09 June 2006

On Rembrandt’s “Holy Family”

My friend Andrew has a good essay on the painting by the Dutch Reformational painter .

“Reformational Christians are not halo-sporting moralists. They are not mystics or ascetics. They are normal people, struggling to live their lives to the glory of God quietly and in peace. They eat, they drink, they laugh, they cry, they rejoice, they lament, they work, they rest, they love. In short, the Reformational saint is simply human in the fullest sense of the term. Thus, it is my contention that Reformational piety is true piety. That is, it is a piety that is true. It is a piety that allows the religious to be both fully spiritual and fully human.”


It's also the piety that makes us so darn difficult to understand. For example: we sound like prudes when we talk about things like sexual promiscuity and pornography, but we copulate with great enthusiasm--certainly much more enthusiasm than most people would ever imagine, and much more than the true prudes would even want to know about.

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James Frank Solís
Former soldier (USA). Graduate-level educated. Married 26 years. Texas ex-patriate. Ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church in America.
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