JWJeffery.com

Hello Everyone:

In the past two months or so, I’ve read a decent amount of pages regarding Barton W. Stone. I started with his latest biography, Barton Stone: A Spiritual Biography, by D. Newell Williams. Williams answered small, nagging questions I’ve had since reading many of the general histories of the movement and the Churches of Christ. However, like any good book, he left more questions that I need answers for. It also convinced me of the fact that our general histories don’t provide nearly as much coverage of Stone as they ought to. After finishing Williams account, I moved on to a PhD dissertation by James Cook, who I believe provides some insight into why this is.

Cook argues that the Stone-Campbell Movement is a myth, mostly because Stone failed to have a key leadership role in the movement once the Christians and the Reformed Baptists united in 1832. Cook failed to convince me of the “Stone-Campbell myth,” however I think he makes a decent case that Campbell’s ideas crowded out the ideas belonging to Stone, so that Stone-ite ideas became a minority view in the movement. I think its obvious to anyone who has done any reading in our history that Stone disappears quickly in the story, and Campbell becomes a main focus until his death. I think that is because Campbell’s views and influence had such a dominating effect that historians don’t feel like there is much profit in spending a lot of time with Stone.

While reading Cook’s dissertation, I read a chapter on Restorationists from Paul Conkin’s book American Originals: Homemade Varieties of Christianity. Conkin, who spent some time as a Disciple, has some interesting insights into the Stone-Campbell Movement. Conkin spent a good amount of time covering the Christian Connexion, the more or less loose movement of “Christian Churches” that Stone’s movement was a part of before his merger with Campbell’s churches in the 1830’s. Cook and Williams also spend time on the Connexion, but it was Conkin’s book, reading in conjunction with Cook, that really made me interested in this section of the movement. Conkin makes the argument in his chapter on restorationists that the legitimate heir of the Christian Connexion, because of their interest in Christian liberty and unity, is none other than the United Church of Christ. In many ways, I think he is correct, especially since the Connexion eventually merged and merged and merged into the UCC.

After finishing these texts, I was fortunate enough to find a copy of Barton Stone’s memoirs. I’m about half way through reading these. Stone’s autobiography, which is a part of his memoirs, was an easy read, and now I am wading through the apology of the Springfield Presbytery, which provides an in-depth view of Stone’s views on faith and atonement. That has been a harder read, but I’m not sure I’ve actually come across a more detailed depiction of the difference between “our” view of faith and the Calvinist view of faith, or at least, what was the Calvinist view of faith.

When I finish reading Stone’s memoirs, I have copies of two works by B.F. Burnett, of the Christian Connexion. One is a 40 page booklet on Stone, and another is a booklet which asks if Barton Stone joined the Disciples of Christ. I still need to find a way to read Stone’s Christian Messenger.

After all that, will I find the real Barton Stone? I don’t know. But I’ll keep looking.

Josh

Hello all:

I have been very sick for the last several days, which has kept me home from work, and allowed me catch up on reading…and in fact, has enabled one of my bad habits, that of reading more than one book at a time. Right now, I am actually reading three books: “What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848″ by Daniel Walker Howe, which is part of the Oxford History of the United States series; “The Churches of Christ in the 20th Century: Homer Hailey’s Personal Journey of Faith” by David Edwin Harrell Jr., and “Renewing God’s People: A Concise History of the Churches of Christ” by Doug Foster and Gary Holloway.

“What Hath God Wrought” is general history of the United States from 1815 to 1848, however, Howe spends a decent amount of time covering the religious history of the era, which is one of the reasons I bought the book. I’ve wanted to learn more about American culture during the time of Alexander Campbell, and this book has been quite helpful to that end.

“Renewing God’s People” as the rest of the title says, is a short, concise history of the Churches of Christ. I’m reading it mostly to cross it off of my list, since the book doesn’t go to in-depth. However, it is a good starter volume for introducing the history of the Churches of Christ.

