Worldview Foundations

2003-03-13T17:36:00.000-05:00

One of my mentors, Kobus Smit, drew my attention as an undergraduate student to the comparison between Rembrandt's Bathsheba and Rubens' Bathsheba. What can we learn of the very different approaches to the human person of these two artists from this comparison?

(See also this list of paintings on the same theme.)

2003-03-13T17:30:00.000-05:00

There are ~~few~~ no painters from whom we can learn more about being human than Rembrandt and Vermeer. In the second class on philosophical anthropology in this terms Introduction to Philosophy course, one of the things we will do is to try and see what we can learn from these two masters.

Here is a link to a map of thumbnails of all the paintings of Vermeer.

And here is a link to some of Rembrandt's wry, wise self-portraits.

2003-03-12T12:02:00.000-05:00

Last night we watched the final movie in my Introduction to Philosophy course: the director's cut of Ridley Scott's Bladerunner. (See a transcript of the complete script of the earlier version here, and a mess of related links here.)

This was the first of two classes on philosophical anthropology. The question we are asking is "What does it mean to be human?"

Frank Schaeffer (Francis Schaeffer's Eastern Orthodox pro-life activist son and the proud father of a U.S. Marine Corps corporal) has said this about Bladerunner:

And if you want to see a movie that I would suggest you all rent sometime, whether you are nice Christians that don't watch R rated movies or not I suggest you make the exception for this one, go down to your local video store and rent Ridley Scott's "Bladerunner." "Bladerunner" is the future of the United States of America if the pro-abortion side wins. A country, a country divided into two peoples living in one land. One group, the yuppie fascists that control the society living in the high towers of the mythical Los Angeles, while on the street, it rains perpetually on second-class citizens, mutants, mere, mere creations of genetic engineering in which false life forms are toyed with and experimented with, in which human life is trivialized, in which the meaning of sacredness and dignity is squandered for profit and filthy greed, in which the freedoms so hard won in the Second World War and by our forefathers are squandered as we ourselves create the Nazi totalitarian nightmare as if we had lost the war and were now forty or fifty years into the eugenics program.

(Note that this quote is sourced from a website that offers it as part of an intended exposé of the younger Schaeffer.)

2003-02-04T12:55:00.000-05:00

We will be spending some time on Raphael's wonderful School of Athens (representing natural and moral philosophy) in my philosophy class this evening. I am reading a collection of essay, Raphael's 'School of Athens', edited by Marcia Hall, and it is blowing me away. Raphael is now my third favourite painter!

Apart from clicking on this image of the painting to access a virtual map that identifies various of the philosophers, I also recommend this student-built site.

The other walls of the Stanza della Segnatura hold ...

... The Disputation of the Holy Sacrament (La Disputa, representing theology) and The Parnassus (below, representing poetry). The paintings and other decorations of the room represent the whole of human learning, as it was understood in the Renaissance. The room was known as "the upper library" in the time of Julius II, the pope who comissioned the painting. Earlier in his career Julius had helped Pope Sixtus IV organize the Vatican Library (which I would imagine was "the lower library"). This smaller library was the pope's private room for study and meeting with formal visitors, and contained a representative sampling of the great books of theology, philosophy (including what we would now call the sciences), poetry (including what we would now call the arts), and law. It soon became used for the signing of formal papal documents, and was thus known as "the signing room" (Stanza della Segnatura) by the time Vasari wrote his Lives of the Artists, from which we draw much of what we know about Raphael.

The fourth wall has several images, together representing jurisprudence. These include Justinian Presenting the Pandects to Trebonianus (symbolizing Roman law) and Gregory IX Approving the Decretals (symbolizing canon law), and The Cardinal Virtues (below).

See the ceiling frescoes here and a view of the room from the side here.

2003-01-30T10:31:00.000-05:00

Those of my students moved by the story of The White Rose may be interested in this World Youth Alliance conference In Memoriam Hans & Sophie Scholl.

2003-01-24T03:18:00.000-05:00

This Tuesday we are pulling together our reading from Garber and our viewing of Wit, Finding Forrester, and The White Rose, and considering the ways in which conviction/worldviews, character/mentors/heroes, and community/friendships serve as resources in the pursuit of wisdom. And then we begin to ask ourselves: how do we do philosophy?

2003-01-22T19:29:00.000-05:00

Daniel Silliman's list of good things.

2003-01-20T12:09:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow evening is the third meeting of the Introduction to Philosophy Class I teach at Redeemer University College, and we will be watching the movie The White Rose.

We are watching this movie to jumpstart our imaginations as we prepare to read chapters 7 ("The Context of a Common Life") and 8 ("Convictions, Character, Community Incarnate") in Steven Garber's Fabric of Faithfulness. Garber writes (pp. 174-175):

Somewhere, deep in the mysteries of how we learn to see and hear, and what we learn to care for and about, there is a place where presupposition meets practice, where belief becomes behavior. The reality of Iris Murdoch's insight is there for all of us to ponder: "At crucial moments of choice most of the business of choosing is already over."

Worldviews do become ways of life, always and everywhere. Hans Scholl's too-truthful taunt "Why don't we rent ourselves an island in the Aegean and offer courses on worldviews?" and his sister Sophie's plain, yet plaintive, "Somebody, after all, had to make a start" reflect beliefs about meaning and morality ground out in the bloody face of history. Their beliefs were never an abstraction. Instead, in their simplicity there is a strength that teaches all of us about the formation of moral meaning during the university years - they are a time for negotiating the issues and ideas of life, of deciding what matters most and what difference it will make. Choices about meaning, reality and truth, about God, human nature and history are being made which, more often than not, last for the rest of life.

Part of what I am trying to do with the reading and the movie is to raise the basic question of community: Who are my friends? Why are they my friends? What community of faith enfolds me? Of what other communities am I a member? How do these relationships shape who I am? How do they serve as a context for working out, living out the implications of what I believe? Will these relationships last a lifetime? What difference will that make? And what does all of this have to do with the philosophical pursuit of wisdom?

(Note to my students: The Garber reading is crucial for connecting the movie's story to the developing worldview of the young friends who wrote and published the White Rose pamphlets.)

Hans Scholl

Sophie Scholl

Here are a few good sites on The White Rose: Jenna's White Rose site (a very fine site, the best I have found), an excerpt from Anton Gill's An Honourable Defeat, a memoir by George Wittenstein, one of the survivors, and a broader history of the German resistance. And the text of the White Rose leaflets can be found here.

2003-01-20T07:18:00.000-05:00

"I am more and more convinced that the people you choose to have around you have more to do with how you act upon what you believe than what you read or the ideas that influence you. The influence of ideas has to be there, but the application is something it's very hard to work out by yourself. You work it out in the context of friends - just as you work it out with your spouse, so you work it out with a group of friends." (Bob Kramer)

"... my best teachers were my best friends. We were all trying to figure this out together." (Ron Stegall)

"One thing I have learned is that it is the people you surround yourself with that is one of the most important choices you make." (Michelle Clark)

From Chapter 7, "The Context of a Common Life," in Steven Garber, The Fabric of Faithfulness: Weaving together belief & behavior during the university years.

How do your friendships sustain or strain the connection between your deepest beliefs and your everyday life?

2003-01-20T07:11:00.000-05:00

The story of God does not offer a resolution of life's difficulties, but it offers us something better - an adventure and struggle, for we are possessors of the happy news that God has called people together to live faithfully to the reality that he is the Lord of this world. ... Moreover, through initiation into such a story I learn to regard others and their difference from me as a gift. Only through their existence do I learn what I am, can or should be.

Stanley Hauerwas, A Community of Character: Toward a Constructive Christian Social Ethic, pp. 148-149. Via Garber, p. 146.

2003-01-20T07:02:00.000-05:00

Those most trapped in the language of the isolated self ("In the end you're really alone") are troubled by the nihilism they sense there and eager to find a way of overcoming the emptiness of purely arbitrary "values." We believe that much of the thinking about the self of educated Americans, thinking that has become almost hegemonic in our universities and much of the middle class, is based on inadequate social science, impoverished philosophy and vacuous theology. There are truths we do not see when we adopt the language of radical individualism. We find ourselves not independently of other people and institutions but through them. We never get to the bottom of our selves on our own. We discover who we are face to face and side by side with others in work, love and learning. ... We are parts of a larger whole that we can neither forget nor imagine in our own image without paying a high price.

Robert Bellah et al., Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life, p. 84. Via Garber, p. 145.

2003-01-20T06:51:00.000-05:00

The self is now thought of as lacking any necessary social identity, because the kind of social identity that it once enjoyed is no longer available; the self is now thought of as criterionless, because the kind of telos in terms of which it once judged and acted is no longer thought to be credible. What kind of identity and what kind of telos were they? In many premodern, traditional societies it is through his or her membership in a variety of social groups that the individual identifies himself or hersel and is identified by others. I am brother, cousin and grandson, member of this household, that village, this tribe. These are not characteristics that belong to human beings accidentally, to be stripped away in order to discover "the real me." They are part of my substance, defining partially at least and sometimes wholly my obligations and my duties. Individuals inherit a particular space within an interlocking set of social relationships; lacking that space, they are nobody, or at best a stranger or an outcast. To know oneself as such a social person is however not to occupy a static and fixed position. It is to find oneself placed at a certain point on a journey with set goals; to move through live is to make progress - or fail to make progress - toward a given end.

Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, pp. 33-34. Via Garber, p. 144.

(Here is a little more on MacIntyre.)

2003-01-15T00:59:00.000-05:00

... it's much easier to teach a class during which students are watching a movie ...

2003-01-14T06:05:00.000-05:00

Here is what a few of my graduate students wrote in 2002, in response to the question Why do you get up in the morning?: Shin Toyokawa, Mieko Higashinaka, Will Dykstra.

2003-01-14T06:01:00.000-05:00

Steven Garber writes (in The Fabric of Faithfulness, pp. 15, 45-46):

Why do you get up in the morning? For nearly twenty years I have been teaching university students in many different kinds of settings - both those laboring away at secular-spirited institutions and those within Christ-centered colleges and universities, both undergraduates and graduate students, both within the classroom as a professor and outside as a campus minister - and in a variety of ways I have asked this question. It gets at the relationship between what one believes about the world and how one lives in the world, particularly as that dynamic interaction is being formed as young people begin to move out of their parents' worlds and worldviews and take up their own convictions as frameworks within which to live and move and have their being. But it also focuses a student's attention, asking for a good reason to get up - beyond the call of the cafeteria or the classroom.

At heart that more playful question is rooted in more substantive ones: Which commitments will give shape to my life? Is my life about something that matters? What do I really care about?

[...]

The question of telos is a question about one's "end." The Westminster Catechism asks, "What is the chief end of man?" In our time, it might sound more like this: What is the purpose of life? What is human existence all about, anyway? Or, as I ask my students, Why do you get up in the morning? Telos takes that beyond the trivial and asks one to have a reason for getting up, a reason for being, that can be sustained over the course of life and can meaningfuly direct one's personal and public responsibilities. Do you have a telos sufficient, personally and politically, to orient your praxis over the course of life?

So? Why do you get up in the morning?

2003-01-13T23:08:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow evening is the second meeting of the Introduction to Philosophy Class I teach at Redeemer University College, and we will be watching the movie Finding Forrester. (If I had my druthers, we'd be watching Akira Kurosawa's Red Beard, but it is too long. Stanley Kaufmann writes that "Like great masters in other arts, Kurosawa is not 'better than' others in his field: he is, at his best, incomparable.")

Here are a few reviews of Finding Forrester: Hollywood Jesus, The Phantom Tollbooth, Spotlight on the movies, and Cinema In Focus. Sadly, nothing I can find at Chiaroscuro, and nothing by Stanley Kauffmann.

We are watching this movie to jumpstart our imaginations as we prepare to read chapter 6 ("Masters, Mentors & Moral Meaning") in Steven Garber's Fabric of Faithfulness. Garber writes (p. 129):

As I listened to the voices of those who still believe in a coherent world and the possibility of a coherent life, another characteristic - after the forming of a worldview - was that they found a mentor during their university years whose wisdom and experience gave flesh and bone to the notion of "the good life" which was developing in the student's heart and mind. Professors, professionals, pastors all served as older friends whose cares and commitments incarnated the substance of the worldview which the student was learning to embrace.

What I am trying to do with the reading and the movie is to raise the basic question of character: Who am I? What kind of a person am I? What configuration of habitual virtues and vices, and practices, shape my character? Why am I the way I am? How did I become who I now am? Whom do I emulate? Who are my mentors? Who are my heroes? Can I change? Should I change?

2003-01-12T19:37:00.000-05:00

A helpful overview of the characters, story, and key ideas in Wit can be found in the Madison Repertory Theatre Audience Guide. For good questions to think about, see the Faber & Faber Teachers' Guide to Wit: pdf/html.

2003-01-11T10:27:00.000-05:00

Sarah Jones wonders what significance The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies and The Runaway Bunny have in relation to eachother in the movie Wit ... If you have any suggestions, please go and make them on her blog.

2003-01-07T13:58:00.000-05:00

Tonight is the first meeting of the Introduction to Philosophy class I teach at Redeemer University College, and we will be watching the movie Wit.

Our discussion questions:

(1) How do each of the following characters in the film behave toward Vivian Bearing, Ph.D - Harvey Kelekian, M.D (the older doctor), E.M. Ashford, D.Phil (Ms. Bearing’s former teacher), Susie Monahan, R.N., B.S.N (the nurse), and Jason Posner, M.D. (the younger doctor)?

(2) What, in your opinion, does their behaviour tell us about their beliefs?

For more on Wit, see Sarah Jones' entry and the attached comments. James Brink and friends watched the movie this weekend, so James quotes Donne, Richard Greydanus thinks of the wisdom of his mother and his aunt (scroll around a little - Richard has more in subsequent entries), and Brian Dijkema writes touchingly on what the film means to him as a student.

2002-12-09T04:26:00.000-05:00

Pentecostalism by David Martin

1.How has the required reading for this report influenced your understanding of our times?
Reading on "pentecostalism" (David. Matin) corrected my misunderstanding of pentecostalism and its effects on our times. Before reading, I did not distingush between pentecostalism and the charismatic movement. To my mind, almost every pentecostal and charimatic churches in Japan tend to deny cultural and social responsibility. And I thought so in around world too. But, actually pentecostalism have an incalculable impact on culture and our times. Accrding to Martin pentecostal are one in eight of the Christian of two billion and one in twenty-five of the global population. In the times of modern (and post-postmodern), religion in many western countries tends to privatize or marginalize from public square. How about Latin America, Africa? Pentecostalism increase rapidly in especially Latin America. Pentecostalism meet needs of lay in Latin America. In opposition to Catholic hierarchical system "from above", Pentecostalism gave lay cultural empowerment "from below". If we say that our times can be characterized by capitalism, we have to take Pentecostalism's affect on capitalism seriously, especially comparison between Weber's thesis on calling to work and Pentecostal's.

2. How might the Christian worldview contribute to cultural engagement by today's emerging global church?

When we take seriously cultural engagement by today's global church, a question arises: What kind of Christian worldview can global church offer? What "global church" means? Catholic? Pentecostalism? or WCC? Anyway, given that there are many global problem, Christians have to soridarise in order to engage to cultual issues. I think the term "Christian worldview" can become a common basis in many Christian tradition and give many global church direction to cultural engagement. In the case of Pentecostalism, it seem that its contribution to cultural engagement stems from Pentecostal's pragmatic tendency rather than its Christian worldview.
Martin says: "Pentecostalism is very specially a cultural revolution , and one undertaken from below, with no political theory to guide it and no political ideology to promote." Can we understand that Pentecostal's Christian worldview can not yield political theory. Or, Can we say that we do not need a Christian political theory when we want to contribute to cultural engagement? I think that Christian worldview approach can differentiated responsibility for various cultual spheres.

2002-12-06T15:45:00.000-05:00

A late report on the Freston reading.

My report on the reading of “Evangelicals and Politics in Asia, Africa, and Latin America” by Paul Freston will be brief. I must admit that I was unable to give this reading as much attention as I could to the other readings. Why, I cannot remember. However, I will try and answer the two questions which were posed for this reading.

1. How has the required reading for this report influenced your understanding of our times?

Paul Freston knows a lot about the evangelical movement throughout the world. His extensive studies in this area have helped me understand that the evangelical movement is growing in influence in areas outside of North America and Europe (the two places where Christianity has historically been the strongest). In many countries in Latin America, Evangelicals are beginning to have political influence. There are evangelical political parties and there is an openness to their participation in the life and culture of the country. Perhaps it will be the Christian Church of Africa and Latin America which will hold back the tide of secularism and Islam which is growing in other parts of the world.

2. How might the Christian worldview contribute to cultural engagement by today’s emerging global church?

If we can get the emerging global church to see the Lordship of Jesus Christ over all areas of life, the impact could be tremendous. People will care about the earth, justice for the poor and oppressed, politics, etc. If we can ignite a passion in the church in Latin America and Africa for a comprehensive Christian worldview, we might avoid the “escapist” form of Christianity which characterises some parts of North America (by this I am referring to those who see themselves as strangers, passing through this earth, waiting to be rescued by the Rapture. I also have in mind those who think that the Kingdom of God is advanced only through the winning of souls to Christ. I am thinking here of Paul Marshall’s “Lifeboat Theology”). A worldview that engages all of life is better able to see God’s will being done here on earth as it is in heaven. Music, Art, politics, education, labour, and the like will be thought about from a Christian perspective.

