Greg Uttinger: If you’re a faithful listener,
we have a favor to ask. Go to somebody who’s
not part of the normal crowd, your church
family, the normal nerd people you hang out
with or whatever – go to somebody who really
needs to hear Christianity of this sort, at
this level, on these dimensions, and introduce
them to the podcast. Take a chance on it.
Our goal is not just to reach a few friends
and remember past school years, but to actually
be a cultural wedge, however tiny, in the
world at a very crucial time, so we ask you
to help us out. Thank you very much.
Emily Maxson: Welcome to Halting Toward Zion,
the podcast where we limp like Jacob to the
Promised Land and talk about life, the universe,
and everything along the way. I’m Emily
Maxson, here with Greg Uttinger and Bryan
Broome. Today we’re continuing our conversation
from last week about Noah.
Last week we talked about how Noah saw the
end of the world as he knew it, and today
we’re going to talk more about how Noah
came out of the ark after the waters receded,
and had to build a new civilization from what
he had. There’s a lot that the Bible doesn’t
tell us about what Noah had. We have to sort
of read between the lines, and the Bible assumes
that we’re not dumb, sometimes, to some
extent.
I always find it interesting that the Bible
doesn’t say that God lined up the animals
two-by-two so that they would go into the
ark in a neat line, although that’s how
we always see the story playing out in the
nurseries with the toys. We have the two giraffes,
followed by the two hippos, followed by the
two cats, and that’s not at all what the
Bible said.
God told Noah,
And of every living thing of all flesh, two
of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark,
to keep them alive with thee; they shall be
male and female. Of fowls after their kind,
and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping
thing of the earth after his kind, two of
every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them
alive.
So Noah had to level-up in animal handling
and find all of these animals, and bring them
to the ark to bring them in. What else could
Noah do?
Greg: He could build a ship – well, a box.
Emily: Did he have The Practical Guide to
Shipbuilding?
Greg: He built a ship half the size of the
Queen Mary. Creation scientists have argued
for a long time as to whether or not he built
it on dry land or in some ocean or something.
We have two possibilities. The world had never
seen such a thing, or the world saw them all
the time. Either way, either Noah was a genius
and an innovator on the order of Thomas Edison,
or the world was used to getting around in
huge boats powered by something.
In any case, the point is that, as you said,
the Bible doesn’t tell us about all kinds
of things that, in retrospect, we would dearly
like to know about because we’re often more
curious about details than we are about the
fate of our souls.
But here was somebody who was not a caveman
and who was not an idiot. He came out of a
world that had mastered metallurgy by the
seventh generation and still had time left,
and people living to nearly 1,000 years. What
was that world like?
Here’s a question that’s always fun to
ask people. “If you were going on the ark,
what would you take with you to use in your
new world?” Let me throw it back at you
people. What would you take with you if it
were our world? What would you take with you
on this ark, whether it be a boat or a starship
or whatever? Or what do you think most people
would take?
Bryan: Basics of Blacksmithing.
Emily: Some instruction manuals. The Dangerous
Book for Boys.
Greg: That has some practical use. The thing
is that most people don’t think in those
terms. They often go to, “My laptop. My
Ferrari,” or whatever generation they happen
to be living in, “My cell phone.” Yeah,
that’s going to do you a lot of good.
Emily: When all the cell towers are destroyed
and there is no more internet.
Greg: My own students over the years have
asked, “Why didn’t he take this or that?”
and it’s often about on that level. “What
would he do with it, exactly?”
“How about a 4-wheeler!”
“Okay, a 4-wheeler. How long is the gas
going to last?”
“Well, it’s solar-powered.”
“All right. When is it going to wear out?
And where are the replacement parts coming
from?”
I think you were both much more on the nose
when you talk about practical blacksmithing
and handling dangerous situations. That’s
an obvious thing for Noah to have taken. He
did have quite a bit of room and he could
take a lot of things. He could take technological
artifacts, but books, information – especially
about the basics of building a civilization
– that would be useful. But since Noah was,
above all, a prophet of the covenant, the
most important thing he would take would be
the Word of God.
At this point the Bible, such as it was, existed
in three phases:
* The Book of the Generations of the Heavens
and the Earth, the creation account, Genesis
1 and a couple verses into the next chapter
* The Book of Adam, which goes from there
up until Noah’s time
* Then Noah’s brief history of the world
before the flood, later to be added to by
his sons, and more particularly by Shem.
So there was already one writing, despite
the claims of some well-intentioned Christians,
and there were prophetic histories of what
was important to God. If God wanted us to
know if they had electric lightbulbs or starships,
he would have told us. It’s obviously not
important to the overall drama of civilization
or of the covenant of redemption or grace.
