Thursday, December 30, 2010

Conquered Words: 2010

This is it!

My first year of cataloging books that I read each month is over and I am now forced to do a year review of my achievements. Let me say right off the bat that all of this "Conquered Words" business is more for me than you, my dear reader. But you're so vain, you probably think this post is about you (siiinnnggg it wiiiith meeee).

Ok. To business then.

I read 24 books this year totaling up to 7,563 pages. Seeing as there are certain books on the list (3 to be exact) that I did not read every word of, I would say I read close to 7,000 pages. That would bring it in to an average of 315.13 pages per book. Furthermore with the math game, it would mean I read a clean average of 2 books and just over 630 pages a month, which certainly didn't happen seeing as I go through spurts. For example, in July alone I read 5 books, but I didn't complete or read much at all in the month of May (Sasquatch + wedding + finishing college = no time to read).

Figuring all of this out made me realize a couple of things. Firstly, I am a terrible mathematician. Secondly, I suppose I read quite a bit. I mean, it's one thing to be moving from month to month and reading one book or two books and thinking that all is well and dandy, but it's another thing entirely to look at the whole year and realize most of your life was dedicated to books (I smell a moral quandary!).

I feel as though I am also obliged to tell you the best books I read this year. You might notice in each month that it is rare that I hate books. That's simply because I don't spend my time reading crappy books, duh. I read good books and I mostly read books that have stood some sort of test, whether it be time or criticism and maybe Oprah (KIDDING YOU GUYS).

These, then, are my favorite books I read in 2010 in no particular order:

Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann was simply and tremendously beautiful. McCann's characters were as poetic as his language and his metaphors and motifs somehow jumped out without being entirely obvious. It was just 300 pages of sheer delight and sometimes that's all you need.

Columbine by David Cullen did not only give me insight to the events of the horrific school shooting of 1999, but it gave a very complete picture of teenage life and high school politics. Cullen's plain and sometimes harsh language brought out the intense nature of the events. With thrilling pace, the book didn't lose its heart. It is page turning, but emotional and heartfelt mainly because everything is so brutally true.

Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do by Michael J. Sandel is a book I would like a lot of freshman in college to read, but unfortunately they might have to be forced to do so. Sandel not only gives the reader a solid history of philosophical justice, but his concluding arguments are committed and keen. This book is rhetorically masterful too as I would find it near impossible for many to read the entire book and come up disagreeing with Sandel's assertions. He recognizes the inescapable morality in politics/justice and calls for a higher view of what it means to be a citizen in an American society. Plainly, the book is well freaking done.

The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr., which was edited and published by Clayborne Carlson certainly paints MLK to be the epic character he is in our history. The best part about this book is that it includes so much of his fantastical rhetoric. He was so dang good with words. Taken from his journals and personal writings, Carlson did a stunning job creating this truly classic piece that should not be forgotten. Loved it.

Robert Kennedy: His Life by Evan Thomas has to be the definitive biography of RFK. I would be shocked if someone undertook the task to write another one anytime soon. I finished this book yesterday and was so taken by this man's life I'm still putting all of my thoughts together. This was one of those books, like many on this list, that the minute I finished it I wanted to start it all over again. Kennedy is entirely complex and never idolized in this biography and yet for some reason you cannot ignore the legend that he is. I am obsessed with this guy's place in history.

So that should do it. I'm off to visit my father and my sister/her family in Michigan. I'll be gone until Monday night and have zero Internet connectivity (Dad's a pig farmer in rural MI), so that's one way to "unplug." I'll certainly get the best foot forward for reading in 2011 huh? I don't see Dad or Sara and her family enough, so this long weekend should bode well for Ali and I. See you in 2011.

Keep reading, my friends.

Conquered Words: December

This is my monthly post where I tell you what I have read and (ever so briefly) what I thought about each work. If you haven't read these books, then read this blog and pretend that you did!
 
I read one book this month and I am very OK with that because I could write forever on it. Luckily, since I finished the book last night, I don't have all of my thoughts together so I'll be brief. That is the greatness of these posts, that you, my reader, tend to get my very immediate impressions on the words I read each month. Don't you love me right now?

The book was Robert Kennedy: His Life by Evan Thomas (Simon & Schuster New York, 401 pages), which I started in November that brought me to a close of 2010 and what a close it was. This man is entirely fascinating. He, like every idolized man, was so very complex and flawed yet still, in knowing as much of him as we can know, is a legend. RFK was a unique intellectual and brutish at times. He was a strange politician because he was almost too much himself. Jack was the politician of the family and Bobby was the moralist - however haunted and fatalistic he could be. The tragedy of his assassination lies in the foundation of the "what could have been," and yet without it, he and the entire Kennedy legacy would be different. I need more thinking on this book, but I already know it was well done because of Thomas's comprehensiveness and vigor. Even in showing RFK's awkward courage, brutish professionalism, strange, sometimes destructive habits, and tormented mind, he still comes out legendary, perhaps in the more appropriate way.

Look forward to my Best of 2010 CW coming very, very soon because I have already written it.

Keep reading, my friends.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Ministry in 2010

On New Year's Day of 2010, I had no idea what I was going to do with my life, but I knew God had confirmed in me to continue pastoring. While I had no job, I certainly still had a calling. About mid-way through January of this year, I was blessed to come on staff part time at Willamette Christian Church as a youth intern. I basically helped the ships sail for the middle school and high school kids. It was a wild time and both ministries began to grow quite rapidly. We leaders just locked arms and charged forward to love these students and teach them the timeless ways of following Jesus.

I sit now in my office at Willamette in a full-time position and thinking about all God has done. I feel extremely blessed to be a part of God's movement at Willamette. Not only has our youth ministries grown both numerically and spiritually, but the whole church has seen awesome and good growth: new believers, baptisms, and servers. God has certainly done something this year.

I'd like to share this link to my post about all that God did in 2010 and my feelings toward it, so click here if you like. I'll give an excerpt to whet the palette:
"The truth is, I resonate a lot with Psalm 40:5 when the poet says, “You have multiplied, O Lord my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us…yet they are more than can be told.” We have seen such blessing from God this year that I’ll bet we could write a good book about it... When I started ministering that week one year ago, it might be strange for you to know that I actually did expect God to do all of the things he ended up doing. Perhaps normally you’ll hear someone say, “I never thought God would do this,” but that was not the case. I came in with high expectations from God, believing him to grow the ministry numerically and spiritually. And He did it."
 Let's do this 2011...

Sunday, December 26, 2010

Black Truth

"...man cannot tell the who truth about himself, even if convinced that what he wrote would never be seen by others."
-Mark Twain, 1899 interview with London Times
Even during his own attempt to arrange and articulate his life, Mark Twain's desire was to leave out nothing. He admired the autobiographies of his day that were raw and somewhat uncut. When he wrote to his friends about his own autobiography, he would almost brag about the unedited nature of his true life story.

And yet alas, in the midst of such an attempt, Twain confessed to man's incapability of sharing everything so blatantly. William Dean Howells, a friend and partner of Twain's agreed with his conclusion and wrote this to him:
"You always rather bewildered me by your veracity, and I fancy you may tell the truth about yourself. But all of it? the black truth, which we all know of ourselves in our hearts, or only the whity-brown truth of the pericardium, or the nice, whitened truth of the shirt-front? Even you won't tell the clack heart's truth. The man who could do it would be famed to the last day with the sun shone upon."
We can say many true things, but is it possible for us to admit our wickedness to everyone? My experience as a minister leads me to agree with Twain and Howells: people will tell you horrific things, but rarely will they tell you the whole story. Certainly I'm not saying everyone must do this, for then our counseling rooms and coffee shops would be filled with the tears and burdens of our human reality. What is interesting is that Twain might be too right.

