The light that lightens all men

This morning, it being a Sunday in the season of Epiphany, we sang a couple of hymns that should be more widely known by Christians of all denominations. One of these is "Brightest and Best of the Sons of the Morning," which has a lovely tune. Here is a choir singing it, and here are the words.

The hymn I am going to write about here is "From the Eastern Mountains." I'm sorry to say that I can't seem to find an on-line recording of the music. The tune is called "Valour." A view of the hymn page with the tune used in the 1940 hymnal is here.

Here is the text as it appears in the 1940 Anglican hymnal:

From the eastern mountains
Pressing on they come,
Wise men in their wisdom,
To His humble home;
Stirred in deep devotion,
Hasting from afar,
Ever journeying onward,
Guided by a star.
Light of light that shineth
Ere the worlds began,
Draw Thou near, and lighten
Ev'ry heart of man.

There their Lord and Saviour
Meek and lowly lay,
Wondrous Light that led them
Onward on their way,
Ever now to lighten
Nations from afar,
As they journey homeward
By that guiding Star.
Light of light that shineth
Ere the worlds began,
Draw Thou near, and lighten
Ev'ry heart of man.

Thou Who in a manger
Once hast lowly lain,
Who dost now in glory
O'er all kingdoms reign,
Gather in the heathen,
Who in lands afar
Ne'er have seen the brightness
Of Thy guiding Star.
Light of light that shineth
Ere the worlds began,
Draw Thou near, and lighten
Ev'ry heart of man.

Gather in the outcasts,
All who've gone astray,
Throw Thy radiance o'er them,
Guide them on their way,
Those who never knew Thee,
Those who've wandered far,
Lead them by the brightness
Of Thy guiding Star.
Light of light that shineth
Ere the worlds began,
Draw Thou near, and lighten
Ev'ry heart of man.

Guide them through the darkness

Of the lonely night,

Shining still before them

With thy kindly light,

Until every nation,

Whether bond or free,

'Neath thy starlit banner,

Jesus, follows thee.

Light of light that shineth
Ere the worlds began,
Draw Thou near, and lighten
Ev'ry heart of man.

This hymn jumped out at me because I have recently been reading Marilynne Robinson's new novel Lila. As a novel, it is very fine, though not as great as Gilead. As a work of theology, it is completely wrongheaded.

Robinson's character Lila becomes very concerned after marrying John Ames when she hears about hell. She realizes that pretty much everyone she ever knew before coming to Gilead, particularly old Doll, the woman who acted as a mother to her and is now dead, may very well be in hell according to standard Christian doctrine. Lila agonizes over this, and the theological issue provides a focal point for the overwhelming discomfort she feels in her new, respectable life as the wife of a Congregationalist minister. There are plenty of other reasons for that discomfort. Lila is portrayed as having been almost completely ignorant due to the roughness of her past life, to the point that she has never even learned to use a knife and fork. The culture shock of living in Gilead as a middle-class matron is severe, and she feels that she has lost her privacy and is in danger of losing her identity. Robinson portrays all of this extremely well and believably, and she wraps the theological issue of hell into Lila's struggle with great psychological realism.

In the end, Lila is comforted by inventing her own version of universalism. Robinson, being Robinson, writes about this version of universalism beautifully, but it's seriously wrong. It involves no repentance, no new birth, and no desire for God. It does not involve these things even at the moment of death or even after death. In fact, God is very nearly absent from the heaven Lila envisages. Rather, heaven is treated as just a happy place to which God transports everyone because God is loving and because it "wouldn't be fair" to do otherwise.

Our soteriology needs to be deeper than that, and one might think that Robinson means for Lila's soteriology to be regarded as shallow because of her lack of theological knowledge. John Ames himself is something of a crypto-universalist, both in this novel and in Gilead, but he is never quite willing to become a universalist unequivocally, presumably because he really does know his Bible and has some actual understanding of sin, repentance, and grace. On the other hand, the very end of Lila seems to suggest that Lila will be able to comfort Ames by telling him what she now knows on this subject.

What the novel does do well, as does Gilead, is to portray the genuine anguish one feels at the thought that a loved one might be eternally lost. Some of us even feel that anguish regarding people we have never met. Missionaries feel that anguish for whole people groups.

The Bible and Christian tradition tell us that we should pray for the lost. The Apostle Paul says,

I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

I take Paul here to be implying that one of the things we are to pray for is that men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. Since we are told that Jesus came to seek and to save those who are lost, we know we are praying in conformity with the will of God if we pray for someone's salvation.

