Confessing Evangelical

Hmm. Really must stop blogging about sport. I praise Zidane, and he promptly starts headbutting people; I praise Landis, and he... well, I don't think a link is even necessary, but here y'go. *sigh*

Though actually... I think now would be a good time to say I reckon Manchester United have a great season lined up - certainly no possibility of relegation, I'd say - and Australia are pretty much odds-on to regain the Ashes this winter. ;-)

As for Landis: well, like many people I'm in denial suspending judgment for the moment. It will be desperately disappointing - and surely near-fatal for the credibility of cycling as a sport - if Landis is shown to have cheated; not least since it will mean that the winners "on the road" in the past year of all three major Tours - France, Spain and Italy - have subsequently either been stripped of their titles or are otherwise facing allegations of doping.

But it seems there is at least the possibility of his elevated levels of testosterone having a natural cause. We'll just have to wait and see.

Whatever happens, I think it unlikely that Landis will try the same line of argument as the sprinter Dennis Mitchell, who (according to today's Telegraph):

"claimed his [testosterone] level was so high because the previous night he had made love to his wife four times and drunk six bottles of beer".

Nice try. Though apparently it was only the Bruce Springsteen CDs he was listening to at the time that pushed him into the red zone...

Dick Lucas, in his expository lecture on Romans 4, in particular verse 16:

The words that go together here - so precious - are promise, grace and faith.

We need to ask ourselves whenever we go to a church, "Is the Christianity that is preached here the version of promise, grace and faith, or is it the law version?"

When I went to church as a boy - and I'm thankful that I was taken to church - the Christianity that I heard was law. It was a revelation to me when I heard a Christianity that was promise, grace and faith.

Hats off to Floyd Landis, who today achieved one of the greatest comebacks in sporting history, on stage 17 of the Tour de France.

Landis recovered the yellow jersey on Wednesday, but then blew up on the final climb yesterday, grinding to a near-halt with suspected heatstroke, losing over eight minutes, and plummeting from first to eleventh place. Even Landis admitted yesterday evening that his chances of winning this year's Tour were probably over.

But then today, Landis made an astonishing 128.5 km solo break, starting on the first big climb of the day, working his way past the rest of the field, and holding his lead right the way up the murderous Col de Joux-Plane and down to the finish line to win the stage. More importantly, while he didn't recover the yellow jersey from Oscar Pereiro, he moved up into third place and is now only 30 seconds off the overall lead. His time-trialling abilities give him an excellent prospect for winning the Tour - unless something else extraordinary happens, of course.

A privilege to follow it on the live online report, and then to watch the highlights tonight (brief video highlights available here). Wonderful stuff (and not a headbutt to be seen!).

Interesting also to hear the commentator's remarks on Landis' background and upbringing. He was raised as a Mennonite in Pennsylvania, and would ride 100 km each night in secret, after finishing the additional chores given to him by his parents to try to distract him from his love of the "worldly" pursuit of cycling. Sounds like a robust doctrine of vocation would have come in useful there.

Hilarious page of pictures from vestment catalogues. A dangerous one to look at in an open-plan office, as the unsuccessful attempts to stifle my laughter made me look vaguely insane.

The various examples are listed in the left-hand column. Particular favourites include:

• All-in-one bishop and "young friend"


• Fr Bilbo


• Hawaiian Mumu


• Who chooses the models?


• Passport photos


• Fr Christmas (evidently being modelled by Peter Cook, as Dale at the BHT points out)

Finally, I now realise that I could in fact be reconciled to the idea of a female pastor in certain circumstances.

Zinedine Zidane's moment of madness, along with other disciplinary issues from the World Cup, prompt some interesting thoughts from Conrad Gempf. "What a shame to end your tournament on such a disgrace", observes Gempf, before commenting:

Dis-grace. Interesting word.

But the World Cup wasn't solely defined by yellow cards and red cards, and Gempf says that he "saw moments of good sportsmanship in both the Wimbledon and World Cup finals":

What interests me is that they were not moments of spontaneity and self-expression, but moments of selves yielding to tradition.

