Beat the Pundits Political Game

Here is just a reminder that I am playing the Beat the Pundit Political Game. Now Chris Matthews admitted on his show that the conventional wisdom in the Beltway is that the Democrats will take the House. They also seem to think that the Republicans are losing four seats and the Democrats will hold all of their seats in the Senate. My predictions are a Republican hold of both House and Senate followed by a tidal wave of people trying to make it sound like a Democratic victory. As a refresher, I am saying Republican 54 to Democrat 44 with 2 Independents or 54 to 46 if we want to count them as Democrats. And for the House, I am predicting Republicans 227 to Democrats 208. Remember these predictions were made before Mark Foley’s scandal broke. Now just for some comparison I found a few predictions on the web.
Mort Kondracke predicts a two-seat majority for the Democrats right after the Foley scandal, and then moved to a 10-seat majority by the end of October. He thinks Democrats pick up 4 seats in both.
Fred Barns predicts a two-seat majority for Republicans the week after Foley in the House, but has since changed his mind for a three-seat majority for Democrats.

The good people at Electoral-Vote.com are saying the House will be 225 to 208 with 2 ties as of today, and they are calling for a slim 51 to 49 hold for Republicans in the Senate.

And just to see if I can beat a polling company, Rasmussen is predicting for the Senate a 52 to 48 Republican majority, although they are calling five of those races toss up.

Feel free to play along or send links to places where other people are making predictions.

Salvation by Politics

There is an interesting post up on Andrew Sandlin’s site by Rod Martin. It is an argument to vote Republican and forget about Third Parties. Its tone is quite impassioned. He begins by stating that voting for a 3rd Party Candidate is

the miracle theory of politics: that somehow if we just pick some godly soul and pray hard, God will deliver us as though through the Red Sea.

He then goes on to make this dramatic statement.

You know what? It’s not only that it doesn’t work that way: it shouldn’t work that way. There’s nothing biblical about that approach at all.

After lecturing for a moment about how not voting Republican is the same as voting Democratic, telling Christians who vote for 3rd Parties to grow up and start acting like serious professionals, and telling us that voting for 3rd Parties really "hacks" him off, he returns to the aforementioned idea and states:

Some will be satisfied with some simplistic "I think
it’s the right thing to do", but unless you have more than that, most won’t. And they’ll be right.

The astonishing claim that doing the right thing will not be right is hard to understand at first, but what Mr. Martin really wants to drive home is the idea that voting for a 3rd Party in not Christian, and therefore very wrong.

I have three major objections to this piece other than tone.

1. I do not think strict adherence to the two party system is “mastering” the system as Mr. Martin advocates. I have written a few posts before on the history of the 3rd Party in our nation. And it is a very rich history. But since the two parties have become entrenched since about 1918 what Christian victory or progress can Mr. Martin point to show the success of waiting for the Republican Party to become Christian, which he claims is underway. What conservative victory even can be pointed out? Roe v Wade? No, no victory there. Prayer in schools? Nope, in fact it was removed during that time period. The Republican party has dropped its opposition to Federal Public Schools and the Department of Education. What about homosexuality? Well, sodomy laws have been ruled unconstitutional, homosexual marriage is legal in Massachusetts. No real victory there. Taxes? Well, probably not. They are higher than they were in 1919 and the income tax is not a part of the US Constitution. The government takes well above the 10% God requires. What about the government following the Biblical principle of not being in debt or over spending? One look at the national debt should be enough there, and it is a Republican government. We do not need to even get into the idea of the government destroying personal responsibility with Social Security and the idea of government welfare, nor will we discuss whether or not invading other countries ‘preemptively’ is a biblically just war. I will just wait for someone to point out any conservative or Christian victories in the two party system.
2. I do not think that anyone can bind men’s consciences for voting for a person that agrees with them theological and politically. Is it really an unbiblical approach to go to the polls and say, ‘I am going to vote for the candidate that has the best Christian worldview?’ Does the bible really teach us that we should go to the polls and say, ‘I can only vote for the candidates with national backing, and then from those two chose the best guy’? Somehow I doubt it. To call voting for a 3rd Party unbiblical is fairly baseless. There should be room for Christian Liberty here. I argue for 3rd Parties, but I would hardly call someone voting for a Republican unbiblical in his actions.
3. This letter smacks of ‘salvation through politics’. This quote worries me a great deal. "We have a conservative movement that is becoming mostly Christian but isn’t quite there yet. That’s progressive sanctification in action, and it *is* biblical. And we alone among the nations of the Earth are blessed to see God doing it in our land." I am all in favor of voting our Christian values, making laws against things like abortion, but it is not the way to change the world. Maybe the Republicans are that close to being a Christian Political Party, and maybe they are not. But if we want to see our land blessed, it will not be because of the Republican Party or the work of Christians supporting the Republicans or any 3rd Party for that matter. If our land is blessed by God it is because of the Church, not politics. Rome was not conquered by the gospel because Christians mastered the political workings of the system. No, it was changed because the gospel preached by the Church converted the lives of people. Geneva, England, Scotland, and Germany were not changed by the political intrigues that went on during the Reformation, they were changed by men faithfully preaching God’s Word. Do you want to outlaw abortion? Me too. However if you want to stop abortions all together, the answer is not jail time. The answer is changing lives via the gospel. Making it illegal will stop many people, but even if it is still legal abortion can be ended if we change people’s hearts. A generation of Christians being raised up knowing the difference between right and wrong, and respecting the Lord will end abortion with or without political aid.