But as C.S. Lewis pointed out in The Great Divorce, universalism simply erases the human will. God just sweeps people up into heaven (or "heaven") whether they want to be there or not and presumably changes them magically into eternally good people even if they wanted to go on being evil. I question whether this is even a coherent picture.

So when we pray for a man's salvation, we are not, I believe, praying for something that God can bring about by a mere act of power, for to do so would be to erase the person and to substitute a robot. We are praying, then, that God would reach out and woo the person, that God would bring before that person clearly the evidence of His existence, attributes, and requirements, would give that person every opportunity to accept Him. We are praying that God would shine His light upon them so that they can be guided to the knowledge of the truth.

All of which brings us back to "From the Eastern Mountains." I like the fact that the song connects the Wise Men with God's desire that all men should be saved and God's willingness to use even extraordinary means to that end. The God who could send a star to the Wise Men can send dreams to a Muslim, for example. He can bring a David Wood or a John C. Wright to recognize that He is God, at which point they have to decide what they are going to do about that. This song is a prayer for the salvation of those who know not God. Never give up praying that.

C. H. Spurgeon, on praying for the lost:

Until the gate of hell is shut upon a man we must not cease to pray for him. And if we see him hugging the very doorposts of damnation, we must go to the mercy seat and beseech the arm of grace to pluck him from his dangerous position. While there is life there is hope, and although the soul is almost smothered with despair, we must not despair for it, but rather arouse ourselves to awaken the Almighty arm.

The parable, the prodigal, and the pagan

Our gospel reading at church this morning was the parable of the Prodigal Son. I was meditating on the fact that Jesus is almost certainly representing the relationship between the Jews and the Gentiles and the salvation of the Gentiles in this parable, and the following thoughts occurred to me:

This parable should be reassuring, though not answering many specific questions, concerning God's attitude toward pagans who have never explicitly heard of Him. First, the prodigal son in the parable is considered morally culpable for his wrong acts. When the father, who represents God the Father, says, "This my son was dead and is alive again," there is no question about the spiritual overtones of "dead." And if this applies to the Gentiles generally, then inter alia it applies to those Gentiles who have never heard of Jesus Christ. They, too, are responsible for their sins. They don't just do them because they don't know any better. There is some sense in which the prodigal son knows that what he's doing is wrong. His "riotous living" is a form of rebellion.

The Gentiles didn't have the Law of Moses. But that didn't mean that the Gentiles were invincibly ignorant of the wrongness of "riotous living." Similarly, if a man is part of a tribe that commits murder and cannibalism, the mere fact that he has not been told the Gospel of Jesus Christ does not make him non-culpable for committing murder and cannibalism.

This should be comforting, in a sense, because it should remove a kind of cultural relativism that haunts the edges of our thinking about pagans who have never heard. Everyone commits sins, and they really are sins, even if one hasn't heard of Jesus. No, they aren't all on the level of murder and cannibalism, but even those who don't explicitly know God do some things that are wrong and are, in that sense, in rebellion against God. Hence, if they are punished for their sins, God isn't just arbitrarily punishing people who didn't know any better.

But there's much clearer good news in the parable. The father (who is the Father) reacts with overwhelming joy over the repentance and return of the prodigal. And he chides the jealous older brother who begrudges the feast. Surely this must say something positive, even if we don't know all the details, about God's love for those who have never heard or who have scarcely heard. God desires that they would return. God does not want them to continue to be dead in trespasses and sins. There will be rejoicing in heaven over one who repents.

One cannot imagine the Father portrayed by this parable as playing a gotcha game in which he sends a repentant prodigal off into outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. The Father in this parable is just waiting for the opportunity to welcome the wanderer home.

It's true that we don't in this parable see the Father going and searching for the lost one. The search is portrayed in the parable of the lost sheep. But after reading both of those parables I defy anyone to portray as biblical the picture of a Father who sits back and says, "Too bad, so sad. You're under my wrath because of original sin, and I had no responsibility to send you the gospel, so you're going to hell. Don't complain to me, man, complain to Adam."

I don't know the answer to the concrete question: What does happen to the virtuous (at least somewhat virtuous) pagan? Does God send more light in this world--a missionary, a dream, a book--if the person embraces the light as far as he has it and attempts to follow the Good? Does God give a blinding self-revelation and a moment of choice, a cross-roads, at the moment of death, to one who has not previously heard of the true God? I don't know. Nor do these musings on the prodigal son answer those questions.

