Credenda/Agenda is published bimonthly, or as funds
permit, as one of the literature
ministries of Community Evangelical Fellowship (the other literature ministry is Canon Press).
CEF is a member of the Confederation
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A statement of faith is
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Quotations are from the AV
unless otherwise noted. Permission to reproduce material from
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Editor:
Douglas Wilson
Senior editor:
Douglas Jones
Managing editor:
Ben Merkle
Contributing editors:
Chris Schlect, Jim Nance,
Patch Blakey, Nathan Wilson, Jack Van Deventer, and
Gary Hagen
Contributor:
Nancy Wilson
Technical editors:
Nancy Wilson, Fred Kohl,
Paula Bauer
Circulation:
Judi Christophersen, Chris
LaMoreaux
Production Assistant:
Courtney Huntington
Cover design and setup:
Rebekah Lee Merkle,
Paige Atwood
Cover Illustration:
PG Wodehouse
THE HEART OF A GOOF
Volume 11, Number 4
On Theme:
Verbatim: Quotations on Our Theme
On Plum
Plum and Clever Chappies
Thema: A Column on Our Theme
Typewriter of a Goof
Douglas Wilson
3
4-5
Magistralis: On the Civil Magistrate
Ethics of Boat Race Night
Nathan Wilson
10
Poetics: On the Arts
Hostility and Humor
Douglas Jones
17
Pictura: A Short Story
Buzz Flits By
Nathan Wilson
24-27
Beside the Point:
Sharpening Iron: Letters and Responses
Readers and editors
6-7
Doctrine 101: Basic Christian Teaching
Impotent or Evil
Patch Blakey
16
Anvil: Editorials
Assorted Dougs letting off steam 8
Meander: Mutterings
Shimmy Shimmy Shake
Douglas Wilson
18
Presbyterion: On Church Government
Weekly Communion
Douglas Wilson
9
Eschaton: Final Things
Prophecy Quiz
Jack Van Deventer
21
11
Historia: On History
Learning History
Chris Schlect
22
Husbandry: For Husbands
How to Exasperate a Wife
Douglas Wilson
Femina: For Wives
The Roller Coaster
Nancy Wilson
12
Childer: On Child-Rearing
Crying
Douglas Wilson
13
Footnotes, Etc.: Where We Got All This Stuff
Our impeccable sources
23
Exegetica: Textual Exegesis and Exposition
Which Cannot Be Shaken
Jim Nance
14
Stauron: On the Cross
Old Covenant Calvary
Gary Hagen
Rebekah Merkle
Credenda “Things to be Believed” Volume 11 / Number 4
15
Subscriptions to Credenda/Agenda are free upon
request. For address changes, subscriptions, or
other questions, please call (208) 882-7963 or
email [email protected].
Verbatim:
Quotations on Plum
To inhabit the same world as Mr. Wodehouse is a high
privilege; to inhabit the same volume, even as a doorkeeper, is perilous.
Plum and Clever Chappies
But anyone who considers a Wodehouse
inferior and thinks that he may never read
anything other than Marlowe, Goethe, or
Vestdijk does not know how to distinguish.
The distinction between good and bad does
not lie between what is heavier and more
serious and what is lighter, but runs right
through the genres. There are good and bad
books which must be regarded as high literature, and there are also good and bad books
which are devoted to the lighter muse.
H.R. Rookmaaker
Stilton, who was now a pretty vermilion, came partially out of the ether, uttering odd, strangled noises
like a man with no roof to his
mouth trying to recite ‘Gunga
Din’.
Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit
She gave a sort of despairing
gesture, like a vicar’s daughter
who has discovered
Erastianism in the village.
Laughing Gas
The Modern Library asked its
board of advisors to pick the
hundred greatest Englishlanguage novels of the twentieth century. We define the
assignment differently. P. G.
Wodehouse wrote 96 novels;
what are the other 4?
Ogden Nash
“Well there it is,” I said, and went into the silence.
And as he, too, seemed disinclined for chit-chat, we
stood for some moments like a couple of Trappist
monks who have run into each other by chance at the
dog races.
Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit
In repose, it has a sort of meditative expression, as if
she were a pure white soul thinking beautiful thoughts,
and, when animated, so dashed animated that it boosts
the morale to just look at her. Her eyes are a kind of
browny-hazel and her hair rather along the same lines.
The general effect is of an angel who eats a lot of yeast.
The Mating Season
For only Og king of Bashan
remained of the remnant
of giants; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of
iron; is it not in Rabbath
of the children of Ammon?
Nine cubits was the length
thereof, and four cubits the
breadth of it, after the
cubit of a man.
Deuteronomy 3:11
National Review
“In the inspired words of Pliny the Younger—”
Bill held up a hand. “Right ho, Jeeves.”
“Very good, m’lord.”
“I’m not interested in Pliny the Younger.”
“No m’lord.”
“As far as I’m concerned, you may take Pliny the
Younger and put him where the monkey put the nuts.”
The Return of Jeeves
...giving it her opinion that against a woman with a
brain like that, Ginger hadn’t the meager chance of a
toupee in a high wind.
The lunches of fifty-seven years
had caused his chest to slip down
into the mezzanine floor.
Chester Forgets Himself
He trusted neither of them as far
as he could spit, and he was a
poor spitter, lacking both distance and control.
Money in the Bank
Golf . . . is the infallible test. The
man who can go into a patch of
rough alone, with the knowledge
that only God is watching him,
and play the ball where it lies, is
the man who will serve you
faithfully and well.
The Clicking of Cuthbert
The Right Hon. was a tubby little chap who looked as
if he had been poured into his clothes and forgotten to
say ‘when!’
Very Good, Jeeves
I don’t think I have ever seen a Silver Band so nonplussed. It was as though a bevy of expectant wolves
had overtaken a sleigh and found no Russian peasant
on board.
Uncle Dynamite
Jeeves and the Tie that Binds
Agenda “Things to be Done” Volume 11 / Number 4
!
Thema:
Typewriter of a Goof
by Douglas Wilson
MACHINES ARE SERIOUS BUSINESS, AND, SINCE
MODERnity likes to run like a machine, modernity is therefore very much like those four
attorneys—dour, solemn, somber, and gray.
Instead of laughing at this spectacle, many
orthodox folks who ought to know better
muddle along grimly as best they can. But
something really should be done about all this,
and part of that “something” needs to include
acquiring a familiarity with the Wodehousean
canon, and a concomittant acquaintance with the
importance of modern Dutch cow creamers.
Pelham Grenville Wodehouse was born in 1881 and
was known for most of his years by all who knew him
as Plum. He had an easy-going but very shy personality.
As he grew up, he generally flourished in relationships
with closer friends. Plum was not a public person, but
neither was he socially maladroit in small societies. He
attended Dulwich College where he excelled as a
student athlete (cricket, rugby, and soccer), and was
generally well-liked. Wodehouse
began his career there as a writer by
working for the school paper and,
of course, churned out a lot of stuff
in those early years. He was a
competent writer from the start,
but observers in the know are
nevertheless able to pinpoint the
exact time in his life when his very
own private muse woke up and
whacked him with enthusiasm on
the head. He was part way through
one of his early books when he
suddenly, mysteriously, found his
unmistakable voice, and proceeded
to write that way until his death
many decades later.
After a time of paying his dues
the way writers like to do, he
became an enormously successful author in the early
part of this century, spent a good deal of time hopping
back and forth between Britain and America, got into
scrapes with the IRS, was hired as a screenwriter in
Hollywood more than once, was paid a lot there for
doing very little, wrote lyrics for Broadway productions, and, most importantly, established himself as the
master of the comic short story and novel. His ability
to produce hot stuff on demand was considerable, and
in the course of his life he wrote ninety-some novels
and innumberable short stories.
He was living in France with his wife Ethel when
the Second World War broke out. He did not leave for
England because he was working on a novel, and
because he probably could not have gotten his pet dog
(a Pekingese) with him back into England. He was
"
Credenda “Things to be Believed” Volume 11 / Number 4
consequently captured and spent some time in a
concentration camp for foreign civilians. On the eve of
his sixtieth birthday, after he was released by the
Germans because of his age, the stage was set for him to
create the one great controversy of his life, which was
his agreement to do some broadcast talks from Germany to America. The talks were entirely non-political,
recounting his experiences in the concentration camp,
and were directed to the United States, which was not
yet in the war, but the effect in Britain was nonetheless
explosive. Despite the fact that the broadcasts were not
heard in England, the content of the talks was assumed,
and Wodehouse was denounced as a turncoat scoundrel, and accused of treason. He thought he was just
exhibiting a humorous stiff-upper lip approach to a
difficult situation, but the affair was not driven by his
intentions. Judged by content, the talks were certainly
unoffensive, but judged by context, they were damning.
Those who knew him understood that he was about as
apolitical as a man can get without being an oyster,
and consequently, they understood that he had been
more than a little naive about how the Germans would
use his talks. But they knew that this was all he had
been—naive. When it finally dawned on him how
foolish he had been, he was as
appalled as anyone, but by that
point the damage was done.
Because of the controversy, he
was unable to return to Britain
after the war, and so he settled on
Long Island, where he stayed for
the remainder of his life, and
where he was eventually naturalized as an American citizen. The
British were very slow to forgive
him, but when they finally did,
they did it in style, and Queen
Elizabeth II knighted him in
1975, two months before he died.
He died at home at the age of
ninety. He was able to work
fruitfully until the end of his life,
producing some of his best work
in his latter years. He was certainly not a writer who
crested early.
Not surprisingly, readers of this magazine are
probably interested in his religious commitments.
There is never any neutrality, not even at Blandings
Castle. His faith is hard to ascertain from the available
information, but it is safe to say at least three things.
First, his knowledge of the Bible was thorough (perhaps
he had won the same kind of Scripture Knowledge
Award that his Bertie Wooster prized so earnestly). His
easy familiarity with Scripture is revealed constantly
throughout his books, and he could nail down an
allusion as quickly as Jael, the wife of Heber.
Secondly, the only direct information on his faith I
could find was his reference to his attendance on the
ministry of a Salvation Army colonel during his time
in concentration camp. As he put it, “I got very reli-
gious in camp. There was a Salvation Army colonel
there who held services every Sunday. There is something about the atmosphere of a camp which does
something to you in that way.”
And third, for a Christian, the world he portrays
has some very familiar lines of latitude and longitude.
Wodehouse simply assumes a Christian order, an
established Church, and a respectable clergy scandalized
by the occasional orangutan in orders. What he never
challenges throughout all his books is extremely
revealing. His world, admittedly idealized, is one in
which Christian readers find themselves comfortable.
Apart from the pinching of policemen’s helmets by
young curates, blinded by love of Stiffy, the moral
universe he paints is generally a recognizable one. True,
there is an occasional stray hell or damn, and this is
unfortunate, because many modern Christians do all
their worldview analysis through the simple process of
counting them. Nevertheless, despite this, taking one
thing with another, the world in Wodehouse has to be
seen as being right side up.
The plots in Wodehouse, on the other hand, are
farcical and labyrinthian, and it must be admitted that
there are not many of them. They basically amount to
some poor fish on a slab wanting to pledge his troth to
some lovely young pippin, and the bride price he must
pay is the task of kyping something valuable while
staying at a spacious country manor. The young
woman adored is lovely, svelte, and has limpid eyes
that swim slowly over what she sees. She is also
frequently a thug. There are exceptions to this setup of
course, but one gets the basic idea. The farce gets
tangled up in aunts, bookies, butlers, fierce secretaries,
gentlemen’s personal gentlemen, and professional
thieves, and by the time all is done, a wonderful time
has been had by all the readers. To paraphrase the
master, if all the good times available from his books
were laid end to end, they could reach part of the way
to the north pole.
As a stylist, Wodehouse was of course superb,
writing balanced and nuanced sentences which, taking
the hay with the straw, just wouldn’t quit. But the
thing that made him a supreme writer, the thing which
ensures a readership many years from now, was his
genius in working with metaphor, and metaphors that
were like metaphors, like similies, if you catch the drift.
Whether the thing under discussion was subdued and
quiet, like bees fooling about in the flowerbed, or
farcical and ludicrous, like the high octane sappiness of
Madeline Bassett who believed the stars to be God’s
daisy chain, the metaphors and similies found in the
work of Wodehouse cause the reader, even if alone, to
laugh like a hyena with a bone caught in its throat. Or
perhaps the laughter of some other more genteel readers
might more closely approximate the sound of glue
being poured from a jug. But in either case, Wodehouse
has the constant capacity to surprise his readers with a
sudden turn or twist of phrase, and to surprise them
pleasantly. The effect is not unlike the pleasure received
when one thinks one has been disgracing his family
through robbing banks, and wakes up to discover it
was all a dream. And on every page, too.
For the poor, benighted souls who have not had the
pleasure, where is one to begin his recommending? But
first, a warning. If someone simply wants to say they
have “read Wodehouse,” we may note in the first
instance that they would only say this because they
have not read him. Once they have undertaken the
happy chore, the desire to continue is motivated
differently than perhaps it began. And about time.
For those who are unacquainted with his work, the
size of his pile can be intimidating, and it has to be
recognized that while the quality of his books is
remarkably and consistently high, there are still some
works which stand out, like eager public servants, and
which will reward the new student of his oevure, and
reward him quick and hard, usually by the second page.
