Freedom of Religion is Freedom of Conscience

One of the biggest problems facing Christians in the United States is a decreasing tolerance for religious viewpoints. More precisely, there is a decreasing tolerance for people actually living out the religious viewpoints that they claim to believe.

Image used by CC license. "It depends on the cage that you're in" by Guercio. http://ow.ly/1ddp300xhpi

Part of the growing pressure on religion is the fallacious assumption that religious thinking is somehow in a different category than non-religious thinking. This assumption is based on a naturalistic worldview that assumes that anything religious is inherently fictitious and therefore arbitrary.

The denigration of religious freedom because of a dismissal of religion as a category fails to recognize the significance of freedom of conscience. It threatens the ability to live in a pluralistic society because it values one totalizing worldview over all others. Opponents of religious freedom think that infringing on the conscience of believers will make the world a better place, but they fail to recognize that religious freedom is simply a subset of freedom of conscience.

The Unfounded Assumption

Making the unfounded assumption that religious thought is somehow inferior to supposedly non-religious thought allows people to argue there is no valid basis for declining to purchase potentially abortion inducing drugs or distribute them to others. When someone makes the assumption that religious thought is purely fiction, then there is no basis for not preferring the supposedly non-religious thought that is dominant in society.

By this way of thinking, religion is just make believe. Therefore, if someone bases a moral determination about a medicine which terminates a pregnancy on that religious foundation, there is no reason to honor that belief. After all, morality based on the make believe doesn’t really count, does it?

But this sort of argumentation—more often assumed than stated—begs the question.

In other words, instead of considering whether someone may have a legitimate basis for choosing not to purchase drugs that may end the life of a child, it merely states that any grounds that do not support unrestricted abortion are illegitimate because they have a religious foundation.

There are several problems with this sort of argumentation.

What’s Wrong With Discarding Religious Reasoning

First, it is incorrect to assume that only religious arguments can oppose abortion. For example, using a basic Kantian categorical imperative, an argument can be made that abortion is wrong because if everyone killed their children, then the human species would die out. Unless that is a desired end, then there is a case to be made in opposition to abortion on non-religious grounds.

There are other cases than abortion inducing drugs in which arguments made on religious grounds could be made on non-religious grounds. The fact that many irreligious people have accepted the dominant worldview that truth is merely a social construct limits the number of people making reasoned arguments contra the current societal consensus. However, unless one assumes that the dominant social construct is always correct, there is little reason to reject all other thinking (religious or otherwise) based on the popularity of post-foundational epistemological assumptions.

Second, simply because an argument has a religious foundation does not necessarily mean that is invalid. In order to rationally hold that belief, one would have to first prove that the religion itself is invalid. While some are convinced that all religion is false, the vast majority of humans in the history of the world (including most currently living) do not agree.

However, the invalidity of religion is exactly what so many contemporary moral arguments in the public square simply assume. This allows people to reject arguments they find inconvenient based on the genetic fallacy, without considering the merits of the opposing position or whether there may be legitimate grounds for dispute. In other words, religion is false, therefore any arguments based on religious principles must also be false, therefore do what popular opinion in society demands.

This is Too Important

If these were merely internet chatroom arguments about the existence of God or the eternal nature of the human soul, then the fallacious argumentation wouldn’t be as dangerous. But the problem is much more significant.

The coercive power of the United States government has grown to the point that it is impacting life or death decisions. The current administration’s regulations that require the purchase of drugs that may cause the termination of pregnancy make a huge moral statement and place a grave moral burden on many believers.

This issue is not one of trivial concern, since it is literally a life or death issue. Those that hold that terminating a pregnancy is a moral evil have reasons for objecting on the deepest level to purchasing or distributing the means by which a life is unjustly ended.

But arguments that hold that abortion is wrong are most often framed in religious terms. In the contemporary social milieu, the assumption is often made that religion is fiction, therefore religious arguments are unimportant. Therefore, any accommodation for faithful religious practice that excludes the purchase and distribution of abortion inducing drugs is invalid.

This sort of argumentation is narrowly circular and fails by being insufficiently self-reflective.

What if every religion isn’t false? What if every belief system isn’t merely a social construct? What if the question of life and death is so important that there needs to be room for dissent, especially in favor of not contributing to needless deaths? What if the social construct that assumes that religion cannot represent truth is incorrect? What if religious and supposedly non-religious thought are in the same category?

These questions are typically not asked, nor permitted to be asked in public debate. Supposedly non-religious thought has gained the ascendency in popular discussions and religious liberty has been pushed into the corner. And yet, religious liberty is nothing more than freedom of conscience.

Freedom of Religion is Freedom of Conscience

Freedom of conscience requires that we do not coerce behaviors when there is a reasonable basis for objection. This is what allows someone who is a non-religious, consistent pacifist to be excused from military service. It doesn’t mean that we have to agree with the person’s thought, but freedom of conscience requires us to leave room for those who have reasonable objections to live consistently with their convictions. There are cases to be made for exceptional circumstances, where someone might need to be coerced, but those are exceptions to a general practice.

Freedom of religion is simply freedom of conscience built on a reasonable basis that is not purely naturalistic. Just as those who believe that eating meat is murder should not be forced to purchase meat for the office barbecue, those who believe terminating a pregnancy is murder should not be forced to buy abortion inducing drugs for their employees. Similarly, those who believe that some religious services denigrate their religion should be permitted to decline participation in those services.

Religion is not another category of thought from non-religious thinking. At least, it is not for those who actually believe what their religion teaches.

This raises an important concern. Couldn’t someone falsely claim their conscience did not allow something simply because of personal dislike or bias? Yes. However, just as we must allow for some abuse of the welfare system to occur so that a necessary safety net is available for those that actually need it, we need to allow for some abuse of freedom of conscience due to irrational and unjust biases.

This is part of the tolerance needed to live in a pluralistic society. There needs to be room for people to disagree with us, even if we don’t like the basis of their disagreement. This is especially true when it comes to issues of prime significance, like desacralizing religious ceremonies and issues of life and death. If people are not free to disagree in those significant issues, then there really is no room for freedom of conscience.

We need to learn to disagree with respect, but there needs to be room for open disagreement if we are to have any legitimate freedom at all.

