Photo credit: New York Public Library. Via Unsplash.
Here’s what came up in my personal devotions this morning. I was reading in Romans 13:
For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed. (v. 6-7, ESV)
This may offend some of my friends, but there’s zero biblical grounds for saying taxation is theft. The passage above clearly states that we have an obligation before God to pay our taxes (note, Paul’s talking about the Romans here. Nero is the emperor). Government, Paul says, is ordained by God and He expects us to bear our share of the costs.
A particular tax may be unjust. It may be disproportionately levied. It may be too high. We have every right to dispute wrong taxes, and to minimize our own payments the best we can within the law. Tax reform is great. Particular taxes should in many cases be abolished.
But a Christian has no business saying “Taxation is theft” as a general principle. I overlook it when my agnostic or atheist Ayn Rand-following friends say that. But Christians should not.
After all the fights we’ve had about abortion and homosexual marriage, it bothers me to see conservative Christians spouting plainly unbiblical slogans.
A college professor told me he gets the most response from his students by exposing them to the first question of the Heidelberg Catechism. It challenges contemporary assumptions and calls out our faith.
“What is your only comfort in life and death?
“That I am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from all the power of the devil. He also preserves me in such a way that without the will of my heavenly Father not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, all things must work together for my salvation. Therefore, by his Holy Spirit he also assures me of eternal life and makes me heartily willing and ready from now on to live for him.”
Here’s some other reading from this weekend.
Reaction: Kevin Holtsberry reviews the novella Trust by Italian author Domenico Starnone. “I enjoyed the story as a mediation on the way we create stories and perceptions of ourselves and our lives, about who we are and why we do what we do, etc.”
Jewish Book Council has released its list of winners of the 2021 National Jewish Book Awards. The winner for fiction is Joshua Cohen’s The Netanyahus: An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family. (via Literary Saloon)
One Nation Under the Pope: Some politically and theologically conservative leaders today dislike the secular government we have in America and would like to unite the country under one holy, Roman high priest.
Photo: Main Street, Columbus Junction, Iowa. 2003. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
Another cold day, into which I did not venture out at all. This is one of the marks of prudence and maturity. (I’ve been prudent and mature on winter days since I was about nine years old). I had translation work to do, and that’s what I did. I’m not yet half-way through reading Nansen’s book (the thing is long, I tell you. Conveys the true polar night experience).
So what shall I post? I noodled around on YouTube and discovered the clip above. It’s Sissel, of course, with the Heretic Tabernacle Choir, doing the first verse of the original version of a hymn I expect you know – “How Great Thou Art.” It started out as “O Store Gud” (O Great God) in Swedish. The writer was Carl Boberg, a lay minister in the Mission Covenant Church of Sweden. He wrote it in 1885, after watching a storm and its aftermath. Later he sold the rights to his church body.
In 1930, Stuart K. Hine, a British Methodist missionary in the Ukraine, heard a Russian version (translated from a German version) of the hymn being sung. He started using it in his services, then began composing a free English paraphrase of this translation of a translation. He also began adding verses of his own, in response to needs he discerned among the people he worked with.
During the winter of 1932-33, the Hines were forced to leave Ukraine because of Stalin’s diabolical Holodomor forced famine (one hopes some of the millions of victims found comfort in his hymn as they died). In 1939, World War II forced the Hines to return to England, where they settled in Somerset and ministered to Polish refugees. It was at that stage that his final verse, “When Christ shall come….”, was added.
The song in his version (Swedish-Americans already had their own, less singable translation) was apparently first introduced to the United States at a conference in Stony Brook, New York, in 1951. But J. Edwin Orr of Fuller Seminary discovered it being sung by a choir in India. He introduced it at a conference in San Bernadino, California in 1953. Manna Music bought the rights, and George Beverly Shea started singing it at Billy Graham’s crusade in Harringay, England, in 1954. And the rest is hymnody.
What do I think of Hines’ translation? I’ve got to say, I do a fair amount of song translation in my script work. And I’ve learned to kiss literal sense goodbye. If you can transpose some of the original images and turns of phrase, you’re doing great. For the rest, always prefer rhyme, meter, and singability to literal faithfulness. What you need to try to do is convey the subjective experience. That’s the best you can do. More than that is madness.
I’ve sung more faithful translations of this hymn once or twice. I must confess, they did not move my heart.
Wikipedia has the whole story of “How Great Thou Art” here.
As the new year begins, the great Presbyterian hymn, “The Sands of Time Are Sinking,” has been in my mind. It’s not a hymn I grew up with, but one I learned to appreciate as an adult. It’s about time, and our ultimate hopes as believers. Suitable, I think. The hymnwriter Anne R. Cousin based it on something the Scottish Presbyterian divine Samuel Rutherford said on his deathbed.