What I think these musings do tell us is that, since the prodigal son represents the Gentiles, we can learn something there about God's attitude (for want of a better word) toward even the most far-removed, sinful, and clueless Gentiles. From there on, we should become the instrument of that love and forgiveness--God's hands and voice, bringing the Good News.

How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace. (Romans 10:15)

On offering worldly inducements to Christianity

I'm blatantly using W4 as a jumping-off place for a post here, since I have been neglecting this personal blog lately. I hope that my esteemed blog colleague Jeff Culbreath, whose post and discussion prompted this, will not mind.

Jeff and I have been having a very interesting discussion of varying methods of evangelism and the ways these might divide along, on the one hand, Protestant-Catholic lines and, on the other hand, "individualist" vs. "group conversion" lines.

In the course of the discussion, Jeff said,

The indomitable warrior-monks who Christianized Europe, South America, the
Philippines and elsewhere were aiming to bring entire societies into the Christian fold. That meant converting pagan kings, who exercised real authority, and securing their favor and protection. It sometimes meant promising worldly advantages to prospective converts, such as the temporal benefits of Roman civilization.

Later, in responding to someone else, Jeff said a bit more about "worldly advantages."

I suspect that Steve, a libertarian, is prone to equating social incentives and disincentives with "force". For many of Steve's persuasion the individual human will must act totally without outside influence in order to be considered "free". For instance, if the old pagan religion is no longer sanctioned, if Christians are favored for certain positions in the kingdom, etc., then all conversions are deemed "forced", or at least "coerced" and unfree. Such a view is profoundly mistaken.

I addressed the question of worldly incentives to Christianity at some length in a comment.

[T]he question of social incentives is an interesting and delicate one. I should say here that Protestant as well as Catholic missionaries have had to deal with this question. Indeed, the anti-conversion laws in India are (this may interest you) premised on the assumption that most conversions from Hinduism to any form of Christianity are not "truly free" for exactly the reasons you give. Ironically, this results in the bullying of new converts by the authorities with repeated insinuations that they have not converted freely, that they were offered incentives, and that they therefore should return to Hinduism. So actually, of course, the force is on the other side--from the state against the convert. Apparently one of the incentives is that they get out of the caste system if they are Christians, which is naturally attractive to those of low caste.

It seems to me that there are going to be incentives that arise fairly naturally. Right at the beginning in the Book of Acts we find that the Apostles had money distributed to the widows who were part of the early church. I can just imagine people's asserting (though the Bible doesn't say that they actually did) that some widow converted to Christianity just to get on the Christian dole!

The very fact that Christians (rightly) give special consideration to fellow Christians in the distribution of charity (the Bible expressly enjoins this) is going to be seen as a form of incentive.

In the old days (this is probably not true anymore), including those allegedly individualist 19th century days, Protestant missionaries sometimes had an entire enclave of "mission natives" who built up a Christian community around the missionaries and formed a compound. This could sometimes be defended against, say, marauding Masai. Nowadays I suspect all missionaries, Protestant and Catholic alike, would consider that highly inappropriate, not culturally sensitive, offering the wrong kind of incentives, causing insincere conversions, etc. But I've always thought that I could see exactly how it could happen naturally. For example, the Christian natives naturally want to associate with other Christians. The missionary understandably wants Christian employees. If they are in a region surrounded by dangerous people they want to band together for mutual assistance. So even though that sort of arrangement is now "politically incorrect," I could never get het up about it.

All that being said, it seems to me that from a strictly theological point of view it is ultimately very important that we seek God for the sake of God and that those who are accepted as converts genuinely do want to follow the Lord Jesus Christ. Of course the full realization of that longing after God is a state that many of us struggle after for years and years and do not achieve. But since, in the final analysis, the sincere desire for God and love for God is central to what Christianity is about, I do balk at *deliberately* offering *direct* worldly incentives to people to convert. If the incentives are just there "in the situation," having arisen in some natural way, then so be it. But I do think that in that case one should proceed with special caution in admitting new converts to try to make sure they are sincere and not just cynically "out for what they can get."

And the following Catholic argument could be made: If these people convert, they are going to be taking the Sacrament, so the last thing one wants is for them to be doing so after an insincere conversion, made for reasons of worldly gain. One should avoid that for their own sake!

