Baptists and the Concept of Liberty–A Thought

Some historians are arguing that Baptist thought about individual freedom and soul-liberty is an influence of the Enlightenment. While there are definitely some good indications of such an influence in the 19th century with Francis Wayland and his exaltation of individualism at the expense of the community, I fear this line of thought is a failure to see that the roots of Baptist convictions about individual freedom before God are rooted in the Separatist movement of the late 16th century, hardly a period of Enlightenment thinking! Men like Robert “Troubelchurch” Browne were central in the development of thinking in this direction. And even earlier than Browne, Jean Morelli, that remarkable Huguenot author with whom Bèze clashed over church government and who defended a Congregationalist polity, developed some of these ideas. No, the roots of Baptist thinking in this regard lie in the 16th century and that because of the re-reading of Scripture in fresh ways.

One-Volume History of the Church: Addendum

There is a one-volume history of the Church by a single author that I have found scintillating and that is Jeremy Jackson, No Other Foundation: The Church across Twenty Centuries. (1980). He has well captured a biblical perspective on the metanarrative of the history of the church. On details, I would differ here and there. Jackson studied under Francis Schaeffer at L’Abri, Switzerland, and later became his assistant, editor and historical advisor. He has also taught European history at the College of William and Mary and at Syracuse University, and earned his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania. He co-pastors Trinity Fellowship in Syracuse, New York.

A One-Volume History of the Church

Back in March of this year, Tim Challies asked me for a suggestion of a one-volume history of the Church. I am glad I am finally able to say a few words on this subject. I am leery of one-volume histories of the church, since they tend to be written by single authors, who, no matter how gifted they are as historians in certain areas, simply cannot know the entirety of church history well enough to provide a summary of it all. One sees this, for example, in K.S. Latourette’s history of Christianity. His specialty was the history of mission. In other areas, he is so-so. Even the great historian Jaroslav Pelikan, who has recently gone to be with Christ, has his weaker moments in his five-volume magnum opus on the history of doctrine. The first volume, on the patristic era, I consider utterly splendid and standard reading for anyone studying that era. But I found his treatment of post-Reformation Puritanism, Jonathan Edwards, and the New Divinity men sadly lacking.

With that said, then what would I recommend? Well, the text that I have used consistently over the past few years is Tim Dowley, ed., An Introduction to the History of Christianity (1990 Rev. ed.; repr. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995). It has a number of advantages. It covers the entire history of the church. It has been written by experts in the numerous fields. So it capitalizes on the strengths of a number of great historians of the church. And then Dowley has good editing skills and has produced a seemingly seamless text. I also admit to loving the many pictures, maps, sidebars (the latter essential for the post-modern reader who cannot handle large blocks of text without break!), and mini-chronologies.

I may find time to make a comment or two on church history sets. But that will have to wait.

Chapel Attendance for Seminarians

One of the constant issues of seminary life is chapel attendance by students. For some students it is irksome to be required to attend. They have other things they need to do. Some of these things are undoubtedly good things. But I for one would argue that one key difference between a seminary and other types of academic schools of higher education is that a seminary is not only a place of academics. It should be that. But it is not only that. It is also a community of men and women learning to be servants of Christ and His Church. And as such a community there needs to be times when the doxological goal of their studies finds corporate expression. And chapel is the perfect place for this. Here is a great testimony as to why students at a theological seminary need to attend chapel: "Mother Never Told Me Not to Pee in the Neighbor's Yard".

Poem by John Donne–A Posting Borrowed from Bruce Keisling

I have always loved the poetry of John Donne. I recently found this poem that I do not recall ever reading. It was posted by Bruce Keisling, Librarian of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, on the website/blog of Third Avenue Baptist Church, Louisville (http://www.thirdavenue.org/), a church I deeply love and admire.

XV Wilt thou love God, as he thee? Then digest, My soul, this wholesome meditation, How God the Spirit, by angels waited on In heaven, doth make his Temple in thy breast. The Father having begot a Son most blest, And still begetting, (for he ne’er be gone) Hath deigned to choose thee by adoption, Co-heir t’ his glory, and Sabbath’ endless rest. And as a robbed man, which by search doth find His stol’n stuff sold, must lose or buy’t again: The Son of glory came down, and was slain, Us whom he’d made, and Satan stol’n, to unbind. ’Twas much that man was made like God before, But, that God should be made like man, much more.

