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Fujimura says, Could it be that what is deemed marginal, what is "useless" in our terms, is most essential for God and is the bedrock, the essence, of our culture? Could it be that our affinity for the utilitarian pragmatism of the Industrial Revolution created a blind spot in culture that not only overlooks great art, but if purity of expression is compromised could also lead us to reject the essence of the gospel? Could it be, if I may extend this thought to the extreme, that we have missed the essence of the gospel message by focusing merely on an industrial, commoditized way to convey the information of the gospel, or even to "sell" the Good News in the most efficient manner prescribed by our entrepreneurial or industrial mindset? Art + Faith: A Theology of Making. New Haven: Yale University Press. 2020, p. 17.
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Fujimura says, Instead of a brutal dictator, we have a Creator God who seeks full thriving, justice, and mercy. Just as Caesar's portrait is stamped on a coin as an icon to represent earthly power, God places God's "face" upon our hearts. God's presence is real, even in the midst of oppression and darkness. God is the light that shines and places limits on evil and injustice on the earth. Art + Faith: A Theology of Making. New Haven: Yale University Press. 2020, p. 11
Clark and Jain note, For children of a Christian parent, God expects those parents to raise the children up as believers, as those who have begun walking along that path and engaging in that rhythm. God says in Scripture that he holds every person accountable for his own sin, so the children must truly participate in the process of repentance unto faithful obedience if they are to know Christ. However, it is not for the parents to evaluate the authenticity of the children's participation but instead to cast their faith on the promises of God, who says in Proverbs 22:6 to "train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it" (ESV), and in 1 Corinthians 7:14 that the children of a believer "are holy." The parents are simply to teach the children this process of cleaving to Christ and these habits of the heart. The exact path will be different for every covenant child. Clark, Kevin and Ravi Scott Jain. The Liberal Arts Tradition: A Philosophy of Christian Classical Education. Revised ed. Camp Hill, PA: Classical Academic Press, 2019. pg. 228.
Dreher writes, Alexis de Tocqueville was convinced that democracy could not survive the loss of Christian faith. Self-government required shared convictions about moral truths. Christian faith drew men outside themselves and taught them that laws must be firmly rooted in a moral order revealed and guaranteed by God. The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation. New York, NY: Sentinel. 2017, p. 89.
Calvin starts a sermon on Genesis 1:1-2 with these words,
Even though men maliciously try to obscure God's glory, it is certain that they cannot open their eyes and look in any direction without seeing evidence that leads to knowledge of him, knowledge will they flee and would like to bury completely if they could. God shows himself everywhere and provides indications of his majesty, of his power, of his righteousness, of his goodness, and everything which can lead to him. That is also why Paul in the fourteenth chapter of Acts says that God cannot leave himself without witness (Acts 14:17), for all things created do not have their source in themselves. It is as if God were enlightening us to draw us to himself and make us aware that he is the fountain and origin of all things, that everything depends on him, and that everything is founded on and sustained by his power. Hence, the world, from its heights to its depths, is like a mirror to compel us to contemplate God, who is by nature and in essence invisible. Paul says the same thing in the first chapter of Romans, that the things we perceive with our eyes show us that there is one God (Rom. 1:20), although he is in himself incomprehensible unless we understand him in his works. At least we are responsible, and we will be inexcusable if we remain locked in our ignorance. John Calvin's Sermons on Genesis: Chapters 1-11. Trans. Rob Roy McGregor. East Peoria, IL: The Banner of Truth Trust. 2009. pp. 1-2. Infective agents cloaked with woven lies
And hidden from the public eye, they live In kleptomaniac disguise To hide their theft and motive inhumane To mask the Maker's mark, imago dei, And put a signaled virtue to their name, As if to say, "We do our part to love Our neighbors as ourselves," in strangling pride That chokes Pneumatic truth and fruit thereof, While vanity possesses shallow words And breath through fabricated, lisping lip That shepherds not a frightened flock, but herds Unto immunity the wayward bride, To steal their faces from their God, and form An anti-body of the fear inside. And when in that first moment of the made,
There was but light, and light could find no shade, A world appeared, and after, moon and sun Upon day four; and when with sixth begun, The eyeballed creatures saw the bounds of light And thereby they perceived the shadowed night, A shield from coming day, with lesser beam And pupil wide to see in softer gleam Before they closed their wearied eyes to rest. Like Spirit hovered over earthen nest, The night prefigured day, as formless void Foreshadowed from the deep the call deployed In "'Let there be...'" and then, "And it was so... And there was night and day...." And man below, With rhyme and reason mingled in his mind, In deeper dream soon found himself reclined In rest on Sabbath day, and wondered he, "If night prefigures day, what could it be That day prefigures with its blinding ray But glory of a bright eternal day?" With him, we wait for God who is the Light To come and overcome the shadowed night. With great potentiality falls the oak
To be again the source from which it came, To be and not to be in one grand act Of humility, laid low by wind and size, A casualty of time that gave it rise; Yet sun and soil and water will enact Again the skyward oak, its mighty name Preserved in the potential they provoke. Scott and Jain rightfully note,
The Church is a sovereignty independent of the state. And yet because it seeks to secure the dignity of all men, it seeks the welfare of the citizens of the state. The Church is an institution attempting to embody an eternal law fulfilled in Christ and subject to his judgment. Hence the freedom of conscience of the Church cannot be bound by the state, but on the contrary, the rulers of this present temporal order will eventually be subdued by the grace of Christ through his body, the Church. For only of the Church did Christ say that "the gates of Hades will not overcome it" (Matthew 16:18). Clark, Kevin and Ravi Scott Jain. The Liberal Arts Tradition: A Philosophy of Christian Classical Education. Revised ed. Camp Hill, PA: Classical Academic Press, 2019. pg. 180-1 Unblind me from the light that shines beyond
This world, the light that makes the dark abscond In fear its deeds would be exposed and known, As all deeds are in places light has shone. Come, Spirit, search and shine illumined ray That I by light might see eternal day. |
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Michael Price - I am a husband, father, poet, and science teacher at a classical Christian school in Memphis, TN. I have three volumes of poetry. 
New book available now!
Dissent with Modification: Poems Against COVIDism, Darwinism, and Wokeism 
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