On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal - A Review

In February 2019, a member of the U. S. House of Representatives released a bold new plan to take over the U. S. economy in the name of “climate justice.” Modeled after, and of greater scope than, FDR’s New Deal plan, the proposal was called “The Green New Deal.”

The proposal obviously caused a big stir, not least because the first released edition of the FAQs for the proposal including information about the difficulty of eliminating “farting cows.” After the online mockery of some of those more drastic proposals ramped up, the claim was made that this was an early draft and not the final version. An edited version with more professional prose was later released, but thankfully, the original version was not memory holed (not yet anyway).

The elimination of farting cows is funny, but more concerning is the call by to “retrofit every building in America,” among other things. This shows the sheer scope of the economic control desired by proponents of the so-called Green New Deal: They want the ability to remodel your home, modify your church, and rebuild your business after their own desire.

This sounds alarmist. To a degree it is, but the actual claims of proponents of the so-called Green New Deal make it clear than nothing but a total transformation of every aspect of the economy and social life in our country will satisfy them. Naomi Klein, an activist who has written journalistically in favor of socialism and the environment, released a book in late 2019, which both supports the Green New Deal program and illuminates the level of control desired.

Klein’s Case

On Fire claims to present The Burning Case for a Green New Deal according to the subtitle. Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of this book is that it fails to make a case. For those readers who are deeply concerned about environment and the impact of global warming, but also curious as to why granting total control of the economy to socialists would be beneficial, will find that this book under-delivers on its basic claims.

To be fair, this volume is a collection of slightly revised opinion pieces (some were published as journalism) and political speeches that Klein has previously published in other outlets since 2010. There is little cogency in the argument, and, truthfully, little more than assertion throughout. This is a book that is more likely to galvanize the will of the already convinced than it is to convince anyone to jump on the bandwagon. For a book that claims to make a case for a sweeping and potentially devastating economic revolution (if historic examples of socialism are any indication), there is very little research and very few arguments made. A topic this important deserves better work.

Klein is a rabid proponent of socialism, as evidenced by her earlier published works. This book does not advance significantly from her published arguments in This Changes Everything.

What is clearer in On Fire is that Klein and other proponents of the so-called Green New Deal are not merely shooting for economic control, but for a total ideological overhaul of the world’s societies. She laments the divisions in the world that have prevented the hegemony of climate activists and argues that “a Green New Deal could instill a sense of collective, higher purpose.” (26) This plan requires less journalism and more activism on the part of the media (243–44).

But, more insidiously, it requires all streams of communication to become focused on presenting this controlled narrative: Just as in the New Deal era when “Playwrights, photographers, muralists, and novelists were all part of telling the story of what was possible. For the Green New Deal to succeed, we, too, will need the skills and expertise of many different kinds of storytellers: Artists, psychologists, faith leaders, historians, and more.” (271)

This might seem less difficult, if Klein did not also actively support the intimation by revisionist Roman Catholic, Sean McDonough in his suggestion that, “Scripture is ever evolving, and should be interpreted in historical context. If Genesis needs a prequel, that’s not such a big deal. Indeed, I get the distinct sense that he’d be happy to be part of the drafting committee.” (145)

Any societal narrative must be widely repeated if there is to be coherence. Many of the failures in American society to date have been exacerbated by a lost common narrative. However, it seems a bit insidious to simultaneously propose control of the economy from the top and working to control the messaging. History shows that such a central focus on ideology is damaging to the willing and unwilling subjects of those who have gained such total control. What Klein describes is forceful propaganda designed to choke out opposition.

Although this sounds like an exaggeration, it is fairly clear the book is not making an argument in good faith. This is base-energizing propaganda designed to demonize any opposition to their control. In reflecting on Trump’s victory in the 2016 election, Klein notes,

“Never, ever underestimate the power of hate. Never underestimate the power of direct appeals to power over “the other”––the migrant, the Muslim, black people, women. Especially during times of economic hardship. Because when large numbers of white men find themselves frightened and insecure, and those men were raised in a social system built on elevating their humanity over all these others’, a lot of them get mad. And there is nothing wrong in itself with being mad––there’s a lot to be mad about.” (191)

This sort of “us vs. them” argument is written throughout the book. Often this is in the explicitly in the language of intersectionality, which in its more invidious forms privileges certain theories over others simply because of the personal characteristics of the individual or group that seems to support the theory.

At one point, Klein quips, “To change everything, it takes everyone.” (202) But clearly, Klein doesn’t include anyone who has even minimal disagreement with her in any area. If the goal were to improve the quality of the environment, there might be aspects of the Green New Deal to discuss, but this is a call for granting total control to an ideologically driven group who see their theories as a moral imperative.

Klein makes this clear, she notes, “Winning is a moral imperative. The stakes are too high, and time is too short, to settle for anything less.” (242) Of course, winning involves implementing the plan of imposing the Green New Deal through legislation. Klein writes,

“The plan is pretty straightforward: elect a strong supporter of the Green New Deal in the Democratic primaries; take the White House, the House, and the Senate in 2020; and start rolling out on day one of the new administration (the way FDR did with the original New Deal in his famous ‘first 100 days,’ when the newly elected president pushed fifteen major bills through Congress.)” (31)

All we need is single party control of the entire government to ensure that what promises to be a reasonable, balanced legislation through. Actually, Klein notes that understanding the implications of proposed policy is not a significant point of concern. She argues, “we don’t need to figure out every detail before we begin. . . What matters is that we begin the process right away.” (39) Do something, even if you don’t know who it is going to harm or how much.

