The Christian act of public worship in the UK is now prohibited by law. 150 years after the disestablishment of the Church in Ireland, there is no longer an established Church in any part of the British Isles. Our forebears once died of plague in an effort to save the soul of sick people. But today the Churches are closed and ministers are reduced to joining the morass of voices on YouTube.
Read moreThe Poison of Little Women
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=61598613
Having spent most of the summer researching Louisa May Alcott for a chapter in my ongoing project Creedless Christianity (and most of the autumn months writing it), the cinema release of yet another version of Little Women was a salutary reminder that I had not wasted my time. The influence of Alcott has not been measured adequately, nor to my knowledge judged.
The new film, like many modern films versions, is a twist on the original. Instead of Jo March being the heroine - the self-sacrificing, hard-working, dutiful Jo, all the publicity is centred on the character of Amy. She is the narcissist in the books, the self-absorbed and frivolous one - all modern virtues to be a heroine in the selfie generation.
Judging by interviews with the actress who plays Amy, the character has now become an ardent feminist, who can express the 20th century’s propaganda about the lot of women in the 19th century. It sounds even more dull and preaching than the original book, which Louisa May Alcott herself derided as “moral pap for the young”. Alcott’s was the 13th chapter I had written for Creedless Christianity and never before had I been forced to spend so long away from the subject to be submerged in the words of her puppet-masters. Louisa May Alcott surrendered her will, her mind and her soul at an early age to Ralph Waldo Emerson, her father Amos Bronson Alcott and writers such as Goethe and Thomas Carlyle. Her exhibitions of resentment against and dissatisfaction with Transcendentalism could not extract her from it. The poison was too deep in her bones. She would laugh at the Roman Catholic priest who offered to share the Gospel with her. She promoted Transcendentalist tenets by not rejecting them and by hating what her teachers hated. This is both implicit and explicit in Little Women. In a traditional film version of Little Women, Jo March is presented as the young woman struggling to break away from the strifling expectations of a society, which is regarded as “Christian”. It is not. It is the worst mongrel form of Transcendentalism.
Transcendentalism is bald humanism. It denies that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of God and asserts the deity of Man. It says that we are not individuals: rather we are mere elements in the Ideal Man and the Ideal Woman. If we conform to agree with other people then we promote this unity. If we have a higher principle in seeking the glory of God (as every Christian should), then we thwart this aim and we become outcasts in society. This is cultural totalitarianism. He who defines the Ideal controls the minds of society. A new version of Little Women is just another opportunity to tell women how to conform to the Ideal Woman, defined for another generation.
This film will be presented as a feminist triumph over patriarchy. And anyone who thinks that was the aim of Alcott’s book is showing their ignorance. Louisa May Alcott knew the standard expected of her by Transcendentalism. She knew that she was supposed to be a submissive milk-sop, a wet-weekend, a frail and fragile lily in the New England pond. Louisa May Alcott’s character of Jo is a girl struggling to achieve this, struggling to become what she ought to be. She wants to be a “little woman”. This is a million miles from the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
I have set out to write seven more chapters before calling Creedless Christianity complete. It cannot be rushed, as each chapter is a small book in terms of research and scope. The previous release at the cinema to catch my eye was the Frozen sequel, based on Hans Christian Andersen. He is the subject of chapter 5 in Creedless Christianity. As Christmas approaches, I recall the difficulty I had dealing with Charles Dickens in chapter 7.
These people have cast very long shadows over our lives. Dickens, for instance, makes us adopt an artificial jollity at this time of year, a Pelagian fantasy that all the world is one big sugar lump of sweetness. One of my local “vicars” has pretty much said the same in her “Christmas message”:
So if for you Christmas is little more than just a good story, think again, because in the dust and dirt of human existence we all need the jewels; the acts of compassion, love and kindness, signs of hope and joy. Those images of new birth and re-creation are what keep us living our lives to the full.
Wrong. We need the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God in Power, the Lord of All Creation, the Judge, the King.
I had the pleasure to read a very special book alongside my research into Louisa May Alcott. It was a true account written by a young woman in memorial of an invalid sister and the wonderful sister who had nursed her only to die a few years later in childbirth in the 1850s. We have the lives of three Christian women pressed into the pages like flowers from a long ago summer. They do not present an ideal woman - they show us how Christians in adversity live day to day by leaning on the Rock of their Salvation, how they find the strength to work, the courage to hope, the faith to trust, the love to endure - not because they possess any of these qualities in themselves but because they fill their cup daily from their Master’s hand and look to him for everything. Lord willing, I would like to reprint this delightful, encouraging and worthy book in the near future. To God be the glory.
No time left for sentiment
When Christianity is reduced to sentimentality, the Church neglects its duty to God. Surrendering to the world, apologising for what it believes, desperate to prove itself “kind”, the Church soon falls into decay.
Some will say that such an approach is merely love for our enemies. But consider what “love” means. It is seeking someone’s good in accordance with God’s laws. Therefore, if someone is promoting heresy and leading others on the road to perdition, we would seek their good by pointing out their errors, rather than allowing them to lead others into sin. So if we would love our enemies we will be busy and unpopular.
