As I get older and look back on my journey of faith, I've started to notice how huge a role the hope of the Second Coming has played in my understanding of what it means to follow Jesus. I was raised in a largely dispensational tradition that regularly talked about the End Times and held to very clear dogmas about the timeline of the millenial reign of Christ. My parents has a copy of the Ryrie Study Bible on the bookshelf. My Grandfather would often share his theories with me, about why he was convinced Christ would return in his lifetime, or what he believed the Mark of the Beast really was, or any number of similiar eschatological speculations. The first book of the Bible that I have a very clear memory of reading for myself was the Book of Revelaiton. One of my favorite storybooks as a child was The Last Battle. I never really added this stuff up before, but my childhood was shot through with a deep sense that the Second Coming was more than just a matter of credal assent; it was an urgent, pressing reality.
The subliminal eschatological orientation of my life has shown up in my songwriting over the years, too. The first album of music I ever recorded, with a group of musicians from my home church in 2004, had at least 2 songs on it that were explicitly about the Second Coming, and at least three others that alluded to it. Nearly twenty years later, these songs strike me as a bit naif and pedantic, but they also remind me of the orientation towards hope and the future that my faith has given me over the years, and the "Already/Not Yet" tension I've always carried in my heart.
This song, called "Wait," is probably the most explicitly eschatological song I've ever written. It goes back to 2001, and although I hope I'd handle the subject matter with a good deal more subtlety and sensitivity today than I did a two decades ago, still, it captures a feeling that has been throbbing in my heart, I think, all my life.
How long will you be silent
How long will you hide your face?
Wake O Lord the arm of your righteousness
Cleanse our land with your love and grace
And we will wait for the dawn of your righteousness
We will wait for that thief in the night
We will hold out the hope of your glory
Shatter the darkness with your truth and light
How long will the wicked prosper
How long will the lie seem right?
Arise O Lord and scatter your enemies
Shatter the darkness with your truth and light
And we will wait for the dawn of your righteousness
We will wait for that thief in the night
We will hold out the hope of your glory
Shatter the darkness with your truth and light
Wait, we will wait for you
Hope, we will hope in you
Watch, we will watch for you
And we will wait for the dawn of your righteousness
We will wait for that thief in the night
We will hold out the hope of your glory
Shatter the darkness with your truth and light
Wait, a song
The Story of Christianity, a book review
The very strong impression I took from the church of my childhood was that Christianity began sometime towards the end of the 19th Century or the start of the 20th, and that it really only got off the ground in the 40s, with the preaching of Billy Graham. If pressed, I’m sure everyone would agree that you could trace the origins of the faith back to the early 16th Century and the protestations of Martin Luther. Whether there were any real Christians before him, however, was anyone’s guess, because everything prior to October 31, 1517 was shrouded in a godless mist of Catholic hocus pocus.
I can remember stumbling across things like the Prayer of St. Francis, or the Breastplate of St Patrick, and being absolutely stunned by the beauty of them, but not sure what to do with the “Saints” to whom they were attributed. Were there really Christians back as far as that, and were they really capable of such stunning spiritual depth and profound expressions of having Jesus-in-your-heart devotion?
Since those early days of my spiritual formation, I’ve had many opportunities both formal and informal to experience church traditions that are happily thriving in meadows outside the evangelical fold. I’ve had the privilege of studying church history both broadly and deeply, and I’ve encountered Christians from across Christendom, both living and historical. I’ve come to see the many blinders I had developed, growing up in a church tradition that tacitly implied that there was a 1500-year gap during which no real Christians existed, between the penning of the last book of the Bible (ca. 90 AD), and the start of the Protestant Reformation (ca. 1517).
These blinders, I’ve since learned, had blinded me not only to Church history, but to a very rich, deep vision of who God is and how he has been at work among his people throughout the ages. Not only that, it left me with a great deal of spiritual xenophobia and a prideful assumption that my particular church tradition had a self-righteous monopoly on God’s Truth.
