"Wives, be in subjection unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the Church: being Himself the Savior of the body. But as the Church is subject to Christ, so let the wives also be to their husbands in everything." ~ Ephesians 5.22-24.

It is a well known fact that the Scriptures teach submission of wives to husbands, an overwhelming number of husbands seem to know it; and it seems to be their favorite teaching. Women, especially after the rise of feminism, don't like it very well. That's understandable, especially since "submission" is also used to describe the master-servant relationship.

But context is everything when it comes to the meaning of words. As James Barr taught, the basic unit of meaning is not the word, but the sentence. But I digress.

St. John Chrysostom, preaching on this passage, says to husbands:

Wouldest thou have thy wife obedient unto thee, as the Church is to Christ? Take then thyself the same provident care for her, as Christ takes for the Church. Yea, even if it shall be needful for thee to give thy life for her, yea, and to be cut into pieces ten thousand times, yea, and to endure and undergo any suffering whatever,—refuse it not. Though thou shouldest undergo all this, yet wilt thou not, no, not even then, have done anything like Christ. For thou indeed art doing it for one to whom thou art already knit; but He for one who turned her back on Him and hated Him. In the same way then as He laid at His feet her who turned her back on Him, who hated, and spurned, and disdained Him, not by menaces, nor by violence, nor by terror, nor by anything else of the kind, but by his unwearied affection; so also do thou behave thyself toward thy wife. Yea, though thou see her looking down upon thee, and disdaining, and scorning thee, yet by thy great thoughtfulness for her, by affection, by kindness, thou wilt be able to lay her at thy feet. For there is nothing more powerful to sway than these bonds, and especially for husband and wife. A servant, indeed, one will be able, perhaps, to bind down by fear; nay not even him, for he will soon start away and be gone. But the partner of one’s life, the mother of one’s children, the foundation of one’s every joy, one ought never to chain down by fear and menaces, but with love and good temper. For what sort of union is that, where the wife trembles at her husband? And what sort of pleasure will the husband himself enjoy, if he dwells with his wife as with a slave, and not as with a free-woman? Yea, though thou shouldest suffer anything on her account, do not upbraid her; for neither did Christ do this.

[...]

So then she was unclean! So then she had blemishes, so then she was unsightly, so then she was worthless! Whatsoever kind of wife thou shalt take, yet shalt thou never take such a bride as the Church, when Christ took her, nor one so far removed from thee as the Church was from Christ. And yet for all that, He did not abhor her, nor loathe her for her surpassing deformity. Wouldest thou hear her deformity described? Hear what Paul saith, “For ye were once darkness.” [Eph. v. 8.] Didst thou see the blackness of her hue? What blacker than darkness? But look again at her boldness, “living,” saith he, “in malice and envy.” [Tit. iii. 3.] Look again at her impurity; “disobedient, foolish.” But what am I saying? She was both foolish, and of an evil tongue; and yet notwithstanding, though so many were her blemishes, yet did He give Himself up for her in her deformity, as for one in the bloom of youth, as for one dearly be loved, as for one of wonderful beauty. And it was in admiration of this that Paul said, “For scarcely for a righteous man will one die [Rom. v. 7.]; and again, “in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” [Rom. v. 8.] And though such as this, He took her, He arrayed her in beauty, and washed her, and refused not even this, to give Himself for her. (Emphasis mine.)~ On The Epistle to the Ephesians, Homily 20.

A man may swagger around, treating his wife as if it is her role in life to serve his needs, sexual and otherwise. And he may behave as if he has done her a favor by marrying her. (As if!) But he's going to be judged by how well his love for her compares with Christ's love for His church.

As Mr T. used to say, I pity the fool.

They may look the same, superficially; but they are not the same.

"It is for chastening that ye endure" [Hebrews 12.7] not for punishment, nor for vengeance, nor for suffering. See, from that from which they supposed they had been deserted [of God], from these he says they may be confident, that they have not been deserted. It is as if he had said, Because ye have suffered so many evils, do you suppose that God has left you and hates you? If ye did not suffer, then it were right to suppose this. For if “He scourgeth every son whom He receiveth,” he who is not scourged, perhaps is not a son. What then, you say, do not bad men suffer distress? They suffer indeed; how then? He did not say, Every one who is scourged is a son, but every son is scourged. For in all cases He scourges His son: what is wanted then is to show, whether any son is not scourged. But thou wouldest not be able to say: there are many wicked men also who are scourged, such as murderers, robbers, sorcerers, plunderers of tombs. These however are paying the penalty of their own wickedness, and are not scourged as sons, but punished as wicked: but ye as sons. ~ John Chrysostom, Homily on the Epistle to the Hebrews, 29.

Many have contributed to the discussion of Paul's meaning in 1 Thessalonians 5.17. Here's an offering from St. Maximus the Confessor.

Unceasing prayer means to have the mind always turned to God with great love, holding alive our hope in Him, having confidence in Him whatever we are doing and whatever happens to us.

Someday I'll have to post Calvin's contribution to the discussion.

