Valley Forge is easily one of the most iconic places in American lore. For anyone who has set through civics classes in high school or social studies in elementary school we can well remember the tale of the beleaguered continental troops and their harrowing winter in Pennsylvania.
As I read through the chapter in the Washington biography on this time, though, something struck me which didn't when I was a kid, because when you are a kid things like this never occur to you. Or, I should say, when you are a pampered American kid things like this never occur to you. That was a freaking miserable winter.
It was one of the coldest in history and there were lots of people that did not even have a blanket. It was 40 degrees here the other night and we put an extra blanket on our bed. In our heated house. Upstairs, where warm air tends to congregate anyway. Didn't want my toesies to be cold.
Think of the coldest you have ever been. Then imagine that, unbroken, for four months. Now imagine you are the hungriest you have ever been. Also, imagine that unbroken for four months. To top it off picture a well-trained army settled snugly in New York that when the ground thaws is going to come and try to kill you with a musket ball or a bayonet.
Washington and his staff shared a tiny house with men literally sleeping in piles on the wooden floor. Firewood was rationed. There was no food. Thank God for rum.
You can understand why Washington's grasp on the army was often tenuous and why the threat of mutiny was omnipresent. Here are men who have abandoned their homes and fields to starve or freeze to death on some godforsaken clearing.
Wars back then were matters of attrition. One side outlasted the other side as much as they beat them. In fact, there were very few battles, so to speak. Washington's army went almost three years without a significant engagement. But when troops freeze to death or drop dead of sunstroke or dysentery or just give up hope and leave, that changes the whole face of war.
I cannot imagine what those men went through, what they endured. I have never had to be cold. Most of the coldest times in my life have been because I decided voluntarily to go to the mountains in the winter and strap a piece of fiberglass to my feet and rocket down a hill. Not exactly noble. But deep, bone-chilling cold, gut-wrenching hunger, and myriad other privations were the struggles that built this country. It really does make it hard to not feel as if we are squandering everything away.
30 April 2014
29 April 2014
On Torture, Briefly*
The U.S. has routinely tortured enemy combatants since we began fighting the War on Terror (I thought we would have won that thing by now, kind of like our stunning success in the War on Drugs; ambiguous wars are always a great idea). Some captives have been high level targets with intimate knowledge of future plans, probably, though we have no clear picture on what if any potential attacks have been stopped because of torture. For anyone who has seen Zero Dark Thirty you will know that even waterboarding, which is variously labeled "stress positions" or "enhanced interrogation techniques" is flat out torture. If you dispute that I question your logic and your humanity as well as assume you simply enjoy nice Orwellian phrases like "enhanced interrogation techniques."
I am not writing now to debate whether or not we have tortured enemy combatants and others unlucky enough to get caught in the intervening years of the conflicts in the wake of 9/11. I am writing to address a two-pronged comment I have heard from torture defenders, which has always struck me as falling well short of any American ideal I hold: war is hell, and they torture our captives so there is reciprocity there.
First of all, I am not sure I have heard the war is hell defense being used by anyone who has fought in a war. Moreover, torture isn't taking place on a battlefield but in a black site prison camp hundreds of miles from the conflict. It is not a question of someone snapping under the strain of battle and collecting scalps like Brad Pitt's character in Legends of the Fall. This is cold, calculated torture of a defenseless combatant. So war is hell is a true sentiment in the abstract but doesn't really play any part in justifying the torture of prisoners by people not even in the military to begin with.
Second, as to the question of reciprocity, this one holds even less weight for me than the war is hell obstruction. Isn't the very point of America that we are different, morally and ethically, than those we oppose? That we hold ourselves to a higher moral standard than our enemies. Hitler tortures American GIs, we treat German prisoners humanely. We don't respond in kind, because our moral calculus isn't that of the people we fight. We do not play down to their level. For people who believe in American exceptionalism to argue that we should be just as brutal to our enemies as they are to us is an argument that collapses on itself. What makes us exceptional if we do that?
What prompted me to write this post was an excerpt I read in Chernow's George Washington biography I am working my way through. The British were brutal with American captives, the mercenary Hessians even worse, decapitating soldiers, quartering them, hanging them and not letting them die. Brutal, nasty stuff. When the colonials win their first victory and capture hundreds of Hessian and British troops Washington makes the decision to treat them humanely, personally escorting two injured officers to quarter in a house and directing his surgeon to perform life-saving amputations.
When asked why he was refusing to respond in kind to the British and Hessian provocations, Washington told a fellow officer that "British captives should have no reason to complain of our copying the brutal example of the British army in their treatment of our unfortunate brethren" (282). That is how our nation started, that is what we used to be about. Do we have more to fear from the specter of Islamic terrorism than Washington did from British and Hessian brutality? If he was to be captured, he would have been one to be hung, brought down from the noose, gutted while still alive, then drawn and quartered with his body parts sent throughout the colonies and his head mounted on a spike in front of some commandeered colonial mansion. Yet he refused to descend to the level of his enemy.
Proverbs 25:21-22 tells us "If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat, and if he is thirsty give him water to drink, for you will heap burning coals on his head, and the LORD will reward you." The British wanted to paint the colonial insurgents as a mass of uncivilized and barbaric insurrectionists, but Washington refused to allow his army to be portrayed thus. His sterling conduct won our fledgling nation the admiration of the world. Can we say the same about our prisoner policies today?
*I wrote this post over the weekend and automatically set it to post today. I wondered as I wrote if it was still relevant. I mean, how much do we talk about torture these days? But I decided to go ahead with it and lo and behold Sarah Palin dropped this bomb at a recent NRA convention. Now even if you concede that in some situations torture is warranted (which I don't), to flippantly compare it to one of the most sacred sacraments of the church can only be considered massively disrespectful. Yet people in the audience ate it up. Disgusting. I have never been a Palin fan, having always felt her aw-shucks, down-home conservative Christian bit was an act, and this confirms it for me. How can one claim Jesus as Lord and gleefully defile the image of God in another human being (yes, terrorists are also made in the image of God in the same way as an American) and at the same time jokingly compare it to the very symbol of our new life in Christ. Despicable.
