Talking with Plato?

This is the sort of thing I find utterly fascinating. Greek-speaking Muslims continue to live in the Turkish Pontos speaking a dialect of ρωμαίϊκα, a language with grammatical structures retained from classical Greek. Listen as well to the distinctive Pontic music in the background. Incidentally, ρωμαιϊκά means Roman, which harks back to the time when Orthodox Christians living in the Eastern Roman Empire called themselves Ρωμαίοι, or Romans.

Government's divine mandate

I am not a fan of most politically-oriented sermons, especially when they undertake to pronounce on the specifics of public policy. However, a week ago our pastor, the Rev. Dr. W. J. Clyde Ervine, gave us all an excellent example of the right way to preach a political sermon. The title was King Solomon's Charge, based on I Kings 2. This is part of an ongoing lectio continua series on Solomon's reign. The Old Testament lesson recounted the circumstances that brought Solomon to the throne, including the execution of his father David's chief of staff, Joab, and his own half-brother Adonijah.

The episode raises a difficult issue: "is Solomon to be morally excused for killing the enemies who might have wanted to kill him?" Ervine admits that not everything scripture recounts does it necessarily approve. Yet he raises another possibility that ought not to be glossed over:

David is king and head of government, giving a charge not so much to a son, but to the incoming head of government. What he says is this: “Solomon, as king, you must deal with the State’s internal as well as external enemies. You may not want to, but you must confront those who mount treasonous attacks against the kingdom”. David mentions Joab as an example, while Solomon will later place Adonijah in the same category. Put like that, the issue isn’t whether or not Solomon was brutal, but whether the State may legitimately use force against its enemies. That’s the issue I Kings 2 poses; its answer is affirmative. I Kings 2 wants readers to conclude that Solomon was justified in hunting down State criminals, and further suggests that Solomon’s punishment of those criminals was endorsed by God. At verse 22, we’re told that as Solomon contemplates the punishment he believes Adonijah deserves, he says: “So may God do to me, and more also, for Adonijah has devised this scheme at the risk of his life! Now therefore as the Lord lives, who has established me and placed me on the throne...Adonijah shall be put to death”.The text presents Solomon’s blood-letting, not as the violence of a private thug but as the legal action of the head of state.

This, of course, raises the larger question of whether the state legitimately uses force, even to the extent of taking life. Although there is a long and honourable pacifist tradition within Christianity, we must nevertheless take seriously those biblical texts assigning the power of the sword to government.

Having been present as Dr. Ervine delivered this sermon (which can be heard here), I can testify that the congregation was unusually quiet throughout, perhaps wondering where he would be going next in his argument. It somehow felt like a controversial sermon, although his conclusion is entirely biblical and falls squarely in the centre of the larger Reformed tradition.

A powerful preacher, Dr. Ervine's sermons are worth listening to. If you are ever in the neighbourhood, please do come to Central Presbyterian Church, Hamilton, Ontario, at 10.30 sunday morning.

KJV quadricentenary

I am part of what may have been the last generation of English-speaking Christians to grow up with the King James Version of the Bible. This was the Bible we read in church and it shaped the liturgical patterns of our worship. We children memorized verses from it in sunday school, thereby giving it an intimate familiarity to us that has not been matched by any subsequent translation.

To be sure, the Revised Standard Version had come out three years before I was born, but our church, a confessionally Reformed church, did not read from it, perhaps because of such controversial translations as that for Isaiah 7:14, which substituted "young woman" for "virgin." What we did not know, of course, is that, when the KJV was first published back in 1611, the Geneva Bible was the translation preferred by our Reformed forebears, who were suspicious of the king's motives in commissioning a replacement. Nevertheless, over the long term the KJV won out over competing translations, retaining a cherished place in the hearts of English-speaking Christians for 350 years.

Protestant Christians, that is. In that world of half a century ago our use of the KJV underscored our differences with Roman Catholics, who read the 16th/17th-century Douai-Rheims Bible, a translation from the Latin Vulgate. In the KJV we English-speaking protestants possessed a common Bible whose cadences we knew thoroughly and which constituted a shared heritage that in some sense we took for granted. This was our Bible and always would be. We had a duty to read it and hear it in church. To be sure, given its archaic language, the KJV was not always easy to understand. Moreover, despite the claim of some contemporary KJV loyalists to love its superb literary qualities, it is no longer clear to us whether its language really is poetic or whether it sounds poetic to us simply because it is from the KJV.

