The Eclectic Web Journal is back, and better than ever!

After a bit of hiatus, we are back with more eclectic goodness for you.

Here in our August edition, we provide more Mozart and we continue our ruminations on the pros and cons of Calvinism.

We continue our verse-by-verse study through Romans, we review some 2022 superhero films, and, GOP, please stop e-mailing me!

Thanks for those of you who have recently “liked” our The Eclectic Kasper Facebook page. If you haven’t, feel free to give that page a “like,” and comment on any of our posts.

Thanks for reading, and stay eclectic! 

CHURCH: Reasons Not To Attend Church (And Why Those Reasons are Dumb)

So, in the February 2020 edition of our old web journal The Eclectic Kasper we presented an article called, “Reasons Not To Attend Church (And Why Those Reasons are Dumb).” 

And then we had a global pandemic, rendering church attendance temporarily dumb. So, a little humble pie for us!

As we’re still re-emerging from the pandemic, we wanted to present this article again, with only slight updates, encouraging people to get back to church if they haven’t already. Of course, some still hold back from church attendance for good reasons; yet, some people still use dumb excuses for not going to church. Wherever you are on that continuum, we hope this article encourages you to be less crippled by bad theology, more understanding, or, less dumb.

In this series, we want to provide some articles about ecclesiology, or the theological discipline that deals with Biblical doctrines related to the church (the Greek word for “church” is ecclesia).

But I wanted to cover more interesting and relevant aspects of the church, such as the mission of church, the structure of church leadership, and some of the false perceptions that people have about church and church attendance. In fact, we’ll tackle this last point presently.

It is amazing the excuses that people in general, and even those who claim to be Christians, have for not attending church. The question is not whether these objections are true or false; many of them have some legitimacy. The question is whether the truth of the objection outweighs the need for every believer to be in church regularly.

Objection #1: “You get hurt in church.” First, let’s acknowledge that this is a legitimate concern; people do get hurt, offended, marginalized, neglected, and some people get hurt far worse than that in church. But again, the question is not whether this objection is legitimate or not, but whether it is legitimate enough to prevent us from ever attending church; the answer to this question will always be no!

I would ask this individual to name a worthwhile activity or endeavor that doesn’t come with the threat of getting hurt. We sign waivers to go canoeing, or hiking in certain places, or sky-diving because, while there is high potential for fun, there is also a low possibility of pain. In our house, we used to say, “You get hurt in sports.” This meant that if you want to enjoy playing sports, the thrill of victory, the glory of a base hit or a touchdown or a three-point shot, then you also have to be aware of the corresponding risks of playing, which may mean a light injury from time-to-time and maybe even a more serious injury.

Jesus was crucified at the hands of those who claimed to be religious. Hebrews 11 catalogs those who chose faith over the hurts and pains inflicted by this world. Paul understood that you get hurt in ministry and in church; in Galatians 6:17 he says, “I bear on my body the brand-marks of Jesus.”

And keep this in mind: while people do get hurt in church, we can often find healing in church, too. In addition to that, you can maximize your time in church by being an agent of healing for someone else, who also may have been hurt in church at some point in their past.

Objection #2: “I can’t find a church I like!” In response to this objection, I’m trying to avoid words like “narcissistic” and “twit,” but unfortunately, there are plenty of narcissists and twits in churches. They think that church is all about them, and catering to them, their family, and their stage of life. No wonder they can’t find a church they like!

But church is about God and about us serving Him. In fact, our whole lives should be focused on that goal (1 Cor 10:31; 2 Cor 5:15; 1 Pet 4:11). Honestly, this objection is usually just an excuse to not go to church, and a sign that someone is not diligently searching for a good one.

It is OK to be at a church that we don’t entirely like. There should be good doctrine, careful Bible teaching, and a spirit of love, compassion, and service. Beyond that, if there is something you would like to see improved, then (humbly!) talk to your leadership and see how receptive they are. (Receptivity of the leadership to suggestions is a sign you’re at a good church!)

Keep in mind that heaven is the place where we will worship and enjoy God under ideal conditions; that place is not now. For now, during this age, in this fallen world, we have church. Your church is not perfect, but it should be sufficient to help you grow and serve.

Heaven will come, but for now, we need church. And with around 75,000 Protestant evangelical churches in the country, you have no excuse to not find a serviceable one. Unreasonably-high expectations are often the death of a church search. Pick a church, engage with the people there, grow in your faith, and use your gifts and resources to bless others.

Objection #3: “There are hypocrites in church.” I like to tell people, “Sure, churches are full of hypocrites; come join us – you’ll fit right in!