You want to argue for voting for one party over another. Fine. But do not claim the Bible demands such an action, and do not claim God’s blessing is tied to the fortunes of one political party or another.

A People's History of the Supreme Court

I just finished reading a very informative book, A People’s History of the Supreme Court by Peter Irons. Now Mr. Irons is up front in his introduction that he is a liberal who views the Constitution as a living document that should grown and change with the times. So the book is full of subtle liberal ideas (for example extolling the ACLU as a liberty protection group while calling the ACLJ a "right-wing" organization), and many not so subtle liberal ideas. If one can look past such things, the book is very readable. It avoids getting bogged down in legal mumbo-jumbo, yet explains the issues plainly. In the more recent cases, he quotes quite freely from arguments before the court and the courts opinions are always quoted.

However, I still recommend this book because of two main reasons. First, it does take you through the most important cases in Supreme Court history, many of which you had probably never heard about before. The book goes all the way up to the confirmation of Justice Samuel Alito, so it is very up to date. And if you have the desire to watch confirmation hearings on TV, you will recognize all the cases that are discussed. Americans should be familiar with the third branch of government, and this book is a great way to get a historical overview of the Court.

Second, this book is a great peek into the mindset of liberals. Peter Irons’s view of the court is astounding. He never questions the idea that the court is meant for social change, cannot stand Justices who think social change should come through the ballot box, and has outright for contempt for judges that fail to change the culture. This book introduces you, at least briefly, to everyone who has ever sat on the court. The vast majority of Justices are reviewed as incompetent for not breaking new legal ground. Justice John McLean appointed by Andrew Jackson is a prime example. He authored 247 majority opinions, but is said to have “plowed old furrows”, and this quote is stated with approval, “Few justices have worked so hard, for so long, with such little impact.” A harsh statement, but one that shows social change, not following the law, is the goal of the Supreme Court.

Irons lavishes his highest praise on John Marshall and Joseph Story, and then later equal praise is given to Oliver Wendell Holmes, William Brennan, and Thurgood Marshall. These men were all quite liberal and extremely in favor of Federal power. William Brennan is the one who came up with the quote, “With five votes you can do anything around here.” Now contempt was poured out on many, but concentrated contempt found its home mainly with five Justices. Chief Justice Roger Taney received a great deal of bashing because of his Dredd Scott decision and because of his constant judicial restraint and state’s rights view. The other four men are known as the Four Horsemen of Reaction. They are Justices George Sutherland, Pierce Butler, Willis Van Devanter and James McReynolds. These men are hated because they believed in laissez-faire economics. They are the ones who opposed Franklin Roosevelt and did many things prior to FDR such as strike down the income tax, minimum wage laws and other pro-capitalism type decisions. I personally was amazed at how up front Mr. Irons was about his detest for the laissez-faire view and he propounded instead the ‘mixed’ system of FDR, which he was admitting was socialism mixed with a little capitalism. Mr. Irons went so far as to mock the Four Horsemen for stating that socialism was taking over America. He mocked them not for being paranoid, but for not having a better view of the Constitution. These five justices received the harshest treatment, even though Clarence Thomas gets quite a drubbing himself in this book. Even Jusitce Scalia comes off in a better light, mostly because Scalia ruled the first amendment protected flag burning and thought courts had the right to review the ‘enemy combatant’ label placed on those taken in the War on Terrorism (Thomas was the lone dissenter in that case).

In addition to learning liberals really did not mind socialism, if not outright communism (Mr. Irons gives a great deal of praise to Eugene Dubbs, Communist candidate for President), a rejection of the idea the Constitution is color-blind (reverse discrimination cases made Irons upset), I discovered a real hatred for the South. Not just conservatism, that is expected, but the South as a whole. He openly attacked the South in many off hand comments. He had no problem with Thurgood Marshall calling Southerners “white crackers”. He constantly let the reader know how backward he thought the South’s anti-sodomy laws really were, and had no problem with the 14th Amendment being imposed on the South because they needed it. He seems to have problem with the idea of Reconstruction, but did have a problem with President Hayes ending it. Irons also made it plain he thinks many southern towns still violate the law according to Santa Fe Independent School District v Doe, which outlaws prayer before Friday night football games. The list could go on, but I think you get the idea.