2002-12-05T18:51:00.000-05:00

1. how would you articulate the broad contours of your own worldview? 2. how does your worldview shape your way of life?
my worldview continues to be shaped and reshaped as i continue to ponder the questions: who am i? where am i? what's the problem? what's the solution?
having begun my life in a christian tradition which embraced the love of jesus emphatically but narrowly, i have spent the last 6 years or so in a near constant state of wonder and worry as i learn to embrace (and to be embraced by) a love of christ that remains emphatic but is impossibly expansive. in understanding myself as a beloved child of God as well as God's image and servant (who am i?) i understand that the multi-faceted problems which come out of a lack of love, trust, etc.(what's the problem) are part of my responsibility as i live out my life and mission. with the biblical story particularly the life and teachings of jesus shaping my own story, i go forth in love to serve. with the help of thinkers/believers like calvin, kuyper, seerveld, etc. i continue to learn nuanced ways in whihc to express, articulate and live out my worldview through meditation on God's creation, prayer and "the five C's"

2002-12-05T18:29:00.000-05:00

SOME THINGS THAT I LOVE
coffee
babies, kids
laughter (belly)
natasja, my partner
kids
burlington, vermont
the rest of vermont
christ church presbyterian
ireland
questions
organizers
adults who exclaim when surprised/excited
kindness
sugar
beautiful music
avacado maki rolls
wasabi peas
tears
functional imperfection
dreams
riding streetcar w/mug o' coffee
singing streetcar conductors
liveliness
the writing of david james duncan -"the brothers k" especially-
mary oliver (poet)
lionel basney mi familia
ee cummings
home
hospitality
guerrillas of grace--book of prayers by ted loder--
denise levertov (poet-particularly her poem "suspended"
one ticket to the symphony
two tickets
ovid's "metamorphses"
making lists
new school spplies
nalgene water bottles
caryl churchill's "mad forest"
people
jesus
justice
intellectual understanding
articulate political debates (listening to)
liturgy-esp. that of iona community-
"seventh heaven"
learning
solitude
trees
ideas
functional art--pottery, etc.--
community
water/solar/wind power
recycling
tofu
soymilk
west wing
simpsons
flute, piano, guitar,violin (and family)
family stories/histories
performance
deep sleep
restful waking
bikes and bike gear
hiking in vermont
being done with hiking in vermont
mountain lake swimming
butter tarts
moira and shug, las gatas
healing
a good challenge
hands
all aspects of camping except bugs and sandy sleeping bags
midwifery
miroslav volf
more with less cookbook
the four bohemian goals: freedom, beauty, truth and love
ani difranco
the bits of calvin's "institutes" that i know
the bits of calvin seerveld's work that i know
shape note music
traditional folk or "roots" music

2002-12-05T14:13:00.000-05:00

1. How would you articulate the broad contours of your own worldview?
2. How does your worldview shape your way of life?

My convictions flow out of a lifetime of being enfolded in a community of believers. As a student I attended Christian Grade School and Christian High School. Both were founded with Christian worldview in mind. Growing up in a community of Dutch Immigrants, many of which were influenced by Abraham Kuyper in the Netherlands, I have been part of the Calvinist tradition for much of my life. A very large part of my worldview is quite simply glorifying God. Theoretically in all I do I have no other motive. Of course practically this is not necessarily the case, being a sinner, I tend to toward sin and my attempts at glorifying God fall short of what he deems to be acceptable. Nevertheless by the grace of God my offering of worship in the context of building something, or creating within the context of a competition is accepted.
Steven Garber in The Fabric of Faithfulness, writing about Robert Jensen’s “How the World Lost its Story” discusses worldview in the analogy of story. The world needs to have a storyteller to be meaningful. If there is no point to living, no point to the world, then all of life, all existence is utterly meaningless. In my world there is a storyteller, a masterful storyteller, and the point of the story is the glorification of God.
Having grown up in a very blue-collar community, a community where the Calvinist work ethic runs deep in its veins, I have also taken this on as part of my worldview. Though I have often heard the phrase “Calvinist work ethic” used I had never fully appreciated what that meant. When we understand that the creation in it’s entirety is God’s and needs to be redeemed, and we understand that we are the hands of God in this world. Not only is the work that we do (done in the right way) glorifying to God, when we work we also work to smooth the sinful wrinkles out of a creation that was originally perfect. That Calvinist work ethic tends to be passed on within the character of future generations. During my time as part of a team organizing Youth Unlimited’s Toronto Serve project, I always found it interesting to see that work ethic in action. Many of the youth who joined us were of Reformed Calvinist communities. Many of these people were fourth or fifth generation Americans, insulated from their ancestor’s status as immigrants, and yet they displayed remarkable work ethic. As organizers we would arrange work ahead of time, and warn our partners to be ready with plenty of work for the teenagers to do. Invariably they would be shocked when everything was done in two or three days, and astonished at how much these particular teenagers accomplished.
Steven Garber also writes about Augustine’s views on teaching. “Attract them by your way of life. Learning is about teachers opening their lives to students, allowing an apprenticeship in what is supremely important. It is nothing less than the formation of moral meaning. In teaching the Heidelberg Catechism or the Belgic Confession to high school students, it has always been important to me to try to be a living example. I teach and I try to open my life to them. Weather it is participating together in some sort of service project, or playing soccer and hockey together, or just going to Tim Horton’s together for coffee, I try to be an example.
To sum up, Garber quotes Iris Murdoch, “At crucial moments of choice, most of the business of choosing is already over.” If we are able to equip our students with the proper tools, they will make good choices.

2002-12-05T13:47:00.000-05:00

I think I messed up my last attempt to blog my worldview report. Hope it works this time.

- Mark

My Worldview:

If I were to choose a metaphor to describe my worldview it would be a “Puzzle”. Life is a quest in which some basic questions need to be answered. I like the 3 questions which are raised in Chuck Colson’s book “How Now Shall We Live”. They are: Where did we come from? What went wrong with the world? What is the solution to the problem? These 3 questions shape my worldview. When I answer them biblically [God created us for a purpose. Sin ruined the creation so that our place and task in it is distorted. Christ is the solution to the sin problem] I am then in a position to answer the question raised in the title of his book “How now shall we live?” The other worldview metaphors also play into my formulation of a worldview, but this one fits the best for me.

I believe that the Bible teaches us that Christ is the Sovereign King of this world. Since he claims all of life, my life is to be lived in service to him. I find this to be a liberating worldview. I am not only close to God when I am in church, I am with him in every activity. I do not have to encourage a person in my congregation to become a minister, a Christian school teacher, or a missionary in order to be in service to God. I can encourage them to pursue whatever it is they are passionate about and to do it all for God’s glory. Because I believe that this world belongs to God, that he loves the world and has redeemed it through Jesus Christ, I do not have to flee from the world. I can enjoy the good things of life such as work, friends, food, music, science, theatre, and everything else. I believe as Paul Marshall has written in his book “Heaven is Not My Home” that the good in this world will not be destroyed at the second coming. The good we do here on earth is eternal. In practice I think this means, for example, that I have to be an environmentalist in terms of active recycling, caring for the earth, etc. I do always enjoy doing these things, but knowing I do not own the earth and that God does, makes me think before I choose to exploit any part of it.

My worldview also helps me in my work as a pastor. Knowing that Christ is King and that he is the one who directs and bends all that happens in this world to his will, gives me hope in the midst of apparent evil. Two people I visited in the hospital yesterday died several hours after I was with them. Their deaths were not dignified. They did not have some beautiful farewell words for their families. I saw two men, struggling for breath and enduring great pain. I saw no look of glory in their eyes as they approached the end of their life. They were barely conscious of their surroundings when they left this world. Sometimes when you see such things you wonder if a loving and sovereign Father is in charge of the universe. Death seems too arbitrary and cruel. Yet I believe that what I see is not the final word about pain and death (Death be NOT proud!). My worldview is not about what I always see with my eyes, it is what I know to be true based on the Truth of God’s Word. I know that death is not the way it is supposed to be and that the solution to this problem is found in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This worldview gives me words to speak to the bereaved and gives me the strength to conduct their funerals with grace, conviction, and hope.

Someone is in charge of the universe and that Someone is Christ the King!

2002-12-05T12:39:00.000-05:00

On Being Human

Being human is a being meant to pray ¡V It is because as human beings we live before the face of God. Seerveld says it is not just a fact that we could learn, but as a lived experience. It is a natural response that we are born with. In prayer we acknowledge God as the Creator of our very being. We marvel and give thanks for the undeserved grace that He bestows upon us so lavishly. When praying as the body of Christ Seerveld says we ¡§learn how to become together a constant prayer=offering=living sacrifice, a healing fellowship of humans that enjoys and dispenses the shalom of the Lord¡¨ (p. 20). Prayer before the Lord also makes us pure in heart with our intention and actual deeds toward others both in Christ and outside of Christ.

Being human is a being meant being prone to sin ¡V Ever since the fall of our ancestors, we human creatures are both unable and unwilling to be holy. But God has called us; those who belong to Him, to be holy and separate from sin. Seerveld defines sin as ¡§living godlessly out of and for your self¡Kit is a fundamental human negation of our awestruck nature: sin is essentially proud, heartless selfishness¡¨ (p. 27). The call to holiness according to Seerveld, is not a call to ritual purification as the religious leaders of Christ¡¦s days thought, but to give up our self-righteousness, to become identified singly by Christ¡¦s forgiveness for us. Holiness is a gracious gift of God and we sinners should response to God¡¦s call to lead a repentant holy fife of right doing.

Being human is a being meant being fragile ¡V The brevity of our life demonstrate the fact that, no matter how we boast our achievements and successes, we will soon come to past. We are just pilgrims on earth and will remain dead in our transgression if not for the redemptive work of Christ, we will never be able to pass from death to life. Therefore, we are to wait patiently and not be afraid of the unknown, but in words and deeds live out the Way of life while in our fragility. For God takes our temporality seriously, and He listens to our prayers as we struggle to deal with life¡¦s many problems.

Being human is a being meant being in the order of Melchizedek ¡V Melchizedek was a priest-king, and the resurrected Christ being in the order of Melchizedek means He is also a priest-king that rules not by force but by mercy. Christ Himself became the sacrifice to redeem us and now He sits at the right hand side of God to intercede for us. Therefore, as followers of Christ we should offer ourselves as living sacrifice and practice intercessory ministry with mercy, so that others may be reconciled to God. So we may be truly faithful ambassadors of Jesus Christ.

I am as accident prone as being prone to sin. The saying ¡¥to err is man¡¦ is not an excuse but a fact of my inherited sinful nature. There is no way that I can be holy, be separated from what my conscience and the Word of God tell me the things that are wrong. I am incapable of being holy by my own power and capability. It is also true that according to my own nature, I do not want to be holy. If it is not the great love of Christ that moves me and the working of the Holy Spirit in my life, I will just keep on sinning and disobey God.

2002-12-05T04:04:00.000-05:00

My Christian worldview and How does it shape my life?

What kind of worldview do I have? Answer is, of course, that my worldview is a Christian worldview. But, how can I articulate i? When I try to articulate my Christian worldview, Gideon's handout, Five Cs is very helpful.
26years ago I was born in Christian family in Japan in which Christians are very minority . Ontologically speaking, as Christian I exist in a part of eschatological history. My citizenship is in heaven and in Japan (this created world). It means that I have a responsibility for God ( vertical) and neighbor (horizontal). I am quite sure that my Christian worldview was built and build up in community( family, church, Christian faith -oriented University, some christian groups) and by Christian mentors who have a integral Christian worldview. If I tell of my Christian worldview in a word, I can say that it is "Mastery for Service" which is motto of my old school, Christian oriented university. "Mastery for Service" means that we always have to master for the service of God and neighbor.
Encountering christian philosophy and the concept of "Christian worldview" struck me and changed my life (and maybe my wife's life). Because, before that I already settle down and raise a family, and my aim was to become a professional suffer, although I was studying theology. After encountering christian philosophy, especially Kuyper's worldview and life, I (we) decided to study more in graduate school. As Garber points out (p.174), I firmly belived that my Christian worldview can become a way of life. As Christian, student, father and husband, Japanese and someone's neibour I have multi-dimensional responsibilities. At the same time I think that a sense of responsibility in a way of life shapes my Christian worldview. I think that to shape Christian worldview -oriented way of life is to ask core value questions: Where am I? What time is it? What do I believe? Who am I? What and whom do I love?
I believe that the passage "Not to served but to serve" (Mark 10:45) and motto "Mastery for Service" articulate my Christian worldview.

2002-12-05T00:21:00.000-05:00

This is also a long overdue one on Wolters

Along with the Reformers, Wolters emphasizes that the Christian life should be a life lived by Scripture alone and not Scripture alongside of tradition. It is a continuous process of being re-formed by the Scripture rather than living by unexamined traditions. He wrote his book to offer help in the process of reforming our worldview to conform more closely to the teaching of Scripture. Wolters has a high view of Scripture, confessing that the Scriptures have the authority of God, which is supreme over everything and is given for the purpose of instruction on all areas of our life and world.
Wolters’ worldview includes the three basic biblical categories of creation, fall, and redemption. On creation, he stresses that God’s law of rule is exerted over all areas of the created world. There is no differentiation between sacred and secular. Furthermore he says: “God’s rule of law is immediate in nature, but mediate in culture and society” (p.36). In another word, the creation work of God is neither limited to just the physical world nor remains a static quantity. It continues “as people have been given of bringing to fruition the possibilities of development implicit in the work of God’s hands” (p. 38). Man in the social and cultural realms carries out this aspect of God’s creation mandate.
The original creation of God was totally good and was also intended to be good. However, when Adam failed to heed God’s explicit commandment and warning, sin entered with its corruption. The effects of sin touch all of creation; no created thing is in principle untouched by the corrosive effects of the fall. Sin also introduces an entirely new dimension to the created order. Yet biblically speaking, sin neither abolishes nor becomes identified with creation. Creation and sin remain distinct, no matter how closely they may be intertwined in our experience (p. 47). Wolters uses the two terms ‘structure’ and ‘direction” to clarifies this concept, and maintains the “structure of all the creational givens persists despites their directional perversion” (p. 50).
It is through the redemption achieved by Christ that the whole creation is restored. Therefore, redemption is in fact; restoration, and this restoration affects the whole of creational life. Restoration includes reconciliation, renewal and regeneration, through which the original good is to be restored. And also, God’s kingship in the world will be actualized as demonstrated by the ministry of Jesus on earth.

2002-12-04T17:47:00.000-05:00

The broad contours of my worldview and the way it shaped my life

The broad contours of my worldview can roughly be categorized into three main areas, namely; the way I look at the universe, the human nature and the purpose of life. The universe, including the human life is created by God. God is sovereign over all. He has authority over the physical nature, the human social world and all aspects of the individual life. The human nature has been marred by sin, which shattered the relationship between God and man. It is only through the redemptive work of Christ that man can be restored to the original relationship with God. Therefore, acceptance of Christ as Lord and Saviour is the crucial step to become children of God and enjoy the new and abundant life that God has given us. The ultimate goal of being humans is to glorify God by living a life of integrity in obedience to God’s Word. It is incarnational in the sense that Christians are called in words and in deeds to live out the life of Christ so that others may come to know that He is the Lord and the Saviour of mankind.
For the above reason I experienced the call to be a minister of the Word that others may know Jesus. It does not mean that I am perfect and have achieved to exemplify Christ fully. I am still fumbling and stumbling through trying to make the belief part and the living part of me coherent. To integrate the personal, the relational, and the lived life is a tremendous task. As striving for perfection is an on-going process, I am taking one step at a time, trying to live according to the Word with and open self as much as I can.
I am trying to build a church as a community of faith, in which members may find meaning and coherence between the personal and the public worlds. So that what Hauerwas described may be experienced:
The story of God does not offer a resolution of life’s difficulties, but it offers us something better – an adventure and struggle, for we are possessors of the happy news that God has called people together to live faithful to the reality that he is the Lord of this world….Moreover, through initiation into such a story I learn to regard others and their differences from me as a gift. Only through their existence do I learn what I am, can or should be. (Garber p.146)

2002-12-04T07:45:00.000-05:00

1. Worldview:
God is Creator of this world, therefore all good things praise Him. Cultural richness is the part of God�fs good creation.

Take Donald Duck of Disneyland as an example. Is Donald Duck good thing in God�fs eyes? Yes, it can be. Why? Because it is a part of God�fs creation? How? Did God create Donald Duck? He did not create Donald Duck directly. Yet He created the gift of imagination and gave it to human beings. Therefore, by this imagination, all companies in Disneyland, such as Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse, were born in the world. These companies give children (and sometimes adults, too!) dreams, joy and happiness through such as picture books and movies and at Disneyland in California and Tokyo (and I enjoyed it, too). It is God�fs will that people use the imagination for the good intention.

Donald Duck can also be a good mediator between children and parents. How? Well, this Sunday I saw a little girl talking about her favorite Donald Duck with her father. The picture was so beautiful that both she and her father smiled and were full of happiness. She was happy because she was talking about her favorite Donald with her favorite father, and her father was happy because his beloved daughter was happy (I don�ft think that he was happy because he loves Donald.). In this situation, Donald helps this daughter and her father to make happy family life with full of love. It is God�fs will that each family maintains love in its sphere. Donald helps this daughter and her father to practice the task of love as family.

2. My way of life
The conviction that all good things in this world are God�fs good creation makes me to live in this world positively. It gives me the meaning to live in this world. Take cats for an example here. I love cats. I almost believe that cats are the second best God�fs creation besides human beings. God created cats to praise Him with their existence, and I believe that God created cats to comfort human beings as pets. I would love cats without knowing anything about God�fs creation. Yet I am sure that my conviction of God�fs good creation helps me to love cats more without any hesitation and experience comfort and joy through cats.

2002-11-29T14:34:00.000-05:00

hello everyone. what follows are a couple very overdue blogs. my apologies for not sharing these sooner....

#1. WHY DO YOU GET UP IN THE MORNING?
i get up to love. i will elaborate but this is my thesis. i believe above all else that i am here to be an "agent of love." in my coming and my going, in my lying down and rising up, in my argument and my listening; in my silence and my laughter; in my study and my travel; in my performance and my appreciation; in learning and challenging; in remembering humility and dignity;etc, ad nauseum...i believe that in all these things there must be (and i struggle to be consistent...or even regularly erratic)love. perhaps as i grow older i'll need to find a more concrete "reason" for getting up in the morning but for now, this does the trick.
#2. THREE FACTORS OF INFLUENCE: CONVICTIONS, CHARACTER AND COMMUNITY. WHAT IS INFLUENCE IN OWN LIFE? interestingly (to me) the convictions that have come to be consistent for me are (what my, admittedly limited and ever so slightly skewed, understandings of) the basic tenets of the american conservative evangelical movement namely, "God loves you. You love too." the conviction that we are called to a life af love --and to love as Christ loves-- has stayed with me thorughout major shifts in other areas of conviction. what is it to love? how do we/i love with strength, with (as Garber puts it) integrity? it is this quesiton: is this loving? that shapes my world.

2002-11-28T11:09:00.000-05:00

The Georgetown CRC - 2052 in a culturally hardened, high conflict world.

Juanita looked up at the moon obscured by a cloud of pollution. Remembering the moon of her childhood, a pristine white orb, she thought it was a shame it had been sold to Microsoft-Hyundai-ING. The company had moved their entire global operations to the moon including employees and they had brought in as much commercial and cultural support as they deemed necessary. She thought that in spite of the pollution it would be a nice place to live, far removed from the trouble here on earth. Maybe she could live on the far side of the moon with the Mennonites. It would be nice to meet the people who send the automated relief re-entry drones. She was thankful for the food and clothing that they provided.

GCRC with it's long tradition of local and overseas justice work had tried
to stem the tide of Muslim domination by sending some people to the Islamic
Republic, a large Muslim state encompassing most of the northern part of the African continent.. The people had been forced into the south of Africa along with most other Christians who had been unable to exist with in the Shari’a Law harshly enforced throughout the state. The Islamic Republic had built up their military and political power. One thing the Muslims never seemed to be short of was funds.

They had however been desperately short of food. At a time when it was difficult to stop them, they had sent well-equipped armies and farmers to Western Canada and Ontario looking for fertile land and fresh water supplies. Well-guarded military farms were efficiently set up and shortly thereafter the food supply line to Northern Africa was instituted. The Canadian army had fought with their legendary valiantly but could not compete with the shear numbers of Muslims willing to die for their cause. Once the area had been secured Muslims from all around North America as well as from Africa had gravitated to the area, setting up commercial support and populating the area, living like Kings from the wealth generated off the land.

But that was 15 long years ago. Since the fall of the Muslim Empire the country was no longer the super power it once was, and had degenerated to civil uprisings and quarrelling amongst Muslim factions. At the same time the dictator of the day and taken to sending "Jihad cells" to what they determined to be strategic pressure points around the globe.

She turned her attention back to the present situation. There were rumours of another raid perhaps this time by one of the infamous Jihad cells. Since the fall of the Muslim Empire the people who had been forced underground had begin to resist with better cohesion and in this area of Muslim control that included most willing young adults. She was an advance scout and had to stay all but invisible while uploading observed troop movements to the local server.

She turned her thoughts back to home. Most communities had gone into hiding in order to survive. The Georgetown CRC had literally gone underground and currently most of its congregation made their home in one of the newly opened but now disused silver mines in the area. There was still Silver here but the fighting had made mining superfluous, and the mines were very easy to defend. Working in the resistance wasn’t a nine to five job. She hoped she’d make it to the afternoon service tomorrow. It would be good to see people again.

