My Epiphany of the Day (7/19/2013)

What politicians often mean by "bipartisanship" is letting the blind guy drive, while the deaf guy listens for the cop sirens.

Guidance for Christian Entrepreneurship Sought

I've long been attracted to entrepreneurship.  After I began my advanced theological studies, I became interested in the interface of Christian theology and entrepreneurship.  I doubt that any organization has done more to pique my interests in this regard than the Acton Institute. 

It seems to me that God's call to care for the needy, implies...demands...more of believers than that we simply engage in handouts.  I simply cannot accept what seems to me a general attitude on the Theological Left that we fulfill our Christian obligation to care for the poor by rabble-rousing and demanding that someone else actually supply the jobs, food, opportunities, etc.  It is as though some think their only job is to shout and demand...and having done so, they've satisfied their calling to "provide" for the poor and needy.   This is, to my mind, a reprehensible thing.

It seems to me that we ought not to view our fellows merely as objects that need our ministrations in order to survive.  Rather, isn't it the case that our calling as beings created in the image of God, is to ourselves be creative and productive?  And as a corollary of that, doesn't it stand to reason that one of the highest ministries we can offer to the poor and needy is to help them flourish by unlocking their own capacities for creativity and production?

This is why I'm very interested in exploring the possibilities for entrepreneurial activity in my own life and station.  If any readers can direct me to sources you've found that are helpful in this regard, I would be very thankful.  (Please no spammers)

My Favorite Desmond Tutu Quote

I ran across an outstanding quote today by Desmond Tutu:  Don't raise your voice.  Improve your argument.

Yeah.  I'll be socking that one away for future use.

My Favorite Daniel Patrick Moynihan quote

You are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts. -- Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Getting something out of Psalms

I can't recall a time when I didn't hear other Christians speak of how "deep," "rich," etc. they found the Psalms.  This has long been a frustration to me, because it has never been my experience of this book.  It's not that I had any antipathy for the Psalms.  Indeed, I've often wanted to have similar experiences, I just...couldn't.

At times, I've wondered if my lack of psalmic epiphanies weren't due to some terrible deficiency in me.  Perhaps I was rotten to the core?  At best, maybe I was just spiritually insensitive--afflicted by a sort of spiritual Asperger Syndrome.

Recently, however, I've found reason to doubt those more pessimistic notions.  Admittedly, this all began when I was asked to adjunct an Old Testament survey class that would encompass the Psalms.  In attempting to bring myself "up to speed" in order to make a respectable attempt at teaching, I first read through a couple of books on the stylistic features of Hebrew parallelism and poetry.  Second, I decided that if I were going to expect my future students to read through this section of Scripture over the course of the class, then I ought to do so as well.  I mapped out how much I would need to read each day to keep up with the teaching schedule I had mapped out, and commenced work.

What I found is that the Psalms are finally "clicking" with me.  This has happened not so much through intensive focus on small sections of Scripture (a method that has brought me much enlightenment for other sections of Scripture) but rather through reading several psalms at a setting.  I have come to realize that--at least for me--the power of the Psalms is more in imaging them than in analyzing them.  In the attempt to immerse myself in their metaphors (I end up trying to imagine how particular passages might be portrayed by Hollywood on an unlimited budget). 

Perhaps this was my problem all along.  I was trying to experience a poetic emotional state, through largely (if not exclusively) rational analysis.  I'm curious if others have had similar challenges when reading the Psalms; And if so, how you responded to/coped with them.

Proverb of the Day: On Rudeness

Rudness is the weak man's imitation of strength. -- Eric Hoffer

Everytime I read Hoffer's quote, I feel a little guilty.  I doubt it can be absolutized (not sure how one would square this with the frequent biblical use of satire, taunt, mocking, etc.) but, in general, this strikes me as pretty accurate.

Guns and Goobers

Eric Shreiner and Dan Joseph have posted a great parody video of the anti-gun hysteria at CNSnews.com.  I heartily recommend it for a good laugh.

Epiphany of the Day: On Teachers

Two kinds of people become teachers: 

Those who enjoy empowering others; 

and those who enjoy the feeling of exercising power over others in their role as "authoritative experts."

