No More Anonymity

I changed my settings so anonymous comments are no longer allowed.  That's because I've been getting a lot of spam postings, lately (all of which I've deleted).

And yes, I know I haven't posted anything for a month.  I haven't given up; I've just been busy and distracted.  I intend to return.

Berlin and Moral Certainty

Tomorrow, November 9, marks 20 years since the Berlin Wall came down. The wall stood for 28 years and was the most potent symbol of the separation between the free world and the Soviet Bloc. This anniversary means more to me than some others, perhaps, because I worked in Communist Eastern Europe from 1979-82, and I spent a lot of time in East Germany and Berlin.

The Soviets caused plenty of difficulty prior to erecting the wall, such as totally blockading West Berlin in 1948 and necessitating the Berlin Airlift (at its peak, more than 1,300 flights per day were bringing in supplies). But the Wall itself drew the battle lines more closely and tangibly than ever in the Cold War.

As I view the Berlin speeches of John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, I am struck by the moral certainty in their text (and demeanor). To them, there was no question as to the superiority of the free world and the leadership role of America. There was no equivocation. You can check out their speeches for yourself. Reagan's is particularly moving and worth the full 25 minutes.

Kennedy in 1963, two years after the wall was erected, separating East and West Berlin:



Ronald Reagan in 1987, two years before the wall came down:



And then there's Barack Obama, on the campaign trail in Berlin, 2008. Do you hear a difference?



Unfortunately, our President is too busy to go to Berlin tomorrow for the commemoration. Apparently, it does not rise to the importance of an Olympic bid, so he's sending Hillary.

Meanwhile, if you'd like to know more about the Berlin Wall, its construction, life, and final demise, you'll find no shortage of videos on YouTube. Simply enter these search terms (or click on these links): "Berlin Wall" or "Berliner Mauer."

Not To Be Confused With Jesus

Every time I say I won't do any more John Eldredge posts, something comes up and I break my promise. But Eldredge is a wild kind of guy, not a Promise Keeper, so maybe it's OK?

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What came up this time is yet another blog. I already mentioned Nate Claiborne's incisive analysis of Eldredge. But since then, I've come across Kent Leslie, who's writing his own indispensable series on Eldredge's Wild at Heart. He's as critical as I am, but a fair bit more humorous. And he's Pentecostal, which is not a branch of Christianity that I'd expect to be critical of books such as this.

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So if you need additional and even better reasons to hate Wild at Heart (while still loving the sinner, of course!), then check out some of the posts on Mr. Leslie's blog.

Overwhelmed

Anyone else feeling overwhelmed?

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It all piles up.
Deadlines at work make for longer hours and more packed hours.
House "administration"...cleaning, fixing, paying, logging, trimming.
A Sabbath that isn't, because of meetings and trainings in addition to church, itself.
Friends I'm trying to befriend, disciples I'm trying to disciple, and leaders I'm trying to lead.

And e-mails to open, blogs to read...
...and blogs to write.

So what happens?
Mail I used to read gets summarily tossed with catalogs I used to peruse.
Invitations get turned down.

And I get resentful at all those church conferences, meetings, seminars, retreats, orientations, trainings, etc., that keep popping up.

And I stay up too late and am too tired the next day to function well or have a good attitude.

No additional church activities, please!
(But I will sign up for a six-week Flannery O'Connor class at Emory.)
((Now that makes sense.))

Is anyone else feeling overwhelmed?

Give This Picture a Caption

The Dalai Lama's been visiting Taiwan this week. Here, he listens through his interpreter as (Catholic) Cardinal Paul Shan Kuo-hsi prays at an interfaith meeting.

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That's the official story. But when I saw this picture, many alternate explanations and possible captions popped into my head, such as:

• "Pray harder! He's winning!"
• "Your Holiness, I think the Cardinal fell asleep. What do we do now?"
• "He just prayed your food will be poisoned!"

You can do better. Add your own caption in the comments...

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(Click on the picture if you'd like a larger version.)

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Pray Like a Jew

I recently finished a slow reading through The Standard Prayer Book, a Jewish book of liturgical prayers first published by the English Rabbi Simeon Singer in 1890. My version was printed in 1951, and you can get used copies on Amazon. I got mine at a library sale for $1.00.

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There are many things to like about the prayers found in this book, and I suppose it should be no great surprise that a Christian would find most of these prayers perfectly appropriate and doctrinally true. After all, much of the Old Testament itself consists of prayers, and much of The Standard Prayer Book consists of passages from the Bible. Here's one I like. It's from the Evening Service for Sabbaths and Festivals:

We give thanks unto thee,
For thou art the Lord our God and the God of our fathers for ever and ever;
Thou art the Rock of our lives,
The Shield of our salvation through every generation.
We will give thanks unto thee
And declare thy praise for our lives which are committed unto thy hand,
And for our souls which are in thy charge,
And for thy miracles, which are daily with us,
And for thy wonders and thy benefits, which are wrought at all times, evening, morn, and noon.
O thou who art all-good, whose mercies fail not;
Thou, merciful Being, whose lovingkindnesses never cease,
We have ever hoped in thee.

Photo: Simeon Singer in the 1880s

I Did Not Write This, and You're Not Reading It

I've been having discussions with several friends lately about how it's important that we don't spend our whole life on "truth patrol." Of course, we need to maintain good theology and sound thinking, but if we spend all our time on search and destroy missions, looking to stamp out godlessness and heresy wherever it may occur, we won't be spending our time focused on constructive things that will help us grow, love others, and become godly (Christlike) people.

So in this spirit of not always grousing about everyone who's doing anything wrong, I am not going to write a blog post about Brian McLaren celebrating Ramadan this year. I am not going to point out that if I ever thought he was an OK guy who was just misunderstood, I now think he's lost it when it comes to orthodox theology. I won't say that he has somehow become the Splenda of faux Christianity...his words may taste sweet, but they're not real sugar.

I also won't say that McLaren's practice of Ramadan with his Muslim friends bears no resemblance to the Apostle Paul's commitment as stated in Colossians 1.28,29:

We proclaim [Christ], admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me.

I won't say that the last thing from McLaren's mind seems to be the proclamation of Christ. Or that his solidarity with others trumps fidelity to his putative Savior.

No, I won't say any of those things. I just won't do it.

But I will tell you that you can read his Ramadan posts on his website. The first of the series is here.

Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places

I think it's part of the human condition that many of us feel lonely, if not all the time then at least from time to time. And if you're single, it's easy to think the antidote for loneliness is matrimony. But according to Henri Nouwen, those who marry because of loneliness will likely end up as lonely spouses. Our condition is not changed by our circumstance.

We ignore what we already know with a deep-seated, intuitive knowledge - that no love or friendship, no intimate embrace or tender kiss, no community, commune or collective, no man or woman, will ever be able to satisfy our desire to be released from our lonely condition. This truth is so disconcerting and painful that we are more prone to play games with our fantasies than to face the truth of our existence. Thus we keep hoping that one day we will find the man who really understands our experiences, the woman who will bring peace to our restless life, the job where we can fulfill our potentials, the book which will explain everything, and the place where we can feel at home. Such false hope leads us to make exhausting demands and prepares us for bitterness and dangerous hostility when we start discovering that nobody, and nothing, can live up to our absolutistic expectations.

Many marriages are ruined because neither partner was able to fulfill the often hidden hope that the other would take his or her loneliness away. And many celibates live with the naive dream that in the intimacy of marriage their loneliness will be taken away.

- Henri Nouwen, The Wounded Healer, pp. 84-85.

Chrysler Clunker

In the "Great Moments in Marketing" department, here's this gem from yesterday's news:

Chrysler says it is dropping its lifetime powertrain warranty in favor of a 5-year or 100,000-mile guarantee.

Chrysler spokesman Rick Deneau says the decision was driven by market research that showed consumers prefer warranties with a fixed time period.

Really. What question could the market researchers possibly have asked that would yield this answer? Try the most obvious version on yourself: "Would you rather have a lifetime powertrain warranty, or would you rather have one that expires after a few years?"

If there were any morons (um, I mean "consumers") that said they prefered the "fixed time period," then they deserve to be owners of Chrysler products.

On the other hand, the true moron could be the Chrysler spokesman, if he really expects us to believe his nonsensical assertion.

God and the Whirlwind

A couple days ago, the ELCA denomination of the Lutherans voted to liberalize their stance on practicing homosexuals. Then a small tornado struck the place where they were meeting. After watching the storm from his Baptist church, Reverend Piper shared a few thoughts about it on his blog. I suspect this is one blog post he will end up wishing he'd not written. It's a shoddy hermeneutic he employs, and his conclusion that the whirlwind is a warning from God is a reading-into-Scripture that doesn't follow from his five premises. I really thought Piper was better than this.

This curious tornado touches down just south of downtown and follows 35W straight towards the city center. It crosses I94. It is now downtown.

The time: 2PM.

The first buildings on the downtown side of I94 are the Minneapolis Convention Center and Central Lutheran. The tornado severely damages the convention center roof, shreds the tents, breaks off the steeple of Central Lutheran, splits what’s left of the steeple in two...and then lifts.

Let me venture an interpretation of this Providence with some biblical warrant. ...

Read his entire post here.

Jenell Paris found a certain amount of silliness in the Piper post. Her take on the matter is a great example of how humor can be a better corrective than anger. And no, it doesn't descend into ridicule.

John Piper explains the biblical connection between the Minneapolis tornado and its target, the steeple of Central Lutheran Church where the ELCA was meeting to discuss homosexuality and church leadership. His conclusion? “The tornado in Minneapolis was a gentle but firm warning to the ELCA and all of us: Turn from the approval of sin.”

Wow. Today the weather in Grantham, PA is “82 degrees, feels like 88.” The humidity is 73%. God is speaking to us, too, and I believe I have been chosen to interpret today’s weather for everyone else in Grantham, and perhaps even Mechanicsburg, our surrounding suburb. My spirit is unclear regarding Camp Hill or the city of Harrisburg, so I don’t think the prophecy extends that far.

Read the rest of her post here.

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There was yet another preacher who weighed in on the matter. He said that God "causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous." Had he been asked about tornados, I think he would have included those, too.

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Illustration: William Blake, "The Whirlwind: Ezekiel's Vision," 1803

Wander Home

He lets us wander so we will know what it means to come home.

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- Marilynne Robinson, Home, p. 102

The Posture of Grace

There is a saying that to understand is to forgive, but that is an error, so Papa used to say. You must forgive in order to understand. Until you forgive, you defend yourself against the possibility of understanding....If you forgive, he would say, you may indeed still not understand, but you will be ready to understand, and that is the posture of grace.

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- From Marilynne Robinson's novel, Home, p. 45

The Great Iconoclast

Images of the Holy easily become holy images - sacrosanct. My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself. He is the great iconoclast. Could we not almost say that this shattering is one of the marks of His presence? The Incarnation is the supreme example; it leaves all previous ideas of the Messiah in ruins. And most are "offended" by the iconoclasm; and blessed are those who are not. But the same thing happens in our private prayers.

All reality is iconoclastic.

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Heaven will solve our problems, but not, I think, by showing us subtle reconciliations between all our apparently contradictory notions. The notions will all be knocked from under our feet.

- C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed, pp. 78-77, 83

Save the Planet. Use the Shower.

According to this fine video, you could save over 1,000 gallons of water per year, lower your utility bill, and increase your fun quotient. Who said environmentalism has to be dreary?



You can get more information at http://www.xixinobanho.org.br/, though it's a bit of a "shot in the dark" if you don't read Portugese.

In Praise of Celibacy

I'm still waiting for a preacher to read 1 Corinthians 7.32-35 at a wedding. As a lover of irony, I'll make sure it's read at my wedding...if God makes me get married some day. Don't hold your breath waiting for that.

I talk to a lot of people who somewhat recognize the value of celibacy (a.k.a. singleness), but very few seem to value it as a high calling. Jesus did, not only for Himself but also for His followers (Matthew 19.10-12), but somehow we zip right past those comments of His, putting them in the "Idealistic But Not Realistic" category of the things He said that we don't like.

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Marriage obviously has its place, and it was God's idea. My intention is not to demean marriage, but to advocate that singleness should be seen as equivalent in value, not as Plan B or Second Best. Marriage and singleness are both Plan A...the only question is which Plan A God wants you to have.

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The Christianity Today website just posted an interview with Christine Colon, who with Katie Fields cowrote a new book called Singled Out: Why Celibacy Must Be Reinvented in Today's Church. I just ordered the book and am looking forward to some good reading that will confirm my prejudices. My only regret, so far, is that Colon and Fields didn't draft a celibate/single male as an additional cowriter. That oversight probably dooms the book to be read almost exclusively by women. Nevertheless, here are a couple excerpts from the interview:

Celibacy can be a radical testimony to God's love and provision, because it reminds us that our ultimate fulfillment has to be union with God. That is equally true for married couples, but oftentimes marriage is seen as, once you have that partner you will be fulfilled. And that's a lie. With celibacy, you have to come to grips with that early on, to say, "My fulfillment lies in God, and there are always going to be these longings unfulfilled here on earth," but that's a good thing — if everything were fulfilled on earth, we wouldn't need God.

Marriage is the metaphor for God's exclusive love for his church, and it's a good and powerful metaphor. But singleness is also a metaphor of God's love — the aspect of God's love that extends to everyone. Oftentimes church communities become so ingrown and focused on, "Let's build up our families, let's build up our community." Wait a second, what are we here for? Singles don't have that exclusive relationship, so we need to build relationships out. And the church itself needs to as well.

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We wanted to look at celibacy as a state in which we are content with where God has called us, and are also willing if God calls us to a different state. We're not eliminating the possibility of marriage, but we're not put on hold until marriage comes. It's not, "I vow to be celibate until I die." It is saying, "God has called me to this state; I am going to serve God right here. If he calls me to marriage, great. I will serve God there. If he doesn't call me to marriage, fine. I'm going to serve God as a single person." With celibacy, we're trying to draw from the past but not be wrapped up in, "You've made your vow, and you're done."

You can read the entire interview here, and CT's review of the book here.

Visit a Christian Brothel Near You...Or Start Your Own

Earlier this week, I mentioned my discovery of blogger Nate Claiborne. In today's entry, he paints a vivid picture of Christian idolatry. Here are some excerpts:

When one realizes that Bible starts and ends with a marriage, the pieces may seem to fit together a bit smoother. Enclosed within the humble beginnings of human marriage was the divine mystery of ultimate marriage.... If our marriages between men and women are to reflect the marriage of the people of God to Christ, then defiling that relationship with Christ is analogous to defiling the human relationship with one’s spouse.

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This is why God presses the Gospel on the whole of our lives, this is why not paying close attention to our devotion to God is like adultery. To see this maybe more clearly, let’s use an example.

I am getting married tomorrow…to my lovely fiance Alexandra Kaufman. We are entering into a covenant before God to pledge ourselves only to one another, until death do us part. Considering that we are both virgins, the honeymoon will be quite the intoxicating, blissful experience as well. But suppose sometime around the first of the year something changes.

