I am quoting from Pagan Christianity? – “In this book, we sometimes refer to “the crooked path” that led the institutional church to its current form. This poem, written more than a century ago, served as the inspiration for that metaphor.”
The Calf Path
A poem by Sam Walter Foss
One day through the primeval wood
A calf walked home as good calves should;
But made a trail all bent askew,
A crooked trail as all calves do.
Since then three hundred years have fled,
And I infer the calf is dead.
But still he left behind his trail,
And thereby hangs my moral tale.
The trail was taken up next day
By a lone dog that passed that way;
And then a wise bell–wether sheep
Pursued the trail o’er vale and steep,
And drew the flock behind him, too,
As good bell–wethers always do.
And from that day, o’er hill and glade,
Through those old woods a path was made.
And many men wound in and out,
And dodged and turned and bent about,
And uttered words of righteous wrath
Because ’twas such a crooked path;
But still they followed – do not laugh -
The first migrations of that calf,
And though this winding wood-way stalked
Because he wobbled when he walked.
This forest path became a lane
That bent and turned and turned again;
This crooked lane became a road,
Where many a poor horse with his load
Toiled on beneath the burning sun,
And thus a century and a half
They trod the footsteps of that calf.
The years passed on in swiftness fleet,
The road became a village street;
And this, before men were aware,
A city’s crowded thoroughfare.
And soon the central street was this
Of a renowned metropolis;
And men two centuries and a half
Trod in the footsteps of that calf.
Each day a hundred thousand rout
Followed this zigzag calf about
And o’er his crooked journey went
The traffic of a continent.
A hundred thousand men were led
By one calf near three centuries dead.
They followed still his crooked way.
And lost one hundred years a day,
For thus such reverence is lent
To well-established precedent.
A moral lesson this might teach
Were I ordained and called to preach;
For men are prone to go it blind
Along the calf-paths of the mind,
And work away from sun to sun
To do what other men have done.
They follow in the beaten track,
And out and in, and forth and back,
And still their devious course pursue,
To keep the path that others do.
They keep the path a sacred groove,
Along which all their lives they move;
But how the wise old wood-gods laugh,
Who saw the first primeval calf.
Ah, many things this tale might teach —
But I am not ordained to preach.
PERSONAL REFLECTIONS
I would have to say that when I read this poem for the first time, it slowly dawned on me how the metaphor fit the institutional church. I believe it is the job of each generation of the church to ask the question whether or not we are creating “idols” of our own personal or cultural preferences. When I was young, the evangelical church had a hard time with accepting guitars and other non-traditional instruments to be used in church worship. They also had a hard time accepting long hair styles, and other outward cultural expressions of the times.
Today, we have gotten past a lot of that, but we don’t seem to apply the same “enlightenment” to the very foundations of our evangelical practices. Why do we not ask the question as to why there is no mention of a “senior pastor” in the Bible? Why is there no mention of “the pulpit” in the New Testament writings? Did the early church have small groups, Sunday school or adult bible fellowships? How about a youth group? If so, where? If not, why not? There are hundreds of these kinds of questions that come to my mind as I read this poem.
Which is a great segue into the title of the next chapter: “Have We Really Been Doing it By The Book?“
10:30 PM
4:45 PM
Am heading out for my walking tour of Oxford. Had a great conversation at lunch with a guy named Chris who lives in Tulsa and is in his residency program there. He is thinking about going into bioethics, and is here with his wife in the process of thinking that decision through.
Take away thoughts from Revelation. The basic problem with the church in Ephesus was that they were good at hating bad theology and teaching, and really poor at loving. In fact they had left their first love. We skipped ahead to the church at Thyatira, and saw that they were really good at loving, but did not take a stand against sin and wrong teaching in their midst. Then we skipped to the church at Laodicea to see that they were just lukewarm, neither hot nor cold and were about the be spewed out for it.
9:30 PM
6:15 PM
4:00 PM – My Oxford City Pipe Story
12:30 PM — Other Notes:
Our worship time in the chapel (see photo) was different this morning. Rev. Frog Orr-Ewing lead us in Communion. That’s right, his first real given name is “Frog.” He married Amy, one of the speakers here, and an author and speaker with RZIM. Today is their 9th Anniversary.
By contrasting these areas in Christ, with those of Mohammed and Buddha, she made a strong case for Christ’s uniqueness. You can’t make him something he was not, or did not claim. You cannot make him be what you want him to be. Christ stands in a category alone and separate from other religions and leaders.