Touchstone Magazine - Mere Comments

The Unbaptism of Some English

Lord, have mercy: Renunciation of Baptism certificates being hawked and bought in England. I suppose one measured response might go something like this: "When baptismal vows are renounced de facto by the life and non-faith of a man, adding a piece of paper to confirm an apostasy isn't much." (HT: Steve Breitenbach)

Hello, All . . .

I'm looking forward to interacting with the wonderfully discriminating readers of Touchstone.  Had I been invited just a little earlier, I would have posted about Donald Trump's The Apprentice: Celebrity Edition and the natural law here.  As it was, I posted it over at the Acton Institute. 

Thanks for welcoming me into this delightful fellowship.

Hunter Baker at Mere Comments

I mentioned a few days ago I've been working to get more content on Mere Comments. My first announcement is the addition of Hunter Baker to our team. You will also note that I have expanded the subtitle of Mere Comments above to include friendly allies.

About Hunter Baker: He is the author of The End of Secularism which comes out with Crossway Books in August 2009. Hunter Baker, J.D., Ph.D. serves as contributing editor to The City and to Salvo Magazine. In addition, he has written for The American Spectator, American Outlook, National Review Online, Christianity Today, Human Events.com, the Acton Institute's Religion and Liberty, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and a number of other outlets. His scholarly work has appeared in the Journal of Law and Religion (“Competing Orthodoxies in the Public Square: Postmodernism’s Effect on Church-State Separation”), the Regent University Law Review (“Storming the Gates of a Massive Cultural Investment: Reconsidering Roe in Light of its Flawed Foundation and Undesirable Consequences"), and the Journal of Church and State. In 2007, he contributed a chapter titled “The Struggle for Baylor’s Soul” to the edited collection The Baylor Project, published by St. Augustine’s Press. He has also been a guest on a variety of television and radio programs, including Prime Time America and Kresta in the Afternoon.

As a law student in the late 1990’s, Hunter Baker worked for The Rutherford Institute and Prison Fellowship Ministries where he focused primarily on defending the constitutional principle of religious liberty. Prior to beginning doctoral studies in religion and politics at Baylor University in 2003, he served as director of public policy for the Georgia Family Council. While at Baylor, Baker served as a graduate assistant to the philosopher Francis Beckwith and the historian Barry Hankins. He assisted Beckwith in the editing of his landmark book Defending Life which has now been published by Cambridge University Press. He also provided research assistance to Hankins in his forthcoming biography of Francis Schaeffer.

Baker currently serves on the political science faculty at Houston Baptist University and is the special assistant to the president, Robert Sloan. He is married to Ruth Elaine Baker, M.D. They have a son, Andrew, and a daughter, Grace.

Welcome, Hunter!

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Fr. Pat's Talk on Atonement Now Available

Is there are divide between Eastern and Western views of the atonement? Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon, in this talk given in Chicago last week and recorded by Ancient Faith Radio, argues that a certain "Anselmian" and so-called Western view is not really Western exclusively and can be found among Orthodox theologians. Further, it is also only medieval, and not a patristic view. There is a patristic view of the Atonement shared by the Church Fathers, East and West. He uses Augustine to critique Anselm. It should spark some interest and spoil a few caricatures used to further divide us.

Blessed by Older Artists

Last evening I visited an open house at Chicago café for older artists. The artists live in either of two "intergenerational" residence centers in Chicago's Edgewater neighborhood. Annette, 68, showed me her large canvas painting of "Christmas," which was adorned with snow, snowmen, houses, decorations, lots of red and green. I asked her if it was from any Christmas memories. She replied with a big warm-hearted smile that it was just how Christmas made her feel. I said I noted the glowing golden cross in the upper left hand corner of the sky--she said, "That's what it's all about." Oh, "The 'reason for the season'." Annette said she lives in the residence along with her 17-year-old grandson. "How many grandchildren to you have." Why, "Thirty-two--and 7 great-grandchildren," she beamed. She said how happy she was to be at the home, and how her church in Evanston, Mt. Pisgah (I assume M. B., that is mIssionary Baptist like so many African American churches here), provided a ride for her every Sunday, so her life was almost perfect, and she was happy.

