Theology Central
Theology Central exists as a place of conversation and information for faculty and friends of Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Posts include seminary news, information, and opinion pieces about ministry, theology, and scholarship.
The Christian and Fantastic Literature, Part 8: Good and Bad Fantasy
We have seen that fantasy can be a powerful tool for communication. It allows us to suggest ideas imaginatively that might be resisted if they were stated explicitly. It allows us to engage sensibilities that might remain unaffected by more prosaic discourse. It enters consciousness beneath the level of mere reason, grips us, and directs us before we have fully realized what we are doing. Fantastic literature is indeed a powerful medium.
Because it is so powerful, writers of fantasy have a special obligation to use it rightly. It is possible to use fantasy in right ways, but it is also possible to use it in wrong ways. People who write fantastic literature—and people who read it—ought to be able to tell the difference.
The author who writes a fantasy is responsible to create an imagined world of his or her own (such an invented world is sometimes called a legendarium). As the creator, the author enjoys a great deal of liberty. She or he can structure a legendarium in which the sun is green, the sky is pink, gravity repels instead of attracting, or people have tails and can read minds. The writer can populate this world with fantastic beings such as unicorns, dragons, talking horses, disembodied intelligences, or bizarre beasts with seven heads and ten horns. When it comes to the material reality of the invented world, the writer can create almost anything.
To some extent, however, the creator must justify what she or he has created. Unless the imagined world is intended as a mere spoof, some rationale must exist for the pink sky or the repulsive nature of gravity. This rationale may consist of the merest pretext offered as a sop to the intellect. It may even be left unexpressed. Unless the writer has some rationale, however, the pretense of reality will become difficult to maintain. The story will lapse into inconsistency.
Inconsistency is the bane of all fantastic writing. The author can regulate an invented world with many kinds of imaginative laws, but if those laws are not consistently maintained, the whole creation edges toward incoherence and smacks of fraud. To uphold the laws of the invented world, the writer must be able to explain (at least to her or his own satisfaction) why these laws exist. Green suns and pink skies cannot be arbitrary. To the extent that they are, the invented world becomes implausible and loses its grip on the reader.
In other words, a good fantasy (good in the sense of being well executed and useful) must always operate according to the same inward laws. These laws may (and often will) differ from the laws of metaphysical reality, but within the legendarium they must operate as uniformly as our law of gravity. A good fantasy writer has great liberty to create the laws of the imagined world, but no liberty at all to violate those laws once made (unless, of course, some higher law comes into play within that world).
One kind of law exists, however, that no fantasy can rightly alter. That is moral law. A good fantasy must never change what is right and good into what is not. A world of monstrous appearances is not immoral, but a world of monstrous conduct is. The writer of fantasy never has the right to confuse good with evil.
A fantasy in which murder or profanity were virtuous would be an immoral story. A fantasy in which genuine piety was depicted as a vice would also be immoral. Unfortunately, many works of fantasy do exactly these things. They offer the reader some invented world in which morality itself becomes fantastic.
I am not suggesting for a moment that good stories must never depict sinful behavior. Even the Bible shows people’s sins, so the depiction of vice cannot by itself be bad. Nevertheless, vice must always be shown to be vice, just as virtue must always be shown as virtue. Furthermore, the real badness of vice and the true goodness of virtue must be recognized within the fantastic world.
Neither am I suggesting that good characters must never be shown doing bad things, nor that evil characters can never do good. Human nature is flawed. Indeed, it is fallen. In their brokenness, even virtuous people can do vicious things. Furthermore, because they still retain at least some of the image of God, even vicious people can do some virtuous things. Allowing readers to see the limitations—including the moral limitations—of protagonists is not a sign of bad fantasy. What is a sign of bad fantasy is the failure to recognize that the vice is really a flaw, perhaps even a gravely damaging one.
Given the foregoing, what should we make of fantasies that employ witches, wizards, or magic? Are these things not forbidden in Scripture? If a fantasy allows its protagonists to participate in such things, is it not doing something morally subversive?
Clearly God does forbid His people to practice the “curious arts” (Lev 19:26–31; 20:6, 27; Deut 18:9–12; Jer 27:9–10; Acts 19:19). In the Bible words like witch, wizard, necromancer, enchantments and the like have specific meanings. No believer should ever have anything to do with any of these things.
Does this prohibition stand against the practice of magic in imagined worlds? Answering that question will involve comparing and weighing several considerations. We shall turn to those in the next essay.
This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.
Hail, Thou Once Despisèd Jesus!
John Bakewell (1721–1819)
Hail, thou once despisèd Jesus!
Hail, Thou Galilean king!
Thou didst suffer to release us;
Thou didst free salvation bring.
Hail, Thou universal Savior,
bearer of our sin and shame!
By Thy merit we find favor;
life is given through Thy name.
Paschal Lamb, by God appointed,
all our sins on Thee were laid;
by almighty Love anointed,
Thou hast full atonement made:
all Thy people are forgiven
through the virtue of Thy blood;
opened is the gate of heaven;
peace is made ‘twix man and God.
Jesus, hail, enthroned in glory,
there forever to abide!
All the heav’nly host adore Thee,
seated at Thy Father’s side.
There for sinners Thou art pleading;
there Thou dost our place prepare;
ever for us interceding,
till in glory we appear.
Worship, honor, pow’r, and blessing
Thou art worthy to receive;
highest praises, without ceasing,
meet it is for us to give.
Help, ye bright angelic spirits,
bring your sweetest, noblest lays;
help to sing our Savior’s merits;
help to chant Immanuel’s praise!
The Christian and Fantastic Literature, Part 7: Fantasy’s Function
Over the past couple of essays we have seen two biblical examples of fantasy being used in fable. Can we learn anything about fantasy by studying these examples? I believe the answer is yes; these biblical fables offer several lessons.
The first is fairly obvious: fantasy goes beyond what is possible in the real world. In the real world we know that thistles and trees do not reason, speak, or hold councils. To represent them as doing these things is an exercise of the imagination. Imagination is the capacity that enables human beings to invent or perceive realities that they have never experienced before. All works of literature depend on imagination, but none more than fantasy.
The biblical fables create imaginative worlds in which thistles can make marriage plans with trees, and in which trees can elect kings. The imaginative world of these fables is like the real world in some respects—both worlds have thistles and trees. The imaginative world is also unlike the real world, for thistles and trees behave differently in the world of the biblical fables than they do in the real world. In other words, the thistle and the cedar in the fable resemble real thistles and cedars, but they are not identical.
Consequently, the imagined realities of the invented world must be understood on their own terms. If we simply dismiss the story because we know that thistles and cedars don’t talk, then we are going to miss whatever value the story might have to offer. Within the world of the story, we must accept things that we know would be impossible in the real world. If we encountered a talking tree in real life, we would attribute it to hallucination, trickery, or, in extreme cases, perhaps to demonic activity. To make sense of the invented reality, however, we must reject these same assumptions. We must begin by supposing that within the invented world, such things can happen.
By the same token, we must not read into one invented world the categories that arise from a different invented world. For example, the world of Western mythology also mentions talking trees. In the myths, these trees act and talk because they are inhabited by tree-spirits, or Dryads. A person who was familiar with mythology might be tempted to read Dryadic activity into the talking trees of the biblical fables, but this would be misreading. The biblical stories must be read on their own terms, not on the terms of other imaginative worlds. The worlds of biblical fable and Western mythology must be kept separate. To confuse them would inevitably lead to misunderstanding.
The fantastic elements must be accepted as the premise of the story. To participate in the imaginative world, we must suspend our disbelief. We must forget that trees cannot think or talk. If we question how such things might be, we will get stuck at the front door and miss the point of the story.
Each invented world uses vocabulary in its own way. To make sound judgments about imagined worlds, we must base our thinking on each world’s own usages, those of other worlds—whether metaphysical reality or some other fantasy. The word bramble designates one thing in metaphysical reality, where brambles do not talk. The word designates a different thing in the imaginative world of Western mythology, where bramble spirits just might talk. The same word designates a still different thing in the world of Jotham’s fable, where it stands as an imaginative symbol.
The definition of the word bramble changes in each of these universes. In fact, all fantasy involves some amount of redefining. The author of the fantasy creates an invented world. She or he gets to say what definitions will govern that world. We know what a thistle is and what it can do in our world, but Jehoash gets to decide what a thistle can do in the imaginative world of his fable. We must not export our normal definition of thistle into his fable; we must learn what a thistle is in the fable by observing it within the fable’s own imaginative world.
What with all the redefining, inventing a fantastic world can take a good bit of effort. Why would a writer go through the trouble? What can fantasy do that ordinary discourse does not?
A fantastic story can be a powerful means of speaking to the real world. Sometimes the fantastic elements allegorize aspects of reality. Other times they operate as symbols for material or moral verities. Part of their value is that they grip our attention in ways that ordinary discourse does not. Beyond that, they permit us to adopt a kind of double perspective on reality.
By this I mean that they grant us a level of moral distance and abstraction that would not otherwise be possible. For example, when we first enter the world of Jotham’s fable, we do not particularly care what happens to the trees. While our curiosity is piqued, we are sufficiently disengaged that we can observe the events as more-or-less impartial spectators.
By opening this distance, fantasy also permits an author to isolate and amplify specific virtues and vices. By singling out these vices or virtues, the author can lead his readers to view aspects of human character in a particularly focused way, one that is not complicated by the all-too-frequent contradictions of the ordinary human condition. Readers are thus led to make judgments that commit them to moral positions before they quite realize what is at stake.
Consider Jotham’s fable of the trees. This story is not about forestry, but about the kingship of Israel. It intends to offer a particular perspective on the kingship. It presents the kingship as an inferior calling. No right-thinking tree would leave his useful calling to become a king. Only the bramble, the most useless and annoying of bushes, finds the prospect appealing. The irony is rich when he invites the other trees to shelter under his shade. How does an olive tree find shade under a bramble? How could anybody? Jotham is implying that Abimelech’s reign will be disastrous. When he finally identifies the real people who correspond to the characters in the story, the lesson is plain for all to see.
Something similar happens with Jehoash’s fable. He establishes the image of a thistle acting like the equal of a great cedar. The contrast is humorous, and the humor is even more pointed because the cedar never notices. An unnamed animal steps on the thistle and squashes the upstart. Jehoash isn’t just rebuffing Amaziah, he is laughing at him.
This is the power of fantasy. True, plenty of inferior authors merely play with fantastic devices. In skilled hands, however, fantasy can communicate more effectively than plain speech. It can smuggle a message past our guard. It can lead us to form judgments before we even know that we have committed ourselves. By transporting us out of ordinary reality, fantasy has the power to help us glimpse the moral dimensions of our world in their correct proportions.
This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.
from The Sacrifice
George Herbert (1593–1633)
Hark how they cry aloud still, Crucify:
It is not fit he live a day, they cry,
Who cannot live less then eternally:
Was ever grief like mine?
Pilate, a stranger, holdeth off; but they,
Mine own dear people, cry, Away, away,
With noises confused frighting the day:
Was ever grief like mine?
Yet still they shout, and cry, and stop their ears,
Putting my life among their sins and fears,
And therefore wish my blood on them and theirs:
Was ever grief like mine?
See how spite cankers things. These words aright
Used, and wished, are the whole worlds light:
But honey is their gall, brightness their night:
Was ever grief like mine?
The Christian and Fantastic Literature, Part 6: Fantasy and Fable
As we have seen, the writers of Scripture had good reason for employing fantastic elements in their prophetic writing. The Bible also includes another kind of literature that uses fantastic elements. This kind of literature is called fable. To be clear, the biblical writers do not tell fables, but they do record fables that are told by characters within the text. In what follows I would like to examine two of these fables.
Before I do, however, I want to distinguish fables from parables. One mark of a fable is that it depicts animals, plants, or even objects that think, speak, and act as if they were persons. In some cases, these creatures possess some other marvelous property, such as the goose that laid the golden eggs. Fables also usually have some moral or allegorical meaning behind them. Thus, the fable of the goose is a warning against greed. The fable of the city mouse and the country mouse teaches that safety is better than extravagance. The fable of the tortoise and the hare teaches that persistence is better than brilliance.
Parables also teach lessons, but they teach these lessons without resorting to fantastic elements. A sower who goes out to sow is nothing special. We are not surprised by the action of leaven in a lump of dough. Even when parables contain unusual or even astonishing elements (a treasure in a field, for example, or a pearl of great price), these elements are the kind of things that might and sometimes do occur in real life. Biblical parables may contain exaggerations or improbabilities, but they do not contain outright impossibilities.
What about the story of Lazarus and the rich man? Should it be classified as fable, parable, a satire, an actual history, or something else? Students of the Bible have debated this question. The story, which Jesus tells in Luke 16:19–31, follows a string of parables. The last of those parables even begins with the same language: “There was a certain rich man…” (Luke 16:1). These factors could indicate that the story is a parable.
Other considerations, however, suggest that it might not be. Before beginning the story of the rich man and Lazarus, the string of parables is broken when Jesus summarizes His application from the last parable and then engages in a bit of dialogue with the Pharisees (Luke 16:14–18). During this section, Jesus rebukes the Pharisees. The story of Lazarus and the rich man underscores an aspect of Jesus’ rebuke and constitutes a warning against greed. Importantly, Jesus names a character in this story—Lazarus—which is something that He does in no acknowledged parable.
