Friday, May 30, 2008

just one more...

I couldn't resist this one. Glad to say we don't have this issue at RCG, but this brought the memories flooding back for me! This was SO the church I attended in LA. Our youth group "ushers" even had t-shirts with "SECURITY" printed on the back armed with mag lights!

Note the somber warning to be on the look out for this trend. I wouldn't put it past a certain smiley usher and I know that sound guy's suspicious...

#225. Turning ushers into the secret service.

Recently, a few people pointed out a trend to me. At churches across the nation, both big and small, there's a bit of an revolution going on in the world of ushering. Now, I've never been an usher but I have handed things out before, so I feel somewhat qualified to discuss this topic. The bottom line is that ushers are becoming more and more like the secret service. I am of course talking about the group of men and women that are dedicated to protecting the President of the United States of America. That often silent, but dangerous group of people that kind of look like the dark suited bad guys from the Matrix.


How did this happen? Why did ushers become like members of the secret service? I have a few theories:

1. Earpieces and walkie talkies.
As soon as you started wiring ushers for communication, I think we got ourselves in trouble. The walkie talkies were one thing. When they got those, it became fun to come up with handles and nicknames and code words. "This is Tall Paul, we gotta smoky on two looking for three hot seats, I repeat three hot seats." And the earpieces are even worse. You can't help but want to give somebody the kung fu grip when you have one of those in your ear. It's like the time my two year old hit her older sister in the head with the wooden xylophone mallet. She was curious, she just wanted to use it and see what kind of sound a head would make.

2. Hand signals.
What happened to just waving people down to available seats with your arm like a guy dressed as a cow in front of a fast food restaurant? The ushers I see have hand signals like Tom Berenger used in the movie "Sniper." I can't tell if they're saying there are some middle row seats available or if they found a good hiding place in some bamboo down by the creek two clicks away from the drug dealers.

3. Stretching before service.
Musician Henry Rollins used to say that it cracked him up when he'd see his mosh pit fans stretching and warming up in the bathroom before one of his shows. Same goes for church. If you ever see an usher limbering up before service be afraid. Be very afraid.

4. The sleeper hold.
I've seen people storm out of church before, but so far, no one I know has received a sleeper hold a la Jimmy "the Superfly" Snuka. But it's coming, trust me it's coming. I'm waiting for the day that some punk won't scoot into the middle and make room for a visitor. The usher will just lean over, sleeper hold the guy and whisper, "Shhh, it's OK. Just sleep, just sleep."

Maybe you're church has not experienced this changing of the guard, but at least now you'll know the warning signs.

Stuff Christians Like #262

Alright, I don't endorse everything this guy writes, but I love his sense of humor. Check this out:

#262. Hoping TBS edits the Sex in the City movie too.

Whoa, look at us being topical, conversing about a movie that is premiering this week.

I know some Christian ladies that like the show "Sex in the City." They watch it and laugh and secretly wonder what it would be like if the character "Mr. Big" ever became a Christian. ("He's so dreamy and could totally take Patrick Dempsey's character from Grey's Anatomy in a fight.") They are cool with the show. But if I ever asked them to watch the DVD version, they would slap me square in the mouth and say, "How dare you, how dare you indeed! Good day, sir." (In my head, I have very fancy sounding friends.)

They don't like the HBO version, they like the version the television station TBS plays. That one has a lot less nudity, adult situations, swearing etc. It's like they dialed the Samantha character back a few degrees from "skanky" to "flirtatious." And when they announced a movie version of the show was coming out I could see my friends quietly thinking, "I can't wait to see that in three years on TV! Please, please, please TBS play an edited version."

And I don't blame them or judge them. I like when they show movies like Fight Club on television. I feel a little better about myself and think that God is up there in heaven saying, "What is that, 37% less swears? Good, yeah that's good. Go ahead and watch that." OK, He's probably not saying that. I imagine He might be saying, "Less swears? I'm a swear monitor now? You've turned me into the FCC? Come on Jon. I'm bigger and wilder than that. I don't ask you to not look at stuff like that because I'm a stiff. I ask you not to because what I've got for you is even cooler. And when you fill your head with other stuff it dilutes how much mental space you've got to enjoy my stuff, which I promise is sick."