Three Political Dangers of Moral Relativism

There are three political options that offer strong temptation on a regular basis in a relativistic world. For individuals whose morality is unpinned from an objective reality, these are logical possibilities not temptations. In other words, these three political options are viewed as a menu of choices rather than a list of dangers when relativism is the accepted epistemological basis for morality.

As we sort through the muddle of mixed morality, we need to recognize these dangers for what they are. Until we recognize them, we can take no positive steps to avoid them. I have been helped recently by reflecting on the moral situation in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings as it reveals much about contemporary politics.

Lesser of Two Evils

The first political danger is to choose the lesser of two evils.

In a fallen world, sometimes we do need to accept proximate justice. We must work toward what good we can accomplish, recognizing there is much good that is left undone. Such compromise is necessary sometimes, but not always. There are times when we must reject false dichotomies and choose a third option.

Photo Credit: Battle of Vera by Lord Willington1815 http://ow.ly/4nkjpl Used by CC license.

In the case of politics, this sometimes means that we attempt to impact the future by voting for a cause that is certain to fail in the present. This is why there is a case for a write-in ballot or voting for a third party in an election. It is unlikely that such a candidate will win in our present circumstance, but it gives evidence that we will not be forced to choose the lesser of two evils. In politics, we will never choose perfectly nor have perfect options to choose from, but sometimes the two options presented by our system are simply unpalatable.

There is justification for choosing the lesser of two evils in some cases, such as amputating a limb instead of starving because a hand is pinched in a rock. Before we get to that point, however, we should consider whether there are other options.

Without a thorough acceptance of the existence of objective good, it is unlikely that someone will look past two mediocre options to find a third option that better matches the moral order of the universe.

This danger can be witnessed in Saruman’s alliance with Mordor in an attempt to defeat Mordor. On the one hand he saw a total defeat of good by Mordor if he did not establish his own empire. On the other hand he could see that he would have to use many of Mordor’s methods to build an empire capable of resisting. The lesser of two evils seemed to him to be to turn Orthanc, his little kingdom, into a mini-Mordor in hopes of achieving the lesser of two evils.

At some point, he made a logical choice in his own mind, but it becomes clear later in the narrative of The Lord of the Rings that he did not sufficiently consider a third option that was not evil at all. This led him to use Mordor’s tactics to fight Mordor, and ultimately corrupted any good he could have hoped to accomplish.

When in Mordor

The second political danger that regularly presents itself is to use unwholesome tactics simply because the opponent uses them. This approach recognizes that evil will be done through the unwholesome tactic, but the abuse of power is justified for some later good.

Tolkien captures the essence of this error in his classic work. The One Ring offered such a draw it leads to the corruption of the formerly good Saruman. The desire for power turns him to corrupt means to gain it, supposedly for the common good.

It was, arguably, with the intent to do good (as he understood it) that Saruman sought power. There were justifiable motivations for Saruman’s alliance with Sauron. Power, if used well, can lead to doing good. But such power when concentrated in the wrong hands, is a danger in itself. It proved to be too great a lure to Saruman. His invitation to Gandalf to betray his friends reveals the dangerous trajectory of the utilitarian logic of such political alliances:

“A new Power is rising. Against it the old allies and policies will not avail us at all. . . . This then is the one choice before you, before us. We may join with that Power. It would be wise, Gandalf. There is hope that way. Its victory is at hand, and there will be rich reward for those that aided it. As the power grows, its proved friends will also grow and the Wise, such as you and I, may with patience come at last to direct its courses, to control it. We can bide our time, we can keep our thoughts in our hearts, deploring maybe evil done by the way, but approving the high and ultimate purpose: Knowledge, Rule, Order; all the things that we have so far striven in vain to accomplish, hindered rather than helped by our weak or idle friends. There need not be, there would not be, any real change in our designs only in our means.”

In his attempt to draw Gandalf to join him, he offers the lure of power through the One Ring:

“The Ruling Ring? If we could command that, then the Power would pass to us.”

But Gandalf recognizes the problem with such a quest for power, even if it was intended to be used for good. The good that is done via evil means, in this case through the use of the One Ring, would turn to evil. The goodness of the result would be diminished and ultimately corrupted because of the unwholesome means that are used to reach the desired goal.

A moral relativist will be unlikely to recognize this, because when there is no objective good there can only be a calculus of benefit for a majority. In such a calculation, the inconvenience of a few is less significant than the relative good of a larger number.

Redescription of Good

A third political danger is to redescribe something that is evil as good. This is the ultimate fruit of moral relativism as it is being fleshed out in our society.

Saruman did not see his own corruption. He had not only assumed the end justifies the means, he had begun to redefine a negative end as good to cover his immoral actions.

Thus even after sending his armies to destroy and enslave his neighbors he still tried to lure Gandalf in to his plot to gain power. He still couched his goals as being for the ultimate good. Saruman saw his perverted domination of Middle Earth as a moral good. As he said to Gandalf after being unmasked as a traitor,

“Much we could still accomplish together, to heal the disorders of the world. Let us understand one another, and dismiss from thought these lesser folk! Let them wait on our decisions! For the common good I am willing to redress the past, and to receive you.”

But Tolkien provides a foil to that relativism in the character of Gimli the dwarf:

“The words of this wizard stand on their heads, [Gimli] growled, gripping the handle of his axe. ‘In the language of Orthanc help means ruin, and saving means slaying, this is plain.’”

In this passage, Saruman is demonstrating a consistent postmodern epistemology and Gimli recognizes it. He has redefined “help” and “saving.” Gimli, being grounded in an objective epistemology, recognizes this and calls him out. Simply by changing the terms evil did not become good, though things can be made confusing through that process.

The Present Context

I realize that I demonstrate a degree of nerdliness in using the Lord of the Rings to illustrate my points. However, this is the purpose of good literature. It delights and instructs. It tells us something about who we are as humans and not simply what is happening in a fictitious world. In this case, it helps us recognize some of the dangers of relativism.

Our world is swimming in a relativism that is largely unrecognized. To many people, the acceptance of any sort of non-relativistic understanding of morality is a form of violence. We may have reached a critical mass of relativism where a plea to the self-referential incoherence of absolute relativism is incomprehensible. It seems to me that this is so.