We all know the flaws in the KJV. It was translated from texts finalized in the 16th century, which have long since been superseded by superior Hebrew and Greek texts based on much earlier manuscripts. It contains numerous readings not attested to in the latter and of questionable authenticity — and presumably canonicity as well. I myself am far from urging a wholesale return to the KJV, although I believe it definitely worth celebrating during its 400th anniversary year.

The problem is that, while my generation of protestants grew up with a common Bible, no subsequent translation, however superior, has managed altogether to replace the KJV. By 1977 an expanded edition of the RSV had come to include the apocryphal/deuterocanonical books, thereby making it the closest we would come to a Common Bible for all Christians — protestants, Catholics and Orthodox. Yet ultimately it failed to catch on at the grassroots level. We now live with a ridiculously large number of Bible translations in English at the beginning of the second decade of this century. The multiplication of Bible versions shows no signs of slowing down, much less stopping.

For 30-some years the New International Version was the largest-selling Bible in the English-speaking world, considerably outpacing the RSV and KJV alike. But two months ago the International Bible Society released an updated version of the NIV which may fail to catch on, if recent controversies are any indication. Although I was initially sceptical that the English Standard Version would supplant the NIV, I now think it has a fighting chance if the NIV 1984 is no longer to be available, except online.

Will any of these translations still be read 400 years from now? It would be foolish to predict so far into the future, but it seems unlikely that any will equal the King James Version not only in terms of longevity, but in its capacity to shape the language and culture of the English-speaking peoples.

Hopeful news from Egypt

With attacks on middle eastern and south Asian Christians apparently increasing in recent weeks, it is encouraging to read news like this: Egypt Muslims to act as “human shields” at Coptic Christmas Eve mass.

“Although 2011 started tragically, I feel it will be a year of eagerly anticipated change, where Egyptians will stand against sectarianism and unite as one,” Father Rafaeil Sarwat of the Mar-Mina church told Ahram Online. The Coptic priest was commenting on the now widespread call by Muslim intellectuals and activists upon Egyptian Muslims at large to flock to Coptic churches across the country to attend Coptic Christmas Eve mass, to show solidarity with the nation’s Coptic minority, but also to serve as “human shields” against possible attacks by Islamist militants.

Today is Christmas in the Coptic and Orthodox calendars. Let us wish our brothers and sisters in Egypt and elsewhere God’s blessings as they celebrate today the incarnation of Jesus Christ. Let us also give thanks that there are Egyptian Muslims willing to stand with their Christian fellow citizens against terrorist threats. It is a sign of hope in a part of the world where hope is so often in short supply.

Persecution updates: Egypt, Iraq, Sudan, Pakistan

Until virtually the dawn of the modern age the historic heartland of Christianity — possibly containing most of the world's Christians at the time — included the lands of north Africa and what we now know as the Middle East. Yet over successive centuries the Christians there have been subject to harsh treatment by their Muslim rulers, and consequently their numbers have diminished substantially. In those countries where Christian communities remain, they have been targeted by terrorists bent on making their lives more difficult in their historic homelands. Here are only a few incidents:

Two days ago a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria, Egypt, was bombed, killing 21 people. President Hosni Mubarak has promised action, and the city's governor is pointing to al-Qaeda as the culprit. Meanwhile, the Tehran Times blames Israel, asserting that "it goes without saying that no Muslim, whatever their political leanings may be, will ever commit such an inhumane act."

Attacks continue on Christians in Iraq, with a survivor of an October church attack being shot to death in her bed, apparently for her religious beliefs. More such news can be found at the Assyrian International News Agency. According to Assyrian Christian News, Iraqi Christians Want Their Own Province. The likelihood of that happening seems rather slim.