The first make great teachers.  

The latter should be avoided like the plague.

What is Christianity?

My drive home from work is a time of reflection for me.  Recently, I started pondering the question:  "How would I respond, if someone asked me what Christianity is?"  Almost immediately I dismissed phrases like, "a religion" or "a set of beliefs."  Though it took a bit longer, I even decided the popular evangelical definition of the last 30 years that it's "a personal relationship with Jesus Christ" is insufficient.  After all, it seems to me that everyone has a relationship with Jesus...it's just that for some of us that relationship is one of hate, of dismissal, etc.

Then it hit me.     

Christianity is the original alternative lifestyle 

Fletcher's Illustration of Christian martyrs burned at the stake by Ranavalona I in Madagascar

Discovering the Incredible Bread Machine

While reading an article at National Review Online yesterday, I ran came across mention of a poetic (literally) defense of capitalism penned in 1966 entitled Tom Smith and His Incredible Bread Machine.  The author's name was R. W. Grant.

Though I've long lamented the poor poetic offerings I was required to read in high school--don't even get me started on Rotten Core--upon reading this poem, I was once again frustrated that I didn't discover it until now.  I share it here in the hopes that others will learn from it.  Perhaps there's a homeschooler somewhere who can be blessed by this poem in the ways I might have been, if only...

A Dirge for Good Comic Books

My very first comic book was acquired about March 1987.  My sister-in-law bought it for me at Wal-Mart as I recall.  It was Avengers #277

From the moment I saw it on the magazine rack, I was entranced.  I guess it must have been the first time I had seen a real superhero comic book.  Otherwise, I'm certain (given my rabid love for superhero cartoons and toys) that I would've pestered my mother in buying me one sooner.I was an amateur collector through the remainder of the 80s and the 90s.

Though I use the term "collector," I do so in the sense of a one who is a pure fan.  I wasn't buying comics as "investments" (which--even as a kid--struck me as evidence of breathtaking economic illiteracy), but because I genuinely loved the medium. I loved the bright primary colors.  I loved costumes and the fanciful, mind-bending powers. I loved the stories.  On a more basic level, I loved the simple world in which there were good guys and bad guys, and I loved knowing that--no matter how bleak things might look--in the end, the bad guys would lose.

Then, something happened.  In my sophisticated literary judgment, the entire medium went to crap.  First the heroes got "grim and gritty."  Wolverine became less Australian (as he sounded in these cartoon clips from the 1980s) and more feral:

Batman became less of the blue and gray costumed goody-goody familiar to those of us who grew up with the Superfriends, 

and (apparently) returned to his roots as "the Dark Knight." 

The Punisher (never exactly Superfriends material) became ever more violent and vigilante.

first appearance

In fairness, each of these characters had been introduced years before and their respective evolutions were already well underway when I became a comic reader; But I was around to see the introduction of new more violent "heroes" such as Cable, Lobo, etc.

At first, I was generally a fan of this transition.  There's no denying that the Superfriends (and similar depictions) did a lot to flatten the characters out into essentially the same person.  What I didn't like, was when everyone and everything seemed to be transitioning into the "antihero."  Superman needed to be more like the Dark Knight...Captain America had to look more like Wolverine...if they had any hope to remain "cool," or "relevant," or whatever the popular adjectives were at the time. 

Right around the time that the comics were changing all my heroes, they were changing their prices as well.  A flood of idiots descended upon my beloved comic book shops and their willingness to purchase ephemera that had hitherto been printed on cheap paper (to facilitate purchase for kids), encouraged the publishers to produce their books on higher quality paper, with better inks, with glossier covers, and in multiple cover editions.  At times, it seemed as though the comics were printed more for the investor than for the reader. 

Of course, with higher production values came necessarily higher costs.  I wound up being priced out of my regular monthly comic book purchases.  I got busy with college, and then work...read a few here and there, but found it increasingly  difficult to follow the multiple crossover story arcs and seemingly continual resets of the entire comic universe.

So...here I am.  A guy pining away for the happy carefree comic books (not "graphic novels") of his youth and wanting to share them with his own kids for something under $5 an issue.  Anyone have suggestions?

