As long as we’re celebrating great figures in the fight against tyranny, today is a good day to honor one of my heroes, Raoul Wallenberg; this would be his 91st birthday, had he lived. For those not familiar with Wallenberg, he was a Swedish humanitarian sent to Hungary during WW II to rescue Jews from the Holocaust, and is one of those honored at Yad Vashem. He wasn’t officially an ambassador—he was appointed as the secretary to the Swedish legation to Hungary in 1944—but he effectively was, for he had been authorized by no less than the king of Sweden to operate completely independently of the ambassador. His purpose in Budapest was to rescue the Jews of Hungary from the Holocaust. Between his arrival that July and the arrival of the Soviets, who arrested him and sent him off to Moscow, never to be seen again, he saved at least 20,000 Jews and perhaps as many as 100,000. Wallenberg had the courage not to go with the flow in Europe at that time, but to seek to change it at the risk of his life; he had the courage to carry out the desire of his government to save as many Jews as possible from Hitler’s “Final Solution.” That his courage and faithfulness led to his death is no surprise; that he lost his life not at the hands of the Nazis but at the hands of Hungary’s Soviet “liberators” is one of history’s bitter ironies.
Category Archives: In memoriam
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, RIP
“The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts.”—Aleksandr SolzhenitsynThe world lost one of its giants today: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is dead of a stroke at the age of 89. Novelist, historian, poet, Soviet dissident, cultural critic . . . to try to sum up the meaning and significance of this towering modern-day prophet, one of the deepest thinkers and most powerful bearers of Christian witness of our age, is beyond the scope of anything so brief as a blog post, though John Piper took a good shot (thanks to Jared for the link); I’ve linked a few articles below in an effort to do what my words cannot do. For me, the least I can do is to say that our world would be vastly poorer had he never lived. Requiescat in pace, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn; you have earned your rest as much as anyone can.The Last ProphetTraducing SolzhenitsynSolzhenitsyn and Modern LiteratureAleksandr Solzhenitsyn: The Ascent from IdeologyPaul Weyrich: A Tribute to Alexander Solzhenitsyn25 YearsLions
Tony Snow, RIP
It’s been a bad summer for honorable media personalities in this country; though unlike Tim Russert’s death, Tony Snow’s death this week from colon cancer was no surprise. Like Russert, however, Snow was admired for his character, insight, and evenhandedness. As a radio and TV host and columnist, he was praised as a “happy warrior,” someone who argued his strong principles and firm convictions with good will and respect for those who disagreed with him; as the President’s press secretary, he raised the bar for those who succeeded him, and those yet to come. But as with Russert, what those who knew him appreciated about him the most was his good heart, as evidenced (among many other places) in this e-mail he sent last year to a well-wisher. It was for that that veteran NBC White House correspondent David Gregory said, “I really respected him and admired the kind of man he was.” From all the evidence, Gregory wasn’t the only one. Requiescat in pace, Tony Snow.
Tim Russert, RIP
This is a shocker. Tim Russert, host of NBC’s “Meet the Press” and chief of their Washington bureau, is dead at 58, apparently of a heart attack. According to the New York Post, “the network allowed itself to be scooped by other media outlets as it tried to contact Russert’s wife Maureen and son Luke, who just graduated from Boston College”; it’s good to know someone had their priorities straight. Too bad the rest of the media didn’t.As Newsmax noted, “Washingtonian magazine once dubbed Russert the best journalist in town,” and he probably deserved that label as much as anyone. Raised Catholic and trained in Catholic schools, he consistently stressed the importance of both, in such venues as commencement addresses at the Columbus School of Law (part of the Catholic University of America) and Boston College, and a fundraising dinner for the Catholic schools in the Fall River diocese. Russert, like most Washington media, was well to my left, but from where I sat he always seemed worthy of respect, both professionally and personally, and someone it would have been enjoyable to know. Requiescat in pace, Tim Russert; the decline of TV news just accelerated.(Update: I had to add a link to this excellent reflection on Russert by Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal.)
