Smorgasblog from November

Here are some of the more interesting things I first posted on Facebook in November:

November 12

"Dancing to jazz (Coal Train Railroad) with a toddler on lunch break!"

November 13

Silver & Gold, by Sufjan Stevens

"

Great news today! New Christmas album fromSufjan Stevens!

He writes:
"Who can save us from the infidels of Christmas commodity? Look no further, tired shopper, for your hero arrives as the diligent songwriter Sufjan Stevens: army of one, banjo in one hand, drum machine in the other, holed up in his room, surrounded by hymnals, oratorios, music charts, sacred harp books, photo-copied Readers Dige

st Christmas catalogs—all the weaponry of Yuletide incantations—singing his barbaric yawp above the snow-capped rooftops.

His song is love; his song is hope; his song is peace. His song conjures the fruitcake world of his own imagination with steadfast pursuit of the inexplicable bliss of Christmas Promises—“Gloria in excelsis deo”—summoning the company of angels, the helper elves, the shepherds keeping flock, the innkeepers, the coupon-clippers, the marathon runners, the cross-country skiers, the bottom feeders, the grocery store baggers, the bridge and tunnel drivers, the construction workers, the ice cream makers, the toll booth workers, the street sweepers, the single mothers, the custodians, the rich and the poor, the walking dead, the community of saints, the Virgin Mary, the Holy Spirit, the Prince of Persia, and all the invisible hosts of heaven to participate in this absurd cosmic adventure, pursuing holly-jolly songs of hope and redemption with a sacred heart for the love of the holidays, for the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen."

"

November 21

Christian? Pro-Life? Resist or Subvert Thanksgiving.

www.jesusradicals.com

"Some food for thought for Thanksgiving, which this author suggests is "idolatrous and pagan in that [it gives] heavy, even ultimate, theological significance to the nation-state of the United States of America.""

A simple look at Lincoln's speech shows how much good there is in Thanksgiving:
"I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the imposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the divine purpose, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity, and union."
http://www.washingtoninst.org/2893/on-lincoln-and-his-thanksgiving-proclamation/

November 25

N.T. Wright, It's About the Bible, not Fake ideas of Progress - in the Fulcrum:

www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk

"‎"The resurrection of Jesus is the only Christian guide to the question of where history is going. Unlike the ambiguous 'progress' of the Enlightenment, it is full of promise""

November 30

A Sophisticated Philosophy of Functions

phiwumbda.org

"This is really classy"

"Exhaustingly joyous": Lee C. Camp on vocation

Lee C. Camp has an invigorating post on vocation. The following excerpt begins with a quote from Evelyn Underhill:

“Our place is not the auditorium but the stage—or, as the case may be, the field, workshop, study, laboratory—because we ourselves form part of the creative apparatus of God, or at least are meant to form part of the creative apparatus of God. He made us in order to use us, and use us in the most profitable way; for his purpose, not ours. To live a spiritual life means subordinating all other interests to that single fact.”

We are not called, she goes on to say, to be amateurs, messy and hap-hazard in our work, but to keep a steady hand on the plow, employing constancy, subordinating our own agendas to a larger agenda one may sometimes not understand.

This liberty—this rigorous, demanding vocation—to form part of the creative apparatus of God, is exhaustingly joyous... It is the sort of freedom and joy that the famed runner Eric Liddel, was trying to get at when his character in Chariots of Fire says, “I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure.” Or the well-spoken commentary of Frederick Beuchner upon vocation: “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

Petra Bosma on dialogue

Petra Bosma has a great piece at Christianity Today, emphasizing the importance of face-to-face dialogue in our technocratic world. She writes:

"Real conversation uses different skills than online communication. It requires the participants to have patience with each other, and to reveal more of themselves than they would online. We dumb ourselves down in online conversation. We depend on sound bites. We expect responses faster and are more likely to relay only the polished version of what we are truly experiencing. Though social media consistently requests status updates, rarely does it require us to post anything of depth... ideas, especially important, difficult, maybe treasonous ones, need time, care, and interaction: around dinner tables, holding cups of coffee, or holed up in burntout bunkers."

Have I won monopoly to forfeit my soul?*

Tim Chester's summary of CB Samuel’s presentation on Integral Mission, Humility and Lifestyle (Sept 2001):

Photo by: Antonio Correia

"The problem with lifestyle is not its theory, but its practice. The story is told of an Indian guru who taught his disciples to live on just the basic necessities of life. One day he sent his best disciple out to make his own way in the world. This disciple owned only two loin cloths – one to wear while the other was washed. And so this disciple lived, each day wearing one cloth while he washed the other. One day a rat ate his spare cloth as it hung out to dry. His neighbors gave him another, but he realized he also needed a cat to keep the rat away. And because the cat needed milk he got a cow. To feed the cow he obtained a small piece of land for fodder. Soon he was hiring people to cultivate the land so he did not have to interrupt his meditations. In time he acquired a large estate and a fine house. One day his guru came by. Seeing the large house, he asked his disciple how this had happened. The disciple said: 'I need all this to protect my loin cloth’.

