Captain Thin

Some of you will be aware of Converge Magazine, a Vancouver-based magazine that tackles questions of faith and culture. If you haven’t picked up a copy yet, now’s the time to do so. The current issue features an article not only by me, but also one by my very good friend Karl Persson.

Karl Persson on Depression

Persson’s article “Depression and Faith in the Life of the (Post)Modern Church” (pp. 38-41) is the best thing I have ever read on the subject. He criticizes the two major approaches to depression visible in the Church today before suggesting a third way, better than the others.

The first response to depression that he examines arises out of modernism, and basically ignores the problem. For these Christians, the Good News of salvation is so wonderful that they simply cannot conceive that a Christian could ever be sad again. Persson describes this response well: “Many churches… mistake the appearance of happiness for the truth of Christian joy, and so are not comfortable with Christians who disturb this appearance.” As a result, these Christians take the easy way out, and simply avoid the question altogether. They must either pretend depression does not exist or give up their idea that the Christian must always be happy and victorious over sin and sorrow. They are unwilling to give up that idea; and so they ignore depression.

By contrast, the emergent movement and the postmodernism from which it arises is more than willing to talk about subjects like depression. But because it has abandoned the concept of “covenant “in favour of “honesty,” it lacks shared stories in which to interpret hurt. Evil and pain are recognized for what they are, but without the context of real community (with the church present and past through our shared history), it leads inevitably to cynicism. Depression is real for them, and its destructive power is absolute.

Persson suggests we need to temper one approach with the other. Yes, we need to focus on the “happily ever after” that comes with faith in Christ; but we cannot ignore the very real pain at work in this world. The Church must embrace those that are hurting, and let them share vicariously in the joy of salvation even if they cannot feel such joy themselves.

But I’ve written too much already. You simply must read the article; it’s incredibly important.

Mathew Block on Masculinity

The same issue of Converge Magazine includes an article by me entitled “The Man God Hasn’t Called You to Be: What the Christian masculinity movement keeps getting wrong” (pp. 32-33). I won’t bother to go into too much detail here, but let me summarize it in this way: for nearly a hundred and fifty years, the Church has embraced a concept of masculinity that glorifies battle and warfare. “If you are to be a real man,” we seem to say, “then you must be at your core a warrior.” I take that idea head-on in this article, suggesting it has more to do with our wider culture’s aggressive understanding of masculinity than with the biblical witness. We are not called to be warriors, I argue; instead, like Adam before us, we are called to be gardeners.

Consider it a declaration of war on warrior-masculinity.

Converge Magazine

So what exactly is Converge Magazine, and why does it publish such fasinating articles? Well, here’s how it self-describes:

Ever wish there was a magazine that addressed issues of faith and culture but didn’t come off as ultra fabricated and cheesy? Well Converge magazine just might be your answer. We’re a faith based magazine for young people in their 20′s and 30′s. Our magazine comes out six times a year covers everything from relationships, to career, to arts and culture topics.

Deep thinking; real faith. Two things that far too often fail to appear together.

Best thing of all? It’s only $12 a year. Check out the website here and subscribe now.

“Does the fact that we have mental illness in our community show that the Gospel is weak or inefficient?” So asks my friend Karl Persson in a recent talk he gave at St. John’s Vancouver Anglican Church: “Make Level Paths for Your Feet: Mental Illness and Evangelicalism in the Lives of Cowper, Carey and Hauerwas.”

In order to avoid unsettling questions like the one above, too many of us in the Church have simply ignored the premise of the question: as far as we are concerned, there’s no such thing as mental illness. At most, we seem to think, some people struggle with spiritual problems which could be overcome if they just prayed harder and had more faith.

Karl turns that type of thinking on its head. By exploring the stories of three Christians who suffered with mental illness, he thrusts the existence of such conditions before our eyes. Dorothy Carey (wife of the great missionary William Carey), William Cowper (the great hymnist and friend of John Newton), and Ann Hauerwas (wife of prominent theologian Stanley Hauerwas) all suffered with mental illness. None found healing in this world.

Karl reflects: “We like the stories where we get up at the microphone and say, ‘These bad things happened but God got me through it, and now everything’s okay.’” But that simply isn’t the case much of the time. “It’s harder to hear these stories,” Karl says. They remind us that suffering and pain are all too real in this world, that God doesn’t simply wave a magic wand and make it all disappear.

We cannot simply deny the existence of mental illness. And if it exists (as it does), that poses the question: “How do we make sense of this theologically?”

For Karl, there are no easy answers. And that’s perhaps the point. This side of reality, we don’t get all the answers. All we can do is trust in Jesus Christ, clinging to God as he has revealed himself to us. All else may be smoke and vapours, intangible; but the cross is real. And the cross must therefore be our anchor.

Shortly after Karl gave this talk, a very close friend died suddenly. When he shared the link on Facebook, he prefaced it with the following words. I think them worth repeating:

My talk on Christianity, mental-illness, suffering and death. Listen with the caveat that death and suffering are bloody awful and have no sufficient theological ‘answer’ except that they will be sealed impotent in the deepest recesses of hell for eternity. Missing you Abigail, and anticipating death’s defeat, when we will be blessed by you once more in the presence of God, whom you loved and still love.

Amen. I too eagerly await that day when death will be at last buried in the lake of fire. And I too look for the resurrection of the dead, that day when every tear shall be finally wiped away. Until then, pie Jesu domine, dona eis requiem. Et nobis levamentum dona.

_________________________

Karl Persson is a Doctoral Candidate working on the intersection of Biblical and Old English wisdom literature; theologically, he is interested in being a good husband to Meg, being a good father to Andrew, and working out a theological grammar that allows us to speak appropriately and well about issues concerning God, suffering, and the broader problem of evil.

