The mindset Keller has expressed — that most political positions aren’t absolute spiritual battlegrounds — was accurate in yesterday’s sanctuaries (and for most of Keller’s career, considering he planted Redeemer Presbyterian Church in 1989). It reflects what Renn calls the “neutral world” in what he’s dubbed the “three worlds of evangelism.” Following the pre-1990s “positive world,” in which most of Western culture looked favorably at Christianity and its values, the “neutral world” reigned until roughly a decade ago, when Western society’s attitude toward Christianity soured into a “negative world.”

In a neutral world where the most controversial political topics were tax cuts or foreign policy, the apartisan approach Keller has espoused was likely wise for the average Christian. However, American politics in the past decade has ceased to be chiefly about policies like taxes or welfare spending or even immigration — issues on which Christians can make good-faith arguments for a variety of political stances.

Fighting a Culture War in a Hostile World

Now, in Renn’s “negative world,” the political left has become the party of celebrating abortion on demand until birth; of chopping off the breasts and genitals of confused, manipulated children and ripping them from their objecting parents’ custody; of inflaming hatred based solely on the color of a person’s skin; of obliterating the nuclear family; and of inundating schoolchildren with pornographic books and the performances of cross-dressing male strippers. America’s leftist factions have used the highest office of law enforcement to terrorize a pro-life pastor, shuttered church gatherings, and continue to demand that Christians proclaiming simple truths like God’s design for marriage be excommunicated from their jobs and public discourse.

America is neck-deep in a culture war, and some of the most prolific instigators of it are in our highest political offices. Keller’s right that no political party is perfect and that Christians should not make an idol of a party or of politics in general. But unless we go the way of the early 20th-century fundamentalists, we’re going to have to meet the cultural onslaught — and some of the biggest arenas of the cultural fight have been made political. I’m sure Keller would agree that it shouldn’t be a partisan position to protect kindergarteners from being coached into sexual confusion by their teachers, but alas, that is where the political left has chosen to draw its battle lines.

With the announcement of the Keller Center, there’s hope Keller and The Gospel Coalition are catching up to what time it is. Keller’s narration in the announcement video mirrors the language of Renn’s “three worlds” almost verbatim:

We now live in a post-Christendom culture. For at least a thousand years, Western culture has been what you might call Christendom culture. Even if most people were not devout Christians, there was a positive understanding of Christianity in the culture. … The culture instilled in people a certain amount of background beliefs that the Bible assumes. … [But] now, you’re in, how do you win people to Christ in a post-Christendom era? And the church does not have any idea how to do it. //

Keller criticized evangelicals who are “turning to a political project of regaining power in order to expel secular people from places of cultural influence.” While Christians should not seek out power for power’s sake, we should defend the vulnerable from the harmful lies and agendas of those in positions of cultural authority.

Jesus rejected the zealotry of those who expected him to overthrow the Roman empire, but He also denounced the faux moralism of the Pharisees, the prominent cultural leaders of the society in which he lived. That faux moralism has a parallel in today’s false gospels that actively promote sin in the name of “inclusivity” or “a woman’s right to choose” — and one of the chief avenues perpetuating those false gospels is political.

The Road to Middle-Earth: How J. R. R. Tolkien Created a New Mythology eBook : Shippey, Tom

Dan Lawler
4.0 out of 5 starsVerified Purchase
Was the Way to Middle Earth Shut?
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 8, 2022
Author Tom Shippey demonstrates how the Lord of the Rings/Silmarillion legendarium grew from Tolkien’s deep dive into the search for original meaning associated with Old English words, fragments and stories touching on the subject of Faerie. As a fellow philologist, Shippey is uniquely qualified for the task; he has held the same chair in language at Oxford that Tolkien once had, and the two are certainly rare birds of a feather. Shippey examines Tolkien’s personal motivations in storytelling and the value he placed on fairy tales, including LOTR.

What is fascinating, and worthy of a book itself, is Shippey’s theory in chapters 8 and 9 that, as Tolkien aged, he became increasingly despondent over whether his stories bore the “inner consistency of reality” which, by Tolkien’s reckoning, was the singular quality that justified the immense time and effort he had devoted to writing fantasies at the expense of his professional career.