The book that I’ve been enjoying the most has been David Harrell’s history of the church/biography of Homer Hailey. Having grown up on both sides of the institutional split in the Churches of Christ, I’ve been quite interested in the history of the split between the mainline and the “anti’s” as they hate to be called. While I love Richard Hughes book, he didn’t spend nearly enough time on the split to satisfy my curiosity, so I’m glad that Harrell has.

Reading Harrell’s history has made me reflect a bit on my own religious experience and history. I was adopted by my parents through Colorado Christian Services, CCS is, according to their website, “A Ministry of the Church of Christ.” My first several years were spent in a mainline church-plant that my parents helped to found…and which they left when things went “liberal.” I spent the next several years at a non-institutional congregation in the small town of Forest Grove, Oregon. There were two congregations in that town, our non-institutional church, and a one-cup congregation a couple of miles away. We stayed at Forest Grove until things settled down at the small church-plant we had fled several years earlier.

We returned to the Tualatin Valley Church of Christ, until financial pressure and low attendance forced us to merge with the church that had originally planted us, the Westside Church of Christ. We stayed at Westside for several years, until my family left, along with many others, because of what we saw as “liberalism.” We attended Southwest Church of Christ, which today is the largest COC congregation in the state. It is ironic to look at Southwest now and see the innovations we fled from at Westside in full use at Southwest.

We stayed at Southwest for a couple of years, but the long drive to Southwest brought us back to the non-institutional church in Forest Grove. I stayed at Forest Grove until I graduated from High School and went to Cascade College. I believe I had written before, and I am still amused at the fact that in the congregation only myself and the minister were aware that the college existed. While I don’t think he really approved of the school, our minister didn’t discourage me from attending there, which I think is ironic.

Upon leaving Forest Grove, I really didn’t go to church much, even while at Cascade. I kind of fell through the cracks. At the time, I hated going to Cascade, and felt that many of the people there were fake and stuck-up. I didn’t manage to make many friends there, and felt pretty alone and alienated there. I left Cascade at the end of the school year and went to Central Oregon, where my parents lived. There, I attended the Prineville Church of Christ, a small, conservative, but mainline congregation, and probably the healthiest congregation in Central Oregon, though there are several in the tri-country area. Prineville was a good congregation to be at at the time, though I don’t know that I would want to be a member there now. Interestingly, Stuart and D’Esta Love now spend their summers in Prineville and attend the church there with my parents.

Once I moved back to Portland, I again strayed from church. Looking back, I didn’t too much time thinking about religion during this time period, but I considered myself a Christian, even though I didn’t attend church. I lived in downtown Portland, and had no car. I was interested in attending a church, but none were within my immediate reach. I contemplated visiting the Disciples of Christ congregation in downtown, but never did. My mind was elsewhere.

When I met the woman who is now my wife, I found that her father had been a preacher and had been very religious. Sara grew up as a holy-roller, attending Pentecostal churches, mostly the Assemblies of God. When her family split apart, her church attending days were over. However, both of us had a positive attitude towards Christianity, and both of us felt fairly secure in our salvation. I decided to take her to church one Sunday, but, I had to decide where to take her since I was not a member of any church. Now that I look back I’m not sure why, but I took Sara to the Beaverton Church of Christ, a very conservative non-institutional congregation. The preacher was one of my old preaches from the church in Forest Grove. We went to church there and sat through a sermon on “the Social Gospel.” Mark Dunagan preached on the evil of kitchens and recreational facilities in the church building. My girlfriend was quite amused, but did find herself agreeing on several points in the sermon, mostly centering on the fact that the church is a spiritual place, not a social club.

After we were married and our son was born, we decided that we needed to return to the church so that our son would be raised with the same values that we held, as well as the fact that both of us felt that we should probably be going to church. We visited a couple of churches, and ended up at the Eastside Church of Christ in Portland. We went there for a year or so, but didn’t really feel like we fit in there. We decided to look for another congregation, and ended up at the Linwood Church of Christ (which would later become Southeast Church of Christ) down the street from our home. We stayed there and worked hard for several years until the situation there got really bad, much of the congregation had left, and even though I was in a leadership position there, one of the members was particularly abusive and was able to exert considerable influence on the church. We left, and decided that we would spend a good while looking before choosing a congregation to settle down with.