"When many of us were young Christians we committed ourselves to radical lifestyles. But now we have many justifications for the possessions that over time we have acquired. We need to recover a biblical perspective on wealth and money. Jesus sees money as a spiritual force. He says we need consciously to short-circuit its power in our lives. Jacques Ellul said Jesus was the only one who was prepared to describe money as mammon. We need to define limits for consumption. We evangelicals have a theology for the creation and distribution of wealth, but we need to have a theology of consumption. We need to define what is enough? We need to learn that we do not need own everything. We need to explore the possibilities of sharing with others and owning things communally."

*I have had Switchfoot's "Company Car" stuck in my head for the last couple of days.

DWebb on information overload

A gem on Noisetrade today: Free acoustic download of Derek Webb's new album (limited time offer).

Derek Webb is special to me. In college he guided me into a spirituality of humility with She Must and Shall Go Free (as well as leading me into the folk/acoustic realm). As a college drop-out, his House Show live CD led me into a rich theology of Gospel and Church, while his I See Things Upside Down led me through the necessary lament of having left the Christian community at Kenyon. For awhile I thought it was John Piper who had most influenced me in my understanding of "Reformed" Christianity, but I recently realized that Derek Webb was very much more. His five solas tattoo led to a framed copy on my desk.

Regardless of his weird latest albums (I have my beef with Stockholm Syndrome), he's a genius and prophet in his own right. The acoustic version of his new album captures what he does so well, combining great melodies with songwriting and critical acumen*, and it's good for an old folky fan like myself.

On the album he has a song called "I feel everything" which hints at the struggle for sanity in our age of stimulus and information. It is a quiet song of lament/confession, rather bleak in its outlook, but an honest introspection of the senselessness into which so much of our consumption leads us. In this age of information and entertainment obsession, it can feel hard to think and be. Consumism quickly reduces us into subjects incapable of doing anything but wanting (if even that). Webb captures the pain of that in his song.

Download the album on Noisetrade while it's still available. You can listen to the song here(I Feel Everything). But most importantly, step away from the barrage of information and simply be before God in solitude and silence.

"I feel everything" by Derek Webb

i am not sure i want this to take, what it's taking
but that just seems to be the choice, i am making
mother this is all i ever wanted
now how do i get back to where there isn't everything, only you

i cannot hear because i hear everything
i cannot see because i see everything
i cannot feel because i feel everything

it is not peace i find, it is not satisfaction
it's not the life i always dreamed or imagined
it is not wisdom, it is not strength, it is not control
it is a promise meant to quell my every fear, yet leave me cursed

i've nothing left, no life or death, no will that's free
i have no way now to explain, what's come over me
i'm just a body overwhelmed, and lying still
a casualty of knowing what i want and wanting what i know

* a word I learned yesterday playing the GRE Vocab test at www.memrise.com

Inductive study of the Message!?!

By: Augusto C.  at photo.net

"Beer is good and sex is better, but never should they go together". This was one of the refrains of our freshman orientation at the libertine liberal arts college I attended. Upperclassman (perhaps some with considerable hypocrisy) chanted the rhyme to remind us not to mix inebriation with lechery. I suppose there was some wisdom there [emphasize some, not wisdom].

Now fast forward ten years... This trimester I'm teaching a course on the book of Ephesians, as a means of looking at the teachings of the primitive Christian communities, and also as a sort of introduction to Christian ethics. I've taught similar courses twice, and have used the opportunity to present some basic tools of inductive Bible study (as popularized by Intervarsity: observation-interpretation-application).

All good and well, except that this year I chose to use the text of Eugene Peterson's the Message, instead of the ESV as I've previously done. I personally love the Message with all its quirks and Americanisms and poetic pastoral wisdom, and last trimester with these students, the Message was an effective means of bringing color to the narratives of Jesus' life and teaching. But this last week as we were digging into Ephesians 4:1-16 together, the Beer&Sex refrain was brought to mind: "The Message is good, and inductive Bible study is better, but never should they go together!"

What a mess. Where the ESV calls the Ephesians to be "eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace", Peterson calls for "pouring yourselves out for each other in acts of love, alert at noticing differences and quick at mending fences". Ignoring the fact that the Message omits the Spirit (although, can we really ignore that?), how do I explain to these EFL students what "mending fences" means? Do we have to bring the whole Robert Frost poem in, and exegete that, in order to properly exegete Ephesians 4? Also, doesn't the whole concept of "good fences make good neighbors" contradict what we were reading in Ephesians 2 the other week about the wall of enmity being torn down? Maybe not.

My students got snagged around verse 14, too, where Peterson translates "No prolonged infancies among us, please. We’ll not tolerate babes in the woods, small children who are an easy mark for impostors. God wants us to grow up". It sounded like intolerance to my students, rather than the culmination of the gift-giving of Christ as in the original structure.

I still love the Message and find it useful. I also just came across the wikipedia article on the Message where Peterson is quoted as saying "I would never recommend it be used as saying, 'Hear the Word of God from The Message.'" So it's likely that Peterson would join me in affirming: "The Message is good, and inductive Bible study is better, but never should they go together!"