2002-11-21T16:32:00.000-05:00

Readings from Jenkins

Jenkins presents demographic statistics showing that the times we are in is a time of tremendous population change. The population of the Northern regions, which are still predominately Christian countries, has been declining. None of the top ten most populous nations in the world, except the United States is in the Northern regions. On the other hand, the populations of most of the countries in the Southern regions are increasing rapidly. As long as the population of Europe keeps on declining and secularism continue to be popular, the center of Christianity will be moving toward the Southern regions. and one of the differences between Christians of these two regions is that the Southerners are likely to be much more committed in terms of belief and practice. This is evident in the fact that the more mission-minded Korean Church has been sending out more missionaries than the European Christian countries. Some people even predicted that the future of Christianity lies in the East, and according to Jenkins, in the South as well.

Concerning the matter of God and the world, church and state, secular and sacred, Jenkins points out that the Western mind assumes that religion should be segregated into a separate sphere of life, distinct from everyday reality. This is derived from the Enlightenment. While the intellectual world of the Southern regions is far closer to the medieval world (p. 141). He elaborates incidences in Africa, Latin America, and Asia where politics were/are affected by religious allegiances and activism, as clergy have repeatedly occupied center stage in political life. Much violence occurred in Latin America in class struggle between the poor and the rich. And unfortunately clergy sided with the revolutionary Marxist regime and failed. It may be the hand of God that Pentecostalism flourish as a replacement and also as an outlet for the suppressed to vent out their frustration and inducing hope to those who are being unjustly treated. The stance taken by the South African to overthrow apartheid, and the Korean church¡¦s participation in achieving more democracy in a sacrificial way are both very commendable. The mentality of strictly separation of church and state may not be of most beneficent, especially when matters like justice and social improvements are concerned. Christians should participate in politics to contribute in policy making and planning both locally and internationally.

Looking at the picture presented by Jenkins concerning the conflicts between Christians and Muslims. It is both scary being informed of the continue expanding of the latter religion while Christianity seem to be retreating both voluntarily and involuntarily. It is also heart breaking to know that so many Christians are being persecuted in Muslim countries without much attention and help from the Western world. All because the West and the North American (predominately called Christian nations) care more about their oil supply than justice and human right.

2002-11-21T16:05:00.000-05:00

I have become disheartened. The sheer enormity of potential conflicts, especially between Muslims and Christians seems like trying to hold back the tide with a paper plate.
It seems as if nothing ever changes. Today as throughout history Christians are persecuted for their faith, and rival religions are close to conflict with Christians all over the globe. Christians willingly take up arms against others. We seemingly live in an advanced civilized age, capable of negotiating peace in time of war. Yet the amount of potential conflict due to religious differences is staggering. Religious conflict doesn’t generally allow compromise to resolve differences. Instead passion for the cause and the will to follow a charismatic leader dominate the worldview and therefore decisions made by the people involved.
Leaders of the same mind globally (provided they were well-trained neo-Calvinists of course), would solve all our political, and religious problems. If we are all on the same page we can move forward in the same direction. (And if anyone disagrees with that well you’ll have to deal with a stubborn, ornery Friesian, just relishing a good fight.)
Maybe all Christian nations could become Anabaptist, and just withdraw to a new location where everyone would just leave them peacefully alone, while the rest of the world fights it out. This of course would not be the answer but it leads me to the fact that there are times when Christians will have to go to war to fight for justice.
Often while reading Jenkins I would get my hackles up, when yet another grave injustice would go by with nothing being done for that particular situation, and if I were placed in the same situation, can see myself reacting rashly.
I think back to El Salvador, when the common people seeking justice had to resort to fighting (I think justly), to right the wrongs perpetuated by years of corrupt leadership. But the situation escalated, with super powers becoming involved, prolonging the conflict, because of global political agendas. In the meantime justice waits patiently while every one fights.
But in all this my comfort comes from God. John Calvin in his Institutes describes common grace, which keeps sin from crashing our world into the nearest bridge abutment and can also keep Christians and Muslims from barbaric acts of war, can see justice served throughout God’s good creation.

2002-11-21T09:23:00.000-05:00

(Note to Mieko from Gideon: Something I did moved your original entry, and my limited technical skills do not allow me to put it back under your name. But here it is.)

Pentecostalism in Latin America, Africa and Asia
by Mieko Higashinaka

To begin with, please forgive my excuse. It was a tough (English) reading for me this time. To be honest, I’m not very sure that I understood this reading rightly. I’ll try my best.

1. Our time
This is the time of pluralism and individualism. Pentecostalism in Latin America, Africa and some Asian countries fits to the needs of our time that both Roman Catholic and Methodist could not offer in those countries.

How has Roman Catholic been for people had then? Firstly, Roman Catholic forms centralization of religion and culture. Consequently, it did not allow people to localize and people’s religious and cultural diversity. On the other hand, Pentecostalism pays its attention to the local that cannot be ignored in countries where people have rich cultural diversities. Secondly, Roman Catholic has a hierarchy system. It did not let lay people to work freely in the church and society as well. On the contrary, Pentecostalism offers the equal chance for every lay person to participate to cultural and church work. It vitalizes people who have degraded their own ability and dignity under the oppression of colonization by European countries.

What does then Methodist focus on? It came to those countries much later than Roman Catholic dominated over those countries. We can pay attention to two points here. First, Methodist focuses on personal salvation. Beginning in the time of modernism, Methodist also could not escape from the form of individualism. The second point is its focus on cultural transformation but not political transformation. Since it concerns personal changing, the political change is not necessary for them. Interestingly, even though Methodist could not reach the needs of people, it eventually prepared the way for Pentecostalism in terms of individualism and cultural transformation.

In this way, Pentecostalism that concerns both individual and cultural changing covers “unfinished task” of Roman Catholic and Methodist.

2. Worldview and Global Church
What is the secret of the popularity of Pentecostalism in those countries? Martin points out some key words. I pick up some of them here:

>Adaptability: As noted, Pentecostalism has flexibility to various kinds of cultural forms in those countries.
>Lay participation: it allows both women and men, both young and old, and both the poor and the rich participate to ministry.
>Enthusiasm: Generally speaking, cultures in those countries originally have tendency of enthusiasm and cheerfulness compared to European countries that brought Christianity to them. (This is my comment but not Martin’s. Forgive me if it’s not true!)

The dualistic idea in Pentecostalism is another interesting point in their context. Their dualistic idea is not the dualism between body and soul, rather, moral dualism between in the Christian community and the non-Christian community. They understand that the Christian community should and actually has the higher moral standard compared to the moral outside of the church. Sometimes it goes too far, and some Christians try to exclude, for example, TV and other cultural resources from their life in order to purify their life.

Their indivisible idea between physical and spiritual salvation consequently brings dynamic cultural transformation. They believe that spiritual salvation must bring restoration to the moral of family life and social injustice. As a result, people have sought higher moral standard in their personal, family and social life. This idea also changed their labour view. It calls people “for the street salesman, the hotel waiter, the self-appointed tourist-guide-cum-beggar, or the domestic servant” as well as “for the software engineer, the media professional, or the social worker” [79]. On the other hand, their holistic view on material and spiritual salvation unfortunately brings a disadvantage as well. Some Christians misunderstand that their faith must directly bring material and physical blessings to them.

How does Pentecostalism actually work in their society? They seem to have good contact and cooperative work with other denominations, too, for example, Roman Catholics and other Protestant denominations.

2002-11-20T09:54:00.000-05:00

2002-11-05T13:46:00.000-05:00

Colson’s worldview (Laurence Loo)

Colson’s worldview is pretty much a reflection and elaboration of Albert Wolters’ worldview paradigm. He leads his readers along the course of examining the three major categories of creation, fall, and redemption. He provides a conceptual structure to identify the problems of non-Christian worldviews on these three items and argues apologetically the soundness and reasonableness of the Christian perspectives on every subject. He provides Scriptural references for his arguments and stresses that the Christian worldview should be grounded in the Holy Scripture.

Colson believes that all Christians should come together in unity to face the many challenges of the non-Christian world, in-spite of their different denominational backgrounds. Christians can keep holding on to their different doctrinal and traditional distinctive, and still can come together to evangelize and transform the world. The common ground is the Christian worldview.

I like the idea that Colson mentioned, that being Christians is not a personal and private matter. The Christian worldview that one accepted not only affect that person, but also influence those surrounding him, and it ripples away as well. The effects of this collective action will leave its imprint on the culture and society at large. Colson points out the common shortfall of most evangelical and fundamentalist churches of our time in neglecting such effect. He also points out that the dichotomous fact/value belief of the non-Christian world has influenced Christians greatly. We have accepted the restriction that the practice of our faith is to be limited within the church or church circle. We have retreated from the public square, and as a result, the Christian influence in the world gradually diminished.

Colson advocated that Christian should not retreat from the world, but should actively participate in every aspect in the world scene. The reason for doing that is because Christians do not only have the Great Commission but the Cultural Commission. Christians are commanded with the mandate to build culture in the Christian way according to biblical principles. The cultural commission can be traced back to the time of Genesis. God created man after His own image and likeness. He gave command to man to reflect His image and to have dominion. Creation did not stop at the first three chapters of Genesis but carry on by man and expressed in the development of societies and cultures that honor the Creator. Following the thought of Wolters’ idea of redemption as a form of restoration, Colson says that “we are meant to proceed to the restorations of all God’s creation, which includes private and public virtue, individual and family life, education and community; work, politics and law; science and medicine; literature, art, and music. The redemptive goal permeates everything we do, for there is no invisible diving line between sacred and secular” (pp296-297). All should be under the lordship of Jesus Christ. And God’s law governs both the natural and moral realms of our existence. In dealing with non-Christian philosophy, Colson suggests that Christians should neither compromise the truth of Christianity nor abandon knowledge of the world. By realizing that non-Christians perceive reality in part, Christians can take that part which is in accord with the teaching of the Bible to build bridges for dialogues to help non-Christians to see Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of all partial truths embodied in the philosophy and culture of the world. Colson also encourages Christians to take the opportunity in this new millennium “to make a compelling case that Christianity offers the most rational and realistic hope for both personal redemption and social renewal”(p 303)

2002-10-31T04:21:00.000-05:00

4 dimensions on Being human-Calvin Seerveld

I wondered when I first see his book title,"Being human", not "Human being". Seeveld write: 'I like the title "On being human" better than "On human being" because it keeps our human existence adjectival, gerundive, rather than a substantial and nominative."(38).

According to Seerveld, all creatures such as human, animal, plants, rock, sun star, and moon exit coram Deo (I like this term). All creatures respond to God in their own way. But, to be human is characterized by pray. Seerveld say: "Only human creatures can pray and fight back with God." He goes on to say: "To be in God's presence, inescapably responsible yourself for being odedient or disobedient to the Lord". As Psalm 139 tell us, it means that all human creatures are personally known by God and God know everything about us. Seerveld says: "Psalm 139 and Philippians 4 reveal the special calling of humans to live before God entirely as an act of prayer". In next chapter, he argue about sin through Levitious 19 and Matthew 21. He says: "Sin is living godlessly out of and for your self". As Seerveld point outs, we have to take our sin seriously. We are not only sinful, but also weak and fragile. Psams 39 reveals that human creatures are fragile. Seerveld write: " But our Scripture reveals that God is the Creator of our human fragility and takes our temporality seriously and approves of our screaming in faith at God when the hurt simply gets to be too much"(40). In chapter 7, Seerveld refers to Melchizedek. According to Hebrew 7, Melchizedek means "king of righteousness", "king of Salem" and "king of peace". In NT Melchizedek means Jesus Christ. We who in christ can and should respond to God with joy, love, faith, hope and neighbory love.

Pray
I think that in some sence prayer gradually shape the worldview. I pray to God for my family, parents, brother, friends, the poor,the marginal and peaceful world. Just as many Christians are so, in my life prayer means that I stand Coram deo.

Merciful God
Help me to remember that I am here to serve.
May I be willing to comfort those who are in need.
Help me to hear the cries of those who are seeking Your help.
Help me to learn how to use each day to please You.
In Christ's name Amen

2002-10-30T22:29:00.000-05:00

On the roots of Christian Labour: Part One, Part Two, Part Three.

2002-10-30T22:14:00.000-05:00

Calvin Seerveld - On Being Human

What is it to be human? Calvin Seerveld leads his readers through several biblical passages to answer this question. In chapter 1 he says, “Psalm 139 reveals the truth that the peculiar feature of human creatures is that the Creator LORD holds us to be accountable persons in God’s holy presence.” Human beings are not like the other creatures on earth. Though all of creation - every tree, rock, and bird - can witness to the Lord of heaven and earth, human beings alone can respond in obedient or disobedient living towards the Lord. Our lives turn either towards God or away from him. This gives us a unique calling in this world to be people who live “Coram Deo”. We can either do this well or not well. When we sin against the Lord we fail to live up to what God has made us to be. Seerveld writes, “Sin is a fundamental human negation of our awe struck nature: sin is essentially proud, heartless selfishness.” The solution to the problem of sin is found in Jesus Christ whom we meet in the Scriptures. He is the One who in his grace has brought a liberating kingdom Rule.

To live Coram Deo in the Christ’s kingdom requires that we live holy lives but since we are prone to sin we are unable to meet the requirement. Only by the grace of God in Jesus Christ can we become holy. Seerveld writes, “The call to holiness is not a call to ritual purification, to separation from contact with what is evil, for us to leave this “world” of human cultivation behind. Instead, the call to be holy, the call to sainthood, is the invitation to give up our self-righteousness, to become identified singly by Christ’s forgiveness for us in our particular, rebellious, unlovely idiosyncrasy, and for us to flourish in that new certified identity.” This is something we will never achieve on our own. Only God, in his grace, can make this possible.

Seerveld’s use of Scripture is amazing. I find there is an “earthy” quality to his Bible translations which make it sound less like a “church book” and more real for day to day life. The Bible shapes the worldview which he describes in this book. It is a worldview which is grounded in the soil and matters of this world. As we go about our activities in this world we do so as God’s tenants. His kingdom Rule has come in Christ. When we know that the world is "pregnant" (!) (Revelation 21-22) we find joy and excitement in all our living. Seerveld - good stuff.

2002-10-30T21:29:00.000-05:00

Seerveld’s four claims and my life

1. Seerveld’s four claims

a. Prayer: Wherever people are, they are in God’s presence. Starting with Psalm 139 and Philippians, Seerveld shows that people “live the face of God” [17] and be “joyful in the Lord” [20]. People’s life is the gift from God, and people have tasks to be a human as God wants us to be.

b. Sin: Seerveld discusses what being holy means in this claim. To be holy is not to be an outsider from this world but to be responsible to neighbors, sisters and brothers. He says that to be holy is “to give up our self-righteous ness, to become identified singly by Christ’s forgiveness for us in our particular, rebellious, unlovely idiosyncrasy, and for us to flourish in that new certified identity” [29].

c. Fragile: Seerveld focuses on two opposite aspects: the life that passes away on this earth and the life everlasting. In other words, he calls them “human mortality” and “immortality” [38]. People are sojourns in this earth but are immortality in Christ. I understand it like this. We Christians are called to this earth to transform the culture, yet we still need to remember that we are only sojourns in this earth. We are pursuing the best thing, but we have to know that what we are pursuing cannot be the perfect in this earth. This is a severe claim, but it is true. We have to admit the weakness of our flesh and of this world. What we have to do on this earth is to stand at the gap to participate in the redemptive work of Christ. Christ fills what is lacked because of our weakness. We can do our best and lay the rest of them to Christ.

d. Melchizedek: Finally, Seerveld shouts for joy. “Anybody today who is in Christ is already a new creation” [2 Cor. 5:17]. Anybody who is newly created is given the new love for our neighborhood. With this love, new created people can take the right responsibility for our neighbors, our community, our careers and the world.

2. Fragile and My life

Knowing the Reformed worldview was so exciting to me. The more I learned it, the more I was attracted to the worldview committed to God’s world. As a result, I came to the extreme. I was thinking how to commit to this world too much but tend to forget what we have to seek beyond this world. We need to take responsibility in this world as Israelites had to take their responsibilities in their God’s given land. In the area of education, politics, ministry and family, we need to seek the best what we can do. But we are still lacked. We are weak. We are fragile. The perfect moment comes only when Christ fully redeems this world. Rejoice! In God’s eyes, it has already come! [Eccl. 3:15]

2002-10-30T10:27:00.000-05:00

Seerveld's overarching claim in these four chapters/meditations is that in inumberable and ultimately unfathomable ways, humans are intricately linked to God. Whether we turn our backs or our faces to God, we are nevertheless God's creatures. Being human is about being in awe-full communication with God, about acknowledging (and i love this thought of Seerveld's) that "we humans without exception worship..."(17). Last week we talked about metaphors we use to describe our worldview...one that allows me to think about things most clearly is that of a symphony. it works in discussing Seerveld's work as well...i imagine prayer to be something that all of creation participates in with animals, plants and rocks providing the instrumental foundation and surrounding to hold the human choirs word song.

"only human creatures can pray and fight back with God"(18) and this is the gift and burden of human being.

prone to sin
as a part of christian traditions which do plenty to emphasize the sinfullness of humanity, i found seerveld's claim about our inclination toward sin to be liberating. that is, sin is not only heretical action, but pietistic (in)action as well, ("mere leaves on the fig tree, mere verbiage, not a real fruit-bearing offering unless its thoughtful, systematic contribution to a right ordering of life is permeated by the contagious [fruits of the spirit and]bearing one another's burdens..."(30)) denise levertov (an american poet) has a great poem called "what the fig tree said" which offers another way of seeing the story of Jesus' curse upon the unfruitful fig tree.

fragile
in this meditation, seerveld claims not only that we humans are fragile, and foolish to think otherwise, but also that it is this fragility that we must question, must challenge ("why like a moth do you eath away with cancer the life of my friend? why do you let soldiers brutally rape women in the defenceless countryside as if you --i'll keep quiet. i know, it is my sin you need to forgive. but-- we are your guest, lord!"(40)), even while knowing that we may be crushed or burned or bleed to death in the process ("Who of us has the Holy Spirited wisdom to forge anthropological concepts that sweat tears or to think through ideas that will bleed with desmay at the inhumanity of man to men and women today?"(40)).

pregnant
It is this chapter that resonates most deeply with me. Seerveld here reminds us that becausehumans are prayerful, sinful, fragile beings who are "personally responsible for answering God's command to rule the earth mercifully..." (90)humans are responsible for giving birth to "laughter and praise, thanksgiving and a just government, holy trade, edifying conversation, wholesome food, ample resources, sinless human activity..."(90)

but further, that within the railing against God's action, there are seeds of justice, of solace, of joy that are watered and nourished by our contininuing to rail and grow out of our sloppy attempts at imitating Christ.

here i quote seerveld (who i see regularly at the ics copy machine and whom now i must make a concious attempt not to bear hug) at length
"In much the same way Scripture says that it is not letter-perfect research or prize-winning success, but doing what is just, spilling over goodness and being joyful in the Holy Spirit that are the eduring marks of God's kingdom Rule...Doing justice to another person's thought takes patient humility as well as love." (97)

as the second half of the semester rumbles toward us, i have the distinct impression that the rumbling is not that of the peace train, but a steamroller. seerveld's reminder that things don't have to be perfect or 'prize-winning' in order to be good enough for God, although comforting, also serve to increase my anxiety. because although many of my ways of thinking and being in the world have been challengend, one thing i know is true, my professors are not God (don't tell a soul)! Where is there room, in the midst of intensive reading, thinking, note-taking, research and commuting, to practice academic worship in the manner which i find to be most productive, that of lectio divina? this method of reading, listening/prayting/thinking, rereading, writing, rereading, listening/prayting/thinking, rereading one more time and then writing again is incredibly important to me but impossible to maintain in a full-time student life. roar.