For example, in the Wimbledon Men's Final, at one point Nadal followed tennis tradition by apologising to Federer after winning a point through "dumb luck":

One commentator said to the other, "I wonder if he means that." The other replied "He's a good enough sport that he just might." One of my mentors, Tom Howard, would have loved this as an example of a point he never tired of making - tradition can be the ally not the enemy of the Christian.

Whether Nadal's apology was heart-felt or not, I can't tell, but it seems clear to me that, left to my own devices in that situation, I would celebrate. But by having a tradition to follow, I'm offered a chance to temper my selfish self-expression and acknowledge the other. When I am tempted to merely act "normally," thankfully tradition beckons me to act with "grace." And gives me an opportunity to feel it and mean it as well.

Similarly, in football:

...even two teams that seem otherwise intent on injuring each other will often obey the tradition that when a player on the other team is down and hurt, you don't press the advantage that that gives you, but instead you deliberately give up possession and kick the ball out of play, trusting (what outrageous faith, in the circumstances!) that the other team will give it back later.

This unwritten script, this football liturgy, is an example that Luther would have loved. The Laws of the game make no provision for such stoppages in play, but Grace has found a way. And, apparently, even the players who love to hog the ball have learned that This is what players are Supposed To Do in this situation and are coaxed into doing a good that is beyond their own self-interest, and beyond the letter of the law.

Even insincerely-followed tradition can be better than unrestrained self-expression:

If you think there's a problem that players are only grudgingly kicking the ball out of play or are insincere in their apologies, the answer is probably not to abolish the traditions and let the players find ways of expressing themselves more authentically. Not unless you're a fan of head-butting. Instead, in sports and in ecclesiology, I think we want to reinforce traditions that still have the power to suggest or beckon me to think outside the law, outside my self-interest and self-expression and toward the opposite of dis-grace - toward grace.

I've just updated our Flickr account with photographs taken (mainly by my wife) over the past few months.

The new photos are in the four most recent sets listed on the right-hand side, and if I say so myself the Norfolk 2006 set is particularly enjoyable - our younger son (right) revealing himself to be the new Jack Bauer in the course of a water-pistol fight with my parents...

OK, make that the incomparably stupid Zinedine Zidane.

As for me and my household, tonight we are supporting France (or, to be precise, the incomparable Zinedine Zidane).

This morning, the BBC's "Broadcasting House" programme included a hilarious item in which the conductor Charles Hazelwood shared some musical insights about the French national anthem (RealAudio stream; item starts at 25m 56s). I'm not sure I'll ever be able to listen to La Marseillaise in quite the same way again, after Hazelwood's description of its "priapic" qualities, its gradual build-up to the "point of ultimate resolution, shall we say, between a pair of lovers, between a country and its sense of nationhood". Easy, tiger!

In honour of the occasion, at church this morning I played, not the Marseillaise itself, but "the Marseillaise of the Camisards", the Huguenot battle hymn: Matthäus Greiter's setting of Psalm 68 from the Genevan Psalter:

Que Dieu se montre seulement
Et on verra soudainement
Abandonner la place
Le camp des ennemis épars
Et les haineux de toutes parts
Fuïr devant sa face
Dieu les fera tous enfuïr
Ainsi qu’on voit s’évanouïr
Un amas de fumée
Comme la cire auprès du feu
Ainsi des méchans devant Dieu
La force est consumée

Cependant devant le Seigneur
Les justes chantent son honneur
En toute éjouissance
Et de la grand’ joye qu’ils ont
De voir les méchans qui s’en vont
Sautent à grand’ puissance
Chantez du Seigneur le renom
Psalmodiez, louez son nom
Et sa gloire immortelle
Car sur la nuë il est porté
Et d’un nom plein de majesté
L’Eternel il s’appelle

Réjouissez-vous devant lui
Qui est des pauvres sans appui
Le père debonnaire
Qui le droict des vefues soustient
Devant Dieu, dis-je, qui se tient
En son saint sanctuaire
Dieu fait avoir pleine maison
A ceux qui ont longue saison
Sans nuls enfin sofferte
Délivre les siens enferrez
Tient les rebelles enferrez
En leur terre deserte

A MIDI version of the tune can be heard here (from this Dutch site giving tunes for the entire Genevan Psalter).

