This deals my inner-pietist a severe blow:
"It is nowhere forbidden to laugh or to eat one’s fill or gain new possessions or enjoy oneself with musical instruments or drink wine.”- John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, on ‘Christian Liberty’
To my knowledge, my mom never had the name John Calvin uttered in her presence, nor did she see that name in print. She was much loved, and is much missed, but she was a thorough-going pentecostal pietist. She never accurately 'worked-through' the concept of christian liberty. Sadly, that was the cause of a life of stifling repression of even moderate expressions of joy. Did she have joy? She thought so, but it was evidenced in ways that did not resonate with many of her more perceptive on-lookers.
Was Mom a victim? Well, yes - she did read the same Bible (not the same version - the KJV had not yet been published) that John Calvin read, but her conclusions were vastly different from his. Those conclusions were formed by the system that she embraced. She was a victim of a system of hyper-piety that bore the marks of Wesleyan entire sanctification, higher/deeper life, second work of grace emphases. In looking back, I see how incredibly flawed that entire environment was, and is, and in looking forward from that, I see how great, and how gracious, is "the God of all grace". No, I don't want to sin, but there are things indifferent, that is, things that are a matter of Christian Liberty. Folks of Mom's persuasion, she was by no means the worst, have their sin-o-meters, into which everyone is required to breathe. Don't even entertain the notion that you might be able to take an unmonitored breath.
5 comments:
[nod] Good post.
I have grown in my ability to "cut them some slack," those who lead lives according to the borderline legalistic pietist Mishna. I once hated them, but the Lord has granted me repentance. Combine newfound exposure to Calvinism with 20-year-old zeal and being on one's own away from the community of his youth, along with a flesh that enjoyed shaking its finger at those pharisaical elders who added mint and cumin tithing to the law, and its no wonder I once held them in derision.
But like the Pipe man, I now bear no grudge, and am happy to fellowship where Christ is our common ground.
I just don't offer them a beer ;-)
Pilgrim, would you grab yourself a long-neck, and firmly ensconce yourself on the front porch rail, when you note that the tee-totalin' Methodist circuit-rider was about to canter by? Encouragin' dialogue, that's all!
Piper is right, but, his primary frame of reference is, most probably, his dad, whose fundy-ism could not be equated to pietistic legalism, IMO. He was, as is John, gracious, and godly, at the same time - without confusing the two.
A couple of graffiti items that the denizens of The Confessional Outhouse list as "Wipin’ stock":
* PREF- “Pietistic/Revivalist/Evangelical/Fundamentalist” (not confessional enough)
* NPP/FV/AA-“New Perspective on Paul/Federal Vision/Auburn Avenue” (off the deep end, and no longer confessional)
* BCF-“Bible Church Fundamentalism”
What do you s'pose they mean by that?
I'm thinking they have in mind the sort of "wiping" that is often done in outhouses.
Pilgrim,
I knew that! Wasn't fishing for graphic analysis - (Yo)urine, or myan! Got a little side-note: From 'Institutes', via The Whitehorse Inn guys, via Restless and Reforming, comes this:
http://restlessandreforming.blogspot.com/2009/03/tyranny-of-weaker-brother.html
... the knowledge of this freedom is very necessary for us, for if it is lacking, our consciences will have no repose and there will be no end to superstitions. Today we seem to many to be unreasonable because we stir up discussion over the unrestricted eating of meat, use of holidays and of vestments, and such thing, which seem to them vain frivolities.
But these matters are more important than is commonly believed. For when consciences one ensnare themselves, they enter a long and inextricable maze, not easy to get out of. If a man begins to doubt whether he may use linen for sheets, shirts, handkerchiefs, and napkins, he will afterward be uncertain also about hemp; finally, doubt will even arise over tow. For he will turn over in his mind whether he can sup without napkins, or go without a handkerchief. If any man should consider daintier food unlawful, in the end he will not be at peace before God, when he eats either black bread or common victuals, while it occurs to him that he could sustain his body on courser foods. If he boggles at sweet wine, he will not with clear conscience drink even flat wine, and finally he will not dare touch water if sweeter and cleaner than other water. To sum up, he will come to the point of considering it wrong to step upon a straw in his path, as the saying goes.
Institutes of the Christian Religion, III.19.7
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