The one thing we absolutely know that Noah
brought, aside from animals, is the book,
because we still have it afterwards and it
gets added to.
So we can think in terms of the tech manuals,
engineering guides, practical blacksmithing,
dangerous…what’s it called?
Emily: The Dangerous Book for Boys.
Greg: I have girl children, so I wasn’t
quite sure the title.
Emily: There’s another one for girls called
The Daring Book for Girls, but I had it and
it wasn’t as good.
Greg: Yeah, it wasn’t. I remember something
like, “Here’s how to tell people’s fortunes
with cards,” so I don’t think my girls
ever got that one.
So practical things, but Noah’s concern
would have been the gospel, the covenant promise,
and that is what he would want his descendants
to treasure and to learn and to master and
to pass on. And obviously they didn’t very
well, because when we look at the post-diluvian
world, we see civilization springing up very
quickly – Tigris, Euphrates, Nile River
Valley, the Yellow River, the Indus River
Valley. Some things are now underwater that
archeologists keep coming upon.
They could build huge walls and pyramids and
ziggurats. They could do sanitation. The Indus
River civilization is creepy, where all of
the houses are exactly the same size and shape
and oriented the same way. It’s like something
out of A Wrinkle in Time, where everything
is uniform and no private expression is allowed,
but they could build things.
Bryan: Or a housing development.
Greg: Good point. Noah would have been really
disappointed, and he lived a long time after
the flood, as did Shem. They would have seen
all of this with horror and regret and wondered,
“Did I do something wrong, or what?” And
yet the Word of God survived.
Being the nerds that we are, you may all remember
an episode of the original Star Trek called
“Piece of the Action.”
Emily: I don’t.
Greg: You don’t? Well, let me tell you about
it, Emily. The crew of the Enterprise comes
upon a planet that was visited a couple hundred
years earlier by a previous Federation starship,
and that ship came before the Prime Directive
went into effect, so they freely discussed
their past, their culture, their technology,
and left behind a book on the gangs of Chicago.
This planet said, “Ooo, the book,” and
decided that this is how civilization should
develop, and they began to recreate their
society in the image of Chicago in the 20’s
– gangsters, molls, syndicates, machine
guns.
Emily: Prohibition?
Greg: The whole thing. The interesting thing,
from our point of view – aside from the
fact that a book can shape a culture – is
that Dr. McCoy when he sees the book and understands
what’s going on, he and Spock are talking
and Spock says, “They evidently seized upon
that one book as the blueprint for an entire
society,” and McCoy says, “As the Bible.”
That was in the 1960s and Gene Rodenberry
was anything but a Christian, but whoever
wrote that original script – and I forget
who it was – at least there was still this
idea that books can shape, form, and create
cultures, and that the Bible is the obvious
example of a book that has done that in the
past, so that any book that would do that
is, in a sense, the bible for that age and
for that world.
I’d like your thoughts. Do you think today
at the dawn of the 21st century that Christians
actually think of the Bible in those terms?
What say ye?
Bryan: It depends.
Emily: Yeah, I think it does depend on what
you mean. Even today we see different cookbooks
or technical books that call themselves the
Bible of crockpots or the Bible of these different
subjects. I think it’s terribly irreverent,
but it does show that the Bible is supposed
to be authoritative in some sense. But then
again I do think I’ve seen that trend dying
out as I’ve gotten older.
Bryan: It really depends on which cross-section
of professing Christianity you look at. Obviously
in the Reformed 
tradition we, at the very least, have a very
strong stated belief in the sufficiency of
the Bible as the authoritative book for Christian
life and for human morality. But if you look
at denominations that have embraced liberalism,
such as the PCUSA or ELCA, even there, depending
on which one you look at, they may have a
stated statement of the sufficiency of scripture,
but it clearly is not lived out.
If you look at other traditions where tradition
plays an almost primary role in comparison
to the scriptures, such as Roman Catholicism,
at least in practice, it really depends on
which aspect of public Christendom you’re
talking about. We should hope that this would
be at least one of the measuring standards
for what determines the bounds of Christendom
in the first place, but it’s not always
the case.
Emily: I think if we turn away from Christendom
to culture at large, there’s this distancing
from the heritage of the white Anglo-Saxon
Protestants. It’s much more likely for someone
to identify with the indigenous peoples or
some other thing and say, “Look at how these
people who had the Bible came in and oppressed
everyone.” I think that’s much more the
narrative you hear in the world today.
