Sooner omnipresence

As I look forward to the Sooners beating Missouri tonight for the Big 12 Championship, I realize this season has been different from all other seasons for me as a fan. I've typically only watched OU games in the past, but this year, due to the ranking system, I've realized that the Sooners have been playing "in spirit" in every game, even when/where they are not taking the field. As a result, I've watched many more college games this year, routing for "our" team, in matches like Texas A&M vs Texas, and Kansas vs. LSU.

Thanksgiving newsletter

Beloved,

I have much to be thankful for this year. My Thanksgiving newsletter highlights just a few of them:

http://www.opcnorman.org/Wycliffe/EricPyle/newsletters/heart_lang_exp_nov07.pdf
(also downloadable here)
http://www.opcnorman.org/Wycliffe/EricPyle/#Communications

• Fieldworks Thanksgiving
• Book Ends (seminary)
• Check IT Out in Hudson Valley, NY
• Important new partership opportunity (financial need)
• Prayer requests

Thankfully yours in Him,

Eric D. Pyle

ps. If you're using Acrobat Reader 7.0, clicking on my email "eric_pyle@wycliffe.org" at the bottom of the pdf seems to result in "pyle@wycliffe.org" which is incorrect. Please use "eric_pyle@wycliffe.org".

Webpage : http://www.opcNorman.org/Wycliffe/EricPyle/
Personal Address : 1520 Bradford St, Irving, TX 75061 (469-222-2865)
Wycliffe Bible Translators : P.O. Box 628200, Orlando, Florida 32862-8200

[PTC 301-Ed Welch] What are five distinctive features of biblical counseling? (final exam study guide)

1. What are the distinctive features of biblical counseling?
**Make one of those features its approach to secular literature.

1) Coram Deo - Regardless of circumstances, we live all of life before God (and His word).
· God has spoken, not in every detail of life, but to the heart of every human problem.
§ **Open to reading all secular literature, but Scripture as foundation/standard over all.
§ We don’t live in a bifurcated world Or a tripart body.
People’s actions/attitudes towards others say something about their relationship to God.
God speaks profoundly on these issues and accessibly.
2) Christ and Him crucified is the answer to all counseling problems.
· The deepest human problem is sin, not suffering.
· Suffering has become the solution for becoming truly human in a world of sin
3) All people are essentially the same, and struggle with the same basic problems.
Mystifying cases have some root connection to these basic human problems.
4) Our approach is profound and highly accessible. A child can do it.
5) Active heart. Battlefield for worship. Progressive sanctification.

[PTC 301-Ed Welch] ANOREXIA: final exam study guide - outline

5) Anorexia

a) Brief Description
• Anorexia is an expression of the heart to refuse to be in need, and a desire to be in control.

b) The Most important Question/Feature/Issue to consider
Control. A person uses food to find a system how to do life apart from God and apart from others. It’s a secret world where a person is their own god.

c) Issues you need to be particularly alert to in your relationship with the counselee
• Perfectionism/Legalism. They are burdened by expectations and laws of other people. They want a world where they can set their own laws.
• Privacy. They want a world under their control apart from others. Eating has a public social dimension with its own customs/expectations.

d) One significant biblical text relevant to the problem area, why the text is relevant.
• Galatians 2: withdrawal from table fellowship.

e) A biblical conceptualization (Causes? Roots?)
• Attention.
• Sexlessness. I want to get rid of my feminity.
• A means to be in control. Victim to being overly-controlled.
• Guilt – self-punishment.

f) Two homework assignments showing awareness of uniqueness of the problem.
1) Asking them to pray publically acknowledging their need for Jesus.
2) Set small goals to gradually increase food eating and eating with others.

g) Your basic method of approach

1) Have they been victimized? How does has life been treating you?
2) Talk about God – offer a path/vision to come along side.
His sovereignty/sufficiency vs. autonomy/legalisms.
They don’t need laws/structure.
They need Jesus.
His grace in establishing righteousness vs. perfectionism.
His beauty vs. beauty is only physical.

revised chiastic structure for Sermon on the Mount

Here is my revised chiastic structure for the Sermon on the Mount. I'm not sure it's possible to be satisfied with one, since there seems to be multiple overlapping parallels.