I am not writing now to debate whether or not we have tortured enemy combatants and others unlucky enough to get caught in the intervening years of the conflicts in the wake of 9/11. I am writing to address a two-pronged comment I have heard from torture defenders, which has always struck me as falling well short of any American ideal I hold: war is hell, and they torture our captives so there is reciprocity there.
First of all, I am not sure I have heard the war is hell defense being used by anyone who has fought in a war. Moreover, torture isn't taking place on a battlefield but in a black site prison camp hundreds of miles from the conflict. It is not a question of someone snapping under the strain of battle and collecting scalps like Brad Pitt's character in Legends of the Fall. This is cold, calculated torture of a defenseless combatant. So war is hell is a true sentiment in the abstract but doesn't really play any part in justifying the torture of prisoners by people not even in the military to begin with.
Second, as to the question of reciprocity, this one holds even less weight for me than the war is hell obstruction. Isn't the very point of America that we are different, morally and ethically, than those we oppose? That we hold ourselves to a higher moral standard than our enemies. Hitler tortures American GIs, we treat German prisoners humanely. We don't respond in kind, because our moral calculus isn't that of the people we fight. We do not play down to their level. For people who believe in American exceptionalism to argue that we should be just as brutal to our enemies as they are to us is an argument that collapses on itself. What makes us exceptional if we do that?
What prompted me to write this post was an excerpt I read in Chernow's George Washington biography I am working my way through. The British were brutal with American captives, the mercenary Hessians even worse, decapitating soldiers, quartering them, hanging them and not letting them die. Brutal, nasty stuff. When the colonials win their first victory and capture hundreds of Hessian and British troops Washington makes the decision to treat them humanely, personally escorting two injured officers to quarter in a house and directing his surgeon to perform life-saving amputations.
When asked why he was refusing to respond in kind to the British and Hessian provocations, Washington told a fellow officer that "British captives should have no reason to complain of our copying the brutal example of the British army in their treatment of our unfortunate brethren" (282). That is how our nation started, that is what we used to be about. Do we have more to fear from the specter of Islamic terrorism than Washington did from British and Hessian brutality? If he was to be captured, he would have been one to be hung, brought down from the noose, gutted while still alive, then drawn and quartered with his body parts sent throughout the colonies and his head mounted on a spike in front of some commandeered colonial mansion. Yet he refused to descend to the level of his enemy.
Proverbs 25:21-22 tells us "If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat, and if he is thirsty give him water to drink, for you will heap burning coals on his head, and the LORD will reward you." The British wanted to paint the colonial insurgents as a mass of uncivilized and barbaric insurrectionists, but Washington refused to allow his army to be portrayed thus. His sterling conduct won our fledgling nation the admiration of the world. Can we say the same about our prisoner policies today?
*I wrote this post over the weekend and automatically set it to post today. I wondered as I wrote if it was still relevant. I mean, how much do we talk about torture these days? But I decided to go ahead with it and lo and behold Sarah Palin dropped this bomb at a recent NRA convention. Now even if you concede that in some situations torture is warranted (which I don't), to flippantly compare it to one of the most sacred sacraments of the church can only be considered massively disrespectful. Yet people in the audience ate it up. Disgusting. I have never been a Palin fan, having always felt her aw-shucks, down-home conservative Christian bit was an act, and this confirms it for me. How can one claim Jesus as Lord and gleefully defile the image of God in another human being (yes, terrorists are also made in the image of God in the same way as an American) and at the same time jokingly compare it to the very symbol of our new life in Christ. Despicable.
28 April 2014
Getting to Know GW (6): The War Begins
The colonial troops were at a massive disadvantage at the start of the war. Not only were they untrained and unseasoned in combat, but there was not even a proper continental army. Regional militias with various time commitments ruled the day and almost cost the fledgling nation the war before it even began.
Did you know that one of the earliest significant engagements of the war was in New York City? I had no idea, or that knowledge was sacrificed to make room for something else in my mind. It was a disaster for the American troops. New York played well into the British superiority at sea, with its multiple intersecting waterways. Buoyed by 8,000 Hessian mercenaries the British landed in Long Island and soon pressed their advantage, routing our troops in Brooklyn through an inexplicably unguarded pass. The Hessians were brutal in their slaughter, decapitating soldiers and wielding their heads on spiked.
Washington was incredibly demoralized. Troops retreated at random, the officers had no control. He felt everything slipping. In a stroke of genius and providence Washington led the 9,500 members of the continental contingent across the East River to lower Manhattan (roughly where the Brooklyn Bridge is today) in a single night. Notoriously difficult, the river that night was calm as a sea of glass. The sailors put cloth over their oars to mute the sound. In the morning, without everyone yet across a thick fog rolled over the waters. One soldier claimed visibility at around six feet. The rest of the troops made it across, all 9,500 without a single incident.
Despite the miraculous retreat to Manhattan, the colonials were still hemmed in on all sides by British boats and troops. Washington and his generals fled north to the Harlem Heights and left a thin line of troops along the riverbanks from lower Manhattan up to Harlem. More disaster, and more tactical blunders, lay ahead.
Fort Washington, at the upper end of Manhattan island, was another poorly conceived fortress. It was meant to serve as a bulwark against the British navy, but proved inferior to that task. Moreover, there was no water supply in the fort, requiring colonials to go to the river for water. Obstinately, the continental army attempted to hold the fort. Though they rained artillery on to the charging Hessians, the fort was quickly overrun and the British claimed 3,000 prisoners of war.