But this is where the odd contradiction comes in because while arguing for total control of the centralized government and unilaterally imposing sweeping legislation, she also states that we should avoid “highly centralized, top-down transformations.” This is because,

“If we defer to central governments in that way [like wartime mobilizations] in the face of the climate crisis, we should expect highly corrupt measures that further concentrate power and wealth in the hands of a few big players, not to mention systematic attacks on human rights . . .” (36)

She lays these abuses at the feet of capitalism, of course, but what she describes sounds like the effects of single party control in socialist systems like Venezuela and the former Soviet bloc countries. Notably, socialist countries are not well known for their respect of human rights, peaceful transfer of power, or, oddly, for their positive record on the environment.

Klein casually admits to the environmental abuses of historical socialistic implementations:

“But we have to be honest that autocratic industrial socialism has also been a disaster for the environment, as evidenced most dramatically by the fact that carbon emissions briefly plummeted when the economies of the former Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s. And Venezuela’s petro-populism is a reminder that there is nothing inherently green about self-defined socialism.” (251)

Apparently, the control imposed by environmentally engaged socialists in upending all of society will be much gentler than previous versions of single party, socialist rule.

Of course, that claim doesn’t mesh with Klein’s claim that,

“Most fundamentally, any credible Green New Deal needs a concrete plan for ensuring that the salaries from all the good green jobs it creates aren’t immediately poured into high-consumer lifestyles that inadvertently end up increasing emissions––a scenario where everyone has a good job and lots of disposable income and it all gets spent on throwaway crap from China destined for the landfill.” (284)

I’m trying to find a way that such total control of everyone’s individual economic choices could be managed apart from a strenuous totalitarianism, but I haven’t been able to imagine one.

Conclusion

To be fair to Klein, I’m a fan of the free market in addition to being deeply concerned about the environment. I picked up the book with the expectation of disagreement. I have previously reviewed her book, This Changes Everything, which makes the basic assertion that climate change is bad, therefore socialism is needed. I didn’t like that book, but I’ve softened in my views in some ways, matured in others, and was hopeful that perhaps she had a published a book with a better argument. I remain disappointed.

Though I have become less of a libertarian, Klein has become much more extreme. If anything, though the quality of thought has not changed, the content is more disturbing because Klein presents a direct hostility to those who think differently. In the previous book she merely ignores opposing views; in the present book she is outright nasty, including likening President Trump (of whom I’m no fan) to a “fatberg.” Mildly humorous, but rather atypical in a book by a careful thinker.

This sounds somewhat extreme, but given the unfettered ideology with no clear limits on power, a sense of unassailable moral high-ground, no clearly defined goal (lower global temperature is rather open-ended in my opinion), and a belief that everyone who disagrees is a mortal enemy in a battle over an existential crisis does not lead me to believe Klein and those who advocate for the Green New Deal are prepared, if they ever gain power, to accept losers without retribution.

Klein is correct, “To change everything, it takes everyone.” That leads me to wonder what will happen to those who don’t agree with her proposed changes.

On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal

By Naomi Klein

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NOTE: I received a gratis copy of this volume with no expectation of a positive review.

Don't Waste This Quarantine Sabbath

In Michigan we have been living under a lockdown order for about a week now. Before that we were being encouraged to minimize close contact with people in a precautionary way to help minimize the spread of this novel Corona virus.

For about the last two weeks most social activities, including school, sports, church meetings, and clubs have been cancelled. We have been, in a very unusual way, hunkered down waiting for this viral storm to pass.

My family homeschools, so the impact has not been as significant as for families that counted on others to educate and tend to their children for the day. However, they have had co-op meetings cancelled and an inability to do the normal range of external activities that break up the week.

The whole family has suffered from the loss of our usual Sunday routine of gathering with our local church to sing, pray, hug, and laugh. I have still been teaching Sunday school via Zoom and we have been offered music and sermons via video, but there is no question that this is a poor replacement for the real thing.

I have also been forced to work out of my basement office. This period of forced isolation coincides with a major project, so I’ve been working long hours in my windowless (but book-filled) cell staring at several large screen that I (with permission) borrowed from work when they forced us to leave. Coordinating big projects remotely can be effective, but it is more time consuming. In the end, I’m thankful that I have a job that will continue even during an economic downturn.

There will likely be lessons we learn about pandemic response, social responsibility, and emergency preparedness from this, but those are lessons that will frame structures and organizations in the future.

Learning from this Sabbath

Each individual and family should be asking some particular questions about their normal pace of life during this strangely enforced sabbath. What external activities have been taken away that don’t really matter that much? What family activities have been introduced that may be worth holding onto?

It may be that this current shutdown is the first time in a while that parents and children have been forced to spend much time in each other’s company.  Don’t let it go to waste.

In the United States families with kids are often harried as they run from school to sports to clubs to homework to bed to start everything over again. Anecdotally, I am aware that many nuclear families rarely sit down to supper together. They, therefore, rarely have the chance to catechize their children, because that responsibility has been farmed out to teachers, coaches, and youth pastors.

We should be using this radical change in activity level, enforced from outside (so parents aren’t the bad guys), to ask some hard questions about what matters and why we do what we do. Here are some suggestions to consider.

Questions to Ponder

First, are you using this time effectively to disciple your children or spouse? Are you all of a sudden at a loss for how to engage your children or spouse about the things that (should) matter most? If so, you are not alone, and you have been given an opportunity by God’s grace to figure out how to get better at engaging your family spiritually. This is a prime responsibility for those of us with families. A couple of meetings each week where someone else provides content is not enough. It’s worth getting this right. If you find success in increased discipleship during this time, would it be worth reordering your life to have more time for it after the quarantine has been lifted?

Second, what activities have been taken away that you really don’t miss much? Think hard about this one. Is the second ongoing sport for your son really necessary? Does it have to be travel league that pulls your family out of regular church attendance? Even if those activities are missed, are they more valuable than the family discipleship they displace?