Maybe we could never tell the entire truth about ourselves simply because we will never know it.

There are two responses from the Christian Scriptures: First, that God knows our hearts perfectly (Psalm 44:21, Luke 16:15, Acts 15:8). But secondly, and more profoundly: "God is greater than our hearts."

Even if you do not know this black truth that Twain speaks of, even if you are unable to understand how deep the truth of yourself goes, whatever unknown darkness you may have is no match for the Biblical God.

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Calvin on Christmas

I do not consider myself a Calvinist, but I am somewhat a fan of John Calvin's work. Even with the praises of his modern disciples, he was still a deeply flawed man filled with violence and malice. Today he is either deified or disgraced. I am in the middle ground when I think of him. Despite his failures as a man, he wrote some of the most profound things about God, which is true of many men who said good things about God. I'm re-reading his sermons on the Christmas texts when I found this passage relating to his sermon on Isaiah 9. It is a comment on the different names of the Messiah:
"He is called Mighty God for the same reason that in Isaiah 7:14 he was called Immanuel. If in Christ we find nothing but human flesh and nature, out glorying will be foolish and vain, and our hope will rest on an uncertain and insecure foundation. But if he shows himself to be to us God, even the Mighty God, we may rely on him with safety. It is good for us that he is called strong or mighty because our contest is with the devil, death, and sin, enemies too powerful and strong, by whom we would be vanquished immediately if Christ's strength had not made us invincible. Thus we learn from this title that there is in Christ abundance of protection for defending our salvation, so that we desire nothing beyond him; he is God, who pleased to show himself strong on our behalf. This application may be regarded as the key to this and similar passages, leading us to distinguish between Christ's mysterious essence and the power by which he ha revealed himself to us."

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

One Reason for the Season

It seems as though each Christmas I find myself wondering why I enjoy Christmas music, decorations, and the preparations we make at the church for the Holiday season. Much of these things are pagan in nature and somewhat weird on the surface. The songs seem tacky at times and I suppose the movies might get old.

But I love Christmas. I love being a pastor around this time. We have a wonderful buzz in the offices and there are plenty of things to do and more hours to work and yet everyone is happy to do it because it's good work.

I was thinking about my enjoyment of Christmas, I remembered this quote from Garrison Keillor's introduction to his book, Good Poems for Hard Times.
"The common life is precarious. I fear a future in which America becomes a loose aggregate of marauding tribes - no binding traditions, no songs that we all know, not even "The Star-Spangled Banner" or "Silent Night," no common heroes, no American literature - only the promotional lit of race and ethnicity, our people unable to name their senators, their only political experience via television, their only public life at Wal-Mart."
Each year, my brother and I attend a midnight mass at a Catholic Church in the heart of the city. There, in the hallowed architecture of the cathedral, everyone sings. It's one reason I love church. It's one of the last places in our society where people get together and sing just to sing. They're not performing, they're not trying to win money and they're not even trying to appease a god, they just let their voice join with the other voices around them in order to experience something of heaven. And it's not because they're staunch religious nuts or generational Catholics, but it's because they are touching just the fringes of something they've been missing for a long time.

There's nothing like singing together. And while not everyone knows all of the old hymns like "How Great Thou Art" or "Come Thou Fount," I can say, "O come all ye faithful," and you can finish by singing, "Joyful and triumphant!"

I think Christmas helps me understand a new side of worship: it's a corporate thing. When our congregation softly sings "Silent Night," or I hear a packed cathedral in downtown Portland sing "O Come O Come Emmanuel," I suppose I am reminded that we have not forgotten one another, we just don't get together often enough.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Enormous Microphone

This is what happens when you get a camera, an enomous microphone, and a job in youth ministry.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Youth Radio and Sex Trafficking

I caught this incredibly raw report on sex trafficking from Youth Radio, a non-profit that helps underprivileged youth research, write, and report on key issues of their area. On Monday, NPR aired a 12 minute story on sex trafficking in Oakland. It's intense and very well done. There are things that are able to happen with the radio that they couldn't have done if this were on television. I appreciate this because it's a very real look at an issue that is also close to home in the Portland area. It's worth a listen.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Classic Sounds: Happy Birthday Larry Bird

When I looked at the date today I thought two things: first, the intensity and historic impact of the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and, secondly, the intensity and historic impact of Larry Bird. Because for some reason in my head I have always remembered that my favorite NBA player has kind of an awkward birthday. And I need a break from work writing, let's be honest.

And then I remembered that I wrote a tribute to Larry Bird years ago on this very blog. Yes! This blog! Can you believe it?

In 2006, I wrote this classic post about Larry Bird. I re-read it and it totally has stood the test of time - I'm still proud of it. Click and check it out. Also, here's a bonus awkward photo of the REAL "Bird man," Larry Legend, in a not so legendary pose. This is what Sports Illustrated is for, right?
(HT: SI Vault)

Monday, December 6, 2010

Israel

Hebrew words were never meant to carry profound meanings. Judaism thrived on the oral tradition where many verbs and adjectives would change as stories would be passed along. But names, oh were names different. Names gave you an identity and helped form the very person you would become. In the book of Ruth, a peaceable story stuck in the middle of some of the worst Old Testament carnage, begins with the family of Elimelech, Naomi, and their sons Mahlon and Chilion. Mahlon means "sick" and Chilion means "dying." Guess who doesn't make it to verse six?

The name Israel was given to Jacob in Genesis 32 after he wrestles with "a man" who was also God (ring any bells?). After wrestling and fighting with the man, Jacob is renamed Israel, which can mean several of the following: "he who wrestles with God," or "one who strives with God," or simply and paradoxically, "God strives." It is a name of tension, not relaxation, a name of friction and not of tranquility - it is uneasy.

Then is it any wonder why God chooses a people group (nation) and names them after Jacob? He could have named his people Shalom (peace) or Selah (rest), but instead he named his Chosen Ones, "The People Who Wrestle With God."

Those who claim Christianity are following this same God. Does this let you into another piece of His heart? He doesn't want easy-come-easy-go people, he wants wrestlers, soldiers - the ones that are willing to put up a fight.

Many of us become so alarmed when relating with God becomes difficult, but what if the moments of striving and fighting with God are actually the beginning of what we were really meant for?

Friday, December 3, 2010

Notes About America and Portland

Here are some sweet things about all of us in the "American" or "Portlander" categories:

1) We are not that much different from the coke heads when we eat at Famous Dave's. While you might like to polish off your meal of cornbread, pulled pork, baby-back ribs and an entire stalk of corn with a ham and cheese sandwich, it's probably not doing great things for your brain. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know your heart is taking a beating (literally, you guys, literally), but what about the ol' noggin? Yale brain scientist Ralph Dileone explains why staying on a diet is so dang difficult: "The motivation to take cocaine in the case of a drug addict is probably engaging similar circuits that the motivation to eat is in a hungry person." Hey, that's a happy story! No wonder gluttony is often lumped in with those other "bad" sins of the Bible. Other researchers say that this is maybe why fat kids turn into fat adults.

2) In better discoveries, how about that airport at PDX? Well, it's apparently the BEST AIRPORT IN THE FREAKING NATION. Shabamsies! I always knew I loved that carpet, but I now realize that the whole place is pretty sweet. Let's be honest, that Wendy's has something going on and isn't it great to have two Powell's bookstores instead of one? And after visiting many airports in the states and internationally, I celebrate free WiFi with great glee.

3) President Obama shows up unannounced in Afghanistan to see what people think about his leather jacket. Not sure he pulls it off...

Good on you, America/Portland!