[4:23-25] <Narrative> Great crowds follow Jesus for healing.
A. [5.01-02] <Narrative> - He ascends to catechize his disciples.

B. [5:03-10] Final blessing-mercy-peace for persecuted bearers of God's rule in Christ

C. [5:11-16] New covenant prophets/priests/kings to yield God's glory among men

D. [5:17- 48] Christ came to fulfill the Law and the Prophets in us.

E. [6:01-18] Give, Pray, Fast in secret towards our Father.
E. [6:19-34] Store-up treasure in heaven / Seek first His Kingdom.

D. [7:01-12] Do unto others...for this is the Law and the Prophets.

C. [7:13-20] Beware of false prophets known by their fruits

B. [7:21-27] Final destruction for those who turn away from Christ's word

A. [7:28-29] <Narrative> - The crowds marvel at Jesus' authority.
[8:01] <Narrative> - Great crowds follow him for healing after he descends.

Another viable chiastic structure I've heard is to take the first eight beatitudes (5:3-10) as an outline for the entire sermon on the mount. Thus, the rest of the sermon on the mount as an exposition of each of those points in reverse order.

[PTC 301-Ed Welch] FEAR: final exam study guide - outline

4) Fear
a) Brief Description
Fear is the result of threatening circumstances in which it doesn’t seem like God’s presence matters, He doesn’t care or He is powerless to deliver. Thus, fear provides opportunity to trust in God to be with us to deliver from danger, or to deliver us through it.

b) The Most important Question/Feature/Issue to consider
Idolatry.
• Cause: People who trust in something that cannot provide eternal power/security will live in fear of losing it.
• Effect: People who are afraid of being in danger or feel threatened will often seek security in something other than God (e.g. medication).

c) Issues you need to be particularly alert to in your relationship with the counselee

• Idolatry. Trusting anything in the world to protect/deliver/gain-success.
• Fear flees, forgetting God. Fear wants to run, it doesn’t pause to remember God’s character and promises.
• Self-protection. A fearful person will be tempted to protect something he loves, even if means harming others or neglecting to help others.

d) One significant biblical text relevant to the problem area, why the text is relevant.
Matthew 5-7. (Sermon on the Mount)
Allegiance to Christ will result in persecution/loss of status/property. The sermon provides a host of reasons why we can trust our Father with our obedience to Christ in all circumstances, namely favor with God provides a kingdom that can never be lost.

e) A biblical conceptualization (Causes? Roots?)
1) fear of enemies, real & perceived.
2) death and its associates.
It feels like God is far away, like he is not protecting me.
3) trusting in Idols
Something I depended upon let me down.
4) the past being repeated.
I’ve been hurt before, and don’t trust you.
5) being alone.

f) Two homework assignments showing awareness of uniqueness of the problem.
1) Journal seeing the evidence of God in your life.
2) Study “I will be with you” passages.

g) Your basic method of approach
• First, I would determine the prominent cause of fear, if possible.
• Then I would re-imagine about what it would look like to trust and obey God when that occasion arises and grace is needed for that moment, looking for the Spirit’s progressive sanctification.
• Then, I would establish a study for focusing upon what it means for God to promise to “be with you” in the midst of the situation, and the response that entails for the person.

x) God gives grace for today. Don’t worry about not being able to face fears tomorrow.

