The Institutes of the Christian Religion (John Calvin)

In his prefatory address to Francis I, King of France, Calvin explains that the whole matter hinges on the Papacy's belief that the church was visible, and that the visible form was the church of Rome and its hierarchy, whereas Calvin and the reformers believed that "the church may exist without any apparent form, and, moreover, that the form is not ascertained by that external splendor which they foolishly admire, but by a very different mark, namely, by the pure preaching of the word of God, and the due administration of the sacraments" (Calvin xxix). This put Calvin in a position to present a book, the Institutes of the Christian Religion, in which he engages the norm of his day with the word of God. He argues aggressively, and each doctrine which he presents or which he challenges will be joined with a wall of well thought out Scripture, and also with a wall of quotes from church fathers. The magnitude of Calvin's knowledge and sharpness of mind makes the Institutes quite a compelling read.

The book is outlined as an exposition of the Apostles' Creed, and is organized by explanations of God the Creator, God the Redeemer, God the Sanctifier, and the Holy Catholic Church.

While there are countless subjects which he expands on, I will comment on five that really shaped me:

Idolatry

"... whenever [Scripture's] object is to discriminate between the true God and false deities, it opposes him in particular to idols; not that it approves of what is taught more elegantly and subtly by philosophers, but that it may the better expose the folly, no, madness of the world and its inquiries after God, so long as everyone clings to his own speculations. This exclusive definition, which we uniformly meet with in Scripture, annihilates every deity which men frame for themselves of their own accord-God himself being the only fit witness to himself" (Book I. Ch 11.1) .

Calvin presents an extremely holistic view of humanity through this lens of idolatry. There are those who are without the revelation of the true, living God in Jesus Christ as witnessed in Scripture and those who create their own gods. The default human position apart from this revelation is idolatry: "the human mind is, so to speak, a perpetual forge of idols."

Faith

His discussion on faith is the basic framework for what Edwards presents in Religious Affections, namely, that "happen what may, faith ceases not to long after God" (Book III. Ch 2.24). Just like Edwards, Calvin linked true faith to real affection for Christ as he is revealed in the word:

"There is an inseparable relation between faith and the word, and that these can no more be disconnected from each other than rays of light from the sun" (Book III. Ch 2.6).

"Faith consists in the knowledge of Christ; Christ cannot be known without the sanctification of his Spirit: therefore faith cannot possibly be disjoined from pious affection" (Book III. Ch 2.8)

Meditating on the Future Life

One smaller part of the book that is quite profound is his discourse on the future life. Humanity has become so fascinated with the temporal things around them - all of which are finite and slipping away: "... we form all our plans just as if we had fixed our immortality on the earth" (Book III. Ch 9.2). He calls the Christian to wake up to the reality of this fading world and live in the light of the eternal world to come. He understands this present life as perpetual exile: "If we reflect that by death we are recalled from exile to inhabit our native country, a heavenly country, shall this give us no comfort? But everything longs for permanent existence. I admit this, and therefore contend that we ought to look to future immortality, where we may obtain that fixed condition which nowhere appears on the earth" (Book III. Ch 9.5).

Prayer

The chapter on prayer is perhaps one of the most compelling parts of the book: "To know God as the sovereign disposer of all good, inviting us to present our requests, and yet not to approach or ask of him, were so far from availing us, that it were just as if one told of a treasure were to allow it to remain buried in the ground" (Book III. Ch 20.1).

In this chapter he has a section in which he does an exposition of the Lord's prayer. This part expresses a theme which runs seamlessly throughout the book beneath the surface, namely, the paternal care of God. The prayer significantly begins with the declaration that God in heaven is a Father, and "not only a Father, but the best and most merciful of all fathers, however ungrateful, rebellious, and wicked sons we may be..." (Book III. Ch 20.37).

Election

Calvin's discussion on election requires the reader to really think through their paradigms of existence. Calvin believed (along with Augustine) that God has predestined some to eternal life and some to eternal damnation:

"By predestination we mean the eternal decree of God, by which he determined with himself whatever he wished to happen with regard to every man. All are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation" (Book III. Ch 21.5).

He faces the obvious human objection: "... to devote to destruction whomsoever he pleases, more resembles the caprice of a tyrant than the legal sentence of judge." Calvin's response to this is to argue that this presupposes a standard of righteousness which is higher than God himself. Yet "the will of God is the supreme rule of righteousness, so that everything which he wills must be held to be righteous by the mere fact of his willing it" (Book III. Ch 23.2). In other words, the only reason we know a thing to be good or righteous in the first place is because the thing is consistent with the will of God. What would the higher standard for goodness and righteousness be? What law is it by which God must abide so that he is consistent with righteousness?

The implication of this is not a bummer. The implication is that we may trust that while these things indeed seem impossible to grasp - how he could predestine a soul to hell, and at the same time that soul willingly rejects him and resists his paternal care - but we must not fix these things with nice systems. We must presuppose that God is truly good, and he truly may elect whom he will for salvation.

If the doctrine of double predestination brings your heart to a kind of rage, you will still be able to enjoy the Institutes. The doctrine of election only makes up about 44 out of about 1000 pages (although he does allude to it throughout the book).

Calvin's Institutes offers a holistic vision of humanity through the lens of the reformation. This is a theology book. It is about ultimate reality, and it is 1000 pages of compelling argument that the meaning of all reality and every human being is the glory of God in Jesus Christ, the living Word, as witnessed by Scripture, the written Word.