Were the Founders Deists? (pt. 1)

In Carson Clark's recent post "Debunking the Fourth: Top 10 Unsightly Facts about the American Revolution," I once again ran across a claim that seems to have grown progressively louder and more ubiquitous with the retelling since I first heard it in the early 1990s.  This is the claim that the American Founders (or at least the ones that really mattered) were not Christians at all...but Deists.

Typically, the claim is made either to argue for one more extension of the seemingly unquestioned "separation of church and state" doctrine, or else to undercut patriotism born of the notion that "America was founded as a Christian nation."  Now, there are legitimate reasons to encourage a vigorous debate on both the proper relation of Church and State, and to challenge the sort of unbridled patriotism exhibited in slogans like Stephen Decatur's famous: "My country, right or wrong..."

Nevertheless, I'm kind of a stickler for old fashioned things like "facts."  I think the meanings of words, and whether we are using them accurately, matters.  This is what has made me increasingly suspicious as it regards the Founders-as-Deists claim.  There are a number of very specific questions (it seems to me) that need to be answered before we go off uncritically accepting this assertion, and (consequently) accepting whatever conclusion(s) its proponent(s) claim flow from it.

1. What is the specific documentary evidence for the claim that "the Founders" were deists?
2. What are the specific traits/experiences/activities, etc. necessary for us to describe an individual as being one of "the Founders"? 
3. Precisely how many of the Founders have left us sufficient documentary evidence to make a reasonable supposition regarding their individual metaphysical beliefs? (Even irrefutable proof that Thomas Jefferson was a Deist is insufficient to ground the claim that "the Founders" were Deists. )
4. Exactly what definition of "Deist" are we presuming?  Is "Deist" to be set over against "Christian" as though these describe to wholly separate and alien faiths; Or might "Deist" be a particular theological view within the broader field of Christian thought about the nature of God?  An example might be the questions of:  Open Theism, Patripassianism, Trinitarianism, Monarchianism, etc.)

I intend this post to be the first in a series in which I explore these four questions.  As Mr. Clark's post was the originator of my reflections and responses, I expect to return to his specific verbiage and argumentation in  my future posts.  To his credit, Clark does anticipate and address some of concerns in his original post (which I would encourage any of my readers to consider in full) but I am not sure I "buy" his explanations...But, who knows?  Perhaps he will have me convinced by the end of this process.

I welcome you to join me on this particular quest for understanding.

In Appreciation of Marginalia

As a librarian, I deal a fair bit with books.  One of my bittersweet tasks is determining when books should be weeded from the collection.  There are no universal hard-and-fast rules for making such determinations, so each librarian (and each librarian) ultimately has their own idiosyncratic method.  I find it interesting to hear others' rationales for their weeding decisions.

One criteria that lots of people (whether librarian or otherwise) seem to use when deciding to get rid of a book is whether or not there's writing on the pages.  (The technical term is "marginalia")  In libraries, this is often taken as reason to replace a heavily-used book with a new "clean" copy.

Perhaps it is the historian in me, but I've never really agreed with that judgment.  I find the marginalia of books absolutely fascinating.  I always wonder about who the prior owners/users of the title were.  The best is when you find books that have rather extensive notes/challenges/questions written into the margins.  As far as I'm concerned, it enhances the work; Because now rather than simply the author's point of view, you get a conversation between the author and your fellow reader.  If there's room left, I enjoy writing in my own comments as well.

This is another aspect of ebooks that I find less than thrilling.  While there are technologies that allow us to save notes on ebooks...they are almost always restricted to our particular copies.  Where is the fun in that?  Where is the sense of community?  "But," you may say, "you could just experience community through a book discussion group."  True...but only with the living.  Have you ever had the experience of going back and reading the marginalia of a grandparent or great-grandparent?  Very often, it represents the only way to have conversation with them.  And what of the internal dialogues that can be fostered by going back and reading marginalia that you placed in a book during your childhood?  as a angsty teenager?  as a devil-may-care twentysomething?