A few minutes later, I sat down next to a Belgrade-born emigre to Uruguay, now living in Chicago, who was looking for someone to speak Spanish to. Al, the artist sitting on my left, jumped in and started telling me about his pencil sketches. He studied art and graphics for a year after World War II service, but the cost and his parents' financial needs sent him to work for Motorola, a job he stayed at for 25 years. Then he moved into security, where he carried a magnum 357 and worked various places, including a bank downtown in Water Tower Place.He told me how he met Mr. T. "I used to work with Mr. T before he was Mr. T," I said. "We were both in the security department at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in the mid-70s, and I knew him as Lawrence Tero." He was amused. Al said he had to start packing a snubnouse 38 because the weight of the Magnum was stressing his hernia, which needed an operation about 10 years ago. He spent the next six years in a nursing home, but he finally convinced them he could make it outside. That was four years ago. He is now 82.

I asked him about family, and he said that was his one regret. "I should have married and had children." He had girlfriends and nearly married once. He was an only child, his parents having married late and his mother, nearly forty, gave birth to him via caesarian delivery. "I wish I had brothers and sisters--maybe they would have pushed me to get married." A photographer came by with Al's framed skethes so he could get a picture. He showed me the portrait sketches, which he called "mediocre at best." I thought they were a bit better than that, certainly better than I could do, and said that he really got the eyes on one face dead on, another mouth quite well and that he has all the elements there for a good sketch. He thought one pair of eyes were based on those of Buddy Hackett.

It was time to go, but I would have enjoyed more conversation. I looked at Al, he extended hand as I said, "Well, God bless you, Al." His face locked on mine as he held my hand and said, "Yes, God bless you, too. I mean, that's what everything is all about, isn't it? You know, faith...and hope." I said, "Yes, faith, hope and love." Al jumped right in, "Faith, hope, and love, these three remain." "It's been wonderful talking with you. Thank you."

I thought about Annette and Al a lot last night. Neither they nor anyone around them last night mentioned a word about topics that I hear about on the news night and day. No politics, no "Economy." They had their own economies they were dealing with in their senior years. Both thought about children, art, family, faith, hope and love. We moderns, rushing headlong into the rest of a century that can't wait to prove itself wiser and smarter than all the rest, fear the poverty of flattened investment returns and sagging IRA's, while choice wisdom, even if sometimes in hindsight, lies mostly ignored under the gray hairs ofolder men and women who were raised in times when human capital was more often than today counted in virtue and character, not celebrity status and money, measures that tempt every generation.

There are voices to be heard and lessons to heed in the regrets and the joys of those who've walked this good earth for three score and more years. It's all there for those who want to hear it. And the good news last night was that those most responsible for bringing me and Annette and Al together were young people. Young people, talk to those elders of the generation before mine--we had little time for them--before they leave us. Hear them well. While not every word spoken will be in wisdom, for foolishness clings to us, yet taken together, a pattern will emerge of permanent things we know to be true as we pass on to where only faith, hope, and love remain. Each of is painting a portrait with our very life. Thank you Anette and Al. I was blessed by you.

Who Painted the Virgin of Guadalupe?

GetReligion.org notes the latest State Department gaffe at the top: Secretary of State Clinton visiting Mexico asks a cleric who is showing her the Virgin of Guadalupe a bad question, at least bad if you are supposed to represent the United States to various nations and would like to know a little bit about the culture of those nations ahead of time. Not knowing about Mexico and the Virgin of Guadalupe is sort of like visit Vatican City and asking, "Who started the Papacy?" Or asking an imam in Saudi Arabia  "Who wrote the Koran?"

May Line Up Is Set

Attention: Here’s our table of contents (and an alternative version) for the May issue of Touchstone, which will go to press soon!

Editorial: The War on Error: A Caution on the Business of Confronting Heresy (or Name-Calling & the Danger of Heresy Hunting) by S. M. Hutchens

Columns & Views:

[Spiritual] Truths in [Popular] Fiction by Phillip E. Johnson (or Sci-Fi, Anne Rice & Dean Koontz)

Words’ Worth: Patrick Henry Reardon on the Transcendent Vocabulary of Mundane Signs (or how Fr. Pat Reardon was carried into metaphysical bliss while stuck at a bus stop)

Losing Our Grips: James Hitchcock on the Cultural Suicide of the Newly Enlightened (Church & Media no longer count, but one institution is left standing--and corrupting)

Picture Imperfect: S. M. Hutchens on the Literary Dirt in Harry Potter’s Field (Or is HP Fit For Christian Kids?)