[PTC 301-Ed Welch] ANGER: final exam study guide - outline

3) Anger
a) Brief Description
Anger exposes the heart’s allegiance to what a person considers is right and wrong. It says that your allegiance is primarily for your own welfare and pleasure. Usually anger against others reveals anger against God. Anger says, “God is not good/just” or “God does not give me what I want, when I want it.” God’s anger is not comparable with human experience: slow, loving, directed towards Jesus.

b) The Most important Question/Feature/Issue to consider
Anger illustrates the noetic effects of sin: Anger makes people foolish.
Anger blinds. Angry people often don’t know they are angry.

c) Issues you need to be particularly alert to in your relationship with the counselee

• Humility/Love. Angry people will tend to make you angry or cower.
• Thermometer. Anger has different degrees: hot (overt) anger; cold (covert) anger.
• Righteous indignation tends to be short-lived.
• Self-righteousness. Anger is usually saying more about what a person wants to bring about for himself.

d) One significant biblical text relevant to the problem area, why the text is relevant.

• Anger against a brother can feel right, or indifferent to your relationship with God, but actually reveals your relationship to God.

• 1 John 2:9 Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness…
• 1 John 2:11 But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

e) A biblical conceptualization (Causes? Roots?)

What is anger saying?
A. (Victim) I am afraid, I have been hurt, I feel alone, powerless.
B. Expressing a moral judgment, I am right, you are wrong.
C. … and I am authorized to punish you.
D. I am jealous: I deserve it, you don’t.
E. I am guilty.
F. I want to treat others how I’ve been treated.
G. Leave me alone. I am tired.

f) Two homework assignments showing awareness of uniqueness of the problem.
1) Ask others “how have I been angry today?”
2) In anger, ask how you can still love the person.

g) Your basic method of approach

1) First, I would determine what anger is saying. Why are they angry? This would help determine whether anger is the root problem.
2) Then, I would invite them to understand how their anger affects other people around them, since they probably don’t see the damage they are doing.
3) Then, I would have them focus on their relationship to God; remind them of God’s character: his goodness, love, righteousness, graciousness, humility in Christ. What is God’s anger like? What is Christ like?
4) Then, I would look for little ways in which that Christ-likeness can make a change in how he relates to others over time, and point out the work of the Spirit in these areas.

[PTC 301-Ed Welch] SUFFERING: final exam study guide - outline

2) Suffering
a) Brief Description
Suffering tests our heart to trust God’s presence in purposing good and God’s faithfulness to show mercy. God has revealed Himself particularly through human suffering. The Son fully experiences suffering to bring about salvation. God uses suffering to make us more like Christ and to give us the hope of a new creation.

b) The Most important Question/Feature/Issue to consider
• Practical Deism. In suffering God may seem like He is hiding or doesn’t care about mercy and compassion.
• Can I trust Him?
• Who is this God?

c) Issues you need to be particularly alert to in your relationship with the counselee

• Compassion: Be compassionate, regardless of cause of suffering. Be careful not to ignore/minimize it.
• Judgmentalism. Resist the temptation to be quick in making definitive connection between a person’s suffering and personal sin, unless it’s obvious to everyone.
• Sin. Suffering will always seem to eclipse the problem of sin. Forgiveness/cleansing of sins runs a bit deeper than the alleviation of suffering.
• Christ suffered. A person’s suffering will seem to eclipse the suffering of Christ. Christ’s suffering is greater than our own. He draws near to sufferers.

d) One significant biblical text relevant to the problem area, why the text is relevant.

• Hebrews 2:10 – “In bringing many sons to glory it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering.”

• Jesus’ obedience as a Son was perfected through suffering so that He might know how to minister to us in our sufferings and temptations. Suffering is a sanctifying agent.

e) A biblical conceptualization (Causes? Roots?)
a) There are multiple causes for each grief.
A prominent cause is not always known.
b) God, Satan, other people, Adam’s curse/disease, human heart.

f) Two homework assignments showing awareness of uniqueness of the problem.
1) use Psalms to direct our faith in suffering to God who hears.
2) Study “suffering” passages in relationship to hope/joy for future.
g) Your basic method of approach