Oak & Apple: A Lo-Fi Hymnal

Here's a fine CD worth downloading, from Wilder Adkins

"But I can't judge anyone else for their cheese. I've deep-sea dived in the Gouda."
-Jack Black on judging people for their musical tastes

James Houston on Christian mysticism

by Edmondo Senatore at photo.net

I have at times been very critical of Christian "mysticism." I grew up in a tradition which very much emphasized personal experiences with God (focusing especially on "inner peace"), and at many important junctures in my life I have experienced moments which I readily describe as personal encounters with God. And yet I have at times become wary and even critical of such emphases, for numerous reasons, including: the individualistic subjectivity of such mysticism, the emotional manipulation sometimes present in churches aiming to acheive such spiritual experiences (especially in neopentecostal-influenced Latin American evangelicalism), the concreteness of Anabaptist concepts of discipleship (Nachfolge), and Latin American theology's emphasis on the here-and-now.

I recently came across a chapter in a book at the library titled "Reflections on mysticism: How valid is evangelical anti-mysticism?" The book is in homage to Klaus Bockmühl (who --judging by our library's collection-- was a fairly conservative, pastoral German theologian of the 20th century). Houston describes him saying that "while in temperment he was more anti-mystical, he had a strong conviction of Biblical mysticism" (p. 163).

Houston begins the chapter by outlining some common Protestant objections to mysticism: it is associated with visions and raptures, it implies direct encounter with God in a non-mediated way, it is seen as a expression of Roman Catholic piety or interpreted as Neoplatonism, it is rejected by the Enlightenment, it is suspected for its tendency towards individualism and radicalism, and it creates an elite in the Church. He mentions that F. Heiler juxtaposes mysticism (receptive) with profetism (resolute), and that A. Nygren equates mysticism with egocentrism as opposed to theocentric faith seen in the Bible and the Reformation.

Houston then proceeds to explain how Christian mysticism differs from Platonism. He mentions its concept of God (non-existent in Platonism), the notion of grace (God initiates, not man’s self-realization), the idea that virtue is a gift, and not a means of purification, the communal orientation (fellowship and not withdrawal), and the absence of dualism (not just an elite are called to a “higher” contemplative life). However there are correlative parts which explain the influence of Platonism on early Christian, mainly the importance of the invisible reality and the immortality of the soul.

Houston continues by expounding upon the qualities of Christian mysticism, noting that mysticism must be present in Christianity if we are to speak of Christian “wholeness”. It is part of being human: “the self is essentially more than a mere self; transcendence belongs to its nature” (p. 165, citing L. Dupré).

• Christian mysticism is conservative in nature; the religious experience is shaped by the dogma. “The Christian mystic does not experience unidentified reality which he then can conveniently label God, but rather he is aware of the mediation of Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit, of the reality and the love of God Himself” (p. 173). Faithful Christian mystics do not enunciate new dogmas or use their experiences to establish or confirm Biblical truths. 
• Christian mysticism leads to the embodiment of Christian living, rather than to narcissism. “To experience God directly in one’s life, as the theophanies of the Old and New Testament depict, is also to be transformed by God [… Christian mystics] are not such morbid, pathological, sentimental or weak creatures. Strength, courage, definiteness, wisdom, realism, truth, love are their fundamental characteristics” (p. 175). 
• Christian mysticism is not a special faculty, but rather the integration of what we are called to be. “‘The Christian mystic’, then, is simply […a person] who is ‘living by the Gospel’. He or she has an integrity of heart and mind, for the things of God” (p. 176).

Houston concludes the chapter with the suggestion that such mysticism could not have originated in the Greco-Roman world, but only from the Judeo-Christian concept of “the presence of Yahweh with His covenant people, and of Jesus Christ in the Church. True mysticism is simply expressing personally the presence of God in our midst. […]If it is Christian mysticism when we allow God’s self-giving and self-revealing life to penetrate into the innermost centre of our human persons, and in turn to enable us to ‘love our neighbor as ourselves’, then clearly we should seek it with all our heart, soul, and might” (p. 177).

I consider the article a helpful defense of the validity of "Christian mysticism", which at the same time provides helpful paramters to protect against the non-Christian distortions of such experiences.

"Mysticism, then, is not sanctity. The heart of godliness is love, divine love, that is both received and shared. So progress in loving and being loved reflects more progress in humility, self-giving, simplicity, and godly contentment than the more dramatic gifts we tend to associate with the mystical life. It is more the heroism of the commonplace than the sensationalism of the extraordinary" (p. 166).
---------------------

Houston, J. M. (1991). Reflections on mysticism: How valid is evangelical anti-mysticism?. In M. Bockmühl & H. Burkhardt (Eds.), Gott lieben und seine Gebote halten: In memoriam Klaus Bockmühl (pp. 163-181). Giessen: Brunnen.

Creative juices

Not blogging at all of late, because my creative juices are more oriented towards art these days:

It's very much an experimental medium, and my art critic doesn't usually let them last for more than five seconds, but he does seem to enjoy them.