We visited one of the most progressive Churches of Christ in the area the first Sunday that we left Southeast, but it just didn’t feel right, even though I knew a decent amount of people there. The next three churches we attended were Independent Christian Churches. We visited one, Harvest Christian, for about a month, and decided that it just wasn’t quite the right fit, even though we both enjoyed the people there. Next, we attended Abundant Life Church, a true mega-church. We had visited Abundant Life quite a bit while we were at Southeast, and enjoyed the music and the preaching. We even knew a couple of members. We visited one more church, Corbett Community Church, which was a Christian Church, but decided quickly that that wasn’t the church for us, even though we were quite amused with the slideshow before the sermon showing the youth group’s visit to Great Wolf Lodge, bikinis and all.

For a while, I thought Abundant Life was where we were supposed to be, however, one morning Sara and I got coffee at this coffee shop down the street from Sara’s school. I was reading “New Covenant Theology” when the guy behind the counter asked me if the book was good. That ended up being the first conversation of many with Robbie Foster, who pastors Estacada Community Fellowship. Robbie had attended Abundant Life after a messy split at Estacada Christian Church, so we had some things in common to talk about. After we got our coffee, we heard Bobby talking to some other people in the coffee shop about the church, and we really liked what we heard. It seemed right, so Sara and I decided to visit his congregation, which is more or less a non-affiliated independent Christian Church. We went there and haven’t even thought about looking at another congregation since. The people are friendly, and its a church that is actually trying to be the church. My parents finally decided to come to town on a Sunday and worship with us, but they made the mistake of bringing Grandma, who got quite upset about the instrumental music, especially the guitar and drums, though that didn’t surprise me. While I think Command/Example Necessary Inference is somewhat useful in a limited way, I don’t find it to be the be all end all of my theological thinking.

So, after meandering down the long path of my history, whats the point? I’m not even sure if I know. I’ve been a member of mainline Churches of Christ, a non-institutional Church of Christ, and now a very independent Christian Church. As one observer has noted, in many ways I’ve ended up at a church more conservative than I am (seeing as I’m not a fundamentalist, especially in the religious-nationalist sense of the term). However, after being a member at all three, I feel no big difference. Sure, there are some differences in practice, and a little more in theology. In some ways, the biggest difference is attitude, but even then I don’t know if I can point to the type of church versus the individual congregations and Christians in those churches. In a weird way, I still feel like I’m a member of the Churches of Christ…though I am reminded that I’m technically not when I look at job openings at our Christian Colleges that exclude me from applying because I’m not a member of the right type of congregation.

So, I guess part of the point is, is that after all these different experiences, I feel like I’m in the same church I’ve always been in…and I think that is because I really am. The physical, visible unity might not be there, but the spiritual unity is, even if we don’t acknowledge it. The sign might say “Church of Christ” or “church of Christ” or “Christian Church” or even “Community Fellowship,” but below the surface, the DNA is the same.

Josh

A friend of mine yesterday told me about a book that several of his friends are reading that questions the validity of the historicity of the Old Testament, and that basically makes the claim that we shouldn’t attempt to make claims about history, science, etc. based on scripture, but that scripture is a spiritual message from God, and thus, we must discern the message.

My friend asked my opinion, which I gave, and it sparked some other thoughts about the issue. The question really gets down to asking what the nature of scripture is.

Since I’m not a fundamentalist, I don’t automatically affirm verbal plenary inspiration. Why not? Because I don’t think we can find that concept in scripture.

We can read in scripture that all scripture is inspired, or “God-breathed.” But what does this really mean? Does it mean that the spirit told each author the words to say, word for word? I guess it could. Does it mean that God gave each author a sense of what to say, and let them write it the way that they would naturally do it? It could as well. Could it be a mixture of these two methods? I think it could. Might God have given one author exact words, and given another a sense of what to say? Who is to say? The point is, we don’t know the exact nature of scripture, because God doesn’t reveal that information to us.