Martin Luther King Jr.: yad vashem
Forty years ago this evening, at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, America lost one of her great-souled sons when the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was gunned down by an assassin. The memorial at the hotel appositely cites Genesis, from the story of Joseph:
They said one to another, “Behold, here cometh the Dreamer. Let us slay him and we shall see what will become of his dreams.”—Genesis 37:19-20 (KJV)
Perhaps the greatest tragedy of the Rev. Dr. King’s death is that so much of his dream died with him. Too much of the church, too many of his brothers and sisters in Christ, have set aside his call, which is the call of Christ, that we are to be one in our Lord across all our divisions, racial no less than any other—and for what? For business as usual, and the easiest, most expedient ways to grow congregations. There’s no denying, the “homogeneous unit principle” serves the cause of numerical church growth; what it doesn’t serve is the cause of the gospel, the work of the kingdom of God on this earth. On this point, more people should listen to Markus Barth:
When no tensions are confronted and overcome, because insiders or outsiders of a certain class or group meet happily among themselves, then the one new thing, peace, and the one new man created by Christ, are missing; then no faith, no church, no Christ, is found or confessed. For if the attribute “Christian” can be given sense from Eph. 2, then it means reconciled and reconciling, triumphant over walls and removing the debris, showing solidarity with the “enemy” and promoting not one’s own peace of mind but “our peace.” . . . When this peace is deprived of its social, national, or economic dimensions, when it is distorted or emasculated so much that only “peace of mind” enjoyed by saintly individuals is left—then Jesus Christ is being flatly denied. To propose, in the name of Christianity, neutrality or unconcern on questions of international, racial, or economic peace—this amounts to using Christ’s name in vain.
It’s easy to blame the white church for this, of course, but it’s not only the white church that’s guilty of leaving the Rev. Dr. King’s vision behind; as Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, one of his good friends and coworkers, writes, those who claimed the role of leadership of the black community did the same, and did so intentionally. Where the Rev. Dr. King preached the gospel of Jesus Christ for all people, many of those who would claim his mantle “were in no mood for reconciliation, and are not to this day.” The year after his death would see the beginning of black liberation theology with the publication of James Cone‘s book Black Theology and Black Power, which argued that
In the New Testament, Jesus is not for all, but for the oppressed, the poor and unwanted of society, and against oppressors. . . . Either God is for black people in their fight for liberation and against the white oppressors, or he is not.
The following year, Dr. Cone took his seat at Union Theological Seminary in New York and published his second book, A Black Theology of Liberation. In that book, he wrote,
The black theologian must reject any conception of God which stifles black self-determination by picturing God as a God of all peoples. Either God is identified with the oppressed to the point that their experience becomes God’s experience, or God is a God of racism. . . . The blackness of God means that God has made the oppressed condition God’s own condition. This is the essence of the Biblical revelation.
That’s how we got from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.; and it’s why so many folks who looked at Barack Obama and thought they were getting the incarnation of the Rev. Dr. King’s dream are now wondering if they were sold a bill of goods. The good thing in all this, though, is that Sen. Obama is right—words do matter—and that however the name of Martin Luther King may be used or misused, and however his work and legacy may be invoked or distorted to whatever purpose, his words remain, and they ring with power. Whatever else he was, the Rev. Dr. King was a preacher of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and he spoke the word of God to America—and when God sends out his word through one of his followers, that word will not return to him empty-handed, but it will accomplish the purpose for which he sent it. As such, it is not too great a thing to say, as Fr. Neuhaus does, that the Rev. Dr. King’s words will continue to echo until their purpose is fulfilled.
As long as the American experiment continues, people will listen and be inspired by his “I Have a Dream,” and will read and be instructed by his Letter from Birmingham Jail, and will once again believe that, black and white together, “We shall overcome.”
Amen. In the house of God and within its walls, he has a memorial and a name that shall not be cut off. May Jesus Christ be praised.
The Dumbfounding
(I’m just in a Margaret Avison mood all of a sudden, for whatever reason. For those not familiar with her work, she was a Canadian poet, whose Christian faith was a powerful force in her poetry. She died last July at the age of 89, having been lauded as one of Canada’s national treasures; the Globe and Mail rightly called her contribution to Canadian literature “incalculable.” This poem is the title piece of her second collection, which was the first one published after her conversion to Christianity in 1963. It seems an appropriate piece for the Easter season.)
The DumbfoundingWhen you walked here,
took skin, muscle, hair,
eyes, larynx, we
withheld all honor: “His house is clay,
how can he tell us of his far country?”Your not familiar pace
in flesh, across the waves,
woke only our distrust.
Twice-torn we cried “A ghost”
and only on our planks counted you fast.Dust wet with your spittle
cleared mortal trouble.
We called you a blasphemer,
a devil-tamer.The evening you spoke of going away
we could not stay.
All legions massed. You had to wash, and rise,
alone, and face
out of the light, for us.You died.
We said,
“The worst is true, our bliss
has come to this.”When you were seen by men
in holy flesh again
we hoped so despairingly for such report
we closed their windpipes for it.Now you have sought
and seek, in all our ways, all thoughts,
streets, musics—and we make of these a din
trying to lock you out, or in,
to be intent. And dying.Yet you are
constant and sure,
the all-lovely, all-men’s way
to that far country.Winning one, you again
all ways would begin
life: to make new
flesh, to empower
the weak in nature
to restore
or stay the sufferer;lead through the garden to
trash, rubble, hill,
where, the outcast’s outcast, you
sound dark’s uttermost, strangely light-brimming, until
time be full.