The Eucharist, John 6, and the early church

It has been asked of me to find some examples of the use of John 6 in the early church fathers, to see how they read this section.

It cannot be denied that some church fathers read John 6 as referring to the Eucharist. Cyprian stands as one clear example. But, did anyone ever read John 6 as not referring to the Eucharist, the answer is yes. Eusebius the Historian reads John 6 as referring not to the Supper, but to his words, which Eusebius holds to be the true food to the soul of believers (as quoted in Schaff History Vol 3. Pg. 495). Basil also ascribes the 6th chapter of John to the words of Jesus Christ (ibid., pg. 497). These men specifically relate John 6 to his words rather than the Eucharist.

Clement of Alexandria also seems to see John 6 as meaning something other than the Eucharist. He uses John 6:54, "Whosoever eateth my fles and drinketh my blood shall have eternal life" which he says, "describing distinctly by metaphor the drinkable properties of faith and promise" (ANF vol. 2 pg. 218). He does not seem to equate it with the Eucharist, and even when he quotes from John 6 and talks of the Eucharist, it involves more metaphors rather than a direct correlation.

Tertullian has a clear exposition of John 6 to mean one must believe in Christ and His words, and makes no mention of the Eucharist at all. His very nice summary of John 6 includes this idea "Constituting, therefore, His word as the lifegiving principle, because that word is spirit and life, He likewise called His flesh by the same appellation; because too the Word had become flesh" (ANF vol. 3 pg. 572).

This does not mean that everyone else believed that John 6 related to the Eucharist. Many of those properly called Apostolic Fathers did not directly quote John 6 nor explain it. However, Ignatius in his epistle to the Romans speaks of desiring the ‘bread of God’ and the ‘bread of life’ which he says is the flesh of Jesus Christ and then the drink he defines as ‘incorruptible love and life eternal.’ Here, it is unclear whether or not Ignatius is referring to John 6, but he is clearly speaking about the ‘bread of life’ in a non-sacramental manner, as this discussion appears in his reasons for wanting to die a martyr (Romans chapter 8). He is desiring the bread of life, which seems to be given to him when he dies, not here on earth. Such comments from Ignatius and the prior citations (for they are citations from leaders of the early church) seem to indicate that John 6 was not read ‘liturgically’ by the early church, at least a great many of them read John 6 as referring to Christ's words.

I was also asked to see if the early church fathers viewed the Supper as ‘anything more than a symbolic spiritual representation’. Why that wording is mine, it is clearly not the best wording. But, not wanting to back down from a challenge, I shall endeavor to show that the Zwinglian interpretation has precedent in the Church Fathers. Oecolampadius’s view is almost directly taken from Tertullian who claimed the bread and wine figured the body and blood. Cyprian too here favors a figurative interpretation with the focus on the "is" in the words of institution being figurative. Augustine followed those African fathers in teaching a symbolical theory of the Supper. He maintains a distinction between the outward sign and the inward grace, and maintains the figurative character of the words of institution. Of course still talking of spiritual feeding by faith (with which Zwingli agreed) in the Supper. From Augustine we can see his view disseminate throughout the church’s history. It can be easily seen in men like Facundus, Fulgentius, Isidore of Sevilla, the Venerable Bede, the Carolingian bishops, and finally Ratramnus and Berengar. Both Augustine (d.404) and Ratramnus (ca.944) each used John 6 to point to the Eucharist, but came out with Spiritual views of the Supper. Ratramnus’s book, which quoted liberally from Augustine, was republished by the Zwinglian Reformers as proof their position on the Eucharist was the historic position of the church. Other men who held this view during the 10th Century were Rabanus Maurus, Walafrid Strabo, Christian Druthmar, and Florus Magister, not to mention the book received royal endorsement from Charles the Bald. John Scotus Erigena appears to have written against a Real Presence view, but his work is lost, so we cannot be certain. The Eleventh Century saw Berengar agree with Ratramnus along with Eusebius Bruno (bishop of Angers) and Frollant (bishop of Senlis), but he was condemned for his views. Thus, the Zwinglian claim that the church held their beliefs about the Supper is not entirely without merit, nor then is my claim that a symbolic and spiritual view of the Supper is the position of the early church.

Liturgical Exegesis

Alastair has an interesting post up about the idea of Double Resurrection and Double Justification taught by James Jordan. If I had nothing but time this would be the sort of stuff I would like respond to at great length. However, I do have a job, so I will just respond to one paragraph that stuck out.

