Reflections on Baxter (2): concluding assessment

Over the past few weeks I have been devouring Richard Baxter’s The Reformed Pastor, and I have loved it. I would place it in my top five theological books of all time.

Probably the greatest thing that I gotten from the book is a deeper sense of the difficulty, height, and importance of pastoral ministry, and the corresponding need for personal holiness in those who seek it. By the time you finish the book you have to gulp and say, “wow, pastors are called to nothing short of fighting for eternal souls – we had better be diligent and focused in our task.” For those in pastoral ministry, or considering entering pastoral ministry, its a very helpful book for stimulating godliness and earnestness and prayer.

Other things that stood out to me: (1) its well-written and clear and eloquent; (2) the structure of the book is insightful – he devotes the first major section of the book to self-oversight, and the second major section to the oversight of the flock, again highlighting the importance of discipline and personal godliness among pastors; (3) I appreciated Baxter’s emphasis on the priority of the conversion of souls as an aim of pastoral ministry, as an expression of compassion on the terrible fate that those who do not know Christ will suffer upon death. My thought is often, “first, pastors should disciple the flock, and then, if they have time, do some evangelism on the side.” Baxter’s emphasis on the need for compassion on dying souls was refreshing; (4) I appreciated (and was challenged by) Baxter’s emphasis on the importance of works of charity. As he puts it, “stretch your purse to the utmost, and do all the good you can” (66).

A very challenging and helpful book – I recommend it.

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If … then

The character Kirilov in Dostoevsky’s The Possessed:

“If God does not exist, then I am God.”

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Finished Marsden (finally!)

About twenty minutes ago I finished George Marsden’s Jonathan Edwards: A Life. It was well worth the effort, though at times I wondered if I would ever make it through (I started it in early June, originally intending to finish it over the summer, and read continuously till today). I learned a ton from it, not only about Edwards, but also about the historical context in which he lived, early 18th century Connecticut River Valley Puritan New England. (Note to self: I need to read biographies more often – they are usually not as boring as you think, and you learn so much from them.)

Edwards truly was an extraordinary man. Here are some of the aspects of his life and thought that most stood out to me from Marsden’s portrait:

1) Edward’s view that ultimate reality is personal and loving, because God is ultimate reality and God is Triune. God’s highest purpose in creation was to communicate his holiness and love to his creatures. The universe and everything in it – trees, rocks, stars, animal, etc – is God’s language for communicating his glory. Everything is connected because everything is connected to God. This view of reality came through again and again in the book, and I agreed with Marsden that it is “breathtaking” (p. 505).

2) The vividness with which Edwards preached about hell, and more generally, his constant tendency to use the temporal to point to the eternal. This was deeply challenging and humbling. I had to scribble out a prayer of repentance on the empty pages at the back of the book after reading the story of the preaching of Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. Does anyone preach like this anymore?

“Stoddard [Edward's grandfather and predecessor as pastor at Northampton] and his peers saw preaching hellfire as a matter of compassion. Given the reality of hell, it would be inhumane not to alert people to the horrible danger they were in” (p. 120).

3) Edward’s personal intensity, determination, hard work, and highly disciplined spiritual life. No one can say the man was not authentic and pious. His personal resolutions, for example, were fascinating and challenging to read. “Though he lived in the world, he did so as an ascetic” (p. 51).

4) Marsden showed how important Edward’s eschatology was to his whole theological outlook. So much of what he did and wrote is only intelligible in the context of his optimistic millennial views. I didn’t know anything about this before reading the book.

5) The huge priority Edwards set on personal regeneration, especially the need for professing Christians to seek to test their own regeneration. I found particularly striking Edward’s words to his son, Jonathan, Jr., in a letter May 1755: “never give yourself any rest, unless you have good evidence that you are converted and become a new creature” (p. 412). This seems to me to be an emphasis we often neglect today.

6) How much of Edward’s literary output was in conscious engagement with the Enlightenment. Many of his major works were written to address the popular philosophical ideas of the day. I never knew this before reading this book, and it really helps in reading and understanding Edwards.

7) The way Marsden relentlessly tried to depict Edwards as a man of the 18th century – with all that that entails. For example, its much easier to understand his owning slaves if you consider the ways in which the conventional ideals and assumptions of his age were so radically different from our own. Edwards’ world was much more hierarchical than our own, ours more pluralistic and egalitarian than his. Though of course this does not justify his owning slaves, it should help us understand Edwards a little better, as a man of his times.