At this time the forces of the continental army were split with Washington rushing to New Jersey in an attempt to head off any British advance on Philadelphia. The army fractured and in disarray it is difficult to imagine the tumult in Washington's mind as he watched his beleaguered forces sullenly retreat into New Jersey, burning bridges behind as they went. The British offered pardon to those who swore fealty to the crown and thousands in New York and New Jersey rushed to do so. Everything was falling apart. Washington knew with certainty that he would be executed as a traitor if he was to be captured.
Yet by all accounts he cut a stunningly noble figure as he led the army, tail between its legs, across New Jersey. It made such an impression on Thomas Paine that he wrote that if people still venerated heroes as gods Washington would unquestionably be worshiped.
The debacle in New York also proved to Washington that it would do the continentals no good to challenge the might of the British navy. The war must be fought inland. His back up against the wall, the contracts of the militia expiring at the end of the year, he steeled his resolve for the Christmas Day crossing of the Delaware and a desperate effort to change the momentum of the war and restore morale to the colonies.
Did you know that one of the earliest significant engagements of the war was in New York City? I had no idea, or that knowledge was sacrificed to make room for something else in my mind. It was a disaster for the American troops. New York played well into the British superiority at sea, with its multiple intersecting waterways. Buoyed by 8,000 Hessian mercenaries the British landed in Long Island and soon pressed their advantage, routing our troops in Brooklyn through an inexplicably unguarded pass. The Hessians were brutal in their slaughter, decapitating soldiers and wielding their heads on spiked.
Washington was incredibly demoralized. Troops retreated at random, the officers had no control. He felt everything slipping. In a stroke of genius and providence Washington led the 9,500 members of the continental contingent across the East River to lower Manhattan (roughly where the Brooklyn Bridge is today) in a single night. Notoriously difficult, the river that night was calm as a sea of glass. The sailors put cloth over their oars to mute the sound. In the morning, without everyone yet across a thick fog rolled over the waters. One soldier claimed visibility at around six feet. The rest of the troops made it across, all 9,500 without a single incident.
Despite the miraculous retreat to Manhattan, the colonials were still hemmed in on all sides by British boats and troops. Washington and his generals fled north to the Harlem Heights and left a thin line of troops along the riverbanks from lower Manhattan up to Harlem. More disaster, and more tactical blunders, lay ahead.
Fort Washington, at the upper end of Manhattan island, was another poorly conceived fortress. It was meant to serve as a bulwark against the British navy, but proved inferior to that task. Moreover, there was no water supply in the fort, requiring colonials to go to the river for water. Obstinately, the continental army attempted to hold the fort. Though they rained artillery on to the charging Hessians, the fort was quickly overrun and the British claimed 3,000 prisoners of war.
At this time the forces of the continental army were split with Washington rushing to New Jersey in an attempt to head off any British advance on Philadelphia. The army fractured and in disarray it is difficult to imagine the tumult in Washington's mind as he watched his beleaguered forces sullenly retreat into New Jersey, burning bridges behind as they went. The British offered pardon to those who swore fealty to the crown and thousands in New York and New Jersey rushed to do so. Everything was falling apart. Washington knew with certainty that he would be executed as a traitor if he was to be captured.
Yet by all accounts he cut a stunningly noble figure as he led the army, tail between its legs, across New Jersey. It made such an impression on Thomas Paine that he wrote that if people still venerated heroes as gods Washington would unquestionably be worshiped.
The debacle in New York also proved to Washington that it would do the continentals no good to challenge the might of the British navy. The war must be fought inland. His back up against the wall, the contracts of the militia expiring at the end of the year, he steeled his resolve for the Christmas Day crossing of the Delaware and a desperate effort to change the momentum of the war and restore morale to the colonies.
25 April 2014
Getting to Know GW (5): Odd Providence
George Washington was a man who benefited enormously from the death of people he loved. That is an odd sentence, but undoubtedly true. Without the death of his father, elder brother, elder brother's wife and children, and Martha's daughter from her first marriage there is simply no way that Washington becomes the man we know him to be.
What the death of each provided was not some psychic boost, of course, but financial. Washington was only born into marginal privilege. He was ambitious and dedicated and a workhorse, but there is only so much one can do without means, especially in as rigorously hierarchical a world as colonial Virginia. It was the untimely deaths of each of the people above that gave Washington the means to lead the life of a gentleman planter, inherit Mount Vernon and turn it into the now famous landmark, dress in the highest fashion, and ultimately earn a seat on the Continental Congress that eventually catapulted him to the commanding generalship of the Continental Army.
In one of those odd turns of providence, then, it was the suffering he endured and the deaths of those he loved that paved the way for Washington to become General Washington and then President Washington. What was painful for a season catapulted him to his ultimate calling.
This world is a strange place.
What the death of each provided was not some psychic boost, of course, but financial. Washington was only born into marginal privilege. He was ambitious and dedicated and a workhorse, but there is only so much one can do without means, especially in as rigorously hierarchical a world as colonial Virginia. It was the untimely deaths of each of the people above that gave Washington the means to lead the life of a gentleman planter, inherit Mount Vernon and turn it into the now famous landmark, dress in the highest fashion, and ultimately earn a seat on the Continental Congress that eventually catapulted him to the commanding generalship of the Continental Army.
In one of those odd turns of providence, then, it was the suffering he endured and the deaths of those he loved that paved the way for Washington to become General Washington and then President Washington. What was painful for a season catapulted him to his ultimate calling.
This world is a strange place.
23 April 2014
Getting to Know GW (4): George and Martha
Ever since watching Dazed and Confused my opinion on the relationship between George and Martha Washington will forever be filtered through this clip.
Now, I am not sure of the accuracy of that statement, but it is undeniable that Martha Washington was a hip, hip, hip lady and a loyal copartner with her famous husband. By all accounts they had a wonderful marriage, built on trust and loyalty and respect and love. Though the love between them was not the intensely romantic love that our culture idealizes.
