Category: Theological Thoughts

Dear friend,

You inquired about the nature of theological study. I have lived in that world personally and academically for over 20 years. I don’t want to write to you about the virtues of studying theology, except to say it is electrifying and mysterious. Here I wish only to alert you to the danger of studying theology.

One of the great dangers is to assume that theology can be neat and tidy. If we simply have all our categories in order we can right the world’s wrongs. Even though theology comes down from heaven, we shouldn’t assume we have developed an appetite for heavenly things. In fact, I have witnessed too many theological students whose appetite for heavenly things is so small that I hope to never see their faces in the pulpit or leading a study.

Sometimes we treat theology like an engineer treats numbers. Studying theology becomes like reading an encyclopedia of facts. But we must be aware that in every endeavor of reading and studying and writing, we bring presuppositions, experiences, frustrations, and much more to the task. Therefore, we shouldn’t expect that straightforward propositions apply to all situations nor that they should be mechanically applied.

Sometimes, “trust in God” works for the weary, but at other times it can be understood as simplistic and unsympathetic. “All things work together for good” can make a great bumper sticker but de-contextualized, it can seem cheap and even offensive.

Theology can be difficult to apply. It requires wisdom. In fact, it requires humility to speak into someone’s life. The more we think through it, the more we live together, make mistakes together, the more we learn to speak truth in love and connect theology to human experience. That is my first real caution as you continue your studies. Many cheers and clarity in your pursuits.

Sincerely,
Pastor Brito

California State University is cancelling in-person classes not for the rest of this semester (somewhat reasonable), not for the summer (somewhat absurd), but for the fall semester (wholly pathetic). They will continue virtual teaching until 2021 when they will analyze facts and make a decision.There is no need to offer a detailed analysis of the importance of learning in a personalized environment. However, we can state unequivocally, that the cognitive, emotional and behavioral form three aspects of healthy education, none of which can be analyzed through the lens of a screen. We should also be grateful that the in-person indoctrination from these bastions of political correctness will at least be partly retired.

I am not a resident scholar of California policies, but the facts state that “less than half of California students from third grade to fifth grade have met statewide literacy standards since 2015.” The news of the Californian education situation is ubiquitous. In a state where 10% of college students think Judge Judy is a member of the Supreme Court, we find ground zero for the COVID-hysteria propaganda.

L.A. County is expected to extend its stay-at-home mandate until August. Other counties may follow the same pattern. Stricter regulations in selected counties will follow as a large portion of the country begins to ease down restrictions and businesses resume the long road towards economic stability. But California continues in the same trajectory, even as Gov. Newsom offered some hope of sanity yesterday.

The end goal is the certainty of a vaccine which will end all our woes and give us the peace we need. The reality is that the absolute certainty of a vaccine can only ameliorate the conditions of a people if they are already willing to take some risk. If not, a vaccine will only offer temporary relief to a risk-averse generation. States like California who has worked continuously to oppose the Christian God creates in His place a golden calf of protection. In the end, this golden calf is weaker than the ones made by the rebel Israelites who at least could dance freely outside. For many Californians, their god is a domesticated toy. They will have to wait a while before worshiping him outdoors.

Pascal once said that we all seek happiness. C.S. Lewis wrote that we are all too easily satisfied. Which is it? Are we happiness seekers or easy pleasers? Both are true. If we seek Christ as the center we will be truly happy. But if we find pleasure in mud pies rather than a holiday at the sea, we are gullible for cheap pleasures.

The biblical concept of festivity is where we find true joy. Festivities were appointed by God to satiate our need for happiness and pleasure. There we find God’s people experiencing true joy not because they have great riches, but because Jesus is their greatest treasure. The Christian feast is the place where we practice for that eternal feast at the Last Day and where the Supper of Lamb is ever before us. We feast because we are not content with mud pies or crackers and juice. We feast as those who take Christ’s invitation with serious joy. We feast because Christ is all sufficient. Keep the feast! Keep the Feast!

