Vintage Spirit Part II

A few days ago, I promised to begin a series on the faith of our fathers, and compare it to the faith of our brothers–how things in the church, and in the heart of the faithful, have changed.

This very well might be an outline for a book, so I mean to take things point by point.   If I were to craft a table of contents, it might be distilled from a summary of the following particulars:

	1776	Now
The End Times	Post millennial	Pre Millenial
Free Will	Calvinist	Arminian
Children	A Blessing	A budget item
Wine & Ale	A pleasure in moderation, a crime in excess.	A sin in moderation, a disease in excess.
God’s Law	A rule for governing society; a guide for the legislative debate.	A little good advice for believers, at best.
The sabbath	Reverently observed	Casually observed
Man’s Obligation	To Perform God’s Will	To wait and watch what God does.
Divorce	Very difficult to obtain;  in some cases required a legislative act	Almost an expected ritual of life.
Good Works	Seen as a sign of faith	Often mistaken for legalism
The Arts and Culture	Handel’s “Messiah,” The Sistine Chapel	Don’t go to the movies, kids.
The missionary field	Full of savages awaiting the truth	Full of wise rustics who can teach us more than we can teach them.
Science	Truthfully pursued, a proof of God’s power	For some, more authoritative than scripture;  for others a distraction.
Christ	The real and present King of the universe	A deposed king, allowing the devil temporary authority.

 

I’m not a fan of the “church growth” or the “seeker friendly” movement, but I do wish more of us could see the faith of our ancestors, particularly those of the generations prior to the revolution, because I think most men and women would be pleasantly surprised by the way they lived.   We hear those words “I come to bring life,” but the fact is that many see the church, and the faith, as a kind of exercise in repression, in deprivation, in sanctimony and false holiness.   It’s cramped, hungry, and pasty-faced.   It sneers at things.  It shuts the book too quickly.  It never laughs, never really cries, never really celebrates.

That celebration, that life, flows from a different understanding of the faith illustrated by the table details.   If we have a true and just and joyful King, always on the throne, who dispenses truth to anyone seeking it, we’re something like the children of confident parents, who impart that strength and wisdom to us.  Life may have trials and temptations, but our parents know the truth and are there to both host the party and ward off enemies.  On the other hand, if Christ is only a ruler in exile, subject to temporary setbacks and defeats, we’re orphans trying to live a holy life among criminals in the boys home.   Our combative zeal, as minority members of a holy army, renders us weak and hostile and even legalistic.   We aren’t confident in the King’s presence, so we come up with all sorts of rules and combat discipline the King never intended.

Welcome to why I love the revolution, and the Christians of a more truthful era.   John Adams, a devout son of Calvinists, enjoyed New England hard cider, even though he believed there was a bit too much drunkeness in the public houses of Boston and the Massachusetts countryside.    Phillip Vickers Fithian, a divinity student,  didn’t believe in dancing, but he lamented a turn in fashion that revealed less of the ladies’ “snowy bosoms.”   Jonathan Edwards did compare humankind to loathsome insects, dangling over a fire, but he also believed in the moderate enjoyment of life’s pleasures.  A New England pastor could preach Christ’s mercy without experiencing the even the slightest doubt over the rectitude of executing a rapist.

The greatest difference between their world of the faith, and ours, is balance.   In our day and age, we have some post-Victorian denim-dressed ascetics who believe a young couple should not even touch until they reach the altar.    We have denominations almost given over wholly to a dietary doctrine — those who deem it holy to abstain from meat, from wine, from tobacco.   We even have a few who have sworn off  television and theater entirely, counting their screen-free life more holy for it.  We even run into a few Christians who think a dance-free life is a mark of God’s presence. That’s all a sign of children who don’t really think their father is there to help them.   They don’t want to enter into life, because they don’t know where dad is.

More to come…