Alexandra initially only came to me for sexual fulfillment, but somewhere along the line her heart starts to wander a bit. It’s not as noticeable at first, we continue on as usual. But then after a while, she starts bringing home other guys to sleep with. This goes on briefly before I casually remind her that she is supposed to come to me for that kind of fulfillment. With that in mind, she apologizes and then does just that.

But by doing that, all she changes is that now she expects me to find the other guys for her. She comes to me for fulfillment, but she wants me to give her all manner of other men to satisfy her rather than myself. She could have the only type of fulfillment she was meant to have if she would only just ask for it, but she continues sowing her wild oats even within our own bedroom. I don’t particularly seem to mind though, because she is at least nice about it and she makes sure to not interfere with my sleeping habits. We both continue on in this sort of affair, because after all, it’s only marriage, right?

I would be worried if anybody reading this was not appalled at the possibility of my marriage…turning into something like this.

However, we often don’t seem too appalled when our relationship with Christ, which is pictured as a marriage turns into something like this.

We start out fully devoted, only to slowly turn our affections to things of this world. Maybe later we get gently rebuked and come to our senses, but instead of giving up our idols, we merely start coming to Christ to get them. What is worse still is that we fully expect God to respond in the above manner and not particularly mind if we are out busy working the streets, spreading our legs for whoever passes by, so long as we come on Sundays and renew our vows.

How would Alexandra feel if I went to the strip clubs 6 days a week and rounded out the night by picking up a prostitute, so long as I came to her at least once a week for a passionate reconnection?

How should God respond when we do the same thing?

In Christianity in America, this is the course of the mainstream. One glance at some of the largest churches in America reveals that they are run more like brothels. People come and are encouraged in their adultery by appealing to the idolatry of health, wealth and happiness as what God intends to give to us rather than promoting the orthodox idea that it is Himself that is to be most treasured by us.

If you'd like to read his entire entry, it's here.

Picture: Nicolaus Knuepfer, Brothel Scene

Cutting Remarks

A perfectly good God is…hardly less formidable than a Cosmic Sadist. The more we believe that God hurts only to heal, the less we can believe that there is any use in begging for tenderness. A cruel man might be bribed – might grow tired of his vile sport – might have a temporary fit of mercy…. But suppose that what you are up against is a surgeon whose intentions are wholly good. The kinder and more conscientious he is, the more inexorably he will go on cutting. If he yielded to your entreaties, if he stopped before the operation was complete, all the pain up to that point would have been useless. But is it credible that such extremities of torture should be necessary for us? Well, take your choice. The tortures occur. If they are unnecessary, then there is no God or a bad one. If there is a good God, then these tortures are necessary. For no even moderately good Being could possibly inflict or permit them if they weren’t.

- C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed, pp. 49-50

What Real Faith Looks Like

You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you. It is easy to say you believe a rope to be strong and sound as long as you are merely using it to cord a box. But suppose you had to hang by that rope over a precipice. Wouldn’t you then first discover how much you really trusted it? The same with people. For years I would have said that I had perfect confidence in B.R. Then came the moment when I had to decide whether I would or would not trust him with a really important secret. That threw quite a new light on what I called my “confidence” in him. I discovered that there was no such thing. Only a real risk tests the reality of a belief.

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- C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed, p. 25

More on Eldredge (Sorry)

This is one sleeping dog I was planning to let lie [how many puns can be in one short phrase?], but then I came across Nate Claiborne's blog. He's a student at Dallas Theological Seminary and just posted a series on John Eldredge's book, Waking the Dead. Nate's blog posts are long and theological and analytical, and they are also very good. He has a way of taking apart bad theology without resorting to ad hominem attacks, and he adds valuable thoughts to the discussion of John Eldredge books and their defective theology.

I suppose another sign of his perspicacity is his referring to my own Wild at Heart critique twice in his series, when he refers to Eldredge's romanticism and gnosticism. But even without that, I would have recommended him. Really.

Check out Nate's blog. I think you'll like what you see, not just on Eldredge but on other topics, as well.

(Image by Rene Magritte. It seemed appropriate, because no matter how many times Eldredge insists we have "good" hearts, the hearts we actually have - and Scripture - keep testifying that the reality isn't quite so simple.)

This is a Christian Picture (I Think)

It all started when I sent an e-mail to my artist(ic) friend Ron in Seattle, ranting about a video I found on YouTube showing some guy doing an improvisatory dance at the headquarters of the Christian organization I worked for in the early 80s. I found the dance embarrassing, stupid, and having nothing whatsoever to do with following Jesus. Ron found it "amazing" and "pretty darn beautiful." That led to several more e-mails as we discussed what makes for "Christian" art. It's easy for me to see how a Cranach altar piece is supposed to be Christian art, but I really don't know what to do with that YouTube dancer or even someone like Makato Fujimura (who by the way, like me, is an elder in a PCA church).

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I may never get it figured out, but I was helped by an article I randomly discovered a couple weeks ago. Michael O'Brien is an artist and novelist. In his essay, "Fire in Our Darkness," which you can find here, he explores what makes fine art Christian. Following are a few tidbits, but if you're interested in the subject, I recommend reading the whole thing.

Most Church art is still produced by factories, not created by a sense of mission or desire to incarnate the unseen reality. Only the artist transfigured in faith and master of his medium can accomplish this. Father P. Raymond Regamy, in Religious Art in the Twentieth Century, says, “Nazi art, the socialist realism of the U.S.S.R., and the art that we normally find in churches are the three most dreadful manifestations of art that our century has witnessed.” There is a harsh truth here. Who knows how many have rejected religion from a subconscious revulsion to paintings of Christ they have absorbed since childhood. An effeminate Jesus and saccharin madonna may appeal at one level of a starved emotional life, but they do not reach deeper to liberate and heal. The face of God must be portrayed in Christ as mercy and truth combined. Unless it is so, religious imagery will be a closed door inhibiting our growth in the Kingdom. Bad art has the power to deform a people just as good art generates new reflection, growth, vision, and hope.

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The artist is all idealist, and for him the ideal is the real, capable of transforming his world into what it should be. For Western man it is difficult to grasp this curious vocation. He misreads art as decoration, entertainment, or a tool for imparting information.

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The popular modern emblems of faith are the rainbow and the much-abused butterfly. Yet they are losing their symbolic power because they have been used exhaustively to express a false joy, that of resurrection without crucifixion.

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As a liturgical artist he will need to balance the tension between mystery and hospitality, a creative and healthy tension which should be characteristic of our places of worship. So often the parish church is a safe place where we go to keep intact our middle-class vision of existence. We want to tame God, to make the sanctuary an extension of our living rooms and ourselves into spectators — consumers — of the liturgy. We must re-experience the church as holy ground, welcoming and warm, but sacred. A place where we are not to be confirmed in mediocrity, but led to transfiguration. This is a particularly urgent need, because in liturgy the human soul should be opened to God, and once it has been so exposed it must be fed real food. Much of what passes for liturgical art fails to nourish because its makers have not found its source within themselves. There is talent but little or no vision. Church art rarely commands respect; it is seen by the world as a gasp from a dying Christian culture. If we are offended by these opinions we must now, more than ever, seek the origins and purposes of art and bring it to fruition in the prophetic heart of the Church. [We could say the same about church music, couldn't we?]

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No renewal of sacred art in our times will come if the artist's gift, his spiritual gift, is regarded as a piece of merchandise with which to cover the empty spaces on our walls.

Picture: Makato Fujimura, "Splendor Joy"

Read this Book. See Jesus.

Jesus was not an American. Nor a capitalist. Nor a product of the Enlightenment or Romanticism. He wasn't a postmodernist or a CEO or a copilot.

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Believe it or not, Jesus was a Middle Easterner. And a Jew. He could speak Hebrew and some Greek, but mostly he spoke Aramaic.

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What does all this have to do with us? Well, if you're reading this, chances are that you are none of the above-mentioned things that Jesus was, and you are many of the things Jesus was not. Therefore, when you and I read the Bible, we tend to read it through lenses quite different from those worn by the first hearers of the message. We may reach accurate doctrinal conclusions about the essentials of the faith, but we may also miss much of the richness that comes from understanding the culture in which the Bible was written. When it comes to Jesus, we miss the sheer audacity of his words and his person, even as we bow before Him for our salvation.

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That's where Kenneth E. Bailey comes in, with his book, Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels. Bailey grew up in the Middle East (mostly Egypt) and taught there for 40 years. His 60 years of life experience, linguistic ability, and curiosity come together in this amazing look at the Jesus of the gospels. It is impossible to read this book without growing in an appreciation of the cleverness, theological and philosophical depth, social brazenness, and deep compassion that go into describing the incarnate Christ. Bailey's insights are not "novel" in the sense of being unorthodox theologically. Rather, they are like a key that opens a door and allows a much fuller view than what one was heretofore gaining through a keyhole. The previous view was accurate, but limited. The new view is broader and richer and gives deeper meaning to what was seen before.

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In 35+ years of reading Christian books, I don't know if I've ever read one that caused me to say "Wow" or "Oh my gosh" as many times as this one did. And only rarely have I read a book of theology that actually led me to worship; this is one of them.

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It's hard to summarize this book, because there's so much in it. The six main sections deal with: The Birth of Jesus; The Beatitudes; The Lord's Prayer; Dramatic Actions of Jesus; Jesus and Women; and the Parables of Jesus. It all adds up to 400 pages, but it's not a difficult read. Nevertheless, don't expect to get through it quickly: you may find yourself wanting to stop often and savor what you just read.

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Why did Jesus ask handicapped people whether they wanted to get well? Why was Zacchaeus in a sycamore tree? What's the point of the parable of the talents (hint: it's not about using your God-given abilities)? Who is the only person in Jesus' parables given a name, and why? How did Jesus view women? Which "inn" had no room at Jesus' birth? How does the Lord's Prayer blast away the concept of salvation being only for the Jews? And why should we trust that what we read in the gospels is what really happened? All this and much, much, much more is brilliantly answered in this book. You'll never read the gospels the same way, again.

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I gave a friend a copy of the chapter about the Syro-Phoenecian woman (Matthew 15.21-28). In this encounter, we see Jesus refusing to answer the woman pleading for her daughter's healing, then telling her that He only came to help Jews, then calling her a dog. After my friend read Bailey's exposition of this passage, he said, "I used to read this story and think, 'Jesus is a jerk.' But now I read it and say, 'Jesus is amazing.'"

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Jesus is amazing. Read this book and you'll have a much richer understanding as to why.

He's Wright About That

One of the great Prayer Book collects asks God that we may
“love the thing which thou commandest, and desire that which thou dost promise”. That is always tough, for all of us. Much easier to ask God to command what we already love, and promise what we already desire.

- N.T. (Tom) Wright, Bishop of Durham, writing today in the London Times.

Sarah's 15 Minutes Are Up...or Should Be

I started out really liking Sarah Palin. As time passed, my enthusiasm waned. For me, the biggest blow was when Katie Couric asked her something along the lines of what she read to keep up with current events, and Sarah answered, "Oh, everything." When pressed, she couldn't name a single publication...if only she had said, "The Economist"! I'm not sure Katie was playing fair in the interview, overall, but this particular question was eminently fair, and the answer thoroughly disappointing. I knew then that we were in trouble.

Now she's resigned from her governorship, and I wish she'd just go away. Peggy Noonan (a card-carrying conservative, by the way) has put into words thoughts I didn't even know I had. Here's an excerpt from a recent Wall Street Journal column (emphasis mine):

Sarah Palin's resignation gives Republicans a new opportunity to see her plain—to review the bidding, see her strengths, acknowledge her limits, and let go of her drama. It is an opportunity they should take. They mean to rebuild a great party. They need to do it on solid ground.

Her history does not need to be rehearsed at any length. Ten months ago she was embraced with friendliness by her party. The left and the media immediately overplayed their hand, with attacks on her children. The party rallied round, as a party should. She went on the trail a sensation but demonstrated in the ensuing months that she was not ready to go national and in fact never would be. She was hungry, loved politics, had charm and energy, loved walking onto the stage, waving and doing the stump speech. All good. But she was not thoughtful. She was a gifted retail politician who displayed the disadvantages of being born into a point of view (in her case a form of conservatism; elsewhere and in other circumstances, it could have been a form of liberalism) and swallowing it whole: She never learned how the other sides think, or why.

In television interviews she was out of her depth in a shallow pool. She was limited in her ability to explain and defend her positions, and sometimes in knowing them. She couldn't say what she read because she didn't read anything. She was utterly unconcerned by all this and seemed in fact rather proud of it: It was evidence of her authenticity. She experienced criticism as both partisan and cruel because she could see no truth in any of it. She wasn't thoughtful enough to know she wasn't thoughtful enough. Her presentation up to the end has been scattered, illogical, manipulative and self-referential to the point of self-reverence. "I'm not wired that way," "I'm not a quitter," "I'm standing up for our values." I'm, I'm, I'm.

In another age it might not have been terrible, but here and now it was actually rather horrifying.

If you'd like to read the entire column, it's here.

We Have More in Common With The French Than You Thought

President Obama, sightseeing with French President Sarkozy at this week's G-8 summit in Italy.

"Better Deaths Than Any I've Ever Seen"

There are only a couple things I pray regarding the end of my life. One of them is that I will die well. By that, I mean that if I have any advance warning of my impending earthly demise, I desire to die in faith, confidence, trust, and peace, not "like the rest of men, who have no hope" (1 Thess. 4.13). I want to honor God not just in how I live my life, but also in how I "live" my death.

If it's a protracted death, Iwould love for it to be something like what's described in today's New York Times. The story profiles nuns at a convent and the provisions they've made for each other to die among friends, with dignity, in an environment of hope. Here are some excerpts:

July 9, 2009
Months to Live
Sisters Face Death With Dignity and Reverence
By JANE GROSS
PITTSFORD, N.Y. —
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A convent is a world apart, unduplicable. But the Sisters of St. Joseph, a congregation in this Rochester suburb, animate many factors that studies say contribute to successful aging and a gentle death — none of which require this special setting. These include a large social network, intellectual stimulation, continued engagement in life and spiritual beliefs, as well as health care guided by the less-is-more principles of palliative and hospice care — trends that are moving from the fringes to the mainstream.

For the elderly and infirm Roman Catholic sisters here, all of this takes place in a Mother House designed like a secular retirement community for a congregation that is literally dying off, like so many religious orders. On average, one sister dies each month, right here, not in the hospital, because few choose aggressive medical intervention at the end of life, although they are welcome to it if they want.

“We approach our living and our dying in the same way, with discernment,” said Sister Mary Lou Mitchell, the congregation president. “Maybe this is one of the messages we can send to society, by modeling it.”

Primary care for most of the ailing sisters is provided by Dr. Robert C. McCann, a geriatrician at the University of Rochester, who says that through a combination of philosophy and happenstance, “they have better deaths than any I’ve ever seen.”
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“It is much easier to guide people to better choices here than in a hospital,” he said, “and you don’t get a lot of pushback when you suggest that more treatment is not better treatment.”
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Few sisters opt for major surgery, high-tech diagnostic tests or life-sustaining machinery. And nobody can remember the last time anyone died in a hospital, which was one of the goals in selling the old Mother House, with its tumbledown infirmary…and using the money to finance a new facility appropriate for end-of-life care.