Finally, another quote (i think my favorite): "And joy has nothing to do with becoming a dry-eyed Stoic analyst, but joy has everything to do with the kind of thinking that, when it is troubled or sad, has its tears dreid by a fellow believer's insightful comment...we humans need only to see to it that our whole bodied service, in which the sinful past and the holy future are both present, be joyful father than frivolous, playful rather than tedious, hopeful rather than afraid, scripturally directed rather than at loose ends..."(97)
amen.

2002-10-30T00:13:00.000-05:00

Being Human Is

Being Meant to Pray
As human creatures what makes us unique in creation is our accountability in the presence of God.
There is no feedback from the rest of God’s Creation, not from the trees or the rocks or even the most seemingly intelligent dolphin. We have the responsibility of directing ourselves toward God or away from God. We need to “Learn instead how to become together a constant prayer=offering=living sacrifice (Romans 12:1-2), a healing fellowship of humans that enjoys and dispenses the shalom of the LORD” (pg 20). Meant to pray is our response, weather it is our most joyful worship or our most anguished cry, to hearing God and wanting passionately to respond as God asks us.

Being Prone To Sin
We are sinful, ever since we as humanity fell into sin, we are no longer objective about it. We are now drawn to sin. Is a part of our tainted humanity. The good news is simply salvation, and yet we try so hard to work out what it means to live a sanctified life in society and history. We should rather turn ourselves to Christ and allow his grace to permeate our thoughts and thereby our deeds, to permeate our very being our “prone to sin” nature.

Being Fragile
We humans are fragile, we are mortal. Our human fragility, viewed by the sinful world is so misunderstood. The proud are blind to it, believing that humanity will evolve to conquer all, and those who see only mortality fail to see anything in this life of any redeeming value when compared to the finality of nothingness. Even faithful followers of God feel the fragility, the chaos, and who can make sense of it? “But our scripture reveals that God is he Creator of our human fragility and takes our temporality seriously and approves of our screaming in faith at God when the jut simply gets to be too much and we really need him to come quickly to give us who hang on by the skin of our faith the new change of clean clothes.” (pg40).

Being in the Order of Melchizedek
We can place our faith and hope in God, because he will make all things new. It will be a place where “God is surrounded by laughter and praise, thanksgiving and just government, holy trade, edifying conversation, wholesome food, ample resources, sinless, human activity, - the heaven of God’s administration will settle upon the earth in full public view, and the Light of the world will radiate completely world-wide, world without end.” (pg94) Being in the order of Melchizedek God is our strength in times of trouble, and we joyfully, playfully, hopefully and scripturally direct ourselves toward God.

Our Human fragility is heavy upon me. The weight of that chaos is crushing me down. Where is God when you really need him? What can I say to the mothers of the disappeared (of El Salvador), what can I say to the Mother and Father who watch their child dying of starvation? What do I say to the homeless who have no options, who are caught in the downward spiral, the trap of addiction of one type or another? What do I say to my own mother who helplessly watches my father and his struggle with an unknown illness? Revelations 21:4 says God will wipe away completely every tear form their eyes. The death shall be no more! Neither shall there ever be any mourning or crying or troublesome pain any more because the earlier order of things has passed away. But these can be just words, and I don’t know if they can understand them, because I have a difficult time understanding them. From the depths of my soul I direct my anguished cry, my scream of faith toward God and hope for justice, and redemption for all of them.

2002-10-25T17:30:00.000-04:00

*cino: a reformational webzine?

In the new issue: Is Halloween a trick or a treat?; Louise Erdrich's new novel; music and poetry.

And discussion topics, including: issues on which very committed, thoughtful Christians can take opposite positions; is it possible for God to lead us to do something that is outside of conventional morality?; is fear a part of how we were created or is it a sign of our weakness since the Fall? ...

2002-10-25T06:16:00.000-04:00

The Shape of Things to Come? (Part One, Part Two, and some unfinished discussion in the comments to an earlier blog link.)

2002-10-24T01:21:00.000-04:00

Middleton & Walsh: the Biblical story and the Christian worldview

In their book, Middleton and Walsh (to quote David Naugle), "examine the relationship of the christian worldview to postmodernity through a careful and creative reading of the biblical text in light of postmodern sensitivities" (D. Naugle, Worldview, Eerdmans, p.351).

What is the characteristics of the modern worldview, the postmodern worldview? How can the Christian worldview respond to these worldviews? According to Middleton& Walsh, worldviews give faith answers to a set of ultimate and grounding questions, that is, "Where are we?", "Who are we?", "What's wrong?", "What's the remedy?" In order to answer to these questions in the light of the Christian worldview, they use an analogy between the modern and postmodern story and the biblical story. It seems that their analogical approach is the characteristic of their worldview approach.

Middleton and Walsh consider the spirit of modernity as the spirit of progress characterized by science, technology and economic growth. By analogy this spirit of modernity is compared with the biblical story of the tower of Babel. According to them, it is human autonomy that characterize the modern worldview. It also means autonomy from God. But, modernists as homo autonomous became to feel "a profound loss of hope and sense of angst (undefined anxiety or dread) about the meaning and purpose of life in modern times"(p.23). In the shifting or shifted times from the modern worldview to the postmodern worldview, what kind of worldview can and should Christians offer?

Middleton and Walsh insist that as Christian living in the postmodern we should take the biblical story as a comprehensive metanarrative seriously. In Chapter 5, they sketch the biblical narrative from the exodus to the cross, especially focusing to the exodus story of Israel. Just as "even in exile Israel returned to its founding narrative", we have to consider the biblical metanarrative as our own stories. It means that we have to experience vicariously a suffering or hope of Israel (not Israeli) as our own suffering and hope. To quote Middleton and Walsh, it means "indwelling the biblical story". "It is an indwelling that takes seriously the character of Scripture as narrative"(p.184). In our times, we always have to remind ourselves that we have, and live in, the biblical metanarrative.

2002-10-23T00:03:00.000-04:00

How do Middleton & Walsh present the Christian worldview?

Middleton and Walsh start with a set of questions to help us define our (or anyone’s) worldview. The four questions, which they say are the most basic questions one can ask, are: Where are We?, Who are We?, What is wrong?, and What’s the remedy?.

Once a method for defining worldview is established, Middleton and Walsh go on to set out Modernism as the dominant worldview of our Western Civilization in this time, and suggest that modernity is about to come to a grinding halt.

They make an interesting comparison of the modern worldview to the Tower of Babel. They describe modernity as a three-floor structure, the ground floor being science. If we can figure out how the world works down to the last detail, we can completely understand it. The second floor is Technology. Once we understand the world, using technology we can be masters of the world. The third floor is economic progress, the capstone to the first two building blocks. If we can maintain progress, we can overcome all the problems with society and civilization, ignorance, poverty, war, etc. we can achieve a utopia.

Just as the Tower of Babel was to be a tower reaching to heaven, and just as the people building Babel thought that such a project would make the need for God obsolete, so it is with modernity. The structure of modernity is being worked on and being built to take over the entire planet, to become all that matters, and in so doing making the need for a God also obsolete. Modernity seeks to prove that there is no God by becoming God.

Middleton and Walsh establish that modernism is a worldview destined to fail and they offer the alternative destined to succeed. The answers to the worldview questions posed are brought out beginning with the story of Exodus. Israel’s suffering, (What’s wrong), and God’s desire to relieve that suffering (What is the Remedy?), is the thrust of the Exodus story. From the Exodus story they move into the biblical metanarrative. The beginning of the metanarrative is creation. The answer to the question What’s Wrong? becomes the suffering of the entire creation, and the remedy becomes redemption of the entire creation including justice for the suffering.

How then shall we live? In this time of dying modernism, and fledgling postmodernism, what is the true essence of living a real, ‘get your hands dirty’ biblically based life?

Since the metanarrative is about all of humanity, we today are also included. We need to understand the biblical story as fundamentally about us. Middleton and Walsh quote Walter Brueggemann: “This text does not require “interpretation” or “application” so that it can be brought near our experience and circumstance. Rather, the text is so powerful and compelling, so compassionate and uncompromising in its anguish and hope, that it requires we submit or experience to it and thereby renter or experience on new terms, namely the terms of the text. The text does not need to be applied to our situation. Rather, our situation needs to be submitted to the text for a fresh discernment. … In every generation, this text subverts all our old readings of reality and forces us to a new, dangerous obedient reading.” (pg. 175).

Middleton and Walsh go one to say that the Bible is not a story that has ended, but that we are participants in the ongoing drama. As participants our faith must be relevant to our time and circumstances, if it is not our faith becomes obsolete.

So how do discern the path for our world at this time? We can find some direction from the early church in Acts 15. The come to decisions by listening to stories about what the spirit has been doing, and they reflect on the biblical story and how it will guide them. “They attempt to be both faithful to the biblical tradition and sensitive to a new reality in their midst. And out of this mix, they improvise.” (pg. 193).

So as a part of God’s people, as a part of the redeemed across all times and all places and all colour and all races, we need to struggle with the difficult questions of our time, attempting to discern the paths life God would have us take.

2002-10-22T17:57:00.000-04:00

The worldview by Charles Colson

"Genuine Christianity is a way of seeing and comprehending all reality” (15). This is the central theme going through in Colson’s book. After quoting some Bible verses to explain how Christianity should embrace all reality, Colson warns that “the Christian faith cannot be reduced to John 3:16” (15). This is partly true. I recall a committed Christian man in my home church, one of evangelical churches in Japan. He once proudly told me, “If you condense the whole Bible message into one word, it will be John 3:16!” Even though I was not very familiar with the reformed Worldview at that time yet, his statement gave me a big question mark. The more I learn the worldview, the more I am convinced that his statement slightly distorted. It is true that Jesus died on the cross to redeem my sin. Yet this is not enough to explain God’s purpose in human history. God’s purpose is more than that. While we cannot reduce the Bible message into John 3:16, it is true that we can start to explain the biblical worldview with John 3:16. It states that God loves the world. We can start the discussion with “what is the world?” Everyone’s favorite verses can be dangerous to narrow down people’s worldview and, at the same time, can be a good starting point to broaden the worldview.

I am not convinced enough when Colson makes distinction between the great commission and the cultural commission (17). One of professors in my Christian college used to tell students that the church should have both tires on its body: the tire of ministers and the tire of laymen. I partly agree with her statement, yet I am still not convinced enough with this theory. I understand that both evangelizing and transforming the culture are important missions for every Christians, but I would rather believe that the cultural commission includes the great commission as well. We Christians proclaim the gospel to fulfill the cultural commission.

It is true that “we are aliens in our own land, worldview missionaries to our own post-Christian, post-modernist culture” (31). Living in Japan, I have always felt that I am a foreigner even though Japan is my own country. Having a Christian faith in Japan is very odd in Japanese culture. I was raised up in a very different way from all my friends were: going to the church every Sunday, not joining the community religious festivals, and believing the Bible instead of a horoscope. Reading Colson’s book, I found that not only a Christian from East Asia but also a Christian in a Western culture feel like that they are “aliens” in their cultures today. Colson’s statement encourages me in the positive way to be a worldview missionary among the confusion multi-worldviews.

2002-10-21T22:00:00.000-04:00

Better late then never. I hope that this saying will be true for me now as I give this late reflection on the reading I have done from Middleton and Walsh’s book, Truth is Stranger Than it used to Be.

What intrigued me the most in this reading was Middleton and Walsh’s focus on the story of the exodus and our need to claim the biblical story for ourselves. The story of redemption is our story and it must shape our lives. The biblical story is our worldview. In Jesus Christ we have been brought into the story, the history of Israel, so that what we read in the Old Testament is not just the history of Israel, it is also our history as God’s people. On page 175 of the book the authors say, “We are the people whom God liberated from Egypt and led through the Red Sea; we are the people languishing in exile and crying out for release; we are the disciples whom Jesus rebuked for misunderstanding his mission and to whom he appeared after his resurrection; we are the newly formed church who received the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost.”

I think that this story is implanted in us at the time of our baptism. In I Corinthians 10 we read a rather strange text in which Paul explains that our forefathers, the Israelites, were “baptised into Moses in the cloud and in the sea”. What does it mean that they were baptised into “Moses”. In the Christian tradition we insist that proper baptism occurs when we are sealed in the name of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. When then Paul says that the Israelites were baptised into Moses he is saying that they were identified with God’s redemptive plan through this servant. The exodus was Israel’s liberation from the land of slavery. Through Moses God brought about this work of redemption. To be baptised into Moses was to be included in this great work of God through his servant. Since Jesus Christ is now the One through whom God’s great plan of redemption has been accomplished, we are baptised into him. We identify with his death and resurrection. Baptism is symbolic of dying with Christ, being buried in the grave with him, and rising to new life in him (Romans 6:1-14). Therefore when we are baptised we have a story implanted in us and, as Middleton and Walsh would say, the biblical story becomes our story.

The story which we read in the Bible then becomes bigger for us. It shapes our worldview. We do not see the Bible as telling us a lot of unrelated stories and facts about what God did for Israel and the Church of the first century. As Christians we continue to live out this story and make it our own. How we now live has everything to do with what we know God has done for us and the world. We are the people who have been brought out of the land of Egypt, the house of bondage, the place of slavery. In Christ we have been brought into a Kingdom which he brought and established through his ministry. In baptism we have God’s Name written invisibly on our foreheads. But more then that, we have a history and a story to which our lives are connected and from which they now flow.

2002-10-11T16:32:00.000-04:00

Royal Priesthood launch detail: Saturday, November 23, 8:30-10:00 pm, Wycliffe College, Sheraton Hall, 5 Hoskins Ave, Toronto.

2002-10-09T23:37:00.000-04:00

Paul Marshall presents the Christian worldview as a task to which we are called. This is God’s world and we are called to be busy in his world. We are created in the image of God which means that we are unique and have a purpose. We are not like all the other animals on the earth because human beings alone image their Creator. As such we are called to image God by being active in this world, ruling over it, by taking care of the creation and creating culture. We are on a journey from a garden to a city. Genesis begins the story in the Garden of Eden and the book of Revelation completes it with a vision of the New Jerusalem. Throughout this journey we are very aware of the affects of sin on everything. We mess things up all the time. However, God has not abandoned us nor the creation he loves. He takes our pitiful attempts at creating culture and makes all things new through Jesus Christ.

God so love the world that he gave his one and only Son. When John 3:16 refers to the “world” it is speaking about creation. The Bible uses the word “world” in a number of ways including the “sinful” world. However insofar as this is God’s creation, the world is good and all things are being redeemed in Jesus Christ. Marshall writes, “Redemption in Jesus Christ is not limited to any one area of the creation: souls, persons, nations, kingdoms, mountains, rivers, seas - the entire creation will be reconciled. ... Every dimension of life is to be lived in Jesus Christ and to be transformed by a renewing of our minds and hearts.” (Marshall, pages 43, 44, 45). The whole world has been opened up for us as Christians. We can enter every area of life and work wholeheartedly for the Lord. There is no dualism in Marshall’s worldview! It is all encompassing and liberating.

In particular I enjoyed Marshall’s writing on “ark theology” and his explanation of the passage in I Peter which speaks of the world being “burned with fire”. Ark theology points out God’s concern for the animals. Noah’s ark saved not only people, but the animals too. Ultimately the flood served to purify the earth, not annihilate it. The same principle of interpretation is applied to the text from I Peter. The fires of judgment are not sent to annihilate the earth, but to purify it once and for all time. Marshall writes, “Peter draws an explicit parallel with the time of Noah, when “By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed.” But we know from Genesis that the world did not cease to exist after the flood. ...The flood was a time of purification. The fire of judgment will be similar.” (Marshall, page 237). For this reason he is able to go on and make a bold statement that “Those things that are praiseworthy, both the gifts that God has given to us and the works that we have created, will find their place in the new creation: all good is everlasting.” (Marshall, page 240).

In all of this Marshall acknowledges the reality of sin and our inability to create bring perfection to the earth. The Scriptures do not give all the answers but instead points us towards Jesus Christ with the promise that through him we can be reconciled to God. The Bible helps us to know the world where God has placed us and to learn from that world. The Word is a light which helps us understand creation properly. In the meantime we pray, work, and engage this awesome world which God has so graciously entrusted to our care.

2002-10-09T10:13:00.000-04:00

How does Wolters present the Christian Worldview?

Creation
Wolters defines creation as “the correlation of the sovereign activity of the Creator and the created order.” (Pg13) The created activity refers to the activity of God in making creation, and the created order refers to the result of that activity, the cosmos. Wolters uses the word law to represent both the Creating Activity and the Created Order. This word is used to describe God’s acts of sovereignty by which he constitutes and upholds the totality of reality. Law does not include God’s saving acts of redemption.
Wolters sees two pairs of distinctions within his definition of Law. Laws of nature, things such as water flowing, wind, the orbits of the planets, and laws of norms, cultural personal and societal relationships are included in his first pair. General laws, for an example the Ten Commandments, are laws that hold generally for a variety of situations, and particular laws which can be a hair falling from my head, or a thunderstorm, willed to happen by God, are Wolters’ second pair of distinctions.
“What we have called the “law” of creation, therefore, is both compelling (laws of nature) and appealing (norms), and the range of its validity can be both sweeping (general) and individualised (particular)." (Pg17)
Creation was made out of nothing on the first day, with six days of refinements, elaboration and completions to be completed into a work of art. “Christ is intimately present in the whole range of the law of creation; He is mediator of both creation and re-creation.” (pg21)
The scope of creation, the order of God’s world includes the usual, mountains, oceans, bumblebees and mustard seeds, but also structure of society, art, marriage, politics and commerce. This created order can be directly related to Abraham Kuyper’s spheres, the created norms are boundaries for those spheres.
As integral parts of creation, we tend toward the order that is inherent in our creation. God impresses himself “indelibly”, like a big thick permanent marker on white porous cardboard, on our hearts.
The wisdom found in Proverbs are appeals to humanity to come to normalcy, to find and discern the boundaries of the created order. Wisdom is also the blueprint for all of God’s perfect creation. If we could get a handle on all of wisdom we could perfectly lay out the created order, find the boundaries of all of Kuyper’s spheres. Every so often we sinful humans get a glimpse of that true wisdom, and our hearts leap inside of us as we see a nugget of wisdom God places for us to discover.
Spiritual guidance is an important component of wisdom, just as spiritual guidance applies to our personal decisions, so too we can seek God’s Will by spiritual guidance as we try to discern the norms of the spheres.
“To sum up, the whole world of our experience is constituted by the creative will and wisdom of God, and that will and wisdom – that is, his law – is everywhere in principle knowable by virtue of God’s creational revelation” – (pg. 31)
God developed the earth over the five days following the making of the earth (from nothing) and he rested on the seventh. He is not finished developing the earth, he leaves man in his own image to continue with a human refinement of that creation, to continue to build civilization. The creation mandate in Gen. 1:28 involves mankind in the pursuit of subduing the earth. “The creation mandate provides a sort of climax to the six days of creation. The stage with all it rich variety of props has been set up the stage director, the actors are introduced, and as the curtain rises and the stage director moves backstage, they are given their opening cue. The dram of human history is about to begin, and the first and foundational Word of God to his children is the command to “fill and subdue”. - (pg 37) – Yes indeed the theatre of His glory.