That's what I think anyway.

I also recommend #66 and #231

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

On testimonies...

I know that every heart that has been regenerated by God's grace is a testimony of His sovereign power. I know that my "testimony" is just as significant as anyones. I praise God that He allowed me to learn of Him from a young age. However, you have to admit that some people just have better stories about God's working in their life than others.

The youth groups and high school chapel services I attended as a kid would regularly feature speakers giving their testimonies. So many of them sounded the same: somehow I ruined my life (drinking, drugs, sex, etc.) and when I hit rock bottom I turned to God. These speakers always frustrated me because the message coming across to my classmates was, "live it up now and when you're old like me you can fix your life up again." What about me!?!? I want to live the Christian life now! Anyway...I think I was just longing for the pure spiritual milk (1 Peter 2:2)...

But how encouraging is it to hear of God's saving grace in someone's life?!?! The last two weeks we've had the privilege of hearing solid, gospel-filled testimonies from several young people who've sought baptism at our church. Here's another testimony I read recently on Tim Challies. It's long, but if you're up for it, I know it will encourage you like it has me:

The Revival of a Rebel Jew

In June Crossway will release Colin Duriez’s Francis Schaeffer: An Authentic Life. To my knowledge there are currently no biographies of Schaeffer in print—and certainly none that could be recommended as being comprehensive (and this includes Frankie Schaeffer’s lamentable recent effort). I have a particular interest in Schaeffer because in many ways he shaped my faith and I’ve been reading the manuscript for this book with rapt attention. Though I have not read many of Schaeffer’s works and though I never met the man, he was a major influence on my parents and on many of their friends; he shaped me through them. Yesterday I spent some time thinking of people I know who were influenced by the Schaeffers and came up with a good list. My parents would head up that list, of course. When they were newly married they visited L’Abri for a week or two and returned to Europe shortly after to spend the better part of a year at English L’Abri. Their grounding in the Christian faith came at the hands of the Schaeffers. Many of our family friends, friends we spent a lot of time with when I was young, were also shaped by Schaeffer. This would include people like Rick and Nancy Pearcey and Richard Ganz.

I sent Rich an email yesterday to ask if he’d mind guest-posting his testimony here this morning. He was willing to do so and I’m grateful to him. It is a powerful testimony and one that moves me every time I read or hear it.

Rich is now the pastor of Ottawa Reformed Presbyterian Church and has authored several books. His wife, Nancy, has written four commentaries for children (published by Shepherd Press). He was born in New York City, and raised in a Jewish home. He graduated from the City University of New York with a degree in Psychology. He then earned his master’s degree and his Doctorate in Clinical Psychology at Wayne State University. After a year’s internship in the department of psychiatry at Wayne State University Medical Center, in Detroit, Michigan, he followed that with a year of Post-Doctoral study in the department of child psychiatry at Upstate Medical Center, in Syracuse, New York, where he was later on the Clinical Faculty of the Department of Psychiatry, as well as teaching at Syracuse University.

But his testimony begins with his youth…


richard_web.jpgIn my youth I spent every afternoon studying the Hebrew Scriptures, five days a week, and on Friday night and Saturday I worshiped. As I grew older I worshiped for a time each day in the synagogue morning and evening. I would rise before dawn and before going to the morning service, in obedience to rabbinic tradition, I would put on tefillin—the boxes containing God’s law—on my forehead and arm.

Then one cold, clear midwinter night my life was shattered. My father had a heart attack and I ran for comfort and hope to the one place I thought I would find it—the synagogue. The doors were locked and as I hammered on them I looked up into the New York night sky, cold, crystal-clear and filled with stars and I cursed God. “I am through with you!” I said. But that night, as I turned away from the God of Israel; the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, little did I realize that he was far from through with me.

The next twelve years of my life were not lived in the synagogue. In my rebellion I went so far as to renounce the covenant name given at my circumcision—Elkanah. I modified it a little, so that I was no longer Elkanah but Kanah.

In the Bible there is nothing accidental about names. Abram means, “Exalted father” and Abraham means, “Father of a multitude”. When he was 99 years old and Sarah was 89 and they were promised a son they laughed at God. But God said he would give them a son and they named him Isaac, which means, “laughter”.