“There is a time to die and a way to do that with reverence,” said Sister Mary Lou, 56, a former nurse. “Hospitals should not be meccas for dying. Dying belongs at home, in the community. We built this place with that in mind.”

….Here, everyone mixes. Of the 150 residents, nearly half live in the west wing, designated for independent living….Forty sisters live in assisted-living studios, and another 40 in the nursing home and Alzheimer’s unit, all in the east wing, with the chapel, dining rooms and library at the central intersection. Closed-circuit television allows those confined to their rooms to watch daily religious services.
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Dr. McCann said that the sisters’ religious faith insulated them from existential suffering — the “Why me?” refrain commonly heard among those without a belief in an afterlife. Absent that anxiety and fear, Dr. McCann said, there is less pain, less depression, and thus the sisters require only one-third the amount of narcotics he uses to manage end-of-life symptoms among hospitalized patients.

On recent rounds, Dr. McCann saw …Sister Jamesine Riley, 75, once the president of the congregation, who barely survived a car accident that left her with a brain injury, dozens of broken bones and pneumonia. “You’re not giving up, are you?” Dr. McCann asked her. “No, I’m discouraged, but I’m not giving up,” Sister Jamesine replied in a strong voice.
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Some days, Dr. McCann said, he arrives with his “head spinning,” from hospitals and intensive-care units where death can be tortured, impersonal and wastefully expensive, only to find himself in a “different world where it’s really possible to focus on what’s important for people” and, he adds, “what’s exportable, what we can learn from an ideal environment like this.”
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Barbara Cocilova, the nurse practitioner here, sees differences in the health of these sisters compared with elderly patients in other settings….Among those with Alzheimer’s, Ms. Cocilova said, diagnostic tests tend to produce better-than-expected results among those who are further along in the disease process, a possible result of mental stimulation.
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Sister Bernadine Frieda, 91, spry and sharp, spends her days visiting the infirm with Sister Marie Kellner, 77, both of them onetime science teachers. Sister Marie, who left the classroom because of multiple sclerosis, reminds an astounded sister with Alzheimer’s that she was once a high school principal (“I was?!”) and sings “Peace Is Like a River” to the dying. “We don’t let anyone go alone on the last journey,” Sister Marie said.

Seven priests moved here in old age, paying their own way, as does Father Shannon, who presides over funerals that are more about the celebratory “alleluia” than the glum “De Profundis.”…He shares with them the security of knowing he will not die among strangers who have nothing in common but age and infirmity.

“This is what our culture, our society, is starved for, to be rich in relationships,” Sister Mary Lou said. “This is what everyone should have.”

I've often criticized the Times for cluelessness on religious matters. This article is a notable exeption. You can read the entire thing here.

And click here for a short audio slideshow about the sisters and their home. It's excellent.

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(In case you're wondering, my health is fine, as far as I know. There are no veiled messages in this blog post!)

In Search of Radical Atheists

I enjoyed these comments by Edward Oakes in the June/July issue of First Things:

In Untimely Meditations, Fried­rich Nietzsche spins a tale that goes like this: Once upon a time, on a minuscule planet orbiting a mediocre star, clever little animals emerged from the slime—and not long after began using puffed-up words like truth and goodness. Even worse, they thought they could attain genuine knowledge in this ultimately dead world. But their little C-grade star eventually cooled, and these pathetic little creatures died out, and with them died their proud words and hard-gained knowledge. The universe shed not one tear but merely looked on from its cold, infinite, uncaring skies.

One must at least credit Nietzsche for drawing out the consistent implications of atheism. Recent atheists, in contrast, seem to preach their atheism with an odd fervor, and one looks in vain for these overheated unbelievers to acknowledge that atheism entails a pointless universe. Perhaps, though, we should sympathize with our current crop of evangelizing atheists. Nietzsche’s pointless-universe thesis is so difficult to maintain that not even he could manage it. In a later book, The Gay Science, he came to the conclusion: “It is still a metaphysical faith upon which our faith in science rests—that even we seekers after knowledge today, we godless anti-metaphysicians, still take our fire, too, from the flame lit by a faith that is thousands of years old, that Christian faith which was also the faith of Plato: that God is the truth, that truth is divine.”

Rare is the contemporary atheist who takes his atheism as radically as did Nietzsche.

A Mirror Dimly

You will never love art well until you love what she mirrors better.

- John Ruskin (1819-1900)

(Picture: Face of Christ by Rouault)

White Other

I was filling out a registration form recently to access information on a U.K. government website, when I was asked to indicate my ethnic group. You know the old saying that England and the U.S. are two countries separated by a common language? It appears we're separated by more than just that. Check out the list...

Which ethnic group would you describe yourself as being in?

White British
White Irish
White Other

Black British
Black Caribbean
Black African
Other Black background

Asian British
Chinese
Indian
Pakistani
Bangladeshi
Other Asian background

White & Asian
White & Black African
White & Black Caribbean

Other mixed background
Other ethnic group

Prefer not to say

This list tells you a lot about the U.K. and the history of the British Empire, doesn't it? I'm guessing the 2010 U.S. Census will have different choices.

"Nine out of ten of you struggle with impure thoughts...Especially after the story I told about my wife"

I'll be back soon with posts of more substance, but for now...here's satire as it ought to be, truly funny. At 10 minutes, it's a bit long, but I laughed all the way through. Find out the perils of youth (or young adult, for that matter) ministry and why you should always check out the guest speaker before giving him the stage:

Comparing the Resumes

It's been too long since we've had a JesusAndMo fix.



(Click on the picture if it's not big enough.)

What I'll Be Doing on My Flight to the West Coast Next Week

I consider myself very knowledgable about planes, at least compared with the average layman. But I learned something today that heretofore had completely escaped my notice. In 71 seconds, you can learn it, too. Check this out:


Kind of makes you want to get on a flight today, doesn't it?

Michelangelo the Frivolous

I've been critical of Twitter for what seems to me incorrigible frivolity (and narcissism). Who would have thought the Sistine Chapel would be similarly categorized by its painter?

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Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) was unquestionably one of the greatest artists ever. People still flock to see his works, many of which have become iconic: La Pieta, David, God giving life to Adam, and the entire Sistine Chapel (pictured above). I've been blessed to see these works "live," and they live up to their billing. If anyone spent his life in worthwhile endeavor, it was Michelangelo. And yet, this is what he reportedly wrote toward the end of his life:

So now from this mad passion

which made me take art for an idol and a king,

I have learned the burden of error that it bore

and what misfortunes spring from man's desire.

The world's frivolities have robbed me of the time

that I was given for reflecting upon God.

(Credited to Michelangelo...source unknown.)
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"Robbed of the time that I was given for reflecting on God." My friend David recently blogged on the importance of silence in one's life. I've had a few posts on the subject, myself. We need times of being alone with God. We weren't built to be led through cacophany; it causes us to confuse gods with God and makes it hard to identify our idols.

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Serving those idols, rather than reflecting on God and living in light of eternity, can never be anything other than frivolity in God's economy. As much as I hate to call Michelangelo's awe-inspiring works the act of a frivolous idolater, that's what he apparently called them, himself. As beautiful an evocation of the Eternal One as they may be, they were never the Real Thing.

Why I'm Still Single

When I got to Oregon State University for my freshman year of college, I started out attending the meetings of Campus Crusade for Christ. But a guy across the hall was involved with a similar group called The Navigators, and that's the parachurch organization I ended up committing to. When I transferred to the University of Oregon the next year, I got involved with the Navs there. Then I worked for the Navs for three years in Eastern Europe, before returning to the U.S. for grad school and 2-1/2 more years of Nav campus involvement. All together, it's almost 10 years of direct involvement, and I've maintained a lot of contacts over the 24 years since I got out of grad school.

That may go a long ways toward explaining why I'm still single.

On campus, one of the taunts - or badges of honor, depending on your perspective - was "Navigator Neverdater." Unlike Crusade, we weren't known as a marriage factory. In fact, it was rather the opposite. Early in my college career, someone said that you only have 4 or so years in college, and it's an unparalleled time for growth in your Christian walk, so why not focus on that and save the dating/marriage stuff for later? Sounded good to me, so I made a commitment not to date until after college. Only when I started getting interested in someone during my missionary years did I remember that my commitment had expired. So we dated a couple times, but she married my friend, instead. They're now Navigator staff.

All of the above is simply to introduce this delightful video from a Navigator college student. It's clear that this part of the DNA of the Navs is still recognizable. Of course, the Navs are defined by something much different than collegiate dating practices, namely such things as Scripture Memory, Bible study, discipleship, and spiritual reproduction. And also of course, most people involved with the Navs do get married. Nevertheless, if you were involved with the Navs in college, you'll love this video, and if you weren't, you'll probably find it rather funny, too:

What's Love Got To Do With It?

I often attend a small monthly philosophy group in Atlanta. The discussions are quite different from what I have with my friends during the rest of the month, because no other evangelical Christians ever attend this group (as best I can tell). For that matter, no other Christians of any discernable stripe attend, and the leader is a determinist who doesn't admit to believing in any God at all.

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It's good for me to be there, because it helps me think through my worldview and convictions and how I can explain them to someone who's approaching our discussion from a very different angle. Of course, I hope that the others will somehow be nudged toward Jesus by what I have to say.

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This week, we were discussing what makes for a good marriage relationship (or nonmarital partnership). One of the guys was claiming that the ideal relationship is one where:

• You live and let live.
• Tolerance reigns.
• Neither party demands anything of the other and neither changes anything to accommodate the other (neither one "compromises").

It's hard to summarize accurately what he was saying, because to me it seemed inconsistent and a bit incoherent, but it was clear that he didn't agree with my claim that the best relationship is one based on active love, commitment, deference, service, and sacrifice. His view seemed to be that each should do whatever he/she wants, with the goal of maximizing self-pleasure and minimizing self-pain. I commented that if two partners with that view ever actually agreed on something, it wouldn't be a relationship, but a coincidence.

I left there thinking how radically different our worldviews are, and when I got home, I took the dog for a walk and prayed, remarking to God how vitally different my life is because God made me His child. Certainly, I don't always practice what I claim to believe about good relationships, but it's my aspiration to do so, and I'm immensely thankful for the significant friendships God has given me over the years. I believe I'm a lot less lonely than the guys I was talking to last night.

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Of course, our Heavenly Father, Himself, is the best example of how to build good relationships (though it sounds weird to state it that way):

• "God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." (John 3.16)
• "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." (John 15.13)

God's extraordinary love gives all (or at least all we could ever imaginably need), and it demands all. When we understand what He's done, we gladly give all in return - first, as a sign of thanks, and then in confident expectation of even more demonstrations of His love for us. "We love because he first loved us" (1 John 4.19).

Tim Keller Speaks Elvish

If you're the least bit interested in Tim Keller, the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, you'll want to read an excellent new profile at ChristianityToday.com. There's a lot of personal and family info, Redeemer history, Keller theology, and church strategy. All in all, it's an engaging article about a church that seeks to engage its city culture of artists and businesspeople with the message of Christ. Check it out.

Twittering Your Life Away

(Click on the cartoon for a larger version.)

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Every generation comes up with new ways to waste its members' lives. Watching television and cruising used to be it, though cruising's imperilled by high gas prices. Television is still quite with us, even though total viewership is down: witness the obsession with "Lost" or "24" or "The Office" or "Heroes." More recently, IMing (AOL Instant Messenger and the like) found ways to consume hours of peoples' lives in frivolity; it's still around, though apparently not as compelling as it once was. Computer/video games steal some people's lives, but the waste-monger getting the most attention these days is social networking.

Of all the social networking media, I find Twitter particularly interesting, in that most tweeters seem to think other people should be endlessly fascinated with the minutiae of their daily lives. It's narcissism, isn't it?...though most people prefer to call it "keeping in touch." Narcissism for the sender, distraction for both the sender and the receiver (a-musement, "not thinking"), and at the end you have a vaporous pile of ethereal nothing. Maybe someday, Twitter will turn into something useful. It's not there yet.

I came across this blog entry today. Although this guy calls himself extreme for having a dozen ways of reporting on himself, he seems representative of the spirit of the age:

If you are like me then you have at least one or two social networking accounts.... I may have taken it to extremes but I eventually went and got a FriendFeed account which tied most of them together. By doing this when I update my Friend Feed status I update my Facebook and Twitter accounts. but here is where it gets tricky. If I update my Flickr, youtube, my Google Talk status, one of the many blogs, or my 73s.org accounts, Friendfeed will pull from them and publish the update out to the others. As these updates get pushed to the Twitter account my Live Spaces account will post that update as well. Another cool thing is if I share an item from Google Reader, it will also push that and any comments to Friend Feed, and then back out from there. Duplicate items can happen, and I am still working on that, but all in all it is easier to really only manage one or two instead of the 12 I once had to cut and paste too.

Now If I could get the Zune Social updates to replicate as well, I would not have to update anything separately.

Do I really need to let the whole world what I am having for dinner? If you have to ask then you just don't understand. It is cool to be able to let you friends and family know what is going on, and to share articles that have caught my eye. Do I have to? no not really, but it is cool, and I am still having fun with it. When it becomes a chore then I may have stop. Until then, keep connected, and share what tips you have for linking your social networking in the comments.

I don't think of myself as a Luddite, and I'm not opposed to electronic communication. I'd have trouble living without e-mail, and obviously, I keep a blog, which I admittedly hope a lot of people will read. But I really don't think anyone cares which type of Trader Joe's cereal I ate this morning, nor whether I put yogurt or milk on it, nor whether I ate it out of a cup or a bowl, nor whether I was sitting in the kitchen or out on the screened porch when I consumed it. If that's the level of detail you want from your friends, then I think you need to get a life.

The Law of Unintended Consequences: John Eldredge and Mexican Decapitations

Everyone who knows me knows that I'm no fan of John Eldredge's theology. But for all the critical things I've said about him, I never would have predicted that a "faith-based" Mexican drug cartel would use his books as texts...and cetainly not a cartel that carries out massacres by separating their victims' bodies from their heads.

But that appears to be the case. Joseph Michael Reynolds reports on his blog that, "La Familia Michoacana was all over the news out of Mexico last week. In President Calderon’s home state of Michoacan, federales carted off ten mayors and twenty other local officials who were allegedly under the control of La Familia, an ambitious cartel often described as a 'pseudo-evangelical cult.'” Reynolds goes on to say:

[An] internal intelligence report on La Familia from the Mexican justice department surfaced in Milenio, bringing the news that the faith-based cartel grounds its indoctrination program on the writings of macho Christian author and veteran Focus On The Family senior fellow John Eldredge, who now heads Ransomed Hearts Ministries in Colorado Springs.

There are four separate references to Eldredge in the Mexican intelligence memo on La Familia. The cartel has conducted a three-year recruitment and PR campaign across Michoacan featuring thousands of billboards and banderas carrying their evangelical message and warnings. La Familia is known for tagging its executions and other mayhem as “la divina justica”–divine justice.

