Religion

Pietists vs. Confessionalists

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Portrait discovered in Copenhagen,, believed to be Hans Nielsen Hauge.

I wrote a fairly long meditation on Pietist Christianity and legalist Christianity yesterday. And I think I failed to actually say one of the things I meant to say.

Which is ironic, because that was one of the very weaknesses I meant to criticize (gently) in my hero, the Norwegian lay preacher Hans Nielsen Hauge. Some years back I began work on translating his works, a project another linguist has since taken over. Mostly to my relief. Because Hauge is exceedingly hard to translate. I’ve heard of one scholar who started the same project years back and simply gave up in frustration. “He’s untranslatable!” that person said.

I think that’s an exaggeration, but I sympathize. Hauge is very hard to translate. The man was in no way a systematic thinker. He was an enthusiast. He poured his words out onto the page, it appears, just as they came to him. Sometimes he goes on for pages without a period or a paragraph break. I imagine Hauge as being very much like a certain pastor I once worked for. He hired me precisely for my writing skills. Because he found it almost impossible to actually get to the point. He communicated all right in person, because he could supplement his words with facial expressions and gestures. But when writing he just lost his way.

After many years, I think I finally figured out Hauge’s point. It’s a point he never states in so many words, but once you’ve figured it out, it illuminates all the rest of his verbiage. And it explains some of the puzzling – or even apparently unorthodox – things he seems to say.

That central point, I think – and I mentioned this part last night – was that he believed that a true believer – someone who was genuinely “awakened,” as he put it, would find the Christian life easy. They would be filled with the same joy and love he felt. We all know how love lightens burdens. When I was in love, long ago, I would have done many things far outside my comfort zone – and sometimes I actually did those things – just to please her. Just to be close to her. Love made hard tasks light.

This is a beautiful vision, and I believe it’s true in the Christian life to some extent.

But it’s not equally true for everybody. And it’s not always permanently true . I have good reason to believe that Hauge himself, during his ten-year imprisonment, when he was denied books and visits from his friends for long periods, eventually learned that the Way could be hard. He never lost his faith, but he learned that even true believers can struggle.

Some of us aren’t like Hauge. Our experience with God may be lower-key, less emotional. We have a smaller tank of emotional fuel to burn (those of us who are introverts feel this especially). We’re more like John Haugvaldstad, who needed rules and lists to keep himself on the straight path. I believe he took it to an extreme, but for some people this pattern seems prudent. Books like Jordan Petersen’s 12 Rules for Life fill a need for them (us).

Among us Lutherans there’s an old tension – sometimes fiery verbal warfare – between the Pietists and the “Confessionals.” The Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod is the largest and best-known Confessional church body in the US. Going back to the days of immigration, the Pietists and the Confessionalists anathematized one another. The Pietists (like Georg Sverdrup, subject of the journal I edit) condemned the Missouri Synod as cold, formalistic, Catholic-adjacent, and spiritually dead. Confessionalism, Sverdrup wrote, provided a “sleeping pillow” on which members of dead congregations could slumber while their pastors tried futilely to do all the work of the church on their own.

The doctrine-centered Missourians, on the other hand, condemned the Haugean Pietists as unstable, emotional enthusiasts. If synods and pastors didn’t keep a close eye on the laity, checking their every statement for orthodoxy and basically barring them from any kind of spiritual ministry, then everybody would just go crazy. Subjectivism would take over. You’d have churches abandoning traditional sexual morality, and syncretizing with other religions, and reciting something like, oh, “the Sparkle Creed.”

Which, sadly, is just what happened. Missouri Synod theologians rarely hesitate in making the charge that all the aberrations we see today in The Very Big Lutheran Church Body That Shall Remain Nameless (as I call it) spring from the subjectivism inherent in Pietism.

I have to admit their prophecies came true.

But I still think Hauge and Sverdrup had a point.

The heart of my own theology, for many years, has been the Incarnation. The Word became Flesh. Somehow, through the power of God, body and mind came into harmony. Justice and Mercy kissed. The absolute and the subjective cooperated perfectly in the one perfect Man.

That’s what I want to see reflected in the church, and in myself.

Religion

Hauge and Haugvaldstad

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Bust of John Haugvaldstad outside the Mission School in Stavanger.