When Jacob and Esau were born and Jacob pulled at the heel of his brother he was named for that action; the name Jacob means, “the grasper” and all his life he grasped. He grasped after the blessing and the birthright. He lived up to that name and when he met God and wrestled with him he said, I want your blessing. God said, What is your name? You want a blessing, grasper? No longer is your name “Grasper”; you have grasped with God and you have prevailed. Your name is, Israel—he who has wrestled with God and prevailed.

The Hebrew name Elkanah means, “Possessed by God” but I changed it to Kanah, translated as Cain in English versions of the Bible. Cain means, “Possessed”; and for the next twelve years of my life I was possessed with the world and with what it offered; I was possessed with getting ahead in life; I was possessed with Rich Ganz. I led what appeared to be a very laudable life. I moved ahead in what I desired to do. I went through university and graduate school, from which I graduated top of the class. Following my internship and a year of post-doctoral study, I was teaching at a medical center at a major university.

The Twilight Zone

During my year of post doctoral studies, the realization hit me one day at a staff meeting that psychoanalysis—the area I thought provided the answer to life—was nonsense. Until that point I had been searching for some form of therapy—individual therapy, group therapy, hypnotherapy or some other kind of therapy through which I could discover the meaning of life: what we were all about and why we’re here. Instead, I discovered that it was all rubbish. But instead of looking for the answer to life elsewhere I cynically told myself that although psychoanalysis was meaningless I was going to become very rich practicing it. If life was meaningless at least I could have fun by being wealthy in a meaningless life. All I had to do was sit in a chair listening to my patients, nod my head every few minutes, and charge $75 an hour.

To celebrate my selection from 212 applicants to that position at the university medical center my wife and I took a trip to Europe into a series of unbelievable situations. We had tickets for Athens scheduled but the night before we picked them up my wife suddenly sat bolt upright up in bed saying, “We can’t get out of Athens! We can’t get out of Athens!” The next day when arriving to pick up our student-rate tickets we were told that the tickets would get us into Athens but not out!

ganz-q-2.gifNancy became terrified. She thought she was in the Twilight Zone; something supernatural had happened and the only interpretation she could place on it was that it was something evil. We changed our plans and found ourselves being drawn inexplicably and inextricably in a direction totally contrary to our agenda.

We ended up in a little Dutch town looking for somewhere to stay. No one knew of any hotel or inn. Night was falling, we were on the banks of the Rhine, it was getting a chilly and my wife was frightened. She then did something she hadn’t done since she was a child - she prayed. It was a very simple prayer: “God, if you are there, please find us a place to stay”. At that moment , out of the darkness of an alley walked a man of average height, very pale, with long blond hair and blue eyes. “Ask him”, she said.

Tell Them Buck Sent You

He told us to go three blocks down, turn right, walk another three blocks and we would see exactly where we were supposed to stay: “Just tell them Buck sent you”, he said. It seemed bizarre but we followed his directions until we came to a co-operative for the students of the last gold and silver making school in Europe. During the next two weeks we saw all the people who had told us there was no place to stay. They were all friends with the young people who lived in this house but there was one person we didn’t meet again; for two weeks we searched for Buck. No one in the town had ever heard of him or recognized our description of him. A year later I was receiving letters from students who were still trying to find him.

On the last day, as we were leaving, someone handed me a slip of paper with an address and told me there were “some really beautiful people” there. I knew I was being drawn in a certain direction and it seemed as though every step was being taken for me and it was predestined.

We arrived at L’Abri at about five on a Saturday afternoon. I had prepared a careful explanation as to why we were suddenly turning up on their doorstep. However, before I could say anything, the door opened and we were greeted: “You’ve arrived! Welcome!”

Anyone at the Cross Could Have Written That!

The next few days were interesting. They were full of religious discussion. But as a man with no sense of God, seeing myself as a chance accumulation of molecules in an absurd and meaningless world, I listened and talked to these people, questioning and mocking their beliefs. Then one day a man asked me if he could read something from the Bible to me. I consented, and this is what he read.