Bryan: As a very brief side note, I do always
find it humorous that Christianity is lauded
as the white man’s religion, when Jesus
was Jewish and the church, for the first 300
years, was Mediterranean, Israeli, African,
and Ethiopian. It spread further east into
the Arabic peoples, what they are now. I always
found that humorous.
Greg: We’re looking at one question getting
split into a number, all good questions. Let’s
focus on American Christianity, since that’s
what we know best.
Bryan, you said the Bible is authoritative
for Christian living, or something to that
effect. The question then becomes Christian
living in what spheres or dimensions of life?
Are you talking about personal relations with
your family and friends? Maybe as an employee
or employer? Or are you talking about the
wider world of civil government, of culture,
art, science? Has the American church – of
whatever stripe, color, or flavor – really
continued to insist that the Bible speaks
to these things?
Even in our own Reformed Presbyterian traditions
we give lip service to this, but isn’t it
true that far too often, if we try to say
to Congress or the Supreme Court, “Thus
sayeth the Lord,” we get told by people
with theological degrees, “You can’t make
that appeal. You need to come at it from the
angle of natural law.”
Is that your experience or am I over-reacting
here?
Emily: A lot of times I see people revert
to natural law because it’s much easier
to make the argument and find common ground
and move forward. I personally see some superficiality
there, as you might expect. But yes, I think
the reversion is always to natural law and
trying to find common ground that may or may
not exist, as we talked about before. There
ain’t no neutral ground.
Bryan: True. One of the things that I’ve
noticed at the very least is in the Reformed
Presbyterian tradition, of which I’m a part,
the Westminster Divines for instance spoke
very highly of natural law. It fed into their
determinations of the general equity of the
Mosaic Law, for instance. Calvin even, I would
say, leaned a little heavy on Aquinas’s
writings, to a certain extent. That doesn’t
necessarily mean what Van Til calls it – is
it just common ground in his writing?
Emily: Point of contact.
Bryan: Point of contact. It doesn’t mean
that they don’t actually have those points
of contact. They can absolutely recognize
the validity of things based on a natural
law. The disconnect is in their philosophical
underpinning of why they hold to that. That’s
why I don’t like the term “noble pagan,”
because obviously there is no such thing.
Greg: They’re in the outer circles of hell,
right?
Bryan: Totally. Let’s listen to Dante on
this one. But you do get people who, even
though they are reprobates from an eternal
standpoint – and we don’t know that for
sure because we can’t have elect-vision…
Emily: Electo-vision.
Bryan: Electo-goggles, new from Whamco. We
don’t have those, and even the reprobate
can still recognize things even if they don’t
have the necessary philosophy to justify it
consistently, which we would recognize and
state is only the property of the Christian
religion. We’re the only ones that have
a truly consistent basis for living, but whether
they hold to it consistently or not, they
can still recognize it.
I might be over-stepping a little bit here
to say it this way, but in my experience,
and as far as I can tell from the scripture,
that is one expression of the statement, “The
law is written upon their hearts.” They
can recognize it.
Right now we seem to be in a downturn where
they’re even rejecting that, which is really
sad to see, but I also think that where those
things are still intact in people, we should
seize on that as a gospel exposition moment
and opportunity that the Lord himself has
given us.
Emily: Paul even says, when he uses that line
that you just quoted, that the law is written
on their hearts in Romans 1 and 2, it’s
there and they see it and it condemns them.
Greg: Let me throw in a couple things here.
First of all, what Paul actually says is the
work of the law – the effect of the law
– not the law in its totality is there,
because that’s one of the central points
of the gospel, the new covenant, as it’s
described in Jeremiah and Hebrews, that the
Holy Spirit writes his law cleanly and freshly
upon our hearts.
But insofar as yes, there is this sense echoed
in their conscience that Paul comes at in
another way in Romans 2, saying if you make
a moral judgment you condemn yourself, because
the moment you say “That’s wrong” you’ve
admitted there’s a right and wrong, and
you know you’ve broken your own conscience,
your own standard, so you are guilty.
Traditionally, this has been referred to in
Reformed theology not as natural law but as
natural revelation or general revelation.
Natural law tends to be something rooted in
Stoicism and then on through Aquinas and such,
where there is something abstract in the universe
itself and in the mind and logic of man that
we can access without scripture, and that
is just as accurate as scripture, and, as
you suggested, more commonly appreciated so
that we can leave the Bible behind. I know
that none of us plan on that, and that’s
sort of the point of all these questions.
As Bryan said, that’s not working so well
anymore. When I was growing up, I barely knew
what homosexuality was. I knew it from the
Bible, but you didn’t see it portrayed nightly
on television programs or Netflix. Abortion
on demand was just becoming a thing. The death
penalty was still operative for murderers.