The most likely understanding of the story is that both Lazarus and the rich man were real people, and that Jesus is narrating a part of their story. This story includes elements that occur both before and after their deaths. The postmortem elements should not be viewed as any more fantastic than the antemortem elements. In other words, this story qualifies as occult literature in the sense in which I have used that expression. It grants a glimpse into the otherwise hidden world of souls during the intermediate state (the state between death and resurrection) for both saved and lost individuals. Most likely, the story is not a fable, fantasy, or parable. It is a straightforward narrative, parts of which ought to horrify us.
The account of Lazarus and the rich man is not a fable, but the Bible does record fables. These biblical fables are examples of how the Bible uses fantastic literature. Two examples of biblical fables are the fable of the thistle and the cedar (2 Kgs 14:9–10) and the fable of the trees electing a king (Judg 9:7–20).
2 Kings 14 opens with Amaziah becoming king of Judah. Upon ascending to the throne, he first brings order to his own kingdom. Next, Amaziah defeats Edom in battle. Flush with victory he sends messengers to Jehoash, king of Israel, challenging him to battle. Jehoash replies with a fable in which a thistle asks a cedar of Lebanon to give its daughter as wife for the thistle’s son. Instead, a wild animal tramples the thistle. Jehoash then makes the lesson clear: Amaziah is not nearly as important as he thinks he is and he should remember his place.
The contrast in size between the thistle and the mighty cedar is what makes this fable work. The effrontery of the thistle is comical, and the thistle’s weakness is emphasized by the fact that it is destroyed when an animal steps on it. No animal would ever trample a cedar of Lebanon. If Jehoash intended to get people to laugh at Amaziah, then he went about it the right way.
The other fable is found in Judges 9:8-15. As the story opens, the judge Gideon has died. His illegitimate son Abimelech treacherously murders all of Gideon’s legitimate sons (sixty-nine of them) except Jotham, the youngest. Abimelech is then proclaimed king of Shechem by his half-brothers on his mother’s side.
In the face of this travesty, the surviving son Jotham stands atop Mount Gerizim and tells a fable in which the trees meet to choose a king. The olive tree, fig tree, and grape vine all decline on the grounds that they already have important tasks to perform. Finally, the bramble bush invites the trees to shelter under its shade, threatening any who reject it with fire. Jotham then applies this fable to the regency of Abimelech, forecasting the betrayal and destruction that would follow.
These two biblical fables are instructive, not only for what they teach, but also for how they teach it. Both Jotham and Jehoash wanted to make a point. Both chose a fable as the ideal literary form for the point they wanted to make. By examining how these two biblical characters used their fables we can learn important lessons, not only about fables, but about the legitimate uses of fantastic writing in general. We shall examine those matters in greater detail in the next essay.
This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.
from La Corona
John Donne (1572–1631)
By miracles exceeding power of man,
He faith in some, envy in some begat,
For, what weak spirits admire, ambitious hate:
In both affections many to Him ran.
But O! the worst are most, they will and can,
Alas! and do, unto th’ Immaculate,
Whose creature Fate is, now prescribe a fate,
Measuring self-life’s infinity to’a span,
Nay to an inch. Lo! where condemned He
Bears His own cross, with pain, yet by and by
When it bears him, He must bear more and die.
Now Thou art lifted up, draw me to Thee,
And at Thy death giving such liberal dole,
Moist with one drop of Thy blood my dry soul.
A Friend and Mentor, Part Two: The Influence of a Godly Man
I met Charles Hauser when I enrolled at Denver Baptist Theological Seminary in the fall of 1979. That semester I took two of his courses: one in theology and one on the Christian life. I can remember two statements that he made during that first semester. One was, “There is no such thing as a dispensational hermeneutic. There is only a literal hermeneutic, and if you interpret the Bible literally, you will be a dispensationalist.” The other was, “Charles Finney was a figure from whose influence fundamentalism has yet to recover.”
Unlike some theologians, Hauser wanted his theology to be driven mainly by the exegesis of the Bible. He also considered a right relationship with God to be critical theological preparation. He was willing to acknowledge some role for historical considerations, but he allowed virtually no place for philosophy, which he saw as a waste of time. His depreciation of philosophy had the potential to place us at loggerheads. What redeemed our relationship was his character.
Charles Hauser had suffered personal tragedy with the recent death of his wife. He and the rest of the faculty were experiencing financial hardship as their salaries were months in arrears. He had endured betrayal from the administration of his previous school, and this betrayal continued in the form of published personal attacks. These attacks were broadcast far and wide, but were sent particularly to our seminary’s library, where any student could read them.
We students had a close-up view of Hauser’s reactions. He never displayed a hint of impatience or anxiety. As nearly as we could tell, he was convinced that the Lord was completely in control of all his circumstances, and he was willing to leave their disposition to God. Day after day he stood before us with grace and equanimity. It was impossible to dismiss a man with that kind of character.
Charles Hauser loved the Bible. He relished teaching courses on biblical books. His expository courses on Matthew and Hebrews became legendary, and he continued to teach these courses even after his retirement. He thought that studying the Bible, developing a systematic theology, and living the Christian life all belonged together. He emphasized repeatedly that theology connects directly to life. He would warn that, “Many people will be justified in placing their shattered lives at the feet of some preacher who taught them a bad theology.”
For all that, Charles Hauser was no ivory-tower intellectual. He loved sports, for example, especially football. He loved people, especially his students. And within a few years, he loved Ann.
About football: the seminary I attended was attached to a Bible college that sponsored an annual college versus seminary flag football game. Hauser held credentials as a football official, and he always refereed this game. Later in Minneapolis, he would buy season tickets to watch the University of Minnesota’s Golden Gophers on the gridiron. He regularly shared these tickets with his students.
For Charles Hauser did care about his students. He never forgot that he was preparing them to be pastors, not professors (though many became professors). When student-related issues were discussed in faculty meetings, Hauser almost always took a student’s position. He never forgot how difficult it had been for him to function in seminary with a speech impediment. He never forgot the humiliation of being told that the Lord could not use him in ministry. He was particularly compassionate toward students who had to struggle to learn. If a student had to appeal to the dean for help, he found that Hauser was on his side.
During his decades at Central Seminary, Hauser also served on the pastoral staff of Fourth Baptist Church. When Ernest Pickering resigned the pastorate at Fourth Baptist, Hauser became the interim pulpit supply. He taught a large adult Sunday school class, and he and Ann were involved with the Golden Agers group in the church.
Ann’s first husband had died under the same kind of tragic circumstances as Charles Hauser’s first wife. She had refused to think about marriage again until her sons were grown. When Charles and Ann eventually married, they seemed a bit of an odd couple. She was several years older than he and relatively tall, while he was quite short. Despite appearances, they were ideally suited for each other and became one of the most devoted couples I’ve ever seen. After his retirement, Hauser moved her to Louisville to be near one of her sons. Of course, this moved him out of his entire circle of acquaintances.
Ann died almost exactly ten years before Charles did. That last decade was the most difficult of his life. He felt lonely. He contracted Parkinson’s Disease and lost the ability to live independently. He felt as if the Lord has set him on a shelf. He was eager for heaven, whether through death or through the Rapture.
Only around fifteen people gathered last Monday for his funeral in Louisville. There were reasons. He had moved far from the circle of his acquaintances. He had outlived his generation. COVID had altered people’s traveling habits. Still, the small gathering was wholly out of proportion to Hauser’s influence in life.
He helped to prepare hundreds, perhaps thousands, of pastors in four institutions and on two continents. He helped to equip dozens of professors. He provided sound educational leadership at a time when many fundamentalist schools lacked that influence. He proved himself an able churchman, holding pastoral roles in multiple congregations. His was a life well spent.
Charles Hauser loved to read about those heroes of faith in Hebrews 11. In the process, he became like them: a man of faith, compassion, and perseverance. Measured either by theological acumen or by the stature of the fulness of Christ, Charles Hauser was a giant.
This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.
‘Tis by the Faith of Joys to Come
Isaac Watts (1674–1748)
‘Tis by the faith of joys to come
We walk thro’ deserts dark as night;
Till we arrive at heav’n, our home,
Truth is our guide, and faith our light.
The want of sight she well supplies;
She makes the pearly gates appear;
Far into distant worlds she pries,
And brings eternal glories near.
Tho’ lions roar, and tempests blow,
And rocks and dangers fill the way,
With joy we tread the desert thro’,
While faith inspires a heav’nly ray.
A Friend and Mentor, Part One: The Facts of His Life
The young Charles A. Hauser, Jr., suffered from a speech impediment. He struggled to make himself understood. Consequently, he intended to follow his father into the world of banking, where he would be working with ledgers and financial statements rather than with the public.
He might have enjoyed such a career except for one thing. The young Charles A. Hauser, Jr., was also a member of an independent Baptist church in Altoona, Pennsylvania—a church that produced multiple pastors and missionaries over the years. By the time Hauser had completed his BBA degree at the University of Pittsburg, he had become convinced that the Lord was calling him into vocational ministry.
He first attended the Pittsburg-Xenia seminary because it was near his home. His experience there was not happy. He was still troubled by the speech impediment, and one of his professors once told the young Charles that he ought to go into business because he would never be any use as a minister. Hauser never forgot that discouragement, and it later gave him compassion for students who struggled to complete seminary.
Eventually, Hauser transferred to Dallas Theological Seminary, where he took his Th.M. degree. At Dallas he was strongly influenced by Charles Caldwell Ryrie. He then went on to study at Grace Theological Seminary under such luminaries as Alva J. McLain, Herman A. Hoyt, and John C. Whitcomb.
After receiving his Th.D. from Grace, Hauser taught briefly at the old Buffalo Bible Institute in Buffalo, New York. In 1962 he moved to California to join the faculty of the San Francisco Baptist Theological Seminary. While at San Francisco he became active in the so-called Hard Core of the Conservative Baptist Movement, eventually helping to frame the doctrinal statement for the New Testament Association of Independent Baptist Churches.
During those years, SFBTS was noted for its faculty. Hauser taught alongside individuals like William Bellshaw, LaVern Shaeffer, and Bernard Northrup. These were men of strong and sometimes idiosyncratic opinions, and Hauser was forced to sharpen his thinking in conversation with his peers. Along the way he had lost his speech impediment, though he could still stumble from time to time. Intemperate decisions by the seminary administration led to the exodus of nearly all professors during the summer of 1972.
Hauser was invited by Bryce Augsburger to become a founding professor of a new seminary connected with Denver Baptist Bible College. In addition to teaching at Denver Baptist Theological Seminary, Hauser served as the academic vice president of both college and seminary. The school struggled almost from the beginning, so the professors were perpetually behind in their salaries. Augsburger left the presidency in 1979, and Hauser continued to serve under William Fusco (the two men hailed from the same home church). After Fusco resigned in 1984, Hauser continued to serve under L. Duane Brown until the college and seminary closed in 1986.
After Denver, Hauser joined the faculty of Central Baptist Theological Seminary of Minneapolis. He also served as registrar and then dean of the institution. He taught at Central Seminary until his retirement in 2006, after which he became Dean Emeritus and served on the board. Central Seminary also awarded Charles Hauser the D.Hum. degree, causa honoris. His career at Central Seminary mainly spanned the presidencies of Ernest Pickering, Douglas McLachlan, and Kevin Bauder.
Hauser was dean when the seminary was asked to teach courses in Romania during the early 1990s. Eventually Central Seminary opened a full branch campus in Arad, Romania, where it trained something like twenty percent of all Baptist pastors in that country. Hauser traveled frequently to this campus, and he oversaw its work until his retirement.
The wife of Charles Hauser’s youth, Janet Melling, died while he was teaching at Denver. The registrar at Denver, Anna (Ann) Miller, had been widowed many years earlier. Their common experience of bereavement eventually drew them together. They married, and after Charles became the dean at Central Seminary, Ann took over the job of registrar.
Ann had three grown sons. After Charles’s retirement, the couple moved to Louisville, Kentucky, to be near one of her sons. They lived in Louisville until Ann’s death in 2012. After Ann’s death, Charles’s health began to decline. Eventually he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, after which he moved into a care facility. His eyesight began to dim, then his hearing began to fade. During the COVID lockdowns he experienced profound loneliness. As his body weakened he was eventually confined to a wheelchair.
Until rather recently, Hauser would call his former co-workers for news about what was happening at Central Seminary. They would occasionally stop by to visit him when they were traveling near Louisville. For the last few months, however, he had expressed bewilderment at why the Lord was leaving him on earth and not taking him to heaven. He was more than ready to go.
Last Saturday evening, March 19, Charles A. Hauser, Jr., received his wish. He was permitted to lay aside the “earthly tent, which is our house,” so as to be “absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord” (2 Cor 5:1, 8 NASB—a translation that Hauser loved). These are the facts of Charles Hauser’s life.
I feel, however, that I cannot stop with this bare summation of biographical information. The influence of Charles Hauser was far greater than these words can hint. Lord willing, I hope yet to say something about his personal influence as a teacher and a man of God.
This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.
If Death My Friend and Me Divide
Charles Wesley (1707–1788)
If death my friend and me divide,
Thou dost not, Lord, my sorrow chide,
Or frown my tears to see;
Restrained from passionate excess,
Thou bidst me mourn in calm distress
For them that rest in Thee.
I feel a strong immortal hope,
Which bears my mournful spirit up
Beneath its mountain load;
Redeemed from death, and grief, and pain,
I soon shall find my friend again
Within the arms of God.
Pass a few fleeting moments more
And death the blessing shall restore
Which death has snatched away;
For me Thou wilt the summons send,
And give me back my parted friend
In that eternal day.
