19th Century Messages for 21st Century Political Partisans

As that impending day of doom draws near, I would like to share with those who choose to engage actively in the political process a series of messages from three 19th century political partisans who shared some of the core values that current political activists continue to espouse.

The first political thinker is 19th century Baptist preacher John Leland who had this message which should resonate with contemporary Republicans, particularly those of the Tea Party persuasion.

I would as soon give my vote to a wolf to be a shepherd, as to a man, who is always contending for the energy of government, to be a ruler. I conceive our national government to be strong enough, and yet provision is made therein, to counterpoise all the powers that may be abused.

Let the people keep awake, and danger flies. It is not long since the people of these states were becalmed in their spirits: they left government in the hands of their servants, and reclined on the bed of domestic ease; but, thanks to kind Providence, the servants fell out about the loaves and fishes, and contended so loud that they awaked the people from their slumbers. Let the dangers which we have just escaped make us more watchful, with lead, line and lookout. And when our hoary heads shall lie slumbering in death, may our sons and successors take warning, and never forget the inactive folly of their ancestors.

Disdain mean suspicion, but cherish manly jealousy; be always jealous of your liberty, your rights. Nip the first bud of intrusion on your constitution. Be not devoted to men; let measures be your object, and estimate men according to the measures they pursue.

The second message comes from Jacksonian Democrat John Leland whose thoughts will likely resonate with the contemporary bearers of his party name:

Disdain mean suspicion, but cherish manly jealousy; be always jealous of your liberty, your rights. Nip the first bud of intrusion on your constitution. Be not devoted to men; let measures be your object, and estimate men according to the measures they pursue. Never promote men who seek after a state-established religion; it is spiritual tyranny — the worst of despotism. It is turnpiking the way to heaven by human law, in order to establish ministerial gates to collect toll. It converts religion into a principle of state policy, and the gospel into merchandise. Heaven forbids the bans of marriage between church and state; their embraces, therefore, must be unlawful.

Guard against those men who make a great noise about religion, in choosing representatives. It is electioneering intrigue. If they knew the nature and worth of religion, they would not debauch it to such shameful purposes. If pure religion is the criterion to denominate candidates, those who make a noise about it must be rejected; for their wrangle about it proves that they are void of it. Let honesty, talents and quick dispatch, characterize the men of your choice. Such men will have a sympathy with their constituents, and will be willing to come to the light, that their deeds may be examined. Remember that the genuine meaning of republicanism is self-government; if you would, then, be true disciples in your profession, govern yourselves.

Finally, we look at a speech from a third political activist, the committed abolitionist John Leland. His words should remind both modern political parties that citizenship begins at home:

Remember that the genuine meaning of republicanism is self-government; if you would, then, be true disciples in your profession, govern yourselves. The man who has no rule over his unruly passion, is no republican. He who will swear profanely, drink to excess, cheat his neighbor, speak falsely and scandalize his fellow creatures, is no republican, let his profession be what it will. Such republicans, like ferry-men, look one way and row the other. If you are republicans, indeed, you seek the public good. Be looking out, then, for objects of charity. Let the widow and the fatherless meet your kind assistance, and the blessing of him that is ready to perish fall upon you. Let the naked and hungry share your favors; the sick and afflicted, your hospitality; and let the case of poor prisoners and slaves excite your pity and stimulate your prayers.

Naturally, of course, the various political parties will find little to appreciate among the various sources from which these quotes are drawn, but that, unfortunately, seems to be the nature of politics. Everyone must either be all one thing or the other in our quasi-Manichean understanding of politics. At least we can all agree not to cheat, speak falsely of, or scandalize our neighbors, provided of course, we define "neighbor" as narrowly as possible to mean people in our own political party.

Re-Reading Revelation: All Things New (Chs. 21-22)

With the dual climax of victory and judgment now behind, the narrative turns toward the denouement. The great villain leaves the scene for ever and, with the exception of some brief exclusionary phrases, all unpleasantness is behind John. What remains is to see the great reward for which the witnesses of the Lord have endured, to realize the promise that is issued in the death of Christ (depicted in the beginning of the book as the slain Lamb) and finally ensured under the triumphant Christ(depicted at the end of the book as the conqueror on a white horse). God declares, "Behold, I am making all things new." Suddenly the world is returned to a pristine paradise, edenic in its appearance only more wonderful still. The Tree of Life is reopened to public consumption without that pesky Tree of Knowledge to wreak havoc with humanity. The river and the garden are accompanied by a great new city that represents Jerusalem as it ought to have been: pure, wonderful, and with God at her center. The imagery is enough to tantalize a lifetime's worth of imaginings.

Yet, as easy as it may be to delight in the particulars of the picture offered up to us as our hope for eternity--and that delighted is heightened when we consider just how unpleasant the narrative has been to this point--there is a more important theme at work here. Before God declares that all things will be made new, before we tour the New Jerusalem, before the thirsty are promised the waters of life, and before the whole chorus lapses into an eternal doxology, a voice from heaven makes an initial pronouncement: "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God." In this is the actual resolution of the tension in Revelation. As with the entirety of Scripture, the real villain has not been Satan but separation. Through the entire narrative, the persistent scene has been of the commands of God in heaven and their actualization on earth. God stands at a distance throughout as He works out His plan of justice and, ultimately, reconciliation.

