Category: Uncategorized

The Common Law of Texas

A Colt Single Action Army Revolver, via Revivaler

Colt was also increasingly showing himself to be a gifted merchant, combining his natural flair for persuasion with a prescient grasp of mass marketing. He branded his guns not only with his name, but with engravings that were pressure-rolled onto the cylinders. The scenes he chose for these engravings–one showed a stagecoach holdup, men facing off with pistols, several on the ground wounded or dead–indicate how well he understood his gun’s appeal by 1840. Not only did the engravings associate his revolvers with self-defense and derring-do, they verified them as authentic Colts amid the onslaught of imitation revolvers he correctly assumed were coming. Nor did he neglect the presentation of the guns. Each came in a handsome mahogany box, lined in velvet, with a beveled lid and nameplate. An even better idea, which Colt arrived as later, would be putting some of the guns inside false books, a gimmick, but one that hinted knowingly at the future of these guns. Laws for Self Defense was the title on the spine of one of these books. Other titles included The Tourist’s Companion and The Common Law of Texas.

James Rasenberger, Revolver: Sam Colt and the Six-Shooter That Changed America

Here is an 1851 Colt Navy where you can zoom in on the cylinder and this link shows an 1849 model in the box.

You can learn a little more about Colt revolvers and Texas history here.

Institutions: Around Them, or Through Them?

Photo by Sangga Rima Roman Selia on Unsplash

Looking for ways to make a difference, younger Americans therefore tend to think in terms not of channeling their ambitions through institutions but rather of going around them. Because our politics has always rewarded those who can successfully claim the mantle of the outsider–now even more than usual–the temptation to approach our institutions antagonistically, or to avoid them altogether, has grown very strong. When we look for solutions, we tend to look not to institutions but to individuals, movements, ideals, or maverick outsiders.

Maybe what we resist most is the idea that we would need to be formed by institutions at all. The liberal idea of freedom, which has often been at the core of our political imagination, is rooted in the premise that the choosing individual is the foundation of our social order. Liberating that person–whether from oppression, necessity, coercion, or constraint–has frequently been understood to be the foremost purpose of our politics. Our parties have argued about how to do it and about what kind of liberation the individual most desires or requires. But they have agreed, at least implicitly, that once properly liberated, that person could be free.

Yuval Levin, A Time to Build: From Family and Community to Congress and the Campus, How Recommitting to Our Institutions Can Revive the American Dream

I feel these tensions, having been formed within them. I value institutions. I value individualism. I’m skeptical of institutions. I’m aware of their failures. Early in my ministry I was drawn more toward movements and mavericks, those seeking to reform or to build something new.

But as the years have gone on, I’ve become more skeptical of radical individualism. It can pull us away from community, history, or tradition. I’m wary of those who build their own cult of personality.

In A Time to Build, Yuval Levin makes the case for our institutions. Levin argues that we should recommit to them, highlighting the positive ways they can be formative. He’s right. They can be. As a child of a stable family, relatively healthy churches, and a vibrant university community, I’ve seen the positive effects institutions can have.

But as an observer of unhealthy institutions, I’ve also seen how difficult it can be to reform a decaying institution from within. There are moments when it is easier, better, healthier, and more generative to leave an institution and blaze a new path, begin a new movement, or chart a new course. A new church, college, university, or other association might be just the thing to renew an existing institutional form. Older institutions see it is okay to try new things, make certain changes, or launch new initiatives. Those who go around institutions and who begin to build new organizations are like a research and development division.

These breaks can be messy. Knowledge can get lost, overshadowed, or put aside. But new expressions of existing institutions can, at times, not only serve to bring forth new life in a new place with new people, but it can inspire older institutions to break free of their ruts and enact needed reforms.

I agree with Levin. We need more people to commit to our existing institutions, to be formed by them, and to make their mark through them. But I’m not discounting the fact that some will need to go around our institutions for the good of us all. We need mavericks, too, who help us not only see how we’re getting it wrong, but where we’re getting it right.

Thick Theological Anthropology

Image by Eak K. from Pixabay

But it’s obvious that thin communal commitments do not lead to, and are not even conducive to, a thick theological anthropology, and it would be foolish to expect people held together by such weak confessional ties to share views that only make sense within the robust account of human life generated by historic Christian orthodoxy.

