I do not know R. R. Reno, nor had I ever heard of him until I was reading Dr. Scott Clark’s blog, which said, “R. R. Reno is thoughtful and always worth reading.” Normally this wouldn’t have caught my eye, except that I saw the blog post title “Tattoos as a Search for Fixity in a Liquid World” on Dr. Clark’s blog. This is a statement that makes you think a little more than just the typical blog post.
Today, I’m not dealing with the issue of tattoos, nor the theology behind it in “yes they are a sin,” or, “no they are not.” However, being younger I have a totally different way of thinking in America’s postmodern culture when it comes to dealing with those that have tattoos. This may be something that those who are older should stop and think about; then again, maybe not. But after a little dialogue with Dr. Clark about the issue, I wanted to make mention of the article on my blog and write a response to a few issues I have personally with Reno’s post.
“Everybody tossing off the horrible, oppressive conformities of bourgeois culture—together.”
“I’ve often looked at young men and women with tattoos and shaken my head. Don’t they realize how quickly fashions change? You can throw away the old bell-bottom pants, but a tattoo?”
“I’m fairly sure that the tattoo fashion will expand.”
Mr. Reno, I am sorry to inform you, but tattoos are not a fad, nor some sort of mere fashion among the postmodern culture. They have been around as long as 5000 B. C.
Don’t fads come and go? Fads are long hair, bell-bottoms, bleached hair, leather pants, shaving your eyebrows, wearing Chuck Taylor’s with your suit. Fads are the 80’s big-hair, or the Nike shoes that said “A-I-R” on the side in the later 90’s. Fads are not a way of culture that has existed since Ancient Egypt in the practicing of tattooing Mummies and Pharaohs. We know that Egyptians Mummies were tattooed, European Tribes were tattooed, even Julius Caesar, in his fifth book titled Gallic Wars, mentions tattooing in his culture. Lastly, Asian tattooing has been part of their culture for as long as we know, and the largest influence in the American culture was the European soldiers who had been influenced by the Polynesia islands–their culture and their tattooing.
My point is that tattooing has been a part of many different cultures throughout all of history. Just because of its more recent growth in American (which I agree has happened) doesn’t make it a fad, nor does it make it a negative fad just because it is something you do not understand or agree with. Whatever your view is on tattooing, it is always important to look at the “thing”—which here is tattooing—and see that no matter where it has been done, and when it has been done, that it is always placed with a culture and done for longer than 30, 40, 50, or even 100 years. It stays in the culture.
Issue #2 – Dealing with Tattoo’s and Professionalism in a Non-Offensive Way
My second issue in Reno’s post is dealing with his ending statements on tattooing and being a professional of whatever your job may be.
In Reno’s post he says,
“And it will become socially acceptable, perhaps even fashionable. Because at the end of the day, manipulation of our bodies creates an impotent symbol of permanence.”
And the following statement:
“Thus, absent strong cultural forces that encourage and enforce limitations on the will, in the coming decade we will see all sorts of strange self-mutilations and radical commitments of the body. Self-mutilation will provide a powerful symbolic compensation for our inability to commit and bind the soul.”
If tattoos in many cultures reflect one’s spiritual convictions and beliefs, why can’t mine do the same for Christianity and Christ? And to many—believer or non-believer—tattoos do exactly that: they show what a person is, what they like, what they feel, and what is a part of their everyday life. So when dealing with the issue of tattooing, any negative notation is always going to offend a person who has them. My concern is that I should try not to offend the non-believer when dealing with them about tattoos in order to keep the heart, mind, and conversation open to relay the Gospel message to them.
It is funny to see how at times the Reformed faith is no different than that of the Fundamentalist or the Dispensationalist in the way they think and live. The Fundamentalist will preach that a professional minister must not drink, must wear a suit, must wear his or her hair a certain length, cannot smoke, etc. How is it any different when the Reformed faith does the same thing saying professionally you must be fine wine and cheese… wear nice clothes, drive a nice car, wear a tie, cannot have tattoos, and must smoke a cigar.
Mr. Reno paraphrases Martin King Jr. saying, “It’s the content of your character that matters, not what you do with your skin. Like tattoos, clipping off the tops of your ears or removing your little toe won’t stand in the way being a slave to your desires and society’s demands. Tasteful self-mutilation is perfectly consistent with any life-trajectory.”
The fact that you say “self-mutilation” is perfect with the flow of life, I’d agree if you were taking about sin; but this is talking about tattoos. You will never get your point across to, nor will you effectively reach, those that are unregenerate and have tattoos. But then again, maybe you do not want to do that.
