Tried With Fire

I came across this Reformed Forum podcast with Dr. Richard M. Gamble, historian and member of the OPC. Dr. Gamble has just published a book, A Fiery Gospel: The Battle Hymn of the Republic and the Road to Righteous War. This book covers the background of the familiar "hymn," which was eye-opening to me. In a nutshell, a supposedly Christian song was written by a Unitarian who was influenced by German liberalism. The podcast is very interesting and points out how easily we are swayed by Christian-ish lyrics that sound vaguely biblical. Perhaps the vagueness is the reason The Battle Hymn endured and became part of American civil religion. I requested A Fiery Gospel through the public library, which I am hoping to read. In the meantime, I looked up Dr. Gamble's other books. His main area of research is American civil religion, a topic that I find grimly fascinating. I was able to find a copy of this book - In Search of the City on a Hill: The Making and Unmaking of an A...

For he shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper. (Psalm 72:12) The needy cries; what else can he do? His cry is heard of God; what else need he do? Let the needy reader take to crying at once, for this will be his wisdom. Do not cry in the ears of friends, for even if they can help you it is only because the Lord enables them. The nearest way is to go straight to God and let your cry come up before Him. Straightforward makes the best runner: run to the Lord and not to secondary causes. "Alas!" you cry, "I have no friend or helper." So much the better; you can rely upon God in both capacities-as without supplies and without helpers. Make your double need your double plea. Even for temporal mercies you may wait upon God, for He careth for His children in these temporary concerns. As for spiritual necessities, which are the heaviest of all, the Lord will hear your cry and will deliver you and supply you. O poor fri...

A friend on Facebook shared the trailer for a new movie, The Farewell. The premise of the story immediately grabbed me. The matriarch of a Chinese family has been diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. Her family decide not to tell her the bad news, so they engineer her grandson's wedding as a way to get everyone together one last time. A goodbye without saying goodbye. This idea is very foreign from a Western perspective, and the main character, a Chinese American woman, wrestles with family, love, and loss when cultures conflict. I can't wait to see the movie even it means bawling in the movie theater. But this movie also brings out the differences between East and West. "You think one's life belongs to oneself. But that's the difference between the East and the West. In the East, a person's life is part of a whole. Family." There are plenty of stereotypes, but research has shown that the West is independent. The East is interdependent. The West see...

Pastor Ryan preached on Romans 1:18-32 yesterday. Yes, that chapter about those sexual sins. But we need to examine the Word itself before jumping to how a passage may address the current culture war. So here's a summary of my sermon notes and then a few of my reflections. The 1st question in the Westminster catechism is - "What is the chief end of man? Answer - "To glorify God and enjoy him forever." Paul lays out the need for the gospel because we need a perfect righteousness to be made right with a holy God. Why? Because there is none righteous, no not one. It's not just out there in the culture. It is in me because I have no righteousness of my own apart from Christ. vs. 18-20 None of us are righteous because we suppress the truth of God in unrighteousness. vs. 21 The root cause - We do not glorify God nor give him thanks. vs. 22-23. We pursue idolatry and because of that pursuit, God has given us over to: vs. 24-25 Uncleanness vs. 26-27 Vile...

And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten. (Joel 2:25)  Yes, those wasted years over which we sigh shall be restored to us. God can give us such plentiful grace that we shall crowd into the remainder of our days as much of service as will be some recompense for those years of unregeneracy over which we mourn in humble penitence. The locusts of backsliding, worldliness, lukewarmness, are now viewed by us as a terrible plague. Oh, that they had never come near us! The Lord in mercy has now taken them away, and we are full of zeal to serve Him. Blessed be His name, we can raise such harvests of spiritual graces as shall make our former barrenness to disappear. Through rich grace we can turn to account our bitter experience and use it to warn others. We can become the more rooted in humility, childlike dependence, and penitent spirituality by reason of our former shortcomings. If we are the more watchful, zealous, and tender, we shall gain by our lamentable los...

Last night, I finished listening to the audio version of On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life Through Great Books by Karen Swallow Prior. I started re-listening this morning, and I want to go back and underline my print copy. On Reading Well looks at 12 works of Western literature in light of 12 virtues. But it's much more much more than books as moral fables or the print equivalent of Christian movies that spell out everything you are supposed to believe by the credits. Reading for virtue goes deeper than that. It requires thinking critically and making connections that may not be obvious. It requires soul-searching on the part of the reader, and just as a work of literature develops characters, reading well should develop our character as we read. This is an excerpt from Tenth of December by George Saunders as an example of the virtue - kindness. This virtue has devolved into mere niceness but it means more. Kindness is "to treat someone like family." (pg. 207)...