Behold, My Servant shall deal prudently; He shall be exalted and extolled and be very high. Just as many were astonished at you, so His visage was marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men; so shall He sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths at Him; for what had not been told them they shall see, and what they had not heard they shall consider.

Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

I’d heard that expression “Man of sorrows” and “acquainted with grief” before, though I wasn’t sure where. But at that point I suddenly understood what was happening: they were reading to me about Jesus. I thought, Do they know what they are doing, reading this Christian stuff to a Jew? But I told myself to be patient.

Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions…

Images of Renaissance paintings leapt to my mind. I wasn’t an ordinary Jewish guy; I had a doctorate; I was cultured; I’d seen paintings with crosses; I knew that their guy had been pierced. They were trying to read me stories about Jesus and I felt the anger rising in me.

…He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all…

Jesus just bore your sins! I couldn’t stand it. That was just a cheap way out of long term psychoanalysis. What they were telling me was “the Catholic way”. From the age of seven, when I had walked into a Catholic church I thought Jesus was a Catholic: Scandinavian, perhaps, very delicate, tall, thin—slightly anorexic—with long silken blond hair and piercing blue eyes. I had got as far as the vestibule of the church, looked at one of the statues and thought that the ground was going to open up and swallow me; that I was unalterably damned for having done that and I ran eight blocks home to get away from what I considered an unpardonable sin.

…He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgement, and who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgressions of My people He was stricken. And they made His grave with the wicked — but with the rich at His death…

I remembered pictures of Jesus on the cross and the two thieves, one on either side of him. Three crosses—I knew that stuff; they weren’t going to fool me with their rhetoric.

…but with the rich at His death, because He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth. Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days…

There was the myth about the resurrection. They get it into all their literature, don’t they. They can’t accept the fact that once a person is dead, he’s dead. Grow up! Put away your infantile neuroses and realise that when you’re dead, you’re dead; that’s it.

…He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong, because He poured out His soul unto death, and He was numbered with the transgressors, and He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

When he finished reading, he looked at me and said, “What do you think?”

I was, of course, keen to give the benefit of my insights. They were obviously quoting to me from their New Testament and I responded without a moment’s hesitation: “Anyone who was there at that cross could have written that stuff! What does that prove?”

ganz-q-1.gifHe handed me the Bible and in a millisecond of receiving it, my life was changed. The name that I saw at the top of the page was Isaiah! They had been reading from my Bible, my Hebrew Scriptures and I felt as though someone had taken a sword and cut me to pieces. When the man who read it told me it was written 700 years before Jesus was born, I felt dead. Why couldn’t it be Krishna? Why couldn’t it be Buddha? Why does it have to be him? I knew at that instant that if Jesus wrote history about himself in my Bible—if the Gentile God was the Jewish God and he was truly God—then I had to submit everything to him for the rest of my life.

A Bird’s Eye View of the Bible

During our stay at L’Abri, someone gave my wife Nancy a tape by Edith Schaeffer called, A Bird’s-Eye View of the Bible, an overview of the Scriptures from Genesis through to Revelation in 40 minutes, dealing with the theme of the Lamb of God. From her earliest days until her confirmation she had been familiar with the phrase, “Behold the Lamb of God”, and always wondered why Jesus was given that name. Just as I had learned from Isaiah that Messiah was to be a sacrifice for sin, Nancy discovered the same truth from that title given to Jesus. After listening to the tape she went out to the apple orchard at L’Abri and surrendered her life to Jesus Christ.

Four Little Words

When we returned to the United States I was given a patient at the medical center who hadn’t spoken an intelligent word in four and a half years. My assignment was, Get Immanuel to speak four or five words coherently. He came into my group therapy session, sat down and began to hyperventilate and writhe around. He said, “I’m Jesus Christ!” I pulled out a Gideon New Testament and read from the 24th chapter of Matthew’s Gospel: “Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There!’ do not believe it … For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be”.

Silence.

“Where did you read that?”

I threw the Bible to him, “In the Gospel of Matthew. Read it.”

And for a month he was silent, then he came to my office: “Dr. Ganz [I was impressed], I want to become a Christian.”

I took Immanuel into my office, shared the Good News of Jesus with him and, with tears, he received Christ. The next day the director of my department called me into his office. “Rich”, he said, “I have been here 31 years and I’ve just heard the craziest story. Immanuel has been running around the ward telling everyone who will listen that he’s saved.”