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Conquered Words: October/November

I have yet again neglected to tell you what I've read over the month of October because, well, I guess I just didn't want to. I was too busy, maybe. READING (maybe). Anyways, I don't want to miss the books that I read so I'll throw a little combo up for you, just for you.

October and November are great months in politics and I think between my job, school, and spending my free time thinking/reading about the gubernatorial race, I just didn't write much on the ol' bloggy (I am aware of how gross "ol' bloggy" sounds and I just decided to write it down there twice).

The last couple of months have been quite philosophical as I've read some pretty lengthy and heady texts. Seems to have treated me well; I enjoyed these past two months of reading.

I spent a good amount of October tackling God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics by C.S. Lewis (Eerdmans Publishing Company), which is close to 350 pages of philosophy. It certainly was delicious and I read an essay entitled, "Christian Apologetics," that I feel like I've been waiting to read for years. Lewis is an apologist in many respects, but he rarely wrote or spoke about the subject. In many ways, releasing his faith to the world was his entire ministry. It was nearly impossible for him to set it aside as a discipline of his. My approach to Christian Apologetics is very Lewisian: "We are defending Christianity; not 'my religion.' When we mention our personal opinions we must always make quite clear the difference between them and the Faith itself…the great difficulty is to get odern audiences to realize that you are preaching Christianity solely and simply because you happen to think true; they always suppose you are preaching it because you like it or think it good for society or something of that sort." The collection contains many unknown and small pieces of writing like letters to editors and small journal pieces. Also, we're allowed into small gatherings where Lewis taught, seeing sometimes his lack of eloquence or digressing that he is certainly not known for.

During that time I was editing essays of high school students in West Linn. Many of the Juniors were going through Arthur Miller's The Crucible, which is of course heavily critical of the Puritans. I picked up Sarah Vowell's The Wordy Shipmates (Riverhead Trade, 272 pages) to go along with my reading and re-reading of The Crucible and found Vowell's work a little weak. I often times find her writing style too cutesie for me and a tad under-researched. She nailed some aspects of Puritan rhetoric and its connection to modern conservatism, but she failed to recognize some of their achievements as citizens.

As if I didn't get philosophical enough in October, I spent all of November trying to figure out Michael J. Sandel's brilliant Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do? (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 368 pages). I tweeted that this could have been the best book I read all year and I might stand by that now that I've slept two nights. Sandel is a genius and one of those good Harvard professors. After teaching for twenty-plus years, he's able to put some pretty profound philosophical concepts into understandable terms. Even so, this is a tough read and is not for the simple minded. He claims that this is "not a history of ideas" type of book, although he manages to cram years of groundbreaking thought through his pages as a way to build up to his suggestions for modern society. Nevertheless, Sandel needs every word he writes and doesn't waste any of your time. He ends up raising the bar on citizenship and calls for better public discourse, asking for morals to be placed in the center of politics. It is one of the most convincing arguments and I was absolutely inspired. He is certainly a philosopher to be remembered.

Outside of that, I read an entire New York Review of Books, which is becoming a favorite publication of mine along with Ali and I's subscription to National Geographic. I'm very excited for December as my school schedule winds down and the work here at the church begins to change. Years ago I head my mentor, Joel Dombrow say, "There's nothing like being a pastor around Christmas." I think there are some things like it, but it's certainly pretty dang fun. Lots going on, tons of busy conversations and meetings, along with tons of time together as a staff. Beyond that, are people just a tad kinder around Christmas? Perhaps not.

We'll see.

Keep reading, my friends.

Monday, November 29, 2010

I Am Slowly Beginning My Obsession With the Life and Words of RFK

He was America's "could have been" presidential candidate and the most mysterious of the brothers; Robert F. Kennedy is completely fascinating. Not only is his life a strange journey, but his growth as an orator is unusual.

He gave some of the worst speeches in American history - ones that left him sleeplessly depressed - and some of the greatest. He never saw himself as a public speaker, but always played behind the limelight of his brother's rhetoric. "I'm no Jack," he said to one of his aides after a speech fell flat. And yet after his brother's death, RFK went on a historical run toward to White House that included some of the greatest remarks in American politics. On the campaign trail, he spoke at the University of Kansas on March 18th, 1968 about the state of an America at war and in racism and poverty. He brought high morals to political discourse and spoke these profound words just three months before he would be assassinated.
"Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that Gross National Product - if we judge the United States of America by that - that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans."
He was a prophet in some ways, and he claimed that Americans had given themselves over to "the mere accumulation of things." He was too right.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Out of All the Thanksgiving Articles, How Did Canzano Put It Best?

Most local papers are flooded with two things over the Thanksgiving break: stories/profiles about being thankful and stories/profiles about buying stuff in excess.

The guy I didn't expect to tug at the heart strings was John Canzano, the Bald Face Truth himself. I listen to his radio program a lot only to find myself disagreeing with much that he has to say. I have, for the most part however, really enjoyed his thoughts on Ducks football. I find that a lot of people love to hate him, so doesn't that make the guy a perfect local celeb? His columns are read and his show is listened to seemingly by people who largely disagree with him. It's pretty awesome. I suppose it makes for some good radio now and again.

But his Thanksgiving obiturary honoring Dr. Herb Marshack, a great and long-lived Duck football fan, was awesome. For some reason, Canzano's dry and pointed style worked really well in honoring this guy I had never heard of until this weekend. It's a short article and I really suggest you read it. Thanks Canzano.

Also, Go Ducks.

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Inside the Other Worldly World of George Noory

Last week I came across this January 2010 profile in The Atlantic on George Noory, the host of the AM radio sensation, Coast to Coast AM with George Noory.

Years ago I played guitar for a mentor and good friend of mine, Mike Brandow. We would travel throughout the Northwest playing different churches and conferences. This required a decent amount of driving in whatever van became available to us. The Pickle. The Nugget. The Handy. These were favorites in our arsenol.

Often times we would drive in the middle of the night from one church to another. We would play at a Saturday night service and then a Sunday morning service somewhere else and make it back to our home church to play a Sunday night youth group. Needless to say, there always was the challenge of finding entertainment during these drives.

I can remember one night, early in my time playing with Brandow, when he dialed in to a radio show he had been telling us about amidst his own giggling: Coast to Coast AM with George Noory. He kept telling me how crazy this guy was, reporting on the supernatural and the unknown of our universe.

We tried to stifle our laughter in order to further hear his thoughts on "star children," who were born on the outer regions of our solar system. Noory's voice fit perfectly with his subject matter. And while what he spoke of was, in our minds, entirely absurd, a strange and long silence would fill the van as we listened in.

I never really understood what makes his show so listenable, except for perhaps the idea that we were listening in on something unearthly -- Like tapping into another species' radio waves, we could not afford to turn it off. Or maybe because it was just so dang strange.

This profile brings Noory down to earth, from showing us his past and what he's like out at dinner to his conference speaking schedule and daily routine. I appreciate this quote, about the tone of the conversation at dinner:
"Before long, the impulse to tell funny stories about life within the Coast to Coast universe—which extends past the studio’s orbit and into conferences, TV appearances, and speaking engagements, and is expanding—proved irresistible. And I realized, as I listened, that all the stories were funny in a particular way: it’s never clear, in their world, where the demarcation between fantasy and reality is drawn—or, indeed, if such a line can really be said to exist anymore."

What Oprah Gave Away

I laugh really hard every time I see "Oprah's Favorite Things" giveaway show and then I cry a lot. But then Conan O'Brien makes me smile again.