In this age of instant gratification, fast food, fast lane
commuting, and telerightnowing, it is wonderful to
find great literature which is capable of doing exactly
the same thing. Some great lit just competes with other
great lit. But it takes extraordinary lit to compete with
drivel—and on its own level too.
For the novels, the place to begin is with Leave It To
Psmith, The Code of the Woosters, Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen,
The Mating Season, and Right Ho, Jeeves. For the short
stories, a good start would be the Mulliner stories and
the Drones Club stories (both are available in single
volumes). Usually this fair start will prove to be an
introduction to a lifetime of enjoyment. And if this is
somehow inexplicably not the case, then the fact that
the books read “on assignment” were among Plum’s
best reveal exactly where the problem is. It is probably
to be found in the fact that the disapproving reader is a
complete chump.
Incidentally, a word should be put in here about the
recent series of Jeeves and Wooster pieces done by the
BBC, and available in video. These are very well done,
and quite humorous in their own right, but one caution
must still be noted. The very best thing about the work
of Wodehouse, viz. his powers of description, is necessarily absent. In a video, a constable can certainly be
shown walking, but there is no way to picture him
doing so with his shoes clumping along like a couple of
violin cases.
We need Wodehouse for a number of reasons, but
one stands out. The besetting sin of many cranky
conservative Christian types is their inability to make
any good point whatever without sounding shrill. And
the better the point, the shriller the making of it gets.
But to have been well-marinated in the writing of this
man is to have been soaked in the . . . well, it is to to
have been marinated in, you know, his writings. The
sunniness of his prose, coupled with his robust prowess
in the realm of insult, is exactly what we need in these,
our troubled times. For we are not just doing battle
with the powers of darkness, we are also engaged in
mortal conflict with the theology of Madeline Bassett,
resident theologian and high priestess of modern
evangelicalism.
Agenda “Things to be Done” Volume 11 / Number 4
#
Sharpening Iron:
From Us:
Aside from our quirky
theology and boyish
good looks, our next
most frequently commented on quality is our
bizarre attempt at
humor. We couldn’t hope
to explain it (like salt
and vinegar potato chips
and Yiddish rap, it’s
certainly an acquired
taste), but we did hope
that in the spirit of ad
fontes, we could point our
readers to where we first
caught the bug. But we
really ought to warn you,
like the tuna casserole at
a church potluck, the
stuff is infectious. But
the truth is we didn’t
start it. It was
Wodehouse that did it. It was all his
idea and it’s all his fault. That’s our
story and we’re sticking to it.
WHAT GIVES?
Dear Editors,
Okay, when you poke fun at amils,
are you really calling them gnostics
in order to provoke them, insult
them, or dismiss them as irrelevant?
Or what? Do you want amils to
read your mag and be challenged to
possibly agree with you? Is your
mag preaching to the choir, or do
you aim for converts to your
theological positions?
Courtney Dunkerton
Internet
Editor’s Reply: All of the above. We love
our amil brothers and want to hug them
into the truth, but we do wish they would
worry a bit more about the way they
often rid Christianity of any hint of
earthy materiality. They too often like to
rest in a world where holiness, intellect,
and spirituality are the only siblings in
the crib.
WE’RE OUTED
KKK
Dear Editors,
Warning: ‘Closet Agrarians’ will
ultimately get ‘outed’!
From You:
LETTER OF THE MONTH
Dear Editors,
Regarding the last issue of your fine
magazine: as a woman who wears a
head covering, I must take exception to your otherwise excellent
article, “Sexual Glory,” in which
Douglas Wilson writes, “And those
few Christians who do believe that
the passage is binding today, think
that it is talking about women of
severe countenance dressed in gray
with a doily on top of their heads.
No one thinks of it in terms of a
biblical eroticism.” Let me assure
you that my husband and I enjoyed
all the implications of your recent
issue on feasting. In addition, I
believe you’re forgetting the words
of that great philosopher, Charlie
Rich: “And when we get behind
closed doors Then she lets her hair
hang down And she makes me glad
that I’m a man....”
Anonymous
South of Here
$
David E. Rockett
Internet
GOBBLEDY, GOBBLEDY-GOOK!
Dear Editors,
I’d like to respond to your fund
raising plea in this last Credenda. I
don’t believe in your postmillennial
gobbledy-gook at all. Christ is
already on the throne, having reestablished the dominion Adam lost
and was never again told to exercise
(because he couldn’t). We may now
pursue holiness in Christ. As far as
“dominion” on our part in this
doomed world, let’s just live
peaceably with all men, if possible,
and live the truth knowing final
judgment will come soon enough....
You’re good men, and I
deeply appreciate your insights and
exhortations. So ok, I guess I can
put up with some postmil weirdness. It’s a bit like Lincoln’s defense
of Grant’s propensity for booze: if
that’s what made such a superb
Credenda “Things to be Believed” Volume 11 / Number 4
soldier, let’s order up a few rounds
for everybody! You might want to
keep it in moderation, however.
Eric Stampher
Visalia, CA
ORGANIC ARROGANCE
Dear Editors,
I so dislike the arrogance so common among “theonomy-types” that
I can hardly bear to read Credenda/
Agenda, but I must write to commend you for your firm stand on
alternative medicine. World magazine “backed off” on truth about it
when they met with the barrage of
wild letters following their fine
editorial on the subject.
It certainly is a theological
issue, as you suggest. What a shame
to the name of Christ to see Christians flocking in hordes to this
focus on self and trying to get back
to Eden via “dried carrot”! As I tell
my patients: “This is a fallen
planet; poison ivy is ‘natural,’ but
that doesn’t mean it’s good for
you.”
Carol Tharp M.D.
Winnatka, IL
WRITING UNDER THE INFLUENCE
Dear Editors,
I read with bewilderment the article
Beer, by Ben Merkle. He should not
complain so much; after all, it
appears that he has found a beer
strong enough to get him drunk
and make him write nonsense. My
heart goes out to him. It is very sad
when somebody has to prove his
masculinity by acting like an idiot.
Let me clarify a point that
may be moot to some people. The
real victim of feminism is Ben
Merkle, who thinks that masculinity is being enslaved to sundry
vices, being a drinker and losing
control of oneself—which you have
to know happens to women, even
though some may not admit it. This
is the picture of masculinity that
feminists paint. You can even see it
in the sitcoms and in the comic
strips....
A few years ago, I used to
. . . Sharpening Iron:
drink a glass of wine
now and then, just to
prove my “Christian
liberty,” and that did not
make me any more
masculine. Now that I
have abandoned that
practice of asserting my
Christian liberty by
drinking, I am not any
less masculine. By the
way, did you know that
drinking alcohol can
make you more feminine?
Sarkis Baltayian
Sierra Madre, CA
AT LEAST IT’S PROSE
Dear Editors,
Most of the articles I
read in Credenda/Agenda
are instructional, solid
messages delivered
through, usually, excellent prose. Nathan
Wilson’s article “Soft Pelagian
Rears” was excellent prose.
Boone Brumagen
Dover, PA
WOOSH
Dear Editors,
Have you got a Holy Ghost hammer
in Nathan Wilson! Woosh, pow,
bang. And his rockets are hitting
their targets.
Kurt Prenzler
St. Louis, MO
QUITTER
Dear Editors,
Thank you for your very appropriate Credenda comments on today’s
church architecture as compared
with that of days gone by. A
primary character of today’s
churches is a total lack of majesty in
their “worship” attitude, replaced—
as you so correctly submit—by the
mundane of everyday secular
mentalities. The same is so evident
in the music, and I’d certainly like
to see you address that in Credenda
sometime. We now have those
infernal, superficial, self-viewing
choruses, which I call the “7-11’s”—
they have 7 lines, and you repeat
them 11 times. And they’re accompanied by more of the mundane in
beat-heavy, digital combos. Gone is
the majesty of the great hymns and
the great organ accompaniment. I
can no longer find a church that
really engulfs one in worship of a
majestic God on a majestic scale,
and I’m so tired of going to church
only to find that everything’s
exactly the same as “outside” in the
secular world. So I no longer even
try. There’s no home any longer,
unless one is satisfied with a
spiritual nursery so bereft of any
nutrition in the genuine presence of
the God of the Scriptures to encourage anything beyond spiritual
infancy.
Dick Ikenberry
Internet
DEGENERATE WILSON CHILDREN
Dear Editors,
Great issue on architecture,
thanks. Reconstructing the arts is a
complex trail filled with twists and
paradoxes. However, I’m waiting
for the issue called A Theology in
Tones: Dissing Musical Existentialism. If ever anyone proposes any
sort of standards for evaluating
music, even the most thoroughly
Christian thinkers, even many
reconstructionists suddenly become
practical existentialists: “Oh yeah?
Says who?” This is evident in such
wildly inconsistent facts such as
your children being allowed to
listen to Auditory Pornography
(U2), and in the bizzare filthy music
that World magazine reviews and
recommends.
Why is this? Standards for
musical evaluation are not that
difficult: not nearly so esoteric as
standards for architecture. We
decide what music is appropriate for
the Christian the same way we
decide about any other thing not
specifically named in the Bible: by
motive and by effect. Motive and
Effect are the only things that can
be evil. And since music has no
motive, it must be judged by its
effect. Yes, architecture is judged the
same way, but it's much easier with
music.
Michael E Owens
Internet
EASY, REB
Dear Editors,
By cheering Paul Weyrich’s suggestion that Christian conservatives
should limit themselves to defensive
political action, you are denying
God’s ability to enable his children
to fulfill the Proverbs 31:8 mandate
within this present socio-political
context. How can we “judge righteously the cause of the dumb,” and
plead for “all such as are appointed
to destruction” if we limit our
offensive “evangelion” to every part
of life’s spectrum except governing
authority: legislative, judicial, and
executive?
Paul says in Rom. 13 that such
authority exists as God’s merciful
safeguard to prevent evil and good
from becoming indistinguishable by
punishing one and rewarding the
other. Until God’s people lay the
context for revival by making
whatever sacrifice is necessary to
exercise the minority political
power we have, through an attempt
at state secession, we cannot
reasonably expect to convince the
majority that the spirit within us is
distinguishable from the one they
are presently serving.
I’d love to discuss this at further
length, over a pipeful of Kentucky
burley and a pint or three of
oatmeal stout. That is, when I’m 21,
late next year. By then, however, we
will most likely be occupied with
more pressing matters, like barricading our doors to the onslaught of
babykilling sodomites, who in the
absence of the law, have no knowledge of sin.
Cordially,
Jonathan O’Toole
Agenda “Things to be Done” Volume 11 / Number 4
%
Assuming the Center
THROUGH THE KINDNESS OF GOD AND
generosity of many of the saints,
my wife and I had the privilege of
traveling to Scotland this summer
in order to visit many of the places
dear to those who love the Reformation.
For various reasons, the high
point of the trip was a visit to St.
Andrews. One of these reasons had
to do with the juxtaposition of
several events, separated by some
centuries. We visited the ruins of the
castle there, in front of which is a
marker in the road where the
Protestant martyr, George Wishart,
was executed. Wishart was a
powerful preacher, the man who
had set such a wonderful example
for the young John Knox.
Shortly after seeing this, we
found ourselves in the market area
of St. Andrews, where a gray-haired
gentleman was doing some open-air
preaching in the presence of the
many people there. But for all they
cared, he could have been a parking
meter. It is hard to imagine someone
being considered more completely
irrelevant, or seeing someone more
thoroughly ignored. Even a parking
meter would have gotten, periodically, some attention. But as I
listened to him speak, I heard the
content of the ancient gospel. He
was preaching the truth.
If you had a good arm, he was
preaching just a stone’s throw from
where Wishart had died, and I
found myself wondering about the
difference fifty yards makes. Or four
centuries. Or perhaps neither.
The difference was in the fact
that the early Protestant preachers
assumed the center in their preaching,
and they were consequently a
genuine threat to the establishment.
Modern preachers, whether on the
street or safely ensconced in their
worship centers, do no such thing.
Even when modern evangelicals
oppose the wickedness at the center,
they still do not question their right
to that center. We modern Christians tend to agree with the wicked
about one thing at least—the fact
that the wicked belong at the center,
and that those who oppose them
Christianity Today Out of Touch Again
JUST WHEN A CRACK OF LIGHT BEGINS TO
break through the evangelical
cultural wall, Christianity Today
rushes to plug it up.
For years, many evangelicals
have been working diligently to
convince others of the principial
idolatry inherent in public education. On the other side, organizations like Citizens for Excellence in
Education have made stalwart
efforts to keep Christian kids in
public education and to try to
reform it from the inside.
Within the past couple of years,
CEE changed its direction in a
wonderful way. In its new Rescue
2010 plan, its president Dr. Robert
Simonds announced a “significant
change in our approach,” arguing
that “Christians must exit the
public schools.” Despite all the good
attempts at reform, he says, “Christians can no longer afford to wait
before rescuing their own children.
Our children’s souls are at stake.”
This is light and glory and news
&
worth spraying champagne around
the office for. Here someone recognizes one of the most strategic fault
lines for the next fifty years and
publicly acts upon it.
But Christianity Today’s lead
editorial (9/6/99) calls Simond’s
turn “wrong.” Wow, that’s actually
quite a dramatic word for CT, where
passion and strong words are, well,
sort of, no-nos.
