22 December 2011

Creation and Creatureliness: The Blessing and Beauty of Work

Usually I try to write something that even if not original at least reflects my original response to what another has written. But I've finished reading two other prolific bloggers who, while I suspect disagree on much in terms of their approaches to theology, have nearly simultaneously made thematically similar observations. The first here by D.J. Hart on the natural blessing of good, hard work as exemplified by one of his second-order heroes, H.L. Mencken, and the recently deceased Christopher Hitchens. Why, Hart in effect muses, are many Christians so heavenly minded they are of little earthly good? God's creation is good and the results of those who work it well should be admired.

The second is an extended quotation from Wendell Berry that bemoans the disconnect between current American evangelical "Christendom" and the historical rootedness of the Church in the beauty of creation and humanity's artistic response. The result of evangelicalism's historical amnesia is not merely ugly churches and vapid music but a cultural blindness that destroys the Church's witness more effectively than any persecution.

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