The report says La Familia leader, Nazario Gonzalez Moreno aka El Loco o More Chayo (”The Craziest”) has made Eldredge’s books required reading for La Familia and has paid rural teachers and National Development Education members to circulate the Colorado-based evangelical’s writings throughout the Michoacan countryside.

The Daily Kos has also picked up on this story. The Milenio article referenced looks very informative, but my Spanish is horrible, so I'll have to leave that to someone else.

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If you're going to write books, it's great to have readers, but these must be fans that John Eldredge would rather not have. I've heard plenty of stories about people doing stupid things after reading his books; this is beyond all that I would have imagined.

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(If you're feeling a need to see La Familia's handiwork, there's a photo on Reynolds' blog.)

Someone's Gonna Pay For This

In the spirit of yesterday's post about the difference between politicians and statesmen, I offer a current example of how politicians aren't leveling with us, and instead are telling us what we want to hear. But eventually, the truth will get out, and then it will sink in, ... and then we'll get soaked.

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This comes from a "Special Report on Business in America" in The Economist:

A green revolution
May 28th 2009 From The Economist print edition
Saving the world will not be cheap

The best way to curb global warming would be a carbon tax. The money raised could be divided up among citizens or used to repay the national debt. A tax on carbon dioxide (CO2) would give everyone an incentive to emit less of it. It would be simple, direct and transparent. For these reasons, it will never happen in America.

Frank talk about energy policy is rare. Politicians hate to admit that anything they plan to do will cause pain to any voter. During the election campaign, both Barack Obama and John McCain proposed a cap-and-trade system for curbing CO2 emissions, not because it would work better than a carbon tax but because it did not have the word “tax” in its name. Both candidates also gave the impression that their green policies would yield huge benefits while imposing no costs. A shift to alternative energy, they agreed, would not only check global warming but also create millions of green jobs and help break America’s dependence on foreign oil.

Neither dwelt on the fact that cap-and-trade will raise energy prices, that subsidies for renewable energy will have to be paid for, or that both policies will destroy jobs as well as creating them, while probably cutting growth. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that a 15% cut in CO2 emissions will cost the average American household $1,600 a year. If politicians pretend they can save the planet at no cost, they risk a backlash when people realise they were fibbing.

If we're going to address global warming (or climate change, or whatever it's called this week), we need to understand the cost, and we need to compare the cost with the benefit. So far, no one proposing legislation seems to be doing that.

If you'd like to read the entire article, it's here.

Politicians Many, Statesmen Few

I've been going light on the political blogs lately, more out of cynicism than lack of interest. But I would like to share this quote I came across. It's from Henry Kissinger, who certainly has his share of detractors, but I think he accurately describes what the problem is in politics today:

The great statesmen of the past saw themselves as heroes who took on the burden of their societies' painful journey from the familiar to the as yet unknown. The modern politician is less interested in being a hero than a superstar. Heroes walk alone; stars derive their status from approbation. Heroes are defined by inner values; stars by consensus. When a candidate's views are forged in focus groups and ratified by television anchorpersons, insecurity and superficiality become congenital.

Henry Kissinger, Years of Renewal, 2000

Who are the statesmen of today?

Wincing at the Gospel

Last week, I blogged about how we can seek to avoid Jesus by developing a false sense of righteousness. Those who don't think they're ill won't be interested in knowing what the physician has to say.

This week, I came across a poem by Julie Stoner that addresses the same issue. It's from the June/July 2009 issue of First Things. Poetry and I often don't get along, but this one I like:

"I Did Not Come to Call the Righteous"

Matthew 9:9–13

We ninety-nine obedient sheep;
we workers hired at dawn’s first peep;
we faithful sons who strive to please,
forsaking prodigalities;
we virgins who take pains to keep
our lamps lit, even in our sleep;
we law-abiding Pharisees;

we wince at gospels such as these.

Why Are Atheists So Irrational?

This article came out on September 19, 2008, and I meant to blog about it then, but I've been running way behind. It's about a Gallup study that examined the beliefs of the religious and the irreligious. Guess who turns out to be the most superstitious?

Here's an excerpt from the article, which originally appeared in the Wall Street Journal here. If you want to read the entire article and that link doesn't work for you, try this one.

Look Who's Irrational Now
By MOLLIE ZIEGLER HEMINGWAY

...The reality is that the New Atheist campaign, by discouraging religion, won't create a new group of intelligent, skeptical, enlightened beings. Far from it: It might actually encourage new levels of mass superstition. And that's not a conclusion to take on faith -- it's what the empirical data tell us.

"What Americans Really Believe," a comprehensive new study released by Baylor University yesterday, shows that traditional Christian religion greatly decreases belief in everything from the efficacy of palm readers to the usefulness of astrology. It also shows that the irreligious and the members of more liberal Protestant denominations, far from being resistant to superstition, tend to be much more likely to believe in the paranormal and in pseudoscience than evangelical Christians.

The Gallup Organization, under contract to Baylor's Institute for Studies of Religion, asked American adults a series of questions to gauge credulity. Do dreams foretell the future? Did ancient advanced civilizations such as Atlantis exist? Can places be haunted? Is it possible to communicate with the dead? Will creatures like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster someday be discovered by science?

The answers were added up to create an index of belief in occult and the paranormal. While 31% of people who never worship expressed strong belief in these things, only 8% of people who attend a house of worship more than once a week did.

Even among Christians, there were disparities. While 36% of those belonging to the United Church of Christ, Sen. Barack Obama's former denomination, expressed strong beliefs in the paranormal, only 14% of those belonging to the Assemblies of God, Sarah Palin's former denomination, did. In fact, the more traditional and evangelical the respondent, the less likely he was to believe in, for instance, the possibility of communicating with people who are dead.

This is not a new finding. In his 1983 book "The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener," skeptic and science writer Martin Gardner cited the decline of traditional religious belief among the better educated as one of the causes for an increase in pseudoscience, cults and superstition. He referenced a 1980 study published in the magazine Skeptical Inquirer that showed irreligious college students to be by far the most likely to embrace paranormal beliefs, while born-again Christian college students were the least likely.

Surprisingly, while increased church attendance and membership in a conservative denomination has a powerful negative effect on paranormal beliefs, higher education doesn't....

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On Oct. 3 [2008], Mr. Maher debuts "Religulous," his documentary that attacks religious belief. He talks to Hasidic scholars, Jews for Jesus, Muslims, polygamists, Satanists, creationists, and even Rael -- prophet of the Raelians -- before telling viewers: "The plain fact is religion must die for man to live."

But it turns out that the late-night comic is no icon of rationality himself. In fact, he is a fervent advocate of pseudoscience. The night before his performance on Conan O'Brien, Mr. Maher told David Letterman -- a quintuple bypass survivor -- to stop taking the pills that his doctor had prescribed for him. He proudly stated that he didn't accept Western medicine. On his HBO show in 2005, Mr. Maher said: "I don't believe in vaccination. . . . Another theory that I think is flawed, that we go by the Louis Pasteur [germ] theory." He has told CNN's Larry King that he won't take aspirin because he believes it is lethal and that he doesn't even believe the Salk vaccine eradicated polio.

Anti-religionists such as Mr. Maher bring to mind the assertion of G.K. Chesterton's Father Brown character that all atheists, secularists, humanists and rationalists are susceptible to superstition: "It's the first effect of not believing in God that you lose your common sense, and can't see things as they are."

Baylor's own summary of its study can be found here.

It's Official: Georgia is (Almost) the Worst

I like being able to drive at NASCAR-like speeds in my adopted state of Georgia, but overall I have little respect for my roadmates. I don't have to be on the road for long before I see swerving, wrong speeds (too slow/too fast for conditions), running red lights, stopping at flashing yellows, no headlights in the rain, not using turn signals...whatever signs of incompetence you can imagine, you get to see them every day on Atlanta's roads.

Now there's confirmation: it's not just my perception that drivers here are incompetent. GMAC Insurance has administered something called the National Drivers Test in all 50 states and DC. The test is designed to measure knowledge of basic driving laws, and Georgia ranks 47 out of 51. Only California, Hawaii, New Jersey, and New York score lower.

The state where I grew up and took driver's ed, Oregon, ties for 8th place, and that seems about right.

You can read more about the test results and see how your own state scored here.

And if you like, you can take the National Drivers Test, yourself, here.

I took the test. My score? 95%...and the one question they say I got wrong, I know is correct in some states. So I'll take a gentleman's 100%.

Mother Nature Doesn't Exist. Say Hello to Sister Nature.

The November 2008 issue of First Things included an essay by Ralph Wood marking the 100th anniversary of the publication of G.K. Chesterton's classic book, Orthodoxy.

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Among other subjects, Wood looks at Chesterton's skeptical view of rationalism, materialism, physicalism, and several other -isms, all of them views that end up elevating man beyond where he should be and minimizing God or dismissing Him altogether.

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Wood has this to say in his essay, including a quote from Chesterton:

There are good reasons for being responsible stewards of the environment, but they cannot be derived from the environment itself. Chesterton insists, in fact, that no real ethics can be abstracted from the physical world. It cancels all that it seems to affirm. While democracy declares all men to be worthy, for example, and aristocracy designates some men as worthier, “nature makes no remark on the subject.” Supernatural revelation is required to take a sane view of nature:

The essence of all pantheism, evolutionism, and modern cosmic religion is really this proposition: that Nature is our mother. Unfortunately, if you regard Nature as a mother, you discover that she is a step-mother. The main point of Christianity [is] this: that Nature is not our mother: Nature is our sister. We can be proud of her beauty, since we have the same father; but she has no authority over us; we have to admire but not to imitate. This gives to the typically Christian pleasure in this earth a strange touch of lightness that is almost frivolity. . . . Nature was a solemn mother to Wordsworth and Emerson. But nature is not solemn to Francis of Assisi or to George Herbert. To St. Francis, Nature is a sister, and even a younger sister, to be laughed at as well as loved.

I see the thought process here as having relevance to the tyranny of certain environmentalist views. We are not here to serve the earth, but to serve our Heavenly Father. The earth is here for the very same reason, though obviously without the moral responsibility that humans bear. We are called to be worshipers of God, not idolators of the earth.

But I'll admit, there's something to be said for taking care of your little sister.

Catholics Are Smarter Than Protestants

At Boston.com, the Boston Globe points out a startling fact or two or three regarding yesterday's Supreme Court nomination:

Judge Sonia Sotomayor has much to distinguish her, but one element of her biography stands out in the world of those interested in religion and the public square: she is Catholic, and, if approved as a Supreme Court justice, she will be the sixth Catholic on the nine-member court. That is a remarkable accomplishment for American Catholics, who make up 23 percent of the nation's population, and will now potentially hold 67 percent of the high court's seats. Two of the justices are Jewish; the resignation of Justice David Souter, who is an Episcopalian, will leave, amazingly given the history of this nation, just one Protestant on the Supreme Court, 89-year-old Justice John Paul Stevens.

What does this work out to?

• Catholics represent 2/3 of the Supreme Court seats, but 23% of the population, for a representation ratio of 2.9:1.
• Jews are 17% of the Court but 2.1% of the population, for a ratio of 8.1:1.
• And Protestants bring up a very small rear: 8% of the Court but something like 50% of the population, for a ratio of 0.16:1.

What of that lone Protestant? Apparently, he leaves it at that, naming no denomination in particular.

To make the equation even more fascinating, of the 103 Justices in the history of the Supreme Court, only 3 have belonged to a denomination that might be called evangelical: they were Baptists. Maybe you could count Huguenots, too, which were sort of evangelical, weren't they? There was one of those (Gabriel Duval, 1811-1835).

So this begets the question: Aside from Jews being so "overrepresented," what is it about Catholics that makes them better Supreme Court material than Protestants? Any why are evangelicals only slightly better represented than Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims (those three all at zero)?

If I were Catholic, I'd be crowing right now, claiming that the Catholic intellectual tradition is obviously superior to that of the Protestants. I would also say that the anti-intellectualism of contemporary evangelicalism has borne the fruit it deserves.

But I'm Protestant, and evangelical at that, so I'll ask, instead: Where are the brilliant evangelical jurists? Or is such a term a necessary oxymoron?

(An interesting site from which I got many of my statistics is adherents.com.)

How to Avoid Jesus

The boy didn't need to hear it. There was already a deep black wordless conviction in him that the way to avoid Jesus was to avoid sin.

In her 1952 novel, Wise Blood, Flannery O'Connor provides this description of the protagonist, Hazel (Haze) Motes. In the course of the novel, Motes does everything he can think of to get away from Jesus. In the end, Jesus wins, though it's not entirely clear whether Motes does.

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Regardless of what's going on with Motes, himself, I find the quote above insightful. During Jesus' ministry years, the Pharisees had convinced themselves of their functional sinlessness through observing a set of laws and procedures. As long as they followed those rules, they figured they were OK and didn't need anyone to save them from anything (John 8.33-41). Of course, the temple sacrifices reminded them of sin, but they were always getting forgiveness because they correctly followed all the procedures that were required of them.

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To them, and to us, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." Sick people who know they're sick go to the doctor for help. Sinners who know they're sinners go to the Savior for true restoration and forgiveness.

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Hazel Motes tried to avoid Jesus by living a perfect, moral life. When that didn't work for him, he tried denying Jesus' existence altogether. Denying he was sick didn't work, but neither did denying there was a doctor who could detect sickness.

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The best way to avoid Jesus is to avoid sin. As deluded as Motes was, at least he knew he fell short. We, on the other hand, sit in our church pews and sing our cheesy worship songs and delude ourselves into thinking everything's alright...all the time giving nary a thought to the falling short that we do every day in every way, and nary a thought to our inability ever to make it right.

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[My friend David just posted his own blog entry about Flannery O'Connor. Check it out.]

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Photo: Brad Dourif as Hazel Motes in John Huston's 1979 adaptation of "Wise Blood".

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When Good Questions Beg

Language changes. I realize that. For example, "nice" used to mean stupid and foolish; now it's a term of praise. Check out this entry from the Online Etymology Dictionary:

nice
c.1290, "foolish, stupid, senseless," from O.Fr. nice "silly, foolish," from L. nescius "ignorant," lit. "not-knowing," from ne- "not" (see un-) + stem of scire "to know."

"The sense development has been extraordinary, even for an adj." [Weekley] -- from "timid" (pre-1300); to "fussy, fastidious" (c.1380); to "dainty, delicate" (c.1405); to "precise, careful" (1500s, preserved in such terms as a nice distinction and nice and early); to "agreeable, delightful" (1769); to "kind, thoughtful" (1830). In 16c.-17c. it is often difficult to determine exactly what is meant when a writer uses this word. By 1926, it was pronounced "too great a favorite with the ladies, who have charmed out of it all its individuality and converted it into a mere diffuser of vague and mild agreeableness." [Fowler]

"I am sure," cried Catherine, "I did not mean to say anything wrong; but it is a nice book, and why should I not call it so?" "Very true," said Henry, "and this is a very nice day, and we are taking a very nice walk; and you are two very nice young ladies. Oh! It is a very nice word indeed! It does for everything." [Jane Austen, "Northanger Abbey"]

So, words change. Definitions change. I understand that. Sometimes it's nice. Nevertheless, I still get heartburn over what I see happening to the hapless term, "beg the question." We've now reached the point at which even NPR reporters use the term incorrectly.