1) First, I would towards the person in love/compassion, to mourn, pray, encourage, help.
2) Then, I would try to determine a prominent cause for a place to start in counseling.
3) Then, I would encourage a person to speak their suffering to God (esp. through the psalms.)
4) Then, I would encourage a person to recognize Jesus’ experience of suffering as representing/fulfilling human suffering so that the ministry of His Spirit might change human suffering into a means of life/hope/glory.

of men and angels

forgiveness separates the men from the angels. sometimes i think it is well worth the fall.

culture shock: a new jersey farewell

On my way back to Philly from a Check-IT-Out conference in Hudson Valley, NY on Sunday, Jim Moore and I stopped at a full-service gas station to fill our rental vehicle up. I was confused, since I had thought we had planned to come down I-95, and I had planned to rendezvous with a friend on the north side of Philly. Jim had made alternate plans, but we hadn't discussed it. So I asked Jim to ask our attendant where we were on the map, just to make sure we were as far south as he thought we were. The attendant shook his head saying, "Ah, Jeez. Look, go down the road to exit 3 and ask someone there where you are in the map."

Quite a different response from what I've been accustomed to in Texas and Oklahoma. If you're lost you ask people at gas-stations. That's just common sense. And people who do full service are typically very friendly and helpful, tip-worthy service. I later discovered that NJ enforces full-service pumps by law. So, I guess the guy's just "doing his job."

grace and glory

Trying to find a relationship is like stepping in front of a train and praying that God will bless you with transportation and not annihilation. Marriage must be trying to change the tires on the highway while steering the car. The more you mature, the more you realize you're never ready or worthy for such things. But such is grace and glory.

pokerface love

what are we

thinking too much

silence is safety

sound the trumpet's

King trumps

the suited hearts

dual'n cards

(Chorus) Blue Canary's self-interpretation of "Birdhouse in your Soul" by They Might Be Giants

If the first verse is something of riddle concerning my identity, it is in the chorus of "Birdhouse in your soul" that I bring you to the top of the mountain, so to speak, of my self-disclosure, and your relationship to me. Who am I? I am...

1. Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch



2. who watches over you



3. Make a little birdhouse in your soul



4. Not to put too fine a point on it



5. Say I'm the only bee in your bonnet



6. Make a little birdhouse in your soul

First off, I find my existence situated in a trinitarian relationship:
1) Blue Canary
2) in the Outlet
3) by the Light Switch

The Outlet corresponds to the Holy Spirit in a biblical schema. From it I receive power and thus light. But this outlet is not situated close to the floor, like typical outlets. I am seated, as it were, in the Outlet, up by the Light Switch (the Father in the biblical schema), whose will/counsel controls the existence of light or darkness in the room environment. The Son sits on the throne next to his Father in the biblical schema.

I have a triple association with HEAVEN. First, I am blue (yellow is the natural canary color). Blue is the color of the sky, which is day-heaven. Second, I am a bird. Birds inhabit heaven in flight. Third, I glow in the dark like the stars in night-heaven. This triple association emphasizes the completeness of my association with the realm of heaven. The altitude of my seat helps me to better "watch over you" (v.2).

This heaven association is seconded by the idiom "bee in your bonnet". Like birds, bees also inhabit the realm of heaven during flight. The bonnet is worn on top of the head, which is typically the closest part of a person to heaven. Metaphysically, the idiom "bee in your bonnet" means "a fanciful or impractical idea that will not go away." Ideas,especially, fanciful or impractical ones, are again associate one's head with being up in the clouds.

My identity is emphatically CHILD-SAFE, in an otherwise DANGEROUS environment. Outlets are generally dangerous to children, as they have the potential to shock little fingers. I inhabit an outlet that is at an adult altitude, out of child's reach. Plus, I provide a safe covering for the outlet and mediate its power in a benevolent manner. So also in the biblical schema, the Holy Spirit can pose a threat to human flesh-existence, especially when sin has poluted the relationship between God and man, and therefore God provides special coverings (veils, blood, clothes), to either protect flesh from the Spirit, or make flesh more fit for the presence of the Spirit.