Churches do have hypocrites in them mainly because hypocrisy is innate to the human condition. Going to church doesn’t make us hypocrites; most people go to church because we recognize inconsistency and hypocrisy in our lives. Church helps us to live a more authentic life that mirrors God’s kindness and goodness. It sometimes takes years of church to shed the symptoms of hypocrisy, and often, even that is not enough time! And, to be fair, some churches unwittingly nurture hypocrisy and condescension in their parishioners’ lives. But to avoid all churches because there are some hypocrites in church is infantile and, frankly, rather hypocritical.

Think of it this way: identify one arena in life where there are no hypocrites. There are hypocrites in sports, politics, business, and entertainment. The individual making this objection would never be able to attend a sporting event, vote in an election, or purchase anything. If you have people, you have hypocrisy; nobody lives a life that is perfectly consistent with their ideology and their proclamations.

There is always hypocrisy in religion, as evident from the multiple instances of the forms of the Greek word hupokrisis in the New Testament (Matt 6:2; 7:5; 23:28; Mark 12:15; Luke 12:1; 20:20; 1 Tim 4:2). Specifically, we are exhorted to “put aside” a variety of vices, including hypocrisy (1 Pet 2:1). Why should you allow someone else’s hypocrisy to prevent you from attending church and growing in your faith?

Yes, church is filled with hypocrites, and that is exactly why we go to church. We are striving to learn from God’s Word and wisdom so that we can live a more Christ-like and consistent life.

The sum of these objections is that they are in direct disobedience to verses like Hebrews 10:23-25, which highlight the importance of corporate gatherings with believers (see also Acts 2:42-47; 4:32; 20:7). Home family Bible study, or a TV service, or listening to a pastor on the radio, these may have some benefit, but these are not church. Barring some significant health limitation, if you are not physically attending a local church, not connecting personally on Sunday mornings with other believers, not sitting in the presence of teachers and preachers who want to help you grow, and not contributing your spiritual gifts, talents, and resources to a local body, then you are not going to church (1 Cor 16:1-3). Rather you are rebelling against the mechanism that God has chosen for mission, effectiveness, and growth during this age, namely, His Church, the body of Christ on earth (Eph 1:22-23; 3:8-10).

Find a local church; it won’t be perfect, and it doesn’t need to be fantastic. It just needs to be a doctrinally-sound, Bible-teaching body of loving and growing believers who will help you grow and allow you to use your gifts to edify other believers and to magnify God’s glory.

What other (dumb) excuses do Christians use for not attending church? What do you think of those excuses? Let us know and send your thoughts to feedback@eclectickasper.com, and we’ll publish your feedback anonymously in a future edition.

MAGNIFICENT MOZART: Putting the “Fun” in Funeral Music

We don’t typically expect funeral music to evoke much joy or wonder out of us. However, a funeral composition by Mozart for some prominent Masons still evokes such emotions, and recently, even did so for one expressive and awestruck young man.

I recently picked up a CD with some of Mozart’s “Masonic Music.” Mozart’s involvement with the Viennese Masonic community is renown and perhaps encouraged some of his more imaginative pieces, like his famous opera The Magic Flute. One of the pieces on this CD, track #6, is Maurerische Trauermusik (Masonic Funeral Music, K. 477), a quite beautiful five-and-a-half-minute piece, written in November 1785 and performed in the Crowned Hope Lodge to honor the death of two prominent members of the Mason community in Vienna.

Mozart had composed a similar piece a few months previously for a ceremony at the True Concord Lodge. In fact, these compositions use a specific fixed tune, known as a cantus firmus; the point is to take that standard tune and write something different or creative or sublime around it. There are no voices in this piece, and it is scored for a smaller orchestra, a few woodwinds, horns, and strings. Yet, Mozart does some sublime work with this scaled-back set of instruments.

The piece begins with several beautifully-balanced cords, mainly woodwind, which eventually gives way to fuller orchestral sound. Most of the song is in a minor key, and has a melancholy sound to it but without being depressing or plodding. In fact, it breaks into a rather heroic, though brief, section about a minute-and-a-half in before returning to more sobering sounds.

While Mozart is the king of sublime melodies, this is more of a mood piece, as the instruments stir sensations of longing, loss, and also hope. What it lacks in melody, it makes up for in the sublimity of its sound; that is, it’s not going to be the kind of thing that you whistle to yourself on a sunny day. However, the song has almost a Wagner-like feel to it: profound and epic.

It is fascinating to listen to the interplay of woodwinds and strings and even the occasional horn blast for emphasis. Sometimes the woodwinds and strings echo back and forth and then come together in a series of tremendous cords and arpeggios. In fact, it is these different instrument families that bestow on the song those different qualities; the strings provide a sublime longing, the woodwinds echo the pain of loss, but the occasional intrusion of the horns provides a hopeful and epic quality that transcends the pure sorrow of a funeral song.