I think you get my point.  I like marginalia.  So, while I don't advocate defacing library books, I would ask you to please feel free to write in your own books.  Leave your intellectual epiphanies and your sarcastic comments...your questions and your asides.  Even if the books are someday sold to people who never knew you, you will have given them a special treasure and ensured yourself a certain continued presence. 

A Marriage by Any Other Name...

Do traditional marriage supporters deserve to be treated with dignity?

Yes, they do.

And, again, I say: If we're going to radically transform a basic building block of society, then that transformation ought to at least be the result of a community wide conversation/debate. It ought to be the result of referenda or action by duly elected legislators...not edicts handed down from five unelected, lifetime appointees.

I am far less concerned about America redefining the word "marriage," than I am about America redefining phrases like: "...the consent of the governed," "three coequal branches of government," "separate and limited powers," etc.

Maybe the Duggars Aren't so "Crazy" After All...

A fascinating article entitled "Why having big families is good for you (and cheaper)" recently appeared in the Telegraph.

and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and subdue it..."

Could it be that the choice to have additional children is an act of faith? Trust that the world isn't going to overpopulate, or that the glaciers will melt and drown the polar bears, or that we're going to go bankrupt, or that we won't be able to afford to send our kid to Harvard and his/her life will be ruined, etc..?

Could it be that the choice to say "yes" to the gift of children is a tangible affirmation of our faith that the God Who gives us life, will also sustain it and cause it to flourish?

The Quest for a Smooth Righteousness

I spend a lot of time thinking.  This is, as you might expect, not always a good thing.  For one thing, I spend a lot of time meditating on the abuses (real or imagined) that I perceive to have been visited upon me in life.  Conversely, when I am convicted that I've wronged someone else, I spend almost as much time obsessing over them.  Others have noted these traits in me and have attempted multiple times to gently reprimand those excesses, but somehow I seem to perpetually fall back into them.  I've never really known why...and perhaps I still don't...but a possibility occurred to me this evening.  Could it be that injustice and abuse stays with me so very long, and bothers me so deeply, because of a fundamental subconscious desire I have for a "smooth righteousness"?

By the term "smooth righteousness," what I mean is the idea that God's holy purposes (be they for the world-as-a-whole, the church, or even in my individual life) could be effected through relatively painless processes, that required no particular suffering, failure, or repentance, if only people (myself included) would "do the right thing."  That's a very attractive idea.  It even sounds quite spiritual...just a restoration of the Edenic beginning.  But perhaps that's the problem.  It's delusional to think we can un-eat the apple (so to speak).  Neither the life of an individual, nor the life of God's Creation can be lived in reverse order.  The good...the just...the perfect...no longer exists for us in a "what might have been," but rather in a "what may/will be."  And that, may well be a future that inevitably leads through suffering, abuse, sin, etc. 

It's easy enough to see this in certain aspects of the Gospel story (e.g., Jesus' salvific death on Calvary), but I wonder if we don't have a tendency to view the necessity of suffering as a one-time event restricted to the Crucifixion--nowadays, it's purely optional.  I was struck by the violent imagery in Mark's account of the beginning of Jesus' ministry in his baptism by John.  Mark 1:10 notes that, "as Jesus was coming up out of the water, He saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on Him like a dove."  Similarly, Mark 15:38 records a scene of tearing at the moment of the Christ's death when, "the curtain of the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom."  I've heard various interpretations (particularly of the latter passage) that debate whether the emphasis is upon tearing of the veil so that we can now enter God's presence, or whether it is upon tearing the veil, so that God is now coming out of the Holy of Holies and into the world, etc.  What I can't recall, however, is any emphasis upon this consistent language of "tearing."  Why not simply the idea of the door opening?  of the heavens being unzipped?  of the Temple veil being "raised"?   I suspect because God wants us to understand that there is really no way for any sort of relationship between God and humanity (and perhaps not even one between humans) to be effected without some degree of suffering...of loss.  It is the state of the world under Sin.  It is the reality with which we must live.  The question is not:  Must I suffer injustice to grow into what God has called me to be?  Rather it is, how will I respond to the injustice that I must endure if I am to become what I have said I wish to be?