Take & Give: Bruce Brander on Two Words That Describe the Workings of Love (or Why You May Be Taking One Step Forward and Two Steps Backwards as a Spouse)

Abraham & God’s Power by Patrick Henry Reardon

FEATURES
When Gentile Meets Jew [or When Goy Meets Boy]
A Christian Reading of Ruth & the Hebrew Scriptures by Peter J. Leithart (or Is a Christian Reading of the Old Testament Just Religious Imperialism? Ruth's Romance Reveals All)

Lincoln & the Methodists
Circuit Riders, Secret Missions & the Odd Faith of a Civil War President by Matthew May (or How a Lower-Class Religion Maybe Saved the Union or at Least Helped a Little Bit)

REVIEWS
In Defense of Religious Liberty by David Novak
reviewed by Gerald J. Russello

A Credible Witness: Reflections on Power, Evangelism and Race by Brenda Salter McNeil
reviewed by Louis Markos

Understanding Four Views on the Lord’s Supper edited by John H. Armstrong
The Lord’s Supper: Five Views edited by Gordon T. Smith
reviewed by Thomas A. Baima

Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist’s Journey with the New Calvinists by Collin Hansen
reviewed by Jocelyn Mathewes

Sign up today for your subscription to the best “Christian Conservative Ecumenical” magazine in the world! (Really? Well, try us out, and let me know…)
To get the May issue, you must sign up before midnight on April 1, 2009 (No Fooling!)
If you already subscribe (thank you!), give a gift subscription today! You will be appreciated!

Alexander & Demetrios the Greek

Greek Orthodox Archbishop Demetrios got laughter at the White House when he mentioned (see this video) his hopes that President Obama will, like Alexander the Great, cut through the Gordian Knot of difficult issues. I hope the archbishop had the wherewithal to challenge him on his pro-abortion policies, which are not a laughing matter, but the sort of things for which nations are held accountable.

Church OK With Atheist Pastor

This just in:

Ecumenical News International
27 March 2009

Church authorities not to discipline Dutch 'atheist' pastor
ENI-09-0252

By Andreas Havinga
Utrecht, Netherlands, 27 March (ENI)--Two regional church authorities in the Netherlands are reported to have decided to take no disciplinary action against a self-proclaimed atheist pastor, Klaas Hendrikse.

The decision of the authorities in the southern Dutch province of Zeeland was published in a letter to their congregations, the Protestant daily newspaper the Nederlands Dagblad reported on 24 March.

The church authorities said disciplinary proceedings against Hendrikse, who is a pastor of the Protestant Church in the Netherlands, would be likely to lead to, "a protracted discussion about the meanings of words that in the end will produce little clarity". The letter also noted that people have debated the issue of "God's existence" throughout time.

Hendrikse gained attention with his book published in November 2007, in which he said that it was not necessary to believe in God's existence in order to believe in "God". The Dutch title of the book translates as, "Believing in a God who does not exist: manifesto of an atheist pastor".

In his book, Hendrikse recounts how his conviction that God does not exist has become stronger over the years.

"The non-existence of God is for me not an obstacle but a precondition to believing in God. I am an atheist believer," Hendrikse writes in the book. "God is for me not a being but a word for what can happen between people. Someone says to you, for example, 'I will not abandon you', and then makes those words come true. It would be perfectly alright to call that [relationship] God."

Hendrikse has been a minister for more than 20 years in the southwestern town of Middelburg and a nearby village. His two congregations have belonged to the Protestant Church in the Netherlands since it was formed in 2004 as a union of a Lutheran church and two Reformed denominations. Hendrikse's congregations also belong to the Association of Liberal Protestants.

As each congregation belongs to a different church district, the issue of possible disciplinary proceedings was a matter for two regional church authorities.

The national leadership of the Protestant Church in the Netherlands has in the past said that church law prevents it from initiating disciplinary measures against incumbent clergy. That task falls to the church's regional authorities.

Hendrikse welcomed the decision not to opt for disciplinary proceedings against him.

The spokesperson of the national leadership of the Protestant Church, Jan-Gerd Heetderks, was quoted by the Reformatorisch Dagblad newspaper as saying that the national church leadership would wait until it had received the letter and had a an opportunity to study it before making any comment.

(Copyright Ecumenical News International, all rights reserved. Reprinted with permission)