Tolkien’s metaphysics of storytelling are set out in the essay On Fairy Stories (1939) and the follow-up tale Leaf by Niggle (1943) which illustrated the principles in story form. The two papers presented as optimistic a view of storytelling in particular, and art in general, as any author or artist could ever hope for. Literature and art had the capacity to convey other-worldly truth because man, though fallen in nature, still possessed a capacity to discern and communicate at least some splintered fragments of that truth. Because God is Creator, humans made in His image are sub-creators whose works, if properly done, can possess eternal value. Indeed, the author/artist may hope to find a representation of their earthly work that was only seen in part and partially enjoyed here but in the world to come seen in full and fully enjoyed throughout eternity.

Shippey says of Tolkien that “by the 1960s he was not so sure” of his theory of sub-creation. (Location 5247.) That is no loss to Shippey as he believes Tolkien's works “keep their own purely literary justification; the theory of ‘sub-creation’ is not needed.” Id. But it was otherwise for Tolkien himself as the ideas underlying sub-creation were the only basis by which fantasy was worthwhile and meaningful, and distinguished from mere escapism. Two of those ideas were the inner consistency of reality and eucatastrophe.

In On Fairy Stories, Tolkien created the term eucatastrophe to describe the universally desired joy of the happy ending “or more correctly of the good catastrophe, the sudden joyous ‘turn’ … which is one of the things which fairy-stories can produce supremely well…. It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat and insofar as evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.” It is this peculiar quality of joy that infuses good fantasy with the inner consistency of reality, providing “a sudden glimpse of the underlying reality or truth.”

For Tolkien, without this hope, joy and truth, there was no escape from the nihilism of universal final defeat. Yet Shippey finds it absent in Tolkien’s later writings: “For Tolkien there was no eucatastrophe” and “the sense of age and exclusion seems to have grown on him more and more strongly.” Loc. 5553. Tolkien came to doubt his theory of sub-creation and “the legitimacy of his own mental wanderings.” Loc. 5239. According to Shippey, Tolkien “asked more than he had a right to” and all hopes for a supernatural guarantee “are bound to be disappointed.” Loc. 5247.

Shippey’s conclusions are certainly shaped in part by his own skepticism. Tolkien scholar Joseph Pearce, who is acquainted with Shippey, said he is not a Christian and “conceded readily that he did not fully understand the religious and theological aspects of [Tolkien’s] work but most certainly did not dismiss it or deride it.” Still, it is true, as Shippey elaborates, that Tolkien’s later poems and short stories lack the joyful turn of the eucatastrophe, and end with the protagonists being denied access to the Perilous Realm of Faerie, returning with melancholy to the ordinariness of their everyday lives. Shippey concludes from this that Tolkien “no longer imagined himself rejoining his own creations after death, like Niggle” and “he felt they were lost….” Loc. 5247.

Shippey does not address the cause of Tolkien’s apparent disillusionment. Perhaps, given his own predispositions, Shippey simply attributed it to the man growing older and wiser. But without the theory of sub-creation, or an equivalent, there really is nothing beyond the circles of this world except a universal final defeat that awaits all. Tolkien could not have fallen that far, but there must have been something underlying the ominous change in tone of his later works. Its worth pursuing.

The book presents much to think about. Also, the word-craft on the philological side is superb and provides many surprises and delights. In addition, Shippey’s droll and deadly rebuttals to Tolkien’s snobbish literary critics are especially satisfying. Definitely a good read.

Joseph Lear @josephmljr
Nah dawg, it’s nihilism. And the dread of daily life and existence. That’s what the church has failed to address. Politics only goes to far. We need metaphysics because everyone’s stuck in the abyss of immanence.

Dr. Kevin M. Young @kevinmyoung
·
Jan 19
The GREAT ABANDONMENT of the Church is caused more by its response to:

1. Donald Trump
2. George Floyd, BLM, and CRT
3. COVID

than it is

1. Deconstruction
2. Rejection of Jesus
3. The chance to sleep in

They had to leave the Church to keep their faith.

12:25 PM · Jan 20, 2023 //

“Nihilism” is a philosophical term (with a broad and complex history) that doesn’t really show up in everyday conversation (unless you’re a diehard fan of The Big Lebowski), so let me explain it as simply as I can. It comes from the Latin nihil which simply means “nothing.” So we might say “Nihilism” is “Nothing-ism,” or the belief that everything is fundamentally nothing—that all of existence is bereft of purpose, meaning, and substance, and that it’s therefore absurd. To be a nihilist is to believe that nothingness has the first and the last word about everything. It’s to believe that your existence is random and arbitrary, and that whatever awaits us in the future, or after death, is an eternal vacuous abyss. Maybe we should be depressed, or maybe we should laugh. Or maybe we should laugh depressingly.