Ordinarily executing mundane tasks

Photo by: Matej Lancic 

Another day of faithfully and ordinarily executing mundane tasks! Who knows how decisive they might be?

"I once heard interviews with survivors from World War II. The soldiers recalled how they spent a particular day. One sat in a foxhole; once or twice, a German tank drove by and he shot at it. Others played cards and frittered away the time. A few got involved in furious firefights. Mostly, they day passed like any other. Later, they learned they had just participated in one of the largest, most decisive engagements of the war, the Battle of the Bulge. It didn’t feel decisive at the time because none had the big picture. Great victories are won when ordinary people execute their assigned tasks." - Philip Yancey

(Sparked by Darrow Miller's LifeWork)

Books read so far this year

The Myth of Certainty: The Reflective Christian & the Risk of Commitment by Daniel Taylor

Homage to a Broken Man: The Life of J. Heinrich Arnold by Peter Mommsen

Las preguntas de Dios: la predicación evangélica en América Latina by Emilio Castro

Liberación, Éxodo y Biblia (J. Mervin Breneman O., editor)

Against the Wind: Eberhard Arnold and the Bruderhof by Markus Baum            

North! Or Be Eaten by Andrew Peterson

Palabra viva: entorno histórico, literario y teológico del Antiguo Testamento by Samuel Pagan

The Monster in the Hollows by Andrew Peterson

Vida y trabajo: un desafío espiritual by Anselm Grün

El movimiento apostólico contemporáneo by Emilio Antonio Núñez C.

Rostros del protestantismo latinoamericano by Jose Miguez Bonino

Ineffective argumentative strategies to stop a teething nine-month-old, classified by their ethical motivations

(Some of these things I actually find myself saying)

Role Modeling
“Look, T. and Daddy both have shoes. But Daddy doesn’t eat his shoes.”

Etiquette
“T., don’t bite the window. It’s a nice window.”

Purpose
“Books aren’t for eating. Books are for reading.”

Pleasure
“Sweetheart, your stroller can’t possibly taste good.”

Stoic Philsophy
“Precious, you’d have greater peace of mind if you didn’t give way to your lust for devouring Daddy’s shoe.”

Utilitarianism
“You know, you’re not helping anyone by biting the shelf.”

Fundamentalist Biblicism
“Son, the Bible says not to bite Mommy (Galatians 5:15).”

Kant’s categorical imperative
“Biting’s not right. Period. Do the right thing, because that’s your duty.”

Briefs (and links a-plenty)

Music

• I bought the pre-release of Andy Osenga's Leonard the Lonely Astronaut, and I love it. One of my favorite albums is the Normal's A place where you belong (largely written by Andy), and after reading Jason Gray's review of the new album, I realized that I was likely to love Leonard. I have not been disappointed.
• One of the best parts of parenting is listening to children's music! This new release from Sandra McCracken and company is sure to be great, and the sampler available on Noisetrade makes that more than obvious.
• I randomly remembered this song, and am once again smitten by it (despite the fact that, as one commenter on YouTube noted, Ben Folds has been married four times)

Reading and writing

• I was up past midnight on several nights last week speeding through Andrew Peterson's North! Or be Eaten. I love the Wingfeather Saga books, and what I said about the first one pretty much holds true for the first one. On Thursday I was up 'til one o'clock because I didn't dare stop until Janner was out of the Fork! Factory!
• TGC has an interview with Eugene Peterson, an author/theologian/pastor whose work (though I'm only partly familiar with it) I greatly respect.
• I kinda wanna be a writer, but unlike Eugene Peterson (cf. previous bullet), I do not write a lot. My senior paper relied heavily on the research of Mark Yarhouse, and in an Edification dedicated to him, Gary Strauss says Yarhouse was challenged to "commit himself to writing at least one page a day intended for publication" (p. 25).  I, however, am like Kierkegaard who says (cf. next bullet), "I've walked myself into some of my best [blog posts]." Sometimes I imagine myself as a writer with great ideas, but mostly only when I'm walking to and from work, and out running.

Various

• This piece on walking at NPR is good. One thing I really like about living in Paraguay is that it's easy to walk a lot.
• The debate on Christian economics always intrigues me, although I have a hard time coming down on either side.
• I was impressed by this post from Craig Goodwin about how the Orthodox Lenten fast gives preeminence to grace as the worshippers come to the Paschal table. 

A parenting day

I am the only male over 3 years of age in the nursery during our church's worship services on Sundays. This is sort of awkward--I'm pretty sure I'm cultural crossing a line--but I'm okay with that. My wife is with the kiddo all week, and (usually) gets more out of sermons more than I do.

----

My little almost-7-month-old has his army crawl down pat, and moves with remarkable speed. My sister-in-law (in jest) suggests we enter him in one of those baby races; he would probably have a good chance of winning, if there was a cell phone or camera just beyond the finish line. Today in the nursery he weaseled his way around the whole room, his beautiful eyes wide looking up and down, carefully inspecting the place. He is becoming a little adventurer.