If this pandemic were a novel, it would be too predictable. We would probably know very early on the ending. It begins with a great force insisting that they know better for us. To compel us further, they would align their brightest wise-men and tell the populace that their compelling charts are inerrant. They might as well have descended from above. This force would then assert that they know better and that they would protect our best interest by locking us up. But to make things a bit more tolerable they would “allow” us to quickly gather our essentials in a nearby food repository. “Trust us,” they say. And trust them we did.

The reader would quickly see the plot unfold as little by little the gaps in the curtain would give us an uncomfortable sense that things are not as they should be. The person pulling the strings is led by a host of wormtongues eager to ensure the utmost power for that greater force.

Again, the reader can see the end of the story. He knows that when a greater force seeks the comprehensive well-being of a people there will never be a back to normal scene as the story unfolds. The greater force doesn’t then return to business as usual, but business as granted. It seeks greater power.

Instead of keeping that force at bay, in the name of security, we forsook our right to labor and life. We should remember as the story continues that ancient prophet, Francis Schaeffer, who opined that we must speak out against authoritarian governments or we and our children will eventually be the enemy of society and state.

It’s time now to see the ending for what it is, o reader! Security does not trump our liberty to be the people we were called to be. It’s time for courage in the public square and–cautiously–resume our roles in the story and see to it that the ending is altered. The ending may seem clear, but the story has not yet been written. We serve a greater king who overwrites even the obvious human stories.

My professor once told me that his wife was diagnosed with a rare disease. The first doctor strongly encouraged a very intrusive surgery that could have dangerous consequences. My professor decided to get a second opinion from another doctor who specialized in the same field. His assessment was less dire. He encouraged a less intrusive procedure coupled with medication and nutritional changes. The second expert was right. His wife made a full recovery and today lives a pain-free life.

What we are experiencing in our day is a battle in the arena of expertise. As society begins to re-open, we are now aware that experts promoting an apocalyptic agenda for the country severely overestimated the impact of the virus in our lives. As a result, the economic and psychological damage will be devastating. And, as I wrote elsewhere, the most important and underestimated damage is the spiritual damage on millions of Christians absent from the reality of word and sacrament and real worship.

In a society that makes an icon of individualism, expertise is dead. Long live the self! We are an insubordinate culture. We take the fifth commandment with little seriousness and the authorities in our lives are often treated like options in a buffet line.

But with the politicization of expertise, where does the truth lie? It does not reside in individualism. And it does not reside in one-size fits all authority figures in any field. In virtually every domain, there will be experts who take new findings and revise their own conclusions. But this is a rare thing. The more common occurrence is that experts take the facts and make them fit into their agenda. We can conclude, therefore, that there is idolatry on both sides the spectrum. We worship at the feet of insubordination or at the feet of a expert.

The truth is a person. Truth is Jesus because everything that proceeds from his mouth is from Yahweh. In most cases, our failures stem from basic denials of our Lord’s authority to speak into our lives. But the more complex denials on issues regarding the science of COVID-19 or other spheres stem from another basic factor. Jesus did not function as a lonely Messiah. He surrounded himself with a company of friends.

The lesson is that truth ought to change us as we live together. It is not wrong to change your opinion based on facts. It is wrong to determine that your opinion will never change regardless of facts or alternative expertise. Human nature dictates through this season that if we assumed COVID-19 is too risky and dangerous to the point that any return to normalcy is foolish, then you will find yourself at the feet of one lineage of experts. The same is true if you think this entire thing is just like the ordinary flu. We go too far in one direction without consulting our circle of friends or getting a second opinion.

In the end, our call is to seek wisdom from a localized community while acknowledging that we have presuppositions about the entire scheme before expert voices rise. If our presuppositions are wrong, long live truth. We are all political creatures which means experts are political creatures also. Our call is to return to the relative consensus of our small communities (churches/families). We may be wrong at times, but we will share a mutual respect for particular authorities in our lives without making an idol of our individual knowledge or placing our entire lives at the hands of an expert in a land far away.