Of birds, canaries are a good choice for a domestic pet. They are smaller than most birds. Eagles, hawks, vultures, even geese are not appropriate for children. Children are small, and so a canary is a child-sized bird. Canaries are also extra sensitive to toxins in the air, and are so used to detect when harmful gases are in the air or if there is a shortage in oxygen. Canaries can thus serve to warn of dangerous breathing conditions.

Just because I'm a domestic canary in form doesn't mean that you have the power to domesticate me. I've chosen that form in order to be child-safe, not because I am naturally weak and defenseless. On the contrary, think of me also as a "bee in your bonnet." Bees also are typically dangerous because they have poisonous stingers. That's why I say "not to put too fine point on it." Don't let my stinger frighten you. I demand to be your topmost thought, but not because you're affraid of the (fine point) tip of my stinger. Friendships cannot be based upon dread. I simply want you to confess to being your best friend in a way that doesn't allow other thoughts to take my place, and I'll constantly bug you when I think someone or something else is occupying your mind in a manner that damages that relationship.

I'm not merely a friend. If I were, you may think I'm being overly controlling. My power and position are proportionate to the PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY I have over your life. You are in a very dark room. I am the one who watches over you in the dark. Your parents sleep in another room during the night and that's of little comfort to you. Without me, you'd have much to be affraid of. Your room is full of things that can do you harm without my presence. My blue glow brings day-heaven into an otherwise pitch-black night.

My responsiblity over you also carries the authority of parental command. There are two basic commands for you to respond to under my care. Both are for your well being:

1) Make a little birdhouse in your soul (v.3,6)
2) Say I'm the only bee in your bonnet (v.5)

My responsibility over you has implications for your life with respect to me. In the biblical schema, this is what's called a covenant-relationship. God takes responsibility over men, and they must respond and respect his responsibility in a manner that makes the world more like heaven, God's dwelling place, so God and men might dwell together. In the Bible, it is the responsibility of his king to make a home for God on earth (e.g. Moses, Solomon, Cyrus, Jesus). The king is endowed with knowledge and wisdom to design a temple on earth according to the pattern of God's home in heaven (though neither a home on earth or his home in heaven can "contain" him).

The vault of your room is my temple, but I also desire to have a home-temple in your soul as well. I not only have power to watch over your well being from the outside, but can also serve the same for in the inner-room of your soul. Your soul is a dark room, like the dark room you sleep in, full of evil and foolish thoughts that can bring harm to yourself and others. My responsibility is for a complete watchfulness of your soul, inside and out. Light to comfort you from the enemies without, and a light inside to guide your thoughts.

I call upon you, my child-king, not only to build me a little birdhouse for your child-sized soul, but secondly, to speak as a prophet, confessing me to be your ONLY SOURCE OF REVELATION: "Say I'm the only bee in your bonnet." (See above for discussion of this idiom and its association with heaven.)

By the way, did you know that the word "canary" is also slang for "an informer"? Someone who is able to listen into the secrets and share them without their permission? While I do not give you permission to let someone else be a source for revelation, don't think for a minute I don't know your secrets when you let someone or something else take authority over your mind. That said, what is more important, is not your secrets but mine. And I have a secret to tell in the next verse of my song...

with no further ado...

Beloved friends,

What a busy year! I hope your summer is being filled
with God-glorifying and God-enjoying work and relationships, and that you're
staying out of the heat and/or rain!

My July newsletter highlights a few of the things that
have been occupying my time.

http://www.opcnorman.org/Wycliffe/EricPyle/newsletters/heart_lang_exp_jul07.pdf
Here are the headlines:

• Engaged in Holy War (devotional)
  
• Fieldworks Language Explorer (FLEx) continues
  to impress missionaries
  
• My annual thousand-dollar oil change (finances)
  
• Personal Files (dating, seminary, godparenting)

In His Spirit,

Eric D. Pyle

ps. If you're using Acrobat Reader 7.0, clicking on my email "eric_pyle@wycliffe.org" at the bottom of the pdf seems to result in "pyle@wycliffe.org" which is incorrect. Please use "eric_pyle@wycliffe.org", or better yet, reply to this email!