Third, what activities have been taken away that are missed too much? A surprise cloistering like this can be emotionally difficult. I am sad for the high school and college seniors who are losing their graduation ceremony and that magic period of life where they stand on the cusp of a big-life change. I am sad for the people who were about to open their plays, had just opened a business, or had big travel plans. It is good and right to grieve some of these losses. But is our sense of loss proportionate with the eternal value of the thing lost? Emergencies like this can help reveal the idols in our lives. Take the time to consider what is being grieved and why.

Fourth, in what ways have you been ungrateful for the benefits society has to offer? Most of us take our jobs for granted until they are lost or threatened. Living in a Western capitalistic country, we take for granted that there will always be toilet paper on the shelves, until people start hoarding. We normally have opportunities to gather and worship together freely, but we seldom are sufficiently thankful for it. Use this time to ponder God’s enormous grace in putting us in a society that provides so many of our needs and wants without difficulty.

Conclusion

You may have other questions that are closer to your circumstance right now. We shouldn’t waste a crisis. Not so that we can impose our political and economic views on others with emergency powers, but so that we can ask fundamental questions about our way of life and whether it conforms to a godly vision of the world. This is a sabbath, even for those of us forced to work from home. Don’t miss the opportunity of the sabbath.

Resources for Holy Week

It seems that every Easter there are different political and social challenges that threaten to divert our focus from the Holy Week.

In the midst of all of that, Jesus is still Lord of all. That’s a vital truth and one that can be terrifically hard to hold onto.

I’ve put together a list of resources to consider for individuals, families, and local congregations.

Resurrection Letters

A recent favorite in my house is Andrew Peterson’s Resurrection Letters, Volume I and the Prologue. The 14 songs were released on two separate discs in 2018. The Prologue disc has five songs on it that focus the listener on the crucifixion, with songs commemorating Christ’s last words, God’s welcoming Christ as the good and faithful son, and a contemplative song about God resting, referring to Christ’s descent to the dead. Resurrection Letters, Volume has nine songs. The album is Christologically rich as it begins with “His Heart Beats,” an energetic celebration of the Lamb of God waking up. Then it moves through more celebratory music which help the listener remember that Christ lives, that he sustains the world, and that he is coming again to make it all right again.

Leading up to Easter, I recommend putting the Prologue songs on heavy rotation and saving the Volume I songs for Sunday morning and the weeks to follow. Peterson’s hymn, “He is Worthy,” is one of my favorite songs of all time.

The Crucifixion of Jesus

Fernando Ortega remains one of my favorite songwriters and musicians. His somewhat melancholy music is rich, homey, and often contemplative. His 2017 album The Crucifixion of Jesus can well serve as a Maundy Thursday service as his doxological music is interspersed with Scriptural readings to lead the listener through the events of the Christ’s passion leading to his crucifixion.

This is an album that warrants listening with devices put away, sitting on the couch, and focused on the goodness of God to send his son to die in our place. It is Christ honoring and worshipful.

The Final Days of Jesus

For those seeking to put the passion week in its chronological order, The Final Days of Jesus, by Andreas Kostenberger and Justin Taylor is a helpful resource. It is designed to walk through the last days of Christ before crucifixion one day at a time with careful selection of Scripture passages from the ESV and helpful commentary, maps that show the locations of the events in the gospel narrative, and charts that put passages and themes in an easy to understand key. This is an aid to family worship, individual devotion, as it feeds the soul and the mind at the same together.

The Man Born to Be King

Once known as a detective novelist (and a fine one, too), Dorothy Sayers was also a playwright. The BBC commissioned Sayers to write a series of twelve plays that use material from all four gospels to tell the story of the life of Jesus. These plays were somewhat controversial when they were aired in Britain during World War II because Sayers had the apostles and Jesus speaking in the vernacular of her day. Some called it sacrilegious, but the content is theologically solid and Sayer’s largely achieves her goal of helping people understand that Jesus really lived as a human and that his disciples weren’t icons in a painting, but flesh and blood sinners like us.

C. S. Lewis liked The Man Born to Be King so much that he read it every Holy Week between its publication in 1943 and his death in 1963. This is a classic book that is edifying and enriching. It can deepen your love for Christ this year, too.

The Jesus Storybook Bible

For those with younger children, one key resource for teaching them the overarching storyline of Scripture is Sally Lloyd-Jones’ book, The Jesus Storybook Bible. The book is beautifully illustrated so that it will appeal to young children and older children alike. The text is theologically rich, so that this is a resource that will provide an education for the parent or grandparent reading it as much as the children sitting and listening. There is also an that comes with an audio version, which is read by David Suchet (BBC’s Hercule Poirot and Focus on the Family’s Aslan). The narration is well worth the extra few dollars for the CDs. For those willing to spend more, there are animated videos that tell each of the stories, as well. They are well-done and worthwhile.

“He Descended to the Dead”

For those theologically minded individuals willing to do a bit deeper reading in preparation for the celebration of Christ’s resurrection, Matthew Emerson wrote a phenomenal book on the descent clause of the Athanasian and Apostle’s Creed. I am planning a full review of the volume later, but this book is theologically rich, clearly written, and devotionally powerful. The first three chapters help plow through the historical debate about the meaning and authenticity of the descent clause, while the remainder of the book shows why believing that Christ literally descended to the place of the dead (and not just the grave) is important for theology. “He Descended to the Dead” : An Evangelical Theology of Holy Saturday is a book that warrants reading and especially in the weeks leading up to our celebration of Christ’s susbstitutionary death, burial, and resurrection.