That topic goes into another topic hot topic: the inerrancy of scripture. Is the bible free from all error, historically, scientifically, theologically? Fundamentalists in general, and probably most in Churches of Christ today, would probably affirm the general inerrancy of scripture. The problem I have is that we don’t know, for certain, the nature of scripture. If we don’t know the nature of scripture, is then becomes very difficult for us to make a claim that scripture is completely inerrant. If the nature of scripture is plenary verbal inspiration, then we can feel very comfortable stating that scripture is generally inerrant, because the Holy Spirit, as part of the Godhead, would not make errors.

However, if scripture is inspired in some lesser way, which I think is possible based on the lack of information we are given in scripture on the topic, then we must affirm that it is possible that a human author might have made a mistake in writing his portion of scripture.

However, as I noted above, scripture doesn’t tell us one way or another about its full nature. So, I cannot make an authoritative claim regarding the full nature of the inerrancy of scripture.

So, where does this leave us? It leaves us with mystery. God doesn’t provide us with all the answers, and I’m fairly sure that he does that for a reason…and with mystery, we must have faith. I have faith that scripture is as inspired as it needs to be, and I also have faith that scripture is as inerrant as it needs to be. All else…is a mystery to me.

-Josh

This afternoon, after going to church and having lunch, we stopped at the 76 station in town to get some gas. The gas attendant (we can’t pump our own gas in Oregon, its illegal) was feeling especially lazy and made me go inside with my 76 card…

As I stood there, waiting to pay for my gas, I saw a display of cigarettes.

I quit smoking a little over four years ago. I smoked about a pack to a pack and a half a day, and often chained smoked…. I haven’t had a cigarette since the day that I quit in March 2005….and yet, I can walk into a gas station and be tempted to pick up a pack of Camel Turkish Gold 100’s, or Marlboro Menthol’s, or even some no-name brand vanilla flavored cigarettes.

Sometimes I dream about smoking. I walk into a 7-11 store and buy a pack, and smoke it, and then want more and more and more.

The power of temptation is amazing. But I thank God that I still haven’t picked up a cigarette in four years. This Easter Sunday, as I should be meditating on the cross and our Lord’s resurrection from the dead, as I type this, I am craving those cigarettes that I saw sitting on the counter of the gas station. Its like being hungry, an insatiable appetite for something that won’t nourish my body, but will kill it. Yet, its still there.

Jesus help me. This sucks.

Josh

One of Tiziano Vecellio’s–or Titian, as he is well known–most celebrated works is his Venus of Urbino. Titian, a master of the high renaissance, created a masterpiece that echoes that of his mentor’s, Giorgione, but surpasses it in both beauty and eroticism.
While Titian’s work was inspired by that of his masters, his work went on influence the work of many painters after him, many of them masters in their own right. In this paper, I propose to examine both the inspiration of Titian’s work, as well as the influence that the Venus has had on other works down even to our present time.
In Venus, we see a young nude woman lying on a red colored bed, propping herself up on pillows, her left hand covering her vulva in an erotic pose. Behind her, two maids are looking into a cassoni, a traditional Italian bridal chest commissioned by the groom to store the belongings a new bridge (Farber). One maid, in a red dress echoing the red of Venus’ couch, is holding a gown probably meant for Venus. Beside Venus, a small white dog lies on the couch, sleeping. Most scholars believe that the dog symbolizes fidelity, although some point out that the dog is sleeping, a potential ominous sign. Venus gazes outwards—with an inviting, welcoming gaze—directly at the viewer, but more likely towards a subject outside the picture plane that we cannot see. The identity of this unknown viewer has been the subject of much scholarly speculation (Farber), and is important since the identity of the unknown viewer would properly frame the context of the work.