The Christian and Fantastic Literature, Part 5: Reasons for Fantasy
In the last essay we answered one question, but we asked another. We learned that since the Bible uses fantastic literature, and the Bible is never wrong, then fantastic literature cannot always be wrong. At least some uses of fantastic literature must be justifiable. The question that this conclusion led us to ask is why the Bible uses fantastic literature in the first place.
We have already noted that most examples of fantasy in the Bible occur in one of two settings. One setting is a species of prophetic literature that uses symbolic imagery to comment upon present events or to predict the future. This kind of writing is sometimes called apocalyptic. Scholars disagree over the precise definition and boundary of apocalyptic literature, but it is prominent in Daniel, Zechariah, and Revelation. Some instances in Ezekiel probably qualify as something like proto-apocalyptic. Many extra-biblical apocalypses were also written, usually under false names. Evidently, the apocalyptic writing in the Bible so gripped peoples’ imaginations that it was widely copied.
The other biblical setting for fantastic literature is found in fables. A fable is a short story, often employing personalized animals, plants, or even inanimate objects, that emphasizes a moral point. Scripture does not tell fables in its own voice (although some of Jesus’ parables make the kind of moral points that fables do). On two occasions, however, the biblical text relates fables that were told by biblical characters. The fable of the thorn bush and the cedar tree was directed by Joash of Israel to Amaziah of Judah (2 Chr 25:17–19). The fable of the trees electing a king was told by Gideon’s son Jotham to the men of Shechem (Judg 9:8–15).
The Bible uses fantastic elements in at least these two kinds of writing: prophecies and fables. I want to discuss each of these, and I intend to begin with prophetic writing. I’ll go on to discuss the Bible’s use of fables at a later point.
Why does the Bible employ fantastic elements in prophetic writing? The first and most obvious reason seems to be that these elements seize the reader’s attention and hold it. Fantastic elements tend to delight us, even when they seem strange or even frightening. They also make us curious. We wonder what they mean, and we can anticipate either the pleasure of an explanation or the pleasure of working out the puzzle for ourselves.
In addition to gripping the imagination, the imagery of apocalyptic writing is also easy to remember. Once impressed upon the mind, apocalyptic images rise into the memory almost by themselves: a valley of dry bones, a statue of four metals, four successive fantastic beasts, or a seven-headed monster rising from the sea. Such images are almost impossible to forget. Furthermore, because the images are so easily remembered, they virtually demand comparison. For example, do the four metals in the image of Daniel 2 correspond to the four beasts of Daniel 7? How is the little horn of Daniel 7 related to the little horn of Daniel 8? Questions like these arise naturally as the images swirl in the reader’s mind.
Another reason is that the symbolic nature of these fantastic elements sometimes allows the writer to say something indirectly and thus more powerfully. Clear hints are sometimes safer than direct language. Furthermore, by drawing the reader into an imaginative world, the indirect nature of fantastic imagery can engage the feelings in a way that bare propositions might not.
Consider an example. Revelation 17 depicts a woman who rides on a scarlet beast that has seven heads. This woman is identified in the text as Babylon, which seems straightforward enough. Yet the reader is also told that the seven heads are seven mountains or hills upon which the woman sits. This description is an unmistakable allusion to the city of Rome, which famously occupied seven hills. By using allusive language, John accomplishes multiple purposes. Where he might have been risking his head to write that “Rome is like Babylon,” the use of symbolism allows his readers to reach this conclusion without John saying it directly. It also leads readers to ask just how Rome is like Babylon. Incidentally, I am not addressing the question of whether this reference is to something historical or something future from our point of view. Whichever it is, the vivid picture grips our imaginations, stimulates our thinking, and allows John to imply something without saying it.
Something similar happens in Daniel 4, where Nebuchadnezzar has a dream about a great tree that fills the earth. In his dream, the tree is chopped down and banded with iron and bronze, only to begin growing again after a period of dormancy. In his interpretation, Daniel declares that the king himself is the tree, that God is going to humble him, but that his kingdom will be restored. If Daniel had simply told Nebuchadnezzar that he was growing arrogant and was in danger of divine judgment, the king’s reaction might have been severe. The symbolism of the dream, however, provides Daniel with an opportunity to communicate the message clearly, but from a perspective of respect and even sympathy for Nebuchadnezzar.
Evidently, biblical writers incorporated fantastic elements into their prophecies for good reason. Fantastic prophecies were so successful that the technique was widely copied outside of the canon. We can guess that the reasons that made fantasy useful in biblical (and extrabiblical) prophecies might also make fantasy useful in other settings. One of those settings is fable, and we’ll look at biblical fables next.
This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.
Kingdoms and Thrones to God Belong
Isaac Watts (1674–1748)
Kingdoms and thrones to God belong;
Crown Him, ye nations, in your song:
His wondrous names and powers rehearse;
His honors shall enrich your verse.
He shakes the heavens with loud alarms;
How terrible is God in arms!
In Israel are His mercies known;
Israel is His peculiar throne.
Proclaim Him King, pronounce Him blest;
He’s your Defence, your Joy, your Rest:
When terrors rise, and nations faint,
God is the Strength of every saint.
The Christian and Fantastic Literature, Part 4: Is Fantasy Always Wrong?
Is fantastic literature always wrong, or can it sometimes be justifiable and moral? Everybody agrees that fantasy can be written in immoral ways or turned toward immoral purposes. Any kind of art can be used for bad purposes, and fantasy is no exception. I would never suggest that all fantastic writing is good. But is it all necessarily evil?
You might be tempted to think that answering this question is a complicated business. After all, shouldn’t we first agree upon standards for evaluating literature in general and fantastic literature in particular? Ought we not at least to have some idea of how fantasy functions?
These are legitimate concerns, but I believe we should consider another approach. What if we could cut straight through such preliminary concerns and arrive at a quick answer to our question? I suggest this possibility because I think that we can. We have been given a way, if only we will use it, to get right to the heart of the issue without any detailed knowledge of literary criticism.
How can we decide so easily whether fantastic literature can ever be moral? As a first step, let me ask you to perform a mental experiment. Imagine a book that features a seven-headed dragon, a winged lion, talking trees, a caprine form of the unicorn, a sea-monster, a green horse, skeletons that assemble themselves from bones, a flying book, mountains of bronze, sundry multi-headed monsters, and women who can fly. Would a book like that fit our definition of fantastic literature? Of course it would.
Such a book actually exists. In fact, the book that I have just described is the Bible. Yes, the Bible contains all these fantastic elements, and even more. The seven-headed dragon figures prominently in the book of Revelation, as do other multi-headed monsters and the green horse (sometimes this character is called the pale horse, but the word pale is best translated pale green). The winged lion and the unicorn goat are key figures in Daniel’s prophecies. The skeletons who assemble themselves belong famously to Ezekiel 37. The flying book, the mountains of bronze, and the flying women are in Zechariah (Revelation also features a woman who is given wings to fly). The talking trees are found in the book of Judges.
All the fantastic elements that I have listed occur in one of two forms of writing: fable or apocalypse. I will say a bit more about each of these in a moment. For now, I want you to notice that I have not included any of the Bible’s miraculous accounts, such as Jonah being swallowed by the great fish, Balaam’s donkey talking to him, or Joshua making the sun stand still. I have not included those episodes because I don’t think they are fantasy. The text presents them as straightforward narratives. Strange as these events seem, they appear in the text as if they really happened. Because God is truthful, and because the Bible is God’s Word, we have no choice but to accept these as accounts of actual events. They are supernatural events, to be sure. They are miraculous events. Nevertheless, they are not fictional and they are not fantastic.
I cannot emphasize strongly enough that the Bible is God’s Word. According to 2 Timothy 3:16, all Scripture is inspired by God or God-breathed. According to the apostle Peter, Scripture was produced when “men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God” (2 Pet 1:20-21 NASB). While it is true that the Bible was written by human historians, prophets, and poets, every word is also in the text because God wanted it to be there. Whatever the Bible affirms, God Himself affirms. That is why I have no problem believing that a donkey talked to Balaam, that a great fish swallowed Jonah, or that the sun stood still for Joshua.
So why don’t I also affirm that trees talked, that women flew, or that unicorns or dragons exist in real life? The reason is simple: the Bible does not affirm that they do. In the text, the talking trees are a fable. The unicorn and the dragon (and the flying book, etc.) are prophetic symbols. The Bible intends them to stand for something else. To interpret the text literally means not taking those features literally, because the text literally wants us to recognize them as symbolic.
I will be the first to acknowledge that sometimes we have trouble deciding whether a particular element in Scripture should be taken in its straightforward sense, in some figurative sense, or in a symbolical sense. An example might be the locusts of Revelation 9. These fantastic creatures swarm out of the smoke that ascends from the abyss. For five months they sting humans and cause intense suffering. Their appearance is unlike any living thing on earth today. They have a king named Abaddon, who is the angel of the abyss.
Is the description of these locusts a representation of actual demonic beings? Is it a metaphorical depiction of (e.g.) some terrible, military machines? Are the locusts instead symbols of some other reality? Serious students of Scripture defend each of those interpretations. My purpose is not to decide between them here, but to note one fact. Simply because we may not be certain about the interpretation of some elements in some passages does not prevent us from knowing that other elements in other passages are either literal, figurative, or symbolic.
Leaving aside this issue of interpretation, one thing remains clear. Because the Bible is God’s Word, it is never wrong. The apostles and prophets quoted Scripture as if they thought it was entirely correct and had final authority. Jesus Himself quoted the Bible this way. Jesus used the Bible to resist Satan. He used it to refute the Sadducees. He used it to confound the Pharisees. Whenever He used the Bible, Jesus treated it as if He thought that it was entirely from God and entirely true. He often corrected people’s understanding of the Bible, but He never corrected the Bible itself.
The Bible is entirely true. It affirms no errors. It makes no mistakes. It never teaches falsely, and it never commits error.
The Bible never does wrong, but the Bible uses fantasy. It depicts talking trees and flying women. It gives us unicorns and dragons. There is no escaping the obvious fact that the Bible incorporates fantastic literature into its pages.
The Bible uses fantasy. The Bible is never wrong. Therefore, the Bible is not wrong to use fantasy. Obviously, then, fantasy cannot always be wrong. This conclusion really is simple and direct. At least some of the time, and for at least some uses, fantastic literature must be right and moral.
We have discovered that fantasy cannot always be wrong since the Bible itself includes fantastic literature. This conclusion leads to another question: why does the Bible use fantasy? We shall turn to that question in the next essay.
This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.
See the Old Dragon From His Throne
Philip Doddridge (1702–1751)
See the old dragon from his throne
Sink with enormous ruin down!
Banished from Heav’n, and doomed to dwell
Deep in the fiery gloom of hell!
Ye heav’ns with all your hosts, rejoice:
Ye saints, in consort lend your voice;
Approach your Lord’s victorious seat,
And tread the foe beneath your feet.
But whence a conquest so divine
Gained by such feeble hands as mine?
Or whence can sinful mortals boast
O’er Satan and his rebel host?
‘Twas from Thy blood, Thou slaughtered lamb,
That all our palms and triumphs came;
The cross, thy spear inflicts the stroke,
By which the monster’s head is broke.
Thy faithful Word our hope maintains
Through all our combat and our pains;
The accents of Thy heav’nly breath
Thy soldiers bear through wounds and death.
Triumphant Lamb, in worlds unknown,
With transport round Thy radiant throne,
Thy happy legions, all complete,
Shall lay their laurels at Thy feet.
A Message from Ukraine
Editor’s Note: Central Baptist Theological Seminary has a genuinely global ministry. We teach students in many countries, including both Ukraine and Russia. What follows is a message from one of our students who is also a Ukrainian pastor. You may recognize the name of his city, Chernihiv, as one of the centers of fighting during the Russian invasion. Our purpose in publishing this message is not to editorialize about the war, but to let you hear the voice of one of your Christian brothers who is serving the Lord in the middle of the conflict. Please pray for this brother and others like him. Pray for the Ukranian people.
Dear friends, my name is Lyosha Savchuk and I am a pastor of a church in Chernihiv. And I want to share a brief update on my status and the status of my family. When the war began on Thursday morning, the first thing I did was drive to the gas station and filled my full tank of diesel and took my family and a couple other families from our church and we fled. Didn’t have time to think. Didn’t have time to hesitate. We just put the most necessary things and gone. I even left my bag, because the priority was people, not things. So, I wore the same clothes for five days. That’s a little unusual for me.
We made it a long way to the Poland border which was very difficult because of traffic jams all over Ukraine. People flee to Europe and Western parts of Ukraine because these places are much safer than, let’s say, Chernihiv, the city where I am from. That city is right on the border with Russia and Belarus. I received news from my town, and I know that people are suffering because Russians, Russians they don’t know how to fight other soldiers. The only thing they know is how to fight civilians, women and children. This is whom they fight with. They don’t fight with our army. They fight with civilians, with cities, women, and children.
I want to let you know that we all felt your prayers and support. My family is safe now. Alusia and Solomia and Kirill, they are in Poland in Krakow. And we know a further step of how to put them in an even safer place. So please keep praying for them. I stayed in Ukraine for several reasons. One of them is Ukrainian customs, they don’t allow men to go through the borders in the time of war. So, I stayed. Another reason is we took family from Chernihiv. The wife was pregnant and almost due, so it was priority to save them. And she delivered right before the border, in the hospital near the border, on the Ukrainian part. They are there now, and I am in a motel close to them. So, my goal for now is to save this couple with the little baby. The baby’s name is Mia, the couple’s names are Mary and Dennis. Please pray for them. This is my goal number one, to help this family to go through the border to Poland, because Poland is a safe place now.