Alan Jacobs, “thick and thin”

Jacobs is comparing his experiences at Wheaton College, which has a detailed Statement of Faith that guides their common life, and his experiences at Baylor University, which does not.

I work at Baylor and I love Baylor, and I am fully on board with our Christian mission. But Jacobs is right–if the theological commitments that define the community are thin, consensus is, too, and all the more difficult to establish, maintain, and sustain.

Generally speaking, it is important for any community to agree upon what a human being is, what a human being is for, what it might mean for a human being to live a good life, and in what way human beings are flawed. If these questions are largely left untouched, the divergences carry you far afield from one another, as each faction retreats to its corner with those holding a common opinion.

What Will the SBC Debate This Round?

Photo by Matthew Payne on Unsplash

The Southern Baptist Convention will gather for their annual meeting this week. The headlines will likely stress points of contention, as they normally do. I’ve yet to encounter a media write-up of a denominational gathering that emphasizes an emerging spirit of unity and cooperation, a bold vision for mission and ministry, or an optimistic outlook for what the future might hold. These gatherings are framed a certain way by design.

It is helpful, however, to know what is going on.

Trevin Wax has written a summation of the issues as he sees them heading into this annual meeting. For the complete account of his opinion, click here. He cites three primary concerns, which I’m going to rephrase parenthetically:

  1. “Do Southern Baptist churches unite primarily around doctrinal consensus or missional cooperation?” (What is the basis of Southern Baptist unity?)
  2. “Should we engage secular sources of knowledge with a fundamentalist or an evangelical posture?” (What is the Southern Baptist criterion for knowledge, or what is a sound Southern Baptist epistemology?)
  3. “How politically aligned must Southern Baptists be in order to cooperate together?” (How should Southern Baptists vote?)

Denominations, including the Southern Baptist Church, have been in trouble as institutions for quite some time. Each denomination has its own reasons for decay, and its own narrative as to why they’ve experienced numerical decline. But the broader trend is that all institutions, religious and otherwise, are moving through a kind of crisis.

Trevin Wax ends his blog post by appealing for prayer for the Southern Baptist Church. I echo that appeal. No matter our denomination, we are all in need of divine help, and while it is presently en vogue to attack, critique, and tear down our institutions, that destructive impulse must be resisted. If our institutions are reduced to rubble, we will be poorer for it. Instead, we need renewal. We need to build. And if that is to happen, and happen well, we will not be able to do it on our own. We’ll need Providence, the guiding might of God’s hand.

Jesus Art Can Go Many Different Directions

When you bounce around the web like I do you can come across some pretty weird stuff. Some, I even share.

Stephen S. Sawyer has made plenty of Jesus art, including this piece, which I think is a play on cigarette packaging. Or maybe air filters? Tattooed Jesus and boxing Jesus, above, are by Sawyer. I’d really like to see Jesus go to work and pound someone with the mercy glove, perfectly tailored to fit his strong right hand.

Those muscles? They tell me fish from the Sea of Galilee have incredibly high protein content. Wow!

Did you notice the scar on Jesus’ side, where he was pierced? That’s a cool detail. But if you’re going to include that, don’t you also need his brow to bear the marks of the crown of thorns as well?

As for beefcake, pumped up, “Hans and Franz” Jesus, I don’t know the artist. Hear me now but believe me later: the theology is a mess. Jesus defeated death by going through it, not by overpowering it. He submitted himself to it, receiving it as the consequence of our sin, so that he might stand in our place and make atonement for us. The idea of Jesus breaking the cross with a mighty flex makes a mess of the whole story. We can receive strength because Jesus took our weakness upon himself.

Education: More Than Social Connections

Photo by Akshay Chauhan on Unsplash

This much discussed report by Bari Weiss, “The Miseducation of America’s Elites,” is worth a look. Her findings are troubling. Disturbing. Unsettling. But are they surprising? I don’t think so.

There’s a long debate that spans history about education–what it is, how it is done, who is responsible for doing it, and what its proper end should be. One end of education is socialization. The advancement, preservation, discovery and transmission of knowledge, imparting wisdom, and moral formation are other ends. Some educational traditions and institutions combine aims.

