Homo Ludens

Bio

I wrote the following in 2018 for a small Facebook group of lignified men. I might change a few things here and there, but it still does a 'good enough' job giving an overview of my own personal history as a Christian.

I come by my catholicity/ecumenism honestly. I’ve spent most of my life in two major Christian traditions, but am familiar with others, either through direct experience or through knowing others in those traditions. I am a loyal subject of Jesus the King. I am happy to be in fellowship with all other followers of Jesus, my Lord and my God.

In a sense, my understanding of the Church is simply Pentecostal. Where the Spirit is, there the Church is. I have a deeper, covenantal understanding of ecclesiology rooted in the Old and New Testaments, but I’m happy enough to simply confess that where the Spirit is, there the Church is.

James’s dad, Rich Eckley, was a huge influence on me theologically. I did disagree with him and do disagree with him on a number of things, but mostly I’m grateful for him and for his influence on my life at an important time when I was trying to figure things out. More than anything else, he modeled for me a style of winsomeness and charity, a seriousness shot through with good humor, that I strive for in my own life and learning. I also learned from him a humility and willingness to submit and learn from traditions outside of one’s own, critically interacting with others only after first graciously understanding their position. Dr. Eckley’s PhD thesis was “Pneumatology in the Wesleyan tradition and Yves Congar: a comparative and ecumenical study”. I confess that I haven’t read it, but I’m sure it is good.

I remember one day in Buffalo, driving around with Rich Eckley, going to the house of a Lutheran buddy of his to do some sort of manual labor. I asked him about his thoughts on church government and what the Wesleyan position is. We talked about specific forms of government, then talked more broadly about the church. I don’t remember his exact words, but what he basically said is that the church is not based primarily on or dependent on any Magisterium, but on a Mysterium, the action and sustaining presence of the Holy Spirit. While this can be taken the wrong way (to denigrate good traditions and valid authorities), I think that it is fundamentally true. "What the soul is to the human body, the Holy Spirit is to the Body of Christ, which is the Church." -Augustine. Any ecclesiology that fails to recognize any other obviously Spirit-filled Christians as full members of the Body of Christ is a flawed and sectarian ecclesiology as far as I’m concerned. (As a related side note, I do think that pneumatology and ecclesiology will become increasingly more important theological disciplines as Christians from various traditions become more aware of one another and actively love one another).

I was raised Methodist.

But it was a Weird Methodism, forged in America. There were robes and traditional liturgy. There was monthly communion. It was Methodist, retaining some of its Anglican roots. There was also a country western style praise and worship band, The Glorification Singers. It was Methodist, but it was sometimes Cowboy Church. The pastor I grew up with was from the Dominican Republic. He had pentecostal leanings. I remember glossolalia and exuberant excitement at Sunday night meetings. It was Methodist, but it was Pentecostal. Most of the church was baptistic and the pastor let parents decide on baptisms or dedications for their children. Dispensational eschatology was the default eschatology. I didn’t know that any other options existed. It was Methodist, but it was mostly American Baptist. I went to youth groups and summer VBS and went away to Christian camps. Our church rented out movie theaters to host free screenings of Christian movies. Every year that there was a Billy Graham crusade somewhere nearby, our church had a bus going to it. One thing that I specifically remember is that, whatever else was right or wrong about this specific Methodist church, the Bible was respected as the Word of God. I wouldn’t know it until later in life, but most of Methodism during my youth was dying slowly as it capitulated to modernity/liberalism. At the same time that other churches were dying, this odd amalgamation of traditions flowering amongst the blue collar working class of otherwise posh Westhampton Beach, NY, was committed to remaining faithful.

I wasn’t as committed to remaining faithful. Much of my teenage years involved rebellion and outright hostility to God and to the Church. I could make excuses for this and talk about context, but it boils down to sin and rebellion. Mea culpa.

I went to Houghton College because my older sister told me to. She had gone there nearly a decade before me. She convinced me by telling me that it was a good place, that I should take my parents up on their offer to pay for my college tuition if I went to a Christian college, that most importantly I could still do whatever I wanted and get into any kind of trouble I wanted at this little school.