Friday, November 26, 2010

In Eugene Today

My buddy Stu was gracious enough to hook me up with a ticket to today's game where our #1 Duck team (crazy) will take on the desert's #22 (or #21) team, the Arizona Wildcats. I'll be in Autzen with Stu praying it doesn't rain and screaming my face off. Oregon, of course, has to win this season out and it won't be easy. Obviously I want to see a win and I want a national championship, but I also would love to see LaMichael James have two breakout games to put him back in the Heisman Trophy conversation. He'll need a couple of big performances.

In celebration of my going to this certainly entertaining and awesome game, I'll give you this terrifyingly awkward ESPN interview with the Oregon Duck, Puddles, wherein the said Duck is interpreted by a somewhat incapable "interpreter."

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Watch This, Give Thanks

In the event that you have nothing to say when the family goes around the table tomorrow to say what they're thankful for, I shall give you this. And Grandma calls on you for a comment, you'll have something to say, like, "You know what Grandma, at least my life doesn't look like this. That, you know, that is really what I'm thankful for, Grandma."

Monday, November 22, 2010

Fatal Distraction

Whenever Matt Richtel publishes something longer than 1,500 words, The New York Times website explodes. He specializes in the effects of technology trends on young adults and adults. Hello 21st century reader.

His most recent lengthy report is, "Growing Up Digital, Wired For Distraction," which was emailed to me almost 6,000 times (I'm exaggerating, you guys).

There's a lot of solid truth in this article and there's a lot of hyperbole in it as well. Whenever I read a trending article, I always think about how people in the future will read it. I think about the articles I have read from Time Magazine from the 1950s that were saying radios in our cars are going to be the death of human society as we know it. We gotta take some stuff with a grain, you know?

Anyways, there's a lot that's fascinating about this article and I'd really like to read more about it all, but this was the most interesting quote from Richtel's report:

"Sean’s favorite medium is video games; he plays for four hours after school and twice that on weekends. He was playing more but found his habit pulling his grade point average below 3.2, the point at which he felt comfortable. He says he sometimes wishes that his parents would force him to quit playing and study, because he finds it hard to quit when given the choice. Still, he says, video games are not responsible for his lack of focus, asserting that in another era he would have been distracted by TV or something else.

'Video games don’t make the hole; they fill it,' says Sean..."
Is it the kids' fault that they're hooked on video games? I'm not convinced. Of course, when given free reign, any kid would choose to text their friends at the dinner table, play video games for 8 hours a day, or stick on Facebook until morning. And I talk with a lot of parents who don't have the energy to assert authority in the digital realm of their house so they make the justification: "I want my son to be free to choose," they'll say.

But are they really free?

Sean does not sound free.

Many believe that freedom is the absence of restriction, that you can play video games as much as you want and be online as much as you want and watch TV until you wish to stop. But true freedom is different. Freedom is not the absence of restrictions, but it's the application of the right restrictions. The fish is most free when confined to water, and we are most free in our health when we are on a restricted diet. Therefore, we are not most free when we make our options as wide as possible, but rather when we put the right limitations on our lives.

Christianity is about following Jesus and his way for us. We follow his "will" rather than ours. And yes, this puts restrictions on us. God commands us not to do certain things and to withhold from certain vices. Many people see Christianity, then, as a straitjacket they are fastened in to. But isn't that better than being a slave to your own passions and desires? Immanuel Kant understood this perfectly and Michael Sandel sums Kant's thinking best saying that, "whenever we are seeking to satisfy our desires, everything we do is for the sake of some end given outside of us...whenever my behavior is biologically determined or socially conditioned, it is not truly free."

Sean, and many American teens, are not free; they are slaves to their own natural desires. Only for a while will our slave master have us duped to thinking we are completely free.

Christ, then, comes to earth and proclaims he is God, that he is the Truth and that following him means giving up your life, will, and desire, and in doing so you will find "abundant life." During his ministry he makes the radical statement that now perhaps can make more sense: "You shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall set you free."

Christianity certainly requires that one restrains oneself - that one must give up everything for the kingdom and glory of God - but in the restriction and delivering of the self, there is complete and total freedom because your desires are no longer yours, but God's.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Hey, Here's Fifteen Minutes of Gold

Tina Fey won this year's Mark Twain Award for American Humor and let's be honest, she deserved it. And as if she had to prove that she deserved such an award, she gave such a smart acceptance speech that I'm told she wrote herself. Enjoy a video of the speech here so you can see her amazing Fresh Prince hair style, circa 1991.

Watch the full episode. See more Mark Twain Prize.

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Podcast is Go

In the latest issue of The New York Review of Books, Bill McKibben wrote about something you don't see a lot of writing dedicated to: radio. Before television and the Internet, the radio was all there was and much of the magazine and newspaper criticism/review was directed toward the medium. Lately, radio has become a forgotten about media to criticize. We have innumerable websites and magazine dedicated solely to television and movies, but it's tough to find a constant critical radio magazine.

"Radio may be the least discussed, debated, understood" medium today says McKibben. But while it might be criticized the least, it certainly isn't struggling. The conservative talking head Rush Limbaugh brings in 14.25 million listeners each week. National Public Radio's news shows All Things Considered and Morning Edition draw in a rival 13 million each week. While these numbers might pale in comparison to television audiences, it's still quite a lot of people.

McKibben's question is in the subtext of the article, but is nonetheless clear: if so many people are listening to radio, how come nobody is talking or writing about it?

More obviously, the article is a praise of public radio's dramatic increase in listenership and financial support since its birth in America in the 1970s. While it has certainly changed since that time, its relevancy is greater than ever. More listeners and more contributors make for a sign that this generation loves not only to watch, but to listen.

"This is the perfect moment to be a young radiohead," says McKibben. "It's like 1960s and 1970s cinema, with auteurs rewriting the rules."
And now podcasts, which are drawing from the well of iTunes customers who love free crap and to sport their cool white earpieces while ordering food at the nearby 7-Eleven, have a listenership well into the millions. Most podcasts are free and there are currently somewhere about 200,000 podcasts available on iTunes. With all of these numbers from public radio and talk shows and podcasts, it's easy to see that this generation listens to the radio not for music, but for talk.

So all of that boredom to say that we're starting a podcast. The Willamette Students Podcast will be yet another way to connect with the students and world we live in. It will be another avenue for truth, humor, and information.

When I walk through the halls of West Linn High School, about one in five students have little white headphones stuck in one ear or both. They show up to my youth group the same way. Their iPhones and iPods now connect directly to the iTunes store and getting a podcast will be easier than ever.

The Willamette Students Podcast will be an attempt to dial in (pun both intended and included) to the ear of today's high school student.

Beyond this, I'm somewhat of a radio/podcast junkie. I just love the radio, despite whatever has happened over the last century. I grew up on public radio and AM talk-shows. There are things that can be done on radio that simply cannot be done on television and I love that.

What will it look like? Not sure. The only I know is that each episode will be different and funny. Each one will not be like the one before it. We'll bring in guests to the studio or we'll take the gear into the city and talk to people. We'll get ambitious with it and see what happens. What you can be sure of, is that each week will be about 20-25 minutes of excellent material that's relevant to the student in the Willamette area. But let's be honest, that looks like a lot of different things.

To listen in to our first episode, simply search "Willamette Students" in the iTunes store search bar, or click here.

Long live radio!

Friday, November 19, 2010

A College Student Icon on College Students

I'm reading Michael J. Sandel's Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do? right now and in it he essentially proposes that there's no such thing as objectivity. That we all, through our parents and communities, are shaped so independently with such strength, that it's impossible to communicate and make decisions without revealing in some way our own feelings, biases, and opinions.

