Tea Time in Excelsis - Musings of a layman

Survive NS as a Christian: 7 Big Tips

I finally reached my Operationally Ready Date (ORD), which marks the end of my full-time National Service.

Before I enlisted, I heard all sorts of stories about National Service, and I would google for tips on how to get through various aspects of it. However, I could not find a lot of meaningful content on keeping the faith while being in there. Since every Singaporean (and second-generation Permanent Resident) male has to go through this, I’m sure many others will have the same questions as I did. Therefore, I thought it would be good for me to write a guide of sorts on how to get through NS as a Christian.

On being terminally online

It has been 5 days since I got back on social media and I can already see that I was better off when I had them uninstalled and blocked.

Catching up on current affairs and seeing all the horrible developments in the world got me emotionally invested, and I was starting to engage in public discussion of these issues once again. I was writing a rant on Instagram until I started questioning why I was even doing this. Life went on as usual when I had no knowledge of any of these developments and just focused on work and the people around me.

Throughout my schooling years, I was encouraged to read up on global affairs as much as possible. The idea of being a global citizen, informed and engaged in the affairs of the wider world was drilled in me by the Singaporean education system. But is the human brain designed to consume this much information and commit to matters of such a wide scale on a daily basis? For most of history, the average person only had to think about his family and his immediate community. But now we are expected to invest our commitments to abstract causes in relations matters happening far away, with new information constantly being fed to us at such a rapid pace.

Maybe the world has gone insane because all this rapid access to information and artificial online communities are driving us all mad.

Is it a good thing for me to be informed of these things? On one hand, it is not good to bury one’s head in the sand, retreating to a delusional cope like the trads who idolise the medieval peasant oblivious to the daily scandals of the papacy in his day. If every decent person refused to concern themselves with wider affairs and not involve themselves in public discourse of any kind, obviously you will see that the malicious ones will take power, like we see the woke having seized control of key institutions like academia because the right spurned and retreated from them. On the other, one can be so consumed by them that they end up like the schizo orthobro on twitter prattling about how the Filioque is the root cause of the debauchery of the West.

I think, once again, the doctrine of vocation has a lot to do with the answer to this question.

The Heavenly Ladder of Devotion by Caspar Calvör

Much discussion of devotional practices in Lutheran circles is usually in the context of whether a practice from another Christian tradition, such as Lectio Divina, or the Ignatian Examen would be permissible within our own. It is such a shame that because we Lutherans do have a rich devotional heritage of our own, and it is rarely talked about due to the inaccessibility of a lot of these works.

When it comes to spiritual exercises within our tradition, we usually think of Luther’s traditional directive, Oratio, Meditatio, and Tentatio. I was reading G.H. Gerberding’s The Lutheran Pastor, and he cited Loehe citing an interesting way this is applied in the devotional use of God’s Word.

Why Protestant converts to Traditional Catholicism are LARPers

Protestants who swim the tiber and adopt a Traditionalist form of Catholicism are inconsistent and worse off than when they embraced sola scriptura, especially when they actively rebel against Rome by disregarding all its current developments. If you truly were convinced of the need for a living Magisterium, you would readily submit to it and be content with your local Novus Ordo priest, abolishment of the death penalty, and theistic evolution, not cope by saying you’re only going to submit to what the Church has definitively taught.

Vatican II literally teaches in Lumen Gentium that all Catholics are bound not only to definitive and infallible teachings, but they owe the Pope’s non-infallible statements a religious assent of mind and will. You’re no better than a Protestant if you’re going to larp in a TLM or cry about modernism or whatever. Submit to Rome means Submit to Rome, not cherry pick non dogmatic teachings you agree with.

“Among the principal duties of bishops the preaching of the Gospel occupies an eminent place.(39*) For bishops are preachers of the faith, who lead new disciples to Christ, and they are authentic teachers, that is, teachers endowed with the authority of Christ, who preach to the people committed to them the faith they must believe and put into practice, and by the light of the Holy Spirit illustrate that faith. They bring forth from the treasury of Revelation new things and old,(164) making it bear fruit and vigilantly warding off any errors that threaten their flock.(165) Bishops, teaching in communion with the Roman Pontiff, are to be respected by all as witnesses to divine and Catholic truth. In matters of faith and morals, the bishops speak in the name of Christ and the faithful are to accept their teaching and adhere to it with a religious assent. This religious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra; that is, it must be shown in such a way that his supreme magisterium is acknowledged with reverence, the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered to, according to his manifest mind and will. His mind and will in the matter may be known either from the character of the documents, from his frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or from his manner of speaking.”
Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium #25

This is why I don’t see Protestant converts to
a traditional form of Roman Catholicism any more than larpers.

You will embrace the liturgical reforms of Vatican II
You will go to papal clown mass
You will work for the abolishment of the death penalty worldwide
And you will be happy.

