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Daniel Silliman
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| 4.7.02 |
A PROTESTANT FACING THE CRUCIFIX I
The Historical Importance of the Crucifix
Reading the Catholic G. K. Chesterton’s primer biography of Thomas Aquinas I stumbled across this passage about the importance of realism—in particular the realism of the crucifix. It gave me pause and has caused me some consternation over the past few weeks as I consider it, as a Protestant facing the crucifix.
“…Eastern Christianity flattened everything, as it flattened the faces of images into icons. It became a thing of patterns rather than pictures; and it made a definite and destructive war on statues. … [T]he East was the land of the Cross and the West was the land of the Crucifix. The Greeks were being dehumanised by a radiant symbol, while the Goths were being humanised by an instrument of torture. Only the West made realistic pictures of the greatest of all tales out of the East. Hence the Greek element in Christian theology tended more and more to be a sort of dried up Platonism; a thing off diagrams and abstractions; to the last indeed noble abstraction, but not sufficiently touched by that great thing that is by definition almost the opposite of abstraction: Incarnation. …[T]here was this tendency to make the Cross merely decorative like the Crescent; to make it a pattern like the Greek Key or the Wheel of Buddha” (61).
It was, it seems, the crucifix that preserved or saved the humanity and realism of Christianity, stopping a descent into the symbolism and the patterns of mysticism.
It was the crucifix that formed the center between the two great dogmas of Orthodox Christianity: the Incarnation and the Resurrection.
Thus, at least, the crucifix served a vital role in the history of the Christian faith. Perhaps that is no longer true in the present. Perhaps the crucifix has outlived its usefulness and should be discarded post-Reformation. But I think the burden of proof is on those wishing to discard the crucifix, not those wishing to keep it.
A Protestant facing the crucifix I find it a moving portrayal of Christianity, the depiction of the pivot of history and can find no reason sufficient to discard that portrayal.
A PROTESTANT FACING THE CRUCIFIX II
The Protestant Cross Problem
Thinking and struggling on this problem, this conundrum of a Protestant and the crucifix, I have noticed Protestant Crosses and the art of those Crosses. What is it with all the Protestant Crosses being decorated with flowers, vines or pieces of cloth? The Crosses in the homes of my Protestant friends, most of those in local Protestant churches and all of the Crosses in the local Christian book store (strongly Evangelical Protestant) are decorated in this manner.
Why is a crucifix—the portrayal of the pivotal event in history and the center of Christianity—bad, while a cross with well placed flowers, cloth or vines is good?
Why should I make the cross some neat aesthetic design? Why do we want to loose the horror and the torture? The cross is an instrument of torture. Why should I portray some nice piece of cloth hanging from that instrument of torture—something with no bearing on reality—instead of portraying the death of the Son of God?
I, for one, don't know.
by Daniel Silliman @
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| 3.7.02 |
Francis Schaffer: The Life and the Argument
I just stumbled upon this splendid piece on Francis Schaffer, his life and his work.
I am more impressed than ever with this man. Like a modern Aquinas, he gave us a philisophical grounding for Christianity and showed us the other alternatives were irrational maddness. As historian Arlin Migliazzo said:
"Schaeffer showed me that Christians didn’t have to be dumb."
Michael S. Hamilton did an excellent job on this. Here is a glimpse, where Hamilton compares Schaffer and Billy Graham.
"In trying to assess the meaning of Francis Schaeffer, it is instructive to compare him to Billy Graham. Both reached the peak of their influence at about the same time, and both had an immeasurable impact on American evangelicalism. Graham in many ways represents the moderate middle of evangelicalism — defusing controversy, wishing the best for everyone, friend of both Republicans and Democrats, slow to disturb middle-class conventions, willing to cooperate with anyone who will let him preach the gospel. As historian Grant Wacker once wrote, “When Graham spoke, middle America heard itself.” It was just as natural to see Graham and the President on the fairway together as to see Graham on a platform with a Bible in his hands.
"But one can no more imagine Francis Schaeffer playing golf with the rich and famous than one can imagine Mother Teresa shopping for furs in I. Magnin. If Graham represents evangelicalism’s smooth center, Schaeffer represents its crushed-glass edges. Evangelicalism by its nature blurs denominational distinctions, but Schaeffer’s own version of Christianity was tightly sectarian. Graham lent his name widely and welcomed allies from all corners, but Schaeffer refused all alliances. Those who were not his followers but believed in his aims he categorized as cobelligerents in the war against the secularizing and dehumanizing trajectory of modern culture. While Graham appealed to the majority in the middle, Schaeffer attacked the middle for failing to see the direction it was headed. It is no accident that his strongest impact has been among those who have a bone to pick with the middle class — dropouts, intellectuals, and that remarkable recent phenomenon, formerly respectable citizens who have begun to perceive the American judiciary as a refuge for scoundrels.
"In short, Francis Schaeffer represents that part of evangelical Christianity that has always been ill at ease with the world in which it finds itself."
by Daniel Silliman @
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How I Spent the Summer
This afternoon I moved over two tons of chicken manure with my brother Michael, age 12.
Yeah. But it still pays better than reporting.
by Daniel Silliman @
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The book for the situation
G. K. Chesterton, described by Evangelical writer Philip Yancey as a "300-pound scatter-brained Victorian Journalist," was asked what one book he would take if he were to be stranded on a desert island.
“Why, A practical guide to shipbuilding, of course,” he said.
by Daniel Silliman @
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The Linguist Rides Again
Seraphim has returned with a vengeance. And reading the veritable poetry of prose on his site today serves as a good reminder of why we love him even if he does disappear for weeks on end.
Who does he think he is? Bobby Fischer?
by Daniel Silliman @
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The Front Page after the Attack
Poynter is collecting newspaper front pages from September 12.
This is an interesting, sobering and fitting memorial.
by Daniel Silliman @
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The Heavy Tread
I’m attempting to memorize Shakespeare’s sonnet number 148, one I enjoyed when I first read it and one I have been drawn back to.
I love the realism here—the way he loves this woman knowing who she really is.
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun,
Coral is far more red that her lips’ red,
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun,
If hair be wires, black wires grown on her head:
I have seen roses damask’d, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks,
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music has a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
Still, I’m not sure I’d use this in a valentine.
by Daniel Silliman @
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In the Writer's Bag
"Here are the tools I think writers need: a tightrope, a net, a pair of shoes, a loom, a bible, a zoom lens, six words, an accelerator pedal, a scissors and a trashcan." --Chip Scanlan
by Daniel Silliman @
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| 1.7.02 |
In case you thought Marxism was dead...
by Daniel Silliman @
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His Vacation
A whole week without the InstaPundit?
by Daniel Silliman @
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| 30.6.02 |
The Return
So it has been too long since I posted. Is it my fault? Well it is but that’s not the point. The point is…, well I guess there isn’t one.
by Daniel Silliman @
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