Theological Retrieval for Evangelicals - A Review

There have been several recent volumes published by Evangelicals on the use of historical theology within the Evangelical tradition. This comes at a time when there is a non-trivial movement of younger Evangelicals toward more “historically rooted” traditions. Examples such as Kenneth Stewart’s volume, In Search of Ancient Roots, and books like Christopher Hall’s, Living Wisely with the Church Fathers, come to mind.

According to some critics, Protestant theology has roots that reach no further back than 1517. They argue that some aspects of Evangelical theology are an even more recent innovation. This perception has been augmented by the prevalence of recency in contemporary Evangelical theologies.

Significantly contributing to the apparent recency of Evangelical theology are standard works in the field, like Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology, which makes almost no reference to historical theology and required a companion volume by another author to gain a sense of the historical arc of the doctrines Grudem advocates.

The relationship between contemporary Evangelical theology and church history is the strong dependence among evangelicals and the supreme authority of Scripture over historical doctrinal formulations. Given the variegation of theology across history, arriving at a theological method that takes voices of previous ages seriously without ascribing too much authority to them has been difficult.

Gavin Ortlund’s book, Theological Retrieval for Evangelicals: Why We Need Our Past to Have a Future is a helpful book in carving out a theological method that values Scripture supremely, but also listens to the voices of the Christian past.

Summary

The book is divided into two parts. The first part, a manifesto for theological retrieval, has three chapters that advocate for including careful research into historical theology as a path forward for contemporary Christians. Ortlund first asks whether Evangelicals can use Patristic and Medieval theology. Then he argues that we need to engage in theological retrieval through the use of historical theology. Finally, he outlines some of the pros and cons of theological retrieval. This is a balanced perspective that demonstrates there is certainly a wrong way to study and use the early church, but that we cannot afford not to do so if we are to remain faithful to the faith once and for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3).

In part two, Ortlund offers four case studies in theological retrieval. First, he examines the use of theological metaphor in the writings of Boethius, Calvin, and Torrance. This would be an interesting essay in its own right as Ortlund wrestles with the creation/creator distinction, but it makes a solid case study because it reveals how engaging with minds across time can be fruitful. The next case study reaches further back into a discussion of divine simplicity through medieval and patristic theology. In the third case study, Ortlund looks at a balance between models of the atonement. Here he does good work in showing that while substitution is central, necessary, and historically embedded, it does not exclude other ways of understanding Christ’s work on the cross. Here, one of the sharpest debates between theological progressives and orthodox Christians is clarified by reading those who argued about the topic centuries before. The final case study shows some of the practical and devotional benefits of reading theology from deep in Christian history as Ortlund mines wisdom from Gregory the Great on being an effective pastor in a world with many demands.

Analysis and Conclusion

One of the more engaging aspects of this book is the way that Ortlund utilizes the ideas of both C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien to frame some of his discussions. Those familiar with the work of those two Inklings will quickly recognize how deeply embedded in the historic Christian faith they both were. As they exemplified the Christian mind through their writings, they were both drawing extensively on a wide range of patristic and medieval sources. In Theological Retrieval for Evangelicals, Ortlund shows how their imaginative portrayals of deep, historical theological truths can enrich our Christian experience. This is by no means the central thrust of the book, but it is a sub-plot that enriches the volume significantly and gives it a pastoral bent.

For those Evangelicals engaged in theological discourse, this volume provides a solid starting place for faithfully retrieving the doctrinal truths discussed in earlier ages. It does so without losing the unique gospel-focus and bibliocentricity of Evangelical theology.

This book should be included in courses on theological method. It can be a resource for pastors seeking to deepen their faith and help young Evangelicals looking for rootedness to mine the riches of the Christian faith.

This book alone does not answer the challenge of recency that many Roman Catholics and high church Protestants levy against Baptists and other free church Christians, but it does provide a way for a conversation to begin through research, preaching, and teaching that will result in a robust, organic response to those challenges.

Theological Retrieval for Evangelicals: Why We Need Our Past to Have a Future

By Gavin Ortlund

Buy on Amazon

Discernment Bloggers, Truth, and Christian Witness

One of the best attributes of the internet age is that it has eliminated the gatekeepers to public discourse. At its best, the internet enables people to bypass denominational filters, editorial boards at book publishers, and the like. Among other things, it allows for amateur theologians.

The lack of gatekeepers allows us to get access to raw information on a more regular basis. WikiLeaks can publish documents that tell a different story that official channels do. Individuals subjected to abuse without recourse can get their story out and get problematic institutional administrations removed. Pastors and laypeople without access to an official platform can engage in meaningful theological discourse.

There are a lot of positive aspects to the democratizing of information, particularly when it comes to Christian discourse. At the same time, the same democratization can have a dark underbelly.

One example of this is in the rise and proliferation of discernment bloggers. At their best, discernment bloggers highlight areas where institutional reform is needed and push dialog toward those topics with an intent to seek reforms and pursue a measurable good. It might be that a discernment platform might spring up for a season and, having dealt with the issue at hand, recede into the sunset.

In practice, however, discernment blogs often turn from meaningful discourse to perpetual gossip and divisiveness. They use several tactics to pursue popularity, which are exceedingly effective at getting attention, but tend to erode the foundations of morality and truth by those who use them.

Rather than simply relying on truth-telling as the means to communicate, discernment ministries often rely on exaggeration, decontextualization, railing, and intentional ignorance to undermine their ideological victims. What usually results is a shrill, relentless attack on the disliked party and anyone who defends them or looks like them.

Valid Beginnings

A caveat on this discussion is, of course, necessary. Some discernment bloggers started with a legitimate purpose or grievance. Usually that was to deal with a particular local or even national issue.