Fall
All of creation has been affected by sin leaving no thumb’s breadth untouched. “The effects of sin touch all of creation; no created thing is in principle untouched by the corrosive effects of the fall” (pg. 44). We meet the perversion of God’s good creation in all parts of creation because of the fall, wherever we find parts of it that are abnormal, sick or distorted.
Sin has not become interwoven with creation creating a “dirty blanket”, but rather remains distinct from creation. We see a distorted image of the features of creation, which are still parts of the good creation. A sinful human being is still a human being created in God’s image.
Wolters distinguishes between structure and direction. Structure refers to the order of something, and direction refers to the movement toward or away from God. As Christians our desire is to move toward Christ, toward redemption, toward the originally unstained creation, Christ promises to make new.
“The fall affects the whole range of earthly creation; … sin is a parasite;…every area of the created world cries out for redemption and the coming of the Kingdom of God.” (Pg 56)

Redemption
Wolters has so far been leading up to the point that redemption in Jesus Christ is redemption for the whole of creational life, returning creation to that goodness as first created by God. God sacrifices his own Son to save the original works of His hands, certainly suggesting it is something well worth hanging on to. The totality of redemption is as great as the totality of sin, but through Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection, that sin is conquered. “What distinguishes a reformational worldview [from other traditional Christian orthodox worldviews] is its understanding of the radical and universal import of both sin and redemption.” - (pg. 60)
Wolters nicely sums everything up for us “(1) Creation is much broader and more comprehensive than we tend to think, (2) the Fall affects that creation in its full extent, and (3) redemption in Jesus Christ reaches just as far as the fall.”(pg71) Creation was originally perfectly whole as created by God, and though it is currently disfigured by sin, it will be a beautiful and glorious return to the whole theatre of God’s glory.

2002-10-09T01:21:00.000-04:00

I found Wolters's interesting article, entitled "On The Idea of Worldview and Its Relation to Philosophy" in Stained Glass: Worldviewa and Social Science(Ed.by. P.Marshall, S.Griffioen, and R.Mouw, 1989).

Wolters argues about the relation between Philosophy and Worldview.

a) worldview repels philosopy (Kierkegaard, Jaspers)-A) gratia contra naturam (cf. Anabaptism)
b) worldview crowns philosopy (the Baden School of neo-Kantianism, Rickert and Windelband) -B) gratia supra naturam (cf. Roman Catholicism)
c) worldview flanks philosopy (Husserl, Weber, Heidegger)-C) gratia iuxta naturam (cf. Lutheranism)
d) worldview yields philosopy (Dilthey, Mannheim)-D) gratia intra naturam (cf. Calvinism)
e) worldview equals philosopy (Gomperz, Engels)-E) gratia instar naturae (cf. liberalism)

2002-10-09T00:41:00.000-04:00

How does Wolters present the Christain worldview?
I think we should note that Wolters's Christian worldview is the reformational worldview which is one of various Christian worldviews(for example, pietism's, Roman Catholic's, the dispensationalist's, and liberal Protestantism's Christian worldview). As D.H.T Vollenhoven, unlike Herman Dooyeweerd, stuck to the term of the Reformational Philosophy, Wolters sticks to the term, the Reformational worldview.

Wolters's one of the arguments is that three basic biblical categories, Creation, Fall, and Redemption are essential to the reformational worldview. He summarize them as the following.
(1)creation is much broader and more comprehensive than we tend to think
(2)the fall affects that creation in its full extent
(3)redemption in Jesus Christ reaches just as far as the fall
According to Wolters, Creation, Fall, and Redemption concerns all creatures including human being.Therefore, in the perspective of the reformational worldview, the redemption achieved by Jesus means not only the salvation of a soul of the indivisual, rather a restration of the whole creation. Wolters writes: 1) "redemption means restoration", 2) "this restoration affects the whole of creational life and not merely some limited area within it"(p.57).

Wloters suggests that discerning "structure" and "direction" is useful to us. I think this distinction is the character of the reformational worldview. Wolters writes: "Structure is anchored in the law of creation, the creational decree og God that constitutes the nature of different kinds of creatures". he goes on to: "Direction, by contrast, designates the order of sin and redemption......Anything in creation can be directed either toward or away from God"(p.49).

The reformational worldview has the integral perspective. This worldview is incompatible with dualistic worldview. Rather this reformational worldview rejects a dichotomy, namely the division between "religious"or "sacred" realms and "worldly" or "secular" realms. Wolters argues that "this compartmentalization is a very great error"(p.54). (Most Japanese evangelical Christians too have this tendensy and tend to consider christian faith as private matter).As Wolters points out, we have to take the concept of "stewardship" more seriously, diccerning "structure" and "direction". The reformational worldview suggests that " a person must exercise personal responsibility"(p.15) in public life.

2002-10-08T15:51:00.000-04:00

Marshall presents the Christian worldview as a way of being engaged in the world around us as part of the good creation while seeking to "withstand and reverse the effects of sin" and death which touch all of creation as a result of the fall. Our task as creatures was originally, according to Marshall, "caring for creation--stars, cars, scars, and all--" and this task, despite the "fallenness" of the world, remains ours. we now have difficulty doing so both b/c the literal earth has become hard to work and also b/c the way in which we understand the (fallen) world is itself a fallen understanding (my interpretation of reading). Christians, Marshall says, sometimes tend toward a"lifeboat theology" in which there is only a sort of desparate attempt to safe the souls that can be saved amidst the wreckage of creation. This way of being "in" the world not only does an injustice to the world (in all three of the senses Marshall outlines)God gives us, but also to the people in the lifeboat. Marshall suggests an alternative to this theology which he calls "ark theology." as is suggested by the metaphor, this theology acts as the ark did for Noah, not merely saving people, but all of creation, and not from the wreckage of creation but from the "dust" created as God performed a few major repairs on the earth in order that they might be safely placed on the new earth which was cleansed of evil and had a finished basement with jacuzzui.

Marshall suggests that the new earth will not be separate from "heaven" and also that this new earth will not be drastically different from the earth and creation that we know now, only better. perfect, in fact. he concludes by reminding us that it is not piety but stewardship that will be ultimately of importance and that we must continue to be joyful and discerning participants in the world around us and to be working in the world lest we be left out of the banquet hall with no lamp oil. Marshall warns us that rules should not become stone walls but rather suggests that the spirit, the "honest response of faith" be what shapes our decisions as we tend to the creation in whatever way God has given us the ability to do.

QUESTIONS
--the apologetic way in which Marshall approaches the idea that 'every square inch' of creation is good and created by God and up for redemption seems to indicate that his words may have ben directed towards a more "conservative evangelical" audience...this also seemed the case as he made his against "lifeboat theology",etc. anybody know if this is the case?

--as i've only finished reading a few short hours ago, i feel that perhaps the perplexity with which i am understanding the texts should not now be turned into critical questions but be given a bit of time to "simmer" ...but, (for posterity's sake, i suppose) i would like to register my confused discomfort with the reading.

--in spanish speaking cultures (at least according to my college spanish teacher) the customary phrase one uses to respond to a compliment about a possession is, "it's yours" (as in: 1: "nice parrot" 2: "it's yours") i wonder why this nicety has not survived in english-speaking north america?

2002-10-08T12:09:00.000-04:00

The worldview by Paul Marshall

Marshall guides us to the worldview along the framework of basic reformed worldview: creation, fall, redemption and consummation. In each stage, Marshall gives short essays describing his daily life and suggests us how to interpret our world with this worldview.

Among his essays, I like the parrot story most [35]. I had a similar experience when I visited the Philippines, as one of volunteer workers five years ago, so I could imagine his situation very much. At that time in the Philippines, each of us stayed over night with the Filipino’s family. As soon as I arrived at the house of my host family, lots of people, from children to adults, from that street came to see me. They talked, asked me about Japan, taught me Tagalogue songs, and took a lot of pictures of them with my camera. Next morning before I left the house, the host mother took me to each of houses on the street to say good-bye to neighbors. At their tiny houses, most of them have just one room for an entire family, trying to be polite, I told them that their stuff animal on the chest was very pretty. As soon as I told them, the stuff animal was given to me. And the next house, I told a girl that her drawing picture on the wall was very nice. Then the picture was given to me. When I left the street, my hand was full of gifts by them. In our eyes, they seem almost junk staff: a dirty stuff animal, a drawing picture by a child, and a poster from an outdated calendar. But they are freely given by their generosity, as Marshall wrote. I learned generosity and not to be greedy from them.

We have to learn about the world, Marshall repeats in his book [cf. 53]. Memorizing the Bible verses is not enough to be a good steward of God. Our daily life in this world, such as how to make a choice, to decide a major in Marshall’s case, and how to use money require not only the Bible scripture but also common sense, experience, and mature advice from people. Along with a sincere faith to God, we need these kinds of wisdom to live in this world in a Christian way. Probably it is better to say that a sincere faith to God INCLUDES this wisdom as well. We have to learn about the world that God made so we can get wisdom.

I like his analogy of “the ark theology” [31]. Instead of the ark theology, I came from the tradition focusing on “the lifeboat theology. “ I was always taught that I have to reject the “world” and be involved in the work to save people from this sinful world! It is wrong. Marshall teaches that as Noah and animals came back to the land and restart to cultivate the land, we have responsibility to be rooted in this world and be models for people [cf.39] how to live in “every part of life” [38] along God’s will. We are not apart from the world but still in the part of the world.

2002-10-06T17:38:00.000-04:00

Jonathan Chaplin tells me that there is to be a cheese and wine reception at Wycliffe College, Sheraton Hall, 5 Hoskins Avenue, Toronto, on Saturday, November 23, 2002 (8:30-10:00 pm), to celebrate the publication of A Royal Priesthood, the most recent book in the Scripture and Hermeneutics Project series. One of the editors, Craig Bartholomew, will introduce the volume, and Craig's talks are always well worth hearing. (As an example, you could read the transcript of Craig speaking to Gegrapha on The Importance of Worldview.) I enthusiastically recommend that you attend this event, which is open to all.

2002-10-03T07:25:00.000-04:00

Kristen Knox surprised me some time ago by claiming that "Evangelicals in general are much more engaged in the cuture politically and socially than your average Reformed person." The ensuing discussion (click on "one is the loneliest number" below her entry) might be interesting to participants in this study group.

2002-10-03T00:04:00.000-04:00

The broad contours of Kuyper's worldview, reading from Sphere Sovereignty (Laurence Loo)

Kuyper's worldview is based on the theology of John Calvin. He held the position that Calvinism is not just a religious tradition or how the church looks at things, but a worldview in its own right. It is a credible system of belief comparable to all other significant systems of thought, and is effective to engage into the warfare for cultural dominance both spiritually and intellectually.

According to Kuyper, the Calvinistic worldview can offer a comprehensive insights into our relationship with God, with man and with the world. Kuyper summarized these three primary relationships as these (Lecture on Calvinism): Concerning our relation to God, it is a direct and immediate fellowship with the Eternal One, independently of the religious system. Concerning the relation of man to man, it is the recognition in each person of human worth, as each one is created after the Divine likeness, so that all men are equal before God and His magistrate. Concerning our relation to the world, Kuyper's point is that; in the whole world the curse (due to the fall) is restrained by grace, life is to be honored, and human effort should be directed to discover the treasures and develop the potencies hidden by God in nature and in human life.

Kuyper's worldview is centered upon the sovereignty of God over all aspects of reality, life, thought and culture. He proclaimed in his inaugural address at the dedication of the Free University that: "there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry 'Mine!'" (Sphere Sovereignty p. 461). Through out his life, Kuyper took this passion as his life goal to renew the church and the nation (Dutch). He insisted that God's holy ordinances should be established again in the home, in the school and in the State for the good of the people. The ultimate goal is that the nation should pay homage to the Sovereign God.

There are several major themes in Kuyper's worldview:

(a) Common grace - God's redemptive grace through the salvation accomplished by Jesus Christ on the cross restores nature. Christ's work has cosmic dimensions, it is not just limited to human salvation, but includes also the renewal of all God's creation to their original divine purposes.

(b) Sphere sovereignty - God is sovereign and has ordered the whole universe and all aspects of life within it by His law and word. Each creation is given its particular identity, therefore preserving the wondrous diversity of creation , and preventing the usurpation of one sphere of existence over another. Taking scholarship as an example, Kuyper stressed that scholarship should remain "sovereign in its own sphere and" should "not degenerate under the guardianship of Church or State. Scholarship creates its own life sphere in which truth is sovereign. Under no circumstances may violation of its life-law be tolerated. That would not only dishonor scholarship but be sin before God." (Sphere Sovereignty, p. 476).

(c) God has ordained the progressive development of the creation in history as our fundamental occupation to His glory and for our benefit.

(d) The distinction of two life orientations in the human race. One who acknowledge Christ's redemption and kingship, and the other who do not believe, with concomitant implications of both divisions in every aspect of human existence.

2002-10-02T23:18:00.000-04:00

Abraham Kuyper’s Worldview

For Abraham Kuyper, Calvinism was not merely a set of doctrinal teachings, rather it was a comprehensive worldview which he believed was the surest defense against what he called “modernism”. He believed that everybody has a worldview, whether or not they would say so. Everybody has a starting point from which they begin to understand the universe and human life. This view of the world forms the starting point of all presuppositions. Kuyper argues that Christians need to have a comprehensive worldview, grounded in God’s revelation, if they are to have any hope of engaging the secular mindset. If he were alive today he would say that our Christian worldview is needed for us to engage the postmodern teachings of our day. Calvinism, he said, is the only defense against such secular worldviews because of its comprehensiveness. (the article points out that he is indebted to James Orr for this insight).

Kuyper has a “big” view of the world in which God is the absolute Sovereign Ruler over all things (I’ve always been told he was a great man from the moment he was first introduced to me in Christian grade school. After reading the articles assigned for this reading report, I now see this is very true.) Nothing is neutral in this world. Dualism is anathema in his thinking. If your worldview has its starting point from humanity rather than God, your worldview is invalid and will not hold up. Modernism, he said, is a religious form of worldview which is utterly opposed to Christianity. But it is not just modernism which Kuyper criticizes, he rejects pantheism on the basis that is removes the distinction between God and the world, and he rejects evolution on the basis that it is a worldview derived from a single principle which has divorced the origin of the world from the reality of a Creator God. Kuyper believed that the theory of evolution had become a religion of its own, which as we can see from its fruits in our postmodern world is true. So where do we go from here? Kuyper calls on Christians to develop an alternative Christian worldview based on Calvinistic principles. We live in a world where the antithesis is alive and well. We are witnessing a struggle of worldview against worldview. The Christian worldview will only prevail when it is comprehensive and internally consistent.

Kuyper says, “If God is sovereign, then his Lordship must remain over all life and cannot be closed up within church walls, or Christian circles.” I say “amen” to that. It is for this reason we can engage the world in every aspect of life. God’s “common” grace holds back and blocks the effects of sin from having their full reign. Saving grace is only for the elect (an election which takes place before the creation of the world). The purpose of common grace is not for the elect, but for the glory of God. Every moment of history, for however long God chooses to allow this world to continue, is of infinite importance because God is working in everything to bring about his ultimate goal for creation (his glory). God is making all things new in Christ. He is not making all new things at the end of time, everything, right now, is being made new. As Christians this means we are not waiting around for Christ to return so much as we are joining God in his work of redemption. We are agents of transformation in this world. Christ has not only been given for the redemption of our souls, but for the redemption of creation. Kuyper says, “Christ is connected with nature because he is its Creator, and at the same time connected to grace because, as Re-creator, he manifested the riches of grace in the midst of nature.” Everything has meaning in Kuyper’s worldview and that is exciting. Art, leisure, studying, factory work, raising a family, etc., all of it can be done (and must be done) for the glory of God. As the Church of Christ, we are connected by special grace with Christians of all times and all places (the church as organism) in Christ. Together we engage this world which belongs to God, and make known his sovereignty for his glory.

2002-10-01T22:05:00.000-04:00

Kuyper's worldview

In Kuyper’s worldview the Christian faith as all-encompassing, comprehensive worldview(he found in Calvinism) has relevance in all in life. I think the following passage in the opening speech of Free University puts Kuyper's Christian worldview best.
"There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all. does not cry: ‘Mine!'".
Although Calvin's and Calvinian tradition be characterized by an emphasis on God's sovereignty, Kuyper developed furthermore the principle of "Sphere Sovereignty". The principle of "Sphere Sovereignty" means that God's Sovereignty eradiates in various social sphere such as the family, business, school etc. Therefore, according to J. Bratt, "each comprises its own domain, each has its own Sovereign within its bounds"(p.467).

Kuyper struggled to glorify God in all in life. Specifically, Kuyper struggled for freedom: the establishment of the "free" university that be entirely free of state control; the establishment of the "free church" that be free of the established church; the establishment of the Anti-Revolutionary Party (ARP) that stems from Kuyper's Christian worldview that want to reform "liberalistic" society to "free" society in which various worldview can live together.

Heslam writes: "Kuyper's aim in casting modern secular ideologies in terms of all-embracing worldview was to provide the backdrop against which to present a case for the development of an alternative, Christian worldview, based on Calvinistic principles"(p.111).
As Heslam points out, however, it is clear that Kuyper’s Christian worldview had the influence of pantheism and the thought of evolution. In this sense, it is clear that Kuyper was a child of his times and his worldview had the influence of the thought and culture of 19th century.

2002-10-01T01:22:00.000-04:00

What can I tell from the readings about the broad contours of Kuyper’s worldview?
The spine of Kuyper’s worldview is his belief in God. Throughout his speech at the inauguration of the Free University, he points out that the centre of the world is a living person, a King, the Holy One, the only Absolute Sovereign. The knowledge that the wise cannot grasp and fools can easily see; the knowledge of God is central to life and creation.
Abraham Kuyper was a Calvinist. He saw Calvinism to be “an all embracing life system rather than a narrow set of doctrines” (Heslam pg. 88). He believed that Calvinism needed to be updated to meet the challenges of the late 19th century and the very early 20th century. He believed that societies influenced by the Reformation were in the best condition. “Are not civil liberties most luxuriantly developed in Reformed lands? Can it be denied that domestic peace, decentralisation, and municipal autonomy are best guaranteed even today among the heirs of Calvin?” (Bratt pg. 481)
The French Revolution was the symbol for modernism and its cohorts, pantheism and Darwinism. These were the representatives of the idea that the world did not need God to be central to life. This of course was diametrically opposed to Kuyper’s view that God was central to all of life. Kuyper’s concept of worldview started out loosely, but as he grew in understanding and appreciation of the concept he came give his worldview concept coherence. “It was to be derived from a single unifying principle (the sovereignty of God); it was to provide answers to the same fundamental questions of human existence; and it was to be comprehensive and internally consistent.” (Heslam pg. 111).
Sphere Sovereignty was Kuyper’s solution to defining how the nuts and bolts or cogwheels of Calvinism should work when implemented in an all-encompassing neo-Calvinistic fashion. Sphere Sovereignty links together all the arenas of God’s creation, politics, art, education, church, state, music, virtually every area of life. “Oh, no single piece if our mental world is hermetically sealed off from the rest, and there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: Mine” (Bratt pg. 488).
Christian education and higher learning were large parts of Sphere Sovereignty in Kuyper’s mind. To Kuyper, it was our God given duty to pursue scholarship. Knowledge of God’s good creation serves to enhance our faith, and conversely lack of such knowledge obscures our coherence of faith and life. Like a ripple caused by a pebble in a pond, the seed of Christian education causes coherence of faith and life to ripple through our culture.
It all comes back to the root, like the vine and the branches, all spheres must be nourished by the vine in order to be effective, in order to transform culture and society into the re-creation that is His plan.

2002-09-30T23:03:00.000-04:00

Emeth Smith has posted a version of her response to Mieko at her own blog, where it has evoked some further discussion (click on tell truth at the bottom of her entry to read these responses).

