Book Review: A Man For All Seasons, by Robert Bolt

First published in 1960 and produced as a play that same year, this script provides insight into the life and death of Sir Robert More. Initially a well-respected leader holding multiple responsible positions in the government of Henry VIII, More was executed at his direction in 1535. This was the result of his refusal to take an oath that he supported the act of Parliament making the king of England the head of the church in England, in addition to sanctioning his divorce from Catherine of Aragon. 

The emphasis of the play is that More refused to compromise on his convictions.  This boiled down to his belief that church and state were separate and Parliament had no authority to subject the church to the state. Henry’s divorce was a secondary factor that brought Spain to pressure the Pope to refuse to approve it, but that is what gets the most publicity. Henry had married his brother Arthur’s widow. The English cited Leviticus 18:16 and 20:21 as reasons for annulling the marriage, but conveniently ignored Deuteronomy 25:5-6 regarding the duty to a brother’s widow. Nor was there discussion of whether Christians are bound by Old Testament law, or mention of New Testament teachings. In any event, Henry’s marriages (six total), expropriation of property, and string of politically motivated executions provide evidence to the  condition of his soul. But this was not More’s primary issue. He simply had the conviction that the King should not control the church, and refused to take an oath to the contrary. It was not that More was innocent of  persecuting people, as his career included prosecution of Protestants and reformers.

What is the difference between a politician and a statesman, a ruler and a leader? Regardless of titles or epithets, this book vividly illustrates the outworking of character. The one who fears and honors God, looking towards the final outcome of his life, versus the ones who choose expediency to attain worldly success in this life. We have few of the former and an abundance of the latter - this has been the case throughout history. Politics is, after all, the process by which people with differing views negotiate to find common ground by which to make group decisions. What modern discourse lacks, illustrated so well in Bolt’s depiction of More, is a clear statement of ultimate values. 

Book Review: Descent Into Hell by Charles Williams

First published in 1937, written by one of C. S. Lewis’ fellow Inklings, this book is hard to get into, and hard to finish. It is so completely different from modern fiction that it likely would not be publishable today. The author elaborates in great detail on the thoughts and feelings of the half dozen or so characters. Each one interacts with other dimensions of existence, such as the dead, spirits of the underworld, and themselves in other circumstances. This is all overlaid on a straightforward story about the premiere of a new play in a small town in the suburbs of London.  

The heroine wrestles with fear of meeting her doppelgänger, which she has seen from a distance. There is substitutionary love, both theoretical and practiced. There is unrequited lust, and its fruit of self-pity. There are appearances by a nameless dead man who wanders through an empty afterlife looking for what he does not know, and Lilith (legendary Jewish first wife of Adam) masquerading as a widow. There is the death of a saintly grandmother. 

To illuminate interior development, the reader is given a sense of the characters’ confusion. The characters confront and confuse elements from the spiritual domain, from history, from their present acquaintances, and from their imagination, and have trouble keeping them straight. Their response to these elements is often cast in Biblical terms, but not always, and it is their response that results in character development. Through this process, we see some characters grow into godly saints, exhibiting virtue and divine character suited for heaven, which they practice while still on earth. Others become ever more self-centered, unable to distinguish reality from desire and ultimately descending into the nothingness that results from rejecting God and the world He created. This is the title theme. Every thought, word, and deed in this life moves us either towards heaven or hell. 

There are some aspects of this tale that are unbiblical, but most follow the general tenants of Scripture. The theme of substitutionary love follows the author’s understanding of how Christ’s atoning sacrifice is to be played out in everyday human life. The confusion of hell with Gomorrah is not necessarily Biblical, but seeing its destruction by fire as a metaphor is vivid. Interaction with the dead runs counter to Deuteronomy 18:11, but the nature of the interactions is consistent with the narrative of 1 Samuel 28. 

There is a short speech by the playwright, Peter Stanhope, near the end of chapter 9, that describes the nature of Gomorrah and its residents.  “They beget themselves on their adoration of themselves, and they live and feed and starve on themselves, and by themselves too… They won’t have the facts of creation.”  This description is then personified in the closing pages of the book, a vivid description of a man going through the process of losing all contact with the world. How he got there is the descent into hell.

What is sadly missing is a clear presentation of the Good News. Jesus does not appear in the lives of any of the characters as they struggle with spiritual realities and choices. The atonement is alluded to in the discussion of substituted love, but there is no clear presentation of the gospel. In a novel dealing with the ultimate outcome of human souls, it seems to me necessary to include the death of Christ on the cross to pay for our sins, and the offer of God of forgiveness and reconciliation being contingent only on our decision to believe in and receive that offer. Our ultimate destination depends on this!