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What does "beg the question" mean? It means to provide an answer that fails to answer the question which was asked. The means of failure is a lapse in logic, whereby the answer is based on a premise that needs as much proof as the conclusion. For example, if someone said the following, I'd say he's begging the question:

"The right thing to do is to close Guantanamo. Why? Because no self-respecting country would operate such a place. Moving on to my next point, ..."

Begging the question is very close to circular reasoning. In daily use, we might say someone is begging the question if he fails to substantiate an opinion by stating an equally unsubstantiated position:

"Arminians are heretics."
"Why do you say that?"
"Because they don't believe what the Bible says, and that makes them heretics."

You get the idea. Or maybe you don't. Because if you're like almost everyone I hear - whether in person or over the airwaves - you may be thinking that "beg the question" means "to beget a question," that is, "to raise a question." You might think this is correct usage:

"He said Guantanamo should be closed, which begs the question: What do we do with all the prisoners?"

Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. It pains me every time I hear such a usage (use?), the moreso when it comes from intelligent persons who ought to know better.

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Can this phrase be rescued?

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(As you might expect, Wikipedia has an informative entry regarding this phrase.)

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(And yes, I'm well aware of the danger of positioning oneself as a grammar expert. Chances are, I've made three grammatical errors in this blog entry, thereby voiding my credibility. Oh well, as the Germans say, "C'est la vie.")

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Calvin on The Paradox of Faith

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

(Hebrews 11.1)

‘Grace has always the appearance of contradiction. The foundation is faith. For faith is the pillar and possession upon which we are able to plant our feet. But what, in fact, do we possess? Not things that are present, but what is set far distant under our feet – nay more, what is beyond the comprehension of our spirit. Faith is therefore named the evidence of things not seen. But evidence means that things emerge into appearance, and is applicable only to what concerns our senses. In the realm of faith the two apparent opposites – evidence and things not seen – struggle with one another and are united. It is precisely the hidden things, inaccessible to sensible perception, that are displayed by the Spirit of God. He promises eternal life – to those who are dead. He speaks of the blessedness of resurrection – to those who are compassed about with corruption. He pronounces those in whom sin dwells – to be righteous. He calls those oppressed with ceaseless tribulation – blessed. He promises abundance of riches – to those abounding only in hunger and thirst. God cries out to us that He is coming quickly to our aid – and yet He seems deaf to every human cry for help. What, then, would be our fate, were we not powerful in hope, were we not hurrying through the darkness of the world along the road which is enlightened by the Spirit and by the Word of God?’

- John Calvin, as quoted in Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, pp. 19-20

My Ambiguous Ethnicity

I was filling out an on-line questionnaire from a London arts center the other day. I haven't been to Britain for a few years, but I bought my concert ticket on-line, so they still had my contact info.

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When I got to the end of the questionnaire, they asked the usual demographic questions about age, race, and the like. But I was taken aback somewhat by the list of ethnicity choices. It says something interesting about the difference between Britain and the U.S.

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Here's the list:

Which ethnic group would you describe yourself as being in?

• White British
• White Irish
• White Other
• White & Black Caribbean
• White & Black African
• White & Asian
• Other mixed background
• Asian British
• Indian
• Pakistani
• Bangladeshi
• Other Asian background
• Black British
• Black Caribbean
• Black African
• Other Black background
• Chinese
• Other ethnic group
• Prefer not to say
  

For the first time ever when filling out a questionnaire, I didn't know what race I was. I finally settled on "White Other," which seemingly could leave me Hispanic, Icelandic, or Italian.

Enjoy Yourself

A song from Guy Lombardo and the Royal Canadians (vocal by Kenny Gardner and the Lombardo Trio) - circa 1950? See below for lyrics and some thoughts...

You work and work for years and years, you're always on the go
You never take a minute off, too busy makin' dough
Someday, you say, you'll have your fun, when you're a millionaire
Imagine all the fun you'll have in your old rockin' chair


Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think
Enjoy yourself, while you're still in the pink
The years go by, as quickly as a wink
Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it's later than you think


You're gonna take that ocean trip, no matter, come what may
You've got your reservations made, but you just can't get away
Next year for sure, you'll see the world, you'll really get around
But how far can you travel when you're six feet underground?


Your heart of hearts, your dream of dreams, your ravishing brunette
She's left you and she's now become somebody else's pet
Lay down that gun, don't try, my friend, to reach the great beyond
You'll have more fun by reaching for a redhead or a blonde


You never go to nightclubs, and you just don't care to dance
You don't have time for silly things like moonlight and romance
You only think of dollar bills tied neatly in a stack
But when you kiss a dollar bill it doesn't kiss you back


Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think
Enjoy yourself, while you're still in the pink
The years go by, as quickly as a wink
Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it's later than you think

It's true that this song pretty much espouses the philosophy of "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die," (Isaiah 22.13; 1 Cor. 15.32). It doesn't exactly have an eternal perspective. Nevertheless, it seems to embody a Scriptural truth: enjoyment is God's idea.

• Nehemiah said, "Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is sacred to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength." (Nehemiah 8.10)
• Moreover, when God gives any man wealth and possessions, and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work—this is a gift of God. (Ecclesiastes 5.19)
• Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. (1 Timothy 6.17)

The word "enjoy" appears 55 times in the NIV Bible, and almost always in a positive sense. I think God wants us to enjoy life. Of course, enjoyment isn't the only desire He has for us, nor do I think it's the highest, but it clearly seems to be a part of what He has in store for us.


So when you partake of your bowl of yummy pasta, your glass of wine or beer, your cup of coffee, and your cigar, pipe, or hookah, be sure to thank the Giver for the ability He gives us to enjoy them.

Cultural Relevance You Can Sink Your Teeth Into

A.N. Wilson - To and From Atheism

A.N. Wilson has had a career as an Oxford teacher, biographer, and much-awarded journalist. In Christian circles, he's perhaps best known for a widely reviled biography of C.S. Lewis.

At the time he wrote about Lewis, Wilson would have called himself an atheist. But over time, he's come back to theism and, apparently, Christ. Here are a few excerpts from a recent article he wrote; it's good enough, though, that you might want to read the whole thing here.

By nature a doubting Thomas, I should have distrusted the symptoms when I underwent a “conversion experience” 20 years ago. Something was happening which was out of character – the inner glow of complete certainty, the heady sense of being at one with the great tide of fellow non-believers. For my conversion experience was to atheism. There were several moments of epiphany, actually, but one of the most dramatic occurred in the pulpit of a church.

At St Mary-le-Bow in the City of London, there are two pulpits, and for some decades they have been used for lunchtime dialogues. I had just published a biography of C S Lewis, and the rector of St Mary-le-Bow, Victor Stock, asked me to participate in one such exchange of views.

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I can remember almost yelling that reading C S Lewis’s Mere Christianity made me a non-believer – not just in Lewis’s version of Christianity, but in Christianity itself. On that occasion, I realised that after a lifetime of churchgoing, the whole house of cards had collapsed for me – the sense of God’s presence in life, and the notion that there was any kind of God, let alone a merciful God, in this brutal, nasty world. As for Jesus having been the founder of Christianity, this idea seemed perfectly preposterous....It was a nonsense, together with the idea of a personal God, or a loving God in a suffering universe. Nonsense, nonsense, nonsense.

It was such a relief to discard it all that, for months, I walked on air. At about this time, the Independent on Sunday sent me to interview Dr Billy Graham, who was conducting a mission in Syracuse, New York State, prior to making one of his journeys to England. The pattern of these meetings was always the same. The old matinee idol spoke. The gospel choir sang some suitably affecting ditty, and then the converted made their way down the aisles to commit themselves to the new faith. Part of the glow was, surely, the knowledge that they were now part of a great fellowship of believers.

As a hesitant, doubting, religious man I’d never known how they felt. But, as a born-again atheist, I now knew exactly what satisfactions were on offer. For the first time in my 38 years I was at one with my own generation. I had become like one of the Billy Grahamites, only in reverse. If I bumped into Richard Dawkins (an old colleague from Oxford days) or had dinner in Washington with Christopher Hitchens (as I did either on that trip to interview Billy Graham or another), I did not have to feel out on a limb. Hitchens was excited to greet a new convert to his non-creed and put me through a catechism before uncorking some stupendous claret. “So – absolutely no God?” “Nope,” I was able to say with Moonie-zeal. “No future life, nothing ‘out there’?” “No,” I obediently replied. At last! I could join in the creed shared by so many (most?) of my intelligent contemporaries in the western world – that men and women are purely material beings (whatever that is supposed to mean), that “this is all there is” (ditto), that God, Jesus and religion are a load of baloney: and worse than that, the cause of much (no, come on, let yourself go), most (why stint yourself – go for it, man), all the trouble in the world, from Jerusalem to Belfast, from Washington to Islamabad.

My doubting temperament, however, made me a very unconvincing atheist. And unconvinced. My hilarious Camden Town neighbour Colin Haycraft, the boss of Duckworth and husband of Alice Thomas Ellis, used to say, “I do wish Freddie [Ayer] wouldn’t go round calling himself an atheist. It implies he takes religion seriously.”
This creed that religion can be despatched in a few brisk arguments (outlined in David Hume’s masterly Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion) and then laughed off kept me going for some years. When I found myself wavering, I would return to Hume in order to pull myself together, rather as a Catholic having doubts might return to the shrine of a particular saint to sustain them while the springs of faith ran dry.

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Attractive and amusing as David Hume was, did he confront the complexities of human existence as deeply as his contemporary Samuel Johnson, and did I really find him as interesting?

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A materialist Darwinian was having dinner with me a few years ago and we laughingly alluded to how, as years go by, one forgets names. Eager, as committed Darwinians often are, to testify on any occasion, my friend asserted: “It is because when we were simply anthropoid apes, there was no need to distinguish between one another by giving names.”

This credal confession struck me as just as superstitious as believing in the historicity of Noah’s Ark. More so, really.

Do materialists really think that language just “evolved”, like finches’ beaks, or have they simply never thought about the matter rationally? Where’s the evidence? How could it come about that human beings all agreed that particular grunts carried particular connotations? How could it have come about that groups of anthropoid apes developed the amazing morphological complexity of a single sentence, let alone the whole grammatical mystery which has engaged Chomsky and others in our lifetime and linguists for time out of mind? No, the existence of language is one of the many phenomena – of which love and music are the two strongest – which suggest that human beings are very much more than collections of meat. They convince me that we are spiritual beings, and that the religion of the incarnation, asserting that God made humanity in His image, and continually restores humanity in His image, is simply true. As a working blueprint for life, as a template against which to measure experience, it fits.

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When I think about atheist friends, including my father, they seem to me like people who have no ear for music, or who have never been in love.

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I haven’t mentioned morality, but one thing that finally put the tin hat on any aspirations to be an unbeliever was writing a book about the Wagner family and Nazi Germany, and realising how utterly incoherent were Hitler’s neo-Darwinian ravings, and how potent was the opposition, much of it from Christians; paid for, not with clear intellectual victory, but in blood. Read Pastor Bonhoeffer’s book Ethics, and ask yourself what sort of mad world is created by those who think that ethics are a purely human construct. Think of Bonhoeffer’s serenity before he was hanged, even though he was in love and had everything to look forward to.

My departure from the Faith was like a conversion on the road to Damascus. My return was slow, hesitant, doubting. So it will always be; but I know I shall never make the same mistake again. Gilbert Ryle, with donnish absurdity, called God “a category mistake”. Yet the real category mistake made by atheists is not about God, but about human beings. Turn to the Table Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge – “Read the first chapter of Genesis without prejudice and you will be convinced at once . . . ‘The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life’.” And then Coleridge adds: “‘And man became a living soul.’ Materialism will never explain those last words.

Excerpted from NewStatesman.com

Is This Good News or Bad?

Today's newspaper reports that the Presbyterian Church (USA) has voted once again to reject a measure that would have allowed for sexually active gay clergy in that denomination.

The church rule that remains in effect requires "“fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman or chastity in singleness.”

So, is it good news that the measure was defeated? Or is it bad news that 40+% of the presbyteries voted against fidelity in marriage and chastity in singleness?

Protestants: "People Who SORT OF Want a Religion"

Siskel and Ebert in the '80s, filming promos for their show. I can't think of a good reason to post this, except that it's really, really funny...unless you hate curse words and mockery and derogation of religion. OK, on second thought, it's not funny at all. Especially the religious stuff that starts around 5:45. Don't watch it. (Siskel on the left is Jewish, Ebert on the right is Catholic.)





Gotta credit Hemant.

Brilliant First Lines

I just started reading a new (to me) novel, Flannery O'Connor's The Violent Bear it Away. If it's like the other works of hers I've read, it won't be pleasant, but it may well be unforgettable (try to read her short story "A Good Man is Hard to Find" and then get it out of your head; I dare you).

In any case, here's the first sentence. Have you ever read a better one?

Francis Marion Tarwater's uncle had been dead for only half a day when the boy got too drunk to finish digging his grave and a Negro named Buford Munson, who had come to get a jug filled, had to finish it and drag the body from the breakfast table where it was still sitting and bury it in a decent and Christian way, with the sign of its Saviour at the head of the grave and enough dirt on top to keep the dogs from digging it up.

Once I read that, I was hooked. The next 35 pages have been pretty good, too.

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Being Angry At the Right People...and About the Right Things

In Luke 9.51-56, James and John ask whether they should call down fire from heaven to destroy a Samaritan village that rejected Jesus. Jesus rebuked them for the suggestion. A.B. Bruce has this to say about that:

Jesus too, all gentle as He was, had His thunderbolts; but He reserved them for other objects than poor, benighted, prejudiced Samaritans. His zeal was directed against great sins, and powerful, privileged, presumptuous sinners; not against little sins, or poor, obscure, vulgar sinners. He burst into indignation at the sight of His Father's house turned into a den of thieves by those who ought to have known, and did know better; He only felt compassion for those who, like the woman by the well, knew not what they worshipped, and groped after God in semi-heathen darkness. His spirit was kindled within Him at the spectacle of ostentatious orthodoxy and piety allied to the grossest worldliness; He did not, like the Pharisee, blaze up in sanctimonious wrath against irreligious publicans, who might do no worship at all, or who, like the heretical Samaritans, did not worship in the right place. Would that zeal like that of Jesus, aiming its bolts at the proud oak and sparing the humble shrub, were more common! But such zeal is dangerous, and therefore it will always be rare.

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James and John...thought themselves actuated by zeal for the glory of their Lord, and so they were in part. But the flame of their zeal was not pure: it was mixed up with the bitter smoke of carnal passions, anger, pride, self-will. Then, again, their spirit was not such as became the apostles of the gospel, the heralds of a new era of grace. They were chosen to preach a message of mercy to every creature, even to the chief of sinners; to tell of a love that suffered not itself to be overcome of evil, but sought to overcome evil with good; to found a kingdom composed of citizens from every nation, wherein should be neither Jew nor Samaritan, but Christ all and in all. What a work to be achieved by men filled with the fire-breathing spirit of the "sons of thunder"! Obviously a great change must be wrought within them to fit them for the high vocation wherewith they have been called. Yet again, the spirit of James and John was, of course, not that of their Master. He "came not to destroy men's lives, but to save them."

