Captain Thin

My latest at First Things went up a few days ago (February 18), to coincide with the anniversary of Luther’s death. Since then, it’s been picked up by Real Clear Religion and the Gospel Coalition, among other sites.

On this day in 1546, Martin Luther fell asleep in the Lord. Lutherans therefore recognize him this day and thank God for him. But let’s be honest: Luther wasn’t always a very nice man.

So begins the article. I go on to discuss Luther’s failings (they are many) before bringing us back to the real reason we remember him:

“This truly is why we remember Luther: not because he was always nice, not because he was always good, and certainly not because he was always right. He wasn’t. Instead, we remember Luther because he directed attention always away from himself to Christ. It is to Christ we look for salvation, not our own holiness.”

Read the whole thing at “Standing with Martin Luther: Remembering a sinful saint.”

(The title of this post is taken from Anthony Sacramone’s tweeted description of my article).

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My article “More than Straw: The Importance of James to Contemporary Society” has recently been published in the October 2009 issue of The Canadian Lutheran. Read the article here, or the full issue here. Alternately, you can visit your friendly neighbourhood Lutheran Church – Canada congregation to pick up a copy of the magazine in print.

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The Canadian Lutheran is the award-winning magazine of Lutheran Church–Canada. It is published nine times a year and features inspirational and educational articles.

“And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ ” (Matthew 13:27-8 ESV)

So there’s just a few weeks left of summer “vacation” (someone needs to explain to me how working all summer to make money for school constitutes a vacation), and that means I’ve been getting back to the books doing research for my English thesis. I’m writing about the 1547 Anglican book Certayne Sermons or Homilies (alternately known as the first book or former book of the Book of Homilies). Put very generally, I’m discussing Archbishop Cranmer’s editorial role in the construction of the book, and how that literary construction reflects the theology he was trying to impart to the masses.

Anywho, I’ve been reading MacCulloch’s massive, detailed work Thomas Cranmer: A Life for research purposes and it got me thinking about the Reformation era. What a thrilling, but dangerous, time it was. Understanding God’s Word became the concern of every citizen. Nations were ripped apart. Men and women died for their beliefs. The visible church was fractured as God and Satan wrestled for control of the institution and, ultimately, for the souls of those within it.

Today, we see much less of that. People do not seem to care about the faith of their family members, friends and acquaintances. Worse, they don’t even seem to know (or care) what theology their own denominations teach. And so the institution of the church marches a slow funeral march to the graveyard. I sometimes feel that the passion of the Reformation is finally dead.

But our God is a God of resurrection! I see the birth of ACNA (Anglican Church in North America) and remember that the Spirit of God is alive and working in the hearts of men. The ideals of the Reformation – sola gratia, sola fide, sola scriptura – are still present fighting against the spirit of this age.

When we read the Augsburg Confession, we see admissions that “many false Christians, hypocrites, and even open sinners” are mixed with the people in the institution of the church. Likewise, the 39 Articles confess that “in the visible Church the evil be ever mingled with the good.” It’s so easy to get caught up in despair as we see such evil clearly acting in Christian denominations across the globe. But I frequently forget, as do many others, to recognize the other side of the story. Christian churches, despite the presence of evil among them, must always contain those made righteous in the blood of the Lamb. And God, the hidden God, is at work through them to bring truth to light.

“In Him was life and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:4-5 ESV).

And the darkness will never overcome it.

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.

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[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.