When I was growing up, I often heard the same questions from my classmates - Do you use chopsticks at home? Do you eat rice every day? Do your parents own a restaurant? Do you speak Chinese? (Answers: Rarely, usually, no, no.) I don't think these kids realized they were imposing a cultural stereotype on me. The stereotype may have been absorbed through ads like the  Calgon Chinese laundry commercial  and other inaccurate depictions of Chinese Americans. I don't know if they consciously knew they were being racist, but these biases have a way of infiltrating our minds. If we never stop to question them and learn otherwise, they remain firmly rooted, and out of the heart the mouth speaks. In You Are What You Love , James K.A. Smith uses stereotypes as an example of how we learn, not through conscious thought, but by habit. Stereotypes are just this sort of unconscious, habituated way of perceiving the world and acting accordingly. No one "signs up" to hold prejudi...

For our heart shall rejoice in him, because we have trusted in his holy name. (Psalm 33:21)  The root of faith produces the flower of heart-joy. We may not at the first rejoice, but it comes in due time. We trust the Lord when we are sad, and in due season He so answers our confidence that our faith turns to fruition, and we rejoice in the Lord. Doubt breeds distress, but trust means joy in the long run. The assurance expressed by the psalmist in this verse is really a promise held out in the hands of holy confidence. Oh, for grace to appropriate it. If we do not rejoice at this moment, yet we shall do so, as surely as David's God is our God. Let us meditate upon the Lord's holy name that we may trust Him the better and rejoice the more readily. He is in character holy, just, true, gracious, faithful, and unchanging. Is not such a God to be trusted? He is all wise, almighty, and everywhere present; can we not cheerfully rely upon Him? Yes, we will do so at once and do so ...

The month of May has been designated Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month . These designated months are important, in my opinion, because it gives people an opportunity to reflect on their own heritage and educate the general public. I was ignorant of this aspect of my history until a few years ago, after which I wrote this post in 2016. I was never taught this in school. In fact, a history teacher I know never even heard of the Chinese Exclusion Act. To quote C.S. Lewis, "What do they teach them at these schools?" It is time to rectify that problem. Myths are fiction. History is not, and we shouldn't substitute or accept one for the other.* A few years ago, I read a novel based on Jane Austen's  Pride and Prejudice . In this case, it was told from a housemaid's point of view. There were a few storylines that were over the top, in my opinion, but my main objection was that this book burst my bubble. I didn't want to know about how hard a servant...

Here are a few more summarizing thoughts on You Are What You Love by James K.A. Smith mainly from the 2nd chapter. After making the argument that we are more than thinking things and brains-on-a-stick, it's very reasonable to consider that we might be what we love. But then this question comes up -   what if we don't love what we think we love ? If someone asks me, "What do I love?," I know what the right answer should be just like every kid in Sunday school - Jesus. But what about the competing loves in my heart? The rival kingdoms that fight for my allegiance? And how did they get there in the first place? This is where Smith proposes something that I had never really considered before. We think of habits as something we do, but what if these habits do something to us ? Therefore, the seemingly mindless, seemingly amoral routines, the rituals, and  secular liturgies that we participate in day in and day out may be (probably are) shaping our loves in ways in...

Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me. (Micah 7:8) This may express the feelings of a man or woman downtrodden and oppressed. Our enemy may put out our light for a season. There is sure hope for us in the Lord; and if we are trusting in Him and holding fast our integrity, our season of downcasting and darkness will soon be over. The insults of the foe are only for a moment. The Lord will soon turn their laughter into lamentation and our sighing into singing. What if the great enemy of souls should for a while triumph over us, as he has triumphed over better men than we are; yet let us take heart, for we shall overcome him before long. We shall rise from our fall, for our God has not fallen, and He will lift us up. We shall not abide in darkness, although for the moment we sit in it; for our Lord is the fountain of light, and He will soon bring us a joyful day. Let us not despair or even doubt. One t...

This is a very interesting TED talk on  how people see or rather don't see the world correctly. My daughter clued me in on this study after her thesis advisor gave a talk about this research. It's fascinating why people did so poorly in answering questions about the state of the world. The participants did even worse than if you sampled a group of chimpanzees (random answers). I'll go ahead and give the spoilers since this isn't the latest superhero movie. We are ignorant because of: 1. Personal Bias 2. Outdated Facts 3. Media Bias Combine that with an intuition that has been trained on the above, then it makes sense why we would be so off. What intrigues me is how we as Christians can fall prey to this especially when we are called to be people of truth in what we believe and what we disseminate. Ignorance is one thing, but choosing to be ignorant and not making an effort to learn the truth is another. The 9th commandment comes to mind and what we learned in ...

I started reading You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit by James K.A. Smith. I had seen his books referenced in other books, and friends had mentioned this one in particular on social media. It also happened to be on sale. I downloaded an audio version too, which was providential. My daughter picked it up after dinner last night, and I joked that I would find her still reading the book after I got home from a meeting. She was. She also mentioned we might be fighting over the book. It's that good. Smith starts out his book questioning the idea that "You are what you think." We may not even know who Rene Descartes is, but we have absorbed the idea that "I think. Therefore, I am." And if our diet of information is only post Enlightenment, then we have no other frame of reference. So "we imaging human beings as giant bobblehead dolls: with humongous heads, and itty-bitty, unimportant bodies." It "reduces human beings to brains-on-a-s...