Will Biden, Putin, and Trump glorify God like Nebuchadnezzar or Pharaoh?

At the end of that time, I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven, and my sanity was restored. Then I praised the Most High; I honored and glorified him who lives forever. His dominion is an eternal dominion; his kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him: “What have you done?”

At the same time that my sanity was restored, my honor and splendor were returned to me for the glory of my kingdom. My advisers and nobles sought me out, and I was restored to my throne and became even greater than before.

Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and exalt and glorify the King of heaven, because everything he does is right and all his ways are just. And those who walk in pride he is able to humble.  (Daniel 4:34-37)

In Exodus 8:7 we read that Pharaoh was warned by one of his courtiers that Egypt was being ruined. God told Moses that He raised Pharaoh up that His name would be proclaimed in all the earth. (Exodus 9:16) Pharaoh persisted in his stubborn rebellion against God, and in Exodus 12:29-30 we read that there was someone dead in every household in Egypt on the night of the Passover. 

It is a fact of eternal reality that God will ultimately be glorified. We know that Daniel prayed for Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 2:18, 4:19). We suspect that Joseph prayed for an earlier Pharaoh. (Genesis 41:33-36) Did Moses not pray for the Pharaoh who enslaved the Israelites and refused to release them? Or was there a character of such pride and rebellion in that Pharaoh that even Moses’ prayers could not bring his voluntary submission to God’s glory?

Modern Rulers face the same challenges. 

Will President Biden openly acknowledge his Catholic faith as Nebuchadnezzar did, and if so, will that require a life-crisis? Will he govern as God’s regent, or choose a path that leads to disaster for the people he governs? What are his core values - that he is in charge, or that he is responsible to God as an under-shepherd or steward? Irregardless, we are commanded to pray for him. (1 Timothy 2:1-2)

President Putin shows every evidence of going the path that Pharaoh chose. The disaster in Ukraine continues. He has some terminal disease. God will be glorified even as Russia is ruined. There are many believers in Russia, doubtless some are praying for him, but from external indications, to no avail. Is his soul lost beyond any hope of redemption? Is the core of his being so utterly against love and holiness that God can only judge and not redeem? Must God’s glory be displayed by ruin, open physical defeat, at a national level?

What of Donald Trump? We never heard anything like I Chronicles 29:10-13 from him while in office. With an ego that will not accept the reality of defeat in election, is that an indicator of a Pharaoh mindset? He is not currently in charge of anything beyond his business empire, but what of a return to office? Or is he so convinced of the virtue of his ethos that he will attempt to use extra-legal methods (force) to impose his will on the nation? (Perhaps this makes him more like Absalom or Adonijah, although neither of them exercised power in any significant way.) Or  will he fade into history as a might-have-been?

Ultimately, God is sovereign and will be glorified. 

• Chastening like that of boanthropy or insania zoanthropia might humble the proud, and God may choose it. Or perhaps, like Lucifer, some will still choose to defy God knowing the final outcome. But our role is clear - we are to pray for them, as rulers are charged by God to be a minister for good (Romans 13:4). 
• There was a second role that both Joseph and Daniel played - exhorting those in authority, pleading with them to respond to God and His actions in humankind and in their lives. In this role, we should note that neither of them initiated this interaction, but responded to God’s direct dealing with that ruler (in the form of prophetic dreams) to explain to them His ways and His calling. This is not carte blanche to confront or attack a ruler. In our age, it is more appropriate to  present the gospel, and make a call to repent before God and submit to Him. 

YHWH AB Hallelu Hashem

 Suggestions for Prayer

• Eternal Father, praise be to Your Name.
• Ask God to glorify Himself in our circumstances, that Jesus’ name can be linked to His supernatural intervention.
• Pray that His nature and character of love, holiness, integrity, empathy, etc., be revealed for all to see.

• Try to discern what God’s will is in a given situation and ask Him to do that specific thing.
• What does He want for the people involved? What is He doing in the circumstances and how can we participate in His work?
• Talk to God about the issue conversationally, explaining what you think and asking Him what He thinks. And then be quiet and listen!
• Ask Him to guide you by His Holy Spirit, by His voice, through the specific situations that you face.
• Be honest and open about your own needs, sins, weaknesses, 
• Pray for protection from evil, both the evil one and the evil in the world, in His Name and by His blood.
• Ask that you be empowered to be an instrument in building His eternal kingdom, to dignify His will by allowing His power to be revealed in and through your situation.