Thomas a Kempis tells us:

Whoso knoweth himself well, groweth mean in his own conceit, and delighteth not in the praises of men. ~ The Imitation of Christ, Bk. 1, Ch. 2.

Commenting on the role of self-denial, Calvin writes:

How difficult it is to perform the duty of seeking the good of our neighbor! Unless you leave off all thought of yourself and in a manner cease to be yourself, you will never accomplish it. How can you exhibit those works of charity which Paul describes unless you renounce yourself, and become wholly devoted to others? “Charity (says he, 1 Corinthians 13:4) suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked etc. Were it the only thing required of us to seek not our own, nature would not have the least power to comply: she so inclines us to love ourselves only, that she will not easily allow us carelessly to pass by ourselves and our own interests that we may watch over the interests of others, nay, spontaneously to yield our own rights and resign it to another. But Scripture, to conduct us to this, reminds us, that whatever we obtain from the Lord is granted on the condition of our employing it for the common good of the Church, and that, therefore, the legitimate use of all our gifts is a kind and liberal communication of them with others. ~ Institutes of The Christian Religion, Bk. 3, Ch. 7, para. 5.

Yes, you read that correctly. I did not intend to title it "A Feast for the Eyes".

In honor of this being the Lenten Season, a little something on fasting:

The value of fasting consists not in abstinence only from food, but in a relinquishment of sinful practices, since one who limits his fasting only to an abstinence from meat is one who especially disparages it. Do you fast? Give me proof of it by your works. If you see a poor man, take pity on him! If you see a friend enjoying honor, do not envy him. For let not the mouth only fast, but also the eye, and the ear, and the feet, and the hands, and all members of our bodies. Let the hands fast by being pure from avarice. Let the feet fast by ceasing from running to forbidden spectacles. Let the eyes fast by being taught never to fix themselves rudely upon handsome countenances. For looking is the food of the eyes, but if it be unlawful or forbidden it mars the fast and overturns the safety of the soul; but if it be lawful and safe, it adorns fasting. For it would be an instance of the highest absurdity to abstain from meats and unlawful food because of the fast, but with the eyes to feed on what is forbidden. Do you eat flesh? Do not feed on licentiousness by means of the eyes. Let the ear fast also. The fasting of the ear is not to receive evil speaking and calumnies. "You shall not receive an idle report," it says. Let also the mouth fast from foul words. For what does it profit if we abstain from birds and fish, and yet bite and devour our brethren? ~ John Chrysostom.

This has happened to me a lot:

I have often prayed, requesting that something I thought was good for me be done for me, insisting on my request, and irrationally attempting to force God’s will. And thus I did not leave it to him who knows what is profitable to arrange. And when I eventually received what I asked for, I was very sorry I had asked for my own choice; for the matter did not turn out as I had imagined. ~ Evagrios of Pontus, On Prayer.

Our communion, then, with God consisteth in his communication of himself unto us, with our returnal unto him of that which he requireth and accepteth, flowing from that union which in Jesus Christ we have with him. And it is twofold:— 1. Perfect and complete, in the full fruition of his glory and total giving up of ourselves to him, resting in him as our utmost end; which we shall enjoy when we see him as he is; — and, 2. Initial and incomplete, in the first-fruits and dawnings of that perfection which we have here in grace; which only I shall handle. It is, then, I say, of that mutual communication in giving and receiving, after a most holy and spiritual manner, which is between God and the saints while they walk together in a covenant of peace, ratified in the blood of Jesus, whereof we are to treat.

And this we shall do, if God permit; in the meantime praying the God and Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath, of the riches of his grace, recovered us from a state of enmity into a condition of communion and fellowship with himself, that both he that writes, and they that read the words of his mercy, may have such a taste of his sweetness and excellencies therein, as to be stirred up to a farther longing after the fulness of his salvation, and the eternal fruition of him in glory. – John Owen, Of Communion, with God the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost,, Chapter 1.

Knowing how the “story” ends, or even knowing when it ends (as some claim), seems to lull at least some Christians into living as if there isn’t much point in anything. “It’s all going up in flames anyway, even if we don’t know when,” they seem to be saying, even if not aloud. They sound like John Maynard Keynes, who constructed a miserable theory of economics on the hypothesis, one must surely believe, that in the long run we’re all dead.

One of the attractions, for me, of Reformational Philosophy, especially as a Calvinist, is that the approach is one of, “In the long run, creation may be cursed, but it’s still ours, in Christ, who calls every last inch of it His own.”