CT argues that the “fear [of our
children imitating pagan culture]
does not negate the duty of both
parents and students to minister
and evangelize.” Perhaps this isn’t
such a bad idea. Imagine the power
of a clumpy crowd of little kid
ministers and evangelists who are
“blameless, the husband of one
wife, temperate, sober-minded, of
good behavior,” etc. (1 Tim. 3:2–4).
Now those are kids ready to be salt
and light in Babylon.
CT also claims “public
education’s greatest asset” is “the
diversity of its student bodies,” and
Credenda “Things to be Believed” Volume 11 / Number 4
should always harangue them from
the periphery.
After the glorious death of
Wishart, when Knox threw himself
into the work of Reformation, it
never occurred to him to start a new
little ministry in a chapel on the
outskirts of town. He settled in his
mind that he was going to preach at
the Cathedral at St. Andrews (just a
short distance up the road in
another direction). This was the
man who prayed, “Give me Scotland, or I’ll die.” The bishop there
said that if Knox tried it, he would
be received with a twelve-gun
salute, the most part of which
would light upon his nose. But
Knox came to St. Andrews anyway
and preached there, from the center.
As we consider the work before
us, the needed reformational work,
we must realize that the historic
Reformers were not just “lucky.”
With a medieval mindset, they
understood something about the
center which we do not. They knew,
in short, that it was central.
Douglas Wilson
such diversity will teach Christian
kids “how to relate to non-Christians.” Well, then prisons should
also foster better diversity relations.
CT assumes government ed only
nurtures healthy relations. Whence,
then, comes all these snotty little
nazi wannabees? Dumping your
kids off at the local Baal Elementary
School is the lazy boy’s way of
learning diversity.
CT complains that “fear is not
. . . a valid reason for educating
children at home or in private
schools.” Why not? CT’s appeal to
psychobabble fear misses the deeper
fear at issue. Even the tamest
government school is devoted to an
omnipresent neutrality. Where does
Scripture exhort us to bring up our
kids in the nurture and admonition
that the Lord God is irrelevant to
life? Why is it so hard to see that
public education is institutionalized
idolatry?
Douglas Jones
Presbyterion:
Weekly Communion
by Douglas Wilson
OF COURSE WE KNOW THAT WORD AND SACRAments go together. But how do they go
together?
In the minds of many believers, the two go
together like ham and eggs, two disparate
but complementary elements combining in a
pleasing way. But perhaps they go together
in another way entirely—one suggestion is
that they go together more like cooking and
eating.
Before beginning this discussion, let’s
pretend for a moment that we have no
traditions on frequency of communion
to maintain (a big pretend!), and that
advocates of every position share the
same biblical burden of proof. We know
that we are to observe the Lord’s Supper, but how
often?—daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or
annually? When we come to this question, we
should note initially that virtually no biblical case
can be made for our most common practices—
monthly and quarterly. While this is par for the
course, it should at least excite some comment.
Annual communion could be defended on the
basis of the Lord’s Supper being established in the
context of Passover which was an annual festival. Jesus
said of “this cup,” speaking of the cup of blessing in the
Passover meal, “As oft as ye drink it . . .” (1 Cor. 11:25).
It could be argued that He simply intended this symbolic meaning of the new covenant to be added to the
annual celebration of the Passover meal. While it is
possible that His meaning included this application,
subsequent apostolic practice shows that they drank
from that cup of blessing far more frequently than this.
Another option is daily communion. In the heady
days following Pentecost, the believers broke bread
daily, and from house to house (Acts 2:46). As Luke
uses this phrase it almost certainly refers to the Lord’s
Supper. From this we learn that if daily communion is
not normative, it is at least lawful. The Lord’s Supper
should not be restricted to the Lord’s Day.
But after the situation stabilized, we come to see
the practice of the early church, settling in for the long
haul. “And upon the first day of the week, when the
disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached
unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight” (Acts 20:7). They
gathered together on the Lord’s Day, and they did so for
the purpose of breaking bread.
Paul assumes the same kind of thing at Corinth.
“When ye come together therefore into one place, this is
not to eat the Lord’s supper. For in eating every one
taketh before other his own supper: and one is hungry,
and another is drunken” (1 Cor. 11:20-21). The assumption here is that when the Corinthian church came
together, it was not to eat the Lord’s Supper, even
though that is what they thought they were doing. In
other words, the Lord’s Supper was being abused at
Corinth on a weekly basis. (And, as detailed word
studies have shown, the abuses had gone so far that
Corinthian believers were starting to act silly from
drinking too much grape juice.) In other words, they
came together weekly on the Lord’s Day (1 Cor. 16:12), and they should have been doing so in order to eat
the Lord’s Supper, and instead, they were doing more
harm than good through their behavior.
It is therefore fair to say that weekly communion,
while not mandatory in any absolute sense, is biblically normative. We have as much evidence for weekly
communion on the Lord’s Day, for example,
as we have for meeting on the Lord’s Day
to do anything else. We have more evidence for weekly communion than we
have for weekly sermons or weekly
singing. But why choose? Why not do it
all?
And this brings us to consider the
theology of the thing, and the initial
question of how the word accompanies the
sacrament. We know that a sacrament is
both a sign and seal of the covenant
promises (Rom. 4:11). When we think of
those things which we seal, we should
note something about the natural order of
things. We write the letter, then seal the envelope. We
negotiate the contract, and then seal it with signatures.
The marriage is conducted first, and sealed sexually
that evening. In short, that which seals follows that
which is sealed. A seal is, by its very nature, a culmination.
In the prayers, psalms, and sermons of a worship
service, the terms of the covenant are praised, noted,
explained, and acknowledged. In the sacrament of the
Lord’s Supper, the covenant is sealed, and because this
sacrament (unlike baptism) is repetitive, each sealing is
a covenant renewal.
Given this, why would we want anything other
than a weekly communion service, as the culmination
of the worship service? We have already seen that this
was the general pattern in the time of the apostles, and
the theological logic points in the same direction.
We gather in the name of Christ, assembled as His
people. We present our praises and petitions to Him, we
sing and chant to God the Father in His name, we hear
His Word proclaimed, and then, in the most natural
way, we sit down with Him at table.
The covenant is explained when we talk. But it is
not renewed when we talk. That occurs when we take
and eat.
Agenda “Things to be Done” Volume 11 / Number 4
'
Magistralis:
Ethics of Boat Race Night
by Nathan Wilson
GENTLEMEN. IF YOU EVER FIND YOURSELF IN ENGLAND
on Boat Race night there are some Wodehousean things which it is absolutely necessary that you understand, if you mean to
survive. Boat Race night is that night of
nights when all the little elves come out to
play, and Oxford rows against Cambridge.
Of course which boat you hoarsen your throat
for is really irrelevant, although if Bertie
Wooster is to have anything to do with you, it
had better be Oxford. What is important is the
adherence to certain cultural protocols. For
example, you must be well dressed. If your
tailor is anything other than special you may
as well not annoy the ancient day with your
presence. Once you have succeeded in adding
to, rather than detracting from, the beauty of the landscape, you must find yourself a couple of equally well
dressed chaps and plunge out in search of one of those
most blessed merchants who deal strictly in the wines
and spirits. It is at this point that the issues of survival
enter stage left.
You must be merry. As the psalmist said, “the wines
must meet your heart and make it glad.” However, there
is a line you must not cross. Yes, you must be somewhat
floating in potent fluid, but you cannot impair your
mental or physical abilities. You need to be able to walk,
and more importantly. . . run. If you are physically ill,
asleep, or immobile, you will be worthless for the rest of
the day’s activities. Now remember, this is still before the
actual race. You will have ample time to imbibe after the
race as well, so pace yourselves. If you drink too much
before, then you will have to turn down drinks afterward, or leave the frozen limit in your wake. Neither
scenario is enjoyable. I recommend drinking to that
perfect equilibrium, where one decides to eschew the
consequences and knuckle down to spreading sweetness
and light.
You now attend the race. Yell and holler until your
throat needs a second moistening, and then unaware of
the victor, return to the beverages that make the roses
bloom. Here you will remain until the most boat-raced
member of your party announces that the time has come
to meet the lesser magistrate.
It is important that you have removed all means of
identification from your person before this phase. It is
also crucial that you not be arrested for disturbing the
peace just yet, so attempt to restrain yourself from
enacting the Barber of Seville for the time being.
As I suspect this is your rookie Boat Race, you will be
called upon by the others as the first to enact the most
ancient and honored tradition the island kingdom has to
offer. You will be told to pinch a policeman’s helmet. By
pinch I do of course mean steal. Now some might have
ethical qualms about such a deed. Put these aside, if the
alcohol has not already done it for you, and move on like
a man. If policemen didn’t want their helmets stolen,
then why, I ask you, would they wear them on Boat Race
Credenda “Things to be Believed” Volume 11 / Number 4
night? Bear in mind that the policemen enjoy it in much
the same way foxes probably enjoy being hunted.
Approach the policeman from the rear. You will of
course have to rob whatever policeman the boys have
selected but remember that the bigger he is the slower he
probably is. The smallish ones can be a bit tricky because
they are generally able to run one down after the removal
of the helmet. Do your best to disappear. This of course
means that you must stop laughing. Even the morning
dew has trouble diasappearing on those spring mornings
when it’s forever giggling. But back to the action.
After assuming a position to the rear of your quary,
and in that last moment of truth, remember above all
things not to make the same mistake Bingo Little did. He
simply grabbed the helmet and pulled straight back. In
such a case the poiliceman comes with it. This is utter
failure. The demands of the protocols are extremely strict.
One must always pinch the helmet and never the policeman. If you were to steal a policeman, what on earth
could you ever do with him? As for the helmet, when
successfully purloined, it will be an heirloom of your
family’s for generations to come. So remember, thrust
forward on the helmet first, for this disengages the strap
from the chin, and then pull back. At this point you run
away like a mad hen.
It is unlikely that any of your party will avoid arrest
even in the night’s first theft, although Freddie
Threepwood once led a troop through four successful
thefts in a single night. There were rumors that he hadn’t
had a drop for weeks, but Freddie has dismissed them as
slander. If you win through on your first Boat Race, then
I congratulate you as a better man than I. But as is
normally the case, you will more likely find yourself in a
cell for the rest of the night and standing before the local
magistrate in the morning.
When in the courtroom forget anything you please,
but remember what name you gave the constable when
you checked into the facilities the night before. I suggest
that you have a name in readiness before the day begins
so you are less likely to make one up off the cuff and
forget it in the morning. Leo Tydvil has at one time or
another been used by every fellow of my acquaintance,
and I’m sure no one would mind if you gave it a whirl as
well.
You must now plead guilty as charged and settle for
whatever the magistrate imposes. Some will settle for a
mere reprimand which is quite reasonable for a night’s
entertainment, accommodation, and breakfast in the
morning. Oofy once came across a most unreasonable
fellow who sent him up the river for three days, and
Bertie was soaked for five pounds, but I’ve never received
more from a judge than the judicial “Tut tut.”
Upon exiting the courtroom, or in Oofy’s case
chokey, you are a free man. You may return from whence
you came with one Boat Race beneath your belt, now
part of a history that runs all the way back to Brude,
King of the Picts.
Stand tall my friend.
How to Exasperate a Wife
Husbandry:
questioned about his silence, he should say, “No, that’s
all right. Hm.”
by Douglas Wilson
A man should take special care to give his wife
permission to home school. She has been asking for a
couple years, and if he gives permission this will keep
NOT THAT I AM AN EXPERT OR ANYTHING.
her quiet for a couple more. Then, when she asks for
A woman comes into marriage with a
some direction, discipline, or leadership in curriculum
certain set of naive assumptions about the
decisions, he can gently remind her that she was the one
density of marble in her sweet baby’s head.
who requested that they do this.
Some husbands may want their wives to
Fussiness over meals is also important. It is not
develop a more
important how the fussiness is
realistic understandexhibited, but it is essential
ing, and that ipso
that it be exhibited. One man
pronto. If this is in fact
Fred’s Word Study
may want to demand his food
the case, then certain
at six o’ clock, straight up,
trusty devices have
another may want his food
The word “liturgy” comes from the
been employed by
piping hot, and yet another
Greek leitourgia, (leitos, “public;” and
more industrious
may want to insist on an
ergon, “work.”—thus “public work.”)
husbands over the
entire absence of whatever
In the NT it refers to a sacred ministrayears, and they have
vegetable it is that annoys
tion or service. The angel Gabriel
worked in a very effective
him.
announced John’s birth to Zacharias
manner to this end.
He should make sure
the priest while he was fulfilling his
The first and most important
he talks about how various
leitourgas in the temple. Paul commends
thing to do is take a very strong
women at work, or at church,
Epaphroditus to the Philippians,
stand on male leadership. By
are good looking. Just as a
“because for the work of Christ he came
strong stand, I mean as measured
general observation, nothing
close to death...to supply what was
in decibels, and not by perforimportant. Nevertheless, it is
lacking in your leitourgas toward me.”
mance. The disparity between the
encouraging to note that more
The writer of the book of Hebrews, in
two may draw unfavorable
and more women are keeping
describing Christ as our High Priest,
attention and reviews, marring
themselves up these days. On
says: “Now He has obtained a more
the surface of domestic tranquila related note, he should be
excellent leitourgas, inasmuch as He is
ity from time to time. When this
concerned about his wife’s
also Mediator of a better covenant.”
happens, a man should demand
weight, and he should vocalize
in a loud blustering voice why it
his concern from time to time,
is necessary to speak in that tone
in a helpful tone of voice.
of voice. It seemed disrespectful.