I think nihilism strikes all of us as a bleak outlook on life (to put it mildly). But I also think it resonates on some level with the vast majority of us. Whether we’re Christians or not, there’s the gnawing sense, this haunting feeling that, really, nothing matters. It’s the existential malaise we find ourselves in here in the West. //

So, sure, people may use political compromise, anti-BLM rhetoric, or any hot button cultural issue as an excuse to leave the church, but really they’re leaving the church because the church is failing to issue a rejoinder to the dread of daily life we all feel. Not only has the church failed to confront nihilism, but the church is also itself nihilistic. It’s nihilistic precisely because it has failed to identify nihilism as the problem we are facing in the West. We end up throwing punches at the shadows cast by the thing itself. We don’t dare turn around and face the reality of our situation, because we’re afraid our anemic Christianity can’t really stand up to the challenge. So the church has had to adopt Trumpian politics (at least in Evangelical circles) to stave off and hide its own sense of absurdity.

The thing that Kevin from Twitter fails to recognize is that the liberal protestant church is in a much worse position that the Evangelicals are. The Episcopalians, the Presbyterians, the Methodists, and the Lutherans are hemorrhaging people not because they’ve preached MAGA but because they’ve preached nothing.

Back in 2003, David Bentley Hart wrote a piece called “Christ or Nothing,” in which he claims that the options set before us in the West are either faith in Christ or “an unshakeable, if often unconscious, faith in nothing, or nothingness as such.” And that’s the situation we continue to find ourselves in. No one is tempted by Islam. People aren’t running to become Buddhist monks. They dabble in witchcraft, rubbing crystals and burning sage in their living rooms not because they think it does something, but because it’s nothing.

So how does the church proceed as we continue to bleed the nihilists from our nihilistic churches? Here are four concrete steps we can take:

1. Invite people to be baptized as an alternative to suicide.
2. Preach: "God chose even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are.”
3. Fence the Lord’s Supper to remind people that the bread and the cup are not crystals and sage.
4. Delete Tiktok.

IMAGO DEI, MEANING OF LIFE, WHAT AM I?, WHAT IS HUMAN? //

Jesus was once asked what the greatest commandment in the law was. His response was deeply revealing about the purpose of human existence. He said that we should love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and that we should love our neighbor as ourselves.(7) Notice that the greatest thing a human being can possibly do, and the highest priority a person ought ever to have, is to love God with a love that is not a product of physics, but is supernatural (heart, soul, and mind). He has already demonstrated his love for us in the greatest way possible.(8) But for love to be ‘real’ and meaningful, we must have the ability to accept or reject it. Thus, free will was given to us, despite our proclivity or tendency to badly misuse our freedom of choice.

Living in the center of biblical tension

“It seems easier to go to a consistent extreme than to stay at the center of biblical tension.” -- Robertson McQuilkin

These days, everyone wants to be “affirmed.” Everyone wants a pat on the back for who they are.

I’m gay.

I’m black.

I’m non-binary.

I’m two-spirit, transgender with multiple personalities.

Whatever. Everyone has a “thing” and it’s all aimed at forcing other people to affirm not only is that thing okay, but that thing actually makes them a better person, and someone worth valuing. It’s rooted in narcissism, but don’t make the mistake of thinking it’s only the political cultists and activists who do this. We all want affirmation. We all want someone to tell us we are good – wonderful, even – just the way we are.

It’s why the “prosperity gospel” thrives in America. We want to know we deserve good things by being good enough for them.

I wasn’t raised in the Church or even by Christians. I found faith in Christ as a teenager, on my own, and I’ve been a grateful follower ever since. I know the Creator of the universe, but even still I am often wracked with insecurities and shortcomings. Unhappiness finds me from time to time, as does tragedy. Christ has not been the cure for reality, but He has been the way through it.

Here’s the thing – I find it impossible to genuinely connect with God if all I’m seeking is affirmation. When I seek positivity and elevation for my own personal spirit above all else, it always seems shallow. It always ends in just wanting more – more happiness, more health, more money, more passion. Whatever the “more” is, I just want more of it.