I interrupted at that point: “How many words did it take him to say it?” I was hoping they’d realize what great success this was.

“And that’s not the worst of it, Rich”, he said, “he’s attributing it to you. Many people wanted your job, Rich, and I’ll tell you what we’ll do. If you promise never to do this again—do it after work if you must—but if from nine till four you leave Jesus out, we’ll forget this ever happened.”

ganz-q-3.gifI asked for a day to think and pray about it and the next day I said, “Howard, I’m going to share with you what I believe”, and I summed up by saying that I must obey God and could not keep Jesus from my patients. I was fired and Immanuel left the hospital with me and went to Bible College where he prepared for missionary work.

I couldn’t believe what had happened. Psychoanalysis was all I knew; I couldn’t do anything else with my life. If I went to another hospital or another university the same thing would happen. I thought everything was over.

Someone suggested that I go to Westminster Theological Seminary where Dr. Jay E. Adams, the author of a number of books on counseling was a professor. I spent the next four years studying at Westminster and working with Dr. Adams at the Christian Counseling Center. Through this God led us in a very unusual way into something I never would have chosen to do or to be involved in—pastoral ministry. The years have not seen me smiling and happy all the time. Daily breaking and humbling by God has been excruciating in some ways. God had called me to preach his Son and, as Paul of Tarsus put it: “Woe is me if I do not preach the gospel.”

Thursday, May 22, 2008

They grow up...

Paul is getting big. Not sure how big. We don't go back to the Dr. until early July. But he's totally filling out his onesies and putting some chub on those thighs. He's still sleeping a lot of the day, but also doing a good 6 hr. snooze from 9pm - 3am. This is my quality sleep time :-)


Boys aren't supposed to be cute, so don't worry about leaving any of those ooey, gooey cute baby comments. I'm hoping that he'll be ruggedly handsome someday (think Tom Selleck, not Jason Castro).

Sarah is getting big too. Here's a better picture of a big kid milestone we experienced this week while bitting into an apple. If you look closely you can see the absence of a bottom front tooth:



Since the bleeding has stopped and she's regained her composure she's now quite proud of her gap. Daddy's reaction, "I better hurry up and find her a husband!"

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

have I mentioned this already?

Amy's Humble Musings is just a great blog. If you don't regularly click over there you should. Here's why:

The world is a yucky place, and those of us with the same goals—like doing right by our children and doing it for God– should stick together. What if we really threw each other for a loop and said, “You’re doing a good job”? I know we need to flesh some things out, but what if we started out on the same page more often?

Every person reading this knows someone in real life who is doing a good job. Why not say it? I don’t think we suffer from too much encouragement that it can turn into a pride-fest. At the end of the day, we want to lay our head on the pillow and know that the day was not wasted. That’s why it’s important to do all things for Jesus– bottles or cups.

Let’s do this. Next time you see an 18-month-old running around with a bottle, resist the urge to gasp in horror and discuss orthodontics. Try this instead, “You are so patient with your kids. That’s awesome.” It’s a step in the right direction. I have this theory—moms who are not beating themselves up all the time for their deficiencies have more time to research bottles and cups and dentists. (Or concentrate on the stuff of life that really matters.) Look, I don’t want you newbie moms—you know I love ya– kicking yourself when you realize how hyper you were. Just calm down now and save yourself the apologies. We moms need to stick together. We can hear each other better when we’re building up one another.

Take it from me, you’re awesome.

I couldn't have said it better myself!!! (yes, that's really just an excuse for not having the time to write original content.)

Monday, May 19, 2008

The Imagination of C.S.Lewis

time for an uplifting, non-critical post. One of these days I might get some time to write (or have) an original thought. Until then, enjoy a nice piece from elsewhere on the web...

From Tabletalk

by Leland Ryken

The most important lessons that we can learn from C.S. Lewis' Narnian Chronicles are the ones that Lewis himself wanted us to learn. It so happens that Lewis said enough about literature in general and the Narnian books in particular that it is possible to read Lewis' classic children's stories with the author himself.