Eminent Christians, Yes; but Every Life Has Meaning

Although my list of Eminent Christians has focused on well-known figures (and some not so well-known), I would not wish to give the impression that only such are vital for the kingdom and its advance. I take it as a cardinal rule of doing church history—see Romans 16:1-16 and 1 Corinthians 12 for corroboration—that every believer’s life is of value and has meaning and plays a role. I suspect that this is why I am just as interested in men like Eusebius of Samosata, Hercules Collins and William Fraser as I am in Basil of Caesarea, Benjamin Keach and Robert Haldane.

Teaching History among Quebecois Baptists

I spent the weekend at a church retreat in Quebec. I have blogged before on the joy of being with Québécois brothers and sisters in Christ. Being with these brothers and sisters for the past few days was a fresh reminder of the grace of God that is at work in that province. Not that they do not have their problems—in this saeculum problems are par for the course. But there is a freshness and joy that is captivating. I was speaking on four aspects of Baptist spirituality—persecution in the 17th century, friendship (esp. that between Andrew Fuller and John Ryland), the evangelistic piety of Samuel Pearce, and the contours of the spirituality of Charles Spurgeon. I was reminded again that basic resources in English with regard to church history, especially Baptist history, that we take for granted are simply not available in French. This is an urgent need and well worth praying about.

And while you’re at it, remember the church in Québec. Evangelicals there number 0.5%—a far, far smaller percentage than many countries in sub-Sahara Africa or the Orient.

Lord: raise up an army of witnesses for that province for your glory and honour!

Eminent Christians: A Word on Progress

Just a word about the series “Eminent Christians.” It started in this blog back on Janaury 30, 2006, as a response to The Church Report’s list of what they considered to be “The 50 Most Influential Christians in America.” As was said then, “It is a surprising list, to say the least, both with regard to those who made the cut and those who did not!” Eight months later this alternative list is only up to #12. But, Deus vult, I do hope that this alternate list will be populated with 50 names of truly influential believers.

Eminent Christians: 12. Augustine of Hippo

The facts of Augustine’s early life are well-known, because he wrote them down in his Confessions, one of the most famous of his books. Augustine was born on November 13, 354, the son—perhaps the eldest; we know of a brother Navigius and a sister—of a pagan father, Patricius, and Christian mother, Monica. The fourth century was an age of mixed marriages at this level of society, in which devout Christian women like Monica were often to be found praying for the conversion of their irreligious husbands. Her prayers were not unavailing; Patricius accepted baptism on his deathbed. Patricius was a municipal official and small property-holder at Thagaste in Numidia. Aspiring to better his lower middle-class family, Patricius sacrificed in order to give his son the sort of liberal education that would lead him into an honoured position in Roman society.

Augustine thus studied first at Thagaste, and afterwards at Carthage, where he went to university in 371 at the age of 17. He was to remain there until 383. His father, who became a believer late in life, seems to have had little influence on his son. On the other hand, his mother Monica was a devout Christian, one whose prayers were used of God to bring her son to Christ.

Before he left for Carthage, Monica warned him earnestly not to engage in fornication and above all never to contemplate committing the sin of adultery. But, Augustine said, “I went to Carthage, where I found myself in the midst of a hissing cauldron of lust… My real need was for you, my God, who are the food of the soul. I was not aware of this hunger.”

Given a love for wisdom

In his first year at Carthage Augustine led what many might regard as a typical life of a student: enjoying the bawdy theatre of the day, using sex in search of love, consorting with a group called the Eversores—“the Smashers.” Within two years all had changed though. He had taken a concubine to live with—this arrangement was not regarded as scandalous by pagan Roman society, since many pagans of the upper and middle classes would have such an arrangement with a social inferior until the complicated arrangements for a financially advantageous match with some girl of their own class could be made. He had a son by her—Adeodatus (“Gift from God”). And he had been smitten by a desire to find the truth after reading the dialogue Hortensius by Cicero. This book, since lost and known only from fragments quoted by Augustine and other ancient writers, was a protreptic, that is, a treatise designed to inspire in the reader an enthusiasm for the discipline of philosophy. Through all his other vagaries of interest and allegiance, until the time of Augustine’s conversion to Christianity Cicero would remain the one master from whom the young African learned the most in terms of literary style.

Seeking for wisdom and truth, Augustine fell prey to a cult called Manichaeism. Founded by a Persian named Mani (216-276), who claimed that the Holy Spirit had come upon him in such a way as to reveal hidden mysteries to him and with the result that Mani was wholly united with the Spirit. The end result? Mani was the promised Paraclete of John 14-16 and the Holy Spirit spoke through him.