2002-09-29T22:20:00.000-04:00

Kuyper's Worldview

The keyword of Kuyper's worldview, in other words Calvinism, is "all embracing life systems" [cf. Heslam, 88]. Compared to "Reformed," I would like to call it the cosmological worldview. This worldview deals with not only theological matters but also the matter of whole cosmos. This worldview is life-connectedness and concerns with how to eat, how to sleep, and how to love. It is about both eternal and everyday life.

According to Heslam, Kuyper thought that Calvinism can win over the worldview that dominated people's value in the 19th century. The modernism, ruling over people's value, was influenced by three elements: French revolution, pantheism, and evolutionism. Heslam notes that these three elements have both good and bad aspects in terms of the development of Calvinism. As a bad aspect, they distorted people's value and make people turn away from God. As a good aspect, thanks to these life embracing worldviews, Calvinism also concerns about the whole life systems but not only theological matters. In other words, Calvinism can be Calvinism because it was born in the 19th century.

In Common Grace, Kuyper compared two kinds of grace: special grace and common grace. If we make a chart to compare them with each other, it is easy and clear to get differences between two. To begin with, while special grace deals with spiritual saving, common grace deals with everything in this world. Special grace is new creation, and common grace is creation. While special grace is for God's elected people who are recognized by baptism, common grace is for all people. While the institutional local churches have responsibilities for special grace by God's word and sacraments, the organic churches are responsible for common grace. Special grace mainly focuses on soul-matters, and common grace pays its attention to bodily-mattes. Christians are the church members by special grace, and at the same time, they are also responsible citizens in society by common grace. Christians have both tasks to sanctify the church and to influence and purify society. As Jesus is the Creator and the Redeemer, we Christians should also be involved in His both work. Finally, what is important most is that everything we do is only for God's glory.

What we have to be careful is that Christians are involved in the restoring work of God not for evangelism. Christian's task is not to make a "Christian" country but "moral triumph' in society. As a similar situation, it reminds me of difference tasks between mission schools and Christian schools. In the history of evangelism in Japan, many missionaries came to Japan and founded mission schools to evangelize students. Sadly, it was resulted in nominal mission schools in Japan now. Most of students in those mission schools are not believers, and a very few committed Christian students sigh how much their schools lost the living faith. On the other hand, in Grand Rapids, I saw some Christian schools that educate students from the Christian perspectives. I was deeply impressed by their education and thought that Japanese Christians also need these kinds of Christian schools now more than mission schools.

2002-09-27T11:42:00.000-04:00

Kuyper's opening address at the First Christian Social Congress in the Netherlands (see the excerps in my previous entry) had a profound effect on one of my heroes: Aritius Talma.

Talma had earlier been awakened to the pressing problem of poverty in 19th century Holland through the challenge of a young friend:

During a short stay in the Hague in my first year of service as a preacher, I came through extraordinary circumstances in repeated contact with a young apprentice painter, a fierce socialist, who took me to task with all sorts of facts and theories, which in that time (1888) were given much currency in socialist circles. I could hardly defend myself.

During my university years I took the advice of some law students and attended the lectures of Professor d’Aulnis [de Bourouill], where I was easily persuaded that socialism was mistaken. But what I encountered in this young working man was something else altogether from what I had heard contradicted in those lectures. So I had little better reply to offer the young man than, ‘I don’t know, I am a pastor, I have no knowledge of these things.’

On one of our walks he all of a sudden stopped, and took hold of me, and said, ‘Do you imagine you can be a shepherd to your congregation if you have no clue of those things that turn the lives of the people so bitter, of the cares that fill their week and that they carry with them on Sunday when they come and sit in your church?’ I realised with feeling that this young man, this freethinker and anarchist, when compared with myself, had it right.

From 1888, when he heard the call of God in the words of this young anarchist painter, until his “farewell speech” at the Second Christian Social Congress in 1905, Talma provided significant historical leadership to the emerging Christian labour unions in the Netherlands. Without his leadership it is doubtful that more than a very few of these unions would have emerged, or that any of them would have survived. In the opinion of his biographers Smeenk and Van Vliet, “the development of the Christian labour organization in our country, in our Protestant circles, is for the greater part his work."

Talma concluded the Second Christian Social Congress with these words—words that lay bare his heart and the motivation of his efforts:

Truly, when we see how humanity shudders with effort in the struggle for daily bread and nonetheless fails so often to give her children what they need, and see them wither and wilt, then it is torture to believe that we live under the reign of God.

And yet it is so.

And yet it is our only hope for the world. We must do justice, even if we run our head against the wall. We must serve one another, in all sincerity and troth.

2002-09-27T11:21:00.000-04:00

Last night in our seminar meeting we watched the (often harrowing) Daens. It portrays social conditions in Belgium circa 1900, and the efforts of the Catholic Priest Adolf Daens, inspired by the papal encyclical Rerum Novarum to address those conditions.

One reason why we watched this film was because it portrays Christian social thought seriously engaging the consequences of industrialization and urbanization in the late 19th and early 20th centuries -- exactly the setting in which Abraham Kuyperworked when gave the lecture and speeches ("Common Grace" and "Sphere Sovereignty," available in Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader) that we will be reading in the coming week.

Kuyper presented his own response to "the social problem" most strikingly in his opening address at the First Christian Social Congress in the Netherlands (November 9, 1891). Here are three short excerpts from that address:

Whenever one uses the phrase "social question," one recognizes, in the most general sense, that serious doubt has arisen about the soundness of the social structure in which we live. One thereby acknowledges that public opinion is at war over the foundation on which a more appropriate - and therefore more liveable - social order may be built. Merely to pose the question in no way implies that it has to be answered in a socialistic manner. The solution one reaches can be of a totally different kind. Only one thing is necessary if the social question is to exist for you: you must realize the untenability of the present state of affairs, and you must account for this untenability not by incidental causes but by a fault in the very foundation of our society's organization. If you do not acknowledge this and think that social evil can be exorcised through an increase in piety, or through friendlier treatment or more generous charity, then you may believe that we face a religious question or possibly a philanthropic question, but you will not recognize the social question. This question does not exist for you until you exercise an architectonic critique of human society, which leads to the desire for a different arrangement of the social order [My emphasis - GS].

It is so profoundly false that God's Word lets us hear only calls for the salvation of our souls. No, God's Word gives us firm ordinances - even for our national existence and our common social life. It marks out clearly visible lines. We are unfaithful to God's Word if we fail to take notice of this fact and, for convenience sake, impiously permit our theory and practice to be determined by prevailing opinion or current law.

There cannot be two different faiths - one for you and one for the poor. The question on which the whole social problem really pivots is whether you recognize in the least fortunate, even in the poorest, not merely a creature [of God], a person in wretched circumstances, but one of your own flesh and blood: for the sake of Christ, your brother. It is exactly this noble sentiment that, sad to say, has been weakened and dulled in such a provoking manner by the materialism of this century. There are men of wealth, as you know, who have become alarmed at the threat of social democracy and now, from fear of this threat, grasp for relief measures none of them thought about before. But at least in this circle of those who confess the Lord, I pray that you will allow a more perfect love to drive out all such fear. For those who are diverted by fear for their money box have no place marching in the ranks with us. This is holy ground, and he who would walk on it must first loosen the sandals of his egotism. The only sound permitted here is the stirring and eloquent voice of the merciful Samaritan whispering in our ears. There is suffering round about you, and those who suffer are your brothers, sharers of your nature, your won flesh and blood.

2002-09-27T06:30:00.000-04:00

Reading choices

Heslam: everyone; Common Grace: Amy, Mark, Meiko; Sphere Sovereignty: Laurence, Shin, Will.
Wolters: Laurence, Shin, Will; Marshall: Amy, Mark, Meiko.
Colson & Pearcey: Amy, Laurence, Meiko; Middleton & Walsh: Mark, Shin, Will.
Being Human: everyone.
Freston: Mark, Will; Jenkins: Amy, Laurence; Martin: Meiko, Shin.
Garber B: everyone.

2002-09-26T01:44:00.000-04:00

25/9/2002 9:00 PM Laurence Loo

The broad contours of Calvin’s worldview:

1. The nature of the universe: Calvin acknowledges God as the originator of the entire universe. God created the world ex nihilo, and sustains it by His power, and governs each creature (Schreiner p. 35). Not only that God is all-powerful, He is also a personal being, with a deep love in His creation, especially human beings (John 3:16). After creating the world, God did not just let it run by itself by setting up natural laws so that He can withdraw from it. But God has a deep interest and concern about His creation, that the world and all those in it depend on Him moment by moment for their continued existence (God’s providence). Calvin believes that what God has created was good, with its beauty, stability, regularity, and order (Schriener p. 37) before the fall of the humankind. Even after the fall, God still guides and intervenes in human history, and to preserve and to reclaim His creation.

2. The nature of human beings: In line with the Scripture, Calvin believes that man is created in the image of God (Gen. 1,2), which makes human beings different from God’s other creation. In fact, man was given a special kind of control over the rest of creation as accountable overseer. He is to live forever in relationship with God, continually depending on Him as the source of life, meaning and ultimate authority. So by nature man was made to be in touch with his Creator, and by voluntary obedience to serve Him.

3. The present human condition: Something has gone wrong and is not ideal about the present human condition. By willful misuse of the freedom and dominion that God gave to human beings as His stewards, the peaceful ordering of the original creation is permanently distorted. As a result of the fall, toil and labor, and finally death descended upon humanity. Sin has become the bondage of man, and it separates man from God and from one another. Man’s life is full of misery and suffering. There is no way that man by his own effort, can restore his relationship with his Creator God.

4. The remedy: God inserted common grace to hold the spread of corruption and sin in check. Through the redemptive work of Christ on the cross, God offers salvation to everyone, which includes the forgiveness of sin through Jesus Christ, the regeneration of the believer, the adoption as children of God, the seal of the Holy Spirit, the eternal life and the blessed hope of glory. The atonement of Christ, once appropriated, should have practical implications for life on earth. The Christian life should manifest God’s holiness and righteousness. To achieve this, Calvin advocates that Christian should practice self-denial and renunciation. Constantly keeping in mind of who he belongs to and always depend on God in everything. Looking forward to the blessed life ahead and not to crave after the things of the world. But be grateful of what God has provided and use the endowed gifts to serve God and serve man.

2002-09-26T00:08:00.000-04:00

Thinking about John Calvin’s worldview.

For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

This week we are reading that section of John Calvin’s Institutes (Book 3, Chapters 6 to 10) also known as On the Christian Life. We are also reading excerpts from Susan Schreiner’s Theater of His Glory: Nature & Natural Order in the Thought of John Calvin. (Not directly related, but interesting, is Ms. Schreiner’s article on “Educating the Congregation.”)

The question we are asking ourselves – rather poorly stated, I am afraid – is “What can you tell from the reading of the broad contours of Calvin’s worldview?”

Reading this immensely influential passage from Calvin against the backdrop of Ms. Schreiner’s study, I was struck by what appeared to me to be an internal tension in Calvin’s view of the world.

Calvin has a clear view of the original (and enduring) purpose of creation. Schreiner (p. 5) quotes Calvin as writing: “For our salvation was a matter of concern to God in such a way that, not forgetful of himself, he kept his glory primarily in view, and therefore, created the whole world for this end, that it may be a theater of his glory.”

God’s involvement in this theater, according to Calvin, is close and intimate. Schreiner (p. 36) quotes Calvin as insisting that God is not a “momentary Creator who once and for all finished his work.” She argues in consequence that

References to God as First Cause or Prime Mover unnerved Calvin because such phrases seemed to make God distant and to deprive him of power. Therefore, in comparison to thinkers such as Augustine and Aquinas, Calvin strove to tie God’s ever-present hand to each secondary cause and created movement.

But Schreiner (p. 37) does point out that

Like Chrysostom, Calvin was acutely aware that God’s governance in history was often not as clear as his providence over creation. History does not usually present us with wonders as clear as the stars that revolve without colliding or an earth that rests upon the waters. Calvin reminded his readers that in the historical sphere we see only dimly and “in part.”

“Nonetheless,” continues Schreiner,

… in a very Irenaean sense Calvin argued that God was actively preserving and reclaiming his creation. The natural order belongs to God, is the work of his hands, and the arena of both human and divine activity. As such, creation is not to be shunned by the believer.

This belief – that creation is not to be shunned by the believer – lead to what Schreiner (p. 114) calls Calvin’s “activist piety,” a piety that

… must be seen in terms of his theology of creation as a whole. The renovation of creation renews all of life. Therefore, after submitting their knowledge and will to Christ, the elect are encouraged to turn outward for the common upbuilding of the church and the good of their neighbors. Such ordered outward activity, Calvin assumed, contributes to the sanctifying or reordering of the world. Instead of positing a church that stood in isolation from a threatening world, Calvin saw the church as the organ that led the renewal of both the cosmos and society.

This is how Schreiner (p. 120) finally summarizes Calvin’s worldview:

God created the world as a theater of his glory, and although the human being stands at the head of that creation, he is never the whole of creation itself. From the orderly course of the stars to the limited stability of governments, God’s nature and glory are displayed in every part of creation. The suggestion that “the world” has become a sphere of darkness alien to the church implied, for Calvin, that God’s purpose for his creation as a mirror or theatre has been overturned. To refuse participation in this earthly realm or to neglect to contemplate nature is a failure to understand God’s commitment, purpose, and governance of his created order. And, finally, to limit Calvin’s vision to the total depravity of human nature, justification by faith, and the condemning function of nature is to impose on him a mentality that he resisted throughout his writings. In Calvin’s view, the human race belongs to the order of creation which reveals or reflects the power, wisdom, and glory of God; and not surprisingly, the entire creation plays an important role in his understanding of God’s nature and purposes.

It is against this background that we must understand the “pattern for the conduct of life” that Calvin presents in On the Christian Life.

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Calvin presents his purpose with this little treatise as being “to show the godly man how he may be directed to a rightly ordered life, and briefly set down some universal rule with which to determine duties,” on the basis of Scriptural instruction, which according to Calvin has “two main aspects”:

The first is that the love of righteousness, to which we are otherwise not at all inclined by nature, may be instilled and established in our hearts; the second, that a rule be set forth for us that does not let us wander about in our zeal for righteousness.

Most basically, Calvin teaches, it is “Christ, [who] has been set before us as an example, whose pattern we ought to express in our life.”

With this in mind, Calvin subsequently teaches that the beginning of God’s plan to shape his people is this:

The duty of believers is “to present their bodies to God as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to him,” and in this consists the lawful worship of him. From this is derived the basis of the exhortation that “they be not conformed to the fashion of this world, but be transformed by the renewal of their minds, so that they may prove what is the will of God.”

Calvin continues by teaching that:

1. “We are the stewards of everything God has conferred on us by which we are able to help our neighbor, and are required to render account of our stewardship. Moreover, the only right stewardship is that which is tested by the rule of love.”

2. “Every means toward a prosperous and desirable outcome rests upon the blessing of God alone.”

3. “The use of God’s gifts is not wrongly directed when it is referred to that end to which the Author himself created and destined them for us, since he created them for our good, not for our ruin,” and “he meant not only to provide for necessity but also for delight and good cheer.” “Away, then, with that inhuman philosophy [Stoicism?] which, while conceding only a necessary use of creatures, not only malignantly deprives us of the lawful fruit of God’s beneficence but cannot be practiced unless it robs a man of all his senses and degrades him to a block.”

4. “The Lord’s calling is in everything the beginning and foundation of well-doing,” so that “no task will be so sordid and base, provided you obey your calling in it, that it will not shine and be reckoned very precious in God’s sight.”

But none of that displays that inner tension that I mentioned at the beginning of this summary. How do we make sense, given all this, of the following statements from Calvin in the same little treatise?

1. “There is no middle ground between these two: either the world must become worthless to us or hold us bound by intemperate love of it.”

2. “If heaven is our homeland, what else is the earth but our place of exile?”

3. “Through death we are recalled from exile to dwell in the fatherland, in the heavenly fatherland.”

2002-09-25T22:43:00.000-04:00

What is John Calvin’s worldview? Calvin believed in the doctrines of “Creatio ex nihilo." He believed that the world was created out of nothing, by God, at the beginning. As it says in Hebrews 11:3, “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.” Since the creation is God’s work and God is good and perfect, his creation is also good and perfect. In the beginning everything was very good. However, Calvin also takes seriously the results of the Fall into sin. The affects of sin are seen in everything, including the creation. The world is not the way it is suppose to be. One of the major affects of sin on creation is in the fact that human beings can no longer perceive God fully in the created order. They certainly can come to a realization that there is a Creator God. We can read God in creation but we cannot come to know him through the created order as we do through his word. In fact, more often then not we will err in our perception of God if we try to know him only through the creation. We need to eye glasses of Scripture to understand correctly who God is.

Nevertheless Calvin has a high view of creation. It is the theatre in which human beings live, work, create, play, develop culture, societies, etc. God did not reject the created order after the fall into sin, therefore we cannot reject it either. Calvin rejects those teachings which would say that the created order is sinful and ought to be rejected by the believer who is focused on spiritual things. Susan Schreiner writes, “The natural order belongs to God, is the work of his hands, and the arena of both human and divine activity. As such, creation is not to be shunned by the believer.” (Page 37 of “The Theater of His Glory”) At one point in her book, Schreiner also points out that Calvin “recognised that the salvation of the individual was not the ultimate goal. All of creation (including the soul) existed not for its own redemption but in order reflect the glory of God.” (Schreiner, page 112). Calvin’s positive view of the world led him to teach that the world will not be destroyed at the end of time, but rather it will be renovated. God is making all things new. This belief gives him a very positive view of life and the Christian’s engagement in every area of life. In all our activities we are to be bringing glory to God the Creator.

For Calvin, “Providence” is what holds the world together in spite of the fall. Without the ever present providential hand of God to uphold all things, including the stars in the sky, the world would disintegrate. Sin, if not kept in check by God, would destroy the world and everything in it. Calvin knows that sin affects everything, but by God’s grace it does not have its way. God’s providence can be seen in the fact that human beings are still able to develop culture, the created order continues to be beautiful and be pleasing to the human eye, (even the fragrant smells of the earth tell Calvin that God is good and his love for creation and humanity endures forever), human love and self-denial is also evidence of God’s providence. The world is governed by a loving and all powerful God. We are not our own. We also belong to this loving and all powerful God. We learn this through the Word of God. Through the Word we also come to know the full expression of God’s love for us and the world in Jesus Christ the Son. When we suffer in this fallen world we are comforted with the knowledge that God has not rejected us. We can feel free to express our pain and sorrow because human emotion in real in Calvin’s worldview. He writes in his “Institutes of the Christian Religion”, “But the conclusion will always be: the Lord so willed, therefore let us follow his will. Indeed, amid the very pricks of pain, amid groaning and tears, this thought must intervene: to incline our heart to bear cheerfully those things which have so moved it.” This is tough, but when you surrender to the Sovereign Ruler of the universe, what else can you do? This is not giving up in defeat, I think it is understanding a greater reality and force at work in the universe, that being God.

Calvin’s worldview has a big picture of a Creator God who is intimately involved in the governance of the universe. This God is working all things for redemption. By his providence and grace we as God’s image bearers are mandated and equipped to bring him glory in his theatre.

2002-09-25T22:41:00.000-04:00

So why do I get up in the morning? The simplest answer is that I have to. I’m not what you would call a “morning person”, but I need to get up and work because this is what I have been called to do. I am a pastor and I have made a promise to God and to my congregation that I would be faithful in my calling to preach, teach, visit, and do all those things which are expected of a Christian Reformed minister serving a rather traditional, suburban congregation. This is why I get up in the morning. I have a duty to get up!