8) Edward’s unabashed enthusiasm for revival, and his accounts of the two revivals he experienced at Northampton. While reading about this, I wrote in the margin of my book: “fascinating! I did not know God did such things.” At the same time, he was very thoughtful and discerning about how to test genuine revival and avoid unedifying extremes, which was also helpful.

Edwards on the 1734-5 revival: “A great and earnest concern about the great things of religion and the eternal world became universal in all parts of the town, and among persons of all degrees and excellencies…. All other talk [but that] about spiritual and eternal things was seen thrown by; all the conversation in all companies and upon all occasions, was upon these things only, unless so much as was necessary for people, carrying on their ordinary secular business. Other discourse than of the things of religion would scarcely be tolerated in any company” (p. 159). Wow! I never want to be cynical about revival.

9) Edward’s sense of the beauty of divine things, and the way he would journal about them while walking or riding in nature.

“The appearance of everything was altered: there seemed to be, as it were, a calm, sweet cast, or appearance of divine glory, in almost everything. God’s excellency, his wisdom, purity and love, seemed to appear in everything; in the sun, moon, and stars; in the clouds, and blue sky; in the grass, flowers, and trees; in the water, and all nature” (p. 44).

10) The fact that Edwards, after such a grueling and painful battle at Northampton, still worked so hard (and in so much danger) as a missionary to Indians in Stockbridge. The fact that he did not give up after Northampton amazes me. Especially because he endured so much further struggle (internally and externally) in Stockbridge. Where did he get the stamina?

To conclude: an great book about a fascinating man – but its nice to be finished!

On a related note, if you are interested in some good reading on Edwards, this is an awesome place to start.

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Some favorite passages from That Hideous Strength

I recently re-read That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis, and enjoyed it so much. There is nothing that quite compares to the pleasure of getting lost in a good book (yes, I know I am a dork). One of my favorite things about this book is the creativity Lewis used in making the characters in leadership of the N.I.C.E. – Wither, Miss Hardcastle, Frost, Straik, Filostrato, Feverstone, etc. – anyone who has read the book knows what I mean. Here are two of my favorite scenes in the book. The first is a phone conversation that showcases the character of John Wither, the Deputy Director of the N.I.C.E. Somewhat random, but I like it because it shows his character so well. The second occurs towards the end of the book when all the bad guys are getting destroyed. It shows the destruction of Frost, the member of the N.I.C.E. who pursued pure objectivity. There is so much insight into the nature of evil in these passages, and so much literary craft, that I don’t even know what to say introduce them. The second one especially still sends shivers up my spine to read it.

The Deputy Director hardly ever slept. When it became absolutely necessary for him to do so, be took a drug, but the necessity was rare, for the mode of consciousness he experienced at most hours of day or night had long ceased to be exactly like what other men call waking. He had learned to withdraw most of his consciousness from the task of living, to conduct business, even, with only a quarter of his mind. Colours, tastes, smells, and tactual sensations no doubt bombarded bis physical senses in the normal manner: they did not now reach his ego. The manner and outward atttitude to men which he had adopted half a century ago were now an organisation which functioned almost independently like a gramophone and to which he could hand over his whole routine of interviews and committees. While the brain and lips carried on this work, and built up day by day for those around him the vague and formidable personality which they knew so well, his inmost self was free to pursue its own life. That detachrnent of the spirit, not only from the senses, but even from the reason, which has been the goal of some mystics, was now his.

Hence he was still, in a sense, awake-that is, he was certainly not sleeping – an hour after Frost had left him to visit Mark in his cell. Anyone who had looked into the study during that hour would have seen him sitting motionless at his table, with bowed head and folded hands. But his eyes were not shut. The face had no expression; the real man was far away suffering, enjoying, or inflicting whatever such souls do suffer, enjoy or inflict when the cord that binds them to the natural order is stretched out to its utmost but not yet snapped. When the telephone rang at his elbow he took up the receiver without a start.

“Speaking,” be said.

“This is Stone, Sir,” came a voice. “We have found the chamber.”

“It was empty, Sir.”

“Empty?”

“Yes, Sir.”

…

“I see. Well, no doubt your action (speaking quite without prejudice) could be interpreted along those lines. You made it quite clear that this-ah-Personage – when found, was to he treated with the greatest deference and – if you won’t misunderstand me – caution?”