----

He and I were hanging out on a blanket on the porch this afternoon, while Mommy was still napping. He was sucking on his thumb*, and then started sucking on my knee, so we went inside and I dug out his pacifier. He has heretofore shown disdain for the pacifier, but now that he's learned to suck on a bottle, he found it rather interesting. He sucked and played with it for about fifteen minutes. I was amused by the way the pacifier absorbed all his attention, as he proved unable to suck on it and handle other toys at the same time.

*He doesn't habitually suck his thumb, but was rather sucking on it just then.

Bread and wine

This is my favorite song from my favorite CD from last year, appropriate for a Maundy Thursday

This post was going to be longer, but instead I'm going to watch a movie with my wife.

Behold! March 2012

Spirituality
I really appreciated this piece by Russell Moore; oh that all Christian writers was so skilled in combining sound theology, pastoral wisdom, and vivid expression.
I also really appreciated DLM's piece on friendship as advocacy.


Technology
McSweeny's has some good parodies of social media and blogging.
NPR uncovers one reason Facebook is in some ways anti-community: it helps make the popular more popular and the lonely feel more lonely.


Random
M. Nenadov summarizes a seminar which concludes that "there are basically no compelling economic reasons for development aid to be successful."
NYTimes writes up on Guaraní, which--according to my New Years Resolutions-- I am learning this year.
The Amazing Race passed through Paraguay.
Eric Peters hosted a listening party for his new CD at the Rabbit Room: there were some really nice songs, and Eric's barren honesty is so heartening.

Philosophy of a five-month-old

Well, this is my best description of my five-month-old son's philosophy of life, divided into some of the major branches of philosophical study.

Metaphysics - What is real?
That which is real is that which I can grasp with my hand. Toys and mommy's hair and daddy's hands are all real. A stream of running water may or may not be real; I'm still trying to decide.

Epistemology - How is knowledge acquired?
Knowledge is acquired by inserting the object of study in the knower's mouth.

Ethics - What is good?
That which is good is usually that which is colorful and/or shiny; that which smiles; or that which tastes like breastmilk.

Aesthetics - What is beautiful?
The most beautiful part of any given object is the while silk tag. Some other extraordinarily beautiful things include my parents' faces and feet.

Logic - What arguments are valid?
Valid arguments are those which take into account my need for food, a clean diaper, physical affection and sleep.

Behold! 3-3-2012

Behold!: some noteworthy pieces over the last couple of weeks:

Parenting

• Pamela Druckermann writes at the WSJ about the importance of educating children in patience. There's also an NPR interview.
• NPR reports on why it's a good thing that I talk to myself and why I'm glad we don't have a TV (and how those might be related).

Religion and Society

• M. Nenadov reminds us that Rick Santorum is obnoxious and wrong and why the current party system is obnoxious and wrong.
• In a NYTimes piece, the Amish of Sugarcreek, Ohio, in the light of betrayal, remind us what the Sermon on the Mount says.
• TGC reports that California judges are now required to reveal their sexual orientation. A very bad idea, as the piece points out, and strikingly discriminatory it would seem.

Las preguntas de Dios by Emilio Castro

The third book I read in 2012 was:

Las preguntas de Dios: la predicación evangélica en América Latina by Emilio Castro

[The Questions of God: Evangelical Preaching in Latin America]

This is a book about preaching from a Latin American perspective. The first section is a brief theological discourse on preaching; the second part consists of fifteen sermons based on questions in Scripture. Overall, it is a satisfying book, but I was expecting more after having read the back cover. In general it shows considerable influence of Barth, who by me is a welcome voice in moralistic Latin American protestantism. There was a strong parallelism between Castro's first section and Barth's "The Preaching of the Gospel" (which was the last book on preaching that I read). His description of the elemental content of Christian preaching is summarized as follows:

"referencia a lo que está sucediendo en la vida del pueblo, referencia a lo que ha sucedido en la vida del pueblo, referencia a lo que ha sucedido en la historia de la fe cristiana y del pueblo de Israel, conjugación de las dos vertientes en una explicación del propósito de Dios para el momento, y culminación en una exhortación al arrepentimiento, al cambio de vida, a aceptar el mensaje del evangelio, la oferta que Dios hace" (p. 11).["reference to what is happening in  the life of the people, reference to what has happened in the life of the people, reference to what has happened in the history of the Christian faith and the people of Israel, conjugation of both stories in an explanation of God's purposes for the moment, and a culmination in a call to repentance, change of life, to accept the message of the gospel, what God is offering"]

The second part is divided into sermons based questions which God poses to humanity (1-10) and questions which humanity poses to God (11-15). The most compelling sermons were, in my perspective, No. 6 "Why do you look for the living among the dead? "--about our tendency to hole God into preestablished categories-- and No. 13 "Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?" about the Christian hope of a new future. I was a bit disappointed by No. 11 "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?", which ended up emphasizing the doctrine of the humanity of Christ rather than approaching the human experience of loneliness before a seemingly distant God (which it proposed to do).

I appreciate Castro's emphases and expressions, and I would consider using the book as a supporting text for a class on preaching. I give it three and half stars.