Most contemporary Christians would believe that such a passage is far too obscure to play any role in our doctrine of justification and that Paul’s theology never could have been informed by such a thing. This is the natural response for Protestants, who have very little time for liturgy. The assumption is that the ‘Bible’ is the only place where God’s revelation of saving truths is to be found. There are a number of problems with this notion. Chief among them is the fact that what we call the ‘Bible’ is a relatively recent creation. The people of God of previous ages encountered the Scriptures in the form of liturgical performance not as we do, by reading words off the pages of our mass-produced, privately-owned Bibles. It should not surprise us that, approaching the Scriptures as they do, most modern Christians make little sense out of it.

Alastair is advocating here the fact that the Scriptures should primarily (or at least equally) be revealed in the liturgy of the church rather than a book in the hand. The context is about why an ‘obscure’ passage (his words not mine) like Numbers 19 might actually be essential in understanding justification. His argument is that through the liturgy such passages would have received the proper emphasis and that through the liturgy it would be lived out in the life of the believer. Alastair explains further in another post.

If the Bible was given to be encountered primarily as a printed or written text the Church is not that necessary. However, I believe that the Bible was given to be ‘performed’ (much as the Shakespearian play). The chief ‘performance’ of the Bible is that which occurs in the Church’s liturgy. It is read aloud in the lectionary. It is prayed, sung, meditated upon, memorized and recited. Its story is retold in various forms. It is our conversation partner and our guide.

While, I certainly agree that we should read the Bible, pray the words of Scripture, and sing psalms during worship that misses the point. Was the Bible primarily written to be encountered and performed? Is a Sunday liturgy to be the main way that people get the Word of God? Does having a Bible in every believer’s home that they read daily make the Church unnecessary as Alastair claims? I do not believe so, but first let us see the other implications of this idea as put forth by Alastair himself.

The Bible that most modern Christians think in terms of is an object; what we encounter in the liturgy is nothing less than the personal Word of God, Jesus Christ Himself.

This is not only a denial of the power of the Spirit in reading the word of God (at least a significant downplaying of it), but it sets the stage for a sacerdotalism where the Church is necessary to dispense the benefits of Christ. There can be no way to encounter Christ with out the minister/priest. There can be no way to receive forgiveness without the church service and perhaps specific points in the service. Without ‘inhabiting’ or becoming part of the liturgy then we are separated from Christ. This paves the way for the necessity of the words of absolution from the minister, and the sacraments and other elements of the worship service. Salvation occurs weekly as we live out the story again and again in the worship service. Subtly here the definition or purpose of worship has changed from glory we give to God to salvation we receive from God.

Secondly and just as important is this point:

It seems to me that the displacing of typological and liturgical ways of reading Scripture and the rise of pure grammatical historical exegesis owes much (for numerous reasons) to the invention of the printing press. . . Liturgy provides us with a hermeneutical context for reading the Word of God.

The liturgy is not just something we do as a we to encounter and participate in Jesus Christ, but it is a way to read the Bible. This debate over John 6 is a good example of a practical debate about the subject. It is not as important as what Jesus meant when he spoke of eating his flesh, but it is more important of how the readers of John’s gospel would have read that phrase with regard to their worship service. It also is the point of the original post by Alastair. For Alastair, we do not get our understanding of justification primarily by reading the Scripture and trying understand what it says. Instead we should get our understanding from the Liturgical Word and it supposed forerunner in Israel. This is what he means by using the liturgy as a hermeneutical tool. This point is nothing more than a complete reversal of the Reformational Sola Scritptura. How do we interpret Scripture? Alastair’s answer is through the tradition of liturgical worship. In fact, he is arguing that the liturgy is the way for believers to encounter Scripture. There is nothing wrong with your leather bound Bible per se, but you should read it through what the Church says about it via the liturgy.

I do have a few objections to Alastair’s view. The first is Acts 17:10-13. The Bereans appear to do just the opposite of what Alastair advocates. They go to the service, listen attentively and then read the service through the light of the Scripture, not the Scripture through the light of the liturgy/service. And the Spirit calls them ‘more noble’ for doing so. II Timothy 2:15 seems to counter his understanding as well. ‘Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.’ This sound much more like the grammatical parsing and rational thinking through the Word that Alastair seems to eschew rather than the ‘inhabiting’ the word through the liturgy advocated in the posts.

A second point is with the historical understanding that underlies his position. The Scriptures were originally written down before they were used in the liturgy. They existed as books and epistles long before the existed in a liturgy. While it is true that before the printing press not everyone had a nice bound copy to stick in their pocket and church may have been the way many heard the word, it does not change the fact that they were originally written. Let us not forget that we see the Bible existing as we have it now quite early on. Athanasius in the 4th century gives a list of the books that stand in our bible, meaning that churches and people were collecting the inspired books into one canon by that time. The Muratorian Fragment suggests is was by the 2nd century and the collection of Marcion suggest even in the 1st century people were gathering it all into one book rather than keeping it only in the liturgy. They are not originally a play as his Shakespeare analogy would suggest, but rather they are originally a novel turned into a play, and when it was turned into a play is up for some debate. We have far earlier evidence of men using the Scriptures as we would use a modern English bible than we have of early liturgies. In fact, the Roman liturgy seems to be no earlier than 451, which is different than the Liturgy of St. James and the Eastern liturgies (5th Century), and they differ still from the Gallican liturgy (494), which is different than the Alexandrian liturgy (late 4th century), and still it differs quite radically from the heretical liturgies (5th Century) of Nestorius. In fact, we have several confessions of faith that pre-date these liturgies.