I can’t tell anything else, because from Thursday until Sunday night I was travelling, did not have time for rest. I made a quick stop in Ternopil where my brother Vitaly Bilyak (brother in Christ) received us and fed us and gave us time to rest a little bit. We spent, I think, three hours there and then moved further because we all understood that staying in Ukraine for women and children is not safe. Please keep us in your prayers and we feel your support, we feel that you are with us. And, if you can, somehow influence your government, please, let them know that we need help. We need military help.
Thank you very much.
You can view further information and a video recording of this message at the following links.
https://vimeo.com/showcase/9315861
https://www.baptistinternational.org/news/2r29463shey6apyt3zwecwbdydy3xc
War, Horrid War
Benjamin Beddome (1717–1795)
War, horrid war, deep stain’d in blood,
Still pours its havoc thro’ our land;
Almighty God, restrain the flood;
Say “’tis enough!” and stay thine hand.
Let peace descend with balmy wing,
And all her blessings round us shed;
Our liberties be well secur’d,
And commerce lift its fainting head.
Let the loud cannon cease to roar,
The warlike trump no longer sound;
The din of arms be heard no more,
Nor human blood pollute the ground.
Let hostile troops drop from their hands
The useless sword, the glitt’ring spear;
And join in friendship’s sacred bands,
Nor one dissentient voice be there.
Thus save, O Lord, a sinking land;
Millions of tongues shall then adore,
Resound the honours of thy name,
And spread thy praise from shore to shore.
Let Me Say It Again
During the 1990s I was planting and pastoring Faith Independent Baptist Church in Sachse, Texas, while working on a degree at Dallas Theological Seminary. During those years I encountered two protest movements that stood at opposite ends of the political spectrum. One was Operation Rescue, whose leader pastored a church about two miles from our meeting house. The other was a racial equality movement led by Dallas County Commissioner John Wylie Price.
Operation Rescue was founded by Randall Terry, but by the mid-1990s it was headed by evangelical minister Flip Benham. It was the first pro-life organization to adopt the tactics of the 1960s counter-culture, complete with sit-ins that obstructed access to abortion clinics. The organization sponsored hundreds of blockades, drawing thousands of protesters, who experienced over ten thousand arrests per year during the late 1980s, leading to hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines.
John Wylie Price’s protests operated on a much smaller scale, but they regularly captured the attention of the Dallas media. During the early 1990s Price was exploiting a loophole in Dallas’s pedestrian ordinances that allowed him to block traffic on busy streets. Price and his followers would wait at an intersection for a signal light so that they could begin crossing the street legally. Careful to remain in the crosswalk, they would take tiny steps, walking at a rate that would consume a full cycle of the light before they reached the far side of the street. Then the light would change, and they would start back in the other direction. What they were doing was perfectly legal, but by pacing themselves they could blockade traffic for hours.
During those years I regularly received invitations from Operation Rescue or similar groups to participate in protests, or at least to promote the protests from the pulpit. I fully supported the goal of reversing abortion on demand and overturning Roe v Wade, which is one of the worst decisions in the history of the United States Supreme Court. Yet, as I worked through the issues, I found that I could not support the tactics that Operation Rescue was employing.
Partly my objections were grounded in the tone of these anti-abortion groups. The difference between us can be summarized by a conversation I had with one of their leaders. “Why don’t you scream against this evil?” he screamed at me. My response was that “Very few real evils can be addressed by screaming.” I still believe that’s true.
Screaming is manipulation. Screaming is intimidation. Screaming is coercion. Screaming preempts all attempts at persuasion. Screaming is a tactic of the Left, which believes (in true Marxian fashion) that differences in viewpoint are fundamentally about power, that false consciousness masks exercises of power, and that consciousness must be raised through the assertion of countervailing force. Because I reject the assumptions, I also reject the tactic. Conservatives should see screaming and its kindred tactics (brute confrontation, intimidation, name calling, and demonization) as contradictory to what they hope to accomplish. Any leader who screams, blusters, bullies people, or engages in name-calling to gain an audience is subverting conservatism, whatever other values he may hold.
My problem with the tone of Operation Rescue was, however, the lesser of my objections. My greater objection was that, by deliberately flouting just laws, the organization committed itself to an immoral and ultimately anarchic tactic. People of principle must judge not only ends but also means. The means that Operation Rescue chose were means that a person of conscience must reject.
The rule of law is critical to any ordered society. The general precept that Scripture requires of Christians is that they respect laws and obey governmental officials (Rom 13:1–7). Christians have formulated three possible exceptions to this rule: when the state’s law is contrary to God’s law, when the state’s law is contrary to its own higher laws, and when the state’s law exceeds the purview of legitimate governmental concern. Over the centuries Christians have carried on a rich conversation about the questions of when, where, and how civil disobedience is either permitted or required.
The majority view—and the view to which I subscribe—is that, given a legitimately constituted government, all just laws must be obeyed. Challenging and even disobeying unjust laws is sometimes permissible, and sometimes even obligatory, but these are exceptions to the rule. What we must never do is to break a just law to challenge an unjust one.
Mutatis mutandis, property laws are just laws. Traffic laws are just laws. Such laws must not be broken, even when objecting to an unjust law. We have every right to seek redress in the face of unjust laws. We may challenge those laws in court; we may seek to change them through the electoral process; we may even protest them on the street. If we choose to protest them, however, we must be careful to obey all just laws in the process.
Operation Rescue rejected the rule of law. Those who cooperated with that organization in breaking just laws deserved the arrests, jail time, and fines that they received. The irony is that John Wiley Price—clearly a politician of the Left—found a way of protesting that made his point but that kept the law intact. In this particular instance, his means must be judged more moral than the means adopted by those who professed conservative and even Christian ideals.
The principle I am articulating is simple, and it is as relevant today as it ever was. We must judge means as well as ends. A lofty goal does not justify immoral means. When protesting an evil, we must not violate just laws. Perhaps somebody could reduce this principle to a slogan and put it on a picket sign.
This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.
Eternal Sovereign of the Sky
Isaac Watts (1674–1748)
Eternal Sovereign of the sky,
And Lord of all below;
We mortals to thy majesty
Our first obedience owe.
Our souls adore thy throne supreme,
And bless thy providence,
For magistrates of meaner name,
Our glory and defence.
Kingdoms on firm foundations stand,
While virtue finds reward;
And sinners perish from the land
By justice and the sword.
Let Caesar’s due be ever paid
To Caesar and his throne;
But consciences and souls were made
To be the Lord’s alone.
The Christian and Fantastic Literature, Part 3: What Is and Is Not the Goal
This is the third in a series of essays that try to answer the question of whether Christians can make use of fantastic literature and, if so, what use they can make. To this point the series has offered a working definition of fantastic writing, has distinguished it from occult literature, and has marked out two ways in which any literature can be good or bad. All these considerations will eventually be brought to bear upon the main question. Before moving into that discussion, however, I should state clearly what I do not intend to do in these essays. Then I will explain in a bit more detail what I do hope to accomplish.
What do I not intend to do? First, I do not intend to discuss the merits or demerits of occult literature. As we have defined the expression, occult literature attempts to depict a hidden or unseen world that is or may be around us. Occult literature assumes that reality includes more than we can see, and that beings and powers inhabit a world beyond our senses. Occult literature takes this unseen world seriously. It tries to pull back the curtain and to give us a glimpse of whatever creatures or powers are believed to dwell within this hidden world.
This is a very specific definition of occult literature. Furthermore, it is not one that requires occult literature to favor involvement with what the Bible calls curious arts. Indeed, given this definition, certain passages of the Bible qualify as occult literature, for God grants revelation that enables humans to understand what is taking place in a spiritual realm that cannot be glimpsed by human senses. John Milton also writes occult literature when, in Paradise Lost, he tries to help his readers fathom the workings of Satan’s mind in his fall and his subsequent temptation of humanity. Of course, books do exist that are written to attract people to become involved in occult activities (curious arts), and these are deeply immoral. Nevertheless, they do not exhaust the category of occult literature.
From what I have said, it should be clear that I think lines can be drawn between good occult literature and bad occult literature. To draw those lines would be an interesting and useful thing to do, but it is not the thing that I intend to do in these essays. It is a separate conversation and not part of the present discussion.
Second, I do not intend to justify everything that is done with fantastic literature. Anyone who has spent any time at all reading fantasy has discovered that it can be—and often is—used in some very destructive ways. Indeed, all species of badness to which literature can be turned will show up somewhere within fantastic literature. When we get around to discussing specific works, I intend to point out some fantastic literature that I do think is bad. While I enjoy reading fantasy, the purpose of these essays is not to offer an apologetic for everything that goes under that label.
Third, I do not intend to evaluate any fantastic literature that would be morally problematic on other grounds. For example, at one point I bought and began to read the first three volumes of the Game of Thrones series by George R. R. Martin. Within pages I found the work so vile that I threw the books away. It was bad literature on the face of it; I did not need to read further to understand that it would be harmful to Christian sensibility.
Finally, I do not intend to address the usefulness of fantasy in any medium other than literature. Fantastic elements are employed in many artistic media. The paintings of Bosch and Breughel are often fantastic. Gothic architecture (for example, the Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral) includes fantastic aspects. Many operas and ballets include fantastic elements. Most recently, Hollywood movie makers have been capitalizing on the popularity of fantasies such as Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings. Each of these media communicates in its own way. Conclusions that are drawn with respect to literature may or may not have implications for other media. I do not intend to point out those implications, however, even where they do exist.
What, then, do I wish to accomplish? I have already stated my purpose in several ways. Let me rehearse it again. First, I intend to ask whether any fantastic literature can ever be fit for consumption by a Christian. Is a Christian ever justified in reading fantasy, or is all fantasy spiritually destructive? Might some of it even be helpful? Second, I want to extrapolate principles to help readers evaluate fantastic literature. I want to articulate criteria for knowing whether a particular work is good, in both senses of that term. Third, I intend to apply those principles to several works of fantasy, including Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia, and Rowling’s Harry Potter series. Will a Christian be harmed by exposure to the worlds of Narnia, Middle Earth, or Hogwarts? What about other imaginary worlds?
I wish to stress again the difference between Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings as a work of literature and Jackson’s Lord of the Rings as a work of cinema (the difference is even more marked with The Hobbit). The books and the movies are not the same work. They cannot be the same work when they are presented in different media. Even without the differences that are imposed by the media, however, Jackson has fundamentally altered Tolkien’s message. Whatever I have to say about Tolkein’s writing must not be applied to Jackson’s movies.
Can the same be said about The Chronicles of Narnia or Harry Potter? In neither case is the contrast as sharp. No one has completed a sustained, full-length film version of the Narnia series. In the case of the Potter movies, the differences are partly mitigated by circumstances that I shall discuss when I evaluate Rowling’s work. With Tolkien and Jackson, however, the contrast is both vivid and deep.
I believe that I have now taken care of the preliminaries. Our definitions are in place and the necessary distinctions have been drawn. In the next essay, I begin to explore whether Christians can ever rightly enjoy fantastic literature.
This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.
I to the Hills Will Lift Mine Eyes
Scottish Psalter, 1615
I to the hills will lift mine eyes:
from whence doth come mine aid?
My safety cometh from the Lord,
who heaven and earth hath made.
Thy foot He’ll not let slide, nor will
He slumber that thee keeps.
Behold, He that keeps Israel,
He slumbers not, nor sleeps.
The Lord thee keeps; the Lord thy shade
on thy right hand doth stay;
the moon by night thee shall not smite
nor yet the sun by day.
The Lord shall keep thy soul; He shall
preserve thee from all ill;
henceforth thy going out and in
God keep for ever will.
The Christian and Fantastic Literature, Part 2: A Further Distinction
The purpose of these essays is to explore the Christian’s use of fantastic literature. The discussion began with a definition of fantastic literature as belletristic writing that employs at least one of three elements: humanizing subhuman creatures, attributing marvelous powers to beings that people the imaginative world, or introducing creatures that do not exist in the real world. The discussion then distinguished fantastic literature from occult literature, pointing out that while the two categories overlap, they are not identical.
Before proceeding further, one other distinction is worth remarking. When we ask about the Christian’s use of fantastic literature, we are really asking whether this literature is good or bad, and how good or bad it is. The problem is that literature can be good or bad in different ways.
When we call something good or bad, we are sometimes offering an evaluation of its moral uprightness. Works of literature convey meaning. Because they convey meaning, they articulate a moral vision.
The moral quality of literature does not depend simply on whether its characters do things that are acknowledged to be virtuous or vicious. More important is the fact that everyone who writes a work of fiction is to some extent creating an imaginative world—a universe. That universe may closely resemble the real universe or it may deviate greatly from it. A fictional universe, however, is never a mere copy of the real universe. If it were, it would be reporting and not fiction.
All universes without exception embody a moral order. The real universe certainly does, because it reflects the moral character of its Creator. The same is true of fictional universes. They always assume some moral reality above and behind the material reality. That moral order may match the moral order of the real universe or it may subvert it. It may even be inconsistent, affirming some aspects of moral reality while perverting others. To the extent that an author creates a universe that subverts or perverts genuine moral order, to that extent the work will be immoral. It will be bad in the sense that it is evil or corrupt. I shall have more to say about this kind of badness at a later point.