At about four minutes in, the piece sounds like it’s wrapping up, or just running out of steam. But then, Mozart picks up the sound again, like a dying man trying to preserve his life with a few last outbursts of movement. But then it slows again, gradually, as the woodwinds and strings continue to call back and forth. I noticed in this section many elements evocative of his famous Requiem Mass in D minor (K. 626). But like that dying man, the song eventually slows, losing momentum, but in a majestic and intentional way.

As the piece began with several well-balanced and pensive cords, so also it ends, but with the subtle surprise of a gentle major cord concluding this funeral song; after all the drama and movement of the piece, for the song to end on a major key the way it does is both unexpected and quite satisfying.

In fact, this song made the news just a few years ago, in November 2019, when it was being performed in Boston. After the song ended, several seconds of silence was punctured by someone saying “Wow!” That dreamy voice was from a nine-year-old boy named Ronan Mattin attending a concert with his grandfather, and the young man simply couldn’t contain his joy (you can see the video here). Ronan has autism and, ironically, is relatively non-verbal, and thus, is especially drawn to music. And as this piece ended in that concert hall, he had no recourse but to respond verbally in the same manner that most people were thinking anyway. As delightful and awe-inspiring as this piece is, it is wonderful to hear this boy’s uninhibited reaction to it. It reminds us all of why we listen to great music; whether we say “wow” or not at the end of the piece, the best songs still evoke awe or joy or wonder from us.

And there is nobody like Mozart, who, even when writing a song for a funeral, can help us appreciate the awe and even the fun in this careful and thoughtful blend of notes, instruments, and feelings. 

ROMANS: The Likeness of His Resurrection, Romans 6:4-5

The notion of identification has become pervasive in our society. People are less concerned about what they are and more concerned about how they want to identify; a male identifying as a female athlete, a white person identifying as a member of a minority, a journalist who poses as someone who is objective.

For a Christian, our driving goal should be to identify with Christ, and to help others to learn how to do that as well. We have been given His righteousness by grace and we have received it by faith; we now need to live out that identification with Him and live in the likeness of His death and resurrection.

In Romans 6:4, Paul uses the imagery of baptism to demonstrate how every believer identifies with Christ’s death and resurrection. Being lowered into the water is like dying, and being raised out of the water is like being brought back to life.

Our identification with Christ in baptism demands that we understand two parallel concepts: As Christ died for our sin, to pay the penalty of it and to free us from its power, so also should we die to sin and no longer submit to its power and influence. Similarly, as Christ rose again by the power and glory of God the Father, so also should we walk in a newness of life that reflects purity and the glorification of the Father.

Paul continues with the baptism concept; however, his aim is not to teach on baptism, but to use baptism as an illustration for Christian living. The basic principle is that we identify in baptism with Christ; just as he died for sin and was resurrected for life, so also, believers identify with Christ’s death by forsaking worldly ways and by living a new post-conversion life.

The Greek word sunthaptomai means “to be buried together with”; the prefix sun-, meaning “with” or “together,” emphasizes this point of identification with Christ. The word is used in the NT elsewhere only in Col 2:12 as Paul makes a similar point there about Christian living.

Paul continues that just as Christ has been raised out of death, so also is the believer raised to a new kind of life. The verse emphasizes that Christ was raised “out of death.” The phrase “so also” or “so too” means that there is similarity between the way Christ was raised, and the way we can experience new life now and a complete resurrection into our glorified state in the future.

The bottom line is that just as Christ was raised to life after death, by identifying with Christ through faith and baptism, so also we are to live in a “new” life or in “newness” of life. The word kainotes is a substantive form of the adjective kainos, meaning “new” or “new quality.” The word kainotes, translated “newness,” is used only here in 6:4 and also in 7:6. It is also used in the LXX of Ezekiel 47:12 in reference to future trees next to the river that will flow from the eschatological sanctuary. While the translations say these trees will bear fruit every month, the Greek literally says that, “they will bear fruit of newness.” This word is used in a similar way in secular Greek literature. The first century Greek historian Plutarch, used the same word for “newness” when he wrote regarding the fifth century BCE Athenian ruler Pericles:

For this reason are the works of Pericles all the more to be wondered at; they were created in a short time for all time. Each one of them, in its beauty, was even then and at once antique; but in the freshness of its vigor it is, even to the present day, recent and newly wrought. Such is the bloom of perpetual newness, as it were, upon these works of his, which makes them ever to look untouched by time, as though the unfaltering breath of an ageless spirit had been infused into them.

The word kainotes, then, implies something that is not just new as opposed to being old or former; for everything new now will eventually be old. Rather, it implies something that brims with “perpetual newness,” something that seems perennially fresh, vital, and relevant despite the passage of time.