There are, for example, some discernment blogs that began in order to expose misogyny, clerical abuse, or subversive theological liberalism. Those are worthy issues to be opposed.

The problem is not opposing bad things, it’s that as the platform grows and, perhaps, once the original problem is rooted out and exposed, the topics of concern become broader and the quality of evidence considered for publication sometimes drops lower and lower. Mission creep is a real issue as eventually some discernment blogs have become little more than clearinghouses for ridiculous conspiracy theories. (Sometime consider the number of conservative Evangelicals who are supposed to be rolling in money from George Soros.)

The discernment platform becomes a thing in itself that takes up time and needs constant feeding. Sometimes this is even complicated by it becoming a source of income for the vigilante through advertising and sponsorships.

True Discernment

Discernment is an important attribute of mature Christians. Hebrews 5:14, in a plea for increasing spiritually maturity, states,

But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

Beyond the methods of abuse highlighted above, the biggest problem with many discernment blogs is that they are not particularly discerning. Contrary to Hebrews 5:14, they aren’t trained in discerning good from evil, but merely railing against those they don’t like. This is more likely to be true of discernment blogs that have been around for a while, whose missions have expanded from a particular issue to an attempt to take down the world.

Any person or group whose mode of operation is to fixate on someone else’s problem is not exercising true discernment, they are just being divisive.

A gourmet––someone who is fanatical about good food––may complain loudly about bad food at a restaurant. However, a true foodie is as likely to rave about good food as to rail against a disappointing meal. Even as they complain about food at one restaurant, they are likely to tell you where you can get the true and better food in another.

People who like football may despise the opposing team, but will be able to recognize when that team is playing excellent football. A good play may not result in cheers, but it will be recognized as something legitimately good. That’s the difference between enjoying a sport and simply hating the other team.

In many cases, internet “discernment” has become nearly entirely about hurling abuse at the disfavored parties. Biblical discernment looks much different.

Persuasiveness

The purpose of discernment should not be to heap scorn and shame on someone, but to persuade them and others to repent.

Persuasion may be a dying art in our day. The so-called longtail of marketing and the accessibility of media that fits my existing opinions means that entities can spend much more energy reinforcing opinions than persuading people of them.

We might consider persuasion to be yet another casualty of the internet age.

But Christian discernment includes the attempt to persuade. The arc of church discipline from 1 Cor 5 to 2 Cor 2:5–11 is one of redemption through persuasion. In this case, persuasion came about through expulsion. But that expulsion was always in hope of convincing the offender that he was acting like an unbeliever.

Christians ought to be, in fact, some of the most dedicated persuaders out there. As Paul argues in 2 Cor 5:1a,

Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others.

The large passage that sentence is in talks about the ministry of reconciliation that Christians have been given, our role as ambassadors of the gospel of Christ, and our living compassionately among others.

Persuasion is the better part of true, biblical discernment.

Sweetness of Speech

In his Proverbs of Hell, Williams Blake states, “Damn braces, bless relaxes.”

This is true from both sides of the issue. Satan came to the Garden as an angel of light appealing to Eve’s curiosity and desire for godlikeness rather than as a tyrant seeking abject worship. He was persuasive and we all know the results.

In the same way, gospel evangelism is much more likely to be persuasive if it encourages the unregenerate to consider the beautiful truths of the gospel in light of their own darkness. Persuasion invites, ridicule repels. Evangelism of a rude, confrontational tone is much less likely to result in true (or any) conversions.

This should come as no surprise, as Proverbs 16:21 states,

The wise of heart is called discerning, and sweetness of speech increases persuasiveness.

How we say what we have to say is truly important. This is true with regard to our communication of our political opinions on social media and in person. It is also true as we seek to expose deadly sin within the body of Christ.

Persuasiveness allows the words to be sweet even if the truth packs a wallop. Many attempts at discernment in this age have distorted that paradigm: The words pack a wallop, but the truth they express is meager or twisted.

Is Rudeness an Apostolic Ministry?

Discernment bloggers often cite examples in church history of strong rhetoric that appears to have been effective to support their tone and content.

For example, Paul is somewhat hyperbolic in Gal 5:12 when he states that he wishes the Judaizers would mutilate themselves. Jesus himself is pretty harsh with the Scribes and Pharisees on multiple occasions and even uses physical violence to make his point in cleansing the temple.

Outside of Scripture, some of the greats in church history take the gloves off for a round of theological eye-gouging from time to time. I mean, someone has been able to create a database of Luther’s insults to delight the hearts of homeschoolers around the world.

My argument isn’t that there is no place for strong language and rhetorical flourishes. Sometimes a joke at the opponent’s expense is a good way to bring onlookers to your side. It may be persuasive, as long as we recognize that the one being persuaded is not the butt of the joke but those “overhearing” the debate.

The key is that the truth we are communicating needs to overshadow the means by which we communicate it. When we lose that central aspect in our discourse, we have lost the mission.

Paul and Jesus may have used harsh language toward their opponents, but they communicated a positive message, not simply a criticism of someone they didn’t like.

This goes back to the gourmet raving about the good food at a favored restaurant: “Don’t go to Jimmy’s Grill, the steaks are dry and flavorless, but Bob’s Chophouse cooks the most excellent sirloin.” In true discerning communication, there is always an attempt to point toward the good, not simply to highlight the bad.

Throwing rhetorical hand grenades is pretty easy. Building a positive and convincing position is much harder.

Conclusion

One way to identify discernment blogs is that they often have very little positive message. They feed our desire to have our views validated by constantly showing why the other side is wrong, even when we agree with 95% of what the opponent thinks. The differences may be small, but it feels good to be “better” or “more truthful” than the other guys.