[There is no] realm of common grace independent from a realm of special grace in Christ Jesus. The Fall turned the heart, the root of creation, away from God. Creation therefore, had to be reborn in its root through Christ. Special or saving grace can therefore not be a separate realm. It touches, as did the Fall, the supra-temporal core, the heart, the root of all temporal creation. Common grace does not touch this supra-temporal root, but only the temporal ordinance of life: God halts the decomposition caused by sin. But this common, merely temporal grace of God has no other root than Christ Jesus. The grace of rebirth, given to us by God in Him, is the true hidden root of common grace which must be made evident in the church as organism, that is, in Christian unfolding of life within all temporal structures of reality. When, by God’s common grace in this sinful temporal life, culture, learning, art, family and political life, etc., are still possible, the inescapable call comes to the Christian to make Christ, as true Root of creation, as King of all temporal life, visibly manifest. For the Christian this task makes political life also a holy Christian calling. It is true that under the rule of common grace Christ’s kingdom cannot come to unbroken realization, for the power of sin continues to turn itself against this kingdom until the last day, but fundamentally in the root of Creation the victory has been won by the Lamb of God, and creation, in all its structures, has been maintained, saved, redeemed! ~ Herman Dooyeweerd, The Christian Idea of the State, (John Kraay, Tr., R. J. Rushdoony, Intro., Nutley, NJ: The Craig Press, 1978), 32-33, (internal quotations and italics removed).

Now, maybe Reformational Philosophy constitutes philosophically barking up the wrong tree. The alternatives, however, all strike me as sophisticated ways of hanging around, trying to stay out of trouble, and staving off boredom, while waiting for the Rapture or the Second Coming.

[W]e may see what wisdom is required in the guiding and management of our hearts and ways before God. Where the subjects of a ruler are in feuds and oppositions one against another, unless great wisdom be used in the government of the whole, all things will quickly be ruinous in that state. There are these contrary principles in the hearts of believers. And if they labor not to be spiritually wise, how shall they be able to steer their course aright? Many men live in the dark to themselves all their days; whatever else they know, they know not themselves. They know their outward estates, how rich they are, and the condition of their bodies as to health and sickness they are careful to examine; but as to their inward man, and their principles as to God and eternity, they know little or nothing of themselves. Indeed, few labor to grow wise in this matter, few study themselves as they ought, are acquainted with the evils of their own hearts as they ought; on which yet the whole course of their obedience, and consequently of their eternal condition, doth depend. This, therefore, is our wisdom; and it is a needful wisdom, if we have any design to please God, or to avoid that which is a provocation to the eyes of his glory. John Owen, Remainders of Indwelling Sin in Believers, Chapter One.

Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them. And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil….

[T]hough Adam was confounded and astonished at his calamity, he yet did not so deeply reflect on its cause as to become weary of his pride, that he might learn to embrace true humility. We may add, that God inveighed, by this irony, not more against Adam himself than against his posterity, for the purpose of commending modesty to all ages.

The particle, “Behold,” denotes that the sentence is pronounced upon the cause then in hand. And, truly, it was a sad and horrid spectacle; that he, in whom recently the glory of the Divine image was shining, should lie hidden under fetid skins to cover his own disgrace, and that there should be more comeliness in a dead animal than in a living man! The clause which is immediately added, “To know good and evil,” describes the cause of so great misery, namely, that Adam, not content with his condition, had tried to ascend higher than was lawful; as if it had been said, ‘See now whither thy ambition and thy perverse appetite for illicit knowledge have precipitated thee.’ Yet the Lord does not even deign to hold converse with him, but contemptuously draws him forth, for the sake of exposing him to greater infamy. Thus was it necessary for his iron pride to be beaten down, that he might at length descend into himself, and become more and more displeased with himself. (John Calvin, Commentary on Genesis, at 3.21, 22, emphases added.)

Think of it. After the loss of that original glory, the skins of dead animals are more attractive than the naked bodies of living humans.

The whole development of modern society has tended mightily toward the limitation of the realm of freedom for the individual man. The tendency is most clearly seen in socialism; a socialistic state would mean the reduction to a minimum of the sphere of individual choice. Labor and recreation, under a socialistic government, would both be prescribed, and individual liberty would be gone. But the same tendency exhibits itself to-day even in those communities where the name of socialism is most abhorred. When once the majority has determined that a certain regime is beneficial, that regime without further hesitation is forced ruthlessly upon the individual man. It never seems to occur to modern legislatures that although “welfare” is good, forced welfare may be bad. In other words, utilitarianism is being carried out to its logical conclusions; in the interests of physical well-being the great principles of liberty are being thrown ruthlessly to the winds. – J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1923), 11.

It’s an interesting question how Machen comes to discuss liberty in a book written to defend orthodox Christian theology against the claims of theological liberalism. But the subject does arise organically. What’s more interesting to me, however, is to read a Christian (a fundamentalist, in the original sense of the term) express such concern for liberty. Let’s face it: Christians have not for a long time been known as defenders of liberty.

Some of that is due to bad press, put out by people for whom "liberty" means what most of us prefer to call "libertinism". But, in fact, some Christians (of both Left and Right) do have their own version of welfare, under which they’d like to put everyone.

Of course, it’s difficult to talk liberty these days. Most people who use the term now-days seem to refer only to sexual liberty. In all other matters, they seem to prefer “welfare”.

In his little book, Reason within the Bounds of Religion (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1976) Nicholas Wolterstorff discusses, among other things, the role of the Christian scholar’s religious commitment. Briefly, his commitments provide “control beliefs.”