The two different Greek words that we translate “new” and “newness” demonstrate how this applies to our spiritual life. Because of the resurrection of Christ, the one who believes in Him not only has new life (2 Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15), but he or she also has a “newness” or a perpetual freshness, vitality and vigor to it. The resurrection of Christ, even though it is an act that occurred almost two millennia ago, has an ever new and perpetually renewing aspect to it; it is intrinsically new, and will never become old. Whereas many today, including many Christians, are driven by novelty and fad, the Christian faith needs no such novelty because it is continually new.

In Romans 6:5, then, Paul asserts that believers have become united with Christ in the likeness of His death. The word “united” is sumphutos, meaning “sharing in, united with, at one with.” Again, this is the prefix sun-, “with” or “together,” placed before the noun phuton, which usually refers to a plant (the verb phuteuo means “to plant”). Thus the word means “to grow together.” It is used only here in the NT, but it is used in the LXX of Amos 9:13 and Zech 11:2 of the hills or forests melting or dissolving into the ground. Therefore, the idea of oneness or growing into unity with something seems appropriate here.

Paul says that we will become united with Christ “in the likeness” of His death, though not necessarily through actual death. The word “likeness” or “appearance” refers to something that has an external resemblance to some degree with something else, but does not necessarily share all of its intrinsic qualities (Rom 1:23; 5:14; 6:5; 8:3; Phil 2:7; Rev 9:7). Again this “likeness” is the baptismal rite; the submersion into and rising out of the water reflects Christ’s complete submersion into death and subsequent rising out of and separation from death.

If we have been united with Christ’s death spiritually and ritualistically, then we will also be united with Him in His resurrection in the future. After all, it would be rude to ask someone to share in the worst experience of your existence and then deny them the best experience. Similarly, the identification with Christ through our death to sin and through our identification with Christ in baptism reminds us that we will also be united with Christ in His resurrection, and the strong mixture of conjunctions (“certainly also”) reflects the certainty of that future reality.

If it is true that baptized believers have identified with Christ’s death and resurrection, then it is worth asking in what other ways the church today, and the individuals who comprise it, need to identify with Christ’s humility, courage, and fidelity to truth.

MOVIE/ TV: Some Subpar Superhero Films of 2022

*** Spoiler Alert: This article contains spoilers for the movies reviewed, and a few others, as well. ***

In this article we will discuss three 2022 superhero films, and raise an issue about superhero films that nobody seems to want to discuss.

The Batman. When people say “Batman,” I think Michael Keaton, 1989. He is Batman, that movie is Batman, that Batman is Batman. We even reviewed the Danny Elfman’s soundtrack for this film in the March 2011 edition of The Eclectic Kasper; that soundtrack is one of my favorite movie soundtracks ever.

I guess you would call that “Batman bias.” It potentially blinds me to other valid Batman outings.

Case in point: many people today revere the Christopher Nolan/ Christian Bale Batman trilogy. From my perspective, they were three decent movies that got progressively worse. In fact, I thought Dark Knight Rises was a mess. Some people I know get angry when I assert this. They may like the movie a bit too much, but I may like it a bit too little because of my Batman bias.

I tried to be aware of this bias when I viewed The Batman, directed by Matt Reeves and starting Robert Pattinson. My bias quickly evaporated into the dark and brooding mood of the film, though my ability to see plot holes and weak acting didn’t.

So, despite the bias, I rather enjoyed the film, and I would give it a solid “B,” not for Batman, but just the grade “B.” The strongest part of the film was its tone and feel. Perhaps second only to that 1989 film, which balanced a gothic realism with some comic-book elements. The tone of The Batman was dark, but realistic; we see a lot of Gotham: the streets, the cityscapes, the nicer parts of the city and the grimier ones, as well. Like the ship Serenity in Firefly, Gotham city is one of the characters and one of the most important mood-setters in the franchise, and this film captures a Gotham mood well.

I also liked that there was a lot of Batman, and less Bruce Wayne. We pointed out before that Batman doesn’t appear until 37 minutes into The Dark Knight Rises, and then, it features Bruce Wayne’s love interests, Bruce Wayne’s falling-out with Alfred, and Bruce Wayne’s exile in an African prison; still too much Bruce Wayne and not enough Batman. In contrast, The Batman was a good mixture: a bit of Bruce, and lots of the Bat.

Several of the cast were better than I expected they would be. Zoë Kravitz as Selena Kyle/ Catwoman, Colin Farrell as the Penguin, and John Turturro as Carmine Falcone, were all surprisingly good, and refreshingly not over-the-top. Andy Serkis was a great Alfred Pennyworth, though I would have liked to have seen more of him, and while Jeffrey Wright’s performance as Jim Gordon was over-exaggerated, I actually liked that. In fact, there was good chemistry between all the cast; it was fun watching Gordan work with and even stand up for Batman, and then watching Batman working with some of the Gotham city cops.