Though He was a son, He learned obedience from what He suffered and, once made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him... -- Hebrews 5:8-9

2nd 2nd Thoughts on Paid Ministers in Churches of Christ

For some time, I've been cynical about the wisdom of having paid ministers.  In my own fellowship (Churches of Christ) I've witnessed too many instances in which the paid minister system seemed to effect little more than a separation of accountability and authority, in which the minister is the sole bearer of the former and elders (or, people who the elders listen to) are the sole holders of the latter.  The result (it has seemed to me)  is a system that frequently chews up and spits out good men--permanently demoralizing them from future ministerial service.  In short, the last few years have witnessed a growing conviction that there was little to commend, and much to condemn, this system.

This morning, however, I found cause to rethink that position.  Our Bible class teacher was expounding on the Old Testament backgrounds to the book of Hebrews.  In the midst of this, he commented upon the rather precarious status of Levites under the Old Covenant.  Unlike the other tribes, the Levites inherited no land of their own.   Instead, they were dispersed throughout the lands of the other tribes.  As a landless group in an agrarian society, Levites were essentially forced to live off of the sacrifices made by their brothers.    Their very survival was tied in significant tangible ways to the spiritual lives of the other eleven tribes.  If the rest of Israel failed to be spiritually sensitive--or perhaps more relevant to us--if the other tribes decided that they didn't like the messages being given them by the Levitical priesthood and decided to withhold their gifts--then the Levites would suffer the consequences.  Thus the Levites were called upon to be people of faith ultimately relying upon God (rather than their fellow Israelites) for sustenance, and thereby to model for the rest of Israel what such a life of faith would look like.  Paradoxically, it was precisely when those around them were most immature and abusive, that these aspects of the Levitical calling could be most powerfully demonstrated.

It occurred to me, that the position of the Levites under the Old Testament was (at least in some respects) comparable to the situation of professional ministers in Churches of Christ.  Very frequently, our ministers "have no land of their own."  They live in parsonages.  Though never a particularly wealthy lot--and quite poorly compensated compared to their counterparts in many other churches--it's not at all uncommon for Church of Christ ministers to:

• receive salaries in the $20K - $40K range, with no benefits or insurance of any kind, 
• perpetually labor in a state subject to sudden termination for no reason and with no legal recourse in the event of abuse, and frequently under immense pressure to preach messages that are comforting, approved, convenient, or otherwise enabling of established congregational pathologies, rather than proclaiming Godly (but unpalatable) truths.  

Put like that, some similarities between the precarious position of the Old Testament priest and the Church of Christ minister in 2013 seem obvious.  Furthermore, if the position of the Levitical priesthood was directly ordained by God to serve holy purposes (and I believe it was); Then it stands to reason that it's at least possible that similar relationships between Christian ministers and their congregations might serve similarly holy purposes today.  Perhaps the dominant ministerial system in Churches of Christ is not as devoid of benefit, as I have lately assumed.  Of course, this would not justify the abuses of ministers; But perhaps a realization of their roles in the light of the Levites might better equip potential ministers for the realities of congregational work, as well as enable a more helpful self-examination to determine if they possess the faith and reliance upon God necessary to persevere in such a work. 

What are your thoughts? 

My intentions with this blog

This represents...oh...I don't know...probably the 10th blog I've started.  Like most blogs on the web, the others have probably enjoyed average life spans of three months (at best).  While I've never really shaken the desire to blog, actually coming up with new content on a consistent basis has been my downfall.

This failure was always a little curious to me as I tried writing about things that I'm pretty passionate about:  politics, theology, ministry, etc.  Over the past couple of weeks, it occurred to me that perhaps the core problem was that I was trying to be too focused.  Many of the best blogs (at least in my opinion) tend to be pretty personal and idiosyncratic.  I was trying to write blogs that represented parts of me...but not the whole me.

Before you get the wrong idea, dear potential reader, no--I am not so narcissistic as to assume you're interested in everything I have to say; But perhaps you're interested in some of what I have to say.  If so, I welcome your participation, thoughts, critiques, challenges, etc.  This is about sharing my thoughts about whatever I happen to be thinking about at the time.