I’ve lived through a rapidly changing world,
and the appeal of “No, that’s wrong!”
is finding less and less resonance as our
culture degenerates.
Back to at least the intent of my question.
Have we as Christians just kind of thrown
up our hands and said, “Well, we have the
Bible for ourselves, for our families, for
our churches, and for basic simple things,
but it obviously has failed our broader culture
because no one listens. So if we’re going
to interact with the culture, we have to go
play on their turf, on their grounds, and
maybe we’ll do some good, maybe not.”
Are we equipping the next generation of Christians
to interact with the culture based on scripture
rather than on something else?
We look back on Noah. Noah wanted his descendants
to believe the Bible, such as they had it,
and they didn’t and we got Babel instead.
Bryan: Just to drive home something that came
to mind as you were describing that, the general
downturn that we’re seeing in the west,
at the very least, isn’t anything new. This
all happened in Rome and in Greece. All of
this has happened before and all of it will
happen again… but rejecting the cyclical
view of time. It’s not anything new. It’s
something the Church has addressed before,
and been quite successful in addressing, and
that should give us at least a little bit
of optimism.
Greg: That brings me to my next question for
you. This strange new planet in Star Trek
fastened on the gangs of Chicago as their
Bible. As Christians we would hope that the
Bible is what we take to be the guide for
all of life, for all of culture, for all of
society.
But if we believe that, and if reading and
writing are so important because the Bible
is a book that we have to read, then probably
someplace along the line we should produce
secondary books in light of that – fallible
human books written by sinners, not inspired,
but that nonetheless reflect in some measure
the worldview of the Bible, and that can be
wedges or bridges from a world that’s falling
apart, like Greece, like the late Middle Ages
and Renaissance, like our own age, into the
next step up, avoiding a cyclical view of
history.
We’ve slipped. The godly man falls seven
times and rises again. So I would like us
to talk about books, and of course no one
here ever wants to talk about books.
Emily: Oh no. We hate talking about books.
Bryan: That sounds so boring!
Emily: What do you think we are – nerds?
Greg: Bryan was mentioning Rome and Greece,
the collapses of classic civilization, and
aside from the Bible, the great book that
shifted people’s thinking was Augustine’s
City of God. It was written at the time when
Rome was still collapsing, and Augustine first
of all had to answer the libelous charge that
this was all Christians’ fault somehow.
If they hadn’t come along and seduced us
away from our old gods, then things would
be much better.
Augustine has to say, “You mean the gods
of fallen Troy that had to be carried by hand
to found this new Rome of yours? Those gods?”
But then he goes on beyond that and discusses
the difference between fatalism on the one
hand, and--well, Locke--contingency on the
other hand, and argues for the sovereignty
of God in history. Then he simply proceeds
to say, “And here’s the history of the
world.”
You won’t find things like linear history
or philosophy of history in his writings.
He just tells us what happened, and it was
culture-shattering and culture-transforming.
Here we have a story, a real history. It begins
at creation, moves in a direction towards
the coming of Jesus, and then opens up from
there to the ends of the earth until Jesus
comes back and ends the story.
Again, he didn’t talk about plot, but now
we have history with a plot – a beginning,
a purpose, rising action, mysteries to be
solved, and then finally the revelation of
God in Christ and the victory of the gospel.
That in time utterly transformed the West,
and you mentioned also I think the Middle
Ages.
We can look here at Calvin’s great work,
Institutes of the Christian Religion. From
that book we get England, the Scotch Presbyterians,
the English Puritans, the Anglicans, the American
pilgrims and Puritans. We get the Republic
of the Netherlands, the Republic of South
Africa, ultimately the United States in large
measure.
These were both culturally-transforming books.
A question then becomes 1) have Christians
written other books that have that same potential?
2) do they even think like that? 3) if you
were stranded on a desert island or being
rocketed by a starship into a new world, what
three books would you take with you?
We will grandfather in the Bible so we can
all say that. Yes, we’re going to take the
Bible, obviously. We’re Christians. But
what else? What are your thoughts, people?
Bryan: Let’s go over the questions again.
Emily: That was a lot.
Greg: Are there books today that have been
written along these lines? Do Christians look
for such books? Do they read such books? And
what books would you recommend to people who
want to start thinking long-term into the
next several generations? Pick anything there
that grabs your fancy.
Emily: The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey.
I’m only half-joking. In order to accomplish
things, you need money, and in order to have
money you have to not spend it. You have to
work and then you have to spend it or invest
it wisely. That’s how you build something
that you can really use and, if you’re really
wise with it, that generations after you can
use.