Last week, Russell Baker reviewed a new collection of H.L. Mencken's work and I had to pull this quote out. There was a strangely healthy bias coming through in the 20s and 30s media that I feel like, if we're careful, we might be pulling back into some media outlets today. When you read old publication's like Mencken's Mercury, you realize how crazy it was then, and how perhaps the way we project what's happening in the world today isn't so uniquely absurd. Voices from every side had their own paper or pamphlet and many citizens read what they wanted to read. The only difference now is that I can see you screaming.

Because of Mencken's insane commentaries (which were ultimately banned due to being so "obscene"), college students flocked to him and praised his work. He had this to say about them:
I have, in fact, almost no interest in the ideas of college students. They seem to me to be simply immature me. They are always following fresh messiahs. That I served for a short while as one of those messiahs was not only surprising to me, but extremely offensive.
-H.L. Mencken, Prejudices

What has changed?

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

A True Man

My friends in high school would always talk about how this epic scene from To Kill a Mockingbird is certainly one of the greatest displays of manhood in cinema. We also always used to try and act this scene out with a straight face. Never worked.

Anyways, I was speaking on not repaying evil with evil and "turning the other cheek" and just had to show this because Atticus Finch is more of a man than you. Observe:

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

We're Not Dead Yet

For all of the writing on the death of Humanities departments and the trouble of finding a solid Ph.D system, there are some things that keep the disciplines within the department alive. And it might be that technology will save us nerds of the ancient books.

Patricia Cohen, an education reporter for the New York Times, wrote "Digital Keys for Unlocking the Humanities' Riches" for this morning's paper and I must tip my hat. I've always enjoyed Cohen's stuff because she's always following modern Humanities scholarship and tends to bring out some gems for us nerds.

It's a short article that illuminates some sweet digital trends in a subject typically marked by its arcane factions.
"The humanities, after all, deal with elusive questions of aesthetics, existence and meaning, the words that bring tears or the melody that raises goose bumps. Are these elements that can be measured?

'The digital humanities do fantastic things,' said the eminent Princeton historian Anthony Grafton. 'I’m a believer in quantification. But I don’t believe quantification can do everything. So much of humanistic scholarship is about interpretation.'"

Go on....

"In Mr. Scheinfeldt’s view academia has moved into 'a post-theoretical age.' This 'methodological moment,' he said, is similar to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when scholars were preoccupied with collating and cataloging the flood of new information brought about by revolutions in communication, transportation and science. The practical issues of discipline building, of assembling an annotated biography, of defining the research agenda and what it means to be a historian 'were the main work of a great number of scholars,' he said."

I'm OK with this and also realize that I won't be a part of the movement as Blogger is sometimes a little difficult for me to navigate. I'll stick to the books. But, hey, more power to 'em. Me likey.

P.S. How about that guy's coat in that picture? Yes, please...

Monday, November 15, 2010

The Washington Post Did Something Right

For some reason this video made me want an iPad and the Washington Post app. Great video.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Signature

Student: "Once you have a signature, can you do anything in the world?"

Me: "Actually, yes."


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

What A Conference Won't Teach You

I think there are a lot of great churches with a lot of awesome conferences that all communicate great and awesome things. In my short time as a pastor, I have looked at several churches who have "got it all together." They do community groups right, they have stellar preaching, they have great music, and they serve their community with consistency and eagerness. But I was challenged in a meeting the other day when one of our ministry partners complimented us on listening to the poor as a leadership strategy.

Recently, it's come to my attention that I can learn a ton at conferences and podcasts on church leadership and preaching. However, one thing I can't learn from these things is what I have learned from those who have way less than I do. When I listen to dudes at conferences I leave thinking, how can we beef up our strategies and systems as a church? My thought process is entirely centered on pulling us up as a church.

But when I leave a conversation with someone who has less than I do, who has an entirely different worldview than I do simply based on economic standing, I start thinking about how I can personally bring myself lower. I don't care about strategies and systems, I care about them. I start thinking about giving away more money and getting to know more people like that. It's a totally different thought process.

So instead of going to conferences twice a year, maybe we get to know the people in our community who have less than we do materially. Because I think we'll find out that some are rich in the things we lack.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Why Dr. Voddie Baucham Trusts the Bible

I can dig this. Voddie has a sweet name and a sweet story: raised by a single Mom who was a Hindu living in South Central LA. He ended up getting out of Oxford with a Ph.D and he's a lecturer and a Christian minister. Here's why he trusts the Bible. It's not because he believes it, or because it worked for him, or because he was raised to believe it:
"The Bible is a reliable collection of historical documents written down by eye witnesses during the life time of other eye witnesses that report supernatural events which took place in fulfillment of specific prophecies and claim to be divine rather than human in origin."

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Theology is a Science

Right when I think I've read C.S. Lewis' most celebrated work, I find a true gem. I've been slowly cutting my way through God in the Dock, which is a compilation of his work that was un-archived at the time of his death. It is a smattering of articles, lectures, and sermons that were never released in book form until the great Walter Hooper put it together.

I'm on his tenth entry. It's a lecture given to young ministers and leaders of the Anglican and Welsh Church in 1945. The title is "Christian Apologetics" and I can't believe I hadn't read any of it yet. Part of it's beauty is that it is a rare time in which Lewis is lecturing to a group of priests and pastors. He was a popular lecturer at the time and a renown novelist, but rarely did he speak at conferences for the clergy. With this audience in front of him, Lewis' tone is rare and increasingly captivating for those of us who have read most of his work.

I also love it because he articulates something that I've been searching for (as usual).

His primary thesis is to stray away from defending or preaching Christianity just because "you like it or think it good for society or something of that sort." Rather, Lewis says, we are to preach and proclaim and defend Christianity because we know it to be true. There is a huge difference. Christians are not promoters of a good societal antidote, but we are heralds of the Truth, a greater reality.

Because we are heralds and defenders of what is true, what is actual reality, there exists no piece or aspect of Christianity that we should shy away from.
"Science progresses because scientists, instead of running away from such troublesome phenomena or hushing them up, are constantly seeking them out. In the same way, there will be progress in Christian knowledge only as long as we accept the challenge of the difficult or repellent doctrines."
A scientist is good at what he does not because he only knows the new theories, but he is so strong in his conceptualization and knowledge of the foundations laws of nature that he knows exactly when a new one develops.

We must be completely solid in the ancient truth and proclamation of the Scriptures, that God in his infinite love and grace has revealed to the world who he is through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ the Lord, and whoever should place their life in his hands shall be redeemed. In our absolute rigidness of this Truth, let us boldly explore that which we do not know. For it will only more perfectly shape our love for the primary Truth.

Theology is more scientific than you might think. Christians tend to be afraid of launching into the mysteries of our faith. Yet this would eliminate one of our basic human functions: discovery.

You know the basic revelation, now go boldly into that which might be true. Answers are ahead.

Friday, October 15, 2010

Why the Baptists Got Rid of It

For your consideration:

Conquered Words: September

This is my monthly post where I tell you what I have read and (ever so briefly) what I thought about each work. If you haven't read these books, then read this blog and pretend that you did!

EMBARRASSING.

This is way late, but I blame getting back to the university and a growing church! So bam.

Here, then, is what I read over that fine month of September.

1) Adam's Return: The Five Promises of Male Initiation by Richard Rohr (Crossroad Publishing Company, 166 pages). I have heard a little too much about this book and had to pick it up. SO GLAD I DID. Raves. Rohr is a Catholic Priest who at the onset of the book swears he's not a scholar, but let's be honest, all priests are scholars. I grew up around them in Catholic school (and no, I didn't) and got to see the life they lead: it is filled with study, something the evangelicals have lost. Anyways, this book is a fascinating look at what every culture has taught their boys before they became men. Five things that every single culture in world history has taught their men…except ours (modern Americanism). Ready for the five? Life is Hard. You are Not Important. Your Life is Not about You. You Are Not in Control. You are Going to Die. Make all the arguments you want, but it's my observation that I was taught the exact opposite before I knew Christ. Rohr goes way beyond his bounds and halfway through I realized this is not a spiritual book, but a gender studies book. Read it.