George experienced that type of infatuation with another woman, a married woman, Sally Fairfax, the wife of one of his good friends. There is absolutely no evidence that the emotional affair between the two was ever consummated in any way, but the young George Washington was clearly smitten with the beautiful and sensual Fairfax. Shortly before his engagement to Martha he wrote an ambiguous letter to Mrs. Fairfax which he could plausibly say was written about Martha, but was definitely written to declare his love for Sally Fairfax. The intensity of the letter undermines the notion of Washington as solely a cold and calculating, unfeeling man. But it also underscores his control over his emotions.
The letter is a farewell letter, not a plea for reciprocation. Sally Fairfax was bound to his friend William, he is binding himself to Martha. Providence had something else in mind for them. Thus George gladly married Martha. And while passion can hardly be said to be the bedrock of their love, their companionship and mature love helped steady Washington through the many trials he endured and through the many roles he would serve in the founding of our nation. Passion alone, which wanes indelibly, would not have been fit to serve in that capacity.
Plus, isn't facility with weed more important anyway?
Now, I am not sure of the accuracy of that statement, but it is undeniable that Martha Washington was a hip, hip, hip lady and a loyal copartner with her famous husband. By all accounts they had a wonderful marriage, built on trust and loyalty and respect and love. Though the love between them was not the intensely romantic love that our culture idealizes.
George experienced that type of infatuation with another woman, a married woman, Sally Fairfax, the wife of one of his good friends. There is absolutely no evidence that the emotional affair between the two was ever consummated in any way, but the young George Washington was clearly smitten with the beautiful and sensual Fairfax. Shortly before his engagement to Martha he wrote an ambiguous letter to Mrs. Fairfax which he could plausibly say was written about Martha, but was definitely written to declare his love for Sally Fairfax. The intensity of the letter undermines the notion of Washington as solely a cold and calculating, unfeeling man. But it also underscores his control over his emotions.
The letter is a farewell letter, not a plea for reciprocation. Sally Fairfax was bound to his friend William, he is binding himself to Martha. Providence had something else in mind for them. Thus George gladly married Martha. And while passion can hardly be said to be the bedrock of their love, their companionship and mature love helped steady Washington through the many trials he endured and through the many roles he would serve in the founding of our nation. Passion alone, which wanes indelibly, would not have been fit to serve in that capacity.
Plus, isn't facility with weed more important anyway?
22 April 2014
Book Review: God in the Whirlwind
"Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what the will of God is, what is good and acceptable and perfect." Romans 12:2
"Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said: Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?" Job 38:1-2
Perhaps David F. Wells's excellent new book God in the Whirlwind can best be summarized by a quote from the fifth chapter of the work, "The Splendor of Holiness," which forms the pivot point of the book:
Our modern intellectual and moral morass can hardly be better encapsulated than noting the shift in worldview inherent in Wells's description of the two worlds that have prevailed in human history. Ours is a psychological world, through and through, and Wells argues that this mentality has invaded the church just as pervasively as it has the broader secular culture. Neal Postman, no religious conservative, he, in Amusing Ourselves to Death makes the observation that where we once told, say, a drunkard to despise himself and find God we now tell him to find himself. In other words his salvation lies within himself and not outside of himself, as the moral view of the world would tell us.
As part of this psychologizing of the world, we now view God not as transcendent and holy but as immanent and loving only. What's more, when we say God is "love" we do not mean what the Bible means when it says the same thing; we mean that God would surely validate everything that we can think to do. [See my older post on Gene Robinson and this bastardized love here.] God would never interfere with our happiness, because he primarily wants us to be happy on our own terms. We have discarded the notion of human nature, replacing it with the self, stripping us of reference points outside of ourselves.
The purpose of Wells's book is to pull the church back from the places where it has bought in to this psychological world, reminding us of one very large and extremely salient fact: there is a God and he is objective. This God does not exist to conform to us, but we exist to conform to him. The world of the Bible is defined by the holiness of God, because it is in his holiness, just as much as his love, that he sent Christ to be our redeemer. We want God's love without his holiness, but the two are indivisible.
In the middle chapters of the book, Wells walks through historical understandings of salvation, with chapters on salvation under the old covenant, the better covenant of Christ, the true meaning of the love of God, the true power of his holiness, the wonder and awfulness of the cross, the miracle of justification through the imputation of Christ's righteousness, the miracle of sanctification through the new life we have in Christ, with concluding chapters on the importance and object of worship and the indispensability of gospel-centered service and the manner in which service authenticates our faith.
I have no real quibbles to make with the book. Sometimes I felt as if Wells lost the forest for the trees, and I had to go back and remind myself at various times why we were covering this or that particular thing. Popular level books struggle with the fact that the author knows (and has most likely written) about ten times what he can fit into the pages allotted. Therefore culling is necessary and sometimes the gaps show. But that is neither here nor there. This was not meant to be a comprehensive book on the subjects covered and Wells has pointed us to deeper reading if we care to take the time.
The two chapters that stood out the most to me were the middle chapters on the love and holiness of God. The subtitle of the book is "How the Holy-Love of God Reorients Our World," and the beauty and care of these chapters show that they are central not only positionally in the book but also to Wells's heart for the book. About the fusion of holiness and love embodied in the character of God, Wells writes, "He is simultaneously loving and holy in such a way that we never encounter his love without his holiness or his holiness without his love. . . It is not love in general, not just good will, not simply a general benevolence, not an undiscriminating affection, not romantic love, but love whose heart is sacrificial, self-emptying, and who connections are with what is moral" (86). In other words, God's love is inextricably connected with his moral perfection. We cannot separate the two, as our culture so desperately wishes we could.