How does a person know when they get up in the morning and go about their routine that they are living as they ought to live? How does a person know what is real and true and right? Steven Garber says that there are three factors - Convictions, Character, and Community - which help answer this question.

When I think back on my own upbringing, I realise that many of the basic convictions I now have were formed when I was a child growing up in a Christian home and attending a Christian school. My worldview was being shaped by the biblical story of redemption which tells us where we have come from (God the Creator), what went wrong with the world (we have sinned and fall short of the glory of God), and what the solution to the problem is (Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Redeemer of the world). For many years I carried along a lot of information in my head about my faith and life in this world. It has only been in the last 7 years that I have met people who have helped me take what I believe and shape it into a coherent worldview. This has been an exciting development because it has encouraged me to read more and to search for people (a community) which shares the same worldview as me. My reformational worldview has given focus to my ministry. When I get up in the morning I know that I am not wasting my time doing mundane tasks which have no eternal value. I know that this world belongs to God and that he will use me in his work of redemption and this is an awesome task.

To form a worldview that works you need a desire for coherence and a belief in truth. Knowing there is Truth gives me confidence. Even though there are people who deny that there is truth, their denial makes my worldview no less true. In the end the truth wins. The Christian worldview I have learned from my Reformed theological heritage is coherent and can stand the onslaught of criticism from those who deny there is truth. I look forward to preaching and teaching all of this to others.

2002-09-25T19:49:00.000-04:00

What Kristen loves.

2002-09-25T10:55:00.000-04:00

Calvin's worldview...
seems to me that Calvin was primarily focused on the fallen creation, rather than the good creation. Although he has brief moments of positivity, he generally maintains quite a severe (and occasionally hostile!) view of creation in relation to creator. From the beginning of the chapter ("For to what purpose are we rescued from the wickedness and pollution of the world in which we were submerged if we allow ourselves throughout life to wallow in these?") through to the end, ("For if we deem this unstable, defective, corruptible, fleeting, wasting, rotting tabernacle of our body to be so dissolved that it is soon renewed unto a firm, perfect, incorruptible, and finally, heavenly glory, will not faith compel us ardently to seek what nature dreads?") Calvin seems to be a bit angry at the naughty creation in which he finds himself. Angry, and perhaps as Schreiner suggests, a bit afraid?
Not knowing what he focuses on for how long in the rest of the Institutes, it is difficult to accurately say that Calvin' s broad worldview focuses on certain things, however, given that limitation, he does seem to be quite concerned with the crosses of suffering/self-denial/punishment/medicine,etc. in life.
Calvin believes that God guides us, provides death, illness, poverty, etc. as little reminders that we are human, that God is in charge, and that we should be thinking of ways to better serve him. Our lives are shaped by God and thus, we should shape our lives to Godliness recalling always that we are not supposed to find pleasure in this world as it is simply a holding pen before we are joined with Christ in Heaven. ("Whatever kind of tribulation presses upon us, we must ever look to this end: to accustom ourselves to contempt for the present life and to be aroused thereby to meditate upon the future life. For since God knows best how much we are inclined by nature to a brutish love of this world, he uses the fittest means to draw us back and to shake off our sluggishness, lest we cleave too tenaciously to that love."
The determination with which Calvin sees God and creation is striking. God not only will not leave nor forsake you, but will hound you a bit and perhaps stay too long! (Having been told that i have a problem with authority, i'll withhold any comments about the personification of God as benevolent but severe and erratic). The world in which we live is not our home, not what God intended. But, Calvin does leave room for goodness, beauty and gloriousness to be found here on earth. The main principle being: do not use the gifts of life and sentience (is this a word?) for the wrong ends, namely that which does not glorify God.

*apologies for disjointedness. will continue more smoothly this afternoon*

2002-09-25T00:01:00.000-04:00

What can I tell from the readings of the broad contours of Calvin’s Worldview?

First and foremost is the thread of order running through these teachings of Calvin. The world was originally created with order and God saw that it was good. As evil made it’s way into that created order, disorder was also introduced though it did not overwhelm the good. With this evil introduced that perfect order is now in some disarray. God in his perfect plan is now working in the creation that at His Second Coming order may be restored.

The order and harmony that existed in creation was precarious and needed God to hold it together. Prior to the fall God was providing direction to His creation. After the fall chaos and disorder threatened and also needed God to restrain that chaos and disorder. This disorder has permeated the realm of creation and as Christian people we fight it every day of our lives. We as individuals depend on God’s providence; the multitude of evil that is being restrained by His intervention could cover us like a flood.

Our society too has order. This order, though tainted by the evil that has entered the world is still a semblance of the order originally intended by God. There is in all persons an inner desire for such things as justice, peace, law and moral value, glimpses of that originally perfect design. The created world is not simply a place for us to wait for the Second Coming. The world is a place for us to exercise our callings, for us to pursue holiness, for us to form families, and for us to preserve civilization.

Susan Schreiner says of Calvin’s theology “God is reclaiming all of creation, the cosmos, human nature, and society” (p111). The gifts our God has blessed each person with contribute to that restoration. As we are active members in our society we are working to bring about redemption. As flawed humans we must first turn to God, align ourselves to His will, and we can then turn to things such as building up our neighbours and our church. These things help to renew creation.

And we do all these things to the Glorification of God. Schreiner says, “God created the world to be a theatre of his glory” (p120). All we do, all our actions, all our deeds, provided they stem from our response to God, are for the glory of God. As this world damaged by sin is renewed it comes closer and closer to the original mirror of Glory created by God.

2002-09-23T16:38:00.000-04:00

What is a future of Calvin's Worldview?

First of all, the following questions arise: Is it possible to assess Calvin's worldview by reading Calvin's Institutes and Schreiner's article (61pages)? What is the relationship between worldview per se and theology per se?

According to S.E. Schreiner, Calvin's theology is a salvation-history theology (p.121). The term "salvation" in Calvin's theology means not only a salvation of the individual soul, but also a salvation of the whole of creation. In this sense, Calvin's salvation-history theology, I think, stems from his understanding of creation like the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo, and his cosmology. Schreiner states: "In Calvin's theology, God is reclaiming all of his creation: the cosmos, human nature, and society". What is the relation between Calvin's worldview and his understanding of human nature?

Therefore, in order to consider Calvin's worldview, I would like to abstract it from a part of his Institutes.

Calvin give me instruction in the Christian life, the denial ourselves, the neighborly love, and the future life etc. What can I tell from these subjects as component parts of Calvin's worldview?

Calvin writes: "the Christian must surely be so disposed and minded that he feels within himself it is with God he has to deal throughout his life" (p.691). Calvin recommends us the Christian life with a central focus on God and Bible. What is a characteristic of actions of the Christian life centering on God? Quoting Paul, Calvin emphasizes "soberness", "righteousness", and "godliness" (p.692). Calvin goes on: he teaches us to travel as pilgrims in this world that our celestial heritage may not perish or pass way" (p.693).

How should we as "pilgrims" live in this world? What is the nature of this world?

Calvin writes: " But let believers accustom themselves to a contempt of the present life that engenders no hatred of it or ingratitude against God" According to Calvin, Christians have to live actively in this life. It means that the life of Christian is a thankful response to God. I think that Calvin's eschatological worldview does not lead us to escape or privacy from this life or world. Rather, his worldview suggests us that we as "pilgrims" should live actively in earthly realms in order to "serve to advance his (God) glory (p.690-691), serve to our neighbors (p.695-697).

What can I tell from the reading of the broad contours of Calvin's worldview?

"The Lord so willed, therefore let us follow his will." (Calvin, p.710).

2002-09-22T14:20:00.000-04:00

Calvin's worldview

Schreiner summarizes Calvin's worldview into three concepts: the world that reflects God's glory, order that kept in the world, and God's providence. I would like to pay attention to the first point, the world that reflecting God's glory, here.

What does it mean that the world reflects God's glory? It means that the world is good. All things God created such as natures and animals are good. Especially, human beings are very good. One of most important God's creations in the world is the human beings. Why are human beings so good? Because they are created in God's image.

What does His image mean in Calvin's view? It is to be His stewards. Human beings have an important task to take care of God's possession, His world. Calvin writes, "We are the stewards of everything God has conferred on us by which we are able to help our neighbor, and are required to render account of our stewardship" [695].

This leads us to the idea why people need to love neighbors. According to Calvin, the "right stewardship" requires love [695]. In other words, stewardship means loving and caring of God's creation: natures, animals, and neighbors. We love people because of God's image. Calvin notes that we "look upon the image of God in all men, to which we owe all honor and love" [696]. If we see God's image in people, ideally, we cannot help loving them and serving to them.

Being stewards is not limited to caring of nature, animals and neighbors, but also includes loving any gifts in our lives. This world is filled with "God's goodness" [715]. God provides us time, smell, color, food, beauties, and any kinds of enjoyment to use and preserve wisely. Not only eternal future life in heaven but also the earthly life does God want us to enjoy. Calvin tells readers that God created these goodness "not only to provide for necessity but also for delight and good cheer"[720]. What a joyful statement it is!

At the same time, Calvin warns readers not to ruin God's goodness in our lives. We should not "use these blessings indulgently" or "seek wealth greedily" [721]. Sinful human beings are to be unsatisfied with what they have but desire to obtain their possessions exceedingly. We need to learn to be satisfied with what God provides us.

Finally, Calvin strongly comments that "all life's actions" are God's calling [724]. Calvin writes, "each individual has his own kind of living assigned to him by the Lord" [724]. He also says that "the Lord's calling is in everything" [724]. There is no sphere that is not God's calling; therefore, enjoy your life and keep God's good gifts usefully and wisely. This is Calvin's conviction and his worldview.

2002-09-20T23:29:00.000-04:00

Some of the things I love in no particular order

Learning, people, tools, woodworking, my family, Nuevo Suyapa, San Salvador, God, 7th Heaven (the ski runs at Blackcomb), books, of all sorts, especially by CS Lewis, JRR Tolkein, William Gibson, Douglas Adams, and Tom Clancy, computers, sailing and sailboats, creating things, imagination, Playa La Zunganera, paintings, sketching, adventures, the sound of children playing on the playground, fall rains, trees, the stillness of newly falling snow, the smell of a bakery, cars - particularly Vdubs and BMWs, soccer (the beautiful game), standing on top of a mountain, making others happy, The Simpson’s, all my friends, Berlin, Vancouver, the harbour in Rotterdam, machines (especially big powerful ones, and simple effective ones), movies, especially The Matrix, and The Fifth Element, sculpture, the Group of 7, fixing things, the sound of babbling brooks, Georgian Bay (especially around Tobermory), canoeing, Algonquin Park, moose, Africa, music of all sorts except Country and Western, watching people create/perform live, art galleries, Science Fiction, Jackie Chan's hokey martial arts movies, history, teaching, the students I get to know through teaching, Fernie, the tingling of the spine you get when something you’ve created is so obviously great, MC Escher, cycling, camping, hiking, Star Trek, the vastness of the ocean, good humour and laughing, thunder storms, pond hockey, the beauty of the woods, driving, helping others, spring breezes and last and what should be least chocolate.

2002-09-20T07:06:00.000-04:00

Steven Garber writes ("Fabric of Faithfulness, p. 22):

"What do you love?" It is in that question and the spiritual dynamics implicit in its answer that belief and behavior are woven together.

So here, incomplete, unprioritized, and without adequate explanation, is a list of ...

Some of the things I love, in a pseudo-alphabetical order:

Abraham Kuyper.
Abraham Lincoln.
Bach’s music, especially when performed on the piano.
Blundstone boots.
Books & Culture magazine.
Cafés.
Calvin Seerveld and his work.
Christopher Alexander’s Pattern Language, both the book and the very idea of it.
City Journal.
CLAC.
Coffee.
Commentary magazine.
D. Th. Vollenhoven’s work on philosophy and the history of philosophy.
Denim, wool and corduroy.
E-mail (instead of phone calls).
First Things magazine.
Genesis 1:1–2:3.
Good craftwork, in every area of life.
Good design, in every area of life.
Good food and good conversation, combined.
Herman Dooyeweerd’s work on philosophy, and his more popular writings.
Hiking through forests in fall and spring.
Imagination.
Isaiah 60.
Jane Austen’s finished novels.
Job 38–39.
John Calvin.
Justice.
Legal thrillers, especially those of Scott Turow.
Maps of places in which I am travelling.
My daughters.
My wife.
Mystery novels, especially those of P. D. James.
Neocalvinism.
Our World Belongs to God, a contemporary confession.
People who read the great books with respect and attention.
Prayer books, but especially the daily prayer version of the Presbyterian Book of Common Worship.
Proverbs 1–9.
Psalm 119: 18.
Psalm 19.
Reading anything, even the back of cereal boxes.
Reading carefully.
Reading for fun.
Reading to learn.
Rembrandt's paintings, drawings, and etches.
Revelation 21.
Romans 8.
Schubert’s music, especially Death and the maiden (String Quartet No. 14 in D minor).
Shakespeare’s plays.
Shorter poems.
Solitude.
Stabilo Sensor pens.
Tales of espionage, especially those of Alan Furst.
The church year, but especially Advent, as our family celebrates it.
The colours of woods, spices, and stones.
The fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, in Europe.
The Heidelberg Catechism.
The King of kings.
The Netherlands, every carefully cultivated square inch of it. But especially the Rijksmuseum.
The New Urbanism.
The New York Intellectuals of the 20th century.
The resistance against the Nazis, in all its forms.
The Victorian Age.
Travelling to cities with great downtowns (i.e. bookstores, cafés, plazas and boulevards).
Turtlenecks.
Vancouver, BC, especially the view towards downtown from the Point Grey Beaches at dusk, with incoming float planes.
Vermeer’s paintings.
Winston Churchill.

2002-09-20T01:38:00.000-04:00

1. Why do I get up in the morning?

Actually, I get up in order to call my wife and a daughter in Japan and to say "Good night!". But, christianly speaking, I get up in the morning in order to enter God's presence with joy and praise and serve to God, and response to God.

2. convictions, character and community

My decision to study christian political theory at ICS stems from my conviction or belief as Calvinist, especially Kuyperian calvinist. I grew up in christian family. My denomination is Reformed Church in Japan which has missional and theological connection with CRC and Dutch Reformed tradition. When I was in the faculty of the theology in university in Japan, I learned of Abraham Kuyper and Neo-Calvinism in class by prof. Sumito Haruna. After that, I entered Christian Institute in order to study under Prof. Hisakazu Inagaki. My Christian worldview had been shaped by "encounter" with my these mentors and dialogue with them. I think that "encounter", "experience" and "community" is essential to shaping our life, especially Christian worldview. Human beings have a person or character. I think a person or character develop in some kind of communities. The question arises: What kind of community Christians need and offer? John John suggests us that "it is important to develop a community of people who are honest to keep you straight"(p.113).

3. the desire for coherent and the belief in truth

Garber states: "The longing for coherence, connecting the cords of one's life, is at the heart of the task of constructing a worldview which can sustain one for life". I think that almost every man seek for a meaning of life, for example, Who am I?, how should we live?, and "the meaning of work, of family, of the arts, of economics, of politics - all of life" (p.30). Fortunately, I found a coherence Christian worldview in Reformational thought. I think that Reformational philosophy or Kuyperian calvinist thought can offer a coherent worldview and "the belief in truth".

2002-09-19T10:02:00.000-04:00

Why do I get up in the morning?

Andrew Careaga writes: Great question. Today, I got out of bed from a sense of obligation -- work duties that for some reason require my presence. To wit: a telephone conference call at 8 a.m. (in 21 minutes) and an Academic Council meeting at 1:30 p.m. If I'd had my 'druthers, I would've stayed in bed this morning. Scratchy throat from too much singing and teaching last night. After 17 years in a charismatic/pentecostal church, I have yet to perfect the shouting and bellowing, and during praise and worship last night, I did a bit of both, and then did some more singing and yelling during youth group meeting afterwards. My throat is sore this morning. And it's raining. A good day to stay home and read. But I'm here instead.

(I cannot get Andrew's links to work properly. The entry is at Thursday, September 19, 2002.

2002-09-19T00:43:00.000-04:00

[18/9/02 Laurence Loo]

Why do I get up in the morning?

Coming from an Oriental background where pragmatism is the governing norm, the answer to such a question; or put it in another way; the purpose or telos of life, is acquiring a good and comfortable living. (It's very similar to the first Indian student of Keble College that Garber met at Oxford). The means for attaining it is through diligent study. There is an old Chinese saying that says: "there are mansions of gold and beauties like jade in the books". That is why parents still urge their kids to study hard and become doctors, lawyers, engineers, accountants and so on. On the moral side, the purpose of life is to be a good person. To be good in the sense that one has lived a live with no regret. Righteous before man and under heaven, with the conscience as the measuring stick. Of course, from the christian point of view, this is self-righteousness and very humanistic.

When I became a christian, I was told that the purpose of a christian life is to carry out the great commission. To share the gospel with others that they may be saved, is the on-going goal in our lives as followers of Christ. Again, this is very pragmatic, it is something that we can achieve from the human stand point. It wasn't until I was in seminary that the idea that we are to live our lives for the glory of God caught my attention. I might have come across it, but it did not register in my mind. To live for the glory of God is too abstract an idea for a person who came from a down-to-earth tradition. And such tradition has gone through much turmoil and hardship in the past couple hundred years. For the generations before me, to be able to survive is a great blessing. Therefore, to acquire a good life as the telos and purpose of life, is deeply embedded in our culture. After I have become a christian and having been called into the ministry, I have come to terms with the idea that we are to live for the glory of God. However, it took quite a while for the idea to really sink in on the belief part, and am still working to make it connect to the many aspects of the behavior part. Whenever the two parts connect, God is glorified.

The three major influential factors that Garber mentioned are: convictions, character and community.

The conviction or christian worldview that I have come to embrace has gone through a very lengthy period of time. The road was not smooth, but by the grace of God, He has sustained me in-spite of many challenges, which include the Chinese tradition, the cultural mind-set of values and religion, the objection and toleration of family members and peers etc.
When I was a teenager, I longed so much that someone older than me can be my spiritual mentor. But unfortunately, I have not had the privilege to encounter one. After entering into the ministry for fourteen years, I have come to realize that, mentoring is a very important ministry that is always lacking in the church, and especially for the young seminary grads.
A community of faith for stimulation and support helped me a lot in the formative years of my faith while I was in college. I attended a christian liberal art and science college, and was very active in the christian students union. We had weekly meetings, summer and winter retreats. I also joined the christian choir there and sang in different churches.

The two factors that influence a person's articulation of a worldview as mentioned by Garber are the desire for coherence and the belief in truth.

The desire for coherence between thinking and living, belief and behavior motivates me to constantly reflect upon what I really believe, and check on how I really live. Recently, I've asked to visit and share the gospel with an elderly gentleman whom I have never met before. He is in coma in the I.C.U. of the Toronto General Hospital. One of his son is a christian but attend another church. My first response was that it is not much use for me to go to visit him. He is in coma, there is no way to know that he can hear and understand. Although people say that the hearing part of a person is the last sensory organ that will fade away, however, the doctor has already confirmed that his brain is no longer working. I went anyway, but on the way I had to ask myself; if this is what I really believe that it is part of what I am being called. Do I believe that the saving part belong to the all mighty God and I am only an instrument of His service? I also had to struggle with the question: Do I really care and am I committed to do what I am called to do?

2002-09-18T23:47:00.000-04:00

To begin with, please excuse my English limitations.