The high liturgical service of the Middle Ages was not necessarily the worship service of the early church.
In fact this a great example of the problem of using liturgy to encounter the Word and as our hermeneutical guide. The idea that the Lord’s Supper was anything more than a symbolic spiritual representation was rejected by the church at least through 9th century. Yet, it changed and the bread became the body and John 6 was used a proof text. Christians before the 10th century would have understood John 6 in a completely different way than those after. This makes the ever changing liturgy a very shaky guide to finding truth in the Scripture. Instead of the liturgy being a way to find typological meaning it seems to be a way for meaning to be created and/or lost. For the record the grammatical historical method of exegesis existed at least since Theodoret (5th century).

It should also be remembered that letting the Church interpret Scripture did not lead to a greater understanding of the Word, it led to no one understanding the word. There was mass ignorance of what the Bible actually taught until the printing press. This is one of the points of the Reformation, everyone should be a Berean.

Wolfgang Capito

If your first reaction the title of this post is Wolf-ga-wha-Capit-a-who?!? You either have a small vocabulary or you need some caffeine. On the other hand if you are thinking, ‘Who is Wolfgang Capito?’ then you are not alone. Wolfgang Capito is one of those forgotten reformers that no one ever studies because all Reformation history classes are only about Luther, Calvin, Knox, and Zwingli if you are lucky. Capito was a Hebrew scholar who aided the reformation at Basel, but primarily he worked along side Martin Bucer in Strasbourg. I have not finished it yet, but The Correspondence of Wolfgang Capito is a fantastic book. This is a newly published work, and it is the first of 3 volumes. These are his early letters up until the time he goes to Strasbourg.

The book does have its problems. It often just summarizes the longer letters, and invariably those are the ones from Erastmus or to Martin Luther, and it gets a little frustrating to not have the actual text. But, there are a lot of full text letters in this book. In fact, there is enough in this book to get a nice picture of what motivates Wolfgang Capito. The picture that emerges is one of a man dedicated to education. He was a tremendous Hebrew scholar, but a renowned scholar in all three major academic languages. He read the classics and promoted the early church fathers. It is clear from the letters that Capito begins as a humanist and grows into a reformer. He does his work from the inside of the church, at first. He evangelizes a few men by counseling them to read the church fathers and avoid the Scholatics and Aristotle. His distaste for them is evident on almost every page. He publishes a Hebrew grammar, something even Erastmus thought was a waste of time, and translates many early church father’s from Greek into a readable form for the common man. In one letter of candor he tells his reader that he agrees with the Lutherans, but hides his agreement with them (thought never denying it), so that he might be placed in influential positions. This goal he achieves. It was his belief that it would be better to diplomatically and through education reform the church. Capito even encouraged Luther to be more diplomatic and careful in his speech, but to no avail. In fact, Luther ends up exposing Capito as a supporter ruining his chance at influencing the powerful nobles of Switzerland and Germany. But, Capito also believed in the power of the gospel. During his time at Basel he, like Zwingli, had left the lectionary and started to preach straight through the book of Matthew. According to the letters, this was done to the great profit of all.

This book is an insightful look into the life of a reformer who we have forgotten today, but according to some of the letters, was during his own day considered on the same level as Erastmus, Luther, and Zwingli. I hope this project hurries the publication of the second and third volume. I look forward to them greatly.

Charlemagne and Reforming the Clergy

Protestants by definition must be protesting something. Religiously we speak of Protestants protesting against the church or something within the church. Thus, Protestants usually are protesting against the clergy and something wrong or deficient in them. A reform of the clergy is a Protestant act. Charlemagne did great things to reform the clergy. He required and promoted a stricter morality and a greater education. Such acts are part of Protestantism. In his efforts is the idea that the clergy of the church are uneducated and loose morally. Thus, his work is a protest on the state of the clergy. It is a sign of the felt desire and need to reform the church to a higher standard than that of the pope or popes. His work in this area was an uphill battle, but he accomplished so much that many historians admit that there was a mini-renaissance sometimes called the Carolingian Renaissance. One must also conclude that the Dark Ages are officially over when Charlemagne is in power.

