power was trashed in the 1970’s and 1980’s.)
For an elite to stay on top the way ours has, it requires the kinds of attitudes down the ladder that Canadian and American alike have exhibited for many years. In the Anglosphere it starts early, as I note in my piece on the Anglican confirmation catechism And Who Are Our Betters? A Sticking Point From the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. We are taught always to look up to these people, although finding out the truth is always a “looking behind the curtain” experience. These people really aren’t our “betters” after all.
As should be evident by now, Epstein found fertile ground for his island orgies and underage satiation. Revealing that puts a lot of the virtue signalling that has come from the top in a whole new light. What about #metoo? What about protecting our young people? Where were the people who could do something about it when it happens either on Epstein’s island or anywhere else? Or, to look at it another way, why do these people throw people down the line into jail for these offenses and then go scot free on their own account? (That’s been going on for a long time, too, it’s just harder to hide these days.)
Now, of course, people are angry that their ideas have been smashed. These days the hue and cry is for people to be “held accountable.” Personally I find vindication in our court system–civil or criminal–of limited satisfaction, probably as I’ve been through too much litigation and legal process. We don’t need our elites to be held accountable: we need new elites, since we seem to find an elite indispensable. We need an elite which has a lot stronger sense of civic duty and connection with the existing populace. We need an elite which will put the productive strength of the country ahead of personal pleasure and enrichment. We need an elite which has a modicum of basic integrity rather than one whose integrity ends at virtue signalling on social media.
Will we get any of this? I’m not optimistic, but if we don’t the only thing we have to look forward to is When the People’s Liberation Army Marches Down Pennsylvania Avenue.
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Why Pentecostals Should Believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist
The whole subject of the Eucharist is one which has occupied this site for a long time. Probably my most read–and infamous–post on the subject was my 2015 piece Bill Clinton’s Eucharistic Theology: It Depends on What ‘Is’ Is, where I tried to use the legal woes of our last Scots-Irish president to make a point about what the New Testament really says about the nature of the Lord’s Supper. I also did a series at my own church on the subject.
What I am going to set for there is specifically aimed at Pentecostals and those who share their idea if not their context, specifically the Charismatics. But first we need to play a parlor game which comes up frequently in Pentecostal academia: what does it mean to be Pentecostal?
Some put the emphasis on the operation of the spiritual gifts. You see this more frequently in Charismatic circles, but it’s a fair question. The problem with putting it first is that it puts the cart before the horse. It ignores the basic questions: why are there spiritual gifts in the first place? Why should God put these in the church? Why isn’t the Word enough, as the cessationists have told us?
Others revert to a cultural answer, waxing in a maudlin way (consciously or otherwise) about the moves of the Spirit in the past in their own cultural context and how this implicitly defines what being Pentecostal means. Any serious examination of Acts 2 should show that the whole point of the day of Pentecost was to see, as Joel prophesied, the Spirit poured out on all flesh. Since all flesh is a diverse group in many ways, it makes sense that the manifestation of the Spirit will vary in like fashion. My last post The Word of God’s Songs of Praise Volume 1 Are Now on YouTube is a good example of that; it was not only different from what Catholics were used to, it was both alike and different from what most Pentecostal churches were doing at the time, and the latter were definitely aware of that. I think it is fair to say that any definition of Pentecost which casts it in a narrow cultural context violates the whole point of the movement.
I think that it is fair to say that at the heart of modern Pentecost is the belief that God, who moved supernaturally in time in the Acts of the Apostles, moves in the same way today. That goes beyond just the spiritual gifts we see discussed in other parts of the New Testament; in includes healing and other miracles as well. That solves another problem cessationist types have been wrestling with: how do we convince people of the truth of the Word in the face of critical Biblical scholarship? The answer is simple: if people see God moving in the same way now he did in the Scriptures, it’s a lot simpler.
And that brings us to the issue of the Eucharist.