That is one thing that we can mean when we call a work of literature good. On the other hand, when we say that we are reading a “good book,” we do not usually mean that it is good in the moral sense. Often, we simply mean that it amuses us. More broadly, we mean that we have measured it according to the canons of its literary type or genre, and we have found that it measures up to those canons. In this sense, a book is good if it accomplishes whatever its kind of literature is supposed to do.
Every kind of literature has its own measurements for evaluation. Since fantasy is a form of belletristic fiction, it must be judged by the standards that apply to works of fictional literature. Broadly, fictional writing can be evaluated according to characterization, plot, point of view, setting, tone, theme, and style. Fantastic writing does not so much add new elements as it places all the elements in a different kind of universe, creating unique challenges for authorial consistency. The value of the story as a work of literature will depend upon how skilled the author is in manipulating all these elements.
Since I do not propose to write an essay on literary criticism, I will expand upon just one element in a work of fiction: characterization. A critic will ask certain questions about the characters. Are they believable? Does a reader care what happens to them? Are the major characters flat and monochrome or are they complex and colorful? Do they remain static or do they develop throughout the work? No fiction with poorly drawn characters can be a great work of literature.
The same is true of the other elements. Knowing the right questions to ask can help a reader to evaluate every element, recognizing that a serious failure in any area will injure the overall work. If a story has marvelous characters but a weak plot, it will turn out to be a bad work. The same is true if it adopts an inappropriate tone, or if the author is a poor stylist. Of course, every writer is stronger in some of these areas and weaker in others, but to produce truly good works of fiction, authors must master them all.
In sum, when we call a story good, we might mean either of two things. One is that the work is morally upright and decent. The other is that the story is competently written. The two kinds of goodness do not always go together. Much literature is competently written but morally flawed. The reverse is also true, especially among Christian authors: the literature is so virtuous as almost to constitute a moral tract, but it is badly written. Of course, literature that is both morally corrupt and badly written also gets published. The best of all possible combinations, however, is to read literature that is both morally and artistically excellent.
Much of the controversy with Christians who object to fantastic literature involves the moral element. They believe that at least some forms of fantasy are intrinsically immoral, so they insist that Christians must not read it. As I have made clear, I intend to address this question. Before even opening that discussion, I concede that some fantasy is actually written so as to lack virtue and to promote vice. When examining works of fantasy, one of the questions that I shall ask is whether this work is moral in the ethical sense of the term.
Nevertheless, the question of literary excellence is also important. In view of that fact, I also intend to evaluate the literary worth of particular examples of fantastic literature. I do not believe that Christians should feel obligated to sacrifice good writing in the interest of good morals.
We have now introduced another important distinction, namely, the distinction between moral and literary excellence. We are almost ready to proceed with our discussion. Before we do, however, I want to take the time to specify what I do not intend to accomplish. That will form the subject matter of the next essay.
This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.
In God, My Faithful God
Nicolaus Decius (1485–1546); tr. by Catherine Winkworth (1827–1878)
All glory be to Thee, Most High,
To Thee all adoration!
In grace and truth Thou drawest nigh
To offer us salvation.
Thou showest Thy good will to men,
And peace shall reign on earth again;
We praise Thy Name forever.
We praise, we worship Thee, we trust,
And give Thee thanks forever,
O Father, for Thy rule is just
And wise, and changes never.
Thy hand almighty o’er us reigns,
Thou doest what Thy will ordains;
‘Tis well for us Thou rulest.
O Jesus Christ, our God and Lord,
Son of the Heav’nly Father,
O Thou, who hast our peace restored,
The straying sheep dost gather,
Thou Lamb of God, to Thee on high
Out of the depths we sinners cry:
Have mercy on us, Jesus!
O Holy Ghost, Thou precious gift,
Thou Comforter, unfailing,
From Satan’s snares our souls uplift,
And let Thy pow’r, availing,
Avert our woes and calm our dread;
For us the Savior’s blood was shed,
We trust in Thee to save us!
The Christian and Fantastic Literature, Part 1: Definitions and Questions
The year was 1971, and I was a junior in high school. I needed something to do in study hall, which happened to be held in the classroom where the English teacher kept a rack of paperback books. The cover of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring caught my eye. I picked it up, and within two pages I was gripped. Tolkien’s story was like nothing that I had ever read. His work was my introduction to a genre of literature that I would later learn to call fantasy.
In those days, fantastic writing was generally limited to children’s fairy tales. Few adults took any interest. The books were hard to find. Years passed before I met someone else who had read Tolkien. During the ensuing decades, however, fantasy in general and Tolkien in particular have become big sellers.
Some people do not appreciate fantasy. With most of them I have no argument: as the adage says, there is no disputing about tastes. For a few Christians, however, the rejection of fantastic literature is less about taste than about principle. They register moral objections against fantasy. These Christians are particularly vocal in their opposition to the best-known authors of fantastic fiction such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, and especially J. K. Rowling. In their opinion, indulging in fantastic literature will harm the inner life of the believer.
At the time I write this essay, I am a Christian pastor and teacher. Consequently, I have deep concern about anything that affects my own spiritual life or the spiritual lives of those to whom I minister. If fantastic literature can be shown to harm the soul, then I want to be in the front rank of those who oppose it. If, on the other hand, it can be a harmless diversion or even a helpful instrument for teaching, then I want to be careful not to frighten the Lord’s people with needless fulminations against one of God’s good gifts.
In the following essays, I will examine the arguments against fantastic literature. Let me say a word about my method. To engage in this examination, I will first articulate a definition of fantasy. That definition will control the rest of this discussion. Next, I will ask whether distinctions should be drawn between various categories of, purposes for, and approaches to fantasy. Then I will limit the question that I intend to discuss. Having taken these steps, I should be able to examine the merits and demerits of fantastic writing. Once I have examined the arguments and drawn conclusions about how fantastic literature should be evaluated, I will apply these criteria to specific works of fantasy.
Let us begin with the definition: fantasy, as I intend to use the term, is a genre of fictional literature or belles lettres in which an author creates an imaginative world by using one or more of the following devices. First, the author may attribute human properties to subhuman creatures (animals, plants, or even inanimate objects). Second, the author may attribute miraculous or marvelous powers to humans or other agents. Third, the author may invent creatures that do not exist in the real world. Any work of fiction that deliberately includes at least one of these elements can be classified as fantasy.
Examples of fantastic writing include the works of Homer (the Iliad and Odyssey), Aesop (the Fables), Virgil (the Aneid), the German Märchen (exemplified first by the fairy tales of the Grimm brothers and later imitated by Hans Christian Andersen), Jonathan Swift (Gulliver’s Travels), Rudyard Kipling (the Jungle Books and Puck of Pook’s Hill), Edgar Rice Burroughs (Tarzan of the Apes and its sequels), C. S. Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia and the space trilogy), and J. R. R. Tolkien (The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings). A specialized form of fantasy is found in science fiction, and it is no accident that retailers tend to market the two together.
Nothing in this definition equates fantasy with occult literature. The two, while related, are not the same thing. One reason is that occult literature may be either fictional or non-fictional. Another reason is that occult literature tries to do a different thing. The word occult means hidden, and occult literature tries to depict the hidden or unseen world that is or may be around us. Sometimes the depiction is direct and literal, while at other times it may be symbolic.
The expression occult literature, when it is used to describe a literary genre, is not necessarily connected to witchcraft or demonism, nor does it necessarily approve of those things. In the literary sense, several of the documents in the Bible could be classed as occult literature because they purport to give us a glimpse of the hidden work of God and of spirit beings in the world (the book of Job would be an example, as would some sections of Daniel). Other examples of occult literature include the works of John Milton (Paradise Lost), Robert Hugh Benson (The Necromancers) and Frank Peretti (the Darkness books). If the word literature is stretched to include writing that is not deliberately fictional, then occult literature also includes some theology, such as Michael Heiser’s The Unseen Realm.
Fantasy and occult literature are not identical, but the two categories do overlap. Both kinds of literature can attempt to deal with the supernatural. Consequently, some works should be classed as both fantasy and occult literature. Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan rightly belongs in both categories. So do the fictional writings of Charles Williams (Descent Into Hell, All Hallows Eve, The Greater Trumps, etc.). C. S. Lewis’s space trilogy also fits both categories (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength).
To this point, I have articulated a definition of fantastic literature. I have employed that definition to distinguish fantastic literature from an overlapping genre: occult literature. Before we can proceed with the discussion, a few other distinctions will be necessary.
This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.
In God, My Faithful God
Sigismund Weingärtner (unknown); tr. by Catherine Winkworth (1827–1878)
In God, my faithful God,
I trust when dark my road;
Great woes may overtake me,
Yet He will not forsake me.
My troubles He can alter;
His hand lets nothing falter.
My sins fill me with care,
Yet I will not despair.
I build on Christ, who loves me;
From this rock nothing moves me.
To Him I will surrender,
To Him, my soul’s defender.
If death my portion be,
It brings great gain to me;
It speeds my life’s endeavor
To live with Christ forever.
He gives me joy in sorrow,
Come death now or tomorrow.
O Jesus Christ, my Lord,
So meek in deed and word,
You suffered death to save us
Because Your love would have us
Be heirs of heav’nly gladness
When ends this life of sadness.
"So be it," then, I say
With all my heart each day.
Dear Lord, we all adore You,
We sing for joy before You.
Guide us while here we wander
Until we praise You yonder.
Two Conversations at Once
I did not listen to much classical music while I was growing up. I can remember hearing Tchaikovsky’s Overture Solonnelle (the 1812 Overture) when I was in about eighth grade. I was fascinated by it. When at seventeen I was able to buy my own stereo, the first recording I purchased was of Ormandy’s Philadelphia Orchestra performing that piece.
On the flip side of the platter (those were the days of LPs) was a recording of Borodin’s In the Steppes of Central Asia. Like the 1812 Overture, this composition fascinated me. Both pieces were symphonic poems; both were programme music. Borodin was telling the story of a band of crusaders meeting and passing a caravan somewhere in central Asia. One hears the simple majesty of the crusader hymn. It is followed by the eastern music of the caravan with all its mystery. The two themes contend with each other, and then Borodin weaves them into a beautiful counterpoint. Listening to this music was the first time I realized that two melodies could be played simultaneously in such a way as to reinforce each other.
I loved listening to Borodin’s composition. I still love it. Since then, I’ve discovered plenty of other serious music. I tend to gravitate toward the Baroque (especially J. S. Bach) rather than to the Romantic, but something in the transparency and beauty of Borodin’s work continues to reach my soul. I can’t feature ever getting tired of it.
Some years after discovering Borodin, I came across another composer, a contemporary evangelical. I will not name him here, though you may recognize him from my description. He is a skilled pianist who has mastered enough technique to be able to play classical music competently. He is also a composer who arranges hymn tunes. What captured my attention was that he had done something similar—or so I thought—to Borodin’s piece. He had combined two themes into a single composition.
In this case, the themes both fell under the broad label of “sacred music.” One was J. S. Bach’s Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring. The other was the tune (written by Phoebe Knapp) of Fanny Crosby’s Blessed Assurance. The composer exhibited musical competence in bringing these two themes together. I heard him perform this composition while I was in my early twenties. At the time, I had hardly begun listening to serious music, and I was as intrigued by this composition as I was with Borodin’s.
As I grew more familiar with serious music, however, a strange thing happened. The more I listened to good music, the better I liked the Borodin, while the less I liked the combination of sacred themes. At first, this apparent incongruity puzzled me. At one level, both pieces were interesting, and yet the one grew on me while the other’s appeal decreased. Was this simply a personal oddity, or was there something in the music itself that could account for the opposite ways in which these compositions seemed to be affecting me?
Listening to the “sacred combination” one day, it occurred to me that it was like trying to hear two different conversations at once. In fact, it was like trying to hear two entirely different kinds of conversation, or perhaps conversations being conducted in two different languages. What was bothering me was the incongruity between the two. Bach was talking about one thing in one idiom; Crosby was talking about a different thing in an entirely different idiom.
By this time I knew Bach’s Jesu pretty well. I had not only listened to it but also performed it. I thought I knew what Bach was saying and doing. As a fundamentalist, I had grown up listening to Crosby (or Knapp). I knew what she was trying to say and do. When I heard the Crosby and the Bach being done together, it was like being pulled in two different directions. Even if each direction was perfectly legitimate, they were still different. The attempt to combine them was a contrivance—cute, but unsuccessful as musical communication.
This realization created a problem for me because I still liked the Borodin. Indeed, I liked it better than ever. Yet what could be more different than a crusader hymn and a caravan tune? Shouldn’t I have the same difficulty with the Borodin that I was experiencing with the sacred piece?
As I thought about this question, I realized that Borodin’s combination and the sacred combination were trying to do different things with the combination. Borodin’s work is a study in contrasts. The two themes are meant to stand out against each other. Each represents a different mood. The themes are played against each other first. When they combine, the effect is a bit of delightful but momentary serendipity. Then the tunes separate again as each goes its own way.
In the sacred combination, however, two contrasting moods and two contrasting musical languages are unequally yoked together. The composer tries to make them pull in the same direction, in spite of their individual inclinations. But they do not pull together. They keep pulling in different directions, the more so as the composer tries to submit the musically excellent Jesu to the popular and rather pedestrian Blessed Assurance.
It was a clever musical trick, to be sure. But that is really all it was. Crosby had something to say. Bach had something to say. By bringing these two voices into one conversation, however, neither message can be heard for itself. The sacred combination itself has nothing to say.