It is hard to read Weiss’ reporting on Harvard-Westlake, an elite private school in Los Angeles, and not conclude that socialization is of vital importance, if not for the school, then certainly for the parents. These parents choose to send their children to this school, even if their children tell them “they’re afraid to speak up in class.”

The parents are afraid to speak up, too. They’re concerned about the ideology that is being taught but not enough to go elsewhere. They’re willing to suffer discomfort to gain the connections. It’s a trade.

Weiss also reports on dynamics at a comparable East Coast school; the same logic holds.

These parents, who insisted on maintaining anonymity for this report, may not like what’s taking place at their schools. But they’re willing to accept it if they continue to believe that participation in these schools will help their children–and them–to benefit socially.

Ideological trends tend to continue until people find the courage to object. What is allowed will continue.

Alan Jacobs raises the right question, “But there’s one question that I think everyone reading such stories should ask: Will the students believe what they are taught? “

Weiss reports, “The idea of lying in order to please a teacher seems like a phenomenon from the Soviet Union. But the high schoolers I spoke with said that they do versions of this, including parroting views they don’t believe in assignments so that their grades don’t suffer.”

They already don’t believe it; they know how the game is played.

Jacobs observes, “I suspect that such a system is less likely to produce True Woke Believers than to produce young people who are thoroughly cynical about education and about the dishonesty and hypocrisy of educators. And that might be a worse outcome.”

I think he’s right on both counts, concerning both what such a system will render and that such an outcome is worse.

Ronaldinho: Mastery and Freedom

Ronaldinho’s juggling, particularly his play off the crossbar, demonstrates incredible skill, mastery with the ball, and evidence of consistent, steady, diligent, and focused practice. I showed this clip to my kids and we talked about how one comes to possess such mastery in sport and in other arenas of life.

If you watch the entire Ronaldinho highlight package, you will see a player who demonstrates freedom on the pitch, the kind of freedom that arises from command and discipline over skills and competencies that he has come to possess through the means and modalities of training.

I once heard Dallas Willard say that there is much we can learn about spiritual formation from sport, particularly when an athlete is seen to perform at the highest level. Any person who displays such grace, creativity, fluidity, and effortlessness, any person who delivers in a clutch moment or who displays brilliance does so largely because they have been well prepared by training, practice, and the exercise of various disciplines that have become part and parcel of their chosen sport.

There is natural ability, of course, and intelligence. But that natural ability has been harnessed, refined, and channeled toward particularly ends, which the occasion of a game creates space to then reveal.

So it is with the spiritual life. I don’t know what the equivalent of playing with the crossbar might be. But there is a parallel.

Mature people, who in their spiritual lives have grown in likeness to Christ, awe us not because they appear to work so hard, but because they make it look fluid, natural, easy. They are free, free in their spirit to respond freely to the Spirit. Their mastery stems from being mastered by the Master, schooled in holiness by Jesus himself, who freely gave himself so that we might be redeemed.

Nothing about this reality comes without great cost. The Christian claim that we can live lives that are pleasing to God is not rooted in human potential, but rather a divine act, a work of God, and the operations of grace. Humans respond. God has enacted the reality that we can receive and enter. The transformation that results is driven by the Spirit’s action.

In pastoral experience, and in personal experience, I’ve come to see that this transformation takes place over time. And even as one grows, as one matures, there are missteps and mistakes, failures and outright rebellions. But as one continues to trust Christ, as one continues to grow in their knowledge of him, they come to see that it is undeniably true that if it is the Son who has set you free, you will be free indeed.

Caption This

Bible nerds might say Psalm 119:105.

Matthew 6:19-24?

Stories, proverbs, aphorisms, histories, epistles, myths, fables, tales, narratives, cultural assumptions, sayings are not only conveyed by the written word. The spoken word and visual media, photographs, electronic media, memes, other conveyances of the digital age, etc. all shape our vision, defining what we see.

What do you think of this image?

What does it capture?

What does it miss?

I think of Christian spiritual formation and the discipline of study and of the reading of Scripture, though I think the gaze shouldn’t be downward, but outward. Notice that the light is directed first toward the reader and taken in before it is directed outward, and that there is no light at all until the book is opened.

Other thoughts?