Many discernment blogs also handle the truth poorly by editing the words of others and adding their own context to attempt to paint the others in a poor light. This alone should cause those with real discernment to stay away from some of these discernment “ministries.”

As we think about godly communication, the pursuit of purity in the visible church, and legitimate attempts to reveal real problems in the body of Christ, we need to think about what discernment means. A more biblical model of discernment might not be as effective at getting clicks, but it might be more effective at honoring Christ. And, after all, isn’t that what we are supposed to be all about?

Prudence and Grace in the Face of Pandemic

And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. (Heb 10:25)

As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. . . .  Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand.  One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind (Rom 14:1, 3-5)

Fears about COVID-19 are spreading, which is leading organizations around the globe to make difficult decisions about the common good, economic needs, and individual well-being. Christians, too, must wrestle with these basic, but difficult questions.

For example, in light of a virus that is spread largely through human-to-human contact, should we meet together on Sunday to shake hands, pass the offering plate, and share the Lord’s Supper as we gather in our classrooms and sanctuaries?

Beware those for whom the answer to this question seems obvious. On the one hand, we should avoid glib over-confidence as if there is nothing to be concerned about. On the other hand, we should not too quickly abandon meeting together to renew one another in the love of Christ. Different concerns will play into decisions about whether to gather or not, and we should be careful not to judge those too harshly that disagree with us.

To Gather

My own bias is to continue to meet with any others that are willing to come out. I do not want to forsake gathering with my brothers and sisters in Christ. I would prefer to continue to spend time with my church family, as long as we take reasonable precautions.

Among those precautions are encouraging others who are not well to stay at home, washing hands carefully and frequently, and minimizing close, personal contact to a reasonable degree. There are simple measures to take to change the way the offering is collected and to change the delivery of the Lord’s Supper that can make continued gathering safe and encouraging.

Recognize that in this decision, I am middle aged with younger children that are not as significantly affected by the disease. We also homeschool, which minimizes the danger that we pose to others, though my job puts me in contact with a range of people during the day.

Not to Gather

At the same time, there are some for whom getting COVID-19 is a factual, significant risk. It is entirely reasonable for those with compromised immune systems to remain home, especially since there is a fairly lengthy period of contagiousness while someone with the virus is asymptomatic.

Additionally, there are those for whom sickness would be a greater economic burden due to lack of paid time off. It may be wiser for someone with a greater risk exposure to listen online.

And there may be some people for whom the fear of the virus is so great that it makes being in a space like a local church a source of great stress. It should not be a misery to attend church. If someone is really that fearful, then they should stay at home.

Prudence and Grace

In this time when there is a great deal at stake and a great deal of confusion, the best policy is to begin by being prudent and gracious.

People who are not well should be encouraged to remain at home. Those with compromised immune systems should listen online. Church leaders should evaluate practices to minimize close contact and limit the risk of spread. These are all prudential measures. It may be necessary for a church to “meet online” for a couple of weeks if the area is experiencing a high level of infection.

This requires those who continue to gather to be gracious. Cancelling services due to an abundance of caution is not a failure to love Jesus; it is an attempt to love neighbors faithfully. We may not agree, but each should be convinced in his or her own conscience. Not cancelling services is not necessarily a sign that a congregation doesn’t love their neighbor; it is merely a way of recognizing the importance of corporate worship and the encouragement it offers.

In the end, this virus will pass like an inconvenient blip in the memory of most of us. But we must remember that some people are not going to make it through it. There is no reason to take undue risks to keep average attendance at a certain level. Grace and prudence are in order.

Obedience to Authority

In some cases, the government may recommend or, perhaps, require cancellation of services. This, again, is a matter of conscience. I believe that a temporary cessation of services would be wise in the face of a government order, because the intention is to preserve life and minimize spread. We should not feel obligated to meet simply to spite the government.

Romans 13:1 urges us, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.”

There are certainly limits to this, but it is unclear to me that it is absolutely necessary to resist a temporary order not to meet. In the face of real risk, and not simply religious persecution, I see a temporary cessation of in-person meetings as a reasonable accommodation, although I do not like it.

In the end prudence and grace must be measured out in equal shares again.

Conclusion

There is no simple answer to the question of what to do in light of COVID-19.

However, whatever we do should be done for God’s glory and with the love of our neighbor in mind. We should be careful not to bind each other’s consciences or see ourselves as better than others for our decision to gather or not.

Ultimately, God will judge our deeds and our motives. We should be thankful for his mercy.

Civilized to Death - A Review

It’s rare that I read a book that is exceptionally bad. Normally the publication process weeds out the truly bad books, but the editors failed the author in this case. Civilized to Death: The Price of Progress is a book that should have never made it to press.

Christopher Ryan has followed up on a best-selling book, Sex at Dawn, with a book about the maladies of modern life. Civilized to Death looked like an interesting one based on the blurb and even I disagreed with the conclusions, this promised to be an engaging read. It should have been a red flag when the dust jacket blurbs were drawn from praise for the previous book and none of them from sources with significant credentials in the area of interest.

Civilized to Death is a train wreck. There is no question that Ryan can put together a sentence, but it isn’t immediately apparent that he understands the fundamentals of logic, argumentation, or research.

I have to confess that, though I read roughly a hundred books a year and try to carefully read the books that I review, I stopped reading carefully and moved more quickly through the last hundred pages of this book because it wasn’t worth the time to read it carefully. Ryan didn’t write or think carefully, so I returned the favor.

Ryan’s basic thesis is that everything you know about culture and civilization is wrong. He rejects the “Narrative of Perpetual Progress” and if you saw what he had seen, you would, too.

As far as that goes, I do not disagree. There is little doubt that in our over-industrialized, hyper-sexualized, logically backward, and consumeristically driven culture we have lost sight of the good life. One need only look at the rise of lifestyle-based diseases and the general loss of meaning in culture to see that. Ryan lays those ills at the feet of civilization.