Somewhat more likely is the possibility that the largely Christian south Sudan will peacefully separate from the Islamic north in a referendum to be held next sunday, 9 January. This was provided for in an agreement that ended the Sudanese civil war half a decade ago. Redrawing boundaries in Africa has long been unthinkable for most governments in that continent, but a peaceful, if not exactly amicable, division of Sudan looks increasingly probable. However, partition is never a simple matter, and the issue of boundaries could lead to further trouble, as it has elsewhere.

Last month our family had breakfast with two representatives of International Christian Voice, an organization that monitors the plight of Christians in Pakistan. They are working to repeal that country's blasphemy laws, under which Asia Bibi is in prison awaiting execution. Although there have been intimations that Bibi could be released, her future remains in the balance.

Please pray for these persecuted brothers and sisters overseas, as they live in precarious circumstances which put their faith constantly to the test.

Almighty God and Father, as we are members of the one body of Christ, we share in the sufferings of your people around the world; deliver now the oppressed from their persecutors, and equip us to stand publicly with your servants in their adversity. In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God now and for ever. Amen.

Singing the Psalms: in German, Czech and Dutch

For Christmas this year my beloved wife gave me an antiquarian copy of the Lobwasser Psalter, a sturdy little volume that has weathered the centuries remarkably well. The Lobwasser Psalter was a German-language translation of the Genevan Psalms set to verse in 1573 by Ambrosius Lobwasser (1515-1585), a Lutheran teaching law at Königsberg in East Prussia. His translation was based on the French text he had heard the Huguenots singing during his stay in the Berry region of France. Lobwasser intended his Psalter primarily for private use. This edition was published in Zürich in 1770, by which time it was evidently being used in public worship as well.

At age 21 during a visit to Prague (in what was then still communist Czechoslovakia) I purchased a Czech-language psalter and hymnal published in 1900 by the Unity of the Brethren, also known variously as the Bohemian Brethren, the Moravian Brethren and the Unitas Fratrum. I have now scanned and posted the psalter portion of this Malý Kancionál (Little Hymnal) for the benefit of those interested in a lesser known tradition of metrical psalm-singing. This Czech translation, to be sung to the Genevan melodies, was made by Jiří Strejc (also known as Georg Vetter, 1536-1599), a minister in this church from Zábřeh in Moravia. Strejc studied in Tübingen and Königsberg and came into contact with the Lobwasser Psalter, which impressed him so favourably that he decided to model his own Czech versification on it, an undertaking he completed in 1587. Strejc is probably best known for his German-language hymn text, Mit Freuden Zart, familiar in English as Sing Praise to God, Who Reigns Above, the tune to which comes from the Bohemian Brethren's Kirchengesänge (1566) and bears more than a passing resemblance to that of Genevan Psalm 138.

My thus far preliminary research has raised some intriguing questions worth further exploration. First, might Strejc have met Lobwasser personally in Königsberg and thereby come under his more direct influence?

Second, given that the Kirchengesänge were produced by the same group of which Strejc was a minister, might this be evidence of a connection between the tunes for Psalm 138 and Mit Freuden Zart? To be sure, Strejc's versification of that Psalm came later, but might the Unity of the Brethren have become aware of the Genevan tunes earlier, and might it have been through Strejc? Tellingly, the Lutheran Book of Worship (1978) ascribes the tune directly to the "Trente quatre pseaumes de David, Geneva, 1551." These two possibilities are probably mutually exclusive.

Third, if Lobwasser based his translations on the French text of Marot and Bèze (for which he was criticized by his Lutheran colleagues), and if Strejc based his translations on Lobwasser's German text, how true are Strejc's texts to the Hebrew? Only someone conversant in Czech and Hebrew, and perhaps all four languages, would be able to answer this question satisfactorily.





By the way, the city of Königsberg has been called Kaliningrad since 1945 and has been part of the Russian Federation. At some point there was talk of changing the name (Kalinin was a Stalin-era Soviet functionary) to honour its most famous citizen, Immanuel Kant. I would like to suggest as an alternative that it be renamed for either Lobwasser or Strejc. Or even both: Lobwasserstrejcgrad!

