Consider, meditate. Rinse, repeat.

In a certain way I think the beauty of God is similar. It’s ineffable and ubiquitous, and proceeds naturally from his character to permeate his every action. Whether manifested in the unutterable power of the almighty Creator or in the utterly human weakness of the incarnate Son, the beauty of the divine is absolutely inescapable. I don’t think God could not be beautiful and produce beauty if he wanted to. It is simply a product of the way he is; beauty itself.

So why do we find it surprising when catch glimpses of that beauty? If God is indeed all around us and invariably radiates beauty shouldn’t we be accustomed to this? Paul says in Romans 1: “…since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made…” We humans clearly see God’s divine nature, which includes beauty, in his creation. So if it’s right there in front of our eyes why don’t we notice it?

There are two reasons why, I think. Firstly, we are fallen creatures. Our ability to even minutely comprehend the higher nature of God is absolutely wretched. Paul continues in the same passage, speaking of “men who supress the truth in unrighteousness: “[f]or even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.” I once heard that the supression of truth carries the idea of working to press down a spring. We sinners worked to deny the basic and known fact of God’s existence and his readily discernable attributes through the unrighteous acts we engaged in.

How can this be? I suppose it’s somewhat like chasing the bottle to dull the pain of something you want to escape. Who wants to be reminded that they are a sinner and under condemnation? Does anyone like to be faced with their own ugliness? Wouldn’t they do things that will ultimately make them more ugly to escape that encounter? Allow me to answer: Yes; I did. Can anyone truly realize the existence of God, catching a glimpse of his nature, and not also realize his depravity and how infinitely far he is from the smallest part of that perfect One? And by “truly” I specifically do not mean a pseudo-spiritual new agey confession of the divine. I mean the invasive, overwhelming, wholly alien otherness of the One True God coming upon you.

Secondly, I think that even when we live with God in our glorified bodies his beauty will stop us short, in the same way that we would be caught off guard if we were to take a stroll down a familiar hallway and find it blocked by a brick wall. God’s beauty is not like the beauty of the world, not like the things that we think of as beautiful and can become deadened to. Not deadened because repeated exposure leads to familiarization, but because our sin-wracked senses are “not satisfied with seeing, nor .. filled with hearing.” (Ecc. 1:8).

Currently, those of us living as justified beings undergoing sanctification get surprised by God’s beauty. In small things and in large things we find it where we don’t expect it. I don’t expect that this nature of experiencing God’s beauty will cease to be when we enter our glorified state. If anything the pace will speed up. When joined in communion with God, Paul says “then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.” (1 Cor. 13:12) But as we are finite beings can never fully grasp an infinite God’s character (“who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became His counselor?” (Rom. 11:34)), momentary glimpses will occasionally fill our vision, as an impressive showers of sparks come out of a slow, steadily burning fire.

Saint Anselm said this in his Proslogium: “[f]or when heart, and mind, and soul, and all the man, are full of that joy, joy beyond measure will still remain. Hence, not all of that joy shall enter into those who rejoice; but they who rejoice shall wholly enter into that joy.” We can then, in that state, be utterly filled with an experience of the beauty of God, as we cannot now, but we can never fully experience God’s beauty, and beauty immeasurable will be left behind.

I guess what I’m trying to say is this. The beauty of God is an incredibly special thing. And do not think that being surprised by God’s beauty is going to end, ever. Get used to it.

The Christian new year is marked by the first day of Advent, that is, the fourth Sunday before Christmas. Now Advent is a holy season of preparation in expectation of the Nativity (Dec. 25th). It runs from the first Sunday to December 24th, Christmas Eve. Christmas Day follows, of course, and it is followed by the 12 Days of Christmas which run from the 26th to the Feast of Epiphany on January 6th. That’s right, the retailers have it backwards. The Twelve Days begin with Christmas, they don’t end on it.