A prayer for our son

This is the prayer my wife and I prayed when we presented our young son before our church family (translated from the original Spanish):

B: Lord Jesus, we bring before you and your people our little son, T. B. We recognize that he belongs to you and that you have every right to his life.
V: We rejoice in your goodness demonstrated through his life, and we pray that his life would be a testimony that you are good. We are glad at the love that fills our hearts, which is but an outcome of your love, Jesus.
B: And yet, Lord, we acknowledge our sinfulness and limited perspective. So we plead for your wisdom and grace as we care for him. We marvel that you know not only the child T., but the man whom he will be.
V: Grant us the joy of guiding him in the knowledge of you as Lord and Savior, that he would be our brother in following you. Bless him with health and contentment, that his heart would always turn to you in gratitude.
B: And make him an agent of peace and reconciliation, that your name would be honored through his deeds. Be his refuge and hope, guard him from wicked men and women, and place him in communities where he can experience the grace and justice of your Kingdom.
V: We have full confidence in your good will for his life, and we will always hold high your name in our home. It is in this name we pray, amen.

Lenten readings

Two brief essays on the fact that life isn't about me, and spirituality isn't about improving myself:

"Teach Children the Bible is Not About Them" by Sally Lloyd-Jones
"Giving Up Self-Discipline for Lent" by Mark Galli

Behold! 2-21-2012

Behold!: some noteworthy pieces over the last couple of days:

Technology, society, spirituality

• Jason Allen has a piece at TGC about if Facebook tempts you, especially on the dangers of envy in a social media world.
• Dana Goldstein writes that homeschooling violates progressive values. Frankly, I didn't realize that in our postmodern world you could still describe things as "progressive"... hasn't "progress" been debunked?
• D.L.M. echoes my disdain for politics in the light of the Kingdom of God
• NPR reports on a certain Open Source Ecology farm, which is the kind of thing I (and probably D.L.M.) could really get excited about.

Random

• Nuns run. I'm tempted sign up as a shadow runner, but won't.
• Andrew Peterson shares more about songwriting, and even offers up a new song.

Fatherhood

• Tim Keller's wife writes about why the city is a wonderful place to raise children, also at TGC. My mother and I were raised in the suburbs, my wife and father in the countryside. I've occasionally worried about living in the a huge metropolitan area with a kid, but Mrs. Keller puts a good turn to things. Not that all of the cool stuff on the list at the end actually applies to Asunción, but there are some things.

The Myth of Certainty by Daniel Taylor

“One influential Christian speaker says Nietzsche should be burned rather than read, and suddenly, reading Nietzsche is strangely attractive.” (p. 37)

This was one of several moments in which I totally identified with Mr. Taylor as I read his 1986 book The Myth of Certainty. Basically the book responds to the query “How can a thinking person with a keen, sometimes crushing, awareness of the complexity and contingency of all things make passionate commitment to act in the service of any contested cause?” (p. 98) Taylor is a professor who finds himself straddling the line between two very different worlds, that of the secular academy and that of the conservative Christian church. And yes, he is an English professor, which explains the alliteration of that last quote. In this book he shares his struggles and wisdom, and takes a lot of cues and epigraphs from Karl Barth, Flannery O'Connor, Soren Kierkegaard, and Blaise Pascal.

It's not an amazing book that shook my world, but it did affirm me in a lot of what I've come to believe. It's kind of cheesy at times, as he includes fictional accounts of a character which mirror the reflections of each chapter. Some interesting quotes from the book:

     "While a little learning alienates, much learning often reconciles" (18).

     “[Kierkegaard] recognized how subtly intertwined are our beliefs with our instinct for self-preservation, and counseled the greatest sensitivity for those who seek to lead someone from error into truth:

    First and foremost, no impatience… A direct attack only strengthens a person in his illusion, and at the same time embitters him. There is nothing that requires such gentle handling as an illusion if one wishes to dispel it. If anything prompts the prospective captive to set his will in opposition, all is lost… [T]he indirect method…, loving and serving the truth, arranges everything…, and then shyly withdraws (for love is always shy), so as not to witness the admission which he makes to himself alone before God—that he has lived hitherto in an illusion.

    ...Only those with great confidence in the truth they hold can risk Kierkegaard’s approach.” (25-26)

     “T.S. Eliot sees a certain kind of doubt as inevitable in matters of faith and correctly suggests that one’s attitude toward doubt is more significant than one’s having doubt: ‘Every man who thinks and lives by thought must have his own skepticism…that which ends in denial, or that which leads to faith and which is somehow integrated into faith which transcends it.’ The notion of transcending doubt by accepting it into faith, rather than by suppressing it (for it can never be destroyed), is crucial. Perhaps doubt, rather than something to be crushed, can be made to serve faith.