A Christian take on Spy x Family

Spy x Family has resumed airing, and I’m enjoying the visuals for the opening and ending. I think what makes Spy x Family so widely loved is because of its central theme on family. Most anime these days explore the themes of romance and friendship, but not so much on the family, at least in the sense of the household.

If you follow the historic lectionary, this week’s epistle reading mentions that all families are derived from the fatherhood of God:

For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,
Ephesians 3:14‭-‬15

The world we live in today props itself up against the family, emphasising the identity of the individual over that of the household. Single parents, divorces, cohabitation, and the ridiculous notion of “furbaby families” are celebrated and normalised. The prevailing message is that families are a nuisance; children hold down career progression, living with your parents is a bad thing as opposed to moving out and living on your own, etc. Many seethe at the Christian notion that the noblest thing we can achieve in this life is to find a spouse, start a family, be fruitful and multiply.

However, the wide appeal of Spy x Family shows that deep down, everyone knows that the household is a good thing. Beneath the facade of the strong independent woman, or the austere MGTOW hedonist, lies the innate desire to participate in this structure that God has built into the world.

The family is the building block of civilisation, managed by the father, or patriarch. As it grows, it builds societies, and develops cultures. As more and more households multiply, the role of the patriarch who keeps them together extends into government. It’s how kings came to be.

The faith is kept and lived through the family. Before the Scriptures were written, the faith was taught and passed down by oral tradition through the Patriarchs, who served as bishops to their descendants. The Church today is also called the household of God, of which we are born into by Baptism.

This show can be a great meditation on the Fourth Commandment, and a reminder of how all authority comes from God, which starts from the family.

On Touching Grass

It’s easy to be so absorbed in social media that you forget that you aren’t just a floating head in cyberspace here to vindicate your position and prove everyone wrong.

I basically grew up on the internet, and most of my friends were online for much of my teenage life, with online communities being the bulk of what I participate in.

However, these communities are no replacement for the place God has put us in. We were created as embodied beings, and the idea that these online echo chamber communities can substitute the experience of participating in a physical community is gnosticism.

I have come to appreciate the importance of having a physical connection with people more these past few months. The doctrine of vocation is something that I think about more often these days as I go about my daily life. I have learnt a lot spending most of my time disputing with randos on the internet, but I have found it more meaningful and fulfilling having these conversations with the actual people in my life.

People do take themselves too seriously online sometimes. Touch grass, and know your place that God has put you in. We have a part to play in the local communities we are a part of. We should fear, love and trust in God above all things, that we go about our lives in service and love to our neighbour, that is, the people whom we interact with on a daily basis. Take care not to neglect your duties and station in life.

When I go about my day with this in mind, I find myself a lot more cheerful and I see the providence of God in my daily life clearer.

Gerhard’s Meditation on the Holy Spirit

Every year on Pentecost, most of the posts I see on social media are about how Pentecostals are wrong on the Holy Spirit, gifts, and tongues.

While it is a good thing to sound off on erroneous views widely held by many Christians today, it is also important to promote the biblical one in its place. Hence, instead of bashing Pentecostals this year, I thought it would be great to focus on the significance of Pentecost, and the proper understanding of the Holy Spirit. To this end, we turn to the devotional work of Gerhard in Sacred Meditations.

Humanae Vitae from a Lutheran Perspective

In Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI accurately predicted that the widespread use of artificial contraception would lead to widespread infidelity and a lower standard of morality. More than 50 years later, we see the institution of marriage despised as divorce rates continue to rise and fornication becomes increasingly accepted and commonplace. Most Christians lament the hedonism in our culture but not many traditions are as vocal as the Roman Catholic Church on this issue. What is a Lutheran to make of the encyclical? While we certainly do not agree with the underlying premise of the Roman Catholic Magisterium as an infallible interpreter of natural law, we can agree with some of the doctrinal principles in the document, which we will be discussing in this post.

Why it is generally a bad idea to be friends with the opposite sex

“Wow who hurt you incel?”

In today’s world, the practice of establishing cross-sex friendships is almost a given, that anyone who questions the practice is almost immediately dismissed as someone projecting his lack of social interaction in real life. However, I do think that there are legitimate reasons against this, which we would be exploring in this blog post.

How will the world end?

Will there be a rapture? A nuclear winter from a world war? Alien invasions? When there are so many convoluted conspiracies and predictions out there, the truth is not that complicated. The Athanasian Creed puts it this way:

From thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead. At whose coming all men shall rise again with their bodies; and shall give account of their own works. And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting and they that have done evil into everlasting fire. This is the catholic faith, which except a man believe faithfully he cannot be saved.
The Athanasian Creed

As the Church Year is coming to a close, I thought it would be helpful to reflect on what Christians are expecting as we get ready for the Advent season.