1. Why do I get up in the morning?
I get up in the morning because lots of things to do are waiting for me in that day (mostly reading assignments in these days). In the deeper level, I get up in the morning and start the new day to be God's steward for His redemptive work in this world wherever I am. Currently God calls me to be His servant as a diligent student at ICS, a caring boarder to my landlady, and a good master to Amy, the cat living with me.

2. 3 factors; convictions, character and community.
I totally agree with that these three factors influence young people to decide their futures, because I am also the one who was influenced by these factors when I was in college. First of all, when I was in college, I first heard about the Christian worldview proclaiming that God created this world and He calls all people to be responsible to His world. As a Christian who came from an evangelical circle that urges Christians to separate from the world, I was struck by this worldview. Secondly, I met a professor who taught me this worldview and guided my understanding patiently. He is the one who is coming tomorrow for the symposium at ICS! Thirdly, I had a good community life throughout my college years at a dormitory with other Christians. Through the life with other Christians, I learned love, caring, bitterness, disappointment, hope and faith.

3. 2 factors; desire for coherence and belief in truth.
My desire for coherence and belief in truth is that wherever I am and whatever I do, I trust in God’s word and keep the Christian worldview I ever learned. As an interviewee in the text says, I have also doubted myself lots of times, and I've decried my own inability to keep faith, to be consistent, to be obedient (p.121). Even though I am not a trustable person even to myself, God’s word is trustable: this is my belief.

2002-09-16T23:43:00.000-04:00

Why Do I Get Up In the Morning?

My alarm goes off and I groan. I don’t want to get up. I am not a morning person. For some strange reason God did not wire me that way. So, as I head out the door to work at 7:30 am plus or minus a half-hour, (usually plus), I am not pondering why I got up, only that my sense of duty, my Calvinist work ethic demands it. As the morning starts to mature and I have completed all the first things at work, I am able to think about such things. If it is a busy time at work one would find me designing machines, a gift I have combining the creative juices, and the technical aptitude God has given me. This leads me to one of the primary reasons I get up most mornings. One of my deep desires is to use my God given talents to benefit others and to do this to the glory of God.

Garber talks about John John (p112), who says, “Living a life of glory to God is living a life of integrity, a life that speaks louder than words.” How can I measure up to that? I endeavour to live a life of integrity, to measure up to all that God would ask of me, but I always fall down and it is only by the Grace of God that I can get back get up.

I think living a life of glory to God is using one’s gifts and talents in meaningful, useful ways.

I get up in the morning to create things. Whether it is designing machines at work, creating something memorable on the soccer pitch, sketching, building something in my woodshop, carving first tracks on a snow covered mountain or simply using my imagination, I like to make things.

Two other reasons I get up, to interact with God’s good though currently sin wrinkled creation, and to teach the Heidelberg Catechism to my small band of grade 12 students.

It seems that to use one’s spiritual gifts is to glorify God and find satisfaction in doing so, and that is what makes it worth while getting up in the morning.

2. Three major influences:

All the people Garber interviewed for his book, they could ‘only connect’ faith and life. All had learned a worldview that would stand the tests of the world. All had Convictions. All had found someone to teach and live that worldview, someone that could provide an example. All had Character. All had developed friendships with like-minded people whose regular life was rooted in that same worldview. All had Community. It is well worth noting as Garber says, “There were no exceptions” (p111).

I have come by my own worldview, a worldview that has indeed stood the test of time, by the Grace of God. All the years I spent growing up in the broader community of the Christian Reformed Church, I was gaining worldview by osmosis, and it wasn’t until someone finally articulated that worldview to me that I said to myself, ‘Eureka!’ this is what I always knew but didn’t know. As Dan Heimbach says (Garber p122) “ I couldn’t turn my back on what I knew to be true.”

Who is my teacher? Well I can’t pick out a specific teacher that exemplified this worldview. Perhaps I am an exception, or perhaps everything is about to come crashing down. Maybe I could cheat a little and say that my father was my mentor. He lived this worldview though he never articulated it. He gave me a living example, an example I watched… and followed.

3. Two stand outs:

Truth. For all of Garber’s interviewees belief in truth stands out. My own belief in truth is basic to my being. It stems from belief in God, in belief in right and wrong, in believing that there are transcendent truths and higher moral values. If the momentous leanings of our culture determine truth, well then there really is no truth at all.

Coherence. For all of Garber’s interviewees a desire for coherence stands out. This, I think can be partnered with faith. It is important for our God given logically thinking minds to find coherence in our world and how we interact with it. I like the fact that I can make decisions based on the coherence of my worldview. But here I have questions. Is it necessary to be coherent? If we could logically and coherently explain Christianity would we need faith? And if we didn’t need faith, what would we have?

2002-09-16T16:41:00.000-04:00

I have just begun reading David Naugle's Worldview: The History of a Concept, which may well have been part of the required reading for our formal seminar if I paid attention to it earlier.

Also looking interesting: Cornelius Plantinga's Engaging God's World: A Christian Vision of Faith, Learning, and Living.

2002-09-16T16:32:00.000-04:00

Dave Hegeman has an interesting Christian worldview blog. He is the author of Plowing In Hope: Toward a Biblical Theology of Culture.

2002-09-16T16:02:00.000-04:00

Mieko and Shin: Emeth Hesed Smith blogs from Tokyo.

2002-09-16T15:17:00.000-04:00

Steven Garber asks (p. 111)

How is it possible, under the impact of modern consciousness, for young adults in this century to hear Qoheleth's admonition, as Ellul interprets him for us: "You must take sides earlier - when you can actually make choices, when you have many paths opening at your feet, before the weight of necessity overwhelms you." Our answers to the cosmic questions - beliefs about God, human nature, history - form the pretheoretical framework for how we understand and interpret the world around us. With them and from them we make sense of what we see and hear. As a constellation of cares and commitments, they become a tapestry which connects the disparate strands of our lives. Because this is true for every person under the sun, we can understand Iris Murdoch's assertion that "at crucial moments of choice most of the business of choosing is already over."

Belief and behavior are braided in the very deepest places of the human heart. Qoheleth's warning takes on its own urgency in a time in human history when, as Basil Mitchell noted about modernity's effects on young people, "the very conditions which create the need for meaning also make it extremely difficult to meet it."

In his research for The Fabric of Faithfulness, Steven Garber did a great many interviews. He continues from the passage quoted above by noting that

As those interviewed answered questions about how they make sense of life and the world, two factors stood out: their desire for coherence and their belief in truth. No other issues seemed as central to their articulation of their worldviews as these two; together they are woven into the fabric of faith of those who believe and who act on what they believe.

On my own journey this "desire for coherence and belief in truth" has been a significant part of the quest. I am not now and have never been a postmodernist (my delusions and temptations tend more anachronistically toward the Socratic or Victorian), and I seldom suffer doubt about the very possibility of truth. But what might the truth be? In my very early teens this was a question at the most basic level; as of 1982 it has been more a matter of trying to connect what else I might know of the world to the basic truth that God is. The desire for real-life, everyday coherence - in my case on the one hand a desperate desire to connect my political and social activism with my belief in God, and on the other hand the pretty common but extra-ordinarily difficult effort to balance work and family - has caused me far more agony than the question of truth.

2002-09-16T14:05:00.000-04:00

Since we are reading Steven Garber at the moment, here are three links to some of his short writings available on the web:

"Learning from Tolkien about life: The Lord of the Rings revisited."

Garber columns at boundless.org

"Substantial healing, one more time." (Beginning at page 8 of the linked pdf magazine.)

2002-09-15T19:03:00.000-04:00

Steven Garber writes (The Fabric of Faithfulness, pp. 37-38) that

... understanding those who have kept faith over the years -- who with substantial integrity have connected belief to behavior, personally as well as publically -- requires the weaving together of ... three strands: convictions, character and community. In the tapestrylike stories of the experiences of those interviewed, these three factors were the major influences, as seen retrospectively, on the construction of their respective visions of what is real and true and right ...

Garber elaborates on each of these strands:

Convictions: They were taught a worldview which was sufficient for the questions and crises of the next twenty years, particularly the challenge of modern consciousness with its implicit secularization and pluralization.

Character: They met a teacher who incarnated the worldview which they were coming to consciously identify as their own, and in and through that relationship they saw that it was possible to reside within that worldview themselves.

Community: They made choices over the years to live out their worldview in the company of mutually committed folk who provided a network of stimulation and support which showed that the ideas could be coherent across the whole of life.

Woven together, convictions, character and community nourish a vision of moral meaning which can stand against the most destructive forces of modern consciousness.

My worldview has been shaped most deeply by my reading -- but my reading straining at the contexts in which I find myself. My cataclysmic conversion in 1982 to the Christian faith was precipitated by a reading of the New Testament of the Bible in the Good News paraphrase. In the years that followed I struggled to figure out the relationship between that ur-commitment and my other commitments -- particularly my political commitments. My reading first took me in the direction of John Howard Yoder and Ron Sider. But I had also been reading Bob Goudzwaard and the Schaeffers. In 1989 I decided to read my way through the neocalvinist tradition, starting with its roots in Augustine and Calvin, and continuing through Groen Van Prinsterer and Abraham Kuyper to Herman Dooyeweerd. It is probably in that year and through that reading that my convictions settled into the patterns to which they still incline -- in broadest outline, a conviction that everything begins with God, a conviction that things are wildly messed up, and a conviction that there is a fix for it all ... in the tears and hands of God.

The mentors who helped shape my character are many, and their influences on me are complex, but as I write this two people come to mind most vividly. Anthony Perry was an Anglo-Catholic monk who ran a retreat centre at a rural monastery in the foothills of the Drakensberg Mountains in South Africa. He was someone who managed to balance staunch principle with generous compassion, and the only person within a day's drive of our hometown who would host a multi-racial youth retreat in the early 1980s. His counsel and example meant much to me then, and his life still serves as a benchmark for me now ... non-monk though I be! Cal Seerveld has been a model especially in the way that he connects his reading of Scripture with his scholarship, and brings both to bear on his life in this world. No book I own is more threadbare from reading than Cal's Rainbows for a Fallen World, but more influential on who I am than Cal's published books has been his lecture notes and handouts -- evidences of the process of his work -- that arrive regularly in his distinctive stamp-encrusted recycled envelopes.

Community is more tricky -- even painful -- to trace. I have deep friendships that stretch back to the early 1980s, but they are strained by the great divide resulting from migrating from one continent to another. Beginning in 1982 in South Africa, Angela and I had a small group of friends, an intersection of Youth For Christ, church, youth symphony orchestra, school and university, that served as an intense context for thinking about God, politics, everything, and that later morphed into our friendship with the decade-older Brian and Ann Sweetlove and their friends. Also in the early 1980s, we became friends with Mark Manley, who organised the annual (Christian) Valley Arts Festival, and who became a close political comrade, which led to another group of friends and the short-lived Public Justice Movement. Early in the 1990s, we met Craig Bartholomew, and the group of people who became the Christian Worldview Network. And in 1994 we started "the Wednesday group" in our home, two handfuls of graduate students and young professionals struggling with faith, people like Frank Mueller, who became some of our closest friends. But now all these friendships are a loose skein around the earth, with some of us in Europe, some in North America, a few in Asia, and many still in Africa.

I wonder what this scattering of our friendships around the globe means for the way in which I connect my faith and my everyday life? Certainly, it complicates what I learn from Steven Garber, who quotes (p. 149) a friend of his, Bob Kramer, as saying that he is

... more and more convinced that the people you choose to have around you have more to do with how you act upon what you believe than what you read or the ideas that influence you. The influence of ideas has to be there, but the application is something it's very hard to work out by yourself. You work it out in the context of friends -- just as you work it out with your spouse, so you work it out with a group of friends.

2002-09-14T10:24:00.000-04:00

Why do you get up in the morning?

In The Fabric of Faithfulness Steven Garber leads into this question with an excerpt out of a letter he received from a former student. The weight of her letter, writes Garber, comes in this paragraph:

I do not hate my job. Our caseloads are low here, I enjoy the staff, and the pay and benefits are generous. I just don't find the work rewarding. I have seen and heard so much in the families I work with and "help," and the problems seem so mammoth. I do appreciate the relationships I've built with some of my clients, but I am so overwhelmed. I realize that one reason I'm so unhappy is that I miss the mental stimulation and intellectual discussion of college and my hospice internship. Steve, if I remained mentally alert and absorbed in all that I deal with, I couldn't get up in the morning!

Why do you get up in the morning?

The question is weightier than it at first appears to be. It is not just about the choice faced by a university student between staying in bed another hour or going to the library to work. It is a question all of us face every morning, especially when our habitual routines run threadbare. A little later in the book Garber writes that

Many students, perhaps most, emerge from their university experience ready to take on the world; the idealism of youth, we call it. But then somewhere along the way the reality of life in the fast lane of adult responsibility hits -- sometimes like a ton of bricks, sometimes like acid rain. In a thousand ways they see how hard it is to be faithful to family, at work, in politics. Day in and day out the experience disappointments in every part of life -- every part of life -- and see how hard it is to be hopeful (and therefore responsible) actors in human history as they try to be neighbors to those next door and to those around the world.

Why do you get up in the morning?

At heart that more playful question, says Garber, is rooted in more substantive ones: Which commitments will give shape to my life? Is my life about something that matters? What do I really care about?

So ... why do I get up in the morning?

Superficially, I get up to read. Books are my drugs and I need another shot.

Scratching through the skin of this question: I wake up to see the smiles of my children; I wake up to talk with my wife; I wake up because justice cries out to be done; I wake up because -- maybe, just maybe -- today will be a thief of a day ...

2002-09-13T08:03:00.000-04:00

Last night the formal seminar group started out by watching The Big Kahuna.

When we think about a movie it is helpful to read a few reviews. Here is a selection of reviews of The Big Kahuna: Chiaroscuro; Christianity Today/The Film Forum; Roger Ebert; Hollywood Jesus; Stanley Kauffmann; Looking Closer.

Notes: (1) The Big Kahuna is rated R for "strong language." (2) For more resources on film see the Chiaroscuro resource page.

2002-09-10T17:05:00.000-04:00

Discussion questions for September 19

In preparation for this discussion we will read Steven Garber's Fabric of Faithfulness: Weaving together belief & behavior during the university years, the introduction and chapters 1 and 5.

During the course of the week before the seminar discussion, formal participants will post their responses to the following questions.

1. Garber writes (p. 15):

Why do you get up in the morning? For nearly twenty years I have been teaching university students in many different kinds of settings -- both those laboring away at secular-spirited institutions and those within Christ-centered colleges and universities, both undergraduate and graduate students, both within the classroom as a professor and outside as a campus minister -- and in a variety of ways I have asked this question. It gets at the relationship between what one believes about the world and how one lives in the world, particularly as that dynamic interaction is being formed as young people begin to move out of their parents' worlds and worldviews and take up their own convictions as frameworks within which to live and move and have their being. But it also focuses a student's attention, asking for a good reason to get up -- beyond the call of the cafeteria or the classroom.

At heart that more playful question is rooted in more substantive ones: Which commitments will give shape to my life? Is my life about something that matters? What do I really care about?

2002-08-19T17:34:00.000-04:00

The current formal study group consists of students taking the Worldview Foundations course at the Institute for Christian Studies, (Toronto, Canada).

This conversation is facilitated by Gideon Strauss, whose day jobs are at the Christian Labour Association of Canada and as the editor of the Work Research Foundation's quarterly journal, Comment. Gideon also blogs and helps to maintain a news link blog, labourzone.

If you live in or near Toronto, it should still be possible to register for the formal seminar. If you want to audit the seminar for fun and/or personal enrichment, please e-mail Gideon Strauss.

Below you will find the required readings, the discussion questions, and the research assignment for the current study group (Fall 2002).

Particular discussion questions (and the research assignment) will be posted again during the week in which the formal study group will consider them. The participants in the formal study group will post their written responses to the questions each week. Informal participants and occasional readers are welcome to post their comments using the discuss function. We request a high level of civility from everyone taking part in these conversations.

Discussion questions for Garber (part 1).

Read Garber, the introduction and chapters 1 and 5.

1. Garber writes (p. 15):

Why do you get up in the morning? For nearly twenty years I have been teaching university students in many different kinds of settings -- both those laboring away at secular-spirited institutions and those within Christ-centered colleges and universities, both undergraduate and graduate students, both within the classroom as a professor and outside as a campus minister -- and in a variety of ways I have asked this question. It gets at the relationship between what one believes about the world and how one lives in the world, partiularly as that dynamic interaction is being formed as young people begin to move out of their parents' worlds and worldviews and take up their own convictions as frameworks within which to live and move and have their being. But it also focuses a student's attention, asking for a good reason to get up -- beyond the call of the cafeteria or the classroom.

At heart that more playful question is rooted in more substantive ones: Which commitments will give shape to my life? Is my life about something that matters? What do I really care about?

So ... why do you get up in the morning?

2. Garber interviewed numerous people for this book. He found that “in the tapestrylike stories of the experiences of those interviewed . . . three factors were the major influences, as seen retrospectively, on the construction of their respective visions of what is real and true and right.” What are these three factors? What is their influence in your own life?

3. Garber found in his research that “As those interviewed answered questions about how they make sense of life and the world, two factors stood out. . . . No other issues seemed as central to their articulation of their worldviews as these two; together they are woven into the fabric of faith of those who still believe and who act on what they believe.” What are these two factors? What is their influence in your own articulation of a worldview?

Discussion question for Calvin and Schreiner.

Read Calvin, book 3, chapters 6 to 10. Read Schreiner, the introduction, the internal conclusions to chapters 1, 4, and 5, and the conclusion.

What can you tell from the reading of the broad contours of Calvin’s worldview?

Discussion question for Heslam and Bratt.

Read Heslam, chapter 4. Read either Kuyper's "Common Grace" or his "Sphere Sovereignty" in Bratt.

What can you tell from the reading of the broad contours of Kuyper’s worldview?

Discussion question for Wolters and Marshall. Part of the seminar discussion will be to compare the presentations of a Christian worldview by these authors.

Read Wolters, chapters 2 to 4, or read Marshall, chapters 2 to 5, 16, and 17.

How does Wolters or Marshall present the Christian worldview?

Discussion question for Colson & Pearcey and Middleton & Walsh. Part of the seminar discussion will be to compare the presentations of a Christian worldview by these authors.

Read Colson & Pearcey, the introduction and chapters 1 to 4, 7, 15, 23, and 31 or Middleton & Walsh, chapters 1, 5, and 8.

How does Colson & Pearcey or Middleton & Walsh present the Christian worldview?

Discussion questions for Being Human.

Read Being Human, chapters 1, 2, 3, and 7.

1. What does Seerveld claim when he says that being human is (a) being meant to pray, (b) being prone to sin, (c) being fragile, and (d) being in the order of Melchizedek?

2. Select one of Seerveld’s four claims. What is the relevance of the selected claim to your own life?

Discussion question for Freston, Jenkins, and Martin.

Read Freston, the introduction, the general introduction to each of parts two, three, and four, and the conclusion, or read Jenkins, chapters 5, 7, and 8, or read Martin, chapters 1, 3, and 8.

1. How has your reading of Freston, Jenkins, or Martin influenced your understanding of our times?

2. How might the Christian worldview contribute to cultural engagement by today’s emerging global church?

Discussion questions for Garber (part 2).

Read Garber, chapters 6 to 8.

1. How would you articulate the broad contours of your own worldview?

2. How does your worldview shape your way of life?

Research assignment

Evaluate the contribution of an articulated Christian worldview to cultural engagement in one of the following organizations that have their roots in the reformational/neocalvinist tradition:

1. The Center for Public Justice (Washington, DC);

2. The Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario;

3. The Christian Labour Association of Canada; or,

4. Citizens for Public Justice (Canada).