The wedding at Cana was Our Lord’s first miracle in his earthly ministry; the Eucharist, save for the Resurrection, was his last. Why Pentecostals would affirm water turned into wine and deny the transformation in the Lord’s Supper is a head scratcher, although there’s been much lame hermeneutic to justify that paradox. In any case the words Our Lord used to institute his Supper are fairly straightforward:
While they were eating, Jesus took some bread, and, after saying the blessing, broke it and, as he gave it to his disciples, said: “Take it and eat it; this is my body.” Then he took a cup, and, after saying the thanksgiving, gave it to them, with the words: “Drink from it, all of you; For this is my Covenant blood, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. (Matthew 26:26-28)
Paul thought enough of this to repeat it:
For I myself received from the Lord the account which I have in turn given to you-how the Lord Jesus, on the very night of his betrayal, took some bread, And, after saying the thanksgiving, broke it and said “This is my own body given on your behalf. Do this in memory of me.” And in the same way with the cup, after supper, saying “This cup is the new Covenant made by my blood. Do this, whenever you drink it, in memory of me.” For whenever you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death-till he comes. Therefore, whoever eats the bread, or drinks the Lord’s cup, in an irreverent spirit, will have to answer for an offence against the Lord’s body and blood. (1 Corinthians 11:23-27)
Most of our ministers, whether they believe in Bill Clinton’s Eucharistic Theology or not (and most do,) “stick with the script,” although a few do not. How did we come to abandon taking this at face value? The first is that there is no physical change in the elements after the consecration, opening us up to the battle cry of “It’s just bread!”
The second–and one that the Reformers of all stripes dealt with in various ways–is that Roman Catholicism overplayed its hand on the subject of the Eucharist. (It still does.) We were regaled with Eucharistic processions, adorations and the occasional miracle. Roman Catholics assured us that, the closer and more often we were to the Body of Christ, the closer we were to the Lord himself.
In the seeds of both of these objections the destruction of Bill Clinton’s Eucharistic Theology can be found.
- The Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist–no matter how you formulate it–is incarnational. Today we take for granted that Jesus Christ came to earth to be a human being “in the flesh” with all that goes with that. And we say that he came to be “in a body.” (The definition of that is not univocal.) What we really needs to realise that that he came at all into this material world was breaking the general order of things , that combining uncreated God with created man is not something to be taken for granted. Rising from the dead was part of that, and the ancients knew that all too well: that’s why the Athenians bucked Paul when he brought up that issue (Acts 17:32.)
- Getting close to the Body and Blood of Our Lord is no guarantee that you have internalised Our Lord into your life. The Pharisees, scribes and other worthies were close enough to Our Lord to spit on him and yet were unchanged by his physical presence other than to be angered by him. Paul brings up the issue of unworthy reception, the poster child for which was Judas Iscariot. It is legitimate to criticise Roman Catholicism’s obsession with this, but the answer is simple: it’s not an either/or proposition but a both/and one.
- Ultimately the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist is supernatural in nature. As I said before, it was Our Lord’s last miracle in his earthly ministry. It is a sad business that people who proclaim that divine healing is part of the atonement (Isaiah 53:5) would turn around and deny what really should be taking place when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper.
It is time for Pentecostals and all those who believe that our God acts supernaturally now as he did when Jesus Christ was on earth and in the years immediately after his Resurrection to claim that he does the same when we gather to celebrate what Bossuet used to call “the sacred pledge of the Eucharist.” It is more than narrow literalism: it is the reclamation of our birthright.
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The Word of God’s Songs of Praise Volume 1 Are Now on YouTube
You can see them here:
The songs:
A1 Allelu!