What attracted me to it in the first place was that it was a skillful bit of musical juggling. Watching juggling can be fun for a while. Eventually it gets boring, and then the juggler has to start doing new tricks. He’ll juggle a bowling ball with a raw egg. He’ll juggle chain saws. That’s how it is with musical juggling as well. This particular composer went from combining sacred classical (Bach) and sacred popular (Crosby/Knapp) music to combining secular classical with sacred popular music. Then he went to combining secular classical music with secular popular music. The last I heard, he was combining Chopin with the movie theme from The Godfather. I admit: it was amusing, but it was also vapid.
I am not denying that some combinations of sacred tunes might be useful and effective. To find those combinations, however, one must possess more than technical compositional skills. One must possess both aesthetic judgment and spiritual sensibility. This need is increasingly urgent as the classical music repertoire is being ransacked to find themes to combine with virtually every hymn and gospel song. Too often the result is simply mongrelized music.
This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.
Behold the Glories of the Lamb
Isaac Watts (1674–1748)
Behold the glories of the Lamb
amidst His Father’s throne!
amidst His Father’s throne!
Prepare new honors for His name,
and songs before unknown,
and songs before unknown.
Let elders worship at His feet,
the church adore around,
the church adore around,
with vials full of odors sweet,
and harps of sweeter sound,
and harps of sweeter sound.
Now to the Lamb that once was slain
be endless blessings paid;
be endless blessings paid;
salvation, glory, joy, remain
forever on Thy head,
forever on Thy head.
Thou hast redeemed our souls with blood,
hast set the pris’ners free,
hast set the pris’ners free,
hast made us kings and priests to God,
and we shall reign with Thee,
and we shall reign with Thee.
Most Interesting Reading of 2021: Part Two
Last week I provided half the list of the books that I found most interesting throughout my reading during 2021. This week I provide the other half of the list. Perhaps I should mention that these books are listed in alphabetical order by the surname of the author. The location of a book within the list tells you nothing about how interesting I found it in relation to the others. Here is the second half of the list:
Kelton, Stephanie. The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People’s Economy. New York: PublicAffairs, 2020.
Writing in defense of Modern Monetary Theory, Stephanie Kelton explains that the federal government has a monopoly on issuing currency. Consequently, the government cannot possibly run out of money. The only constraint on government spending is practical: too much spending might possibly provoke inflation. Otherwise, the government simply creates more currency to cover its debts. For Kelton (and her follower, AOC), this insight opens the door to fully funding a radically Leftist social agenda.
Kirk, Russell. The Conservative Mind from Burke to Eliot. 7th ed. Washington, DC: Regnery, 2001.
One of the three works that form the foundation of American Conservatism, The Conservative Mind repays multiple readings. I was first introduced to this book by a professor while I was in seminary. It represents the historical argument for conservative thought. More than any other author, Kirk has defined conservatism for postwar America. He is one of those authors who deserves his own shelf in your library. My rule here is simple: you should read everything he wrote.
L’Amour, Louis. Utah Blaine: A Novel. 16th ed. New York: Bantam, 1984.
We all do some reading just for fun, though what constitutes fun will vary from person to person. For me, western adventures are fun, and L’Amour writes some of the best. When he describes a place I’ve seen, I know that he has seen it, too. Importantly, L’Amour also understood that true masculinity is not toxic. He was gripped by notions of chivalry, and these define his protagonists. His westerns (and his other books) aren’t just fun: they have the power to shape character.
Leavy, Jane. Sandy Koufax: A Lefty’s Legacy. New York: Harper, 2010.
I’ve never been a great sports fan, though I do have exciting memories of the 1968 Tigers. Even so, during my childhood everybody knew the name of Sandy Koufax, pitcher for the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers. Jane Leavy has written an objective and thoroughly enjoyable biography, dealing with the man as well as the sports legend.
MacDonald, George. Phantastes: A Faerie Romance. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981 repr.
One reads some fiction for enjoyment and other fiction because of its literary importance. I read MacDonald for both reasons. He was one of C. S. Lewis’s favorite authors, and that says something. MacDonald was one of the pioneers of what is now called “High Fantasy,” and he excels virtually any present-day author in placing his imaginative world within a strongly moral universe. This is one of those books that I re-read every ten years or so.
McGirr, Lisa. The War on Alcohol: Prohibition and the Rise of the American State. New York: W. W. Norton, 2015.
What would it look like if someone committed to Critical Race Theory were to write a history on a random subject such as, say, Prohibition? The answer is McGirr’s volume, in which Prohibition is interpreted as an ideologically motivated attempt to oppress non-Whites and keep them from power. While the book does contain some actual historical research, it is interesting primarily because it shows how completely a CRT filter can color the answer to any question.
O’Rourke, P. J. On the Wealth of Nations. New York: Grove Press, 2008.
P. J. O’Rourke made his reputation as a humorist writing for Rolling Stone magazine. Here, however, he employs his considerable literary talent to offer a clear exposition of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations. Of course, Smith’s original treatise deserves to be read in its own right. For those who have struggled with Smith, O’Rourke has written an explanation that is accessible, lucid, funny, urbane, and short.
Schweitzer, Albert. The Quest of the Historical Jesus: A Critical Study of Its Progress from Reimarus to Wrede. Tr. by W. Montgomery. 3rd ed. London: Adam and Charles Black, 1954.
Few works survive a century in print, but Schweitzer published this discussion at a critical moment. It became a defining book that ended the First Quest of the Historical Jesus. Ordinary church members do not need to read this book. Few pastors do. But the issues it raises are still being mooted within the worlds of theology, Jesus Studies, and Early Christianity. They even show up in popular journalism. It is worth understanding the arguments, which Schweitzer summarized better than anyone.
Singer, Peter. Hegel: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford, 2001.
Even though Singer is one of the most obnoxious philosophers alive today, he has the gift of explaining convoluted ideas in simple language. That is precisely what he has done with the thought of G. W. F. Hegel. I have found the “Very Short Introduction” series to be uneven in quality. This is one of the better discussions. To be fair, no pastor really needs to know anything about Hegel to do his job. On the other hand, if he is ever, EVER going to babble about the “Hegelian Dialectic,” he might better have actually first read somebody who understands Hegel.
Solzhenitzyn, Aleksandr. The Gulag Archipelago. 50th Anniversary Edition. Foreword by Jordan Peterson. New York: Vintage Classics, 2018.
I’m embarrassed to admit that this was my first reading of Gulag. Now that I have read it, what can I say? Solzhenitzyn is the man who, together with Karol Wojtyla, Margaret Thatcher, and Ronald Reagan, brought down the Evil Empire. Furthermore, this book is a prophylaxis against the cultural Marxism that is coming to dominate American academics, journalism, and politics. Jordan Peterson’s lengthy introduction to the 50th Anniversary Edition makes exactly this point, and it is worth reading in its own right.
In retrospect, this has been a year during which I’ve read a bunch of Critical Theory in its various manifestations: race, gender, post-colonial, etc. Maybe this stuff seems interesting because it’s astonishing, or maybe because it has only recently begun exerting influence over the political and cultural life of the nation. Reading CT is like watching Attack of the Killer Tomatoes: it’s so bad it’s good. At any rate, I have found it interesting, which is what this list is about.
Once again, let me issue my caveat: just because I found something interesting does not mean that you will. More importantly, just because I found something interesting does not mean that it is good. Oncologists are interested in cancers, but they do their best to extirpate them. Part of my work is to deal with cancerous ideas. Sometimes I find them interesting, but that doesn’t mean that I want you to come down with the disease.
This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.
The Day Is Past and Gone
John Leland (1754–1841)
The day is past and gone,
The evening shades appear;
O may we all remember well
The night of death is near.
We lay our garments by,
Upon our beds to rest;
So death will soon disrobe us all
Of what we here possess.
Lord, keep us safe this night,
Secure from all our fears;
May angels guard us while we sleep,
Till morning light appears.
And when we early rise,
To view th’ unweari’d sun,
May we set out to win the prize,
And after glory run.
That when our days are past,
And we from time remove,
O may we in thy bosom rest,
The bosom of thy love.
Most Interesting Reading of 2021: Part One
Every year at about this time I publish an annotated list of the books that I found most interesting during the preceding twelve months. Whenever I publish this list, I explain that I don’t necessarily agree with these books. I don’t even necessarily recommend them. I find them interesting, and what I find interesting may be entirely useless to someone else. Still, if you want to know, read on.
Bush, George W. 41: A Portrait of My Father. New York: Crown, 2014.
I’ve always liked the two Bush presidents, both of whom proved themselves to be fundamentally decent men. This book is the younger President Bush writing the biography of his father. Naturally, the story is imbued with filial warmth, but it goes further. In this narrative, one president brings his perspective to bear upon the trials and decisions of another, offering both comment and critique. He then takes advantage of the occasion to reflect upon his own trials and decisions.
Campbell, Constantine. Paul and Union With Christ: An Exegetical and Theological Study. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012.
As a rule, dispensationalists connect union with Christ to the baptism of the Spirit. Consequently, they see only the Church as “in Christ.” Campbell, however, examines every occurrence of “in Christ” and related language in the New Testament. He effectively demonstrates that this language is not univocal, but that “in Christ” can designate a range of relationships. At points the book is like reading a parts catalog, but Campbell brings serious study to bear upon his topic. This is a very valuable discussion.
Casey, Zachary A. and Shannon K. McManimon. Building Pedagogues: White Practicing Teachers and the Struggle for Antiracist Work in the Schools. Albany: SUNY Press, 2020.
The authors of this book head up the White Studies Program at the University of Minnesota. They are fully committed to Critical Race Theory, and they intend to propagate it through the public schools. This volume details how they are working to train teachers to bring CRT into the schools in the name of antiracism. If you wonder whether CRT is in the public schools, then you ought to read this book.
Clark-Soles, Jaime. Women in the Bible. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2020.
This author is a committed feminist who is also a New Testament scholar. She admits up front that she is not willing to submit to any biblical text that legitimates patriarchy. She reinterprets many of those texts and flatly rejects the authority of others. Nevertheless, she manages to keep her discussion engaging, and she sometimes offers helpful insights into the text. I found myself arguing with the author almost continuously. If she had been present, I’m pretty sure I would have been dismissed for “mansplaining.” Yes, I disagreed with much of what this book said. But I still found it interesting.
DeGrazia, David. Animal Rights: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford, 2002.
What Clark-Soles is to complementarianism, DeGrazia is to belief that humans are uniquely created in the image of God. In fact, DeGrazia simply dismisses this consideration. For him, humans are not qualitatively unique. Animals have moral standing, too, and consequently animals have rights. At least, vertebrates do. And maybe some other species, though DeGrazia doesn’t quite know where to draw the line. But if you want a good, readable introduction to the topic, this is your book.
Du Bois, W. E. B. The Souls of Black Folk. New York: Gramercy, 1994 repr.
The author of this text was the first Black American to earn a doctorate (Harvard). He was born after the end of the War between the States, so he never experienced slavery. What he did encounter was Jim Crow and the battery of racial discriminations that it represented. His book is a powerful plea for equality. It is also a rebuttal of the more moderate approach of Booker T. Washington, whose autobiography, Up from Slavery, antedated The Souls of Black Folk by two years. Both books should be required reading for all Americans.
Gladwell, Malcolm. Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don’t Know. New York: Little, Brown, 2019.
Malcolm Gladwell is one of those authors who brings a fresh perspective to every topic that he explores. In this book he examines the question of how people read one another in personal interactions, and how those readings turn into misreadings when they cross cultural boundaries. In fact, he ends up arguing that many of the ways in which people read each other (posture, eye contact, etc.) are not nearly as effective as many assume. While this book is not Gladwell’s greatest triumph, it is nevertheless an engaging read.
Godin, Seth. We Are All Weird: The Rise of Tribes and the End of Normal. New York: Portfolio, 2015.
The thesis of Godin’s work is that “normal,” understood as a measure of how well an individual fits the culture, was a construct of capitalism and mass media. With the advent of the new media, and especially the Internet, the pressures toward conformity have dissipated, resulting in burgeoning little communities that each display their own deviation from whatever norm remains. In other words, each tribe offers its own kind of weird, and most people identify with some matrix of such tribes. The upshot is that large, mass organizations are ill equipped to respond to the greater diversity—the more so since the weirdness of each tribe cannot be faked. Godin’s thesis can be questioned, but it explains much, and it has direct application to the situation that churches face today.
Greene, Brian. Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe. New York: Vintage, 2020.
Written by a physicist who specializes in string theory, this book is an attempt to provide a complete cosmology within a random universe. Greene is a complete materialist who believes that nothing exists except particles (beginning at the sub-atomic level). Given the existence of these particles in a random universe, he believes that he can explain the presence of order, progress, mind, sensibility, and even morality. His presentation is engaging and relatively free of hostility. I would love to see a conversation between Greene and an adept Presuppositionalist.
Jung, Carl G. Memories, Dreams, Reflections. New York: Pantheon, 1963.
Along with Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung was one of the fathers of modern psychotherapy. This volume offers his autobiographical reflections, including his debt to Freud, the development of his own distinctive ideas, and the eventual break between the two figures. It also explains much about the German and Austrian milieu that gave rise to modern psychotherapy. Neither Freud nor Jung will ever be heroes to me, but I was fascinated to wander through Jung’s mind for a while.
The foregoing titles compose about half my list of most interesting books. The remainder of the list will follow next week.
This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.
In God, My Faithful God I Trust
Sigismund Weingärtner; tr. Catherine Winkworth (1827–1878)
In God, my faithful God,
I trust when dark my road;
Though many woes o’ertake me,
Yet He will not forsake me;
His love it is doth send them,
And when ’tis best will end them.