Charlemagne made sure he was surrounded with the greatest scholars on the planet. He went out and gathered men of renown. Because of the sorry state of the church most of the scholars he gathered to his royal academy were not Frankish, but foreigners. He gathered Italian Lombards like Peter of Pisa, the grammarian, Paul the Deacon, the historian, and Paulinus, the poet. Other prominent men like Theodulf and Agobard were foreigners as well. Yet, the most famous was Alcuin. Alcuin was from York, England, and he was a master of education. He wrote works of logic, grammar, rhetoric, and orthography. He kept pupils and ran schools. Alcuin was given five abbeys to run as reward for his excellent work and so he could make the monasteries improve education for the kingdom. This is true for many of those who surrounded Charlemange. Theodulf was made bishop of Orleans, and Paulinus of Aquileia as well as Agobard, who became bishop of Lyons. These men all took their great learning to their bishoprics. Charlemagne gathered them so he would be surrounded by great intellects, but also let them go because the church needed them more than he did.
More proof about his views can be found in his letters to the bishops in his domain. He called on them to have a good command of the languages in which Scripture is written to avoid gross errors, and he quoted Matthew 12:37, “For by they words thou shalt be justified and by thy words thou shalt be condemned”, as backing for this command. In 789, the orders went out for the priests to observe the canons of the church and the bishops were personally responsible for the intellectual training and schools should be run in every dioceses. Priests were required to teach all boys Latin and elementary education. Bishops were required to run schools and another school was run out of the Imperial palace. Books were regularly published by Alcuin and others explaining the liturgy step by step. The liturgy was standardized, mainly by Alcuin, and then put in place throughout the land. Book production was increased all across the land. Not only copies of the Bible, but ancient church fathers and even new books written by the educated were in circulation at that time. There is no doubt that one of the highest priorities of the church during the time of Charlemagne was education.

The moral standards of the priests also had to be raised. Boniface described the situation in France in 742, one year after Charlemagne’s father took the throne.

They have no archbishops. Most of the episcopal sees are occupied by avaricious laymen or adulterous, licentious and worldly clerics. Bishops make no claim not to be fornicators and adulterers, and they drink, neglect their duties, and spend their time hunting.

Boniface listed more problem including the bishops had not met in council together for at least 80 years. Charlemagne completed the reform of the morality of the church. Within a few years of his taking the throne, every metropolitan had an archbishop and every see had a proper bishop. The sinners were forced out or forced to do penance. The bishops were required to meet annually to discuss matters of both political and ecclesiastical significance. In addition at least 18 major Synods were called in 46 years of Charlemagne’s reign. The pope held only three in the same time frame, and one of those was called by Charlemagne to have a trial for the pope. He held inquests into the morality of the clergy in 802 and 811 to purge out those who had become to ‘worldly’ from office.

These facts tell us a great deal about the church under Charlemagne, and they also tell us a great deal about the church in general. Charlemagne’s desire to raise the morality and education of the clergy can only be seen as a protest against the standard level of both morality and education allowed by the church.

Expository Preaching under attack

Just in case one did not think that an altar based liturgy and a pulpit based one do not conflict with each other, witness the recent attack on expository preaching. It begins at Reformed Catholicism where Kevin Johnson extols ‘kergymatic preaching’ which he defines as follows:

[kergymatic preaching] brings the acts of God to fore in the proclamation of God’s Word so that both in word and in deed (communion, the Lord’s Supper, weekly if possible), the covenant community is brought ever more forward into a unity with God through Christ and by His Spirit.

He makes clear it is not:

"micro-exegetical" line by line word by word expository preaching through books in order. That should have passed with the Puritans.

This shot at the line by line preaching straight through a book done by the Reformers was then heralded by The Boar’s Head Tavern, and the Restless Reformer, who rightly calls it ‘Christian Storytelling’. The Restless Reformer goes on to connect this problem to Systematic Theology, noting that Christology is usually the third course or topic in Systematics. Nielson’s Nook makes the jump from the original attack on expository preaching to the Lord’s Supper seemingly linking believing propositions from sermons to a misuse of the sacraments. What is clear is his desire to have a more liturgical way of propounding the gospel, which for him seems to include weekly communion and less expository preaching.

Which brings us full circle to the original post by Kevin Johnson. Notice the comments. Comment #2 by Mike Spreng states the following after relating a story about Roman Catholic sermons:

I think good preaching certainly can and should be done with the help of the scriptures, but yes, wrangling with the text and expecting the people to take out there notebooks does not seem to emphasize the centrality of the ceremony and even the gospel itself. That is better done in an academic context

.

Kevin responds in comment #3:

I have found nine times out of ten when I’ve been at a Roman Mass that the preaching was actually very much gospel-oriented and in line with what I’ve written above. The fact that the Western liturgical tradition in large part sees the sermon as part of the liturgy rather than the climax helps this aspect of it, imho

This shocking bit of information cannot be passed over. The preaching of the Romanist church was ‘gospel-oriented’? The church that denies one is saved by faith alone and requires work and sacraments to achieve salvation had a ‘gospel-oriented’ sermon? Has this attack on exegetical preaching changed the definition of gospel or at least the message of the gospel?