A2 Alleluia, Sons Of God Arise
A3 The Angel Of The Lord
A4 Away They Went With Weeping
A5 Balm In Gilead
A6 Bless The Lord, O My Soul
A7 The Breath Of God
A8 Canticle Of The Gift
B1 Canticle Of The Three Young Men
B2 Come, Follow Me
B3 Come, Go With Me To That Land
B4 Come Holy Ghost
B5 The Dancing Heart
B6 Father, I Adore You
B7 The Foot Washing SongThe songs:
A1 Glory To God, Glory
A2 Hallelujah, I Want To Sing All About It
A3 Hallelujah, Jesus Is Lord
A4 He Is Lord
A5 Here Comes Jesus
A6 His Banner Over Me Is Love
A7 I Have Decided To Follow Jesus
A8 I Want To Walk As A Child Of The Light
B1 I Will Arise
B2 I Will Sing Of The Mercies Of The Lord
B3 In My Father’s House
B4 Israel, Rely On Yahweh
B5 It’s A Brand New Day
B6 Jesus In The Morning
B7 The King Of Glory
B8 Let All That Is Within Me
B9 The Love RoundThe songs:
A1 O Come, Let Us Adore Him
A2 Praise My God With The Tambourine
A3 Psalm 145
A4 Rejoice Always
A5 Rejoice In The Lord Always
A6 Romans Eight
A7 Sing To God A Brand New Canticle
A8 Song Of Good News
B1 Song Of Moses
B2 The Spirit Is A-Movin’
B3 There Is None Like Him
B4 There’s A River Of Life
B5 They That Wait Upon The Lord
B6 This Is The Day
B7 When The Spirit Moves YouA couple of years ago I had a long discussion with an historian of praise and worship music. He stated that the Word of God (and presumably the People of Praise as well) was an important part of the development of the entire praise and worship movement, which came into full flower the following decade. But some explanation of how these albums came into being is necessary.
The Word of God had a songbook entitled Songs of Praise. Many of those songs appeared in the community’s albums which appear on this channel. The purpose of this and the other two that went with it was to record performances (I know they’d object to that characterisation, but this is an album, after all) so that prayer groups and communities alike could hear how they sounded. The purpose of this album was to disseminate the recordings of the songs that didn’t appear in their regular album sequence. So how does it come off? Let’s start by noting that this wasn’t their “A list” of songs. Both the songs and the way they were performed vary in quality.
On the other hand, many of these songs were in the core of the Charismatic Renewal and are precious, especially since the “Top 40” model praise and worship music has adopted tends to push the older songs aside. Many of these came from Pentecostal churches, which will come as a surprise to many of my Pentecostal visitors. This opened the WoG to criticism for “Protestant” influences, but also shows that conventional hymnody was being undermined in Evangelical and Evangelical-adjacent churches, something that has become very evident since. Note that quite a few of these songs appear elsewhere on the channel on non-Word of God albums if you want to hear them by their original artists or other performers.
My deep thanks to Dennis for this music.
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The Frigidaire–and the Church Named After It–Aren’t What They Used to Be
The failure of of the ice maker in our refrigerator–which we thought premature–has led us to videos like this, where we found out we were blessed:
One of the brands mentioned as “not what they used to be” was Frigidaire. Fundie and fundie-adjacent types will recall the days when preachers–sweating, bawling and thumping the pulpit with their Bibles–would disparage the “Church of the Frigidaire” as cold, lifeless and unable to bring people to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
They were hollering about the Main Line churches.
Well, they evidently made their point:
If the percentage of Americans who identify as evangelical or Catholic is holding steady, where are the “nones” coming from? The data seems to provide a clear answer: The growth of the “nones” has come almost entirely at the expense of mainline Protestantism. In the mid-1970s, 31 percent of Americans were mainline Protestant, and in the 1950s, perhaps as many as 50 percent were. But today, only 9 percent of Americans identify as mainline Protestant, and that figure is likely to drop even further in the next few years, as older mainline Protestant church members pass away. With only 2 percent of Americans age 18-40 identifying with a mainline Protestant denomination, the future of mainline Protestantism looks bleak.
I suppose that the church I grew up with–and I’m sure the one I spent 2.5 years in during my early years in the family business–would classify as “churches of the Frigidaire.” Like the appliance whose moniker they were stuck with, they did their job: they kept the contents at a constant temperature, did so without a lot of maintenance and for a long period of time, and of course the ice maker was necessary for the wet bar which most of the membership watered at (especially the Whiskeypalians, where with every four there was always a fifth.)