I think Christians often want to be super-spiritual
and say, “Oh, you know, I’m not materialistic.
I don’t need a lot in life,” but think
what you could do if you used what you had
in such a way as to get more, so you can give
more. That’s a long-term thing.
Greg: That’s quite good. In my econ class
the question used to be, “What would you
do with a million dollars?” The first time
I asked that question, the kids’ answer
was, “Spend it all,” and we found they
couldn’t spend it all. Their imaginations
were not big enough. They ran out of things
to spend it on. When you’re getting another
bag of chocolate bars and you still have $100,000
left, there’s a problem here. But as the
years have gone by, more and more are getting
the idea of, “Oh, investing would be good.”
There are still those kids who say, “But
I want to give things to my church or to this
or that missionary organization,” which
is fine as far as it goes, particularly if
they have pressing needs now. I would scribble
a little note, “How much more could you
give if you took that same money and invested
it to produce a constant stream of income
over the next 20, 30, or 40 years? You’d
be able to keep on giving.” That seems kind
of a startling thought to some of them. I’m
not sure that some of them even yet quite
get what I’m saying.
Paul, when he sums up, “Thou shall not steal”
says, “Let him that stole steal no more,
but rather let him labor with his hands the
thing that is good, that he may have to give
to him that needeth.”
Paul says, “Thou shall not steal” means
1) stop stealing in whatever form, 2) work
hard, 3) have it – “so that he may have
to give.” He’s got to have it. He’s
got to be not spending it foolishly. But there
is this practical charity, too. You have it,
and one of the things you’re going to do
in having it is give it to the deserving poor,
people who actually need it who cannot provide
for themselves.
It would be nice if some Christian wrote – and
maybe someone has and I’m just not coming
up with it right now, or maybe some of the
books that I know of just haven’t received
the credit they deserve – but it would be
nice if someone could write a culture-changing
book along those lines, so I think you’re
certainly onto something.
Bryan, what book comes to your mind?
Bryan: Books that I would recommend bringing
– it feels obligatory as well, but definitely
Lord of the Rings has got to be on the list,
and I have the 1-volume edition, so it only
counts as one.
Emily: Tolkien meant it as one as well.
Bryan: That’s true. And because these are
technically three different books, even though
they’re a trilogy, I will limit myself to
only That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis.
And this is my broken record sound from last
week, but definitely Stephen Lawhead’s Taliesin,
and any other of the books that I had time
to grab as well I will take on the boat with
me.
Then one that I couldn’t find on my shelf,
but I know that I own, is one that you mentioned
earlier, City of God by Saint Augustine.
Greg: Let me just pick one there. Most Christians
know Lewis and even if they haven’t read
that particular novel, the name C.S. Lewis
somehow sanctifies it, but Christians are
more suspicious of Tolkien, especially once
they find out he was Roman Catholic. Why would
you pick that book? Let’s justify it to
a listening world.
Bryan: I would be hard-pressed to think of
another storybook that was written with such
a care for internal consistency and theme
and the beauty of the creation itself and
its redeemability than Lord of the Rings.
I would say that the majority of Christian
fiction that I’ve read has fallen prey to
more than its own fair share of Gnosticism,
wherein the villains of the piece are basically
the worldly people. It’s like a Jack Chick
tract made into a novel.
Greg: I didn’t know you even knew him.
Bryan: Unfortunately.
Emily: I’m in the dark, but that’s okay.
Bryan: You’re lucky – IFB, teetotaling,
Satanic panic of the 80s, etc.
But Tolkien, in addition to the strong cultural
influences that he took and sanctifying them
from ancient Europe – for instance, the
Rohirrim are based heavily on the Saxons – Tolkien
wrote a story wherein the universe is created
out of a song. Songs are just words put to
music, and we’re talking about words and
we’re talking about books.
It feels like Tolkien kind of understood something
about creation and its inherent order and
beauty that a lot of others in today’s age
especially don’t. They look to creation
and they don’t see beauty and order, they
see chaos. Tolkien realized that any chaos
is our own fault. That’s why I would choose
Tolkien.
Emily: If I can just add to that, I love how
in Tolkien’s world there’s such a diversity
of beauties, that the Elves have their beauty,
the Dwarves have their beauty, the Men have
their beauty, the Hobbits have the best beauty
of all. It’s sort of this permission, if
we’re talking about using this to build
a civilization, to be different, to explore
different ways of being beautiful.
Greg: Excellent, thank you. Emily, your choices?
Emily: This one is not by a Christian, but
I think it’s important in a day where individualism
might be lost. That’s Jordan Peterson’s
12 Rules for Life. “Stand up straight with
your shoulders back.” That’s the one of
these three books that I’ve actually read,
so these other two are caveated heavily.