I believe it has, and I believe it does. I want to be clear there are those that should be legitimately criticized for preaching badly and some who may even leave Christ out of the sermon. However, this is a failure of the preacher not the method. These gentlemen are advocating a return to pre-reformational ways of preaching and pre-reformational messages that those ways are meant to communicate. They are extolling the centrality of the service, the centrality of the ritual, the Supper and the altar. This is exactly why the Reformers changed the service from an altar based one to a pulpit based service. The words of Christ are life (John 6:68). We should cling to them line by line. We should usually go straight through books so we can see the ‘story’ develop before us. So we can see his truth, and receive the gospel of eternal life. Kergymatic preaching that elevates the story above the words, and is designed only to make the focal point the altar and not the words, is not emphasizing Christ, it de-emphasizes him. It de-emphasizes his gospel words and returns us to the yoke of works as the Roman system openly admits.

Exegetical preaching should always present the call to Christ. But is does this through line by line exposition of his words. The preacher must be aware of applying it to the lives the believers and showing them Christ in every story, in every message. These posts come dangerously close to advocating a giving of the gospel without the words of the gospel. ‘Christian Storytelling’ is nice, but it is not preaching. Preaching is an explaining of the Scripture, which cannot be done by simply finding its ‘kergyma’. Jesus fulfilled every ‘jot and tittle’ of the Scripture, not just the main points or central thrust (kergyma) of it. We must not return to the methods of an age that denied the gospel and replaced it with sacerdotal system unless we desire to return to that same gospel denying sacerdotal system.

Charlemagne and the Pope

The first question that must be asked to see if Charlemagne’s church was a Protestant one, is did the church submit to the Pope, or did they reject his authority? This is one that can be seen better in acts than words. Most everyone mouthed the words that the Pope was the supreme head of the church and sat in St. Peter’s chair. However, did they follow that up with action, or were those words mere flattery?

First, the Seventh Ecumenical Council or Council of Nicaea II serves as an appropriate illustration. Nicaea was attended by Papal legates, and approved by Charlemagne’s close friend, Pope Adrian. This council allowed the use of images and accounted for them to be venerated, but not worshiped. The church of Charlemagne, by this I mean France and parts of Spain and Germany, rejected this Pope approved General Synod of the church. They rejected veneration of the images, denied they served any useful purpose at all, and repudiated the authority of the council. These things were published under the title, Libiri Carolini. Pope Adrian pleaded with Charlemagne, but at the Council of Frankfurt (794), Nicaea was denounced. At least 300 bishops from France, England, Spain, Italy, and Germany signed on to the rejection of the Council of Nicaea II, which had already received papal approval. This was not just the influence of Charlemagne. The church continued this position under Louis the Pious, son of Charlemagne, by denouncing the use of images at the Council of Paris in 825. The Council of Paris also openly rebuked the pope for supporting such a council. Hardly the actions of a church submitting to papal authority.

Second, the Filoque controversy shows the rejection of papal authority. The Filoque controversy is about adding the phrase “and the Son” to the Nicene Creed. Thus, the revised version reads that that Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. This was in use by the 6th century in Spain, but it was Charlemagne’s church that made it official. Alcuin, Theodulf, and Paulinus, the greatest scholars of the Carolingian church, and later Ratramnus of Corbie all argued heavily for the inclusion of the phrase ‘and the Son’. They viewed it essential to understand the Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son. Again, Pope Adrian pleaded against such an idea, and later Pope Leo would not accept it either, although he treaded much lighter. In 809, at the Council of Aix-la-Chappelle the phrase was included in the Nicene Creed officially, and always used that way in the areas controlled by Charlemagne. Since even the Pope now recognizes that phrase, we can see which side gave in.

Third, an incident involving Pope Leo III is also telling for it shows how the church under Charlemagne viewed the Pope. Leo had been accussed of some sins, including adultery if I remember correctly, and the people of Rome were in an uproar. Arno, archbishop of Salzburg, led a delegation of two archbishops and five bishops to investigate the charges. This act in and of itself is unheard of. Archbishops and bishops were investigating the Head of the Church. The Pope sitting under judgment of fellow bishops runs counter to everything claimed by the Pope. Yet, Arno not only led this delegation, they found Leo guilty. They would not reinstall Leo as the bishop of Rome. Charlemagne did reinstall Leo for political reasons, but the very idea that the church under the dominion of Charlemagne would try the pope and find him guilty is astounding and says quite a lot about the view of the papacy held by the bishops of the Carolingian Kingdom.

Fourth, the constant use of Councils and Synods. I have already mentioned at least three. Charlemagne required yearly synods of his church. They bishops met together and discussed affairs of the church and kingdom. This practice is not in keeping with the Roman practice. It speaks volumes about where the church turned for judicial and theological matters. It was to itself and not toward Rome.