The above link is to an mp3 file. The talk can also be downloaded as a wma file by visiting the “Learner’s Exchange” at St. John’s Vancouver’s website and scrolling to Karl’s talk (May 29, 2011).

Augustine: Despair is the ultimate evil, and most men give themselves to it prematurely. Therefore, I want you to know above all that there is nothing to despair about.
Francesco: Yes, I knew that, but terror made me forget.

Secretum Meum
Francesco Petrarch[1]

This semester, I’m in a class focusing on madness and melancholy in 18^th century England. Currently, I’m preparing a seminar presentation on the subject of Christian melancholy, and as such, I thought I’d write a bit of my musings here for public perusal.

First off, let me explain what I mean by “melancholy.” In contemporary English, the word typically means something like sadness. But the 18^th century use of the word is more for something like depression than just mere sadness. It is to be in a constant state of low-spirits, of great despair and hopelessness.

At first glance, therefore, it may seem perhaps odd that there should be something we call “Christian” melancholy. After all, isn’t the basic tenant of Christianity the complete opposite of hopelessness? Don’t we believe in personal salvation offered to every individual through the sacrifice and resurrection of Christ? And yet, it is undeniable that many great Christians have suffered from bouts of terror when contemplating their sin in relation to the judgment of God. Martin Luther (German reformer), John Donne (Church of England priest and poet), John Bunyan (Puritan author of Pilgrim’s Progress), and William Cowper (Evangelical poet and hymn writer) all struggled with this very issue. How could God forgive their sin, they thought to themselves, when they were so clearly unworthy of such grace?

Compounding the problem for some of these was a fear that perhaps, unwittingly and unknowingly, they might have somehow committed the unforgivable sin Jesus speaks of in Mark 3 and Matthew 12: that of blaspheming the Holy Spirit. If they had done this, even unwittingly, what chance at forgiveness could they have? Bunyan would later reflect that much of the time he was often so afraid that he “was struck into a very great trembling, insomuch that at sometime I could, for whole days together, feel my very body, as well as my minde, to shake and totter under the sense of the dreadful judgment of God, that should fall on those that have sinned that most fearful and unpardonable sin.”[2]

Bunyan, as the others did also, would eventually come through this great trial of spirit trusting more fully in the grace of God than ever before. They realized, as we should realize, that even fearing we have committed this sin is evidence that we have not committed it. For the context of the Scripture verse in question makes it clear that the unforgivable sin (the blaspheming of the Holy Spirit) is in effect a deliberate and final rejection of the authority of Christ’s power and authority. Any person who is afraid they may have committed the “unforgiveable sin” demonstrates that they have not, as they still care about the authority of Christ in their lives. They cannot, therefore, have made a final rejection of Christ. (After all, who fears something that they have completely rejected?).

It is right that we should feel remorse for our sins, but we must not give in to utter despair over them. As Luther has written, “The devil gives heaven to people before they sin, but after they sin, brings their consciences into despair.”[3] In other words, the devil seeks to condemn us after we have already experienced the goodness of God. For once we have felt the grace of God, how much easier it is to make us not only remorseful for our sin (which is proper) but to make us despair that God is willing to forgive us again when we so often sin against Him? How many times, we must wonder, can God forgive us for the same sins,over and over again? And yet Christ has given us the answer to such fears. He has stated that we must forgive (and, by extension, God forgives us) “Seventy-seven times” – that is to say, the complete number times the complete number: in other words, endlessly (Mt 18:22).

Cowper, in one fit of melancholy, tried to end it all. He attempted to bring himself to both drink poison and throw himself from a bridge. But Christ intervened. Whenever he reached for the vial of poison, he found his hands shook beyond control and he felt a voice inside forbid the action. Finally, someone walked in, and the act was interrupted. Cowper felt so ashamed, so certain that this sin could never be forgiven. He had attempted to take his own life.

And yet Cowper would come to recover his faith and find peace again, for a time in the mercy of Christ. As time progressed, however, he lapsed into despair again, certain that he was too terrible to be forgiven by God. And yet Cowper knew the answer to his struggle was to be found in the mercy of Christ. During the intermittent period of assured faith between his melancholic depressions,he would later write the following beautiful hymn, a hymn still sung in churches across the world today. Here are the first and last verses selected for our meditation:[4]

There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.
Lose all their guilty stains, lose all their guilty stains;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.

Lord, I believe Thou hast prepared, unworthy though I be,
For me a blood bought free reward, a golden harp for me!
‘Tis strung and tuned for endless years, and formed by power divine,
To sound in God the Father’s ears no other name but Thine.

Amen. May these words be our own prayer: “Lord, I believe Thou hast prepared, unworthy though I be, for me a blood bought free reward, a golden harp for me.” For only in the mercy and love of God, do we find an answer to despair. Amen.

---

[1] Petrarch, Francesco. “Petrarch’s Secret Inner Struggle” from Petrarch’s Secretum, Book 2 (1358). Ed. Davy A. Carozza and H. James Shey, American University Studies, Series XVII: Classical Language and Literature, Vol. 7, P. Lang Publications, 1989.

[2] Bunyan, John. Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners… (London, 1666) as quoted in Baird Tipson’s “A Dark-Side of Seventeenth-Century English Protestantism: The Sin Against the Holy Spirit.” The Harvard Theological Review. Vol. 77. No. ¾. 1984. p. 303.

[3] Luther, Martin The Table Talk of Martin Luther (1556). Section DCXXI. Translated by William Hazlitt. 1650.

[4] Cowper, William. “There is a Fountain Filled with Blood.” Conyer’s Collection of Psalms and Hymns. Ed. R. Conyers. 1772.