I heard somewhere, once, that this was Moody’s favorite hymn, and that they sang it at all his rallies.
Or it may have been Spurgeon. I wasn’t there.
Today, it should be noted, is J. R. R. Tolkien’s birthday. It is the custom for every Tolkien fan to take a moment tonight at 9:00 p.m. local time, stand, raise their beverage of choice, and say, “The Professor!”
I doubt the Professor would have approved of the orange soda I plan to drink, but I do what I can within my personal limitations.
Photo credit: Nikon Corporation, Nikon D750. Free to use under the Unsplash license.
(I wrote the following meditation for my church body’s magazine this year. I was assigned to write on Luke 1:1-4. I was a little concerned at first — a prologue seems an unpromising subject. However, in meditating on it, I came up with the following, which I think is not bad at all. I share it as my Christmas greeting to you and yours.)
Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught. (Luke 1:1-4, ESV)
There’s a tradition about how Luke came to write his gospel. I like it, and it seems to me to fit the Bible narrative. The tradition says that Luke did a lot of research while staying in Caesarea, during the two years the apostle Paul was under house arrest there, awaiting trial.
That must have been a frustrating period for the missionaries. They found work to do while they waited, but they must have thought again and again, “This wasn’t what I was called to do!”
But Luke (according to this tradition) made the most of it. One thing he seems to have done then was to write the book of Acts, which can be seen as a kind of “legal deposition” for Paul’s trial in Rome (the account starts in Acts 23).
But there were also many people available in that area who’d been eyewitnesses to the life and work of our Lord Jesus. Chief among them was Mary, the Lord’s mother. That would explain the details of the Savior’s birth, seen from Mary’s point of view, that we find only in Luke’s gospel. How eager she must have been to share her stories, and how eagerly Luke must have written them down!
It’s been called – with good reason – the greatest story ever told. But Luke, a physician, a man of science in his time, knew the principle that “if it sounds too good to be true, it’s probably not.”
So he adds this preface to his book. Essentially, he’s saying, “Look, Theophilus (the name means ‘Beloved of God’). You’re about to read about some amazing things. Wonderful things. Things so astounding you’ll find them hard to believe.
“But I fact-checked it. This isn’t some myth about the gods on Olympus. It’s not an ancient tale about a legendary golden age. This is an account of things that happened in our lifetimes, and there are multiple witnesses still around to testify to them. I talked to those people.
“The world isn’t what you think it is. Life isn’t what you think it is. Something amazing is happening all around us, and you can be part of it. I’m going to tell you about these astounding things. Angels. Miracles. Sicknesses healed. The dead raised. Hope for everyone who’s abused or oppressed or suffering.
“I’m going to start with the stories of a couple of babies…”
I’m sure there are wonderful customs among the many cultures who celebrate Christmas in warm southern climates (Christ wasn’t exactly born in Norway, after all). But I’ve always been grateful personally to know Christmas as a time of light in darkness, a celebration carried on bravely just at that time of year when the darkness seems most powerful. Christmas is, and always should be, a kind of surprise.
G. K. Chesterton wrote it this way in his poem, “The House of Christmas:”
This world is wild as an old wives’ tale,
And strange the plain things are,
The earth is enough and the air is enough
For our wonder and our war;
But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings
And our peace is put in impossible things
Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings
Round an incredible star.
“Gospel,” as I’m sure you know, means “good news.” Like so many things about our faith, we need to look at it a second time. This isn’t just any good news – it’s the best news. The best news possible. We are not alone. We are not forgotten. We are loved in a greater and stranger way than we ever imagined. Death has been conquered. The future will be incredible. Everything you’ve suffered will be worth it. Whatever you’ve dreamed of, whatever you’ve fantasized about – it will be better than that.
Luke 1:1-4 is like a gift tag on a Christmas present. On the tag is written, “You’re about to open a gift so wonderful you’ll have a hard time believing it’s for you. Trust me, it is. Open it now. Merry Christmas, Beloved of God.”
Not a bad lillejulaften (little Christmas Eve, as they call it in Norway). No great accomplishments chalked up, but I got a couple things done that I’d been putting off. Faced a minor appliance crisis – I learned it was a false alarm, though the diagnosis cost me a little. Still, I was expecting much worse. And I got paid for some translation, which always brightens a day.
“In the Bleak Midwinter” came to mind for a song tonight. Sissel sings, of course. Based on a poem by Christina Rossetti, it’s bald-faced anglicization of the Christmas story. Whether Jesus was born on December 25 or not (I like to think He was, just to annoy people) it certainly wasn’t in a snow-covered landscape. But our Christmas celebration isn’t only about the first Christmas (though it must be about that primarily). It’s also about the long tradition of commemoration we enjoy in the Christian tradition. Legends included. And in a tertiary way, about the traditions of our own tribes, whatever they may be. My tribe is Scandinavian, and we make kind of a big thing out of Christmas (for reasons I discuss in my novel Troll Valley).