Those interested in becoming better acquainted with congregational psalm-singing in the Netherlands would do well to check out Ijsselm's Channel on youtube (short for Ijsselmeer perhaps?). Here one finds a number of recently-posted Genevan Psalms sung in the traditional 19th-century Dutch fashion characterized by four distinctive features: (1) they are sung at a slow pace; (2) they are often sung in isometric rhythm (i.e., every note having equal value), as opposed to the more syncopated rhythms of the original tunes; (3) the organist plays the initial note for a few seconds before the congregation joins in, leaving the impression that the congregation is lagging behind; and (4) the arrangements used suppress the modal flavour of the original tunes. Here is one example:



I might point out that, amongst the Dutch Canadians I know personally, many dislike intensely this style of singing and their churches have thus altogether abandoned the Genevan Psalms for more contemporary fare. I find this tragic, and my own Genevan Psalter website is part of a larger ongoing project to recover the Genevan tradition and to make it more singable for younger generations of Christians in a variety of traditions.

O Magnum Mysterium

The best-known version of this ancient Christmas matins hymn may be that of Tomas Luis de Victoria, but American composer Morten Johannes Lauridsen's lovely setting movingly conveys the spirit of the text:

O great mystery,
and wonderful sacrament,
that animals should see the new-born Lord,
lying in a manger!
Blessed is the Virgin whose womb
was worthy to bear
Christ the Lord.
Alleluia!

Christ is born

Kalinine exhibit

On sunday afternoon our family drove down to St. James Church in nearby Dundas to attend the opening of an exhibit by local Hamilton artist Guennadi Kalinine, a trained iconographer, painter and restorer of art. As Kalinine himself was present, I was able to converse with him about his approach to iconography in particular. As is typical, his own painted icons bear no signature, as they simply replicate much earlier works and are governed by the strict canons of Orthodox Christianity. There is no effort to express one's individuality. Kalinine told me he is often asked whether a particular icon is his own. He responds that it is not; it comes from, say, the 12th century. He is then asked whether he painted it. Yes, he replies, but it is not his own. When a musician plays a piece by Bach, he would never think of claiming it as his own; it remains Bach's. So it is with icons. Such an attitude is foreign to westerners.

We especially enjoyed Kalinine's efforts to incorporate traditional iconic images into his landscapes, which do bear his signature. Websters Falls is one of the more famous scenic locations in Hamilton. Kalinine managed to place an angel at Websters Falls in one of his "Fantazy" paintings.

The exhibit runs through 7 January 2011, which coincides with Christmas in the Julian calendar followed by the Orthodox Church. Definitely worth a visit.

December snippets

The December issue of National Geographic Magazine carries an article, Kings of Controversy, exploring the debate over whether a united Israelite kingdom under David and Solomon ever existed or whether an overly fertile Hebrew imagination created these iconic figures — perhaps out of thin air or by elevating two tribal chieftains to their current mythical status. The debate pits biblical minimalists against those who assume that the Bible is a genuine record of events that actually occurred.

I have recently acquired an old copy of William Jennings Bryan's In His Image, published in 1922 from the James Sprunt Lectures the author delivered at Union Theological Seminary in Virginia. Bryan, who lived from 1860 to 1925, ran three times for the US presidency for the People's and Democratic Parties and served as President Woodrow Wilson's first Secretary of State. Both Bryan and Wilson were devout Reformed Christians with a vision for living out the kingdom of God in the political realm — comparable in many respects to Abraham Kuyper in the Netherlands. Bryan would come to be associated with the fundamentalist movement within the northern Presbyterian Church and gained notoriety for his testimony in the so-called Scopes "Monkey" Trial in Dayton, Tennessee, only days before his death. This book, published three years earlier, contains Bryan's reflections on human origins. I look forward to reading In His Image, which also has some relevance to my current book project on authority and the imago Dei.

Fundamentalists have a bad name nowadays, partly through association with radical islamist groups who have been thus labelled. However, the original fundamentalist movement started in the first years of the last century as an effort by confessional Presbyterians to combat the influence of liberalism in that denomination. Last year was the hundredth anniversary of the publication of The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth. Far from being narrow-minded and obscurantist, the authors of the essays making up this collection were Presbyterians, Anglicans, Methodists and others with solid academic credentials and teaching at such institutions as Wycliffe and Knox Colleges (Toronto), Oberlin (Ohio), and Princeton and McCormick Seminaries. The church in which I grew up, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, had its origins in the Presbyterian controversies of the 1920s and '30s.