The views promoted by the Manichaens familiar to Augustine were very similar to Gnosticism—combining a radical cosmological dualism with ascetic practices. Little fragments of God were scattered throughout the universe, in both animals and plants, a result of the war between good and evil. Melons and cucumbers were considered to contain a particularly large amount of divinity, and were therefore prominent in the Manichaean diet. Mani, moreover, regarded the lower half of the body as the disgusting work of the devil, and thus viewed sexuality as the devil’s invention. Celibacy was encouraged, and having children frowned upon.

Augustine was a member of this cult for roughly 9 years, from 372 to 383. Augustine was too brilliant to settle for such vacuous theology for long. His most poignant moment of disillusion is recounted in the Confessions, when he finally met Faustus, the Manichee sage who would (Augustine had been promised) finally answer all the questions that troubled Augustine. When the man finally turned up, he proved to be half-educated and incapable of more than reciting a more complex set of slogans than his local disciples had known.

The impact of Ambrose’s witness

In 383, at the age of 28, Augustine moved to Rome to reach the apex of his career ambitions. Rome of the fourth century was no longer a city with political or military significance for the Roman empire, but nobody at the time dared say such a thing.

Augustine was seeking academic prestige, the emptiest of glories. But in Rome everything went wrong: his health began to suffer, his students would not pay their fees, and soon he became quite discouraged. Finally, hearing of a professorship in Milan he moved to northern Italy in 384 and rented a home belonging to a man named Verecundus. There his mother Monica joined him along with his common-law wife (whom he never names), Adeodatus, his brother Navigius, and two life-long African friends, Alypius and Evodius.

At the same time he started to go back to church. The pastor of the congregation with whom he was worshipping was Ambrose (c.340-397), the bishop of Milan and a famous preacher. Augustine found in Ambrose a man whose piety was fused with an intellect matching his own. Here Christianity began to appear to him in a new, intellectually acceptable light.

Slowly God began to bring conviction regarding his sinful ways into his heart. Describing Ambrose’s preaching, Augustine says this: “I was all ears to seize upon his eloquence, I also began to sense the truth of what he said, though only gradually. …I thrilled with love and dread alike. I realized that I was far away from you…and, far off, I heard your voice saying I am the God who IS.”

This experience, though, was not yet what we would call conversion. In Augustine’s own words: “I was astonished that although I now loved you…I did not persist in enjoyment of my God. Your beauty drew me to you, but soon I was dragged away from you by my own weight and in dismay I plunged again into the things of this world.”

Wrestling with sin

The central thing in what Augustine calls “the things of this world: was his relationship with his concubine/common-law wife. Now, Monica, his mother, had come to Milan with the express purpose of persuading her son to give this woman up and preparing for a proper marriage with a well-to-do Christian woman. Augustine gave in to his mother’s sinful suggestion and sent his concubine of fifteen years back to Africa. “The woman with whom I had been living,” Augustine later wrote in his Confessions, “was torn from my side as an obstacle to my marriage and this was a blow which crushed my heart to bleeding, because I loved her dearly. She went back to Africa, vowing never to give herself to any other man. …But I was too unhappy and too weak to imitate this example set me… I took another mistress, without the sanction of wedlock.”

This is the immediate background to Augustine’s conversion in 386. One day in August of that year, while Augustine was labouring under deep conviction of sin, a fellow North African, Ponticianus, came to see him. In his Confessions 8.6-12 he tells the story of what transpired that day as God converted him to himself (Confessions 8.12). It really needs to be read entire, for no adequate summary can do it justice.

In the spring of 387, at the Easter vigil service on the night of Holy Saturday, Augustine was baptized by Ambrose. Many people at that time, when Christianity was the fashionable road to success in the Christian empire, may have taken such a step casually and returned to their old ways, but Augustine was not one of them.

Presbyter and bishop

That autumn Monica died at Ostia, rejoicing in the knowledge that her son was safe in Christ. In 388 Augustine made his way back to Africa, hoping to establish a kind of philosophical monastery for himself and his friends at Thagaste.

But God had quite different plans. When, in 391, he was visiting the coastal town of Hippo Regius, some 150 miles from Thagaste, he was grabbed by the congregation and ordained as elder/presbyter. In a sermon that he preached in the city much later, Augustine recalled this important event:

“A slave may not contradict his Lord. I came to this city to see a friend, whom I thought I might gain for God, that he might live with us in the monastery. I felt secure, for the place already had a bishop. I was grabbed. I was made an elder…and from there, I became your bishop.”