As God has removed these blinders, I’ve come to see how varied and fecund the vineyard of his church really is, what it means to confess belief in the one, holy, apostolic, catholic Church, and how big a family tree I belong to in Christ. I’ve also come to discover how spiritually unhealthy it is to ignore or deny the truth that as Christians, we are part of a 2000-year-long story that God has been telling about his plan to bind people together in community around a shared love for the Lord Jesus Christ.
I was reminded of all this last year when I had the pleasure of reading Justo Gonzalez’s monumental book, The Story of Christianity, Vol 1: The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation. The book details the intricate and convoluted story of the development of Christianity, from its origins as a fringe movement within 1st Century Judaism, to its world-spanning presence as a global religion by the end of the 15th Century. Along the way he introduces his readers to the many remarkable theologians, fathers and mothers of the faith, saints, sinners, popes, and reformers whom God used to direct the formation of his Church. It made for riveting reading, not least of all because Gonzalez is so adept at drawing out the human motivations at play in the world changing events of the Church’s history.
It may not be that you ever had the kind of blinders about the Church and its history that I described above. It may be that they were removed long ago. It may be that you’re still not sure you want them removed. Whatever the case, I think every follower of Jesus should at some point or another take a tour of the epic saga that is Church history. It will help you better understand this Jesus you’re following, by seeing how people throughout the millennia have followed him too.
If you’re looking for a guidebook for such a tour, one that is both thorough and academic while still being accessible for a relative beginner, Gonzalez’s The Story of Christianity is about as good a starting place as any I've come across.
The Simplest of Delights (IV): The Family Dog
Back in 2008 our family welcomed a sixth member into our clan, our family dog Trixie. I’m not sure any of us had a clue how big a role Trixie would go on to play in our life, binding us all together over a shared responsibility for her well being (this is, I think, one of the things a family pet does; it’s one of the few relationships of care in the family that parents and children can equally carry, putting us all on the same footing of affection).
Trixie is going on 14 now, and we are entering the autumn season of pet ownership, patiently watching the sun set on her life. She is 100% blind and is beginning to lose her hearing. She has difficulty keeping food down and can’t be trusted on the couch anymore. But she’s not got any of the aches and pains that many dogs struggle with in old age, making them irritable and un-cuddle-able. Trixie still very much enjoys sitting in a lap and soaking up as much human touch as she can get.
In The Four Loves, C. S. Lewis talks about the Greek word storge, which refers to a kind of affectionate love that binds people together in bonds of fondness and familiarity[1]. A parent’s love for her child is storge love. So is the love shared between siblings, or the love passed among comrades, perhaps, in war. It is that affectionate, admiring, unconditional positive regard shared between people who have in some sense been “thrown together” by chance.
When it comes to feeling storge love for our pets, Lewis is somewhat ambivalent. He acknowledges the natural human tendency to do so, but also cautions against using pets to meet a need more properly met by human beings. His caution has to do with inappropriate distortions of love, however, of exploiting other living creatures (human or animal) by treating them solely as means to meet our own selfish ends. I don't think Lewis would have any objection to that healthy, generous fondness for animals that pets so often engender in their owners. In many other places in his writings, he speaks affectionately and compassionately about animals (he was especially fond of dogs and horses), and he often emphasized our creaturely kinship with the animal creation. Even in his discussion of storge in The Four Loves, he suggests that one of the best images we have for this particualr kind of love is found in the instinctive love that animals show to their young: “The image we must start with is that of a . . . [dog] or a cat with a basketful of puppies or kittens; all in a squeaking, nuzzling heap together; purrings, lickings, baby-talk, milk, warmth, the smell of young life.” There is something about storge that reminds us of, and strengths our connection to the rest of God’s creatures.