Despite this overwhelming relativism around us, we cannot fall prey to it. In order to remain faithful to the True, the Good, and the Beautiful, we cannot use the means of the world to stand our ground. We need to be aware of these political dangers and stay away from them. There is an objective moral good in the universe. We need to avoid compromising it by using flawed methods to achieve a supposed good.

Everyone is a hero in their own story. Relativism provides an easy path to self-justification. It does, however, leave one exposed as an evildoer in the presence of a real, holy, and objective God. We need to remain faithful to our objective epistemology and avoid these three pervasive political dangers.

Kierkegaard - A Review

Sometimes it seems like the Church is asleep at the wheel. Some Christians cheerfully abandon cherished beliefs and live as if the gospel didn’t matter. Others act like forgiveness is for wimps and neighbor love is best expressed by yelling arguments to someone securely wrapped up in a headlock. Søren Kierkegaard may part of an answer to some of these problems.

I know that the answer to many modern conundrums can be found in Church History. However, I must say that I’m surprised to find so much that speaks directly to the present situation in Kierkegaard.

Like many evangelicals, I have avoided Kierkegaard. First, there is the eternal problem of how to say his name without sounding like an idiot. Second, I’m really not a big fan of philosophy. This is mainly because I see a lot of philosophy that has abandoned the pursuit of knowledge and has drifted into a pursuit of esoteric and sometimes solipsistic niggling. Third, everyone has always told me that Kierkegaard is a liberal. Combine these three things together and you have a recipe for bypassing Kierkegaard.

But Kierkegaard may be just what the doctor ordered for 21st century Christianity. According to Mark Tietjen, he’s much more orthodox than I’ve been led to believe and he’s always trying to be faithful. Most importantly, the main thrust of his work was intended to revive the gospel in Denmark. It had simply become too easy to be a Christian and play along. One became Christian by simply by being Danish and occasionally participating in churchish activities.

In addition to the laity presuming their Christianity, the clergy seemed to have lost sight of the purpose of preaching. The Danish church leaders talked about the Bible, but were ineffective in bringing it to bear on the lives of their congregants. There are some circles even among my strongly orthodox peers where that is the present condition. Frankly, it’s the sort of error that I am drawn to.

Enter Kierkegaard

In his recent book Kierkegaard: A Christian Missionary to Christians, Mark Tietjen shows how Kierkegaard’s writing can be used to help call Christians back to a more faithful life in Christ. According to this book, Kierkegaard can be best understood as a prophet explaining the weaknesses of the faith of the people of God. This is not an introduction to Kierkegaard’s work, but an apology for his usefulness for the contemporary Christian Church.

After a brief introduction, the book contains five chapters. In Chapter One, Tietjen gives a biographical overview of Kierkegaard, an apology for philosophy, an apology for Kierkegaard, and a brief overview of his work. In the second chapter the topic of conversation is Kierkegaard’s Christology. Tietjen highlights the fact that Kierkegaard was calling his readers to understand the radical, offensive truth of Christ as God-man. This is a truth that was being (and is again) overwritten by the redefinition as sin and.

Chapter Three discusses how Kierkegaard is helpful in showing what it is to be human. The psychological influence of Kierkegaard is highlighted here and the sinfulness of despair. Kierkegaard calls for the Christian to hope all things, even when things are hard. In the fourth chapter the topic is the Christian witness. Kierkegaard’s work was designed to rouse Christians to live rightly and allow the gospel to permeate their every day lives. In fact, as Tietjen describes it, Kierkegaard felt that right living was the most effective apologetic. In Chapter Five, Tietjen outlines Kierkegaard’s position on Christian love built around the three theological virtues. In a world that tends to misunderstand the nature of love, the refined nuance of Kierkegaard’s position could well be valuable.

Summary and Conclusion

As someone who has read a little of Kierkegaard, I cannot evaluate how accurate Tietjen is. I’ll leave that to other reviewers. However, Tietjen states that his goal “is to convince Christians as I have been convinced that Søren Kierkegaard is a voice that should be sought and heard for the edification of the church.” In my opinion, he has met his goal. I am encouraged to read more Kierkegaard and will recommend that to my friends.

This book met my expectations. I am intrigued by Kierkegaard and will read him soon. Tietjen provides a suggestion for secondary sources that introduce Kierkegaard, so there is a place for me to begin my understanding. In reading this book, I was encouraged, once again, by a figure from Church History that there is nothing new under the sun. The Church has been down this road before and, in this case, Kierkegaard helps to provide the necessary answer. This was an encouragement in a time when I needed some, so I’m thankful for the book.

Kierkegaard: A Christian Missionary to Christians

$13.60

By Mark A. Tietjen

Buy on Amazon

Note: I received a gratis copy of this volume from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.

Now and Later

We err as humans in placing either too much or too little focus on money. On the one hand, we can spend recklessly and damage our futures by locking ourselves in a cycle of debt. On the other hand, we can hoard money and focus on always having a growing savings account.

Both positions are errors. Both positions place a person under the lordship of money. Both extreme positions must be avoided by the Christian, though likely there are a range of positions between the two poles which are acceptable.

Instant Gratification

Money by bfishadow, used by Creative Commons license. http://ow.ly/4n6FxR

The tendency to err on one side of a balanced approach is part of human nature. As recent history seems to indicate, human nature is biased toward instant gratification rather than the delay.

No doubt an anthropologist could explain to us that such a bias toward immediate gratification is a result of evolutionary heritage. No doubt our ancestors, they might argue, lacking refrigeration must have gorged themselves on meat before it spoiled. This natural and explicable urge would explain in logical terms the human bias toward immediate consumption.

I struggle to accept such an explanation. First, I doubt some of the basic allegation that such social behaviors as inherited instinctively rather than largely learned. Second, I see a stronger explanation in the psychological reward of receiving something or consuming something. It simply feels good to get something now.

Whatever the reason for the quest of instant gratification, it has deleterious results for many people in contemporary culture.

Financial Struggles

A recent article in the Atlantic provides a testimony of someone who has decent earnings, but still lives from paycheck to paycheck. A week by week approach is reality for many more than just the working poor or the poor of any kind.

Neal Gabler, who penned the article, rightly points to his own choices for his family’s continued struggles. At least mostly.