He broke into tears as they laid hands on him in the church and his calling became clear. Agustine asked his new bishop, Valerius, for a little time to prepare himself for his duties. Now, he devoted himself to the mastery of Scripture that made him a formidable theologian in the decades to come. His abilities were quickly recognized, and by 393 he was being asked to preach sermons in place of his bishop, who was a Greek speaker by birth. The old man died in 395 and Augustine assumed responsibility for the church at Hippo the following year. He would remain at this post until his death thirty-four years later.

Augustine the author

Conventional accounts sketch Augustine’s career in terms of the controversies in which he took part. But at the centre of his ministry was daily preaching; presiding at the celebration of the Lord’s Supper; the leadership of elders and other clergy in Hippo; extensive travel in North Africa to minister to Christians and debate with heretics; copious correspondence with Christians throughout the Empire; and a life-time of writing and commenting on Scripture. He produced the largest corpus to survive of any ancient author. This corpus was catalogued a few years before Augustine’s death by Augustine himself in his Retractiones, best translated Reconsiderations. As Otto Bird has noted: “Augustine was…a very bookish person. Reading and writing meant a great deal to him. [“Saint Augustine on Reading”, The Great Ideas Today (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1988), 135].

Of his vast amount of books, three are central to understanding his thought and the impact of that thought upon the history of the West: the Confessions (397-401), the City of God (413-426) and On the Trinity (399-419). Outside of Scripture, the books of no other figure had a greater impact on Christian thought down to the time of the Reformation than Augustine. It can be said of him with regard to the realm of theology what Cassius says of Julius Caesar in William Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar: “he doth bestride the narrow world like a colossus, and we petty men walk under his huge legs” [Julius Caesar Act I, Scene 2, lines 135-137].

Augustine died on 28 August, 430, with the city of Hippo Regius being besieged by a Germanic people known as the Vandals, who were originally from the region of the Baltic Sea. We are thankful to God that they did not destroy the greatest North African theologian’s library in their sack of the city.

Never Blink in a Hailstorm by McKenna

Leadership studies have become a significant sub-discipline in recent years and rightly so. Leadership is absolutely central to the success of any organization or endeavour. The danger of some of these studies is that they emanate from a purely theoretical perspective. Only those who have known the rigours of leadership are really qualified to talk about it. David L. McKenna’s Never Blink in a Hailstorm and Other Lessons on Leadership (Baker, 2005) is by a man who knows the contours and challenges of leadership. McKenna was the youngest college president in the United States of his day and later served as the president of a number of other schools in his career, including Asbury Theological Seminary. In total, he has spent fifty years in education and leadership ventures.

The fourteen chapters are organized around time-tested maxims—such things as “Never Go Solo,” “Never Steal a Paper Clip,” “Never Expect Thanks” and the title of the book—and purposely seek to be a means of mentoring leaders. McKenna rightly states that by “recognizing that past leaders have something unique to contribute to future leaders, mentoring is a direct repudiation of a secular and postmodern mind-set” (p.12). He also acknowledges memory as a motive for writing the book: “the record of the past needs to be preserved for the time when sound bites fade and celebrities fail” (p.11).

Like every good writer, McKenna has a knack in expressing himself in rich aphorism:

“Management is a science of learned skills; leadership is an art of intuitive sense” (p.15).

“Dependence upon competency is my temptation; dependence upon God is my thirst” (p.29).

“Human beings make symbols; great leaders master them” (p.113).

And while willing to learn from secular discussions of leadership—McKenna can say “astute leaders are students of culture” (p.113)—he unabashedly gives the reader a Christian model of what leadership is about. Thus, he can affirm, for example: “Unconditional love is the ultimate competency for Christian leadership. It cannot be earned by degrees, conferred through titles, given with awards, or written in books. Competency in unconditional love comes only through utter dependence upon God” (p.29).

After perusing a lot of secular material on the art of leadership, I found the book a refreshing read and a powerful encouragement to model my leadership on the principles for such found in Holy Writ.

“We See in a Mirror Dimly”: Thanking God for the Life of Dr. Geoff Adams

Our dear brother and colleague, Dr. Geoffrey Allan Adams, the beloved husband of Betty, went to be with his Lord last week on Wednesday August 9, 2006. Dr. Adams had served during the Second World War in the Royal Navy aboard H.M.S. Indomitable during which time he came to know the Lord Jesus Christ as his Saviour.A funeral service was held for him at Jarvis Street Baptist Church, Toronto, today at 11:00 a.m. It was a time in which Christ was truly glorified. Dr. Adams had requested that something be said about Toronto Baptist Seminary, to which he had devoted so much of his life. What follows are some words given at the funeral.