[T]he religious beliefs of the Christian scholar ought to function as control beliefs within his devising and weighing of theories…. The Christian scholar ought to allow the belief-content of his authentic Christian commitment to function as control within his devising and weighing of theories. For he like everyone else ought to seek consistency, wholeness, and integrity in the body of his beliefs and commitments. Since his fundamental commitment to following Christ ought to be decisively ultimate in his life, the rest of his life ought to be brought into harmony with it. As control, the belief-content of his authentic commitment ought to function both negatively and positively. Negatively, the Christian scholar ought to reject certain theories on the ground that they conflict or do not comport well with the belief-content of his authentic commitment. And positively he ought to devise theories which comport as well as possible with, or are at least consistent with, the belief-content of his authentic commitment (76).

This notion is, of course, objectionable to some. Rejecting a theory because it does not comport well with one’s ultimate commitments is illegitimate in science.

Is it? Wolterstorff goes on to discuss an unquestioned “conformism with respect to science.

[T]he person who exhibits authentic Christian commitment cannot take for granted that the data, beliefs and theories of contemporary scientists are true. The most obvious reason is that contemporary scientists as scientists disagree. One has to choose. But even if that were not the case within some branch of contemporary science, if all the “experts” in that field agreed, why should the Christian (or anyone else) surrender all his critical faculties in the face of it? The “experts,” after all, will have practiced their science with their control beliefs. There is no reason for me to assume that mine are theirs, or that a science in accord with theirs will be in accord with mine (82).

Non-Christian scientists and scholars practice their craft with their control beliefs intact. On Wolterstorff’s view, the Christian scientist and scholar should freely do the same.

One of the things I occasionally miss about being a Roman Catholic is all the art which is part of that history. Protestants in general, and evangelicals in particular, have not been known for their contributions to the arts. And such meager contributions as there have been amount to every more sophisticated (and mediocre) religious tracts. One gets the idea that art, if it’s not somehow “evangelistic,” is a waste of time.

Can there be such a thing, for Christians, as art for art’s sake? Well, perhaps not for art’s sake, but for God’s sake.

The ancients were afraid that if they went to the end of the earth, they would fall off and be consumed by dragons. But once we understand that Christianity is true to what is there, including true to the ultimate environment—the infinite, personal God who is really there—then our minds are freed. We can pursue any question and be sure that we will not fall off the end of the earth. Such an attitude will give our Christianity a strength that it often does not seem to have at the present time.

[T]he Lordship of Christ…involves the total culture—including the area of creativity. [E]vangelical Christianity has been weak at this point. About all that we have produced is a very romantic Sunday school art. We do not seem to understand that the arts too are supposed to be under the Lordship of Christ.

[…]

The arts and the sciences do have a place in the Christian life—they are not peripheral. For a Christian, redeemed by the work of Christ and living within the norms of Scripture and under the leadership of the Holy Spirit, the Lordship of Christ should include an interest in the arts. A Christian should use these arts to the glory of God—not just as tracts, but as things of beauty to the praise of God. An art work can be a doxology in itself. – Francis Schaeffer, Art and the Bible, Complete Works of Francis Schaeffer, Vol. 2, 377, emphasis mine.

I’m glad I discovered Schaeffer within the first several years of leaving the Roman Catholic church. Protestantism had been like dry toast. Schaeffer showed me where the butter and jam were hid.

Because of what Paul says in Romans 13:1-7, some Christians can almost worship the state. Paul says obey the governing authorities (and above those governing authorities was Caesar) and so we do, almost uncritically.

There was, of course, that little incident in 1776. And a whole lot of Christians supported it. The same thing happened in 1861.

What explains this? The Calvinistic view of the state, how it arises, what are its benefits and what are its detriments.

Man is created from man, and by virtue of his birth he is organically united with the whole race. Together we form one humanity, not only with those who are living now, but also with all the generations behind us and with all those who shall come after us pulverized into millions though we may be. All the human race is from one blood. The conception of States, however, which subdivide the earth into continents, and each continent into morsels, does not harmonize with this idea. Then only would the organic unity of our race be realized politically, if one State could embrace all the world, and if the whole of humanity were associated in one world empire. Had sin not intervened, no doubt this would actually have been so. If sin, as a disintegrating force, had not divided humanity into different sections, nothing would have marred or broken the organic unity of our race. And the mistake of the Alexanders, and of the Augusti, and of the Napoleons, was not that they were charmed with the thought of the One World Empire, but it was this–that they endeavored to realize this idea notwithstanding that the force of sin had dissolved our unity.

In like manner the international cosmopolitan endeavors of the Social-democracy present, in their conception of union, an ideal, which on this very account charms us, even when we are aware that they try to reach the unattainable, in endeavoring to realize this high and holy ideal, now and in a sinful world. Nay, even Anarchy, conceived as the attempt to undo all mechanical connections among men, together with the undoing of all human authority, and to encourage, in their stead, the growth of a new organic tie, arising from nature itself – I say, all this is nothing but a looking backward after a lost paradise.

For, indeed, without sin there would have been neither magistrate nor state-order; but political life, in its entirety, would have evolved itself, after a patriarchal fashion, from the life of the family. Neither bar of justice nor police, nor army, nor navy, is conceivable in a world without sin; and thus every rule and ordinance and law would drop away, even as all control and assertion of the power of the magistrate would disappear, were life to develop itself, normally and without hindrance, from its own organic impulse. Who binds up, where nothing is broken? Who uses crutches, where the limbs are sound?