Unless he tells her that she has
Another device, favored by men who do not want
inadvertantly put on a few pounds, she would probably
to come off as a more traditional male, is that of
never know.
pseudosensitivity. Great concern must be expressed
He must require at all times that she is never
over the possible neglect of her vocational gifts and
allowed to know more than he does in any area. If by
career opportunities. If this is played right, a woman
happenstance she does, then there should be an unspocan be maneuvered into working a full-time job,
ken assumption in the household that she should keep
alongside the man’s job, and all without her being
quiet about it. To do otherwise would be disrepectful.
relieved of any of her full-time responsibilities in the
He must ensure that the television is on from the
home. The enterprising husband can find himself with
time he gets home until about ten-thirty or eleven. It
one job and two incomes, and he then has the opportuwill provide a comforting backdrop to the conversation
nity to figure out ways to spend the money while she is and life of the family. If the television is on all the
spending her evenings doing the laundry.
time, it provides a certain wallpaper for the mind, and
And a woman should not be allowed to spend very
fills in those awkward silences. The wife should be
much money. In a strange kind of way, she might even
given every opportunity of learning what shows and
learn to derive great satisfaction in how long she can
sporting events are important to him.
make her fifty bucks last. In the meantime, her husband
And of course, at the end of the day, when the lights
can spend money on a good bass boat, beer, chop saw,
are turned down low, he should head off to bed like a
hunting rifle, beer, videos, that extra cable service
simple-minded juggins, acting the part of a grinning
carrying ESPN, and beer. When asked about this, he
prospector who is expecting to find a sexual El Dorado
might intone that it would not be good to be penny
any minute now. And let’s all wish him some luck.
wise and pound foolish. If she still asks for money to
buy some clothes or shoes for herself, he should give her
the money, but act slightly disappointed in her desire to
spend it on herself. He should not say anything, and if
Agenda “Things to be Done” Volume 11 / Number 4
Femina:
The Roller Coaster
by Nancy Wilson
THOUGH WE MAY LIKE TO RIDE THE ROLLER COASTER
at the county fair, it’s not much fun to ride
one in “real life.” We don’t want our emotions to drag us around, soaring to great
heights only to plummet suddenly to the
depths, and then lurch up again.
This is not to say the Christian life is not
full of joys and sorrows. The psalmist
himself rejoices with a fervent joy: “The
Lord lives! Blessed be my Rock!” (Psalm
18:46a). And he expresses real grief: “Why
are you cast down, O my soul? And why are
you disquieted within me?” (Psalm 43:5a). God created
us to have emotions, and we are to enjoy the way God
made us and not be at war with our creaturely quirks.
Yet, we must, like the psalmist, have our joy anchored
in Christ, so we don’t get swept away in a tidal wave
of exhilaration. In the same way, our sorrows must be
covered with the blessing and comfort of God, so that
we do not become disconsolate. “Hope in God; For I
shall yet praise Him, the help of my countenance and
my God” (Psalm 43:5b).
So often when we have a joyous experience, we are
unguarded and unprepared for the big let down, and so
we come crashing down. Let me explain. When our
children were little, we had wonderful and varied
birthday celebrations. It almost became a family joke
that a spanking was inevitable on your birthday, and I
don’t mean the traditional birthday swats. All the
excitement and focused attention led to a let down in
the form of disobedience or unkindness or selfishness.
In fact, it wasn’t just the birthday celebrant who could
fall into sin. When our youngest was opening gifts on
her first birthday, her three-year-old brother got a little
out of fellowship about it all. He was heard muttering
to one of his aunts, “She isn’t even a Christian!”
Christmas can present the same opportunities for
sin. But does this mean we should dismiss such celebrations all together? I hope not! We are trying to recover a
God-honoring theology of feasting and gladness before
the Lord. I believe the wise mother can apply some
reasonable precautions that both she and her children
can profit by.
Let me give an example. You have had a wonderful
party (a big anniversary, your child's wedding, a
shower, or a surprise birthday) and all went off exceptionally well. Perhaps you were even the guest of
honor. You coasted through the anticipation, the
preparation perhaps caused some flurry, and the actual
event was a real topper. But in the next day or two you
begin to feel teary, or you react in annoyance to a small
thing, or you get offended by an off-hand comment.
Being close to the surface like this can be the result of
allowing yourself to be too buoyant with not enough
ballast on board. You may feel a little down or blue
Credenda “Things to be Believed” Volume 11 / Number 4
after Christmas is over and you don’t know why. I
believe it is simply because you allowed yourself to get
on the emotional roller coaster.
We want to teach our children the joys of celebrating whether it is at weekly sabbath feasts or birthdays
or Thanksgiving. At the same time, we must not set
them up for a fall by building things up too much in
their minds. We want our joys to be solidly connected
to our theology, not floating airily “out there somewhere.” We don’t just celebrate because everyone else
does. We have reasons! The same thing can happen if
you have immersed yourself in any big project. Once
the project is complete, you may feel discouraged or
down.
Here are a few homely suggestions that may be of
use to you. Pray preventively. Prepare yourself and your
children by prayer. Ask God to keep you from getting
too high-spirited so you won't then fall and be lowspirited. Don’t be giddy or allow your children to be
giddy or silly. If you hear too much high-pitched
giddiness going on in the backyard, you should be
prepared for tears to follow soon after. Go intervene
before that happens. Teach your children to know why
you are celebrating. “God has blessed our family with
you for five years. We want to thank Him on your
birthday and pray for you and rejoice with you in it!”
We live in a very feeling-oriented culture, and we
have great need to discipline our emotions and make
them behave. If we allow our feelings to run away, we
will always be at their mercy. God is constant and
never changing. We are to imitate Him in all things,
including His stability and constancy.
1 Peter 1:3 exhorts us: “Therefore gird up the loins
of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon
the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation
of Jesus Christ.” Sobriety is the result of paying attention to the state of our minds, noticing when they are
drifting aimlessly, and reeling them in when they do.
I have never been fond of slumber parties for little
girls, and when my daughters were young, I discouraged them because unless the mothers exercise a wise
oversight (which usually means a decent bedtime which
throws off the whole point of a “slumber” party),
someone invariable gets her feelings hurt or gets angry.
And if they don’t stumble at the party, they most
certainly will the next morning when they have to go
home and face the day.
Being a Christian does not exclude us from common temptations of the flesh. Why should we set
ourselves or our children up for such things? Our
rejoicings, our celebrations, our parties should all
reflect a godly, thoughtful maturity that glorifies our
great God and Father. We should all be striving to party
in a way the world can neither imitate nor understand,
and that will keep us off the roller coaster.
Childer:
Crying
by Douglas Wilson
CHILDREN CRY AND THAT IS THE WAY IT IS. THE
problem confronting the parent seeking to
establish a biblical pattern in the home is
what, if anything, to do about it.
The first thing to deal with is the prejudice
that some still have (even in these, our most
therapeutic times) against any kind of crying
at all. For those who want to maintain that
crying is necessarily self-centered or unmanly, the only problem with their thesis is
that it collides with the Bible at innumerable
points. The psalmist watered his couch with
tears (Ps. 6:6), God carefully and tenderly stores up our
tears in a bottle (Ps. 56:8), the apostle Paul wrote to the
Corinthians out of many tears (2 Cor. 2:4), Jesus of
course wept (John 11:35), and on another occasion did
so with “strong crying and tears” (Heb. 5:7). Anyone
who wants to hold that crying is necessarily unbiblical
is defending a position that is difficult to defend with
any show of integrity. Still, for those who are attracted
to the chiseled granite personality anyway, it should at
least be known that they are setting aside the Word of
God in order to meet their supposedly non-existent
emotional needs.
But, on the other hand, we should be very concerned with the wholesale blubbing and gushing which
confronts us these days at every turn. As we have seen,
the fact of crying is certainly lawful, but the nature of
the self-indulgent yowling we see so frequently should
give us pause. Politicians feel our pain, telehypocrites
weep for us on the teevee, analysts and clients bawl
together, and our public life has become generally
smarmy all over. Something is seriously wrong.
This all means that the issue for parents should not
be whether their children cry, but rather why and under
what conditions they do. Parents have a duty to learn
how to recognize the difference between sinful and
lawful crying. Contrary to the “no crying is acceptable”
parent (a vanishing breed, but still around), some
crying represents part of what it means to be created in
the image of God. And contrary to the “all crying
expresses an emotional need and therefore cannot be
questioned” parent (and their name is Legion), most
crying by children should be disciplined and directed in
a godly way.
The discipline that parents apply here should be
directed at the motive for crying, and not the crying
itself. The crying is simply a marker that draws attention to something which may or may not be a problem.
It is a symptom of something else, and that something
else may be right or wrong. Without careful biblical
oversight, it is usually wrong.
The key to godly tears is love. Jesus loved both
Jerusalem and Lazarus, and so He wept over the death
of each. Paul loved the gospel, and so he wept over the
enemies of the cross of Christ. Parents who therefore
cultivate an atmosphere of love in their homes—love
for God, love for Christ, love for His Word, love for
family, love for the Church, love for the nation—are
bringing up children who are not ashamed to weep
when the occasion is right for it.
In the meantime, ungodly crying is a distraction
which warps a child’s perception of emotional realities.
Dumping out the murky contents of our emotional
lives does not necessarily clear up anything. When
parents discipline their children in their crying, they are
not creating warped and repressed head cases, but
rather training and discipling the emotional lives of
their children in a way that fits with the rest of their
training. And this means certain kinds of crying should
never be permitted.
Children should not be allowed to cry because of
self-pity. If a child’s will has been crossed, and he
bursts into tears as a result, not only should the child’s
demands not be granted, but he should be disciplined
for attempting to manipulate his parents through tears.
This was known, in the old school, as “giving them
something to cry about.”
Children should never be permitted to cry as a
means of acquiring property. The child flipping out in
WalMart in the Power Ranger section comes to mind.
Children, particularly boys, should not be allowed
to cry as they please when they are hurt. Not surprisingly, this requires some qualification and explanation.
Injuries fall into two categories—those which bring
genuine, incapacitating pain, and those which do not.
Of course, I am not saying that if a child comes in from
the yard with a bone sticking out that the parent should
send them back out to finish playing. There are always
injuries that stop the proceedings. We all know what it
is like to hear a thwack from the other room where the
two-year-old is playing, and then count off the five
seconds it takes for said child to fill his lungs with
enough air to express his feelings adequately. Under
such circumstances there should be nothing but sympathy until the child has recovered enough to resume his
vocational station and duty, which in this case, involves his playing. As soon as he is able to resume, his
parents should be patiently encouraging him to do so.
The short rule here is that a child who can, should.
But we have a common problem of children who
cry as though incapacitated when they are not. They
need to be disciplined from the very beginning. How
many of us have seen a child bite it on the swingset, get
up, and run cheerfully off in order to find a cooperative
adult to cry in front of?
The end result of careful, biblical teaching will not
be children who are emotionally deadened, but rather
children who grow to the point where they can laugh
with those who laugh, and weep with those who weep.
They are directed in this by the teaching of the Word,
and not by the latest emotional tempest they may
happen to feel within themselves.
Agenda “Things to be Done” Volume 11 / Number 4
!
Exegetica:
Which Cannot Be Shaken
by Jim Nance
HEBREWS 12:25-29
HEBREWS HAS BEEN RIGHTLY CALLED AN EPISTLE OF
warning. If we can infer the potential
failings of the readers from the exhortations
of the author, then these Hebrew readers
were in danger of drifting away from the
gospel (2:1), departing from the living God
(3:12), coming short of His promised rest
(4:1), falling into disobedience (4:11),
becoming sluggish in
their hope (6:12), wavering in their confession
(10:23), forsaking the assembly of
the saints (10:25), casting away
their confidence (10:35), becoming
weary and discouraged in their souls
(12:3), and falling short of the grace
of God (12:15). We have already
examined in some detail the nature
and possible causes of these failings.
We will now consider the final such
warning in this epistle.
“See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if
they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on
earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away
from Him who speaks from heaven” (Heb 12:25). The
Hebrew Christians were in danger of refusing and
turning away from Him who speaks. To whom does
the author refer? To God, certainly. But consider the
context of the verse immediately prior, where he refers
specifically to “Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better
things than that of Abel.” Then he adds, “See that you
do not refuse Him who speaks.” These wavering
Christians were being warned not to apostatize from
the Lord Jesus Christ, the true Mediator and effective
sacrifice, warned not to return to earthly mediators and
the blood of bulls and goats, which can never take
away sins. The Word of God came to Moses and all
Israel on the mountain, and those who then turned
away from Him in unbelief left their corpses scattered
in the desert. How much more should we now fear
Him, who speaks as Ruler from His heavenly throne
and waits for His enemies to be made His footstool!
He is the Lord Christ, “whose voice then shook the
earth; but now He has promised, saying, ‘Yet once more
I shake not only the earth, but also heaven’” (Heb.