I do not despise small things. I came back to the Faith through relationships with others, but also through picking up a copy of a devotional booklet, Our Daily Bread. I read the stupid “devotionals” every day, but I also started reading the Bible again, following along with the reading plan in the booklet. I read Judges, maybe for the first time in my life. I knew bible stories growing up and I had read through portions of the bible and sat through a lifetime of decent sermons, but I don’t know that I had ever directly experienced Judges. I got to the story of Ehud and Eglon and I read the words, “I have a message from God for you,” that Ehud spoke right before he delivered the message, a sword plunged deep into Eglon’s belly. Prior to this, my idea of a message from God was that God wants you to know that he loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. I had been disgusted by happy clappy sentimentalism and had rejected what I knew of a dopey god of cheap grace. Here in the Bible, I saw for the first time a dangerous and violent warrior God, and I experienced awe. This is a God that I can get excited about, that I might live and die for. The story of Ehud and Eglon changed my life. Not only did it get me back on the Christian Way, but I think of it as the moment that ultimately led me to being Reformed in my Christian convictions. It was a true John Wesley-type conversion experience, not denigrating all of my past Christian experiences as a youth, but definitely bringing everything to me as a clear reality as a young adult. The Bible became the most exciting book to me. Jesus became exciting to me. It took me a long while, many years, to puzzle out what I was finding in the Bible, but I knew that I was ready to follow the White Horse Rider who treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty.

Houghton was important to me as my first taste of a broader Christian world. I met all types of Christians from all sorts of traditions. All different, all Christians. I worshipped at different types of churches. It was a long process, but I slowly realized that the Wesleyan “low church” entertainment model was not the default. There was a rich tradition of music in the 2000 years of Church history that went back further than Rich Mullins or Fanny Crosby or even the great Charles Wesley. I felt like I had found my home at an episcopal church and fell in love with the Book of Common Prayer. I also remember fondly a small country Lutheran church, whose pastor gave the best short homilies, pretty much just narrating the scripture texts in a compelling way, then very briefly applying them. I might remember them as better than they were, but they have been my test for all subsequent preachers. Even though I’m in the Reformed tradition, I have never been a fan of long sermons.

After graduating and before getting married, I was introduced to the Brethren group that Abigail had grown up in. There is a lot to love in this group of believers, especially their commitment to the Bible and their insistence on gathering around the Lord’s Table as an essential part of their worship. I was attracted to their piety, but turned off by their sectarianism, a case of “onetruechurchitis” that is all too common and which I am vigorously opposed to whether it is found in the Vestal Meeting or in Vatican City.

After getting married and living in Broome County, we did some church hopping. At the time, I had just graduated with a degree in English and Secondary Education. I was (and remain) interested in education. While researching education topics online, I came across the work of John Taylor Gatto, which pretty much killed all of my interest in public schooling and had me re-thinking everything I thought I knew about education theory and practice. This led me to the idea of classical education and Dorothy Sayers’ essay on The Lost Tools of Learning, which was hosted online on a website owned by a classical teacher, Wes Callihan, who also “happened” to be Reformed. This was the strange back door that led me to Reformedville. I started reading a magazine called Credenda/Agenda out of Moscow, ID, and was very soon led to the works of James Jordan and Peter Leithart, the two men who have done the most to shape my theological imagination. I had the great pleasure of meeting and dining with Jim Jordan at a bible conference in Troy, NY. I still haven’t met and shaken the hand of Peter Leithart, but I’d like to do so.

We began attending an RPCNA church in Owego, NY, where I learned to love singing the Psalms and where I learned radical politics. Harold Harrington, a Godly man if ever there was one, an editor of The Christian Statesman in the past, was one of the presbyters at this church. I was a member of the National Reform Association while it still lasted. I still consider myself a Covenanter politically. I read a lot of Reformers and Puritans and Scottish guys, and was influenced by the Christian Reconstructionist guys. But mostly I continued to be influenced by Jordan/Leithart. The BH Mission Statementstill reflects my own convictions.

I was convinced of paedobaptism and paedocommunion. At the time that we were living in Greene, NY, I learned from my mother that my parents had chosen to “dedicate” me as an infant and not baptize me. I realized that I needed to be baptized.

