First Trout of the Year - April 4th, 2014

Fishing with the kids. First trout of the year!

Re-Thinking Family, Church, and Society: Peter J. Leithart on "Natural Society"

You can read Peter Leithart's recent thoughts on family, church, and society here, or below:

Christian political thought has historically gotten off on the wrong foot through misinterpretation of Genesis 1-2. Adam and Eve are taken as “family,” and hence the family becomes a “natural” institution. Families band together and soon there are cities and kingdoms, also natural institutions.

Augustine says this, and so, following him, does Isidore. And everyone of course follows Augustine and Isidore.

The church comes later, a top layer on nature, the supernatural society.

But the garden is not “home” but sanctuary; Adam and Eve are not “family” but worshiping community, created and placed in the place of God’s presence and offered the fruit of the tree of life.

There is no more natural society than the church.

Family Resemblance: Sanctification and Holiness

"If men have no likeness to the Father in heaven, it is vain to talk of their being His "sons." If we know nothing of holiness we may flatter ourselves as we please, but we have not got the Holy Spirit dwelling in us: we are dead, and must be brought to life again--we are lost, and must be found. "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they," and they only, "are the sons of God." (Rom. viii. 14.) We must show by our lives the family we belong to.--We must let men see by our good conversation that we are indeed the children of the Holy One, or our son-ship is but an empty name" (J. C. Ryle, Holiness, 42).

Tradition: Burying Shoes

Before Julie and I had children we started a family tradition: we would bury shoes in the yard of our rental before we relocated to the next rental. (We moved during the winter once, the ground was too hard to dig with a spade so we threw shoes up in to a tree to hang.)

We have been in our current rental for over three years, so today was our first chance to bury shoes with our children. They loved it. As they say in Fiddler on the Roof, "Tradition!!!"

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The shoes are in the ground. Goodbye, Indiana.

Now, we are ready to move to Montana. 

PTO - October 10

Today is Moses' third birthday, and I am grateful for paid-time-off.

After breakfast Moses says, "I want to sing from church book." Of course I say, "That is fine. Go grab a book." (Moses refers to my 38 Volume/Ante-Nicene, Nicene, and Post-Nicene Fathers as "church books".) Moses grabs Vol. 4 of Ante-Nicene Fathers off the bookshelf and runs back to the breakfast table, opening the book he points and says, "Sing this!"

So, together we sing  an excerpt from Origen Against Celsus, Book I., Chap. XXIV:

After this he continues:  “These herdsmen and shepherds concluded that there was but one God, named either the Highest, or Adonai, or the Heavenly, or Sabaoth, or called by some other of those names which they delight to give this world; and they knew nothing beyond that.”  And in a subsequent part of his work he says, that “It makes no difference whether the God who is over all things be called by the name of Zeus, which is current among the Greeks, or by that [About right here Moses says, "Done singing." And goes and puts the book away.], e.g., which is in use among the Indians or Egyptians.”  Now, in answer to this, we have to remark that this involves a deep and mysterious subject—that, viz., respecting the nature of names:  it being a question whether, as Aristotle thinks, names were bestowed by arrangement, or, as the Stoics hold, by nature; the first words being imitations of things, agreeably to which the names were formed, and in conformity with which they introduce certain principles of etymology; or whether, as Epicurus teaches (differing in this from the Stoics), names were given by nature,—the first men having uttered certain words varying with the circumstances in which they found themselves.  If, then, we shall be able to establish, in reference to the preceding statement, the nature of powerful names, some of which are used by the learned amongst the Egyptians, or by the Magi among the Persians, and by the Indian philosophers called Brahmans, or by the Samanæans, and others in different countries; and shall be able to make out that the so-called magic is not, as the followers of Epicurus and Aristotle suppose, an altogether uncertain thing, but is, as those skilled in it prove, a consistent system, having words which are known to exceedingly few; then we say that the name Sabaoth, and Adonai, and the other names treated with so much reverence among the Hebrews, are not applicable to any ordinary created things, but belong to a secret theology which refers to the Framer of all things.  These names, accordingly, when pronounced with that attendant train of circumstances which is appropriate to their nature, are possessed of great power; and other names, again, current in the Egyptian tongue, are efficacious against certain demons who can only do certain things; and other names in the Persian language have corresponding power over other spirits; and so on in every individual nation, for different purposes.  And thus it will be found that, of the various demons upon the earth, to whom different localities have been assigned, each one bears a name appropriate to the several dialects of place and country.  He, therefore, who has a nobler idea, however small, of these matters, will be careful not to apply differing names to different things; lest he should resemble those who mistakenly apply the name of God to lifeless matter, or who drag down the title of “the Good” from the First Cause, or from virtue and excellence, and apply it to blind Plutus, and to a healthy and well-proportioned mixture of flesh and blood and bones, or to what is considered to be noble birth.

LOL: Mustache

Dad watched the kids tonight.