Recapturing The Imagination: The God Who Wins Our Hearts

The God of the Old Testament is the most interesting literary character ever.

He does not speak to us in dry theological treatises and lukewarm religious polemics.

He spoke from burning bushes and stubborn asses.

He wasn't after our minds as much as He was after our hearts.

Reacquaint yourself with His messengers - the Prophets.

One was forbidden to weep for his dead wife.

Another was commanded to marry the cheapest whore this side of Jalan Wong Ah Fok.

One spoke through his tears and sang the blues.

Another was commanded to walk around naked for many months.

Sometimes it was a bunch of grapes.

Other times, it was a broken jar.

Still other times, it was a drought, a famine.

Ofttimes, it was a dreamer who dreamed dreams.

Once it was three children who dared to defy a king from the midst of a fiery furnace.

Finally, can we forget the one who preferred the company of lions than the acceptance of the Religious Right of his day?

The God of the Old Testament sought to recapture our imagination.

So too the God of the New Testament.

He spoke in word pictures about naughty sons and clueless fishermen.

He used children to make fun of the academicians with their large libraries and long scholarly robes

(guess they didn't have name-cards with B.Sc.(Hons) then!)

He cursed fig trees and blessed prostitutes.

He drank with publicans and dined with traitors.

He was seen by His closest friends as a lion at times and a lamb the next moment.

(One even had to climb a tree to see Him...)

He walked on water and shone on top of a mountain.

And finally, He hung on a cross and rose from the grave.

God spoke in pictures.

Theological treatises are for the few.

Pictures and stories are for the multitudes.

Everyone loves a good joke and a witty quip.

Only the religionists hated Him and His endless quips at their expense.

The religionists would've preferred if He wrote theological treatises.

The religionists would've preferred if He was a political critic.

The religionists would've preferred Him to keep His humour in check.

What is this about a plank in my eye and a sawdust in my brother's eye?

Didn't make sense unless you have a sense of humour!

What is this about camels squeezing through needle's eyes?

Again, didn't make sense unless you have a sense of humour!

The religionists have forgotten how to laugh and therefore they've forgotten how to cry.

The elitists have no heart.

God was out to recapture the imaginations of the heart.

But the elitists have none.

They placed their faith on their learning.

They placed their faith on their 'election'.

They place their faith on their libraries.

They place their faith on their long robes
(guess they didn't have name-cards with B.Sc.(Hons) then!)

They thought it was all a big deal.

One day, a wildman with bad hair came along,

Dressed in sackcloth and enjoys a Happy Meal consisting of wild-honey and locusts,

He told them that they needed a bath,

They needed to wash away their pretentious elitism,

They needed to wash away the ink on their name-cards,

They needed to wash away the stench of library books.

They thought that they were a big deal,

"By what authority are you saying all these things!", they demanded.

The wildman cut through their pretentiousness by saying that God can raise up sons from stones.

They prided themselves on their status as apologists, watchmen, authors.

They thought that God needed them.

That they were indispensable.

They didn't know that they were lesser compared to the stones below their feet.

Alas, the words of the wildman did not reach them,

They remained with their elitist club called "Brood of Vipers",

They had no heart to be recaptured,

They had no imagination,

Their ears were deafened by the praises of men that they were unable to hear the Echoes From Eden.

Pitiful and heartless, they continued to boast in their libraries and their 'objective' truths.

They despised the Friend of Sinners and finally they crucified Him.

The Great Evangelical Disaster

Time was, lives were forged by fire. Pltypus understood that (even though none of the SIN folks can ever hope to understand that). It was the same for J. Gresham Machen. It is the same with Francis Schaeffer. These two fought and bled in their time. They thought big thoughts and saw the end of reason. They ranted in intellectual circles and struggled for reality on their knees.