Here is an English translation of the first verse (the full version is here):

God shall arise, and by His might
Put all His enemies to flight;
In conquest shall He quell them.
Let those who hate Him, scattered, flee
Before His glorious majesty,
For God Himself shall fell them.
Just as the wind drives smoke away,
So God will scatter the array
Of those who evil cherish.
As wax that melts before the fire,
So, vanquished by God's dreadful ire,
Shall all the wicked perish.

That is taken from the Canadian Reformed Church's Book of Praise, which includes the full Genevan Psalter complete with tunes (large PDF file).

For more information about the Genevan Psalter, Credenda Agenda did a three-part history (1 | 2 | 3), as well as an article on Claude Goudimel, who wrote many of the tunes for the psalter.

Ridiculous the waste sad time
Stretching before and after.

For those of us who find that the long succession of "Sundays after Pentecost/Trinity" gets to be (whisper it!) a bit of a drag by, say, late October: just be glad you're not a Roman Catholic in Sydney, where, according to the Archdiocese's website, Cardinal Pell recently preached a sermon for the 312th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

For the past couple of years, my blog has featured a site tracker (used to provide details of the number of visitors etc) provided by an outfit called "Extreme Tracking", at extreme-dm.com (no link, for reasons that will become apparent shortly).

To my embarrassment, I now discover that "extreme-dm.com" is regarded as spyware, due to the "tracking cookie" it deposits when people visit a site that uses this service. So (ahem) I suggest any regular visitors to this site check their cookies and delete anything for "extreme-dm.com" or "extremetracking.com".

I have now installed a tracker from Site Meter which, to the best of my knowledge, understanding and belief (spot the lawyer!) does not constitute spyware or any other form of nastiness.

This interview (.mov file, 2m 38s) with John "Chappo" Chapman is a reminder of what I still love about Sydney Anglicanism at its best: its straightforwardness, lucidity and Christ-centredness.

The interview relates to Chappo's latest book, A Sinner's Guide to Holiness. Some particularly choice points made in the interview:

1. Chappo tells the story of an interview on Australian TV with various people who had reached the age of 100. One of them, when asked the secret of her longevity, replied, "I dunno, I just keep breathing". Chappo says its the same with holiness: "if you're holy on a day to day basis, you don't realise how the years have slipped by".


2. Chapman also recommends reading the gospels regularly: "You see Jesus in action best there", encountering him in real-life situations rather than just reading about him. This ensures that your picture of Jesus remains "rounded and balanced". As Chapman says:
   

   If you don't practise thinking about Jesus, you won't think about him when you need to.

3. "The new creation is a terrific incentive to do the right thing now", Chapman concludes. Now there is "just too much to do, and too little time to do it", but the prospect of the new creation helps us prioritise: "In the light of the new creation, do I have to do that now? No! If it's a good and perfect thing, it'll be there, and it'll be great."

John Chapman was the main speaker at the university mission in 1994 that played a major role in bringing me back to faith. Not that I heard Chappo speak - I only attended one of the surrounding events at a friend's room in my college (which was all God needed). But in retrospect that's still enough to make me think very fondly of him.

Note: For anyone tempted to make rude comments about a Lutheran blog posting on holiness (shock! horror!), do please go away first and read Article 6 of the Augsburg Confession (though also do read Articles 4 and 5 - especially Article 5 for any Sydney Anglicans that might read this. Craig excepted - he already knows this stuff ;-) ).

For anyone tempted to make rude comments about this Lutheran daring to post on the subject of holiness: fair point. ;-)