Webpage : http://www.opcNorman.org/Wycliffe/EricPyle/

Personal Address : 1520 Bradford St, Irving, TX 75061
(469-222-2865)

Wycliffe Bible Translators : P.O. Box 628200,
Orlando, Florida  32862-8200

Book Review of The Passion of the Western Mind by Richard Tarnas

Church History 323, Dr. Hannah
April 17, 2007

Richard Tarnas’s The Passion of the Western Mind is an account of Western thought that is both comprehensive and penetratingly insightful to understanding the historical origins and development of our civilization’s “world view.” The book, by his own admission, is as much a philosophy of history as it is a history of Western philosophy. It is as much Tarnas’s passion for the Western mind as much as it is his account of the passion of the Western mind. Not only is his interest bound to capture the reader’s own, readers will undoubtedly feel the weight and value of reflecting upon and comparing their own beliefs about the nature of reality, and thinking critically about whether and to what extent their own relationship to Western thought can viably address the social and intellectual emergencies of our day.

Tarnas’s book divides Western history into the three traditional eras, Classical (Greek), Medieval (Christian), and Modern. Each era is followed by an age of “transformation” offering explanations for how a once dominant paradigm begins to wane in its creative energy and power over culture to sustain a civilization’s view of the world. Tarnas does a surprising job explaining each era’s convictions upon its own grounds. Such is his pathos for each period that each transition carries with it a kind of epochal conversion experience, through which the author’s own convictions about the natural of the world evolves. Thus, he does well in executing his purpose stated in the preface: “my goal in these pages has been to give voice to each perspective mastered by the Western mind in the course of its evolution, and to take each on its own terms. I have assumed no special priority for any particular conception of reality…I have approached each world view in the same spirit that I would approach an exceptional work of art—seeking to understand and appreciate, to experience its human consequences, to let its meaning unfold.”

Tarnas begins with the origins of the Western mind with the Greeks. There he sets forth the didactic strategy that will characterize the rest of the book: a presentation of a paradigm of thought in its historical development (e.g. “The Evolution of the Greek Mind from Homer to Plato”), its reason for being and a statement of its governing ideas (e.g. “The Philosopher’s Quest and the Universal Mind”), tensions that fuel further research, discussion, and debate, whether empirical (e.g. “The Problem of the Planets”) or logical (e.g. “Aristotle and the Greek Balance” and “The Dual Legacy”). Tarnas seems to argue that the power in the mind of Plato and Aristotle for Greek culture was found in its ability to provide a comprehensive system for understanding the nature of the whole universe, yet in a way that left room for ancient Homeric mythology and addressed a diversity of Greek philosophical traditions. For example, Aristotle’s transposition from Plato’s transcendant Ideas to vital immanence in material phenomena brought a synthesis to both Plato (universal) and materialistic (particular) philosophies. Tarnas repeatedly unpacks how each era’s paradigm gains cultural currency through its ability to synthesize diverse and competing ideas and bring new order to new human concerns, while providing a vision for growth in that knowledge.

In the historical development of the Classical mind, Tarnas establishes the social, political, religious and philosophical climate out of which arise the key figures of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, who form an enduring philosophical triumvirate for the Western mind. Socrates earns the status of archetypal philosopher, whose life and death embodied his persistent skepticism and lifelong quest for truth, and laid the existential and intellectual foundation for the works of Plato and Aristotle. Socrates’ life and Plato’s “religious romanticism” in discovering universal Ideas, are no doubt exemplary of the passion that Tarnas attributes as a psychogenetic character trait to the Western mind. For Tarnas, a philosopher is literally, “lover of wisdom” and “approaches his intellectual task as a romantic quest of universal significance.”