I certainly don’t want to see the death of expertise. I want brilliant experts in every field who dedicate thousands of hours to studying one issue with great precision. I want my ears open at the end of the day to their data. But to assume that one expert has all the answers is perhaps where many of us have gone wrong. If anything, I am calling for a return to localized expertise whose knowledge is easily knowable and whose agenda has my holistic well-being in mind. If a doctor stresses that only the worst scenario is the best alternative for my spouse, you better believe I am going to find another trustworthy expert to see if the conclusion of the first expert is truly the only alternative. Give ear to experts, but test the experts. No expert is above reproach.

Assuming there is a legitimate place for some form of government aid in times of crisis (and notable theologians like John Frame and others agree with this), there is a fundamental temporariness to it as well.

For the Dutch theologian, Abraham Kuyper, we should resist the excessive aid of government to allow the natural spheres of families and religious bodies to exert their function in society. As the American experiment has proven, the intervention of the state in the economic affairs of its people in dire times leads to an increased need for such intervention in simpler times. When that happens, the Church and the household (oikos) fail to exercise their rightful role in restoring the needy to an environment where flourishing is possible.

The current pandemic serves as an illustration that many in the government sphere are seeking to use these times as the means to implement their vision. There is no neutrality even in these strange times. Facts are not brute. They are interpreted by deeply held views of the world. For those who are eager to see the government usurp their authority over other spheres, this is the opportune time. As de Blasio said, “We need the federal government to make us whole before we restart.” This religious expression is a clear indication of the sacramental imprint certain politicians wish to see applied on the country as a whole.

When such philosophies prosper, Kuyper’s sphere sovereignty becomes unbalanced and the government is free to interfere in the affairs of church and house. One Harvard apologists recently sought to cast doubt on the practice of homeschooling. By simply posing the question of whether homeschooling is risky, such apologists are seeking to raise national skepticism over the function of biological families to educate their own tribe as they see fit. “Did God really say it is the fundamental duty of parents to train their children in the nurture and admonition of his Name?”

While there is a limited and temporary role for the federal government to exercise, such role must not trespass its boundary. We begin to lose that battle when such questions are allowed to be raised without dispute. If we allow it, we are irresponsible citizens and the sovereignty of spheres is quickly violated. If, however, we continue to stress the necessity of charitable bodies to operate as ordinary distributors for the well-being of peoples, we will have at least a chance of avoiding the inherent intrusionary nature of the state.

I have been overjoyed with the response to the tune I wrote for this old Easter hymn. The arrangement is made by the talented Jonathan Franzone. The musical score will be made available to the public in the next few days. Here is a recording of it from the Parry family:

The Church calls this day “Blessed Sabbath” or more commonly, “Holy Saturday.” On this day, our Lord reposed (rested) from his accomplishments. Many throughout history also believe that Holy Saturday is a fulfillment of Moses’ words:

God blessed the seventh day. This is the day of rest, on which God rested from all His works (Gen. 2:2).

The Church connects this day with the creation account. On day seven, Yahweh rested and enjoyed the fruit of his creation. Jesus Christ also sabbathed in the rest given to him by the Father and enjoyed the fruits of the New Creation he began at the Crucifixion and is fully brought to light on the next day.

Therefore, Holy Saturday is a day of rest for God’s people; a foretaste of the true Rest that comes in the Risen Christ. The calmness of Holy Saturday makes room for the explosion of Easter Sunday. Today we remember that the darkness of the grave and the rest of the Son were only temporary for on the third day the risen Lord of glory cannot contain his joy, and so he gives it to us fully.

Prayer: O, Christ, we know that tomorrow will not be the same a previous Easter Sundays. We are saddened that the vast majority of God’s people will not be able to join their jubilant voices in one space. Yet, Easter still comes in all its fullness and we share in that jo

You can watch all three of our Good Friday services on this Holy Day:

Matins

Sext

Vespers