2) The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer (Crossway, 119 pages). Yes, I've read it before. Too much to say about this book. This blog, my whole ministry and thought life is thanks to C.S. Lewis and A.W. Tozer. They are my intellectual mentors along with the Greeks. Tozer is someone you must read, but someone you don't just read. You drink. Also, please don't read Tozer until you're out of high school. Just trust me. You'll need him sophomore year at university.

I started Radical by David Platt because David Brooks of the New York Times wrote about it but I never really got into it. I'm a little overwhelmed with what God should have me do thanks to Joel's current series and a couple of documentaries I've watched. I'll be leaving to pray for a day at the end of the month…I'll sort things out there and maybe pick up Platt's book again.

Keep reading, friends.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

What Makes Us Wise?

I've been thinking about this Proverb (25:2) for about three years.
"It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out."
I was reminded of it when I read this passage from Richard Rohr's book, Adam's Return:
"In general, what you see in the true sage is a balancing act between knowing and not knowing, between intelligence and not needing to be intelligent, between darkness and light...The wise man also knows that he does not know. This humble window of openness, this willingness to know that we do not know, has a much used and misused word to describe it: faith. And Jesus praises it even more than love." (pg. 128)
True Christian faith is active, right? Then isn't part of that activity one's imagination and intellect? "Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, and with all of your soul, and with all of your mind, and with all of your strength."

Wisdom is not waving the magic wand of "belief" over all of the things you wish to be true and then calling it "faith." The Bible is not true because you "believe in it," God is not living and active because you believe in Him, and Jesus did not raise from the dead because you "believe in it." Either the Bible is true or not, either God is real or not, and either Jesus was who he said he was and did what he said he did or not. Belief statements are not always truth statements. The wise man finds the sacred ground between concrete truth and the wild, mysterious beauty of God.

Wisdom and faith are linked in that they are the mark of the sage: He seeks that which he does not know, understanding that what he seeks may be eternally concealed.

"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1)

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Translating Literature

Michael Cunningham wrote this awesome piece for The New York Times about the nature of translating literature. Firstly, it's just a well written essay. But secondly Cunningham draws on something I'm very interested: a subject called "Writing and the Ways of Knowing." He begins with suggesting the difficulties of translating novels but asserts, "that the original novel is, in a way, a translation itself."

Writing itself is a translation of thought, which is a translation of revelation or invention (that's Aristotle, ladies). I often think about this when I read my Bible. With such a sacred text, it's easy to read it and begin to place its subjects (namely God himself) in boxes of definition. However, what we are reading serves as just the very elementary pieces of God and his work on the earth. The Bible is an introduction to who God is - more of a, "God For Dummies" if you will. For we cannot handle more than the fringes of his glory.

The article goes nowhere near the spiritual, but it certainly got me thinking, which consequently gets you reading my aimless thinking.

So sorry.

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Fallon and JT Do the History of Rap

I think that if two white guys attempted to mash up the history of rap, it would have to be done by guys like Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake. Oh, and with the ROOTS backing them up. I'm OK with this mainly because I think there was like one slip up in the whole thing and because of Jimmy Fallon's flawless 2Pac. Enjoy here or watch it at NBC.

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Pledge to See a Great Movie and Help NY Charter Schools, Fools

I meant to mention this in my previous post regarding the movie, Waiting for Superman, but for some reason I forgot to include the information.

If you go to this website and pledge to see the movie (it takes two seconds), you'll support the charter schools of New York, which need more cash and better teachers.

Thanks for the reminder from my old high school classmate, Mera, who happens to teach 2nd graders in a New York Charter School.

Pledge! It's going to be a greeeeeaaaaaatt movie.

Friday, September 24, 2010

Where Do Good Ideas Come From?

There are a lot of great books coming out this fall, but I think I'm most personally excited for Steven Johnson's Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation.

Here's the book trailer for it. I'm not sure which I like more, the concept of the book or the concept of the trailer. While we're at it, how rad are these book trailers that are coming out lately? Me likey this trend.

You'll have to watch it on YouTube because my blog template is being sups lame. But come back for my comments, you guys! C'mon!

Yeah. That's what's up. The more research we come to, it's becoming increasingly clear that success, innovation, and advancement rarely come in isolation, but rather in community over a decent period of time.

My two loves - education and ministry - certainly need this truth implemented. The "Senior Pastor" model is done, the dictating principal/superintendent must be dethroned. More so, what Johnson points out is that we need to give more room for creative spaces (or places where new pieces of new ideas can come from) so that these hunches and small ideas can form. Why do you think Google rocks so much face? Something like 20% of your time is just for inventing and putting others' ideas together with yours.

What if ministries gave more time to pastors to roam their cities, meet people, and pray. Then they could come together to let the ideas collide for how to better minister to and seek the peace of their said city? Or what if teacher inservice days were totally rethought?

I like the idea of the Internet becoming what the coffee house was in the 18th century. It's funny to go to a coffee shop now and see everyone quietly tapping their laptops; same space, different way to communicate.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

A Common Gap of Atheism, Part 3: Marilynne Robinson, the Truth and Tozer

My hero, the author Marilynne Robinson, wrote a great new book called Absence of Mind about a lot of this stuff. Christianity Today interviewed her last week and she said this in regards to the separations we make both as atheists and believers:
"[Atheists] have more or less accepted the notion that the more people know, the less inclined they will be toward belief - a central assumption of atheism. With this comes the idea that whatever is most toxic from religious point of view must therefore epitomize science. And all sorts of nonsense goes unchallenged. Christianity has abandoned its intellectual traditions, ceding that ground to anybody in a white coat. Where it has tried to muster courage, it has too often tended to become irrational and shrill. Meanwhile, a great age in true science, an absolute catalog of wonders, passes by unnoticed."
I’ll be the first to admit that Christians are horrific with their use of the word “true.” But it also must be noticed that the Atheists and physicists of our day make similar mistakes. When we categorize truth as only that which we may observe physically, we are in danger. Similarly, if we say that the Bible includes everything that is true and if it’s not in the Bible then it’s not true, we are in serious intellectual danger.

2 + 2 = 4 is not in the Bible and it is empirically true. Perhaps, then, there are things that are not physical that are only witnessed in the reality of our consciousness that are also deeply true.

Christians historically are people who desire truth. I am concerned with some of modern Evangelicalism because there is an irrational fear of science as if it might disprove God himself. What little faith we must have if we only see our God in the Scriptures and not in the entirety of his lovely creation. No, my God is living, active, speaking, moving.

If you are scared of science and physics and mathematics, then you have created for yourself a small god who isn’t even found in the Bible. My God made physics and lives and breathes in it, as he does in the very pages of his Holy Scriptures. When we discover a new scientific fact, we celebrate for now we know more about how God has invented his universe.

“For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things” (Romans 11:36).

A.W. Tozer’s theology was that “God’s Word” is not just the written word (the Bible), but “the breath of God filling the world with living potentiality.” In Tozer’s mind, the Word of God is bigger and more complex than a leather-bound Bible (although that is certainly a piece of it). To him, it is a universal and timeless Word of power and truth; so God has not only spoken, but he is currently speaking. Here’s a taste from The Pursuit of God:
“The Bible will never be a living book to us until we are convinced that God is articulate in his universe. To jump from a dead, impersonal world to a dogmatic Bible is too much for most people. They may admit that they should accept the Bible as the Word of God, and they may try to think of it as such, but they find it impossible to believe that the words there on the page are actually for them. A man may say, 'These words are addressed to me,' and yet in his heart not feel and know that they are. He is the victim of a divided psychology. He tries to think of God as mute everywhere else and vocal only in a book.”
Marilynne, would you like a last word?
“Christians should care for what is true in every sense of the word true. This emphatically includes good science – understanding always its necessarily hypothetical workings.”
Walk boldly into what is true and even what could be.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Some Days, Dilbert Speaks Great Truth

Dilbert.com
Dilbert.