During the transformation period, the governance of an established paradigm loses its original power and energy to stimulate new creative ideas that can address the exigencies of society and peoples’ lives. Thus, Tarnas offers many reasons why the Classical Greek Mind declined due to external and internal pressures. Some key reasons include a critical individualism that deteriorated its own social order, external political wars that undermined confidence in individual self-determination, and cultural upheavals that overloaded Helenistic thinkers with a barrage of foreign ideas and influences. Perhaps most important was a resulting sense of loss of meaning and purpose for life, reinforced by an impersonal rationalism that undermined ancient mythologies. It is into this lost, fragmented world that the Christian Church and its universal saving vision for humanity under one Triune God through the divine Logos made flesh arose to take command of the Western mind.

Tarnas’s treatment of the Christian worldview is quite extraordinary. If one felt that in Classical Era, Tarnas seemed sympathetic to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, when one comes to the Medieval Era, one certainly feels that Tarnas’s allegiances must reside in some respect with Christianity. His presentation of New Testament theology is so close to Westminster Theological Seminary’s tradition that I could easily imagine at times Tarnas to be a member in good standing with our tradition. This is especially true in his developing the relationship between the already-present victorious reality of the kingdom of God come in Christ, in tension (and yet in vital league) with a hope and longing for the full glory of that world to come in a final and ultimately cosmic sin-and-death-ending and worship rendering way. Thus, he appeals to an apostolic already/not yet scheme of eschatology in order to explain the development of two traditions within the Church, “exultant Christianity” (already) and “dualistic Christianity” (not yet).

Tarnas is able to maintain a level of confidence in evaluating the development of the Church and its traditions with respect to its founding scriptural sources. “[The Old and New Testament canon] effectively determined the parameters of the evolving Christian world view. These writings will therefore serve as the basis for our present study of the Christian phenomenon.” This conviction gives Tarnas a bit of a “Sola Scriptura” Protestant-edge. Even when at times it seems Tarnas begins to blur the distinction between Christianity and the pagan culture it seeks to subject to Christ, this always leads into underscoring crucial antithetical distinctives. For example, following Christianity’s ability to “assimilate” the pagan (often allegorically conceived) mythologies into an analogous yet absolutely literal and historical “Christian pantheon,” he declares, “unlike the mystery religions, Christianity was proclaimed and recognized as the exclusively authentic source of salvation, superceding all previous mysteries and religions, alone bestowing the true knowledge of the universe and a true basis for ethics” and “in contrast to the Greeks’ philosophical program of independent intellectual self-development, Christian approach centered on the revelation of one person, and thus the devout Christian sought enlightenment by reading the Holy Scriptures…hence faith was the primary means, and reason a distant second for comprehending the deeper meaning of things.” Tarnas is certainly helpful in exploring such comparisons and contrasts and their historical relationships.

It seems almost inconceivable that such deep understanding and appreciation of our faith could come from anyone but a believer. It is clear, however, in his introduction the Christian worldview that Tarnas only grants Scripture an authority historically derived from and limited to the Church. The Church essentially established the divinity of the canon, and thereby established its own divine authority. Such a circular (and ultimately historically qualified) view of authority is probably the result of or influenced by his historical skepticism of the possibility of knowing the historical Jesus. His preface to the part of the book covering “The Christian Worldview” is largely concerned with qualifying and separating the authors of Scripture from the historical Jesus: “Precisely what the historical Jesus of Nazareth said, did, or believed himself to be cannot now be ascertained.” Thus, Paul and John are most commonly cited as responsible for the teachings of Christianity; Jesus, is barely cited, if ever. In comparison, much more space is granted to the life and teachings of Socrates, whom is only known through Plato. (We wonder if the fear of modern academic respectability has become an editorial factor here.) Without accepting a trustworthy connection between the faith of the authors and a historical Jesus, the Christian faith can easily be conceived as a human invention subsumed under the authority of a larger evolutionary process.