The depth of God's moral holiness and otherness from us is terrifying to behold. When the prophet Isaiah is given a vision of God he is terrified and recognized immediately his own impurity. What jumps out about God to the prophet is his moral perfection, his cleanliness to use Isaiah's language. Our best moments are never freed from the discoloration of sin in the same way. We can never approach God on our own terms. He must condescend to us if we are to ever approach his throne of grace.
The central value of this book is the oft-needed, countercultural reminder that we are to submit ourselves to God, that we are horribly fallen creatures in desperate need of redemption, that the answer to our brokenness does not find answer in introspection but at the foot of the cross. Having just celebrated Easter this is all the more palpable. The cross is not a self-esteem lesson teaching us how much we are loved by God but a condemnation of our very nature and self. We need God, not a dumbed down god who wants us to be happy, but the only God who can reorient our lives around his holy-love. Mercifully, that is precisely who the God of the Bible declares himself to be.
"Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said: Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?" Job 38:1-2
Perhaps David F. Wells's excellent new book God in the Whirlwind can best be summarized by a quote from the fifth chapter of the work, "The Splendor of Holiness," which forms the pivot point of the book:
"Those who live in this psychological world [our contemporary culture] think differently from those who inhabit a moral world. In a psychological world, we want therapy; in a moral world, a world of right and wrong and good and evil, we want redemption. In a psychological world, we want to be happy. In a moral world, we want to be holy. In the one we want to feel good, in the other we want to be good." (126)
Our modern intellectual and moral morass can hardly be better encapsulated than noting the shift in worldview inherent in Wells's description of the two worlds that have prevailed in human history. Ours is a psychological world, through and through, and Wells argues that this mentality has invaded the church just as pervasively as it has the broader secular culture. Neal Postman, no religious conservative, he, in Amusing Ourselves to Death makes the observation that where we once told, say, a drunkard to despise himself and find God we now tell him to find himself. In other words his salvation lies within himself and not outside of himself, as the moral view of the world would tell us.
As part of this psychologizing of the world, we now view God not as transcendent and holy but as immanent and loving only. What's more, when we say God is "love" we do not mean what the Bible means when it says the same thing; we mean that God would surely validate everything that we can think to do. [See my older post on Gene Robinson and this bastardized love here.] God would never interfere with our happiness, because he primarily wants us to be happy on our own terms. We have discarded the notion of human nature, replacing it with the self, stripping us of reference points outside of ourselves.
The purpose of Wells's book is to pull the church back from the places where it has bought in to this psychological world, reminding us of one very large and extremely salient fact: there is a God and he is objective. This God does not exist to conform to us, but we exist to conform to him. The world of the Bible is defined by the holiness of God, because it is in his holiness, just as much as his love, that he sent Christ to be our redeemer. We want God's love without his holiness, but the two are indivisible.
In the middle chapters of the book, Wells walks through historical understandings of salvation, with chapters on salvation under the old covenant, the better covenant of Christ, the true meaning of the love of God, the true power of his holiness, the wonder and awfulness of the cross, the miracle of justification through the imputation of Christ's righteousness, the miracle of sanctification through the new life we have in Christ, with concluding chapters on the importance and object of worship and the indispensability of gospel-centered service and the manner in which service authenticates our faith.
I have no real quibbles to make with the book. Sometimes I felt as if Wells lost the forest for the trees, and I had to go back and remind myself at various times why we were covering this or that particular thing. Popular level books struggle with the fact that the author knows (and has most likely written) about ten times what he can fit into the pages allotted. Therefore culling is necessary and sometimes the gaps show. But that is neither here nor there. This was not meant to be a comprehensive book on the subjects covered and Wells has pointed us to deeper reading if we care to take the time.
The two chapters that stood out the most to me were the middle chapters on the love and holiness of God. The subtitle of the book is "How the Holy-Love of God Reorients Our World," and the beauty and care of these chapters show that they are central not only positionally in the book but also to Wells's heart for the book. About the fusion of holiness and love embodied in the character of God, Wells writes, "He is simultaneously loving and holy in such a way that we never encounter his love without his holiness or his holiness without his love. . . It is not love in general, not just good will, not simply a general benevolence, not an undiscriminating affection, not romantic love, but love whose heart is sacrificial, self-emptying, and who connections are with what is moral" (86). In other words, God's love is inextricably connected with his moral perfection. We cannot separate the two, as our culture so desperately wishes we could.
The depth of God's moral holiness and otherness from us is terrifying to behold. When the prophet Isaiah is given a vision of God he is terrified and recognized immediately his own impurity. What jumps out about God to the prophet is his moral perfection, his cleanliness to use Isaiah's language. Our best moments are never freed from the discoloration of sin in the same way. We can never approach God on our own terms. He must condescend to us if we are to ever approach his throne of grace.
The central value of this book is the oft-needed, countercultural reminder that we are to submit ourselves to God, that we are horribly fallen creatures in desperate need of redemption, that the answer to our brokenness does not find answer in introspection but at the foot of the cross. Having just celebrated Easter this is all the more palpable. The cross is not a self-esteem lesson teaching us how much we are loved by God but a condemnation of our very nature and self. We need God, not a dumbed down god who wants us to be happy, but the only God who can reorient our lives around his holy-love. Mercifully, that is precisely who the God of the Bible declares himself to be.
21 April 2014
Getting to Know GW (3)
George Washington was a life-long slaveholder. He was a landowner and a tobacco farmer, and in eighteenth century Virginia it was difficult, if not impossible, to be both of those things and now own slaves.
There are some who look at this fact and jump immediately to the judgment that Washington was therefore a terrible person and one whom we have need of taking seriously in any other respect. These people seem to believe that if they were inserted into Washington's situation they would have adopted an abolitionist stance and toiled in their fields with the help of unionized farmhands. These are people for whom, in other words, history essentially does not exist.
I do not follow this stringent ethic, because it would relegate most of our ancestors as deplorable people for one thing or another. But it is problematic in another regard. Washington, like Jefferson, was deeply ambivalent about the morality of slaveholding. He saw the evils therein, but had no idea how to move beyond it. Jefferson famously compared slavery to holding a wolf by the ears. You don't like it but at the same time you don't dare let go.