12:26). The Lord shook the earth when He descended
upon Sinai to speak to Moses, and “the whole mountain quaked greatly" (Exod. 19:18). While the author
undoubtedly has this episode in mind, he is also
paraphrasing Haggai 2:6, “Once more (it is a little
while) I will shake heaven and earth, the sea and dry
land.” Consider how the prophet then expands this
thought: “’I will shake all nations, and they shall come
"
Credenda “Things to be Believed” Volume 11 / Number 4
to the Desire of All Nations, and I will fill this temple
with glory,’ says the Lord of hosts” (Hag. 2:7). This
shaking refers primarily to the dislocations brought
about by spectacular works of God in history. When
His voice shook the earth, He called out Israel from
among the earth, devastating Egypt, defeating Bashan,
conquering Canaan. But when He established His new
covenant by His death, resurrection, and ascension, He
shook the heavens as well. This Stone which was cut
out without human hands put an end to the old empires: Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. He dislocated
the old heavenly order, destroying the devil, disarming
principalities and powers, and taking for Himself all
authority in heaven and on earth.
These created entities were
removed, for they were temporary.
Even the old cult of the true God,
depending as it did on fallible men,
animal sacrifices, and a visible
temple, was to be forcibly removed
in a very short time. “Now this,
‘Yet once more,’ indicates the
removal of those things that are
being shaken, as of things that are
made, that the things which cannot
be shaken may remain” (Heb.
12:27). Those priests are gone, our
High Priest remains forever. Animal sacrifices have
ceased, the blood of Christ speaks now without ceasing.
The
temple of Jerusalem was leveled, the eternal church is
now His temple. The Lord promised to shake heaven
and earth one last time and never again, for after that
shaking all that remains is the unshakeable kingdom of
God.
“Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which
cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may
serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear”
(Heb. 12:28). This eternal, immovable kingdom is a gift
from God, wholly undeserved by us to whom it is
given. Yet as God’s gift, it will never be lost. For
nobody can snatch this kingdom from His hand, and
He has promised from of old not to give it to another:
“And in the days of these kings the God of heaven
will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed;
and the kingdom shall not be left to another people; it
shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms,
and it shall stand forever” (Dan. 2:44).
In view of this great grace, we are to worship the
Giver acceptably, meaning “with reverence and godly
fear.” But because we have forgotten the greatness of
our sin and the holiness of our God, we have lost
reverence in worship, and have sought to please ourselves; we have given up godly fear, and gone after
good feelings. Who among us trembles in worship?
And that not with a self-made fear, but a fear given by
God? Let us have grace, indeed! By God’s grace may we
reject such carved images and remember our covenant
Lord, “For our God is a consuming fire,” as Moses
added in Deut. 4:24, “a jealous God.”
Stauron:
Old Covenant Calvary
by Gary Hagen
WAS THE CROSS OF CHRIST EFFICACIOUS FOR OLD
Testament believers? If the Cross can apply
forward in time, could it also apply backwards to those living before Calvary? In
other words, were King David, Abraham,
Elijah, Aaron, and Moses Christians?
We should not think of being born again as
a New Testament phenomenon. Jesus
Himself found it incredible that the Pharisees
didn’t understand this better. In his conversation with Nicodemus (“a ruler of the Jews”
and a Pharisee), “Jesus answered and said
unto him, ‘Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man
be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God”
(John 3:3). That Christ expected the Old Testament
Jews to understand this is clear from what He says later
on in verse 10, “Art thou a master of Israel and
knowest not these things?” It was Nicodemus’ job, as a
master (or a teacher) of the Jews, to instruct them in
these truths. It appears that he was unable because he
did not understand the truth himself. A teacher must
know his material before he can teach as he ought.
Unfortunately, many of the church’s modern
masters also miss this point. We understand the Old
Testament Scriptures incorrectly, and therefore teach
their truths either partially or completely in error.
Distracted with externals, we miss the wonderful
continuity of God’s work throughout human history,
and forfeit a “fellowship” with ancient saints who have
much to teach us about our walk of faith. The focus of
that walk of faith is Jesus, as He always has been.
A superficial understanding of the Old Covenant
often results in thinking that believers living before
Christ were justified through the sacrifices of bulls,
goats, and lambs. But the New Testament is very
pointed in explaining that this was not the case. In
writing about the Old Testament sacrificial system, the
author of Hebrews records, “Which was a figure for the
time then present, in which were offered both gifts and
sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service
perfect, as pertaining to the conscience; which stood
only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and
carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of
reformation” (Hebrews 9:9-10).
Hebrews 10:1-2, 4 similarly states “For the law,
having a shadow of the good things to come, and not
the very image of the things, can never with these same
sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year,
make those who approach perfect. For then would they
not have ceased to be offered? ...For it is not possible that
the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins.”
Old Testament saints who understood the sacrificial system properly viewed the sacrifices as only a
type, a figure, of the Messiah to come. The priests had
to offer these sacrifices repeatedly because they were
ineffective to make anyone perfect. The writer of the
book of Hebrews goes on to explain Christ’s fulfillment
of the old covenant system: “...with His own blood He
entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption” (Hebrews 9:11-12).
That this was the essence of the old covenant
system is clear from Christ’s own testimony on the
way to Emmaus. “And beginning at Moses and all the
Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures
the things concerning Himself” (Luke 24:27). Jesus said
that “all Scriptures” (i.e., the whole Old Testament!)
spoke about Him. The Jews organize their Old Testament books differently than we find them in our
modern Bibles. The Jewish Scriptures, collectively called
by the acronym TANAKH, were divided into three
sections: the Torah, the Nevi’im, and the Kethuvim. The
Torah is the five Books of Moses, Genesis through
Deuteronomy. The next section, Nevi’im or Prophets,
includes all the major and minor Prophets. The final
section is translated as Writings, and includes the
historical books and Psalms, Proverbs, etc. Therefore,
when Jesus began “with Moses and all the Prophets,” He
was going from “cover to cover” in the Jewish Bible
showing that all of it pointed to Him.
Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth gives us a
glimpse of one example which Christ might have given
that day on the way to Emmaus. Paul wrote that the
Israelites had Christ with them in the desert. “For they
drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and
that Rock was Christ” (I Cor. 10:4).
The author of Hebrews also speaks of Christ and
Moses. Hebrews 11:24-26 says that Moses chose the
“reproach of Christ” over the pleasures and treasures of
Egypt. Chapter eleven of the book of Hebrews contains
the “hall of faith,” a long list of Old Testament saints
who looked forward to the Promise.
That promise was first given in the Garden of
Eden. Able sacrificed the blood of the flock “looking
unto Jesus” (Hebrews 11:4, cf 12:1-3). The writer of
Hebrews starts chapter twelve with the key word
therefore. A somewhat overused but nonetheless very
valid saying that helps us in our study of the Bible is
“Any time you come across the word therefore, it’s
always important to stop and look back to see what
it’s there for.” In chapter twelve, “Therefore we also,”
points back to the list of “elders” or “witnesses”
displayed in chapter eleven. The readers of Hebrews are
being told that they also ought to run the race set before
them with endurance, looking unto Jesus. We are to
follow their example by emulating their gaze upon
Jesus (John 8:56).
Finally, returning to the discussion in Hebrews
about the sacrifice of Christ, verse 9:15 says, “And for
this cause He is the mediator of the new testament, that
by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are
called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.”
Christ’s cross applied to Old Testament saints also.
Moses chose the reproach of Christ, not bulls and
goats. Moses was a Christian, and so were Abel, David,
Elijah. They looked forward toward Calvary, in faith.
We simply look back. We are blessed. We have it easier.
Agenda “Things to be Done” Volume 11 / Number 4
#
Doctrine 101:
Impotent or Evil
by Patch Blakey
CHILDREN MURDERED BY CLASSMATES IN THE
government schools, fighting in the Balkans,
crop blight in Florida, earthquakes, train
wrecks, hurricanes, and plane crashes. It’s
not a nice world out there. But how do
Christians explain all of this evil? Either
God is good, but is powerless to help, or else
God is all powerful,
but a sadistic tyrant.
Several years
back when someone
of prominence in the
news suggested that
AIDS was a judgment from God on
homosexuals and
drug users, a great hue and cry
arose from the evangelical
church as well as the liberal
church in our country that
AIDS was not from the God of
love. Woe be to anyone who
would seek to besmirch the
holy character of God!
I’m sure that most Christians have a high estimation
and exalted view of the character of God, and well they
should. The Bible has a plethora of references attesting
to the holy nature of the Creator. He is the Holy One
(Psa. 78:41), each Person of the Godhead is holy (John
17:11; Luke 1:35; Psa. 51:11), God’s name is holy (Lev.
22:32), His word is holy (Rom. 7:12), God’s habitation
is holy (Exod. 15:13), God claims to be holy (Lev.
11:44), the four living creatures around His heavenly
throne acclaim Him thrice holy (Rev. 4:8), He is acclaimed to be holy by His people (Psa. 22:3), pagans
have acknowledged God’s holiness (Dan. 4:9), demons
acknowledge God’s holiness (Mark 1:24), and as a
consequence of His holy nature, God commands His
people to be holy (1 Pet. 1:15,16).
God defines holiness. Apart from God there is no
absolute standard by which we can understand this
word. He is the very essence of all that is true, noble,
just, pure, lovely, good, virtuous, praiseworthy, and
righteous. But does exalting the truth of God’s holiness
force us to suppress those portions of the Scriptures
with which we are uncomfortable or embarrassed?
Some might prefer that such verses weren’t even in the
Bible. But all of Scripture is inspired by God (2 Tim.
3:16). We can’t pick and choose the parts we like. In
fact, by so doing, modern evangelicals are flirting with
idolatry by trying to create a god other than the God of
the Bible. Many, like the children of Israel, want
another god to worship. They don’t feel comfortable
with or seem to even like a God who sends calamities.
No, they want a kinder, gentler god. They want a god
$
Credenda “Things to be Believed” Volume 11 / Number 4
who’s more like them: constantly overwhelmed by all
the wickedness in the world, wringing his hands,
wishing he could just do something to fix it all, but can’t
because he is just too weak and impotent.
Is this modern evangelical paradigm of God valid?
Is it consistent with the whole of the Scriptures? Look
at just a few of the verses that describe the Sovereign
Creator God, the Holy and Just One: “I form the light,
and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the
LORD do all these things” (Is. 45:7). “Shall a trumpet
be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall
there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath
not done it?” (Amos 3:6). God doesn’t
mince words; He takes full responsibility
for controlling all of the evil in the world.
For many of us, such an idea of God
offends our Christian sensitivities. Yet in
maintaining such an attitude, aren’t we
seeking to be more holy than God?
But some will vehemently challenge,
“Doesn’t this make God the Author of sin?”
Absolutely not! God created man sinless in
the Garden of Eden. Sin entered the world
through one man, Adam, and spread to all
men (Rom. 5:12). God hates sin (Zech.
8:17). He also hates the source of that sin:
unregenerate man (Psa. 5:5,6), all who are
not in Christ. Wasn’t it God who sealed up the door of
the ark in the days of Noah and destroyed the world
with the flood (Gen. 7:4,16)? Wasn’t it God who
brought all the plagues on the Egyptians and caused
Pharaoh and his army to be drowned in the Red Sea
(Exod. 7:17- 12:29; 14:27-30)? Wasn’t it God who had
His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, unjustly murdered at the
hands of godless men (Acts 2:23,24)? And doesn’t God
promise to judge those who reject Him and His holy
word (Jer. 6:19; Is. 40:22-26)?
Why does the Holy God do these things? Remember
that God is the Judge over all the earth. It is we who are
accountable to Him, not the other way around. God is
holy and just in all that He does and He need not give
an account of His actions to us. However, He has
indicated in the Scriptures that all He does is for His
own glory (Is. 60:21; Ezek. 28:22; John 11:4; 1 Pet.
4:11), including calamity (Rom. 9:17). One aspect of
God’s calamity is judgment, another is to lead men to
seek His mercy. God is glorified in both His holy
judgment of the wicked and through His tender mercy
in Christ toward undeserving sinners (Rom. 9:22, 23).
The major problem today with evil is not that it
exists, but that God’s people refuse to acknowledge that
God is sovereign over it. God works all things together
for good (Rom. 8:28), including evil. To refuse to
acknowledge God’s sovereignty over calamities is to
side with those who reject God. They don’t want to
acknowledge “acts of God” either, because they don’t
want to acknowledge God. We don’t need a golden calf
to practice idolatry. By rejecting the sovereignty of God
over evil, we’ve already taken the first step. God is
either sovereign, impotent, or evil. Which God do you
serve?
Poetics:
Hostility and Humor
by Douglas Jones
“ARE YOU STANDING THERE TELLING ME THIS BABY
of mine isn’t uglier than that baby of
yours?” he cried incredulously. It was
Bingo’s turn to be stunned.
“Are you standing there and telling me it
is?”
“I certainly am. Why, yours looks human.” Bingo could scarcely believe his ears.
“Human? Mine?”
“Well, practically human.”
“My poor misguided Pikelet, you’re talking rot.”
“Perhaps you’d care to have a bet on it? Five to one
I’m offering that my little Arabella here stands alone as
the ugliest baby in Wimbledon.” A sudden thrill shot
through Bingo. —P.G. Wodehouse, “Sonny Boy”
The absurdity of the above scene lies in the fact that
each of two fathers is arguing that his own baby is
uglier than the other’s. We laugh in part because it tells
us something true about fathers. Some of us know
fathers who have confessed to the lizard-likeness of
their new babes to other fathers, but not when any
mothers are present. But telling the truth by itself isn’t
funny. Declaring the rain when it’s raining doesn’t
provoke laughs. Something more is needed to get the
laugh. And most people who have thought about humor
say that that extra something is hostility or aggression.