One of the most important pieces of advice that Lewis gave to readers of literature is that they must receive a work of literature instead of using it. Lewis wrote, "A work of...art can be either 'received' or 'used'. When we 'receive' it we exert our senses and imagination and various other powers according to a pattern invented by the artist. When we 'use' it we treat it as assistance for our own activities" (emphasis added). According to this line of thought, "The first demand any work of art makes upon us is surrender. Look. Listen. Receive. Get yourself out of the way."

This is not to deny that we should make use of what we read. It is instead a caution to let stories set their own agenda of concerns according to the order created by the author, not to impose our own agenda on them according to our own timetable as we progress through a story. Lewis' rule of thumb was to let stories "tell you their own moral" and not "put one in." The relevance of this to the Narnian stories is that the religious aspects of the stories usually do not appear until approximately halfway through the books. Many Christian readers are impatient with that and force the opening chapters into something that Lewis did not intend.

The second warning that Lewis gave is not to reduce works of literature to a set of ideas. He claimed that "one of the prime achievements in every good fiction has nothing to do with truth or philosophy...at all." To regard a story "as primarily a vehicle for...philosophy is an outrage to the thing the poet has made for us." Works of literature "are complex and carefully made objects. Attention to the very objects they are is our first step." This, too, should steer us away from how many Christian readers deal with The Chronicles of Narnia.

How the Narnian Stories Were Composed
In addition to the general guidelines for reading literature, Lewis left us some very useful tips for reading the Narnian stories in particular. For example, Lewis famously said that "all my seven Narnian books...began with pictures in my head. At first they were not a story, just pictures." Thus The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe "began with a picture of Faun carrying an umbrella and parcels in a snowy wood." Just as we are recovering from the shock of that revelation, Lewis adds, "This picture had been in my mind since I was about sixteen. Then one day, when I was about forty, I said to myself: 'Let's try to make a story about it.'"

Just in case we might think that we cannot possibly have heard things correctly, Lewis also gave us another passage of similar import -- only more shocking. In countering the assumption of some of his readers that he "began by asking myself how I could say something about Christianity to children," Lewis claimed that "at first there wasn't even anything Christian about [the stories]."

The order of composition suggests an order of reading. If we follow the lead of Lewis himself, a major lesson we can learn from the Narnian stories is that they are first of all stories -- adventure stories, fantasy stories, children's stories. These narrative features are not simply "a disguise for something more 'adult'."

How the Narnian Stories Became Christian Classics
Of course this does not mean that we need to abandon our conviction that the Narnian Chronicles are Christian classics -- stories in which Christian experiences and doctrines are movingly embodied. In the same passage in which Lewis claimed that initially there was nothing Christian about the stories, he added, "That element pushed itself in of its own accord." So there is a Christian dimension to the stories, as we have known since our first encounter with them. In a letter that Lewis wrote a year and a half before his death, he said that there is "a deeper meaning behind" the surface details of the stories.

The key to the religious meanings of the Narnian stories is the figure of Aslan. When at age forty Lewis decided to try to make a story out of his mental pictures of "a faun carrying an umbrella, a queen on a sledge, a magnificent lion," at first he "had very little idea how the story would go. But then suddenly Aslan came bounding into it. ...Once He was there he pulled the whole story together, and soon He pulled the six other Narnian stories in after him."

It is pretty obvious that Aslan pulled not only the stories together but also the religious vision of the stories. Lewis himself said as much: in the letter quoted above, Lewis said that "the whole Narnian story is about Christ."

Spiritual and Moral Lessons from Narnia
One level of Christian meaning in the Narnian Chronicles is the moral vision embodied in the stories. It is the story of a great, cosmic struggle between good and evil -- and the need of themes_narnia_cs_lewis.jpgevery creature to choose between them. The vision of the stories corresponds to Lewis' view of the world itself, which in one of his essays he described as a universe in which "there is no neutral ground" and in which "every square inch, every split second, is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan."

In addition to this moral vision, the Narnian stories embody a theological vision. At the heart of that vision is the figure of Aslan, who represents Christ. Thus the qualities attributed to Aslan, the acts that he performs, the ways in which he relates to characters in the stories and the characters to him, the devotion that he elicits from those who believe in him and follow him -- all these are an implied picture of the Christian life. We will not go wrong, therefore, if we simply view the story of Aslan as the story of Christ. The parts of the stories in which Aslan is an active participant can thus be read devotionally, and in fact this is how Christian readers intuitively assimilate the stories.