Machen fought for authenticity in his time. His religion was a deeply supernatural one. He didn't think that a nostalgic affection for grandmother and apple pie was what was needed. He saw through the haze of fundamentalist zeal and saw only nostalgia and an inability to tackle the challenges of the Liberals head-on. Machen, in fact, identified more with the passion of the Liberals than the no-brained militancy of the fundamentalists - he especially abhorred the eschatologically minded shitheads with their charts and tables. Machen was tireless. He spoke on radio and I had the privilege of reading his radio-transcripts recently. The tiny book recording those talks burned in my mind. His God was holy and powerful. His God did not bow before movements, human opinion or science. His God did not need self-appointed "defenders" employing Kantian logic. His God did not need self-appointed "contenders for the faith" defending the sanctity of Holy Writ. His God was the thunderer who is awesome and majestic. Machen preached the same thing everywhere he went. He travelled by train and his sidekick Ned B. Stonehouse. On his last journey, he was still planning to preach in the next church. But he was exhausted and was dying in the train. He told Stonehouse, "Isn't the Reformed Faith grand?" His religion was grand because he believed and served a Great God. Time was when, men who lived through the fire aspired to greatness and grandeur...

Today, Machen is paraded around and prostituted by the descendents of the same fundamentalists that he abhorred during his lifetime. They used him as a weapon against the liberals, against the emergents and against anyone that they disagree with - anyone who threatens their grandmother-and-apple-pie religious habits. They see zeal in Machen and they missed out on his cool-headedness. They try their utmost best to remake Machen into their image. They did not understand his studies across many disciplines - history, psychology, linguistics, etc. They wanted a hellfire-and-brimstone preacher and they turned Machen into one. One particularly narrow-minded SIN fundamentalist recently wrote a piece on Machen to support cock-sure theology masquerading as objective-certainty. Machen was never interested in objective-certainty per se. He was interested in the supernatural origins behind the objective truths. He was not interested so much in "The Theology of St. Paul" as he was in the GOD who was behind the same Pauline theology. He was not defending "The Virgin Birth of Christ" because it fitted with the grandmother-and-apple-pie religion that he was brought up in. He was preaching "The Virgin Birth of Christ" because the supernatural birth of the messiah spoke of the supernatural origins of Christianity that is far above the normal reasoning of tiny minds. He was sold out to this God and enraptured in His presence and power. He echoed Schaeffer's concerns in "Escape From Reason". He understood Spurgeon's quip - "Defend the Bible? I'd sooner defend a lion!" He wasn't an apologist. He was a preacher who preached about a Great God. Today, tiny minds set up blogs with audacious dedications to the name of Jesus Christ, thinking that they are defending the faith with their insipid meditations and powerless anathemas (mostly against people that they don't even understand in the first place). When the gods and heroes have exited the scene, the clowns come out to play...

Francis Schaeffer began life as a fundamentalist within the narrowest camp of the Bible-Presbyterians. He wrote his books (see the post before this one for Pltypus' intro to them) and taught his L'Abri students. In his time, he engaged the most challenging thoughts of his time and triumphed over them by his unshaking faith in his Great God. He did not dismiss views that he disagreed with. He faced them head on and with candour, wit, humility and respect. He did not fight caricatures of Heidegger, Camus and Kierkegaard. He faced them each as they really are (in other words, he read their works and considered their views - unlike the SIN morons who only read the caricatures in their Van Til/Clark handbooks!). At the end of his life, Schaeffer could no longer endure the suffocating crap of fundamental-evangelicalism. He actually found the spirituality and religious atmosphere of the Orthodox and Catholics far more appealing. Fundamentalism-evangelicalism had devolved into a ghetto, a disaster, an elitist club of handbook-quoting, gay-bashing nonsense. He wrote "The Great Evangelical Disaster" and spent his last days in a Catholic hospital. He struggled. He fought. He lived through fire.

Today, like Machen, Schaeffer is prostituted and paraded by fundamentalists as "apologetics". They use his books as a gun and quotes from his writings as bullets to fight the liberals, the emergents, the existentialists, the absurdists, etc. They knew nothing of the fire in his bones. They knew nothing of his sleepless nights struggling against the great minds that he held in respect - but had to respectfully disagree. They quote his works with a devillish glee and a disdain for their foes that Schaeffer would not have identified with. They fight caricatures as they themselves have become caricatures. Schaeffer was a giant who fought other giants. It is still true what Nietzsche said - "The errors of great men are far greater than the achievements of little men!" The little men are ruling the blogosphere today with their handbooks and their abject fear of "wrong thoughts, wrong beliefs". It's ok to be tiny - as long as you subscribe to the "right beliefs" (meaning: you buy the accepted handbooks and regurgitate them).

[Listen to Frank Schaeffer describing his father, Francis Schaeffer's turn against the fundamentalist ghetto towards the end of his life.]