Being a professional of a particular trade is not your skin, nor what you place on it. It is how good you are at what you do. If I have a tattoo on my neck or my arm, does that make me any worse at the skill of my profession? To the old generation, they say, “yes.” To the new and young generation, they say, “no,” because we truly understand what it means when you so happily paraphrased Martin King Jr. saying, “It’s the content of your character that matters, not what you do with your skin.”
In case you were wondering about Dr. Clark’s blog posting, you can read the dialogue that went on over there yesterday afternoon. But I am done for now, and not wasting much more time on this topic. But always, feel free to comment.
I am at home the next month in Ohio where I grew up living with my grandparents who help raise me. I am here for a few reasons,
I bought a Land Rover and had to pick it up
To hang out with my best buddies from home before I get “hitched”
Applying for Ph.D. programs for the Fall of 2010
At times I try to help my grandparents with their bills, seems like my grandmother made contacts back in 1992 when she moved here, and has not changed them since then. For example, she has Verizon landline phone service, paying $20 a month for a phone, $20 a month for a long-distance plan, and then 10-cents a minute. Which leads to a $80 a month phone bill. Another example is her cable bill… $75 for two TV’s and then $40 a month for her internet so she can read a few blogs and check her email. I grand total of wasting near $200 a month, then “older people” complain why they have nothing left in their Social-Security, it is because they refuse to change in their later years. They won’t spend the extra money for new furniture (when they need it bad!), but yet they’ll spend the money in keeping what they know to be true in life. The worst example of this is they vote Democratic. Why, they do not know, but if FDR got them out of WWII and out of the Depression, then Democrat’s must always be in office.
I have tired the last three years to change her mind that she needs to change her services, because she can get a much better deal when bundling all three together. Finally after many visits home she aloud me to help her out. Now she gets wireless internet, unlimited calling anywhere in North America, and Direct TV for $90 a month. Why people in their older age refuse to change, I do not understand yet. Is it because they know better and I am to young to understand now? Is it because they become hard-headed over time? Is it because they get tired of dealing with the constant changes in life? Is it because they don;’t care to learn what changes in time? I do not know, being younger, enjoying changes in technology, and saving money are always something that I enjoy, but just hope one day that I do NOT get in a slump of suborn mindedness that keeps me from learning what is new.
And friends just can’t be found, Like a bridge over troubled water I will lay me down. Like a bridge over troubled water I will lay me down.
When you’re down and out, When you’re on the street, When evening falls so hard
I will comfort you. I’ll take your part.
When darkness comes
And pain is all around, Like a bridge over troubled water I will lay me down. Like a bridge over troubled water I will lay me down.
Sail on silvergirl, Sail on by.
Your time has come to shine.
All your dreams are on their way.
See how they shine.
If you need a friend I’m sailing right behind. Like a bridge over troubled water I will ease your mind. Like a bridge over troubled water I will ease your mind.
Bede
• A scholar, exegete, and historian
• The most important Christian scholar and writer of his era
• Wrote commentaries on the Bible, Known as “Father of English History”
• Also known as the “Venerable”
• Wrote on many issues including hymnology, geography, and natural phenomena
Gottschalk
• Held to extreme doctrine of predestination; held to double predestination
• Studied under Ratramnus
• Was good at missionary activity
Anslem of Canterbury • Archbishop of Canterbury, was one of the greatest of all the medieval theologians
• “Father of Scholastic Theology”
• Gave first serious attempt to give a rationale for the atonement
• Held to satisfaction theory of the atonement
• Tried to establish the being of God on purely rationalistic grounds with his ontological argument
• Encouraged Marian piety but opposed immaculate conception
• Known for statement, “Faith seeking understanding”
Peter Abelard • Philosopher, theologian, and teacher
• Pioneer of medieval scholasticism
• Held to moral influence theory of the atonement
• Held to moderate realism-universals are concepts in the mind that have an objective Reality derived from a process of mental abstraction
• Said reason plays as large a role as revelation and tradition in determining truth
• Known for his tragic love affair with Heloise
Bernard of Clairvaux • Wrote mystical, theological and devotional works
• Was the official preacher of the 2nd crusade
• Helped heal papal schism of 1130
• Known as “the hammer of heretics”
• Wrote hymns
Peter Lombard • Organized patristic and medieval citations into a coherent statement of Christian belief
• One of the first to mention seven sacraments
• A student of Peter Abelard and Bernard of Clairvaux
• Some questioned his Christology and his view of the Trinity but 4th Lateran Council of 1215 declared his works orthodox
• Book of Sentences used in academic circles until Aquinas’s Summa came out
Saint Bonaventure • Franciscan scholastic theologian who was a Platonist
• Believed in journey of the human soul toward God
• Held that creation could be explained by human reason
• Believed mystical illumination better than human wisdom
• Denied doctrine of Immaculate Conception
Thomas Aqunas • Most important theologian of the Medieval era
• Said there were five proofs for God’s existence (including cosmological and teleological arguments)
• Brought Aristotelian philosophy to Christianity
• Argued for a close connection between faith and reason; nature reveals much about God’s existence and attributes (matters such as Trinity, though, must be revealed through special revelation)
Duns Scotus • Most distinguished Oxford scholar
• Held to priority of the will over the intellect
• Contributed to Roman Catholic view of the Immaculate Conception
• Believed in possible worlds
• Said God’s attributes not provable by reason
• Known as the ‘subtle doctor’
• The term “dunce” comes from him and was invented by his detractors
• Opposed Aquinas on almost every point
William of Ockham • Medieval English theologian
• Held to nominalism
• Famous for “Ockham’s Razor” in which he claims that hypotheses should not be multiplied endlessly. Thus, the simplest solution for a matter is better than complicated ones.
