After reading “The Chosen” a few weeks ago, I had to follow with another Potok book, and of course went with “The Promise,” which is somewhat of a sequel.  (More just a follow-on book with the same characters later in life than a sequel.)

Two main points stuck me:

1. the portrayal of different father-son relationships. (How one was so close, at least in terms of studying Talmud but additionally in seeking each other out for guidance and discussion in the struggles of life, while others were strained in various ways.)
2. the amazing study of their faith as part of a lifelong journey — but so much more dedicated and in depth than what is typical today, at least in the part of society I see around me

Some quotes that are all mostly self explanatory (And I’ve bolded one I that has resonated with me the most recently):

• “What energies we waste fighting one another…”
• “It’s always easier to learn something than to use what you’ve learned.”
• “You understand what it is to make a choice…?  A choice tells the world what is most important to a human being.  When a man has a choice to make he chooses what is most important to him, and that choice tells the world what kind of man he is.”
• “A person must know who he is.  A person must understand himself, improve himself, learn his weaknesses in order to overcome them.  It is hard for a person to understand hi own weaknesses…”
• “The Master of the Universe has so created the world that everything that can be good can also be evil.  It is mankind that makes a thing good or evil … depending on how we use the wonders we have been given.”
• “…men hesitate to talk to their fathers.  A boy always wishes to be able to talk to his father.  And a father waits for the boy to become a man so they can talk as men.  And then the boy becomes a man and no longer needs the father.  It is a strange thing.”
• “That is the way the world is… Each generation thinks it fights new battles.  But the battles are the same.  Only the people are different.”

I stumbled across the link to The Deep Church on the Inter-webs, and the words on the front page struck a chord…

Feel caught between the traditional church and the emerging church? Discover a third way: deep church. C. S. Lewis used the phrase “deep church” to describe the body of believers committed to mere Christianity. Unfortunately church in our postmodern era has been marked by a certain shallowness.

After reading it, I feel like I have found what I have been looking for, even though I could not pinpoint exactly what it was I was looking before before having read it.  (Does that make sense?)  In several recent posts I have lamented the fact of apparent shallowness in the area in terms of doctrine, so the words above definitely caught my attention.

What is funny is that my pre-conception of “The Emerging Church”was way off.  I had assumed it was the large, mega-church movement with contemporary worship services.  However, that is not it at all… It is a movement that criticizes the traditional church in seven key areas (Captivity to Enlightenment rationalism, a narrow view of salvation, belief before belonging, uncontextualized worship, ineffective preaching, weak ecclesiology, and Tribalism). I will not get into those seven criticisms here — you should read the book for that — other than to say that I found, as I read the details of each, that I shared some aspects of the criticisms myself.

Belcher takes the time to expand on each criticism thoroughly, but then points out where he feels the emerging church (sometimes) goes too far.  I again found myself agreeing with him on many many points — while I share the views of the issues the emerging folks see with the traditional church, I also agree with Belcher’s view on just about every point where he thinks they over do it.

The main purpose of the book is to define a third way, beyond traditional and emerging.  Of course there is no way to summarize the entire book, but one of the basic tenets  is agreeing on the foundations of the faith as outlined in the early creeds, and letting everything else slide a little.  We have tried to follow this principle of primary vs. secondary doctrine with Haw River Christian Academy, and I strongly feel it is always the way to go.

I have started using Evernote to keep my reading notebook (it’s a great service!  keeps my notes synced to the cloud and I can get to them via any computer or my phone, changes sync automagically, etc.)  I have a tremendous amount of notes from this book.  That means a couple of things — there are either great quotes or there are passages that really make me think, and I want to be able to come back to them.

Both fit here…

• “There is a depth in the ancient church that is very up to date.”  [ and therefore it is worth honoring the tradition of the old church…\
• “The Enlightenment quest for certainty based on unassailable reason and science is a dead end… It cannot be pulled off.  It has never been done.”  [We (those of us currently alive) are all children of the Enlightenment, and therefore Children of Reason, and that is so difficult to put aside..  But it needs to be in questions of faith.  Not that you can’t use logic and reasoning in apologetic argumentation, but that there are sometimes things that go beyond just that…]
• “the next day I contacted the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) … I enquired about church planting.”  [this one stands out because so many CCS schools are backed by PCA churches!  And PCA just keeps coming up in strange places, yet there is no PCA church here…   ]
• “oh you are describing Redeemer Presbyterian Church in NYC…”  [This also stood out as I had just read two Tim Keller books, and his church is also PCA…]
• “We train our members to read discerningly, to think for themselves and to be enriched by other traditions even as they dig deep in the soil of their own tradition.”   [ nice to hear! ]
• “Hermeneutical Circle”  truth neither starts with knowledge that leads to faith nor with faith that leads to knowledge.  How do we get into this circle?  The starting point lies beyond us, with the Holy Spirit who places us inside the faith – knowledge circle…

I guess that is good for now.  I highly recommend the book for anyone that has never felt 100% at home at their church, and even if you do feel at home, I think this book could provide growth opportunities none-the-less.

I saw this mentioned on another blog as a good adventure story, and felt like I needed a break from my non-fiction reading.  Not a bad yarn, but what is up with so many stories using prior knowledge of solar eclipses as escape mechanisms or shows of superiority?

Anyway, some quotes (as there’s not much more to say):

…there is no journey upon this earth that a man may not take if he sets his heart to it.  There is nothing … that he cannot do, there are no mountains he may not climb, there are no deserts he cannot cross, save a mountain and a desert of which you are spared the knowledge, if love leads him and he holds his life in his hands counting it as nothing, ready to keep it or lose it as Heaven above may order.”

What is life?  Tell me … [ you ] who are wise, who know the secrets of the world, and of the world of stars, and the world that lies above and around the stars; who flash your words from afar without a voice; tell me … the secret of our life — whither it goes and whence it comes!  You cannot answer me; you know not.  Listen, I will answer.  Out of the dark we came, into the dark we go.  Like a storm-driven bird at night we fly out of the Nowhere; for a moment our wings are see in the light of the fire, and lo!we are gone again into the Nowhere.  Life is nothing.  Life is all.  It is the Hand with which we hold off Death.  It is the glow-worm that shines in the nighttime and is black in the morning; it is the white breath of the oxen in winter, it is the little shadow that runs across the grass and loses itself at sunset.”

Our future was so completely unknown, and I think that the unknown and the awful always bring a man nearer to his Maker.”

Yet man dies not whilst the world, at once his mother and his monument, remains.  His name is lost, indeed, but the breath he breathed still stirs the pine-tops on the mountains, the sound of the words he spoke yet echoes on through space; the thoughts his brain gave birth to we have inherited today; his passions are our cause of life;  the joys and sorrows he knew are our familiar friends — the end from which he fled aghast will surely overtake us also!”

… how little we think of others when our own safety, pride, or reputation is in questions…”