Every State-formation, every assertion of the power of the magistrate, every mechanical means of compelling order and of guaranteeing a safe course of life is therefore always something unnatural; something against which the deeper aspirations of our nature rebel; and which, on this very account, may become the source both of a dreadful abuse of power, on the part of those who exercise it, and of a continuous revolt on the part of the multitude. Thus originated the battle of the ages between Authority and Liberty, and in this battle it was the very innate thirst for liberty which proved itself the God-ordained means to bridle the authority wheresoever it degenerated into despotism. And thus all true conception of the nature of the State and of the assumption of authority by the magistrate, and on the other hand all true conception of the right and duty of the people to defend liberty, depends on what Calvinism has here placed in the foreground, as the primordial truth –that God has instituted the magistrates, by reason of sin.

In this one thought are hidden both the light-side and the shady side of the life of the State. The shady-side for this multitude of states ought not to exist; there should be only one world-empire. These magistrates rule mechanically and do not harmonize with our nature. And this authority of government is exercised by sinful men, and is therefore subject to all manner of despotic ambitions. But the light-side also, for a sinful humanity, without division of states, without law and government, and without ruling authority, would be a veritable hell on earth; or at least a repetition of that which existed on earth when God drowned the first degenerate race in the deluge. Calvinism has, therefore, by its deep conception of sin laid bare the true root of state-life, and has taught us two things: first –that we have gratefully to receive, from the hand of God, the institution of the State with its magistrates, as a means of preservation, now indeed indispensable. And on the other hand also that, by virtue of our natural impulse, we must ever watch against the danger which lurks, for our personal liberty, in the power of the State. -- Abraham Kuyper, "Calvinism and Politics," Lectures on Calvinism, here.

The state, because of sin, is a necessary evil. And because it bears the sword, in the end the only reliable weapon to be used in keeping that sword in check is another sword.

On this, the 45^th anniversary of C.S. Lewis’s death, I can’t help but post yet another one by him.

Anyone who’s been around knows that some Christians are pretty awful people and many non-Christians are pretty good. Lewis cautions us: some people are good in the same way they might have blonde hair, and have, therefore, nothing really to boast about. Their goodness is a gift from God, just like their hair color. They are rich. Their contraries are poor.

Christ said, “Blessed are the poor: and “How hard it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom,” and no doubt He primarily meant the economically rich and economically poor. But do not His words also apply to another kind of riches and poverty? One of the dangers of having a lot of money is that you may be quite satisfied with the kinds of happiness money can give and so fail to realize your need for God. If everything seems to come simply be signing checks, you may forget that you are at every moment totally dependent on Gd. Now quite plainly natural gifts carry with them a similar danger. If you have sound nerves and intelligence and health and popularity and a good upbringing, you are likely to be quite satisfied with your character as it is. “Why drag God into it?” you may ask. A certain level of good conduct comes fairly easily to you. You are not one of those wretched creatures who are always being tripped up by sex, or dipsomania, or nervousness, or bad temp. Everyone says you are a nice chap and…you agree with them. You are quite likely to believe that all this niceness is your own doing: and you may easily not feel the need for any better kind of goodness. Often people who have all these natural kinds of goodness cannot be brought to recognize their need for Christ at all until, one day, the natural goodness lets them down and their self-satisfaction is shattered, In other words, it is hard for those who are “rich” in this sense to enter the Kingdom.

It is very different for the nasty people—the little, low, timid, warped, thin-blooded, lonely people, or the passionate, sensual, unbalanced people. If they make any attempt at goodness at all, they learn, in double quick time, that they need help. It is Christ or nothing for them. It is taking up the cross and following—or else despair. They are the lost sheep; He came specially to find them. They are…the “poor”: He blessed them They are the “awful set” he goes about with::and of course the Pharisees say still, as they said from the first, “If there were anything in Christianity those people would not be Christians.”

There is either a warning or an encouragement here for every one of us. If you are a nice person—if virtue comes easily to you—beware! Much is expected from those whom much is given. If you mistake for your own merits what are really God’s gifts to you through nature, and if you are contented with simply being nice, you are still a rebel: and all those gifts will only make your fall more terrible, your corruption more complicated, your bad example more disastrous. The Devil was an archangel once; his natural gifts were as far above yours as yours are above those of a chimpanzee.

But if you are a poor creature—poisoned by a wretched up-brining in some house full of vulgar jealousies and senseless quarrels—saddled, by no choice of your own, with some loathsome sexual perversion—nagged day in and day out by an inferiority complex that makes you snap at your best friends—do not despair. He knows all about it. You are one of the poor whom He blessed. He knows what a wretched machine you are trying to dive. Keep on. Do what you can. One day…he will fling it on the scapheap and give you a new one. And then you may astonish us all—not least of all yourself: for you have learned your driving in a hard school. (Some of the last will be first and some of the first will be last.) Mere Christianity, 180-82.