“Oh yes, Sir.”

“Well, Mr. Stone, I am, on the whole, and with certain inevitable reservations, moderately satisfied with your conduct of this affair. I believe that I may be able to present it in a favourable light to those of my colleagues whose good will you have, unfortunately, not been able to retain. If you can bring it to a successful conclusion you would very much strengthen your position. If not … it is inexpressibly painful to me that there should be these tensions and mutual recriminations among us. But you quite understand me, my dear boy. If ouly I could persuade – say Miss Hardcastle and Mr. Studdock to share my appreciation of your very real qualities, you would need to have no apprehensions about your career or – ah – your security.”

“But what do you want me to do, Sir?”

“My dear young friend, the golden rule is very simple. There are only two errors which would be fatal to one placed in the peculiar situation which certain parts of your previous conduct have unfortunately created for you. On the one hand, anything like a lack of initiative or enterprise would be disastrous. On the other, the slightest approach to unauthorised action – anything which suggested that you were assuming a liberty of decision which, in all the circumstances, is not really yours – naught have consequences from which even I could not protect you. But as long as you keep quite clear of these two extremes, there is no reason (speaking unofficially) why you should not be perfectly safe.”

Then, without waiting for Mr. Stone to reply, he hung up the receiver and rang his bell.

———————-

Frost had left the dining room a few minutes after Wither. He did not know where he was going or what he was about to do. For many years he had theoretically believed that all which appears in the mind as motive or intention is merely a by-product of what the body is doing. But for the last year or so – since he had been initiated – he had begun to taste as fact what he had long held as theory. Increasingly, his actions had been without motive. He did this and that, he said thus and thus, and did not know why. His mind was a mere spectator. He could not understand why that spectator should exist at all. He resented its existence, even while assuring himself that resentment also was merely a chemical phenomenon. The nearest thing to a human passion which still existed in him was a sort of cold fury against all who believed in the mind. There was no tolerating such an illusion. There were not, and must not be, such things as men. But never, until this evening, had he been quite so vividly aware that the body and its movements were the only reality, that the self which seemed to watch the body leaving the dining room and setting out for the chamber of the Head, was a nonentity. How infuriating that the body should have power thus to project a phantom self!

Thus the Frost whose existence Frost denied watched his body go into the ante-room, watched it pull up sharply at the sight of a naked and bloodied corpse. The chemical reaction called shock occurred. Frost stopped, turned the body over, and recognised Straik. A moment later his flashing pince-nez and pointed beard looked into the room of the Head itself. He hardly noticed that Wither and Filostrato lay there dead. His attention was fixed by something more serious. The bracket where the Head ought to have been was empty: the metal ring twisted, the rubber tubes tangled and broken. Then he noticed a head on the floor; stooped and examined it. It was Filostrato’s. Of Alcasan’s bead he found no trace, unless some mess of broken bones beside Filostrato’s were it.

Still not asking what he would do or why, Frost went to the garage. The whole place was silent and empty; the snow was thick on the ground by this. He came up with as many petrol tins as he could carry. He piled all the inflammables he could think of together in the Objective Room. Then he locked himself in by locking the outer door of the ante-room. Whatever it was that dictated his actions then compelled him to push the key into the speaking tube which communicated with the passage. When he had pushed it as far in as his fingers could reach, he took a pencil from his pocket and pushed with that. Presently he heard the clink of the key falling on the passage floor outside. That tiresome illusion, his consciousness, was screaming to protest; his body, even had he wished, had no power to attend to those screams. Like the clockwork figure he had chosen to be, his stiff body, now terribly cold, walked back into the Objective Room, poured out the petrol and threw a lighted match into the pile. Not till then did his controllers allow him to suspect that death itself might not after all cure the illusion of being a soul – nay, might prove the entry into a world where that illusion raged infinite and unchecked. Escape for the soul, if not for the body, was offered him. He became able to know (and simultaneously refused the knowledge) that he had been wrong from the beginning, that souls and personal responsibility existed. He half saw: he wholly hated. The physical torture of the burning was not fiercer than his hatred of that. With one supreme effort he flung himself back into his illusion. In that attitude eternity overtook him as sunrise in old tales overtakes and turns them into unchangeable stone.

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I found some old photos of myself

I was a handsome man back in 1976:

However, by 1984 my good looks had soared to new levels:

Check it out: http://www.yearbookyourself.com/

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