This desire that God should be our God and we His people has been a persistent theme in Scripture. It is the essence of God's covenant with Abraham which in turn forms the whole basis for the divine work of election and redemption in the world. It was the purpose of Israel's sacrificial system of atonement that God should have some tangible presence with His people. It was the reason Solomon built the temple and the reason he knew it was ultimately inadequate. It both explains Israel's disintegration and exile and fuels their hopes for return. Paul will use it to warn Christians against repeating the sins of Israel. This ardent hope, both of God's and of humanity's, John depicts as fulfilled. His readers then, as we do now, knew that God's dwelling with humanity was still merely a promise only partially fulfilled with the gift of His Spirit for His church, but they understood after centuries of having the theme reverberating over and over again in the Scriptures that all their hope rested on the fact that God would someday break through the barriers which separate us.

It is interesting that this declaration of achievement precipitates every other blessing which is offered. Because He is there, God will wipe away all tears, and "death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore." Our former mode of existence, living apart from God, is no more. In the New Jerusalem, there is no temple anymore. After all, it was merely a symbol of God's presence; the New Jerusalem needs no inadequate symbols. The city will be beautiful radiance of fine jewels because it has "the glory of God." This radiance of God replaces the very sun, and all people will walk in His light, by His light. It is He who bids them drink from the river of life. There will be no doubt, no idolatry, no sin, because God is present and has taken His people unto Himself. Cast in this light, the final scene of Revelation becomes for us a call to refocus our hope, to strip ourselves of any superficial desire to escape this material world into a heavenly realm of mansions, robes, crowns, gold, and even more substantial things like release from disease and death and sorrow. All these are accidents. The true substance of our hope is that God should be, in a real and tangible sense, our God and that we may be purely, reverently, joyously, His people.

*****

For a full list of "Re-reading Revelation" posts, see Re-reading Revelation: Statement of Purpose.

Reading Titus with John Chrysostom (1:1-4)

More and more my reading turns away from both Scripture and the Fathers to secondary literature in my field. This is, unfortunately, unavoidable. As much as I would like to make a life of reading only the Fathers and interacting only with blessed dead, occupational necessity requires that I examine the literature of my contemporaries as well. Thus, in an effort to keep myself devotionally grounded both in the apostolic documents and the Fathers, I am going to (attempt) to read through Titus with John Chrysostom. John preached six extant homilies on Titus while he was a priest in Antioch (386-398) which I hope will help to direct and challenge my own thoughts both on the text and on the early theology of the church.

His first homily concerns Titus 1:1-4

Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the faith of God's elect and the knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness— a faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time, and at his appointed season he brought his word to light through the preaching entrusted to me by the command of God our Savior. To Titus, my true son in our common faith: Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior. (NIV)

The text of the homily may be found here.


Underserved Grace

“Observe how the introduction is full of the mercies of God, and this whole epistle is especially of the same character…”

This is John’s overarching analysis of the text. It is, for all its other nuances to be discussed at length below, a text about the wonderful gifts of God to His people. Paul himself is a gift; he was made a servant of God not for his own sake or for God’s sake but as a blessing of God for the His elect.

The most glorious of these gifts, however, is that of eternal life, something which is sealed by the very fact of God’s perfection and foreknowledge. Our gift of eternal life is “not now upon a change of mind,” but has been part of God’s plan since before time began and is inviolable since God cannot lie. That this was achieved by foreknowledge rather than by a decision in time further displays the goodness of God to us since it shows “our high origin, in that He did not love us now first, but from the beginning.” John makes a particularly compelling point here that “it is no little matter to be loved…from the beginning.” Consider how much God loves us such that from before the beginning of time He had already begun to love us; before we existed, before anything existed, God had already begun an eternal, inexhaustible outpouring of love for His elect. In this love, he ordained for those elect eternal life with an unbreakable promise.

Paul even concludes, in typical fashion, by praying even greater mercies upon them: “grace and peace” from the Father.

To what end has Paul reminded us of the manifold blessings of God? John suggests “nothing profits us so much as constantly to remember the mercies of God, whether public or private.” The constant reflection on what God has done is a constant inspiration for Christians. In realizing what He has done for us, we are humbled. In realizing what He has done for us, we are stirred to do even greater works of righteousness for him. After all, “if our hearts are warmed when we receive the favors of our friends, or hear some kind word or deed of theirs, much more shall we be zealous in His service when we see into what dangers we had fallen, and that God has delivered us from them all.”

Thus, in this short exposition about God and the work that He has done through Paul for Titus and the church in Crete, we see the picture of a Father who has provided abundantly for His children. Paul in the act of writing it is imitating this example by providing also for his “true son,” Titus so that he might continue to provide for his flock. And we too should seek to live a life of response to the great blessings which have been showered on us, none more great than the promise of eternal life, ordained for us before the ages.