By the end of the book, the reader comes to realize that Tarnas’s hope and vision for the future of Western civilization ultimately lies, not in a transcendent Trinity’s self-revelation to mankind in Jesus Christ, but in our participating in creation’s own historical self-revelation through the Western mind: “…the human mind is ultimately the organ of the world’s own process of self-revelation…nature’s unfolding truth emerges only with the active participation of the human mind…[nature’s reality] is something that comes into being through the very act of human cognition. Nature becomes intelligible to itself through the human mind.” Thus, Tarnas constructs a synthesis of Hegel’s philosophy of history, Kuhn’s philosophy of science, and Jung’s psychology of collective consciousness to remythologize Western history in a way he hopes will fund for a new vision, hope, and future. In this light, the Medieval Church age was nothing more than a womb out of which Modern history would be given birth, the Copernican revolution being its birthday. Nature through our understanding has evolved since Christ, and has come to realize through us that Jesus is no longer (and never truly was) its Lord. In reality, the human mind is Mother Nature’s only-begotten Son. The Jesus of the Church’s faith, ultimately, came mainly from the resources of its own mind and imagination. Salvation comes from the passion of our mind, not the passion of Jesus.

Reading from the end of the book, one can especially see how the book aimed from the beginning to answer one pressing question: how can we participate intelligently in an age where the conception of reality is “multiple and in profound flux”? His answer to that question perhaps is more than simply helping us review history so we may be more “historically informed.” His answer is that our social and intellectual survival largely depends upon reconstructing our history in a way that provides us with meaning and purpose; that is only possible if truth is not simply imposed upon nature by our own minds (as conceived by Kant). Our history telling must lead us into a new faith in Mother Nature and the Human Mind. It must be metaphysical, leading us into a new way of unifying the entire cosmos. In effect, it must lead us into a new religion of knowledge. Thus, he suggests that the Great Commission of our age is largely epistemological: we must be willing to accept the consequences of adopting a more thoroughly personal and feminine view of nature (the modern epistemological and social delimas are ultimately rooted in an over masculization of our world).

Tarnas’s remythologization of Western history as creation’s self-revelation is unfortunately a groping after God in the darkness. Creation and humanity can never, and will never grow out of or evolve over Jesus and the mind of his Spirit, since he is God’s archetype and telos for mankind for the redemption of creation. The epistemological crisis of our day remains the same as it has always been: how can our faith-knowledge remain or else be scripturally reformed faithful to him amidst the changing circumstances of the world he gives us?

Conservative reactions to Tarnas are warranted, but should not be self-defensive. The Church still has room for reform, and should be in constant concern for self-examination in how her thinking over time has conformed more to a ‘Western’ mind than the mind of Christ. Tarnas’s stress upon the need for us to ‘participate’ in creation, for example, could be heard in terms of a more creation-accepting and Christ-embracing view of Church sacraments, its implications for the Church’s embodiment of true humanity and its representational, communal mission for the world (cf. Schmemann’s For the Life of the World). Tarnas’ feminine imperative, also finds biblical precedence. If all of human history is scheduled to culminate in Christ’s wedding ceremony with his purified Bride the Church, we should not be surprised that this architectonic movement from Man to Woman should be issuing forth cultural shock waves among the nations as history moves towards that end. So let us continue to remember his death until he comes; so let us put on the mind of Christ,

who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross

Gotta love evolutionists

Today, I was reading the chapter "Falling in Love" in a book called The Five Love Languages. In it Chapman quotes Dr. M. Scott Peck to support his thesis that "falling in love" is not true love:

[falling in love] is a genetically determined instinctual component of mating behavior. In other words, the temporary collapse of ego boundaries that constitutes falling in love is a stereotypic response of human beings to a configuration of internal sexual drives and external sexual stimuli, which serves to increase the probability of sexual pairing and bonding so as to enhance the survival of the species.

The irony of social vs. scientific discourse. Talk like that is a sure way to reduce a man's probability of "sexual pairing and bonding," and consequently the survival of evolutionist species.