Gabler notes that when struggling, his family failed to downsize. They made the choice to send their children to private schools, to live in New York City and later Long Island though his work could have been done anywhere. This led to his being in the large group of Americans who would be unable to cover a relatively modest $400 emergency. His choices paid a large part in the problem. In most cases, there are reasonable justifications for these decisions, but they led toward a state of seeming perpetual financial struggle.

But some of his decisions were made by using an expectation of the economy that differed from reality. Gabler notes that the economic conditions have changed since his childhood. The economy has not seen the robust growth in wages of earlier days. In fact, as he notes, the hourly wage has largely stagnated since 1972. Despite this, the value of benefits has grown significantly. This historic expectation colored Gabler’s vision of future potentialities.

Most of us expect to make more next year than we make this year. We expect to see our salaries grow due to cost of living increases and due to merit increases. But Gabler’s article shows the danger of counting on a particular future outcome.

Predicting the Future

Before going on, I must submit two qualifications. First, I am not condemning Gabler for his errors. Given past history, expecting growth in income would be a fair prediction. Many have made the same mistake. Second, some sort of reliance of future income is reasonable. Otherwise very few people would take a mortgage of any length. The trouble is not that Gabler and others count on future earnings, but that they are too optimistic about the future.

We do not know what tomorrow holds. However, we have pretty good evidence there will be a tomorrow. Put those two things together and we should, it seems, make reasonable and unassuming predictions about the future.

Such cautious predictions about the future are what make the difference (often, not always) between a week by week budget crisis and a path to financial solvency. We cannot know the future so any expectation may be proved wrong, but it is easier to adapt to a brighter future than we expected than to rely on future growth in earnings.

God’s Control of the Future

James cautioned his audience against expecting too certain a future.

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.  Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. (James 4:13-16)

Some traditions have taken this passage and created a pattern of speech that adds the proviso, “Lord willing,” to every futuristic statement. That may be a helpful didactic tool to remind people that the future is depended upon God, but I don’t think it is necessarily the intended result of James’ instruction.

James is teaching people to depend on God and not to rely on their own wisdom and plans for the future. This should lead us to be cautiously optimistic. When it comes to managing money that we have stewardship of today, it should lead us to ask whether God is providing for future needs with money that he has given us today.

There are certainly many applications of the principle that James is teaching here. However, one of them should be that we should be cautious about spending tomorrow’s dollars today. God controls the future. He may choose to grow our income in a way that outpaces inflation. Or, he may choose to move us to a different vocation with a lower salary. In the end, we can trust in his providence to meet our daily needs, but we should not presume that his providence will include funding our present desires.

As we steward the resources God has allotted us, we should be generous toward the Lord, but more cautious toward our own desires. God will meet all our needs, but he may not give us whatever we want.

Procrastination and the Christian Life

Are you a procrastinator? 

You don't have to answer right now.

The reality is that most of us tend to procrastinate about some things at some times. For example, even an individual that files taxes on the first possible day may put off getting health screenings. Or, the person that starts and finishes every task at work early may delay making other decisions in life.

In a humorous TED talk, blogger Tim Urban describes the mind of a procrastinator and makes an important point that should resonate with Christians. 

Put off whatever else you were doing for 15 minutes and watch him describe the mind of the procrastinator. But make sure its okay if you laugh, because you probably will at some point.

If you've watched his talk, you should recognize the big point here. We only have a limited number of weeks, so we should avoid putting off the important things.

Urban would likely arrive at a different set of important things than a Christian would (or should), but the principle is generally the same.

Who have you not shared the gospel with? What important work are you putting off? What progress toward sanctification are you neglecting?

Redeem the Time

In Ephesians 5:15-17, Paul writes:

Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

We should accept that the will of God for us is, in general terms, for us to become holier and thus glorify him through everything we do. There may be more particular things that we are called to do, but everything in God's will should fall into the category of things that increase our sanctification and bring him glory.

But there is a key phrase here, which should convict all of us. Paul tells the Ephesians to walk carefully, "making the best use of the time."

He doesn't recommend making a productive use of the time or just not doing bad stuff in the time.

In fact, the reason that Paul gives for making the best use of the time is because the days are evil. This means that procrastination--and the instant gratification monkey--are things that we need to fight against. They are part of the world and flesh that we need to overcome.

Conclusion

Like everything else in life, we can err by fighting procrastination to an extreme degree so that we fail to enjoy our lives. 

We shouldn't be afraid to enjoy free time in our lives and to take pleasure in playing with our children. However, most of us fall on the procrastination side of the spectrum, so there is a lesson for us here.

Finding Purpose

Q. What is the chief end of man?

A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.

This is where human purpose is found. Not in our sex lives, our hobbies, our careers, or our citizenship. Human purpose is found in our position relative to a holy, just, and powerful God.

Our purpose is not to find greater success in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. While we are blessed to live in country that reasonably enables the opportunities to pursue prosperity, economic and physical well-being is not the purpose for our existence.

FINDING MEANING

Francis Schaeffer helpfully reminds his readers of this truth. He writes,

“Today, people constantly ask, ‘Does man have a purpose?’ In some areas of the world man is told that he has meaning only in reference to the state. In other places he is told that he has meaning only in his sexual life. . . . But all of these turn into sawdust in his hands. The Bible gives us a quite different answer: The purpose of man—the meaning of man—is to stand in love as a creature before the Creator.” (Schaeffer, Genesis in Space and Time)

Modernism encouraged pursuit of objectivity to a fault. The idea was that a human could absolutely know what was objectively true.

Post-modernism rejects the notion that humans can know objective truth, and in its more virulent forms it rejects the idea that there is objective truth. The first rejection is warranted, because a flawed, finite human can never know truth fully and objectively. The second rejection is cause for despair, because never will there be opportunity to firmly plant ethics on something that matters.

More, by Vern. Used by Creative Commons License. http://ow.ly/ZDEFL 

When I say “ethics” many think of the ability to evaluate situations to determine what should be done or should have been done. That is certainly part of the ethical task, but it falls far short of a robust understanding of the role of ethics, particularly in the Christian life.

Ethics is worship. It is the way that we evaluate future and past decisions to determine what we should do and whether it will fulfill our main purpose, or our chief end, of glorifying God and delighting in him. It entails assessing decisions, but even more significantly it requires comparing them to a standard.

