What Kind of Curmudgeon Am I?

Already! But Not Yet!

From time to time people have asked why I use "curmudgeon" in the title of my Blog. Some, including dear friends, have criticized it, and thought I ought not to use it in order not to communicate that I am an angry, disgruntled Christian but one who reflects more the spirit of Christ.

When I began my first Blog, The Christian Curmudgeon, I explained:

Is “Christian curmudgeon” an oxymoron?

 A standard definition of a curmudgeon is “an ill-tempered (and frequently old) person full of stubborn ideas and opinions.” I plead guilty to the whole definition. I surely can be, though I hope I am not always, ill-tempered. Belonging to the earliest baby boomer group, I am not just frequently but all the time old. There is no doubt whatsoever that I have stubborn ideas and opinions. Some of those I hold for the fun of it, but most of them because I think them true. 

The curmudgeon partakes of the spirit of Linus Van Pelt: “I love mankind – it’s people I can’t stand.”  I said something similar in an early sermon and repeated it often: “The church would be a wonderful institution if it weren’t for the people.” The curmudgeon is often disappointed with people, not least himself. He understands well why the Bible tells us not to trust in man and why David, faced with three terrible options of chastisement, said, “Let me not fall into the hand of man.”

 The curmudgeon also partakes of the spirit of Network’s Howard Beale who persuaded viewers all over the United States to open their windows and shout “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” It’s not that he expects the protest to do much good. But it is his way of saying that things are just not right, himself perhaps the prime example. He agrees with both Cornelius Plantinga and Willie Nelson that things as they are is “not the way it’s supposed to be.”  But, while he is not optimistic, he has not lost all hope for some improvement, however halting and fleeting.

He has low expectations, at least in the short run. This curmudgeon once said, less than half jokingly, “I could never be a post-millennialist; I don’t have the temperament for it.” Actually, it’s not just temperament. It’s the conviction that the world is so messed up that nothing short of the personal coming of Jesus Christ in glory with power, to defeat the powers of darkness, to fix the broken world, and to set his people free from sin and death can put things right. A Christian curmudgeon is a long term optimist, but a short term pessimist. 

In the end a curmudgeon is something of an idealist, even romantic. He has a sense of utopia, but he is too realistic (and, I think, too Biblical in outlook) to be a utopian so long as this present age continues. In that sense, he longs for the final in-breaking of the kingdom of God, when at last the kingdoms of this world will be in reality the kingdom of our God and of his Christ and God’s will done on earth as it is in heaven. No more sin, no more thorns and thistles, no more sorrow, no more death, no more tears. 

No, I do not think a Christian can be a mere curmudgeon. But I hope a curmudgeon can be a mere Christian. What I set out to do in this blog is to speak, for what it’s worth, as a Christian curmudgeon.

 When my Google account got compromised several years ago, and I could not convince Google that I am I, I lost access to that Blog. So I began a new Blog titled just Just a Curmudgeon. I saw that everything I wrote was not explicitly Christian or Biblical. I wrote a lot about the area of common life we share will all people, and expressed opinions and views for which I did not wish to claim I was expressing the Christian view. I explained why I dropped the word "Christian" from the title:

Why drop "Christian" the title? Has The Curmudgeon apostatized? Not self-consciously. I remain a baptized, orthodox, reformational Christian. What then?  

Simply put, I like to write about a number of topics, and I do not think there is a Christian view, not even a Christian curmudgeonly view, of everything about which I write. I do not hold, as once I did, the "world-and-life-view" outlook that there is a distinctly Christian view of and/or approach to everything. I am always a Christian, sometimes better, other times worse, but I do not believe that there is a view of, or approach to, everything, that is grounded in the Christ, the Redeemer-King, and the Bible as redemptive revelation. I think God has spoken in his Son and his Word infallibly but not exhaustively. He has spoken to us a Word that is redemptively sufficient for us in this world (i.e. sufficient to show us the way of redemption and to enable us to believe and live as redeemed persons) but redemptive sufficiency does not require a Word about everything under the sun.

I am affirming the existence of the distinction between the sacred and the profane, the religious and the secular, the church and the world, or, as our Lord put it in a concrete case, what is God's and what is Caesar's. Put another way, I am saying I believe in the existence of two kingdoms, both under the sovereign rule of God, the kingdom of creation and the kingdom of redemption. We share life in the kingdom of creation with all mankind. We share life in the kingdom of redemption with all who are in the church... 

The bottom line is that I have opinions. They are my opinions, not God's. God gives me the freedom to have opinions, so long as I submit to what he says through his Son in his Word. I have an opinion about the Trinity, an opinion I believe is Biblical and obligatory on me and the whole church catholic. I have opinions about illegal immigrants, and I believe in my opinions enough sometimes to write about them, but I do not claim them as God's. Nor should I. 

Let me try one more word of explanation. The New Testament teaches what some call an "already-not yet" theology. Already Christ has accomplished full redemption and ascended to heaven where he sits at the Father's right hand as King. We are not waiting on Christ to become King. He already is. And the whole reality of redemption exists in Christ right now. That redemption is now expressed on earth in individuals who have responded with faith to his redeeming work. It exists in the church which is the earthly expression of his kingdom.

But the creation and all its structures and institutions, while benefiting from Christ's redemptive work, does not manifest anything like the fullness of Christ's redemption. Not even do Christians who live in constant conflict with the world, the flesh, and the devil within themselves. Christians are frail creatures, who are subject to temptation, sin, unbelief, and failure and who have to return to God continually to seek forgiveness and reconciliation and ask for grace to be more and more faithfully repentant. The church, too, is far from perfect. The church struggles with false doctrine, sin within its midst, and disunity everywhere from the local congregation to the church universal. There is much for us to grieve about regarding the state of the church. 

Paul put what I am trying to say this way:

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.  And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience (Romans 8:19-25, ESV).

Put simply: I am redeemed but not what I should be. The church is redeemed, but not what it should be. The creation is redeemed, but not what it should be. As a Christian, I am an imperfect man, who must live with myself. And I live where no perfection is found -  as a member of Christ's church, a citizen of the United States, a resident of this world, and a creature within creation.

So why the penitent curmudgeon? I have of late been and continue under the discipline of the Lord. Though many Christians have gone through more, the chastening feels to me severe. But God, I believe, has been at work in my life. He has shown me my sin as I have never seen it before. He has enabled me to own that sin and its consequences as mine. But he has also shown me his grace and mercy in Christ. I believe that even in my sin for Christ's sake God never stopped loving me, and that for Christ's sake he has forgiven me, reconciled me to himself, and restored me to his fellowship. I believe also God has enabled me to repent and change. I have a long way to go, and still wrestle with my sinful self and frail flesh, but, if, as I believe this is his work, then he will continue it and he will not stop until he brings it to perfection, freeing me from the menace of sin at death and freeing me from all its consequences at the resurrection.

Hence, I am a "penitent curmudgeon." I hope that this penitence will affect the curmudgeonly way I comment on the world. I do not wish to become a "Pollyanna" or portray myself as a victorious Christian except in the sense that I am victorious already in Christ. I will continue to be a realist, but a chastened realist. I will not close my eyes to the fact that I am not what I should be, the church is not what it should be, the earth is not what it should be, and the whole creation is not what it should be.

I will continue to look at life as one who lives in the "in-between" times - between the accomplishment of redemption and the full manifestation of redemption in the whole creation when Christ comes. That is what I mean when I say I am a curmudgeon but a penitent one.