A Common Gap of Atheism, Part 2: Hawking's New Book

Stephen Hawking is, in my mind, one of the most brilliant people on the face of the planet. His quest for truth is admirable, but it is his ability to communicate some of the universe's most complex sciences that is his greatest talent.

His latest book is called The Grand Design and is the next step after his now-22-year-old book, A Brief History of Time.

In just reading the first chapter online, it's clear to me that this is another shock-book. Hawking's last book claimed that we were so close to understanding everything about how all things were made. This book was supposed to be the answers to those questions, but apparently falls short, even with the co-authorship going to Leonard Mlodinow, physicist from California Institute of Technology.

While I haven't read it entirely, Hawking's work is getting similar (and in some places more harsh) criticism as Dawkins. The Economist was frank:
"Their [historical] account [of physics] appears to be based on unreliable popularisations, and they cannot even get right the number of elements in Aristotle’s universe (it is five, not four)."
Yikes. Go on….
"It is hard to evaluate their case against recent philosophy, because the only subsequent mention of it, after the announcement of its death, is, rather oddly, an approving reference to a philosopher’s analysis of the concept of a law of nature, which, they say, ‘is a more subtle question than one may at first think.’ There are actually rather a lot of questions that are more subtle than the authors think. It soon becomes evident that Professor Hawking and Mr Mlodinow regard a philosophical problem as something you knock off over a quick cup of tea after you have run out of Sudoku puzzles."
They end the review like this:
"Once upon a time it was the province of philosophy to propose ambitious and outlandish theories in advance of any concrete evidence for them. Perhaps science, as Professor Hawking and Mr Mlodinow practice it in their airier moments, has indeed changed places with philosophy, though probably not quite in the way that they think."
The book begins with the bold declaration that "philosophy is dead." Yet in all actuality there is still so much to know and to speculate about and the authors end up philosophizing.

The issue is that we are continuing to separate science and philosophy, and even more so science and theology. What we should be busying ourselves with is the word Truth, which is a combination of the disciplines and a greater awareness of the conscience.

Next: Christians making the same mistake and perhaps a way out with help from Marilynne Robinson.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

A Common Gap of Atheism, Part 1: Simple Mistakes

For all of the press, accolades, and book sales Richard Dawkins and the New Atheist Movement gets, it is one of the least respected intellectual movements amongst modern scholars. These scholars I speak of range from fellow atheists to deeply religious people who have come together to agree that there exist massive holes at the foundations of the New Atheist movement’s arguments.
The first to stand up to guys like Dawkins was Marxist scholar Terry Eagleton, England's foremost literary critic. He wrote this about Dawkins' The God Delusion in the London Review of Books, October 2006:
"Reason, to be sure, doesn’t go all the way down for believers, but it doesn’t for most sensitive, civilised non-religious types either…We hold many beliefs that have no unimpeachably rational justification, but are nonetheless reasonable to entertain. Only positivists think that ‘rational’ means ‘scientific’. Dawkins rejects the surely reasonable case that science and religion are not in competition on the grounds that this insulates religion from rational inquiry. But this is a mistake: to claim that science and religion pose different questions to the world is not to suggest that if the bones of Jesus were discovered in Palestine, the pope should get himself down to the dole queue as fast as possible. It is rather to claim that while faith, rather like love, must involve factual knowledge, it is not reducible to it."
The large issue scholars seem to have with the New Atheist movement is two-fold: Dawkins and others believe that you can either have faith or you can have reason - that because you have faith, you are therefore unreasonable. The two cannot live together. Secondly, many New Atheists see the answers to all of life’s questions residing under the scientific disciplines, namely the physical and biological sciences. The majority of today’s most respected scholars find those two claims dangerous.

The same month of that same year Eagleton published his article, Atheist professor of Philosophy at NYU, Thomas Nagel, wrote a review of Dawkins' book in The New Republic. In it, he denounced the idea that all of our answers to life can be found in the physical, because the question of life itself is a metaphysical question of our own consciousness. He writes:
"The reductionist project usually tries to reclaim some of the originally excluded aspects of the world, by analyzing them in physical - that is, behavioral or neurophysiological - terms; but it denies reality to what cannot be so reduced. I believe the project is doomed - that conscious experience, through, value, and so forth are not illusions, even though they cannot be identified with physical facts."
Next: Who's still making this mistake and who's not buying it.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Waiting For Superman

As a Christian, I live in two cities - two kingdoms, if you will. I live in Portland, my home and wonderful city on earth; but I also live in the unseen peaceful city of God. St. Augustine's classic Christian text, The City of God, explains that Christian people belong to both cities. They belong to their society/physical city as well as the unseen peaceful city/kingdom of God.

The city of God is the spiritual place believers understand and know. Jesus told us that this kingdom would not be able to be seen, but that it is "in the midst" of us. It is the sphere in which God reigns and rules. My heart, some churches, families, and the whole collection of believers from China to Europe. This is the great city of God.

In The City of God, St. Augustine argues that Christians who belong firstly to the city of God should be the best citizens of their own physical city. Because I belong to the city of God, I should be the best citizen in the city of Portland.

To me, education is the silver bullet of modern society. I use the term broadly: schools, yes, but also better education in churches, hospitals, community centers and homeless shelters. Teaching the next generation the value of the mind and its relationship with the heart is essential. I've dedicated my life to it through Jesus. I believe so deeply in the power of good teachers, good administrators, and good schools.

Nonetheless, I know that better education is possible. I know that it is possible to provide many children all over the world with a better education than they are getting now.

Specifically, Portland has one of the trashiest public school systems in the nation. As a citizen of the city of God, it's important to me to see our kids in Portland succeed.

This film, Waiting For Superman, exposes some of the possibilities that are out there for our kids. I think it could be one of the more important films for the fall. Spread the word!

This next video was made by the producers/directors of the movie and it gives you a little run-down of our education situation here in America:

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

When You Don't Get a Bad Joke

In Starbucks today...

HER: "Well my daughter's in the car waiting, so I'll go..."

BARISTA: "Oh, How old is your daughter?"

HER: "She's 12."

BARISTA: "Oh wonderful!"

HER: "Of course, I had her when I was twelve."

BARISTA: "Oh my word that's incredible; good for you. Wow."

HER: "-"

BARISTA: "-"

HER: "Oh. Um. It was a -"

BARISTA: *laughs*

Monday, September 13, 2010

Jonathan Franzen on 'Freedom' and Growth

Say what you will about Jonathan Franzen, who TIME proclaimed to be today's "Great American Novelist," this is a pretty dank (and I mean that in a good way) quote and probably one of the better articulations of gospel-living. People who don't claim Jesus as Lord often times utter some of the most convicting statements I've ever heard.

Here's what Franzen said last Friday on APM's MarketPlace:
"We have this notion in this country, not only of endless economic growth but of endless personal growth. I have a certain characterological antipathy to the notion of we're all getting better and better all the time. And it's so clearly belied by our experience. You may get better in certain ways for 10 years, but one day you wake up and although things are a little bit different, they're not a lot different. And I think if one can get more accustomed to that somewhat more tragic view of life, that people would think yeah, 'We don't actually need to have a bigger and bigger house, and a bigger and bigger car, and more and more things in the house.' That there might some way to think of the world in different terms, so it was more about being and less about growing."
He's on to something there...

