Tried With Fire

I finished A Fiery Gospel and hope to write a review soon. As I posted before, Julia Ward Howe was a Unitarian whose bad hermeneutics and bad theology became the perfect combination to create a vaguely religious and nationalistic poem to claim "God" for our side. There were some who realized the contradiction between Howe's beliefs and Christianity, but they found a way around it. This is an excerpt from Moody Bible Institute's Christian Workers Magazine from 1917. They published The Battle Hymn as part of their "patriotic duty." The editors were fully aware of Howe's theological problems, but they "reassured their readers that "The Battle Hymn" could be made safe for Bible-believing Christians." 1 Mrs. Howe was not an evangelical Christian, her strongest sympathies being with the Unitarians, and yet as one reads the hymn, he is impressed with the fact that the Unitarianism it represents is almost more orthodox than the so-c...

We recently had a short Sunday school class on how to read the Bible. A few principles to consider are: Genre - Is the passage historical narrative, poetry, teaching, or apocalyptic literature? Context - What is the context of the verse in relation to the chapter, the book, and redemptive history? What was the meaning of the author? What would it have meant to the original readers/hearers? Without these guidelines, it is possible to misuse the Bible. Rather than asking what was the intent of the author , the text can become what I want it to mean to me . Authorial intent versus reader response . Instead of the Bible being about God's revelation of himself and his plan of redemption, I can read myself into the text and make the Bible all about me. For example, the story of David and Goliath. This is historical narrative that actually took place. It shows God's faithfulness to preserve his people and the line through which the Messiah would eventually come. The passage d...

This has been an unusual spring. In April and May, I had jury duty which meant being on call every Tuesday of the month not knowing until the night before. I reported only two Tuesdays, but it was stressful not knowing when I would have to serve. I like having some idea of the week ahead so spur-of-the-moment isn't my preference. It's gardenia time. I've cut dozens of flowers over the past week, and my house is filled with the fragrance. All the wet weather we had since last year seems to have made the gardenia bushes happy because they are full of blooms. Even though creation is under curse, even though there is so much that is wrong, there is still so much beauty in the world for which I am grateful. The book of nature, while limited, still speaks loudly of its Creator. If you like audio books, the freebie from Christian Audio this month has been very thought provoking. Liturgy of the Ordinary by Tish Harrison Warren picks up the same ideas as in You Are Wha...

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...