We moved to Buffalo, NY and began attending a FORC church, where Abigail, Mildred, and myself were baptized on the same day. I became more convinced of Reformed doctrine (including a deeper understanding of Reformed Ecclesiology, Reformed Sacramentology, etc.; being Reformed was about much more than Soteriology and I believed and do believe that those, mostly Baptists and Baptistic Presbyterians, who emphasized soteriology to the exclusion of all else were distorting and misrepresenting what it means to be fully Reformed). During the years in the Buffalo area, I began listening regularly to a Catholic Radio station and listened often to the program Catholic Answers. I’m glad for this in that it forced me to reckon with the deep history of the Church. Roman Catholics love to quote Cardinal Newman, that “to be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant,” but it was the exact opposite for me. I can love and celebrate as Christian brothers men like Irenaeus and Clement and Eusebius and Constantine and Athanasius and Boethius and Abelard and Gregory and Bonaventure and on and on without agreeing with them on every point. I also love Luther and Calvin and Bucer and Melancthon and the Puritans and John Wesley and Rich Eckley. I would not and could not give up one group for the other.

I’ve always loved Tim Enloe on Christian history. This essay is worth reading if you have the time (you should make the time!!): https://web.archive.org/web/20211025141543/https://tgenloe.com/sc/?p=1437

It was also in the Buffalo area that I had access to Christ the King seminary library, a rich resource that I wish was still near enough me to borrow books. I read a lot of theology books at the time. Stanley Hauerwas and N.T. Wright were both influential. I should add the disclaimer that I find aspects of both of their projects problematic. So what? I also benefited greatly from the both of them. I’ve never been committed to any one teacher’s infallibility. I’ve already mentioned that I love Leithart and Jordan more than any other bible teachers and have benefited enormously from their work. But you know what? I disagree with both of them sometimes. Sometimes I find them saying something stupid or something which might be fine, but only if understood in a certain context and which can be wildly misinterpreted. I don’t mind.

After a few years in the Buffalo area, we moved to Broome County and have gone to another FORC church ever since. I could gripe about specific things. I do gripe about things. But mostly I love the Christian brethren that I meet with weekly. One of my biggest gripes is that we all live spread out from each other. We all drive in from a distance to meet because we are ideologically like-minded. This should not be so. This is a terrible weakness as there is no regular life of the Body through the week, no genuine shared community. I don’t know how to solve this tension. Sometimes I think I should move, but my family loves the land here, having a real sense of place. There are two churches within walking distance, two miles away on country roads. One is a typical American Baptist church. The other is a liberal Methodist church. I suppose that we could join either one of those, but I know that I couldn’t do it. I’d either lose the faith or be excommunicated within a year. There are other “local” churches ten miles away, but they are all problematic. Upstate NY is a wasteland as far as Classical Protestantism goes.

And that’s what I yearn for, a robust Classical Protestantism that is self-consciously grateful for the heritage that it has received without lapsing into rabid sectarianism. I’m still firmly committed to the downright dangerous “biblicism” of the BH guys and would like to see all Reformed idols (confessional or otherwise) fall, but I also don’t want to simply jettison and disrespect the work of our Fathers. I want to be able to love the Westminster Confession for what it is and not set it up as a Paper Pope. I want to see new Reformed Confessions and Reformed Catechisms (Rich Lusk’s catechism is good: http://www.trinity-pres.net/essays/I-Belong-To-God-A-Covenantal-Catechism.pdf) written instead of pretending that we live in the 17th century and that there has been no advance in knowledge or cultural setting. Different times do require different emphases. The truth does not change, but how we express it may change. And, further, we should do things to combat our own ignorance of and indifference towards the Bible, our neglect of books like Leviticus and Chronicles and other intentionally ignored parts of the Bible. I have not seen anyone tackle these difficult books more thoroughly than the BH guys. Let’s always have more Bible. All of it.

I’ve also grown deeply appreciative of the work of The Davenant Institute/Calvinist International guys. I love their take on Reformed Irenicism and Protestant Scholasticism.

https://calvinistinternational.com/

Deep down, though, I still love the Bible most of all and appreciate the work of Bible scholars first and foremost. I’d rather talk with any kook who loves the Bible over any other kook who doesn’t.

“And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”

This is my own post so I can do whatever I like. Here’s me copying and pasting a long quote from the Apostle Paul:

1 Corinthians 1:18-2:16 English Standard Version (ESV)

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written,

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love him”—

these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.

The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?”

But we have the mind of Christ.

Credo

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