WE NEED A STANDARD

When it comes to our perception of the world, we can recognize that we always have a bias, which usually entices us to redefine truth to our advantage. On the other hand, in order for that sentence to have any meaning, there must be a truth to be redefined.

Humans need a purpose in life that they can be oriented toward. When humanity rejects the objective truth of the Creator, they reflexively invent something else to judge themselves.

As John Calvin notes in his Institutes,

Man's nature, so to speak, is a perpetual factory of idols.... Man's mind, full as it is of pride and boldness, dares to imagine a god according to its own capacity; as it sluggishly plods, indeed is overwhelmed with the crassest ignorance, it conceives an unreality and an empty appearance as God.... To these evils a new wickedness joins itself, that man tries to express in his work the sort of God he has inwardly conceived. Therefore the mind begets an idol; the hand gives it birth.... Daily experience teaches that flesh is always uneasy until it has obtained some figment like itself in which it may fondly find solace as in an image of God. (1.11.8)

When humans abandon the idea of a Supreme Being against whose justice our lives our judged, we will find purpose or meaning in something else. Schaeffer includes sex on the list. He also includes the human relationship to the state, by which is is not simply indicting excessive nationalism, but also socialism that sees all human rights as granted by the state.

We were made for more than that. However, when an objective moral order in the created order is abandoned because the idea of their being a Creator is rejected, humans cannot live with the void that is created. They create something new to anchor their hopes and aspirations in and to judge their actions and the actions of others.

The human heart is an idol factory. When God is rejected, the void must be filled by an undefined notion of “love” or the good of the state. There is always something in reality.

Philosophers may claim that there is no objective truth, but human reality demands an external reference point. When we reject the true objective reality, the human heart or society will create another.

CONCLUSION

As an apologetic, this essay will fail. It isn’t an apologetic, but a reminder of where most people live—with a false reality—and what we need to resist as Christians.

The world will constantly pull us away from our chief end. It is the task of the Christian to continually come back to the central purpose of our lives: to glorify God and enjoy him forever.

Did God Break the Law?

Recently a pastor of a megachurch declared that “God broke the law for love” when our sins were atoned for on the cross. The preacher's motives were good—he wanted to express the wonder of the gospel in terms people can understand—but his theology is terrible. In fact, there is direct biblical evidence that undermines his claim. Additionally, even without the direct claims of Scripture, God breaking the Law would undermine centuries of orthodox understanding of the nature of both God and the Law.

More significant than knowing who made this theological blunder is understanding why it is incorrect. It is easy to bash someone for being in error. It is more important to explain why they are in error, because it is much more likely to edify the body. The purpose of this post is to explain how we know that God did not break the Law.

Biblical Evidence

When Jesus died on the cross for our sins, that action did not break the Law. He fulfilled the Law by bearing the punishment for the sins of others. He paid our insurmountable debt as a substitutionary sacrifice once and for all. Taking the penalty for others did not, in itself, violate the Law.

Where do we get this in Scripture? For one, Jesus himself says in Matthew 5:17: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”

Assuming we accept that all three persons of the Trinity are equally God, we have pretty good evidence here that the God did not break the Law.

Rather than breaking the Law, Christ fulfilled it. Failing to keep the Law is sin. We know that Christ was tempted just like we are but he did not sin.

He did this in his life and ministry by keeping Law in every way, though he sometimes kept the Law in a manner that confused many of the religiously wise of his day.

In some cases, the way that Jesus lived out the Law was different from the way that it had been interpreted by the Pharisees and Sadducees, who were the religious elite of his day. Thus, they got upset when he healed on the Sabbath and had contact with people that were taboo.

In these cases, Jesus points to the Law and explains how he is fulfilling it. In most cases, he points to the principle behind the particular expression of the Law. For example, when Jesus’ disciples pluck and eat grain on the Sabbath, they are accused of breaking the Law. Instead of telling his accuser that the law didn’t matter, he explained that “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” (Mk 2:27)

In other words, Jesus explains that the Law still applies, but that the practices built around the Sabbath had a different function than what was commonly understood. The point of Sabbath was not to enforce inactivity, but to offer rest and remind the Jews that their financial well-being depended on God. The Sabbath was a gift from God, it was not meant to be an onerous duty.

Looking back at Matthew 5:17-20, we get a fuller picture of the relationship between the Trinity and the Law and it does not point to God breaking the Law but to the continued force of the Law for true worshipers:

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.  For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

We know simply based on the words of Christ that God did not break the Law, because heaven and earth have not passed away. Until that happens, Christ calls his followers to teach and follow the Law, though how that is fleshed out in contemporary Christianity is a topic for another post.

God Can’t Break the Law

The clear evidence of Scripture shows us that God did not break the Law when Christ paid the penalty for our sins. But we didn’t need that evidence (though I’m glad we have it) because the very nature of God and the Law prevent God from breaking the Law.

This goes back to a famous philosophical dialog in Plato, which is referred to as the Euthyphro Dilemma. I’ll leave you to read that on your own.

To summarize the dialog, however, the two horns of the dilemma are whether the Law is good because God declared it to be good or whether the Law was given because God recognized it as good. In both cases, there is a good God and a good Law.

However, neither explanation of the goodness of the Law and the goodness of God is sufficient.

In the first case, if God arbitrarily declared certain things to be good, then the Law is no longer grounded in the moral order of the created order or in God’s character. In other words, there is little reason to expect that obeying God would naturally result in better ordered societies and greater peace with universe. At some point in the future God could change the Law so that a new set of things is good.

For example, though God has declared not murdering to be good, by this logic he could have just as easily declared murder good. If this explanation of the relationship between God and the Law is accepted, then the Law is arbitrary and God may be capricious.

In the second case, if God merely recognized the Law as good and chose to communicate it to his people, then the Law precedes God and God himself is bound by the Law. This is problematic because it implies that there was something that exists prior to God. Additionally, in this understanding of the relationship between God and the Law, the Law becomes the supreme norm of the universe instead of God. In theory, God could sin in this second understanding. Indeed, according to the megachurch preacher’s statements, God did sin by violating the moral order of the universe. (However, it is unlikely that the preacher actually believes this implication.)

Both of these explanations fall short of orthodoxy. Neither describes a God who is worthy of worship in the way that Christians recognize. Thus, a third explanation of the relationship between God and the Law is needed.