(HT: The Mockingbird)

Saturday, September 11, 2010

How Can We Know God? Part 2: Primates, the Divine, and Christopher Hitchens

This month's issue of Vanity Fair includes yet another reflection from contributing editor Christopher Hitchens. Titled, "Unanswerable Prayers," Hitchens is continuing to reflect on his recent diagnosis of prostate cancer.

The writer and agnostic has been receiving great attention as of late because his prognosis isn't good and many are claiming, hoping, and wishing that Hitchens would recant his belief that we live in, "a splendidly godless universe."

His precise statement of belief is actually agnostic, but his writing and speaking gives little room for the consideration of the divine.In this month's Vanity Fair column, Hitchens responds to an unnamed radical blogger who claims that Hitchens' cancer is "God's revenge for him using his voice to blaspheme." He spends much of his column mentioning the many calls, emails, and letters he has received, informing him that churches of all types are praying for him.

His response to this blogger is in four points: 1) What "mere primate" can really "know the mind of god?" 2) Does this author really want these things read by his children? 3) Why not a thunderbolt to take him down, or something more "awe-inspiring." 4) "Why cancer at all?" Cancer is one of the most random diseases contracted by humans.

I am, of course, most concerned with the blogger and secondly concerned with Hitchens' common claim: how can a primate know such a god?

This is a common threat and a place I'm afraid many Christians fumble in answering. If God is so great and so big, how can you - an insignificant human - know him? I've been called prideful, arrogant, and many other things for claiming to know the things of God.

The claim of many religions is summed up in one word: revelation. God, in his might, made himself accessible to one or a group of people so that they might tell everyone about him. These people are called "prophets" or "founders" or "forefathers" of the faith.

Christianity agrees with this in part, but goes further. Christianity claims that all Christians are not Christians unless God himself reveals who he is to an individual through the person and work of Jesus Christ.

As Peter Jensen says in his brilliant book The Revelation of God: "The gospel is a gospel of grace precisely because it regards human beings as unable on their own to seek and find God."

It's not that God just revealed himself to prophets and apostles, but he revealed himself to me and is revealing and will reveal himself to whomever he so chooses.

A.W. Tozer goes further, saying that the pursuit of such a God is contingent upon that God pursuing us: "We pursue God because, and only because, he has first put an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit."

Jesus Christ, who is Christianity, stated himself in Luke's gospel: "All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him" (Luke 10:22).

To Hitchens I would say this: What mere primate can know God? The ones that Christ has shown himself to, and they are few (Luke 13:22-30).

Lastly, to the blogger, who is of great concern to me: if you knew God, it would be clear that he is not such a cause-and-effect type of God. We know many things of God, but it is a mystery how he exactly works and relates in our world.

Hitchens is incorrect when he says we cannot know God, but he is fully in line with Christian Orthodoxy when he asks, "Which mere primate…can know the mind of god?" You might be surprised, but this agnostic repeats verbatim the Holy Scriptures:

"For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor" (Romans 11:34)?

We can know God - he is good, righteous, fair, and loving - but how he works on earth is not as easy to detect. Many are concerned with the latter when missing the first can be deadly.

Friday, September 10, 2010

How Can We Know God? Part 1: Truth and Possibilianism

David Eagleman is a writer and neuroscientist. I'm very fond of his work as he writes extensively on the brain's relationship with the afterlife and death. Most of his stuff is fictional, using short stories and parables to unload some of the most complex science that's out there.

He has a respectable humility as a scientist and claims that we're not at a place where we can understand much of anything about the universe - at least not enough to make many absolute claims.

I just want to expose this quote of his, which appeared in the New York Times back in July 2009:
"Our ignorance of the cosmos is too vast to commit to atheism, and yet we know too much to commit to a particular religion. A third position, agnosticism, is often an uninteresting stance in which a person simply questions whether his traditional religious story (say, a man with a beard on a cloud) is true or not true. But with Possibilianism I'm hoping to define a new position -- one that emphasizes the exploration of new, unconsidered possibilities. Possibilianism is comfortable holding multiple ideas in mind; it is not interested in committing to any particular story."
This quote by Eagleman is a common claim in today's academic and non-academic circles. But there is a huge problem in committing to something like Possibilianism.

The problem with saying that you are not fixing to any belief or claim is that the statement just made is actually an absolute claim. Possibilianism and other stances similar to it, make the mistake of dismissing truth claims with a truth claim.

See the problem with Eagleman's claim? He is "comfortable holding multiple ideas in mind," and is "not interested in committed to any particular story."

But he IS committed to a particular story. He's committed to his story, to this newly defined educated pluralistic agnosticism, which he calls, "possibilianism."

Singular truth is unavoidable. You cannot go on saying you're noncommittal to particular truths, as you have just then committed to your particular truth. And you can call it whatever you want.

I've been trying to figure out this quote from Lewis forever and all of a sudden it seems appropriate:
"But you cannot go 'explaining away' for ever: you will find that you have explained explanation away. You cannot go on 'seeing through' thing for ever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it. It is good that the window should be transparent, because the street or garden beyond is opaque. How if you saw through the garden too?…a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To 'see through' all things i the same as not to see."
-C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man, pg. 81

Committing to not committing can only take you so far. I believe there can be a beautiful area of grey, where the mind is accepting of the unknown and committed to a story that has not ended yet.

Christianity gets hated on for claiming truth in order to get power, but so often the criticisms are in themselves truth claims in an attempt for power. Truth exists, so let's begin asking not, "can there be truth?" But rather "what is most true?"

This Morning, at a Coffee Shop

SHE: "That's odd."

ME: "I'm sorry, what's that now?"

SHE: "Nothing. Well, I've just never seen a hoodie underneath such a fine sports coat."

ME: "Oh, really? I'm not terribly fashio-"

SHE: "Looks terrible."

ME: "-"

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Steadfast

The English Bible is certainly overwhelmed with translations. And while many will get up in arms about which one is the "best," the reality is that each one has its issues and they are all quite far from the original text. One must read the Bible this way.

I use the English Standard Version (ESV) for the most part, but I'm not here to fight about it.

I'm writing to talk about the word, "steadfast." Each of my mornings as a now married man of routine begin this way: make coffee, shower, get coffee and a bite to eat and sit down to read my Bible. I once heard someone say, "Seek the face of God before you seek the face of man," and I liked that.

In my daily reading of the Christian Scriptures, I gravitate toward the Psalms. Along with the Epistles, these holy songs were meant to be read and sung over and over again. They were written with a heart for them to last generations, that many people would sing and read these words for a long time. I like to start my day with a Psalm and something else that I've been reading in the Scirptures.

In the ESV translation of the Psalms, the scholars use this English word, "steadfast," constantly. In a quick word study, I found that for most of its uses, it is inserted in order to modify the word, "love," when describing God's capacity for love.

Honestly, this was an issue for me when I first started reading the ESV about 4 years ago. However, in studying the Hebrew and the Greek and even the English word itself, I've begin to wait for that word in the Psalms.
Resolute. Loyal. Constant. Dependable. Dutifully firm. Determined. Solid. Unwavering.

The Hebrew word can be separated into two words: "sure/enduring" and "statute."

It's probably best to read the Scriptures with a solid English vocabulary. Most ancient languages worked like this: use as little amount of words to say as much as possible. That's why we have so many issues with translating ancient documents. One word could mean so many things.

If you approach repetitive words with a better understanding of that particular word, you understand that God's love is not just steadfast. It is Resolute, Constant, Dutifully firm, and Unwavering. It is a determined type of love, fixed in perfection for eternity.