- A.B. Bruce, "The Training of the Twelve," pp. 246-247

Painting: Valentin de Boulogne, "Christ Driving the Money Changers out of the Temple," c. 1618

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Happy Earth Day

The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it,

the world, and all who live in it.

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Psalm 24.1

Whole Foods . . . Whole Fools

Every time I go to Whole Foods, I wonder why I did so. Today, I've concluded that only fools and those who don't know the value of money shop there. (And yes, I'll admit I sometimes do foolish things.)

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Please tell me why I want to spend 20-100% more for the same items I can get in the neighborhood grocery store or at the world's best food purveyor, Trader Joe's. Coffee, beer, produce, cheese, you name it, it's all ridiculously priced. Whole Foods claims they're competitive if you shop carefully. That may be true, if you shop in their dumpster. Otherwise, I just don't see it.

The Cross After Easter

"The fact that fidelity involves a cross, as also the fact that Christ was crucified just because He was righteous, are well understood by Christians when they are a suffering minority, as in primitive ages. But these truths are much lost sight of in peaceful, prosperous times. Then you shall find many holding most sound views of the cross Christ bore for them, but sadly ignorant concerning the cross they themselves have to bear in fellowship with Christ. Of this cross they are determined to know nothing."

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- A.B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve, p. 185.

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For too many, "discipleship" is something you do in a group once a week. It is not a lifestyle, worldview, or guiding paradigm. Nor a relationship with a Master, for that matter.

Another Thing That Makes Us Not Just Animals

You can surprise a dog,

but only a man can be struck with awe.

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Anthony Esolen

Thank God for Stupid Disciples

There can be no doubt that Jesus spoke plainly enough about His death at least; and yet His death, when it happened, took the disciples as much by surprise as did the resurrection. One explanation suffices in both cases. The disciples were not clever, quick-witted, sentimental men such as Renan makes them. They were stupid, slow-minded persons; very honest, but very unapt to take in new ideas. They were like horses with blinders on, and could see only in one direction, — that, namely, of their prejudices. It required the surgery of events to insert a new truth into their minds. Nothing would change the current of their thoughts but a damwork of undeniable fact. They could be convinced that Christ must die only by His dying, that He would rise only by His rising, that His kingdom was not to be of this world, only by the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost and the vocation of the Gentiles. Let us be thankful for the honest stupidity of these men. It gives great value to their testimony. We know that nothing but facts could make such men believe that which nowadays they get credit for inventing.

- A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve, pp. 494-495 (emphasis added)

A New Day

I will heal their waywardness

and love them freely,

for my anger has turned away from them.



Hosea 14.4

Today

O Haupt voll Blut

"THE" Passion hymn, with music arranged by Bach. Lyrics in English and German below. Have a Good Friday.



O sacred Head, now wounded, with grief and shame weighed down,
Now scornfully surrounded with thorns, Thine only crown;
O sacred Head, what glory, what bliss till now was Thine!
Yet, though despised and gory, I joy to call Thee mine.

What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered, was all for sinners’ gain;
Mine, mine was the transgression, but Thine the deadly pain.
Lo, here I fall, my Savior! ’Tis I deserve Thy place;
Look on me with Thy favor, vouchsafe to me Thy grace.

Men mock and taunt and jeer Thee, Thou noble countenance,
Though mighty worlds shall fear Thee and flee before Thy glance.
How art thou pale with anguish, with sore abuse and scorn!
How doth Thy visage languish that once was bright as morn!

Now from Thy cheeks has vanished their color once so fair;
From Thy red lips is banished the splendor that was there.
Grim death, with cruel rigor, hath robbed Thee of Thy life;
Thus Thou hast lost Thy vigor, Thy strength in this sad strife.

My burden in Thy Passion, Lord, Thou hast borne for me,
For it was my transgression which brought this woe on Thee.
I cast me down before Thee, wrath were my rightful lot;
Have mercy, I implore Thee; Redeemer, spurn me not!

What language shall I borrow to thank Thee, dearest friend,
For this Thy dying sorrow, Thy pity without end?
O make me Thine forever, and should I fainting be,
Lord, let me never, never outlive my love to Thee.

My Shepherd, now receive me; my Guardian, own me Thine.
Great blessings Thou didst give me, O source of gifts divine.
Thy lips have often fed me with words of truth and love;
Thy Spirit oft hath led me to heavenly joys above.

Here I will stand beside Thee, from Thee I will not part;
O Savior, do not chide me! When breaks Thy loving heart,
When soul and body languish in death’s cold, cruel grasp,
Then, in Thy deepest anguish, Thee in mine arms I’ll clasp.

The joy can never be spoken, above all joys beside,
When in Thy body broken I thus with safety hide.
O Lord of Life, desiring Thy glory now to see,
Beside Thy cross expiring, I’d breathe my soul to Thee.

My Savior, be Thou near me when death is at my door;
Then let Thy presence cheer me, forsake me nevermore!
When soul and body languish, oh, leave me not alone,
But take away mine anguish by virtue of Thine own!

Be Thou my consolation, my shield when I must die;
Remind me of Thy passion when my last hour draws nigh.
Mine eyes shall then behold Thee, upon Thy cross shall dwell,
My heart by faith enfolds Thee. Who dieth thus dies well.

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O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden,Voll Schmerz und voller Hohn,
O Haupt, zum Spott gebunden Mit einer Dornenkron’,
O Haupt, sonst schön gezieret Mit höchster Ehr’ und Zier,
Jetzt aber höchst schimpfieret; Gegrüßet sei’st du mir!

Du edles Angesichte, Davor sonst schrickt und scheut
Das große Weltgewichte, Wie bist du so bespeit!
Wie bist du so erbleichet! Wer hat dein Augenlicht,
Dem sonst kein Licht nicht gleichet, So schändlich zugericht’t?

Die Farbe deiner Wangen, Der roten Lippen Pracht
Ist hin und ganz vergangen; Des blaßen Todes Macht
Hat alles hingenommen, Hat alles hingerafft,
Und daher bist du kommen Von deines Leibes Kraft.

Nun, was du, Herr, erduldet, Ist alles meine Last;
Ich hab’ es selbst verschuldet, Was du getragen hast.
Schau her, hier steh’ ich Armer, Der Zorn verdienet hat;
Gib mir, o mein Erbarmer, Den Anblick deiner Gnad’!

Erkenne mich, mein Hüter, Mein Hirte, nimm mich an!
Von dir, Quell’ aller Güter, Ist mir viel Gut’s getan.
Dein Mund hat mich gelabet Mit Mich und süßer Kost;
Dein Geist hat mich begabet Mit mancher Himmelslust.

Ich will hier bei dir stehen, Verachte mich doch nicht!
Von dir will ich nicht gehen, Wenn dir dein Herze bricht;
Wenn dein haupt wird erblaßen Im letzten Todesstoß,
Alsdann will ich dich faßen In meinem Arm und Schoß.

Es dient zu meinen Freuden Und kommt mir herzlich wohl,
Wenn ich in deinem Leiden, Mein Heil, mich finden soll.
Ach, möcht’ ich, o mein Leben, An deinem Kreuze hier
Mein Leben von mir geben, Wie wohl geschähe mir!

Ich danke dir von Herzen, O Jesu, liebster Freund,
Für deines Todes Schmerzen, Da du’s so gut gemeint.
Ach gib, daß ich mich halte Zu dir und deiner Treu’
Und, wenn ich nun erkalte, In dir mein Ende sei!

Wann ich einmal soll scheiden, So scheide nicht von mir,
Wenn ich den Tod soll leiden, So tritt du dann herfür;
Wenn mir am allerbängsten Wird um das Herze sein,
So reiß mich aus den Ängsten Kraft deiner Angst und Pein!

Erscheine mir zum Schilde, Zum Trost in meinem Tod,
Und laß mich sehn dein Bilde In deiner Kreuzesnot!
Da will ich nacht dir blicken, Da will ich glaubensvoll
Dich fest an mein Herz drücken. Wer so stirbt, der stirbt wohl.

A Practical Man

A man devoid of faith, like Judas, needs something to sustain him, to nourish his emotional life, and most men in this position boast of their practical side. Judas was practical.

--Jim Bishop, The Day Christ Died, p. 88

This book was written in 1957, and I read it almost 30 years ago. This is the one line in the entire book that has stuck with me over the years.

I'm rereading the book this week, and I still like the comment about Judas. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I do pride myself on my practicality. Keeping things in order and under control does in some way nourish my emotional life.

There's no sin in being practical. The entire book of Proverbs certainly recommends it. The problem comes when practicality takes the place of faith. And that happens often in my prayer life. I tend to ask only for that which, in my eyes, has a reasonable expectation of happening, something whose means of fulfillment I can map out, "if only God will give a little nudge here and here."

I'm guessing a person of faith will focus more on what God can do than on what is practical, feasible, and doable. Certainly, He who creates ex nihilo will have a few tricks up His sleeve!

A practical man can simulate service to the Master without ever actually having to relate to Him. A practical man takes initiative and leads to where he thinks things should go, maybe along the way asking the Master to endorse the effort. A man of faith meets with the Master and receives instructions, then follows.

Judas was a practical man.

Good & Useful? Or Useful, but not Good?

[D]oubtless Judas took part in this Galilean mission, and, for aught we know to the contrary, was as successful as his fellow-disciples in casting out devils. Graceless men may for a season be employed as agents in promoting the work of grace in the hearts of others. Usefulness does not necessarily imply goodness, according to the teaching of Christ Himself.

- A.B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve, p. 108

The Man With Two Minds

What kind of man was Judas? According to A.B. Bruce,

Supposing Judas to have been chosen to the apostleship on the ground of apparent fitness, what manner of man would that imply? A vulgar, conscious hypocrite, seeking some mean by-end, while professedly aiming at a higher? Not necessarily; not probably. Rather such an one as Jesus indirectly described Judas to be when He made the reflection: "If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them." The false disciple was a sentimental, plausible, self-deceived pietist, who knew and approved the good, though not conscientiously practicing it; one who, in aesthetic feeling, in fancy, and in intellect, had affinities for the noble and the holy, while in will and in conduct he was the slave of base, selfish passions; one who, in the last resource, would always put self uppermost, yet could zealously devote himself to well-doing when personal interests were not compromised--in short, what the Apostle James calls a two-minded man [James 1.8].

In thus describing Judas, we draw not the picture of a solitary monster. Men of such a type are by no means so rare as some may imagine. History, sacred and profane, supplies numerous examples of them, playing an important part in human affairs. Balaam, who had the vision of a prophet and the soul of a miser, was such a man. Robespierre, the evil genius of the French Revolution, was another. The man who sent thousands to the guillotine had in his younger days resigned his office as a provincial judge, because it was against his conscience to pronounce sentence of death on a culprit found guilty of a capital offence. A third example, more remarkable than either, may be found in the famous Greek Alcibiades, who, to unbounded ambition, unscrupulousness, and licentiousness, united a warm attachment to the greatest and best of the Greeks. The man who in after years betrayed the cause of his native city, and went over to the side of her enemies, was in his youth an enthusiastic admirer and disciple of Socrates.

[In the footnote about James 1.8, which refers to a "double-minded man, unstable in all he does," Bruce says this means] a man with two minds; not one real, the other feigned, but with two minds both real so far as they go, only the wrong mind strongest, and ultimately prevailing.

--A.B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve, p. 371

This passage helps me understand how Judas could be Judas. Or how I can be Judas.

What Could Make Me Ashamed To Be An American?

My old passport was nearing its expiration date, so I sent off for a new one. Mindful of last year's processing bottlenecks, I paid the extra $60 for expedited handling. And that's what I got; the new passport arrived exactly 1 week after I sent in the paperwork.

That's the good part.

What I actually received is a nightmare. Have you seen the design of the new passports? I'll be embarrassed to flash that thing on any foreign border. It used to be that passport pages were demure backgrounds for the visas and stamps you'd get while travelling. Now, the passport has been turned into a gaudy picturebook, complete with quotations from historical Americans, the national anthem, and the constitution. How those poor border guards are supposed to find a place to put their stamps, or how anyone is supposed to be able to read them against the dark, intense background colors, is beyond me.

Reportedly, the design was approved by Secretary of State Colin Powell. All I can think is that he signed off on this travesty only after he had already decided to resign. It must have been his way of getting even with the administration that he felt had mistreated him.

Apparently, I'm not the first to have this low opinion of the new design. It's been called "the ugly khaki shorts of passports," "like being given a coloring book that your brother already colored in," and "a tangled mess," Here are a few other choice quotes:

• The new passport comes with its own name: “American Icon.” It’s hard to think of one that was left out. (NY Times)
• “There is also something a little coercive about a functional object serving as a civics lesson, even a fairly low-grade civics lesson.” (NY Times)
• Apparently, someone forgot that passports are mainly meant to be read by, you know, foreigners. Plastered like a NASCAR vehicle with cheeseball patriotic clip-art that might have been swiped from the Colbert Report's opening credits, the new books spill jingoism the way traveling Americans once spilled hard currency.Fair enough, given the administration that introduced the new passports. Unfortunately, where the Bushies once excelled at logos and backdrops, the redesign is also hideously, hideously ugly. (Design Cultures Blog)
• The passport's subsequent pages--the ones that are supposed to be used for foreign visas and entry stamps--follow along with illustrations as predictable as a junior-high American-history project. Cacti! Mountains! Independence Hall! A gargantuan rendering of the Liberty Bell! The whole romantic panoply, from coast to coast. (Design Cultures Blog)

Where did the designer go after this project? Apparently, he moved on to the Acura TL redesign.

We May Have Pat Robertson, but Islam Has Its Own Buffoons, Too

First off, this is not a joke...though it is funny in its own way. See why this Saudi cleric thinks Mickey Mouse should be exterminated (90 seconds):



And from much more liberal Kuwait, we learn the danger of massage parlors and hair salons. Notice the undocumented statistics and the utter ignorance ("Do women get massages, too?). This one will take you almost 6 minutes, but you'll be riveted:

Start Small, Grow Big

A.B. Bruce was a Scottish pastor and professor in the 19th Century. He wrote a classic about how Jesus trained his disciples, called, appropriately enough, The Training of the Twelve. In this book Bruce takes a chronological/ episodic approach, rather than a systematic or topical one, which may help to explain why the book is 550 pages long.

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Bruce treats the disciples as real people, not as caricatures or buffoons. Throughout this work, he shows himself as one who clearly has soaked himself in the Word and meditated on it deeply.