The beginning of advent is traditionally meant to be a time focusing on the Second Coming of Christ. Actually the root adventus literally means “coming”. This is interesting to me. For centuries before us Christians began (and ended, the Sunday beginning the new year also ends the old one) the year with a period of reflection on the future coming of Christ. Then they commemorated the first coming (Nativity) on Christmas. It at first seemed chronologically backwards to my modern mind, but after some thinking it makes sense. Past Christians rang in the new year with teaching, preaching, reflection and exhortation regarding the triumphal return of Jesus. Both the end and start of their year was marked by a focused awareness of the future. We also do this (sort of) on January 1st, but with such a secularistic bent that it’s basically devoid of any meaning whatsoever. Only afterwards (in my mind) did they reflect back on the first coming of the God-man, not to diminish it, but to place it in the proper order. The incarnation/crucifixtion/resurrection was the singlemost important event, or series of events, in all of human existence (bar creation, possibly). The second coming is the most important event coming down the pike in the future.

I know that clarion calls to hark back to the “reason for the season” are numerous and often unnoticed; not much penetrates our post-modern density. But perhaps a semi-liturgical, ecclesiastic tradition of marking the Advent season wouldn’t be an all-bad thing for our post-Christian culture. It certainly couldn’t hurt.

He does this in several ways in the book, each delineated in its own chapter: the university, American culture, politics, science, etc. He points to the shifts and changes through time that show the effects that the deficiency in Christian thinking has had on each institution. At the end of the chapter on the “Intellectual Disaster of Fundamentalism” Noll makes an aside that I just found too interesting to pass up.

The rest follows after the jump.

He says:

“Evangelical hymnody, often a sensitive barometer to shifting deep structures, well illustrates the intellectual history. Two lovely hymns, separated by only two generations, bespeak the momentous influence of fundamentalism. Both are, in their own terms, entirely appropriate expressions of piety. Both can be sung with a clear conscience. But the use of metaphor is revealing.” ^[1]

The first is a hymn written by George Croly in 1854, entitled “Spirit of God, Descend upon My Heart.” In the first stanza, Croly asks that God make changes in his heart to orient him how he ought to be. Then in the second he describes what he humbly wishes most for his soul:

I ask no dream, no prophet ecstasies,

No sudden rending of the veil of clay,

No angel visitant, no opening skies;

But take the dimness of my soul away.

Upon first reading that quote, I instantly assented to the same wish as Croly. I don’t really want to have great visions, I want my vision to be great. Actually, I’d settle for vision that’s just a little better. What a convicting sentiment. How often do I seek after a “big moment” where I can grasp what’s out there? What I should daily seek is to remedy the “dimness of my soul.” And no, I don’t mean the salvific cleansing available through Christ. Obviously that has been attained already. I mean being transformed by the “renewing of the mind”. The making new of the mind brings metamorphosis (root: μεταμορφ) to the soul.

The second hymn Noll describes is by Helen H. Lemmel, who wrote the words and music to this gospel song in 1922. I think you will find it very familiar:

Turn your eyes upon Jesus

Look full in his wonderful face

And the things of this world will grow strangely dim

In the light of his glory and grace.

What a difference a few generations makes. The key is in the use of the word “dim.” Croly wishes for his dimness to be taken away that he might perceive better. Lemmel wishes to perceive only Christ, and the world outside will grow dim accordingly. Now surely we do wish for Christ to be our all, but an inward/upward focus that ignores the world beyond Christendom denies all that Christ wishes us to be to that world. This is the failure that evangelical fundamentalism fell into. A view of prophecy as the final script to the end of the world killed any desire or felt obligation to explore or understand the world better. A “let go and let God” attitude towards Christian life fostered a world-abandoning mentality that ignored the command to be “salt and light.” And finally, a scripture doctrine that treated the Bible as words linked directly from God’s mouth to the reader excised original cultural relevance and authorly intentions, which then bled over into everyday life. For if you see no connection between the source that provides most of the important information for how you live your life, and the world in which you live it, you will not make the connection between your life and that world, that is to say, you will have no impact on it.

And that is what has happened. While The Scandal is a very good book, it is also a sad commentary on the heritage of American evangelicals, and a stunning indictment for those living today. I haven’t got to the chapters on Hope yet. I suppose I’ll make a more uplifting post then.

1. Noll, Mark A. The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Co., 1994. 144.