However, it wasn’t a perfect film: Robert Pattinson is a good Batman, but a terrible Bruce Wayne. Again, the advantage is that we don’t have to sit through too many cringy scenes of him playing Bruce, though the scene in the hospital is especially cringy. Generally, a brooding character can be compelling, from Hamlet to Steve Rodgers, as long as it doesn’t descend into too much self-pity. However, when a young man broods, it feels more like pouting, and when it is a rich young man brooding and pouting, then it is close to unbearable. It’s hard to sympathize with a pouty rich young man, no matter what he’s been through. Also, I thought that the plot was lacking and the story meandered a bit; there wasn’t a great climax, and the pacing of the film was uneven. The hint of a sequel was cool, but it wasn’t much of a shock; the Joker is going to be key to the second film (just like the Christopher Nolan trilogy). Big surprise!

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness: This film was kind of fun, and kind of a mess. I thought that it would really further the franchise in a post-Thanos phase, but it only seemed to add a few interesting elements which may or may not be leveraged in future MCU films. I thought that Strange was not portrayed well, though I quite liked how they turned Wanda into a bad guy, especially after the events in Westview in the series WandaVision. Most of the other characters were a bit flat: I was thrilled that Chiwetel Ejiofor reprised his role as Mordo, which is cool, but he doesn’t get much screentime and I think that we were all hoping to see Mordo as a bad guy, as teased from the first Dr. Strange film. The America Chavez character only seemed to be there for the sake of diversity, and also for her ability to shift between multiverses. Of course, seeing the members of the Illuminati, especially Patrick Stewart as an Earth-838 Professor X was probably worth the price of the ticket. For all the interesting graphics and plot twists, and all the things that Dr. Strange goes through, the film was really about Wanda and her interesting character arc, even though she already had her own series, and will probably reappear in the MCU later. Director Sam Rami tries hard to keep it all together, and he does an admirable job, but even his skill is not always enough to prevent this film from feeling like a superhero pastiche. I’ll give it a C.

Thor: Love and Thunder (herafter, T4). I’m a bit torn on this one. I found myself liking this film more than I was told that I would. The pros are that there was good chemistry between main characters, and there were was a lot of emotional resonance in the film, as well. And, speaking of Christian Bale, he played a good increasingly-crazy villain who had interesting motives. The cons are that it tried to be too funny too often, often failing to be funny. Also, the dialog frequently felt a bit lazy, and I am beginning to feel like Russel Crowe, playing Zeus in this film, has just given up on trying to act all together. There was also some interesting discussion of how disappointed people can be in their heroes and their gods, though this theme didn’t really seem to reach a satisfying conclusion. Additionally, the shift between realistic and fantastical scenes felt clunky; whereas most of Ragnarok took place in fantastical locations like Sakaar and Asgard, the juxtaposition in T4 between fantastical scenes and those that are more mundane, like a hospital or a fishing village, was jarring. It was fun that we saw some Guardians in the beginning of the film, but they didn’t really add much, and it seemed like a poorly-written, wasted opportunity. Whatever magic director Taika Waititi achieved in the weird, fun, and meaningful Thor: Ragnarok, he was not quite able to replicate in T4, and yet, some of the fun and tone was still preserved in the latter. I’ll bestow a C+ on it.

The juxtaposition of these two MCU films is telling: they were similar in that the graphics were stunning, there were plot twists and colorful characters, and yet, something made these two movies just not as compelling as they could have been.

I’m not sure if this is related, but they also felt too “Disneyified,” the quality of having been too influenced by a Disney money-making formula rather than just striving to be good films on their own. The “music note” fight at the end of Dr. Strange had a distinctive “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” feel to it; and don’t get me wrong; I am a huge Fantasia fan; but this was too cheesy a scene to be in a MCU film. Similarly, some of the overly-fantastical scenes in T4 (Zeus’ throne room, or the shadow planet) felt a bit too Disney-esque, as well.

This brings up another issue, that people seem afraid to address, and that is whether our culture has hit superhero fatigue. We have always had superhero movies and shows, going back to the 1950s. But with several superhero films, series, and streaming shows cycling concurrently through our schedules, one wonders if we have become so inundated with them that they have lost their appeal. How many more origin stories, epic conflicts, and near-world-ending films can we watch before we become calloused to the effect these movies should have on us? At some point the formulaic nature of these films deadens our appreciation of their tension and drama.

These three highly-anticipated superhero films of 2022 were all OK, but seemed to fall a bit short of expectations. With all the confusion within DCEU and even with new information about future phases of MCU, it seems that some superhero fatigue has slipped into the fanbase, and perhaps, into the studios which produce these films, as well.