A visual comparison of Titian’s work with Giorgione’s Sleeping Venus makes it clear that Titian borrowed and visually quoted from Giorgione. Titian apprenticed to Giorgione for three years, and in fact, he finished the painting for Giorgione after Giorgione’s death in 1510 (Mataev). From the neck down to the hips, the Venus of Giorgione and the Venus of Titian are the same. The faces of both Venus’ are also very similar, though it is impossible to tell if Giorgione and Titian used the same model for this work. The poses are also the same, save for the raised right arm of Giorgione’s version and two visible toes of the right foot lying under the left leg in Titian’s. The similarities, however, end there. Giorgione depicts Venus in the countryside, laying on the ground, with a crumpled sheet and two red pillows beneath her arm and head, while Titian displays his Venus in a luxurious Renaissance era mansion, complete with Corinthian style pillars. This is a question of function, as Giorgione’s intent was to depict Venus as a metaphor for a landscape, one of Giorgione’s great interests (Adams 575). Titian, however, appears to place his Venus in the context of marital lust and fidelity (Farber).
The influence of Titian’s Venus is unquestioned. While Venus has always been a popular subject of art, the pose and sexuality exuded by Venus was new with Titian, and his master. One hundred and ten years later, another master of painting, the Spaniard Diego Velázquez, painted his masterpiece Venus with a Mirror. According to Adams, “it reflects the influence of the reclining Venuses by Giorgione… and Titian… which Velázquez probably studied during his two trips to Italy” (671). This influence could easily be seen if one could take Velázquez’s Venus and turn her around. One would see, among other things, the same general pose of Venus, with one leg tucked under the other, with Venus’ body fully exposed. However, a significant variation of the pose would exist, which would be the exposure of Venus’ vulva to public view. Velázquez avoids this however, by facing Venus away from us, and avoids placing Venus’ arm in this position by performing some playful artwork with the mirror, as a realistic depiction of the scene would show us much more of Venus. Again, to quote Adams, “… Velázquez has erred on the side of modesty by showing only the face of the model in the mirror. A stricter application of the laws of physics might have shown another part of the body” (671). In doing so, Velázquez creates a racy portrait that echoes Titian, but that is acceptable to the tastes and rules of Counter-Reformation Spain (Jeffery). Velázquez went on to influence others through his Venus with a Mirror, such as Ingres’ Grande Odalisque. An exposition of Titian’s influence of Ingres and others influenced by Velázquez might bear some fruit, but the space in a paper of this scope prevents us from further review of this subject currently.

Titian had a much more obvious influence on Édouard Manet and his painting Olympia. In Olympia, Manet provides us with a visual quotation of Titian’s Venus, as well as several visual echoes that do not exactly correspond because of Manet’s intention. Olympia, in contrast to the marital Venus, is a prostitute. Manet’s model, Victorine Meurend, was a prostitute herself, as well as an accomplished painter, and the choice of title for the painting, Olympia, raise the guile of Parisians as Olympia was a common street-name for prostitutes in Paris during this time period (Wilfong). Among echoes (but not quotations) are the alert and alarmed black cat standing on the end of the bed, a black maid presenting flowers to Olympia instead of retrieving a gown for Venus, and the swapping of color, from the black background behind Venus’ upper torso to the black background behind Olympia’s legs, brining full attention to her naked body. Olympia covers her Vulva with her hand, but instead of putting her hand closely to her body, she places her palm down on her legs, effectively blocking a view and access to her body. Olympia looks at the viewer as well, though in a bold, casual way, while Venus’ look is warm and inviting. While Manet was influenced by Titian, he was not appropriating Venus for a modern day audience. According to one scholar, the modern critics’ presumption of Venus’ impropriety is a misconception that Edouard Manet’s Olympia popularized (Farber).
Titian’s influence can also be seen in Henri Rousseau’s The Dream. In this work we again see a reclining nude, alert and sitting up, viewing a jungle around her. Rousseau appears to have taken Venus and placed her back outside, but this time using her legs to provide partial cover of her body, and not her hand. The reclining nude, with her left leg under her right carries on the pose of Titian’s Venus.