Pornland (Gail Dines)

When we hear about social justice issues such as sex-trafficking in Southeast Asia and injustice toward children in Africa, it is easy to dismiss these as impossible overseas problems. But pornography isn't overseas, and it is a monster too. We are living in "pornland," Gail Dines says. "Ironically, pornography has become almost invisible by virtue of its very ubiquity" (Dines 163). Her book tracks the steady increase of pornography from its beginnings in Playboy andPenthouse to the brutality of "gonzo," a genre of porn that has become very much the mainstream, and which thrives on brutal degradation of women. The power of the porn industry is staggering. It paves the way for technological advances (Dines 48-47).

Dines shows that critical to the success of the earlier pornographers was the casting of the "implied viewer." Playboy attempted to portray a rich, cultured sort of man as a viewer (thus the cultural articles that went along with the magazine), while interestingly Hustler portrayed the viewer as "someone to be either avoided or ridiculed, certainly not someone to identify with" (Dines 17). Viewers must have such justification to look at pornography. The viewer's self image must continually be maintained as the norm, in one way or another. Porn has effectively created a believable world for viewers to live in, which comes in a seriously sharp contrast to the real world, but, nevertheless, has also shaped the real world we live in so that it fits the world of porn. "By editing out those women who refuse to cooperate, GGW [Girls Gone Wild] creates a closed world where everybody seems only too willing to perform sexually for the camera" (Dines 31).

Jenna Jameson is the first pornstar to achieve celebrity status, and culture has paraded her as the typical pornstar, who out of her own free will has chosen to express her sexuality through such a career. She is "an image of a highly sexual woman who luckily finds her niche in porn" (Dines 35). Dines presents several interviews with Jameson which reveal that she has an utterly split personality. One side attempts to remain consistent with this image. But digging deeper one finds that she had suffered abuse as a child and early adult, that she was neglected by her father, that she was later raped by an abusive boyfriend, that this boyfriend coerced her into stripping, etc. For Jameson, the path toward pornography was abusive and full of deceit, contrary to the image the industry would wish to portray.

One of the most difficult parts of Dines' book to read is the quotes from blogs and forums in which fans of gonzo porn sites express their opinions about various productions. So naive are these fans, that when they come across parts in gonzo films that seem "obviously too much for her," they are disappointed at the possibility that these women might in fact be acting. This demonstrates the depth of numbness viewers have reached in a desperate attempt to live in and believe the false reality which pornland has created: "If porn performers truly don't like what is happening to them, then the fantasy that users have erected about women and porn begins to crumble..." (Dines 67).

Dines' book is extremely graphic (to warn, if you consider reading). She discusses also the systematic dehumanization of women (and men, actually) in porn, the consistent pattern of a decline toward more and more violent and taboo porn among users, the utterly racist world within porn, etc.

This holistic overview of the industry (by a nonreligious feminist) has kindled within me a passion for purity and holiness, and a passion to fight pornography together with my brothers and sisters. The most powerful weapon to fight against pornography is to expose it, to call it what it is, to bring it to the light: "Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light" (Eph 5:11-14). Brothers and sisters must have open conversations about the struggle, the insecurity, the shame, the sin.

Fight against pornography, because it - unlike the social justice issues in Africa or Southeast Asia - is all around us. Not that we cannot address these other issues, but we do indeed live in pornland. I would suggest that this is one of the most important parts of Christian holiness and sanctification. Pornography is a subject which involves Christians as men and women, as sexual beings - the very part of our identity which proclaims the image of God in human beings (Gen 1:27). The reason that pornography is so evil is because sexuality is so good. This universe is about a Bridegroom's love for his Bride, and this story is engraved into our identity as men and women in our sexuality, and thus our sexuality is infinitely precious and must be protected at all cost (Eph 5:22-33).

How are you fighting pornography? Do you view it yourself? Do you turn a blind eye to it? Have you become numb to it? Are you praying for those in your life who view it? Are you discipling men or women who struggle with it? Are you naive about it? do you understand it?

"But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints" (Eph 5:3).

"Come, Lord Jesus!" (Rev 22:20)

The Hobbit

"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." - Thorin

The Hobbit is a book about thirteen dwarves and a hobbit who go on adventure over mountains, through woods, past goblins, spiders, down rivers, etc., in order to reach the mountain where the dwarves used to live, and where their treasure still was, in which the dragon Smaug now lived since he had driven the dwarves out years ago. Their plan is to steal back the treasure. This treasure is the goal which drives the plot along. Bilbo, the hobbit, is much more fond of food, tea, smoking his pipe, and the likes, and cannot sympathize with the dwarves' drive to regain their treasure. Bilbo is a little hobbit, perhaps the most insignificant character in the face of the powerful forces of the dwarves, the elves, the goblins, Smaug, the men, all whom are caught up in a power struggle with the treasure at the center. Bilbo's character becomes a profound proclamation that the wars and worries of men, dwarves, and elves, are often over nothing of real importance. Pride has grasped the best of them, and caused them to run blindly toward a power which will bring them no satisfaction at all. His humility and desire for simplicity is a bright light in their world.

Stories involve tension and conflict, which rises in pain and struggle, and which eventually resolves. The Hobbit is about going through the Wilderness, coming up out of Egypt; it is about the necessity of darkness to prove the light. The dwarves needed to be captured and poisoned by spiders, and nearly eaten, and saved by Bilbo before they learned to trust him; the men, the elves, the dwarves, needed to be invaded by the goblins and their worgs before they learned to trust each other; the men in Laketown needed to be attacked by Smaug before the corruption of the Master was exposed, and they were able to put in his place a man like Bard, who had the true heart of a king; and Bilbo must go on an adventure before "the sound of the kettle on his heart was ever after more musical than it had been even in the quiet days before the Unexpected Party."

Merry Christmas everybody. The person and work of Jesus is the true story. All other stories are just cheap imitations, even The Hobbit.