The truth is, it is only in our acknowledgment of our absolute wretchedness that we can find our way to peace. After all, if I’m able to convince myself I’m happy and fulfilled by simply saying a daily affirmation, what do I need God for?

No, it is through my wretchedness that I am able to be lifted up. When I recognize that I am helpless before the Almighty, that I am helpless against my sin on my own, that I am not built for eternity and I am not equipped for holiness, I am thus able to recognize that there is One who can lift me out of my sin. There is One who can equip me for holiness and eternity. I can look to Him with clarity, rather than looking into my own muddy insides.

My wretchedness is filth in the shadow of an all-knowing Creator. Who am I compared to such incredible power and omnipotence? I am no one.

That is what makes a relationship with God so intoxicating, so incredibly satisfying, so precious. I have nothing to bring Him. I have no sacrifice that could be worthy of Him. I don’t even have a body that is made to be in His presence.

One of the separators between childhood and maturity is the ability to discern the true gravity of any given situation. The seemingly unbearable anguish of teenage love gone awry fades and folds in the presence of a marriage gone wrong. The grief of a pet passing diminishes when one must say goodbye to a parent, sibling, or other loved one. It is not a case of the former possessing no meaning, but rather how life’s hammer blows places them in proper context.

Those who belong to the unfortunate fellowship of having buried a large piece of their heart alongside an immeasurable part of their life face two paths going forward. They can be forever bitter and burning with envy at those not similarly marked. Or, they can open their hearts with the understanding gained solely by painful experience to others who have unwillingly joined their ranks. The unfortunate fellowship knows, understands, and shares the grief of those freshly bereaved. //

Those who belong to the unfortunate fellowship of having buried a large piece of their heart alongside an immeasurable part of their life face two paths going forward. They can be forever bitter and burning with envy at those not similarly marked. Or, they can open their hearts with the understanding gained solely by painful experience to others who have unwillingly joined their ranks. The unfortunate fellowship knows, understands, and shares the grief of those freshly bereaved.

There is invariably an element of wondering why life on this earth must be so fragile and brief. Regardless of how fervently and firmly one believes in immortality and the promised reunion, even with the promise that He will wipe every tear from our eyes and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, today there is death and mourning and crying and pain. We see it in the innocent victims of war. We see it in our own lives when we reflect on those no longer here.

The wise store treasure in heaven by freely giving love’s treasure on earth. This is the delineation between the hopeful and hysterical. The latter forever cry outrage as they endlessly preach love, yet practice only hate. If one chooses perpetual grievance over trifles, what will he or she do when genuine grief comes to call? //

The unfortunate fellowship listens far more than it speaks. There is grace in silence; comfort in unspoken sharing. An understanding presence does far more good than all the platitudes and attempts to comfort with forced cheer the world has to offer. This is Scriptural, not always quoting Scripture but rather living it by actively being there when people need one another. As the song says, before He danced, Jesus wept.

No one gets over grief. We get through it. //

Solomon reminded us in Proverbs that above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. Remember this, and remember to let loss lead to love.

The John Wesley Institute hosted over 50 scholars for the Next Methodism Summit in January of 2022, producing The Faith Once Delivered: A Wesleyan Witness.

https://nextmethodism.org/wp-content/uploads/The-Faith-Once-Delivered-FINAL-1.pdf

Sixty-four scholars and theologians have signed on to a “Wesleyan witness,” a six-part, 62-page document they hope will shape the future of Methodism, define orthodox Wesleyanism, and ground more Christians in the story of sanctification and restoration through grace.

“This is classic, orthodox Wesleyan theology,” said Asbury University New Testament professor Suzanne Nicholson, who is one of the authors. “The power of the Holy Spirit is greater than the power of sin. It doesn’t matter your class, your race, your gender, God is at work among the faithful, and that leads us to a full-orbed devotion to who God is

“The Faith Once Delivered” was first drafted in January at a summit for “The Next Methodism.” Scholars allied with the evangelical wing of the United Methodist Church, as well as holiness and Pentecostal denominations, came together, formed five working groups, and co-wrote statements on five theological topics: the nature of God, Creation, revelation, salvation, and the church. A sixth section on eschatology or “the fullness of time” was added later.

When it comes to finding ways to help people deal with life's challenges, it would be strange if thousands of years of religious thought didn’t have something to offer. //

This story is adapted from How God Works: The Science Behind the Benefits of Religion, by David DeSteno.