Ambivalence noted, it was also immensely profitable to have a workforce that was paid in a quart of corn per day and twenty anchovies a month, with one new set of clothing per annum, as our first president's slaves were allotted. If I am ambivalent about the inequities and immorality of pornography but watch it every night, what exactly has my ambivalence gained me? Moreover, ever concerned with efficiency, part of Washington's problem with the institution was that it was hard to get quality labor from an unpaid and unmotivated workforce. Presumably, an industrious slave would be of more value to him and would have erased a measure of his moral qualm.
There is plenty of evidence that Washington was a conscientious slaveholder. Visitors to Mount Vernon remarked upon Washington's benevolence and relative charity to his slaves. He refused to break up slave families and honored the slave marriages that had no legal standing in the colony. He instructed the overseers to be lenient and spare the whip when possible. He struggled to be fair-minded in disputes and was reticent to go to the extent of the law (which was essentially non-existent; murder was legal as long as there was wrongdoing on the part of the slave). However, there were limited instances that recalcitrant escapees were sold to Caribbean sugar plantations both as punishment for their wrongdoing and to set an example to other indolent slaves that it could always be worse.
Overall, Chernow treated this topic quite fairly, refusing to castigate Washington for defying the prevailing morality of his time, nor neglecting the fact that this is problematic for any attempted hagiography of the Founder of Our Nation. Perhaps what needs to be said here was best said by Tobias Lear (good name), Washington's presidential secretary: "The negroes are not treated as blacks in general are in this country. They are clothed and fed as well as any laboring people whatever and they are not subject to the lash of a domineering overseer--but they are still slaves."
There are some who look at this fact and jump immediately to the judgment that Washington was therefore a terrible person and one whom we have need of taking seriously in any other respect. These people seem to believe that if they were inserted into Washington's situation they would have adopted an abolitionist stance and toiled in their fields with the help of unionized farmhands. These are people for whom, in other words, history essentially does not exist.
I do not follow this stringent ethic, because it would relegate most of our ancestors as deplorable people for one thing or another. But it is problematic in another regard. Washington, like Jefferson, was deeply ambivalent about the morality of slaveholding. He saw the evils therein, but had no idea how to move beyond it. Jefferson famously compared slavery to holding a wolf by the ears. You don't like it but at the same time you don't dare let go.
Ambivalence noted, it was also immensely profitable to have a workforce that was paid in a quart of corn per day and twenty anchovies a month, with one new set of clothing per annum, as our first president's slaves were allotted. If I am ambivalent about the inequities and immorality of pornography but watch it every night, what exactly has my ambivalence gained me? Moreover, ever concerned with efficiency, part of Washington's problem with the institution was that it was hard to get quality labor from an unpaid and unmotivated workforce. Presumably, an industrious slave would be of more value to him and would have erased a measure of his moral qualm.
There is plenty of evidence that Washington was a conscientious slaveholder. Visitors to Mount Vernon remarked upon Washington's benevolence and relative charity to his slaves. He refused to break up slave families and honored the slave marriages that had no legal standing in the colony. He instructed the overseers to be lenient and spare the whip when possible. He struggled to be fair-minded in disputes and was reticent to go to the extent of the law (which was essentially non-existent; murder was legal as long as there was wrongdoing on the part of the slave). However, there were limited instances that recalcitrant escapees were sold to Caribbean sugar plantations both as punishment for their wrongdoing and to set an example to other indolent slaves that it could always be worse.
Overall, Chernow treated this topic quite fairly, refusing to castigate Washington for defying the prevailing morality of his time, nor neglecting the fact that this is problematic for any attempted hagiography of the Founder of Our Nation. Perhaps what needs to be said here was best said by Tobias Lear (good name), Washington's presidential secretary: "The negroes are not treated as blacks in general are in this country. They are clothed and fed as well as any laboring people whatever and they are not subject to the lash of a domineering overseer--but they are still slaves."
18 April 2014
Getting to Know GW (2)
(This post is part of a series about our first president that I am writing as I work through Ron Chernow's epic one volume biography of the man. If you find yourself like me, knowing next to nothing about Washington and his life then I invite you to read on.)
I remember as a kid some legend of Washington as almost impervious to bullets. I remember some story of an Indian chief instructing his warriors to take aim at Washington and somehow missing. It is the kind of story that smacks of myth-making, a piece of just-too-goodedness. It is also true.
I wrote last time of Washington's disastrous defeat at Fort Necessity, in what was to come to be the first real skirmish of the French and Indian War. Washington was a part of another devastating defeat in that conflict in the summer of 1755. Washington was under the command of General Edward Braddock. Braddock would be a member of a growing list of British military that underestimated the difficulties of waging war in America.
French and Indian forces met the British at what became known as the Battle of the Monongahela. The British, who outnumbered the French by 2 to 1, were absolutely routed. By the evening of the ninth of July, the British forces were in full retreat back up the road they had just built. Braddock would die from wounds sustained in battle during the retreat.
Braddock had been injured early in the battle and Washington had taken over default command, riding the length and breadth of the British lines and trying to rally his men. Of the 300 British casualties, over 100 were officers. The opposing forces trained their guns on Washington. Upon retreat he noticed four bullet holes in his coat and had two horses he had been riding shot out from underneath him.
Fifteen years later he met one of the chiefs who had been fighting with the French at Monongahela. He told Washington that he had specifically ordered his warriors to fire directly at Washington, to no effect. The chief had concluded that some great spirit had protected Washington and would guide him to momentous things in the future.
At the very least, this story ought to train the skeptic in each of us to quiet it down a bit. Sometimes things happen that are too good to be true.