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In the following passage, he talks about the difference between apparent church growth and lasting Church growth. "Rousing the masses" can never replace training the few:

Where there is no obvious excitement, the church in [the view of some] is dead, and her ministry inefficient. Such [people] need to be reminded that there were two religious movements going on in the days of the Lord Jesus. One consisted in rousing the mass out of the stupor of indifference; the other consisted in the careful, exact training of men already in earnest, in the principles and truths of the divine kingdom. Of the one movement the disciples, that is, both the twelve and the seventy, were the agents; of the other movement they were the subjects. And the latter movement, though less noticeable, and much more limited in extent, was by far more important than the former; for it was destined to bring forth fruit that should remain—to tell not merely on the present time, but on the whole history of the world. The deep truths which the great Teacher was now quietly and unobservedly, as in the dark, instilling into the minds of a select band, the recipients of His confidential teaching were to speak in the broad daylight ere long ; and the sound of their voice would not stop till it had gone through all the earth. There would have been a poor outlook for the kingdom of heaven if Christ had neglected this work, and given Himself up entirely to vague evangelism among the masses.

- A.B. Bruce (1831-1899), The Training of the Twelve, p. 107

The entire book can be read or even downloaded at Google books.

How Many Friends Do You Have?

Is Facebook a gamechanger that's expanding our network of friends? Is it fundamentally changing how we relate to others...and how many others we relate to? Maybe not.

From the February 28 issue of The Economist (excerpts):

That Facebook, Twitter and other online social networks will increase the size of human social groups is an obvious hypothesis, given that they reduce a lot of the friction and cost involved in keeping in touch with other people. Once you join and gather your “friends” online, you can share in their lives as recorded by photographs, “status updates” and other titbits, and, with your permission, they can share in yours. Additional friends are free, so why not say the more the merrier?

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Several years ago, therefore, Robin Dunbar, an anthropologist who now works at Oxford University, concluded that the cognitive power of the brain limits the size of the social network that an individual of any given species can develop. Extrapolating from the brain sizes and social networks of apes, Dr Dunbar suggested that the size of the human brain allows stable networks of about 148. Rounded to 150, this has become famous as “the Dunbar number”.

Many institutions, from neolithic villages to the maniples of the Roman army, seem to be organised around the Dunbar number. ... But that does not prove Dr Dunbar’s hypothesis is correct....

The rise of online social networks, with their troves of data, might shed some light on these matters. So The Economist asked Cameron Marlow, the “in-house sociologist” at Facebook, to crunch some numbers. Dr Marlow found that the average number of “friends” in a Facebook network is 120, consistent with Dr Dunbar’s hypothesis, and that women tend to have somewhat more than men. But the range is large, and some people have networks numbering more than 500, so the hypothesis cannot yet be regarded as proven.

What also struck Dr Marlow, however, was that the number of people on an individual’s friend list with whom he (or she) frequently interacts is remarkably small and stable. The more “active” or intimate the interaction, the smaller and more stable the group.

Thus an average man—one with 120 friends—generally responds to the postings of only seven of those friends by leaving comments on the posting individual’s photos, status messages or “wall”. An average woman is slightly more sociable, responding to ten. When it comes to two-way communication such as e-mails or chats, the average man interacts with only four people and the average woman with six. Among those Facebook users with 500 friends, these numbers are somewhat higher, but not hugely so. Men leave comments for 17 friends, women for 26. Men communicate with ten, women with 16.

What mainly goes up, therefore, is not the core network but the number of casual contacts that people track more passively. This corroborates Dr Marsden’s ideas about core networks, since even those Facebook users with the most friends communicate only with a relatively small number of them.

Put differently, people who are members of online social networks are not so much “networking” as they are “broadcasting their lives to an outer tier of acquaintances who aren’t necessarily inside the Dunbar circle,” says Lee Rainie, the director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, a polling organisation. Humans may be advertising themselves more efficiently. But they still have the same small circles of intimacy as ever.

You can read the entire article here.

Bishop Gene Robinson and Me

Last night, I went to hear Bishop V. Gene Robinson speak at the Emory Law School. If you don't already know, Robinson is the gay Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire whose ordination has been a catalyst for schism within the Anglican Communion. For better or worse - and I believe worse - Robinson is a history-changer. He's not a "celebrity" like Britney Spears, but he will be remembered in the history books, possibly for centuries, while Britney won't even merit a footnote.

Despite arriving half an hour early, I found no seats available in the auditorium. But caught up in a last minute scrum, I somehow ended up in the front row - a great place for a view, but not so great if you're not going to applaud (I didn't) or give him three standing ovations (I didn't give him even one). Awkward, indeed. At least I didn't hurl tomatoes, or invective.

And it was draining. When it was all over, I felt like I do after a long, tense, enervating movie.

Robinson spoke for maybe 45 minutes, then had a short colloquy with a fawning Harvard professor, then took several questions from the audience. It's not surprising that Robinson likens his situation to that of the campaigners for black civil rights or equal rights for women. He accuses himself of racism and misogyny, which I guess is designed to provide a foundation for accusing those who oppose him of heterosexism (he said he avoids the term homophobia). Victimhood is a strangely comforting position to be in for many, Robinson apparently included.

I won't attempt a detailed recap of his talk or the questions. In some ways, the non-sex-related comments he made were the most illuminating. They certainly explain how he can arrive at the conclusion that it's just fine with God if you are a practicing homosexual. Here are some statements I found "interesting:"

• "I do not believe that Jesus is the sole revelation of God to man." Other faith communities are also OK to God.
• Homosexual behavior is "not immoral, sick, disordered, misguided."
• "You can't find too many definite proclamations in Scripture," so people an use the Bible to say anything. We have a "flawed understanding" of such Biblical words as "abomination."
• "I believe the Scriptures to be the Word of God, but not the words of God."
• Jesus is God's highest revelation. The Bible isn't. [But how do we know anything about Jesus apart from the Bible?]
• Jesus said, "I will send the Holy Spirit to lead you into all truth." The truth the Spirit is leading us to now is that gays and women deserve "full inclusion."
• Regarding divorce and remarriage: "In spite of the explicit injunction against it from the mouth of Jesus Himself," the Holy Spirit has led us to accept divorced people who remarry. [Thus the Spirit can contradict Jesus.]
• Straight Christians focus on homosexuals so they won't need to deal with their own sexual issues. [He doesn't know the straight Christians I know!]
• "It is time that Christians and Jews actually read the holy Scriptures." [The old canard. Besides myself, I know plenty of Christians who have read the Bible several times through and arrive at conclusions very different from Robinson's.]
• "I helped start a group for 12-21 year old [gay] teens."
• "People who oppose me are only believing what they were taught." [None of his opponents has carefully studied the matter?]
• His advice to gay Catholic priests is that the ordination of women is a good first step on the way toward the full inclusion of homosexuals.
• "There are as many sexualities as there are human beings."
• "God is omni-vulnerable."

There was more, of course, but the above gives you a good flavor of the evening. One thing I listened carefully for, and didn't hear, is any suggestion that whether we're gay or straight, we're called to be continent (i.e., celibate) until marriage or something roughly equivalent. Robinson himself is in a committed relationship and has a "spouse," but at no time did he suggest that spousal fidelity should be normative. He'd lose a lot of gay supporters if he were to advocate such a position, and I still wouldn't agree with him, but I think his position would be much easier to defend. As it is, it comes across more like, "People should be free to do what they want to do, as long as it's loving (and not child abuse or other things I don't think are OK)." That position is intellectual mush, no matter how palatable you make it.

And Bishop Robinson does know how to make heresy palatable. He is witty and winsome. He presents a persona that's hard to dislike, and some of his humor is top-notch. His captor the devil is a liar, and though the Bible doesn't say it, I expect he knows some good jokes, too.

Heard in a Certain Discipleship Group Tonight

After a fair bit of preliminary discussion...

"Can we get started on the study now?"

"Since when do you care about keeping on schedule!?"

"Since I started doing the homework."

Off to Asia

Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Macau, Hong Kong. Back in two weeks. See you then.

If God Had Created Facebook Before He Created Creation...

...it might have looked something like this. (Click here for the version you can actually read.)

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Superstar. Super Show.

It's late and I need to sleep. But first: If you live in or near Atlanta, do yourself a big, big favor and go see Jesus Christ Superstar GOSPEL at the Alliance Theatre before it ends on February 22. I went tonight, and it was amazing. Phenomenal. The acting is perfect. The singing is beyond perfect. The choreography surprising. The overall effect overwhelming.

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Jesus Christ Superstar was originally a 70s rock opera, and in the unlikely event that you saw the movie version, you may have found it bordering on the blasphemous. But now it's found its home after being reworked as a (Black) Gospel piece, and except for maybe two lines in the whole thing, it's better than any passion play I've ever seen, and in some ways touched me more deeply than Gibson's Passion of the Christ. You may not like it quite that much, but if you don't go, you'll never know. I know I'm in good company, though: check out the review in the AJC.

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And here's the good news about JCS GOSPEL: you may be able to get discount tickets on the day of the show. Just check AtlanTix here any day after 8:00 a.m. for the current day's deals. But even if you have to empty the piggy bank and pay full price, it's worth it.

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More info and a couple short videos on the Alliance website here.

Hair to the Chief

In all the inaugural excitement, you may have missed the Chia Obama. Thankfully, it's not too late to order. Check it out here, then place your order and contribute to the Greening of America.

1 Timothy 2.1-4

"I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone— for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth."

The Triumphal Procession

Tomorrow we will inaugurate a new president, and the inauguration will be followed by a parade. You may never have thought about this, but there are several parades in the Bible. For now, let's just look at one:

"But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him" (2 Cor. 2.14).

For years, I've read the verse and heard perhaps the occasional sermon touching on it. But where does this term "triumphal procession" come from, and what does it really mean?

A while back, I read a novel by Robert Harris entitled Imperium. It takes place in the time of Cicero, Pompey, and Julius Caesar, roughly 50 years before the birth of Christ. From Wikipedia, I learned that a Triumph was "a civil ceremony and religious rite of ancient Rome, held to publicly honour the military commander of a notably successful foreign war or campaign and to display the glories of Roman victory....The [parade] route would be lined with cheering crowds who would shower the triumphator with flowers."

Here's a passage from Imperium about Pompey's triumphal return to Rome. It's a bit lengthy, but read it with an eye toward Christ's triumphal procession that Paul mentioned in 2 Corinthians. Where do we fit in this parade?

The twenty-ninth duly arrived, and what a day it was! Rome had not seen such a spectacle since the days of Sulla. As I waited by the Triumphal Gate it seemed that everyone had turned out to line the route. First to pass through the gate from the Field of Mars was the entire body of the Senate, including Cicero, walking on foot, led by the consuls and the other magistrates. Then the trumpeters, sounding the fanfares. Then the carriages and litters laden with the spoils of the Spanish war – gold and silver, coin and bullion, weapons, statues, pictures, vases, furniture, precious stones, and tapestries – and wooded models of the cities Pompey had conquered and sacked, and placards with their names, and the names of all the famous men he had killed in battle.

Then the massive, plodding white bulls, destined for sacrifice, with gilded horns hung with ribbons and floral garlands, driven by the slaughtering priests. Then trudging elephants – the heraldic symbol of the Metelli – and lumbering oxcarts bearing cages containing the wild beasts of the Spanish mountains, roaring and tearing at their bars in rage. Then the arms and insignia of the beaten rebels, and then the prisoners themselves, the defeated followers of Sertorius and Perperna, shuffling in chains. Then the crowns and tributes of the allies, borne by the ambassadors of a score of nations. Then the twelve lictors of the imperator, their rods and axes wreathed in laurel.

And now at last, to a tumult of applause from the vast crowd, the four white horses of the imperator’s chariot came trotting through the gate, and there was Pompey himself, in the barrel-shaped, gem-encrusted chariot of the triumphator. He wore a gold-embroidered robe with a flowered tunic. In his right hand he held a laurel bough and in his left a scepter. There was a wreath of Delphic laurel on his head, and his handsome face and muscled body had been painted with red lead, for on this day he truly was the embodiment of Jupiter. Standing beside him was his eight-year-old son, the golden-curled Gnaeus, and behind him a public slave to whisper in his ear that he was only human and all this would pass.

Behind the chariot, riding on a black warhorse, came old Metellus Pius, his leg tightly bandaged, evidence of a wound incurred in battle. Next to him was Scipio, his adopted son – a handsome young fellow of twenty-four: no wonder, I thought, that Lepida preferred him to Cato – and then the legionary commanders, including Aulus Gabinius, followed by all the knights and cavalry, armor glinting in the pale December sun. And finally the legions of Pompey’s infantry, in full marching order, thousands upon thousands of sunburnt veterans, the crash of their tramping boots seeming to shake the very earth, roaring at the top of their voices “Io Triumphe!” and changing hymns to the gods and singing filthy songs about their commander in chief, as they were traditionally permitted to do in this, the hour of his glory.

It took half the morning for them all to pass, the procession winding through the streets toward the Forum, where, according to tradition, as Pompey ascended the steps of the Capitol to sacrifice before the Temple of Jupiter, his most eminent prisoners were lowered into the depths of the Carcer and garroted – for what could be more fitting than that the day which ended the military authority of the conqueror should also end the lives of the conquered?

This is most likely the picture Paul had in mind when he wrote his second letter to the Corinthians. As glorious as it is, I'm guessing Christ's triumphal procession will put Pompey's - and Obama's - to shame . . . and nobody will be whispering in His ear that He is only human and all this will pass.

Barack's New Bling

Click here for a full size view of the second picture.

Overheard Last Night in a Certain Discipleship Group

"When I use the Bible to dismantle my own bullshit, it works really well. When I use it to demolish others', it doesn't work well at all."

Christian Books are Stupid. Don't Read Them.

Well, some of them are stupid, and you'd be better off reading something else. You've got to wonder sometimes what certain authors and their publishers were thinking when they came up with certain books. For example, take this [edited] book description that I read in a recent missions-oriented newsletter:

NEW AND UNIQUE CHURCH PLANTING BOOK -- [The Book in Question] was recently published by [Some Publisher]. Author [John Doe], Director of the Church Planting Center at [Some Seminary], challenges missionaries across the globe to consider Barnabas as a model for healthy church planting teams. The Factors include: Walks with the Lord; Maintains an Outstanding Character; Serves the Local Church; Remains Faithful to the Call; Shares the Gospel Regularly; Raises Up Leaders; Encourages with Speech and Actions; Responds Appropriately to Conflict. A guide is also provided to assist team leaders in evaluating potential team members. This work is available through Amazon.

OK, now here's the question: Aside from wondering why Barnabas in particular would be considered a church planting pioneer and model, what is it about the list that we learn about church planters? Namely, that they should be mature Christians who share their faith and help others grow. Hmmm. Shouldn't that be true of every Christian? So, based on the description given, what does this book add to our understanding of anything, besides nothing? Does the author just need to sell some books so he can put his kids through college?

Better to read Kierkegaard. Agree with him or not, at least he had something to say.

My 2009 Reading Plan

Now that I've reviewed my favorite books of 2008 (here and here), I guess the next thing to do is preview my plans for 2009.