Caring for a pet over the course of its life tends to deepen our capacity for storge love. It teaches us what it means to have unconditional positive regard for a creature that cannot benefit us, really, in any other way than through the storge it offers us in return. Trixie has poured overflowing measures of storge love into our family life over the years, and in a mysterious way, our shared affection for her has helped to deepen our affection for one another.
This is not the only thing loving a pet does for those who love them well. Research has shown that owning a pet can relieve depression, increase self-esteem, lower stress hormones and reduce anxiety. One study found that simply petting a dog for 15 minutes can lower your blood pressure by up to 10% [2]. I’ve not done any formal studies of my own, but my intuition tells me that after fifteen minutes of petting Trixie, I experienced all these outcomes and more: greater calmness, a deeper sense of well-being, and a stronger feeling of being grounded and connected to the world.
I’ve been reflecting over the last few weeks on things in my life that improve my daily positive affect. Small things, that is to say, that I can work into my routine to give me regular moments of joy. I don’t know how many days we have left with Trixie, but I do know—and the psychology and the theology both back me up on this one—that so long as we have her with us, one of the simplest ways to improve my “positivity hygiene,” is just to take some time and express some storge for our family dog.
First Man Standing, a song
When writing a song, sometimes the whole thing comes to you in a single flash, and it's simply a matter of getting it down clearly. Other times the song sort of reveals itself to you as you're writing it and you have no idea where it's going to end up when you're done. This song was more of the later. When I started it, I had it in mind to write a sort of Chrsitian version of that classic Meatloaf song "Bat out of Hell." Musically, I mean, not thematically. I've always loved the breakneck piano riff that opens the tune, and the chaotic structure of the song, shifting between verses and bridges and choruses and solos with narry a nod to the traditional pop-song format. It didn't take long to realize how far beyond me it was to write something that came anywhere near to approximating Jim Steinman's genius, but I kept at it until I had a piano riff that captured as best I could the uncontainable energy and wreckless abandon I feel when I listen to that 70s rock masterpiece.
After I had the music, I was scrolling through an old file on my phone where I'd written down some bits and pieces of ideas for song lyrics, and I came across the phrase "First Man Standing," a little play on the expression "Last Man Standing," that I'd jotted down in 2018. It brought to mind for me the line in Philippians 2:10-11, how every knee will bow when Christ returns. This image of Christ, the only one standing amid a countless throng of kneeling worshippers, stuck in my mind, and after a dozen or so discarded drafts, I'd penned some words that I thought had enough energy to keep up with the music.
Here's the song I eventually arrived at, after that long and winding creative journey:
After the stars fall and after the earth quakes
And after the powers of heaven are shaken
And after our sorrows are beaten to plowshares
At the final tomorrow, You will be standing there
With the firm foundation
Of new creation beneath your feet
You’ll be the first man standing
At the last sunrise
When the angels bow before you
And your glory fills the skies
After every knee is bended
And the heavens all declare
That you alone are worthy
You are worthy of standing there
On that dawning day
You’ll be the only one standing there
We fall on our knees
And you’re the only one standing, there
After the darkness is bleeding with daybreak
And after your mercy has healed every heartache
And after your passion has dried every tear
When the last word is spoken, You’ll still be standing there
With a firm foundation
Of new creation beneath your feet
You’ll be the first man standing
At the last sunrise
When the angels bow before you
And your glory fills the skies
After every knee is bended
And the heavens all declare
That you alone are worthy
You are worthy of standing
Worthy of standing
Worthy of standing there
Holy, holy, holy all creation sings your praise
Just one glimpse of your glory and we’re falling on our knees
Holy, holy, holy, all creation sings your praise
Just one glimpse of your glory and we’re falling, falling
You’ll be the first man standing
At the last sunrise
When the angels bow before you
And your glory fills the skies
After every knee is bended
And the heavens all declare
That you alone are worthy
You are worthy of standing there
On that dawning day
You’ll be the only one standing there
We fall on our knees
And you’re the only one standing, there