A Theologically Consistent Methodology

John is the beneficiary of a rich, systematized theological tradition which had not yet developed in the time of the apostle Paul. To that end, John presents some interpretations which would undoubtedly seem foreign to Paul had he read this homily and is equally likely to seem forced and eisegetical to modern readers.

For example, that Paul is “a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ” is fundamentally an anti-Arian statement for John. The fact that Paul can be something at the same time “of God” and “of Christ” here suggests that the two are coequal (or, in Nicene-Constantinopolitan language, consubstantial).

He will also develop with regard to this first part of the passage in question a doctrine of the free will activity of man in relation to God in the process of election. He begins by emphasizing that it was through God’s providential activity that the elect were entrusted to Paul. “It was wholly through the effect of His goodness who intrusted [sic] me.” This divine activity of God takes primacy in Paul’s election as an apostle, but it is not the entirety of that election, because “the whole was not of Him, for why did He not intrust [sic] it to others?” Instead, John understand Paul’s election as the act of God followed by the free will response of the apostle. He extrapolates this process onto his readers: “First we are apprehended, and afterwards we apprehend; first we are known, and then we know; first we were called, and then we obeyed.” In doing so, John believes he can at the same time say that it is in no way Paul who merited election as an apostle, that it was solely for “the sake of the faith of God’s elect,” but at the same time Paul is not chosen arbitrarily nor is he appointed apart from his response to God.

Later he will attach the reference to Titus as a “true son” to this question of the free will of man. Sonship, for John, is dependent on one’s behavior, and he cites 1 Cor 9:16 for a list of behaviors which may make one a “spurious” son. What’s more, these categories of true and spurious sonship are not absolute or static but “subject to frequent changes.” “For one who was a true son may become spurious, and a spurious son may become a true one. For it is not the force of nature, but the power of choice, on which it depends…” An example: Onesimus, who John says was a true son, become “unprofitable,” and then was restored again to true sonship. (I wonder to what degree these very early doctrinal beliefs on free will contributed to the fierce reaction to the Eastern Church when Calvinism started creeping into its doctrine.)

Finally, John’s interpretation of “truth that is after godliness” (ESV “truth, which accords with godliness) is intriguing, particularly given my recent studies on Eastern epistemology. According to John, Paul is drawing a distinction here between two types of knowledge of the truth. “For there is a truth in other things, that is not according to godliness; for knowledge in matter of agriculture, knowledge of the arts, is true knowledge.” These natural truths which are acquired naturally (i.e. through intellection and sense perception to borrow later theology) are distinct from truth which is “according to godliness.” The other kind of truth is the truth of faith which transcends rational knowledge: “This acknowledging then is from faith, and not from reasonings.”

This raises the question for the modern reader: to what degree can these four seemingly insignificant verses bear the weight of all of John’s theology? The simple answer: they can’t. But as easy as it would be to write off John’s exegesis with that matter-of-fact evaluation, there is value in his methodology even apart from the immense value of the theology which it betrays. Certainly, Titus 1:1-4 cannot be seen as the definitive text to settle the Arian, Calvinist, and Palamite controversies. (Would that it were that uncomplicated?) Nevertheless, John does provide a stark corrective to the way modern readers might normally treat these verses.

The superscriptions of Paul’s letters, and perhaps of an underappreciated letter like Titus in particular, are generally only glanced at by clergy, laymen, and scholars alike. Yet, of the six homilies recorded in NPNF that John preached on Titus (and they by no means cover the full text of the epistle), this sermon was recorded and saved for generations. John treats this passage not only with dignity and care, but with urgency as if it contained great answers to life’s questions, to the turmoil of the church, and to the personal struggles of his congregants. Each word, each sentence, is richly layered with meaning and importance. It seems to me ironic that while the Bible has assumed a theoretical importance in our day which would probably scandalize most people in the time of John, it is then and not now that we see a great plumbing of Scriptures depths. John takes what has devolved into an insignificant introductory formula and makes it a rich statement of orthodoxy meant to encourage, to vivify the faithful. He is theologically consistent in his treatment of Scripture in that he looks for God in all its parts, not only where He is most evident.

Certainly I am not suggesting that Christians ought to neglect other texts to focus on the introductions and closings of the epistles, nor do I suppose that we can found any great theologies on closer examinations of these texts. We can, however, afford to them the same respect which is afforded to the rest of Scripture and read them with the same theological presuppositions (whatever those happen to be for the reader). Paul is certainly not intending to combat Arianism in Titus 1:1, but that does not mean that his dual reference to God and Jesus does not have theological implications. And what does it mean to be a “servant” and an “apostle” for the faith of others? Is there truth which is according to godliness and how is it distinct from other truth? These are some questions, among countless others, which should be addressed by the minds of the faithful in ways not so unlike John tries to address them here.

“By grace through faith” should not be treated as more inspired than “God who cannot lie.”