Even though I was raised Catholic, for most of my adult life, I didn’t pay religion much heed. Like many scientists, I assumed it was built on opinion, conjecture, or even hope, and therefore irrelevant to my work. That work is running a psychology lab focused on finding ways to improve the human condition, using the tools of science to develop techniques that can help people meet the challenges life throws at them. But in the 20 years since I began this work, I’ve realized that much of what psychologists and neuroscientists are finding about how to change people’s beliefs, feelings, and behaviors—how to support them when they grieve, how to help them be more ethical, how to let them find connection and happiness—echoes ideas and techniques that religions have been using for thousands of years. //

Regularly taking part in religious practices lessens anxiety and depression, increases physical health, and even reduces the risk of early death. These benefits don’t come simply from general social contact. There’s something specific to spiritual practices themselves.The ways these practices leverage mechanisms of our bodies and minds can enhance the joys and reduce the pains of life. Parts of religious mourning rituals incorporate elements science has recently found to reduce grief. Healing rites contain elements that can help our bodies heal themselves simply by strengthening our expectations of a cure. Religions didn’t just find these psychological tweaks and nudges long before scientists arrived on the scene, but often packaged them together in sophisticated ways that the scientific community can learn from.

The surprise my colleagues and I felt when we saw evidence of religion’s benefits was a sign of our hubris, born of a common notion among scientists: All of religion is superstition and, therefore, could have little practical benefit. I’ll admit that we’re unlikely to learn much about the nature of the universe or the biology of disease from religion. But when it comes to finding ways to help people deal with issues surrounding birth and death, morality and meaning, grief and loss, it would be strange if thousands of years of religious thought didn’t have something to offer.

Over the past few years, as I’ve looked back at the results of my studies and those of other researchers, I’ve come to see a nuanced relationship between science and religion. I now view them as two approaches to improving people’s lives that frequently complement each other. It’s not that I’ve suddenly found faith or have a new agenda to defend religion. I firmly believe that the scientific method is a wonder, and offers one of the best ways to test ideas about how the world works. Like any good scientist, I’m simply following the data without prejudice. And it’s humbling.

Rather than scoffing at religion and starting psychological investigations from scratch, we scientists should be studying rituals and spiritual practices to understand their influence, and where appropriate, create new techniques and therapies informed by them.

And yet, “be careful what you pray for, you might get it!” portrays a Heavenly Father who waits up in heaven for a Gotchya! moment. Every prayer request put before Him is a “teachable moment,” every prayer for strength an opportunity to test your mettle, every prayer for patience an opportunity to run His children through the grinder of difficulty and frustration in the name of “growing” patience in His followers.

These do not seem like the actions of a heavenly Father to me, but those of a Heavenly Drill Sergeant. Who would dare ask a drill sergeant for a favor, lest he require fifty extra push-ups? //

Scripture instead describes a God who wants us to pray without fear. For everything and anything. To pray even when the prayers are ridiculous. Thomas wouldn’t believe eyewitness accounts of men he’d spent the previous three years with, men he surely trusted, and yet, Jesus granted Thomas’s desire, //

Do note that Jesus did not make Peter swim himself to shore in order to teach him perseverance or to teach him that walking on the water isn’t so important, really, and he should desire more holy and less ridiculous things. He just rescued him. Immediately. //

The Bible also abounds with accounts of those whom God made comfortable, with more than they needed. There was food left over after Jesus fed the multitude. (Mark 6:30-43) The widow who fed Elijah had food for many days after she fed the prophet. (1 Kings 17:7-16) Jesus made Thomas emotionally comfortable, (if you’ll forgive the modern idiom) even in his doubt. When Jesus called the disciples, he didn’t just give them enough fish, he gave them so many their nets started to break. (Luke 5:1-11) And when the wine ran out at the wedding at Cana? Jesus didn’t just turn the water into wine, he turned it into good wine. (John 2:10). Even Job, who is surely our best example of suffering and want save Christ himself, was restored two-fold at the end of his trial. (Job 42:7-16) //

If anything, this car is teaching me to hope again, to receive God’s good material gifts without fear that they will be snatched away in order to teach me a lesson. To ask my dear Father in Heaven just as I asked my dear earthly father when I was small. To understand that God sometimes grants abundance, and when he does, it’s because He is good, not because I am.