ON MY BOOKSHELF: Making Sense Out of Madness

Today, mental health issues are handled with less ridicule and more concern than they were in times past. The downside is that in our modern scientific age, those who work in the mental health industry often don’t leave room for non-scientific causes to mental disorders. In ages past, practitioners recognized that mental difficulties were caused by a wide range of factors, from physiological issues and diet, to spiritual issues like sin and demon-possession. So, while the stigma associated with mental problems have lessened today, the ability to treat core issues is greatly reduced if we remove non-scientific or non-physiological causes.

It is interesting to see how people in the past viewed issues of mental health or, to use the politically incorrect term, “madness.” Perhaps those in the past have some important perspectives that can help us with these issues in the present.

In A History of Madness in Sixteenth-Century Germany, H. C. Erik Midelfort discusses how individuals in the sixteenth century understood and described madness and a variety of mental ailments. Some of these ways of thinking about aberrant mental states changed over the course of the century by theology, legal cases and advances in thinking about medicine. He insists on avoiding the danger of imposing modern psychological and psychiatric categories and solutions on the way early modern individuals understood different disorders: “Before we can seek to translate such disorders into our terms, we need to see what they meant in their own historical context” (H. C. Erik Midelfort, A History of Madness in Sixteenth-Century Germany [Stanford University Press, 1999], page 19).

Midelfort reminds the modern reader about the tone of this age which, as we often forget, was very different from our own: “Spiritually, the age was just harsh. Traditional and unorthodox thinkers alike agreed that the devil was loose in the world, that Christ’s return was, although strictly unpredictable, as imminent as the reign of Antichrist was palpable. In their decrepit waning years of the world, sin was raging as never before. In short, the world was mad” (80). Early modern society was plagued with dancing manias, madness and melancholy.

Martin Luther and Paracelsus recognized moral and spiritual dimensions to madness; Luther believed people can find healing with the balm of knowing the reality of God’s grace, human sin, Satan’s activity, and divine goodness, and Paracelsus even flirted with astrological and alchemical explanations for mental disorders. Lawyers increasingly sought aid and advice from physicians to explain the deviant and criminal behavior of their clients. The second half of the century saw an increase in witchcraft and alleged demonic activity, and these were often used in spiritual and legal terms to explain aberrant activity. But as the century progressed, many early modern physicians gravitated toward a methodology that Midelfort refers to as Galenic observation, which stressed close observation of patients and a more systematic approach to symptoms (146-149).

Midelfort broadens the discussion of madness to include folly, and even the social image and construction of Narrenfreiheit, the unique license that some “fools” had to challenge authority and say what others wouldn’t; this is often the role that a royal jester would play in a king’s or nobleman’s court. Sixteenth century literature popularized the complex and even valuable role of folly, such as in Brant’s Ship of Fools or Erasmus’ In Praise of Folly. Yet, these authors tackled mental aberrance from a philosophical and literary perspective without addressing natural mental disorders or antisocial behavior (234). Midelfort also describes the increased role of the state in the care for the mentally ill. He recounts the initiatives of Philip of Hesse to turn monasteries into hospitals for the rural poor and mentally disturbed. Unlike many of our modern perceptions, most people who were admitted into these hospitals and sanatoriums were treated well, were not physically abused, and received genuinely helpful care (383).

For me, the most interesting part of this book was the connection between Luther, rhetoric, apocalypticism, and demonic activity. Succinctly, Luther felt that his culture was going mad, and the more opposition he received, the more insane he perceived the world to be. This increase of madness and demonic activity was a signal of the end of times. In light of that alleged apocalyptic reality, insanity and Satanic activity must be opposed with vicious and brutal rhetoric. For Luther, the activity of Satan was an unquestioned reality and this was central to issues of aberrant behavior and mental states: “The devil possessed evil men, controlling their dispositions, depriving them of the freedom to resist, driving them to crimes they had never imagined, and sometimes forcing them into frenzies, convulsions, or suicide” (92). Luther felt that he had a unique role in that eschatological moment to oppose increased Satanic and demonic activity with his prolific writings and his harsh words.

Midelfort’s book is thorough and well-argued, a helpful addition to the discussion of madness and mental variances in sixteenth-century Germany. In the end, however, he questions if we have really made great progress in understanding madness over the last few centuries: “One can see that, in their way, sixteenth-century Germans were as ambivalent and confused about madness as most of us are four hundred years later” (387). He urges humility and understanding in our study of madness in the past even as we attempt to understand madness in the present.

CALVIN’S CORNER: Misconceptions of Calvinism

In our March 2022 edition, we began a new study about Calvinism (you can see our introductory article here). As we pointed out there, we’re not flag-waving adherents to Calvinism; our loyalty is not toward dispensationalism, or premillennialism, or Calvinism themselves; these theological systems are only as good as they are able to encapsulate the breadth of Scriptural data relative to the topics they strive to address.