• Had conflict with Pope John XXII
• Believed in priority of divine will over divine intellect
• Contributed to discussions of divine omnipotence
• Influenced by Duns Scotus
• Died of Black Death
John Huss • Early Czech reformer
• Attacked clerical abuses and immorality in the church
• Excommunicated by Pope Alexander V in 1410
• Held a blend of Protestant and Roman Catholic doctrines-argued against veneration of pope but accepted Purgatory; held to view similar to consubstantiation
• Stressed preaching and a pure life
• Was also a Bible translator
• Was influenced by Wycliff’s ideas
John Wycliffe • Was known as the Morning Star of the Reformation because of his writings against transubstantiation and the pope
• Denied efficacy of the mass as well as rituals and ceremonies
• Saw church as predestined body of believers
• Said salvation is by grace
• Known as the author or inspirer of the first complete translation of the Bible into English
• Known as Evening Star of scholasticism.
• Was the last of the Oxford scholastics
• His followers were called Lollards
• Hus adopted his teachings
Let the Easter circus stunts begin! Calvary Church in Irving Texas is promising to put their pastor in a six foot, clear plastic box on top of the church for three days if 4,000 people show up for Easter weekend. The potentially boxed pastor, Ben Dailey, says:
“This might be cheesy, but what can I say? I am passionate about the church getting out and being the church, not just within our walls, but outside of them as well. It’s time for the church to get out of the box and let our world know that we serve a great God and have fun doing it.”
I placed this picture up on my Facebook wall, and it seemed to have gotten quite the feedback, so I figured (for fun) I’d throw it up on my blog for you that read here.
Since last Monday’s Calvinist jokes went so well with some and not so well with the one or two I decided to spend today going a different direction then a “You might be a Calvinist” joke. Although this topic may be just interesting for the Calvinist, Reformed, Baptist, etc.
Yesterday a friend and I decided to attend Mars Hill in Grand Rapids, MI. Rob Bell at the time is going through Lent (yes Catholic Lent) and doing a Lamentations. It doesn’t really matter what preached, or the lack thereof, nor does it matter context of the whole sermon really. However I had decided to twitter during the church service for those that either are friends on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter. By the time I got home after the message, Facebook friends and a number of people had already started to comment on a quote that I posted by Rob Bell. I am posting the quote and the number of comments below and continuing the action, comments, and words here for the sake of my Facebook wall which look ridiculous.
The statements/quotes of Rob Bell are listed below in bold. They are a bit in length and may include some vulgar language for what reason, I do not know.
(Disclaimer: These are to be taken as humor to my dear brothers, and not as a slam.)
You might be a Dutch-Calvinist if… you…
1. Don’t own or watch TV
2. Don’t attend Movie Theaters
3. Don’t have a DVD Player
4. Don’t have the internet
5. Don’t listen to any form of Rock Music
6. Always wear a head covering
7. Don’t work for an Union
Looking for an ideal way to read the Bible? Saw this on another blog and started using it two days ago through my RSS reader (NetNewsWire), and I absolutely love the idea and how it works. See here.
Michael Dewalt is a humanities teacher and junior high assistant football coach at Cair Paravel Latin School in Topeka, KS. There he also serves as a member of the Integrated Humanities Committee and Academic Committee. His undergrad studies are from Word of Life Bible Institute and Clarks Summit University and his graduate studies are from Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary and Faith Theological Seminary. He is a member of Grace Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Lawerence, KS, the Evangelical Theological Society, and the American Society of Church History, and winner of the Zwingli Prize Award at the Calvin500 Conference & Tour in 2009. Michael blogs at Gospel-Centered Musings, has written numerous articles for Logo’s Calvin500, Place for Truth a voice of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, and Heritage Book Talk, and is published in the Puritan Theological Journal. Michael lives in Kansas with his wife, Emily, their son Wyatt Cash, two cats Nutkin and Ariel and dog Brutus.
Gospel-Centered Musings 