My mind was so uplifted to God that I had no consciousness, nor can I express what occurred in my soul. For I was outside myself, and as soon as I had come to my senses again, I understood that I had not been serving the beloved God who was good above all things, and that I now thought nothing in this world worthy of esteem. That my soul experienced something supernatural, divine, and blessed, that it was a glory that no tongue can express. I remember it to this day as clearly as if it had been a few days ago, though 20 years have now passed since God’s love visited me so overwhelmingly. Nor can anyone dispute this with me: for I know that everything good in my spirit followed from that moment, especially the sincere, burning love for God and my neighbor, that I had a wholly altered attitude and a sorrow over all sins, a passionate desire that people should share with me in that same grace, a particular desire to read the holy Scriptures… (Hans Nielsen Hauge’s memoirs, trans. by me)

I hope this little essay won’t be too provincial to interest our readers. I’m writing, as I do so often, about the Lutheran “sect” in which I was raised, the Haugeans. I came to some realizations about the Haugeans this past weekend, based on reading I’d been doing and some conversations I had with other members of the Georg Sverdrup Society. The wider implications, I think, touch all Christians.

The Haugean movement, especially as it developed among Norwegian-Americans in this country, was probably best known for its legalism. We were the kind of people who (by and large) did not drink or smoke, did not play cards, did not attend the theater or dance. There were great revivals among the Haugeans in America, especially in the 1890s and the 1920s. After that, the rains never seemed to come again. My own observation, based on what I know of people who grew up in my church in the 1920s, was that the young people were embittered and driven away by all the rules. Being “awakened” seemed to mean (to those young people) a commitment to following the rules. Forever.

Based on some recent reading, I think the fault for this probably lies, not with Hans Nielsen Hauge himself but with another man, John Haugvaldstad (1770-1850). I suppose I bear some familial guilt for this development, since Haugvaldstad was a neighbor to my Hodnefjeld ancestors on Mosterøy Island (before he moved to Stavanger), and they were close friends and supporters of his.

Look at the excerpt from Hauge’s memoirs above. That’s not the testimony of a rule-bound soul. It’s the testimony of a man in love. I think Hauge ought to be imagined as a man with a big smile on his face. All his work, all his rugged foot-journeys, his long days and hard work, even his imprisonments, were experienced with joy, because he’d fallen in love with Jesus. For Hauge, the Christian life was fun. That was how the movement began.

But when Hauge went to prison, John Haugvaldstad arose as leader of the movement – at least in Stavanger, an important Haugean center. And Haugvaldstad was a very different soul from Hauge. Haugvaldstad struggled with temptation. At last he decided that the only way to handle temptation effectively was to avoid all questionable activities (“if it’s doubtful, it’s dirty”). Debauchery and fights happened at parties, so avoid parties, dancing and drinking. In fact, avoid all music other than hymns. Don’t play cards. (Smoking was acceptable in some circles; it depended.) Don’t attend the theater. Don’t read worldly literature. And on and on.

It was Haugvaldstad who made the Haugeans teetotalers. Hauge himself was always opposed to drunkenness, but he sometimes seems to have served brandy at social gatherings and he served beer to his household at Christmas. In a famous conversation, he said to John Haugvaldstad, “Ditt Væsen er taget, ikke givet!” Which means, “Your temperament is taken [upon yourself], not given [by God]!”

But Hauge went to prison, and he died young, and Haugvaldstad prospered as a businessman in Stavanger. He was highly regarded (he’s considered one of the founding fathers of modern Stavanger), and not without reason. He was a very good man, a man with great concern for the poor. He did much good for his neighbors, and for Christian missions. The esteem in which he was held led many people to make him their role model. The “temperament” of Haugvaldstad became the Haugean norm.

Today, in our situation, I would very much like to see the spirit of Hauge return. I think we could use it.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Bull Rush,’ by David Chill

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The Burnside books by David Chill comprise a PI series I’d never heard of. Yet in many ways Bull Rush was exactly what I look for in a detective book.

Burnside (like Spenser he goes by his surname) is a private eye in Los Angeles. An old acquaintance comes to his office to ask him to look for his missing adult son. The young man was once a hot pro football prospect (Burnside himself is a former college player and sports culture permeates the story), but now he works for a slightly shady real estate operation. The young man has had trouble with drugs in the past, so it’s likely he’s passed out somewhere.


Burnside isn’t entirely happy with the job – the father was never someone he liked a whole lot. On top of that, Burnside knows he got the referral from another mutual “friend,” a crooked sports agent who’s always playing the angles. But it’s a legitimate job, and he isn’t in a position to turn it down.

Then, in the course of his search, Burnside stumbles on a murder victim. Now he’ll have to deal with the police. And soon, with politicians and the very wealthy.