I didn’t exactly figure that Bryan would
choose three fiction books, but I struggle
to read more fiction always. I always just
find myself reading biographies and self-help
books because that’s what’s fun to me,
so I don’t have any fiction here, which
I recognize as a lack.
My next book is The Great Tradition. This
is like a retroactive doing what we’re doing
here, with building a civilization. This is
a collection of readings on the Western heritage
– what has shaped the civilization that
we have. If I were to board a starship and
have to carry something that tells me, in
addition to the Bible, where we came from,
this is a book that I would take. It’s edited
by Richard Gamble, who was my academic advisor
in college, so that’s special, too.
Then lastly I have this book that no one has
ever heard of except for the people who gave
it to me. This is called A Pattern Language:
Towns, Buildings, Construction. It’s about
making your ideas of beauty and community
physical in buildings and things. I look forward
to reading it, except that it’s very long.
Greg: This is a problem because….?
Emily: Because I’m only halfway through
The Gulag Archipelago. I don’t want to read
another long book.
Greg: How about putting The Gulag on your
list?
Emily: Oh, that’s true. I should replace
12 Rules for Life with that.
Greg: I would go for that myself.
Emily: But I’ve only read half of it, and
I’ve read all of 12 Rules for Life, and
I feel like I should have read something that
I recommend.
Greg: From my family I get a number of other
recommendations. My daughter Emily, who is
a medievalist, recommends The Aeneid, The
Divine Comedy, and The Complete Works of Shakespeare
in One Volume.
My youngest recommended “all the technical
guides you can think of” and a good solid
book on poetry.
My wife, taking a very different tact, says,
“Well, we could always pick all the books
by the great dictators of history, starting
with Julius Caesar’s Gallic Wars, Machiavelli,
Castiglione, The Communist Manifesto.” That
would be an interesting way of picking books,
to be sure.
My middle daughter wasn’t home so I’m
not sure what she would say, but she would
go for most certainly fiction because that’s
her strong point, or theology.
Emily: Maybe something on resolving conflict
among people, because we’ve got the prophet
and the king, and we need some priestly recommendations
here.
Greg: If she were nearby I would ask her.
She’s certainly my priestly character, and
you’re right. That’s what we need here.
We need something for making life work, reconciling
differences and problems among people.
I’ll be honest. I’ve thought this over
again and again and I keep coming up with
what you suggested. There are too many books
and none of them seem to be exactly what we
need for this hour. I still plan to fall back
on Calvin’s Institutes, and even possibly
on The City of God. The Westminster Confession
with its various attachments – longer and
shorter catechisms and such – comes to mind.
And its language at points is extremely beautiful.
For a greater depth of beauty I would say
The Book of Common Prayer and a good solid
Psalter/hymnal with singable tunes would be
very important, because the worship of the
church will be at the heart of a Christian
civilization so we need to get that nailed
down. But we want to go beyond that too into
describing ordinary life and what it might
look like.
In 2004, a British author and critic named
Martin Seymour Smith published a list of the
“100 most influential books ever written.”
He doesn’t mention City of God, but he does
mention The Institutes. The interesting thing
I think for our purposes is that after Calvin
and Luther, the only explicit Christian book
that he puts on the list is Pilgrim’s Progress,
which is a devotional manual written in allegorical
terms about a man who apparently abandoned
his family and never had a job! It would be
easy to say, “Well, he’s a secularist
and he’s not giving Christians their due,”
but I think at that point we need to step
back and say, “Where exactly is he slighting
us?”
I mentioned The Communist Manifesto. There’s
a book that changed the world, and Critique
of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant, and Adam
Smith’s Wealth of Nations. There are a host
of books that have altered the world’s culture,
and very few of them were written by Christians.
Shall we chalk that one up too to God’s
predestination? God just hasn’t predestinated
that any of us should be good authors, just
as he hasn’t predestinated to save very
many people? Or may that be a lack in our
vision and understanding of creation? Maybe
should we be working at reading more, reading
deeper, and reading longer, and then maybe
at some point actually writing something of
substance, rather than with an eye to just
the next 4 or 5 years.
Bryan: One thing I would also suggest is taking
an idea from a little bit later in the scriptures
in Exodus. We should not be afraid to “plunder
the Egyptians.” The unbelieving line mastered
metallurgy, as you so succinctly pointed out
at the beginning of this episode. We shouldn’t
conclude from that that metallurgy is now
Satanic.
I specifically mentioned at the start of this
that if you were going to be starting a civilization
you should consider bringing along The Basics
of Blacksmithing. Blacksmithing is not evil
because the line of Cain figured it out first.