We have it directly from the mouth of the Apostle: The gifts of God are not to be sold for money.

It's a bit difficult to tell whether the "worldly advantages" Jeff envisages are the kinds of things that would, in the categories I was using, "arise naturally." For example, I'm not entirely clear on what it means to "offer" someone the advantages of Roman civilization. And what would it mean to offer this on condition that the ruler convert to Christianity? I would have thought it might mean offering Roman citizenship, but perhaps that isn't what's in view.

I'm also not completely certain that Jeff was expressing approval of offering worldly advantages, though from the follow-up comment it seems that he was. I apologize if I have misunderstood on this point, though.

As for preferring Christians in government positions, that gets us into the whole question in political philosophy as to whether that is ever a good idea. But if it is ever okay to do, presumably it is so for reasons entirely separate from the consideration that this will induce people to convert to Christianity. That might even be an argument against such preferential treatment. Moreover, if one sets up such a formally Christian country for some independent reasons, one needn't be directly offering a position in government to prospective converts as an inducement.

If there are, naturally, worldly advantages to being a Christian in a particular cultural context, advantages that have been put in place for other good and sufficient reasons, then all this does (as I said in the above comment) is to place an added burden on the pastor, priest, or missionary to make sure that the would-be convert is sincere in his Christian intent and commitment.

The bulk of my negative opinion here rests on the phrase "promising worldly advantages to prospective converts." That definitely conveys to me something like a direct bribe or worldly argument, made to the prospective convert: "Become a Christian, because you will gain social status, a better job, prestige, or money."

And I'm sorry, but that's bad news.

In addition to what I've already said, there is the sheer fact that any such approach as a deliberate missionary tactic would be unbiblical. Consider the following:

The Lord Jesus Christ said,

If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. (Luke 9:23)

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. (Matt. 6:24)

For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it. For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? (Mark 8:35-36)

Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. (Matt. 5:11-12)

The Apostle Paul wrote,

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. (Gal. 2:20)

It is a faithful saying; For if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him. If we suffer, we shall also reign with him. If we deny him, he also will deny us. If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful. He cannot deny himself. (II Tim. 2:11-13) (This passage in the epistle to Timothy appears to have been a hymn or a bit of liturgy in the very early church. )

James tells us,

My brethren, count it all joy when he fall into diverse temptations, knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience, but let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. (James 1:2-4)

The Apostle Peter:

That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. (I Peter 1:7)

And these are only some of the examples that could be given. The entire message of the New Testament is inextricably bound up with the notion of being willing to sacrifice all for the sake of Jesus Christ. Bonhoeffer wasn't exaggerating when he said, "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die."

It is entirely at odds with this Gospel message deliberately to offer a man worldly gain or advantage as an inducement to become a Christian. Indeed, on reflection on the above Scriptures and others like them I am inclined to say that the Apostles and even Our Lord himself would have been shocked and angered at any such recommended method of evangelism.

It may be replied that people's motives for acting are complex and that we should not demand more purity of motive than a would-be convert can be expected to attain. Well and good. But to use that as an argument for anything that could plausibly be described as "promising worldly advantages to prospective converts" is rather like saying, "Legislators are going to have complex motives for voting for a particular law, so it is legitimate to bribe them outright."

Note that my argument here isn't at all about freedom. I suppose that a legislator who takes a bribe is free. But he is still doing something wrong. He should vote for a law because he thinks it is, all things considered, a good law or a law worth supporting, not because he will personally receive money from someone for supporting it. A legislator who accepts bribes is free. He's free and corrupt. Corruption in government is bad enough. Corruption in religion is an even more serious matter. Let's avoid it like the plague.

A Must-See Video

Kleenex alert. You will want to have some on-hand. This is very moving. I do not know where the satellite missionary TV station "Life TV" is based. It broadcasts programs in Arabic all over the world comparing Islam and Christianity with the clear intent to convert Muslims to Christianity. This clip is from a call-in show called "Daring Question." The hosts take a call from a woman named Sana, calling from the UK, who wants to become a Christian but is terrified of her husband. She believes that if he discovers her faith in Jesus Christ, he will divorce her and take her children away. The hosts pray for her and with her.