Fifth, the views of individuals should also say large amounts. In addition to the men mentioned above such as Arno of Salzburg, we can add the thoughts of many others. People like Theodulf who thought the Pope was not over Charlemagne and at least rejected the idea that the pope had temporal authority at all. Haymo Bishop of Halberstadt rejected the idea of the Pope as a universal bishop and the idea that Peter founded the seat in Rome! However, Claudius bishop of Turin speaks the loudest. This man was given his bishopric by Louis the Pious and was never removed from his seat. He states concerning Matthew 16,

‘Thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my church: and I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven,’ under pretence of which words the stupid and ignorant common people, destitute of all spiritual knowledge, betake themselves to Rome in hope of acquiring eternal life. . . . Know thou that he only is apostolic who is the keeper and guardian of the apostle’s doctrine, and not he who boasts himself to be seated in the chair of the apostle.(J.A. Wylie, History of Protestantism, Vol. 1. pg.22)

Hardly the word of a man upholding the authority of the Pope. Hopefully this brief look at the history of the Carolingian church will show that the Pope held no real power in the church, and was regularly disobeyed in matters of doctrine and faith. I believe this requires one to view the Carolingian church as a church ‘protesting’ the authority of the bishop of Rome, and finding its own way without him.

Baseball thoughts

Now that the baseball season is over, I can make a few comments that need to be made.

First, let us get the formal stuff out of the way first, The Pittsburgh Pirates will win it all next year, or at least win their division. A good year for developing young talent. If we had hired Jim Leyland rather than Jim Tracy, we would have won it all this year. We have some good young pitching prospects, and our young hitting finally came through. Freddie Sanchez won the NL Batting Title, Jason Bay was an All Star and Ronnie Paulino hit .300 as our catcher. Add in the last season acquisition of Xavier Nady, and a few minor league prospects, and the rookie closer getting even better next year, and you have a real winner on your hands.

Second, what the Minnesota Twins did this year was absolutely amazing. They had never had even a share of first place all year until there was only three games left in the season and took sole possession on the very last day. Both records. Living in South Dakota I got to watch a lot of Twins baseball, and they are a great team. Even losing two of their three best pitchers, they still pulled of the amazing. 12 games out of first place in June, but they still won the division. Unbelievable. And if they can keep Lirano (an injured pitcher) healthy, there is absolutely no reason that the Twins should not dominate baseball for the next decade. Ron Gardenhire may actually be the best coach in baseball. The Twins comeback should be right up there next to the Miracle Mets of 1969 and the Shot Heard Round the World in 1962. Yet, it will not take its rightful place in baseball lore because of my third point.

Third, the Wild Card has ruined baseball forever. Never have I heard sports reporters try to make a bigger deal about the Wild Card race than they have this year. But this year it again proved to be the biggest mistake ever made. The AL Central Race with the Minnesota Twins is a perfect example. Twins and Tigers tied with 3 games left in the season. The tension should have been so thick you could cut it with a knife, but instead, both teams were already guaranteed playoff spots so they could rest big time players and set their rotations. The Tigers lost three in a row to the Royals, a team the Tigers had only lost once to all year. The Twins dropped two of three to the White Sox at home, and there was talk prior to the series of throwing it on purpose because it would be better to play the Yankees in a five game series rather than a seven game one. The Wild Card ruined a down to the wire division race. It did the same thing in the National League as the NL West came down to the last weekend of the season between the Dodgers and the Padres. However, both teams made the post season. Many pundits lauded the Wild Card race in the National League as it too went down to the wire. However, if you look at it, that race was a race of teams that were barely above .500. The team that stayed above 81-81 was going to win the Wild Card. Was it fair for the Astros or the Phillies who lost out on a Wild Card chase that the the Dodgers, the team that won, got to play more games against the worst division in baseball? Probably not. So, the Wild Card ruined several hot division races and did not even manage to get the fourth best team into the playoffs. I hope baseball drops this stupid idea, but it won’t.

Fourth, steroids ruined everything about baseball for my entire childhood. Jason Grimsely, a ball player who tried to turn states evidence, recently gave out names of players who used performance enhancing drugs. The list includes the trainer of Albert Pujols and Roger Clemens. The face of the steroid free baseball in Pujols and the future Hall of Famer in Clemens are both dirty, and probably tons of others that Grimsely never got to see take drugs. Almost no one from the 80’s to today should make the Hall of Fame. What a disgrace that our National Pastime has come to this. As much as I hate the Wild Card, I hate this even more. I hope Bud Selieg gets fired, but again he won’t. I would bet money as an owner, he knew what was going on. If the writers put anyone from this era into the Hall of Fame, they might as well put Pete Rose in too. If it is wrong to compromise the game by betting on baseball, and it is, then it is wrong to compromise the game by taking illegal drugs.