Greg: Or because it has the word ‘black’
in it.
Bryan: Oh no. We are part of the kingdom of
light. Black is dark, and darkness is Satan’s
realm, right?
Greg: We have had families question our use
of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in
our curriculum because of the word ‘witch’
– not so much because there’s a witch
in the story, as we explain, “No, she’s
the bad guy,” but no, “It says ‘witch’
and our children shouldn’t be reading a
book that says ‘witch.’”
It’s not so far removed from other American-rooted
Christians who look at things and say, “There’s
magic there. There’s dragons there. There’s
elves there.”
Bryan: “They referenced wine.”
Greg: To be sure. “There was wine here.
That guy smoked a pipe. That’s tobacco.”
Emily: “This film is now rated R because
people smoke in it.”
Greg: We can mock that, but there are people
who are Christians – and we need to be gentle
with them as best we can – but we can’t
let that set the standard for, as you say,
plundering the Egyptians and finding the things
that do reflect the basic dominion mandate,
the dominion drive that God has placed in
all people.
When the children of Israel came into the
Promised Land, they were told, “There are
some things you must not touch. You must destroy
them, burn them, grind them to pieces.”
These were idols and religious artifacts,
but the houses, the vineyards, the wells – use
them.
When you think of all of Paul’s writings
on Christian liberty with meats offered to
idols, some things that come out of a pagan
culture bring their paganism with them, but
not everything.
Emily: And even the idols, when they’re
melted down, that gold was to adorn the temple
of God. The gold itself, after being refined,
was not tainted by its former purpose.
Greg: If I remember correctly, if it came
directly from idols they were to get rid of
it, but if it was simply something the Egyptians
had, then absolutely. The gold that built
the golden calf was from the earrings that
were symbols of their subjection in Egypt.
“Here is a mark that you were slaves to
the empire.”
“Okay, let’s take it. Oh wait, we made
a golden calf.” What they should have done
is exactly what you said, and later they would.
They would take the rest of their plunder
and spoil and turn it into the tabernacle.
There are Christians today who I think would
be horrified at that. “But that was from
pagans, and you don’t know where it’s
been, and you don’t know what it’s touched.”
Paul’s answer is, “And don’t ask. Just
use it. The earth is the Lord’s and the
fullness thereof.” If it’s not carrying
its idolatrous qualifications on its surface,
then it’s useable. Melt it down and do something
productive with it.
Therefore, as Christians we have to be particularly
careful in the areas of worship, liturgy,
and of theology and, in a broader sense, of
philosophy. But definite integrals and laws
of Newtonian mechanics – even here there’s
a danger, but the formulas work. The nice
atheist grandma next door who makes the best
apple crisp in the world – you can use her
recipe. It’s not tainted by her atheism.
Let’s get something that she’s come up
with and bless God’s people with it.
The problem, of course, is all of this takes
work, especially when it comes to books, because
you’ve got to read them and you’ve got
to process them and you have to have the theological
mindset to know what you’re looking for.
I have taken a lot of flak from one particular
individual with regard to the books I require
of my juniors and seniors. We don’t introduce
these books at the lower grades to any great
extent, but when you get to World Lit we do
Epic of Gilgamesh, Enuma Elish, The Iliad,
The Aeneid, and then when you get into the
Middle Ages we have Dante and the Norse mythologies.
I have been accused of polluting the minds
of my students by having them read these things.
Bryan: Did they prepare hemlock for you to
drink?
Greg: Corrupting the minds of the youth and…anyway.
My response traditionally has been one of
two things. First of all, we don’t introduce
these things until they’ve had 11 years
of Bible – biblical theology and systematics
and actually reading the text of scripture
and getting it in their minds and hearts and
memories. Secondly, I would rather have them
read these things with me, because they’re
about to go to college, where they most certainly
will be introduced to these things. They better
have read them from a Christian perspective
first, or the enemy can play all kinds of
havoc with their minds.
Paul knew and quoted the Stoic poets without
apology, but he didn’t let them determine
his theology. The warning of course is always,
“Be careful. Be very careful.” We’re
not as smart or as sanctified as we think
we are.
Emily: Even the Bible was written by sinners,
but it’s inspired so it gets a pass, but
every other book in the world is written by
a sinner, whether it’s Christian or secular.
It just kind of comes with reading – the
job of discernment.
Bryan: And it’s worth just reminding myself
and you three and all of our listeners, one
of the weaknesses I see in the Reformed church
is that we often forget that the Holy Spirit
is active in us now. That’s partially an
over-reaction. I see it in myself a lot because
I came out of Pentecostalism so it’s kind
of like, “Oh, you’re talking about the
Spirit? No, ewww! Oh wait, he’s God. I forgot.