It is sometimes hard to know what we can do about the Islamic threat to the West. Our leaders seem suicidally bent upon capitulating to the gradual warping of our laws and culture by the introduction of Islamic law (sharia) and culture. In the UK, sharia courts have even been given some sort of quasi-official status, though supposedly both parties have to "agree" to abide by the decisions of the sharia courts. (Wanna bet?) Conservatives propose that we refuse to accommodate Islam in our laws and customs and even that we limit or stop Muslim immigration, but pigs will fly before these suggestions are heeded.

But these men know that they are not helpless. They know that here we have no continuing city, and they are attacking the ultimate "root cause" of the problem--Islam itself--by direct missions efforts. I'm afraid our President really doesn't know what he's talking about when he talks about "winning hearts and minds." But these guys do. They are inviting people to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Prince of Peace. May God bless and protect them.

HT: Jihad Watch

Crossposted at What's Wrong with the World

Why missions matters

To the debate about Muslim takeovers of Western countries, that is.

I wrote to a correspondent recently in e-mail that the low-church Protestants are the canaries in the mine for Muslim oppression of Christians in erstwhile free Western nations. As an exhibit I offer the case discussed in my recent post on W4 concerning two Baptists (Americans long-resident in England) who were forbidden by a Muslim policeman from passing out Christian literature and trying to engage Muslims in religious conversation in a so-called "Muslim area." In the thread on that post, M.Z. Forrest, one of the commentators, actually said, "Why is it always American martyrs? Perhaps they deserve it." (He later said in the thread that this comment wasn't "completely serious.")

Now, I wonder if there is a hint there, too, of the idea that anybody who goes standing on street corners passing out Bible extracts and trying to witness to Muslims cold-turkey "deserves what he gets," because that's such a weird and crass thing to do. Of course, M.Z. didn't say that, and I won't put those words into his mouth.

But it is certainly true that Baptists and their like are a lot more likely than, say, Catholics, to engage in that sort of street evangelism. And it's also true that a lot of people, myself included, are not huge fans of that sort of evangelism, feeling vaguely that it's a little tacky, unlikely to be effective, a case of "bugging people," and so forth.

But the more I have thought about it the more I realize that the matter of evangelism is crucial for the whole question of dhimmitude. While Our Lord didn't say, "Go ye into all the world and pass out tracts on street corners," he did say, "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel." While some people are called to missions more than others, and some people are called to engage in evangelism in different ways than others are, the Great Commission hasn't been rescinded.

And it's flatly incompatible with dhimmitude. I made that point in this exchange with Jim Kalb on the subject of whether Islam "has room for" Christianity. This is something I've never heard anyone else say: Christians are supposed to try to spread their faith. Islam makes converting from Islam to Christianity punishable by death. It is thus no accident that Christian missions are illegal in Muslim countries like, say, Iran. So in a sense, anti-dhimmitude is built into Christianity. We aren't allowed to ask nothing more of the world than to be let alone. We are called upon by the very nature of our religion to stand up, be men, and try to lead others to the light of Christ.

The trouble is unfortunately that some Christians don't realize all of this. Some Christians think that Islam "has a place for" Christianity so long as one is sophisticated and sensitive enough to keep quiet and to leave other people alone, not to do offensive, low, uncouth, things like standing on street corners passing out tracts and preaching to total strangers.

But this isn't true. Consider this story from Iran. An Iranian Christian woman gave sewing lessons. In the course of her sewing lessons, some of the women she was teaching came to know about her Christianity and were attracted to it. One of them, from a fanatical family, converted. The convert had to run away, and the seamstress was punished by the family for her role in the conversion. She had no legal recourse. The judge told her it was her fault and that she should be happy nothing worse had happened to her. So even quietly testifying to your faith in a natural manner to interested people is not permitted. And understandably enough. Remember, the penalty to one who converts is death, so there must be some penalty for being deliberately instrumental in conversions.

Worse, some Christians think that we are not called upon to try to witness to people, to try to get them to (as the negative phrase now is) "change their religion." And I am afraid that some "interfaith efforts" have contributed to this confusion. Once again, the fundamentalist types are the ones warning us about this. Maybe they have a point. Maybe we should listen.

So it's an interesting connection: The confused ideas about evangelism and the negative image of evangelism (now sometimes called "proselytizing," which indicates the shift) among some Christians have arisen independently of the rise of Islam in the West. But that negative image has left a weak spot, so that when low-Protestant missionaries get into trouble, I fear that there is a feeling of "that doesn't have that much to do with me" that goes around and that enables people to say that Islam "has a place" for Christianity. But actually, it doesn't, because it has no place for proselytizing, and we are called to proselytize.