Hostility is essential to laughter. We laugh at the
Wodehouse scene, they say, because he’s mocking men.
And, they explain like Thomas Hobbes did, that
“laughter is nothing else but the sudden glory arising
from a sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves by comparison with the infirmity of others.”
More recently, Henri Bergson claimed that “in laughter
we always find an unavowed intention to humiliate
and consequently to correct our neighbor.”
But if laughter always contains some hint of
aggression, then will we laugh in heaven? Was there no
laughter in Eden? The real reason to think about this is
not to speculate about heaven, but to try to get clearer
on sin and holiness here and now. A common error in
evangelical piety is that we think we can be holier than
God. I suspect the same problem here. We think of
heaven as this crystalline world where everyone is
equally beautiful, smart, and perfectly annoying as
Elsie Dinsmore. But Elsie doesn’t provoke laughter so
much as a longing to slap. Surely there won’t be
slapping in heaven. Or will there be?
One way to answer this is to argue that aggression
isn’t essential to humor. Sure, much, even most involves aggression, but not all. And if not all, then
heaven may be filled with elaborations of the latter
sorts of humor. For instance, one candidate for replacing aggression is that humor turns more on mixing
categories and kinds in odd, wrong ways. Consider
Wodehouse again: “Freddie looked at the dog. The dog
looked at Freddie. The situation was one fraught with
embarrassment.” Or, “He finished his tea and muffins,
and then ordering the perambulator, had the son and
heir decanted into it.” Or Steven Wright observations:
“It’s a small world, but I wouldn’t want to have to
paint it.” “You can’t have everything. Where would you
put it?” “I have the oldest typewriter in the world. It
types in pencil.” “I had a friend who was a clown.
When he died, all his friends went to the funeral in one
car.” “I made wine out of raisins so I wouldn’t have to
wait for it to age.” “I can levitate birds. No one cares.”
“When I was a baby, I kept a diary. Recently, I was
rereading it. It said, ‘Day 1—Still tired from the move.
Day 2—Everybody talks to me like I’m an idiot.’”
The humor in each of these comes from mixing up
the world in odd ways, and our laughter says, “No, it
doesn’t go like that.” And since the world will have
even more pronounced edges and kinds in heaven, we
could still do the same. But the aggressivists can find
hostility anywhere, even in each example above. That
should make us suspicious.
We often confuse finitude and sinfulness. We will
still be finite in heaven, though not able to sin. We
certainly won’t be omniscient, and we won’t all be
equal in personality and body. If we’re not omniscient,
then we can make mistakes and misunderstand things.
Adam could have miscalculated an engineering equation without deserving the wrath of God. He could
have misidentified some creature. Finitude isn’t sinful.
And if we’re not omniscient and equal, then we’ll still
be growing in knowledge and wisdom. That leaves
plenty of room for humor. Think of how much humor
is based on misunderstanding (think Shakespeare).
Think of the Wright humor above. Most of them are
plays on words and the speaker’s ignorance. Those turn
on finitude not sin. And finitude will always be funny,
perhaps even more so in heaven in such direct contrast
with God’s infinitude. We could make fun of ourselves
not out of any deep hostility to the created order but as
a way of praising God’s craftiness.
Humor is often so much more subtle than we are.
Think again of Wodehouse. On the surface, he spends
pages mocking and mocking British quirkiness: “there
is one thing every right-minded young man believes in,
and that is in the infallibility of Bodmin’s hats. It is
one of the eternal verities. Once admit that it is possible for a Bodmin hat not to fit, and you leave the door
open for Doubt, Schism, and Chaos generally.” An
American writing that might be displaying hostility.
But Wodehouse is England. He loved English traits, and
his books often create anglophiles. He is his characters,
and his mocking is a form of praise. And heaven will
have plenty of place for praise. “Blessed are ye that
hunger now: for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that
weep now: for ye shall laugh” (Lk. 6:21).
Agenda “Things to be Done” Volume 11 / Number 4
%
the Meander:
Shimmy Shimmy Shake
by Douglas Wilson
AMONG THE MANY OTHER FINE ARGUMENTS FOR THE
use of the Authorized Version, I need to add
the pleasure that comes from reading some of
the most interesting phrases and sentences
in our language. Take, for examples, “Regard
not your stuff” (Gen. 45:20); “At Parbar
westward, four at the causeway, and two at
Parbar” (1 Chron. 26:18); and “their heart is
fat as grease” (Ps. 119:70). Try to find
anything like that in a “I Can’t Get My
Locker Open Study Bible.”
***
A recent and very fascinating book entitled
The Church Impotent argues that the feminization of the
Church in the Western world is largely the responsibility of Bernard of Clairveux. The really interesting thing
about this thesis is that the author, Leon Podles, makes
a good case for it. The book is a new release by Spence
Publishing, and it is well worth a serious read.
***
If you are like many homeschooling parents, your
children’s capacity to read is by now far ahead of the
number of good books you can find for them to read.
On rainy weekends they roar around the house looking
for stuff, and are reduced to some old Reader’s Digests
they found in the basement behind the furnace. So get a
hold of the catalog put out by Inheritance Publications
in Pella, Iowa, or Neerlandia in Alberta, Canada. They
have numerous titles which you really should want to
make available to your troops. Have them read the
biography of Lady Jane Grey (Crown of Glory), and then
listen to them wonder aloud why more things are not
named after her.
***
From the same outfit (Inheritance Publications, see
above) you can get some really good music as well. For
example, they have a CD of the Psalms of Scotland done
by the Scottish Philharmonic Singers. This CD should
make you want to sit down between two, big-league
stereo speakers and say, as a member of Lynard
Skynard once did, “Toyn it upp.”
***
We all know how important postmillennialism is,
don’t we? And so any new title that beats this particular drum is gladly received. Answering the call, Keith
Mathison has written Postmillennialism: An Eschatology
of Hope, and has assembled the material in a very
&
Credenda “Things to be Believed” Volume 11/ Number 3
helpful way. Those who want a thorough introduction
to the subject have Gentry, DeMar, and now Mathison.
***
So here is a short defense of rock and roll. Keep in mind
that this is a defense of rock as it could be, not rock as
it is—the Platonic form of rock, not rock on the radio.
Those who want more of these ramblings can buy my
three volume work on the subject (forthcoming if I
write it, and if Jones loses his mind and publishes it).
Rock is not at all musically complex, but this is not
necessarily an argument against it. The form of a sonnet
is not complex either, but some of the most glorious
thoughts in our language come in sonnet form. Remember that the meter employed by Homer was basically
strawberry strawberry strawberry jampot. Considered as
rhythm, it is simple and repetitious, hardly the stuff of
great literature. And yet it is the stuff of great literature.
The central problem with almost all current rock
and roll is that the lyrics are dumb and stupid. If one
ever wants to liven up a party, all one has to do is get
hold of some lyrics from rock songs, and read them
slowly aloud, as serious poetry. Those looking for
source material on this can get Dave Barry’s Book of Bad
Songs. The lyrics of rock songs are generally so bad that
a kind of grandeur creeps into them. Couple this with
the simplicity of the music, and you have the cavalcade
of idiocy that we are pleased to call top forty.
But reasoning by analogy, the very simplicity of the
music is what makes it (potentially)a good vehicle to
carry something other than what it usually carries. This
is probably best seen in some traditional blues, where
the lyrics can be very simple and very potent. The lyrics
can be as good as any lyric poem can be. But when done
poorly, the lyrics are just silly, and when they try not
to be silly, they can become pretentious.
But rock music can be the vehicle for decent poetry,
and to the extent that it is, it should be taken seriously.
One example would be Springstein on a good day. Take
another example from Jethro Tull’s Heavy Horses.
Iron clad feather feet pounding the dust,
On October’s day towards evening
Sweat-embossed veins standing proud to the
plough . . . .
These lyrics alone are a good poem, the music helps
to carry the poem without submerging it, and the result
is worth keeping.
So the conclusion of the “defense,” then, is this.
Rock music will stand or fall as poetry. Evaluated as
music alone, it will always fail in the same way that
iambic pentameter alone would fail. Da dum da dum da
dum da dum da dum. Everything rides on what is
dropped into the da dum slot. The problem with rock is
that they usually drop a da dumb into the da dum slot.
So despite the theoretical defense, all the early
indications—despite the occasional exception here and
there—are that it will not stand. The poetry is bad.
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Eschaton:
Prophecy Quiz
Jack Van Deventer
SELECT THE BEST ANSWER:
1. Jesus died to save
a. The faithful remnant
b. The elect, which are few in number
c. The world
2. In terms of historical significance, Jesus’
death
a. Was the beginning of defeat for the
Church
b. Was the beginning of victory for the
Church
c. Had little or no earthly relevance
3. Which prophecy author has profoundly shaped the
thinking of the Church in America with respect to “end
times,” having sold 38 million books, yet his/her
books are known for their frequency of false predictions?
a. Edgar Cayce
b. Jeanne Dixon
c. Jack Van Impe
d. Madeline Murray O’Hare
4. Satan…
a. Rules the world
b. Is alive and well on planet earth
c. Controls the world’s systems
d. All of the above
e. None of the above
9. The mystery time gap inserted between the 69th and
70th weeks of Daniel by dispensationalists is an example
of literal interpretation.
a. True
b. False
10. Prophecies in the Bible are always fulfilled literally.
a. True
b. False
11. The tribulation is future.
a. True
b. False
12. Despite Christ’s “once for all” sacrifice for sin,
dispensational premillennialists believe that blood
sacrifices will be reinstituted during the millennium.
a. True
b. False
Answers.
1c. Jesus died to save the world (the whole enchilada).
John 1:29, 3:17, 4:42, 12:32, II Cor. 5:19, I John 2:1-2.
2b. If you answered “b,” you’re a postmillennialist, or at least you
think like one. All others (premil, amil) believe that the church will
decline and apostatize.
3. You're right, I was just messin’ with your head. Everyone knows
it’s Hal Lindsey.
4e. None of the above. Satan is condemned (John 16:11), driven out
(John 12:31), resisted and fleeing (James 4:7), overcome (I John
2:14, 4:4), crushed (Rom. 16:20), and progressively destroyed (Heb.
2:14).
5u. You guessed it: all of the above. Pretty sad, huh? But rest
assured, as long as people keep buying “end times prophecy books”
the predictions will continue.
5. Which of the following people in history have been
identified as the Beast or the Antichrist?
a. Nero Caesar; b. Frederick Hohenstaufen II
(1194-1250); c. Pope John XXII; d. King George III; e.
Napoleon; f. Adolph Hitler; g. Pope Pius XII; h. John F.
Kennedy; i. Pope John XXIII; j. Henry Kissinger; k.
Moshe Dayan; l. Anwar Sadat; m. Jimmy Carter; n.
Ronald Reagan; o. Pat Robertson; p. King Juan Carlos
(Spain); q. Sun Myung Moon; r. Mikhail Gorbachev; s.
Saddam Hussein; t. Mohammar Kaddafi; u. All of the
Above
6. No, Bill Clinton is not on the list. Consider Nero. For more
info, see Kenneth Gentry’s The Beast of Revelation.
6. Of the names above, which one fits most precisely
with the scriptural data for the beast of Revelation?
10. False. Of 97 O.T. prophecies referenced in the N.T. only 34 of
97 (35%) were fulfilled literally. The other 65% were types or
analogies.
7. False. If you said ‘True,’ who owns the cattle on all the other
hills (Psalms 50:10)?
8. True. Jesus (not Satan) has all authority in heaven and on earth
(Matt 28:18). The nations will be discipled. Not a few nations, not
a few individuals within each nation. Jesus said the nations. Psalm
2:8, “Ask of me, and I shall give thee the nations for thine
inheritance.”
9. If you answered “True,” you inhaled. And locusts in Revelation
are really Cobra helicopters.
7. The word “thousand” in the Bible always refers to a
literal number 1000.
a. True
b. False
11. False. The tribulation is past. Jesus said the tribulation would
occur within a generation of the time He was speaking (Matthew
24:21, 34). John informed his readers that “the tribulation” was in
effect at the time of his writing (Rev. 1:9).
8. The Great Commission (Matt 28:19—“Go ye
therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost”) will be fulfilled in history.
a. True
b. False
12. True. Yep, this is pretty embarrassing, but that’s a fundamental
reason why dispensationalists want to rebuild the temple. For
dispensational justification of blood sacrifices in the millennium
see, for example, Dwight Pentecost Things to Come, p. 517-531. In
contrast, Hebrews 7:27, says “[Jesus, our high priest] need not
daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own
sins, and then for the people’s: for this he did once, when he
offered up himself.”
Agenda “Things to be Done” Volume 11 / Number 3
Historia:
Learning History
Chris Schlect
I REMEMBER HARDLY ANYTHING FROM MY FIRST
university course in history, but a reminder
still sits on my shelf: the textbook. At the
time, and for the first time, I was struck by
the silliness of studying the distant past
exclusively from a textbook published last
year, authored by So-and-so, Ph.D. The
textbook helped me, but it alone was a poor
historical diet. So I roamed the library for
first-hand sources, and there my bibliophilia
began. I found the sources so enjoyable, and
so helpful, that I returned again and again to
the circulation desk to re-borrow the same
books. I wearied of this checkout process,
and also realized that I wouldn’t have access to that
college library forever. That’s when I turned to good
bookstores.