We also noted the ire that Calvinism tends to engender; unfortunately, this is more because of Calvinists rather than because of the tenets of Calvinism. It is helpful to separate the two, and this series intends to do that.

I’ve read several books and articles both for and against Calvinism, and I have come to the conclusion that both non-Calvinists as well as many Calvinists have many wrong and distorted understandings of Calvinism. It is some of those misconceptions that I want to address in this article.

And these unfair misconceptions go both ways. For instance, Arminians don’t deny divine sovereignty (see, for instance, John Lennox, Determined to Believe?: The Sovereignty of God, Freedom, Faith, and Human Responsibility, 51-52). On the other hand, Calvinists don’t deny the ability of people to make a wide variety of choices in their life; Calvinism does not assert that God removes all choice and human will from humanity. So, rather than trying to straw-man the other side, we have to consider these issues with a bit more grace and honesty.

Also, in what follows, I don’t want it to seem like we have easy answers to difficult questions. And we’re certainly not going to solve this unremitting debate in just one article or series. However, we want to cut through the misconceptions and try to get to some of the root issues. Doing so, perhaps, can help people see why doctrines that are typically associated with Calvinism, such as election and predestination, can be so helpful in resolving this debate.

Predestination and Foreknowledge: “What do ya know?”

We have discussed this issue before from a more technical perspective in the article “What is God’s ‘Foreknowledge’?”, from the April 2016 edition of The Eclectic Kasper. Succinctly, predestination does not mean that God looks ahead and sees if we would choose Him or not and then He elects us based on that knowledge. This view still makes salvation a product of human will and/ or goodness and not entirely of God’s grace and mercy.

Scripture is clear that all have sinned, none are righteous, and nobody chooses to follow, serve, and obey God outside of His prompting. That unregenerate human beings can pursue God on our own should be put to rest with Psalm 14:2-3 alone: “The Lord looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God. All have turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.” Thus, if God had decided to save people by looking into the future and seeing who would chose Him, He would have looked ahead, seen that there were none who would chose him, and recognized that salvation was dependent only on His own work and will rather than ours.

In addition to Paul echoing these statements in Romans 3, he adds elsewhere that all people are spiritually dead (Eph 2:1, 5; Col 2:13); that is, we have no will of our own to choose salvation, but must be “made alive” by God’s grace and mercy (1 Cor 15:22; Eph 2:5; Col 2:13), “born again” (John 3:3, 7; 1 Pet 1:3, 23; see also James 1:18), “regenerated” (Titus 3:5), and “raised up” people with Christ (Eph 2:6; Col 2:12; 3:1). Our spiritual life, our will, our affections, are all dead and turned away from God apart from His prompting to turn us to Himself.

Anthropological Issues: “I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me!”

This affirmation by Al Franken’s SNL character Stuart Smalley is not just a funny slogan, but it is also a pathetic summary of a theological tenet for many believers.

Many of the issues we’re discussing here are about anthropology, or what the Bible says about human beings, as much they are about theology, or what the Bible says about God or other spiritual matters. Specifically, the crux of many misunderstandings related to election and predestination is in regard to what the Scriptures say about the ability and will of human beings. In addition to what was said in the previous section, we can expand on the issue of whether or not a fallen and apparently-free person has the ability to choose or merit salvation.

The Bible is fairly clear on this, specifically, asserting the fallenness of people and the brokenness of the human will. People are so morally deficient relative to God’s holiness that we are not only not able to save ourselves, but we are not even able to chose salvation when it is offered to us. That is, we can’t choose salvation on our own without the prompting and regeneration that God provides.

Succinctly, Scripture asserts that after the fall in Genesis 3, people are born in sin and iniquity (Job 15:14; Psalm 51:5; see also Psalm 58:3), they are continually evil in deed and thought (Gen 6:5; 8:21; Matt 15:19; Rom 1:28-32; see also Psa 140:3; Prov 6:14), and are naturally turned away from Him (Eph 2:3; see also Col 1:21). As we discussed above, they are spiritually dead (Eph 2:1, 5; Col 2:13), wholly unable to save themselves, or to have a positive inkling toward salvation without the intervention of God’s grace. Thus, the issues here are not just about God’s grace, power, omniscience and prerogative to chose some to salvation. The issue is also that humans cannot merit or choose salvation for themselves.

Other misconceptions about Calvinism, predestination and foreknowledge pertain to the issues of free will and whether or not God is a micro-manager. And we will plan on covering those in a future edition of The Eclectic Web Journal.

POLITICS: Stop E-mailing Me, GOP!

I’m definitely on the conservative side, so I’m not surprised that I would receive a GOP e-mail or two.

But the barrage of e-mails I receive, mainly from Republicans, seems overwhelming.

And, more to my point here, these e-mails are pathetic, sad, and out-of-touch.