This third option is that the Law is good because it reflects the character of God. In this solution God is self-existent, logically and temporally prior to all else, and wholly good. The Law reflects his character, in part. By conforming to the Law, the Israelites were communicating something about God to the surrounding peoples and to each other. Thus, the Law was never about earning salvation it was about worship and evangelism.

There’s another way to explain this. God is the ultimate good in the universe. He is essentially good and there is no mixture of evil in him. God wants his creation to be good, like him. Therefore, he tells his people to be holy as he is holy (Lev 11:44-45). To show how to do this, God gave his people the gift of the Law. The Law reflects his character, so that by obeying the Law—by embodying the Law—his people were acting consistently with God’s character.

Based on this logic, then, God cannot break the Law. To break the Law would be to deny his very character. It would, so to speak, unGod God. He would cease to be good and thus cease to be worthy of worship. The view that God can break the Law is questionable. The view that God did break the Law draws close to blasphemy, if the speaker rightly understands the import of his words.

This third view of the Law is consistent with the Reformed understanding that has been passed down through the ages. It is part of the foundation of argumentation from Natural Law in other traditions, as well. There is nothing new under the sun, so in this case, being aware of historical theology could have saved confusion for many.

Conclusion

As I began by stating, the bad theology that God broke the Law was proclaimed for a very noble purpose: to illustrate the astounding reality that the God of the universe took action on our behalf to redeem us. This is part of the gospel message, and an important part. I am thankful that the earnest preacher is trying to communicate that message.

However, logic and sound theology don’t become unnecessary when we try to preach the gospel. It is important to preach Christ and to preach Christ rightly. Understanding the relationship between God and the Law is important, and particularly important because this third understanding requires stability in moral norms throughout history. It is, in fact, the basis for the claim to objective morality within Christianity.

Obviously, there is more to be discussed about the relationship between the Mosaic Law and Christianity. However, that is a topic for another day. Suffice it to say that there are reasonable answers to that question. In the meanwhile, we should never say that God broke the Law because that is logically impossible and contrary to Scripture.

Christian First, Not Republican

As we try to figure out just what is going on with the political right and the GOP implodes after what should have been a layup to nominate a true political conservative for President of the United States, Francis Schaeffer’s political analysis from the early 1980s offers some explanations of our present situation.

Even four decades ago, Schaeffer saw the fractures in the political right. The stress of the ongoing election process is revealing the fault lines just about where Schaeffer predicted them to be. In light of this, his advice for the faithful Christian to hold political relationships loosely is sound.

A Profile of the Silent Majority

Schaeffer’s argument was basically that the political right, which included the so-called “silent majority” was really a complex confederation of loosely affiliated segments. Although there was some cohesion, there was little commonality between the various segments of the “silent majority.”

[One] factor to take into consideration as we look at shifts in the culture is what in the 1970s was called “the silent majority.” That silent majority, we must understand, can still in the 1980s elect to office anyone it wants to elect. But it is imperative to realize that the silent majority is divided into two parts—a minority and a majority. Unhappily, today’s politician who wants to get elected has pressure on him to appeal to both.

The minority of the silent majority are, first, Christians (and therefore have absolutes and real principles on which to base their actions and judgments) and, second, those who have at least a Christian memory and still believe in absolutes, even if their basis for those absolutes is inadequate. However, the majority of the silent majority are those who really live in a post-Christian world. They may or may not go to church, but they have no real absolutes in mind and they have only two values—personal peace and affluence. Personal peace is not to be equated with pacifism. Rather, it is the attitude: “Let me alone; don’t let trouble at home or abroad come near my door. Just give me peace, personal peace.” And then there is the affluence: the more of everything the better. So with the majority of the silent majority, what we have is not a theoretical materialism but a practical materialism.

The calculation has shifted in the thirty years since Schaeffer wrote, but his analysis is still helpful. Now, in the minority of the silent majority are the Christians, who we see voting for legitimately conservative candidates in the 2016 Presidential primaries. Most of these folks recognize bluster when they see it and understand the cancerous danger of a lack of integrity, so they look for a candidate who has firm values, demonstrates character, and represents himself reasonably.

The other sliver of the former minority, are the sort-of Christians, many of whom identify as evangelical—a term that seems to have lost meaning—but rarely attend church. This second group has some Christian memory and usually a belief in absolutes of some sort, but has little basis for it. Therefore, when a candidate promises, however disingenuously, to serve their interests, they claim Christianity and deny the principles of their supposed religion in pursuit of their own interests.  This group has become a part of the majority of the silent majority. In many cases there is a conflation of nationalism and pseudo-Christianity among this group, which leads to a civil religion that inspires allegiance but often falls short of orthodoxy.

The largest portion of the so-called silent majority lack an absolute standard grounded in an infinite God. However, they feel economic pressure, perhaps due to foreign trade, and are concerned about safety due to immigrants and radical terrorists. For these individuals, the key is to gain power in order to stem the tide of compromise and the maintain a rough status quo that will allow for a continued prosperity or recapturing the sense of prosperity from a few years ago. The slow creep out of the economic slump of 2008 has fueled a continued dis-ease and desperation in this group who really just want personal peace and affluence. This group is more concerned with gaining power than being faithful to principles.

As I see it, this coalition has been shredded by this recent presidential election. One group has sought a compassionate, conservative vision for the future of the nation. Another group has sought rigid adherence to principles, not always recognizing that the expression of those principles may change somewhat when the surrounding culture changes. A third group has sought a strongman to bring them power so that they can return to a former sense of well-being; the principles of conservatism are of little consequence. And thus the political Right is fractured by potentially irreconcilable factions.

The Mushy Middle

Somewhere in the middle, between the political Left and the so-called silent majority there is another pool of unpredictable voters. These are the former rebels who, having found continued unrest and revolution unsuitable for long term prospects have settled down to seek affluence and personal peace, much like the people in the majority of the “silent majority.”

Although these individuals may vote for the political right at times, Schaeffer argues that they do not have values consistent with traditional forms of conservatism. Instead, they are simply seeking comfort, ease, and rest after the turbulence of their youths.