My sins assail me sore,
But I despair no more;
I build on Christ who loves me,
From this rock nothing moves me;
To Him I all surrender
To Him, my soul’s Defender.
If death my portion be,
Then death is gain to me,
And Christ my life forever,
From whom death cannot sever;
Come when it may, He’ll shield me,
To Him I wholly yield me.
O Jesus Christ, my Lord,
So meek in deed and word,
Thou once didst die to save us,
Because Thou fain wouldst have us
After this life of sadness
Heirs of Thy heavenly gladness.
“So be it,” then I say,
With all my heart each day;
We, too, dear Lord, adore Thee,
We sing for joy before Thee.
Guide us while here we wander,
Till safely landed yonder.
Devotion
[This essay was originally published on February 26, 2016.]
Time is limited. Earthly life ends with a period or even an exclamation point, not with an ellipsis. We are granted threescore and ten years, or, if strong enough, fourscore. Anything beyond that is an excess of superabundance.
Eighty years. That number lends each person 29,200 days. If a day were a dollar, we would not even start with enough money to buy a house—only perhaps a middle-class car. It is not a lot of money, and 29,200 days is not a lot of time.
We spend about a quarter of that time just growing up. Twenty years goes into getting ready for the next sixty. If we intend to spend our lives in one of the skilled professions, our preparation might take as much as another decade—and, of course, some measure of decay and inability may beset our later years. At best, our useful contribution will span only six decades.
Of that sixty years, we will typically spend about twenty sleeping. Some of us require a bit more rest, and a few can get by on less. But we are now down to only 14,600 days during which we can make a difference.
The business of earning a living will consume a good bit of that time. Few of us can provide for ourselves in fewer than eight hours per day and five days per week. Many will find themselves spending ten or more hours per day on six days of the week. Granted, most people retire at around sixty-five, and most people get a couple of weeks off for vacation. Even so, we shall typically spend a minimum of around 2,083 days pursuing the means of life. That leaves us with about 12,517 days.
How much of that time do we spend driving back and forth to work? Eating our meals or caring for personal hygiene? Shopping for groceries? Doing home repair? Filing our taxes? Visiting the doctor or dentist? Renewing our car registration and driver’s license? Few of us could cram these and similar activities into less than two hours every day—and there goes another five years, or 1,826 days. Only 10,691 days are left.
So we have been loaned just over ten thousand days that we may choose to use as we wish. On the scale of human history, this is a very generous number—most people at most times in most places have enjoyed nothing like it. Ten thousand golden days that we can consider leisure. We may spend these days on amusement, recreation, entertainment, avocation, service, or study. If we are Christians, however, we shall also wish to spend significant amounts of this time in devotion.
(Someone may ask, What about family time? The short answer is that family time is not typically a use of time on its own. What we call “family time” does not consist in families just sitting around and looking at each other. It is time spent together in some way, doing something. Family time will almost always be classified under one of the foregoing categories.)
How much time does devotion require? The answer to that question depends on how devoted we wish to become. Mere Sunday morning churchgoing will consume no more than 260 days—less than one percent of our lives. Those who take church membership seriously, however, and who actually participate in the life of Christ’s body, will discover that their corporate worship, fellowship, and instruction fills something like triple that amount, and perhaps much more.
Furthermore, the life of devotion is not lived only through corporate meetings and activities. Just as important is each individual’s direct communion with God. This communion involves a number of exercises. One is the reading of Scripture, not simply for doctrinal study but to meet God and to hear His voice. Another is personal adoration of the Triune God. Still another brings us into periodic self-examination: methodical inspection of our lives for the presence of unconfronted sins, resulting in their confession before God. Petition, supplication, and intercession are important aspects of personal communion with God. So is meditation, the pondering of spiritual truth to consider its importance and implications. Many have found delight in the simple exposure of the soul to God, not so much to verbalize to Him as simply to enjoy Him.
What time do these activities take? For someone who truly delights in God, they can easily consume every moment of leisure. In fact, they tend to spill out of leisure and to form a halo around all other activities of life—which may be what Paul is talking about when he says to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17). Those who truly devote themselves to God may find that all of life becomes prayer because it is lived in His presence and for His glory.
For such persons, odd moments become holy times. A walk under the open sky becomes a service of meditation and adoration. A wakeful night is transformed into a liturgy of praise and petition. For these people, the question is not “How much time must I take,” but “How much time can I find?”
The importance of devotion does not diminish the value of other uses of time. Our vocation includes prayer, but prayer is not our entire vocation. The life lived before God still has occasion for the right kinds of recreation, study, conversation, entertainment, and service. But a life lived without devotion is not yet a Christian life. Indeed, compared to what it could be, it is hardly a life at all.
This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.
Sinner, O Why So Thoughtless Grown?
Isaac Watts (1674–1748)
Sinner, O why so thoughtless grown?
Why in such dreadful haste to die;
Daring to leap to worlds unknown,
Heedless against thy God to fly?
Will ye frustrate eternal grace,
Urged on by sin’s fantastic dreams,
Madly attempt the infernal gate,
And force thy passage to the flames?
Stay, sinner, on the gospel plains,
Behold the God of love unfold
The mystery of his dying pains,
For ever telling, yet untold.
A Christmas Canard
Certain professing believers are detractors of Christmas observance. They insist that real Christians must not celebrate Christmas in either their homes or their churches. The objections that they raise fall into two broad categories.
The first category is grounded in the Regulative Principle of Worship. This principle teaches that, since Christ is the only head of the Church, He alone has the authority to define its nature, mission, function, and worship. To introduce forms of worship that Christ has not authorized through His apostles in the New Testament is to become guilty of the sin of idolatry. Since the New Testament nowhere authorizes Christmas, then it must be seen as forbidden.
This argument initially sounds persuasive, but it really hinges upon a misapplication of the Regulative Principle. Christians of the New Testament did in fact celebrate the incarnation of the Lord Jesus, as Paul does in Philippians 2:5-8. Indeed, Christians ought to celebrate the incarnation regularly. This celebration may rightly be incorporated into any service of the church, and it ought to be incorporated into many of them. Furthermore, what may rightly be celebrated at any time can also rightly be made a focus of celebration at a specified time. If by Christmas one simply means the recognition and celebration of Jesus’ birth, then Christmas observance is fully justified.
So much for the argument from the Regulative Principle of Worship. The other objection, or set of objections, however, is more serious. Some detractors of Christmas observance argue that the celebration has its roots in pagan traditions. They point out that no one truly knows the date of Jesus’ birth. They insist that the Midwinter observance of Christmas (December 25) is borrowed from the Roman Saturnalia, or maybe from ancient observances in honor of Mithra or Sol Invictus. To celebrate Christmas, they insist, is to participate in these pagan and perhaps devilish rituals.
This objection poses a bigger question than can be addressed adequately in a short essay. Certainly some of the customs of pre-Christian cultures (for example, the observance of Yule) were retained in local celebrations of Christmas, and perhaps some of those have been passed down to the present day. Nevertheless, this consideration should not carry great weight in itself, certainly no more weight than Christians using the names of days dedicated to the Sun, the Moon, or gods such as Tyr, Woden, Thor, Frigga, or Saturn. Likewise certain months are dedicated by name to Janus, Mars, Maiesta, and Juno, all of whom were pagan gods. The irony is that people who object to Christmas because they believe that it preserves the Saturnalia still render honor to Saturn every single week.
The larger question, however, is whether the Christian observance of the incarnation (Christmas) was truly borrowed from the Roman Saturnalia to begin with. The theory is that Christians took over the patterns of Saturnalia after Constantine made Christianity respectable in the empire during the Fourth Century. In answer to this speculation, good reason exists to believe that Christians were already commemorating Jesus’ incarnation. Equally good reasons indicate that they connected the birth of Jesus with a date in late December or early January.
There are certain chronological markers in the New Testament that provide clues. One has to do with the timing of Zacharias’s service in the temple, near which time John the Baptist was conceived. It is possible to calculate the timing of John’s birth and, once this calculation is made, to extrapolate the timing of Jesus’ birth. Two dates are possible: one near the feast of Tabernacles and one in late December or early January. Another chronological marker involves the death of Herod, from which some have attempted to calculate backwards. This event also points to a Midwinter date for the birth of Jesus.
One objection raised against the winter date is that, according to Luke 2, shepherds had their flocks in the fields. The objection states that flocks were brought in from the wilderness during the winter months. Even if that information is accurate, however, fields are not necessarily wilderness, and during a mild winter shepherds from Bethlehem may well have ventured out into the fields with their flocks. This objection is far from decisive.
Some early Christian authors expressed uncertainty about the date of Jesus’ birth. For example, Clement of Alexandria (early Second Century) juggled multiple dates in his speculations. The first reference to December 25 comes from an author of the late Second Century, Hippolytus. During the Third Century December 25 appears to have become the agreed-upon date in the West, while January 6 was given more prominence in the East. Thanks to Chrysostom (Fourth Century), however, the December date was eventually accepted even in the East.
The importance of these dates is that the Roman Saturnalia was a relatively minor event during the Second Century; it only began a transformation during the Third Century, by which time Christians were already observing the birth of Christ in late December. It is at least possible that the Romans were the ones who imported certain Christian elements (such as gift giving) into their Saturnalia rather than the other way around.
In short, December 25 is as good a day as any to observe the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. Whether this date is exact is a matter of indifference, but it is perhaps the most likely date for the birth of Christ. Furthermore, the evidence for Christmas being copied from the Roman Saturnalia is suspect at best. Such arguments will seem interesting only to those with a conspiracist mindset.
Christmas is not pagan. Christmas is not idolatry. Christmas is a day that some Christians set aside to commemorate, reflect upon, and celebrate one of the most important events in the progress of God’s plan: the incarnation of the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. We are not obligated to observe this event, but we would be wrong to discountenance it.
This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.
from On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity
John Milton (1608–1674)
He feels from Juda’s land
The dreaded Infant’s hand,
The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn;
Nor all the gods beside
Longer dare abide,
Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine:
Our Babe, to show his Godhead true,
Can in his swaddling bands control the damned crew.
So when the Sun in bed,
Curtain’d with cloudy red,
Pillows his chin upon an orient wave,
The flocking shadows pale
Troop to th’infernal jail,
Each fetter’d ghost slips to his several grave,
And the yellow-skirted fays
Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-lov’d maze.
But see, the Virgin blest
Hath laid her Babe to rest:
Time is our tedious song should here have ending.
Heav’n’s youngest-teemed star,
Hath fix’d her polish’d car,
Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending;
And all about the courtly stable,
Bright-harness’d Angels sit in order serviceable.
In the Bleak Midwinter
In one of the courses that I used to teach, I spent part of the semester discussing how hymns work. Hymns are poems, and poems are works of art. One of the principal ways in which art communicates is through analogy. A work of art sets up an analogy by drawing a comparison: this (something known) is like that (something unknown). To understand the art one must identify both the this and the that, and then locate the point of comparison.
Identifying these elements takes some degree of sensitivity and skill. To assist students in developing the necessary skill, I would ask them to analyze several hymns. Not all of these hymns would function on the principle of analogy (there are other ways to write hymns), but some would. Grading the results was always interesting and sometimes amusing.
One of the hymns that seemed to give many students trouble was Christina Rosetti’s In the Bleak Midwinter. The first stanza especially would stop many of them.
In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
in the bleak midwinter, long ago.
Students often couldn’t get past the description of what looked, to them, like deep winter in the English countryside. They would object that Bethlehem rarely or never experienced deep snow. They would insist that the Holy Land was never or hardly ever frozen over. Many of them would accuse this hymn of a kind of geographical and cultural myopia, and some would go so far as to level the charge of cultural imperialism.
The problem was that these students were trying to read Rosetti’s work as if it were a travel brochure instead of a hymn. They took it at surface level, as a description of the meteorological conditions at the time of Jesus’ birth. They entirely missed the analogical dimension, hardly pondering how this was like that—or, for that matter, whether the poem even contained a this and a that.
Rosetti’s point was not about the weather of Judea. Instead, she was saying something about the condition of the human heart, which without Christ is iron hard and stone cold. Christ became incarnate to redeem a world of such hearts, and to provide that redemption He had to endure the winter that they had made.
The second stanza emphasizes the infinite gulf that the Second Person had to traverse:
Our God, heaven cannot hold him, nor earth sustain;
heaven and earth shall flee away when he comes to reign.
In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed
the Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.
Here is the paradox of the incarnation. Infinite God assumed human flesh. The mighty judge of all humbled Himself to be born in a manger. This was not His coming to reign, but His coming to save. To accomplish our salvation, He left the splendors of heaven and made His home within the frozen tundra of human rebellion. There in that wasteland He would be crucified for our sins.
In her penultimate stanza, Rosetti shifts the focus a bit. She considers the worship that that was offered to the incarnation of God the Son. He was adored by multitudes of the heavenly host, but in the midst of this outpouring the worship offered by Mary was unique.
Angels and archangels may have gathered there,
cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;
but his mother only, in her maiden bliss,
worshipped the beloved with a kiss.
Here is another paradox. All the mighty heavenly army worshipped Jesus as God the Son, now incarnate. By virtue of that same incarnation, however, Mary was in an unprecedented position. She, too, could direct her adoration to God the Son—but He was now also her son, born of her body. For Mary, fear of the Almighty merged with tender, motherly affection. She was indeed theotokos.