The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) is currently on a campaign to blacklist faith-based universities on the grounds that they deny academic freedom to their faculty. Peter Stockland takes them on here: 'Academic freedom' turns to religious persecution. CAUT's approach to academic freedom is narrowly individualistic and is based on the epistemologically naïve assumption that knowledge can best be attained apart from one's basic worldview orientation. One notes that CAUT's bylaws prescribe as one of the organization's core functions "the defence of academic freedom, tenure, equality and human rights." One notes further that the CAUT Council may "suspend or terminate the membership of an Organizational Member or individual Associate Member of the Association" due to the latter's "adoption of a constitution or of local practices or actions which in the judgment of Council are contrary to those of the Association." Would this include disagreement with CAUT's interpretation of "academic freedom, tenure, equality and human rights"? CAUT is obviously devoted to a particular vision of life embodied in its bylaws. And how exactly does this differ from a university having a faith-based vision statement? It seems CAUT follows its own form of fundamentalism.

I have called attention before to the valuable work of my friend Stanley Carlson-Thies and his Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance. We were privileged to have him speak here at Redeemer University College in October on the subject. His speech has now been posted at the Cardus website: Liberty or Liability: The Future of Institutional Religious Freedom.

I have just received a pdf file of an Afrikaans-language metrical psalter from one Josef du Toit, who incidentally shares the surname of the famous South African poet Jakob Daniël du Toit, better known as Totius. Read more here.

In some fields, including archeology and biblical studies, it is common practice to add CE or BCE to the end of dates, as in 1453 CE or 587 BCE. We saw this on historical markers during our travels in Israel and the Occupied Territories 15 years ago. These initials stand for Common Era and Before the Common Era respectively and stand in for AD (Anno Domini) and BC (Before Christ). The theory behind this usage is that it removes the references to Christ and Lord, thereby making them more acceptable to adherents of other religions. However well-intended this effort at inclusivity may be, I do not find it altogether persuasive. According to the muslim calendar the year 1432 begins in five days. By islamic reckoning we are living in the 15th century after Muhammad's migration from Mecca to Medina. Under the jewish calendar today is the 25th day of Kislev, 5771, that is, 5,771 years following the creation of the world. Despite the best efforts of some to hide the christian belief that the coming of Christ into the world is the turning point in human history, the mere fact that the common era begins when it does is powerful testimony to the centrality of Jesus Christ, even to those who do not acknowledge him.

Cardus makes The Globe

My esteemed protégé and part-time colleague, Rob Joustra, has teamed up with his Cardus colleague Alissa Wilkinson to author Not their parents' conservatism, which appears in today's Globe and Mail, Canada's national newspaper. Definitely must-read material.

Thomistic penmanship

Who knew? When Fordham University posted this sample of Thomas Aquinas' handwriting on its page for today's Natural Law Colloquium, it provided needed evidence for something that had been only conjecture up to now: the late mediaeval theologian's writings were obviously transcribed for the printed page by pharmacists.

Constantinople

A song beloved by Byzantine-Rite Calvinists everywhere, though it's been decades since I last heard it. The University Six perform.

A dwindling minority: Assyrian Christians

Several years ago I had a student in my classes who was born in Baghdad and claimed to have grown up speaking both Aramaic and Arabic. Her family are Christian and consider themselves Assyrian, one of the most ancient communities in that part of the world. They had come to Canada some years earlier but had many relatives still in their ancestral Mesopotamian homeland.

However, since the American attack on Iraq seven years ago, many if not most Assyrian Christians have left that country due to persecution. The BBC's Jim Muir reports that Christian neighbourhoods have been targeted in deadly Baghdad attacks. To follow ongoing developments concerning the Assyrian Christian communities, one may consult the Assyrian International News Agency and Assyrian Christian News. Open Doors USA prepared the following video to alert people to the trials of Assyrian Christians in Iraq:



Please remember to pray for our beleaguered brothers and sisters in Christ living in that troubled land. Lord have mercy!