      “Doubt can only be robbed of its paralyzing and destructive qualities when it is admitted for what it is—which isn’t nearly as much as it appears when not admitted—and is accounted for in the process of faith. Normally doubt is seen as sapping faith’s strength. Why not the reverse? Where there is doubt, faith has its reason for being. Clearly faith is not needed where certainty supposedly exists, but only in situations where doubt is possible, even present.” (80-81)

    “The reflective Christian must steer between unfounded claims of certainty on the one hand and an equally spurious absolutizing of relativism on the other.” (92). “The Christian should neither seek to deny the risk inherent in faith nor accept the implication that the secularist is on surer ground.” (97)

    “Truth cannot be adequately evaluated on an objective or propositional level. How one holds a truth, one’s intention in regard to truth, the use to which a truth is put, the position against which a truth is asserted, the relationship between one truth and an equally valid balancing truth—all these and more determine the ultimate character of truth in our lives. Sadly, even truth can be made to function as falsehood when it is fragmented, distorted, or isolated from its position to the whole.” (129)

     "We should avoid being sucked into negative struggles that are characterized primarily by what they are against, depending often on fear, suspicion, and even hatred for their primary motivation. Seek out, instead, constructive tasks that bring healing, enlightenment, and encouragement rather than bitterness and enmity.... Criticize the church when such criticism is called for, but also seek ways with your own life to make it what it should be. And aside from controversial things, there should be paintings painted, plays performed, poems written, discoveries made, ideas explored, causes pursued, and tasks accomplished which have nothing to do with partisanship of any kind, simply because we are human beings whom God has given many, many things to do." (136).

Happy Valentine's Day

Here are some fun resources to help reflect upon love on a February 14th:

"A brother and sister get married"

This is a well-done NPR story --with picture show included-- about a friar and nun who get married, and how their love endures: "The romance didn't slow down for him at all. He was someone who was completely unable to separate his devotion to God from his devotion to his wife."

NPR Valentines

This is probably only funny for public radio listeners, but as an avid one, I thought it was great fun.

Under the Radar's Valentine's Day special

Under the Radar is a great source for Christian music listeners who don't necessary like "Christian music"; this is a nice episode, despite the fact that he plays a Chris Rice song [slight cringe]. It includes nice stories from Randall Goodgame and Jenny & Tyler, plus a cover of "Holding out for a Hero." 

Why I have a cheap cell phone

"The unfortunate thing, I think, is that part of what's happening is that we've lost our sense of actually experiencing things. We're just constantly, constantly recording things." - George Clooney during an NPR interview

I've thought about this for a good many years, especially every time I go to Iguaçu Falls in Brazil and observe how most visitors spend all their time snapping photos and recording videos. It seems no one is actually looking at the Falls, let alone giving time for their body to take in the beauty. No matter how amazing your camera is, you can't capture one and half miles of waterfalls in a picture. And if you spend all your time trying to capture a photograph, you might not even get the slightest sense of the breath-taking character of the falls.

I'm not against photos. It's nice to have some to share with friends, to put on your desktop background, to bring to mind fond memories. But I'd much prefer vivid memories of quality time lived out in the presence of great masterpieces (be these mountains or artwork or personalities).

It's important to think about why and how one wants to use technology. The trend of this our technological age is that these devices hold an ever more powerful sway over us. I, however, want to utilize technology according to my purposes, not be guided by its ever greater capabilities.

"The Beard" by I. M. Shannon

In my job as theological librarian, I came across a pamphlet in the archives of our library

Cover of the the pamphlet "The Beard" by I. M. Shannon (undated).

Allow me to quote at length from the pamphlet (I've tried to be faithful to the spelling and punctuation of the original):

       These facts I have written regarding the beard have for their foundation the Bible, and nature, and are especially written for the Christian man who truly wishes to gain eternal life...
      Shaving is very popular, but does the popularity of shaving make it the right thing to do? JESUS, whom you worship, and who is the Christian man’s example wore His beard. (Isa. 50:6) and He is well pleased when His men followers imitate Him in this as in other respects. Obeying Him in practice and precept. 1 John 2:6. The beard grows by a divine law; it is a part of creation that God pronounced “very good.” Gen. 1:27. When men destroy the beard they are out of harmony with God’s original thought... There is a great intelligence and wisdom behind the laws of nature, and when these laws are broken, those who break them will stand a punishment sooner, or later...
        A good question is raised: Why should God put a beard on a man’s face if He did not design that he should wear it? We cannot charge God with folly, a deficiency of understanding, and that the beard was a stupid mistake on His part. Men directly insult the wisdom and intelligence of God when they shave off their beards. Isa. 29:-6; Eccl. 7:29. A razor is an invention to thwart God in nature. Men have becomes slaves to the razor, for no reason, as a rule, except to make their faces smooth like the woman’s, or follow the worldly fashion. They will say it is for sanitary reasons. In saying this they practically accuse their Saviour of being unsanitary, for he wore His beard, so did the apostles, prophets, patriarchs, also our pioneer brethren in the Churches. Wholesale destruction of the beard is of recent date. To shave is an open violation of the laws of nature. It is God’s wisdom and design that a man wear a full, well-kept beard. It is the outward mark of manhood. To be smooth-faced is a sign of YOUTH, or EFFEMINACY.
       It is not the plan of God for a man to de-whisker himself, shaving away his distinguishing feature, calling it unsightly and unsanitary. It isn’t the intelligent thing to do. There is nothing that man can do to make himself appear more womanish than to shave off his beard. The dictionary says: “to be beardless is less than a man.”
       Men shave daily, but God in nature rushes to repair the wound, and starts a new growth, showing that the beard should be a permanent fixture on the face of man. The beard is a beautiful arrangement, a princely feature. IF taken care of. Men have long abused the beard, and that fact shows up when they try to wear one. Many men can hardly wear it after having shaved for so many years. It is stiff and bristly. Those who have made this a study know it is true. It is unatural to shave, a daily operation to remove it. If the same amount of time were devoted to its care, as it takes to remove it, it would be beautiful, and not hideous as some seem to think. He who effeminates himself follows the example of apostacy instead of Christ. Be Christlike. Honor His beard by wearing one...