The Presence of God - for real

Scripture describes the nature and character of God. We have two specifics that are hard to reconcile on human terms. God is love, and God is holy.§ As parents, and as spouses, we struggle when those we love do wrong. We want them to be happy and this means we rue the consequences they will face. We disciple our children as Scripture commands. We warn of consequences that are the natural and/or supernatural result of actions. And we believe that God in His love for His children does also. But we struggle with how God reconciles His love and His holiness.

The most straightforward understanding is that God, in His love, desires the best for us. He knows that wrong actions will result in Consequences. So He disciplines out of love. Tough love we should have for our children, and for others. There is certainly a lot of truth in this. I think it was C. S. Lewis who said, would a father see his daughter happy as a whore? We sense that this love transcends the emotional effusion of affection, that some people call ‘love’.

There is a flip side, Pharisaical legalism.  Knowing that we are best off by always doing what is right, legalists point out and accuse any transgression of law or regulation, or even custom or personal opinion. You can find legalists in almost every church, as well as the woke movement or any other purveyor of political correctness. Legalists cling to the truth that God in His word said to do certain things and not do some other specific things.

In experiencing God’s presence, we become aware of a deeper truth. God’s love and holiness are in Him fused inseparably, as attributes of His divine nature. I do not know of any word that denotes this integrated nature. It is the burning bush that is not consumed, the fire that comes as a rushing mighty wind to appear as tongues on individuals. It is the glowing radiance of a face brighter than the sun, emanating from the transfigured Jesus. It is the voice of One saying to a woman caught in the act of adultery “neither do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more,” and saying to a corpse that has been dead four days “Come forth!” In times of quietness in our own lives (nearly banished by modern technology), we sense His presence, both His deep love and His unblemished holiness. They are not in tension, but in synergy generating divine power, like fuel and oxidizer mix to generate thrust in a rocket engine. 

We need to link this to the power of Jesus. He created the universe and all that is therein. This power is directly resulting from the divine nature. He answers our prayers, but often the answer is that we don’t understand Him or we asked the wrong question. He can miraculously do anything, but one reality of the universe He created is spiritual causality. He tried to explain it in the Sermon on the Mount, and in the final discourse on the Passover night He was betrayed. He invites us to partake of His nature and character in order to see His power and glory.

There are degrees of knowing God, just as in any relationship.

• We intellectually understand the atonement, the reconciliation between God and man, and between love and holiness, through the death of Jesus on the cross.
• We make a decision to accept Him: repent of our sins, make a commitment to obey Him, and make Him our Lord.
• We experience His work in our life through answers to prayer, providential interventions, innumerable “coincidences”.
• We pray regularly and frequently.
• We see Him working in our life to purify us, to change us into His likeness, singling out spiritual defects and causing us to cleanse ourself from them.
• We experience a sense of His presence, the weight of His glory, in an inexpressible awareness that He is near, and awe at the sense of His nature and character.
• We take on His nature and character through the empowerment of the indwelling Holy Spirit, and our determination to become like Him to the best of our ability, in humility knowing that we cannot.

It is in this last stage that love and holiness become in us a powerful reaction that unleashes all that He can do in and through us. Revival (as at Asbury and historically) tends to exhibit the penultimate level of knowing God above. The challenge to us is to move to the next and final (in this list) stage, of choosing to become like Him, to see the world with His eyes and respond as He would. This would be His real Presence.

 ___________________________

§ Relevant verses

• God is love, and loves the world and those in it.

•  For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. (John 3:16)
• The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love. (1 John 4:8)
• For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)

• God is holy and commands His children to be holy

• For I am Yahweh your God. Therefore, set yourselves apart as holy and be holy, for I am holy. …. For I am Yahweh who brought you up from the land of Egypt to be your God; thus you shall be holy, for I am holy.’” (Leviticus 11:44-45)
• Speak to all the congregation of the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘You shall be holy, for I, Yahweh your God, am holy.” (Leviticus 19:2)
• … like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your conduct; because it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” (1 Peter 1:15-16)

Asbury Revival - 1970 and 2023 - what is God doing? The question we should ask is, "what are we doing?"

One Divine Moment, edited by Robert E Coleman and David J Gyertson, describes the events of 1970 from a number of perspectives, and includes a 1995 retrospective by one of the participants. A student’s diary includes a stream-of-consciousness eyewitness description of events, and observations on those events.