Random act of worship

Upcoming anniversaries

Here is an incomplete list of some of the significant anniversaries taking place over the next several years.

2011 — 400th anniversary of the King James Version Bible

2012 — 450th anniversary of the completion of the Genevan Psalter

2013 — 450th anniversary of the Heidelberg Catechism

2014 — 450th anniversary of John Calvin’s death

2015 — 800th anniversary of Magna Carta

2016 — 500th anniversary of the publication of Erasmus’ Greek New Testament

2017 — Martin Luther’s Reformation

Mark these in your calendar, and be sure to order your greeting cards early to avoid the rush.

Theologians thinking through theodicy

Although I am not an academic theologian, I have recently been grappling with a seemingly insuperable problem which for centuries has stumped the best minds in Christendom: How could a good God be so slow to answer a prayer for patience? Proposed solutions may be left in the comments below.

NIV update published

As of today the 2011 update of the New International Version Bible is available online here. Will it be accepted by longtime NIV aficionados, or will it suffer the fate of the TNIV? Time with tell.

October snippets

A few days ago I saw a parhelion in the evening sky, commonly known as a sun dog. Apparently they are more frequent on the Canadian prairies and less so in Ontario. The ancient Greeks must have known it too, judging from its name.

Though I have lived most of my life in the Great Lakes region of North America, I had not known until recently that, from an hydrological point of view, Lakes Michigan and Huron are a single lake, with water levels rising and falling together. The "two" lakes come together at the Mackinac Bridge, which opened in 1957 and connects the two peninsulas of Michigan.

The Society for the Advancement of Ecclesial Theology has posted several interviews "on Christian political responsibility and the significance (or lack thereof!) of various biblical texts." Among those interviewed are James W. Skillen, yours truly, Stanley Hauerwas, Richard Land and Oliver O'Donovan, with more coming from Amy Sherman, William Willimon and John Frame.

Tolerance, like inclusivity, is one of those buzz words used in some circles as an unmitigated good, but generally without much reflection on its implications for specific communities. I have just posted something on the topic at First Things: Evangel: Normed tolerance, which is an expansion of something I posted here a few years ago.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this:

Next year marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Walter Rauschenbusch, one of the luminaries of the Social Gospel movement of a century ago. While we might justifiably applaud the Social Gospel's emphasis on the corporate character of redemption, we should certainly disagree with its tendency to identify redemption with social reform. My own thesis is that the Social Gospel, liberation theology and similar movements are rooted in a conflation of the cultural mandate, given to man at creation (Genesis 1:28), with the redemptive focus of history as accomplished in Jesus Christ. In short, it improperly makes us our own redeemers. I hope to expand on this thesis at some point.

Municipal elections were held across Ontario this past week. Hamilton's new mayor, Bob Bratina, won the election with only 37.3% of the vote. With only 39.9% turnout, that means he received the support of a grand total of 14.9% of eligible voters. Am I the only one to think something's badly amiss here? A runoff election or instant runoff voting would be more appropriate than simply relying on such a small plurality to fill the mayoral spot.

CPJ: Capital Commentary revamp

The Center for Public Justice was founded in 1977 and since then has undertaken to articulate a Christian vision for public policy in the United States based on the principle of what I would call societal pluriformity. Recently its long time president, James W. Skillen, retired and was replaced by my friend and sometime colleague Gideon Strauss, who is now overseeing its activities.

Among the changes that Strauss has effected is to revamp CPJ’s Capital Commentary series, making it an online magazine with its own website. In today’s issue Strauss, who served as an interpreter on South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, writes on Wonder, Heartbreak and Hope, the second instalment of a series on the Psalms that grows out of this difficult experience.

I am pleased to be playing a small part in the new Capital Commentary. Every other week for the next six months, Michael Gerson, former speech writer to President Bush, will be analyzing a political issue of significance from the previous two weeks under the general title, The Decision. The following week I will post a response to Gerson called Deliberation. Gerson’s first contribution appeared a week ago today: Fighting Disease in the Developing World. Today my response appears: Making Tough Decisions. Stay tuned. There’s more to come.