We learn history when we converse with the past,
and we are helped by modern books only when we
approach them as interpreters who help the conversation along. When we walk off, alone with an interpreter, we end the real conversation.
My previous article introduced the idea of a canon
of historical writings, works of acknowledged importance that cannot be passed over. Unfortunately, the
Middle Ages as a whole have been unjustly passed over
by readers living since then, and many writings from
the period have not received their due acknowledgment. Among the many outstanding medieval chroniclers, Bede is the only one who is recognized today as
essential reading for cultural literacy. Bede wrote a
history of the English church up to his own day, the
early 8th century. (His work is available in many fine
editions.) Bede saw history as the outworking of God’s
providence, the story of the Gospel’s advance on earth.
His work recounts missionaries, saints, the conversion
of pagans, and the consequences of both faithfulness
and infidelity to Christ. Some scholars wish Bede had
written more about kings and wars, but Bede does tell
of a war—a war of Gospel conquest as the church
advanced in Britain.
Bede deserves his high stature, but other worthies
remain neglected. Surely many of the works I list
below will become more widely recognized when our
culture grows up, when we shake off our anti-medieval, anti-church worldview. So we start a little before
Bede’s time.
The Middle Ages is the era of the church, and the
church arose out of antiquity. The story of this rise is
told by Eusebius, a fourth-century writer who traces
church history from apostolic times down to his own
day. From him we learn about the vicious Roman
persecutions, and the reprieve under Constantine. Then
a bishop of Hippo arose who would become the most
influential theologian since the apostles: Augustine.
Credenda “Things to be Believed” Volume 11 / Number 4
His autobiography, the Confessions, is important for its
literary value and for its subject-matter: it is the life
story of one of Christendom’s greatest saints.
Biography would become an important means of
teaching history in the Middle Ages. Biographical
vignettes fill the writings of Eusebius and Bede, where
they relate the pious works of prominent churchmen
and, in some cases, even their miracles. A notion of
sainthood evolved in the Middle Ages that shaped the
worship and worldview of its adherents, and medieval
Christianity cannot be understood apart from it. As the
cult of the saints developed, hagiography (saintbiography) became a prominent literary form. We have
much to learn from these writings; we moderns miss
what the medievals saw (though sometimes misunderstood): the covenantal significance of our fathers in the
faith. Yes, our medieval forebears erred seriously in
some of their views toward saints. But their temptations are not ours. Our modern-day cynicism, and our
hatred of heroes that comes with it—and worse, our
despising of our fathers!—may be more destructive. An
excellent collection of eleven saints’ lives has been
edited by Thomas Noble and Thomas Head, entitled
Soldiers of Christ. Carolinne White has translated six
saints’ lives, which are available along with helpful
introductory material, in Early Christian Lives. See also
Three Eleventh-Century Anglo-Saints’ Lives, edited by
Rosalind C. Love. These books allow us to converse
with real people from the Middle Ages.
A few important early French writers also deserve
our notice. A churchman named Gregory of Tours (d.
594) is first among them. Gregory’s approach startles
our modern historical sensibilities. Why, we may ask,
would an historian begin a treatise with a formal
profession of the Nicene faith? Gregory begins his
Historiae Frankorum (History of the Franks) with these
words: “Proposing as I do to describe the wars waged
by kings against hostile peoples, by martyrs against
heathen and by the churches against the heretics, I wish
first of all to explain my own faith…” Contrary to
modernity’s vain quest for “unbiased” reporting,
Gregory knew that no historian is worldview-neutral.
This observation was especially pertinent in his own
day, when the Nicene faith was attacked by many
Frankish sects. Gregory then starts his history at Adam
and Eve, with a summary of redemptive history since
then. What a refreshing break from the hyper-specialization that the academy demands today! For Gregory,
because God orders the universe, context is just as
important as detail. Thankfully, Gregory’s History of the
Franks is available in a translation by Lewis Thorpe.
We have forgotten the past, and we need to recover
a knowledge of it. We should read these books, these
testimonies of our civilization—indeed, of our fathers—and pass their lessons on to our children. Such
was Willibald’s desire in relating the life of St.
Boniface: “…to furnish future readers with an example
of the narration of these matters, so that they may be
instructed by Boniface’s model and led to better things
by his perfection.” Next installment: more medievals.
Quotations in Order of Appearance:
Verbatim
Verbatim:
1
HR Rookmaaker, Kunst en amusement (Kampen: JH Kok, 1962), p.27
2
P.G. Wodehouse, Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit (New York: Harper
and Row, 1954) p. 135.
3
as quoted in The Clergy Omnibus (London: Hutchinson, 1992) p.
238.
4
National Review, Aug. 17, 1998, p. 12.
5
P.G. Wodehouse, The Return of Jeeves (New York: Harper and Row,
1953) p. 37.
6
as quoted in Mein Kampf (Berlin: Adolph Press, 1923) p. 17
7
Francis Donaldson, The Works of P. G. Wodehouse (New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, 1982) p. i.
8
P.G. Wodehouse, Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit (New York: Harper
and Row, 1954) p. 122.
9
P. G. Wodehouse, The Mating Season (New York: Harper and Row,
1989) p. 23.
10
Ned Sherrin, Humorous Quotations (New York: Oxford, 1996) p.
122.
11
ibid. p. 336.
12
ibid. p. 309.
13
ibid. p. 97.
14
ibid. p. 97.
Biographies of Great
American Saints
come
Fifth Annual American History Conference
Sponsored by Credenda/Agenda
SPEAKERS: Dr. George Grant, Steve Wilkins,
Douglas Wilson
BIOGRAPHIES COVERED: J.E.B Stuart, Patrick
Henry, Cotton Mather, Gideon Blackburn,
Booker T. Washington, Samuel Davies, Anne
Bradstreet, J. Gresham Machen
WHEN: February 4-5, 2000
WHERE: University of Idaho SUB, Moscow, ID
(208) 882-2034 or [email protected]
A Little Help for Our Friends
• Join Jon Andreas in his Quest for Thinking Christianly! Jon, a
Christian school teacher and musician (and armchair philosopher), has
been travelling the world in search of integrally Christ-centered curriculum and methods, and his website—Basilinda (www.basilinda.com)-is his forum for sharing what he’s found so far.
• Emmanuel Covenant Church is a congregation of Christian
believers who are unified for the chief purpose of glorifying the Triune
God and applying the truth of Scripture to every sphere of life. If you
desire to be a part of a congregation that is concerned about the
unashamed preaching of His Word, the administration of the sacraments, and implores its members to live in accordance with the Creator's
perfect design, then contact us at Emmanuel Covenant Church.
PO Box 87707
Phoenix, Arizona 85080-7707
(623) 516-1648
http://www2.cybercities.com/e/emmanuel
Pastor Jeff Niell
Agenda “Things to be Done” Volume 11 / Number 4
!
Pictura:
Buzz Flits By
Nathan Wilson
WILLIAM TOTTERED. HE HAD BEEN EXPECTING HER
to do something, but nothing like this. The
storm warnings had been there, and if
William had been a member of that class of
people who modify their behavior when
impending difficulties are obvious, there
would have been no problem. But he wasn’t,
and here he was, pink slip in hand.
“Dearest William,” it began. William
stopped his fifth reading of it, regret gnawing at his soul like a feverish rodent. He
started again.
“Dearest William, You are one of the nicest men I
know. You are kind, thoughtful and considerate. You
are fully liberated and make every effort not to be
possessive. You are also spineless. Goodbye. Much
Love, Sandy.”
Besides being tormented, William was also nonplussed. This missive made no sense to him. There was
nothing that Sandra demanded of a man that William
had not endeavored to fulfill. Everything she required,
he was. Everything about men that she held in contempt he avoided. Did she look down upon chauvinists? William also sneered. She could not manifest the
slightest disapproval of William’s sex without William
also curling the lip.
William sank into a chair fully intending to remain
there for the week. Fixing his gaze on a photograph of
his mother, the cause, as some observers thought, of all
his problems, he began counting his options.
Three hours later, after he had counted to zero in
every way known to man, even coming up with a few
as of yet undiscovered techniques, there was a sharp,
authoritative rap at the door. William thought it would
be all right to interrupt his labors to answer the door.
He hadn’t seen Buzz Woljinsky for years, not since
college. At that time Buzz had been a particularly
enthusiastic linebacker. He excelled at the finer points
of the game such as bleeding, and was the sole reason
for the controversial increase in the insurance premiums of a number of quarterbacks. Buzz hadn’t been the
sharpest tool in the shed, but he had graduated with
William’s help and had been truly good for William’s
social status. Many aspects of his friendship with Buzz
could have pranced blithely around in William’s head,
but only one did. Buzz had typically been surrounded
by girls. He had been one of those few guys whose chief
problem was, as the man said “Women, women everywhere, but not a drop to drink.”
There was a time when William would have
welcomed Buzz into his home purely on the basis of
their previous friendship. I am sorry to report that
William’s motives for the jovial welcome he did give
Buzz were selfish beyond compare. He had been burned
by a woman; Buzz would know what to do. It mattered
not what little trivial things had happened in the life of
"
Credenda “Things to be Believed” Volume 11 / Number 4
Buzz in the years since their last meeting. The issue at
hand was the throbbing and utterly unjustified gash in
William’s heart. If anyone could kiss it and make it
better, Buzz could.
“Buzz! Buzz! Great to see you! Come in! Sit down!
Please!
“Hey, Billy. Just passing through town, and thought
I’d look you up.”
“Of course! Of course!” William scuttered around
the living room, making chairs available, taking Buzz’s
coat and making friendly noises in his nose.
He was not long in getting down to business. Buzz
scarcely had a drink in his hand before William began
to unroll the carpet of his private turmoils, hopes,
dreams, and aspirations. He held nothing back.
“So then,” he finished, “she shoves me off! I can’t
make anything of it. Frankly, Buzz, I need the help of
an expert. If I remember correctly, you may be just the
man.”
Buzz listened to the horror story with a mixture of
sympathy and disbelief. He didn’t understand much,
but what he understood, he understood well.
“Let me get this straight, Bill. Your girl broke up
with you.”
“That’s right. Not that she was my girl.”
“And you didn’t want her to.”
“Right again.”
“But why did you let her? It’s not up to her. Tell her
she can’t, it displeases you.”
“Buzz, you don’t understand. In modern relationships, the old autocratic voice of male authority is no
more.”
“Right. And in your modern relationship, Sandy is
no more.”
William slumped into his chair, realizing that either
Buzz had been uncommonly lucky, or that he, William,
must scrap the current infrastructure and begin anew.
“But if I do as you say, what will she think? I won’t
get her back and I will certainly ruin her fond memories
of me. Her note said she thought I was a nice man.”
“Thinking you are a nice man is not the same thing
as having fond memories of you. She just meant that
she couldn’t pinpoint what it was about you that made
her want to throw up.”
William continued to bleat. “But I did everything
she wanted. I . . .”
Buzz interrupted. “You did everything she said she
wanted and nothing that she wanted.”
“But why would she demand what she didn’t want?
“Those are the rules, and women play by the
rules. But that’s her problem anyway. Your problem
was putting up with it.”
William gurgled and then was silent. Buzz elaborated.
“What they really want you to do is to ignore
whatever it is they say they want, and fulfill completely what they really want, which is not what they
said. And then, if you do what they ask once in a long
while—but only because you wanted to—you’ll be
sitting pretty. Not only would Sandy have liked that,
she might even have liked you.” If Buzz was making
sense, it was of the perverse variety. But regardless,
sense or no sense, there was no way for William to
carry out the Woljinsky program. As Sandy had been so
kind to point out, he had not the backbone for it. She
was right. His eyes began to fill with tears and swam
over to the liquor cabinet longingly.
Buzz interrupted his self-loathing. “What’s this
Sandra’s number?”
“762-9762. Why?”
“I think I’ll get you another chance. But if you don’t
follow through—like a man, Billy—you deserve everything you don’t get.”
With that, Buzz headed for the phone in the hallway. William followed him timorously, making
insecure noises. He didn’t know whether to vomit or
cry. There was no way to keep Buzz from making the
call, and no way to face Sandra after he did.
“Hello. Could I speak to Sandy, please?”
There was a brief pause.
“This is Buzz Woljinsky. Friend of Bill’s. Right,
William. He asked me to call and tell you to meet him
at Piper’s for lunch. Twelve sharp.”
There was another pause. William could hear the
angry chattering from where he stood. The plan wasn’t
working.
Buzz interrupted her. “Is this Sandy Rankin, a
friend of Bill James?” He paused. “Well, then, shaddup.
He’s not asking you to come. He’ll see you there.”
Buzz hung up cheerfully and turned to William.
“Okay Billy. You should leave in half an hour. If
you don’t mind I think I’ll hang out here and wait for
the results to be posted.”
“Sure. . . there’s stuff in the fridge if you want it.” It
was William’s opinion that Buzz was guilty of what is
commonly referred to as an excess. But there was no
use fighting it. He would go apologize to Sandy and
creep home on his belly. He should have known better
than to ask Buzz for help. Sandy was an intelligent girl,
not one of those females wowed by brawn and bravado
like those he remembered in Buzz’s little college train.