They are not really “conservatives”; they only want their piece of personal peace and affluence. If they do not get what they want in regard to these, there will be a swing of the pendulum. Neither the majority of the old silent majority (the old bourgeois), nor this New Bourgeois (nor the two together) is a base for a stable society.

They may for a time be cobelligerents with the Christians (the minority of the silent majority), who base their votes and their discussions on absolutes, on biblical principles and values. But we must not confuse either the old majority of the silent majority (the old bourgeois) nor the New Bourgeouis as true allies, or as those who can, or will, provide a base for a stable society.

 Essentially, as far as the sociological realities of the time in which we not live are concerned, the New Bourgeois substantiates and reinforces the old bourgeois. Of course, often they do not like each other, and there are and will continue to be tensions between the two; but as far as their sociological results are concerned, there is no essential difference between them.

The New Bourgeois usually couldn’t care less where the affluence comes from. Many would just as soon get a job from 9:00 to 5:00 to pay their bills. So long as they can do whatever pleases them, that’s enough. The utopian visions of Henry David Thoreau and Jean-Jacques Rousseau have disappeared.

Here in the mushy middle, this group is again pursuing comfort, though typically in a different manner than the majority of the silent majority. However, principle is not the clear driver for this group either, unless it is the principle of self-interest.

When the consensus of culture points in a vaguely biblical direction, this group can be expected to support it as long as they are basically left alone. However, when social pressure is exerted, they will quickly abandon contested positions for another position and join in criticizing those who adhere to some sort of absolutes.

Cobelligerents, Not Allies

The willingness of the mushy middle to bolt when the winds of consensus appear to be shifting explains why, in The Church at the End of the Twentieth Century, Schaeffer writes:

Christians must realize that there is a difference between being a cobelligerent and an ally. At times we will seem to be saying exactly the same thing as those without a Christian base are saying. If there is social injustice, say there is social injustice. If we need order, say we need order. In these cases, and at these specific points, we would be cobelligerents. But we must not align ourselves as though we are in nay camp built on a non-Christian base. We are an ally of no such camp. The church of the Lord Jesus Christ is different—totally different; it rests on the absolutes given to us in Scripture.

My observation of many young pastors and others is this: suddenly they are confronted by some two camps and they are told, “Choose, choose, choose.” By God’s grace they must say, “I will not choose between these two. I stand alone with God, the God who has spoken in the Scripture, the God who is the infinite-personal God, and neither of your two sides is standing there. So if I seem to be saying the same thing at some point, understand that I am a cobelligerent at this particular place, but I am not an ally.”

The failure to understand that allegiance to a party should be held lightly in comparison to allegiance to the persons of the Triune God explains much of the handwringing among conservative evangelicals over which president campaign to support, if it comes down to a choice between two nearly equal evils, or whether a third party candidate is an option.

The so-called silent majority has fractured as the culture has shifted. The biblical memory of the culture is fading or entirely lost. The faithful Christian must now choose, and the choice in this election may well be to cast a protest vote. Such a vote in some cases may be naïve idealism, but faced with a choice of two significant evils, Schaeffer is right to argue that it may be necessary to pick a third alternative.

CONCLUSION

It is eerie at times how Schaeffer’s diagnosis from three or four decades ago seem to be playing out in real life. His predictions of the so-called culture of death are a reality. No less prescient are his premonitions about politics, particularly in the U.S. In many ways, we are where he thought we would be. In the face of that, Schaeffer’s continual hope in the goodness of God should encourage us to live life faithfully.

The hard choices of this time are nothing new under the sun. However, this is largely uncharted water for the cultural memory of orthodox Christians in the U.S. If the choice in November is between two nearly equally corrupt individuals, then a third party may need to be an option. We can be cobelligerents with the world, but never allies.

Note: Since I wrote this, Trevin Wax has posted along the same lines. His is, no doubt, better. It is certainly worth reading: http://ow.ly/ZNTfv 

The Myth of Big Church Success

There was recently a flap in the Evangelical world over a mega-church pastor castigating parents who attend small churches. Although he has since apologized for his baseless and offensive rant, he is not alone in holding the idea that bigger is better. This is, in fact, a common misconception particularly in the American life, and it isn’t a new fault.

In many ways a prophet, Francis Schaeffer was not silent on the temptation to believe that bigger is better:

Nowhere more than in America are Christians caught in the twentieth-century syndrome of size. Size will show success. If I am consecrated, there will necessarily be large quantities of people, dollars, etc. This is not so. Not only does God not say that size and spiritual power go together, but He even reverses this (especially in the teaching of Jesus) and tells us to be deliberately careful not to choose a place too big for us. We all tend to emphasize big works and big places, but all such emphasis is of the flesh. To think in such terms is simply to hearken back to the old, unconverted, egoist, self-centered Me. This attitude, taken from the world, is more dangerous to the Christian than fleshly amusement or practice. It is the flesh. 

This is a failure that many churches and Christian institutions fall into. Sometimes we believe that if we are doing things right, then our organization will grow.

There are times that is a helpful perspective to have. If right doctrine is well preached, healthy community outreach happens, and personal evangelism is faithfully practiced, then it stands to reason that in many cases a church will grow. However, that may not be the case at all times.

The Future Winnowing

In fact, it may be that in the very near future there will be little the local church can do to grow, humanly speaking. The Holy Spirit may move through churches for revival. May it be so! Shy of that, many churches will likely continue to see declines in attendance as nominal Christians fade away. Although we are certainly a long way away from straight out persecution, the social advantages of being Christian are fading and will continue to fade for the foreseeable future.

As that reality takes hold, pastors who have founded their self-worth on the size of their congregation will find themselves in despair. That fleshly part of their heart, which was so fed by continued growth, may be pinched when numbers dwindle due to a changing society.

It is at this point that the temptation to view bigger as better is most dangerous. Facing the discouragement of shrinking crowds with an internal pressure to grow, then one of the options may be to make the “church experience” more palatable. This may occur through doctrinal compromise in some cases. More often, it will likely be reflected by adding more lights, widgets, and other attractions to entertain folks away from more docile worship services. This is a sort of competition between local outposts of the Kingdom of God that can be decidedly unhealthy.

The Bigger Pond Mentality

A second way that the desire to seek a bigger crowd demonstrates itself is the progression of churches that some pastors go through in their careers. They start small in an entry level church and work their way up toward a bigger church with a larger facility, more services, and a bigger paycheck.