Tomorrow I’ll bake pumpkin pies. No holiday is guaranteed, but this Christmas looks to beat last year’s all hollow, at least for this jolly old elf.
The Azusa Pacific University Men’s Chorale in 2009
“Of the Father’s Love Begotten,” was originally a Latin poem by Aurelius Clemens Prudentius (AD 348-410), titled “Corde natus ex parentis.” It was translated by in the 1850-60s by J. M. Neale and H. W. Baker and paired with the Latin plainsong melody of “Divinum mysterium.”
Verse three of the lyric copied here is omitted in the video above.
1 Of the Father’s love begotten ere the worlds began to be, he is Alpha and Omega, he the source, the ending he, of the things that are, that have been, and that future years shall see evermore and evermore.
2 Oh, that birth forever blessed when the virgin, full of grace, by the Holy Ghost conceiving, bore the Savior of our race, and the babe, the world’s Redeemer, first revealed his sacred face evermore and evermore.
I come before you tonight a beleaguered man. Not unhappily beleaguered. I have paying work to do, and that’s always cause for rejoicing. But I’m looking at a big job here – bigger than I expected. What I’ve got is a full-length feature film to translate. I haven’t done a lot of those, and I’ve never done one all by myself before. (I’ve done a whole miniseries, but that’s different.)
A full film script, in case you’re interested, runs a little under 100 pages in this case. My rough reckoning is that I can translate two pages per hour. So we’re talking about better than a week’s work here, figuring eight hours to the day. And then I’ll have to proofread and polish.
Money in my pocket. Merry Christmas.
In lieu of a book review or anything interesting to say, I post the one, the only Sissel Kyrkjebø above, singing “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” She’s accompanied by a heretic choir and orchestra, but on the other hand they use the old “Born to raise the sons of earth” line, unaltered by political correctness. That does my heart good.
Years ago, Marvin Olasky wrote of his thankfulness for God’s work in his Austin, Texas church and World magazine. He included this anecdote from the Puritans.
The Puritans liked to tell dramatic shipwreck stories concerning thanksgiving in all circumstances. One vivid tale described John Avery and Thomas Thacher clinging to a rock when their boat was shipwrecked. It appeared that the next wave would sweep them away, and Avery, according to Thacher, said, “We know not what the pleasure of God is; I fear we have been too unmindful of former deliverances.”
Neglecting to acknowledge God’s kind provision, attributing it to circumstance or hard work, is common to most of us. Let’s be mindful of Him bought us and saved us for Himself. May He “keep us in his grace, and guide us when perplexed, and free us from all ills of this world in the next.”
Pastor and author Douglas Wilson has spilled a lot of words over his lifetime. He has probably been blogging since the 90s, and even without that, he has preached and published bags and bags of words. You could probably pick up any of his solo-authored books and agree with most of it, as you would with many other Christian books.
But Wilson has taken a few hard stands over the years and expressed a few opinions in hard ways. He sees himself as a leader of culture warriors, an anchor point in the middle of a carnival of chaos, catching the wildness of our society and throwing wildness back at it.
According to his piece, I am a “provocateur,” but remember that we live in a time when trigger warnings about everything are most necessary, and this means that we are surrounded by people who are easily provoked. Maybe that’s the real issue. Provocateur, eh? I’ll show you provocateur. Ready? Bruno shouldn’t be allowed to shower with the junior high girls. Buster Keaton shouldn’t have been put in charge of the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Men really shouldn’t have sex with unstable women. And there is plenty more where those came from.
I wouldn’t be writing about this if it weren’t for a piece that ran on September 28 on Vice.com. Vice isn’t my go-to for useful news or analysis, but there are too many details reported in this piece to dismiss it as creative writing. This isn’t a humanist simply finding ways to say how weird she finds those Moscow, Idaho-based Christians. This is a report of years of spiritual abuse by many members of Wilson’s congregation and affiliated networks.
In the blog post above, Wilson responds to some of it. He responded to at least one of the big stories in that article years ago; other issues are spelled out on a dedicated page. But these responses are beside the point.
If you read the Vice article–and I can’t recommend it because of the horrific details–you’ll see the problem is largely not Wilson’s particular actions but those of his congregants. Under his direction, they have left the Bride of Christ in the ditch in favor of a campaign against the lost and dying. They have become clanging symbols at best. At worst, they are going into the highways and byways not to invite whoever they find to the Master’s feast but to rob as highwaymen themselves.