We poor can take comfort. But let’s not overlook Lewis’s exhortation: Do what you can.

In both the Republic and in the Laws, dialogues on the creation and maintenance of an ideal state, the role of education is discussed at length. While there are differences between the two dialogues in what constitutes the ideal state and how to bring it into existence, they are agreed that education shall be the means by which the citizens, who belong to the state, shall be formed. Both dialogues are, in effect, discussions of how to create the Humanity that the state wants. And the most important element of the educational process is not Reading, Writing and Arithmetic, but values: the citizens are to be educated in such a manner as to possess those values the state wants them to possess.

In his three lectures, published as The Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis is concerned with education and its role in shaping men. One of the questions he treats is, “How does one group of men come to have a right to decide what values all men are to possess?” To put it a different way, “Who are they to decide what humanity shall be?”

[T]he power of Man to make himself what he pleases means…the power of some men to make other men what they please. In all ages, no doubt, nurture and instruction have…attempted to exercise this power. But the situation to which we must look forward will be novel in two respects. In the first place, the power will be enormously increased. Hitherto the plans of educationalists have achieved very little of what they attempted and indeed, when we read them – how Plato would have every infant “a bastard nursed in a bureau,” and Elyot would have the boy see no men before the age of seven and, after that, no women, and how Locke wants children to have leaky shoes and no turn for poetry – we may well thank the beneficent obstinacy of real mothers, real nurses, and…real children for preserving the human race in such sanity as it still possesses. But the man-moulders of the new age will be armed with the powers of an omnicompetent state and an irresistible scientific technique: we shall get at last a race of conditioners who really can cut out all posterity in what shape they please. The second difference is even more important. In the older systems both the kind of man the teachers wished to produce and their motives for producing him were prescribed by the Tao -- a norm to which the teachers themselves were subject and from which they claimed no liberty to depart. They did not cut men to some pattern they had chosen. They handed on what they had received: they initiated the young neophyte into the mystery of humanity which over-arched him and them alike. It was but old birds teaching young birds to fly. This will be changed. Values are now mere natural phenomena. Judgments of value are to be produced in the pupil as part of the conditioning. Whatever Tao there is will be the product, not the motive, of education. The conditioners have been emancipated from all that.

[…]

[Some] critics may ask, “Why should you suppose they will be such bad men?” But I am not supposing them to be had men. They are, rather, not men…at all. They are…men who have sacrificed their own share in traditional humanity in order to devote themselves to the taxk of deciding what “Humanity” shall henceforth mean. “Good” and “bad,” applied to them are words without content: for it is from them that the content of those words is henceforth to be derived.

[…]

They are not men at all: they are artefacts. Man’s final conquest has proved to be the abolition of Man. – C.S. Lewis, “The Abolition of Man,” in The Abolition of Man, (italics in original; bold emphases mine).

The Abolition of Man is not a sustained plea for mass acceptance of Christian values. Indeed, for Lewis, this thing he calls the Tao or Way (the Natural Law) is so universal that, as an appendix to the lectures, he provides evidence of it from virtually every civilization and culture around the world and throughout history. Lewis didn’t think everyone needed to become Christians in order for society to be good, for men to be men. In fact, he hated the idea that this would be a reason for trying to convert people to Christianity. The point in urging conversion to Christianity was to come to know Aslan by the name he has in this world. Any other purpose would be blasphemous. The Lion of the tribe of Judah is not to be put to use by men to create their ideal states. He thought people, if they did not become Christians, would still live pretty well if they lived as Plato, or Aristotle, or Confucius taught. By doing at least that much, people would be living in accordance with the Tao. They would be living in accordance with a norm external to themselves, from which they could no sooner emancipate themselves than cut off their own heads and go on living.

But the new men recognize no Tao, no set of norms external to themselves and which they must obey and, more importantly, pass on to succeeding generations. Indeed, these new men arrogate to themselves the power to create those future generations by determining, for them and without their consent, what shall be the Tao and, by extension, what they shall be. The Abolition of Man is a shot at these new men. Indeed, there is a reading, I think, of all his works, which shows them all to be a sustained attack on these new men and their divine claims.

The doctrine of subjective value is so pervasive this it probably seems a silly question. How can anyone have the right feelings? Feelings are just feelings. You like something, or someone; or you do not. You can’t help your feelings. Period.

But consider the case of two people reflecting back upon similar experiences from their respective pasts. One of them savors the moment, reliving every detail, recalling the experience with relish. The other shrinks back in horror, unable to enjoy the memory, grieving it intensely, ashamed both of the event itself and every recollection of it. The experience could be anything, stealing an apple from a neighbor’s tree as a child, a schoolyard fight, ganging up with one’s friends against another child; maybe they killed a stay cat. Why the difference in attitude? Should the first man really be feeling good about the past? Should the second really be feeling bad? (Bear in mind they are remembering the same sort of experience.)