Of course, it does not help that many congregations presently foster this unhealthy progression by requiring years experienced with demonstrable success in a previous pastorate for their pastoral candidates. There is little doubt that in the end, larger congregations will get better, more practiced preaching, but the downside is that it treats smaller churches as a minor league system to feed the staffs of larger churches.

In this sense, recent criticism of small churches has a point. Many smaller churches may indeed have poorer preaching with pastors who are just doing their time until they can move to a bigger field of service. However, having been to seminary with many small church pastors, I believe that most of them, even the ones hoping to move to a congregation that can pay their bills, are doing the best they can with the skills they have in the situation they are in.

It’s not the men that I find fault in, it’s the system that is flawed. The most recent critic is just a man giving voice to what so many believed anyway, but weren’t saying.

The Prosperity Problem

What Schaeffer doesn’t call out in his quote, however, is the connection between the Prosperity Gospel and the attitude that spiritual success results in more dollars, people, and whatever.

Of course, there isn’t really so much a connection as a unity.

This is what makes the “bigger is better” attitude so dangerous for the contemporary minister. It is the Prosperity Gospel. This means that setting out to simply get bigger because you believe that it means God is blessing can be an indicator of practical heresy. The doctrine preached from the pulpit may be sound and not reflect the egregious errors of the prosperity preachers, but the staff meeting may reflect a flawed celebration of growth for its own sake.

This leads to the simple caveat, which I won’t elaborate on, that small is not necessarily better, either. I’m partial to a smaller congregation, but the practical heresy of small church asceticism is no less deadly.

A Possible Solution

The best solution for the problem is to seek to do ministry better by the power of the Holy Spirit. That’s a truism but worth pondering.

Instead of worrying about doing ministry with numerical growth goals, it will be more practical to do them with the hope of growing the depth of the disciples. That and being true to the context that God has placed the ministry in. That seems like a trite solution, but it is the best general solution that there is.

God may well grow your ministry, but if your goal is for the size of your ministry to grow, then you may need to check your heart. Of course, that should be a regular practice for all of us.

Our Only World - A Review

Reading Wendell Berry is always interesting, whether it is his fiction or his essays. The man has a way with words and the recent essay collection, Our Only World, is no exception.

The ten essays in this volume were written between 2010 and 2014. Some of them are the text of speeches. Others were published in various magazines. All of them are worth reading, even if you don’t agree with where Berry lands on issues.

If you haven’t read Berry before, do it. It may be better to begin with some of his novels, but they are worth the time, whatever you read.

He’s an advocate for rural life in Kentucky. His writing focuses on establishing a sense of place where you live, putting down roots, and being part of the community. There is wonder in what he writes and a quiet power.

He is a Christian of sorts, though he often stands on the liberal end of spectrum on social issues. He’s personally opposed to abortion and thinks it is wrong, but he admits in this collection that he’d help someone else get an abortion. He also argues that marriage precedes government, so he wonders aloud if the government has any business defining it. Many people wonder that, but Berry argues that since the government shouldn’t define it, marriage should mean whatever people want it to. At the same he argues for an order to creation and bases his environmental ethics on it. His single essay on this topic is perhaps the least convincing in this collection, but whether you agree with his logic or not, he writes well and makes his readers think.

Berry's Environmental Ethics

Berry’s bread and butter is in his arguments for taking care of the land. When he writes about his sustainable farming practices it makes me want to get a team of horses and farm. There is a sense of beauty in Berry’s description of life on his small acreage farm. His writing evokes a desire for a sense of place, a sense of belonging somewhere and to a group.

Even in the first, somewhat disorganized essay, which is aptly called “Paragraphs from a Notebook” there is a sense of beauty and balance in the writing. Though there is no direct link between the blocks of text that splash in sequence across the page, there is a cohesion of thought to it.

Berry writes, “We need to acknowledge the formlessness inherent in the analytic science that divides creatures into organs, cells, and ever smaller parts or particles according to its technological capacity.” This idea is the link between his paragraphs. It is the idea that animates his worldview.

Integrity, perhaps, is the theme of much of what Berry presents to the world. Beware artificial divisions, even between humans. He offers, “The phrase ‘be alone’ is a contradiction in terms. A brain alone is a dead brain. A man alone is a dead man.” Humans need one another. We are part of something greater, and should seek to be part of something greater than ourselves.

For Berry, conservation is the pursuit of integrity of the land, a search for wholeness. The farmer becomes part of the farm, not its master. He is part of the dirt that he walks on. The citizen is part of the community and should not strive to be somewhere else. Place is important because it is part of being integral. Integrity is the way you are, not just a sense of moral character.

Berry’s essays call the reader back to the sort of world that is coherent and whole. It feels like he’s describing a day and age that has been gone for generations and perhaps only ever existed in novels that romanticize country life. But for Berry such an integral sense of belonging is an eschatological hope, and one that he hopes for many more to realize in this life. Maybe some folks can.

In one essay about a trip to visit a forest in Pennsylvania Berry describes logging practices that he argues respect the goodness and integrity of the forest. The work is done by horse, which is a common theme for Berry, and it is done with a view to leaving the forest healthier, not for maximizing short term profit. The owner of the forest is part of the forest and loves it. He wants to use it wisely, and profit from it reasonably, but still leave it intact for another generation.

That’s another major theme in Berry’s essays. Take the long view. Don’t maximize profits today, but look for ways that a reasonable profit can be had for years to come. Both in forestry and farming, Berry is lobbying for a long term outlook.

Conclusion

Even though I disagree with Berry about many things, he makes me think well to figure out why he isn’t right. I’ve not met the man, but he seems like the sort of person I could enjoy a cup of coffee with even as we heartily debate an important topic. Reading Berry is learning how to argue well and graciously. Maybe someday he’ll win me over to more of his ideas.

Pick up this book and read it. It’s worth the time. But don’t rush through the essays. They are worth taking slowly and enjoying along the way. Our Only World is a volume that deserves to be considered and appreciated. Each of the essays is a little gem that can be appreciated on its own. Though perhaps Berry would argue the essays deserve to be held together with a sense of integrity.

Our Only World: Ten Essays

$12.11

By Wendell Berry

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Note: I received a gratis copy of this volume from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.