The Boniface Option--Hebrews 12:28-29

Day 8

So far, lots of chopping down of  present day idols in Andrew Isker’s  The Boniface Option.

Isker is feeding the woodchipper our modern day consumerist society, the emasculation of men inside of that consumer society.

He’s stacking up the cordwood of our atomized existence, the engineered biology to suit the whims of man, the men being women and the women being men, AND the education system of our consumerist society.

In fact, a reader comments frankly on their perception of today’s education system:

“I may have said this before.  When I was in elementary school we had a Bible teacher come on a regular basis.  We could get New Testaments and Bibles for memorizing scripture. 

When I was a middle and high school principal we started the day with a moment of silence and the pledge of allegiance. The Charlotte Observer wrote an article about it. Somehow James Dobson from Focus on the Family heard about it and had his team pray for our school.

Culture definitely has an effect on achievement. I believe that the lack of fathers in black homes does  affect achievement. Also some peers discourage others from academic achievement I have observed. Asian families place high value on academics and their students typically excel.” 

Controversial remarks?  Maybe.

But the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 wasn’t necessary because our educational culture was functional.

And it seems like Isker, with all the chopping and stacking of society’s idols, is getting ready for a cold, dark winter.

But it’s not enough to chop down all the idols that threaten our relationship to Christ–we must build Christ’s temple from the felled timber–like St. Boniface built an oratory from the felled Donar Oak and dedicated it to St. Peter the Apostle.

Karen and I have talked about this before.

The time I spend reading, researching, reflecting, meditating, writing and sharing about Scripture every day certainly adds up.

I could have written a novel by now.  Probably several.  

Or I could have watched more Netflix or drank more with friends. I could have spent more time with the society that seems intent in vaporizing who I am as a Christian.

I could have just thrown the towel in and kept writing Yelp reviews every day.  Those are pretty funny.  🙂

Or blogging and tweeting about how our society is unfair and how we are all doomed.  There’s a lot of that on Christian Twitter (now X).

But the Holy Spirit has decreed a wholly different path for me and my time here.

My time reflecting on books like The Boniface Option and attending Mass and Baptist services is my time of worship.

Isker writes:

“Worship is the engine that drives everything.  All the fakeness…of the liberal consumerist order flows directly from the church worshiping the whims and feelings of men.  The foundation of a new Christendom must come from rejecting this totally and instead shaping our worship upon what God says in His Word.”

Isker references the consuming fire of God in Hebrews 12 if we don’t hew to His Word:

Hebrews 12:28-29 28 Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let’s show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe; 29 for our God is a consuming fire. 

The current administration will crumble and blow away; as will the next administration after that and after that.

Our country may fall–I’ve heard by 2029 or 2035 or 2050 or by some other arbitrary future date– either by foreign intervention or internal strife.

And folks my age and older just shrug our shoulders. 

But believers know we have something that will never come to an end.  We have the kingdom of God.

The new covenant of God, unlike the temporary covenant of the Old Testament, cannot be shaken, and will remain FOREVER.

Christian worship, since Jesus, then, consists of ethical living, not carving up goats for sacrifice in the temple.

But NT God is the same as OT God and my worship should reflect that.

Joshua Caleb Hutchens writes:

“The new covenant community must offer pleasing worship because the God of the new covenant is the God of the old covenant. He is a consuming fire. In light of his jealous character, worship must be offered exclusively to him, and in light of what he has spoken through the Son, worship must be offered exclusively to him through the Son in an attitude of reverence.”

What of today’s worship?

Isker writes:

“The reality is modern worship is just as divorced from God’s order as anything else…If liberal, consumerist society is defined by an individualism that reduces all of life to products to be consumed, American evangelical worship is absolutely a part of this system.”

Rock concerts for services? 

No thank you.  That’s too close to worship as a spectacle for me.

Attending Mass seems better, for me, but unless I approach it with reverence and meaning, it’s just another hour for me to contemplate my NFL picks for the day.

Barry Joslin underscores the importance of our new covenant with God through Jesus in Theology Unto Doxology: New Covenant Worship in Hebrews:

“From the opening sentence of the sermon to the Hebrews, we can see that something is different. There has been a change—a change that is so great and so fundamental, that it requires a complete reorientation of how the people of God approach him in worship. Everything related to the worship of Yahweh has been affected by Christ, a line of reasoning that the writer of Hebrews carefully unfolds in a cascading argument of point after point, drawing his readers to an inevitable conclusion and to an inevitable choice: would they choose to return to the old covenant, with its limited and anticipatory cultus, or would they go with Christ “outside the camp, bearing his reproach,” and thus stake their claim as well as their lives and their eternal salvation on what this new priest has accomplished? Is he indeed able to “save forever those who draw near to God through him, by faith”? If so, it amounts to a complete reorientation of the worship of God’s New Covenant people.”

How I approach God in worship matters.

And my worship will change me.

As C.S. Lewis writes in Perelandra, his sci-fi novel of the fall of humanity:

“A man who has been to another world does not come back unchanged.”

Lord,, we thank you for the gift of Your unshakeable kingdom built on the foundation of love, righteousness, and eternal truth.

Lord, we pray for the strength to stand firm in our faith, to worship in the face of trials and challenges and increasing hostility of our society toward Christian faith.

Amen.