What pleased me best about Bull Rush was its traditional qualities. Burnside doesn’t have an ideological agenda. He doesn’t have a kick-butt female partner. He’s not involved in deconstructing or normalizing anything. He’s just doing a human job among human beings. The main way he differs from your classic Golden Age gumshoe is in having a wife and a young son. Oh yes, and a psychotherapist he sees regularly.

The writing in Bull Rush was clean and professional, without either pyrotechnics or illiteracies. The characters were believable, the dialogue sharp. This is honest, meat-and-potatoes detective fiction. I recommend it highly.

Authors

Murdered Author’s Notebook on Russian Invasion Now Made Public

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Ukrainian father and children’s book author Volodymyr Vakulenko took notes as Russian forces rolled into his Kapytolivka village in eastern Ukraine. When he knew they would take him away, he buried his journal in his backyard.

Charlotte Higgins, writing for The Guardian, put together as much of the story as can be known, working with another Ukranian author, Victoria Amelina.

“I never thought that my home village would become the epicentre of the rashist occupation,” wrote Vakulenko in the opening paragraphs of his diary. The word “rashist” is a now widespread Ukrainian portmanteau, a combination of “Russian” and “fascist”, not to be given the dignity of an initial capital. “For me, with my patriotic, pro-Ukrainian views, it was extremely dangerous to find myself surrounded by the enemy.” But, he wrote, he had little choice: moving his son seemed impossible. He added: “You can get used to anything; what matters is what sort of person you are left at the end of it.”

“The manuscript is now in the Kharkiv Literary Museum, and the text of the diary has been recently published in Ukraine, with a foreword by Amelina.”

Music

Sunday Singing: Oh, Glorious Hope

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An arrangement of the shape-note tune for “Oh, Glorious Hope” performed by Timothy Seaman on hammered dulcimer

Today’s hymn is by the great Charles Wesley (1707-1788). It speaks of the life to come in terms of the promised land. I don’t think it’s a popular hymn, and the tune performed in the video above is unfamiliar to me. If you know this one, please tell us of your experience with it.

“The reason why the world does not know us is that bit did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure” (1 John 3:1b-3 ESV).

1 Oh, glorious hope of perfect love!
It lifts me up to things above;
It bears on eagles’ wings.
It gives my ravished soul a taste,
And makes me for some moments feast
With Jesus’ priests and kings.

2 Rejoicing now in earnest hope,
I stand, and from the mountaintop
See all the land below.
Rivers of milk and honey rise,
And all the fruits of paradise
In endless plenty grow.

3 A land of corn, and wine, and oil;
Favored with God’s peculiar smile,
With ev’ry blessing blest;
There dwells the Lord our Righteousness,
And deeps His own in perfect peace,
And everlasting rest.

4 Oh, that I might at once go up;
No more on this side Jordan stop,
But now the land possess;
This moment end my legal years,
Sorrows and sins, and doubts and fears,
A howling wilderness!

Blogs, Socials, Religion, Uncategorized

They Need an Explanation to Feel a Level of Control

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I read one time that Hitchcock wasn’t going to end the movie Psycho the way he did, but his producer insisted he provide an explanation. The story couldn’t end with a wrap-up of the crime. It needed a psychiatrist to give the audience a reason for it. This is because Americans want to know why an evil thing occurred and how could it be prevented in the future.

I felt this need while listening to a couple crime stories this week. In one story, four boys in rural Vermont decided to break and enter a remote home. Two of them said they would murder anyone who happened to be home, and they all carried knives to help, if the need arose. It did, but only the original two attacked the mother and daughter they found. The story was mostly told by one of the two in police interviews. He was an emotionally distant Mormon kid who lacked friends and was beginning to explore gang activity.

In the other story, an elderly couple was kidnapped in an effort to rob them. He said he would kill them after he’d obtained all the money. The wife was able to tip off the cops, who located the man through his car. This culprit was a family man, described by a church member as a Christian who had it all. He had been even a church elder at some point. But along with all of this, he was also a constant manipulator.

If evil like this can come from both social outcasts and respected members, what can be done to foresee or prevent it? We need a healthy understanding of our common depravity, and that out of the heart these and other great sins come. We are not good people. Only the Lord can make us so.

What other things can we say today?

Great Musician: Tony Bennett died this week. Ted Gioia writes, “I probably own 30 or 40 of his albums, and his singing has been part of my life since childhood—when my Sicilian father played Tony Bennett records at our family home. At times, it almost felt like Bennett was a member of my extended family.

… “I could fill up an entire article just with stories of his acts of kindness. He radiated decency and generosity of heart. That showed up in his life and his music.”