I remember as a kid some legend of Washington as almost impervious to bullets. I remember some story of an Indian chief instructing his warriors to take aim at Washington and somehow missing. It is the kind of story that smacks of myth-making, a piece of just-too-goodedness. It is also true.
I wrote last time of Washington's disastrous defeat at Fort Necessity, in what was to come to be the first real skirmish of the French and Indian War. Washington was a part of another devastating defeat in that conflict in the summer of 1755. Washington was under the command of General Edward Braddock. Braddock would be a member of a growing list of British military that underestimated the difficulties of waging war in America.
French and Indian forces met the British at what became known as the Battle of the Monongahela. The British, who outnumbered the French by 2 to 1, were absolutely routed. By the evening of the ninth of July, the British forces were in full retreat back up the road they had just built. Braddock would die from wounds sustained in battle during the retreat.
Braddock had been injured early in the battle and Washington had taken over default command, riding the length and breadth of the British lines and trying to rally his men. Of the 300 British casualties, over 100 were officers. The opposing forces trained their guns on Washington. Upon retreat he noticed four bullet holes in his coat and had two horses he had been riding shot out from underneath him.
Fifteen years later he met one of the chiefs who had been fighting with the French at Monongahela. He told Washington that he had specifically ordered his warriors to fire directly at Washington, to no effect. The chief had concluded that some great spirit had protected Washington and would guide him to momentous things in the future.
At the very least, this story ought to train the skeptic in each of us to quiet it down a bit. Sometimes things happen that are too good to be true.
16 April 2014
Getting to Know GW (1)
I recently came to, what was to me, an appalling realization: I know next to nothing about George Washington. I remember a few anecdotes from civics lessons as a kid--the cherry tree, crossing the Delaware, Mount Vernon, that wig*--but I have no solid idea of the man. To me he is a wooden figure, not mythic exactly for in my mind's eye there is nothing very fetching about him that might shroud him in myth. He was simply a Great Man, the reluctant first president of our fledgling nation.
Ron Chernow, over the course of 900 or so pages, is helping both to soften the wooden image into more human materials and to disabuse me of the notion of Washington being anything other than stunningly ambitious for power and prestige throughout his life (at least his young life. This dadgum book is 900 pages and this world weary father of two young ones only has so much reading time day by day.)
I am thinking of blogging a bit through this Great Man's Great Life on the assumption that there are others out there equally ignorant of the details as me. Allow me to proffer one story to begin:
As a young man, Washington rose quickly through the twin engines of self-promotion and lofty friends to head a regiment of the colonial army in Virginia. Still a loyal servant to the crown, Washington led his contingent along with a small company of British regulars and assorted other colonials westward into the Ohio territory (part of modern day Pennsylvania) to counter the incursion of French forces into the region. Washington had previously acted as an ambassador to the French in this burgeoning conflict, basically telling them to scram or face the fury of England. The French, emboldened by broad Indian support and a greater feel for the realities of warfare in the New World rebuffed the challenge and continued to press into Ohio.
Thus Washington was dispatched to fortify the frontier defenses with a woefully small contingent. And here's the thing: he failed many, many times. Foremost was the location he chose for what he called Fort Necessity. It was low-lying and subject to becoming a swamp when it rained. It was too close to a dense forest from which French sharpshooters could hide and shoot relatively unhindered. It was also too small for his garrison.
When the French attacked the colonials were thrown into disarray. Then it started to pour. Their trenches filled with water as did the grounds of the fort. It was a miserable and humiliating defeat. The French viewed the attack as the response to a provocation by Washington when he had earlier ambushed a group of French soldiers a few miles from the fort. Washington maintained that his attack was justified because the French contingent was spying on Washington's fortifications, but there is little to show how that might be the case. Moreover, one of those killed in the attack was a French ambassador to the English on a diplomatic mission. In a weird way, then, Washington fired the first salvo in what turned into the bloody French and Indian War. That the French saw this as retaliation and not a proper battle is why Washington and the rest of the colonials were allowed to march back to Virginia with their colors.
Colonel Washington was 21 years old.
*It also turns out that Washington never wore a wig. He powdered his hair. File this under mildly interesting.
Ron Chernow, over the course of 900 or so pages, is helping both to soften the wooden image into more human materials and to disabuse me of the notion of Washington being anything other than stunningly ambitious for power and prestige throughout his life (at least his young life. This dadgum book is 900 pages and this world weary father of two young ones only has so much reading time day by day.)
I am thinking of blogging a bit through this Great Man's Great Life on the assumption that there are others out there equally ignorant of the details as me. Allow me to proffer one story to begin:
As a young man, Washington rose quickly through the twin engines of self-promotion and lofty friends to head a regiment of the colonial army in Virginia. Still a loyal servant to the crown, Washington led his contingent along with a small company of British regulars and assorted other colonials westward into the Ohio territory (part of modern day Pennsylvania) to counter the incursion of French forces into the region. Washington had previously acted as an ambassador to the French in this burgeoning conflict, basically telling them to scram or face the fury of England. The French, emboldened by broad Indian support and a greater feel for the realities of warfare in the New World rebuffed the challenge and continued to press into Ohio.
Thus Washington was dispatched to fortify the frontier defenses with a woefully small contingent. And here's the thing: he failed many, many times. Foremost was the location he chose for what he called Fort Necessity. It was low-lying and subject to becoming a swamp when it rained. It was too close to a dense forest from which French sharpshooters could hide and shoot relatively unhindered. It was also too small for his garrison.
When the French attacked the colonials were thrown into disarray. Then it started to pour. Their trenches filled with water as did the grounds of the fort. It was a miserable and humiliating defeat. The French viewed the attack as the response to a provocation by Washington when he had earlier ambushed a group of French soldiers a few miles from the fort. Washington maintained that his attack was justified because the French contingent was spying on Washington's fortifications, but there is little to show how that might be the case. Moreover, one of those killed in the attack was a French ambassador to the English on a diplomatic mission. In a weird way, then, Washington fired the first salvo in what turned into the bloody French and Indian War. That the French saw this as retaliation and not a proper battle is why Washington and the rest of the colonials were allowed to march back to Virginia with their colors.