How applicable are the Apostle Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 13:12—“we see in a mirror dimly”—to all things historical. Some of the most important aspects of the history of this world will only be known in the light of eternity.

When our dear brother, Dr. Adams, started teaching at Toronto Baptist Seminary in 1954, the Korean War had just ended. Five years later he was appointed Principal, a position he faithfully exercised for thirty-five years, until 1994. How tumultuous those years were with such things as the Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the student revolts of the 1960s, the FLQ crisis, Watergate, the Iran crisis during the presidency of Jimmy Carter, the collapse of the Soviet Empire, the horrors of civil war in the Balkans and of the massacres in Rwanda, and the first Gulf War. Yet, alongside all of these events that loom so large in the telling of the history of this period by earthly historians another history was being written. This one concerned the advance of the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. Penned in the annals of heaven, ultimately it will prove to be the far more important of the two histories. And in this latter history our brother had a part to play as the Principal of Toronto Baptist Seminary.

During his thirty-five years as Principal he faithfully led those who trained men and women for the Kingdom work of Christ. Many of the students who sat under his teaching and who are now scattered around this globe will never forget the rich vision of the history of redemption that Dr. Adams gave them in what were his favourite courses, namely those in biblical theology. From the Word of God itself Dr. Adams laid out for these students the essential unity of the Scriptures in their focus on the Messiah—in the Old Testament they saw the Messiah prefigured, foreshadowed, and whose coming was longed for; and in the New Testament they saw the refulgent glory of the Christ who is our Saviour, Jesus the Lord. A favourite image, the growth of the mighty oak tree from the tiny acorn, was frequently used by Dr. Adams to set forth the progressive and unified nature of God’s work as recorded in the Scriptures. Of course, like all seminary teachers, he taught other courses—in such things as English Literature and Baptist Distinctives—but his great delight was in teaching biblical theology and the Scriptures.

It needs to be noted that when he came to retire as Principal in 1994, he continued to be vitally involved in the life of the school, teaching, spending time with the students and alumni, sharing wisdom and giving advice at faculty meetings. For me, I count it a great privilege to have known him, to have had him as a fellow teacher, and especially for setting me a model of what faithful Christian leadership looks like.

Why did he invest the better part of fifty-two years in this school? It was because he knew from the Scriptures that leadership is vital to the local church and that in the providence of God this Seminary had come into being to provide such leadership. The days in which Dr. Adams led the school are past, but the need is still the same and still pressing.

Today our Canadian society and culture finds itself in sorry shape, hollow and empty. Men and women are spiritually hungry and we need churches that can fill their souls with the Bread of life, the Lord Jesus. Dominating the headlines is a resurgence of Islam, which offers a spiritual answer to the heart-needs of the West, Canada included. But it is not an answer founded on truth, for it misses the mark about the most important matter in this universe: God’s utter determination that his Son, Jesus the Christ, be glorified and worshipped and adored.

Where then will men and women be trained to share the riches of Christ with those outside of the Church? Where will men be trained to preach the Word in all of its fullness and riches? Where will they be taught to stand Daniel-like for biblical orthodoxy? Where will church-planters with the passion of Paul to see Christ exalted be nurtured and mentored? Where will potential pastors learn how to lead God’s people in all of the areas of church life? Where will they—and the women whom God calls to give leadership to other women—learn the disciplines of walking with God?

In God’s providence, in the heart of this province of Ontario, God has provided a school, Toronto Baptist Seminary. It would be sheer arrogance to think that TBS alone is doing these tasks. But we are seeking to build on the foundations laid by Dr. Adams and be found faithful as he. And if you would honour the memory of our dear brother, may I encourage you in three things:

1) To pray regularly for TBS. 2) To encourage those in your churches whom God has gifted for ministry and leadership to come to TBS. 3) To think about giving to a foundation that we are setting up: The G.A. Adams Foundation in Biblical Theology, that will provide the resources to fund a Chair in Biblical Theology.