Another work, which echoes both Titian, as well as Manet, is Tom Wesselmann’s Great American Nude No. 57. This work, painted four hundred and thirty four years after Titian’s Venus, carries on the presumption of impropriety in Titian’s work, depicting a tan, nude woman with large, erect nipples, reclining on a bed. While her lower half is not displayed, the flower to her right is a bold and obvious sexual statement about the subject’s sex. Wesselmann’s work, based on Manet and others who have over-sexualized Titian’s original, shows a complete lack of understanding of Titian’s goals in his painting of the nude Venus. Wesselmann’s “nude is a symbol of American vulgarity” (Adams 937).
Titian’s influence can also be seen in small ways in many other well known works of art. For example, Venus of Urbino is celebrated as a great masterpiece if Johan Zoffany’s The Tribuna of the Uffizi, where Titian’s work is shown as the largest painting in the room, and held by two members of high society. Coincidentally, several other depictions of Venus are present in Zoffany’s portrait, as the Uffizi was the museum of the Medici family, who were strong humanists that supported classical subjects in art. Titian’s influence can also be seen in Gustave Moreau’s Galatea, which depicts the mythical Galatea reclining in a nude pose partially echoing that of Venus. An obvious influence can also be seen in Antonio Canova’s sculpture, Maria Paolina Borghese as Venus. In this work, Maria lounges nude from the waist up, in a pose echoing that of Titian’s Venus.
Lingering influence can also be seen in both Matisse and Moore. Henri Matisse’s Piano Lesson features a nude reclining on a chair, with a clear visual quotation of Venus’ hand over her vulva in Titian’s depiction. While in Henry Moore’s odd sculpture “Reclining Figure”, one can clearly see the echo of the general pose that Titian’s Venus holds.
Titian’s masterfully executed painting, Venus of Urbino, has made a lasting impression on artists from the Baroque period and forward until today. The pose of Venus, both general and specific, can be seen in visual quotations and echoes in the copious amounts of reclining nudes that we have received down to the present time. Titian’s lasting influence confirms him as a master painter, and his style in Venus is sure to be echoed and quoted for years to come in the art of our time.

Works Cited
Adams, Laurie Schneider. Art across Time. 3rd ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2006.

Farber, Allen. “Titian’s Venus of Urbino.” Home Page. 2006. State University of New York at Oneonta. 14 Mar. 2009 .

Jeffery, Joshua W. “Venus with a Mirror Response”. Essay. Ts. (1). Clackamas Community College, Oregon City, OR.

Mataev, Olga. “Titian Biography.” Olga’s Gallery - Online Art Museum. Ed. Helen Mataev. 14 Mar. 2009 .

Wilfong, Blake L. “Hooker Heroes: Victorine Meurend.” The World of the Wondersmith. 14 Mar. 2009 .

List of Illustrations
Canova, Antonio. Maria Paolina Borghese as Venus. 1808. Borghese Gallery, Rome. Official Site Borghese Gallery. 16 Mar. 2009 .

Giorgione. Sleeping Venus. C. 1509. Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden. Wikimedia. 1 June 2007. 15 Mar. 2009 .

Manet, Edouard. Olympia. 1865. Musee d’Orsay, Paris. Musee d’Orsay: Collections Catalogue. 16 Mar. 2009 .

Matisse, Henri. The Piano Lesson. 1916. Painting and Sculpture, Museum of Modern Art, New York. Museum of Modern Art. 16 Mar. 2009 .
Moore, Henry. Reclining Figure. 1957-8. UNESCO Building, Paris. Henry Moore Perry Green Exhibitions. Henry Moore Foundation. 16 Mar. 2009 .

Moreau, Gustave. Galatea. 1880-1. Works-in-Focus, Musee d’Orsay, Paris. Musee d’Orsay: Collections Catalogue. 16 Mar. 2009 .

Rousseau, Henri. The Dream. 1910. Painting and Sculpture, Museum of Modern Art, New York. Museum of Modern Art. 16 Mar. 2009 .

Titian. Venus of Urbino. C. 1538. Titian Room, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, Italy. Virtual Uffizi. Galleria degli Uffizi. 15 Mar. 2009 .

Velazquez, Diego. Venus with a Mirror (Rokeby Venus). C. 1648. National Gallery, London. The National Gallery. 15 Mar. 2009 .

Zoffany, Johann. The Tribuna of the Uffizi. 1772-3. The Royal Collection of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Windsor Castle, London. The Royal Collection. 16 Mar. 2009 .