In the coming year, I want to be intentional about balancing out the kinds of books I read. These are the "food groups" I want to include in my literary diet:

• Literature. Fiction by serious writers, such as Camus, Solzhenitsyn, Flannery O'Connor, and the like.
• New Non-Fiction. Defined more or less as something published in my lifetime by authors who are still alive. Can be either "Christian" or "secular."
• Old Non-Fiction. Also known as non-fiction that isn't new. This category is important to me, because of a thought C.S. Lewis brought out in one of his essays about why we should read "old" books: "Not, of course, that there is any magic about the past. People were no cleverer then than they are now; they made as many mistakes as we. But not the same mistakes. They will not flatter us in the errors we are already committing; and their own errors, being now open and palpable, will not endanger us. Two heads are better than one, not because either is infallible, but because they are unlikely to go wrong in the same direction. To be sure, the books of the future would be just as good a corrective as the books of the past, but unfortunately we cannot get at them."
• C.S. Lewis and Friends. I want to keep working through the Lewis canon and get to some books by his brother Warnie, his wife Joy, and his friend Charles Williams.
• John Wesley. I bought his complete works in 14 volumes several years ago but am only about 10% of the way through it.
• Novels. Defined, I suppose, as modern fiction written for a mass audience. This category isn't necessarily a priority, but it does make long airplane flights pass more quickly.

My idea is to rotate through the first 5 categories until the year is over, sprinking in the novels when appropriate. Between each book I'll catch up on the periodicals I receive. I'll also read the Bible most days, but I won't read through the Bible this year (I do that in even-numbered years).

So there you have it. I'm now accountable.

After 2009, I want to start into Calvin and Luther, but there's plenty of time yet to figure that out.

Gilead. My Favorite Book of 2008.

Maybe recency has something to do with it, since I read this book in November and finished another of the author's books only two days ago, a parallel novel to Gilead told from a different point of view. It's not just recency, however, that makes this book my favorite.

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Someone else likes this book, too. Gilead won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics' Circle Award. A London Times columnist has called Marilynne Robinson "the world's best writer of prose," adding, "I'm not saying you're actually dead if you haven't read Marilynne Robinson, but I honestly couldn't say you're fully alive."

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Fully alive. An ironic way to talk about a quiet book that starts and ends in the small town of Gilead, Iowa, rarely wanders far from the front porch, and includes a cast of characters that would comfortably fit in a minivan. If minivans had existed in the 1950s.

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Gilead is ... What is Gilead? For being such a short book, it's difficult to summarize. Transgression, forgiveness, generations, sin, mortality, love, light, water, touch ... Any statement about this book would beg for more context and detail. But here's a try:

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Rev. John Ames (Congregationalist and Calvinist) is in his 70s and slowly dying of a heart ailment. His first wife died young. He married his second wife only a few years ago; she's much younger and they now have a seven-year old son. Ames doesn't expect to be around to see the boy grow up, so he's decided to write the family history and share as much of himself as a 50s-era Midwestern minister can bring himself to do.

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The book, then, is Ames's memoir to his son. And it is much, much more. It is a beautiful testament of a man who has learned to live in the gentle rhythms of grace. A man who has steeped himself in the Bible and theology and life and come out on the other side wise and humble and a little bit funny.

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There's so much to say about this book, but everything feels inadequate. Gilead is a book to read slowly and savor. It's not a book of plot, though there is a plot of sorts; rather, it is a book of character, told with style and with prose that simply amazes. Although not a "Christian" book, it is perhaps as Christian as any book you could read - and if you're not a Christian, you may not "get" it. And yet it is never preachy, never ponderous. Rather, this is luminous spirituality, the kind that draws us and leaves us thinking, "I'd like to be like this man. Perhaps I can."

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Toward the end of the book, Ames writes, "Grace is not so poor a thing that it cannot present itself in any number of ways." Through Robinson's magnificent writing, I see grace in new ways. Perhaps you will, too.

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You can read (slowly, please!) the first several pages here. Read, then place your order.

Favorite Books of 2008

David posted his favorite books for 2008, so I guess I may as well do the same.

First, here are all the books I read last year, listed alphabetically by author. This doesn't include newspapers, magazines, or restroom graffiti:

1. Anonymous - The Way of a Pilgrim and the Pilgrim Continues His Way
2. Bauby, Jean-Dominique - The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
3. Brother Lawrence - The Practice of the Presence of God
4. Bruce, A.B. - The Training of the Twelve
5. Coleman, Robert - Des Meisters Plan der Evangelisation
6. Coleman, Robert - The Master Plan of Evangelism (3rd? 4th? reading)
7. Coupland, Douglas - All Families are Psychotic
8. Dorsett, Lyle - A Love Observed: Joy Davidman's Life & Marriage to C.S. Lewis
9. D'Souza, Tony - Whiteman
10. Gaines, James - Evening in the Palace of Reason: Bach Meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment
11. Gresham, Douglas - Lenten Lands: My Childhood with Joy Davidman and C.S. Lewis
12. Harris, Robert - Enigma
13. Harris, Robert - Fatherland
14. Henry, Marguerite - White Stallion of Lipizza
15. Hopko, Thomas - Christian Faith And Same Sex Attraction: Eastern Orthodox Reflections
16. Iweala, Uzodinma - Beasts of No Nation
17. Kolakowski, Leszek - Metaphysical Horror
18. Neighbour, Randall - A Pocket Guide to Coaching Small Groups
19. Lewis, C.S. - A Grief Observed (2nd reading)
20. Lewis, C.S. - The Problem of Pain
21. Long, Jimmy - Emerging Hope: A Strategy for Reaching Postmodern Generations
22. Machiavelli, Niccolo - The Prince
23. Nouwen, Henri - Beloved
24. Nouwen, Henri - Can You Drink the Cup?
25. Nouwen, Henri - In the Name of Jesus
26. Pollan, Michael - In Defense of Food
27. Reich, Christopher - Rules of Deception
28. Rice, Anne - Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt
29. Rice, Anne - Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana
30. Richards, Jay (ed.) - Environmental Stewardship in the Judeo-Christian Tradition
31. Robinson, Marilynne - Gilead
32. Salinger, J.D. - Franny and Zooey
33. Sayer, George - Jack: A Life of C.S. Lewis
34. Scazzero, Peter - Emotionally Healthy Spirituality
35. Skinner, Betty Lee - With Integrity of Heart and Skillful Hand
36. Tarnas, Richard - The Passion of the Western Mind (2nd reading)
37. Thigpen, Paul (ed.) - My Daily Catholic Bible: Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition 20-Minute Daily Readings
    
    

9,441 pages. Seems like I ought to be a lot smarter, wiser, and more Godly than I am after all that. What's that verse about always learning but never coming to a knowledge of the truth?

In any case, here are my five favorites. I won't call them "best," because a book might be "best" for a particular purpose, but still not my favorite. And I won't include the Bible, because it's the obvious best and favorite. Of the 36 that remain, my faves as of this particular moment are:

• #6 Coleman - A classic is a classic is a classic. Profound principles in a compact package.
• #21 Long - Super insights into pomo people and times, and how to minister in this culture.
• #28-29 Rice - Miraculously uncheesy imaginings about the days of Jesus before his ministry.
• #31 Robinson - Transcendently beautiful Pulitzer-prize winning novel of forgiveness and transformation.
• #36 Tarnas - A history of philosophy that reads like a novel and makes sense of the mess.

And the favorite among the favorites? That will have to wait for another post.

Voodoo Doughnut

My time in Portland ended better than it began. The snow finally melted (off the roads, anyway), and that enabled me to get out and visit friends, do a little shopping, and patronize the world-famous Voodoo Doughnut & Wedding Chapel, where I enjoyed a Bacon Maple Bar. It was my first time to Voodoo Donut, but it won't be the last. Two and a half minutes:



Want more? Here's a 6-minute video that profiles several of the classics, including the late, lamented Nyquil and Pepto-Bismol Donuts:



http://voodoodoughnut.com/

What Many Politicians Deserve, But Too Few Receive

30 seconds:

Plants Have Rights, Too (?)

When I was a kid, we were told that houseplants would grow better if we would talk to them nicely, but this is getting ridiculous. Back in October, the Wall Street Journal ran a feature that aptly illustrates how far environmentalist nonsense can go. If anyone wonders why I've railed so often against global warming pseudo-science, it's because, left unchecked, we'll end up degrading the primacy of mankind by emphasizing the "rights" of rivers, plants, and for all I know, toenail fungus.

Judge for yourself. Here's an abridged version of the article, which you should be able to read in its entirety here.

OCTOBER 10, 2008
Switzerland's Green Power Revolution: Ethicists Ponder Plants' Rights
Who Is to Say Flora Don't Have Feelings? Figuring Out What Wheat Would Want
By GAUTAM NAIK

ZURICH -- For years, Swiss scientists have blithely created genetically modified rice, corn and apples. But did they ever stop to consider just how humiliating such experiments may be to plants?

That's a question they must now ask. Last spring, this small Alpine nation began mandating that geneticists conduct their research without trampling on a plant's dignity.

"Unfortunately, we have to take it seriously," Beat Keller, a molecular biologist at the University of Zurich. "It's one more constraint on doing genetic research."

Dr. Keller recently sought government permission to do a field trial of genetically modified wheat that has been bred to resist a fungus. He first had to debate the finer points of plant dignity with university ethicists. Then, in a written application to the government, he tried to explain why the planned trial wouldn't "disturb the vital functions or lifestyle" of the plants. He eventually got the green light.

The rule, based on a constitutional amendment, came into being after the Swiss Parliament asked a panel of philosophers, lawyers, geneticists and theologians to establish the meaning of flora's dignity.

"We couldn't start laughing and tell the government we're not going to do anything about it," says Markus Schefer, a member of the ethics panel and a professor of law at the University of Basel. "The constitution requires it."

In April, the team published a 22-page treatise on "the moral consideration of plants for their own sake." It stated that vegetation has an inherent value and that it is immoral to arbitrarily harm plants by, say, "decapitation of wildflowers at the roadside without rational reason."

On the question of genetic modification, most of the panel argued that the dignity of plants could be safeguarded "as long as their independence, i.e., reproductive ability and adaptive ability, are ensured." In other words: It's wrong to genetically alter a plant and render it sterile.

Many scientists interpret the dignity rule as applying mainly to field trials like Dr. Keller's, but some worry it may one day apply to lab studies as well. Another gripe: While Switzerland's stern laws defend lab animals and now plants from genetic tweaking, similar protections haven't been granted to snails and drosophila flies, which are commonly used in genetic experiments.

It also begs an obvious, if unrelated question: For a carrot, is there a more mortifying fate than being peeled, chopped and dropped into boiling water?

"Where does it stop?" asks Yves Poirier, a molecular biologist at the laboratory of plant biotechnology at the University of Lausanne. "Should we now defend the dignity of microbes and viruses?"

...

Several years ago, when Christof Sautter, a botanist at Switzerland's Federal Institute of Technology, failed to get permission to do a local field trial on transgenic wheat, he moved the experiment to the U.S. He's too embarrassed to mention the new dignity rule to his American colleagues. "They'll think Swiss people are crazy," he says.

Defenders of the law argue that it reflects a broader, progressive effort to protect the sanctity of living things. Last month, Switzerland granted new rights to all "social animals." Prospective dog owners must take a four-hour course on pet care before they can buy a canine companion, while anglers must learn to catch fish humanely. Fish can't be kept in aquariums that are transparent on all sides. The fish need some shelter. Nor can goldfish be flushed down a toilet to an inglorious end; they must first be anesthetized with special chemicals, and then killed.

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Dr. Keller in Zurich has more mundane concerns. He wants to breed wheat that can resist powdery mildew. In lab experiments, Dr. Keller found that by transferring certain genes from barley to wheat, he could make the wheat resistant to disease.

When applying for a larger field trial, he ran into the thorny question of plant dignity. Plants don't have a nervous system and probably can't feel pain, but no one knows for sure. So Dr. Keller argued that by protecting wheat from fungus he was actually helping the plant, not violating its dignity -- and helping society in the process.

One morning recently, he stood by a field near Zurich where the three-year trial with transgenic wheat is under way. His observations suggest that the transgenic wheat does well in the wild. Yet Dr. Keller's troubles aren't over.

In June, about 35 members of a group opposed to the genetic modification of crops, invaded the test field. Clad in white overalls and masks, they scythed and trampled the plants, causing plenty of damage.

"They just cut them," says Dr. Keller, gesturing to wheat stumps left in the field. "Where's the dignity in that?"

Want more? Here's an official document from the (Swiss) Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology, with the subtitle, "Moral Consideration of Plants for their Own Sake." If you can read it without incredulity, then you are the kind of person who scares me.

The Best Christmas Art Ever?

(I have no idea as to the original source of this. If you know, please clue me in.)

I am Not an Imposition, Part 5

I’m still in Portland, and still snowbound until probably tomorrow. Now that Portland has officially recorded the snowiest December on record - 16 inches, so far (and a drift of 21 inches outside my mom’s front door) - it seems like a good time to continue my series on environmentalism, a series that obviously has relevance to global warming and how we talk about it.

I’ve been offering excerpts from the book, Environmental Stewardship in the Judeo-Christian Tradition. The previous installment can be found here.

Here’s the conclusion of the Jewish point of view:

If…there is a God, then everything changes. If there is a God who has created us, then each and every human person has infinite value, and none can be sacrificed for the sake of nature or some abstract cause. (p. 31)

The chapter on the Catholic view offers this:

Nowhere does revelation suggest (as do some contemporary religious and secular environmentalists) that creation, undisturbed by human intervention, is the final order God intended…. The human person and the natural world are never ascribed the same dignity.
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Some would argue that if man refrains from exercising dominion over nature, nature would be better off. Yet the issue bearing the greatest importance is whether man would be better off. When man does not exercise dominion over nature, nature will exercise dominion over man and cause tremendous suffering for the human family….We alone, of all God’s earthly creatures, have the power, intelligence, and responsibility to help order the world in accord with divine providence and thus minimize the effects of natural evil. (pp. 39-40)

And this comes from the Protestant/Evangelical view:

Some environmentalists, especially those in the “Deep Ecology” movement, divinize the earth and insist on “biological egalitarianism,” the equal value and rights of all life forms, in the mistaken notion that this will raise human respect for the earth. Instead, this philosophy negates the biblical affirmation of the human person’s unique role as steward and eliminates the very rationale for human care for creation. The quest for the humane treatment of beasts by lowering people to the level of nimals leads only to the beastly treatment of humans. (p. 69)

In the three months since my previous installment from this book, it seems that the clamor about global warming has subsided. The current economic crisis has shown that the environmental “emergency” has become less of one in the face of joblessness and recession. But I have little doubt that the subject will heat up again once the economy does, too. Here are some of the key points I wish we’d keep in mind as the discussion continues:

• Man(kind) is the pinnacle of God’s creation.
• As such, we are superior to all plants and all animals. We have value, dignity, and eternal consequence that nothing else in creation has.
• We have been given earth to manage for the benefit of mankind; we do not manage the earth for the benefit of the earth, per se.
• All environmental discussions should consider the cost to humans of recommended policies.
• Some costs are in fact too much to pay.
  
  I’m sure that’s not all, but it’s a good start.

And since this is Christmas, let's consider: Does not the incarnation of Christ itself say something about the exalted status of mankind in creation?

Worse Before Better

It's still snowing in Portland. Amazing. Already it's a record (over a foot), with another 3 inches or so today. This evening or tomorrow, it's supposed to turn to rain. Who knows how long it'll take until all the roads are passable again?