The whole world, it seemed, had decided that the
seat of his trousers was the best place for its corporate
foot. “Buzz. I can’t do it. I can’t make her do what she
doesn’t want. Even if I could I would want her to love
me for who I am and not because I told her to.”
“Billy, you don’t have to lie to me. I’m your friend
already. We both know that if you thought you could
control her, she’d be chained to your ankle tomorrow.
All I’m telling you is to assert yourself a bit. Tell her
how it is instead of asking. She won’t argue.”
William tried to laugh cynically, but it tripped on
his tonsil and instead he entered into an elaborate
coughing spree. Buzz’s face dropped slowly at the sight.
“You know Bill, I’m starting to wonder if you can
do this after all. Hang on. I’ve got something in my car
that might help.”
Jane sighed and sat down on the couch.
“Don’t you think you might be overreacting a bit,
Sandy?” She had always been very fond of her cousin
but knew from experience that things in Sandy’s world
were very rarely kept in perspective. A small explosion
exited the kitchen and seemed to be expressing some
disagreement.
“Sandy, I know, I’ve never met the guy, maybe you
want to get back with him, but there’s no reason why
you have to go, unless you want one last free lunch.
You told him you were done, right? So why go meet
him?”
Sandy replaced the oxygen in the room several
times before responding. “I only want to go so I can
release the hounds of verbal abuse. I would just wait
inside the door and let him have it when he walks in.
But I don’t want to go because he’ll think I came
because he told me to, even if I ate him. I know how
men think. He’ll think he’s running the show if I go,
and he’ll think I’m scared if I don’t. What a little tick he
is! Never doing anything straight up, always manipulating.”
They sat in silence. Sandy’s mind was dwelling on
the uselessness of men and Jane’s on the tickishness of
all of Sandy’s boyfriends so far. But Jane could never
focus for long, and it was not yet a full minute after the
silent musings had begun that she was wondering how
many eggs could be balanced on Sandy’s lamp. The
answer, of course, was thirty-three if stacking was legal
and fifteen if it was not, but Jane would never solve
this mystery for just as she was tackling the aforementioned legality of stacking, she realized that a much
calmer Sandra addressed her.
“I mean, would you mind really?”
“Mind what? What are you talking about?”
“Going to Piper’s for me?” Sandra suspected that
Jane had not been paying quite as much attention as
she ought, but she let it slide. Now was not the rhetorical moment.
“You want me to tell him off for you?” Jane was
surprised at this idea, even from Sandy.
“Oh, please do! That way I don’t have to do what
he says and I’ll know that he got it properly hard in the
ear from you!” Jane stared in disbelief. “You don’t
actually have to eat with him. Just meet him in the
lobby, give it to him, and leave.”
The sensitive minded reader may not think that
such activities would find themselves on the itineraries
of the nicest girls, but we must remember that all of
Sandra’s boyfriends up to this point had truly been
ticks beyond belief — the very same type of male who
refuses to pay for his date’s meal on the pretense of
equality, and whose sole purpose, while in school, was
to inform the teacher when other students wrote on
their desks. It was just such a man who appeared in
Jane’s mind when she reluctantly agreed to her assignment. Hers was a kind heart, but it was also just, and
she felt that to let such a man have it would be to strike
a blow for freedom, sunsets, pastries and everything
else humanity could ever need.
The lobby of Piper’s had exceeded the acceptable
limits for raucousness in a restaurant. Or so William
Agenda “Things to be Done” Volume 11 / Number 4
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had told it. It was quiet now and looked on, chastened,
while William thought about life. Life, he concluded,
was a good thing in general, but it had too many
wrinkles in the sheets that needed fixing. Like this
business about Sandy. Why did he have the impression
that he had come here to apologize to her? He couldn’t
possibly have done anything wrong. And that complete
ass, Buzz. Why did he feel the need to go about making
the people of the world hold liquids that tasted like
pickled gym socks under their tongues for three minutes? He needed a good kicking. Even if he was a
football coach now, did that give him the right to sit on
William in his own living room funneling foul fluids
into him? And where was Sandy anyhow?
These were the issues of the moment for William,
and they needed addressing.
“Excuse me sir. Just one today?” An efficient sort of
man in a tuxedo was speaking.
“No, two.”
“Right this way sir.” The tuxed fellow glided off in
the direction of the dining room with William on his
heels. Upon their safe arrival at a suitable table for two,
and after William had found three other tables unsuitable, William addressed his guide.
“I’m waiting for a girl named Sandra. When she
gets here I’ll order. For now I shall occupy myself with
the compilation of a list of grievances. Bustle off and
fetch me a pen and paper. Better make it a couple of
sheets as it might turn into the next great novel.”
“Grievances with this establishment sir?” Such
things were shocking.
“Grievances with the world entire. This establishment will no doubt find a spot on the list. For example,
you are wearing a tuxedo. I object.”
“You object to the tuxedo?”
“No, to the fact that I have been forced by an ogre
named Buzz to lunch at a place where tuxedos are
worn. Namely, here. As the guru once said to the snail,
‘With tuxes worn, the sheep are shorn.’ In other words,
it is highly likely that you will attempt to charge me
rent for the use of my napkin. But be warned, if you do
so, it shall appear on the list.” With a wave of his hand
William sent the young waiter off on his mission, and
it was not half a minute before he had returned with
the requested supplies, and Jane in his wake.
If you, dear reader, have ever seen a girl on the
warpath then you will know why William contemplated using the paper and pen to whip out a few
sonnets instead of his list. Any girl who is intending to
scalp a man in a formal setting always wants to look
her best. If she appears before the eyes of her victim
dressed as a dew drop on a summer morn he will be all
the more surprised when she assumes the demeanor of
one tigress, minus cub. The fight is over and she has
won. Her beauty has the effect of distraction, so the
poor fellow is completely incapable of intelligence, let
alone the parrying of insults. The technique is outlined
in more detail by Sun Tzu, and I refer you to him.
Jane was looking especially spectacular because she
had more in mind than the mere pillaging of William’s
$
Credenda “Things to be Believed” Volume 11 / Number 4
village. She was familiar with Piper’s, the quality of its
menu and the exorbitance of its costs. She intended to
get an amazing lunch out of Sandy’s tick before giving
him the axe, and the smile she wore was why William’s
first sight of Jane made his feet hurt.
“Here is your paper, sir.”
“Thank you. And who is this?”
“This young lady says she is to lunch with you . . .
but her name is not Sandra. Sandra it seems, was
unable to make it.”
“I see. You may take yourself elsewhere. We would
be alone.” All the while Jane stood smiling, but she
now thought it time to speak.
“May I sit down?”
“If you don’t think your dress will rip.”
“What are you talking about?” Jane wasn’t sure
how to take Williams remark. He was acting pleasant
enough and seemed to merely be commenting for her
own safety. “This dress isn’t even tight, why would it
rip?”
“Perhaps the humidity has caused shrinkage since
you last viewed yourself in the mirror. But I do not
wish to discuss it. But I feel I must tell you, that dress
will be mentioned specifically in my list.”
“List? What are you talking about?” Jane was
beginning to wonder what exactly she was in for.
“I am in the process of compiling a list of faults in
the world’s make up that have come to my attention.
Of course I will also do my best to right the wrongs I
find, and that is why you may not wear that dress
again.”
Jane was laughing now. “Don’t you think you’re
over stepping your bounds slightly? Not everybody is
as nice as I am. Believe it or not, there are some thugs in
this world who, when told their dresses are too tight,
would kick you in the shins. And from what Sandy has
told me, you’re a bit too fragile to be kicked.”
As you might have noticed, Jane had given up her
hopes for an expensive lunch. She was a girl who, upon
receiving, dished out tenfold and enjoyed it. Now she
stuck around because things were shaping up to be
interesting, even though expecting lunch from a man
you have called fragile is a long shot indeed.
William sat back in his chair and was silent for a
moment.
“Sandy said that?”
“She did, and who am I to disagree?”
“She always has been a bit of a weed, hasn’t she?
Oh well, I don’t ever recall being kicked in Sandy’s
presence, but now that my curiosity is roused I shall
have to remember to be kicked sometime, just to
double check. Hmm. Anyway, do you happen to have
any grievances with the world that you want on the
list? So far I have Sandy’s being late for lunch, but
that’s taken care of, an excrescence named Buzz, the
absurd prices in this silly place, geese and their habits at
parks, your dress, but I’ve taken care of that, and your
hair.”
“My hair! What’s wrong with it?”
“Well, it’s not so much wrong as it is not right. It
makes you look like a boy, the kind of boy that always
gets pounded for looking like a girl, and featured in
Dickens’ novels as fond of gruel.”
“You are the most . . .”
“Hold on and let me speak my piece. We’re dating
now and I want your hair longer. Not too much longer
mind you, just an inch or two. You are extremely
attractive, even with your cropped hair and I can only
imagine what exponential growth your beauty would
experience if it was done correctly. It is evident from
your every line that Nature had great things in mind
when she churned you out. You need only work within
her specifications and the world would be at your feet.
But here comes a tuxedoed chap.”
Jane sat speechless as the waiter approached. There
were so many things to say that none of them came.
William’s total tonnage technique would have impressed James himself for not only had he bridled the
tongue, but he had bridled Jane’s tongue, and that’s
saying something. She thought of a biting remark in
regard to his claim about their relationship, but gave it
up for something juicier about Dickens and inevitably
ended up dwelling, as women will, on how beautiful he
must think she was, and how much she hated him. All
this while he ordered her a forty dollar chicken Cordon
Bleu. But William was talking again.
“I’ve got something else for my list. The waiter’s
just gone to get the manager. He tells me that this is
going to be the fourth weekend in a row he has been
made to work. Here comes the cheese responsible now.”
Jane was no longer an active player in the proceedings. She merely watched William work. A man who
even she would have been afraid of was lumbering over
to their table led by their recent waiter. He was an
immensely fat man and looked just the sort of person
Jane had described earlier when she spoke so eloquently
about kicking shins.
“You wished to speak to me, sir?” He was terrifying
in his effusiveness.
“Yes, you savage, I summoned you to inform you
that I am sending this waiter home to rest. It is now his
weekend off.”
“Sir, I am sorry but I can’t send him home yet.”
“So I gathered, that is why I am doing it for you.
Nicholas, or whatever your name is, you may go now.”
The waiter however did not move, but the manager
spoke. His voice up until this point had been soft, and
confident, but it now took on that note that always
informs the listener that the speaker spent his youth in
Spain quelling the Basque resistance.
“Sir, my employee is not going to leave, but you are.
If you will follow me.”
Jane had followed this interaction closely, and had
been exceedingly impressed with William’s confidence,
although she thought it unfounded. She now believed
the inevitable had happened and rose to leave. She
underestimated her man. The real show was only
beginning.
“Jane, please be seated. Sir, since you obviously do
not know who I am, if you did you would never
question me, I will not bother to inform you of my
name. I will only say that this lady here, and I, will be
leaving, not because you have told us to but,” and here
his voice began a steep increase in volume “because
upon inspecting your kitchen earlier I have concluded
that if we were to even approach within a stone’s
throw of your chicken we would be ill.” And here his
voice was fully raised. “It is no wonder your cook has
vomited like Vesuvius all over the kitchen!”
The room was now doing its best to imitate the
inside of Grant’s tomb. All the experts agree that had
not the man in the corner choked on his chicken and
gurgled like a mountain brook, it would have been the
best imitation to date. As for Jane her mouth was
hanging open. In a less attractive girl it would have
been appalling, but in Jane such gaping only displayed
her perfect teeth. She had always prided herself on her
boldness. But never, in her entire life had she even
dreamt of chumping a man so completely in his own
place of business.
“Now sir!” William continued in a low voice “if
this young man does not walk out of this restaurant in
front of us, and retain his job here, I will have you
deported by Monday.” And with that he rose and
taking Jane in one arm and little Nicholas in the other
he departed, leaving Pharaoh and his armies behind
him.
While Jane was changing, William had time to
think once more. By this time the effects of Buzz’s
prescription were wearing off. He had noticed the
change in his behavior early on in the day’s proceedings
and had enjoyed it. He was now attempting to locate
the source. All roads lead to Rome they say, and in this
case all leads led to Buzz.
Sitting on Jane’s couch he began to think of Buzz as
something other than a jackass. A pill maybe, but not a
jackass. William had tasted blood now, and Buzz was
the one that gave him that all important first taste.
“From now on,” thought William to himself, “the
world is my acorn.” He got up and went to the phone.
“Buzz? Hey, what was that. . . oh it went great.
She’s terrific! But how did you know Sandy didn’t
come? She came to my place? You’re serious? No! No!
It’s fine by me. Hey, what was that stuff you made me
drink? Is it legal, or does the government not know
about it? You have chemistry students make it for the
football team? No, I don’t want to know, just get me
more. Sure, Bye.”
“Who was that?” Jane had reentered.
“You look terrific!” Of course Jane had been hoping
for something like that but still wanted to know who
had been on her phone.
“My hair is growing. But who was that?”
“That was Buzz. Sandy went over to my apartment
to leave me a note while you filled her shoes. She and
Buzz are coming over to pick us up and then we’ll go
out to lunch. It’s almost one thirty and I’m starving.”
“She and Buzz are coming here? Now?”
“We’ve got a couple minutes, Buzz sent Sandy home
to change first.”
Agenda “Things to be Done” Volume 11 / Number 4
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