The idea that emotions can be right or wrong probably seems silly to many people today. It was not always the case, however:

Until quite modern times all teachers and even all men believed the universe to be such that certain emotional reactions on our part could be either congruous or incongruous to it – believed, in fact, that objects did not merely receive, but could merit, our approval or disapproval, our reverence, or our contempt…. When Shelley, having compared the human sensibility to an Aeolian lyre, goes on to add that it differs from a lyre in having a power of “internal adjustment” whereby it can “accommodate its chords to the motions of that which strikes them,” he is assuming the same belief. “Can you be righteous,” asks Traherne, “unless you be just in rendering to things their due esteem? All things were made to be yours and you were made to prize them according to their value.” St. Augustine defines virtue as ordo amoris, the ordinate condition of the affections in which every object is accorded that kind and degree of love which is appropriate to it. Aristotle says that the aim of education is to make the pupil like and dislike what he ought [see Nicomachean Ethics, 1104b]. When the age for reflective thought comes, the pupil who has been thus trained in “ordinate affections” or “just sentiments” will easily find the first principles in Ethics: but to the corrupt man they will never be visible at all and he can make no progress in that science” [id., at 1095b]. Plato before him had said the same. The little human animal will not at first have the right responses. It must be trained to feel pleasure, liking, disgust, and hatred at those things which really are pleasant, likeable, disgusting, and hateful [see Laws, 653]. In the Republic, the well-nurtured youth is one “who would see most clearly whatever was amiss in ill-made works of man or ill-grown works of nature, and with a just distaste would blame and hate the ugly even from his earliest years and would give delighted praise to beauty, receiving it into his soul and being nourished by it, so that he becomes a man of gentle heart. All this before he is of an age to reason; so that when Reason at length comes to him, then, bred as he has been, he will hold out his hands in welcome and recognize here because of the affinity he bears to her” [Republic, 402]. In early Hinduism that conduct in men which can be called good consists in conformity to, or almost participation in the Rta -- that great ritual or pattern of nature and supernature which is revealed alike in the cosmic order, the moral virtues, and the ceremonial of the temple. Righteousness, correctness, order, the Rta, is constantly identified with Satya or truth, correspondence to reality. As Plato said that the Good was “beyond existence” and Wordsworth that through virtue the stars were strong, so the Indian masters say that the gods themselves are born of the Rta and obey it. The Chinese also speak of…the Tao. It is the reality beyond all predicates, the abyss that was before the Creator Himself. It is Nature, it is the Way, the Road. It is the Way in which the universe goes on, the Way in which things everlastingly emerge, stilly and tranquilly, into space and time. It is also the Way which every man should tread in imitation of that cosmic and supercosmic progression, conforming all activities to that great exemplar. “In ritual,” say the Analects, “it is harmony with Nature that is prized” [Analects of Confucius, 1.12]. The ancient Jews likewise praise the Law as being “true” [Psalm 119.151].

This conception in all its forms, Platonic, Aristotelian, Stoic, Christian, and Oriental alike, I…refer to…as “the Tao.” Some of the accounts of it…seem…merely quaint or even magical. But what is common to them all is something we cannot neglect. It is the doctrine of objective value, the belief that certain attitudes are really true, and others really false, to the kind of thing the universe is and the kind of things we are. Those who know the Tao can hold that to call children delightful or old men venerable is not simply to record a psychological fact about our own parental or filial emotions at the moment, but to recognize a quality which demands a certain response from us whether we make it or not. I myself do not enjoy the society of small children: because I speak from within the Tao I recognize this as a defect in myself – just as a man may have to recognize that he is tone deaf or colour blind. And because our approvals and disapprovals are thus recognitions of objective value or responses to an objective order, therefore emotional states can be in harmony with reason (when we feel liking for what ought to be approved) or out of harmony with reason (when we perceive that liking is due but cannot feel it). No emotion is, in itself, a judgment; in that sense all emotions and sentiments are alogical. But they can be reasonable or unreasonable as they conform to Reason or fail to conform. The heart never takes the place of the head: but it can, and should, obey it. – C. S. Lewis, “Men Without Chests”, in The Abolition of Man.

Lewis mentions emotional states which can be “out of harmony with reason” as in those cases where we ought to like something but do not. We should also mention those occasions, which he does not mention, in which we feel liking where we ought not to do: we enjoy memories which we really shouldn’t. And we do so because we appraise these memories incorrectly; we do not see them as we ought to do.

Take our two fellows above. Perhaps they both are recalling an incident in which each of them, strong, bullied one who was weaker. One looks back, smiling at the remembrance of the incident. “It’s a dog eat dog world,” he says to himself, “with nature ‘red in tooth and claw;’ some win, some lose. The strong win; if the weak don’t like it, they should make themselves strong. If they do not, what concern is it of mine? Do unto others before they do unto you.” The other looks back in shame. He sees the event as a sin, against Reason, against Nature, against God, or even against humanity. What he did, he should not have done. If he is a Christian, the remembrance is, in the words of the Prayer Book, grievous to him; for he must see that as a sin (one of many) which put Christ on the cross. He cannot look upon one of the causes of the Crucifixion as a fond memory. When one adds his union with Christ into the mix, the memory must take on an additional horrific dimension: it would be Christ looking back upon the event as a fond memory, incongruous in the extreme.