Read moreExcerpts from "No Earthly Good?" by Abigail J. Fox
“Culture follows religion. We cannot mend the religion of others. We can only take care of our own. Once we understand our duties, we may provide an edifying influence on the Christians around us. Should this be true and growing, then such a Church will be a beautiful sight and will produce its own culture, a vineyard worth sampling. That culture could be replicated whenever God-fearing people populate a Christian Church. And should those people find themselves with authority over regions and even a nation, then the culture will reflect the religion by God’s appointment, and not by the shortcut taken by well-meaning but arrogant Christians.
Read moreWisdom Speaks
When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you.
Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me:
For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD:
They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof.
Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.
For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.
But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.
Proverbs 1.27-33
Idols and the perversion of Florence Nightingale
For over two years I have been researching and writing for a book about idols who are accepted as Christian (or accepted by Christians). The adoration of such idols makes them millstones around our neck. We are encouraged to act in imitation of them, to construe their behaviour as Christian, even though on closer inspection they disregarded most of God’s commands and set themselves up as saviours of mankind. By worshipping such men and women, we lead others into idolatry and far from their duty before God.
Read moreThe Alignment of Romanticism and Roman Catholicism
England apostatised through Romanticism. It was a suitable portal because it did not appear to be a religion. Most people did not even know the term - they just became obsessively interested in literature, art, music and architecture. Once their interest was captured, the English became very jealous over their right to enjoy the Arts. Ultimately, in 1870, they fought the clergy over the right of the people to have a concert in a cathedral rather than a sermon. The people won and there was no turning back.
Read moreThe Theology of Song
"We Anglicans, like many other Christians, learn a fair amount of our theology through the hymns we sing"
~ N. T. Wright in For all the Saints? Remembering the Christian Departed (Continuum 2003) page xiv
This is the true reason for the deposition of the Book of Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs in the Holy Scriptures from its pre-eminent position as the appointed music of the Church. Their theology does not suit our theology. The Rev. William Romaine stood against the tide in his own generation, when the pragmatist said that the hymns of Charles Wesley were necessary because people were so ignorant of any knowledge of God.
The nature of the worth we proclaim moulds us. If we praise God's tolerance at expense of his justice and if we praise God's love in the absence of his mercy, then we sing from a different hymn-sheet. This does not mean that Christians cannot write good songs. But they are not fit for God's worship. Our theology is too poor and the Lord God knew it in giving us songs for his worship. He leads us as children. If we stand on the table and pronounce that we are tall enough to look grown up and can now write songs for ourselves, we only show how childish we still are.
Tohu and Bohu
Before creation, there was Tohu and Bohu - confusion and emptiness.
Each day of creation banished tohu and bohu more and more.
Light established clarity, where darkness brought confusion.
Light revealed the subsequent creations - plants, birds, fish animals - and a world so far from empty as to be full of goodness.
The creation of man was the final abolition of confusion, for man was commanded to rule Eden. With the order for all creatures and life to be fruitful and multiply, the world was to be less empty, every day, every year, everywhere.
Read moreThe Bible and the Composer
One of the matters I sought to refute in Beauty and Joy: The Christian Nature of Music is the idea that the best art made by Christians is art with content drawn from the Bible.
Paul Westermeyer advocates - or rather assumes - this:
If you emphasise Christ’s humanity at the expense of his divinity, you might choose music that affirms our humanity - music that relates to us who are beings with bodies. If you follow this logic, the music may be rhythmic and perhaps even sensuous. Or may be the highest possible art.
Read moreDepression
Katharine Welby, daughter of the Archbishop of Canterbury, has been speaking about her "battle with depression". Met by tremendous sympathy, she has responded by launching the public presentation of the "Happiness Course". This is an Alpha-course lite - positive thinking and no Gospel. One might ask why the daughter of the Archbishop thinks this is a wise move, given her profession of faith as expressed on her own site. Where is the common ground?
The common ground is in the language of humanism as determined by one word: depression. Miss Welby thinks of depression as a disease, an affliction, a trial. She is bold in doing so, in the face of a Church that likes to pretend that as role models to the world, Christians must be perfect. And that is why she will be welcome to everyone - Christians will have sympathy and humanists will rejoice to see a Christian who admits that she still has problems.
Read moreHow not to Wright a Song
This is a video of N. T. Wright, former Bishop of Durham, also known as "Tom". His ability to sell theological books seems to know no bounds. And now he also sings, after a fashion.
Comments could be made about the music. It might be said that it is cheap artistry to steal someone else's song and change the words (which it is). It might be said that his lyrics barely scan and that the song itself makes precious little sense.
But setting all that aside, what we have is N. T. Wright sticking two fingers up (musically speaking) at Creationists and doing so with the cockiness more commonly found in posturing and inebriated adolescents.
And therein lies the other problem.
This is a former Bishop of the Church of England. Where is his sobriety? Where is his reverence? How can he even think of singing flippantly of the Fall and even consider "why did we have to fall, I don't know, it doesn't say" as a tolerable sentiment?
Wright performed 3 songs for the private group and the comments on that site are perhaps more enlightening than the songs themselves, as it is assumed by one contributor that having Tom Wright sing anything comes under the umbrella of "Psalms, hymns and Spiritual songs".
As a parting shot, the former Bishop is quoted as having said of the evening that he had not had so much fun in a long time. One shudders to imagine "fun" as a requisite for Rev. George Whitefield, for Hugh Latimer, Thomas Bilney, for William Tyndale, or any of the other Englishmen who have lived and died as ministers of Jesus Christ.