Ryan’s remedy for civilization is to pursue aspects of the life of a hunter-gatherer. In truth, he doesn’t get to the point of any meaningful recommendations until the second to last page of the book, and that solution is so brief that I will quote it in full, lest I misrepresent it:

“What is we tragically bring hunter-gatherer thinking into our modern live by, for example, replacing top-down corporate structures with peer progressive networks and horizontally organized collectives and building an infrastructure of nonpolluting locally generated energy? If Homo sapiens sapiens were to divert spending on weapons, redirecting resources into a global guaranteed basic income that incentivizes not having children, thus reducing global population intelligently and without coercion, we would be taking steps toward [a meaningful solution]. Once we start down this road, every step would lead us closer to a future that recognizes, celebrates, honors, and replicates the origins and nature of our species. This is, as far as I can see, the only road home.”

This conclusion is air dropped out of nowhere. The book simply doesn’t build up to it. It’s as if he got to the end of the allotted word count, decided he needed to land the book and wrote a conclusion. The book is a great example of a non-sequitur.

More significant than the abrupt and ill-supported ending is the means by which Ryan supports his argument. As I was reading along in the first few chapters, I started to recognize that Ryan was glossing over counter arguments and cherry-picking data. About a page later, he writes, “Some readers will accuse me of romantic nostalgia and cherry-picking evidence. That is understandable. . . . Any argument concerning human nature will be a picked-cherry pie.”

Fair enough, I suppose. I have biases against some of his views, yet I do recognize that research cannot be comprehensive. But he goes on to immediately assert, “I’ve included copious references and recommendations for further reading in the endnotes to keep the text from getting too bogged down.”

Now, my interest was piqued, so I began to peruse the “copious references” in the endnotes. There are 18 pages of endnotes, which might sound like a lot, but when compared to the 16 pages of index that pad the book, it begins to wane in significance. Then consider that Ryan is trying to upend everyone’s understanding of civilization. Compare this to Mark Moffett’s book, The Human Swarm, which is also a sweeping volume, which has 38 pages of much more concise notes in a smaller print and makes much less radical claims.

But there is more than volume to the value of notes, so I went on in my investigation. Many of Ryan’s notes are to blogs and websites. They give evidence that a search engine supplanted real research and understanding, because they tell the reader where quotes are drawn from. Also absent are citations of anyone who disagrees with Ryan. In one chapter, Ryan criticizes Steven Pinker’s take on Western Civilization, but he only cites an online article by someone who was reviewing and interacting with Pinker. There is no evidence that Ryan ever picked up Pinker’s work to read it or understand it. Far from being “copious” the notes are limited and basic and they demonstrate that Ryan is an entertainer not a thinker.

It then becomes quickly apparent there are no real opponents to Ryan’s sweeping theory. He quotes thinkers in the same argument who disagree with each other radically as supporting the same point, which always supports his position. He classifies F. A. Hayek as a “conservative economist” despite Hayek writing an essay explaining why he is not a conservative in quite strong terms. He criticizes and dismisses the work of psychologist Viktor Frankl, but shows that he has no knowledge of the man’s actual arguments. To call this book sophomoric is an insult to sophomores.

I came to the book expecting to find common ground with Ryan, but couldn’t get past the effluviant mess that was intended to pass for deep thinking.

The book is, quite simply bad. My hope is this is the worst book I read this year. It would be an excellent tool for use in an undergraduate logic course to provide examples of bad reasoning for students to analyze.

Civilized to Death: The Price of Progress

By Christopher Ryan

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

An Invitation to Glory

This post is an excerpt from The Christian Mind of C. S. Lewis: Essays in Honor of Michael Travers (Wipf and Stock, 2019). It was written by Dr. Michael Travers. It was presented to the C. S. Lewis Society of New York in 2013 on the 50th anniversary of Lewis’s Death and again at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary on January 30th, 2014. Today, March 2nd, is the anniversary of Michael’s passing into the glory that he deeply longed for.

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In his apologetics and fiction, C. S. Lewis invites his readers to hope for heaven and God. His great contribution is his reminder to twentieth-century western culture, which has lost its mooring, of what it means to be humans who were made for God and to long for him all our lives. C. S. Lewis reminds readers that this longing for God, this hope of heaven, is the proper state for all of us in a fallen world. He offers to readers a vision of the Christian mind.

Our culture needs to remember what it means to be human: we are created in the image of God and for the purpose of praising God. At the very outset of his Confessions, St. Augustine gives voice to the essential human need––and desire––to praise God:

Great art Thou, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is Thy power, and of Thy wisdom there is no number. And man desires to praise Thee. He is but a tiny part of all that Thou hast created. He bears about him his mortality, the evidence of his sinfulness, and the evidence that Thou dost resist the proud: yet this tiny part of all that Thou hast created desires to praise Thee.

Thou dost so excite him that to praise Thee is his joy. For Thou has made us for Thyself and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.[1]

Because we were made for God, we cannot be satisfied apart from Him. Nothing in this world can satisfy the ultimate desire of the human soul to be satisfied in God. Human culture, particularly that inspired by Christianity, incarnates this desire for God in manifold ways, and, what is more, Scripture attests to it as well. The desire for God is a key element of the Christian mind.