So, this article is a correspondence on correspondence, and the ridiculous and disgraceful e-mails that I receive from the GOP. Of course, I don’t read the whole e-mail, but just the provocative messages in the subject line; these subject-line statements are enough to turn me off.

Here’s just a brief sampler platter of the messages that I have received from some GOP organization or another just in 2022.

One from the NRCC on January 24 said, “Due to recent inactivity, it looks like you may have left us Matt?” Yes, my thoughts exactly, but about Republican leadership. It looks like you have left Republicans, and it looks as though you have abandoned a country that is still right-of-center. Where is the principled and united conservative leadership out of DC? Though, for once, I think that you nailed it on the head: the problem it this country is due to the GOP’s “recent inactivity.”

Another from a GOP organization on January 27 said, “Do What You Said You Would Do.” What I said I would do? What about all of your campaign promises for a stronger military, less taxes, smaller government, and better education? What about fighting special interests and drastically lowering government spending. I received another one on that same day that said, “You’re embarrassing us now, Matt.” No, I think that you have embarrassed yourself. Another was trying to sound like we are doing something stealthy; it said, “READ then DELETE.” I’m an efficient person, and I like to cut out unnecessary steps in any process. In this case, I just cut out the first step.

Another from January 27, allegedly from Newt Gingrich, says “You’re marked as INACTIVE.” Really, I’m inactive!?! How about the Republicans in Washington DC. One from March 31 said, “I hate to be blunt, Matt.” No, I hate to be blunt, but you Republicans are morons!

We elect these individuals every cycle, two years for Representatives, and six years for Senators. We want Washington to change, and change in Washington is often one of the planks in their campaigns. We want them to reduce the national debt, make meaningful cuts to the federal spending, evaluate the ridiculous amounts of money that we send in foreign aid to countries who hate us (see our rant about this in the March 2022 article “Revisiting the Global Welfare Problem, Part 1”). How about you be less inactive in passing useless legislation and in discussing problems that nobody cares about?

Then, these GOP e-mails make it sound like I should care that someone runs a bad campaign. One e-mail sent on a senator’s behalf said, “I am about to lose BIG time!!” Well, if you can’t make your case clearly for conservative principles and American values, then you deserve to lose! Maybe that loss will teach you to be less of a dope next time you run. Or, to put it another way, you losing because you’re a moron is not my problem.

This same senator sent another e-mail that said, “I’m losing. I don’t know what to do.” Well, if you don’t know how to run a campaign and win an election, and if you are panicking about it like a child, then why should I trust you and send you money?

Then there was this one: “I am BEGGING. I am PLEADING.” Of course, this individual was mainly BEGGING and PLEADING for money; it can’t be for my vote, because most of the e-mails I receive are for congressional races outside of my state. Perhaps this candidates’ communication manager doesn’t know that all of this BEGGING and PLEADING for money makes the candidate sound like a loser. Well, I am THROWING UP in my MOUTH thinking about how PATHETIC and PITIFUL you sound.

Some of these e-mails are based on completely empty notions that may legitimately scare the gullible. One from January 20 says: “Matt: We’re giving you one more chance to stay,” which is followed by a thousand more e-mails. It seems like the GOP has become full of empty promises, like they’re not going to raise the debt ceiling, or they will spend money more responsibility.

Being a Republican and a Conservative is not about who I support, but whether I support a party and a candidate that stands on certain principles. Someone could send me a thousand e-mails – though, I would take it as a kindness if they didn’t – but if they don’t support conservative principles, then there is no way I would support them or send them funds.

The statements in these e-mail subject lines are frustrating, and seem more like they are blaming us than the GOP leadership. Don’t tell me that I’ve abandoned these principles when you cowards in DC have clearly not governed in proximity to these Republican and conservative principles. Don’t tell me that I’ve embarrassed you when you have embarrassed this party and this country.

If the GOP produced a document like the 1994 “Contract with America,” and decided to define themselves and their actions with clear conservative ideas, then I would care about the dozens of e-mails they send. 

But until then, stop e-mailing me, GOP! 

The Eclectic Web Journal is written by Matt Kasper and edited by Martha Kasper. Matt is a graduate of Moody Bible Institute in Chicago and Dallas Theological Seminary, and is currently completing a PhD. in reformation history from Georgia State University. Matt is the pastor of a small church northeast of Atlanta called Grace Atlanta Bible Church, and is involved in several other groups and activities in the Atlanta area, as well. 

We had written a decade’s worth of articles in our previous web journal, called, The Eclectic Kasper, which we published from 2011 to 2021. Those articles are also arranged topically in our “Eclectic Archive,” which you can access here. 

Also, if you haven’t yet, please give our “The Eclectic Kasper” Facebook page a “like” and you can leave comments about any of our articles on our posts there.