I’m sorry.”
We need to fight against that because he is
co-eternal with God the Father and God the
Son. God the Holy Spirit is in every believer
and is there to provide us discernment. We
should pray and ask for it. It’s not like
turn your mind off and let the Spirit do the
discerning for you. It’s, “Lord, I humbly
ask that you come alongside me and support
me in this and give me the undergirding discernment
to know what is right and wrong, and to find
the good things in this.”
Emily: James says God will give wisdom to
him who asks for it.
Greg: And the wisdom itself is predicated
upon how much of the Bible we’ve actually
read. On the one hand, as a response against
your former Pentecostalism, God does not just
poof in new knowledge out of nowhere, but
he will quicken and make use of whatever we’ve
committed ourselves to learning and submitting
to. So when we want more wisdom, yes, we ask,
but we also read the Bible more.
In the midst of all this, one of the weaknesses
that I find oftentimes – by no means universal
– in the Reformed community is we don’t
know our Bibles well enough. We can’t go
back and forth, and not as a matter of Bible
trivia but simply as a book we’ve read so
many times that of course we recognize what
to others are obscure references or quotations
or allusions, because it’s the language
and the thought patterns we live and breathe.
As we close out talking about books, let’s
remind everybody to go back to the Bible.
As Schaeffer would say in the classic children’s
hymn, “Back to the Bible. Back to the Word
of God.”
Emily: Schaeffer – we left him out of our
recommendations.
Bryan: I almost grabbed The God Who is There.
Emily: How Should We Then Live? That’s relevant.
Greg: Or Dr. Van Til. There are a lot of people
we could have added, but we just don’t want
to stir up a hornet’s nest right now. “But
what about when he said this and this?”
Yeah, we’ve got that.
Bryan: Speaking of stirring up hornets’
nests, I know I don’t like him and I know
that a lot of others don’t, but one of my
absolute favorite quotes is when somebody
came to Karl Barth and asked him, “Professor
Barth, what is the most profound truth from
the scripture? What would you share? What
is this deep truth?” and he goes, “Jesus
loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells
me so.”
Greg: To counter-balance that, when Dr. Van
Til was asked by a Hollywood actor, who was
himself a Christian, John Quade, “Dr. Van
Til, why do you say all of these incredibly
profound things?” and Van Til looked at
him and said, “Because the Bible tells me
so.”
Same Bible – what Barth got out of it and
what Dr. Van Til got out of it were probably
not remotely the same thing.
Emily: I think they had a conversation or
two about it.
Greg: We’re talking about the Bible read
in the context of the theology of the church
catholic, not stuff made up in the moment
of existential crisis – the real Bible,
the Bible where God speaks to us in the power
of the Spirit, but he also speaks to every
other believer, so that what we get is a covenantal
communal message that is objectively true,
that we can verify by appeal both to scripture
and to the writings and lives of those who’ve
laid down their lives for the faith.
That seems like a good place to stop.
Emily: It does. I think we’ll skip recommendations,
unless you have something that’s not a book
to add.
Bryan: I do have a “not a book” recommendation,
and I’m glad that I didn’t give it last
week. I would recommend this movie. Just check
the parent’s guide. I think there’s some
strong language in it. It’s Jojo Rabbit,
directed by Taika Waititi. It’s actually
a fantastic movie. I saw it on the advice
of a friend who had gone to see it, and it
is brilliant and hilarious and heartbreaking
and all of the emotions at once, basically.
Like any movie that’s a comedy set during
World War II, it can kind of flip-flop on
you really quick, so there’s multiple moments
like that, and absurd juxtapositions of ideas
next to each other that kind of point out
the absurdity of things like Nazism. I would
recommend it. It’s very good.
Emily: Cool. I’m going to recommend “The
Houseplant Song” by Audio Adrenaline, which
is what I was referencing earlier that Greg
was unhappily not privy to. It’s a lighthearted
recommendation, but it does deal with these
themes that we’ve been talking about – about
the evils of rock and roll, etc.
Thank you so much for this conversation. It’s
been so fun and it’s always a treat to know
what’s on your bookshelves.
Thanks to David, our producer and my lawfully-wedded
husband. Thanks to our listeners and supporters.
We really appreciate you. We couldn’t do
this without you. Share us in-person or on
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you can Like it. You can leave us a review
on iTunes. Send us an email at haltingtowardzion@gmail.com
and check out our show notes and transcripts
for any links to things that we have mentioned.
See you next time.