Henry Hyde, RIP
I’ve been meaning to post on this for several months now, and have kept getting sidetracked; which is unfortunate, because when Illinois Rep. Henry Hyde passed away on November 29 of last year, American politics lost both one of its most colorful and interesting characters, and one of its most profound conservative thinkers. Rep. Hyde was probably best known, and of greatest significance, for his long-running legislative advocacy of the pro-life movement, but his influence was felt across a great many subjects, perhaps most notably in his work as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and in his deep interest in foreign policy. He was a man of great gifts and great character, but what really made him a great American was his understanding of what his job required of him; as he once told a group of newly-elected members of Congress, “Permit me to suggest, on the basis of long experience, that if you don’t know what you’re prepared to lose your seat for, you’re going to do a lot of damage up here. You have to know what you’re willing to lose everything for if you’re going to be the kind of member of Congress this country needs.” Henry Hyde knew exactly what he was willing to lose everything for; and our country is by far the better for it. Requiescat in pace.
Larry Norman, RIP
Christian music legend Larry Norman died last Sunday morning at the age of 60. In one sense it wasn’t surprising, as his health had been terrible for a long time; in another, though, it was a shock. This man rocked the world for Jesus Christ, casting a vision that all too few Christian musicians have had the wisdom (or the nerve) to follow; and if he was a difficult saint, that was true of many of those whose vision rose above the mediocrity of CCM (most notably Keith Green, Mark Heard, and Rich Mullins)—because they were the people who simply could not be comfortably at home in this world.
Larry Norman helped a lot of people see Jesus who might not have otherwise, and he helped many more see the vast world of possibility in Christ beyond the conventional wisdom. I include myself in that category; his great albums were fifteen years old and more when I first heard them, and they still blew me away. Indeed, they still do, another fifteen years on. Michael Spencer is right: “Almost thirty years later, the word masterpiece is not wasted on the entire endeavor.” The church is richer because of Larry Norman, and would be richer yet if more of its artists had emulated his unflinching integrity and high sense of mission. I’m glad for him that he’s been released to the peace for which he longed.
William F. Buckley, RIP
The father of modern conservatism died this morning of emphysema at the age of 82. The founder of National Review, the host of “Firing Line,” the man largely responsible for untangling the conservative movement from the likes of the John Birch Society, the man who did more than anyone else to make the ascendancy of Ronald Reagan possible—the man who, as William Kristol said, “legitimized conservatism as an intellectual movement and therefore as a political movement”—is gone. He leaves behind a political landscape vastly different than the one he found in 1955 when, in the first issue of NR, he committed himself to “stand athwart history, yelling Stop”; and while I know those on the left will disagree, I firmly believe that landscape is the better for his efforts—as is evidenced, I think, in the fact that even many on the left loved and respected him. (The same cannot be said, alas, for many of those who consider themselves his heirs.) Perhaps more importantly, he leaves behind a great many people whose lives were personally enriched by his friendship, leadership, guidance, and assistance, and a great many more who were richly blessed by his work. He was a great American, and he will be greatly missed.
Settling in
Well, we started moving into our house on the 11th, and I started here at the church on the 16th, and now enough stuff is out of boxes and put away that it’s possible to get around; I still have a lot of books to get organized on my office shelves, but it’s beginning to look like someone actually works here. I keep getting sidetracked, though. This morning I pulled some of Stan Grenz‘ books out of a pile and put them in their place, and then I just sat down and looked at them for a while, and remembered. I can still feel the shock I felt in March 2005 when I was surfing the Web and tripped over the fact that he had died the day before, of a dissecting brain aneurysm. I can’t claim any sort of special relationship with him or his family; he was one of my favorite professors at Regent/Carey, and I met his wife Edna on a couple of occasions around the school, but if he’d been asked to make a list of his favorite students, I have no reason to think I’d have been on it. He was just good to all of us, that’s all, and I learned a tremendous amount from him, and enjoyed him greatly as a professor; you never quite knew what was going to happen when you walked into his classroom. He might be sitting there with his guitar, or the TV might be set up for Star Trek (he was a big Trekkie) or X-Files, or it might be a theological evaluation of a Gloria Estefan song. I won’t say anything was possible, but he was never completely predictable, either.
And while I don’t want to get into the arguments back and forth over the emerging church (at least, not today, anyway), I do want to say this. Dr. Grenz’ name is conjured a lot these days in those arguments, and he’s criticized pretty harshly by those fighting the emerging church; and I don’t recognize the straw man they’re holding up. The Stan Grenz they attack and vilify just doesn’t sound all that much like the one under whom I studied. It’s too bad; I learned a great deal from him, and I think those who consider him their opponent probably could too.