Evidently the churches of the Frigidaire have suffered the same fate as the appliances, except that there isn’t a lot of choice to keep the food cold while dropping out of church doesn’t have the same immediate impact as losing a refrigerator/freezer full of food. There are two basic reasons for this, and I’ve documented them before:
- They abandoned what core beliefs they had to start with: When Church Becomes Pointless
- They were no longer the “way up” in society: My Thoughts on “Christianity’s Decline in the Northeast” (which partially explains why, if there’s a liberal Main Line church that’s doing okay, it’s in the South)
So the Evangelicals should be dancing a jig, right? They’re not, and not only because they’re against dancing (or were) but because, while the occupants of the Main Line churches were quiet in their constant temperature environment, they were subject to “pre-evangelisation” and “pre-discipleship,” which saved Evangelical churches a lot of time and effort when they finally came forward. Now these churches are faced with presenting the Gospel and actually making disciples from people who, instead of having sat all their lives in the cold, have come out of a vacuum. This has especially hit hard for churches like the Southern Baptists who, buttressed by their idea of unconditional election, have been playing a numbers game, which has worked until recent years.
There’s no doubt that the “civic religion” of the Main Line of past times was good for the country in general if it wasn’t the best for the salvation of individuals. But Evangelical Christianity it by itself not well suited to run a country. Face it: if that were the case, Mike Huckabee would have been in the White House and not in Jerusalem, working for Donald Trump.
Note on Roman Catholicism: they’ve not really held steady in the sense that “they’re holding on to their base” as much as they’ve swapped parishioners, from Gringos to largely Hispanics, which explains their take on immigration better than anything else.
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The ACNA’s Demographic is the Key to Understanding Why It Is a Target
The Baptist News, of all places, makes this observation:
Beneath the salacious headlines from the Anglican Church in North America lies a high-stakes battle about military chaplaincy.Although one of the nation’s smaller Christian denominations, the ACNA endorses a disproportionately massive share of United States military chaplains. And that has been a profit center for the Jurisdiction of the Armed Forces and Chaplaincy, led by a bishop who now has fled the denomination to start his own.
The ACNA, for all of the publicity it’s gotten lately, isn’t that large of a denomination, although it’s growth has been respectable (a concept which plays its part in this saga) in its relatively short life. But why all of the attention on this relatively small group of people, up to an including a Washington Post correspondent making a career out of its misfortunes? The answer is twofold: its own demographics and the place of the military in American society.
One mistake Evangelicals and evangelical adjacent types repeatedly make is that it’s all about sheer numbers, that if we somehow get saved and mobilised a large enough number of people we can make our “Pickett’s Charge” big enough to overwhelm the forces of darkness and take our country back for God. The last half century should demonstrate the falsity of this concept. Anyone with an elite background knows that, it’s not getting to the large number of people that gains you control over a social system, it’s getting to the right people. Once you do that the rest will follow. This is especially true in a society where respectability is such an obsession as it is with ours.
The ACNA’s elevated demographic–which it has in common with the Episcopal Church, including the racial makeup–has its own perils, but its presence in the upper reaches of our society (and a not inconsiderable presence in the DC area) makes it a threat to our elite. People like Joel Osteen and Kenneth Copeland may be deeply offensive to the pseudosophisticates that dominate our chattering class, but they’re a sideshow. The ACNA is a perceived threat, thus the space in the Washington Post. The fact that it has a desultory leadership structure (and the leaders to go with it) only makes it more vulnerable.
The situation with the military itself is a little different. Ever since the days of Barack Obama elite opinion has worried about the conservative nature of military people and the possibility of them eventually doing a coup. (I was trashed for expressing this opinion in my piece Every King is Proclaimed by Soldiers, but somebody needs to live in reality.) The push for DEI in both the military and the intelligence/police apparatus is an attempt to end this threat. Although conservative denominations such as mine maintain endorsing agencies for military chaplaincy, and are more likely to see their sons and daughters join the military, again the ACNA is a greater perceived threat, especially due to the relatively large group of chaplains that the JAFC has endorsed and are serving.
The ACNA has made its share of mistakes. The problem facing the ACNA is that its structure and the people who populate it may not be well positioned to fix them in a timely and decisive matter. From that standpoint what we are seeing is a power struggle emerge, and experience indicates that such in churches are ugly and non-beneficial to the mission that Our Lord put us on the earth to do. But there’s a reason why the ACNA is a special target, and that needs to be understood by everyone–and soon.
Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
Positive Infinity 