For her final stanza Rosetti moves to the problem of response: how does one meet the incarnate God, born into a sin-cold world, lying in a manger? She notes that shepherds and wise men had their offerings for the Christ-child. But what is really required? Her answer echoes Psalm 51:17, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.” This insight gives her the answer:
What can I give him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
if I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;
yet what I can I give him: give my heart.
This stanza contains irony: the heart that we now offer to the Lord Jesus Christ is the very heart that was stone cold and iron hard. This heart can be a suitable offering only because Christ has Himself made it suitable. He has redeemed us so that we may offer Him our devotion. We can give Him nothing that He has not first bought back from sin.
Rosetti’s In the Bleak Midwinter is a good hymn because it is good art. It teaches us a lesson, but it teaches obliquely, reaching our affections through our imaginations. It teaches us not only what to believe, but how to feel. Granted, it would not be a trustworthy chapter in a travel guide to Israel, but it accurately projects the real topography of human sin and divine condescension. It deserves a place in our celebrations of the incarnation.
This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.
from Paradise Lost, Book 3
John Milton (1608–1674)
Father, thy word is past, man shall find grace;
And shall grace not find means, that finds her way,
The speediest of thy winged messengers,
To visit all thy creatures, and to all
Comes unprevented, unimplor’d, unsought,
Happie for man, so coming; he her aide
Can never seek, once dead in sins and lost;
Attonement for himself or offering meet,
Indebted and undon, hath none to bring:
Behold mee then, mee for him, life for life
I offer, on mee let thine anger fall;
Account mee man; I for his sake will leave
Thy bosom, and this glorie next to thee
Freely put off, and for him lastly dye
Well pleas’d, on me let Death wreck all his rage;
Under his gloomie power I shall not long
Lie vanquisht; thou hast givn me to possess
Life in my self for ever, by thee I live,
Though now to Death I yield, and am his due
All that of me can die, yet that debt paid,
Thou wilt not leave me in the loathsom grave
His prey, nor suffer my unspotted Soule
For ever with corruption there to dwell;
But I shall rise Victorious, and subdue
My Vanquisher, spoild of his vanted spoile;
Death his deaths wound shall then receive, and stoop
Inglorious, of his mortal sting disarm’d.
Advent and Christmas
[This essay was originally published on December 7, 2012.]
Any Christian discussion of holidays must begin with the recognition that we observe them in the absence of any biblical requirement. Does this mean that it is wrong to celebrate holidays? Not as long as the holiday is simply a focused instance of something that Christians have a biblical obligation to do anyway. Christians ought to ponder the incarnation, so it is not wrong to have a day or even a season regularly set aside for that purpose. Christians ought to exult in Jesus’ resurrection, so it is not wrong to set aside a day to focus especially on that event. Observances such as Easter and Christmas are allowable as matters of circumstance, but they must never be treated as required elements of our worship.
What complicates the discussion is the large number of cultural and commercial accretions that tend to attach themselves to the holidays. Holidays can even become occasions of vice. Something like this has happened within American Christianity. Evidently, the liturgical calendar of modern America includes seven principal holidays, each of which is devoted to the pursuit of a deadly sin: Thanksgiving (gluttony), Christmas (greed), Valentine’s Day (lust), Easter (envy), Independence Day (pride), Labor Day (sloth), and Halloween (vengeance).
To be clear, I do not believe that every cultural addition to the holidays is necessarily evil—just as long as we are careful to distinguish the Christian holy day from the cultural festivities. Plenty of enjoyment can be found in Christmas trees, eggnog, and tinsel, but they should be kept in our homes, not brought into our churches. Still, these cultural observances are the very things that get exploited by the hucksters who wish to commercialize Christmas. In this respect, we may discover that the growth of secularism works to the advantage of biblical Christianity. The cultural and commercial celebration of “Christmas” is dropping the façade of having anything to do with Christ. It is rapidly becoming simply the “Happy Holidays” or the “Winter Celebration.” Since the Lord Jesus was never the object of the buying and selling, separating the commercial and cultural festivities from the Christian observance may actually help to clarify what Christmas—the real Christmas—is about.
What American evangelicals think of as “the Christmas season” used to be divided between two distinct observances. The first was Advent, which began four Sundays before Christmas. The second was Christmas, which was not just a day, but a festival of at least twelve days. Each observance had its own emphasis.
Advent anticipated the entrance of the Savior into the world. It focused upon the reason for which God needed to send a Savior—namely, human sin. It was an occasion for pondering the darkness of the world into which God sent the true Light. Consequently, Advent was a season for affliction of soul rather than festivity, a time to consider one’s own contribution to the weight of guilt that the Savior would have to bear. The sensibility of Advent is nicely captured in the most famous of the Advent hymns:
O come, O come Emmanuel, And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here, Until the Son of God appear.
Just as Advent represents the anticipation of Christ’s coming in the incarnation, it also represents the anticipation of the Second Coming. The two comings are analogous in certain ways: as the world groaned under the guilt of sin until the Savior came to provide forgiveness, now the Lord’s people groan under the combined weight of depravity, mortality, and oppression until Jesus appears to bring deliverance. One of the important themes in the counterpoint of Advent is yearning for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.
In spite of its afflictions and ponderings, however, Advent is hardly a season of unrelieved gloom. The element of hope, of anticipation, is always present. Advent ends with Christmas, and for that reason, the blessing and joy of the incarnation, while subdued, are constantly bursting in. It is no accident that the hymn repeats the refrain,
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
Because Advent combines elements of sorrow for sin with elements of anticipation, it is an appropriate season to consider those who were longing for the first coming of the Savior. Figures such as Zechariah, Elizabeth, Simeon, and Anna provide models of the viewpoint of Advent. Above all, Mary typifies the spirit of one who anticipates the arrival of her Savior. Since Christians can learn from their godly example, we should give attention to these saints.
Whatever its secondary emphases, the primary message of Advent remains, “the Savior is coming.” The entire atmosphere changes with the arrival of Christmas itself, when the message becomes, “the Savior has arrived,” or, to put it in biblical terms, “Peace on earth, goodwill toward men.” Anticipation bursts into celebration and affliction into exultation as the season takes on the aspect of unmitigated joy.
Traditionally, the preparations for Christmas take place after mid-day on Christmas Eve. Decorating and baking form the immediate prelude to the celebration that begins at midnight. Furthermore, when Christmas day is over, Christmas itself has just begun. The celebration extends through the next twelve days, ending with a commemoration of the arrival of the Magi on what is sometimes called Epiphany (January 6).
While none of these observances is obligatory, they can be done so that they honor the Scriptures and communicate genuine spiritual values. If we are going to do them rightly, however, then we need to become genuinely counter-cultural. If we are going to celebrate Christmas, it needs to be the Christian Christmas, not simply the commercial or cultural Christmases. The advertisers want us to begin to celebrate on the day after Halloween, and they want us to celebrate mainly by using our credit cards. One very good way of both resisting the commercial Christmas and keeping the cultural Christmas in its place would be to reinstate the historic distinction between anticipation and realization, between Advent and Christmas. Perhaps we should make the attempt.
This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.
O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
Anonymous (12th century); tr. J. M. Neale (1818–1866)
O come, O come, Emmanuel,
and ransom captive Israel,
that mourns in lonely exile here,
until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
shall come to Thee, O Israel.
O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan’s tyranny;
from depths of hell Thy people save,
and give them vict’ry o’er the grave.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
shall come to Thee, O Israel.
O come, Thou Dayspring, come and cheer
our spirits by Thine advent here;
disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
and death’s dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
shall come to Thee, O Israel.
O come, Thou Key of David, come,
and open wide our heav’nly home;
make safe the way that leads on high,
and close the path to misery.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
shall come to Thee, O Israel.
Memories of Gordon Lovik
Gordon Henry Lovik made the transition from this world to the glory of heaven early on the morning of November 19, 2021. He was well prepared for the change of address!
I do not remember my initial meeting with Gordon Lovik, but could never forget him. He is one of a small group of men who made a significant impact on my life in the most formative years. His influence in my life began in earnest when I matriculated to Central Baptist Theological Seminary of Minneapolis in January, 1966. He was thirty years old, had earned three Masters degrees following graduation from Bob Jones University, and was a friend to all whom he met. He may have been called “Dr. Lovik” in the classroom, but everywhere else he was “Gordy.”
I knew Gordon Lovik first as a professor in the seminary classroom. His primary field was New Testament studies with a specialty in teaching koine Greek, the language of the New Testament. Richard V. Clearwaters, the founder of Central Seminary, claimed on more than one occasion that Gordy “could teach Greek to a fence post!” He also taught biblical Hebrew when the Old Testament professor, Warren Vanhetloo, was on sabbatical. In addition, I enrolled in his course in New Testament History and a variety of New Testament book studies. Each of those courses honed my skills or deepened my understanding of God’s Word invaluably.
As time passed, Gordy became my mentor. Watching him teach provided an education in pedagogy. When I began to teach courses on the seminary level he provided helpful coaching. We spent many hours in discussion of biblical linguistics, theology, praxis, and ministry, often while eating sack lunches on “Seminary Row” where the professors’ offices were located. I had become his colleague. He treated me as an equal in spite of my relative youth. Along that path, we became friends. That friendship never died though we were separated by many miles when he joined the faculty of Calvary Baptist Seminary in Lansdale, Pennsylvania, in 1976. I made numerous trips to Lansdale in the later 1970s and early 1980s for a variety of ministry-oriented purposes. Gordy and I had an instant connection whenever we reunited. It was as though the previous conversation had not been interrupted though our reunions were separated by months or even years.
Gordy was athletic—and an avid golfer. He and Warren Vanhetloo initiated me to the game. Gordy could drive a ball off the tee farther than I ever hoped to do. He was patient with this duffer, providing helpful advice when asked. We played courses around the Twin Cities metro area in the summer months, sometimes sneaking in a second round when time permitted. A fond memory is of playing a course in New Prague, MN, late in the season as the wind drove snow flakes horizontally and made finding a ball challenging! The club handle truly stings one’s hands when hitting a ball in those temperatures. Gordy had a smile on his face when we finished.
Gordon Lovik loved his wife and children deeply. He was genuinely concerned for the marriages and families of the seminary students and all believers in his sphere of influence. He often addressed biblical and practical matters relating to family relationships in chapel messages, classroom discussions, and private conversation. Gordy loved God’s Word—and he loved teaching it. Students enjoyed sitting under his teaching and benefited from it immensely. While the Holy Spirit did not lead him into pastoral ministry, Gordy had a pastor’s heart. That affective quality crossed the pulpit into the hearts of listeners whenever he preached in a church service or chapel service. He genuinely cared about people. Above all, Gordy loved God and honored Him with his life.
Dr. Charles McLain enjoyed a similar relationship with Gordon Lovik, beginning a few years later than mine. He served as a local church pastor for several years after completing his studies at Central Seminary, following which he joined the faculty of Calvary Baptist Seminary. After hearing of Gordy’s death, Dr. McLain wrote,
I remember those first months after accepting the invitation to join the faculty at Calvary —it was like living in a fog of unbelief and total inadequacy that I would even be considered to be on the same faculty as Dr. Lovik and Dr. Vanhetloo! The step from student to co-worker just had to be something that I was dreaming and not actual reality!
Gordy’s [and Van’s] instruction and helping hand did not stop with the seminary student, but extended to the green faculty member who was following a new, uncertain path of ministry. Gordy helped guide me those first few years while I was getting my feet established on the path of professorship. His constant availability, guiding hand, his encouragement, his example will never be forgotten.
Perhaps my clearest memories are from sitting in Gordy’s office during my Ph.D. studies. He provided a dose of ‘biblical reality’ as I was inundated with modern, academic philosophies and methodologies…a lifeguard in the turbulence of my academic studies and a guiding hand through my thesis process. Along with that are memories when I couldn’t sit down and talk with my own father due to miles between or his Alzheimer’s, I would sit down and talk with Gordy.
I shall forever count Dr. Lovik, along with Dr. Vanhetloo, as valued mentors for the ministry that God led me into—my teaching ministry would have been less without them. I shall forever count Gordy as a dear friend—he saw me and treated me as an individual and not as another student or another question to answer. He was personable, genuine, helpful, and is missed. His door was always open. His advice was always true to God’s Word. His example was always worth following. His friendship was true.
I spoke with Gordy by phone in October. Quite a bit of time had passed since we visited previously. I believe both of us relished the opportunity. Though age and injury had slowed him down physically, it had not dampened his ardor for the Lord or for ministry. He made a practice of looking heavenward throughout his life. I am certain that it was an easy transition for him on November 19.
This essay is by Don Odens, Adjunct Professor of Practical Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.
Thou Hidden Source of Calm Repose
Charles Wesley (1707–1788)
Thou hidden source of calm repose,
Thou all-sufficient love divine,
My help and refuge from my foes,
Secure I am, if thou art mine:
And lo! from sin, and grief, and shame
I hide me, Jesus, in thy Name.
Thy mighty Name salvation is,
And keeps my happy soul above;
Comfort it brings, and pow’r, and peace,
And joy, and everlasting love:
To me, with thy dear Name are giv’n
Pardon, and holiness, and heav’n.
Jesus, my all in all thou art;
My rest in toil, my ease in pain,
The medicine of my broken heart,
In war my peace, in loss my gain,
My smile beneath the tyrant’s frown,
In shame my glory and my crown:
In want my plentiful supply,
In weakness my almighty pow’r,
In bonds my perfect liberty,
My light in Satan’s darkest hour,
My help and stay whene’er I call,
My life in death, my heav’n, my all.
APPLICATION & AID