But the key to all this, the wisdom, is in understanding that having the proper feelings isn’t a matter of letting human nature take its course. Lewis, in The Abolition of Man is concerned about education. We must be taught to feel the right things. We have to learn to experience shame for certain actions. All the ancients are agreed: We must be trained in righteousness; we must be taught the Tao.

Yes, in a manner of speaking.

The world is the general name for all the passions. When we wish to call the passions by a common name, we call them the world. But when we wish to distinguish them by their special names, we call them the passions. The passions are the following: love of riches, desire for possessions, bodily pleasure from which comes sexual passion, love of honor which gives rise to envy, lust for power, arrogance and pride of position, the craving to adorn oneself with luxurious clothes and vain ornaments, the itch for human glory which is a source of rancor and resentment, and physical fear. Where these passions cease to be active, there the world is dead; for though living in the flesh, they did not live for the flesh. See for which of these passions you are alive. Then you will know how far you are alive to the world, and how far you are dead to it. -- St. Isaac the Syrian

Relevant, for such a time as this.

In the Eastern Orthodox churches there exists the idea of the church as a hospital of sorts. In this hospital, by God's grace we put off the corruption of sin and are formed in Christ. Among Reformed, there really is not much talk of that, if there is any at all.

In his book The God Who is There, Francis Schaeffer povides a reformed perspective on the view of the church as hospital:

As orthodox evangelicals we have often made the mistake of stopping with individual salvation. Historically the word Christian has meant two things. First, the word Christian defines a person who has accepted Christ as Savior. This is decidedly an individual thing. But there is a second consideration as well. It concerns that which flows from individual salvation. While it is true that there is an individual salvation, and this is the beginning of the Christian life, yet nevertheless individual salvation should show itself also in corporate relationships. This is the Bible's clear teaching concerning the Church and what we find, in some measure, as we consider the Church at its strongest through the ages.

When man fell, various divisions took place. The first and basic division is between man who has revolted and God. All other divisions flow from that. We are separated from God by our guilt -- true moral guilt. Hence we need to be justified upon the basis of the finished substitutionary work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Yet is it quite plain from the Scriptures and from general observation that the separation did not stop with the separation of man from God. For secondly, man was separated from himself. This gives rise to the psychological problems of life. Thirdly, man was separated from other men, leading to the sociological problems of life. Fourthly, man was separated from nature.

According to the teaching of the Scriptures, the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ is meant eventually to bring healing to each of these divisions: healing which will be perfect in every aspect when Christ comes again in history in the future.

In justification, there is a relationship which is already perfect. When the individual accepts Christ as his Savior on the basis of the finished work of Christ, God as judge declares that his guilt is gone immediately and forever. With regard to the other separations, it is plain from the scriptural teaching and from the struggles of God's people throughout the best years of the Church, that in this present life the blood of Christ is meant to bring substantial healing now. Individual salvation comes with justification, and guilt is gone at once. Then comes a future day when my body will be raised from the dead and the other separations will be healed just as completely. Now, in the present life, when men can observe us, there is to be a substantial healing of these other divisions. Substantial is the right word to use because it carries with it two ideas. Firstly, it means that it is not yet perfect. Secondly, it means that there is reality. 1 Complete Works (1982), 164-65.

Note, this substantial healing that Schaeffer speaks of begins when one comes to faith in Christ. At that time, one is made a member of Christ's body, the Church. That substantial healing that we are to experience in the world, though incomplete, begins in the Church, as members of a body, not in our prayer closets as spiritual Lone Rangers riding along in our personal relationship with Jesus.

And if the Church is a place for healing, perhaps it would be appropriate to approach worship as therapy. But before we go too far with that idea the way it plays out in our culture, we should read the gospels for examples of people who approach Jesus fore healing. They do go to him for healing; and yet, not to be served, not to be entertained, not requiring that he sing in the musical style of their generation or put on a drama that touches them "where they're at". They come in devout humility, like a certain Roman centurion, asking for healing (and not for himself) by asking primarily for mercy (see Matthew 8.5ff). The centurion wasn't worthy to have Jesus under his roof. The Caananite woman asked Jesus to toss a few crumbs to her, a dog, by asking him for mercy for her daughter (see Matthew 15.22-28). The blind men, desiring to see, asked him for mercy (see Matthew 9.27).

During the course of worship, in some churches, at some point there is the recitation:

Lord, have mercy upon us
Christ, have mercy upon us
Lord, have mercy upon us

It is mercy that we need, healing, substantial healing, as part of our salvation. And there is, as Calvin says, no salvation -- no healing -- apart from union with Christ. That's where healing begins and ends. In worship, we who are united with Christ give to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit the glory that is due and which we are glad to give and which is part of our healing process because in order to heal we must die to ourselves. We cannot truly worship the Triune God if we are not dead and dying to self, if we are not repenting daily -- not just on Sunday.

Worship, bowing to the Triune God, is death to self. It has to be: it is life to self which perpetuates the divisions Schaeffer speaks of. It is life to self which obstructs healing.

Lord, have mercy upon us.