Generating outward from this christological center of the narrative world of Narnia are more general Christian themes. The stories as a whole cover the same metanarrative ("big story") that the Bible presents. Within the mode of the fantasy story genre, we read about the creation of the world; the fall of that world from an original innocence; the struggle between good and evil (or Christ and forces of darkness) throughout fallen history; the atoning, substitutionary death and the resurrection of Christ; and the eschatological end of the world and beginning of eternity. It is no stretch to say that the Bible itself forms the subtext of the Narnian stories.

aslan_ryken_quote.jpg As we revisit the contours of salvation history in the Narnian stories, we are also led to contemplate the outline of Christian doctrine. Chief among these doctrines is what might be called the doctrine of God. From the stories we get a picture of God as creator, as judge, as sovereign, as the one who guides history to His ends, and as the one who saves. A view of the person emerges strongly as well. Its chief tenets are that people are moral agents who must choose for or against God, and that people have a dual capacity for great good and great evil. A doctrine of evil also emerges strongly, as we are continuously aware of the tremendous power of evil in the world and its ultimate defeat by Christ (the Christus victor motif).

The final lesson that we need to learn in regard to this spiritual depth in the stories is that the religious meanings are embodied in the form of narrative fantasy. As readers we need to experience and relish the stories as children's stories first of all. The religious meanings can be trusted to reveal themselves at the points in the narrative (chiefly the parts where Aslan is an active character) where Lewis intended them to be present.

*****

Dr. Leland Ryken is professor of English at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, and he is author of The Christian Imagination.

From Ligonier Ministries and R.C. Sproul. ©2008 Tabletalk Magazine. Subscribe here.

Friday, May 16, 2008

Are you comfortable with this?


I'm not. It seems weird and sad. What do you think?

from today's Bee...

Anita Creamer: Bundles of joy -- next stop, Florida

Madeline and Gavin Cruce, born recently to aunt/surrogate mother Crystal Ellis of Folsom, go home with their biological parents

What words are there to convey the meaning of the gift of a lifetime that Crystal has already given Shannon? After Shannon Cruce learned she couldn't carry babies to term, Crystal Ellis – a 35-year-old Folsom mother of two – volunteered to do it for her. She served as a gestational carrier, in fertility experts' lingo; the incubator of the biological offspring of her sister and brother-in-law.

With the twins' births on April 25, Shannon and Mark Cruce have a full house, a complete family.

Surrogate pregnancy has been made specifically legal in only a dozen states, and only an estimated 1,000 surrogate pregnancies occur each year nationally. But Californians generally seem comfortable with the procedure – and so, of course, is the extended Cruce-Ellis family.


and I like the part about them deciding their family is now "complete." Eeek.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Who/what is Reformed?

Paul slept well last night and I finally got caught up on some Tim Challies. He linked to this post a few weeks ago and I found it interesting. It's a discussion that often occurs around our home as I've married out of the "reformed" church, but into a community strongly committed to the doctrines of grace (yet not reformed). R. Scott Clark argues that "baptists" can't claim the title "reformed."

Who licensed anyone to re-define the adjective Reformed? Why should Reformed folk accept such a re-definition? If the Baptists, who reject our view of the covenants, who reject our view of our children as heirs of the covenant of grace and its promises, who reject our understanding of redemptive history (no small thing), who reject our ecclesiology, can deny a good bit of what it means to be Reformed and yet call themselves “Reformed” why can’t others play the same game? Why can’t the Open-Theists call themselves “Reformed?” Why can’t Arminians call themselves Reformed? After all, the Remonstrants were members of the Reformed Churches and they accepted a fair bit of our theology. Where do we stop? If the doctrine of the church and sacraments are negotiable why aren’t the doctrines of God, Christ, and salvation also negotiable?

Put another way, why can’t we call Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Bradwardine, and Gregory of Rimini (anachronistically) “Reformed”? They held to “the doctrines of grace.” There were five pointers long before the Synod of Dort.