·        No sheer emotion or psychological manipulation to get people to the altar;
·        Appeal to rid yourself of the trash & garbage that claims your life;
·        Open our eyes to see people as they really are;
·        A sense of honesty and integrity in our hearts;
·        Christ is a necessity, not an option;
·        Weeping, sobbing, intense prayer;
·        The Spirit working quietly and reverently;
·        Repentance, prayer for forgiveness;
·        A real tragedy of life, that we have ignored God;
·        Unusual manifestation of joy;
·        Unusual spirit of holiness, souls sobbing at the altar;
·        Human pride is a huge stumbling block;
·        Emotional excitement is not the answer; we must confess our sins;
·        Blessed assurance, electrifying moments, a grand jubilee in God’s presence;
·        Awe, wonder, love.
·        People wanting more in their Christian lives.
·        For every answered prayer, He gives two more burdens;
·        Be patient and wait for God;
·        God has separated us from the world and shut it out so He could speak;
·        He is getting us ready to walk in a pagan society seriously, meekly, obediently;
·        The most wonderful thing in life is to be used of God;
·        I sat in the auditorium and just let Jesus love me;
·        He shows me not only who He is, but also what I am as His child;
·        Into a dying and lost world we must go;
·        I’m free from the limitations I placed on myself.

Anyone who has experienced the Lord’s presence in power can relate to one or more of these. A comment made with respect to the events of 2/6/2023 is that it was as though Jesus walked into the room. What being in His presence is like, and our responses to it, are perhaps a foretaste of eternity in His presence. 

 Noteworthy it is that in 1970, protests against the war in Vietnam were widespread on college campuses, but also there was revival among Catholics in the Charismatic Renewal (centered in South Bend), and evangelism success among the hippie movement in California, as depicted in the Jesus Revolution movie. God was clearly moving in American culture, as He had many times in history (His story). The book goes on to discuss the spreading and sharing of this renewal on other college campuses in 1970, and in other venues. And finally, what was the long-term fruit, as seen in 1995.

 50+ years afterward we are now, and it seems to be happening again. But, over the last fifty years, the students thus affected went on into the world, into ministry or secular jobs, impacted permanently by their experience with God. American society seems to have been diverted from a head-on collision with God. But the last few decades have seen the cancerous growth of the philosophy and lifestyle inspired by Satan, the adversary of God, who seeks to enlist humanity in his rebellion or destroy it.

 Let us not dodge the issue. Western society is headed for cataclysmic disaster, of a magnitude exceeding the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. The root cause is not government programs or human sinfulness, but deliberate human participation in actions and beliefs that reject God and His standards. Government programs, whether they encourage virtue or vice, are a result, not a cause. Individual choices are similarly a result of these beliefs. Why does God move in young people, particularly in colleges? I believe it is because He wants and is preparing young people for intelligent and articulate advocacy of Truth in the world, in all venues where moral and ethical decisions are discussed. Not just Congress and the Supreme Court, but local governments (at all levels), social media, broadcast media, printed media, and social gatherings where people hang out.

 A reading of the four gospels will find these three themes oft-repeated by Jesus:

·        Believers must have faith in the fundamental truths of the Bible, and implicitly know the Bible well enough to understand what Truth is and trust in it and Him. Of first importance, believers must accept as Truth that Jesus is the unique Son of God who died for our sins and rose again on the third day, and lives to rescue us.
·        Believers must obey Jesus, and do the things He commanded. Without being legalistic, He gave many commands that seem to be impossible. That is because we need the indwelling Holy Spirit to empower us, or else they are impossible to obey.
·        Believers must have a relationship with Jesus. This can be compared to a family relationship, whether the metaphor is as sons and daughters of God, or as the bride of Christ. This relationship begins when we agree to receive Him into our lives, not resist Him. The important thing about this relationship is frequent and close (intimate) communication. We sense His closeness, hear His voice, talk to Him.

 Unfortunately, most of us choose to favor one at the expense of the other two, typically focusing on one of:

·        Scripture study and doctrinal purity,
·        Earning God’s favor through good works, or
·        Prioritizing emotional effusions in our prayer and worship of God above all else.

 Revival among believers seems to be God taking the initiative to get these in balance and context in our lives. We do not know the future, except the barest Scriptural prophetic highlights. But we can and must respond when He moves in power, and get our lives in sync with Him. He is moving. What are we doing to respond?