Against Apathy: “Artists endure who attend to the world. Details are precious. Art is collecting and arranging them.”

New York City: “As for libraries, the sad truth is that, precisely because of the abandonment of broken-windows policing, those sheltered spaces are havens for the homeless and drug-addicted more than they are resources for the scholarly and intellectually curious.”

Found Music: The Kiffness takes internet videos and makes music with them. The one from July 15 seems appropriate to add here.

Photo: Christie’s Restaurant sign, Houston, Texas. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Fiction, Reviews

‘After Death,’ by Dean Koontz

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Duty is based on something more profound than hope, on faith that what is too wrong to endure will be made right, rectified by a system of justice that underlies all of nature, far beneath the subatomic level, a system that may right a wrong in a day or through the passage of time or outside of time. The schedule isn’t ours to protest or endorse. His duty is to act with all the skill and wisdom he possesses, not with hope but with conviction.

Rejoice! We have a new Dean Koontz book. He just keeps rolling them out – always good, sometimes exceptional. After Death is somewhat reminiscent of Koontz’ recent series of novellas about a character called Nameless. But it handles similar concepts in a different way.

Michael Mace was dead, and is alive again. It wasn’t a miracle in the religious sense, but it still may change the world. Michael was head of security at Beautification Research, a company that was ostensibly a cosmetics business but actually did top-secret genetic and nanotech research. When an accidental leak kills everyone in the building, Michael dies with all the rest. But then he wakes up. And now he’s changed. He has new powers that give him mental access to all the information on the internet. No firewall can stop him.

The first item on his agenda is to help a single mother named Nina Dozier and her son John. Michael’s best friend and co-worker Shelby was very fond of them, and probably would have courted her if he’d lived. They’re in danger from John’s natural father, a gang lord who’s decided it’s time to claim his son and make him his successor. Nina will have to be taught a lesson too, for dissing him.

But there’s a larger danger than that. It comes from the Internal Security Agency, the corrupt law enforcement body that supports the corrupt bureaucracy now running the country. Their chief agent is a psychopath named Duran Calaphas, an efficient killer but increasingly delusional. He takes Michael’s appearance as a personal sign for him, giving him a worthy foe he must destroy in order to achieve his grandiose personal destiny. Without loyalty to anyone or anything but himself, Calaphas will stop at nothing, destroy anything, to kill Michael Mace. And his companions.

Koontz hits every note precisely, manipulates the reader with the deft hand of a master. It’s beautiful to behold. Especially delightful (for me) was one amazing plot twist unlike anything I’d ever read before (it involves storytelling). A delightful moment.

My only quibble (spoiler alert) was that I thought the ending might have been too good to be true. But that’s no great failing in a book. No failing at all, actually. We’re allowed a happy ending from time to time.

Highly recommended.

Religion

AI-Driven Bible Knowledge

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Writing for Christianity Today, Adam Graber suggests problems with artificial-intelligence-driven Bible reading software.

“As a digital theology expert, I believe these kinds of ‘BibleGPTs’ will continue to advance, proliferate, and eventually become proprietary systems. And as this happens, the church and its leaders will be prompted to make some momentous decisions about the Christian canon. This will, in turn, influence how we interpret the Bible and impact the future of our faith and practice.”

He goes to describe how AI-driven research tools could become like the knowledgeable friend who always has a ready answer for any question but who isn’t grounded enough in the Word to answer wisely every time. It may become another easy way to quickly survey the Bible, thinking we understand more than we do.

If you read the whole article, it doesn’t end as sensationally as it begins. He concludes saying we need to understand the Bible for ourselves, but the tone of the whole leans too much on people’s laziness. That isn’t new. We’ve always been lazy. I doubt AI will usher in more lethargy than we already indulge with the Internet.

Authors, Fiction

James Scott Bell interview

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Above, an interview — a few years old — with author James Scott Bell. Among the topics touched on are whether writers are born or made, and if a series character can have a character arc.

He mentions his blog, Kill Zone, which I wasn’t aware of. You can find it here.

The Press

Coyote Nation

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I am now contributing, occasionally, to The Heartland Daily News. My article, “American Life Has Become a Cartoon – and Not In a Good Way,” appeared today:

Allan Bloom warned us in The Closing of the American Mind that relativists are incipient authoritarians. If right and wrong aren’t universal but are merely personal or social constructs, there’s no criterion for judging one person’s case against another’s. The decision can only go to the party with the most power. Not on any kind of principle, but because nature abhors a vacuum, just as gravity abhors unsupported coyotes.