The idea that we all desire God and hope for heaven is expressed in both the Old and New Testaments. In Ecclesiastes, the wisdom writer states that God has put “eternity into man’s heart” (Ecc 3:11), and evidences the implications of our desire for God in that nothing in this life ultimately satisfies the soul. The writer speaks of good things––such as work, food, and relationships––that we enjoy in this life, but he teaches that ultimate wisdom is to seek God and rest in him. Everything else is “vanity,” or futility. The Psalmist writes that the ancient Hebrews longed for rest in the Promised Land. But, because of their unbelief and sin, they had to walk the wilderness pathways for forty years before they were allowed to enter that rest, and then it was only the next generation that was allowed to do so (Ps 95:1–11). In the New Testament, the writer of Hebrews applies the temporal rest of the ancient Hebrews in the Promised Land figuratively to the spiritual rest Christians have in Christ and then to the eternal rest we ultimately will enjoy in the new heavens and the new earth (Heb 3:7–4:11).

In this life, we are not yet at rest, and we cannot be at rest until our faith becomes sight in heaven. We hope for future glory. In the New Testament, the apostles often write of a hope that looks forward to eternity. The apostle Peter admonishes us to be “ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Pet 3:15). Peter speaks this instruction to Christians, admonishing them to give a witness to non-Christians about heaven and eternity with God. For Peter, as for the other New Testament writers, this hope is not wishful thinking; rather, it is settled and certain hope, for it is predicated on the character of God as evidenced by the Word of God––“Christ in you, the hope of glory,” as Paul has it in Col 1:27. Paul speaks elsewhere of our hope in Christ, for Christ has paid the debt of our sins and granted us eternal life (Cf. 2 Cor 1:10; 1 Tim 4:10). In the earthly life of Christ our longing for God is made concrete in the transfiguration, when Peter, James, and John see Christ revealed in all his glory. The transfiguration follows immediately after Jesus tells his disciples that he will come again in great glory, thereby prompting longing for that glorious kingdom; it is then that he is transfigured before the three men, and they are given a glimpse of the future and the one on whom their hope is founded. In Romans 8, Paul writes that the Christian’s whole life is oriented toward this hope when we will be glorified in the presence of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Michael Travers

The Bible often expresses this hope in narrative form. Almost two-thirds of the Bible is narrative. From Genesis to Exodus, through the history books and prophets in the Old Testament, to the Gospels, the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, and even the book of Revelation in the New Testament, the story of redemption is just that––a narrative. The writer of Hebrews symbolizes this life as a pilgrimage. He writes that we “desire a better country, that is a heavenly [one]” (Heb 11:16), and “for here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come” (Heb 13:14). A pilgrimage is not just a wandering journey; rather it is a teleological journey with a destination. For Christians, that destination is heaven with Jesus Christ, our ultimate beatitude. It is no accident, then, that the Bible incarnates a grand metanarrative that encompasses the whole of the created order and our place as humans in that story.

Giving voice to the Christian narrative of hope is what Lewis did in his writings at a time when others had lost sight of that hope. He presented a vision of the Christian mind. Austin Farrer writes of the voice Lewis gives to Christianity:

It was this feeling intellect, this intellectual imagination that made the strength of his religious writings. . . . His real power was not proof [as in apologetics]; it was depiction. There lived in his writings a Christian universe that could be both thought and felt, in which he was at home and in which he made his reader at home.[2]

There is the note: Lewis invites his readers to come along home with him––to God and heaven. He knew that we longed for something beyond this world, and he invited us to join him in the search for our eternal home.[3] Lewis’s method for inviting others to put on the Christian mind, through his prose, poetry, and narrative, was to put the metanarrative of the Bible on display.

C. S. Lewis reminds readers in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries of a truth that pre-modern western people knew as part of their culture and we have largely forgotten today: we were created to worship God. Lewis encourages his readers to worship God again––that is, to put on the Christian mind. He invites them to accept that “weight of glory.” Lewis embodies the heart of Christianity in this invitation, for the metanarrative of the Bible tells the same story: creation, fall, redemption, and recreation. Lewis incarnates this metanarrative in his apologetics, his poetry, and his fiction. It is by developing a Christian mind that Lewis fulfills his role as worshipper.

For Lewis, the original creation is the normative mode of existence for human beings, in fellowship with each other and God. In this created condition, there was no need for longing to escape and go to heaven, no need for hope, for all things were as they should be. Lewis invites his readers in all of these books to participate in the glory of things as they were meant to be. In the fall into sin, however, humans were plunged into a pathological condition, producing a sense of exile because we were cut off from God and therefore long to be reunited with him. It is this undesirable state of sin and exile that forms the foundation of Lewis’s apologetics and fiction. Our innate longing for a remedy finds expression in his novels, in the form of a pilgrimage, or quest––a journey that inherently incarnates longing and hope in its form and structure. This longing is for renewal of all that has been tainted by sin; it is a longing for a new life.

Lewis’s fiction provides descriptions of this coming renewal, which begins with a sense of release from sin’s effects. He expresses the sense of beginning a new and glorified life in heaven this way in The Last Battle:

“There was a real railway accident,” said Aslan softly. “Your father and mother and all of you are––as you used to call it in the Shadowlands––dead. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.”   

And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page; now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read, which goes on forever, in which every chapter is better than the one before.[4]

All of Lewis’s writings encourage his readers to long for God and to hope for heaven; this is a central characteristic of the Christian mind. And it is fitting that this is so, for the longer we live in communion with Christ, the more we long to see him face to face. Lewis knew that longing well and it shaped everything he wrote. This longing for the transcendent is what makes the Christian mind so beautiful.

The Christian Mind of C. S. Lewis: Essays in Honor of Michael Travers

Wipf and Stock

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[1] Augustine, Confessions, 3. Emphasis original.

[2] Farrer, “In His Image,” 384–85. Farrer was Chaplain of Trinity College, Oxford, from 1935 to 1960, and a good friend of Lewis.

[3] Cf. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 143.

[4] Lewis, The Last Battle, 210–11.