Colonel Washington was 21 years old.
*It also turns out that Washington never wore a wig. He powdered his hair. File this under mildly interesting.
14 April 2014
Cheerful Conservatism
It should come as no surprise to people who know me or have read this blog that I am a religious conservative. That can be a tough label to wear proudly as a twenty-something (for another three months!) in our culture. My team has taken a thrashing lately, politically and culturally, and it seems as if an era in American culture--that of the cultural and political dominance of Christianity--is passing. I am not writing about this to wring my hands or declare the falling of the sky, but to point towards what I believe to be a better way to be aliens and strangers in this world.
Some people my age that I talk to are hopeful about the passing of Christianity as the default civil religion of the United States. They think it will spur the church to enhanced creativity and that belief will actually mean something now. In other words, to be a Christian it will not be possible, for the most part, to be a Sunday Christian and live the rest of the week precisely like the rest of the world. I understand this impulse and thought largely the same way for a long time. And then I had kids. Having kids removes this lazy disposition as you realize that your kids will now have to grow up in a world largely opposed to what they are taught at home. The passing of Christendom is not something to treat glibly as if there are no associated costs. It is going to entail harsh realities for those committed to living out a Biblical morality in the public square. We might tire of the excesses of civic religion Christianity, but it has built us a pretty nice place to live. And it is an edifice we tear down to our own destruction, or so it seems to me.
That being said, there is no need to be sour about this. As a Christian, I have read Matthew 24 and St. John's Revelation. I know stuff gets bad. This isn't Utopia, which, as anyone knows who has read Thomas More's fictional account of the place, kind of sucks anyway, and of course means "no place." God is not surprised by what is happening here. He is not up in heaven going, "They're legalizing what down there!?!!?" He is in control whether America is a comfortable place to be a conservative Christian or whether we are blacklisted and persecuted.
That control gives me hope. I believe that the world is governed by the holy-love of the Trinitarian God. I believe he is sovereign over that creation. I believe every atom in our universe is sustained by the Word of his power down to this moment, that every mote of dust I can see through the sunlight coming in my window as I type dances at his command. I believe that one day the Son will return and make all things new and every tear will be wiped from our eyes.
You know what that makes me? Happy. Very, very happy. Because just as the above paragraph is true for me, it is also true for the persecuted Christians in India and Eritrea and Iran. My circumstances do not change the reality of God's providential control of the world, of the fact that he works out everything for the good of those who are called to his purposes.
Therefore, the face I want to present to the world is not one of despair over circumstances. I don't want to hold tight-fistedly to some notion of a bygone era when everything was right and, like the children of Lake Woebegone, everyone was above average. I don't want to resent and see myself as opposed to the people on the other side of the aisle, the people I have been commanded by my Savior to love as he does. That is a tall order as anyone who has tried to put it into practice (and here I speak theoretically, as I never have) can attest. But it is our calling.
To be filled with joy. To live as exiles. To work for the good of those around us. To love our God. If this ship is going down (and the jury is still out on that one) I don't want to be clinging to the railing screaming against the unfairness of it all. I want to sing "Nearer, My God, to Thee."
Some people my age that I talk to are hopeful about the passing of Christianity as the default civil religion of the United States. They think it will spur the church to enhanced creativity and that belief will actually mean something now. In other words, to be a Christian it will not be possible, for the most part, to be a Sunday Christian and live the rest of the week precisely like the rest of the world. I understand this impulse and thought largely the same way for a long time. And then I had kids. Having kids removes this lazy disposition as you realize that your kids will now have to grow up in a world largely opposed to what they are taught at home. The passing of Christendom is not something to treat glibly as if there are no associated costs. It is going to entail harsh realities for those committed to living out a Biblical morality in the public square. We might tire of the excesses of civic religion Christianity, but it has built us a pretty nice place to live. And it is an edifice we tear down to our own destruction, or so it seems to me.
That being said, there is no need to be sour about this. As a Christian, I have read Matthew 24 and St. John's Revelation. I know stuff gets bad. This isn't Utopia, which, as anyone knows who has read Thomas More's fictional account of the place, kind of sucks anyway, and of course means "no place." God is not surprised by what is happening here. He is not up in heaven going, "They're legalizing what down there!?!!?" He is in control whether America is a comfortable place to be a conservative Christian or whether we are blacklisted and persecuted.
That control gives me hope. I believe that the world is governed by the holy-love of the Trinitarian God. I believe he is sovereign over that creation. I believe every atom in our universe is sustained by the Word of his power down to this moment, that every mote of dust I can see through the sunlight coming in my window as I type dances at his command. I believe that one day the Son will return and make all things new and every tear will be wiped from our eyes.
You know what that makes me? Happy. Very, very happy. Because just as the above paragraph is true for me, it is also true for the persecuted Christians in India and Eritrea and Iran. My circumstances do not change the reality of God's providential control of the world, of the fact that he works out everything for the good of those who are called to his purposes.
Therefore, the face I want to present to the world is not one of despair over circumstances. I don't want to hold tight-fistedly to some notion of a bygone era when everything was right and, like the children of Lake Woebegone, everyone was above average. I don't want to resent and see myself as opposed to the people on the other side of the aisle, the people I have been commanded by my Savior to love as he does. That is a tall order as anyone who has tried to put it into practice (and here I speak theoretically, as I never have) can attest. But it is our calling.
To be filled with joy. To live as exiles. To work for the good of those around us. To love our God. If this ship is going down (and the jury is still out on that one) I don't want to be clinging to the railing screaming against the unfairness of it all. I want to sing "Nearer, My God, to Thee."
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