Basil of Caesarea & Letter-Writing

Following in the train of the New Testament authors, and early Christian writers from the second century to fourth centuries, Basil of Caesarea (c.330-379), according to P.J. Fedwick, was convinced that letter-writing was an important way of exercising leadership when one could not be present in person. [The Church and the Charisma of Leadership in Basil of Caesarea (Toronto: Pontifical Institute Of Mediaeval Studies, 1979), 169-173]. This is quite different from the classical Greek suspicion of the written word. Of course, Basil was aware of the problems of written words: they seem to lack life and warmth. Thus, he could write to a philosopher named Maximus: “why do you not visit us, my noble friend, so that we may speak with each other personally and not entrust subjects of such importance [how to discourse about the Trinity] to lifeless letters…?” [Letter 9.3, trans. Agnes Clare Way, Saint Basil: Letters (New York: Fathers of the Church, Inc., 1951), I, 43].

Nevertheless, Basil had a deep—and biblical—appreciation of the way that letters can overcome various barriers, such as those of space and time. Basil thus resorted to the ministry of letter-writing to overcome these, and other, hindrances to his wider ministry.

Moreover, Basil expected those to whom he wrote to return letters to him. Thus, he could say to one person to whom he had written: “Write me, at least in the future, with pen and ink and a short piece of paper, loving us who love you.” [Letter 330 (trans. Way, Saint Basil: Letters, II, 315-316)].

And to another who also failed to respond to Basil’s letters: “One indication of life is speech. How, then, could you be considered to be upon earth, since you never speak? But put aside your silence, writing to us and making it evident that you are living.” [Letter 332 (trans. Way, Saint Basil: Letters, II, 316)].

A New Template

Last night I nearly switched from Blogger to another blog engine called Type Pad. What was attractive about Type Pad were some of the templates. One called Beckett particularly intrigued me. Imagine my surprise to see something almost identical to it at the blog by Nathan Finn. And he got his through a blogger template. I tracked it down and made the switch (hope that’s ok Nathan). I think it is a much better-looking blog. The light blue one I had before was too “sweety”—in the bad sense of that term!

Lady in the Water

My wife, daughter and I saw the movie Lady in the Water, directed by M. Night Shyamalan, last night. Briefly I thought it was brilliant. With respectful disagreement with Ian Clary’s views of the movie—“Water Not Too Deep”—I am not sure where he found each of the following in the movie: “Buddhism, existentialism, postmodernism, etc. I even caught of hint of Heidegger’s dasein.” Postmodernism, to be sure, with the fascination with spirituality—certainly vague and somewhat confused—but “Heidegger’s dasein”? And existentialism, which Ian mistakenly equates with the absurd, I am not sure was anywhere to be found. Unless the five smokers were existentialists—or were they simply comic relief? I would agree with Ian that the acting was very good and the “directing was spot on and the camera angles were classic Shyamalan.” But when he complains that “the invented terminology was too cheesy,” I would hasten to note that it was, after all, a bedtime story—hence the names, “narf,” “scrunt,” etc. Ian was also critical of the “mediocre story line” that was all “too typical,” and complained about the high level of “suspension of disbelief.” The latter was no higher than in LOTR or Narnia—by the way LOTR is not an allegory. And as for the story line, I found it intriguing and kept waiting for some sort of “natural explanation” as in Shyamalan’s The Village. The story did draw me in and kept me on the edge of my seat at times. And it succeeded in evoking a sense of wonder and joy in the ending, which C.S. Lewis would have said qualified it for a good read (or in this case, a good view).

There were also some great lines—redolent of postmodern spirituality—such as Mr. Leeds’ “Does man deserve to be saved?” Shyamalan certainly believes he should be—hence Cleveland’s last line to Story, thanking her for saving him.

All in all, an excellent film.

Precision with Regard to the Small Things and Being an Historian

How does one become an historian? Well, the path is not an easy one. But then the learning of no skill or art is easy. It does not come through merely much reading. Nor does it come through merely much writing. There have been all kinds of journal-writers—currently prolific bloggers—but neither much writing nor much reading in themselves doth an historian make. There must be reading and there must be writing, but being prolific in either or both does not guarantee good history. There must be discernment. There must be reflection. But before anything else there must be an attitude that takes time to be careful and precise, an attitude that is revealed in the small things of the craft. In fact, how one tackles those small things reveals the ability to handle the larger. If, with regard to the small things, the seemingly unimportant things, there is simply the desire to get them out of the way as soon as possible to make way for the truly “significant things,” the faculty of a good historian is lacking. Such an attitude is not perfectionism—an impossibility in this life for fallible humanity—though it is the desire to make everything written the best and most precise it can be.

Without precision, the faculty of taking care to be exact and right, the interest in details, there can be no good history-writing. If such a faculty is naturally present, it must be honed. If it be not present, it must be learned.