(I don't know who some of those guys were, but I'm assuming they were pre-reformation Christians.)

What do you think?

Monday, May 12, 2008

Welcome to the World, Trig Paxson Van Palin

From Dr. Mohler. Love this post...

A little boy with an extra chromosome was born on April 18. His name is Trig Paxson Van Palin and his new home is the Alaska Governor's Mansion in Juneau. His mom is Governor Sarah Palin, who along with her husband Todd, has welcomed Trig as their second son and fifth child.

Governor Palin has already made a mark on the political scene. A high school basketball star and beauty queen, she was elected Alaska's governor in 2006. She is often mentioned as a potential running mate for Sen. John McCain. The Palins' other children include Track, their oldest son, who now serves in the U.S. Army. They also have three daughters, Bristol, Willow, and Piper.

Trig made news long before he was born, as Alaska's citizens learned that their governor was pregnant. Then, for the Palins, the story got more complicated.

This past December, Sarah Palin was told that her baby was likely to have Down syndrome -- just one extra chromosome.

As the Associated Press reports:

The doctor's announcement in December, when Palin was four months pregnant, presented her with a possible life- and career-changing development.

"I've never had problems with my other pregnancies, so I was shocked," said Palin.

"It took a while to open up the book that the doctor gave me about children with Down syndrome, and a while to log on to the Web site and start reading facts about the situation."

When he was told, Todd Palin quickly said, "We shouldn't be asking, 'Why us?' We should be saying, 'Well, why not us?'"

The Palins never considered aborting the baby. That means that Trig Palin is now is a very rare group of very special children, because it is now believed that the vast majority of babies diagnosed with Down syndrome before birth are being aborted.

Modern diagnostic tests are driving a "search and destroy mission" to eliminate babies judged to be inferior, disabled, or deformed. Some experts now believe that up to 90 percent of all pregnancies diagnosed as having a likelihood of Down syndrome end in abortion.

Back in 2005, ethicist George Neumayr commented: "Each year in America fewer and fewer disabled infants are born. The reason is eugenic abortion. Doctors and their patients use prenatal technology to screen unborn children for disabilities, then they use that information to abort a high percentage of them. Without much scrutiny or debate, a eugenics designed to weed out the disabled has become commonplace."

The Palins would not even consider aborting their baby. "We've both been very vocal about being pro-life," Governor Palin said. "We understand that every innocent life has wonderful potential."

She loves her baby boy and is proud of him. "I'm looking at him right now, and I see perfection," Palin told the Associated Press. "Yeah, he has an extra chromosome. I keep thinking, in our world, what is normal and what is perfect?"

Some ethicists now go so far as to argue for a "duty" to abort a baby with a Down diagnosis. This is an assault upon the dignity of every human being. The fact that so few Down syndrome babies now make it to birth is a sign that America is making its own pact with the Culture of Death.

Trig Paxson Van Palin has an extra chromosome, two proud and loving parents, four very happy siblings, and he will bring his own joy to untold numbers of lives.

He will face some unique challenges, but he has a loving family who will face those with him. They will learn together the wonder and beauty of a Down syndrome child and will learn to see the glory of God in his trusting face.

Mothers Day 2008 is certain to be a special day in the Alaska Governor's Mansion. What an unspeakable tragedy that so many other homes will have aborted that joy.

Welcome to the world, Trig Paxson Van Palin. Your very existence defies the Culture of Death and gives us all hope.

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Once in a while we see his eyeballs

I'm happy to report baby Paul is getting "with the program." I had my doubts, but he seems to be agreeing that nighttime is for sleeping now. All week he's been sleeping well in between feedings (which means I have too!) and last night he only woke up once. Yeah!



Paul's Dr. checked his weight yesterday and he's up to 8lbs, 10 oz. now. So that's almost a whole pound over last week. Yum, milk!

Now, if I can only figure out how to get through the library with a sufficient quantity of non-offensive, age-appropriate books to keep Phillip occupied for more than 3 hrs. while not losing Ruth, Sarah or Paul or dis-shelving everything 3 ft. up and below... I think I need a double stroller (aka: baby jail), although it seems like admitting defeat. I should be able to keep control of my brood by the shear force of my maternal authority, right?