That’s most of pages 3 to 6. He then goes on for 8 more pages to make further arguments based on the image-of-God, comparing shaving to the sins of Eve and Esau, explaining away why “Joseph of Bible fame” shaved (“JESUS, not Joseph, or any other man is man’s example”), differentiating shaving from the sin of cutting finger and toe nails (?!), placing shaving within the saved by faith/works argument, and clarifying that the effeminate will not enter the Kingdom of God. On page 14 his conclusion begins:

       To establish the truth of the beard we have THREE witnesses: NATURE, JESUS’S EXAMPLE (Isa. 50:6), and the LAW. Lev. 19:27, 28. The FACT stands established. 
       Jesus said, “The very hairs on your head our numbered.” Matt. 10:30. King David said “I will praise the Lord, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are thy works, and that my soul knoweth right well…and in Thy BOOK all my members are written.” David we see praised and upheld God’s works. The beard, if let grow, is the most conspicuous member that a man has. I wonder what it will be when men meet their Maker “face to face.”

Upon first reading I found this really funny. I almost have to wonder if it was actually written as a parody of bad interpretation. But since I suspect it wasn't, it’s actually rather sad, for it represents all those instances in which we manipulate the sacred texts in support of teachings which are not in fact truthful. We are wise to approach the truth of Scriptures with great humility. Daniel Taylor warns in The Myth of Certainty: “How one holds a truth, one’s intention in regard to truth, the use to which a truth is put, the position against which a truth is asserted, the relationship between one truth and an equally valid balancing truth—all these and more determine the ultimate character of truth in our lives. Sadly, even truth can be made to function as falsehood when it is fragmented, distorted, or isolated from its position to the whole.” (129)

On the internet and intentionality

I’m back with an online “presence,” after taking a month of internet abstinence to reflect on the meaning of all this. Last year I found myself caught up in Facebook and my list of RSS feeds in such a way that I would describe as lustful. Lust in the sense that Oswald Chambers taught me to see, this desire for immediate stimulus and gratification, that ends up emasculating one’s soul. I’m convinced that one of the keys to human flourishing is in self-denial of such lusts and the training of one’s soul for slow, deep delights. And yet, there I was, hanging on the edge of the most frivolous updates, seeking meaning in a new post, wasting time and mismanaging my soul. It got to the point where I didn’t even read any of these interesting sites I was following, I just quickly skimmed it for some sort of intellectual or spiritual stimulus.

Clearly this was not a path I wanted to continue. Deep, reflective thought and reading has always been an important part of who I am. To let that be replaced by (un-)social media and RSS (does-not-)feeds would not contribute to my growth and pleasure. So following the Christian tradition, I cancelled my RSS subscriptions and deactivated my Facebook account in a sort of fast. Fasts are powerful to reveal to us our underlying motives and unfilled desires, and they serve as opportunities to reevaluate our priorities.

One of my constant concerns is inspired in the Apostle Pauls’ resolute “I refuse to let anything have power over me” (1 Corinthians 6:12, CEV). I want my will to be robust and tenacious, unreduced by sedatives and distractions. I want my psychological health to be independent of material goods and outside stimuli (aside: I sometimes worry that I have a certain dependency on yerba mate). Time away from the internet reminded me that life is just as abundant when I don’t read every last narcissistic expression of my acquaintances, or keep up to date on the latest theological disputes in the blogging world. Moreover, I was reminded that unless I dialogue reflectively with this deluge of information, I will be undesirably molded by it. I need to read less and more deeply, and I need to write my thoughts out (with paper and pen).

One of the better news stories I heard on NPR during January was this author interview with Clay Johnson about the subtle but ruinous dangers of our information diet, and how easy it is to become closed-minded. He notes that “what choice of information gives us is the ability to misinform ourselves in all kinds of new ways.” I am reminded as well of Marva Dawn’s admonition to avoid becoming a liar by a L.I.A.R. (low information-action ratio). What good is it to know, know, know more and more if I’m inert in regards to such “knowledge?” Dear St. John would say that this is indeed no knowledge as all, as knowing and doing are so inseparable in his theology.

So I’m back online, but I purpose to be more modest and intentional about it, by reading more deliberately and writing more thoughtfully. I pray that this information diet would lead me to relate with greater loyalty to those who surround me, and to act with greater faithfulness in service to the world.