Book Review: Following the Call ed by Charles E Moore; Living the Sermon on the Mount Together

This collection of over 150 essays by many, many different authors, published in 2021, spans church history from its earliest days to the present. It includes a wide variety of viewpoints as to understanding and applying Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 5-7 to our lives. What would these authors say in conversation to each other? Francis of Assisi, Elisabeth Elliot, Soren Kierkegaard, Leo Tolstoy, Augustine of Hippo, Dallas Willard, Francis Chan, Dietrich Bonhoffer, Mother Teresa, Gregory of Nyssa, Charles Spurgeon, N. T. Wright, C. S. Lewis, Clement of Alexandria, the authors of the Didache. How do we respond to their words to us?

The essays follow a division of Jesus’ sermon into four parts: Kingdom character; Kingdom commands; Kingdom devotion; and Kingdom priorities. Each of the 52 chapters include discussion questions, as the intention of the book is to stimulate discussion in weekly small groups. This makes sense since, although most of the authors speak authoritatively, they offer differing perspectives, so the reader(s) need to process the essays. 

Charles Moore is a member of Bruderhof community. Per Wikipedia, 

The Bruderhof (place of brothers) is an Anabaptist Christian movement that was founded in Germany in 1920 by Eberhard Arnold. The movement has communities in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, Paraguay, and Australia. The Bruderhof practices believer's baptism, non-violence and peacemaking, common ownership, the proclamation of the gospel, and lifelong faithfulness in marriage. The Bruderhof is an intentional community as defined by the Fellowship for Intentional Community.

There are many well-known challenges to the interpretation and application of the Sermon on the Mount, and very many books. Jesus’ commands seem impossible. Only when fully under the anointing of the Holy Spirit could they be kept. The book concludes with Jesus’ admonition that anyone who does not build his or her life on His words is building a house on the sand, which will be destroyed in the storm. In effect, He has set an impossible standard for all but Mother Teresa. Even if we ask God to bless our enemies, and our heart isn’t fully in it, we are judged as hypocrites. How do we reconcile Jesus’ love and death on the cross to save us with His warnings that unless we do all of the impossible commands, we are headed for destruction? What He wants is all of us.

The challenge is practical living out of total devotion to Christ and His commands.  The Bruderhof community holds all things in common. While generosity in obedience to God is straightforward in theory, holding  all things in common only works for very small groups. Over 100 years of history demonstrate that socialism and communism are disasters in larger groups and at the national level. (One need read only a few chapters of Eat The Rich by P. J. O’Rourke.) Although this was practiced in the early church (mentioned only once, Acts 2:44), as the church grew beyond its initial nucleus, it was most likely the early church fathers’ recognition of the practical implications of this primitive communism that wisely prevented a broader implementation. A family usually has a common budget. But even small religious communes of previous centuries typically did not endure more than a generation or two. A small group of believers may choose to hold their earthly belongings in common, that is, taking a lifelong vow of poverty. As Jesus taught, this may be required for the sake of  devotion to Him. But it is not required of everyone. Why are things this way? None of the selected essays in this book address this. Basil the Great, in his essay on Matthew 6:19-21, relates that we are accountable for how we handle the wealth entrusted to us, but a page later says that the money in your vaults belongs to the destitute. There is no context like that in Tim Keller’s Every Good Endeavor to put a balance into work and its fruit.  Jesus points out that the issue is not one of economic theory but of human nature - greed and jealousy. Jesus warned against this multiple times (not to overlook Exodus 20:17 either).  Jesus challenges us to protect our soul by eschewing avarice, but I doubt that He meant we must impoverish all mankind. 

‘Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him to fish and he will eat for a lifetime’ is too trite (and it’s not in the Bible). Mother Teresa organized the feeding of millions of destitute. But lifting the destitute out of poverty requires more than simple giving. How can the government, with unlimited worldly resources, best aid  the poor nations of the world? Has the Peace Corps significantly aided in lifting third world countries out of poverty? Does letting every able-bodied person in destitute countries move to the US help their nation? Are migrants  improving their own lot in the world without concern for their souls or their nation of origin, or are they looking to engage in an economy that works rather than a dysfunctional failed state run by self-righteous collectivists claiming to do good? How can we help others to improve their lives without the ruin of their soul? This is an example of discussion that is missing.  The essays in the book display the breadth across authors, religious tradition, and the centuries, but the integration of multiple viewpoints under the wisdom of the Holy Spirit requires contemplation and discussion. What is Jesus calling us to?